xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
Alt text:
An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.
You're viewing a single thread.
Gas engines have decent range. Gas engines are cheaper (as the electric engine prices are artificially inflated, just look at Chinese prices), with gas engines you can listen to the sound of the engine to diagnose problems before they occur, batteries don't degrade (you still have car batteries, but when they degrade, you can still drive a car for as long as with the new battery. You can refuel it in a couple of seconds. Anyone can make one sided arguments. There isn't a best thing for everything.
The reason why you may be able to diagnose an ICE by sound is because they're complex. That's not a positive. An electric motor has just a few moving parts. If it goes bad you don't really need to work to figure it out and fix it.
The rest of the arguments can be made, but as you imply they're disingenuous. The sound one is just not a benefit at all.
I was apprehensive about EVs but the first time I rode in one I immediately fell in love with it. I get carsick easily, and the super-smooth ride without the chug-chug-chug of an internal combustion engine made the experience surprisingly much more pleasant for me. I do not use a car, but if I had to buy one, I don't think I could ever stomach an ICE again knowing that this alternative is available.
Chug-chug-chug? Are you sure you weren't in a steam locomotive?
I knew that motion sickness is triggered by frequent starts and stops and frequent turns, but even I was not aware of how big a contribution the engine vibration makes until I got to experience a ride without it.
At a stretch, I guess you could say that a battery that's going bad doesn't make a sound.
But yes, electric motors are way more reliable than internal combustion engines and objectively superior. You would never use an ICE over an EE for any application where you have a reliable supply of electricity.
Range anxiety is largely a perception thing. The vast majority of car journeys are well within the range of an EV, you just need to get in the habit of plugging in like you would your phone. For journey's long enough for it to be more than a single charge you really should be stopping for more than a few seconds anyway as you need recharging.
you just need to get in the habit of plugging in like you would your phone
Yeah but not everyone lives in suburbia with ample plug-in options available to them. Where I live the street-side charging spots are usually occupied, and the parking spot that I rent has no charging.
For journey’s long enough for it to be more than a single charge you really should be stopping for more than a few seconds anyway as you need recharging.
True to some extent, I have to check my travel logs but I do feel like stopping for an hour every 300km or so is longer and much more often than I would normally stop on long road trips. My (diesel) car has a range of well over 1000km so often I stop for only 15 minutes for a coffee and to stretch my legs, or just for a restroom stop and a driver swap. We usually plan just one big stop (1h) for dinner. Most destinations I've been to I could reach without refueling at all.
There's also the issue of contention for charging spots. On gas stations near the big highways towards popular destinations you often already have to queue to get gas. This will become worse when EVs become common place and people occupy a charging spot for an hour instead of a fuel pump for 30 seconds to top up.
Little anecdote: every year around the holiday season, there are several company wide e-mails from EV driving co-workers requesting to swap cars (with a co-worker who has a CE car) to go on holiday. So I think the practical experience may not be as rosy as you paint it.
Okay, but it is still jumping through hoops which doesn't exist with gas cars. What if I have 3 people driving, like in a road trip? You can't continuously drive after refueling anymore. It isn't just a perception thing, it absolutely requires planning and stops you wouldn't take otherwise.
You jump through all sorts of hoops with gas cars. We've all made it part of the habits of our lives and don't think about them, but they're absolutely there.
I'd honestly love to just plug in every night instead of having to spend time getting gas every week. Sure it's only a few minutes, but that's probably a few hours of my life every year. Getting an electric vehicle and renting cars for road trips would honestly make much more sense for me.
Unfortunately, it looks like it'd be financially irresponsible for me to buy an electric car right now while I still have a perfectly functional ICE car.
You're arguing in favor of quickly swappable batteries.
China's got your back.
https://hbr.org/2024/05/how-one-chinese-ev-company-made-battery-swapping-work
Wow, that would actually make electric cars viable for more, than just an expensive city car.
It's not going to work out. Battery connections need to be standardized across manufacturers, which is a lot more complicated than standardizing a plug. The garages to do swaps are a lot more complicated than chargers. It forces certain decisions on battery placement, which cuts out things like integrating the battery into the frame to save weight.
