EV's....and the future of 'breakdowns'

[stuntmaneddie]

With the inevitable rise of the EV, and along with that the potential for finding them stranded all over the country with no charge left, is there a potential for mobile charging vehicles? I would imagine these vehicles being kind of like an emergency service but equipped with a huge capacitor, or a whole raft of portable jerry can like power boosters...just enough boost in power to get you home or to a charging station

[Mr E]

Or a generator powered by some form of liquid that's easily obtainable across the country.

Unless you're in the middle of nowhere, significantly faster just to tow the flat car to the nearest charging point and leave them to sort it out.

[sjg]

Like this - http://www.charging-solutions.com/products/ev-resc...

RAC at least have some units in service. As said though, usually easier all round to just tow to the charger you were trying to get to anyway.

[LandRoverManiac]

Except you can't tow them, not any of the driven wheels at any rate - according to Nissan with the LEAF. It would have to be a low loader job, or simply just leaving them there to ponder over life, the universe, and the indiscriminate nature of automotive breakdowns.

That said, in theory there is less to break on an EV mechanically - but as more go on the roads and over older with time they still have the potential to go wrong like anything else with moving parts.

Edit - Ignore my stupidity, I forgot about those dolly things. So long as the powered wheels were not on the tarmac you should be okay for a tow.

Edited by LandRoverManiac on Sunday 12th February 10:20

[MitchT]

I think the breakthrough that EVs need is for the battery pack to be easily removable. That way recovery services could simply bring a new pack to get a car going again. There could be a universal design with different sizes of vehicle simply having different numbers of packs. Also, I personally wouldn't touch an EV until such time as there's a means of being able to physically disconnect the motor from the driven wheels - I don't much fancy dying at 300mph because the computer froze! If the motor could be disconnected in this way then towing would cease to be an issue.

[dxg]

stuntmaneddie said:

With the inevitable rise of the EV, and along with that the potential for finding them stranded all over the country with no charge left, is there a potential for mobile charging vehicles? I would imagine these vehicles being kind of like an emergency service but equipped with a huge capacitor, or a whole raft of portable jerry can like power boosters...just enough boost in power to get you home or to a charging station

I was thinking this just the other day. I was thinking about what an RAC van (or equivalent) would look like in the future.

What I came up with was a van with a generator constantly running and keeping a bank of batteries topped up. The van than uses those batteries to quickly charge the empty car with the maximum amount of amperage that can be mustered. Think of it like a mobile Tesla supercharger. The batteries on the van then get replenished by the generator as it moves to the next job and properly topped off at overnight. They'd have to limit the amount of charge per customer, I reckon, as the generator wouldn't be able to keep up with the rate at which the batteries would be getting discharged during the day.

What would the lifecycle be on batteries with that heavy a duty cycle, though? Would make for some very interesting life cycle costings...

[Gnits]

Not really a breakdown but I did see one on fire about 2 months ago. Firebrigade dutifully showed up and hosed it down - that made the Lithium Ion batteries very angry!

[jkh112]

MitchT said:

Also, I personally wouldn't touch an EV until such time as there's a means of being able to physically disconnect the motor from the driven wheels - I don't much fancy dying at 300mph because the computer froze! If the motor could be disconnected in this way then towing would cease to be an issue.

Setting aside just how unlikely that scenario is, how is it any different to a modern conventionally powered car with an on/off switch instead of a traditional key and an automatic/dsg gearbox? Whether the power comes from an electric motor or an internal combustion engine makes no difference if the computer has a glitch and all the controls are drive by wire.

[MitchT]

I wouldn't touch a conventionally driven car either if I couldn't take it out of gear manually. The risks are remote, I concede, but there have been cases of brake-by-wire failing (for example) and as cars get more and more complicated the tech appears increasingly prone to getting itself confused. There needs to be a manual override.

[colin_p]

Business oppos are many, how about;

A trailer with "battery charger" built onto powered by an internal combustion engine.

or

A roofrack mounted version, would be a bit heavy and noisy mind.

or

A rear mounted version, like a bike rack.



