Electric cars/hybrids - a dead end?
Discussion
eldar said:
Plug in loads of batteries and you can smooth out the peaks in the grid.
Batteries to recharge batteries? Compound efficiency losses, then.ETA:
I know we no longer listen to experts, and to hell with the consequences, but this is the rundown in the FT.
https://www.ft.com/content/74970ba2-f7f7-11e6-bd4e...
Edited by Trabi601 on Tuesday 7th March 22:09
rxe said:
98elise said:
The average driver needs 7kWh of ENERGY per day, that's like a hob or shower running for an hour. Your hob or shower consumes POWER (somewhere between say 6 and 12kW) for in a short duration (30-60 minutes lets say), and at PEAK times.
For Charging we need the same ENERGY, but over a longer period (say 7 hours) so the POWER is much reduced (by a factor of 7).
Your substation only cares about POWER consumption, not ENERGY.
If your local substation can cope with high power at peak times, then why won't it cope with low power at off peak times? If it couldn't then you would not be able to use your hob or shower at night.
Additional housing will add more peak power consumption, that's why you can't put more houses on it.
The only restriction would be the need to throttle charging at peak power times.
But that breaks the whole model. For Charging we need the same ENERGY, but over a longer period (say 7 hours) so the POWER is much reduced (by a factor of 7).
Your substation only cares about POWER consumption, not ENERGY.
If your local substation can cope with high power at peak times, then why won't it cope with low power at off peak times? If it couldn't then you would not be able to use your hob or shower at night.
Additional housing will add more peak power consumption, that's why you can't put more houses on it.
The only restriction would be the need to throttle charging at peak power times.
Lets assume I have an electric car, make it a Tesla. Yesterday morning I set off on a 200 mile round trip, this is a real trip, not a made up example. No charging at the far end. I return home yesterday evening, and I need my 10 kW - ideally I need more than that, because I want my car to work this morning. Lets hope one of the lamp posts is free .... good.... it is, 10 kW please.
Imagine my upset the next morning when I get the message "sorry, your charge has been throttled, you've only got 100 miles in the tank because 3 of your neighbours wanted a charge". Throttling only works when you make low assumptions about concurrent users. As soon as concurrency rises above your set point, people aren't going to get what they expected. Some people won't care (not using the car next day) some people will (using the car later that evening).
Power showers are easy - they only run for 10 minutes. You can make assumptions about low concurrency and unlikely to be wrong. A car charging for a few hours is far more likely to get overlap.
How many people do 200 miles in a day? How many do it every day? Why would such a person have a pure-electric vehicle anyway?
Range extenders are here to stay, and the majority of people will get by with a pure EV that will last them several days on one charge.
No it isn't a useless corner case.
Some people drive big distances. They will rely on the the fact that when they get a charger, it will deliver. Even people who drive small distances will need the charger to deliver, because if spaces are limited, they will charge up infrequently. So how many cars charging at the same time can a street of 30 cars sustain? Is it 5, or 10 because when people come back home on Sunday night after a weekend away, they want the car charged up?
You can either have loads of charging points and ration the power - the consequence is that some people will arrive at their car in the morning and not have charged. Clearly some will not notice or care. Or you can have a smaller number of charging points, and guarantee the throughput, but play musical cars during the night. You can't have both without laying a load of cable.
Some people drive big distances. They will rely on the the fact that when they get a charger, it will deliver. Even people who drive small distances will need the charger to deliver, because if spaces are limited, they will charge up infrequently. So how many cars charging at the same time can a street of 30 cars sustain? Is it 5, or 10 because when people come back home on Sunday night after a weekend away, they want the car charged up?
You can either have loads of charging points and ration the power - the consequence is that some people will arrive at their car in the morning and not have charged. Clearly some will not notice or care. Or you can have a smaller number of charging points, and guarantee the throughput, but play musical cars during the night. You can't have both without laying a load of cable.
rxe said:
No it isn't a useless corner case.
