Long haul trucking, couldn't they just have much better rapid recharge stations, like ten separate batteries that all charge simultaneously.
Long haul isn't going electric, local delivery maybe, and stuff like UPS trucks probably, but long haul is basically "But what about my 600 mile road trip" except they are taking that road trip every day.
The first issue is the weight. Baring special permitting a semi weighs 80,000 lbs loaded, and about 30-35k unloaded. A Model S weighs about 3500 lbs pre battery pack, and the 100KWH battery pack adds 1500lbs. So even with linear scaling, the semi needs a 15k lb battery pack, or 30% of its cargo capacity.
Charging also becomes an issue, assuming drive 5 hours, charge 2 hours, drive 5 hours, you need to be able to draw 500KW per hour per truck to recharge it. Think of it in terms of a small truck stop, that would normally fuel up 10 trucks an hour. They now need to have spots for 20-30 trucks, all charging simultaneously. So they need 15 MW of supplied power, which is roughly the power needed for a city of 10,000 people, and all the associated transmission and transforming equipment.
Also the battery pack lifespan becomes an issue, because a trucker will drive in a month what an average person will do in a year. Looking around, the batteries lose 5% performance at 30k miles and 1% per 30k after that. So first year, a truck is looking at losing 8-9% of its range, 12-14% if it's driven by a team and by the end of year two it's down 20-25%. Which makes getting 10 hours of driving in a 14 hour 'working day' window less and less feasible.
It uses two different types of solar panels for the different shades.
Anyway, back to arguing about electric cars, I guess.
Is that really real? That seems line a very expensive way to make a joke which is o by visible to people in planes!
Hard to tell. The article uses a bunch of future-tense verbs and a quick scan of aerial imagery around the mentioned city (Datong) doesn't turn up anything that looks like that.
Their website has a press release stating that their first plant was connected to the grid June 29, and includes a concept drawing that differs greatly from that image, with two panda shaped fields surrounded by convenional panels.
It wouldn't be crazy for them to do a panda field for phase one, for PR/press, and that photo seems like a far better photoshop/render than I would expect for a concept art.
So I'm leaning toward that being an actual photo of phase 1 of this:
(If that give any insight on their concept art budget)
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
They have relatively long-term warranties in the 4-8 year range, and sell annual maintenance plans for around $2400-2700 depending on the vehicle (which include things up to regular replacement/upgrades of hardware in the car).
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
I think that's more car makers having a racket on their internal computers and making them tricky to interface with. Smart cars of the future would beam perpetual diagnostics on maintenance back to a server somewhere and you could get auto-cleared for inspection because the car knows its healthy and beams that information out.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
The new Tesla model 3 is about half the cost of the sports car model S. With greater acceptance and footprint, there will be a greater demand for infrastructure to support the population.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
They have relatively long-term warranties in the 4-8 year range, and sell annual maintenance plans for around $2400-2700 depending on the vehicle (which include things up to regular replacement/upgrades of hardware in the car).
hopefully they're better than any other car warranty I've ever had!
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
Sure, but there are also fewer moving parts on an electric car, so ideally less wear and tear.
I don't know. It would take an awful lot to get me to switch to an electric car simply because the knowledge base and therefore the maintenance base is so small.
I can spit and hit 5 different places to get a new alternator for a GM. I've never even seen a tesla.
That said, they seem to be really cool cars and I look forward to my children driving them (or maybe even me in 20 or however many years)!
As long as I'm dreaming, the solution to 'but my 800 mile road trips!' is a modern regional high speed rail system.
And its not like we didn't have this exact same infrastructure dilemma with the internal combustion engine, it's not like there was a 100% sure filling station ever 5 miles the day after Ford sold his first unit. We built them because people needed them and would pay for it and money could be made, and the same for the extraction/refining/transport system that made those gas stations work.
I'm...less sure that's going to work for this buildup though, just because selling electricity to end users doesn't seem to have the margins somehow? Mayne that's just around here where power all comes from hydro and is practically free at home.
As long as I'm dreaming, the solution to 'but my 800 mile road trips!' is a modern regional high speed rail system.
And its not like we didn't have this exact same infrastructure dilemma with the internal combustion engine, it's not like there was a 100% sure filling station ever 5 miles the day after Ford sold his first unit. We built them because people needed them and would pay for it and money could be made, and the same for the extraction/refining/transport system that made those gas stations work.
I'm...less sure that's going to work for this buildup though, just because selling electricity to end users doesn't seem to have the margins somehow? Mayne that's just around here where power all comes from hydro and is practically free at home.
It's not like there's much profit in selling gas either.
Atleast in Finland, here gas stations make money by selling overpriced sandwiches and candy.
And an occasional motor oil bottle and windscreenwipers.
As long as I'm dreaming, the solution to 'but my 800 mile road trips!' is a modern regional high speed rail system.
And its not like we didn't have this exact same infrastructure dilemma with the internal combustion engine, it's not like there was a 100% sure filling station ever 5 miles the day after Ford sold his first unit. We built them because people needed them and would pay for it and money could be made, and the same for the extraction/refining/transport system that made those gas stations work.
