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Tesla co-founder Ian Wright still doubts potential for mass electric car market

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The issue with mass market electric is going to be charging. A lot of people live in apts where it's impossible to charge over night. Not sure range will be an issue but that is the other challenge I see. I hope it happens though.
 
Apartments will install plugs for BEV charging as renters demand for them increases as well as government regulations increase requiring them.

Then there is the population that only has access to street parking whether you live in an apartment or detached home.

This is more difficult to remedy but not impossible.
 
The issue with mass market electric is going to be charging. A lot of people live in apts where it's impossible to charge over night. Not sure range will be an issue but that is the other challenge I see. I hope it happens though.

If they have somewhere to park their cars, there could be a charger installed there. Just have to get over the hump so there's enough market pressure that access to charging has value and, as if by magic chargers will appear.
 
If they have somewhere to park their cars, there could be a charger installed there. Just have to get over the hump so there's enough market pressure that access to charging has value and, as if by magic chargers will appear.

Several newer buildings in Portland anyway are installing one or two chargers. But most of the buildings around here are older and smaller with no parking, that is where I see an issue. I am glad to see that new construction is catching on to the electric car option.
 
Apartments will install plugs for BEV charging as renters demand for them increases as well as government regulations increase requiring them.

Then there is the population that only has access to street parking whether you live in an apartment or detached home.

This is more difficult to remedy but not impossible.

Agree. Eventually developers will realize that chargers in apartment parking garages and lots are a sales feature that will add value for many prospective tenants.
 
Agree. Eventually developers will realize that chargers in apartment parking garages and lots are a sales feature that will add value for many prospective tenants.

Not to mention businesses to attract talent to work there. Plus, charging at work could potentially mitigate the need to charge at home, especially in a 200+ mile car. On weekends, there are public chargers and Superchargers to fill-in the gaps.
 
What this forums always ignores is the comming impact of selfdrivingcars.A SDC that is owned privately could just drive to a charging station at night, which would reduce the infrastructure requirements for 100% EVs on the road.But besides that SDC will have a massiv impact on the current car market and economy in general.With far wider consequences then the EV impact alone. EVs and SDC will go handinhand great summery with good sources.The Personal Blog of Zack Kanter s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs and Reshape the Economy by 2025
 
Well I can only speak for myself but I have no home charging, garage, driveway, dedicated street parking etc. and I do just fine :p

Having public chargers, public parking garages, and just charging while driving around/running errands more than takes care of it. It's not a problem inherent to EVs - cities just need to step up and do more to help us out.

No offense Ian Wright, but I'm kinda glad you're not part of Tesla anymore.
 
Mass market is not 100% of the market. Hybrids are now mass market but they still only make up 3% of the market. I think what he is talking about is as a complete replacement of the ICE, but I think the best strategy is to reach that is to reach a critical mass with the currently addressable market (people with garages/overnight charging) and there will naturally be tipping point that forces charging options to be installed for the currently non-addressable market (people with no dedicated parking). After all, there is no technical barrier: there only needs to be some laws favorable to this and some outlets installed.
 
I see two major problems in the way of EVs becoming mainstream.

- 1st is sustained high speed problem. Above 120kph power consumption goes up drastically and cuts the range very dramatically. (big problem for Europe) I don't know the technicalities but would a two, or three speed gearbox cut the advantages of an EV motor? Any drawbacks to it?

- 2nd, I know US is mostly homes and stuff but there are tons of people who live in apartments and most park on the streets. (especially in Istanbul / Turkey, 99% of the population resides in apartment buildings) So for those people, charging will be an issue. One way I see out of this (and I'm no engineer by any means so take it with a grain of salt) is increasing energy density's of batteries dramatically so you could fit like 120kWh batteries inside cars, so you could supercharger a useful 150-200kms of range at superchargers in ~10 minutes, just like casually filing up sometime in your day. For that we'd need also superchargers (or fast chargers) everywhere, like we see petrol stations nowadays.

That's my .2$
 
I see two major problems in the way of EVs becoming mainstream.

- 1st is sustained high speed problem. Above 120kph power consumption goes up drastically and cuts the range very dramatically. (big problem for Europe) I don't know the technicalities but would a two, or three speed gearbox cut the advantages of an EV motor? Any drawbacks to it?

Multi-speed gearbox won't help much there. It really is an issue that (today's) EVs store energy equivalent of only a few gallons of gasoline, and so run through it rather quickly at high speed. EVs do OK in slower driving because they are much more efficient than ICE at low speeds. But once wind resistance becomes the major power draw, and ICE is running at (its') peak efficiency, the EV can't compete with the big tank ICE on range.
 
