superswiss

Last year an EQE loaner car burned down inside of a garage in Florida. This brings us back to the earlier point about the history of these cars. Not knowing the health of the battery and what it was subjected to. When I got the EQS 450+ loaner I was seriously debating of whether I should leave it out in my driveway or park it in my garage. I ultimately decided to park it in my garage, but it's something to think about with an EV you don't know the past of.

https://insideevs.com/news/678343/me...eowner-garage/

MB2timer

I might be more inclined to the relative benefits of EV’s, if the climatistas would let our energy grid become 100% nuclear. Then we could come a lot closer to achieving carbon zero.
Until then, we aren’t reducing carbon, we are just relocating it.
We also need to be very careful of the drivers of policy positions.
Centralized planning works pitifully, and is worse as the population it serves grows.
It’s nearly impossible to legislate or force innovation.
Let necessity be the mother of invention.
Then, let the free market drive adoption.
Solar and wind are pipe dreams that have been top down managed, and haven’t yet broke even. Maybe innovation will make them more viable, but even after decades, they underperform expectations.

superswiss

So to that I would say this. I don't like being told what I can drive or how to live my life, but it's interesting to point out that total annual electricity consumption in the USA has actually remained flat since the 1980s despite population growth, explosion in technology and even adding EVs to the grid. Per capita energy consumption has generally decreased each year since then. This is largely due to legislating more energy efficient appliances, LED lights etc., and advances in technology out of necessity. Particularly our love for mobile devices has required engineers to innovate on the chip side and with clever energy management to make these devices last long enough on a single battery charge. Battery technology hasn't really advanced much, but lots of progress has been made on the consumption side and these advances have found their way back into household devices as well. For example outside of gaming rigs, nobody is really running a desktop or tower PC at home anymore. Pretty much everybody uses a much more power efficient laptop these days hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse for desktop work. We do more now with the same amount of energy as we did in the 80s. Let's not forget ICEs today are far cleaner and more efficient than back in the 80s, too. It's not like nothing had been done. The catalytic converters remove all the dangerous emissions these days, it's just that we found that NOx and CO2 isn't as harmless as we thought. Catalytic converters didn't come from the good of the car manufacturers heart either.

SW20S

LOL, don't break those pearls you're clutching.

Of course I am concerned about fire safety, I just don't think this is a dramatic threat...and no your sprinklers in your garage won't put out an ICE car fire...sprinklers on their own won't put out most house fires and most garages in this country don't have sprinklers to begin with. EVs are not more prone to fires than ICE vehicles, yes EV fires are more difficult to put out but fire departments have developed and are developing new techniques for dealing with them.

I can post lots of fires caused by laptops and iPhones and other things with batteries that have occured, where is your great concern and pearl clutching over that? This has nothing to do with legitimate concern, it has everything to do with trying to resist the proliferation of EVs.

c4004matic

In fact EV's have only a fraction of the ICE vehicle rate. They are hiwever, as you pointed outn harder to extinguish.

superswiss

I'm plenty concerned about all Li batteries. Had two laptops where the battery started to swell. I quickly got rid of them.

SW20S

Get them out of your house man. Like a bomb waiting to go off.

MB2timer

This excess power supply doesn’t ring true.
In the last couple of years, Newsome told Californians, that the EV’s he was mandating, were going to put excess demands on supply of electricity.
So he told the granola state to not charge their EV’s.
Anyone see the irony there?
Then, Gavin chased so many 49ers, and Raiders, and Chargers out of the Golden State(not to mention Warrior fans) into states like the lone star state, the sunshine state.
Since then, on the hottest days of the summer, in Texas, the grid is so stressed, Texans are asked to reduce demand, and the state has to borrow supply from adjoining grids.
Also, trends are in place with data farms and other large demand clients, will further add to demand.
Nuclear is not without its downsides, but a lot of pieces are in motion to indicate it’s day has come.
If fusion ever becomes economically viable, it will present even less downside.

superswiss

LOL! No worries man. Manufacturer replaced them both out of warranty, no questions asked.

hlothery

AFAIK, and I live in Texas, we do not borrow power from adjoining grids. ERCOT has been fairly innovative in using wind and solar to supplement power, and several gas powered stations have been brought back on line. I have a Generac 22kW generator, just in case, and have had it come on several times since purchase, during outages for various reasons. My point is that power generation is fairly constant. Whether I drive an ICE or EV, that doesn't change the amount of power Texas generates daily right now. So I am, indeed, putting less polutants into the atmosphere than I would if I was still driving my M550. Anyway, not going to argue that point any more. I do worry about the risk of EV batteries, and all other Li batteries. But not enough to not use them. If one is ever damaged, then I will try to take precautions (not parking in the garage, etc) as necessary. I trust that the folks making a living at production will be trying to improve safety, which would be clearly in their best interests monetarily. New battery tech is actively being researched and developed. No one wanted to fly airplanes early on...... Everything new has its naysayers and believers. I love my EQS!

superswiss

In fact, Texas can't borrow from other grids. The USA has three grids, the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection and then there's Texas by themselves. There's only redundancy within each interconnection. The Western grid can't send power to the Eastern grid and vise versa and neither gird can help out Texas, which is why Texas went down a couple of years ago during that very cold winter where pipes were freezing.