I'm...less sure that's going to work for this buildup though, just because selling electricity to end users doesn't seem to have the margins somehow? Mayne that's just around here where power all comes from hydro and is practically free at home.
It's not like there's much profit in selling gas either.
Atleast in Finland, here gas stations make money by selling overpriced sandwiches and candy.
And an occasional motor oil bottle and windscreenwipers.
America has that too.
Its called Wawa. Its shut up and take my money good.
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
Most signs point to Ev's being much cheaper to maintain because no ICE eliminates nearly every moving part and standard regenerative braking cuts down on brake pad wear.
Yeah, Vox had a very good article on that not too long ago - essentially everything that makes maintaining an IC car expensive and puts a practical ceiling on longevity doesn't exist in purely electric vehicles. By some estimates (largely based on the fact that Tesla's batteries appear to be way outperforming projections in retaining capacity over charge/discharge cycles, IIRC) you might be able to buy an electric vehicle and drive it nearly maintenance free for 30-40 years if battery tech keeps improving as predicted.
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
Most signs point to Ev's being much cheaper to maintain because no ICE eliminates nearly every moving part and standard regenerative braking cuts down on brake pad wear.
The only wear items are Brake fluid, cabin air filters, and batteries for the keyfob. Battery coolant replacement is at 125k miles. And that's it, generic inspections on the other parts.
Re: Tesla service - you have to take it to one of their service centers as far as I know, but if you have a $70k+ car you don't really care about paying dealer prices. If the service center is far away they'll tow your car there. It will be interesting to see what they do once the Model 3 is out in significant volume.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Realistically, the way our cities are setup, it'd be best if we got rid of cars, and only had PRT for in-city moving. Fully autonomous, and electric. Like Uber, you would just call what you need when you need it, and it takes care of all the driving. More efficient than having a human do it, and if we had a low level paid for entirely by taxes, everyone could get around.
For long distances, high speed rail, as has been mentioned, might be the best, for major city to major city.
We're also working on electric aircraft. For personal and training use for now, since we don't have the battery power for them to stay powered for more than an hour or two without drastically increasing the weight; which, in the case of aircraft especially, is bad. But it can bring training costs for a personal flight license from ~$40/hr to ~$1/hr.
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
Most signs point to Ev's being much cheaper to maintain because no ICE eliminates nearly every moving part and standard regenerative braking cuts down on brake pad wear.
The only wear items are Brake fluid, cabin air filters, and batteries for the keyfob. Battery coolant replacement is at 125k miles. And that's it, generic inspections on the other parts.
Re: Tesla service - you have to take it to one of their service centers as far as I know, but if you have a $70k+ car you don't really care about paying dealer prices. If the service center is far away they'll tow your car there. It will be interesting to see what they do once the Model 3 is out in significant volume.
That sounds like a dream come true
it also sounds like a dream. Almost all of my maintenance with my current car has been computer and sensor related (aside from brake pads and tires). I'm very wary of things that shouldn't ever malfunction.
My wifi TV has no moving parts and yet after 6 months, if no longer recognizes wifi (repair person coming the 17th, thank god for warranties). My friend has a honda with one of those back up cameras/screens. One day it went blank. No reason could be found. The part was under warranty, but the labor wasn't.
I guess you're right that if you have a 70k car, you're probably good, but if the rest of the country is going to get one, there are going to be massive amounts of change. I hope it happens!
Millions of people own boats. Tens of millions of people travel to camp every year.
People work in industries that need trucks to haul work tools and goods every single day.
As far as I know all of the Electric trucks are pretty short range or woefully underpowered today, though I imagine that'll be changing in 5-10 years.
I'm all for mandating electric passenger vehicles or massive incentives for EV's but it's frankly offensive to hear that people who own or want to own larger vehicles like a truck are all Rolling Coal idiots.
The tesla model s is the fastest accelerating production vehicle on the road. Sub 3 second 0 to 60. It can drive 250 miles if you drive sensibly in free flowing traffic. It can add 125 miles of driving range, for free, at a super charger in less than an hour.
The idea that electric vehicles are woefully underpowered is what is 10 years out of date.
Honestly attitudes to driving will need to change even with electric vehicles.
People working as contractors are not the same as the general population of truck owners. Most vehicles drive 20-50 or so miles each day, with a periodic 100 mile day every few months. Then perhaps every 12 months people have a 150 mile plus day. Truck storage and towing capacity is used about 1% of the time in the US.
I wasn't talking about accelerating 0-60
I'm saying landscapers haul around a couple thousand pounds of tools and material every single day.
My boat weighs 3500lbs on its own not including the trailer and fuel / gear. Fibreglass boats weigh more as well.
5000lbs won't cut it.
Also, light rail to provincial or national parks? Personal vehicles are absolutely required, especially for families.
As I said, light truck EVs exist but they don't fit the bill just yet.
