goldbrick said:Probably not much new in 2020 but the rumor mill says Nissan is planning to unveil a completely new EV 'platform' sometime around the 2021 model year. That could be late of course....
In general, EV tech is changing rapidly. No matter what you buy today, in a few years it will be old tech and the newer cars will probably be more capable.
powersurge said:I am not sure I want to trade in my old (like-new), $9,000 Leaf for a Like-New $44,000 Leaf... They are the same car, and same ride when you drive down the road. There really is no upgrade to get a new one. No reason to buy a new one if your current car's range is what you drive...
powersurge said:I can't see a need for them to increase the battery pack size for quite some time....
Heck, even Tesla is not increasing battery sizes...
NOW, the direction is for the prices of the 60 KWH cars to drop, and for them to make a different car body which is more in the SUV or MINIVAN direction.....
danrjones said:powersurge said:I can't see a need for them to increase the battery pack size for quite some time....
Heck, even Tesla is not increasing battery sizes...
NOW, the direction is for the prices of the 60 KWH cars to drop, and for them to make a different car body which is more in the SUV or MINIVAN direction.....
I guess it depend on where you live. The 40 pack size is good enough for my daily driving / work. But if I want to go do anything on the weekend, like I did this last weekend, I had to take our outback. I'm OK with that for now but eventually I'd like to be able to take my EV on longer trips. Last weekend's trip was to go hiking, about 90 miles each way, plus about 8000 feet of gain. No chargers anywhere. So I figure I'd need about 300 miles of range to do that in an EV. That would be sweet - when its affordable.
Even the Plus wouldn't have been able to do that trip. Someday though.
But I agree that 2020 won't see more range since the plus just arrived, but I would expect some upgrades on the inside. 12" Screen? Bigger screen's seem to be all the rage right now.
Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often.
johnlocke said:Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.
danrjones said:johnlocke said:Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.
It depends on where you live and if you plan to still have a traditional gasoline or gasoline hybrid.
Rivian is targeting 400 miles for a reason - if you are going up in our mountains , you need both the miles and the elevation. Someday there may be fast charging stations in the national parks - but at every forest service trail-head and campground? Probably not.
So the solution is either having two vehicles, having one that takes gas for those trips, or having a lot more range in one of your EV's
In other countries or parts of this country, 150 can do everything. Here it can't. Heck the nearest town is almost 90 miles away.
Now the nice thing is that most families have at least two cars, so replacing one of them with a 150mi EV is a no-brainier.
There aren't any gas stations there either. If you were planning on going to a location like that, you might consider bringing a generator for emergencies. Or you could limp down to the general store or ranger station for an emergency boost. Just like you would bring a couple of jerry cans full of gas for emergencies.danrjones said:johnlocke said:Back in the day (60's and 70's) , cars had 20 gal fuel tanks and got 12-14 MPG. That gives a 240 mile range. Cars like a Pinto or Vega had 12 gal fuel tanks and got 20 MPG. Again a 240 mi range. It wasn't until the mid 70's and the fuel shortages that manufacturers started putting in larger gas tanks so you wouldn't have to fill up as often. Hardly anyone drives more than 3-4 hrs. at a time. Most people need a break after 3 hrs of driving (or sooner if you're chugging that Big Gulp). 300 miles is the upper limit of what most people need and the bottom end is something over 200 miles for convenience. Since you can charge at home every night and don't need to look for a gas station on the way, something around 150 miles is actually more than sufficient. The only real problem with shorter range cars is going to be battery degradation due to more frequent charging. If you solve that and enable really Fast Charging ( say 5-10 min to 90%) then range is a non-issue. If you can do either shallow discharge or 2-3 days between charging sessions batteries would last a lot longer even in their current form. That's why the trend is toward bigger batteries and longer ranges. Elon Musk has given a range of 1000-1500 full discharge cycles as the lifetime of a battery in normal use. For a 60 KWH battery, that's 200,000-300,000 miles of operation. Even a 30 KWH Nissan battery in a cool climate (Say Ireland) could do 90,000-130,000 miles. A bigger battery isn't necessary for more range but rather to reduce the frequency of charge cycles or to encourage shallower charge and discharge events.
It depends on where you live and if you plan to still have a traditional gasoline or gasoline hybrid.
Rivian is targeting 400 miles for a reason - if you are going up in our mountains , you need both the miles and the elevation. Someday there may be fast charging stations in the national parks - but at every forest service trail-head and campground? Probably not.
So the solution is either having two vehicles, having one that takes gas for those trips, or having a lot more range in one of your EV's
In other countries or parts of this country, 150 can do everything. Here it can't. Heck the nearest town is almost 90 miles away.
Now the nice thing is that most families have at least two cars, so replacing one of them with a 150mi EV is a no-brainier.
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