The future is electric

[mealiejimmy]

Well the Teslas, even the model 3 are pretty whacky in some respects. The way the doors open upwards. Which usually works, but then, if they don't, say in an accident there is the lever that you can pull to break them open. My Tesla owning chums are a bit paranoid about that, first time you get offered a ride in one you might get a briefing on never to pull that lever, it is not the way to open the door. Which, TBH is a little obscure at the best of times.

Only the Tesla model X has "Falcon Wing" doors.
The model S,3 and Y (which account for a large majority of their output) all have normal doors

Cheers

Bruce

 

[mealiejimmy]

Lets see. Yours does 4.5 miles per kWh so you say. So if the 24 kWh battery is still as good as when it was new, that would give you a range of 108 miles. Ho hum.

As I said, my GF's one of similar vintage was knackered after about 18 months of her daily 70 mile commute, plus other driving around. That's probably 20,000 miles/year. Fair does, Nissan replaced the battery then she got rid of it after 3 years, when the HP agreement was done. Lost a load of beans though, compared with just sticking with a diesel Golf that she had run for years and still had years of life left in it. The buyer probably got a bargain. So she bought another petrol Golf. That does well over 55mpg, better than her old diesel one..

My Tesla driving chums expect 360 miles from their long range ones, and the relative with a standard one expects 278 miles. She has not been disappointed, two days/week she has to drive into her London office from southern Kent, that's 140 miles round trip. Each time. About 14,000 miles/year just for that. Never a worry for her. Earlier this year she took a trip up to the highlands of Scotland and around some of the coast. With some planning, and usually just plugging in to a 13A socket overnight at the AirB&Bs, she made it easily, albeit some anxious moments at times.

One of the others tries to visit his aged parents every couple of weeks, which is a 300 mile round trip, which it can do. That's maybe 8000 miles/year just for that. And so relaxing, with it's self steering on the A and M roads. Though he usually tries to top it up there, and along the way, simply to avoid wearing out the battery more than necessary. Since it is his personal thing, paid for from his own money, and he would quite like it to last for a good many years. As he put it to me, if he can get ten years out of it, then probably still sell it for a tidy sum, it's not so bad. At worst £100/week even if it was worth zero, which it won't be.

Compare that with drudges locked into PCP contracts for say £400/month for a basic car, that expire every three years then you start again.

Though he has said to me that it is such fun to drive, and so inexpensive to do so, that he gets great pleasure from just taking it out for a spin, and so is doing far more miles than is strictly necessary. Which is great, e.g. I happened to be at a brothers place about 80 miles away, and he buzzed over to see me, over hill and dale, a splendid route, for a cup of tea and a chat. He wouldn't have done that in his old big diesel truck, which he also keeps, to tow his horsebox, and yacht.

Nissan were leaders in mass ev production with the leaf, but they have stubbornly refused to put proper thermal management into their battery packs resulting is more rapid degradation and loss of range than any other ev.
Anyone doing a bit of research before buying an ev will know not to buy a Leaf unless they are only doing short daily journeys and have access to home charging.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Well the Teslas, even the model 3 are pretty whacky in some respects. The way the doors open upwards. Which usually works, but then, if they don't, say in an accident there is the lever that you can pull to break them open. My Tesla owning chums are a bit paranoid about that, first time you get offered a ride in one you might get a briefing on never to pull that lever, it is not the way to open the door. Which, TBH is a little obscure at the best of times.

Model X Falcon doors do you mean? I was tasked to do the development of the inside area of them. Hell of a challenge my hardest ever project. I had gone there to begin the 3 centre console development and take it away to Romania where the supplier had their engineering team = cheaper labour. But they had stopped that project because the actual S interior was so shiite according to the customer reviews" by sticking the leather direct onto the plastic substrates of the doors without a foam equals a hard feel". Same with the cockpit and you have to re-engineer all the gaps and the injection moulding tooling to accommodate the foams. So the engineering boss just said well you are here now and we are having a hard time here so go onto this X Falcon door project, "er thanks". Musks folly, they will never do that one again. Jimmy Carr even destroyed one by driving into a multi story with the door still up, Ha ha.

 

[Apthorpe]

On what basis is the assumption that the grid is not capable? The grid had LOADS of capacity available, its just about timing..

It has loads of overall capacity. It does not have local capacity to supply an equivalent replacement to a service station. A single supermarket or service station sized installation would require the equivalent supply for a mid sized town. That capacity just is not present.

.which is where smart meters and time of use tariffs come into play as already trialed and evidenced.

Rationing, which is what this is, is not a viable solution.

Peoples routine charging at home will be lead by the £ signs...do you charge at the dirtiest and most grid stressed times of day (4pm to 7pm) for 35p/kwh, or charge at 5p/kWh between 1am & 7am.

You charge when you have to charge. 30 million vehicles charging as required between 1 and 7am will eliminate that pricing differential very fast.

Fundamentally you're ignoring the necessity that this is a form of transport on which the entire life of the nation depends. If you have the sort of half-arsed system envisaged, then there will be extremely serious consequences. All projections of the adequacy of EV infrastructure presuppose less travel occurring. Indeed we already have lots of policies to impede transport and raise the cost of energy and one of the major consequences of that is a less productive economy - less wealth, less health, less employment, less leisure, less wellbeing. I'm not so keen on that.

The system goes even further to make our grid less stressed and cleaner with Vehicle 2 Grid technology.

While simultaneously making our transport system less functional. It's great if my car can supply the grid, right up until the time I need to drive somewhere. This whole thing is predicated on using the same electricity twice simultaneously and pretending that all travel is discretionary. There is enough capacity to produce enough electricity for transport, although not enough grid capacity to deliver it, and there will be enough battery capacity in cars to balance the intermittency of the grid - but crucially that battery capacity cannot both provide transport and supply the grid at once. That may look credible to a mediocre bureaucrat but it is obviously inadequate in the real world.
The same people who insist this will work are those who insisted that the power and gas price squeezes this winter were absolutely impossible. They have an apparently-clever-at-first-glance system designed by people lacking the mental capacity and critical thinking to realise that it is a house of cards.

 

[Sharpie]

Model X Falcon doors do you mean? I was tasked to do the development of the inside area of them. Hell of a challenge my hardest ever project. I had gone there to begin the 3 centre console development and take it away to Romania where the supplier had their engineering team = cheaper labour. But they had stopped that project because the actual S interior was so shiite according to the customer reviews" by sticking the leather direct onto the plastic substrates of the doors without a foam equals a hard feel". Same with the cockpit and you have to re-engineer all the gaps and the injection moulding tooling to accommodate the foams. So the engineering boss just said well you are here now and we are having a hard time here so go onto this X Falcon door project, "er thanks". Musks folly, they will never do that one again. Jimmy Carr even destroyed one by driving into a multi story with the door still up, Ha ha.

Yes, of course I was mixing things up a bit in that post.

And the 3s, and I suppose other models, are much less made from composites, far more straightforward body pressings. IIRC the very first prototype composite bodies were made for them by Lotus, who then advised on how to scale up production themselves. But composites are never going to be suitable for mass production (nor are they easily recyclable). So bashing vehicle bodies out of sheet metal is going to be the way, for a long long time yet.

The long promised new Tesla Roadster will I'm sure be absolute state of the art, and make some top supercars seem rather silly, but I suspect not really a priority at the moment.

Where is Musk's personal one ? Well you can track it here: Where is Starman? Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in Space! · Where is Starman?

My experience is as a passenger (and a brief drive myself) in model 3s. Conventional doors, but the lock mechanism is unusual, at least to me. To open from the inside you push a button that unlatches by I guess solenoids or motors. But there is a lever also provided to mechanically unlatch the mechanism, for use in emergencies such as when the battery has gone flat (highly unlikely), or more realistically when the car has been in an accident and the power cut off by the crash sensors. The problem is that this is not a robust thing, not to be designed to be used regularly, which is the obvious temptation for a passenger unused to the odd arrangement, hence my briefing the first time I had a ride in one. Basically "never pull that lever !!!" even though it seemed the obvious way to open the door. Perhaps it should be coloured red and have a flip cover to prevent accidental use.

Dealers warn new owners about this, never to use it, it will soon break. Plus to open the doors the windows have to slide down a little to clear the exterior trim, which will be damaged after a few goes of using the lever. I'm actually used to that, having run an open top Mercedes with fabric roof, that needed to do the same to seal tight into it. And my current car does that too when using the plipper, not the key, but the trim that is in the way is rubber and survives all that, and every time the doors are opened from inside. By their familiar mechanical lever. Tesla don't seem to care, they are still fitting the same flimsy thing. And the window clearance thing is I suppose necessary for the aero package to keep the car clean, aerodynamically.

I'm not sure how the outside door handles unlatch, but my guess is that they also are electronically coupled to do the window winding down and up thing. Maybe no direct mechanical connection, but that's just my speculation. they too can be a bit confusing, for people who actually expect a car to have an outside door handle that you just tug on.

Lots of youtubery, about just this, e.g. And from that I learned that you can't even open the glovebox manually, That requires going into the touch screen menu ??? Keeps the interior looking so clean, with it's faux-wood touches, but I prefer cars with dials, switches in the conventional places, mirrors that I can adjust with a knob/joyswitch, etc. Obviously I am a dinosaur and should just get with the programme..

It's all very clever, and soon adjusted to, but, when I used the term "whacky" I meant quite different.

BTW I don't like the central screen, all my life I have been driving cars where I expect to just glance down to see the instruments, preferably analogue dials (though I now prefer a digital speedometer, with a big display). Not to glance off to the left and downwards to the big screen, taking my eyes off the road.

If I had the money I would buy one ASAP. In every respect, range, battery degradation (minimal by most accounts) and sheer desirability, they are still far in advance. When they fit into the role that you mostly use.

 

[Sharpie]

Nissan were leaders in mass ev production with the leaf, but they have stubbornly refused to put proper thermal management into their battery packs resulting is more rapid degradation and loss of range than any other ev.
Anyone doing a bit of research before buying an ev will know not to buy a Leaf unless they are only doing short daily journeys and have access to home charging.

Cheers

Bruce

Indeed. But they have stopped putting a battery readout on the second generation ones. Just some arbitrary thing. My GF's did have the 12 bar battery health monitor, which was looking really bad after 18 months of her usage, which she had worked out, not being daft, as it should have been capable. By 24 months it was so bad that Nissan did cough up for a new battery, but in the interim it just wasn't something that she could rely on to do even 100 miles. She actually used it, to the design spec. (well, maybe not that, but the advertised spec) and it was shot after 18 months.

What did she do wrong ? well she actually used it. Daily, From full to nearly empty. It couldn't cope with that, for whatever reasons. Perhaps most of the other users didn't do that so were quite happy with what thy had bought.

She home charged it every night, but, as said, the Leafs didn't/don't bother to keep the battery warm (or cool even in other scenarios). So, looking back on it, it was unsurprising, but disappointing, that it turned out to be no good at all for what she had been promised that it could do. Early adopter, well yes, but Nissan, at the time were supposed to be the bees knees.

Being let down by it, twice, she'd had enough. She really wanted it to work for her, and went into it with the best of intentions, of which cheap motoring was far from a priority.

But that was a while ago and things have progressed. Not sure that I'd want to be running around in an old Gen 1 Leaf with a nominal 24kWh battery, no matter how cheap it might be. Unless I also had a decent car that does what I need it to do. Which I do (ICE obviously, and it is not a mundane one) And I don't want to run two cars, plus my campervan and three motorbikes. Being single, I don't need a run-around for short journeys for the "other half" where a degraded Leaf might cope. Not that she would condescend to that, being fiercely independent and runs her own ICE car, which is a lot better than mine. And she lets me drive it. But then I am not a normal person.

 

[Oly]

Lets see. Yours does 4.5 miles per kWh so you say. So if the 24 kWh battery is still as good as when it was new, that would give you a range of 108 miles.

Yep Sounds like running the battery from full to near dead (and lack of occasional rapid) may have killed off your GFs

Anyone doing a bit of research before buying an ev will know not to buy a Leaf unless they are only doing short daily journeys and have access to home charging.

If you dig through to the facts you'll find it's only after the 3rd or 4th rapid charge plus fast motorway miles that themal management is an issue. So after about 300 - 400 miles, so a bit more than short trips

It has loads of overall capacity. It does not have local capacity to supply an equivalent replacement to a service station. A single supermarket or service station sized installation would require the equivalent supply for a mid sized town. That capacity just is not present.

Rationing, which is what this is, is not a viable solution.

You charge when you have to charge. 30 million vehicles charging as required between 1 and 7am will eliminate that pricing differential very fast.

Fundamentally you're ignoring the necessity that this is a form of transport on which the entire life of the nation depends. If you have the sort of half-arsed system envisaged, then there will be extremely serious consequences. All projections of the adequacy of EV infrastructure presuppose less travel occurring. Indeed we already have lots of policies to impede transport and raise the cost of energy and one of the major consequences of that is a less productive economy - less wealth, less health, less employment, less leisure, less wellbeing. I'm not so keen on that.

While simultaneously making our transport system less functional. It's great if my car can supply the grid, right up until the time I need to drive somewhere. This whole thing is predicated on using the same electricity twice simultaneously and pretending that all travel is discretionary. There is enough capacity to produce enough electricity for transport, although not enough grid capacity to deliver it, and there will be enough battery capacity in cars to balance the intermittency of the grid - but crucially that battery capacity cannot both provide transport and supply the grid at once. That may look credible to a mediocre bureaucrat but it is obviously inadequate in the real world.
The same people who insist this will work are those who insisted that the power and gas price squeezes this winter were absolutely impossible. They have an apparently-clever-at-first-glance system designed by people lacking the mental capacity and critical thinking to realise that it is a house of cards.

"Mid sized town"?!? Very unlikely. I'd love to see some evidence.

"Rationing" - No, and it already happens on the continent and in the UK via Octopus Agile. It works well.

V2G - you clearly don't know how it works, it only accesses a set percentage of your charge. It'll never leave you with no power in the car.

I'm ducking out of this thread now as we're covering old ground already posted. Interesting to see Fifth Gear at Europe's Motor Show this week...dominated by EVs...whether you dislike it, worry about the grid, or embrace the change, EVs are coming and the futures largely smooth, silent and speedy.

 

[kenbro]

Yep Sounds like running the battery from full to near dead (and lack of occasional rapid) may have killed off your GFs



If you dig through to the facts you'll find it's only after the 3rd or 4th rapid charge plus fast motorway miles that themal management is an issue. So after about 300 - 400 miles, so a bit more than short trips



"Mid sized town"?!? Very unlikely. I'd love to see some evidence.

"Rationing" - No, and it already happens on the continent and in the UK via Octopus Agile. It works well.

V2G - you clearly don't know how it works, it only accesses a set percentage of your charge. It'll never leave you with no power in the car.

I'm ducking out of this thread now as we're covering old ground already posted. Interesting to see Fifth Gear at Europe's Motor Show this week...dominated by EVs...whether you dislike it, worry about the grid, or embrace the change, EVs are coming and the futures largely smooth, silent and speedy.

Won’t be silent for long!
After all the fuss about noise pollution they are now making it mandatory for EVs to be noisy.
Ken.

 

[Sharpie]

Not responding to anything in particular, but yes, my GF's Mk1 Leaf did expire (battery degradation) far too soon. Because she actually used it every day, in a realistic scenario, by no means extreme. It just couldn't do what was promised.

I daresay things have got better since, and if she now had something with say double the range, the battery would have an easier life.

Regarding public charging, well I live in a town of about 100,000 people, with a large catchment area of villages etc. Overall it is semi rural. So I did a quick look on ZapMap.com, and discovered that there are, in total, 32 public chargers. Ten are 7Kw (two of those are at the Nissan dealer, and probably not publicly available, but for their use). 18 are 22kW. All 18 of those are in public car parks, for which of course parking fees also apply, and the power is not free. Though ten of those are in just one car park (a bit of a demonstration project) That's if the bays are free when you roll up. But yes, 22 kW is a useful fast charge. A couple of hours of that might keep you going for 170 miles. That might last the average 20 miles/day driver for a week.

As for properly fast chargers, 50 kW plus, we have four. Two at Morrisons, two at the Esso garage. Then there are four more at the Bannatynes health spa, for their clientele. There is not much around the Esso garage to keep you amused sans car, other than the adjacent Lidl. The Morrisons however is fairly central to the town, and so an hour or so of boosting, if you have a car that can take that, is quite practical. To fill up for 200 miles or so. Mind you, squirting in 4 gallons of petrol or diesel might seem a bit easier.

So, 32 chargers for 100,000 plus people. That's hardly scratching the surface.

ATM, EV's are basically for those who can charge them at home. Mostly meaning on their driveway overnight (if they have a driveway). Or at work during the day.

My mega Tesco, just across the road from me, does have four PodPoint 7kW chargers which you can use for free whilst you do your shopping, for up to 3 hours, (who spends nearly half a working day at Tesco to do their shopping ?) but I've looked at them on the PodPoint website and they are not exactly used to full capacity. (Named Rory-Frey and Lena-Dirk, for those curious, who'd have thought that chargers would have names).

Lets say a 1 hour shop, and if the PodPoint is available, that might put 28 miles of motoring back in. Less than £4 of fuel for an ICE car doing say 50 mpg. But a nice bonus I suppose.

FWIW, a standard 100A 3 phase supply, can power about ten 7kW chargers, which begins to make sense for workplace parking. PodPoint have a clever control box that can spread that around to maybe 30 parking places, they call it "Array Charging", but of course, overall, it is limited by the supply. Which would have to be dedicated for that purpose. So, realistically, each worker might expect workplace charging to put about 70 miles back into their car each day (assumptions: 4 miles/kWh, 7.5 hours charging at 7kW/3). Much the same as a 13A plug can. This begins to make sense.

 

[User00035]

Where do I charge my 4x4 in a field miles from anywhere?
How much range will I have in low range towing a trailer over rough ground?
What happens when I need to run the heater with the vehicle stationary three times a day because it's -7 outside?

 

[kenbro]

Where do I charge my 4x4 in a field miles from anywhere?
How much range will I have in low range towing a trailer over rough ground?
What happens when I need to run the heater with the vehicle stationary three times a day because it's -7 outside?

Buy a Rivian truck.
K.

 

[Husky]

Buy a Rivian truck.
K.

Not available in the UK.
As for charging in a field, carry a genny in the pick up bed

 

[mealiejimmy]

Where do I charge my 4x4 in a field miles from anywhere?
How much range will I have in low range towing a trailer over rough ground?
What happens when I need to run the heater with the vehicle stationary three times a day because it's -7 outside?

These are not issues that need concern you since you clearly have no intention of ever buying an ev.


Cheers

Bruce

 

[sikamalc]

What happens to these wonderful electric cars when you are stuck in a heavy traffic, and its minus degrees outside, with the lights on and heater. So you are stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 or more likely M25 for about 40 minutes to an hour with the batteries draining away?

I can see a lot more stuck and no way to remove them. Like I said there was a recent event with one blocking a multi storey carpark a few weeks back, for over 3 or so hours great!!!

Imagine how long it would take me to drive from Kent to Scotland to meet clients ? Lots of charging points north of Inverness around Brora. NOT.

 

[Husky]

The Rivian specs look good, it could be a contender for a replacement 4x4.

 

[mealiejimmy]

What happens to these wonderful electric cars when you are stuck in a heavy traffic, and its minus degrees outside, with the lights on and heater. So you are stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 or more likely M25 for about 40 minutes to an hour with the batteries draining away?

I can see a lot more stuck and no way to remove them. Like I said there was a recent event with one blocking a multi storey carpark a few weeks back, for over 3 or so hours great!!!

Imagine how long it would take me to drive from Kent to Scotland to meet clients ? Lots of charging points north of Inverness around Brora. NOT.

When an ev is stuck in traffic in cold weather - you switch on the heater - just the same as an ICE vehicle.
The difference is that the heater comes from an electric heating element, or more likely from heat scavenged from the battery using a heat pump
Neither of these options use much power compared to actually moving the car down the road
Typically, an ev will use around 1-1.2kw of power to run all the services in the vehicles (lights, heater, radio, wipers etc)
So, for a vehicle with a typical 60 kwh battery, you could be stuck in traffic for 2 whole days and still have enough power to drive home or to a charging station.
So no, there will not be loads of evs with batteries stuck on the M1 or M25 - at least no more than there are ICE vehicles which have run out of fuel.
If you drove from Kent to Northern Scotland in an ev it would take you longer than in a ice vehicle - but perfectly do-able if you use one or more of the apps which tell you where the charging stations are and their status
As has been said many times, evs are best for round trip journeys up to around 200 miles (which covers more than 90% of car journeys in the UK)
At the moment, and probably for a few years to come, it's unlikely that there will be an affordable ev that can do what many SD members would want from a vehicle.
i.e a 4 wheel drive pick up that can carry a decent load, tow 3 tons and go for 400 miles on a tank of fuel.
That doesn't make evs a bad idea or a waste of time and money.
For the vast majority of the population who only want clean, comfortable transport to get to and from work and the supermarket, they work perfectly well.

Cheers

Bruce

 

[enfieldspares]

I am old enough to remember Prince Phillip's electric people carrier! A gift from, I think, Vauxhall Motors? I often wonder what happened to it.

Prince Philip sits in the back of his green electric van, which was on display at the electric car exhibit across from the Royal Institution - General Electric Company. Research and Development Center - Google Arts & Culture

Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

artsandculture.google.com

 

[Bavarianbrit]

The Rivian specs look good, it could be a contender for a replacement 4x4.

Far too big for European roads parking bays, IMO.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Yes, of course I was mixing things up a bit in that post.

And the 3s, and I suppose other models, are much less made from composites, far more straightforward body pressings. IIRC the very first prototype composite bodies were made for them by Lotus, who then advised on how to scale up production themselves. But composites are never going to be suitable for mass production (nor are they easily recyclable). So bashing vehicle bodies out of sheet metal is going to be the way, for a long long time yet.

The long promised new Tesla Roadster will I'm sure be absolute state of the art, and make some top supercars seem rather silly, but I suspect not really a priority at the moment.

Where is Musk's personal one ? Well you can track it here: Where is Starman? Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in Space! · Where is Starman?

My experience is as a passenger (and a brief drive myself) in model 3s. Conventional doors, but the lock mechanism is unusual, at least to me. To open from the inside you push a button that unlatches by I guess solenoids or motors. But there is a lever also provided to mechanically unlatch the mechanism, for use in emergencies such as when the battery has gone flat (highly unlikely), or more realistically when the car has been in an accident and the power cut off by the crash sensors. The problem is that this is not a robust thing, not to be designed to be used regularly, which is the obvious temptation for a passenger unused to the odd arrangement, hence my briefing the first time I had a ride in one. Basically "never pull that lever !!!" even though it seemed the obvious way to open the door. Perhaps it should be coloured red and have a flip cover to prevent accidental use.

Dealers warn new owners about this, never to use it, it will soon break. Plus to open the doors the windows have to slide down a little to clear the exterior trim, which will be damaged after a few goes of using the lever. I'm actually used to that, having run an open top Mercedes with fabric roof, that needed to do the same to seal tight into it. And my current car does that too when using the plipper, not the key, but the trim that is in the way is rubber and survives all that, and every time the doors are opened from inside. By their familiar mechanical lever. Tesla don't seem to care, they are still fitting the same flimsy thing. And the window clearance thing is I suppose necessary for the aero package to keep the car clean, aerodynamically.

I'm not sure how the outside door handles unlatch, but my guess is that they also are electronically coupled to do the window winding down and up thing. Maybe no direct mechanical connection, but that's just my speculation. they too can be a bit confusing, for people who actually expect a car to have an outside door handle that you just tug on.

Lots of youtubery, about just this, e.g. And from that I learned that you can't even open the glovebox manually, That requires going into the touch screen menu ??? Keeps the interior looking so clean, with it's faux-wood touches, but I prefer cars with dials, switches in the conventional places, mirrors that I can adjust with a knob/joyswitch, etc. Obviously I am a dinosaur and should just get with the programme..

It's all very clever, and soon adjusted to, but, when I used the term "whacky" I meant quite different.

BTW I don't like the central screen, all my life I have been driving cars where I expect to just glance down to see the instruments, preferably analogue dials (though I now prefer a digital speedometer, with a big display). Not to glance off to the left and downwards to the big screen, taking my eyes off the road.

If I had the money I would buy one ASAP. In every respect, range, battery degradation (minimal by most accounts) and sheer desirability, they are still far in advance. When they fit into the role that you mostly use.

Sadly for me Tesla would let all its workers trial drive the S but as I did not have a California drivers license it was not allowed from their insurance rules for me, how Tesla rentals work at SF airport I do not know, so I have never been in one that's moving or driven one yet. Heres the mug shot.

 

[Apthorpe]

When an ev is stuck in traffic in cold weather - you switch on the heater - just the same as an ICE vehicle.
The difference is that the heater comes from an electric heating element, or more likely from heat scavenged from the battery using a heat pump
Neither of these options use much power compared to actually moving the car down the road
Typically, an ev will use around 1-1.2kw of power to run all the services in the vehicles (lights, heater, radio, wipers etc)
So, for a vehicle with a typical 60 kwh battery, you could be stuck in traffic for 2 whole days and still have enough power to drive home or to a charging station.

Only if you started with a completely full battery, it wasn't very cold, and home/charging station was very close. The point being made, which is valid is that EVs have significantly less range in sub-zero conditions. I'd be surprised if an EV can maintain a thirty degree temperature difference in a car which is poorly insulated on 1kW, but take your word for it.

So no, there will not be loads of evs with batteries stuck on the M1 or M25 - at least no more than there are ICE vehicles which have run out of fuel.
If you drove from Kent to Northern Scotland in an ev it would take you longer than in a ice vehicle - but perfectly do-able if you use one or more of the apps which tell you where the charging stations are and their status
As has been said many times, evs are best for round trip journeys up to around 200 miles (which covers more than 90% of car journeys in the UK)

But not more than 90% of car distance. It is an irrelevance that most car journeys are very short. Nobody buys cars limited to dealing with journeys. Do you drive a G-Wiz? People buy cars to be capable of dealing with the harder journeys, the longer journeys, the times they want to take the family too, the more expensive and so on.
If you don't produce EVs with those capabilities, then you create a worse future.
A friend of mine just drove from the south of England to the South of Scotland and back in their new EV. It took two days longer than a normal car, cost more in fuel and required two nights in a hotel. Yes, long journeys are doable in an EV, provided you are entirely divorced from the world most people live in and have plenty of spare days and hundreds of pounds extra to perform the same journey.
All this means that for the foreseeable future the future may be electric, but it is very much worse if it is.

At the moment, and probably for a few years to come, it's unlikely that there will be an affordable ev that can do what many SD members would want from a vehicle.
i.e a 4 wheel drive pick up that can carry a decent load, tow 3 tons and go for 400 miles on a tank of fuel.
That doesn't make evs a bad idea or a waste of time and money.
For the vast majority of the population who only want clean, comfortable transport to get to and from work and the supermarket, they work perfectly well.

That is very obviously not what the vast majority of the population want, as you can demonstrate to yourself by looking at the next few dozen cars you see. For transport to work and the supermarket a mini-hatchback issue than adequate. The fact that most cars aren't like that proves the fallacy. I would agree with you that most people are stupid, but not that they are so stupid as to insist on paying thousands of pounds extra for zero utility.

Cheers

Bruce