I think a good start would be to ban ICE in city centres and expand from there.
Honestly my entire point was that people who use larger vehicles like light trucks aren't climate denying coal rollers and to point out that there is some ignorance of what people use vehicles for outside of urban centres.
I'd imagine a massive deterrent to electric car ownership (currently) is repair
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
Most signs point to Ev's being much cheaper to maintain because no ICE eliminates nearly every moving part and standard regenerative braking cuts down on brake pad wear.
The only wear items are Brake fluid, cabin air filters, and batteries for the keyfob. Battery coolant replacement is at 125k miles. And that's it, generic inspections on the other parts.
Re: Tesla service - you have to take it to one of their service centers as far as I know, but if you have a $70k+ car you don't really care about paying dealer prices. If the service center is far away they'll tow your car there. It will be interesting to see what they do once the Model 3 is out in significant volume.
That sounds like a dream come true
it also sounds like a dream. Almost all of my maintenance with my current car has been computer and sensor related (aside from brake pads and tires). I'm very wary of things that shouldn't ever malfunction.
My wifi TV has no moving parts and yet after 6 months, if no longer recognizes wifi (repair person coming the 17th, thank god for warranties). My friend has a honda with one of those back up cameras/screens. One day it went blank. No reason could be found. The part was under warranty, but the labor wasn't.
I guess you're right that if you have a 70k car, you're probably good, but if the rest of the country is going to get one, there are going to be massive amounts of change. I hope it happens!
Sure, but once they're more common the knowledge base will be there for EVs like it is for ICE cars now. Most people will save decent money not having to deal with oil changes, belts, etc as wear items, I think.
Yeah, Vox had a very good article on that not too long ago - essentially everything that makes maintaining an IC car expensive and puts a practical ceiling on longevity doesn't exist in purely electric vehicles. By some estimates (largely based on the fact that Tesla's batteries appear to be way outperforming projections in retaining capacity over charge/discharge cycles, IIRC) you might be able to buy an electric vehicle and drive it nearly maintenance free for 30-40 years if battery tech keeps improving as predicted.
Depending how truck battery packs hold up the lower maintenance may offset the cost of replacing/recycling battery packs. Really with electric vehicles rust is probably the biggest danger over time in climates with snow than anything else as long as you are willing to replace the battery pack every so often.
Long haul trucking, couldn't they just have much better rapid recharge stations, like ten separate batteries that all charge simultaneously.
Long haul isn't going electric, local delivery maybe, and stuff like UPS trucks probably, but long haul is basically "But what about my 600 mile road trip" except they are taking that road trip every day.
The first issue is the weight. Baring special permitting a semi weighs 80,000 lbs loaded, and about 30-35k unloaded. A Model S weighs about 3500 lbs pre battery pack, and the 100KWH battery pack adds 1500lbs. So even with linear scaling, the semi needs a 15k lb battery pack, or 30% of its cargo capacity.
Charging also becomes an issue, assuming drive 5 hours, charge 2 hours, drive 5 hours, you need to be able to draw 500KW per hour per truck to recharge it. Think of it in terms of a small truck stop, that would normally fuel up 10 trucks an hour. They now need to have spots for 20-30 trucks, all charging simultaneously. So they need 15 MW of supplied power, which is roughly the power needed for a city of 10,000 people, and all the associated transmission and transforming equipment.
Also the battery pack lifespan becomes an issue, because a trucker will drive in a month what an average person will do in a year. Looking around, the batteries lose 5% performance at 30k miles and 1% per 30k after that. So first year, a truck is looking at losing 8-9% of its range, 12-14% if it's driven by a team and by the end of year two it's down 20-25%. Which makes getting 10 hours of driving in a 14 hour 'working day' window less and less feasible.
Unless you electrify main transport arteries, I'd also assume that most electric road freight is going to be self driving - so losing around 30% of your driving time charging (assuming they can't charge on motorways), you're still going to come out ahead of a ICE truck with a human driver. Battery lifespan is definitely still an issue though, but one I'd be curious to see how it compares to fuel costs over the same distance. Also wonder how easy it is to recycle batteries to either create some 'as new' ones from older packs, or if the trucks just get new peak condition packs, and you sell the older ones onto other industries that have different power requirements.
Realistically, the way our cities are setup, it'd be best if we got rid of cars, and only had PRT for in-city moving. Fully autonomous, and electric. Like Uber, you would just call what you need when you need it, and it takes care of all the driving. More efficient than having a human do it, and if we had a low level paid for entirely by taxes, everyone could get around.
For long distances, high speed rail, as has been mentioned, might be the best, for major city to major city.
We're also working on electric aircraft. For personal and training use for now, since we don't have the battery power for them to stay powered for more than an hour or two without drastically increasing the weight; which, in the case of aircraft especially, is bad. But it can bring training costs for a personal flight license from ~$40/hr to ~$1/hr.
All-electric cars will probably mainstream a little before the driverless car revolution, so this setup makes the most sense. Then you could do stuff like ban personal car ownership for people living in cities and have everyone live off of a fleet of self-driving cars that would just issue to and from garages around town and *really* improve on space-use efficiency and beautify the cities by not having every urban street look like a parking lot.
I wasn't talking about accelerating 0-60
I'm saying landscapers haul around a couple thousand pounds of tools and material every single day.
My boat weighs 3500lbs on its own not including the trailer and fuel / gear. Fibreglass boats weigh more as well.
5000lbs won't cut it.
Also, light rail to provincial or national parks? Personal vehicles are absolutely required, especially for families.
As I said, light truck EVs exist but they don't fit the bill just yet.
I think a good start would be to ban ICE in city centres and expand from there.
Honestly my entire point was that people who use larger vehicles like light trucks aren't climate denying coal rollers and to point out that there is some ignorance of what people use vehicles for outside of urban centres.
Electric engines produce torque way more efficiently than ICE's do though. Which is basically what you really need for short range hauling and towing. Sure if you're taking your boat cross country you'll probably need a proper truck, but there's nothing inherently limiting an electric motor from hauling one around.
it also sounds like a dream. Almost all of my maintenance with my current car has been computer and sensor related (aside from brake pads and tires). I'm very wary of things that shouldn't ever malfunction.
My wifi TV has no moving parts and yet after 6 months, if no longer recognizes wifi (repair person coming the 17th, thank god for warranties). My friend has a honda with one of those back up cameras/screens. One day it went blank. No reason could be found. The part was under warranty, but the labor wasn't.
I guess you're right that if you have a 70k car, you're probably good, but if the rest of the country is going to get one, there are going to be massive amounts of change. I hope it happens!
Your wifi TV's also designed and engineered with the expectation that it'll probably be replaced every few years, or the moment something goes wrong, like most consumer electronics these days.
Planned obsolescence and short design lives are a lot more of a problem with home electronics than they are with vehicles. They're also a very deliberate choice on the part of the manufacturers, not some fundamental hurdle they can't clear.
I wasn't talking about accelerating 0-60
I'm saying landscapers haul around a couple thousand pounds of tools and material every single day.
My boat weighs 3500lbs on its own not including the trailer and fuel / gear. Fibreglass boats weigh more as well.
5000lbs won't cut it.
Also, light rail to provincial or national parks? Personal vehicles are absolutely required, especially for families.
As I said, light truck EVs exist but they don't fit the bill just yet.
I think a good start would be to ban ICE in city centres and expand from there.
Honestly my entire point was that people who use larger vehicles like light trucks aren't climate denying coal rollers and to point out that there is some ignorance of what people use vehicles for outside of urban centres.
Electric engines produce torque way more efficiently than ICE's do though. Which is basically what you really need for short range hauling and towing. Sure if you're taking your boat cross country you'll probably need a proper truck, but there's nothing inherently limiting an electric motor from hauling one around.
But with more than 1500-2000lb payload and at least 7500lb towing.
I might be stupid but it seems like after the 80miles that is all electric on it that you're down to a 3cyl which would be a big shift in capability?
Anyway, as I said the use cases exist and are more common than what's being put forward.
The tech will get there and get there rapidly I hope.
I live in one of the cheapest places on earth to get electricity, better believe I want to drop my v8 pickup for plugging in
Edit: apologies if this is off topic or turning into an ev thread. I will remove if so.
Aridhol on
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
The big barrier for fixing electronics is parts. Things break, and it can be really really tricky to diagnose why on a component level. But swapping a faulty board with another 5 dollar part? Easy. The big hurdle is having enough of the things around so that parts get cheap, and when electronics get cheap they get REALLY cheap. All it takes is one or two major manufacturers getting on board and the difference in things with a pile of moving parts to one with very few will show through. As a reference, my Prius has cost me significantly less in maintenance than any other car, and in theory should have been way worse, as it has so much more that could wrong.
I've worked in the modern electronics maintenance field, and I'm stoked about the idea of reliable electronic cars becoming a thing, because they will be so much easier to work on and maintain than engines fueled by literal explosions trying to dismantle the whole thing. Societies go through mammoth changes when needed, and if not dying a slow hot death isn't a need I don't know what counts. The infrastructure will get there, it has happened before.
I've read about experiments with battery designs where you can swap out the liquid inside where the energy is stored.
just drive to your gas station, and attach pump which sucks out the spent liquid and pumps in new one.
But that was a while ago and have not heard anything more, so it might not have gone anywhere.
They're called "Flow batteries," and still being researched, but the energy density is way below Li/Ion.
I've read about experiments with battery designs where you can swap out the liquid inside where the energy is stored.
just drive to your gas station, and attach pump which sucks out the spent liquid and pumps in new one.
But that was a while ago and have not heard anything more, so it might not have gone anywhere.
They're called "Flow batteries," and still being researched, but the energy density is way below Li/Ion.
Part of the interest in that kind of technology is a means to more efficiently use renewable power. One major challenge with solar or wind power is it's not frequently generated near people who will use it, and you have to then contend with transmission losses. If you had a viable flow battery chemistry, you could set up an energy plant rather than a power plant, and ship expended and charged flow battery fluid to and from them like shipping crude and refined petroleum to and from oil refineries. Then again, if you develop an efficient catalytic process to make methane, methanol or a longer-chain hydrocarbon you can just use existing petrochemical infrastructure while turning the back-end carbon neutral.
As for car maintenance costs: as I recall, EVs are way cheaper to maintain because they're way simpler in terms of part count and operating conditions. By complexity of system, you should anticipate Hybrids to have the highest maintenance costs (need to maintain both an EV and ICE system), ICE cars in the middle, and EVs at the cheap end. There's no such thing as needing to replace a transmission on a car that has no transmission.
I've read about experiments with battery designs where you can swap out the liquid inside where the energy is stored.
just drive to your gas station, and attach pump which sucks out the spent liquid and pumps in new one.
But that was a while ago and have not heard anything more, so it might not have gone anywhere.
They're called "Flow batteries," and still being researched, but the energy density is way below Li/Ion.
Part of the interest in that kind of technology is a means to more efficiently use renewable power. One major challenge with solar or wind power is it's not frequently generated near people who will use it, and you have to then contend with transmission losses. If you had a viable flow battery chemistry, you could set up an energy plant rather than a power plant, and ship expended and charged flow battery fluid to and from them like shipping crude and refined petroleum to and from oil refineries. Then again, if you develop an efficient catalytic process to make methane, methanol or a longer-chain hydrocarbon you can just use existing petrochemical infrastructure while turning the back-end carbon neutral.
Yeah the reutilization of our existing liquid-based energy transport infrastructure is super attractive.
I've read about experiments with battery designs where you can swap out the liquid inside where the energy is stored.
just drive to your gas station, and attach pump which sucks out the spent liquid and pumps in new one.
But that was a while ago and have not heard anything more, so it might not have gone anywhere.
They're called "Flow batteries," and still being researched, but the energy density is way below Li/Ion.
Part of the interest in that kind of technology is a means to more efficiently use renewable power. One major challenge with solar or wind power is it's not frequently generated near people who will use it, and you have to then contend with transmission losses. If you had a viable flow battery chemistry, you could set up an energy plant rather than a power plant, and ship expended and charged flow battery fluid to and from them like shipping crude and refined petroleum to and from oil refineries. Then again, if you develop an efficient catalytic process to make methane, methanol or a longer-chain hydrocarbon you can just use existing petrochemical infrastructure while turning the back-end carbon neutral.
As for car maintenance costs: as I recall, EVs are way cheaper to maintain because they're way simpler in terms of part count and operating conditions. By complexity of system, you should anticipate Hybrids to have the highest maintenance costs (need to maintain both an EV and ICE system), ICE cars in the middle, and EVs at the cheap end. There's no such thing as needing to replace a transmission on a car that has no transmission.
I work for a flow battery startup. For renewable load shifting it is already commercially viable, if not preferable to Li-ion, but it's mostly down to who can come up with something that is durable on a 10-20 year timescale. Most Li-ion batteries were designed for somewhat disposable devices so scaling up to the MW size and also making it last for 10 times as long is a fairly difficult hurdle to overcome.
For automotive purposes I don't see how you ever get there. The energy density is just too low. Li-ion has probably 5 to 10 times the energy density, which means a comparable sized flow battery will be 5 - 10 times heavier. And they already struggle with the Li-ion batteries being too heavy when trying to add enough for longer trips. It's sort of a fundamental roadblock as well because your aqueous based, which means you have a fair amount of water that is necessary for your battery to actually flow, and that water is heavy and gives you no extra energy storage.
Jebus314 on
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
The big thing with electric vehicles is that their energy is as clean as the power grid. Don't feel they are clean enough, just upgrade the grid if you can.
Also Volvo phasing out gas powered engines in 2019 will put more pressure on governments to build more infrastructure to support them and you already have demand from Tesla owners. The more people that have a need for a place to charge their vehicle, the more likely an elected official would push for policy that address that need. Eventually, a government somewhere will pass the law that requires all new vehicles in their nation to be either hybrid or electric.
Although I tend to lean free market, I think it would be awesome if some state would do this. Say California. If successful it would take hold across the country. I have a feeling we are 20 years away from battery tech that can compete with gasoline but California is pretty rich and early adoption seems to require being rich.
Never will happen in CA, we are too big. The charging infrastructure needed would be insane. That said, a few of the richer New England states like NJ or NY could likely pull it off. Sure there would be plenty of out of state gas engines, but with some in state incentives and a good charging infrastructure I'm sure it would pretty strongly increase the pressure on all surrounding states to make the change as well, until it finally went national.
Hybrid tho. If you passed a law in CA today mandating all vehicles have hybrid motors the only people that would notice would probably be sport car and big truck aficionados. Half the SUVS you see are hybrids anymore. It's really weird driving out of state and seeing how much lower hybrid adoption is. Government incentives made a huge difference even in rural areas.
