Talk:Electric car

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Marquezl322 (article contribs).

Removal of info about sales

Please seek consensus here for removing almost all content regarding sales of electric cars. Since this tecnology is in the early stages of adoption, I believe the stats are relevant and deserve to be included in the article, this is NOT promotional as you claim. BEV prices are still higher than ICE vehicles, this is why price and sales are relevant now.--Mariordo (talk) 04:37, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

You have been adding very large quantities of text and tables with street prices, sales records, and lots of promotional superaltives about electric or alternative energy vehicles. There have been several discussions about removing this type of content. For example, do you remember the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 July 21#Template:Comparison electric car efficiency? Or the Good Articles that were delisted for precisely this kind of bloat? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Bratland, I did improve most of those articles to GA (check the GA reviews), and it was not only me adding new content. I agree that some trimming was required, but not simply chopping the content, as it was badly done with electric car use by country, even with technical errors in the definitions and leaving some irrelevant content. As for the main argument, I do not think that sales figures for vehicles with a technology in its early adoption phase has promotional purposes, instead it just showing how penetration is advancing or slowing down (and any superlatives are not mine). I would like to hear what other editors have to say before detailing more arguments. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk)

PS: And by the way, this article in particular has already been trimmed, did you check that its prose size (text only) is now 53 kB (8602 words) considered "readable prose size" - so there is no bloating anymore.--Mariordo (talk) 04:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

There are two basic problems:

1. Redundancy: we have many article sections that are near-complete copies of other articles. Electric car and Electric vehicle have vast swaths that are identical or nearly identical. Electric vehicle#Charging and Electric_car#Charging both duplicate much of Charging station. They should summarize Charging station, not repeat the exact same details. This problem spans many, many articles.
2. Prices. WP:NOTCATALOG puts it simply: "Wikipedia is not a price comparison service to compare the prices of competing products". Nearly every electric related article includes a section which is written directly to address the needs of a consumer or shopper who wants to know which car to buy, or whether or not switching to electric is economical. Articles should give general summaries of the economic situation with a given technology, not break down specific dollar values for specific markets. The constant comparisons of battery life and range are also clearly written as shopping guides.

This really has to stop. Can you explain how you interpret the policy you read at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory? Do you think it's saying something other than what I'm describing here? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:33, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

The two basic problems you just pointed have nothing to do with you removing the entire "Currently available electric cars" sections with its two subsections: "Highway capable" and "Electric cars by country" which by the way are short because there were trimmed recently. Anyway I will reply to both issues you raised (since you are repeating these arguments elsewhere in articles regarding plug-in vehicles), and then I will justified why there is no merit for the removal of those two sub-sections:

#Prices. WP:NOTCATALOG

It seems you missed the part of WP:NOCATALOG that I transcribed as follows in bold: An article should not include product pricing or availability information unless there is an independent source and a justified reason for the mention. Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details instead of just passing mention...

(i) All content is supported by reliable sources, as requested by WP policy (no single source or catalog, nor this is useful pricing for shopping). As required, there is encyclopedic significance because these sources are raising the issues of barriers to adoption, pricing is one (see next bullet) and sales volumes, as a measure of market penetration of any new technology, no matter if it is a success or a failure, this is how you measure it.

(ii) Even though there is no pricing in the sections you removed, pricing is a key issue in all green car technologies, because there is a premium you pay for the new technologies in the early phases of adoption (just remember the price of PCs and cell phones). So hybrids are more expensive than ICE-powered vehicles; plug-in electric cars are even more expensive, because of the battery (critical for all-electrics because the battery is bigger); and hydrogen vehicless are way up more expensive.

(iii) The existence of public policies, more specifically, of direct purchase subsidies or tax credits or tax exemptions is a reflection of the concern of more than a couple dozen governments around the world for this price premium, and these temporary policies were issued as a financial incentives to promote the adoption of specific green cars in their countries. So the relevance of pricing/sales volumes stats is justified in this article, and all others related, by no means is marketing.

(iv) There are plenty of Wikipedia articles dealing with these subjects, perfectly within the limits of Wikipedia policy, you are just objecting the ones related with plug-in electric vehicles. Just some examples, the list is huge:

• Ford Model T: see the section about price and production (it shows annual pricing from 1909 to 1927)
• List of best-selling automobiles
• List of automobile sales by model
• List of best-selling books
• Motor vehicle, plenty of sales and production figures here
• Tourism, plenty of stats here too
• Smartphone, plenty of sales and market share figures near the end of the article
• Personal computer, with sections about sales and average sales pricing

(v) Also let's be clear, for the same reason that purchase price, or more specifically, the price premium is relevant (as supported by the reliable sources provided and already explained above), the introduction of operating costs and energy efficiency (or fuel economy) is relevant in all articles regarding green cars, these ARE NOT prices as you have claimed in some of those articles and manage to remove. Indeed, if you take your time and check the WP:Good Article reviews of the green car articles have have or had it, none of the reviewers (neutral, not related to Wikiproject Automobile) questioned the introduction of pricing, operating costs nor energy efficiency.

(vi) Finally, all these issues are relevant and encyclopedic, because the modern analysis of any technology IS NOT how the technology works. Engineering since the late seventies became more comprehensive, in addition to the technology (engine, brakes, transmission, etc.) also looks at the economical, social and environmental aspects of those technologies. It seems you want to cleanse the green car articles of those topics, but to comply with WP:NPOV editors should present in their articles all these issues, pros and cons, benefits and negative consequences.

1. Redundancy:

(i) Specifically, electric vehicle and electric car DO NOT HAVE swarms of content identical or nearly identical as you claimed. The Electric vehicle article covers all kinds of vehicles (land, rail, see, air, etc), not just electric cars or plug-in electric cars. The section about plug-in vehicles is just three paragraphs long, and the overlap with electric car is minimal. There are link to the full articles plug-in electric vehicles, electric car and plug-in hybrid as corresponds.

(ii) Yes, there is some redundancy in some of the articles, but this is NO justification to delete entire sections, and not precisely in the articles that better cover the subject. This is chopping the content without any justification, just for the sake of size? Electric car use by country is good example of this non-technical chopping you are promoting. Trimming is normal, but with criteria, not reducing content arbitrarily just for the sake of size (by the way, this article was shrunken with a lot of technical mistakes, without regard of the proper technical definitions as reflected by the corresponding Wikipedia articles - for example, EV is NOT the same as plug-in electric car, figures, sales or stats in general have to be related to dates ! - I already did some fixing but there is still a lot to do).

(iii) The correct way to do trimming is by removing dated content (there is plenty, ie, old or partial sales figures), by splitting the article, just look at how many new articles were created in plug-in electric vehicle (I will split the section about Europe soon) and electric car use by country (check the talk page of those articles). Also, since many editors introduce content, some include irrelevant facts with no notability that can be removed (as explained in detail above, pricing and sales figures do not classify in this category as you argue).

