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In terms of critical minerals, 1 EV = 6 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) = 90 (!) hybrid ICE vehicles (not plug-in)
PHEVs provide a 90% base case solution (ie, 90% of us would use them as EVs for our daily use, without requiring the ICE to fire up) at a fraction of the cost and mineral usage of a full-blown EV. Note their comment that the 90 hybrids have a 37x higher reduction in GHGs than making 1 EV!! Standard hybrids aren't nearly as efficient in terms of power usage or reduced emissions but they are still 20-40% better than their ICE counterparts. Both vehicles are way more responsible uses of our minerals and energy right now. A standard hybrid only costs about $2000 more than a pure ICE vehicle these days, as the technology improvements and scale-up have significantly reduced their cost, and will probably be widely implemented across industry. Toyota will offer a hybrid option on every vehicle by the end of this year, I believe, including AWD options on cars that always used to be FWD (new Camry, Corolla, etc).
Thank you for doing that leg work. I occasionally used to get into conversations regarding the moralities of ICE vs EV (I live in CA afterall), and for every argument that could be made about evil oil, emissions, etc, I simply ask them to youtube Cobalt mining in the Congo, that usually leads them to enough of a rabbit hole that I find myself no longer discussion the moralities/religious perspectives of emissions/carbon/EV/etc. Next on the docket is veganism, lol.
Imagine though if they crack the code on wireless charging, so you could charge your car in your garage by simply being in it. People fixate on the convenience factor, but really the value is that you could shrink the size of the battery. Being wireless, you could feasibly create more stations as it requires less operating hardware than a current station. So if you could constantly, conveniently top off, you would need less and less of a battery. I think you'd still need the option to accomodate people's commutes, but if you think how many times you're just running errands that barely require 20 miles, or for alot of people living in urban enviroments, their commute oftentimes is about 20 miles, it's just the traffic aspect that makes it take so long.
Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k
Vehicle innovation is always welcome, and the E-Ray is an interesting design study (though not my cup of tea). But with more choices, everyone wins!
Aaaaanyway, yeah feel like the EV hype is starting to dwindle, but electrification on some level is absolutely here to stay. The bigger question is what about manual transmissions. I know they account for such a small percentage of sales, but for certain cars they account for much more. I believe that it's more the OEMs deciding not to deal with it than actually responding to market demand. For instance, it's cheaper to just add power windows vs offering manual which is why I get mad when I see manual windows, much like a modern car charging for things like Android Auto (looking at you Germans), these are practically no cost options these days. My point is, they have to look at what's selling in the used market, the prices they're going for, etc, and have to think there is a demand. The car industry is following the luxury goods industry more and more, and if they continue to follow that trend they will understand that offering a manual makes business sense.
The caveat though is that I think the affordable manual is likely to do die. But, cars like the Eray that essentially is more dual motored than hybrid gives me hope that manuals can still be around. Simply take a FWD manual car, and add the EV drivetrain to the rear, and boom, AWD hybrid with manual. Frankly, I'd rather work on that than a modern turbo charged anything with more than 4 cyclinders.
Sorta wish they just paired with the flat plane engine. Nothing is going to touch the Tesla Roadster once it's released, so really the only reason to get anything with an ICE motor is for the noise, and GM makes a gloriously sounding one at that, but they choose not to. Makes no sense to me. The only benefit of having the added complication and maintenance of old tech is the romantic aspect of it- sound and feel. Give me a C8 with the flat plane hybrid drivetrain with a manual, and I'd put that poster on my wall.
I agree that the Z06 mill plus an upgraded hybrid set up, starting from the eRay would ge special
I think their game will be to offer max power so turbo reads well for that story board
