Electric cars?

[JohnDe]

 

[mullokintyre]

I know this is the Electric car thread, but much of what is written here applies to electric motorbikes, elctric scooters, electric boat, and of course electric aircraft.
Being a pilot, the idea of electric planes is most interesting.
So instead of creating a new thread, i will post this article because although it is about battery technology or electric aircraft, it may well apply to the other forms of transport,
From ABC News

At a recent Shanghai auto expo, the world's largest battery maker unveiled a battery it claimed could power electric aircraft or propel electric vehicles (EVs) beyond 1,000 kilometres on a single charge.

Chinese Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), which makes one-third of the world's EV batteries, shared few details about the technology but said it would start mass production later this year.

It was the latest in a series of big announcements for the industry, which is booming with the global shift to electrification.

Battery design has been likened to a gold rush, as researchers push the boundaries of materials chemistry and develop lighter, longer-lasting, safer, cheaper batteries that charge more quickly.

Better batteries mean more affordable cars, cheaper electricity for the home, and ways of travelling overseas without emitting tonnes of CO2.

"If you think about our electrified lives, if you took away batteries, none of this is possible," said Adam Best, a principal research scientist at CSIRO.

"But people don't think about batteries."
So, here's how battery technology has improved over the past decade, and where it's going in the future.
Since being developed about 50 years ago, the amount of energy these batteries store per kilogram, known as their specific energy, has incrementally improved.
Most EV batteries have a specific energy of under 300Wh/kg.

CATL says its new battery almost doubles that figure, with a specific energy of 500Wh/kg.
Unfortunately, the company has not released many other details, including what this battery would cost, how many times it can be recharged, or how much power it can produce (how fast the stored energy can be used).

CATL says the new design will go into mass production later this year and be used in civil aviation and road transport.

If the battery is as good as it claims, it will mean EVs can drive from Sydney to Melbourne on a single charge.

1,000 km range for us would in reality equate to about7 50 to 800 km range, because most of our driving is at freeway speeds.
Mick

 

[Knobby22]

We bought the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid S.
Lovely car, great tech. Looking forward to getting it November.

Battery sits in the boot so you don't get a spare tire. Instead you get the pump glue thing popular in Europe.

 

[JohnDe]

We bought the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid S.
Lovely car, great tech. Looking forward to getting it November.

Battery sits in the boot so you don't get a spare tire. Instead you get the pump glue thing popular in Europe.

I've been told that the body structure and design is Toyota; is that true?

 

[Knobby22]

I've been told that the body structure and design is Toyota; is that true?

Don't think so. That's the sports car that they share.

 

[qldfrog]

That would be a real transition.synfuel

Driving on sunshine: Clean, usable liquid fuels made from solar power

Researchers have developed a solar-powered technology that converts carbon dioxide and water into liquid fuels that can be added directly to a car's engine as drop-in fuel.

techxplore.com

Reusing the existing fleet, from chainsaw to airplanes..but where is the money mate?

 

[Boggo]

Interesting dose of reality ???

 

[Knobby22]

Interesting dose of reality ???

Great video. Worth watching.
Spoilers follow.

We are building recycling factories in Europe with Australian tech. Other issues will be solved in time.

The cars selling now, Tesla etc. really are about the wealthy, there will be cheap cars with batteries you switch over manually for short range use. He points out that expensive insurance, lack of fixability, material shortages, and lack of this being a climate positive (especially here in Oz) are serious issues.

His basic point is correct.
Not ready yet, especially in Australia.
Need time.

 

[JohnDe]

Interesting dose of reality ???

I'm trying to watch the video, I need to do it in small doses. The guy is so annoying, and always negative, he does my head in. No wonder the automotive media helped him out the door.

The first few things he said about mineral shortage, well so what? As an investor that sounds great to me. I only need to figure which mineral and company that will give me maximum return as prices paid increase.

As for the greenhouse thing, seriously, why keep bringing that up when discussing EVs with people that care more about the technology than greenhouse gases? I didn't buy an EV because of the environment; I got one for the technology. Ever since I can remember I've been a huge fan of fast cars, science fiction and everything that goes with that.

Electricity and the grid. really are we still going on about that? there is not going to be an overnight or even a year when there will be a flood of EVs that will kill the system. EVs are increasing slowly and gradually, the electrical system can cope while we increase power and improve the grid.

OK, back to watching some more of his video while I grind my teeth.

 

[sptrawler]

Nio are still pursuing the battery swap idea.

Five-minute recharge: China's Nio rolling out new electric-car battery swap stations in Europe and UK

Is this the future of electric-car charging? Chinese car maker Nio is set to roll out new battery-swap stations.

www.drive.com.au

 

[rederob]

Having spent the past month in Japan I was surprised to see only 2 EVs in total out of thousands of vehicles. One was a Tesla and the other some tiny car with "EV" on the rear. On the other hand I saw a few more Toyota Mirai (hydrogen powered cars) and more hybrids than you could poke a stick at.
EVs will dominate most markets in a few years time and it is doubtful Japan, which has quite a number of vehicle manufacturing companies, will be able to pivot in time to save them from collapse. Perhaps they will need to revert to the isolationism that they were renown for in past centuries!
On the topic of EV dominance, in China - which makes most of the world's EVs - ICE production is almost dead and a massive production overhang exists.
The other point about Chinese manufacture is that now they are producing EVs at about the same price as equivalent ICEVs. That's not translating to cheap overseas exports yet, and no doubt importing nation's tax policies won't help, but the fact that ICEV manufacture per se is disappearing will leave us with mostly EVs in showrooms, like it or not.

 

[Value Collector]

Interesting dose of reality ???

If the guy lived a hundred and 120 years ago, and was witnessing the roll out of fords model T. He would be say riding his horse round saying but where will the Petrol cars fuel up? There are good enough roads for cars? These cars are just for rich people?

The fact is this guy is a serial negative Nancy, who earns commissions selling petrol cars, so can’t make money selling teslas.

All the problems he mentions are not big deals that will be worked out progressively as EV’s slowly build market share.

 

[Smurf1976]

Electricity and the grid. really are we still going on about that? there is not going to be an overnight or even a year when there will be a flood of EVs that will kill the system. EVs are increasing slowly and gradually, the electrical system can cope while we increase power and improve the grid.

If we're smart about how it's done, there's no reason why the existing network, mostly unimproved, can't deliver energy to charge EV's. The very nature of EV's as a storage device that spends large amounts of time parked means there's no fundamental reason why they need to be charged during the peak demand period.

The energy input side, that is generation, needs to be expanded yes but networks not generally as long as a smart approach is used to it.

What we'd be wise to do now though is to ensure that all vehicles and chargers sold are indeed suitable for such an approach, at a minimum using time based control, so as to avoid a situation of needing to retrofit them sometime down the track. No engineer or indeed anyone for that matter really wants a repeat of the drama we've had with rooftop solar and the decidedly brutal solutions necessarily adopted there. Better can be done if it's done right from the start.

Incidentally there's a few anecdotal reports that the solar solution applied in SA, and which may need to be applied elsewhere, also disables at least some EV chargers as an unintended by-product. This hasn't been fully investigated but there are reports to that effect which, to the extent they're correct, is a definite problem that's not at all ideal. A reminder as to why it's best to get things right from the start rather than trying to retrofit them or force brutal workarounds later.

 

[Boggo]

There's no doubt that there are issues arising or not being generally addressed and Cadogan can support the comments in the video above.

I am not a fan of his but let's leave shooting the messenger out of the equation and openly discuss the positives and negatives.

A friend of mine is an insurance assessor in a large insurance company and it seems that what Cadogan says is pretty much spot on according to her.

They are not alone...

Electric Vehicles Present New Insurance Challenges in 2023

As the electric vehicle market expands, the demand for proper insurance coverage for all parties grows.

www.thehortongroup.com

 

[sptrawler]

Interesting dose of reality ???

I had a couple of beers today with my recently retired mate, he bought a new Hyundai i20N at the same time I bought the Hyundai Kona EV.
We are both rev heads so the discussion got to the cars, he has had his 6 months longer than me but has done 2,000km less.
So he asked is the EV better than the ICE car, I said probably not at this point in time, but they will get better and infrastructure will improve, to which he said they will never be better than the current ICE cars due to the limitations of EV's and the flexibility and convenience of ICE cars.
The real issues IMO is, EV's have to work, like it or not oil is finite.
Whether we love it or hate it doesn't matter, whether it is causing global warming or not isnt the issue, we have been using ICE technology for just over 100 years at ever increasing rates, oil aint going to last.
So whether ICE vehicles are better or not is a moot point IMO, they are done, like it or not IMO, something has to replace them and ATM EV's are centre stage.

 

[qldfrog]

I had a couple of beers today with my recently retired mate, he bought a new Hyundai i20N at the same time I bought the Hyundai Kona EV.
We are both rev heads so the discussion got to the cars, he has had his 6 months longer than me but has done 2,000km less.
So he asked is the EV better than the ICE car, I said probably not at this point in time, but they will get better and infrastructure will improve, to which he said they will never be better than the current ICE cars due to the limitations of EV's and the flexibility and convenience of ICE cars.
The real issues IMO is, EV's have to work, like it or not oil is finite.
Whether we love it or hate it doesn't matter, whether it is causing global warming or not isnt the issue, we have been using ICE technology for just over 100 years at ever increasing rates, oil aint going to last.
So whether ICE vehicles are better or not is a moot point IMO, they are done, like it or not IMO, something has to replace them and ATM EV's are centre stage.

Yes,a solar plant and H2O and you can get syn fuel.now and in a 1000y if needed..
Fair a cell powered by H2 is better but there is no real issue yet unless legally engineered in finding a way to fill your ice tank.and I would dare to say that the current battery technology based on lithium will see shortage well before the lack of any diesel, or synfuel.
EV in 30y sure and an improvement but not as they are with the current battery technology.

 

[Boggo]

Whether we love it or hate it doesn't matter, whether it is causing global warming or not isnt the issue, we have been using ICE technology for just over 100 years at ever increasing rates, oil aint going to last.

Exactly the issue.
It's a pity that there isn't more action on providing infrastructure and less polly talk on the issue.

In my case I use solar to charge a slimline lithium battery in my 4wd to run a fridge and a 100 watt inverter for charging phones and batteries etc.
In my pop top caravan I have 450 watts of solar panels on the roof keeping two 100 a/hour lithium batteries charged and most of my cooking etc is via an induction hotplate powered by a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter powered by the batteries.

Surely a lot of these charging stations can be powered via solar and batteries with coal powered systems as a top up or back up.

 

[sptrawler]

Yes,a solar plant and H2O and you can get syn fuel.now and in a 1000y if needed..
Fair a cell powered by H2 is better but there is no real issue yet unless legally engineered in finding a way to fill your ice tank.and I would dare to say that the current battery technology based on lithium will see shortage well before the lack of any diesel, or synfuel.
EV in 30y sure and an improvement but not as they are with the current battery technology.

The current technology is a stop gap, the T model Ford is nothing like the the latest V8 Mustang, as you say the current battery technology wont be here in 30 years, same as the current battery operated tools are nothing like those from 10 years ago, times move on.

 

[Knobby22]

There's no doubt that there are issues arising or not being generally addressed and Cadogan can support the comments in the video above.

I am not a fan of his but let's leave shooting the messenger out of the equation and openly discuss the positives and negatives.

A friend of mine is an insurance assessor in a large insurance company and it seems that what Cadogan says is pretty much spot on according to her.

They are not alone...

Electric Vehicles Present New Insurance Challenges in 2023

As the electric vehicle market expands, the demand for proper insurance coverage for all parties grows.

www.thehortongroup.com

YOUI say a model Y will cost you between $1500 to $2600 a year to insure. Not that bad. I thought it would be more.

 

[Smurf1976]

The real issues IMO is, EV's have to work, like it or not oil is finite.
Whether we love it or hate it doesn't matter, whether it is causing global warming or not isnt the issue, we have been using ICE technology for just over 100 years at ever increasing rates, oil aint going to last.

I think many who discuss energy (in general, not specifically on ASF) forget that oil is the original problem needing to be solved.

Climate change and other environmental issues (nuclear waste, ash dumps, flooded valleys, killing the birds, whatever) are downsides of some of the alternatives to oil but in no way change that oil is the original problem needing to be fixed.

Because whilst nobody knows for absolute certain how much economically recoverable oil is on the planet, we do know that it's a reasonably limited resource relative to present consumption rates. If that wasn't the case then we wouldn't go to such extreme lengths to obtain it - there's nothing else we go into seriously deep water, to the north pole or into war zones to obtain like we do with oil and we do that simply because oil is sufficiently limited that we can't obtain enough by easier means.

In due course, as the most readily accessible and highest quality deposits are used up, obtaining oil is only going to get harder. Details about timing aside, that's inevitable by the very nature of it being a finite resource that we're consuming at the rate of 185,000 litres per second, every second of the day and night, every day of the year. Timing's hard to know but ultimately we can't keep that up indefinitely, at some point it gives out and the stuff's hard enough to obtain now to say that point is likely near enough to warrant at least some degree of concern and action regarding alternatives.

Whether or not EV's are the long term solution, conventional petrol and diesel clearly aren't.