Finally, for your information, I did improve and expand (or was the main editor) to a total of 12 articles and went through their review to achieve Good Article rating, most related to green cars and sustainable mobility, with no questioning of any of the reviewers of your issues/concerns about pricing and sales stats, much less your narrow interpretation of WP:NOTCATALOG (see the reviews for Congestion pricing, Flexible-fuel vehicle, Plug-in electric vehicle, Ethanol fuel in Brazil, Indirect land use change impacts of biofuels, History of ethanol fuel in Brazil, Flexible-fuel vehicles in Brazil, Mitsubishi i MiEV, Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, Electric vehicle warning sounds, and Capital Bikeshare.) Inevitably as time goes by, the quality of some of these articles has deteriorated, particularly when there is a lot of traffic/editors or as material gets dated. But your approach of deleting content is not constructive, for a good reason most of these articles have kept their GA ratings. And please, do not start multiple discussions as your are doing now with Nissan Leaf (you already got it demoted of its GA status instead of trying to fix it). Let's finish the discussion here first, and above all, let's here what other editors have to say and reach consensus. I did not address your systematic tagging of these issues (regardlesss of me being the main contributor) because I am here to add content, to add value, not to waste my time arguing, but your complete removal of the above mentioned section was too much, as well as the poor state in which the electric car use by country was left. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 05:12, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

PS: I will not engage in edit war in the Nissan Leaf article, but at least be civilized and rmv the tags regarding WP:NOTCATALOG until this discussion is closed. Or do you want to have parallel discussion over the same issue? (and by the way, the title change you made is completely wrong, did you read the section content?)--Mariordo (talk) 05:19, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

TLDR the main problem with the EV articles is WP:OWN by Mariordo. Specifically in this case it seems odd to have exhaustive lists of specific vehicles which could be handled by a category. Unless that list is complete then how do you decide which vehicles are on it? You'd have to have an RS for the selection criteria. As to prices themselves, they vary by market and with the amount of subsidy. So you'd need to include the selling price in each market. Which is starting to sound very absurd. Perhaps split sales and prices off into a new article? Greglocock (talk) 19:55, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Greglocock, the electric car article DOES NOT have any prices related to specific cars, or lists of cars, please show me where. Second, the cars mentioned in the market section are the top selling models, as supported by the accompanying reliable sources (I did not chose the sales ranking). And finally, I did not participate in any of Dennis Bratland's discussion precisely to be tagged as WP:OWN. As you claimed TLDR, then you did not address the main issue, the arguments regarding the interpretation of WP:NOTCATALOG. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

We have gone through this in other electric car discussions, such as the TfD discussion on the price and range comparison template. There is consencus across several discussions that it's obvious these comparison tables and these rundowns of ranges, battery prices, rebate dollar amounts, pump prices of gasoline and electricity rates, are written as shopping guides. WP:NOTCATALOG doesn't hinge on whether you cite a reliable source. It's about the result: are you writing an encyclopedia article, or a shopping guide. I get the sense we are going to have to have yet another RfC where yet again we can demonstrate that there is consensus here, but I'd like Mariordo to step back and realize that the kind of content that has bloated so many EV articles goes against policy and consensus. I know I've posted links for Mariordo before of these discussions. Do I need to go back and find them again? It's not the sources, it's not that you can never put a price or a vehicle performance stat like battery range in an article. It's about what you do with that stuff. Ignore the needs of a buyer wondering which car to buy, or wondering if they should go electric. Focus on a general encyclopedia reader.

WP:OWN is a problem. I hate to delete such large quantities of writing that Mariordo has done. It's not a good thing to delete so much of anyone's work. But it doesn't belong to Mariordo, and it never should have been written at such length in the first place. The redundancy across articles is far out of bounds. WP:Summary style encourages some repetition, to give readers the gist of the main article, but not repeat paragraph after paragraph of the same excruciating detail. And the fact that we have these EV articles that are two, three, four, even five times longer than articles about the Ford Model T, or Mustang, or Chevrolet Corvette, or Jeep CJ or Volkswagen Beetle. Highly significant car lines that were in production for decades, yet an EV that has been made for only a copule years is FIVE times longer? Something is wrong there. Right? Can you not see that? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:59, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to see a link to previous rfc on this topic. Don't agree it is a shopping guide and price is important encyclopedic information. For example what made the model-t take off was price. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I also agree that citing price information is relevant in the case of EVs. It is constantly and prominently cited by relevant sources, so it deserves to be mentioned on Wikipedia. On the other hand, I also agree that many articles about electric vehicles should be trimmed. However, trimming does not mean just cutting content. There should be some effort to actually summarize the content already present, which is relevant in my opinion. --Ita140188 (talk) 02:00, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind that a news article about any product, toothpaste or stereo speakers, or electric cars, is going to give prominent attention to that product's price. The reason we have a policy saying Wikipedia is not a price comparison service is precisely because it's easy to think that we should give as much attention to retail prices when writing about speakers as magazine and newspaper articles about speakers. We need to step back and generalize more: we can describe prices in broad terms, where they stand relative to similar products, whether they have increased or decreased significantly compared to similar products in the past. But not give exact retail prices of things in the US market, along with every other global market and currency.

Once you get into the weeds of the price of a gallon fuel and a kwh of electricity in the US and the UK and France and Sweden you've gone down the wrong rabbit hole. Broad generalities. Not specifics, unless a specific price is exceptional, such a record high or record low. The rapidly falling price of the Model T is a great example: when the price dropped below the average price of a motorcycle, the US motorcycle industry contracted. That's a far cry from the precise cost of ownership of a Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S. History might judge that one of these price points was historically significant, as with the Model T, but in the present day, all we have is a pile of raw data and a lot of salesmen trying to move cars. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:38, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Dennis, I did read your opinion, very carefully, but you are muddling the discussion by bringing your general criticism about EV articles with the specific issues about this article. So, I suggest to focus on your objections to this article as it is today. You removed this entire section claiming (as per the edit summary: "...After one paragraph, it shifts into several paragraphs of promotional stuff about sales records" and I reverted your deletion and open this discussion because of this edit. You also said above the "comparison tables and these rundowns of ranges, battery prices, rebate dollar amounts, pump prices of gasoline and electricity rates, are written as shopping guides." However, this section does not mention anything about prices, ranges, nor comparisons of any kind, therefore your argument of WP:NOTCATALOG does not applies to this section. The only content in this section is a summary (it was trimmed significantly several months ago - so there is no bloating now) about historical sales stats showing market penetration, global and the key markets, and also the top selling models (all supported by reliable sources and no cherry picking here). My recent edits here and elsewhere have been to update stats from 2016 to 2017, and trimming whenever possible. You can check here how this section looked before the major trimming, so I believe there is no merit for the total deletion of those two sub-sections, instead I agree that a change in the section name is required. As I said above, there is indeed redundancy in some of the articles, but this is NO justification to delete entire sections, and not precisely in the articles that better cover the subject (such as plug-in electric car, electric car and plug-in hybrid - as explained above electric vehicle is not, covers too many modes and only has a summary about sales of PEVs). Or do you think this article should not have any sales/registration figures at all? The main electric car article with no info about sales because you think it is promotional? What content in the two sub-section you proposed to remove? So please address this specific point to move forward this discussion.--Mariordo (talk) 03:08, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