Drone_S213

Most Police Cars travel less than 100 miles per day. Believe NYPD made a great acquisition with the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT Police Cruiser. They will eventually have 200 on Patrol soon. Wonder what Police Force will adopt the AMG EQE SUV Police Cruiser First @HBerman ?

MB37

The German cops will adopt the BMW i5 or EQE.

I punctured a bloated laptop battery, and witnessed and exothermic reaction , aka lithium ion runaway. It was fascinating, and the experiment was done outside in a controlled area. With the EQS, I weight my risk and move forward. I punctured a couple of my bloated drone batteries and could use it for maintenance, short hovering test, and the likes. Disclaimer: don't do this at home. After 20+ years in the AEC, I am well aware of the AEC industry and its fire codes. At this point, the code committees aren't doing a damn thing different because of Li-ion runaways. They're waiting for a few more incidents that will claim more lives. If that doesn't happen, nothing changes.

So for the current EV market, take advantage of it, and hop on an EV if that fits your traveling needs. In the technology adoption cycle, the early adopters are ending, and the early majority is warming up. As Hlothery said, "I love my EQS." I'd like to add that until it cost me too much. Then I'll just hand off to someone else.

MB2timer

The Texas interconnection does actually draw power, at times, from other grids. Re: 4M analytics. Similar minor interconnections can connect Quebec and Alaska.
But still. Not the point. We do not have an excess supply of electrical power. We have barely enough a lot of times. And not enough less frequently. Typically it’s regional, and isolated. If it ever gets to the point where supply cannot meet demand, brownouts are a necessary consequence, and rolling blackouts might have to be put in place.
EV’s now have an adoption rate of approximately 3%, which might be close to saturation. Anything more will be taxing on an already stressed grid.

Another problem, as has been pointed out previously is the danger of EV car fires, and EV car wrecks. Scotty Kilmer has reported EV car collisions are worse than ICE because they are heavier, and often can out accelerate ICE vehicles. Also reported by IIHS NHTSA.

Someone also mentioned ecology. An EV has to put 60,000 miles on average, on the road miles before it breaks even with comparable ICE vehicles for carbon emissions. Until then, you are not part of the Co2 reduction solution.

I am looking for a reference, that refueling EV’s(by charging) costs the equivalent of $17.00/ gal, after you strip away all incentives, subsidies, and similar credits.

A lot would have to change for the better before I ever even considered buying an EV as a pure economical decision.

Even Stossel thinks that promoting EV’s is magical thinking.

MB37

The equations gets really complex when you start talking about value of EV versus ICE. People on both sides like to pick the cherries. What I suggest is to take all things into consideration, but most importantly, does it fit your pocket book, and does it fit your travel needs/wants. If the answers is yes, go scratch that itch. At the end of the day, I see that EV is viable now due to the advancement of technology compared to previous EV starts.

If you care that much about the environment that makes you hesitate getting an EV, then you should take other measures too such as don't fly, bike, take public transportation to and from vacations, build a net-zero house, and don't drive to work. Ride your bike, not an e-bike. If you think they are still too expensive, fine, don't scratch. If you think it's still to dangerous, then you should also cut back on other battery powered electronics too. If all the hill billies have 6000 lbs big foot trucks on the road, then I'm not sitting around in a little Corolla without a roll cage.