Charger deployment has raced ahead. We need a lot more of them to support the EVs we already have, and need even more for the EVs that are going to be purchased over the next decade. Switching over to swapping would send the EV market into whiplash that just isn't necessary.
I'm not understanding your "it can't be standardized if it's too complicated" argument. That hasn't seemed to have been a big issue for, for example, computer motherboards.
A counterpoint to that is things like batteries, ram, motherboards, etc. in laptops (and pretty much every other device that uses rechargeable batteries). The fact is that for better designs the batteries are probably not going to be easily standardized in electric cars (also kills innovation).
PC motherboards aren't trying to use the least amount of space possible, because desktops can be large. The same isn't true with cars, the space matters.
Notebooks can be small. Those motherboards are also using standardized elements.
This is just silly defeatism.
Motherboard standardization is not even close to comparable.
You have to standardize the dimensions and unlatching mechanism of a huge battery out from under the car and latching a new one in. It has to support a battery that weighs around 2 tons. This isn't just a matter of scaling up a AA battery connector. And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process. Since we've had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we're not likely to do the same for batteries.
And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process.
Yes, that is how standardization works.
Since we’ve had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we’re not likely to do the same for batteries.
Unless it's regulated for them to do so. Time for the EU to step up.
jumping through hoops which doesn't exist with gas cars.
You have to physically drive to a different location to get petrol. That's a hoop. Just because you're used to it doesn't mean it's not there.
What if I have 3 people driving, like in a road trip? You can't continuously drive after refueling anymore. It isn't just a perception thing, it absolutely requires planning and stops you wouldn't take otherwise.
It is a perception. The vast majority of trips this won't be an issue. In the once in a bluemoon that you'll be driving more than the range of the car, yes, it could be. This is where it's perception. People seem to think that they'll run commuting to work or half the journeys they take will be affected. Whereas it's really really rare.
So what you are saying is "I don't care about the points you raised" essentially. I said specifically "hoops that don't exist with gas cars" not "gas cars don't have hoops to jump through". Electric cars have issues with trips longer than their range, which you then need to charge for a very long time compared to just refueling the gas car.
Sorry about the hoops issues, I clearly slightly misread
However, two can play at being pedantic. I addressed your point about range anxiety before you even made it. As I said originally it is largely perception. I even went as far as to agree with you that in the 0.000001% of journeys you identified it would be an issue.
Range anxiety is not just about a single trip. You are assuming that not only will we all be able to just charge whenever and wherever we park our cars, but that we'll never fail to do so. You also assume that only one person will be driving the car. If I forget to plug in my phone it's not a big deal. I can just plug it in on the way to work or bring a battery pack. And it is not uncommon for my kid to bring our car home on empty. And then of course there are broken charges and unreliable utilities. I can't even count on a reliable internet connection wherever I go and that can be supplied wirelessly. I have lived far enough out in the country before that I've had to deal with range anxiety in ICE vehicles. The threat of running out of gas before you can make it to a gas station is a very real and stressful issue. I can only imagine how much worse it is going to be when it takes more than just a gas can and a few minutes to get you going when you screw up.
the vast majority of the cost of an electric car is in the battery, every phone I've had really degrades in battery after a couple years, and my dad still drives an ICE car about the same age as me
After all, it's recommended to stop before reaching 400 km or 3 hours. And now EVs have that range or close to it.
Keklol. On paper maybe. 250 max. 200 in the winter. If you're lucky. That's less than my bike. And I can go the entire trip at 160kph avg, while the EV loses like 30km range once it goes over 140.
My current car cost me 9k. It's super efficient. Why should I switch to EV? Can't even afford one. Need another 4k investment to get a charging port installed, cuz there ain't any nearby. There are zero upsides for me. Only more costs. Costs I won't ever recuperate over the lifetime of the car. Or even my remaining lifetime.
If you live in the Balkans, you can hardly charge your electric car anywhere and if you go on holidays, It takes way longer, since you have to recharge multiple times and it takes a couple of hours.
Ok, what's your point? Did I say it's always and in every single niche scenario people are going to come up with a perception issue? Or did I in fact say it's largely (as in most of the time and in most cases) a perception issue?
Sorry. I was just mentioning, why electric cars also aren't perfect and I would still rather buy a diesel.
Sorry for coming on a bit strong.
It had just started to feel like people were trying to say that I thought range anxiety was absolutely never legitimate.
In reality most people will do maybe one journey a year where it could possibly be. For them they'll have saved so much from reduced maintenance and running costs of an EV that they could hire an ICE vehicle for that one trip and still have saved themselves money.
Of course if you're way off the top end of the bell curve with your usage an EV may not yet be the best option for you.
Yes, I was also a little extreme about range anxiety. There still are EVs, that have decently long range. The reliability is what we need with all technology. I'm actually interested what could actually break in them other than battery or storage chips.
just look at Chinese prices
The prices of chinese EVs are artificially deflated! They heavily subsidize their EV manufacturing sector.
What about the european electric car prices in china?
Your argument is with electric cars vs ice cars. xkcd likely specifically was talking about engines just so all the range arguments don't work. It's just engine vs engine and there electric is far superior.
That's like saying a sword is a better weapon than a gun because the sword can bei used for cutting, hitting und thrusting and also as a tool while the gun can only hit and shoot while needing additional components to function that quickly run out while being more complex to build. You cant just ignore the context to make your argument. He's clearly talking about cars here.
I didn't remove context, you added context.
I mean, could easily be talking about lawn mowers, which also have gas and electric and arguable more priority for torque generation.
Well for the lawn mowers, I think it doesn't matter that much what specs you choose. You don't need to be comfortable using it if you don't mow the lawn every day, but it's still better if you choose a better, longer lasting product.
Specs absolutely matter. Incline of your lawn, outdoor outlet location, type of grass you have growing. I'd never recommend a plug in electric lawn mower to someone who needs to mow six acres of hills.
That said, electric mowers by and large are better for most consumers.
Oh well, I just assumed it was about cars for some reason.
In speed and torque, yes, but not in sound and tactile feeling.
Sound depends on whether you value low noise. And not sure about tactile feeling, but ngl, the feeling of drivint an ICE car is awful after switching to EVs. The instant acceleration and responsiveness is just great.
electric cars are expensive, the engines are pretty cheap.
As a US citizen I am painfully aware that I could dip down to mexico and buy a competent EV at 35~40k USD value in MXN. Alternatives in the states, even produced here, are upwards of 50k for the poverty model. Maybe the engine itself is cheaper, but the vehicles absolutely are not (unless you are being denied options by your government as part of an ongoing slap fight).
Wow, you can actually get normally priced cars outside of EU.
In which world electric motors are more expensive than combustion engines?
The EV motors are cheaper but we need to include the battery. An empty gas tank does not cost much. An uncharged car battery is pretty expensive.
You're moving goalposts. Electric motors are cheaper. The end.
The motor yes. But an electric car does not move with a motor only.
By just calculating the motor we are making up cost comparisons that do not reflect the actual cost of the car.
Are you having trouble understanding the English language? The OP clearly stated the following:
Gas engines are cheaper
Which is patently false.
Then why are EVs priced higher than ICE?
What does EV and ICE have to do with comparing electric motors to gas motors?
For other reasons.
Either they are priced higher or they aren't. They are priced higher and as such I won't be buying one anytime soon. Not until they are a decade old on their original batteries.
Do you also have English language comprehension issues?
Reddit moment. You're right, but you let this guy frustrate you into responding to the same nonsense multiple times in a row, and some people thought you were being mean.
I think you are having trouble understanding the English language. Most people have heard of a thing called context.
“A programmer is going to the store and his wife tells him to buy a gallon of milk, and if there are eggs, buy a dozen. So the programmer goes shopping, does as she says, and returns home to show his wife what he bought. But she gets angry and asks, ‘Why’d you buy 13 gallons of milk?’ The programmer replies, ‘There were eggs!’”
Now as we are describing car types one with a gas and one with an electric engine, and comparing their prices, maybe put the LLM context tokens slightly higher before responding.
No, the OP didn't say a word about cars. Learn to read please.
Once again you appear incapable of understanding context. The explain XKCD article might be of help.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2948:_Electric_vs_Gas
Learn to read.
No
U