I can see there is much room for discussion here. There are so many “inconvenient” things that need to be taken into consideration, before I would ever consider an EV for anything other than to drive to the local shopping center, or to near by work. If that would mean owning two vehicles, one EV and one ICE, then initial cost, insurance, upkeep, etc. would come into play. TomC
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Hi Dan, one other thing when testing is being done the batteries are in new condition, not 6 months old or even older. With a 1 year old engine you will see little change compared with the same mileage as a 1 year old electric vehicle with the same batteries in it. Under normal use.
Bob
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However, from an electrical performance aspect, battery deterioration shouldn’t affect efficiency, it will still be just X number of pennies per mile. Range will eventually decrease as battery performance lags. A range extender IC unit should help to a degree with those issues, as Wallace says, by avoiding deep discharge of batteries in the first place in day to day use. But not sure how that logic applies to lithium ion.
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So I will say my knowledge is from researching the topic online not actually ownership of an EV.
That said to the cost comparison question first on the window sticker the comparison is simply cost of electricity per mile vs cost of gas or diesel fuel. In which case the EV cost about 1/5 The cost of gas here in the USA from everything I have read per mile. Which ofcourse depends on where you live and what the two cost.
But you have to realize that when you look at the fuel cost of you ICE you are not thinking about the cost of oil changes air filters timing chain replacement automatic transmission repairs that the EV won’t have over the life of the car.
To the question of battery life there is no one simple answer. The easy answer is buy a Tesla if your concerned about it because Tesla offers a lifetime warranty on the battery pack and there are lots of reports of them standing behind that even with cars over 300,000 miles.
The more technical answer is that across battery technologies end of life is calculated on a standard of having 80% of the orginal capacity when when fully charged. Once a battery reaches that level it is considered end of life. My understanding is the current lithium batteries are rated between 7 to 15 years depending on the chemistry and based on one full discharge cycle per day. Most of the life figures I can find on battery technology comes out of the offgrid solar system field and there are several different types of Lithium batteries so I am not sure what the life expectancy of a Chevy Bolt for example and I don’t know what the warranty is either.
Nissan Leaf has a poor battery history in hot climates due to the fact that they do not have liquid thermal management of the battery pack. Tesla and Chevy both uses active liquid thermal management. So to battery life the answer is complex but there are examples of batteries which will last the lifetime of the car unless you plan on driving more then 300,000 and there is a know issue with battery life if you buy a Nissan which is switching to active thermal management in 2020 according to the press releases.
As to the question of recycling I believe Tesla has stated a commitment to recycle their batteries to recover the raw materials. There are a couple of mining companies which claim it will be cheaper then mining simply because the concentration of valuable materials is so high in the battery. I don’t believe there is a requirement that manufacturers provide a recycling path in the USA but I think there is in Europe and China. I suspect the reality is the used packs will have value currently they are stripped and used in grid scale storage as they still have 80% of their charge capacity when they reach the theatrical end of life and when people crash cars undamaged lithium ion batteries are consider very valuable salvage.
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The #1 reason for EVs was to untie the global economy from dependence on oil. The last 5 recessions have been in part triggered by high oil prices. It isn’t a right wing or left wing issue. BOTH parties have tried to make changes. 9 presidents in a row (we are still waiting for Trump) over the last 50 years, have stated we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It is too easy to corner the FF market. The EPA and fuel standards were literally in part designed to address the issue. It isn’t like it isn’t a known problem. We just keep putting it off for one excuse or another.
We had -zero- for a realistic answer to the situation and no one was working on a solution. The federal policy was aiming for -2030- for a cost competitive equivalent performance EV, and which short cycled is 4 generations of vehicles that is -fast-, and you can’t speed it up a whole lot. Speeding it up increases the cost significantly and it doesn’t mean it will happen any faster. 2050 we -might- be able to have an all-electric fleet. There are too many corner cases.
I don’t think anyone in the US wants to have another recession or pay for another trillion dollar global economy bail out or in the case of hydrogen pay for yet another multi-trillion dollar infrastructure. . In part the last skyrocket in prices was caused by higher demand in china and india who have massively growing economies. It is in our best interest to keep them from basing their entire economies around FFs because they are a limited resource. It is too easy to drive the price up by cornering the market.
There are literally like 12 reasons for supporting the policy. Things like individual energy independence, trade deficit, foreign energy independence, technology development, environment, etc.
There just isn’t another realistic alternative.
In some cases, yes, but it is a shrinking area. NG is now the #1 source of electric generation in the US. RE has grown, non-hydro electric generation is 10% of the electric mix now. NG actually works well with RE, and avoided the need to wait for battery storage to drop in price. Batteries -can- be cost effective today for storage, but it is mainly avoiding line charges.
Second most utility by-laws require 7-10 years for companies and technology to be demonstrated as viable before they can buy it.
