On 9/22/2017 8:43 PM, sms wrote:
On 9/22/2017 5:40 PM, jbeattie wrote:
,,,
I rode one eBike on the test track that was amazingly powerful. The ones
with the manual throttle tend to be more powerful than the ones with
"pedal assist." "Pedal assist" is apparently a legal thing, to prevent
it from being classified as a moped or motorbike.


This is known as the "e-vehicle façade", if you did not know...

Piston motors have very low torque when idling and usually have their
power peak up around 75% of their maximum RPMs.

Electric motors generally put out their maximum torque at zero RPMs and
their torque decreases as RPMs go up. So e-vehicles typically have HUGE
power when accelerating, especially from a standstill. This is easy for
dealers to demonstrate, and it is usually pretty impressive. And it's
been this way always: there are articles online from electric cars 100
years ago where people talked about it.

The two major shortcoming of e-vehicles (that use on-board storage
batteries) are things that you don't notice on a short test drive. The
first is overall range, and the second is the actual-cost-per-mile,
after battery replacement is factored in.

The highest operating cost is not the electricity involved in changing
the batteries, it is replacing the batteries as they expire. And they
all do expire. The current crop of e-car makers insists it's not an
issue, but they warranty the batteries for the original purchaser--which
only means that the person who bought the car new won't get stuck with
replacement battery costs. That (BIG) bill is getting dropped on the
next person who buys the car used.

A MAJOR chapter of the e-car story is not yet written: what happens when
these new cars become used cars and nobody will buy them because they
immediately need a $3000-$5000+ battery put in? Is the dealer going to
pay for that too? Or will there be another govt subsidy? If not, then
how much would you pay for any new car that had little to no resale
value?.... Stay tuned....

Replacement battery costs is the reason that no battery-powered large
vehicles have ever come into common use before.

By far, the most common electric vehicles world-wide is trains, that are
fed from overhead wires and so are freed from the costs of batteries
entirely. The most popular options for Tesla cars may yet become a
pantograph.