Tesla is fast

Do they need to? I don't know many vehicles that last 36 years and when they do, it's because they aren't driven all that much. The US average is 14,000 miles per year. I you drove the average this vehicle would have 504,000 miles. Not impossible, but very unusual for an ICE. Trucks tend to be made more robust than cars and get much worse fuel mileage.

So let's talk passenger vehicles, which is the real topic of conversation. For a well built BEV, there's no reason why they can't last like an ICE. The batteries in most BEVs are warrantied for 100,000 or more miles. Do you believe they are going to drop out of the car shortly after that?

Why do so many people just want to drop sound bites rather than actually discussing a topic?

All of which is irrelevant. 250,000 miles is nothing unique. Both of my pickups got around that. One was in an accident and the other stolen. You are driving around 7,000 miles a year, half the national average. You may qualify for a discount on your insurance for low mileage.

Probably not - but the great majority of conventional vehicles don't last that long either. The average lifetime of cars in the US is about 15 years.

Accident damage or some major failure (such as engine!) often results in a costly repair that causes it to be scrapped.

My last BMW was a great car until it was about 8 years old when failures started to become annoying and expensive.

kw

I've seen the 15 year number many places. However, we buy enough new cars to replace the fleet in 15 years. So how can we still be driving half of what was sold in the last 15 years? The number of cars on the road is not increasing 50% every 15 years is it?

Where did you get the 15 year number?

But you still haven't addressed the basic issue, troll. My 36 year old vehicle doesn't need a new engine. I wonder how many 36 year old Teslas there will be outside of museums?

Now run along in your Kia Cerato...

My Audi became annoying long before that. Admittedly it was a 100LS and Volkswagen hadn't figured out front engine, front wheel drive, water cooled vehicles yet.

Who gives a s*it about your 36 year old car? You seem to be obsessed with the idea that it means something. What do you think your 36 year old car means in the transition to BEVs that is taking place in the world?

You do realize this is happening, and there's pretty much nothing you can do to stop it, right? In 10 years, virtually every car sold in the US will be a BEV. In 20 years, the vast majority of cars on the roads will be BEVs. Gas stations will become the exception in 15 years and nearly extinct in 20 years. By 2042, if you aren't dead, you won't be driving your then, 56 year old car. You will either be driving a 20 year old ICE that you have to special order gasoline for, or you will be driving a pickup truck with a battery, very possibly made by Tesla.

This is a reality that you may not prefer, but it is your future, whether you decide to like it or not.

In your dreams. Batteries die of old age, but EVs haven't been around long enough to develop good statistics on that. One thing is certain: it will be uneconomical to replace the battery of an old EV (the battery costs more than the value of the car).

On Tuesday, 17 May 2022 at 03:53:34 UTC-7, John Doe wrote: ...

And what difference does that make. The small form factor cells are chosen by some manufacturers for sound engineering and financial reasons.

The Ford F-150 Lightning uses large pouch cells.

kw

GM uses large long pouch cells. Tesla is moving to larger cylindrical cells. But there are plenty of after market small cells (18650) for DIY hackers like me.

Then the BMS is not doing it's job. Proper BMS should monitor each cell and alarm if they overheat.

That is not true. The car is very unlikely to explode if a single cell fails. Even if multiple cells fail an explosion is also extremely unlikely.

From the NTHSA report - "Lithium-ion Battery Safety Issues for Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles".

"Regarding the risk of electrochemical failure, the report concludes that the propensity and severity of fires and explosions from the accidental ignition of flammable electrolytic solvents used in Li-ion battery systems are anticipated to be somewhat comparable to or perhaps slightly less than those for gasoline or diesel vehicular fuels."

kw

They can "anticipate" until the cows come home. What that boils down to is an uneducated guess. Until you have decades of data to analyze you are just blowing smoke. Just look at airline accidents; the B747 had decades of flight experience when TWA flight 800 exploded. And these planes undergo far more rigorous testing and evaluation than EVs do.

You would seem to be blowing smoke as much as anyone. In the case of TWA flight 800, a fatal airliner accident due to design or construction issues is a very infrequent thing. These causes are much easier to minimize failure rates than the operational issues.

The bottom line is lithium-ion batteries are proving to be very safe in BEVs. The failures rates are comparable to the failure rates of fossil fueled vehicles which do burst into flame spontaneously as well. We are simply less worried by the relatively infrequent incidents which are dwarfed by the accident rates of automobiles caused by the operators. BEV issues get a lot of visibility, but are actually less likely.

You didn't anticipate that, did you?

They want to cover the Mojave desert with solar panels.

um, how's that going to affect the earth's albedo? The solar energy currently bounced out to Mars, is going to stay earthbound.... drive your car and coffeemaker... and at the end of the day... global warming, hello!

The fourth law of thermodynamics: in the long run, energy efficiency is zero, everything thermalizes -

On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 22:38:46 UTC-7, Flyguy wrote: ...

Hardly "uneducated". It is backed up by the scientific reasoning.

We also do have some years of statistics showing the rate of EV car fires is actually lower that conventional vehicles:

Of course if you like driving around with the energy equivalent of 60 lbs of dynamite in the back of your car that's fine by me.

kw

Who exactly is "they"? Where did you see this about covering the Mojave desert with solar panels?

I will say that it is clear you don't understand what global warming is about. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the energy conversions required to provide power. It is about the CO2 released in the process.

Flyguy is an idiot. Observing how long batteries last in actual use may be the most reliable way of working out battery life, but it's not much use when the technology is changing rapidly. Accelerated aging is widely used when you want find how long a novel battery design is likely to last in actual use.