The engines to run the "battery chargers" would obviously have to be something like an old school VW TDI or Pug HDI that would run on anything, I'm sure even cheap red diesel would be legit as long as something was being charged at the same time. My advertising slogan would be "All the emissions you want, without the tax!" and the company logo would be a grinning little devil smudged in soot.

But more seriously, I don't understand why battey packs couldn't be standardised and swapped out at fuel stations. It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to make something the size of lets say a large suitcase (obviously lots heavier) that could be swapped out on the fly. Fuel stations could have racks and racks of them either charging or charged and ready to go.

Obviously if that took off, each fuel station would have to have a massive, really massive, diesel generator on site to produce the charge and as the national grid wouldn't cope.

[Hub]

colin_p said:

But more seriously, I don't understand why battey packs couldn't be standardised and swapped out at fuel stations. It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to make something the size of lets say a large suitcase (obviously lots heavier) that could be swapped out on the fly. Fuel stations could have racks and racks of them either charging or charged and ready to go.

If EVs really take off, and assuming range doesn't increase massively, there will have to be something like this to avoid the need for enormous car parks of charging stations everywhere at service stations etc.

[hairyben]

Hub said:

colin_p said:

But more seriously, I don't understand why battey packs couldn't be standardised and swapped out at fuel stations. It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to make something the size of lets say a large suitcase (obviously lots heavier) that could be swapped out on the fly. Fuel stations could have racks and racks of them either charging or charged and ready to go.

If EVs really take off, and assuming range doesn't increase massively, there will have to be something like this to avoid the need for enormous car parks of charging stations everywhere at service stations etc.

Standardisation

Dont know why more EV's arent made to take power via an add on power pack though, would be a great range extender option as well as recovery.

[colin_p]

hairyben said:

Hub said:

colin_p said:

But more seriously, I don't understand why battey packs couldn't be standardised and swapped out at fuel stations. It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to make something the size of lets say a large suitcase (obviously lots heavier) that could be swapped out on the fly. Fuel stations could have racks and racks of them either charging or charged and ready to go.

If EVs really take off, and assuming range doesn't increase massively, there will have to be something like this to avoid the need for enormous car parks of charging stations everywhere at service stations etc.

Standardisation

Dont know why more EV's arent made to take power via an add on power pack though, would be a great range extender option as well as recovery.

I said battey packs!

But yes, a standardised but nicely hidden recepticle for a battery pack or even two for range extension and or more volts.

I'm sure there are many on here who could sketch something out on the back of fag packet in ten minutes that would be 90% there. A trolley / caddy for moving the battery to and from the charging rack to the car and a foolproof docking station / recpeticle on the cars themselves.

There would be an inevitable betamax vs vhs or bluray vs whatever the other one was that lost race for a little while before a standard was adapotd but it would work.

The problem remains though on exactly where the juice would come from to charge all of those 'battey' packs. At present, each garge would have to have one of those diesel gennies that are the size of a shipping container running 24/7.

And at peak times you'd be lucky to find anywhere who has a charged 'battey'. Quite ironic as within my time driving (30 years) I'd say the number of garages / petrol stations has reduced by 1/3, they'd have to build new ones to cope with demand.

EV's we are just not quite there yet but I'm sure it was the same in the early 1900's...

[hairyben]

colin_p said:

I said battey packs!

But yes, a standardised but nicely hidden recepticle for a battery pack or even two for range extension and or more volts.

I'm sure there are many on here who could sketch something out on the back of fag packet in ten minutes that would be 90% there. A trolley / caddy for moving the battery to and from the charging rack to the car and a foolproof docking station / recpeticle on the cars themselves.

There would be an inevitable betamax vs vhs or bluray vs whatever the other one was that lost race for a little while before a standard was adapotd but it would work.

The problem remains though on exactly where the juice would come from to charge all of those 'battey' packs. At present, each garge would have to have one of those diesel gennies that are the size of a shipping container running 24/7.

And at peak times you'd be lucky to find anywhere who has a charged 'battey'. Quite ironic as within my time driving (30 years) I'd say the number of garages / petrol stations has reduced by 1/3, they'd have to build new ones to cope with demand.

