[SteVTEC]

Originally Posted by jad03060

Range anxiety, while real, isn’t as big of a deal as many make it out to be. It does take some advanced planning that people will have to learn, and many are not willing, or don’t understand it and can lead to big problems. It’s not for everyone, but after a while, we may no longer have a choice.

It's a huge deal for me. Most EV's only have a real-world highway range at 75 mph of about 200-250 miles, and that's 100% of the battery. Throw in some battery life loss, colder weather, and that you're really only going between 80% down to 10-20% charge on highway legs, and your range between recharging is only 150ish miles?? I can't even get our breeding dog back and forth to her home base farm in WV without hitting a supercharger somewhere with range like that.

Meanwhile the G05 will go 600 miles per tank and refuel in 2-3 minutes, with similar overall energy efficiency as the KIA EV9, comparing total fuel burn on the G05 vs. grid energy consumption on the EV.

[mnx5er]

I have owned a Kia EV6 and BMW iX (plus my now traded-in X5 50e).

Both were nice vehicles for what they were. They inherited the limitations of EVs the worst of which was crappy range in the Winter (I had them in Minnesota), and a miserable charging network. At home charging was awesome 90% of the time. Long trips were the problem.

For Ford, the Mach-E was pretty cutting edge and was outrun by competitors. Like other EVs it is expensive and the value just isn't there unless you are into leading edge stuff.

I like EVs but have decided now isn't the time to own one. I prefer the creature comforts of the X5 vs the minimalist iX. I also believe charging issues need to be solved including the US electric grid which isn't ready for EVs. The biggest problem is the battery technology. It is terrible in cold weather and loses charging capacity each year. Gas is too cheap and too easy to use.

Better and cheaper batteries will be the game changer. But that is a few years out.

[SteVTEC]

Originally Posted by mnx5er

I have owned a Kia EV6 and BMW iX (plus my now traded-in X5 50e).

Both were nice vehicles for what they were. They inherited the limitations of EVs the worst of which was crappy range in the Winter (I had them in Minnesota), and a miserable charging network. At home charging was awesome 90% of the time. Long trips were the problem.

For Ford, the Mach-E was pretty cutting edge and was outrun by competitors. Like other EVs it is expensive and the value just isn't there unless you are into leading edge stuff.

I like EVs but have decided now isn't the time to own one. I prefer the creature comforts of the X5 vs the minimalist iX. I also believe charging issues need to be solved including the US electric grid which isn't ready for EVs. The biggest problem is the battery technology. It is terrible in cold weather and loses charging capacity each year. Gas is too cheap and too easy to use.

Better and cheaper batteries will be the game changer. But that is a few years out.

I agree. Batteries need to get to half the weight per kWh (solid state?) while still maintaining a reasonable (but really lower!!!) cost, with far improved and far more reliable charging networks (with 10-100x the number of charge points/stations), and with a US power grid that will actually be able to keep up and environmentally makes sense.

I don't see much of that happening any time soon, but it won't stop them from force-feeding everyone EV's whether they want them or not, because "pockets have been lined" and that's how decisions get made.

This is a massive systems engineering problem that needs solving by serious people. When I was a kid I remember hearing and reading about massive nuclear energy programs and superconducting grid technology. What happened to all that? Cheapest and most reliable energy sources are still coal and natural gas. Does it really make sense?

BTW, what are you driving now?

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by SteVTEC

This is a massive systems engineering problem that needs solving by serious people. When I was a kid I remember hearing and reading about massive nuclear energy programs and superconducting grid technology. What happened to all that? Cheapest and most reliable energy sources are still coal and natural gas. Does it really make sense?

I think overreactions my environmentalists and politicians killed what was likely the best solution to our electric generation needs.