nath_h

Does MB2Timer even have an EV? If not, what are you doing here? Agree with the above post about both sides cherry picking data points to make their case. I hate to admit it, but EV skeptics have a point about the carbon intensity to build the products--but as I mentioned previously, this is a recent quickly evolving technology (and no an EV from 1890 does not count since development went dormant for 100 years), and EV's do have superior potential to be a long term pollution solution, compared to an ICE vehicle which will always pollute (and to be clear is also carbon intensive to build). And why are EV haters so worried about climate impact when they are likely ignoring climate impact on most other areas of their life? But setting all that aside, has MB2Timer driven an EQS, or other high end EV? Unless you need to drive 300+ miles on a regular basis with bad charging infrastructure, I'll take an EV any day over and ICE car just because of the superior performance and quiet cabin. And I'm being generous about the highway driving--I've never found it to be a problem, even living in Iowa where there are few EV's. The other thing I find weird about people ******* EV's is the worry about value, and is it cheaper to operate an ICE vehicle. Okay, if you are on a tight budget making $35,000 a year, sure. But really, those of us buying a $140,000 car are really worried about if it costs more to charge on the highway vs. buying gas? Those of us in this club (sure, always exceptions) have wasted a ton of money on cars over the years, cycling in an out of super expensive cars. If money is your yardstick for which to value your auto life, you should be nowhere near a Germany luxury car--buy a Prius or Accord.

Crito

Well then, i guess we'll just have to take the word of The Supreme Authority of Transportation (in the USA anyways), the NHTSA:
SOURCE: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.go..._012012_v3.pdf

hlothery

First, like most of your post, you are just wrong. My data, given power rates of CPS, my energy provider, shows that i am spending about $35 a month on home charging my EQS. That's a half tank of gas for my wife's ICE, which has to be filled weekly or more. I know of no incentives or whatever, just paying the bill.
Second, why are you here?

Crito

Who cares how much it costs to charge! I don't have to go to a gas station. I don't have to weave around rust bucket pickup trucks driven by cleatus and jethro and I dont have to get an impossible to wash off stinky liquid all over my hands. How much is that worth per gallon?

LAZARU5

Not having to fill up at a gas station is definitely one of the positive aspects of owning an EV. But, encountering rust bucket pickup trucks in a Walmart parking lot happens just as often. I love my EQS SUV, and I loved my Taycan CT too. But that does not mean I don't regret buying both of them. My driving pattern (> 50% road trips) requires frequent charging away from home. Public charging at EA is not something I enjoy. It was tolerable two years ago when there was rarely a queue waiting to charge. But, lately I see a lot of RED 0/4 charger locations on the navigation screen. Access to the Tesla Supercharger network can't come soon enough.

SW20S

Thats my hangup. Charging at home is a dream...that sounds like hell.

hlothery

I agree. I really don't travel in my EQS, except for occasional trips to Waco, or day trips into the Hill Country. It is a dream to drive, but the charging uncertainty is real. If (I'm hoping!) the Tesla charging system opens up to us, at least here in Texas, there will be plenty of chargers, and the anxiety about that will ease. I'll probably start driving my car to see my kids in DFW. There is a supercharger in Waco, and the Bucees in Temple has 40 supercharger stations. There are a plethora of stations in DFW. So, here's hoping!

SW20S

Thats my thing. I can put up with the 30 minute stop, I just want plenty of options for where to stop.

superswiss

I've been curious how the Tesla supercharging for non-Teslas is going in Europe where they have started opening them up a while ago. It was easier in the EU to do, because Tesla had already been forced to install CCS cables at their superchargers and the Model 3 and Model Y in Europe use CCS instead of NACS, so the hardware was already there to support non-Tesla EVs. Norway in particular has about 80% EV market share now, but they have the same problems with charging as we have everywhere else.

I watched an NBC report recently about Norway and how the EV adoption is going there and they showed charging problems are as prevalent at Tesla superchargers as anywhere else. The reporter who rented a BMW EV tried several times to charge at a supercharger, but it wouldn't work. She got error messages in the app and had to go elsewhere eventually. They have the same issues there as we have here unfortunately, which is surprising given the push to EVs and incentives the Norwegian government has put in place. They did say that it has gotten better overall, but non-working chargers is still a thing.

One of the biggest issues is also the Wild West of payment methods. Each charging provider essentially uses their own payment method, so you have to download an app for each provider to even be able to charge. That's annoying for tourists in rental cars as it often requires a local phone number to even sign up for an account. European tourists find the same issue in the USA trying to create an Electrify America account. In order to charge at a Tesla supercharger, you have to use the Tesla app. Plug and charge only works with Teslas. At least the EU has mandated that moving forward, credit card readers must be installed at new charging stations, so there's some movement on that front to at least have a universal way of paying as we've had at gas stations like forever. Haven't seen superchargers with a credit card reader yet, though.

LAZARU5

In the USA the Tesla app has worked flawlessly for me. I have used it several times at MagicDock Superchargers as well as the Tesla Universal Destination chargers. Initiating a session on the destination chargers requires aiming your smart phone camera at the QR image on the side of the charger.

I have always assumed that the Tesla/Mercedes-Benz agreement to use the Supercharger network would be a Plug and Charge proposition which would obviate the need for the Tesla app. A credit card reader would be one more point of failure.