It's weird how every single EV's pricing structure is as historically significant as the Ford Model T. I guess every single electric and hybrid car is single-highhandedly disrupting the entire industry? Somehow? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:42, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Well Dennis, not all will survive, as it happens back in the early 1900 (among those not making it were all-electric cars, which were at some point, the majority of horseless carriages!). But more to the point, Tesla is a good example. The Model S is a luxury car, priced between $70K and $100K, and has sold just over 200K since 2012, but look at the 500K reservations for the Model 3, priced at about 30K after the federal tax credit, why, because of Tesla's cars reputation and the Model 3 is affordable for the middle class, price matters. And nobody is sure Tesla will survive! The Fisker Karma already went belly, others were discontinued. You have to consider that plug-ins are at the early stage of adoption, and as such, the panorama is evolving constantly, so a lot of content in EV articles gets dated, and with several editors adding pieces, some articles get disorganized, duplicated content, and with excess details. After seven years of the introduction of series production EVs is about time to do a rational trimming - not brute chopping (as an example I am trying to trim the main PEV article - It will take some time to finish, which by the way, already had several splits, just as electric car use by country). But within context, pricing info following WP guidelines is relevant now. Finally, if you look at all the articles and sections about PEV models, only the most notable (top selling usually) are the ones with more content about sales stats, right in accordance with WP:Notability, and in addition to sales volume, it is the press coverage is what determines what is notable. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 03:11, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

• @Daniel.Cardenas: Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner with those links I promised. Here are two of the discussions related to these issues:
  • Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 July 21#Template:Comparison electric car efficiency
  • Talk:Electric car energy efficiency#Still a shopping guide

There is pretty consistent agreement on this: no shopping guides, no price comparison services. Prices are not strictly forbidden, operating costs or efficiency performance is not strictly forbidden, but it should never be written as a blatant shopping guide, and exact prices or similar consumer data is included as the exception, not the rule. We include it when secondary sources give us good reason for it in special cases, not across every article. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Fuel cells

Hello, the article did not mention fuel cell vehicles at all. I added a short text on the introduction, but the rest of the article describes exclusively battery electric cars. Can you help to fix this? --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

This article is intended to be about pure battery EVs. Do you recommend a title rename? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 01:31, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

This should be the main article for any and all cars that are driven by electric motors only, regardless of power source. Things like pure battery EVs are a sub-type of electric car. Cars with no internal combustion engine connected to the drive train have fundamental characteristics in common that make them a coherent topic. Sub-types of electric cars can be those using lithium or lead-acid batteries (with our without battery charging from solar, auxiliary gas or diesel motor, human pedal or hamster wheel generators, etc), fuel cells, and even external sources of electric power: overhead power-lines, slot cars, beams of focused microwave energy and other kinds of wireless power transfer. Whatever. The wheels are turned by electric motors, so it's an electric car. Cousins of electric cars, but not electric cars strictly speaking, include hybrids, powered by either/both electric motors and a combustion engine that is actually driving the wheels, rather than merely recharge the batteries.

The reason for all this is WP:Summary style. Articles should be structured in a hierarchy of topic and sub-topic. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:00, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

This article is not written as a generic electric powertrain article. 99% is focused on pure battery EVs, and would be easy to delete the other 1%. Perhaps someone should create a separate article for "electric car generic", which describes hybrids, plug-ins, etc... Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 03:47, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Electric car generic? Never heard of an article title like that. If you really want, you could take the 99% you say is only about pure battery cars and move it to Battery electric car. It's obvious that the title Electric car should be all about electric cars. All kinds of electric cars. It's weird to say, oh, it's called electric car, but it's really only about a certain kind of electric car. All the other kinds are off somewhere else! Surprise! If it's going to be only about one kind of electric car, it should say so in the title, unless saying so requires a 20 word title. A three word title is not at all excessively long. Summary style doesn't have titles like 'electric car generic' at the top level, and sub-articles like 'electric car' (surprise! battery only!) under it.

I don't dispute that all of the EV and alt-fuel vehicle article are kind of a dumpster fire of poor organization and rampant redundancy, and they will take years to sort out. But the first step is to make it more rational, not to cling to the irrational structure to the bitter end. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:13, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree this article should mention (and preferably ridicule) fuel cell cars. BEVs have their own article. If a fuel cell car does not meet some definition of an electric car then that definition is wrong. Greglocock (talk) 19:00, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

The arguments ignore that this article is about Battery Electric Car (BEC) and not about cars with electric motors. We could vote what people feel is the more appropriate terminology. I'm o.k. with renaming this BEC and creating an article about cars with electric motors powered by gas engines, fuel cells, poop, fly wheel, etc... Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Why not figure out the hierarchy of the articles required and then fill in that structure.? Who says that the article Electric Car is only about battery electric cars, apart from you? . Greglocock (talk) 20:19, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Look at the beginning of the article before wp:lead. I see the following:

This article is about battery electric cars. For the more general category of electric drive for all type of vehicles, see electric vehicle. For cars with electric motors and internal combustion engines, see hybrid electric vehicle.

And no, I didn't add that text. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Daniel, whose case is direct and convincing. Jusdafax (talk) 22:19, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

What are you agreeing with? The logical thing to do is to change the name of the article to BEC. The sensible thing to do would be to sort out the hodgepodge of articles Salix alba listed below into a hierarchy. The stupid thing to do is to restrict an article called Electric cars to Battery electric cars. So, are you going to be logical, sensible or stupid? Greglocock (talk) 23:37, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm quite happy with a move to Battery electric car. The question is what should happen to the title Electric car? Should it be a redirect, some sort of dab page or a new article? There is a need for a car focused article which briefly outlines the main types. However this has the danger of replication and in growing to another large messy article.--Salix alba (talk): 09:08, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Lets look at the current articles on the subject

• Electric vehicle very general covers everything from Diesel-electric trains to e-Bikes.
• Battery electric vehicle covers all battery powered vehicles including buses, cars and bikes.
• Hybrid electric vehicle hybrids mention hydrogen, mainly cars but includes other vehicle types as well.
• Plug-in electric vehicle any electric vehicle with a plug. Covers BEV's in quite a bit of depth.
• Plug-in hybrid pretty exclusively cars.
• Electric car this article, exclusively cars, exclusively battery.
• Hydrogen vehicle and Fuel_cell vehicle seem to cover same ground.

There is a lot of duplication and the whole topic could do with a clean up. --Salix alba (talk): 23:13, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

There is also an article incorrectly named Electric car use by country, because it covers both kinds of plug-ins (BEVs and PHEVs) it should be correctly named Plug-in electric car use by country or more general Plug-in electric vehicle use by country, or even better, Plug-in electric vehicle adoption by country.

