Comment by 1970-01-01

My concerns are the computerization of vehicles in general. The issue is not entirely with the telemetry itself, as you frame it. My issue is "what happens when the telemetry is not available?" You, and perhaps your friend, seem to be framing the problem as though the concern is that the car is filled with "spyware." My issue is that the car is filled with "DRM" from the manufacturer. When I buy a car, I expect to own that car entirely, forever. If I wanted to rent the right to someone else's car... I'd lease a car.

Musk touts the CyberTruck as "the perfect armageddon vehicle" but if you have no cell phone service how do you charge the truck? What if Tesla disappears, or GCP is down, or WW3 actually happens and the datacenters go dark? Can you operate the vehicle? What if the power goes out because... Armageddon. How do you fuel the vehicle?

What if Musk sees what I said about him on social media and accuses me of violating the TOS? Will he disable my vehicle remotely? I've seen this in the real world when a machine shop missed it's payment to Haas.

In a real armageddon, my 1997 shitbox would still function. My 2013 F150 would function right up until the EMP hit. A 2025 EV probably would not make it to a fueling source within 24 hours after the power goes out.

> More importantly, the place where I currently live doesn't have a parking spot with an EV charger (there's a limited number of such spots, you have to join a waitlist to get one). If electric cars really could be charged to be ready to drive 800 miles in 5 minutes, that wouldn't be a problem

It might still be a problem, depending on why you want an EV. There are two annoyances with fast DC charging compared to home charging, and that super fast 800 miles in 5 minutes only addresses one of them.

The one it addresses is time to charge. 800 miles in 5 minutes is similar to ICE cars, and it would mean you can deal with charging with about the same level of hassle as an ICE driver has dealing with gas. I.e., you don't really have to think about it since it is only a few minutes.

However, DC chargers often cost significantly more per kWh than home charging, and also often have additional fixed fees.

If having low energy costs per mile is an important consideration in many places it turns out that an EV only charged at DC chargers will cost more per mile for energy than a Prius or a hybrid Civic or maybe even a hybrid RAV4 or CR-V.

With home charging a Prius and sometimes other hybrids can still beat an EV in some places so if energy cost is important you need to do the math for your area, but in most places the EV will win at least in the US.

There are nice things about EV besides low energy costs, but even if you get one mainly for other reasons the low energy costs can quickly become a favorite feature.

For example, a sandwich chain restaurant in my town raised their prices. My favorite sandwich, which I'd get there once a week, went from something like $9.20 to $12.99. That chain's store in the next town is owned by a different franchisee, and that sandwich is $10.39 there.

Before I got my EV it wouldn't have been worth going to that other town to save $2.60 because the gas for the round trip would come out to around that.

With my EV, charged at home, it is only about $0.60 round trip, so I save $2.00. It does take longer of course, but as I said I like to get that sandwich once a week. There's a weekly podcast I listen to. I use the time driving for the sandwich listening to that, so it is time I otherwise would have spent on the couch listening my my home entertainment system so it cancels out.

I don't think my Lightning has any more telemetry than the equivalent ICE F150, nor do I think there are any repercussions from disabling that telemetry altogether (aside from no OTA updates, which aren't really much of a thing with Ford anyway).

I have a car without a screen at all (which is illegal to sell as a new car today), so there is no phone home and telling the insurance industry how fast I drive. Really though, it would show how little I drive.

This battery and the 5min charging for it, I thought was for the motorcycle is it going in first.

Most current EV owners charge at home for daily needs, you really only need charging stations for long distance and owners w/o options where they park (i.e. renters or street parking only) Even with street parking, I see lots of people running cables across the sidewalk (with safety / step covers thankfully)

I drove across the country and accounted for midwest charging. Generally the rocky mountain states are minimal, but I was not without a charger ever 30-40 minutes of travel time through the midwest. Most of them are either in Big Store parking lots or at gas stations like Casey's. You need far fewer of them than gas stations, so we should expect to see fewer of these vehicle refill stations in the future anyway

I suspect that the causation runs the other way. They think EV owners, Californians, and anyone who doesn't smell like petroleum is crazy. Therefore they won't buy electric cars and so nobody builds charging stations.

With my plugin hybrid I have currently the best of both worlds. The 2x25km commuting is electric, and longer weekend drives are gas. And being in Europe, I am not worried about charging stations for whenever I'll switch to full electric - I enjoy taking gas station breaks. I know it's only one data point, but it's my data point :)

I'm in California, and cost per mile of electricity vs gasoline is pretty similar in a Gen 1 Chevy Volt. I get 35 miles per gallon. That's also how for I can go on 10kwh in the good conditions. If gasoline is below $4.50 a gallon, it's cheaper to just run the volt on gasoline than it is to charge it at home.

Where I live (Ōtepoti Aotearoa) charging at a charging station works out to be about the same price as petrol

I have a plug in hybrid, and close to zero expertise, but I only charge at home, now

I am doubtful that an EV is remotely economical if you cannot charge it at home

The tail on the move to electric is going to be quite long. It’s accelerating, but I doubt it’ll ever get to the point of radical overnight change. There will still be ICE (or hybrid) cars on the road in need of service 10, 15, 20 years from now, even if EVs become overwhelmingly advantageous, because that’s just how people work. Demand will gradually taper off and there will be opportunity for most in the industry to figure out alternative employment.

Some portion will be able to train and transition to working on EVs, too. EVs might need less maintenance generally, but things still go wrong sometimes plus people get into accidents and such. There’s also a nascent motor/battery retrofit industry that’s sprouting right now and will grow with time.

Also they’ll be dead soon enough and the world will just move on without them.

I'm still waiting for the EV that's a car instead of some kind of techbro reimagining of personal transportation with a 27" tv glued to the dash. So far the plug-in hybrid market is figuring that out first -- the Mazda CX90 is a real car. The VW ID3 gets close, but it still feels like someone tried to design a B-movie space ship.

There's a great market out there willing to buy B-movie space ships, but if EVs are going to be the default (and I think they are) they're going to have to get over the toys and start shipping cars.

The batteries on modern EV's have full dedicated heating and cooling systems. They will not charge until they heat up to charging temperature.

Discharging in the cold and sitting in the cold are not bad for the batteries, but it does limit available power.

Believe it or not, Canada has a robust EV market.

People say this, but some of the most popular places for Lightnings are in Canada. And I don't mean BC. They seem to enjoy how well it handles cold weather.

A Model 3 doesn't weigh significantly more than a comparable ICE car, so I think weight isn't a huge deal. And it costs less to put in a new battery than it does to buy a new engine, so it seems like we're in an okay spot. And since battery tech reliably gets better every year, the future looks bright.

Cost is no longer a concern as today LFP batteries and electric motor price is cheaper than an ice engine in China. Though my main point is that there is a lack of infrastructure to charge at full speed current batteries so higher capacity faster charging solid state batteries are mostly pointless when you cant charge them fast or to full capacity.