It is. Average mileage in the UK is less than 8000 miles per annum. That's near enough one charge a week on a Leaf/Zoe in summer conditions. You could quite literally charge at the supermarket once a week with an increase in infrastructure.Range Extenders exist for those that need to routinely go further than battery range or have fears about range anxiety.
But on the whole annual mileage is decreasing, business mileage is decreasing and new licenses are decreasing!
Evanivitch said:
rxe said:
No it isn't a useless corner case.
It is. Average mileage in the UK is less than 8000 miles per annum. That's near enough one charge a week on a Leaf/Zoe in summer conditions. You could quite literally charge at the supermarket once a week with an increase in infrastructure.Range Extenders exist for those that need to routinely go further than battery range or have fears about range anxiety.
But on the whole annual mileage is decreasing, business mileage is decreasing and new licenses are decreasing!
I've just been watching a programme about air pollution on BBC Wales. They tried out an electric mini-van / MPV type thing (that Nissan thing that's being punted out as a zero emissions taxi). It was absolutely useless on motorways, especially on inclines and took over an hour to get 45 miles of charge into it at a Nissan dealer.
This says that we are still miles away from making EVs a solution that will be a good fit for most of the people most of the time. They're still very much some people some of the time. Battery tech. is getting better - but if that's as good as it gets from an affordable BEV, then they're still miles away from being a realistic ownership proposition for most people.
Trabi601 said:
The trouble is, there are enough people who do fairly significant mileage and enough people who don't have an allocated parking space where you could put a charger, for electric to become a pain. Then you've got to take into account that once or twice a month you want something that can do 200+ miles and may not have charging facilities at the other end, and ownership of a battery only car becomes a pain. Fine if you're relatively wealthy and can afford a new / nearly new 2nd electric car. Not fine if it's your only car.
I've just been watching a programme about air pollution on BBC Wales. They tried out an electric mini-van / MPV type thing (that Nissan thing that's being punted out as a zero emissions taxi). It was absolutely useless on motorways, especially on inclines and took over an hour to get 45 miles of charge into it at a Nissan dealer.
This says that we are still miles away from making EVs a solution that will be a good fit for most of the people most of the time. They're still very much some people some of the time. Battery tech. is getting better - but if that's as good as it gets from an affordable BEV, then they're still miles away from being a realistic ownership proposition for most people.
I just watched the exact same programme, and it's quite obvious that a Nissan NV200 isn't at the cutting edge of technology. I also work near Hafoddrynys Hill and have several colleagues that drive 80 miles a day to the area in their EV, though we do have chargers available. Neither however did she say it was useless on the motorway or hills.I've just been watching a programme about air pollution on BBC Wales. They tried out an electric mini-van / MPV type thing (that Nissan thing that's being punted out as a zero emissions taxi). It was absolutely useless on motorways, especially on inclines and took over an hour to get 45 miles of charge into it at a Nissan dealer.
This says that we are still miles away from making EVs a solution that will be a good fit for most of the people most of the time. They're still very much some people some of the time. Battery tech. is getting better - but if that's as good as it gets from an affordable BEV, then they're still miles away from being a realistic ownership proposition for most people.
For those that occasionally need to drive further, there's this magical industry of hire cars. For a relatively small fee you can choose a car that meets your needs, often it's nearly new too. The fuel you'd save on electric alone would go quite a way to paying for such a car, or if you do it more frequently you could, as I say again, get a PHEV that will probably meet your daily needs on electric alone and has an ICE for when you need to go further.
Evanivitch said:
I just watched the exact same programme, and it's quite obvious that a Nissan NV200 isn't at the cutting edge of technology. I also work near Hafoddrynys Hill and have several colleagues that drive 80 miles a day to the area in their EV, though we do have chargers available. Neither however did she say it was useless on the motorway or hills.
