Here to help provide clarity on the transition to vehicle electrification. Looking at charging, batteries, costs, safety, and research.
Joined January 2025
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I've been working to develop and populate my new EV comparison site for true nerds:
evbench.pluginpath.com
It's still a rough work in progress as I feel out what questions it needs to answer, but I would love feedback on any and all aspects!
An update to my EV energy-sharing (V2X) comparison:
- Tesla’s Model 3/Y manual lists up to 11.5 kW for Powershare home backup, same rating as the Cybertruck
- Added GM Energy PowerShift
Tesla’s solution would lead the pack if Tesla turned on Grid Support for the 3/Y and supported the Powershare Gateway for them. The inverters are already UL 1741 certified.
GM’s system is underwhelming:
- 9.6 kW backup, for outages only
- Needs an offboard inverter plus a battery to start the system in an outage
- NACS-port GM EVs have to swap adapters to switch between charging and backup
The GM inverter is UL 1741 SB grid-certified, so the outage-only limit is a choice
The second crash was preventable.
You can see that FSD is already predicting a problem before the crash, as it starts to gives the car space.
Many human drivers would fail to avoid it, but autonomous driving needs to be held to a much higher standard than an "average" driver.
Plug-In Path retweeted
First video of a driver (accidentally) using the new emergency drive away feature.
Pretty wild to watch this guy dismiss all the warnings and prompts... Curious how much damage was done to the car and charger.
Credit to @JLeshnick for the video
Plug-In Path retweeted
We have been working on a project for the last few months that we can FINALLY share with you all! We conducted the largest EV fire frequency study to date, and the results may surprise you.
EVs are LESS likely to catch fire than gas cars. Yes, you read that right.
I've taken a quick minute to compile some information and have Claude build a handy diagram for us comparing the functionality of Ford and Tesla products.
Both are great, but the Ford solution actually has a meaningful chance at a return on investment.
At @Ford, we want to make the best technology available to the many, not just the few. We want to make products that have great tech, while still being affordable.
In 2027, our new electric truck, Ford Fathom, is going to show that it’s possible to deliver an incredible vehicle with incredible tech and incredible value. One technology I’m excited to announce is coming to Fathom is bidirectional power and the ability to use your vehicle to power your house.
Our team of amazing engineers developed a better, more efficient and more affordable way to bring more than 10 kW of home power—without a separate wall-mounted inverter—to a truck with an MSRP below $30,000.
Making the technology more accessible is one part of the work. We’re also working with utilities to make connecting these vehicles simpler and scalable.
Thanks to American Electric Power, @bchydro, @ConsumersEnergy, @Exelon, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (@PGE4Me) for being among the first utilities to work with us.
You can read more details here: fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/a…
In the pursuit of accuracy, I spent a few hours today digging into DC fast charging efficiency.
The EPA’s MPGe assumes you charge at home.
So how much energy does a DC fast charge actually lose?
Across 9 EVs: 6% to 13%.
The spread was bigger than I expected...
🧵
The data out there was of poor quality, old, and varied wildly. So I decided to leverage @Out_of_Spec's "10% challenge” as a matched energy in -> energy out.
Whatever the charger put in that the trip meter didn’t get back was lost.
I thought I would find 4-5% losses, but I wanted to be sure, so I found 9 tests that showed DC energy delivered.
They ranged 6-13%, averaging ~9%
EVBench now prices DC charging on this figure.
Sources and caveats:
evbench.pluginpath.com/?tab=…
Subaru, Toyota, & Chevy are quite competitive with Tesla on road trip performance now.
Their early entries were so poor that many wrote them off... & valid reasons remain to prefer something else.
But charging performance is no longer an issue.
I've built out featured comparisons on EVBench.
One of the first things I wanted to look at was the (lack of) charging performance difference for the Rivian R2 on a 500A vs 600A capable charger.
Plug-In Path retweeted
"I trust Tesla FSD with my life."
This is not a rational opinion. Even Tesla doesn't trust FSD that's why they make you supervise & as far as robotaxis go, 3M miles is statistically insignificant. You need hundreds of millions of miles before you can prove a lower fatality rate.
I trust Tesla FSD with my life. Genuinely. People will say that’s stupid but I don’t care. It’s true. I do. I genuinely don’t feel like I need to pay attention ever.
And this is why I stay invested. Because as much as I get annoyed, I cannot deny what I’ve written. It’s the genuine truth.
The tech shipping today in Tesla cars will save many lives, and in a few months this version will be shitty compared to what comes next.
So that is why I deal with all the craziness. Because the people making this are doing something that many generations of humans never get to do. Their impact on humanity will be felt for many generations after they are gone.
It’s very serious work and more significant than most things happening today.
The stakes are way higher than anything else Silicon Valley is doing. I love Grok Bot and think it will change things too, but the stakes aren’t as high.
The Tesla AI team is etched in history already
Plug-In Path retweeted
What most people don't know: when you fill up a petrol car most of the energy never moves it.
Petrol car: 13–21% of the crude oil's energy reaches wheels.
Electric car on today's UK grid: 43–45%.
Electric car on wind+solar: 77–80%.
