The Problem with Electric Vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#161

Post by revelation » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #149

_ph_ wrote: post #25

I have to disagree with many points in that article. My point of reference is the German grid, so it might be different in the US. - switching all cars to electrical would increase the total electricity consumption by 20%, while currently we export about 10% of our production. All the changes are going to happen over a timeframe of more than 20 years, because that is how long it takes to replace the cars at minimum,…

> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control & remotely adjusting by power company My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER". "Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I ha…

You are stuck in a gasoline mindset where you drive until empty, then you put some more dead trees in. That is not how you use an electric car, at all.

Very few people will use the entirety of 200+ miles every day, and as such, their car will not be empty. It will then simply recharge every night. Also, nobody is saying you can't recharge when you want. It's just that 95% of people won't care when exactly in the day their car recharges the 50 odd miles they drove, and so that will then happen at a useful (for the grid) time.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#162

Post by _ph_ » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #149

_ph_ wrote: post #25

I have to disagree with many points in that article. My point of reference is the German grid, so it might be different in the US. - switching all cars to electrical would increase the total electricity consumption by 20%, while currently we export about 10% of our production. All the changes are going to happen over a timeframe of more than 20 years, because that is how long it takes to replace the cars at minimum,…

> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control & remotely adjusting by power company My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER". "Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I ha…

Assuming a car with a reasonably sized battery (Bolt, Model 3), you rarely are going to arrive "empty" at home. And if thats the case, of course you can charge immediately. But not every car owner has to do it, most are going to wait for the cheaper night rates. So there is a good chance of the grid not collapsing.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#163

Post by jhayward » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #96

sounds wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the true problems? I find Jacques' concerns to be well thought out, showing that he has actually dug into the numbers. However, I'm interested to know what you see are even more significant problems.

Its sort of an amateurs discuss tactics and generals discuss logistics kind of problem. Oddly enough for HN, its a scalability problem (LOL). If you turned the entire known planetary stock of economically useful lithium ore into present gen batteries with 100% efficiency (LOL) and eliminated all competing uses (LOL), depending who's goofy numbers you use, you could give every human on the planet roughly one electric…

This is not really a practical objection for two reasons: demand increases mineral reserves, and we're unlikely to ever have 1 car per person globally.

Right now there is very little demand for lithium compared to the economically recoverable reserves. But the way mineral discovery works, as demand increases more money and effort is invested in finding new resources. There is absolutely no danger that ever-expanding lithium reserves will ever be exhausted by any reasonable vehicle production numbers. It's not even a given that per-pound prices would have to increase, as shown by the success of enhanced oil recovery having a break-even in the $30/bbl range now.

Lithium is also just about the least expensive part of battery production. The cost of lithium in the market could increase by an order of magnitude and only affect battery cost by perhaps 10-20%.

It's not reasonable to project 1 vehicle per person globally for many reasons. Economics, geography, the built infrastructure, and demographics affect vehicle ownership. The techno-society changes such a massive increase in vehicles would bring are enormous and unlikely to evolve soon. Transport paradigms that work in one area, say the US, aren't likely to work in all others. Using US vehicle numbers as a world-wide projection just isn't reasonable.

A more reasonable thought exercise would be to replace all the vehicles in existence with electrics. At about 1 billion vehicles on the road today, there's plenty of lithium to do so, even at current known reserves.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#164

Post by rplst8 » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #149

_ph_ wrote: post #25

I have to disagree with many points in that article. My point of reference is the German grid, so it might be different in the US. - switching all cars to electrical would increase the total electricity consumption by 20%, while currently we export about 10% of our production. All the changes are going to happen over a timeframe of more than 20 years, because that is how long it takes to replace the cars at minimum,…

> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control & remotely adjusting by power company My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER". "Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I ha…

> Refueling with an ICE takes no time at all and can be done anywhere.

So right.

It is truly amazing that more people don't realize the disconnect here between current motor fuels and electricity. The average gallon of gasoline contains 33 kWh of energy. You can pump about 15-20 gallons in 5 minutes or so. That's equivalent to around 6 MWh or 21,000 MJ of energy, every hour. Less if you allow for the time between cars. The average household electrical supply in the US is 200A at 240V which can supply a paltry 48 kWh or 172 MJ each hour. And that's if one were able to use the supply at full capacity.