Also, in reaching a consensus for the naming of this article please remember that legally and technically (common names like EVs just add to the confusion) PEVs = BEVs + PHEVs. Also that Zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) = BEVs + FCEVs (with hydrogen fuel or any other fuel). If this article is to be kept for only BEV cars and not about ZEV cars (as it is now), then a more appropriate name will be All-electric car or Pure electric car. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 16:42, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

It’s easy to get overwhelmed trying to fix everything at once. Remember that perfection is not required, and it’s ok if the process gets messy. I’d suggest:

1. Move Electric car to Battery electric car
2. Make Electric car a dab page to be expanded later
3. Expand Electric car to be the main umbrella article. Consider merging in some, possibly all, of Electric vehicle to reduce redundancy. We don’t have to say “All” or “Pure” in the title; it’s pedantic to overdetermine the scope that way.
4. Consider merging in some, possibly all, of Battery electric vehicle to Battery electric car
5. Begin sorting out articles for plugins and hybrids along similar lines, reducing redundancy.

It’s a lot to do so try to focus and not worry about the big picture too much.Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I support Dennis' proposal. --NaBUru38 (talk) 10:29, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Lead image

Does anybody know why the 'File:Elektro-Autos in Rom (24200438882).jpg' image has been deleted from wikicommons? The new file 'File:Car2Go Stuttgart 2012-12-05 trimmed.jpeg' is fine but I'd like to know why the old file has been wiped completely.  Stepho  talk  23:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello Stepho-wrs, according to the image's page ('File:Elektro-Autos in Rom (24200438882).jpg'), User:Hystrix deleted it on 2018-03-09T17:29:51 because: "Uploaded files of a blocked user. To prevent harm from new tenant."

BTW: I used the explanation for using the lead image to remove the placement of another Luxgen car. I am a bit puzzled why so many pictures of Luxgen models keep getting added to numerous articles even if there is no mention of these cars in the text. It is good to have representative makes from all over the world. However, it seems that the often singular edits by contributors who are anomonous, or using different names, are only for the purpose of adding images of Luxgen vehicles. CZmarlin (talk) 01:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, seems like a poor reason to block an image that we finally got consensus on after a long and drawn out discussion. I have left a question on his wikicommons talk page asking him to explain his reasons.

And I agree with your comments about the proliferation of Luxgen images. We certainly don't want them over every second article (and the same goes for any other brand, like animals leaving their musk everywhere :)  Stepho  talk  02:47, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to google, I was able to recover the Rome image, but since the origin is unknown, I will not risk uploading it again in the Commons. Please Stepho, let me know if you get a positive reply to restore the consensus image. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 19:04, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Images that look like electric cars or car cars

Tesla with hose

Nissan Leaf just sitting there.

Jaguar just sitting there

Small Euro car with coiled cable

Re: this edit to restore images of cars that look more electric-y because of 1) goofy design, and 2) charging cable that is thin and coiled rather than a thick black tube that could be mistaken for a fuel hose. It's true that for the last 80-some years, electric cars have always looked goofy, for no particular reason. But that changed in the mid-90s, and so for the last 20 to 25 years, electric cars have looked pretty much like any other car. A lead image of a car that is more or less indiscinguisable from combustion engine cars is a fairly accurate representation of reality.

Even so, File:Tesla Model S at a Supercharger station.jpeg and File:2018-03-06 Geneva Motor Show 2441.JPG are both examples of ridiculously expensive luxury cars. You could argue that Teslas are the most well known and influential electric cars today, but Jaguar? Beyond obscure, and it doesn't even exist. I'd probably use the Tesla and maybe the Nissan Leaf, since it seems to be the top electric car globally. Or whichever car has the most total numbers in service now. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Sigh, we're about to go through yet another painful round of "I want my favourite electric car as the lead image". Just like I have been saying for years, the lead image must not just be an image of an electric car - it must be an image of an ELECTRIC car. The image must have has 2 main features that must be obvious to any reader with at least functioning 2 brain cells.

1. It must be a car. This is easy and every image proposed over the last 10 years has had this.
2. It must be obviously electric. Note that I underlined 'obviously' and did not underline 'electric'. Almost every image proposed has failed this. The image of the Tesla looks to the casual reader like an ordinary car with a hose connected to a petrol pump. The image of the Leaf looks like almost any Japanese hatch in a car park. In short these images are not representative of the article.

In the past, we have had images that had small European with coiled charging cables attached. No petrol pump hose is coiled and many different types of electric cables are coiled, so this makes it very obvious that this is an electric car. Unfortunately, many American editors treat small European cars as "goofy". But American electric cars don't have coiled cables or anything else that visually puts them apart from petrol powered cars. So, while small and/or goofy wasn't a goal, it seems to be an unfortunate side effect. If you can propose other images that are obviously electric, then we would be happy to consider it.  Stepho  talk  00:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I formally disagree with that statement, it doesn't need to be a caricature of a technology or a person, it just needs to be accurate, just as we don't need to get a picture of a modern diesel locomotive's internals working to show it is not a steam engine, at least not as the primary pictures. LordLimaBean (talk) 01:56, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, it does not need to be obviously electric. Do diesel cars have to look obviously diesel? On Going commando people constantly want to add a nude upskirt exhibitionist image, to illustrate a person wearing no underwear. The *point* of going commando is that you can't tell whether a person is or isn't wearing underwear. If you go out of your way to show the world, you're an exhibitionist, and if you go out of your way to find out, you're a voyeur. Three different categories; the going commando category means you can't tell. A lead image should be generally representative of the topic. If the typical electric car looks like a weird oddball, then we can have an "obviously" electric car lead, but the typical electric car since the 1990s hasn't been such a thing. The typical electric car today looks like most other cars.

I favor the Leaf if they really are the most common electric, even though they are hideously ugly, and a Tesla because our sources give them loads of coverage, and they are verifiably very influential, even if few of them are on the road. And I think Tesla is a lot of hype and media whoring, and they don't keep their promises. Neither the Leaf or the Tesla is my favorite. I find Tesla interesting, but not likable. A car I like would be a Mini, but I don't favor that for the lead.

If some other cars qualify as very common or highly covered by reliable sources, I'd favor those instead. Both cars shoulnd't be the same color; that looks odd. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:29, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Charging cars in San Francisco

For most steam and diesel loco's they are extremely easy to tell apart, so I don't see how that argument applies here. Whereas many electric cars and petrol cars do look similar (even if Dennis is driving them commando - note to self, don't open any email images coming from Dennis :)

The lead image must set the tone for the rest of the article. Placing a picture of what looks like any other car is just filling space, looking pretty or showing your favourite car - none of which are good arguments for using the reader's screen space. If the lead image is not just wasting space then it must point out something unique to this article. And the user should not have to spend huge amounts of thought, decipherment and analysis to figure out the meaning of the image. Preferably it should be something that he can glance at and immediately think of electric cars, even if the particular model is not one he is familiar with. A car driving on the street or just sitting there tells the reader nothing. A car with a thick electric cable that looks remarked similar to a petrol pump hose tells the reader nothing and might even confuse them. But a car with a bright coloured coiled cable sums up the entire article. What more could a lead image want?  Stepho  talk  09:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

For reference, here are the previous discussions:

• June 2008, Talk:Electric_car/Archive_3#Image_selection_and_order
• July 2009, Talk:Electric_car/Archive_4
• November 2010, Talk:Electric_car/Archive_5#Intro_layout_and_number_of_pics
• January 2012, [Talk:Electric_car/Archive_5#Proposing new image for the lead]]
• July 2012, Talk:Electric_car/Archive_6#Picture changed
• October 2012, Talk:Electric_car/Archive_6#Lead_picture  Stepho  talk  09:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

"A car driving on the street or just sitting there tells the reader nothing"? It does tell you something: it tells you typical electric cars today look like ordinary cars. Conversely, if you pick a relatively obscure car simply because it has more of that goofy "electric car look", it misleads the reader into thinking electric cars don't look like ordinary cars. It's like those terrible stock images lazy news blogs put at the top of articles about computer hacking, of a guy in a dark room at a keyboard wearing a hood and dark glasses. You can tell he's a hacker because that's what hacker's wear when they're typing, and the room has to be extra dark, or the hacking won't work good. It's goofy. A stock photo of a "cell phone user" in 1988 would be some kind of rich tycoon who has all the exotic toys, like Gordon Gekko A 2018 photo would be an example of literally anybody, from any walk of life. That's the point. Cell phones users are ordinary. The fact that something doesn't look extraordinary is information. Making it look extraordinary is misinformation. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Dennis - current electric cars mostly look like typical petrol or diesel cars. The main reason for that is that they are generally based on typical petrol or diesel cars, but with the combustion engine and ancillaries replaced with electric motors and batteries. On the other hand, the next generation of electric cars (like the imminent Jaguar I-Pace, for example) will have been designed from the ground up as electric cars. As they will be packaged around motors and batteries rather than around I.C. engines, they may have shorter and lower bonnets (hoods) and longer wheelbases and more interior space for their given footprints. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:42, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Been watching this discussion for a few days now, wondering why on earth anyone would expect electric cars to look dramatically different from cars that run on other fuels. Electric cars are now effectively mainstream, so looking like any other car on the road is the point. They ARE NOT weird, oddball vehicles. Looking for an image of something out of left field to represent something that isn't is just wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 23:21, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• 
  Icon
• 
  VW Golf Electric
• 
  Tesla Roadster charging outdoors
• 
  Tesla Roadster charging indoors
• 
  BMW i3
• 
  Prius PHEV
• 
  Leaf charging
• 
  Tesla charging cable
• 
  Leaf charging
• 
  Prius PHEV
• 
  Tesla Roadster charging

From MOS:LEADIMAGE, "It is common for an article's lead or infobox to carry a representative image‍—‌such as of a person or place, a book or album cover — to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page." (my underlining) The lead is special - it lets the reader know what is unique about this topic. What is the point of a reader seeing a picture of just another car as the first image of the article? It's a perfectly valid point that they are mainstream and look just like other cars but there are plenty of example images scattered through the article. It is certainly not the main point of the article. The main point of the article is that they are electric and therefore the lead image must reflect this.

Referring to small electric cars as "goofy", weird, oddball or out of left field is showing a cultural bias. In Europe, these are perfectly normal small cars that don't look out of place at all - they're just not common in the US (Dennis) or Australia (HiLo48).

However, we can try to pick an image that is agreeable across the world. I've shown a few more above that emphasis the electric nature of cars. Most of these new images are of cars that can be seen on roads in Europe, N.America, Australia and many other countries. Most of these new images show this electric nature through the use of a charging cable that doesn't look like a petrol pump hose. I have a preference for the cars charging in San Francisco showing Prius PHEV's but the others also get the point across. Would anybody like to comment on these images?  Stepho  talk  12:58, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I disagree firmly, that is simply not true, the lead image is very obviously an electric car, nothing about it says it is an I.C.E, it is obviously a wire already, just because people have dark skin doesn't mean you have to put a stereotypical black-face type person on a wikipedia page for africans, I know that is really extreme of an example, but it is already settled, this picture of the model S will stay here until further notice, unless there are more future objections with a reasonable claim to why it should be changed, such as; there being a better picture of a model 3, the technology changing, or some other unforseen change, as of now, I think we all agree, that this is how it will stay, unless someone has a reasonable claim as to why it should change, thank you for spending the time to write that message. LordLimaBean (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Er, no. I disagree firmly with your position and the discussion is still very much under way. Indeed, according to WP:BRD, when a change has been made that is controversial then the article should be returned to its original state (ie before your change to the Tesla) until the conversation has run its course. I am well within my rights to revert the image immediately and it is only my politeness that stops me from doing so.

Out of interest I went to the Africa article. The people are mainly mentioned in the Africa#Demographics section and it has only 3 images - all of dark-skinned people. It links to the Demographics of Africa article (also accessible via Africans to match your comment above), which has 4 images of black people and 1 image of white people. I don't think Wikipedia agrees with your point about how to choose an image for African people.

The image of the Tesla is only obviously electric if you already know what a Tesla is - otherwise it looks like an ordinary (albeit very nice) sedan. Which is the point Dennis made. An image that is "obviously" electric to one person but is obviously just like any other non-electric car is not doing its job for either point. Also, to someone not familiar with electric cars in general or the Tesla specifically, that black thing coming out of the car looks remarkably similar to a hose from a petrol pump. It has the same colour, the same thickness and droops about the same. A reader unfamiliar with electric car charging cables could be lead to wondering why an electric car article has an image of a car being filled with petrol. You have assumed that the reader is already familiar with the Tesla, is already familiar with electric cars and only likes electric cars if they are of the larger size preferred by Americans. In which case, why on Earth is the reader even looking at this article if they know it all?

Now, can anybody comment on any of the other images I have shown above? The black Tesla Roadster charging could be a good candidate. It is a car agreeable to Americans. It has a charging cable to emphasis that it is electric (draped across the ground in a way unlike that of petrol hoses). It is nicely posed. Would this be suitable?  Stepho  talk  08:03, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Only if you change the images in the articles for every petrol driven car to pictures cars parked beside a pump with the nozzle in the tank. This really is a silly objective of yours. Electric cars are just cars. HiLo48 (talk) 09:08, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The point of the lead image of any article is to show what is special about that topic. Most cars are petrol powered, therefore being petrol powered is not special to most car articles, therefore most car articles do not need a petrol pump in the image. And contrary to what you think I am suggesting, I do not expect Tesla, Leaf, etc articles to require a charging cable in the lead image. The point of those articles is the car, so an ordinary image of the car is perfectly fine. Whereas electric cars are still in the minority and being electric is the exact point of this article. This article has two points to convey to the reader 1. cars and 2. electric. The first point is covered well by all lead images considered but you 3 have steadfastly ignored any image that gives the un-informed reader a clue about it being electric. Instead, you suggest the electric car article should have a lead image that hides anything suggesting that it is electric. And you claim that my idea is silly?  Stepho  talk  21:46, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Twice I have asked for comments on specific images (cars charging San Francisco and the black Tesla charging) and Springee has asked about the icon. Does anybody have any reason why these would not be suitable as a lead image?