[jad03060]

For me, a PHEV works…that isn’t true for everyone, or everywhere. You can look at it from three viewpoints: cost per mile, environmental, and convenience. The local electrical rates and the local fuel costs can make the decision very different along with the tax incentives. In much of the world, fuel costs are lots higher than the USA, especially when compared to electrical costs. Taxes play a big part in what works best for most people, too. Then, there are the environmental impacts. Heavier vehicles wear their tires faster, putting micro plastics into the environment faster, but CO2 is a reality. If there were a carbon tax across the board, that would change the equation for many, but that is unlikely to come for fore in many places anytime soon. My state recently added an additional fee to aid the road tax equation because EV and PHEVs don’t add as much from fuel taxes as a typical ICE vehicle may. It’s not huge, but expect more of these types of fees in the future. We’ve hit record ocean water temperatures for over 400-days in a row…whether you believe it or not, things are changing, and not for the good.

Note, many utilities have excess capacity overnight when most people recharge, so adding a load form PHEV or EV may not make a big difference. In the last month or so, CA has had over 100% of their energy, at least for part of the day from renewables. The utility companies claimed the grid would become unstable with 20% of the load made that way, and continues to adjust it upwards over the years…who are you going to believe…over 100% for over half of a month at times did NOT destabilize the grid.

[SteVTEC]

Originally Posted by jad03060

For me, a PHEV works…that isn’t true for everyone, or everywhere. You can look at it from three viewpoints: cost per mile, environmental, and convenience. The local electrical rates and the local fuel costs can make the decision very different along with the tax incentives. In much of the world, fuel costs are lots higher than the USA, especially when compared to electrical costs. Taxes play a big part in what works best for most people, too. Then, there are the environmental impacts. Heavier vehicles wear their tires faster, putting micro plastics into the environment faster, but CO2 is a reality. If there were a carbon tax across the board, that would change the equation for many, but that is unlikely to come for fore in many places anytime soon. My state recently added an additional fee to aid the road tax equation because EV and PHEVs don’t add as much from fuel taxes as a typical ICE vehicle may. It’s not huge, but expect more of these types of fees in the future. We’ve hit record ocean water temperatures for over 400-days in a row…whether you believe it or not, things are changing, and not for the good.

Note, many utilities have excess capacity overnight when most people recharge, so adding a load form PHEV or EV may not make a big difference. In the last month or so, CA has had over 100% of their energy, at least for part of the day from renewables. The utility companies claimed the grid would become unstable with 20% of the load made that way, and continues to adjust it upwards over the years…who are you going to believe…over 100% for over half of a month at times did NOT destabilize the grid.

It's a lot more complicated than CO2 emitted by man. Ocean temps detailed in the link below. (Very long) Ask yourself why they ignore all of this.

https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/0...-to-our-peril/

CA energy plan considerations:

https://calmatters.org/environment/2...ric-cars-grid/

March/April are not the times you can declare grid success, which are far from peak energy consumption months. When everybody can charge their EV's during the day or whenever they need to, and you can run your air-conditioning during a heat wave at the same time, and you won't have to resort to rolling blackouts, then you can declare success. California is a long, long, ways from that, and the rate at which they're forcing EV's on everyone is fast outpacing their energy development. It's a slow motion trainwreck.

I look at things from a total energy consumption standpoint, which correlates most closely with vehicle weight. You can't cheat the underlying physics, and EV's tending to be 500-1000 lbs heavier than ICE equivalents often end up consuming more energy in the end. Solid state battery tech that works and is affordable could be a game changer, but is still years away.

In the meantime, far cheaper and lighter regular old hybrids tend to be the most energy efficient vehicles, with the lowest overall environmental impact. PHEV's can work also for mostly city/urban commuting, but tend to drag a vehicle down more for highway or long distance travel.

I like EV's and PHEV's and think they're cool technologies and options to have. But the systems engineering backing them is all wrong and almost entirely politically/business/$$$ driven, and not for our benefit at all. This infuriates me to no end coming from a technical background. Just "MPGe" by itself drives me up the wall because of how dishonest it is, for the sole purpose of deception and driving sales/adoption, and nothing more.

Anyways, when a proper "system" is built that makes sense and works, along with vehicles that would actually work for my purposes, I'd be happy to consider a PHEV or EV. Long ways from that. The X5 50e is a fantastic option for us actually, except they don't work either.

