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Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

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Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#81

Post by Freestyler_3 »

mtgx wrote: post #17

> There is no Moore’s law for battery storage—the power of batteries doesn’t magically double every two years. > Put another away, the battery pack in the 2017 Volt will cost less than 10 percent more than the one in the 2012 Volt. But it will be more than four times more powerful. Intel wishes its chips still quadrupled in performance every 5 years. > We’re moving toward a world where more and more cars will either…

I just find it funny, that they think that moore's law means that chips magically improve, that it is not dependant on the hard work of people.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#82

Post by imtringued »

superuser2 wrote: post #19
bluthru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the bosses wanted iPhones, the company got iPhones. When the bosses want to plug in their electric cars, the parking lots will get charging stations.

* The parking lots will get 2 or 3 charging stations per 1000 spaces, like many parking garages in SF currently.

Charging stations is the wrong word. The charging part is already embedded in the car. All you need is a 240 volt socket.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#83

Post by PeterisP »

sowbug wrote: post #59
gnicholas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers should absolutely consider whether we are on a sustainable growth curve. How common will electric charging stations be if it turns out that EVs can't rise above 10% of the total car market? If hydrogen-powered cars all of a sudden became the norm, EV drivers will be much less well-served than if EV sales continue to scale (as most EV purchasers probably assume they will).

Most hydrogen-powered cars are electric cars. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle (listing upcoming hydrogen vehicles, all using fuel cells). And that's actually the point of switching cars to electricity: we have many sustainable ways of making electricity, and zero ways of sustainably making gasoline. Get cars running on electricity, then continue building out the infrastructure.

Various processes to make synthetic gasoline were patented more than hundred years ago, and at some times (ww2-1950ies) it has been successfully done at scale.

We don't do it because currently oil is so obscenely abundant and cheap, that it's not economically worthwhile to seriously consider alternatives to just pumping some more oil out of the ground.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#84

Post by Animats »

sunstone wrote: post #76

Interesting article but the timelines seem way to conservative to me. For example if batteries continue to improve over the next four years as they have over the past four years, according to the article then in 2020 the batteries will weight 1500 lbs, travel 1142 miles on a charge and cost about $10k. (Or a 500 mile battery for $5k) And the cost of electricity will be, at today's rates, $1 per "e-gallon" Who wouldn'…

There are inherent limits on battery energy density.[1] Lithium-ion is nearing the limits of that chemistry. Magnesium-ion could potentially have about 30% more energy density, but so far, nobody can get it to work. Lithium-sulfur may be the next big step. Those actually exist.[2] However, they present a major hazardous waste problem, much worse than lithium-ion batteries.[3] The ultimate limits on energy density are probably 2x or 3x above the best current products. Basic problem: higher energy density comes from elements that are highly reactive.

Cost can be brought down through manufacturing economies. We'll have to see if Tesla meets their price point with their Nevada factory.

[1] http://www.tedsanders.com/graphs/batteries-over-time [2] http://www.sionpower.com/ [3] https://yosemite.epa.gov/OSW/rcra.nsf/Documents/CC7D81DF3070...

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#85

Post by Bromskloss »

vonklaus wrote: post #6

obviously Tesla is the front runner for spearheading the insudtry by virtually every metric & subsector (except maybe price). Look, I love Tesla and have been bullish on the company for a pretty long time, so I am biased, but why can't other car companies have quality cars and aesthetics. * Fisker Karma: The car looked super sleek, was super sexy and from an engineering standpoint it was a heap of shit. * Chevy Volt:…

> Rimac Concept One

Nice! I wonder if it's available with a combustion engine.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#86

Post by Gibbon1 »

gumby wrote: post #55
8note wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's someone in Halifax researching Sodium Batteries, which would be a fair bit easier to find than lithium, though less effective.

Sodium batteries run at very high temperature and are finicky. They have been used for decades on submarines where they can be managed by trained personnel and where a large heat sink is available. I would be wary of consumer sodium based batteries.

I think that's sodium-sulfur batteries. There is work being done on sodium ion batteries. And also aluminum ion batteries. In thoery these are both similar to lithium ion batteries. In practice figuring out how to produce high quality ion batteries is not easy.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#87

Post by garrettheaver »

gambiting wrote: post #78
kfk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel engine are improving too and oil price doesn't seem to want to go down any time soon. I'd say we have an interesting 10 years ahead. Electric is probably going to win, but time estimates are very hard to do. Don't forget that replacing a car fleet is expensive and takes years. A modern car can easily last 15-20 years, so even if we started replacing fuel with electric today (which we are not), replacing the whol…

And don't forget that there are millions of people who have a car right now, but who wouldn't have a place to charge an electric car. People living in apartments, terraced houses, especially in the UK it's very common to see rows upon rows of houses, none of them with their own driveway.

I know what you're getting at but I don't think the above comparison is entirely fair. Those houses don't have petrol pumps outside them either

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#88

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

ebbv wrote: post #58
gnicholas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers should absolutely consider whether we are on a sustainable growth curve. How common will electric charging stations be if it turns out that EVs can't rise above 10% of the total car market? If hydrogen-powered cars all of a sudden became the norm, EV drivers will be much less well-served than if EV sales continue to scale (as most EV purchasers probably assume they will).

> How common will electric charging stations be if it turns out that EVs can't rise above 10% of the total car market? One of the beauties of EVs is you don't need charging stations. I leased a Nissan LEAF 2 years ago, and it almost only gets charged at home. You can't really know whether EVs are going to take over or not, it depends on too many factors. If our government gets bamboozled with Hydrogen the way they di…

But what proportion of houses have off road parking in your own garage.

Also think what does this do to the Electricity Grid if a non trivial amount of EV's are put on charge every night.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#89

Post by throwaway049 »

gambiting wrote: post #78
kfk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel engine are improving too and oil price doesn't seem to want to go down any time soon. I'd say we have an interesting 10 years ahead. Electric is probably going to win, but time estimates are very hard to do. Don't forget that replacing a car fleet is expensive and takes years. A modern car can easily last 15-20 years, so even if we started replacing fuel with electric today (which we are not), replacing the whol…

And don't forget that there are millions of people who have a car right now, but who wouldn't have a place to charge an electric car. People living in apartments, terraced houses, especially in the UK it's very common to see rows upon rows of houses, none of them with their own driveway.

We would probably solve that by putting up more charging points at the roadside (there are quite a few of these around already in the UK), with a card reader for payment or perhaps a payment chip within the car's charging connector.

Re: Electric cars are no longer held back by crappy, expensive batteries

#90

Post by StavrosK »

greglindahl wrote: post #39
toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I rear-ended someone in traffic Emergency braking safety system didn't kick in?

I have an early car, without the necessary sensors.

Not to mention that even my 2014 Mercedes A class doesn't have that, for some reason.
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