I should have said, by the way, that the number of people who can afford a four door Porsche sedan and yet don’t have off-street parking where they can install a charger is a number not materially different from zero. The infrastructure point is true for people buying a Bolt or a Renault 5, but a Taycan that costs at least £90k and possibly as much as £250k(!)? Not so much
Well not things that are trivially proven false and which just lead to commercial damage to the brand, no.
Think about it: let’s imagine that BMW lied for some reason and claimed that it had got better density through use of cylindrical cells instead of prismatic when in fact the density was worse. That would immediately be obvious when the range was tested on WLTP, or when the car was weighed and found to be heavier, or when the first teardown occurred and the battery was shown to be less dense. So what would be the point?
Corporations lie when they can get away with it and it’s in their interests to do so. I don’t see how BMW could get away with this lie, nor why it’s in their interest.
What’s the scenario you’re imagining that makes this plausible?
I don’t disagree with that. I guess we just have different perspectives on whether the requirement that all new auto sales be EVs in 20XX is sensible regulation or social engineering. This is something reasonable people can reasonably disagree on.
1. OK, the reason you didn’t recognise those names is that you’re not much immersed in the world of EVs. The Taycan is Porsche’s four door sedan EV. Obviously, you’ve heard of Porsche. It has been a significant commercial success. The EQA is Mercedes-Benz’s smallest SUV. Obviously, you’ve heard of Mercedes too. CATL and BYD are two of the largest EV battery makers on the planet. They supply batteries for lots of marques you have heard of: CATL supplies BMW, Hyundai, Honda, Tesla, VW, Toyota, and Volvo, while BYD supplies Toyota, Ford, Kia and Lincoln. They both supplies lots of other marques too. Zoes were made by Renault, who you might actually not have heard of, as they don’t deliver to the US, but they are a large French automaker.
2. Yes, these new batteries also charge faster than the old ones. For example, the Taycan’s charging is now 18 minutes 0 to 80%, down from 22.5 minutes. No, that’s not as fast as an ICE car. But you can charge a Taycan at home, and you can’t (easily) do that with an ICE car.
3. Yes, infrastructure is an issue and requires a big build-out to make EVs convenient in much of the US, and who knows if it will ever happen. But the point of my previous post wasn’t to say that EVs are good enough yet, it was to say that batteries truly are improving fast, and will continue to do so for many years to come. Who knows when they’ll charge as fast as an ICE vehicle fuels. Possibly never, maybe there’ll be physical limits. But then, TSMC just announced a 1.6nm chip is on the way, which most folks would have thought impossible just a few years ago. Fingers crossed battery improvements end up the same way.
In relation to cars, the government tells you:
- You have to buy a car that has headlights, blinkers, seatbelts, and a gazillion other regulated safety features
- You have to drive the car the same side of the road as everyone else, you have to stop at stop signs and at reds, etc
- You have to register your car, have insurance and get a licence, etc
Which of those do you refuse to do on principle because the government is telling you what to do?
I dunno how they’ve achieved better densities using cylindrical rather than prismatic. My best guess is it’s due to a better density achievable *within* each cell, even if that comes at the expense of less efficient packing of the cells. In any event, it’s what BMW say has led to greater density, and I can’t see a reason why they’d say an untruth about this, and their engineers will certainly know lots more about this topic than I do.
Of three things that could be called childish: thinking a car is better because of the sound it makes, calling that sound vroom-vroom, or getting in a snit because someone called that sound vroom-vroom, the latter is comfortably the most childish.
Your powers of deduction have failed you and you were confidently wrong, just like my annoying 14 year old nephew: I’m 50, not a kid.
And “newsflash” — if you want to prove you’re terribly mature and not at all childish like moi, then using phrases like “newsflash” kinda undermines your position. Especially as you seem to think that the only driving that counts is driving above 30mph, whereas urban driving and the noise and tailpipe emissions it generates is a major source of harm to human and animal health, and also constitutes the bulk of all driving journeys.
I mean, I’ve literally put my money where my mouth is and bought 4 EVs so far, and the experience has been excellent each and every time. Sono.
More than half the world’s population is urban
Battery tech *already is* getting better quickly:
- A facelifted EQA saw range improved from 263 to 345 miles
- The facelifted Taycan has a 35% longer range because of a larger battery (in the same space) -- now at 421 miles
- CATL yesterday announced a new LFP battery with a 600 mile range, up from 400 miles in the old version. LFP was confined to things like buses until three years ago. Now it's in mass use for cars
- Findreams (owned by BYD) are on the cusp of launching Blade 2.0 battery packs, also LFP. It is smaller, lighter and more efficient than Blade 1.0. It also has a 600 mile range
- BMW are building out their Neue Klasse architecture with new batteries -- just the move from prismatic to cylindrical enables substantially better densities which means a range improvement of 30%+
This is going to continue for years ahead, much like chip improvements in the semiconductor industry.
It's exactly the rapid rate of improvement that's meant that I've always got my EVs on finance for the past 9 years:
2015 -- Gen 1 Zoe -- 80 miles(!)
2018 -- Gen 2 Zoe -- 186 miles
2020 -- Gen 3 Zoe -- 245 miles
2024 -- EQA -- 330 miles (I lost some range because I chose a premium version)
People said the same about horses being replaced by ICE vehicles ("horses can make more horses and that's a trick that tractors never learned"; LPs being replaced by CDs ('digital music always has steps and we as audiophiles can hear them'); bricks being replaced by smartphones ('my battery lasts all week'); watches being replaced by smart watches (ditto re batteries), etc etc
You, and lots of other consumers, may value vroom-vroom noises, the ability to tow three tons of kit and five minute refuels on long journeys more highly than silence, lack of vibration, instant acceleration, proportionate throttle response, no nasty smells, and the ability to charge at home, but I'm willing to bet quite a lot of money that ever more people will prefer the latter over the former, especially as upfront costs come down
ironically, he got the quote for free from someone else and used it to his economic advantage, which rather undermines the meaning of the quote.
Where did you get your very exciting statistic about 85% of humans living in non-developed regions from?
Well, it's the best example so far of what may be a search that doesn't work, so thank you! (I am still not wholly convinced by the general argument others have made that Google search is broken, though. Seems to me that if it were that badly broken, people would be able to link to at least a few very straightforward specific searches that don't give good results)
Well, I definitely can't quickly find any links to pages about a girl band called "heroine addiction" with google. Do such pages exist, then?
(I'm not sure this is a massive surprise given the punning nature of the name, the fact that an improv troupe has also used it much more recently, and that the original group didn't have enough of an impact to have, for example, their own Wiki page. Is this really an example of engineering failings?)
Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed.
