Ever consider an EV?

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my parents never bought a new car, preferring instead to buy a well maintained used vehicle because they didn’t want to take a depreciation AND since my dad was an aerospace engineer he drilled into me the KISS (keep it simple stupid) design philosophy

basically most of my adult life never was tempted to buy a new vehicle because viewed it as a waste of money (because of instant depreciation once a new car is driven off a dealers lot), and didn’t want to be a consumer guinea pig sorting out what could go wrong w/ a new to market transportation vehicle

rules were made to be broken,… I point this out because the other day took delivery of a new EV (electric vehicle) which is a first for me AND the what’s also different is the design (it has three wheel)

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basically still keeping all my old cars, but bought this because I live in an urban neighborhood walking distance to downtown and often times took my inefficient land cruiser to go grocery shopping

technically this is my second EV,… years ago I bought a “used” beach cruiser electric bike that I saw on Craigs list (use my eBike to get around town but its useless for grocery shopping)
 
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No way I would ever drive that thing, let alone go 75mph in it! It’s a death trap.
 
I used to help design and test them many moons ago. That was enough EV for me. We heard lots of fun stories about how they burned down people’s garages in the night. Also, did anyone ever figure out what to do with the old batteries when they need replaced? Environmental nightmare back in my day.

I ended up quitting that gig and changing careers.
 
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Yeah, no thanks. I bought a 2017 Ford Escape this year and am quite happy with it.

I’m not jumping on the electric vehicle bandwagon. Our infrastructure is not setup for it.
 
Irishmom2 said:
No way I would ever drive that thing, let alone go 75mph in it! It’s a death trap.
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just because its been designed and tested to top out at 75 mph doesn’t mean its prudent to operate the vehicle at its limits

as I mentioned in the OP I live in an urban neighborhood and will be using this thing to run errands around the urban core of san diego

FWIW over the years I’ve had a chance to informally checkout various EV projects,… back in 2006 went to the tesla HQ and checked out the roadster which was undergoing development (look at tesla now which is an aspirational vehicle desired by many consumers)

also years ago there was the automotive X prize where one of designs in the race tried making the commercial cross over to consumer production,… one of the local EAA (experimental aircraft association) guys was hired on to fabricate the vehicle given the vehicle was designed to be as aerodynamically slippery as possible


problem was the designers never tought about practical matters, like a tight turning radius is a good thing in urban environments (basically the aptera was akin to an SR71 which is pretty sleek BUT requires hundreds of miles to execute a 180 degree turn), so parking the aptera which which was built like an aircraft (i.e. delicate) isn’t easy

ALSO from what I gather, the reason aptera went bankrupt is it had too many chiefs and not enough indians

long story short, although you referred to this thing as a death trap, from what I have seen of the development over the years, think this thing is going to create a new market segment which is going to be commercially successful

this is because the “KISS” engineering for the vehicle is solid and the handling is optimized for an urban environment,… lastly the management of arcimoto is also smart enough to realize not to burn money on foolish things AND they have hired lean manufacturing experts to keep costs down


 
Tis_Bearself said:
I used to help design and test them many moons ago. That was enough EV for me. We heard lots of fun stories about how they burned down people’s garages in the night. Also, did anyone ever figure out what to do with the old batteries when they need replaced? Environmental nightmare back in my day.

I ended up quitting that gig and changing careers.
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the GM EV1 w/ delco lead acid batteries???
 
phaster said:
just because its been designed and tested to top out at 75 mph doesn’t mean its prudent to operate the vehicle at its limits
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Yes, I know that. I wouldn’t drive it, I wouldn’t ride in it. It’s too small, like those smart cars. If you get hit, it’s over. No thanks.
 
Irishmom2 said:
No way I would ever drive that thing, let alone go 75mph in it! It’s a death trap.
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I personally would not feel comfortable trying to drive a car like that on some of our highways or Interstates around here.

Here in Wisconsin, they raised the speed limit on the Interstates a few years ago, and some people still think that it’s not fast enough for them!
 
Obviously electric cars save gas mileage, exhaust pollution and carbon emissions but the electricity used has to come from somewhere at it is usually from fossil fuels like coal plants. As such, electric cars might save money but they aren’t saving the environment as much as people think…
 
Even so . . .

the efficiency of a large fossil fuel generation plant is significantly higher than an internal combustion engine (four times? I forget).

And a DC motor is, by nature, also a generator, and is used for “regenerative braking”–sapping the kinetic energy of motion and stuffing it back in the battery.

I’d consider an EV, but it would have to be one that cold live outside, as I can hardly put either Eldorado out into the weather (a '72 convertible and a '97 Eldorado Touring Coupe).

I expect that the only car I ever own that hasn’t already been on the road for over a decade now will be a full self driving EV, whether in a decade, or in three decades when my kids start eyeing my keys. . .
 
as a really young kid one vivid memory I have is of my uncle driving around a big red Cadillac convertible (not exactly sure but it would have been a 68 or 69 model year),… what I recall is the thing was so much bigger than the Volkswagens my parents drove

anyway in a large electrical generating station, where steam to spin a turbine is created by burning coal or natural gas under a boiler,… a power plant can be operated at an optimum speed whereas a car w/an internal combustion engine varies its speed (and takes time to warm up to optimum operating temperature)

to figure out exact efficiency requires something called an embodied energy calculation which takes into account the energy to gather the materials to build a product, the energy to manufacture the product along w/ shipping the product to a customer, then there is the energy used by the product over the operational life AND lastly the there are costs to consider of disposal of the product,…


what I’ve really noticed especially during the pandemic is in San Diego is how much energy is wasted just waiting in a cue

for example earlier this year when we were in a tight lock down, inside visits to a banks were closed so the only access was the drive up window where wait times were up to an hour

as I see things if people had electric vehicles a lot less energy (and pollution) would be created

yeah I know when there is a crash between a large SUV and a motorcycle, the large mass of the SUV offers protection,… but as I see things each type of vehicle is akin to a specific tool that is designed to do a specific job

the other day took my urban electric vehicle on a short interstate jaunt to get a feel for how it handles at constant freeway speeds,… personally felt pretty comfortable (then again over the years I’ve ridden a couple of smaller displacement motorcycles and have a bicycle I use to get around the urban core of a major city)

since I view a vehicle as basically just a way to get from point A to point B didn’t opt for the fancy extra cost paint job or fancy seats w/ diamond stitching,… instead will have a custom bumper sticker printed up,… its kinda a variation of WWJD that is suppose to poke fun of the other EV companies

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