How long do you think Till There are Proper Electric cars?
Discussion
Little known fact: Scotland invented the electric car.
Despite the relentless hype, it is worth remembering three things:
1. Electric vehicles today in 2017 only account for a tiny 0.2% of all vehicles in use worldwide. They were first launched commercially massmarket in 1997.
2. Electric vehicles are only growing due to huge state or company subsidies. Where subsidies have stopped, like Denmark or Holland, electric sales instantly collapsed by -50% overnight.
3. There is not enough usable lithium in the land, sea or space to batterize 1 billion vehicles worldwide.
The electric car may not be the future.
Despite the relentless hype, it is worth remembering three things:
1. Electric vehicles today in 2017 only account for a tiny 0.2% of all vehicles in use worldwide. They were first launched commercially massmarket in 1997.
2. Electric vehicles are only growing due to huge state or company subsidies. Where subsidies have stopped, like Denmark or Holland, electric sales instantly collapsed by -50% overnight.
3. There is not enough usable lithium in the land, sea or space to batterize 1 billion vehicles worldwide.
The electric car may not be the future.
AW111 said:
Yipper said:
3. There is not enough usable lithium in the land, sea or space to batterize 1 billion vehicles worldwide.
Do you have a source for that rather extreme claim?Will Lithium still be the battery of choice in 20 years time?
Redarress said:
have to say the company working on this lamp post EV charger should be able to sort the on street charging infrastructure and at a cheap installation cost too.
https://char.gy/
Not often do I get excited but this does seem to answer the EV charging issue
Fully Charged video about another company doing lamp post charging.https://char.gy/
Not often do I get excited but this does seem to answer the EV charging issue
Clever gubbins is built into the cable to keep that charge points cheap. The idea being that you can install far more charge points so they can be used for residential parking and left plugged in overnight.
Trouble is in most places the lamp posts are on the wrong side of the path.
ruggedscotty said:
terrific idea, but......
A street light is absolute tops these days 100w
A rapid charger is way into the Kw territory.
Massive upgrade of the infrastructure is needed to support this
Our chargers are capable of 7.7kWh (32A) but most lampposts only have a 25A supply so the units will be configured down to 3.3kWh (16A). A street light is absolute tops these days 100w
A rapid charger is way into the Kw territory.
Massive upgrade of the infrastructure is needed to support this
Redarress said:
have to say the company working on this lamp post EV charger should be able to sort the on street charging infrastructure and at a cheap installation cost too.
https://char.gy/
Not often do I get excited but this does seem to answer the EV charging issue
Thanks for the support. We're pretty excited too!https://char.gy/
Not often do I get excited but this does seem to answer the EV charging issue
char.gy said:
ruggedscotty said:
terrific idea, but......
A street light is absolute tops these days 100w
A rapid charger is way into the Kw territory.
Massive upgrade of the infrastructure is needed to support this
Our chargers are capable of 7.7kWh (32A) but most lampposts only have a 25A supply so the units will be configured down to 3.3kWh (16A). A street light is absolute tops these days 100w
A rapid charger is way into the Kw territory.
Massive upgrade of the infrastructure is needed to support this
AmitG said:
Agree, but it leads to the question - what do the Japanese know about hydrogen that we don't? Toyota and Honda might make dull cars, but they are not stupid. And they are not going to bet the company on a technology with basic problems that cannot be overcome. They must have thought this through.
It makes me wonder.
'Honda' and 'not going to bet the company on a technology with basic problems that cannot be overcome' ... guessing you haven't seen their F1 engine efforts then? It makes me wonder.
Max_Torque said:
Z3MCJez said:
Imagine that photo above, but with the tarmac containing the solar collectors. That's the future.
It needs a technical revolution though.
Jez
no, no it isn't.It needs a technical revolution though.
Jez
what you'd save by making the road solar:
1) The cost of some metal poles to hold the overhead array
What it's cost you:
1) Having to develop new panels that are robust enough to drive on
2) Having to have the panels in a highly non optimum alignment to the sun
3) Having to somehow have a clean road to avoid reflective losses
4) Having to ensure the panels don't get scuffed by vehicles
5) Having to mount, drain, and wire all those panels underground or in conduit or whatever
6) Having to deal with a 'precision' fitting road surface (take a look at how much our roads already cost, then add 1000x the cost to ensure than they are built to sub mm accuracy (rather than +- 1 inch as currently)
The only reason to put solar panels into a road are because you've already run out of space above/beside/around the road........... (which we haven't by a long way)
And graphene is unbelievably robust. I've no idea what it's friction characteristics are though - presumably pretty low if it's that hard.
Laying solar panels into the road is dumb. I get that!
Z3MCJez said:
I said we needed a technical revolution. I'm thinking of a tiny layer of covering that both collects the suns energy and acts as the conductor. Think graphene-layering. It doesn't then need simply to be the car park. It can be all roads. You can charge while you drive with proper inductive technology. But this doesn't exist yet. If all roads were solar collectors we could keep our fields for more useful functions than solar panels.
And graphene is unbelievably robust. I've no idea what it's friction characteristics are though - presumably pretty low if it's that hard.
Laying solar panels into the road is dumb. I get that!