Yes and no. The electric is far more efficient, and it gets a huge boost from regenerative braking. The energy density of batteries isn’t nearly as good as petro. I suspect this will change in about 5-6 years. But, you have several problems and they are being worked on simultaneously. You have cost of batteries, time to charge, charging infrastructure and electric infrastructure, charging interfaces, battery technology, packing of cells, motor technology and motor controllers, etc. Then you have to recover the R&D costs, manufacturing overhead costs for new facilities, etc which is why 2030 was the goal to have a cost competitive equivalent EV.
There is just no “easy” button. believe it or not, it was the cheapest, easiest and most comprehensive solution.
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We need better energy systems that are not going to cook the plant or shorten our lives.
The canaries in the coal mine are warning us
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One big issue I see with EVs which can’t be avoided is the fact that the electric grid is numbers of times too small to power the passenger vehicle fleet. In the case of England, where daily driving is about 1/2 North American habits, they estimated having to triple present generating capacity. I feel that puts widespread electrics beyond feasibility.
2 things could easily alter that equation, reduced curb weight, and distributed RE power generation.
I doubt that utilities can or would quadruple or more transmission lines, generating capacity, and transformer stations to produce and distribute such a huge increase in power. RE and practical grid storage batteries could theoretically level and distribute grid issues, but probably still fall well short in large urban areas. Onboard generation helps sidestep those issues by tapping into say, natural gas supplies, and burning them onboard for distributed use.
Reduced vehicle curb weight seems very attainable, though the auto industry has focused on the exact opposite, as the maximum profit business model. In fact it’s said the US could have been independent of all foreign oil for 30 years by mandating a passenger vehicle fleet at 35mpg. And that didn’t require a trillion dollars and multiple vehicle generations, those engineering standards were passed 40 years ago.
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Pretty good graph that gives you some idea how much demand fluctuates.
We could probably not increase our total generation capacity that much more and still have enough power for EVs.
Trick is to flatten this out with energy storage.
Cars with batteries that the utility can shunt power into and draw power from in peak demands times.
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California has already added a rooftop solar requirement to the building codes for new construction. It is estimated that 40% of all energy needs in North America could be covered if we just covered all roofs with solar. That is actually based on satiate imaging and analysis. I am a strong advocate for distributed solar. Partly to avoid the infrastructure costs but also simply because generating the power off my own property where it is used seems reasonable to me why should I pay someone to buy the same solar panels and then ship the electricity to me if I can put the panels on my own house and keep the profits for myself. It is a lot of the same reason why I cut my own wood to heat instead of buying heating oil. I think over the next 5 to 10 years battery prices will drop enough to make off grid solar more reasonable for most people. Grid tied solar is cost effective for most people now depending on what the fee structure is from your power company. So I suspect we will see more distributed solar and behind the meter storage as battery prices fall. I suspect that will be the bigger solution to increased demand for electricity. But to be honest the demand for electricity seems like I stupid argument to me. It is is literally saying the power company wouldn’t want to sell more product in a caplistist society. That seems backwards typically having more demand for your service is considered good. Infact we are seeing this is California and Colorado where power companies are offering incentives to people looking to buy EV because they know it will result in more market for electricity.
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The inescapable point if the vehicle fleet was all electric now, with the curb weights and daily usage people enjoy now, is that chart would have another curve some 4 or more times taller than the chart, for EV charging. That’s outside of our current capacity / reality in every way.
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I think we can generate that.
In a sense we are already.
The difference is electrification of transportation will force us make things work together.
I think there are economies of scale there too.
I worked on electric trucks and trains.
Even with limited range battery there are all kinds of ways to move people and cargo.
What we need is improved power generation and distribution with storage and peak demand controls.
All of these things are possible, some already in place.
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Actually SeanO’ I think you’ve made the most astute statement in-the-current “situation”.
One side not wanting any change from the current have-as-much road power as you can fuel-up for.
The other wanting to Force rapid changing.
Reality gets left behind, ho-hum, in the middle. I’ve tried now on the last two vehicle changes to get the wifie to go IC engine/hybrid.
What nixed the deal back in the 2003-2007 time frame on a Toyota Prius was “too small” downsizing from 99 mini-van. That van reliably aged out for her by 2006. I tried to drag her back to smaller four cylinder thinking handing her the keys to my 99 Honda CRV. Two months of driving that (Larger inside, smother, more powerful, than her previous carburated Plymouth Reliant!); and me “failing” to get the 99 mini-van working 100% . . . . and she got sandwiched wrecked on the highway while stopped at a new four-way intersection driving the CRV. Her, very first lifetime wreck. Scared her. Stopped. Traffic trapped. Unable to skitter away. So smaller, lighter, less resource draining, was out in her mind. Then onto the larger, heavier, higher safety rated new V-6 Hyundai Tuscan. Predictably at 7 years it too became electronic gee-gaw not-perfect too. She’d seen too many on road wrecks, and too many active avoidance close calls from our new-millennium, busy-busy, personal-tech distracted, culture rampings up. So onto an even larger, heavier, higher safety rated Ford Edge. The Lexus 400h/450h I offered up, she considered. But why pay $8,000 more for less size, she said. Why pay more for higher insurance rates, she said.
