Does Toyota brand (and Japanese cars in general) are better than European and American ones

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='Camacha']Define [I]performance[/I]. Power and acceleration wise? Probably. Torque is amazing in electric motors. Range wise? Not a chance.[/QUOTE]
According to Tesla the Model S has up to 270 miles of range. That's EPA certified, apparently. But it is an "up to" value, meaning that's it only when the conditions are perfect. But it's still pretty good.

And it's MPGe is much higher than average normal MPG.

Sorry for imperial, guys. :/

[Temstar]

The main reason Toyota is so reliable is simple - they just sell A LOT of cars. For quite a long time now Toyota has been number one globally by volume. More than 10 million per year is a lot of vehicles, with that many other people around driving Toyota the gremlins would already have been identified and fixed. That's why instead of trying to make their own engine Lotus just buy Toyota engines and bolt on superchargers to make them more sporty.

I think in 2015 Volkswagen overtook Toyota, but given what's happened this year Toyota will probably be back on top again next year.

[Camacha]

[quote name='Bill Phil']According to Tesla the Model S has up to 270 miles of range. That's EPA certified, apparently. But it is an "up to" value, meaning that's it only when the conditions are perfect. But it's still pretty good.[/QUOTE]

If you compare it to a single tank of gas, that is decent, if that range is actually achieved (which often is not the case, hence the [I]up to[/I] like you say). Anything beyond a single charge is rather painful, though. The issue with electric cars is not really how they drive, it is how they fuel up. There the whole electric thing falls apart with the current technology. Like I said, adoption will depend on that being fixed. People are used to the luxury of near instant refuelling and if one thing bothers people more than anything, it is luxuries and toys being taken away.

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='Camacha']If you compare it to a single tank of gas, that is decent, if that range is actually achieved (which often is not the case, hence the [I]up to[/I]). Anything beyond a single charge is rather painful, though. The issue with electric cars is not really how they drive, it is how they fuel up. There the whole electric thing falls apart with the current technology.[/QUOTE]

The supercharger helps. If I recall correctly, it's about 5 minutes to 80%.

[Camacha]

[quote name='Bill Phil']The supercharger helps. If I recall correctly, it's about 5 minutes to 80%.[/QUOTE]

I recall that wreaking havoc on the durability of your battery.

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='Camacha']I recall that wreaking havoc on the durability of your battery.[/QUOTE]

It probably does.

But it's going to improve.

[cantab]

I still feel battery swapping may be the way to go. It should be possible to make it pretty quick and simple to pull out a drained battery pack and put in a new one. Infrastructure requirements are fairly modest, much easier than hydrogen fuelling for example. The packs would be recharged steadily and could do most of the charging overnight, being much easier on the electricity grid than fast-charging would be.

It does though require something of a change in direction. Battery packs would need to be somewhat commodity items, you can't be swapping cutting-edge-technology batteries that cost several thousand dollars.

Historically this line of development was crippled by patents on the use of cheap NiMH batteries in electric vehicles, but getting into the details of that would probably fall foul of the forum's NO POLITICS rule. The relevant patents have I believe expired but it seems like the automakers are too far down the approach of expensive batteries to maximise range between charges.

[Camacha]

[quote name='cantab']It does though require something of a change in direction. Battery packs would need to be somewhat commodity items, you can't be swapping cutting-edge-technology batteries that cost several thousand dollars.[/QUOTE]

Why not? The simple solution is that you do not own them, just lease/rent/swap them. Who cares whether you get an old or a new battery then?

[longbyte1]

Thanks to tight regulations in developed places worldwide, I'd say the American and European markets are on par with Japanese cars/Toyota.

Since in Japan most people prefer public transportation, they try to make buying a car worth the cost with bells and whistles and reduced emission while keeping it at a reasonable but competitive cost elsewhere. In Europe, obviously people are aiming for fuel economy, since fuel can get very expensive (euros per liter), or a nice sports car. And in America - well, it's a bit of everything, really, given that oil companies [I]do[/I] have a say in fuel economy in the making of engines. Were it not for this influence, I'd say that the average fuel economy would have well surpassed the 25-30 mpg mark in the US.

But since Toyota [I]is[/I] the largest car manufacturer in the US, [I]they [/I]get the flak for the recalls. Not to mention that they have to make the cars actually serviceable from all around the world.

But then again, what does better mean? Is it a composite index of reliability, efficiency, and cost?

[cantab]

[quote name='Camacha']Why not? The simple solution is that you do not own them, just lease/rent/swap them. Who cares whether you get an old or a new battery then?[/QUOTE]Well, maybe. But then the swapping stations have a lot of value sitting around.

[Endersmens]

[quote name='cantab']Well, maybe. But then the swapping stations have a lot of value sitting around.[/QUOTE]

"In recent news, 30 electric car batteries were stolen yesterday, and with that many the thieves could have traveled anywhere in the country in their electric car!"

Now I'm imagining a black market for Prius batteries. :D

[jwenting]

I've owned both European and Japanese cars (4 of each, each for 3-4 years on average), and found no significant difference in quality or reliability between them.
I did find that the Japanese models tend to be more expensive to service. Spare parts cost more, dealers charge more per hour for servicing, etc.

Equipment levels and comfort are similar, the differences mostly up to personal preference whether you prefer one brand or another.

[Camacha]

[quote name='cantab']Well, maybe. But then the swapping stations have a lot of value sitting around.[/QUOTE]

What do you think gas reserves and infrastructure costs right now? Lots, probably much more than any battery stock can ever cost.

[Streetwind]

[quote name='Camacha'](Battery swap rate on Tesla Roadster)[/QUOTE]

The large number of swaps is because Tesla offers its Roadster customers the option to migrate to newer battery technology. The Roadster was Tesla's first car, and as such, it used immature technology. I'm not saying that it didn't have any problems - in fact, it probably did, precisely because it used immature technology. But the main reason for swapping batteries is that Tesla came forward several years later and said "for a few thousand bucks you can have twice the range you had before". A good number of drivers considered it worth the money and took them up on that offer.

It should also be noted that the 15% degradation over 160,000km figure describes a single battery pack's lifecycle, not a car's lifecycle that used multiple battery packs over that distance.



[quote name='Camacha'](Environmental impact of electric car manufacture versus conventional tailpipe emissions)

How would you imagine that? If you take increased production pollution and grid losses, your car and its charge has polluted a lot before it even drives off. Most countries still burn fossil fuels for the vast majority of their energy, meaning most electric cars run on coal and gas and have conversion and grid losses added to their power consumption.[/QUOTE]

I do not [I]imagine[/I] that, I have sources for that - one of which I linked you in the post you quoted. But sure, have another! :P
[IMG]http://teslaclubsweden.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Bklasse_co2.jpg[/IMG]
[URL="http://media.daimler.com/Projects/c2c/channel/documents/2582746_final_UZ_B_Kl_ED_dt_15_12.pdf"](Data source - PDF, German, 2014)[/URL]

The thing that few people realize is just how awfully inefficient an internal combustion engine really is, compared to centralized power production. If you take one liter (or other volume unit of your choice) of gasoline, and put it into a conventional car, you get a certain mileage out of it. If you take that same volume unit of gasoline and put it into a power plant to produce electricity, then subtract grid losses and conversion losses and anything else you like, and put the remaining electricity into an electric car... then the average electric car will drive [I]three times as far[/I] as the average conventional car.

The above paragraph, incidentally, describes the definition of "miles per gallon equivalent", or MPGe, which is used in the United States to rate EV fuel consumption in a manner that is directly comparable to the MPG rating of conventional cars. The average US car does 30 MPG, while the least efficient EVs do >80 MPGe and the most efficient ones do >100. (Quick note to avoid confusion: while the UK also counts in miles per gallon, they use different gallons, so their numbers look different from US numbers.)