(Related note: EV/PHEV's cannot just be "elitist home owner options" who can get a 240V Level 2 charger hooked up no problem, and even afford one to begin with. Home prices are through the roof, and our younger generations are beyond screwed. How are PHEV/EV's going to work for apartment and condo dwellers? That's another massive can of worms and slow motion trainwreck that needs solving if EV's are truly going to work.)

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by jad03060

A company’s CAFE without some of the EVs and PHEVs may make the other vehicles they sell end up costing a bunch more…so, some of it is all in looking at the big picture and understanding the real costs.

Real costs based on what unelected bureaucrats have dictated. That's the real underlying issue here, the people forcing this are people that have no real accountability to the people. We can vote them out. We can't vote against their proposals. We could maybe vote in a new administration but are they going to reverse all those rules and fire all that staff? One can certainly hope so, but in reality it's unlikely.

At the end of the day, we should completely repeal CAFE, and let the market dictate what the market wants. People will let their beliefs drove how they vote with their wallets.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by TurtleBoy

I think overreactions my environmentalists and politicians killed what was likely the best solution to our electric generation needs.

Besides the negative stigma of nuclear power (totally undeserved), and the "not in my backyard" fears, I think a lot of it also is optics. People don't want to see big steam towers, they don't know what they do and assume that a ton of dirty air coming out. People have been conditioned to see solar panels and windmills as clean, and steam towers as dirty.

The conspiracy theorist side of me says part of it is nuclear power is too reliable. If you've got a plethora of clean, inexpensive, reliable power then you don't have any problems to be exploited. Without those problems to exploit, you've got no reason to expand the size and influence of various groups. Which means there's less government graft to go around, and the powerful people don't like that, they need to be able to use that kind of graft to exert influence. Who is going to donate big sums of money to campaigns if they can't get their kids a high paying agency job with no qualifications? Stuff like that. True? I dunno, maybe partially. Ask Hecklefish what he thinks.

[jad03060]

Yeah, nuclear got an undeserved bad reputation, at least as how managed in the USA…some places just didn’t have the best engineered or maintained systems, and that hurt everything. Partly as a result, the permitting process became way too complicated and long…enough so that the actual costs can become unrealistic by the time they get permission to actually start construction, making any project dead on the vine.

NIMBYism is real, and promoted by some special interest groups to perpetuate what they deem in their best interests.

What would really help is a better electrical distribution system, but building power lines is sometimes impractical, or quite expensive, and again, permitting is a big issue. The desert SW has lots of sun, few people, but LONG distances to viable electrical customers. Wind is more consistent offshore, but those installations run into permitting problems, too. Wave and current generators work, and some prototypes have shown promise, and larger scale has worked in some places. Floating rather than sea floor mounted towers may proved to be less expensive and easier to maintain. Lots of innovations, but implementation along with production can take a while.

Until recently, people weren’t looking for white hydrogen, but in the last few years, some very significant supplies have been identified.

Probably enough off-topic stuff, as this can get heated, and way off the OT.

IMHO, while EVs aren’t for everyone, they are a viable choice for lots more people than they realize. More customers, more infrastructure, larger volume, prices can drop, and the incentive for innovation increases.

Even the cold penalty can be somewhat overcome with proper planning, hardware design, and infrastructure. While the X5 cannot do preheating of the battery pack, some of the BMWs can on their BEVs, and that can overcome a good portion of the potential losses, but requires planning and the ability to be plugged in prior to the trip. Preconditioning on any EV or PHEV can help, as that energy can come from the grid and using/charging the batteries tends to warm them some at least passively unlike an active preheating system for the batteries. Except when the batteries are quite hot, preconditioning can help to extend your EV range. After one long, nearly continues highway trip (over 400-miles with a couple of very short stops), when I plugged it in to charge at my destination, for nearly the first hour, almost all of the energy went into cooling…the fans were running continuously at high speed before those slowed down and more of that energy actually started to go into recharging the battery pack. While not super hot (about 90F), with the engine running as the PHEV’s battery got mostly discharged, so it had the heat from the engine running at high cruise for hours and heat soaking things that needed to be cooled sufficiently before it could then really start to charge the batteries.

