Modern Vespa

Hopefully no paywall: https://wapo.st/3U3tnnD

Well, that is certainly impressive and it actually does demonstrate something beyond just a publicity stunt. That is the fundamental reliability of the technology of electric vehicles. Many of us have demonstrated this at home by EV ownership, but their accomplishment was certainly more colorful.

It also demonstrated something else any EV owner could testify to. The dependability and usefulness of public charging stations still has a ways to go.

"That drive started in March on the frozen waters of the Arctic Circle near the North Pole. It ended in December, about nine months and approximately 20,000 miles later, at the South Pole in Antarctica."

The OCD person inside me feels it must be mentioned that they did not drive all the way. There were boats and airplanes involved. And the car was modified for the trip.

sorta rofl. Not trying to dismiss the fun or effort of such a journey but any way ...

The 1823 North Magnetic pole which they started from is only about 25km off the coast of Canada. Still gotta be interesting to drive that far out on sea ice though.

other quotes from wapo

"they admitted, "range anxiety""

"they often encountered stations across the country that weren't working"

"Before the trip, the couple partnered with an energy company, Enel X, to arrange the installation of more than 20 electric-vehicle charging stations in countries including Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, where they spotted gaps in the coverage of existing stations"

"An Arctic Trucks support team rejoined the Ramseys for the drive in Antarctica to provide backup in case of an emergency"

and from a linked site:

"One further innovation is the portable, renewable energy unit that will be used to charge the Ariya in the polar regions. The towable prototype includes a packable, lightweight wind turbine and solar panels that will take advantage of high winds and long daylight hours to provide charge for the EV's battery when Chris and Julie stop to rest."

not to mention an article I read from yesterday

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/tesla_owners_in_deep_freeze/

Tesla owners in deep freeze discover the cold, hard truth about EVs

"local media reported public charging stations turning into "car graveyards" because motorists were unable to power their vehicles."

"Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent, and this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours yesterday"

"Dozens of cars were reportedly lined up and abandoned at the Tesla supercharging station in Oak Brook along with multiple charging stations around Chicago"

"had to hire a tow truck and drove around looking for a charging station that worked "

etc

I can remember having to queue for ages to get petrol through several oil 'crises'. And recently being near empty and finding the gas station had just recently closed for good - no-one told Google Maps!

And how many times do you go to a gas station to find half the pumps are closed with yellow bags over the nozzles? It's not just EV chargers that fail - it's poor planning and maintenance that can be blamed, not the fuel type!

Not trying to dismiss the fun or the effort of such a journey, but I read somewhere that Sir Edmund Hillary had support on his hike up Everest. It is even whispered by some that Tenzing Norgay might have actually reached the summit first.

"rofl" indeed.

The New York Times also reported on the Chicago freeze affecting Teslas - the takeaway seems to be that the drivers didn't know how to get the best out of their cars in cold weather, as Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark (with a majority of EV owners) cope just fine:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/business/tesla-charging-chicago-cold-weather.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok0.GS_p.6vaw1OjrG535&smid=url-share

He did and he did!

I guess it just goes to show that accomplishing adventurous feats is rarely done in a vacuum, entirely solo and with no outside assistance.

I don't think that necessarily diminishes from the accomplishment, either.

As I understand it, all that chatter about Teslas not charging in the recent subzero weather in the Chicago area was really the result of two factors. The first was that some Tesla owners knew nothing about the built-in process to precondition (warm) the battery before charging in extremely cold weather. The second was problems with the public charging stations under those conditions - not with the Teslas. While it is true that EV batteries charge somewhat more slowly in extreme cold weather and have somewhat reduced range under those circumstances - those that pay some attention to the adoption of EVs are aware the large number of EVs in use in Norway. You'd think that would be the perfect storm for extreme cold weather problems. Turns out that it isn't mainly because most Norwegians park their cars overnight in garages or otherwise under cover and use their own L2 chargers - not fast chargers. Mostly that approach works.

As a publicity stunt it's a really good one.

I believe they used their support team only at the two extremities of the journey

I'm wondering if it will have any effect on sales of the Ariya in a way that using Livewires didn't ?

When I was in high school in Buffalo, NY my mom had a Volkswagen Rabbit diesel hatchback. Diesels do not like the cold and it can get down to -40°. We had to run a long extension cord into the house to plug in the warmer overnight so the fuel would be combustible in the morning. I always question the unspoken agenda lurking behind promoting press devoted to the downsides of EVs. Some cars don't respond well to cold temps. Got it.

I see this a lot in the press. I'm not anti-press by any stretch of the imagination, but I am acutely aware that the press pushes more narrative than factual reporting, and I'm more than a bit uncomfortable with that. Every story is pitched with a specific angle, and then the facts kind of bend to fit that narrative. Or worse, the facts that don't fit are just ignored.

I've found this narrative-disguised-as-journalism to be especially unnerving when I've been dead center in the middle of a story that was being reported and had a very good grasp of the actual facts. In every single instance, the press got major pieces of the story wrong.

This was especially true during my very long career at Apple. The amount of manufactured narrative pushed by the tech press is off the charts when it comes to Apple. And the amount of things reported about Apple that are just plain false is astounding.

In the EV world -- and as an EV owner -- I see an endless stream of "gotcha" articles about the potential shortcomings of EVs, range anxiety, cold-weather, battery fires, lithium and cobalt mining, rare earth materials from China, battery recycling, and on and on and on. These endless stories basically amount to scare tactics, to what end I don't quite fathom.

It's little better than concern trolling. I'd like to think the press was above that.

Pretty much the same in Finland.

Some of the older EVs, and some newer too, don't have proper pre-heating features. Those that do charge themselves quite nicely in Finnish winter too.

We've had a cold winter this year also in the Southern Finland. Over -20C (-4F) quite often, over -10C (14F) pretty much all the time. Lowest temperatures around -30C (-22F).

Empirically, as I have a plug-in hybrid with a battery pre-warm feature and all my closest colleagues have an EV:

-10C is still pretty much business as usual. The range drops, but not dramatically.

-20C does have an impact. Even with the battery pre-warming, my colleagues report that charging time slows down quite a bit. The range drops quite drastically, from 30% to 50% depending who is telling the story and what kind of car. In my car the pure electric range drops mayby 40-50%. Slower charging & the drop in range brought up the fact that our charging infra is not ready yet - long queues during the coldest days. Even the largest batteries full charged at home are not enough in these temperatures for a typical ~400km journey my EV colleagues drive frequently. Close, but not yet perfect. A quick fast charge stop would be enough if there was a bit more charging capacity available.

-30C My plug-in hybrid refuses to use pure electric mode and pretty much refuses to charge the battery while driving too. Full electric colleagues avoid long trips. We have only a handfull of these days, so not a big issue as such.

Where did they find the cord to stretch that far🤔

People love to hate Apple. It's a big target. I have those discussions with my 3rd shift tech all the time. He's very anti-Apple because the company is truly evil. I guess. I receive those articles from my Dad all the time. He is perpetually glued to several extremely conservative websites. I'm always told "this one guy, who's an actual scientist, said this one thing" and suddenly batteries kill children, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas and big oil will save us all. It's all politically motivated, but we won't get into that here.

I actually had someone on another forum send me a picture of a gold mine to show how bad batteries were for the earth.

I love the "article" about the French junkyard full of busted EVs. That one never gets old.

What?!? No link?!?

I assumed everyone had already seen it. Stories like that don't need my help proliferating.

The diesel powered or gas powered electric chargers that some will claim is becoming the norm are always good for a few laughs. They are always missing context like this one located in the Outback as a test to see if this could be a temporary solution for remote areas without infrastructor. This is only one of three in remote areas and they run on biodiesel. This is not becoming the norm.

A good debate in the public market place of ideas is always refreshing. I simply am not for EV cars yet. Also, most all of you fine forum followers can see through and smoke out the not so accurate reporting in the media.

Bob Copeland

Hillary never claimed he made it first.
"We knocked the bastard off" was the quote.

Speaking of EVs… NZ is introducing Road User Charges for electric vehicles meaning they'll pay the equivalent of petrol tax based on km driven (we do this for diesel vehicles already).
There's different tears (yes, I spelt that correctly) for EV and PHEV because PHEV owners buy gas now and then.
For PHEV owners who primarily use petrol that's going to be painful.

Probably a good time to buy.

PS. An Ebike followed me home yesterday so I had to keep it. Expect me to get quite evangelical.

Can it carry a case of beer?

I don't drink that common muck now I'm saving the planet every day. It's eco produced Chardonnay. The box is made from sustainably produced timber harvested under a full moon.

With solar-powered chainsaws?

Probably.

but back to my earlier quotes, I'm not surprised that everyone seems to have skipped over them taking solar cells and a wind turbine for the longer stretches (probably from the coast of Antarctica to the pole and back again)/ Whereas a petrol or diesel car could take a shit load of jerry cans allowing quick refills but a finite max distance the ev with wind+solar would be limited by time and hence food while waiting for the recharge.

I can't quite tell what point you're trying to make here. EVs bad? EVs good? Pointless stunt?

Please articulate.

If I may - I read into that that both ICE and EV systems have their limitations. Completely different limitations though.

Thank you for that translation.

HyBred is the way to go best of both worlds. And it is very kind of all of us to discuss this because all of us will be gone if it even matters! But I do have my electric bike and love it.

I'm with you on the Hybrids. Not perfect but it's a great combination so both sides are happy.

No emissions in the urban environment and ICE flexibility on the highway. Less CO2 involved in the manufacturing process also.

You mine less minerals as the batteries are smaller than a full EV and less oil is consumed so there's more to preserve for the future.

However, it would help if we stopped reproducing ourselves and then complain that there aren't enough resources.

I believe I watched Michael Palin do this trip... Also in a variety of travel modes...

You can not take my Grand Children away Vespas Family and Health are all i have to live for today.

A load of bollocks is the problem then! 😆

I'm with you. It would help if we at least stopped reproducing so many of ourselves. That is what is driving the global warming phenomenon, and every other problem that results from us living too large on the land. More, more, more of everything is the problem - not the answer.

Of course, the Earth's population may well crash in the not too distant future:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/18/opinion/human-population-global-growth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PE0.yeB2.lRdoUMmcQq5C&smid=url-share

Indeed. The catch is that may not be neat or even nice. Our past experiences suggest that drastic population declines are usually associated with famine, disease, war or other catastrophes. We don't really have any experience with planned or managed population declines. But we can be sure that unlimited growth won't work - we live on a limited world.

Sixty-three years out? Not my concern but will affect my grand children.

OFG

EVs are in their infancy. In the U.S. we have a whole slew of folks just wanting to thwart any inroads EVs get, but they are fighting a losing battle. As technology improves EVs will win over the crowd. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, I just wanted to voice my opinion.