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Overview of Early Electric Cars

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#11

Post by rsj_hn »

clouddrover wrote: post #6
rsj_hn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) Curious how you are calculating this. I usually spend about 60-120 seconds refilling my tank once every 300 miles. (15 gallon tank, about 30 mpg). Because gas stations are everywhere, I never have to plan a specific route based on availability of gas stations, or use an app to find where the stations are, or even think about how much gas I have, as I k…

> So how can it be less time overall? If you can charge at home overnight (or at work during the day) then you won't need to go anywhere else.

If a car never breaks down, then you don't need to waste time at a mechanic, either.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#12

Post by bobthepanda »

rsj_hn wrote: post #10
samcheng wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With electric you plug the car in overnight while it is parked. It is full every morning, and you never need to go out of your way to charge it unless you are on an intercity trip. It really is more convenient than gasoline!

I don't think most people would consider only charging at home an advantage or "convenience". If you even need to go to a charging station once and spend a half hour to an hour there, that becomes very inconvenient, even if you only need to do that once a month. Most people would like to have a charging station always nearby so that it becomes stateless for them, so that they don't need to think about how much they d…

Also this assumes you have a driveway that has a charge point hooked up.

This does nothing for, say, most apartment buildings which don’t have charge points, or people who park on the street.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#13

Post by clouddrover »

dmitriid wrote: post #9
clouddrover wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you need to think about what it means when all cars are electric. Current charging speeds lead to long queues at chargers like this: https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on-the-road-... No car on the road at the moment is capable of making full use of 350 kW CCS chargers (the Porsche Taycan comes closest at 270 kW). Ideally you'd want a flat charging curve at 350 kW to allow for more cars to be served…

> you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger. It's still abysmally slow.

Yes, there will still need to be more charge points than there are fuel pumps but your charging won't necessarily be exclusively at DC fast chargers. It will be a mix of DC and AC charging.

For example, if you're on a road trip you might DC fast charge during the day and then slow charge overnight at a hotel so you start the day with a full battery.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#14

Post by Andys »

rsj_hn wrote: post #10
samcheng wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With electric you plug the car in overnight while it is parked. It is full every morning, and you never need to go out of your way to charge it unless you are on an intercity trip. It really is more convenient than gasoline!

I don't think most people would consider only charging at home an advantage or "convenience". If you even need to go to a charging station once and spend a half hour to an hour there, that becomes very inconvenient, even if you only need to do that once a month. Most people would like to have a charging station always nearby so that it becomes stateless for them, so that they don't need to think about how much they d…

If you have a garage and a power point at home, you just leave it plugged in while you're not using it. You don't really even have to think about it - definitely more convenient than having to find a gas station once a week

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#15

Post by erik_seaberg »

clouddrover wrote: post #13
dmitriid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should be able handle 4 cars per hour per charger. It's still abysmally slow.

Yes, there will still need to be more charge points than there are fuel pumps but your charging won't necessarily be exclusively at DC fast chargers. It will be a mix of DC and AC charging. For example, if you're on a road trip you might DC fast charge during the day and then slow charge overnight at a hotel so you start the day with a full battery.

I guess it's feasible, but as of last year I've never seen a charger at a hotel.

My office had maybe a dozen, which is already not enough—EV drivers were required to go outside and move their cars after a few hours. I don't know how often someone who needs one is screwed.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#16

Post by mettamage »

clouddrover wrote: post #2

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good t…

Silly question: to what extent can you extend the range of a car by adding solar panels on the roof in cloudy conditions? If that adds range of 10% extra, then why not do it?

I figured they thought about this a long time ago, so I'm just wondering.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#17

Post by rsj_hn »

clouddrover wrote: post #2

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good t…

Honestly I think the issue isn't with batteries or current technology. My lay view is that the technology to make PEVs attractive is already here. What is not here is the eco-system.

