Car & Bike [EV's] Thoughts on Electric Vehicles (EV's)?

Do you own an Electric Vehicle?

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iPwnz

iPwnz

Brutally Honest
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So one industry and market which are seeing a surge in popularity is the electric motor vehicles sector.

Do you own EV's? If Yes, what model and how much did you pay? If no, are you interested in buying one?
With price of fuel really high for the last couple of years, its 100rs/liter here where I live, what are your thoughts on EV's?
Do you think the prices of EV's are justified?
 
iPwnz said:
Do you think the prices of EV's are justified?
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Replying not as an Owner / Prospective owner but an automobile engineer working in the electric mobility space:
There are a variety of factors that cause the prices of EVs to be where they are, most significant of which are the input cost of high technology items.

More importantly, however, what we should look at is the TCO (Total cost of ownership), and not just the initial acquisition cost.

TCO includes:
Initial acquisition cost
Registration / Insurance / Road Tax
Daily running cost
Annual maintenance

Electric vehicles have advantages in three out of the four mentioned here. There are waivers on registration cost and road tax under various state government schemes, the daily running cost is a fraction of what it costs to run petrol ones, and given that there are way fewer moving and wear / tear prone parts, the maintenance cost is also expected to be lower.

The most significant benefit of-course comes from the daily running cost, that may be as low as ₹1 / km, compared to ₹5 or higher / km for petrol cars. If one has a high annual running, these savings may be to the tune of a lakh each year, and with the longer life of the vehicle as a whole (no NGT order of 10 years in NCR and the like), the long term TCO would be lower in electrics.
 
Is this true that the main battery replacement cost is 40% of the vehicle cost ?

Tata Nexon's main battery costs 7 - 8 Lakh...
 
Psycho_McCrazy said:
Replying not as an Owner / Prospective owner but an automobile engineer working in the electric mobility space:
There are a variety of factors that cause the prices of EVs to be where they are, most significant of which are the input cost of high technology items.

More importantly, however, what we should look at is the TCO (Total cost of ownership), and not just the initial acquisition cost.

TCO includes:
Initial acquisition cost
Registration / Insurance / Road Tax
Daily running cost
Annual maintenance

Electric vehicles have advantages in three out of the four mentioned here. There are waivers on registration cost and road tax under various state government schemes, the daily running cost is a fraction of what it costs to run petrol ones, and given that there are way fewer moving and wear / tear prone parts, the maintenance cost is also expected to be lower.

The most significant benefit of-course comes from the daily running cost, that may be as low as ₹1 / km, compared to ₹5 or higher / km for petrol cars. If one has a high annual running, these savings may be to the tune of a lakh each year, and with the longer life of the vehicle as a whole (no NGT order of 10 years in NCR and the like), the long term TCO would be lower in electrics.
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What about the "load" they can carry? Are EV's as strong and durable as fuel vehicles? Because from the design they seem like they are made for lighter load capacity especially for the two-wheelers.
 
iPwnz said:
What about the "load" they can carry? Are EV's as strong and durable as fuel vehicles? Because from the design they seem like they are made for lighter load capacity especially for the two-wheelers.
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While my information may be incomplete, some of electric two wheelers that were widespread in the market were built using very low power motors, thereby limiting the performance and load-bearing capacity. I don't think these were ever intended to be, or marketed as replacements of 125cc scooters, or larger capacity motorbikes.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have EVs like Tesla, which earlier were ludicrous, and now go Plaid.

A vehicle engineered for a specific purpose will fulfil that. If a vehicle is a 5 seater + luggage, it will be validated to be capable of doing that.

Electric motors are inherently very durable, given that they avoid, among other friction wear and tear, the 50 ~ 70 internal explosions per second that a typical IC engine endures at around 50-60 km/h. They should really be called internal explosion engines, rather than internal combustion engines.
 
Have you looked into the specs and "performance" of these EV scooters? What do you think of them? Seems like Ola is the most popular one despite not producing them and delivering them on time.
 
Psycho_McCrazy said:
They should really be called internal explosion engines, rather than internal combustion engines
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+1 to this. I am just amazed at how far the engine durability has come from the first ICE which must have took so much explosion to current ones. This would be for normal consumer based engines, F1 and dragsters get totalled very quickly.

IIRC, Tesla did launch an EV pickup truck and there was another one which Jerry Rig did a review on his mountain ride.
I think EV is still behind compared to ICE but it will mature quickly with support and RnD.
@iPwnz if you are interested into Ola ev, wait for now. There have been many issues wrt build quality, suboptimal performance. They will need time to rectify these issues.
 
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I like EV because of fuel price but I don't intend to buy it soon. If I'm going to buy then I'd like to go for an EV bike which can do rough mountainous terrain. Else it will be of little use to me. That's why I asked about the durability. Also not necessarily Ola's.
 
I think it's still a little too soon for 4 wheeler EV'S. In another 5 years or so battery packs should get cheaper and even better.
 
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