Posted on 12/02/2023 5:10:38 AM PST by Libloather
EV owners report far more problems with their cars and trucks than owners of gas-powered vehicles, according to a new survey.
Vehicles in the burgeoning electric vehicle segment, from model year 2021 through 2023, encountered 79 percent more problems than those with combustion engines, according to a Consumer Reports survey of more than 330,000 car owners.
The research said EV owners most frequently reported troubles with battery and charging systems as well as flaws in body panels and the fit of interior parts.
It noted that EV manufacturers are still learning to construct new types of vehicles, and suggested that their build quality will improve over time and teething issues will be ironed out.
'This story is really one of growing pains,' said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. 'It's a story of just working out the bugs and the kinks of new technology.'
But Consumer Reports noted that reliability concerns will cause additional apprehension among prospective buyers, alongside concerns about higher costs, too few charging stations and long charging times.
The growth of EV sales has slowed sharply since last year, and concern has heightened that American consumers are simply not prepared to make the switch from gas-powered cars.
In June 2022, EV sales were growing about 90 percent year over year. But by June of this year the 12-month growth rate had slowed to about 50 percent. Automakers have become increasingly fearful the pace will weaken further.
And this week, about 3,900 auto dealers signed a letter to President Biden asking him to rethink what they described as unrealistic fuel economy and emissions requirements.
'They are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships, even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives and generous government incentives,' the letter said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“So eone posted info about a techno.oy where the electric car recharges itself while running”
I think most have that, it’s regenerative braking. Beyond that, no one has figured out a way to capture and store energy lost to heat (which includes friction and wind resistance). A couple of panels on a car would probably be ok, if you’re willing to wait a month or so for it to charge.
Here’s an article about what you stated-
https://www.eetimes.com/self-charging-cars-to-become-the-evs-of-the-future/
In it they mentioned how far behind the electr8c grid is when it comes to electric cars- we are nowhere close to being able tO go all electric
” It is estimated that it would take $7 trillion and 20 years to upgrade the world’s electric grids to accommodate the expected increase in the number of EVs”
Same kind of “experts” who swore that masks blocked airborne virii?
Buy one of your kids a toy electric car for Christmas and see if it’s still around next Christmas.
Our son recently leased an EV and sadly a few weeks later was rear ended while stopped at a light. While the body damage was seemingly superficial and fortunately the batteries were not compromised, repairs cost nearly $12,000 due to all the sensors and other electronics and the mostly plastic body panels. There was apparently only one body shop in the western Twin Cities that repairs EVs and the repairs took more than three weeks to complete. I can’t imagine the problems trying to get an EV repaired outside of any major metropolitan area
Batteries made of pixie dust, chargers powered by unicorn farts and honest democrat sales people is the answer.
(3 things that don’t exist)
Or walk. They perfer you walk anyway.
They have been around for almost 200 years.
Evolving? Ya.
New? Nope.
Uhhh… the dude is 81 yrs old.
You expect him to last to 2032?
“experts suggest they’re just teething issues”
yep, any day now, EVs won’t be 80% less reliable than ICE autos ... any day now ... batteries will be ten times as energy-dense as they are now ... any day now ... batteries will fully charge in a few minutes ... any day now ... EVs won’t have to be totaled by insurance companies due to even the slightest damage that MIGHT have occurred to black-box construction of one-ton batteries built into a skateboard chassis ... any day now ... ten trillion dollars worth of reliable roadside chargers powered by a ginormous new, cheap electricity supply will replace all gas stations ... any day now ...
any day now, folks, any day now ...
“And really anybody that remembers 70s cars would probably still see them as pretty reliable.”
bullshit ... i owned and drove 70s cars, and at the time i though AMERICAN cars were the biggest pieces of shite possible ... i was deliriously overjoyed when the oil crisis allowed the japanese to invade the U.S. auto market ... within a decade, the japanese improved their quality to the point that they bankrupted the U.S. auto industry and forced the U.S. auto industry to try to catch up to the japanese ... to this day, much of the U.S. auto industry has yet to quite measure up to Honda and Toyota ...
