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Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

theguardian.com

191–200 of 519 posts

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#191
post #179

I need a new car but I am put off by the range and charging infrastructure of EV. I haven’t looked into it properly yet but I’m surprised there’s not much more good hybrid cars on the market, sounds like a great compromise on the paper. What’s the catch?

The upside and downside of hybrid cars boils down to the same thing: Having two energy systems on-board. While often great, it also makes the whole system quite a bit more complex.

You need a gas tank and a battery, electric motors and internal combustion engines, and so on. I don't know how hybrid cars compare in terms of purchase price and maintenance costs, but on paper they are a much more complicated system.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#192
post #179

I need a new car but I am put off by the range and charging infrastructure of EV. I haven’t looked into it properly yet but I’m surprised there’s not much more good hybrid cars on the market, sounds like a great compromise on the paper. What’s the catch?

Mainly more points of failure, and additional weight to my knowledge.

The electric motor allows superior city driving due to the nice fact that you have regenerative breaking and much more efficient low speed operation where an ICE would not be able to run at its most efficient RPMs. While the gas engine gives a lot of convivence that you might otherwise lose.

The downside is now you have two drivetrains that need to integrate into a very limited space, with limited weight as the whole goal was to make an more efficient car. Its also non-trivial to make a good transmission let alone one that has two inputs, or even an integrated electric motor.

Batteries in a hybrid are also pushed much harder in a way. Batteries are often rated over 20hr discharge cycles as you can generally get more power out of a battery by discharging it slowly. Asking 1A from a 100Ahr battery vs 1A from a 1A battery is very different in terms of effective capacity as well as the longevity of the cell. Given that batteries are so heavy and you need two drivetrains you can only add so much battery capacity. The end result is that its easy for the batteries to age faster in a hybrid.

A surmountable issue is heat, batteries don't play well outside a range of limited range of temperatures. Too cold and they will have less effective capacity, too hot and they can be damaged or degrade faster. This issue can be overcome, but is just another way there is more complexity than Tesla's 'the floor is a battery approach'.

Hybrids are cool, but they are hard to make right is the tldr.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the main problem with the Leaf battery is that it doesn't have active thermal management[1]. I guess it's possible one could make a replacement battery pack which has an internal cooling loop, but it would be quite limited in how much heat it could get rid of through the battery case body without external radiators. Of course better batteries might heat up less when used or charged, due to lower internal resist…

Battery chemistry has improved so while it will never be a Tesla (lack of coolant loop, etc), I have heard some folks have gotten a significantly better Leaf after replacement. A heater for freezing days would be pretty simple.

This video describes the evolution of the Nissan batteries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpgv-dY-q6M

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#194
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be really interesting to see what the residual value of the old battery will be. Could be really high- 50% original capacity is a problem for cars but not for grid storage (if the price reflects remaining capacity)

50% capacity for energy storage might be ok for Home gamers but no utility scale project is going to spend all the money on permitting, construction and the rest of the power infrastructure and then get batteries that are beat up.

It's impossible to say without knowing actual prices and doing the math. If a profit can be made, most likely someone will do it.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of sold cars are electric in Norway. Above 60 in October

82% of Norwegians are homeowners. Garage orphans will hold back some other countries.

Being a homeowner does not mean you live in single family house. Yes, I own my home in Oslo but I live in an apartment. We have shared garage areas which is indeed common in Norway even for people with single family homes. Garages are often clustered in Norway to keep neighborhoods car free.

We also have problems all across Norway with electrical capacity not being enough to install chargers in these garages. So upgrades to the grid has been necessary lots of places.

We only recently got a grid upgrade in my apartment complex to allow installation of chargers.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a country lead by engineers with unlimited power to do whatever they want. If they want all cars to be electric, that will happen. If they want a 5 million person city just there because it's logistically advantageous, then that will happen. The good thing is that they can make decisions like this. The bad thing is that they can make decisions like this.

Autocracies seem to be the most efficient form of governance. It's a shame that this also means that they can do evil things very efficiently, given no one can stop them.

Only in short term. A single autocrat can be efficient and purpose-driven and can move mountains, but the next one has decent chances to be just a useless bloke, and the system doesn't have a feedback loop from citizens to correct the course via elections. So eventually all autocracies deteriorate.

Putin's autocracy deterioration has happened even during his lifetime.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#197

'Global sales' I hope everyone understands in China it is very hard to get a licence plate, the government allows you to get a licence plate if you buy a heavily subsidised electric car. The aim is to stimulate demand to develop an industry. Large cities also banned motorbikes and scooters, with the same aim. This is no way market driven demand, BYD is a very interesting company to look into. It is my understanding t…

I also believe that a country like China take a lot of different considerations in to this equation such as people health. Not because of empathic care, but rather workforce and long term cost management.

They do things like this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/04/china-blam...

If they have a goal or idea they can paint with a really large brush and hit a few birds with a really big stone. It's both a strength and ofc a weakness.

Over here where actual market matters more we will often act much slower, which is a strength and a weakness. =)

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc. Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a wee…

But it's not uncommon for people to have at least a gallon of gas stored in a typical suburban home. That's 20-30 miles of emergency travel if needed. I don't think most people can easily store enough electricity to give them 20-30 miles of EV range. Maybe that's possible with a powerwall type setup? I'd be happy to pick up a cheap( The math may change as gas prices spike over the next year. I think that will really…

Modern EVs can have bidirectional charging so they can charge each other. Hence if you run out and the grid is down you may be able to buy electricity off somebody else’s car. Don’t see this flexibility with gasoline.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the biggest market indeed. As a counter point though > Sales of BEVs almost tripled in the UK, while those of PHEVs almost doubled, giving the vehicles a combined market share of 10.7%. Other non-plug-in hybrids took 18% of the market, but overall car sales were down 29%. Here is another interesting chart about Germany https://insideevs.com/news/447542/tesla-sales-growth-germany... It's not solely China.

Tesla’s sales in Germany are up ~20%, but on a very low level. Their total market share is now 0.5 percent. It’a definitely encouraging to see growth here, but there’s still a long way to go. It’s also important to keep in mind that the numbers for electric vehicles often include plug-in hybrids. They’re a neat idea in theory, but in practice, they often serve as a hybrid car and never get plugged in. The gains from…

Is like to have a source for the statement that plug in hybrid never gets plugged in. Everyone I know who has one charges it over night and only runs it on petroleum occasionally.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not uncommon for people to have at least a gallon of gas stored in a typical suburban home. That's 20-30 miles of emergency travel if needed. I don't think most people can easily store enough electricity to give them 20-30 miles of EV range. Maybe that's possible with a powerwall type setup? I'd be happy to pick up a cheap( The math may change as gas prices spike over the next year. I think that will really…

You can store fuel even if you have an EV. Just use it to run a generator, they're generally more efficient than the average gas engine anyway. You can use the electricity generated to power your house and charge your car in an emergency.

And with a tri-fuel kit, you can run that generator on gasoline, propane, or natural gas depending on what's readily available. Even if the gas pumps are offline due to a power outage, you could hook up one of those prefilled propane cylinders that near every gas station seems to sell these days.
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