The Potential Pitfalls of Electric Cars

Destination charging along with a 90 kWh battery and 800v/400amp highway charging will be ridiculously convenient, even for the most bloated, spoiled American around (and that is saying something.)

 

Not even close.

For one thing, 35% of all the vehicles sold are trucks, and none of those are trucks.

Second, that's not enough models to reach 30% penetration no matter how good they are. The highest selling car was only 2.4% of the total market.

To get to 30% you'd need a few truck models and at least a dozen car models.

 

I believe you misunderstood me. With today's technology, we could have 35% market penetration. But as you said, not with today's model lineup. Today's manufacturing capacity is also not enough, and consumer comfort/education is not there today.
But the consumer side will come as more and more get a chance to see the convenience.
The manufacturing capacity can grow quickly.
And more new models will continue to come out as companies try to grab marketshare of this rapidly growing market.
If we get improvements to the tech, which I expect, that 35% potential will grow. Possibly quite quickly.

 

I suspect it's more simply because more than that have a second (or third...) car. In that case, I'd argue a first-gen Leaf has sufficient technology for that (acting as an in-city only car for those who own another vehicle for getting out of town).

On the other hand, I'd argue that current charging systems combined with current range will only serve a few percent if it was their only car.

 

Immaterial. 35% of the market is 35% of the market. I believe the EV as their only car group is much larger than you do. But for this topic, it really makes no difference which of us is right in that respect.

 

some people will be dragged kicking and screaming, but it's coming. resistance is futile.

 

I see a lot of those those EVs going overseas first.

Bob Wilson

 

no doubt. they can be the ones we can learn from.

 

Well I asked because I saw a few years ago (can't find the article) that the pollution equivalent for all-electric vehicles was equivalent to at least 100,000 miles on gas.

And given this figure:

So, let's take 150 gallons at 50 mpg. That's 7,500 miles.
And let's say that the battery gets 30 miles per charge.
Well... maybe I want the battery to go 300 miles per charge, as on a Tesla. This adds weight to the vehicle.
Assuming that Prius gets 5.5 miles/kWh and Tesla gets 4.2 miles/kWh, primarily due to the weight of the battery. That means to up the range from 30 miles to 300 miles, the distance equivalent would be scaled up as follows:

7500 miles x 10 x 5.5/4.2 = 98000 miles.

That has been my justification and concern for "The Potential Pitfalls of Electric Cars" this whole time.

So, Oniki, I think that your rather dismissive "Like, no" is inaccurate and came off as rude.

 

What amazes me is that all the projections are based on the premise that today's technology (both energy generation and energy storage) will be current in 2040. That's ridiculous! It's like arguing the merits of ICE (and necessary infrastructure for its acceptance) in 1900.

 

That isn't so. We do better on energy generation than on storage because we don't know how much batteries will improve, or if they will at all. It could be that we are approaching an asymptote or that breakthroughs will be made and we'll make enormous gains.

 

EVs do indeed take more energy to create than an ICE. Perspective is important.
The first graph on page three of this report is very enlightening... https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-exec-summary.pdf

The 100,000 miles number may be true in some cases, but it really depends upon whether or not that is important to you.
Also, I do believe the number is not for the equivalent CO2, but for how many miles the vehicle needs to drive before the CO2 balances out. Again though, this is in some cases and using old data.

Because CO2 is important to me, my energy is much cleaner than the national average. Actually, in a few weeks, my car will rarely use anything but solar energy. Even now though, I pay for wind energy when I do draw from the grid and our grid is much cleaner than when those papers were done.

Since that is also a concern of yours, do you strive to use cleaner energy than what your grid offers? If so, the manufacturing cost will likely be paid off much sooner.

 

I think we are in infancy of EVs and general use of non-fossil energy sources. Current technologies are like baby teeth. Useful for the time being, but will eventually fall out and be forgotten as new more mature and designed for the purpose (of non-fossil energy dominance) technologies will emerge. This is not just about storage on the small local scale, it's also on the scale of massive storage to make better use of non-constant nature of some of the renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The grid needs to evolve also to accommodate the new paradigm in energy generation and use. It will all happen (if we do not destroy ourselves first , of course, by continuing to burn fossils like it the end of the world) and most likely quickly. As I said, discussing usefulness of ICE in 1900 was probably very similar. Oh, there are no roads, there are no gas stations, the cars are loud and have horrible range, they break down all the time, there are no people who know how to fix them, no parts infrastructure and 40 MPH is the fastest you can ever go in one anyway, so what's the use?