For those that occasionally need to drive further, there's this magical industry of hire cars. For a relatively small fee you can choose a car that meets your needs, often it's nearly new too. The fuel you'd save on electric alone would go quite a way to paying for such a car, or if you do it more frequently you could, as I say again, get a PHEV that will probably meet your daily needs on electric alone and has an ICE for when you need to go further.
The Nissan may not be 'cutting edge', but it's what is available at a price that's even remotely affordable to the average person. And it was criticised for motorway and hill performance. She said it was fine on the flat and downhills, but struggled (or words to that effect) with hills.For those that occasionally need to drive further, there's this magical industry of hire cars. For a relatively small fee you can choose a car that meets your needs, often it's nearly new too. The fuel you'd save on electric alone would go quite a way to paying for such a car, or if you do it more frequently you could, as I say again, get a PHEV that will probably meet your daily needs on electric alone and has an ICE for when you need to go further.
You obviously have quite a biased view of EVs, though, as you work with 'several colleagues' who have them - I don't know a single person with one. And you have charging for those at the workplace. I don't know what size the workforce is where you are, but if everyone had an EV in a medium to large organisation, you'd have some pretty severe demand management issues to deal with.
Finally - hire cars. Many people now have something like a Fiesta. That's what they need 80% of the time. Maybe more. When the Fiesta isn't the most suitable vehicle for a journey, they don't hire something else. They make do with the sub-optimal performance and stick a bike rack on the back, a roof box on the top, and make what they have work for them. What you're now saying is that EVs don't work all the time and that you now need to plan in advance to hire something more practical - or get stung by massive charges for hiring on the spot. People won't put up with this. They want something that works for them, even with compromise, all the time, not some or most of the time.
And we're being very UK centric here, where everything is close together and we have a culture of living in houses.
Go to somewhere like, say, Berlin. A very large proportion of the population there live in apartments. Now, they're lucky that the city has very good public transport, so you don't have the same reliance on a car for urban transport as we do in the UK - but how the hell do you manage charging in that kind of city?
Then look at France - which is vast - you can drive for dozens of miles in the interior without encountering anything more than small farming hamlets. BEV just won't work for them.
BEVs have to work on at least a continental scale - they're a long way from being a realistic solution for more people than they are a solution.
I could have *just about* managed my day today using a very expensive Tesla. But then I wouldn't have been able to go to my running club when I got home - unless I found a supercharger on the way and planned in a half hour to an hour stop.
ETA - you're right in saying range extenders will still exist (and I believe they may still be a majority offer for anything above supermini size) - however, we need zero emission at the point of use range extenders. ICE cannot do this, hence the investment in alternative fuels - at the point of use, there's not a lot cleaner than Hydrogen. We just need to get it out into the market to encourage research into efficient production. LNG / CNG and potentially a resurgence in LPG, plus GTL diesel substitute will bridge that gap.
Edited by Trabi601 on Tuesday 7th March 23:57
BEVs will work everywhere when they can be rapidly charged. When you can drive up to a Recharge station (which will be more ubiquitous than petrol/diesel stations) and refill your battery to a 600km charge as rapidly as filling a petrol tank, then that's your remaining impediment to adoption gone. This will happen.
Trabi601 said:
The Nissan may not be 'cutting edge', but it's what is available at a price that's even remotely affordable to the average person. And it was criticised for motorway and hill performance. She said it was fine on the flat and downhills, but struggled (or words to that effect) with hills.
You obviously have quite a biased view of EVs, though, as you work with 'several colleagues' who have them - I don't know a single person with one. And you have charging for those at the workplace. I don't know what size the workforce is where you are, but if everyone had an EV in a medium to large organisation, you'd have some pretty severe demand management issues to deal with.
