The most amazing thing from the rapidly changing outlook on BEVs that we find ourselves in is just the feeling of whiplash you get from it. In just a couple of years we went from being absolutely sure that this is it;the future is here. It’s utopic and the internal combustion engine is a thing of the past to an uncomfortable agreement with the CEO of Toyota, if perhaps disagree on his estimated market share breakdown. But the question is why. What made the BEV revolution hit a proverbial brick wall?
Well, I suppose that we kinda got swept up in the excitement of it all. Sure, the electric vehicle has existed for more than a century now. And I don’t know about you but I was already happily counting the days until the only diesel trucks I ever get to see are in museums. But I kinda forgot the main issue with BEVs. The same issue that has always affected BEV’s. The batteries. They’re always too heavy, too large, take too long to charge and never give you quite enough range. Or at least, that was the problem until now. And with the ever increasing amount of charging stations, all of a sudden it felt like we’d finally caught up. But then a couple of things started happening.
First, and, perhaps inevitably, BEVs started aging. They also started entering into the real world en masse. And while that’s beneficial for manufacturers to get real data and for everyone who wants to help that 20% of emissions go down as quickly as possible, it also meant that the real world would bring all of its baggage with it. And that included the losses at the plug, and the non-home chargers that aren’t 100% reliable. And the ranges which are inevitably lower than advertised. Or will become so as the battery ages. And people who thought worrying about the pricing of batteries was FUD slowly got countered by a rash of comically large bills…comical for people who didn’t face paying it or throwing a perfectly functional car in the bin. And then that colossal douchebag Newton got in the way. As it turns out, even if the losses are relatively small, there’s always going to be some power loss between your charger and the battery. In dino juice terms, it’s like filling up your car from a pump that has a little hole on the hose.
it doesn’t help that simple size and pricing (now, as ever, it’s not that much more expensive to make a large car than a small one) means that manufacturers focused their efforts in the larger, more expensive end of the market. And now those people want the latest and greatest, which is always coming next year thanks to wonderful tech advances. Larger BEV’s also suffer overwhelmingly thanks to poor aero and comically large weights. People who know about these sorts of things correctly point out that this is because the Electric motor is so efficient that what we’re seeing is just the effect of a much less-dense energy storage medium. But one gets the sense the average consumer would not be particularly interested on why their car’s range tanks while towing.
With any luck, we’ll continue development. The miracle battery will finally escape its “Five years away” prison, and we’ll get more inexpensive, cleaner cars without the sword of Damocles of battery manufacturing and recycling looming over our heads. In the meantime, since most journeys can fit on that battery, perhaps a nice PHEV will do the trick.