It should also be noted that the MPGe approach only looks isolated at the consumption of an equivalent amount of oil. It does [I]not[/I] take into account the need for gasoline to be more thoroughly refined than what oil power plants consume, nor the amount of energy expended in distributing gasoline across a nationwide network of local gas stations. If you calculate the so-called "well to wheel" efficiency, the comparison ends up even more in favor of EVs than the MPGe rating suggests.

Oh, and the MPGe rating also assumes 100% fossil fuel based power production by definition. Adding renewable energy sources to the grid mix improves the EV advantage further still. ;)



[quote name='Bill Phil']The supercharger helps. If I recall correctly, it's about 5 minutes to 80%.[/QUOTE]

[quote name='Camacha']I recall that wreaking havoc on the durability of your battery.[/QUOTE]

Whoa whoa guys! Little bit of fact checking please before you post. These are the science forums, not the believe-forums! :P

A quick lookup says that superchargers do 50% in 20 minutes, 80% in 40 minutes, or 100% in 75 minutes. (Yes, the nonlinear increase in time required as you approach maximum charge is normal for lithium ion.) This is consistent with my earlier statement of getting about 300 km range over 30 minutes in a 430 km rated Model S, which is a number you see mentioned quite often by Tesla drivers.

(And this may be my own personal opinion, but re: long distance driving - If I was going to drive literally all day long, then I would consider a 30-minute break every 300 kilometers a welcome thing, not a chore. I would need time anyway to go to the loo, consume food and drink, and rest to avoid fatigue.)

The process of supercharging also does not in any way degrade the battery, because the car and the charging station's computers are in constant communication about the battery's status. The car performs active temperature management, heating or cooling the battery pack as required. If the system detects that the cell temperature ventures outside of the specs regardless of the car's best efforts, then the charging speed is automatically adjusted to prevent damage to the battery. However this probably doesn't happen outside of a summer heatwave. Edited November 19, 2015 by Streetwind

[Camacha]

[quote name='Streetwind']The large number of swaps is because Tesla offers its Roadster customers the option to migrate to newer battery technology. The Roadster was Tesla's first car, and as such, it used immature technology. I'm not saying that it didn't have any problems - in fact, it probably did, precisely because it used immature technology. But the main reason for swapping batteries is that Tesla came forward several years later and said "for a few thousand bucks you can have twice the range you had before". A good number of drivers considered it worth the money and took them up on that offer.[/QUOTE]

Considering the description, that is not the case here. It seems to be a mix of various reasons, with no special mention of the exchange program. Seeing that various parts of packs have been exchanged, swapping because of the upgrade seems unlikely, since that would be full pack swaps.

[quote]A considerable number of owners reported that some or all of their battery pack had been replaced: 23 out of 122, or 18.9%. The Roadster battery pack consists of 11 equal sheets of 621 cells. A battery eplacement can be anything from replacing a single sheet to replacing the entire battery pack. There are also a number of reasons for doing a partial or full replacement, not all related to battery health or capacity. Further, the replacement for a sheet or pack may be either completely new or refurbished.[/quote]


[quote]
I do not [I]imagine[/I] that, I have sources for that - one of which I linked you in the post you quoted. But sure, have another! :P[/quote]

That is the problem: there are a lot of wildly contradicting sets of information out there. I have seen these graphs in a number of varieties with numbers and results all over the place. Forgive me being sceptic towards the people pushing these exact cars.


[quote]Whoa whoa guys! Little bit of fact checking please before you post.[/QUOTE]

I did, which is the reason for my statement. Any modern battery suffers from quick-charging. Temperature, low and high voltage play a large role in that. While true that a car might be able to do more through active cooling, there are parts of the charging process that simply are the same for a car. Within specification, but with a higher temperature, means a reduced life. Modern batteries are annoying that way.

