Toyota Mirai has been a monumental failure. Hydrogen is not the future for personal vehicles. The pressures and temperatures involved make the dangers of EV fires seem trivial in comparison.

I charged from 30%-90% Monday night 10PM to 8AM Tuesday morning, most of which was at off-peak rates, for about $10. **** the oil and gas racket!

 

If they continue to fill the interior with thin cheap plastic, they can keep their technology. I'm done with a car that doesn't have a surface I can touch or bump without eliciting squeaks and creaks. MB needs to get back to proper coach building first and foremost.

 

The first generation EVs were billion-dollar failures for years, and some continue to bleed manufactures today. China has 100s of football stadium-sized fields with EV cars they cannot sell. Fuel cells have always been considered too difficult, costly less energy dense. But R&D is making big strides. If it works, that is if, it is an infinitely better way to go. A continues source of energy is needed for a long-term solution. Imagine everyone in high rise 30-story buildings in major cities all trying to charge their cars overnight. It's not possible. It took Rome 25 years to add one subway stop, they are going to wire the city with chargers...not a chance. You have the luxury of easy overnight charging in your own home that many people do not.

 

Oh, and I forgot to add that I was using the dryer outlet that came with my house with 24 AMP Splitvolt charger. So you don't even really need to get anything electrial installed to charge comfortably overnight. It's really a no brainer IMVHO, unless you have some sentimental attachment to Exxon and Shell I suppose. Personally I won't miss them though.

 

Very valid point. We oftentimes forget that vast majority of the world population does not live in single-family homes. My wife's car is electric which makes perfect sense, since we recently had a 20kw solar system installed. My next car will be electric too. If I lived in an apartment/condo I wouldn't even consider it.

 

If I didn't have the ability to charge at home, I'd not have gotten an EV. If I didn't also have an ICE vehicle, I'd not have gotten an EV. That said, I absolutely love not having to fill up at a station. That is a luxury. To the point of interior quality, my EQ squeaks and rattles if you so much as sneeze. It's an inexpensive two year lease. Let's see what happens, BMW's offerings are of interest to me.

 

This is my main issue with the W223 and what holds me back from upgrading, there are lots of little areas where they have clearly cut costs from the W222...

You should look at a BMW 7 Series...much better in that department...but I would rather have another S Class and I like the looks of it better...so I'm in a jam...

 

Ideally, I am hoping to lemon the S580 and get into an i7.

 

EV's w/chargers have their place here and there when it makes sense (local use and home charging), but the only widespread viable solution is a continuous source of readily available energy that can use the current infrastructure (i.e. gas stations, rest stops) with minimal modification. If this technology truly viable, then this is the path forward to pacify the climate mutants. If this is MB's goal for 2030 when they say "all-electric", it works for me. The only obstacle is the trillions already ear marked for EVs and charging stations which will cause those invested to attack anything that may threaten that money and market share. It will be interesting to watch the scramble.

 

Well not anymore, they are backing out from that and will be delaying full electrification.

 

Another drawback to EV’s is the weight to emissions ratio. EV’s are 40% heavier or more than the same ice model. That requires more stopping power, and more tire wear.
The combination of the tire dust, and brake pad dust created as particulates and therefore emissions, is 400 times more than ice. Modern ice vehicles have very low emissions.
Then, when you add in the emissions EV’s create at the power plant, the so called savior of the environment, is actually a masked bandit, stealing ecological purity far worse than EV’s.

 

Bentley just joined the push back crowd, capitulating on its all EVs by 2030.

 

Good, that said, ultra luxury vehicles like those (especially Rolls Royce) actually benefit from EV, due to noise and vibration. That said as well though, if the noise gets too low it can make the passenger sick as well.
​​​​

 

Yup, there is a heavy debate on the emissions, politics on EV in another thread if you want to read on as well. I forgot which thread it was.

 

Can you tell us the source of your data? I'm finding nothing supporting the stat that 400 times the brake and tire particulate are shed from EVs as compared to ICE vehicles.

 

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, but try this…
trib.al/Ud6dQ55
If that doesn’t work, I might be able to dig up more.
Consideration has to be given to the fact that when sourcing information deemed to be disinformation, makes it get buried deep.
If the subject is approved of by the legacy media, and other progressive types, it’s at the top of the list, at least until the facts start stacking up against it.
In the case in question, it’s total emissions. Not just brake dust compared to brake dust.