Electric cars require 1/4 to 1/3 of the energy as typical ICE counterparts, but the fuel delivery systems are separated by factor of over 100. We're still well over an order of magnitude apart on the fueling convenience factor. Installing three phase 480V 400A (1.2 MJ per hour) service to homes would help solve this, but would be much more dangerous to work with - even if the charging systems on the EVs could use it.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#165

Post by ryanmarsh » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:24 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #144

djrogers wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it was. In 1910. Do you honestly expect that to always be true?

Until and unless something fundamental changes about batteries, sure. If you can figure out how to charge a battery at the same rate as filling up a gas tank, then that would qualify. If you can quadruple capacity, and therefore range, that would also qualify. Right now and for the foreseeable future, EVs are a promising alternative to regular cars, but if everyone hops on board, the logistics will murder us. EVs won…

> EVs won't work until they're actually better than ICEs in every way.

I'm guessing you haven't spent much time behind the wheel of a Tesla. You're making a sweeping and unsupported assertion there.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#166

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #149

_ph_ wrote: post #25

I have to disagree with many points in that article. My point of reference is the German grid, so it might be different in the US. - switching all cars to electrical would increase the total electricity consumption by 20%, while currently we export about 10% of our production. All the changes are going to happen over a timeframe of more than 20 years, because that is how long it takes to replace the cars at minimum,…

> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control & remotely adjusting by power company My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER". "Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I ha…

[deleted]

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#167

Post by ryanmarsh » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #126

ryanmarsh wrote: post #94

Several of the author's arguments center around what exists today in terms of infrastructure. Yes, if necessary grid/stations don't exist the average EV purchaser might have trouble getting recharged, kWh prices might go up, etc... Deep eye roll at stuff like this. I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas stations across the country, there wasn't much of an electrical grid, or a hig…

> I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas stations across the country, Not much of an argument. The ICE won out over electric drivetrains for the express reason that liquid fuels are far easier to provide logistics for than batteries. Most electric car makers stopped production at some point in the 1910s. It's not that electric vehicles were never tried out. They were. Gasoline was…

> Gasoline was just a way better fit.

Was.

See: my argument re: small scale localized electricity production for EV charging thanks to our glorious NG infrastructure.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#168

Post by ryanmarsh » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #126

ryanmarsh wrote: post #94

Several of the author's arguments center around what exists today in terms of infrastructure. Yes, if necessary grid/stations don't exist the average EV purchaser might have trouble getting recharged, kWh prices might go up, etc... Deep eye roll at stuff like this. I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas stations across the country, there wasn't much of an electrical grid, or a hig…

> I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas stations across the country, Not much of an argument. The ICE won out over electric drivetrains for the express reason that liquid fuels are far easier to provide logistics for than batteries. Most electric car makers stopped production at some point in the 1910s. It's not that electric vehicles were never tried out. They were. Gasoline was…

> The ICE won out over electric drivetrains for the express reason that liquid fuels are far easier to provide logistics for than batteries

It was purely logistics, not that energy density of early batteries was logarithmically worse than hydrocarbons?

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#169

Post by cdibona » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

The Model S is very popular in the crescent park neighborhood of Palo Alto. There were brownouts until they upgraded the neighborhoods supply and transformers.

Just some food for thought. Most neighborhoods simply are not wired for overnight charging of a significant number of EVs. I would expect EV interconnect fees or time sensitive tierd electric consumption independent of your net metering deal.

Or hyper-local generating capacity based on natural gas...?

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#170

Post by cdibona » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #145

pjkundert wrote: post #101

If you consider that EVs have A) large batteries w/ efficient charge/discharge cycles, B) efficient high-capacity inverters, and C) are plugged in (somewhere) for large fractions of their life, and D) very often have capacity far exceeding their next expected trip duration, then: It is inevitable that Tesla (or someone else) will implement Grid-tied battery backup as a standard option on these vehicles. When that hap…

No, you're not missing anything, that is a very likely thing to happen.

This assumes the cars are plugged in when there is the most 'extra' capacity being generated from , say, solar thermal/pv. This is when most cars are out at a workplace, not plugged in.

This is also when industrial consumption/ac use peaks, so why would you over produce and feed a battery rather than run a plant/keep places cool...