Finally - hire cars. Many people now have something like a Fiesta. That's what they need 80% of the time. Maybe more. When the Fiesta isn't the most suitable vehicle for a journey, they don't hire something else. They make do with the sub-optimal performance and stick a bike rack on the back, a roof box on the top, and make what they have work for them. What you're now saying is that EVs don't work all the time and that you now need to plan in advance to hire something more practical - or get stung by massive charges for hiring on the spot. People won't put up with this. They want something that works for them, even with compromise, all the time, not some or most of the time.
And we're being very UK centric here, where everything is close together and we have a culture of living in houses.
Go to somewhere like, say, Berlin. A very large proportion of the population there live in apartments. Now, they're lucky that the city has very good public transport, so you don't have the same reliance on a car for urban transport as we do in the UK - but how the hell do you manage charging in that kind of city?
Then look at France - which is vast - you can drive for dozens of miles in the interior without encountering anything more than small farming hamlets. BEV just won't work for them.
BEVs have to work on at least a continental scale - they're a long way from being a realistic solution for more people than they are a solution.
I could have *just about* managed my day today using a very expensive Tesla. But then I wouldn't have been able to go to my running club when I got home - unless I found a supercharger on the way and planned in a half hour to an hour stop.
ETA - you're right in saying range extenders will still exist (and I believe they may still be a majority offer for anything above supermini size) - however, we need zero emission at the point of use range extenders. ICE cannot do this, hence the investment in alternative fuels - at the point of use, there's not a lot cleaner than Hydrogen. We just need to get it out into the market to encourage research into efficient production. LNG / CNG and potentially a resurgence in LPG, plus GTL diesel substitute will bridge that gap.
Bias because I actually have experience of seeing them used and not just ignorance? I have no skin in the game, I don't own or have any fortune in EV.You obviously have quite a biased view of EVs, though, as you work with 'several colleagues' who have them - I don't know a single person with one. And you have charging for those at the workplace. I don't know what size the workforce is where you are, but if everyone had an EV in a medium to large organisation, you'd have some pretty severe demand management issues to deal with.
Finally - hire cars. Many people now have something like a Fiesta. That's what they need 80% of the time. Maybe more. When the Fiesta isn't the most suitable vehicle for a journey, they don't hire something else. They make do with the sub-optimal performance and stick a bike rack on the back, a roof box on the top, and make what they have work for them. What you're now saying is that EVs don't work all the time and that you now need to plan in advance to hire something more practical - or get stung by massive charges for hiring on the spot. People won't put up with this. They want something that works for them, even with compromise, all the time, not some or most of the time.
And we're being very UK centric here, where everything is close together and we have a culture of living in houses.
Go to somewhere like, say, Berlin. A very large proportion of the population there live in apartments. Now, they're lucky that the city has very good public transport, so you don't have the same reliance on a car for urban transport as we do in the UK - but how the hell do you manage charging in that kind of city?
Then look at France - which is vast - you can drive for dozens of miles in the interior without encountering anything more than small farming hamlets. BEV just won't work for them.
BEVs have to work on at least a continental scale - they're a long way from being a realistic solution for more people than they are a solution.
I could have *just about* managed my day today using a very expensive Tesla. But then I wouldn't have been able to go to my running club when I got home - unless I found a supercharger on the way and planned in a half hour to an hour stop.
ETA - you're right in saying range extenders will still exist (and I believe they may still be a majority offer for anything above supermini size) - however, we need zero emission at the point of use range extenders. ICE cannot do this, hence the investment in alternative fuels - at the point of use, there's not a lot cleaner than Hydrogen. We just need to get it out into the market to encourage research into efficient production. LNG / CNG and potentially a resurgence in LPG, plus GTL diesel substitute will bridge that gap.
Edited by Trabi601 on Tuesday 7th March 23:57
You're right, she did say it struggled, but so does the 1.3 Mazda2 I have to use occasionally. I also know the route she took is largely "up" the valley on a series of dual carriageway by passed. Not what most EV are used for.