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Honestly, the REAL silver bullet would be improvements in battery density to where they can become swappable, and you don't actually own your battery but lease it, then can pull into a "charging station" where you swap out your battery (with valuation of the charge on it) for a new one in less time than it takes to pump gas. Don't even need to have fast charge times in that case - just density to make swapping reasonable. Hell, maybe even keep a stock around of "50%/75%/etc full" batteries to replace the concept of throwing $5-$10 in the tank.
Not going to happen anytime soon, though.
We have this system in Australia for gas bottles.
You own the bottle, but can swap it at a gas station for a full one so long as it's not damaged.
The battery weighs about 2000 lbs and features numerous high voltage DC connections which must remain sealed against liquid at all times. In addition, your vehicles specific battery age and life history gives it a specific value, which is not the same as a random off the shelf battery.
Honestly, the key here is to completely forget the idea that you are ever taking a massive road trip. You aren't. You never do, and don't need to. And if you really did, it would be more fiscally and environmentally sound to drive your electric car every day and just rent a car for your road trip if you wanted to do more than 250 miles a day.
This is completely fucking ridiculous as somebody with family all over California that I visit pretty regularly.
One trend I'm a little more surprised hasn't happened in hybrids is the kind of power plant style used in Abrams Tanks: a gas turbine driving an electric drive-train. You could even abstract that to a tuned ICE generator supplying an electric drive-train, because reducing the number of speeds a generator needs to run at can dramatically improve its efficiency. If I'm remembering it correctly the original Chevy Volt concept was supposed to use this, but they had to abandon it for some reason or other.
Honestly, the REAL silver bullet would be improvements in battery density to where they can become swappable, and you don't actually own your battery but lease it, then can pull into a "charging station" where you swap out your battery (with valuation of the charge on it) for a new one in less time than it takes to pump gas. Don't even need to have fast charge times in that case - just density to make swapping reasonable. Hell, maybe even keep a stock around of "50%/75%/etc full" batteries to replace the concept of throwing $5-$10 in the tank.
Not going to happen anytime soon, though.
We have this system in Australia for gas bottles.
You own the bottle, but can swap it at a gas station for a full one so long as it's not damaged.
The battery weighs about 2000 lbs and features numerous high voltage DC connections which must remain sealed against liquid at all times. In addition, your vehicles specific battery age and life history gives it a specific value, which is not the same as a random off the shelf battery.
Honestly, the key here is to completely forget the idea that you are ever taking a massive road trip. You aren't. You never do, and don't need to. And if you really did, it would be more fiscally and environmentally sound to drive your electric car every day and just rent a car for your road trip if you wanted to do more than 250 miles a day.
This will never fly in the US
At least not until we have affordable high speed mass transit
Which means, well, this will never fly in the US
The good news is the inevitable advances in tech mean that the distance limit on electric is not a permanent wall and no one will actually need to completely forget that idea at all
It's flying right now? Electric vehicle sales are through the roof. People are literally choosing to do this right now. EVs are the fastest growing market segment. People very commonly own an ev like a prius, Model S or Chevy Bolt and say they will rent a petrol car for long road trips. They rarely do, because people overstate their need for long distance driving in short times by about an order of magnitude. But it's still common to do so.
I'm confused as to where this vaguely 10 year old pre tesla understanding of evs is coming from. It's like having an argument with the past
Seriously, evs are great. They meet all your driving needs providing you can get regular access to a 240 V 15 A supply for 99% of the US driving population covering maybe 98.5% of driven miles. Go drive one, you'll be amazed.
Their only real weakness is people without the ability to charge at home, but even most new apartments are starting to offer charging stations these days, as are most workplaces.
The Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius are both gasoline electric hybrids. I own a Prius and have taken many 300+ mile trips in it.
I think this is a pretty good discussion of electric vehicles, but it is kind of taking over the thread entirely,
Just a reminder this is the climate change thread, so other discussions on that topic are still welcome here. We may have exhausted (heh) the EV discussion for now.
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Long haul isn't going electric, local delivery maybe, and stuff like UPS trucks probably, but long haul is basically "But what about my 600 mile road trip" except they are taking that road trip every day.
The first issue is the weight. Baring special permitting a semi weighs 80,000 lbs loaded, and about 30-35k unloaded. A Model S weighs about 3500 lbs pre battery pack, and the 100KWH battery pack adds 1500lbs. So even with linear scaling, the semi needs a 15k lb battery pack, or 30% of its cargo capacity.
Charging also becomes an issue, assuming drive 5 hours, charge 2 hours, drive 5 hours, you need to be able to draw 500KW per hour per truck to recharge it. Think of it in terms of a small truck stop, that would normally fuel up 10 trucks an hour. They now need to have spots for 20-30 trucks, all charging simultaneously. So they need 15 MW of supplied power, which is roughly the power needed for a city of 10,000 people, and all the associated transmission and transforming equipment.