So no matter how spun up here in the good ‘ol USofA . . . one size fits all solutions will fit most poorly.
The REAL evolution in US/Canadian driver thinking is giving up the decades of freedom of driving choice for w-h-a-t?
The general European solution of Elite’s able to drive what they want, when they want; and all else value-added-taxed for mass/public no-choice personal transportation?
Ain’t a goona’ happen here just yet, bub.
Push too hard, too fast and You, your Party will be kicked out onto the curbs, wailing away. Washington State carbon taxing Governor, Jay.
Ha! Just all my experiences.
And I still recommend and promote USED hybrid electrics to any who will listen. (I would’ve, could’ve been driving the wife’s old hand-me down 2003-05 Prius right now. I’m retired, and old batt-pac range not be a problem for me)
S.U.
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It might be an issue in Europe. In the US, it is taken into account. The grid was obsolete and it was covered under the Bush 2005 policy for reliability and grid flattening as well as rural electrification. It wasn’t getting done because utilities couldn’t justify the line capacity. We built RE projects all over to create the line capacity to justify the projects.
We are still seeing transmission projects as corporations are increasingly purchasing PPAs. They purchased 6.3gw of RE PPAs so far this year which is about double the 2015 record. Most of that is wind. And most of the wind area having saturated line capacity.
In the US, it was closer to a 50% increase in use to cover just gasoline use. It isn’t that much relative to what we already use. Plus we are gaining efficiency along the way and distributed power.
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The trick is to not raise prices and in fact try to lower them. Which is another pile of work to do. However part of it is related to EVs. The storage for example can be leveraged in both places which increases the volume. Which creates pinches in supplies as new mines come online for say lithium which take about five years to start production.
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That quote may be technically correct, but isn’t it more accurate to have said: "It is estimated that the energy needs of North America could be covered “SPORADICALLY and UNEVENLY 40% OF THE TIME ON AVERAGE”? I will bet that the perpetrator of the figure doesn’t tell people how variable wind and solar are (No solar at night, little or no wind in some seasons, in some locations). And, until we have an ACCEPTABLE (to the greenies) way of storing the wind and solar excess, I won’t be impressed.
We will still need more and more peaking plants all over the place if we want a RELIABLE source of the kind and amount of power that most of us currently have available. And where do you think the fuel for those babies will come from?
I know this may sound negative, but I am all in favor of wind and solar, but let’s tell the whole story accurately, as we go forward. I am a huge proponent of pumped storage for wind and solar excess, when there is any, but I can already see that the environmentalist forces are there to stop any attempts to push it forward. Correct my if I am wrong.
Pete Stanaitis
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Storage is definitely a problem going forward. But the pumped storage you mentioned was originally designed because Nuclear power can’t ramp to meet demand. I am all in favor of increasing pumped storage. Solar thermal storage is more likely the future where you use concentrated solar thermal plants with built in thermal mass for storage.
As to the 40% on rooftops it actually doesn’t require grid scale storage because the peak demand for energy is also when solar is available so you simply use the grid to take power from the roofs and distribute it to the building where people are working. I believe it is about 60% renewal where storage becomes requirement and Europe is on track for 80% renewable without major grid storage but I would have to check the details my percentages could be off as they are from memory.
The grid scale batteries that Tesla has installed in Australia and California have proven to be far more cost effective then gas peaker plants. There is some question how much grid scale battery storage will prove cost effective in Australia but at the moment they are definitely adding more to the wind farms.
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If you ever looked into the manfacture of aluminum its an electrical process.
It would seem that you can run it both ways.
Maybe this will get some traction in the future.
There is another alternative to pumped storage that’s also got some potential
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The problem in the US, is there are very few places to put it. They have licensing for it, but then you have to buy all the property. There it’s one project in like Montana that is being built. There was another proposed project by the Hoover dam. But at 75-80% efficient they aren’t necessarily cost effective and they use a lot of space. It is isn’t practical at all for a national storage solution. The density is so low. And you have seepage and evaporative losses.
Battery storage can be placed anywhere in the grid and takes up a lot less space. But it is more expensive. However, the costs will most likely drop as we start to get a handle on the technology. There are places where it is currently cost effective. Getting utilities to adopt it may take some time. They want performance data. California and the Western grid is establishing a track record for the technology that other utilities will be able to use.
There are a few regulatory rules and laws at some state level for storage in general that will need to be addressed as well.
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I’ve said this before,and for years, why is there never talk about hydroelectric? With all the rivers in the eastern US we could supply power for the whole country for a fraction the cost of wind, and solar.
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Ya most of the hydro development we will see in North America will be in Canada. Our neighbors to the north still seem willing to take land from the first nations for dams. Which I actually don’t agree with.
There where plans to build a dam on the grand canyon when the hover dam was built I am pretty sure the power capacity was about the same. I don’t know why it wasn’t done at the time but you can be sure we would never do it today.
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