Graphene is a one atom layer of graphite and graphite is used as a lubricant.And graphene is unbelievably robust. I've no idea what it's friction characteristics are though - presumably pretty low if it's that hard.
Laying solar panels into the road is dumb. I get that!
I'm not convinced fully electric cars are the long solution unless there are some major breakthrough in battery technology, a light, fast charging battery made from inexpensive raw materials. Incremental improvement is fine in the short term but the long term viability is weak. We need a step change in battery technology or alternatives.
In the short medium term I think we will see increasing segmentation, more hybrids certainly, perhaps alternative fuels, though the hydrogen fuel cells look a long way off. I think this will be a good thing, we need to be open to exploring a wide range of options, the lets find something that actually works.
I read about one approach that could satisfy both greens and petrol heads but is still in the R&D stage, IIRC improving the catalyst efficiency. It uses surplus electricity from alternative sources such as off shore wind farms to crack CO2 for Carbon, combined in hydrogen from hydrolysed H2O (sea water) to make hydrocarbon fuel that is carbon neutral. It releases the same CO2 needed to make it and used carbon neutral power source to do it. If it can be made to work it is a win all round, given enough political will it could also be used to reduce atmospheric CO2.
In the short medium term I think we will see increasing segmentation, more hybrids certainly, perhaps alternative fuels, though the hydrogen fuel cells look a long way off. I think this will be a good thing, we need to be open to exploring a wide range of options, the lets find something that actually works.
I read about one approach that could satisfy both greens and petrol heads but is still in the R&D stage, IIRC improving the catalyst efficiency. It uses surplus electricity from alternative sources such as off shore wind farms to crack CO2 for Carbon, combined in hydrogen from hydrolysed H2O (sea water) to make hydrocarbon fuel that is carbon neutral. It releases the same CO2 needed to make it and used carbon neutral power source to do it. If it can be made to work it is a win all round, given enough political will it could also be used to reduce atmospheric CO2.
Edited by 4x4Tyke on Saturday 24th June 10:06
4x4Tyke said:
I'm not convinced fully electric cars are the long solution
Really? all moving objects will use electric traction systems and batteries, no matter if they have additional energy converters like hydrogen fuel cells etc (all HFC cars have batteries!)The beauty of pure electric cars with chemical energy storage systems (batteries) is the high efficiency, low cost, and high reliability (very very few moving parts). You could harvest the suns energy at home, charge your car, drive you car, and the only mechanical bits are the charging socket and plug contacts (sliding interface), and the Emachine rotor & final drive, halfshafts, wheel bearings at then the tyres!
and of course SIMPLE = CHEAP, once EV's climb in volume (As they are now doing rapidly) the costs are tumbling, because fundamentally they are easy to make. Go open the bonnet of your ICE car, and count the number of complex electromechanical components under there. And yet we, thanks to mass production, can make those very cheaply indeed. Once we apply those same skills to battery production (as is now happening, with at least 5 "battery megafactories" currently being built) the costs are going to tumble enormously. And at that point, every other technology is on a hiding to nothing.
There will obviously be some niche requirements for alternative energy storage, such as Prime Movers (HGV's etc) where the high road load cannot be sensibly met with battery storage alone, but even those have other options (Siemens / Volvo are trialing there eHighway solution for long distance HGV transit for example)
herewego said:
Graphene is a one atom layer of graphite and graphite is used as a lubricant.
So my guess was right of it being low friction then! Some finish is going to be required. The great thing about imagining technological breakthroughs is that you can let someone else work out how to do it!
Jez
Max_Torque said:
4x4Tyke said:
I'm not convinced fully electric cars are the long solution
Really? all moving objects will use electric traction systems and batteries, no matter if they have additional energy converters like hydrogen fuel cells etc (all HFC cars have batteries!)The beauty of pure electric cars with chemical energy storage systems (batteries) is the high efficiency, low cost, and high reliability (very very few moving parts). You could harvest the suns energy at home, charge your car, drive you car, and the only mechanical bits are the charging socket and plug contacts (sliding interface), and the Emachine rotor & final drive, halfshafts, wheel bearings at then the tyres!
The numbers don't lie, the legacy industry, Car companies, Oil companies etc, will of course push back for as long as possible, some of them may even adapt and become major players in the new world. But it's coming, the energy revolution and cars are at the forefront.
Back to the OPs question,
-cars which cost under 20k and come as hatchbacks/estates and are available for everyone - next generation Leaf, but remember no single car will be ideal for everyone
-which gets at least 500-600mile range to make them viable for odd traveling as well.- % of population that need this kind of range is negligible, look around you what % of cars on the road today can do 500 miles between fill-ups, majority of people don't travel 500 miles at a time they stop, grab a snack, stretch their legs, which explains the motorway service station.
-at least every 2nd-3rd fuel station would also have an electric charge - No Need, most users will have zero need to go to dedicated fuel stations, between home charging, destination charging and a few on motorways most everyone is covered. Remember that phase "paradigm shift" a different way of doing things
There are still people our there for whom horse & buggies are the most effective means of transport.... so within our lifetime ICE cars will still exist, but 20-30 years from now EV will be the mainstream
Edited by babatunde on Sunday 25th June 18:50
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