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nissan looking at 150 mile epa range, implies battery costs continuing down

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by austingreen, Jan 31, 2014.

  1. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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  2. Alan Claver

    Alan Claver Junior Member

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    All interesting points. Doesn't matter what people actually do, it matters what the perceive they do. And unless their car can go at least 200 miles on a charge it's not going to have any chance of general acceptance as the primary vehicle. And to return their vehicle to 200 mile distance has to take a pretty short time comparable to a fill-up of a gasoline tank.

    Not sure what I think that is but it's got to be less than 10 minutes it seems to me. A rest stop with a charging station would need - what - 2 dozen charging ports to handle 10 minutes worth of cars?

    I'm not rooting for one energy source or another, just pointing out a simple reality that has to be accounted for by car vendors. I'm sure they'll be a number of alternative sourced cars on the road and the market will decide which gets the green light. But charging and range will probably make the final decisions. After all, Betamax was a better format than VHS but it won out (if dubiously) on tape length to a great degree.
     
  3. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I don't really know what that number is. I can tell you that 0.5% of the US light vehicle market this year will be 80,000 cars. That is much higher than anyone expects the leaf to go during this gen 1. Remember they have sold over 100,000 units world wide with a 73-84 mile epa range. Now people may not be buying because of looks, or battery problems in the heat, not just range. I do think a 150 mile epa range would help sales at the prices nissan is talking about.

    IMHO if over 90% of your charging is done at home, its perfectly acceptable to wait for 30 minutes to get a 80% charge. I don't think a 150 mile bev is great for many cross country trips though, for that in a plug in a phev or longer range battery is required. When I lived in california, the biggest market for these, I met many people that never left the state. If you need more chargers at a location, if you are tesla you build more, if you are nissan you may build more and charge more for them.;)
    heh heh. I thought blueray, streaming, and flash memory were winning. I do have a vcr in a closset at work becaue occastionally a customer sends me an old tape for reference.

    Think of it this way, when cds camer out people loved the format, but wanted more data. That might be today's plug ins. If batteries drop enough in price, or gas goes up then plug-ins win down the line. If batteries stopped at vhs tape levels, then plug-ins will be replaced as something better.
     
  4. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    People frequently make the mistake (IMO) of saying Betamax was better but VHS won out. It is more correct to say that Betamax had better video quality and VHS had more recording time. Consumers picked longer recording time as "better." In hindsight, maybe this wasn't the best choice since I think surveys showed that people rented more movies than they recorded stuff to watch later...but when buying they could see that VHS could record for 2-3x as long as Betamax. VHS was also cheaper. Video quality didn't matter since both were better than not being able to record at all.

    A lot of people and car companies think that the same mentality will drive non-ICE car buying...distance to refuel and refuel time will be the primary metrics that consumers use to decide. Maybe. But the car market is a lot different than the video recording market. First, everyone already has a car, maybe 2 or 3. Second, the car market already has many price points and diversity of models, needs, etc. You can own multiple cars that use different fuels and they all carry the same people...unlike a library of VHS tapes that don't work in a Betamax.

    Mike
     
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  5. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    I'd put it another way.

    It appears that in America, bigger is better. That's why premium small cars don't sell. Which is the better car; a small but fully loaded Toyota Yaris or a bare bones big sedan? In America I'm sure people would go for the bigger vehicle. Here it would likely be the fully loaded Yaris.

    We have a Toyota IQ yet it is ridiculed by many on here who just don't get that there are benefits to 'small'. I guess it's all about priorities. You are likely to think of what you couldn't get in a small car, whereas we are likely to think of where we couldn't park the bigger car.

    I guess similar applied to VHS. Nobody really needed 8 hour recording compared to 6, but it just felt nice. Beta tried to sell on higher (only just) resolution and picture quality.
     
  6. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    A frequent urban legend not sustained by the stats. Betamax and VHS both have the same 250 lines of horizontal analog resolution. If you put their pictures side-by-side, both would appear identical & customers could not perceive which was which.

    And yes tape length mattered. Betamax reached as high as 5 and a half hours while I have VHS tapes that hold 12 hours.

    Tesla's biggest advantage is 80% recharge in just half an hour. You can go 200 miles, stop for a quick break, go another 200 miles, and do on. You can go cross county which even s 150-mile Leaf could not do (not conveniently).
    A frequent urban legend not sustained by the stats. Betamax and VHS both have the same 250 lines of horizontal analog resolution. If you put their pictures side-by-side, both would appear identical & customers could not perceive which was which.

    And yes tape length mattered. Betamax reached as high as 5 and a half hours while I have VHS tapes that hold 12 hours.
     
  7. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    A BEV doesn't need to be able to handle road trips. Great if it can, but most households don't need that. 15,000 miles a year is the norm now for a vehicle. That works out to about 41.1 miles a day. For most, the daily drive it shorter than that, with some errands and long trips thrown in. With most households already having more than one car, having one be a BEV is very doable.

    People are already doing it now. A 150 mile range just makes that pool of potentials larger. There is this rule of thirds for BEV range. It needs one long enough that a third of its range will get you to your destination, a third to get back, and a third just in case. For unplanned errand runs, detours, climate control, weather, etc. A 80 mile BEV should serve a person with a 27 mile commute year round. A BEV150 will be good for 50 miles.

    No, the Leaf won't be doing long trips. It does mean it can be used more for local trips over the current model, and make a BEV possible for more people.
     
  8. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I would put it a different way. Note the 150 mile range came mainly from a survey of california leaf owners that liked their cars but wanted more range.

    In order to give the batteries the most longevity, you may want to charge them only to 80% then after 8 years they may degrade 70%, that means 84 miles may only be 84 x 80% x 70% = 47 miles. If you have a 40 mile comute and know you are going to go on errands, cool you just charge to that 100%, but what if you don't know? That 84 miles seems pretty iffy, especially if your battery starts to degrade. It also means you can't put in as much juice in a quick charger. Now do it again with 150 x80% x70% = 84 miles. That means you can hit the 60 mile commuters (69% drive that or less a day) and give them that extra 24 miles for unplanned weather or extra unplanned errands. Good weather and hypermiling you won't need it but the battery is more likely to stay good enough for your trips in the future.

    84 mile range, probably not. But say you can charge 70% in 20 minutes of a 150 mile vehicle = 105 miles. Then with say 30 quick chargers stationed between san diago and napa, mainly on highway 1, 5, 101, 280 you could happily range on most trips in california. The tahoe or big bear trips might require a different vehicle with awd;) and more range.
     
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  9. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The 80% charge for longevity slipped my mind.
     
  10. Alan Claver

    Alan Claver Junior Member

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    All excellent points. However, all are directly contradicted by the evidence of the fact that lower-rang EVs are not gaining any traction in the biz. I know BMW is doing a "ICE car loaner for long trips" scheme in the UK and that might work there but I still content that 200 miles is the sweet spot for distance.

    Some people will put up with limitations in order to advance environmental goals but the majority won't. How often do giant gas guzzling cars make their return even in this day of $4/gal gas.

    Plenty of folks live in cities and maybe would never go 100 miles or more but plenty more live in areas that need longer ranges.

    I'm rooting for EV - I would have purchased one if it had a 200 mile range even with the limitations of charging (except for a Tesla which is way out of my price range). Maybe I'm not a typical driver but I suspect I'm closer to the average.

    As for the Betamax/VHS, when I said better, I meant in the mind of the consumer. VHS was "better' because it could record longer. This has nothing to do with the actual performance or quality of the records. This is my point - what the consumer perceives as better is in reality what is better regardless of actual facts.
     
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Certainly outside of Japan, even hybrids, in mass production since 2000 in the US, don't get much market share. Hybrids plus plug-ins get less than 5% of the light vehicle market in the US and the US is number 2 behind Japan in volume. I expect that to change, but I certainly don't think plug-ins are going to be a majority car in the next couple of decades. Remember $4 gas is inexpensive relative to inflation and mpg improvements. Today you get a 4wd drive f150 or Silverado with 17 mpg, back in 1980 gas cost about the same relative to inflation but a less powerful v8 got 12 mpg. We need plug-ins and hybrids developed today so they are ready when gas gets epensive or OPEC decides to cut it off again.

    IMHO 3 plug ins have traction today. The S was only introduced a little over a year ago, the volt and leaf a little more than 3. Tesla says its next generation better selling car will be available in 2017, and I would expect leaf and volt to be redesined by then too. That is when you will see the growth, but these cars aren't for everyone. They will sell better with $7/gallon gas than $4. I hope it stays around $4 for awhile but eventual the price will go up again.

    Yep, UCS said about 42% of the driving population could be served by one of today's plug-ins. That restricted it to those that made most trips under 60 miles a day, didn't need more room than for 4 adults, had access to a garage where a plug was there or could easily be installed, and did not need to haul or tow anything. I would also say only about 1/4 of those would want one at these prices, so we are talking about around 10% of the car market, or 1.6 Million per year as potential. Last year about 500,000 hybrids were sold. If we get to 1.6 million plug-ins a year in just the US by 2025, I would call them very sucessful. Today's tech is good enough for a big plug-in market, but it needs to be put in more desirable cars, other than the tesla S.


    Maybe in 4 years a tesla blue star will be in your price range. Chevy is also talking about a car with 200-300 mile range around then. We will have to see if battery costs drop as much as tesla and nissan are predicting, and they improve in energy to weight.
    I would call the next 5 years of plug-ins the initial adopters market, not the mass market. Most people will not trust these plug-ins even phevs that work even if you never plug them in.;) I think that is where toyota got the EQ and mitsubishi got the imev wrong. Adopters are willing to pay for the tech, but don't like limitations. The short range of the EQ would have kept sales low, and the small size hurts sales as it implies the tech can only work in a tiny car. When we get to the mass market, as we are in hybrids, price will matter more.
     
  12. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Car manufacturers made EVs based on what they thought the customer wanted from an electric car.

    Tesla made a nice car that happened to be electric.

    The Prius here loses sales because it is perceived to be a 'statement' car. Other EVs like the Leaf stand out too. The Teslas are just nice cars.

    Which seems to be desirable and which is also selling? :)
     
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  13. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    You guys forget that Lithium batteries lose range as they age. Nissan says 30% loss in 2-3 years is normal, which would be a drop from the official 73 mole range to just over 50. That isn't enough for most workers.

    I hope Tesla comes-out with a small Civic type car but I'm not holding my breath. If they do, it's likely it won't have the 260 mile range of the Model S (which would be a desk breaker for me).
     
  14. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Now even I know that is complete BS.

    Provide links to prove this 2-3 year argument.
     
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  15. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I did manage to go 104 miles in my Leaf in weather between -25C to -20C. At a cost of $21K, I don't expect much from it, but it has delivered much more than I expected. The Prius is still routinely used to go up in the mountains, but the Leaf is the new daily driver and it is pretty awesome.

    As to 150mi vs. 100mi, the more range, the merrier. If the range was 150, I would be able to charge to 80% more often than 100% and quite honestly range anxiety is a real thing when you use it as a primary car and drive across town as much as I do. The 100mi version now works great but I can't leave the city with it since the next closest city is out of the range and there is only 1 DC Quick Charger a few hundred miles away. Tesla has got it right, and the Leaf is just a stepping stone waiting for the X or the prices on the S to drop a bit. :)
     
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  16. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    If I provided links, I could list 1000 of them. It would be easier to just vist mynissanleaf.com and start reading the battery-related threads (where they quote Nissan spokesman saying 30% degradation in 2-3years is normal).

    Also read the threads where Leaf owners sued the company due to the diminishing range. (Some of the owners had their cars bought back.). You should probably curb your skepticism and recall that Leaf batteries have no thermal management... basically they are getting hot in the Arixona sun.)
     
  17. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    But if one doesn't like in the Arizona sun? There's a whole other part of the USA and there's a whole World out there too.
     
  18. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I have heard this argument before (not from Nissan), but I believe it is derived from Lithium charge cycles vs. deterioration, not age. In the industry, a battery is considered "dead" if it is 80% or less of original capacity. A standard LiFePO4 type battery (ignoring all the differences between the various chemistries, which can make a big difference!) gets about 1000 full cycles before it is "dead" or 80% used up. If you charge to 100% and discharge to 0% everyday, for 1000 days, you get 2 years and 9 months out of it before it is "dead".

    The problem with this, is that EV's are not meant to be fully charged and fully discharged every day. If you only drive 40 miles a day, and we assume that is 40% SOC, the discharge cycles goes up by 3-4 times generally. So now that is 8+ years before it is "dead" which is more in line with what people expect. And remember that "dead" does not mean dead on the road, but it means less range for the same charge. Less efficient, less range, but still functional which IMHO is a great tradeoff. And in 8 years, tech will have advanced so much that these used limited range Leafs can be sold used and the hopefully new charging infrastructure everywhere will make it less of a problem. If there are QC chargers everywhere, and you can "only" go 50 miles a day, do you really care? Probably not.
     
  19. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Ah I think I heard that before which is why I discounted the Leaf as a taxi. But if one does 40 miles a day and charge every day you'd get a decade out of it. Fill it to 100% and fully discharge it each and every day, you get less than 3 years?

    What mileage would that be? 80,000 miles? more?

    Still not marvelous though.
     
  20. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    I don't know GrumpyCabbie..... I'm just quoting what Nissan told Leaf owners that complained: " 30% loss during the first 2-3 years is normal aging." So basically 73 miles to ~50 miles range (which is really not enough for many owners). If you want more details then ask the Leaf owners st mynissanleaf.com
     
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