* Can you get the car serviced at an independent mechanic or do you have to go to the dealer and pay whatever they decide to charge you? No amount of battery innovation will overcome $1000 bills to replace a door handle. Check out Rich Rebuild's youtube channel for a description of the service costs of keeping a Tesla running out of warranty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq5c4jGR2gM&t=302s

* Is there a large eco-system of after-market parts and third party warranty issuers? This is required to drive repair costs down.

* Do we have good data on the lifetime of critical parts under actual use? This is required for consumers to estimate the operating costs over the life of the vehicle (whether or not they plan on selling it doesn't matter, as they will pay for those operating costs either in depreciation or in paying for repairs themselves)

* Is there a robust country-wide charge network that compete with gas stations?

* Is there a system to quickly get energy when you need it -- e.g. either very fast (10 min) charging or a swap-in battery system to give you a quick 100 miles of range.

These are not issues that require breakthroughs in solid state science. If the batteries don't last long, make it easier to service them or swap them out. If the range isn't so great, create a wider network of chargers. If the parts don't last as long, make them cheaper and easier to service by independent mechanics. Force a right to repair and diagnose for PEVs as we have for gas powered cars.

IOW, rather than waiting on breakthroughs in materials science, infrastructure upgrades can solve these issues, but lack of infrastructure can't be solved by breakthroughs in battery life. As long as Tesla is a monopoly provider of parts and service, and as long as the infrastructure isn't there, upping the power to weight ratio of batteries by 30% isn't going to do much to reduce ownership risk to consumers, and PEVs will remain a niche market dominated by wealthy consumers who can bear ownership cost risk better than middle class people.

* And of course, the electric grid needs a massive upgrade.

All of the above is well within the reach of existing tech. Whether it's financially feasible is another question.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#18

Post by geoduck14 »

clouddrover wrote: post #2

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good t…

In my opinion, we are trying to solve the "EV range issue" all wrong. We are looking at gas cars, and asking "how can we do the same thing, but with electricity" - and we get a substandard result.

What we SHOULD do is: take a step back and ask "what do we REALLY want to achieve".

We don't really want long range and fast charge. We DO want worry-free power wherever we choose to go. It isn't a novel concept to suggest: inductive charging from the road into the car (as you drive). There are probably other more practical ideas, too, but - and this is critical- you have to start asking the right questions.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#19

Post by TylerE »

geoduck14 wrote: post #18
clouddrover wrote: post #2

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good t…

In my opinion, we are trying to solve the "EV range issue" all wrong. We are looking at gas cars, and asking "how can we do the same thing, but with electricity" - and we get a substandard result. What we SHOULD do is: take a step back and ask "what do we REALLY want to achieve". We don't really want long range and fast charge. We DO want worry-free power wherever we choose to go. It isn't a novel concept to suggest:…

That's insane. Inductive charging is wildly inefficient.

On typical phone chargers efficiency is about 60-70% max..and it goes down with distance.

Re: Overview of Early Electric Cars

#20

Post by clouddrover »

geoduck14 wrote: post #18
clouddrover wrote: post #2

The problem is the same as its always been: the batteries still aren't quite good enough. Batteries still need to become cheaper, safer, more energy dense, more durable, and faster charging. But the good news is that batteries are improving year by year. Probably by 2025 there will be large scale production of EVs with solid-state batteries with better energy density, safety, and charging speeds. It'll also be good t…

In my opinion, we are trying to solve the "EV range issue" all wrong. We are looking at gas cars, and asking "how can we do the same thing, but with electricity" - and we get a substandard result. What we SHOULD do is: take a step back and ask "what do we REALLY want to achieve". We don't really want long range and fast charge. We DO want worry-free power wherever we choose to go. It isn't a novel concept to suggest:…

> We don't really want long range and fast charge

Yes we do. As the article demonstrates, they were making the same arguments 100 years ago.

Lack of range and charging speed is why electric cars lost out to ICE cars 100 years ago. ICE cars simply took you further, faster (and still do).

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