Also the battery pack lifespan becomes an issue, because a trucker will drive in a month what an average person will do in a year. Looking around, the batteries lose 5% performance at 30k miles and 1% per 30k after that. So first year, a truck is looking at losing 8-9% of its range, 12-14% if it's driven by a team and by the end of year two it's down 20-25%. Which makes getting 10 hours of driving in a 14 hour 'working day' window less and less feasible.
Probably not, but let us know if you see any birds walking around.
Their website has a press release stating that their first plant was connected to the grid June 29, and includes a concept drawing that differs greatly from that image, with two panda shaped fields surrounded by convenional panels.
It wouldn't be crazy for them to do a panda field for phase one, for PR/press, and that photo seems like a far better photoshop/render than I would expect for a concept art.
So I'm leaning toward that being an actual photo of phase 1 of this:
(If that give any insight on their concept art budget)
my 2007 GM is expensive to maintain ($120 just to read codes at a dealer). Think that Jimbo's Garage is going to be well versed in the details of tesla motors electric?
I'm not sure what maintenance on a tesla is, but I'll wager it's a pretty penny
I think that's more car makers having a racket on their internal computers and making them tricky to interface with. Smart cars of the future would beam perpetual diagnostics on maintenance back to a server somewhere and you could get auto-cleared for inspection because the car knows its healthy and beams that information out.
hopefully they're better than any other car warranty I've ever had!
Sure, but there are also fewer moving parts on an electric car, so ideally less wear and tear.
I can spit and hit 5 different places to get a new alternator for a GM. I've never even seen a tesla.
That said, they seem to be really cool cars and I look forward to my children driving them (or maybe even me in 20 or however many years)!
And its not like we didn't have this exact same infrastructure dilemma with the internal combustion engine, it's not like there was a 100% sure filling station ever 5 miles the day after Ford sold his first unit. We built them because people needed them and would pay for it and money could be made, and the same for the extraction/refining/transport system that made those gas stations work.
I'm...less sure that's going to work for this buildup though, just because selling electricity to end users doesn't seem to have the margins somehow? Mayne that's just around here where power all comes from hydro and is practically free at home.
It's not like there's much profit in selling gas either.
Atleast in Finland, here gas stations make money by selling overpriced sandwiches and candy.
And an occasional motor oil bottle and windscreenwipers.
America has that too.
Its called Wawa. Its shut up and take my money good.
Most signs point to Ev's being much cheaper to maintain because no ICE eliminates nearly every moving part and standard regenerative braking cuts down on brake pad wear.
Yeah. Here's a 2017 Nissan Leaf service guide (take with general "manufacturer guidelines" grain of salt): https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuides/LEAF/2017/2017-LEAF-service-maintenance-guide.pdf
The only wear items are Brake fluid, cabin air filters, and batteries for the keyfob. Battery coolant replacement is at 125k miles. And that's it, generic inspections on the other parts.
Re: Tesla service - you have to take it to one of their service centers as far as I know, but if you have a $70k+ car you don't really care about paying dealer prices. If the service center is far away they'll tow your car there. It will be interesting to see what they do once the Model 3 is out in significant volume.
For long distances, high speed rail, as has been mentioned, might be the best, for major city to major city.
We're also working on electric aircraft. For personal and training use for now, since we don't have the battery power for them to stay powered for more than an hour or two without drastically increasing the weight; which, in the case of aircraft especially, is bad. But it can bring training costs for a personal flight license from ~$40/hr to ~$1/hr.
That sounds like a dream come true
it also sounds like a dream. Almost all of my maintenance with my current car has been computer and sensor related (aside from brake pads and tires). I'm very wary of things that shouldn't ever malfunction.
My wifi TV has no moving parts and yet after 6 months, if no longer recognizes wifi (repair person coming the 17th, thank god for warranties). My friend has a honda with one of those back up cameras/screens. One day it went blank. No reason could be found. The part was under warranty, but the labor wasn't.
I guess you're right that if you have a 70k car, you're probably good, but if the rest of the country is going to get one, there are going to be massive amounts of change. I hope it happens!
I wasn't talking about accelerating 0-60
I'm saying landscapers haul around a couple thousand pounds of tools and material every single day.
My boat weighs 3500lbs on its own not including the trailer and fuel / gear. Fibreglass boats weigh more as well.
5000lbs won't cut it.
Also, light rail to provincial or national parks? Personal vehicles are absolutely required, especially for families.
As I said, light truck EVs exist but they don't fit the bill just yet.
I think a good start would be to ban ICE in city centres and expand from there.
Honestly my entire point was that people who use larger vehicles like light trucks aren't climate denying coal rollers and to point out that there is some ignorance of what people use vehicles for outside of urban centres.
Sure, but once they're more common the knowledge base will be there for EVs like it is for ICE cars now. Most people will save decent money not having to deal with oil changes, belts, etc as wear items, I think.
Depending how truck battery packs hold up the lower maintenance may offset the cost of replacing/recycling battery packs. Really with electric vehicles rust is probably the biggest danger over time in climates with snow than anything else as long as you are willing to replace the battery pack every so often.