“Whether the EV is actually driveable makes no difference to them, as they always have alternate cars.”
especially true in colorado where EVs hibernate all winter and take a 3-month siesta in the summer because heating and air-conditioning during our extreme climate drains their batteries faster than a flashlight accidentally left turned on overnight ... and don’t get me started on range issues in colorado’s rocky mountains ...
“Flux capacitors are sort of available”
problem is that they work best only if you have a Mr. Fusion for power ...
“Sounds like he’s got a side he favors.”
ya think? CR normally recommends NOT to buy first-year models so the bugs can be worked out ... but of course, CR has gone full-metal-jacket woke leftist like every other magazine that still hasn’t bit the dust yet ...
Nope. Not even close. Sure there were a few largely toy electric vehicles. But they share absolutely NO technology with the electric cars of today. Heck they didn’t even use the same kind of rubber tires. These electric cars are 21st century ideas, with 21st century technology, that just hasn’t had a chance to get the kinks out. Part of why I don’t want one. I’ll be dead before they even achieve 70s reliability.
Wow first you yell profanities. then you agree with what I said. 70s cars were crap and probably way less reliable than the most experimental current electric car.
You should READ, and swear less.
“It is estimated that it would take $7 trillion and 20 years to upgrade the world’s electric grids to accommodate the expected increase in the number of EVs.”
Thanks, but it’s upsetting to be fed so much propaganda. A few comments:
The $7T number above is about as real as what the California Bullet Train was supposed to cost when voters approved it ($8B, not today’s $150B or so). I could see the $7T paying for the cost of adding conventional powerplants, with some solar/wind/batteries perhaps mixed-in, along with line upgrades - but that would only be for the US (roughly 20% build-out). The claim for the world is insane. Beyond that, forget about the Carbon-Neutral aspect, the $7T might be enough for a large state to also become carbon neutral on electricity production, like Texas, but that would be about it when factoring in the energy storage costs (MC estimates that 30 days of storage is required).
The idea of cars generating power from solar and running at a rate of just sipping power falls flat because the two generally offset each other. For example, a nice, flat, aerodynamic, windshield means a very large cross section unable to generate power. An ideal solar-generating design would be a box, which of course would suck up energy when moving more than 5 MPH. You could get some power from their horizontal fish tail in the picture, but that gets hard to imagine given the density of cars on today’s roads, along with other problems (people breaking them off for fun, etc.). Without something crazy like the fishtail, my estimate of a month to charge was based on 4 miles per kwh (rough average today, and yes, they do everything practical to get to even 4 miles) and 500W of charging for 5 hours per day average (about the best that I can see from a reasonably designed car, given weather and cell-pointing limitations) - comes out to 75 kWH/month...or 300 miles. Better than nothing, but then if you limit EV charging to the above, that’s only 100W average (less than a TV), so a very small load to add to the grid...might as well dispense the with the solar cells, and just plug it in then. Also note that there’s nothing on the horizon to increase solar cell performance significantly and that battery technology doesn’t help in the above calculations - it’s simply the limited area that limits charging capability.
Using the road to power and/or charge EVs seems like a very sporty undertaking (assuming the physics behind it really works in the real world...where you have to maintain some road clearance, for example). I don’t know of any significant demonstration projects, seems that would be a start. Then you have to look at the real world, where roads aren’t always in new condition 10 years after the concrete is poured, to say the least. Maybe it could work, but we’re many years from claiming anything at this point.
[[The claim for the world is insane.]]
Agreed-
Would be nice though if some tech could produce a truly self-recharging car where gas and electricity are not needed- wishful thinking though i think- but then they’d have to find a way to tax drivers- likely though a ‘mileage tax’
“but then they’d have to find a way to tax drivers- likely though a ‘mileage tax’”
...and it would be damn high, if they tried to recover any of the cost of wiring up our roads.
Kinda like the internal combustion car huh?
Not the same as back then.
Only the same limitations apply to plug in
Range, materials, charging infrastructure.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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