Saw this recent and interesting article today. No shocking surprises, but it's the first article I've seen that acknowledges and looks at the total cost of ownership, as well as the risk of ownership (albeit in very general terms).
Posting it here, for lack of a more appropriate place. If there is one, perhaps one of the Mods will move it?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-tra...ned-2658797726

 

Good article and points out most issues I've been harking on for a while. Don't expect average consumers to understand and shop based on TCO. Ain't gonna happen. Hasn't happened yet with ICE vehicles. The hard facts they can grasp is the price of the vehicle and the monthly car payment they are facing. The rest depends on how much they actually end up driving and the fluctuating costs of energy etc. The one thing this article didn't mention specifically are the higher insurance premiums of EVs due to the higher rate of totaled vehicles and the general higher cost of repairing them. But the main point that I think many are overlooking is that EVs at least for now are a compromised version of mobility as the article said. They no longer provide the kind of freedom that an ICE does, because you are forced to stop in specific places and somehow kill time waiting for it to charge. For just daily driving that's not an issue with charging at home, but people are not willing to compromise even for just one road trip a year. The thing about consumer behavior with cars is that we buy them not for the general use, but for specific use. We are willing to pay a lot of money for a car just sitting in our garages, so that we can hop into it at a moment's notice and drive somewhere and in those moments it just has to work and nobody really wants to plan or think about whether they can reach their destination or how they need to optimize their route to get there.

 

Also, don't forget secondary risks and factors that the article didn't mention. Specifically fire risk. Fossil fuel fires happen all the time, but we know how to put them out and once out, they stay out. Battery fires are a whole other level. Very hard to put out and keep out. Batteries have to be submerged in water for a period to keep the fire out. This is why the Felicity Ace RORO vessel last year was unsavable and a Norwegian ferry operator just prohibited EVs on any of their ships. That's in a country where 2 out of 3 new cars are electric. Norwegians now can no longer do certain road trips in their EVs if it involves a ferry ride with this operator, and other operators are likely to follow. Most Norwegians also still keep an ICE just for road trips.

 

EVs are a method to concentrate air pollution in areas near the fossil fuel power plants - the existing ones and the new ones that will be required to keep EVs operating. For a nuclear power plant in the US it takes about 5 years of bureaucratic maneuvering to obtain a License from the NRC followed by 5 to 7 years of construction and operational testing is complete and the first watt of electricity can be sold. Existing nuclear plants are reaching their end-of-life and this week the NRC nixed California's latest extension request. California must shut down 2 reactors in the next 2 years.

/rant

 

That's not entirely correct. PG&E wanted the NRC to resume the old request that was put on hold in 2016 when California foolishly decided to shut it down instead. The NRC rejected to resume the old request, because the data and environmental studies are outdated now. PG&E is forced to submit a new extension request with updated data, which they've already said they are going to do.

There are so many consequences of moving to EVs that few understand, yet they continue pushing it, but when it comes to building new power plants, upgrading the grid etc. the NIMBYs come out in droves. Germany is the best example. Their energy transition to renewables is in shambles. They had approved required new power lines like 10 years ago and near 0 km have been built, so they still can't get their wind energy etc. to where it's needed and the cost per kwh is going through the roof. EVs are now no longer economically viable in Germany compared to diesel. Solar and wind farm operators are getting paid to burn off the electricity they can't deliver to the consumers due to lack of infrastructure. So for each kwh that is consumed in Germany a sizable junk of the money goes to those operators that are producing electricity but can't sell it. It's absolutely mind boggling. Don't think it's gonna go any better here in the USA or elsewhere. Our grid is already way older than it was originally designed to last.

 

As a PG&E shareholder I hope the licenses for Diablo Canyon 1 & 2 are extended. If I disregard my substantial financial interest in PG&E, I would want the old plants shutdown. Both are designed using 1960's technology when the licenses were submitted and they are built near a fault line.

 

What irks me personally about all this is that EVs are being forced down our throats w/o regard of the consequences and no real evidence that it's actually gonna make a significant difference in overall carbon emissions considering the lifecycle of everything including solar panels and windmills that need to be periodically replaced. Human behavior has a way to often negate the benefits. For example a lot of people still lease these luxury EVs with large batteries therefore not driving them to the emission breakeven point to a comparable ICE before they go out and lease a new one that needs to be produced first. Many EVs only become more environmentally friendly during 2nd or even 3rd ownerships as a recent Volvo study has shown, provided they are not totaled in an accident before that point and have to be replaced again with a new one.

I'm not fundamentally against EVs. I actually had the opportunity the drive the EQE 53 at an AMG winter driving event in Austria earlier this month and I surprisingly liked it. Not enough to go out any time soon and replace my C63S coupe with it, but I like how it sat on the road and drove. Great seating position and cockpit feel from behind the steering wheel. It's still too heavy, but way better than the EQS 53 I drove six months earlier at another AMG event. The one thing I definitely didn't like though is the power delivery. EV proponents always rave about the instant torque, but nobody mentions how they go flat very quickly, so if you stay on the throttle there's nothing to follow that instant torque. An ICE builds up to the redline complete with crescendo. This is totally lacking with an EV. While the EQE 53 felt fast accelerating from a dig, it was disappointing at picking up speed under WOT.

The other thing that irks me is that people are not rewarded for driving less or even encouraged. Despite driving a V8, I do my part by driving way below the average person. I just had to submit an odometer reading to my insurance, because I'm claiming way below the 12,000 average annual miles for both of our cars. I did 5600 miles in mine, and my wife's car did another 3000 miles, so combined that's roughly a third of the average 24,000 miles for two cars and that's not considering that many drive way more than 12,000 miles a year. Yet, there are no rewards for that other than the obvious direct ones of not paying a fortune for gas and maintenance. But there are Prius drivers that pollute more than I do, because they drive a crazy amount of miles every year, yet they get to use the HOV lanes because they are "low emission vehicles", and on top of that I chose to live somewhere where I don't need AC and run it 24/7 during the summer. Yet again we do nothing to discourage people from living in car dependent suburbs with scorching climates.

 

Before I add in my thoughts, I wanted to mention that I'm a huge fan of your posts and your signatures! It's always a pleasure to see you around in the E forums as well as here in EQE. I always look forward to see what you write! I have a few thoughts on this topic, as it has changed significantly in the last few years. I live in Kentucky, and as everyone likely knows, it is a state largely powered by coal (75%), though the number is changing rapidly by the year. My research lab is partnering with our state-wide utility company on a variety of research projects, and as such, I've been able to meet with several decisionmakers and program directors in the renewables divisions. What might come across as a surprise is the incredibly rapid pace of decarbonization that the utilities are striving to accomplish. Yes, much of this is driven by advances in technology that can apply to already-existing infrastructure, but there is a huge outlay planned for portfolio diversification and net carbon neutral energy generation - in terms of capital expenditures, research funding, and sweat equity.

At a meeting with some fellow research colleagues last week, we had the chance to speak with the company's CEO, who mentioned directly some of these concerns. It turns out that they not only are aware of the concerns, but are planning for a significant increase in market penetration of EVs on the grid in the very near term. So, yes, while I do worry about transplanting carbon from one source to another, I also think that it's something that has been in the planning for some time, especially as EV adoption has started to increase significantly. They utility is also a strong proponent of DERs (distributed energy resources), and although there has been some controversial legislation a few years ago that ended net metering for new home photovoltaic installations, they are strongly encouraged and are a significant part of the diversification effort. Personally, we cover all of our electrical consumption with solar - we were able to sneak in before net metering was ended and are "grandfathered in" for 25 years. So, yes, it changes our particular carbon offsets especially if we consider an EV. I'm of course under no illusion that everyone will add solar in KY - not to mention problems with the "duck curve" that states like HI and CA are now battling due to mass market adoption. But, I do think utilities are planning for this. It won't be perfect, and "it's powered by [insert carbon-intensive resource here]" is absolutely a valid argument. Not to mention upcoming lithium supply constraints, and many other concerns that will need to be solved. But I do think enough people are working on it to bring this to a real possibility. Now if we can only get the crappy DCFC infrastructure up to par... we have brand new EA units sitting in a parking lot 2 minutes from our home, and they've been dead and never activated since last June!

Anyway, I hope it might serve as an interesting counterpoint, even if only for entertainment value. This is definitely a discussion worth having - both benefits and pitfalls, and will evolve for a long time in the future!

 

I was aware that Lithium Ion batteries are not without fire risk, but until I read your post, I did not know that EV's were being banned, for example, by a ferry company. This was a bit distressing to me, since I have my first EV on order.
While Googling, I came across this article that did a lot to put the fire risk into perspective for me:

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a38225...bout-ev-fires/

The key take-away from the article for me was this bit:
"A better way of looking at electric vehicle fires is to compare the number of fires per 100,000 vehicles sold. Researchers from insurance deal site Auto Insurance EZ compiled sales and accident data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the National Transportation Safety Board. The site found that hybrid vehicles had the most fires per 100,000 sales at 3474.5. There were 1529.9 fires per 100k for gas vehicles and just 25.1 fires per 100k sales for electric vehicles."

 

I agree with a lot of what has been stated here, superswiss is also correct on many points. For me when my wife saw the first ads for the EQS SUV that our long time sales buddy sent us she loved the car. Not because it was an EV , she loved the shape. Something that I dont really like myself. She had a very nice fully loaded GLE 53 full size SUV, which to be honest I liked a lot. We did not order the GLE 63 because of concerns around fuel economy. We placed our order for the EQS and waited, it arrived we went to pick it up and yes it is a beautiful vehicle, typical MB quality. Yet for me when I drove it I was underwhelmed. I liked the ICE 53 better.

While we waited we test drove a bunch of EVs everything from the top of line tesla to a VW, none of them did much for me, the plaid was impressive but still. During this waiting period I explained to my wife how our road trips would change if she went through and traded in her 53, I explained that we would have to make frequent stops on our yearly trip to the mountains in NC. That we would even have to plan stops when we went to Disney World which is only 250 miles from us. She did not care because she drank the cool aid that the media has been pushing for the past two years that EV are going to save the world. No one understands the impact and more importantly nobody want to communicate that to the regular Joes.

I wonder what are they going to do with all the old batteries that are going to start to show up for disposal in the next 7 to 10 years? What about lithium mining? what is the impact of that on the environment? You dont hear anything about that in the media.

I can tell you trying to use a public charging station is a PIA, most of them dont work the other half have lines to use them. I installed a charger in our home and that is working out because we are charging during off peak hours, so the pain is less. I commute 500 miles a week needless to say the cost of fuel impacts me greatly, I rarely use my C63 to drive to work, I ride a sport bike. I went ahead and purchased an EQE so I did not have to ride the bike everyday, even though I'm in good shape; riding a crouch rocket everyday to work at my age does tire me a lot, let just say I'm over 60. My wife wanted me to trade my C63 in for the new car I told her she was nuts... LOL

I drive the EQE everyday, I am saving on fuel costs for sure when compared to how much it is costing me in kilowatts to charge. Yet now I have to worry about when to charge and making sure that I charge to 90% so at the end of day two I have 30% left so i can make it home and not worry about running low or getting caught in a traffic jam. These are things I did not worry about before, I could always get gas anywhere. A charge well not so much LOL... BTW its nothing like driving my C63.

Are EV's ready for prime time? I say the vehicles are coming up to speed but the support infrastructure is still years behind. Will it ever catch up? not sure. I know that here in FL the power company, FPL is investing very heavily in support of EV's. They are even providing home charging stations and special pricing on the power they use for $35 a month all included even installation. Yet folks that live in high rise condos and apartment buildings cant take advantage of this so they are at the mercy of the charging stations. That is the reality of EV ownership it is not for everyone. My buddy was one of the first to order and purchase an EQS sedan, he lives in a condo on the beach and he has to at time drive 10 miles or more to find a place to charge. That is crazy and he regrets buying the car now.

These next few years are going to be very interesting as fuel and electrical power cost rise, I believe the devil will be in the details...