 

Yes I do wonder the same because the regenerative braking significantly reduces brake wear. When I had a hybrid Lexus (heavier than my current GLE 580), I went 100k miles before replacing the brakes because of the regenerative braking. Tire wear seemed normal as well.

 

There is no way in the world the amount of tire dust makes up for the carbon emissions of one ICE car lol

 

As a matter of fact, you rarely ever need to change the brake pads on an EV. On some cars you can go up to 150K without the need to ever consider changing them. My BMW 530e, which was mostly driven by my wife in-town and in EV mode 90% of it’s lifetime, had 75K when we sold it. During it’s last service, brake pads had more than 50% lifetime left on them!. No data from EQS owners yet, but those who drove their Tesla up to 100-200K miles would mostly tell you they are yet to require new brake pads.
I agree though that all EVs go through tires like crazy. A tire with an estimated lifetime of 40K miles would probably not last more than 15-20K miles according to what I have seen (btw tire warranty would still get that covered under warranty for you, at least until tire manufacturers start to claim lower mileage warranty if the tire is installed on an EV).

 

A lot of wear and tear overall is due to driver technique.
That also applies to brake pads, and tires.
Some of it is due to driving conditions.
Regen brakes work great if you are coasting.
But in stop and go traffic, brake assist, and auto brakes take precedence over regen.
It makes it hard to compare apples to apples.
But I must admit 100,000 miles on one set of brake pads is very impressive.
Emissions Analytics, and Nick Molden took measurements of total emissions and concluded that EV emissions can be 1,850 times more than modern car emissions.

 

The BMW 530e being a PHEV didn’t have strong regen, so I agree that you still need to use the brakes in some cases. However, I can tell you than in my Tesla I can easily do most of my in-town trips and in many case without ever touching the brakes (the regen is excellent and well dialed in). Even in autopilot, the car prioritize regen braking first. I heard that it’s different in BMWs though when in drive-assist, and am not sure about EQS. For someone who drives like my wife does, I bet she can easily do 200K miles before we need to replace brake-pads but she doesn’t drive an EV anyway now.

 

That was even true of my wife's old Prius. We sold it with 80k miles on it and it was nowhere near needing brakes. I bet an EQS would go 100k+ on the same set of brakes. Where I spent $2,000 on new brakes at 30k miles.

 

Did you read Molden's study or only quoted misinformation from a disingenuous headline? Molden is quoted as saying many news outlets are misinterpreting his study. He did no comparison of BEV vs ICE in his study.

In fact, his study was completed only using a VW ICE wearing the cheapest tires on the market, heavily loaded, and driven aggressively on the track. He states that such a vehicle could exist in normal driving: a spirited driver in a normal car like a VW, fully loaded with passengers, wearing cheap tires with terrible tread wear. What his study points to is the fact that tire wear is not accounted for in emission at all (both ICE and BEV) but it should be (and I agree with this opinion).

His research states that the worst case scenario (the VW data point from his study), a car's tires could release 1850x worse particulate pollution than the tail pipe of a normal driving ICE vehicle. ​​​​​​His only statement is that heavier cars and aggressive driving style leads to more tire wear and thus particulate pollution and should be accounted for since the pollution it creates can be up to 1850x worse than the pollution created from the tail pipe of a normal ICE vehicle.

Now this is just my opinion: While we all know that BEVs are heavier than the comparative ICE vehicle, we also know that EV owners are typically middle class or higher and are probably not buying the cheapest tires on the rack but instead low rolling resistant tires, so we can probably assume their tire pollution isn't anywhere near 1850x worse than the tail pipe of an ICE. Whereas ICE owners like myself who drive a V8TT and wear summer tires with 30k mile tread life (in best case scenario) on 22" rims is probably one of the worst culprits out there except that I only drive around 5000 miles a year.

 

As I understand it these are air quality problems, not greenhouse gas issues. I'd also say that the study sites quantities derived from data with a fair level of uncertainty, and that the error is multiplicative in some cases. Then you have the study design comparing tailpipe particulate on an ICE vehicle, to tire particulate on an EV, which is apples and oranges while also not measuring and considering the tire particulate shed by the ICE vehicles along with the tailpipe emissions.

I've read about tire shed before; it's a real issue and worth considering in an unbiased way. This particular study however has real flaws and is not without what appears to be deliberate design bias.

 

Low noise makes passengers sick? Do tell !