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The Problem with Electric Vehicles

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#191

Post by vinceguidry »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #165
vinceguidry wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think every EV is going to drive like a (specced-out) Tesla?

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#192

Post by bjourne »

I think electric BIKES, not cars, is the future. We're already seeing bikes with 1000W engines and batteries which have enough for 60 km range. It takes much less energy to transport one human on a bike than one inside a "steel cage".

For longer trips, you still need mass transit or perhaps car pooling services of some sort. But for commuter trips, I think electric bikes or trikes will absolutely replace cars in the near future.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#194

Post by jacquesm »

pc2g4d wrote: post #189
jacquesm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars are actually more or less a natural sink for wind energy and solar because they add storage capacity to the grid, something it currently does not have.

Trouble is they're not connected to the grid while you're driving them :-/ But excellent point nontheless

If they would be you would not need batteries in the first place!

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#195

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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 a pointless analysis unless you can provide the numbers for the status quo, and somehow that works much better. As I understand it, we wouldn't be able to extract enough gasoline for that number of ICE cars either, so your point is totaly moot (LOL!).

Every EV that replaces a regularly driven ICE vehicle is a net win on its own (less pollution in cities, less energy use, works well with renewables etc.) The more the better.

EVs have lots of benefits for developing nations too, EV scooters and electric bikes seem to be big business in certain areas.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#196

Post by Reason077 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #102
Reason077 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to prove far, far harder to replace trucks than buses and cars with EVs The economics don't stack up today for long-distance EV trucking, but it's quite possible that they will in a decade or so, with ongoing incremental improvements in battery costs and energy density. The limitations now are cost and infrastructure, not technology. If we imagine, say, an HGV with a 500kWh battery pack then it sho…

I think the best solution involves evoluton of the delivery network, so maybe EV haulage is closer than I think.. An EV light truck is perfect for the final delivery to home or shop, and doubly so in congested inner cities with pollution charges, like London. I could be wrong, but I thought the London Routemasters were hybrids? HGV delivery might evolve to a combination of more rail, longhaul diesel HGVs and EV light…

The "New Routemaster" busses are indeed diesel-electric hybrids, but London is also now testing new fully electric double deckers:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/wor...

We already see a few EV delivery vans around (Nissan have one based on the Leaf technology). They need to get a bit bigger and have longer range before they'll start replacing all the diesel vans, but we are indeed making progress.

There's various problems with using intermodal rail for things like supermarket deliveries, though, at least in the UK. It's not really compatible with the just-in-time model that supermarkets and other retailers operate, where the supermarket places an order every day based on their real-time sales data which is fulfilled overnight from their large regional distribution centres.

Consider a shift from truckloads of goods to intermodal container loads: you'd be going truck-rail-truck, with all the inefficiencies of transferring between modes. You'd need intermodal freight depots on the outskirts of cities, shunting yards, etc which just don't exist any more. You wouldn't actually be cutting down on city traffic, since the same number of local trips would need to be made anyway.

And the distances involved from distribution centre to supermarket are usually relatively short, so there just isn't a huge fuel saving to be made in using rail.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#197

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Grishnakh wrote: post #99
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chevy Volt goes a step further and has the gas powered engine hooked up to the wheels. I prefer the approach taken by the BMW i3 where the (optional) gas powered range-extender is purely used to generate electricity, but there's room for both in the transition period and PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) seems like it might be an important market segment.

The problem with this approach (called a "serial hybrid powertrain") is that it's much less efficient than a parallel hybrid like the Prius. You can see it in the fuel economy figures: the Volt gets much lower highway fuel economy when it's running on gas than the Prius does, and only makes up for it on shorter trips where it takes advantage of its relatively large all-electric range. If you're doing a lot of highway…

Yes, it's less effecient if you're actually using the engine but the aim would be to not use the engine, and purely use battery storage as much as possible.

There's graphs of average driving distance, the idea would be to get 90+% of those miles (daily commutes etc.) done with grid-supplied electricity, and the gas engine to be a once in a while thing (assuming you even need one, it is after all an optional extra that you need to pay for on the i3).

At that point you can start to save on the engine expenses too (I think the i3 one is repurposed from a motorbike?)

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#198

Post by Kastaka »

rplst8 wrote: post #190
_ph_ wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An average car in Germany would require about 10kWh per day recharge, this can be done on a plain wall socket. Even if you drive twice that range every day, you would not need anywhere close to the powers you are talking about. The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as effective, so you would need only a third of the…

> The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as effective, so you would need only a third of the energy transfer speed. I stated that in my original reply. > With an electric vehicle, the common case should be overnight recharge, so charge speed does not matter much there. I know here in the DC metro people have 100 mile…

This looks like a Europe vs US comparison problem?

In Europe you're unlikely to be travelling vast distances on a regular basis, whereas it's much more common in the US, so the range problems become much more important in the US than they are in Europe.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#199

Post by rmoriz »

mikeash wrote: post #85
rmoriz wrote: post #27

Short-range EV only works in cities however especially in central Europe there is such a good public (and green) transportation system in place, that there is no benefit in (co-)owning an expensive EV that also needs special charging ports installed on at least "one end". Even the number of Given that you need invest a couple of 1000$ to install a charger (per parking slot) and also limit yourself to one type of EV (…

You don't need to limit yourself to one type of EV. In the US, a J1772 charger can charge every EV on the road. In Europe, the Mennekes connector does the same. Fast DC charging has a bit of a standards war going on. There's CCS, CHAdeMO, and Tesla Supercharger, which are all mutually incompatible. But for routine AC charging, you can install one charger and work with every car.

Simple 230V AC charger take 24hrs to charge a car...

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#200

Post by mikeash »

rmoriz wrote: post #199
mikeash wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to limit yourself to one type of EV. In the US, a J1772 charger can charge every EV on the road. In Europe, the Mennekes connector does the same. Fast DC charging has a bit of a standards war going on. There's CCS, CHAdeMO, and Tesla Supercharger, which are all mutually incompatible. But for routine AC charging, you can install one charger and work with every car.

Simple 230V AC charger take 24hrs to charge a car...

My Model S takes about 9 hours to charge from 0-100% on my home 240V charger, and you rarely need 0-100%. For it to take 24 hours, you'd have to be limited to pulling 14A. And, well, don't install something so ridiculously slow!
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