If you have a sufficiently sized EVSE and a battery pack combination, when cold out, you might try to get the charging started such that it would be finished about the time you plan to leave. That way, the batteries would be warmer with less of a range impact as when starting from being cold soaked. That would require either a timer on your EVSE, either external or internal, or some other way to start charging at the appropriate time.

Again though, that also takes some planning on your side…something not everyone is willing or capable of doing.

Many people never crack open their owner’s manual, and expecting a PHEV or BEV to function exactly like your experiences with an ICE, especially an older one, is opening yourself up to issues as things don’t work the same. Lots of people can’t handle a smart phone, but a flip phone or brick one can still let you make a call and receive one…just not check your email, do video chats, take pictures, make movies, etc…today’s vehicles are quite complex rolling computers, but too many people treat them as a modern equivalent of a Model-T…brakes, gears, steering wheel…fill it with gas, and go…today’s modern vehicles are so much more.

[jad03060]

One Chinese company reportedly started mass production of a SS battery in April 2024. That brand does not current get exported to the USA and it will take until later this year to actually start to get installed in a vehicle. Others are coming, but later. This video has some useful background on SS batteries. https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=so...NUPGC2pwM,st:0

[SteVTEC]

Originally Posted by jad03060

Even the cold penalty can be somewhat overcome with proper planning, hardware design, and infrastructure. While the X5 cannot do preheating of the battery pack, some of the BMWs can on their BEVs, and that can overcome a good portion of the potential losses, but requires planning and the ability to be plugged in prior to the trip. Preconditioning on any EV or PHEV can help, as that energy can come from the grid and using/charging the batteries tends to warm them some at least passively unlike an active preheating system for the batteries. Except when the batteries are quite hot, preconditioning can help to extend your EV range. After one long, nearly continues highway trip (over 400-miles with a couple of very short stops), when I plugged it in to charge at my destination, for nearly the first hour, almost all of the energy went into cooling…the fans were running continuously at high speed before those slowed down and more of that energy actually started to go into recharging the battery pack. While not super hot (about 90F), with the engine running as the PHEV’s battery got mostly discharged, so it had the heat from the engine running at high cruise for hours and heat soaking things that needed to be cooled sufficiently before it could then really start to charge the batteries.

TBH, it sounds like BMW did not properly engineering the thermal management for these PHEV systems. That behavior is not the least bit desirable from a user perspective, in addition to being wasteful of both energy and time at a charging station. I really haven't read too much in the big 50e threads (don't own one), but if they have the same or similar cooling systems between the 45e and 50e, with a bigger battery and a more powerful electric motor in the 50e, it might explain a lot about what's been happening.

[jad03060]

Batteries have issues if you try to charge them when too hot as well as too cold. Try that with say an electric drill that you left in a cold garage…it won’t (or shouldn’t) do much charging until it warms up some…same with when it it so hot. At least with most modern PHEV and EVs, they have active liquid cooling with a few exceptions. The original Leaf for many years had big issues in desert areas, and last I looked at the documentation on one, you could only do a DC fast charge twice on a continuous trip, as it just couldn’t get rid of the heat from their use, and a fast charge without a very lengthy delay.

The nice thing on the PHEV is that you can just refill the gas tank and keep going…no big need to wait to recharge, however long it might take…overnight after you arrive works out fine. I do tend to use the battery control function, and keep the battery at 30% on a longer trip where I’ll need to stop so I can keep the cabin comfortable…maybe not as critical in the winter, but really nice not to get into the thing that is maybe hitting 130F or higher after being closed up in the sun…heat comes pretty quickly when cold out, and you usually have a jacket, so cold, while annoying, doesn’t last as long. Having the heat during preconditioning can make cleaning off the windows much easier, too. It generally will run long enough so you can just brush off a light ice coating as well rather than scraping it if you let it run the full time.

FWIW, on a similar run with an older pure ICE, the cooling fan sometimes would run for a long time…maybe a half hour or so on a really hot summer day. Throw in cooling the batteries and power supply of a PHEV or EV after things got hot doesn’t seem like a big deal. The logic is trying to maximize component life, and those long runs at extreme conditions often aren’t that common. Most of the time, I don’t get the cooling to run when I get home and plug mine in…it takes a fairly long run at higher temperatures before that kicks in.

BMW has been dealing with EVs and PHEVs for over 10-years, and over 4 (I think it’s 5 now) updates as they gained experience out on the roads. Theory helps, but real-world testing in larger quantities helps guide future enhancements. BMW is not adverse to making running changes when they discover something isn’t up to snuff, but this is not the third generation plus the LCI ON PHEV X5’s…it’s not their first rodeo. 40e, 45e, 50e, and LCI on the X5, plus the first one wasn’t their first corporate wise.

[nZtiZia]

Originally Posted by hassoalbert51

For the EV aficionado, the world of electric vehicles offers a thrilling landscape of innovation, sustainability, and cutting-edge technology. From sleek sedans to rugged SUVs and futuristic hypercars, EV enthusiasts have a wealth of options to explore. Brands like Tesla, with its groundbreaking advancements in battery technology and autonomous driving capabilities, have captivated the imagination of electric car enthusiasts worldwide. Meanwhile, legacy automakers such as Audi, Porsche, and Jaguar are making significant strides in electrification, offering high-performance EVs that combine luxury and eco-consciousness. Beyond the vehicles themselves, the EV ecosystem encompasses charging infrastructure, renewable energy integration, and the promise of a greener, more sustainable future. For the EV aficionado, the thrill of driving emission-free, the allure of instant torque, and the excitement of being at the forefront of automotive innovation make every journey an exhilarating experience.

welcome to the forum

not trying to be uncouth, but why does this sound like it’s been taken from an undisclosed marketing source?

still, all you’ve stated are just glitz and glams of the EV but lay no argument of the downsides and inconveniences this form of vehicle may impose. for some, it’s simply impossible to own one no matter the allure. I own a PHEV and take advantage of its electric drivetrain throughout my entire work week, but I won’t be purchasing a full EV anytime soon and would hate to be forced to purchase one because of agenda.

[LDT]

Originally Posted by hassoalbert51

For the EV aficionado, the world of electric vehicles offers a thrilling landscape of innovation, sustainability, and cutting-edge technology. From sleek sedans to rugged SUVs and futuristic hypercars, EV enthusiasts have a wealth of options to explore. Brands like Tesla, with its groundbreaking advancements in battery technology and autonomous driving capabilities, have captivated the imagination of electric car enthusiasts worldwide. Meanwhile, legacy automakers such as Audi, Porsche, and Jaguar are making significant strides in electrification, offering high-performance EVs that combine luxury and eco-consciousness. Beyond the vehicles themselves, the EV ecosystem encompasses charging infrastructure, renewable energy integration, and the promise of a greener, more sustainable future. For the EV aficionado, the thrill of driving emission-free, the allure of instant torque, and the excitement of being at the forefront of automotive innovation make every journey an exhilarating experience.

Welcome and you make some valid points but this sounds like a nice PR/AI piece.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by nZtiZia

welcome to the forum

not trying to be uncouth, but why does this sound like it’s been taken from an undisclosed marketing source?

still, all you’ve stated are just glitz and glams of the EV but lay no argument of the downsides and inconveniences this form of vehicle may impose. for some, it’s simply impossible to own one no matter the allure. I own a PHEV and take advantage of its electric drivetrain throughout my entire work week, but I won’t be purchasing a full EV anytime soon and would hate to be forced to purchase one because of agenda.

It's a bot. It has one post that's clearly written by AI. Most forums have a report button for stuff like this. I don't see one here.

[TurtleBoy]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

It's a bot. It has one post that's clearly written by AI. Most forums have a report button for stuff like this. I don't see one here.

I reported it as spam which with enough votes should get rid of it.