- 2nd, I know US is mostly homes and stuff but there are tons of people who live in apartments and most park on the streets. (especially in Istanbul / Turkey, 99% of the population resides in apartment buildings) So for those people, charging will be an issue.
There should be no reason that a charging capability can't be added to ANY parking spot. Therefore, if someone owns a car, they must park it somewhere. That somewhere could have an outlet setup near it. Now, this doesn't exist today, but it could easily in the future if there is demand for it. So, we have a chicken/egg issue that will eventually be solved. Not a major problem in my mind.
 
Multi-speed gearbox won't help much there. It really is an issue that (today's) EVs store energy equivalent of only a few gallons of gasoline, and so run through it rather quickly at high speed. EVs do OK in slower driving because they are much more efficient than ICE at low speeds. But once wind resistance becomes the major power draw, and ICE is running at (its') peak efficiency, the EV can't compete with the big tank ICE on range.

But since EV motors can be so efficient at low speeds (i.e. low RPM) wouldn't they also be efficient at low RPM, high speed thanks to a 2nd or 3rd gear? Because if we are to stick with the current motor design and just wait for the batteries to become more energy dense we should be waiting for a battery pack the size of Model S' getting ~600kWh energy from this calculation;

1 gal of gasoline energy density = ~33kWh (8,7kWh/litre of gasoline)
A high class sedan like BMW 5 series has a 70 litre gas tank = ~600kWh of energy capacity.

That is a long shot, I can see 100+kWh batteries the size of Model S in very near future but 600kWh? That would give it a ridiculous ~1800 mile rated range with Model S' current consumption.

Also the problem should be more than bigger wind resistance at high speeds because, we know a Model S on average consumes ~320wH/mi. If at 120kph+(70mph +) it goes up to 550wH/mi (I'm making up all the numbers here btw) range goes down to 154miles from 260, that's a whopping 40% loss. With ICE cars which also are subject to exact same wind resistance if not bigger because they have worse drag coefficients, of course you lose range at higher speeds but it is nowhere near 40%.

I am no engineer by any means but it is my simple rationale. I'd love to read on some other people's (be it professionals or just speculators like myself) thoughts.

There should be no reason that a charging capability can't be added to ANY parking spot. Therefore, if someone owns a car, they must park it somewhere. That somewhere could have an outlet setup near it. Now, this doesn't exist today, but it could easily in the future if there is demand for it. So, we have a chicken/egg issue that will eventually be solved. Not a major problem in my mind.

Yes but imagine a big city like Istanbul where 17 million people reside (or NYC for its western version) and packed cars are parked on the street. To be able to deliver at least 240V 32A power to all of them, wouldn't cities need entire new electric infrastructures? It is all up to municipalities after that point, like parking meters they have to build charging meters. It is not impossible of course, we have just recently lived through the incredible widespread adaption of smartphones, so why wouldn't charging meter be the next big thing?
 
To be able to deliver at least 240V 32A power to all of them, wouldn't cities need entire new electric infrastructures?
If all the cars tried to charge at the same time, that could be an issue. However, I believe there are discussions around smart grid management that would communicate with the cars to optimize the charging times. Again, anything is possible given the right needs/market pressure.
 
Ian Wright is one of many examples of a great engineer, but very business stupid. This is why most great products that are engineered by a company run by an engineer, never make it even close to mainstream. It's a very odd phenomenon that repeats itself over and over.
 
Ian Wright is one of many examples of a great engineer, but very business stupid. This is why most great products that are engineered by a company run by an engineer, never make it even close to mainstream. It's a very odd phenomenon that repeats itself over and over.

Normally I would agree, but Elon is basically an engineer (with a rare gift for business sense).
 
Not to mention businesses to attract talent to work there. Plus, charging at work could potentially mitigate the need to charge at home, especially in a 200+ mile car. On weekends, there are public chargers and Superchargers to fill-in the gaps.

Supercharger use for travel oeaks at weekends. Weeiends and holidays get the trips. Charging at work doesn't cover weekends, so while it can help adoption, I think that if it's part of the long term it will be duck curve economics or just policy stupidity.
 
Yes but imagine a big city like Istanbul where 17 million people reside (or NYC for its western version) and packed cars are parked on the street. To be able to deliver at least 240V 32A power to all of them, wouldn't cities need entire new electric infrastructures? It is all up to municipalities after that point, like parking meters they have to build charging meters. It is not impossible of course, we have just recently lived through the incredible widespread adaption of smartphones, so why wouldn't charging meter be the next big thing?

It's only an infrastructural problem at high penetration if people are charging their cars at peak demand time. If charging at night, no big deal. It's easy to have incentive pricing to encourage night-time charging.

I don't know what typical electricity use is there, but in general a draw of 8kW per car while homes and businesses aren't drawing much power won't be a problem, and will be good for grid economics overall, by filling in the "bathtub" of low nighttime demand.