EV's we are just not quite there yet but I'm sure it was the same in the early 1900's...

Its not an insurmountable problem but with battery packs being mounted centrally low down for CoG as you're looking at 100kg or so they don't lend themselves to swapping out. Often the form will follow car construction space demands rather than being a convenient block that can be released.

[98elise]

MitchT said:

I think the breakthrough that EVs need is for the battery pack to be easily removable. That way recovery services could simply bring a new pack to get a car going again. There could be a universal design with different sizes of vehicle simply having different numbers of packs. Also, I personally wouldn't touch an EV until such time as there's a means of being able to physically disconnect the motor from the driven wheels - I don't much fancy dying at 300mph because the computer froze! If the motor could be disconnected in this way then towing would cease to be an issue.

Batteries are way to big heavy to replace at the roadside. In addition manufacturers will vever argree on a single standard as it compromises the design choices. Something that works in a tesla will not work in twizzy.

You do not need to disconnect the motor. Brakes are far more powerful than motors, so if you want to stop a runaway car you simply push on the brakes.

[colin_p]

hairyben said:

Its not an insurmountable problem but with battery packs being mounted centrally low down for CoG as you're looking at 100kg or so they don't lend themselves to swapping out. Often the form will follow car construction space demands rather than being a convenient block that can be released.

You are right.

However in my minds eye I imagined something the size of a large suitacse being the battery pack, I've no idea if that is sufficient?

I'm sure I read somewhere that the teslas have in excess of 400kgs of battery and they are stuffed all over the car to balance it out.

So revising my thoughts, how about something about 50mm thich, that would fit between the wheelbase and be the full width of the car. That would obviously mean future EV's would all have to have a minimum wheelbase to suit but I'm sure it is something that could easily incorporated into car design.

[hairyben]

colin_p said:

You are right.

However in my minds eye I imagined something the size of a large suitacse being the battery pack, I've no idea if that is sufficient?

I'm sure I read somewhere that the teslas have in excess of 400kgs of battery and they are stuffed all over the car to balance it out.

So revising my thoughts, how about something about 50mm thich, that would fit between the wheelbase and be the full width of the car. That would obviously mean future EV's would all have to have a minimum wheelbase to suit but I'm sure it is something that could easily incorporated into car design.

Thers also crash protection to think of, both you dont want battery in the crumple zone and also this big old battery you speak of needs to be really well fixed to the car so it doesnt become a projectile. Also, I dont think the battery pack connectionis just a + and - plug in many cases , every cell may be addressable/configurable for different conditions - charging, recovery charging, power levels etc.

Not impossible but a lot to think about! I think we're relying on batterys and charging improving rather than throwing money at such a system that may quickly be obsolete.

[MitchT]

98elise said:

Batteries are way to big heavy to replace at the roadside. In addition manufacturers will vever argree on a single standard as it compromises the design choices. Something that works in a tesla will not work in twizzy.

My theory would be that a pack would be made up of smaller units. Think of it like AA batteries in electrical items. Some items need two batteries, others might need four. Make batteries that are smaller, can be used in the multiples required for the size of car and can be easily swapped at the roadside.

98elise said:

You do not need to disconnect the motor. Brakes are far more powerful than motors, so if you want to stop a runaway car you simply push on the brakes.

Are you sure? There have been enough stories of people whose throttles were jammed open and standing on the brakes didn't seem to stop the car. With all the torque that electric cars have I wouldn't want to take my chances, and besides, if the car was brake-by-wire who's to say the brakes might not be inoperable due to the same fault that caused the motor to run away?

Edited by MitchT on Sunday 12th February 13:08

[mybrainhurts]

Sod this for a game of soldiers.

I'm going to stick wings on the microwave and make it fly...

[colin_p]

mybrainhurts said:

Sod this for a game of soldiers.

I'm going to stick wings on the microwave and make it fly...

...out of a self catering hotel window as an alternative to a TV. Flatscreens don't have the same oomph as crt tv's did back in the good old days.

Just make sure you heat up your sausage roll first.