[Streetwind]

[quote name='Camacha']That is the problem: there are a lot of wildly contradicting sets of information out there. I have seen these graphs in a number of varieties with numbers and results all over the place. Forgive me being sceptic towards the people pushing these exact cars.[/QUOTE]

Then in the interest of broadening my horizon, I'd like to see those conflicting reports. Could you point me to them, please? I too would like to avoid one-sided information. It's just that so far, everything I've seen has been pretty much in agreement.

[Camacha]

[quote name='Streetwind']Then in the interest of broadening my horizon, I'd like to see those conflicting reports. Could you point me to them, please? I too would like to avoid one-sided information. It's just that so far, everything I've seen has been pretty much in agreement.[/QUOTE]

I must admit it is information I have seen over the years, but I will see what I can dig up :) Edited November 19, 2015 by Camacha

[Nibb31]

[quote name='cantab']Well, maybe. But then the swapping stations have a lot of value sitting around.[/QUOTE]

That's how Renault has been marketing its electrical vehicles in Europe. You purchase the car and rent the batteries. Battery rental and charging costs ends up much cheaper than a typical monthly fuel bill. All the swapping and recycling cost is covered by the rental fee.

Garages tend to have a lot of value sitting around anyway. You know, like cars.

[MK3424]

[quote name='Camacha']I recall that wreaking havoc on the durability of your battery.[/QUOTE]
Depends on how it's charged: if the batteries are charged with power to every single battery, instead of multiple ones in series. Then you might charge faster and better without the chance of destroying the batteries.

[Camacha]

[quote name='MK3424']Then you might charge faster and better without the chance of destroying the batteries.[/QUOTE]

It is all about temperatures and voltages and if you ramp up the power, both become more of a gradient.

[justidutch]

My following comments are purely from my own personal standpoint; strongly related to my reasons of purchasing an EV...

[quote name='Camacha']Before I start: do not get me wrong, I think electric cars are the future in a number of different ways. The technology just is a long way from being as good as conventional cars.[/quote]
I agree that the technology isn't nearly as good now as it will be, but I also feel good about "getting in on the ground floor" and contributing to the development. I think there is some benefit in that.


[quote name='Camacha']It shows the technology is not really ready for prime time yet. Those replacement numbers, even if they are not all because of battery issues, are terribly high. It also does little to mitigate the point that electric cars generally lose value much more quickly than conventional cars. Even if they are cheaper to drive, it is not really a sound investment. The fact that the technology is still developing quickly means the cars will continue to lose value at an accelerated rate for the foreseeable future, as newer and significantly better models keep appearing every year.[/quote]
Good point. But I am actually not worried about the resale value of my car as I plan on driving it 10+ years - I'm in for the long haul.

[quote name='Camacha']
Also remember that most cars have irreplaceable batteries. Tesla's are the exception, but most cars have batteries that are welded inside compartments in the floor or some similar arrangement. This means that if the battery goes, your car goes. It is scrap metal after that and exactly the reason recent early hybrids and electric cars were written off so terribly fast.
[/quote]
Not entirely true in the case of my I-Miev either. I'll find the sources if you want me to but several owners on an EV forum I am a member of have replaced batteries. It has been done. Moreover, my car's batteries are under warranty for 10 years. 10 years!!! Yes, lever that time there will be some degradation of capacity and therefore driving range, but in the aforementioned EV forum, there has yet to be an owner who has reported a range-loss of over 2% over 3 years of ownership. None of us actually know what will happen after 4, 5, 7, 10 years, etc. We are the Guinea pigs.

[quote name='Camacha']Most countries still burn fossil fuels for the vast majority of their energy, meaning most electric cars run on coal and gas and have conversion and grid losses added to their power consumption.[/quote]
Yes, the electricity production is an issue in many places and in some cases makes an EV a pretty crappy choice. But in my personal situation this is not an issue.

