[HammerHead]

With 54% of the electricity being generated from coal, to me it makes no sense to invest in an EV in the name of 'environmental' reasons. Leave alone the reasons listed in the poll.

[vharihar]

I've heard resale value is also a concern, bcoz a new potential customer after 5-7 years will need to contend with battery replacement cost, so low demand, so low resale value.

This point should have also been in the poll.

[StarrySky]

Last weekend, I had to make an emergency trip (about 380-km round trip). I had to leave immediately to drop a friend at another city and get back as soon as possible. It struck me that if I have an EV, I need to keep it always charged up, otherwise such emergency trips would be delayed. With about 400 km being close to the usable range of the best available EVs, if I had less than full charge in the EV, I would've had to spend some time before or during the trip to charge up. This was not ideal in the situation we were in.

[rascalangel]

For those cribbing about carbon cost of EV's:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45798523

[akshye]

I have been having a lot of debates on practicality of electric vehicles, with colleagues and entrepreneurs who are in automotive business and also promote EV as a future.

My two primary arguments are:
Indian mindset of all-rounder solution
We need a car that's all-rounder. Increasing SUV sales tell the same story. A car needs to be:
1. fast 2. all terrain (even if its shoes never touch the soil) 3. easy ingress/egress 4. accommodate whole family 5. capable of doing long journey (even if our (grand)parents don't let us drive our own car for long journeys and prefer rented-with-driver car) 6. value-for-money 7. cost of ownership 8. after sales support 9. last but not least - resale value
Today's electric cars don't tick all the boxes like our most cherished diesel (pseudo)SUV.

Charging
Charging is a major hurdle in my opinion.
I own a CNG car. Filling CNG tank takes 3 minutes from lid opening to payment and go. Still many don't want to buy CNG car, saying, "have you seen the queue at CNG pumping stations?"
3 minutes to fill-up causes such a long queue for CNG, for which the infrastructure is being built for nearly a decade; think of stations that take average of 45 minutes of charging time per car. Now tell me if you want to wait in that queue.

Practical alternative
I truly believe, solution to make EV a practical alternative to ICE car is, battery swap - just like domestic LPG cylinder swap. The batteries, their charging and maintenance should be the responsibility of the government owned companies - like IOCL, BPCL, etc. We, as a consumer, would never buy a battery; just like we don't own LPG cylinder. You just go to outlet, give your drained battery get a fresh one, plug it and hit the road.
These government owned petrochemical companies are capable of investing and they are perfect contenders with the slow-dying petroleum market. Win-win for all.

I am not buying EV until core issues are addressed.

[vaasscit]

To me the main problem is the degradation of the battery's capacity with ageing. I've seen it on my mobile phones what couple of years of usage can do to Li-ion batteries. Mind you these mobile phones are not subject to severe environmental conditions.

Imagine a similar (NOT same) Li-ion batteries being used in automobile applications - subject to dynamic charging patterns and severe environmental conditions - the longevity would further reduce.

I say dynamic charging pattern, Let me explain. Owing to range anxiety, I'm sure most users would charge their car every night though it might still have 70% range left. That would still counted as one charge cycle and within few years, the finite number of charging cycles which that battery can handle would be over.

Further, the acquisition price of EV today is too high to be affordable for most.

[invidious]

I am an ideal EV customer. I put about 600 km/month on my go-to car - a diesel S-Cross. I was very keen on the Mahindra e20 but its flimsy build, lack of airbags and features stopped me. Now there are more solid options and I am pretty sure my next car in all likelihood will be an EV. I reckon in a couple years there will not be more charging points but the batteries will provide a better driving range and economies of scale across the world sales of EV will bring down the costs by quite a bit. A car with a range of 400/500 km for about 10-12 lakh is a distinct possibility.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by vaasscit

To me the main problem is the degradation of the battery's capacity with ageing. I've seen it on my mobile phones what couple of years of usage can do to Li-ion batteries. Mind you these mobile phones are not subject to severe environmental conditions.

The issue is not with the Lithium ion battery technology itself, but it is an issue with the implementation on consumer devices. I spent 6 years working for a semiconductor company working on power management and cell phone days of use tests, I have some familiarity with the limitations. Consumer devices have one cell, and they want the max battery life. On top of this they do not want to add (or cannot add) any battery management systems because of the additional cost weight and size that may make the phone/device unusable. The batteries are charged overnight, and sit there connected to the charger at 100% charge level. One of the most important inputs for the charging algorithms like coulomb counting is temperature. The process of charging itself causing changes in temperature of the battery is not controlled. The charging is stopped momentarily for the temperature to drop to a suitable one. Eventually there is something called as a knee drop - catastrophic failure. This is something the active battery management systems in EVs avoid.

Modern EVs use thousands of small cells. The entire process of charging and discharging is now distributed among these small cells. The battery management algorithms prevent any one cell from being overly stressed. This extends the life of the single battery.

Modern EVs have active liquid cooling. (Not cars like Nissan Leaf, which are giving EVs a bad name). With active temperature management the software can keep the battery at ideal temperatures to extend the chemistry.

Modern EVs start out with more capacity than what the software shows. A Tesla with 300 miles of range may have 340miles of range, with the software limiting 100% discharge.

Modern EVs with large range advise users to charge upto 80% regularly, and only go down to 10% with home charging. Exceptions can be made for long trips, and this preserves the chemistry. There are 8 year old Tesla Model S cars with people I know and they are very much usable with marginal loss of range. Cars with 500,000kms that people still use and love (with 10% battery degradation)

That said, the batteries in the EV, the size of the battery, and how it is used/maintained matter a lot. A car that is being driven at high speeds all the time and connected to the fast charger every day will degrade very differently compared to a typical city user who charges sensibly at night, at home when the electricity cost is the lowest.

There are many videos online with scientific explaination of the chemistry of lithium ion batteries. I do not claim to have understood all of them, but my takeaway is that - the state of charge limitations are real and needs a modern active battery management system. Manufacturers who are “All in” on EVs are making the right investments, in the right systems and the overall cost of ownership for 5+ years should still be favorable for EVs. I cannot say this for all EV manufacturers.

[crodjer]

The key to owning EVs is to have a parking place in home where you can charge the vehicle. As someone who rents an apartment and not own, I don't have the luxury to have such a car charging setup.

[hangover]

The business of EV’s is set up to fail. The oil companies been killing them in phases since 170 years when EV’s were invented.
So my ideal EV will have an onboard petrol powered DC generator. A tiny one. To charge at a slow rate.

Half the battery pack will be getting continuously charged. It will of course be on board the same vehicle.

The other half of the onboard pack will be used for my daily running. When the “in use” batteries are drained out the car must automatically switch to the freshly charged batteries.
Since an EV is made of plastic there is no need to have a full battery in on position. Half should do.
This arrangement will also allow optimal slow charging of the “reserve” battery.
You can send that Nobel prize for etching my name.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by locusjag

How about adding lack of safety of Lithium ion batteries as a voting reason?
...
Overcharging the battery or hitting the underbody of the electric car (where the batteries are mounted) against a speed bump will spectacularly set off the battery like a bomb.

The first time I had mentioned on this thread that current electric-car battery tech is rankly unsafe, it beggared belief. My post invited so many attacks for the mere thought that current electric car technology is unsafe ("how dare you"); it got to the point where I felt like I was speaking to a wall...

This is just vain old me gloating over things with my "I told you so" moment. There's a thread on a new battery tech that prevents batteries from exploding when pierced, bent or when exposed to high temperatures - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/elect...standards.html (BYD launches new blade battery with revolutionary EV safety standards)

Why would this be a big news if there wasn't a need to make EV batteries safer?

I will wait and watch for this development to go mainstream before I begin to think about EVs as a safe car to transport my family in. Until then, with the current tech? My family will not set foot on an EV. Period.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Why would this be a big news if there wasn't a need to make EV batteries safer?

It's called continuous improvement. Aren't cars in 2020 safer than cars from 2000. Same applies for flights, ICE engines or any machinery.

EVs are safer than ICE Period.

How many fires are getting reported every month from ICE cars, you can check in road safety section of team-bhp.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

It's called continuous improvement.

And i await the point when every EV becomes safe enough.

EVs are safer than ICE Period.

Nope. Please check again on the fragile nature of Li ion batteries currently.

How many fires are getting reported every month from ICE cars, you can check in road safety section of team-bhp.

Yes but:
1) the proportion of total ICE cars to the ones catching fire is skewed towards safe territory
2) ICE cars don't explode for a variety of reasons as EVs can. In fact they have continuously improved to the point where they don't explode during most collisions

[DarthVeda]

Originally Posted by locusjag

2) ICE cars don't explode for a variety of reasons as EVs can. In fact they have continuously improved to the point where they don't explode during most collisions

Paul Walker would like to have a word with you...
Lot of people talk about safety in ICE, where you are sitting on top of a highly combustible fuel and talk about EV safety, which won't go up in flame at the rate of fuel cans, if you look at Hammond's accident, when he rolled over, he came out and it was after that the vehicle caught on fire, the same in ICE would have been the different.
You are assuming that the same continuous improvement won't make it to EV? Already BYD has produced a battery type, which is far safer than the current ones and uses less heavy metals. It's only a matter of time before Solid State batteries make the transition to EV.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by DarthVeda

You are assuming that the same continuous improvement won't make it to EV? Already BYD has produced a battery type, which is far safer than the current ones and uses less heavy metals. It's only a matter of time before Solid State batteries make the transition to EV.

Ha ha ha...this is exactly the sort of reaction that I alluded to earlier. People tend to jump to all sorts of conclusions when someone dares to call out shortcomings with EVs.
I have said the exact opposite of whatever you've said! I am looking forward to continuous improvement of EVs, and I have applauded BYD for creating Li ion battery that won't explode if pierced, bent or exposed to high temperatures. And of course, BYD created this battery since there was a need to have batteries that won't explode for the reasons we've discussed.