They would be suitable, but I still see no need to have cables hanging from the car to somehow "prove" it's electric. The title of the article does that. You are discussing a problem that doesn't exist, AND ignoring an awful lot of perfectly good images. HiLo48 (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

How about the electric car icon shown above? The other ev images could be used throughout the article. The icon is both obvious and neutral. Springee (talk) 11:06, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I will be leaving this conversation until further notice per: WP:DROPSTICK, now let's get onto some more urgent matters with this page, there is a lot to be done. LordLimaBean (talk) 22:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

• First, nobody should be reverting anybody here. None of these images are offensive, or egregiously misleading or inaccurate. Pretty much all of them are adequate enough. We can work this out without edit warring, and if it takes a month, so what?

  Second, what is special about electric cars in the 21st century is that they are normal cars. They have more or less the same usability, performance, range, and price of conventional cars. If a reader barely glances at this article and only gleans one fact from it, that fact should be that electric cars have entered the mainstream. A perfect visual metaphor to convey that is a picture of one of the most commonplace electric cars around, what WP:LEADIMAGE calls "natural and appropriate representations of the topic". The guideline says it is "common" for lead images to provide visual confirmation that a reader has arrived on the right page, but it does not say the lead image must serve this purpose. Can anyone cite evidence for confusion about whether or not the found the right page as being an overriding concern? What is the use case for this? Someone trying to defuse a ticking time bomb who can't afford a split second to read the article title? It can't be for someone who doesn't read English; articles are explicitly not written to accommodate readers who don't have basic fluency in English. The MOS does explicitly encourage accommodating visually impaired readers, but does not say we have to try to communicate purely through pictures and icons. Wikipedia is fundamentally about text, not images.

  I also can't imagine the use case of a person who is fluent in written English, and who is so familiar with automobiles that they would recognize a thick black hose as a fuel pump hose, yet at the same time this person doesn't have the slightest clue that a car that looks like a Tesla Model S or a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt. What country does this reader live in? What planet? How exactly are they reading Wikipedia without any access to the Internet, which will have already made them familiar with the basic fact of what typical cars look like, and giving them some general concept of the electric cars. Wikipedia is not written for The Man Who Fell to Earth.

  The dominant electric car silhouette is represented by the top-selling EVs, the closely-related Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe, and the similarly-styled BAIC e-series, the #1 EV in the world's largest EV market, China. China's #2 EV, the Chery EQ, could easily be mistaken for one of these as well. I could be easily persuaded to support an image of some other car if you were to argue that this other car is the most popular, top selling, or most commonplace car on Earth. I support whatever is the electric car that is most prevalent.

  I think two lead images would look fine here, and I think it's not a bad idea for the second image to be the media darling Tesla. Tesla is not representative of the EV market as a whole, and not representative of the global car market. Even in Europe or the US, Tesla is convinced to an upper-class niche. But our sources pay a lot of attention to Tesla, partially because of publicity stunts like launching a car into space, and partially because Tesla has had a disproportionate influence on making electric cars mainstream. Since the move of EVs into the mainstream is of such great importance here, then it follows that we could use one in the lead, probably as the second image after a typical Leaf/Zoe/BAIC e-series type car. But not both in burgundy; that looks weird.

  Regarding the several suggestions to use an image that puts the charging station front and center, upstaging and cropping out the car, I say that this article is about the topic of electric cars. We have an article charging station, that is about charging stations -- it's lead even has one of the images suggested here. This article is about electric cars, and the lead should be an image of a car. It's not harmful if a charging cable or station is in the image too, but it must show a car, and the whole car. Not a cropped piece of a car.

  What about an icon? No. What is the use case for an icon? Someone who can't read English? Sorry, no. Not necessary. It conveys far too little information. We're not trying to pick the most dumbed-down way of saving the reader the effort of reading the words "electric car".

  The examples of Africa and Demographics of Africa are simply unhelpful because they are not WP:GAs or WP:FAs. If you are going to argue by example, then you have to pick a Featured Article or Good Article, at least, to ensure that we are talking about an artilce with strong consensus favoring it. Africa has been semi-protected since 2010 for content disputes!

  Most FAs are about very specific tings, because it is so hard for there to be any consensus on a broad topic or abstract concept. Of the few examples, we have Bacteria, which leads with perhaps the most commonplace, familiar example, E. coli. Cell nucleus leads with HeLa, "the oldest and most commonly used human cell line". Bird punts by using 18 different images for the lead. Wimps. We could go the Wikipedia:Imagemap route, but to me it's high-maintenance. We should be able to change the lead image of an article a couple times a year without it being a big production. But it might solve the dispute.

  I would be open to following the example of other Featured Articles about topics as broad as electric car. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

• The FA Film noir is a fairly broad topic, and its lead image is not the most successful or famous films, like Double Indemnity (film) or Chinatown (1974 film) or The Third Man, but the quite obscure The Big Combo, because of an iconic image, and its influence on more famous noir films. This would be comparable to leading with a Tesla. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Nissan Leaf at a charging station

• Does File:17-11-14-Fahrzeug-Glasgow RR79924.jpg meet everyone's requirements? It's one of the most common, typical electric cars, and it shows the entire car in a realistic setting. It is clearly connected to an electrical cable, and few if any modern petrol cars have a fuel inlet in the front, so it is unmistakably electric. The composition and overall quality are maybe a bit on the dull side (it doesn't have to be a Featured Image), but other than that the image quality is good -- sharp, well lit, no distortion. If not, some other picture of a Leaf or Zoe at a charging station, showing the entire car, ought to make everyone happy. No? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:32, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I would be fine if the Model S and the Nissan Leaf pictures that are already on the page where just swapped, Stepho? LordLimaBean (talk) 03:25, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

LordLimaBean: Since neither of those images shows what I think is needed, then the order makes no difference.

Dennis: Yes, the LEAF charging image that you presented works fine for me.  Stepho  talk  22:35, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

So how about these for lead images -- or some other Tesla, or even some other image that isn't a car but represents the 21st century EV industry:

The Nissan Leaf, one of the world's top electric car models, at a charging station

The 2006 announcement of a luxury sports car by Silicon Valley startup Tesla led a resurgent electric car industry

--Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

The Tesla Roadster only sold well under 3k, compared to the Nissan Leaf (300k sold), Tesla Model S (200k sold), Model 3 (~500k preordered, in early production, at ~2500 a week, rising fast)LordLimaBean (talk) 23:47, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

But what does that have to do with the point? Which I explained in my comments above twice, or three times, and which is in the caption?--Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

The Tesla Roadster while a cool car, I feel was not a good fit for the top of the page, as a low amount of units are in circulation, perhaps we could do one of these things so everyone is happy (the large list of images at the beggining), and order them in the units of sales of each type? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird LordLimaBean (talk) 00:32, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

The Leaf was picked due to its high numbers sold, the fact that Leafs are common EVs all over the world. The second car is there for a completely different reason. As I was trying to point out, the reason for the second car being there is its role in the recent era in EVs. The DOE history site I linked to makes it simple: in the 90s interest in electric cars bottomed out, the EV1 fizzled for reasons, and then things limped along while technology improved and global warming grew in importance. And then... the mindset changed. The DOE history site puts it like this: after the 200-mile Tesla sports car is announced "Other automakers take note, accelerating work on their own electric vehicle." Next thing you know, Leaf, and Zoe, and so on. Ever since 2006, Tesla has had a disproportionate influence, far out of scale with how many cars it actually makes. And the Roadser is not a cool car, it's a wet dream for jackoffs with too much money. I don't want any Teslas here because they're "cool". It's because you can't deny that Tesla is influential.

Having the Leaf followed by a picture of the #2 top selling EV would be just dull, and missing an opportunity to highlight an important fact about electric cars today. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:26, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

LLB, the collage lead image in the bird article is an interesting idea. In that article it gives the reader the important impression that birds come in many different varieties. However, to me, it also gives the impression that the editors couldn't get it together long enough to agree on anything. For our article, we already have lots of images showing variety, with both US and European cars, in both large and small sizes. Which gives the collage nothing much extra to say and forces the reader to squint at tiny images.

Dennis, I have no preference for a particular brand or model. I'm happy with a Tesla, Leaf or one of the small cars. It's the plainness of a car just sitting there that bothers me when we can give the reader so much more. To me, the Roadster with the "2006 announcement" caption would be a great car to own if I had the money but doesn't actual say much to the reader. Also, the caption is very true of the Western market but ignores the Chinese market where BYD Auto have been making wonderful electric vehicles for a while (I had a ride in an electric BYD taxi in Guangdong in December and was quite impressed). Back in about 2005 I sat in on some informal talks between China and Australia about nuclear vs coal electricity generation and I know that China takes its pollution problem very seriously. It's why 2 stroke bikes and walking tractors common in China in the 1990's have disappeared and electric bikes and electric taxis are everywhere. But I digress.

LLB has given his preference for the Leaf and both you and I like the Leaf charging image. So, perhaps we should agree to use that as the lead image. I have no objection if a few other images chosen by you two are put under it to show some variety or other features.  Stepho  talk  11:25, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I thought you were joking when you wrote that File:Nissan Leaf on Cross Island Parkway cropped.jpg is "just sitting there." It's a good quality dynamic image, and a good example of how to use motion blur to show an object in motion. Showing a car being driven in traffic this way shows it in its natural habitat doing the thing it exists to do. It has a lot of merit, and it's definitely not "just sitting there". But yes, lets go with File:17-11-14-Fahrzeug-Glasgow RR79924.jpg, and for now the 2006 Tesla after that. If someone wants to come along and replace it with a BYD or some other secondary aspect of EVs, by all means, let them. We aren't making the final decisions on any images. If something better comes along next week or next year, all the better. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:36, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, my mistake. It looked like a Leaf in a car park with another vehicle travelling past on an adjacent road. Even good full-size images can be deceptive at Thumbnail scale.  Stepho  talk  04:51, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

LordLimaBean, do you you have any objection to the using the image of the Leaf charging that Dennis picked out?  Stepho  talk  10:40, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps we could find one with a home charger? I am asking around for people who have a good picture of their car that has everything for sure legal to use, a focus on the car, while charging using a home charger, as that would be ideal. As for the secondary image, I like the idea of the roadster having a huge role in the page, but I feel like it should be moved to the history section instead, I feel for the second image from the top it should be either the Tesla Model S, or the Model 3, as the model s was the second best selling one, and, once the deliveries are done, the model 3 will likely be one of the highest sold electric vehicles. LordLimaBean (talk) 00:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

If you start choosing a Tesla based on sales numbers, then you run straight into a buzz saw of other cars that outsold any Tesla. The best argument for why a Tesla belongs near the top of the article isn't sales volume, it's influence, and that Tesla's initial buzz is what kicked off the current EV era. That places the turning point at 2006, and the first Roadster prototypes.

Let's just agree with the Leaf and the Roadster for now, and later if someone has something better we can cross that bridge when we come to it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:28, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps the first image could be this, and the second image the roadster? LordLimaBean (talk) 03:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Best selling electric cars, Nissan Leaf (left), and Tesla Model S (right), charging at a street in Oslo.

It's a bit dark and depressing. I prefer the red Leaf changing because it shows everything else I think is important and is atheistically better. I'd be even happier with the black Roadster charging but I will go along with either of the 2 images you 2 are looking at. Perhaps the red Leaf followed by the black Roadster.  Stepho  talk  10:39, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I am delighted by the photo of the Tesla at the Supercharger aka “Tesla with hose” and quite pleased to see it at the top of this article. But then, I took the picture! And to be honest, I don’t see one I like more. I’ve discussed this here before, don’t care to further, except to say the red Nissan Leaf charging is my second choice. With a grin, I !vote we leave the current photo up top. Oh, and thanks to whoever put it up there. Jusdafax (talk) 09:49, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Um, that makes you a touch biased :) As I've detailed above, as much I like Tesla cars, that particular image is not suitable as the lead image. The Leaf charging image is much, much better. However, I'm am perfectly happy to have your Tesla image as the second image.  Stepho  talk  23:50, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it fits all suitable criteria in my book, apart from you disliking it, the only potential change would be to flip the nissan leaf and the model s, but we probably need a better picture of the nissan leaf, and a more up to date (2018) version, once that is in place, once tesla sells enough of the model 3 for it to reach the best selling, we will then replace the lead image with the model 3, and the secondary image with the best selling non tesla electric car of the time. LordLimaBean (talk) 00:19, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm against the red Tesla image but not because I don't like it. As an image it's fine. On the Tesla Model S article or the Tesla, Inc. article it would be fine. But on this 'Electric car' article you want a picture that looks like it is being filled up with petrol. That's misleading to the reader. The red Leaf charging image was acceptable to all of us and is a far better fit to the article.  Stepho  talk  05:29, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

After more thinking the Red leaf charging is not an acceptable image, as it does not focus on the car, and instead focuses on the car's charger, which will almost never be used like that. The focus should instead be on the car itself, or as the car's charging a secondary thing, on top of that, frankly, we need to find someone to get a new image to our choices, as, we should probably find a car that meets these criteria 1. In the top 3 most sold electric cars. 2. The car itself as the primary part of the image 3. If it's charging it should use a home charger. Currently the image fulfills two of the criteria that I feel like should be used, while the image of the Leaf, while good, fulfills only one. The image of the second nissan leaf on the page already fulfills all of them. Once the model 3 sells at least 200k of their 400k they are early in producing, we should try to find an image of one of those, unless, there is a car that sells more until then, given that it will likely surpass all of them in sales. Other than that we probably need to make sure we do the typical things, such as make sure the contrast makes the cars easily visible (the black cars I suggested earlier will not work well because of that), and, make sure it's an accurate representation of the page electric car, which, any image of something that is a popular electric car I feel like would fit, and I do not feel like it needs to be partaking in an activity that only an electric car can do, just as you don't have to show gas being poured in internal combustion engine cars on the top image because that is a difference between other methods. LordLimaBean (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Focuses on the charger? When the car is about 3/4 of the image and the charger is less than 1/4.

Practically everybody knows what a car is. There is no need to emphasise that it is a car to the exclusion of all else. Petrol powered cars have been the dominant type of car for about a century, so most readers are already familiar with the fact of a combustion engine. But electric cars are still in the minority and are therefore different to what the average reader comes across. Plus, the article title has 2 words. You want to emphasise the word that is common and well known to most readers but want to sideline the word that actually makes this type different from the majority of cars on the road. Presenting an image of 4 wheels and some tin gives very little to the reader - they already known what a car is. Adding what looks like a petrol hose then confuses the reader who then has to figure out why the image seems to represent the exact opposite of the article title. And your idea that we must not show what is special about this topic is, frankly, baffling to me. I can't think of any other article that goes out of its way to not show the main point of the article.

I can see why a home charger is preferable to a street charger but why must a street charger be ruled out as unsuitable if we can't find an acceptable home charger image?  Stepho  talk  22:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Here are some examples of conventional looking electric cars that scream electric. Any option that seems to cover all the criteria discussed above?

• 
  Option 1
• 
  Option 2
• 
  Option 3
• 
  Option 4
• 
  Option 5
• 
  Option 6
• 
  Option 7

And by the way, the worlds's best selling models ever are: Nissan Leaf (over 300K), Tesla Model S (about 250K), BMW i3 (over 100K) and Renault Zoe (about 100K).--Mariordo (talk) 18:58, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

• 
  BMW i3 charging. #4 electric vehicle most sold worldwide

My preference is the black Tesla Roadster charging at home but I would be happy with any of those. I also added one more image of the BMW i3.  Stepho  talk  22:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

The lead image shouldn't focus on a secondary aspect relating to a technology, it should focus on the main technology; the car. It doesnt matter what anyone thinks of the image as long as it 1. accurately shows an electric CAR 2. focuses on the CAR, and 3. is a good contrasting image of the car, that is representative of what electric cars are. They are not just batteries and charging points. (Lord Lima Bean on mobile) LordLimaBean (talk) 05:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The lead image should focus on the primary aspect of the article - which is what makes electric cars different from other cars. The primary aspect of the article is about the secondary aspect of the vehicle. Agreed that they are not just batteries and charging points. But without batteries and charging points they are inert lumps of metal.  Stepho  talk  14:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I also do prefer the black Tesla Roadster (option 4). The image is professional high resolution and excellent lighting, and shows the car highlighting it is electric. Second best, option 1 or 2.--Mariordo (talk) 12:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Those images would be great for Charging station, but for electric car the focus should probably be on the car, just as you don't focus on a flower in butterfly, instead having it as a prominent secondary action in the image. LordLimaBean (talk) 03:36, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Nissan Leaf at a charging station

Best selling electric cars, Nissan Leaf (left), and Tesla Model S (right), charging at a street in Oslo.

Flowers are not the primary focus of the butterfly article, so your analogy doesn't apply. The primary topic of this article is cars that are electric, as opposed to cars that are not electric. Which makes the electric part a central theme of the article. Therefore the lead image should also reflect that as its central theme. However, I am not tied to showing chargers. Any other way that shows the electric nature of these cars would also work.  Stepho  talk  06:30, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

On a more constructive note, we could just choose either the red Leaf charging that you were previously happy with or the black cars charging that you presented earlier.  Stepho  talk  06:39, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

No replies for 4 1/2 days. If there is no further feedback then I will put in the image of the red Leaf charging - that seemed to generate the most agreement and the least argument.  Stepho  talk  22:51, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I feel like we should use the Tesla Model S picture already there for now, and search for a new picture, I don't think any of our current pictures are good enough, the one that is already up is by far the closest to the goal of accuracy, and, importantly, focus on the car itself. LordLimaBean (talk) 04:26, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Revamp?

Sorry if this is a bit informal, I am fairly new to Wikipedia still, we need to revamp this page and a lot to contain information of what most people will experience with an electric car, specifically most people will be seeing the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf, and soon likely the I-Pace, we need to make sure we don't show too many luxury cars or city cars, just as we don't show racecars and citycars all over the pages for I.C.E cars. They obviously should still be included, just not strewn all over the place. On top of that the pages for pricing appears to be outdated, among other outdates strings of line that end up in an almost argument with itself of things like "This is a disadvantage of EV technology, BUT it's better now/SOME ones are...." might just be a nitpick tho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordLimaBean (talk • contribs) 21:39, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Electric cars are not environmentally efficient.

Everyone talks about how electric cars are great for the environment, but in reality they are probably worse. They create more pollution in manufacturing, due to the metals needed for the battery, the electricity they run on comes from, for the most part, coal, natural gas and nuclear power (wind power is inefficient, hydroelectric dams are expensive, solar power is both), and when being scrapped, the batteries must be disposed of, and that creates a lot of pollution. Not that CO2 output matters, because it is necessary for life on earth and has played a minor cause in global warming (most of it is natural, and climate predictions are unreliable). I will get sources soon.2601:245:C101:6BCC:7519:86DA:773F:598B (talk) 02:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

That is factually incorrect, please find an accurate source and cite it. LordLimaBean (talk) 04:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

As LLB said, you need references to support your claim. Many of your points are true. However, do you also include emissions during the refining of the petrol, the emissions of the tanker that shipped the fuel to your country, the emissions of truck that distributed it to your local petrol station, the emissions of the military used to guarantee that supply of petrol from a war-torn part of the world? Also, electricity generation can be dirty (coal powered) or clean (hydro) depending on where you live (Norway is almost all hydro and very, very clean). Even when using dirty generation, at least they have the option to use a massive scrubber that will be far more efficient than what could be carried on-board a car - again, depending on where you live. It's a complex equation.  Stepho  talk  22:24, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

This article used to have the answer to this concern, but during recent trimming it was removed. They are NOT worse than ICEs, you can find the correct and comprehensive answer properly supported by reliable sources here: Environmental aspects of the electric car.--Mariordo (talk) 12:47, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Here are the links to the source site, but I don't know how to put them into the references. https://www.prageru.com/videos/are-electric-cars-really-green https://www.prageru.com/videos/truth-about-co2 https://www.prageru.com/videos/can-climate-models-predict-climate-change https://www.prageru.com/videos/can-we-rely-wind-and-solar-energy

You have to provide reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia. You brought just one source, considered here original research, and clearly against the scientific consensus about climate change. The minority view about climate change is fully discussed in the global warming controversy and climate change denial articles. This is no place to bring that discussion. Cheers.--Mariordo (talk) 00:38, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Did you even watch the video? While the climate stuff is off-topic they make a point with electric cars.2601:245:C101:6BCC:6C95:3711:E29F:845A (talk) 01:12, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, the electric ones were less fast

"Unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, the electric ones were less fast"

This is not correct.

In 1898 the world speed record for a car was in an electric car that went 65.79 mph (105.88 km/h). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.81.121.12 (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2018 (UTC)