Unless you electrify main transport arteries, I'd also assume that most electric road freight is going to be self driving - so losing around 30% of your driving time charging (assuming they can't charge on motorways), you're still going to come out ahead of a ICE truck with a human driver. Battery lifespan is definitely still an issue though, but one I'd be curious to see how it compares to fuel costs over the same distance. Also wonder how easy it is to recycle batteries to either create some 'as new' ones from older packs, or if the trucks just get new peak condition packs, and you sell the older ones onto other industries that have different power requirements.
All-electric cars will probably mainstream a little before the driverless car revolution, so this setup makes the most sense. Then you could do stuff like ban personal car ownership for people living in cities and have everyone live off of a fleet of self-driving cars that would just issue to and from garages around town and *really* improve on space-use efficiency and beautify the cities by not having every urban street look like a parking lot.
Electric engines produce torque way more efficiently than ICE's do though. Which is basically what you really need for short range hauling and towing. Sure if you're taking your boat cross country you'll probably need a proper truck, but there's nothing inherently limiting an electric motor from hauling one around.
Your wifi TV's also designed and engineered with the expectation that it'll probably be replaced every few years, or the moment something goes wrong, like most consumer electronics these days.
Planned obsolescence and short design lives are a lot more of a problem with home electronics than they are with vehicles. They're also a very deliberate choice on the part of the manufacturers, not some fundamental hurdle they can't clear.
Definitely nothing wrong with electric motors. I'm not attached to gas, just utility.
I basically want this https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/13/workhorse-electric-truck-range-extender-stunning-specs/
But with more than 1500-2000lb payload and at least 7500lb towing.
I might be stupid but it seems like after the 80miles that is all electric on it that you're down to a 3cyl which would be a big shift in capability?
Anyway, as I said the use cases exist and are more common than what's being put forward.
The tech will get there and get there rapidly I hope.
I live in one of the cheapest places on earth to get electricity, better believe I want to drop my v8 pickup for plugging in
Edit: apologies if this is off topic or turning into an ev thread. I will remove if so.
I've worked in the modern electronics maintenance field, and I'm stoked about the idea of reliable electronic cars becoming a thing, because they will be so much easier to work on and maintain than engines fueled by literal explosions trying to dismantle the whole thing. Societies go through mammoth changes when needed, and if not dying a slow hot death isn't a need I don't know what counts. The infrastructure will get there, it has happened before.
They're called "Flow batteries," and still being researched, but the energy density is way below Li/Ion.
Part of the interest in that kind of technology is a means to more efficiently use renewable power. One major challenge with solar or wind power is it's not frequently generated near people who will use it, and you have to then contend with transmission losses. If you had a viable flow battery chemistry, you could set up an energy plant rather than a power plant, and ship expended and charged flow battery fluid to and from them like shipping crude and refined petroleum to and from oil refineries. Then again, if you develop an efficient catalytic process to make methane, methanol or a longer-chain hydrocarbon you can just use existing petrochemical infrastructure while turning the back-end carbon neutral.
As for car maintenance costs: as I recall, EVs are way cheaper to maintain because they're way simpler in terms of part count and operating conditions. By complexity of system, you should anticipate Hybrids to have the highest maintenance costs (need to maintain both an EV and ICE system), ICE cars in the middle, and EVs at the cheap end. There's no such thing as needing to replace a transmission on a car that has no transmission.
Yeah the reutilization of our existing liquid-based energy transport infrastructure is super attractive.
I work for a flow battery startup. For renewable load shifting it is already commercially viable, if not preferable to Li-ion, but it's mostly down to who can come up with something that is durable on a 10-20 year timescale. Most Li-ion batteries were designed for somewhat disposable devices so scaling up to the MW size and also making it last for 10 times as long is a fairly difficult hurdle to overcome.
For automotive purposes I don't see how you ever get there. The energy density is just too low. Li-ion has probably 5 to 10 times the energy density, which means a comparable sized flow battery will be 5 - 10 times heavier. And they already struggle with the Li-ion batteries being too heavy when trying to add enough for longer trips. It's sort of a fundamental roadblock as well because your aqueous based, which means you have a fair amount of water that is necessary for your battery to actually flow, and that water is heavy and gives you no extra energy storage.
Hybrid tho. If you passed a law in CA today mandating all vehicles have hybrid motors the only people that would notice would probably be sport car and big truck aficionados. Half the SUVS you see are hybrids anymore. It's really weird driving out of state and seeing how much lower hybrid adoption is. Government incentives made a huge difference even in rural areas.
This is completely fucking ridiculous as somebody with family all over California that I visit pretty regularly.
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The Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius are both gasoline electric hybrids. I own a Prius and have taken many 300+ mile trips in it.
I hope so, but battery tech is the place we're being held back right now.
Just a reminder this is the climate change thread, so other discussions on that topic are still welcome here. We may have exhausted (heh) the EV discussion for now.