An EV can take a roof box and a bicycle rack. And if you can book a hotel in advance, then you can book a hire car. How is that any more difficult? I also think you're making an unfounded sweeping statement, when it's shown that more and more inner city people are moving to car hire and sharing schemes for their occasional journey outside of public transport.
We need zero emissions at point of use in traditionally high emission areas. So even with an Rex you could save your battery on the journey into town and then switch to EV mode. As many cars already do.
Hydrogen is a dead end. Both infrastructure, production and efficiency. I agree that CNG/LPG is a better an alternative short term, but also long term where it can be captured from many sources rather than being released to the atmosphere.
RBH58 said:
BEVs will work everywhere when they can be rapidly charged. When you can drive up to a Recharge station (which will be more ubiquitous than petrol/diesel stations) and refill your battery to a 600km charge as rapidly as filling a petrol tank, then that's your remaining impediment to adoption gone. This will happen.
I genuinely cant see it happening.It would be great it if could, but it wont.
I think an electric/petrol balance is going to be found. Large central city like London etc move to Electric and the rest of us that live in the sticks can have normal fuels.
Wipe the dirty buses of London out and watch the emissions drop...
xjay1337 said:
I genuinely cant see it happening.
It would be great it if could, but it wont.
I can see it happening and within 5 years. I'm not willing it to happen because I don't want to see the IC engine die. But when we get super fast charging BEVs it surely will be all over for IC engines and very rapidly too.It would be great it if could, but it wont.
Whats all this about battery recharging times? We know batteries arent that keen on fast recharging anyway
Years ago the suggestion was to use a standard battery cassette.
You drive into the 'petrol station' slide out youre used up battery and slide in a charged one and off you go
Where did that idea go?
Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
Years ago the suggestion was to use a standard battery cassette.
You drive into the 'petrol station' slide out youre used up battery and slide in a charged one and off you go
Where did that idea go?
Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
Even when the tech is there for five minute charging a 100kWh battery - requiring >1MWh of power per car - is a typical town's electricity supply infrastructure, right now, able to supply that? I have no idea what's available at a local level to supply multiples of 1000A or whatever at 415V
saaby93 said:
Whats all this about battery recharging times? We know batteries arent that keen on fast recharging anyway
Years ago the suggestion was to use a standard battery cassette.
You drive into the 'petrol station' slide out youre used up battery and slide in a charged one and off you go
Where did that idea go?
Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
Batteries are still big and heavy so not easy to change. You also need them to work in a twizzy, a tesla and whatever other shape car you can think of. Then you need the form factor to be future proof. Who knows what a future graphene battery will look like, or a flow battery?Years ago the suggestion was to use a standard battery cassette.
You drive into the 'petrol station' slide out youre used up battery and slide in a charged one and off you go
Where did that idea go?
Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
Tesla have demonstrated batery swap, amd even installed it in one supercharge station, but its not taken off. Its never really going to work as a standard battery pack.
saaby93 said:
Where did that idea go?
Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
Few reasons:Surely there are enough leafs about now to call it a standard battery pack?
- There isn't a demand for it yet. EV currently target the somewhat typical user that can do their daily commute on a single charge and nip to the shops. Ultra Rapid charging is only necessary if you're trying to target the long high mileage market (think 30,000miles per annum), and they're quite happy in their TDI for now.
- Battery technology hasn't plateaued yet. So you wouldn't be able to standardise and be certain you were being replaced with the same value as you were trading in.
- Packaging varies massively. Currently all manufacturers package their batteries in a different way. Tesla along the floor, Leaf in the floor, Ampera T-shaped, they're not consistent.
- Batteries still make up a considerable cost of the car, and probably will long into the future. Not many people are willing to swap several thousands of pounds worth of equipment for another of unknown history.
Evanivitch said:
Few reasons:
- There isn't a demand for it yet. EV currently target the somewhat typical user that can do their daily commute on a single charge and nip to the shops. Ultra Rapid charging is only necessary if you're trying to target the long high mileage market (think 30,000miles per annum), and they're quite happy in their TDI for now.
- Battery technology hasn't plateaued yet. So you wouldn't be able to standardise and be certain you were being replaced with the same value as you were trading in.
- Packaging varies massively. Currently all manufacturers package their batteries in a different way. Tesla along the floor, Leaf in the floor, Ampera T-shaped, they're not consistent.
- Batteries still make up a considerable cost of the car, and probably will long into the future. Not many people are willing to swap several thousands of pounds worth of equipment for another of unknown history.
Yeah I meant pick one model Leaf sounds like a good one since it has a sizeable market and isn't the pack reasonably square?- There isn't a demand for it yet. EV currently target the somewhat typical user that can do their daily commute on a single charge and nip to the shops. Ultra Rapid charging is only necessary if you're trying to target the long high mileage market (think 30,000miles per annum), and they're quite happy in their TDI for now.
- Battery technology hasn't plateaued yet. So you wouldn't be able to standardise and be certain you were being replaced with the same value as you were trading in.
- Packaging varies massively. Currently all manufacturers package their batteries in a different way. Tesla along the floor, Leaf in the floor, Ampera T-shaped, they're not consistent.
- Batteries still make up a considerable cost of the car, and probably will long into the future. Not many people are willing to swap several thousands of pounds worth of equipment for another of unknown history.
As time goes on they'll probably keep the same size pack but increase its capacity. Other manufacturers could use the Leaf pack
Its like AA and AAA batteries, you'll end up with a couple of standard sizes
video of the pack here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&...
Edited by saaby93 on Wednesday 8th March 22:26
Evanivitch said:
Bias because I actually have experience of seeing them used and not just ignorance? I have no skin in the game, I don't own or have any fortune in EV.
You're right, she did say it struggled, but so does the 1.3 Mazda2 I have to use occasionally. I also know the route she took is largely "up" the valley on a series of dual carriageway by passed. Not what most EV are used for.
An EV can take a roof box and a bicycle rack. And if you can book a hotel in advance, then you can book a hire car. How is that any more difficult? I also think you're making an unfounded sweeping statement, when it's shown that more and more inner city people are moving to car hire and sharing schemes for their occasional journey outside of public transport.
We need zero emissions at point of use in traditionally high emission areas. So even with an Rex you could save your battery on the journey into town and then switch to EV mode. As many cars already do.
Hydrogen is a dead end. Both infrastructure, production and efficiency. I agree that CNG/LPG is a better an alternative short term, but also long term where it can be captured from many sources rather than being released to the atmosphere.
The box and rack are not the point here - they're an example of people making what they have work for them, when hiring would be a better option. People don't want to hire - they want their car to work for every eventuality. You can't stick an extra battery pack on the roof to do a long journey.You're right, she did say it struggled, but so does the 1.3 Mazda2 I have to use occasionally. I also know the route she took is largely "up" the valley on a series of dual carriageway by passed. Not what most EV are used for.
An EV can take a roof box and a bicycle rack. And if you can book a hotel in advance, then you can book a hire car. How is that any more difficult? I also think you're making an unfounded sweeping statement, when it's shown that more and more inner city people are moving to car hire and sharing schemes for their occasional journey outside of public transport.
We need zero emissions at point of use in traditionally high emission areas. So even with an Rex you could save your battery on the journey into town and then switch to EV mode. As many cars already do.
Hydrogen is a dead end. Both infrastructure, production and efficiency. I agree that CNG/LPG is a better an alternative short term, but also long term where it can be captured from many sources rather than being released to the atmosphere.
I'm on a track day tomorrow, but been chatting to fellow attendees in the bar tonight.
One comment... "We go skiing once or twice a year - I leave at 10pm and can be in the Alps by 6am. Show me an electric car that can do that."
This is why we need proper research into zero (at the point of use) emissions hybrids.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff