As I am writing this in December of 2023. Right now, the car industry’s biggest buzzword is obviously “electric”. Well, maybe. “Capacitive touch” would also be a good contender. But both of these have something in common - I don’t like them that much. Electric cars are inevitable - it’s clear the internal combustion engines of yesterday are probably going to be completely replaced by the batteries and motors of tomorrow. But despite the obvious advantages of electric cars that might get brought out when EV enthusiasts are trying to convince people about them, I just can’t really get behind them. I think they have a place, but we still have a few things to work out.
The first reason I don’t like them is driving experience. The advent of electric cars has brought with it crazy performance figures. The Kia EV6 GT, Kia’s flagship performance electric SUV, has 430 kW of power - about 563 horsepower. It does 0-100 km/h in 3.5 seconds. That’s about the same as a Porsche Carrera GT, priced at $440,000 USD when it was released in 2003. The Kia costs $62,695 USD. Looking at that it’s clear that electrics take the cake when it comes to power for money. It’s plain to see, they’re super fast in a straight line. But the one thing that EVs fail to emulate of their petrol counterparts is the driving experience - the sound of the engine, the feel of the gearstick when shifting gears, and how the car feels going around corners. All things the Carrera GT does amazingly, whilst the Kia EV6 has no engine, no gearbox and the handling of a (very) heavy crossover SUV. To counter this, some Hyundai models have created fake, “electric-esque” engine noises inside and outside the vehicle. I despise this sort of feature - the sound of an engine is a secondary effect of its primary function. It’s derived from explosions within the power plant, of which an electric motor has none to speak of. Electric motors can make noise, and the amplification of the spaceship-like “whir” they emit to add some suspense to the drive is something I can definitely get behind. But straight up faking engine noise? I really don’t like it.
Next is how long they take to charge. Yes, I know the average commute is much shorter than any new EV could do in range, but for that time when you want to go for a long road trip, it’s a shame that in most cases, you’ll have a pretty hard time. I know the charging network may be sophisticated in the US and Europe, especially if you have a Tesla, but in Australia most non-Tesla chargers are slow, broken or non-existent. So, I think an Australian household would probably do best with one internal combustion engine car for the heavy stuff and one EV for getting around town. Or better yet - a hybrid! Some of the best selling cars in Australia are hybrids. Plug-in hybrids have the best of both worlds - no emissions most days, with the engine coming in clutch when it comes time to go a heavy distance, even then still getting impressive fuel economy compared to a typical ICE car.
Some would say that these disadvantages of EVs are superficial - and the environmental benefits of an EV would mean the concessions are worth it. But there’s another catch there - making an electric car is a lot more complicated than an ICE car. In fact, making the EV would mean more pollution and emissions, at least at first. You’d have to drive a Tesla Model 3 for about 21,000 kilometres for it to do less harm to the environment than a Toyota Corolla that had done the same amount of mileage. And when the lithium battery eventually loses its capacity and becomes functionally useless, there’s not a lot of easy ways to recycle them. Recycling and then replacing them is difficult and expensive and could cost and has costed EV owners a lot in unforeseen costs.
You might think I don’t care about the environment after this piece, and I’d argue against that. I believe climate emissions are a problem, and ICE cars are definitely a part of that. But so is the production and disposal of batteries. So, for our future, perhaps we could build more plug-in hybrids, like the Chevrolet/Holden Volt - a vehicle (that I like) which is now discontinued due majorly to poor marketing. It’s clear some people, perhaps including me, might have to change their car habits in the future. But for all the environment-saving you supposedly due in an EV, they do have a lot of drawbacks at the moment.
Charlie Grivell
23rd of December, 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment