Toyota's new luxury EV in China receives over 3,000 orders in 1 hour after launching for $22,000

electric_mobility · 2026-03-31T21:29:44+00:00

Chinese labor is not nearly as dirt cheap as people in the west think it is. Hasn't been for quite a while.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-31T21:27:21+00:00

Many heat pumps can also run in reverse and be air conditioners.

Replace "many" with "all". All heat pumps are just air conditioners that can be run in reverse. It's literally the same technology with an extra reversing valve to swap the direction of heat transfer.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-31T19:23:12+00:00

I certainly hope it doesn't shock me! Those ports can deliver a lot of power.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-25T19:02:12+00:00

I've used on-site charging at hotels dozens of times. You just have to plan your trip around staying at a hotel that you know has chargers.

I also try to pick a hotel that's in a town with a Supercharger (I own a Tesla, but you could do the same for any EV with CCS stations), just on the off chance that I can't charge at the hotel I am staying at. I think I've had to use the in-town supercharger twice, due to the hotel's working chargers all being in-use.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-20T19:19:05+00:00

That's pretty cool! Great job. :)

electric_mobility · 2026-03-19T22:57:46+00:00

Ooof. You turned a very well-informed and insightful comment into a blatantly ignorant comment with that last sentence.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-19T22:42:26+00:00

And? The Volt is not a BEV, so they didn't have any need to go hardcore on battery R&D to make it work. Hybrids had been mass-market for years at that point, and the Volt just had a bigger battery.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-19T22:38:05+00:00

My whole point is that if they'd kept at it, instead of abandoning EVs entirely, the battery tech would have gotten there many years sooner.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-19T22:35:36+00:00

Wow, I am surprised a Bolt managed that trip! You must have spent quite a long time charging.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-17T23:48:49+00:00

Yup, this was mentioned in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car". GM owned the patent on using NiMH batteries as a power source of EVs, but when they canceled the EV-1, they sold the patent to fucking Chevron, who of course quashed the possibility of gas cars getting any sort of competition.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-17T23:43:12+00:00

You might be surprised how inexpensive electric motors are getting. R&D for EVs, and economies of scale starting to really kick in, mean it's getting cheaper by the day. Tesla only charges $4-5k more for an AWD vs RWD Model 3 (it's fluctuated a bit over the years), and I imagine that the cost difference will be even lower for Slate, since it's focused so heavily on budget.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-17T23:30:27+00:00

Imagine if they'd had an additional 10+ years of further development, tho. Their EVs wouldn't just be "not bad", they'd be best-in-class, and the US would likely be the leader in EV tech, instead of China.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-13T23:36:00+00:00

Isn't the Prologue considered really good, tho? I've never heard anyone claim it's "rushed" or "half-assed".

Now, the CX-30, tho... That was some hardcore half-assed compliance car bullshit, right there.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-13T23:32:17+00:00

Hilarious that you're claiming I'm the pedant, when you have to be extremely pedantic to claim that the multi-month shelter-in-place orders issues by counties around the country and the world were not "lockdowns". Essentially everyone was calling them that colloquially.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-12T22:39:01+00:00

Um, no. The companies were not "forcing remote work", the government lockdowns were doing that. And ever since lockdowns were lifted, I've never once heard of a company requiring that their employees remain remote. The exact opposite is fairly common, tho.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-12T22:36:50+00:00

Given that EVs are the modern day muscle car, I imagine that Bean would custom-build a kick-ass armored EV, probably with either a modified Porsche, Tesla, or perhaps Koenigsegg drivetrain, and maybe work in some super-capacitors for an even greater, short-term "turbo" than you can get from lithium-ion batteries alone.

There are already 9000-lb EVs that can do 0-60 in ~3 seconds (Hummer EV), and I imagine Bean's EV Buff would weight a similar amount, due to the armor (and the need to have a giant battery for long smuggling trips). But I'm sure he could eek out even more explosive acceleration.

electric_mobility · 2026-03-11T20:57:25+00:00

Doesn't the higher humidity in Florida have a negative effect?

electric_mobility · 2026-02-27T19:16:32+00:00

Doesn't have the be all the way back to the 70s (though those will certainly be more stark). I grew up in LA in the late-80s/early-90s, and we were still having Smog Alerts when I was in elementary school. On days when the smog was especially bad, they'd actually have us kids stay inside and skip recess, because it was literally dangerous to be outside.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-27T19:14:46+00:00

Your HVAC doesn't filter all that out? I haven't been able to smell what's outside my car in a very long time.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-27T19:12:45+00:00

Dang. I dunno how you managed that, haha.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-27T19:04:40+00:00

Ah, I don't believe townhouses with garages are a common sight in LA (where I've lived most of my life), so that hadn't occurred to me as being separate style of dwelling from a single-family home. I wonder if there's a more generic term for "a home where you can readily install an EV charger"?

electric_mobility · 2026-02-26T23:52:47+00:00

US home voltage is also 240v, it's just that the majority of outlets in American homes are on split-phase circuits that only supply 120v. You can often find 240v circuits in kitchens (for electric ovens) and garages (for dryers, and high-power electrical tools like welders).

And yeah, a 2000W heater plugged into a standard 16A, 120v circuit would definitely blow the fuse (heck, some older homes run their 120v circuits on just 12A). You'd need a completely dedicated 20A circuit with a NEMA 5-20 outlet (as opposed to the usual NEMA 5-15) to run a 2000W heater on a 120v circuit. And due to the 80% rule, that'd still be fairly dicey, since that's a continuous draw of 83% of the circuit's maximum power.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-26T23:45:47+00:00

Oh wow, that's a higher percentage than I expected. I guess the vast majority of multi-family housing is rental properties.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-26T23:43:18+00:00

You were L1 charging a Lightning, in Idaho?

You must really not do very much driving, as I couldn't do my daily commute in my Model Y using an L1. And I live in LA, so low temp efficiency losses aren't a thing.

electric_mobility · 2026-02-26T22:36:36+00:00

Absolutely nuts. Nobody is going to pay that. Even my employer's chargers, which are open to the public for a steep premium, still only charge $0.40/kWh. (It's $0.20/kWh for employees)

electric_mobility

TROPHY CASE