Time To Take The “L” (And A Sick Day)
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Sunday, May 14, 2023
Are EV's Essentially Murder Machines?
If you are driving a gas-powered sedan and your car gets hit by an EV, you are likely to get killed. Because of physics -- EVs are very heavy. A Ford Mustang EV is over a half-ton heavier than a gas-powered one. The EV SUVs are essentially powered battering rams.
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8 comments:
A little perspective, pa-lease. My electric Mini weighs less than your run-of-the-mill mid-sized SUV. I am at as much risk from drunken jerk-offs driving jacked-up trucks with the hood ornament a perfect rendition of the human female reproductive system as anyone else driving anything smaller than a mid-sized car. A Mustang is kind of borderline, a heavy mid-sized car, but I have posted notes several times about the trucks and the Hummers* and yeah, you're absolutely right, it's just that it's not quite that absolute.
Seven airbags, supposedly floats ...
*I was flipping Hummers off before they became electric; there used to be a web-site you could post photos of yourself flipping off Hummers
Disagree. The weight is disproportionately low on EV’s, where Trucks and SUV’s with their higher center of gravity and higher bumpers have caused problems with both impact points and stability. In your example, the Mach E (a SUV) starts at 862 lbs heavier than a plain Mustang (coupe) and can be as much as 1,052 lbs heavier. But that’s only 24%-27% heavier for the Mach E than the Mustang. By comparison, a 2023 Mustang starts at 3,532 lbs, a 2003 Mustang started at 3,070 lbs and a 1983 Mustang started at 3,070 lbs too. That means the 2023 Mustang is 15% heavier than the older models, not that much different than the step up with the Mach E.
If you switch to other vehicles, a Tesla 3 actually starts at 6 pounds lighter than a fully loaded Mustang, and maxes out at 180 lb heavier, or 5% heavier. Again, Trucks/SUV’s are heavier regardless.
The formula for kinetic energy is MV**2. Homo sapiens is bad at exponential reasoning. The lower your center of gravity, the less likely you are to flip over. Your mileage may vary.
Meanwhile, pickups are so large that sometimes the driver has to get out of one to use the pneumatic tube/sliding drawer at a drive-thru tellers window, as I witnessed a few months ago.
If you start broadcasting that the electric pickups are heavier and therefore more dangerous to others that will inspire a certain segment of vehicle buyers to head toward the EVs. Since they are already using their air haulers as status symbols and "you should fear me I'm a badass" mobile warning signs.
Total weight impacts terminal ballistics. Velocity however is restricted, least for cars and trucks.
There are a large number of wheeled things that are heavy.
EVs the weight works against them for mileage per charge so
efforts to make them lighter are ongoing. But the weight
as it is needs structure and more than a few are refitted
standard SUV/crossover chassis that are heavy to start with.
Trucks even the average pickup with a load will be heavy
Even my Tacoma 2 2WD with a laf ton of trash in the back
meets the formidable crusher status as must trucks have
chassis to transfer their momentum to the bumper. The
larger full size PUs are heavy to start with to do useful
work.
My Idea of an EV is not the luxury laden busses what get
the same range as the 1903 White electric (150-200miles)
between charges. We have better batteries and AC and
400W boombox on wheels. They don't go far.
Eck!
If you are driving a Prius and get t-boned by a Tahoe…
Really?
Olde arte cmt: back in the days of life magazine, the end of the magazine had Oddball and amazing photographs. One of them was the result of a publicity stunt by an early VW dealer who wanted to counter claims that a beetle was a death coffin. So he staged a T-bone Collision between a Cadillac and a Peterbilt and had a photographer take a high shutter speed photograph of the Cadillac exploding into a shower of glass and smashed sheet metal.
But Time Magazine had an incisive comment: Newtonian physics is a two-way street, that is lighter cars are more agile.
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