[quote name='Camacha']Even if electric cars match conventional ranges they are not as useful by a long shot, because they take forever to charge. That is not an issue if you zoom around a city, but if you do some serious driving, a day worth of driving now turns into a week long expedition with an electric vehicle. As it stands, you still need to rent a conventional vehicle if you go on longer trips, which makes it rather a hassle.[/quote]
My driving is purely in the city, the longest I ever need to go in a day is ~50 km. Plugging into a standard 120-volt outlet and charging at the slowest rate (level 1), it takes about 20 hours to fully charge my car. A pain for sure, but not if you plan for it. If you have a level 2 charger, then that time is reduced quite a bit. A full charge would take me a bout 5 hours. The level 3 chargers, though not economically feasible for individuals will give you an 80% charge in a matter of minutes, though that process can harm the batteries and is not recommended as a permanent way of life.



I'm sorry to have derailed the thread, by the way! And to the point of the OP, so far so good, absolutely no reliability issues to report. My father always said
FORD = Fix Or Repair Daily Edited November 19, 2015 by justidutch

[Camacha]

[quote name='justidutch']My driving is purely in the city, the longest I ever need to go in a day is ~50 km. Plugging into a standard 120-volt outlet and charging at the slowest rate (level 1), it takes about 20 hours to fully charge my car. A pain for sure, but not if you plan for it. If you have a level 2 charger, then that time is reduced quite a bit. A full charge would take me a bout 5 hours. The level 3 chargers, though not economically feasible for individuals will give you an 80% charge in a matter of minutes, though that process can harm the batteries and is not recommended as a permanent way of life.[/QUOTE]

A big part of the benefit of owning a car is the ability to jump in and go (almost) anywhere I please at that exact moment. If that is taken away, well, it reduces the benefit and value of having one dramatically. I deal with enough battery anxiety when it comes to my phone as it stands, no need for any more :D

Besides, city planners are making driving a car in the city unbearable. It is deemed the enemy, somehow. Edited November 20, 2015 by Camacha

[shynung]

Must have been because of the traffic. In Jakarta, if you came out at the wrong time of day, it takes [I]hours [/I]to get anywhere.

[justidutch]

[quote name='Camacha']A big part of the benefit of owning a car is the ability to jump in and go (almost) anywhere I please at that exact moment. If that is taken away, well, it reduces the benefit and value of having one dramatically.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. I assume you never leave your gas tank on empty for this very reason. Guess what - I never leave my battery on empty either. Unless you are one of those people that only need 2 or 3 hours of sleep, there's a built-in period of time each day where it makes sense to plug the car in.

And tell me why you think city planners think cars are the enemy? Could burning fossil fuels and barfing crap into the air play a part in that??????

[Camacha]

[quote name='justidutch']Absolutely. I assume you never leave your gas tank on empty for this very reason. Guess what - I never leave my battery on empty either. Unless you are one of those people that only need 2 or 3 hours of sleep, there's a built-in period of time each day where it makes sense to plug the car in.[/quote]

That is the whole point. I do not [I]need[/I] to keep my gas tank filled, because I can fill 'r up any hour of the day, in just 2 minutes. Want to drive to the next country? I can. How about that :P

[quote]And tell me why you think city planners think cars are the enemy? Could burning fossil fuels and barfing crap into the air play a part in that??????[/QUOTE]

If they discourage too many bikers from zipping around at the same time because parked bikes [I]are an annoyance[/I] I am not sure what they try to tell me any more. My bike got towed more often than my car, that should tell you something.

Within city limits I prefer a bike, both because parking is cheaper and my physical condition loves it. When that becomes less feasible (roughly 12 miles one way seems to be the limit of my comfort zone), the car takes over. Of course, I need to haul loads of stuff regularly, no bike or bus is going to appreciate that too much. Edited November 20, 2015 by Camacha