WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

Anything to do with the electric or hybrid world

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MadBill
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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Newold1 wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 10:07 am Hate to say it but being I am older than most of you Grumpy old and young men...
I suspect the majority of us think we're older than most SpeedTalkers, but in reality it's the young 'uns that are in short supply.

This 75 year old says: "Any one under 30 raise your hand."
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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Newold1 wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 10:07 am Do yourself a favor don't go into the future kicking and screaming about things you are in many cases so ill informed in. Take off your tunnel vision googles and walk in with your head up, your yes open and embrace crazy things like penicillin, x-rays, space rockets, computers, and EV's. I think they there here to stay! JMHO
Don't forget the Beta format VCR! :D

The EV driving range/charging time/charging station situation reminds me of new home subdivisions springing up way out past the suburbs; and then worrying later about widening the two-lane farms roads, and building gas stations, grocery stores, etc. to support the new home owners.

So, I'm not saying EV is poor technology, I'm just saying EV vehicles are a LONG way from providing us the same freedom to travel that we enjoy with gasoline powered vehicles. And EVs are simply not worth the price premium, unless you want to pay more green to be green.
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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MikeB wrote: Wed Mar 06, 2019 11:02 amThe EV driving range/charging time/charging station situation reminds me of new home subdivisions springing up way out past the suburbs; and then worrying later about widening the two-lane farms roads, and building gas stations, grocery stores, etc. to support the new home owners.

So, I'm not saying EV is poor technology, I'm just saying EV vehicles are a LONG way from providing us the same freedom to travel that we enjoy with gasoline powered vehicles. And EVs are simply not worth the price premium, unless you want to pay more green to be green.
But, EVs are a lot closer to that than they were 5 years ago, and 5 years from now, my prediction is that unless you want to drive to Deadhorse Alaska or some such place, you will be fine.

EVs right now, that you can buy today, cover >90% and probably ~99% of personal-vehicle usage cases - including cases where those people don't realize it, or don't want to admit it. (Long-haul trucking is a separate matter.) At a certain point, and I fully understand that everyone has a different threshold for this, you can say "good enough" and deal with the edge cases with either another vehicle in the family or with a rental vehicle.

I have to go to Windsor from Toronto and back for work roughly once every month or two. I would need fast-charging at motorway rest stops in order to do that. If my daily-driver were a Chevrolet Bolt, I'd probably just swap vehicles and use the van for that particular trip. A Bolt will make it from my place to my sister's and back, it will make it to my niece's place and back, and it will do all the normal daily running around with the exception of that infernal occasional Windsor trip ... which I would just deal with some other way, considering how infrequently it happens. 5 years from now ... there will be more charging stations and I doubt if even this trip would be an issue. So what if I have to make two half hour stops ... those usually happen anyhow.

The EV wouldn't be able to do the long vacation trips in a practical manner. Those - a couple times a year - are usually in the van anyhow.

I highly doubt that my situation is unique.
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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MikeB wrote: Wed Mar 06, 2019 11:02 amDon't forget the Beta format VCR! :D

The EV driving range/charging time/charging station situation reminds me of new home subdivisions springing up way out past the suburbs; and then worrying later about widening the two-lane farms roads, and building gas stations, grocery stores, etc. to support the new home owners.

So, I'm not saying EV is poor technology, I'm just saying EV vehicles are a LONG way from providing us the same freedom to travel that we enjoy with gasoline powered vehicles. And EVs are simply not worth the price premium, unless you want to pay more green to be green.
You don't have to look too hard to see a glimpse of the (near) future.

https://newatlas.com/porsche-450-kw-fas ... ype/57659/ 100 km charge in 3 minutes.

Can we build charging stations and grid infrastructure fast enough? I think building the cars and converting the fleet will be a much slower, more difficult process.

One more thing to consider. With overnight charging, you leave home every day with a "full tank". Workplaces will begin to offer recharging in the carpark while you are at work. Most times you will never need a retail charging station. I wish it were so for my combustion cars.
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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Things evolve. There was a time when gasoline was purchased at the drug store...
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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The highest cost portion of the new EV's is the battery packs and related battery environmental control and discharge/recharge systems.
Very soon these cost factors will fall and when they do the high cost of EV's will drop quickly.
Engineering and building these battery systems is expensive and still on small numbers and that's what keeping EV's in higher price atmosphere.
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Re: WOW! The New RIVIAN pickup just premiered at LA !

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Its also a large part of the operating cost. Battery life is finite and the cost of a replacement battery divided by the life in miles is often similar to the cost of the electricity.
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