Electric vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) are powered by electric motors using electricity stored in batteries, making them a cleaner alternative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. There are two main types of EVs:

  1. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs): Fully electric vehicles that run solely on battery power and require recharging through an electrical grid.
  2. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs): Combine a battery-powered electric motor with a traditional internal combustion engine. PHEVs can run on electricity for a limited range before switching to gasoline.

Key Benefits of EVs:

  • Environmental impact: Zero tailpipe emissions, reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Lower running costs: Electricity is cheaper than gasoline, and EVs generally have fewer moving parts, leading to lower maintenance costs.
  • Improved efficiency: Electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines, converting more energy from the battery into forward motion.
  • Performance: EVs often have instant torque, providing quicker acceleration and a smooth, quiet driving experience.

Challenges:

  • Range anxiety: The concern that a vehicle’s battery will run out before reaching a charging station, though modern EVs have improved range, and charging infrastructure is expanding.
  • Charging infrastructure: While improving, the availability of public charging points can still be limited in some regions.
  • Higher upfront cost: Although the initial purchase price is often higher, incentives and savings on fuel and maintenance can offset this over time.

Governments and automakers worldwide are pushing towards electrification, with many countries setting goals to phase out the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars within the next few decades.

Like we can upgrade RAM and storage in laptop or PCs, can there be upgrade of battery, say in 5 yrs with longer range? Will car manufacturers build the cars with forward compatibility? Or third parties come up with better compatible batteries and other upgrades to make the car more valuable?

It’d be nice if we could swap the battery. I like the EV6, but take the GT for example: low 200 miles of range at best. Even our RWD sees about 250 in the colder temps. An extended battery ranging into the 400s would be awesome

In 2015, I bought a 2013 Leaf hoping that battery prices would go down enough that it would be feasible to replace the battery. It has been a while since I have priced out replacing it, but when I have looked in the past it just didn’t make sense to spend that much money on a 10 year old car. Each car battery has it’s own form factor, and Nissan has no incentive to sell you a cheap battery when they would rather have you buy a new car. The best to hope for is that there is enough quantities of a particular car that a 3rd party could make money building replacement batteries. But in this case I think you would still be limited to the same battery pack weight as the original battery and the increase in range would be incremental over the original battery

Better motors and allowing for a higher peak power output from the pack are things that could feasibly happen.

There really is no good reason to replace the battery pack. Its like a phone in that regard, the battery is expected to outlive the car.

Lithium batteries have two important properties, how much energy they can store, and the maximum discharge rate. Cars use a quite low discharge rate, even at peak output (high C cells, like those used in power tool packs, can fully discharge in like 2 min, cars probably don’t use those type though). This likely is software and hardware limited, but something that can be adjusted at least a little. And its likely set based on the capabilities of the motor(s); more powerful motors that could use more juice can likely get a bit more squeezed out a stock pack; its feasible.

It’d be a pretty hardcore mod, but its electrically feasible to add a high output boost pack to aid the stock pack for high output acceleration. I’m pretty sure this is the concept under the hood in a Rimac Nevara. Again though a bigger more powerful motor(s) likely is key.

Some GM and Ford vehicles from the 2010s were actually capable of being unofficially upgraded to newer infotainment systems, as the connectors and bezels and trim panels were the same between pre-refresh and refreshed cars.

I owned a 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid with an atrocious Microsoft-developed Sync2 infotainment system and I was able to swap it out for a hacked QNX-based Sync3 unit (exponentially better) from a 2016 Ford Escape. The screen and computing module were a perfect fit and the whole process was as easy as assembling a Lego kit. Multiple Ford forums have sections dedicated to upgrading Sync2 to Sync3 with hacking instructions for the technically savvy.

I don’t know if there are similar prospects for Hyundai/Kia vehicles, but it’s plausible if a refreshed EV6 with upgraded infotainment retains the exact same dashboard, screen size, etc as the older EV6s. Depends on how locked down the software is and how many enthusiasts are out there willing to try (as was the case for Fords last decade).