xkcd

8873 readers

311 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1103

xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas (xkcd.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

714 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Fillicia 11 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The one thing stopping me is seeing how they fare long term with the overwhelming amount of electronics added to the cars.

Hopefully car manufacturers goes a different direction as electronic and appliances company went. Everyone I know that are into EVs went through 2 or 3 different one in the time I've owned my ICE car (~10 years). Most because of their lease ending and wanting the absolute newest but others due to battery issues making the car a total loss due to replacement cost.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

I’m not optimistic about this. The finance “geniuses” have seen how much money software and electronics companies are making from subscription models and trying to put them into even combustion powered cars. I think it’s BMW that’s already started trying to put heated seats on a subscription model. The equipment’s already in the car but it’s disabled unless you pay them a monthly fee.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I mean that’s not really a problem specific to EVs. But yeah I also drive an aging car because I don’t want one with 10x more failure points.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I'm hoping that as EVs become more common, conversion kits become a thing. Both straight-electric and PHEV; I would love to pull the oversized engine from my truck (it's a 4.0 in a Ranger, wtf, it doesn't need that kind of power) and replace it with a diesel-electric motor-battery-generator combo. With a half decent battery, I would be running on electric 95% of the time; for the other 5% (which is camping on rough trails, no I'm not renting a truck for it), there'd be the diesel generator backup

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Most because of their lease ending and wanting the absolute newest

Technology is moving so fast that this seems like a reasonable approach to me.

[–] Fillicia 2 points 5 months ago

Which is also the reason why I wish to wait for the technology to stabilize a little.