My point is that we do not know what we do not know about how the future will effect the technologies in question here and making predictions based on our ignorance is a bit ridiculous. Our grand-grand children will laugh at how we thought about it today just as we kindly laugh at our ancestors for thinking 40MPH was the top speed of any vehicle. just 80 years or so prior to breaking the speed of sound.

 

Only 3% of light and medium duty trucks on the road are being used in a way that would require a truck.

You would be amazed what a little pressure would do to tastes of the 97% that don’t need them.

Heck, might see 40mpg FWD “mini” trucks again if fuel prices triple three years from now.

 

Your comparison is invalid, apples to oranges.

To supply a gallon of gasoline to your local gas station emits more pollution than your car creates burning that gas

Heck a single incident where trillions of cubic feet of natural gas blew out of the ground into the atmosphere over a period of months did more environmental damage than the emissions of the entire planet for 2 years
And that is just one piece of petroleum supply side emissions

 

It helps to cite sources:

Using Google scholar, I found:
http://www.ivl.se/download/18.5922281715bdaebede9559/1496046218976/C243+The+life+cycle+energy+consumption+and+CO2+emissions+from+lithium+ion+batteries+.pdf

"May 2017"

"The results from different assessments vary due to a number of factors including battery design, inventory data, modeling and manufacturing. Based on our review greenhouse gas emissions of 150-200 kg CO2-eq/kWh battery looks to correspond to the greenhouse gas burden of current battery production. Energy use for battery manufacturing with current technology is about 350 – 650 MJ/kWh battery."​

So using "34.2 MJ/l" of gasoline (Wiki) we come up with "129.3 MJ/gal".

Now we can calculate the gasoline equivalent per kWh:

• 350/129.3 ~= 2.7 gal/kWh
• 650/129.3 ~= 5.0 gal/kWh

Now in Huntsville, 1kWh cost $0.10 while regular gas is $2.20 per gallon. So each 1kWh charge cost 0.045 of gas. We can also use 4 mi/kWh, a fair rule of thumb.

Now we can 'do the maths' so let's use the most anti-EV numbers which stands in for the EV battery premium:

	Chg cycle	gas Mfg+use	miles	MPG
1	1	5.045	4	0.8
2	2	5.090	8	1.6
3	5	5.225	20	3.8
4	10	5.450	40	7.3
5	20	5.900	80	13.6
6	50	7.250	200	27.6
7	100	9.500	400	42.1
8	200	14.000	800	57.1
9	365	21.425	1460	68.1
10	500	27.500	2000	72.7
11	730	37.850	2920	77.1
12	1000	50.000	4000	80.0
13	1095	54.275	4380	80.7
14	1360	66.200	5440	82.2
15	1825	87.125	7300	83.8
16	2000	95.000	8000	84.2

• EV miles are slower than gas miles due to charging. I used one charge cycle per day.
• After one year, the EV, 1kWh battery, is running 68.1 MPG
• After 8,000 miles, 84.2 MPG

Remember I used the worst case, 5 gallons of gas, to make the 1kWh battery. But as the time and miles add up, the MPG increase soon mocks any claim of "100,000 miles" to make a battery. So take 100000 mi / 5 gal = 20,000 MPG. Whoever made that claim must also be using the water carb advertised in Popular Mechanics. @Skylis A feel free to double check my work ... notice I've included my source and described the calculations.

For our plug-in friends, if you have free work place and shopping charging, you can double the number of charges per day. Also, I used the worst case, gallons to make a 1kWh battery.

Bob Wilson

 

Before the masses to convert wholesale to EVs, industry "still" has to overcome the restrictions of logistics, time and freedom that ICE and hybrid already provide. Most people won't give this up...irregardless the environmental arguments.

 

And once again, not everyone has to give up the "time and freedom" that ICE provides.
Some gain MORE time and freedom from EV than ICE.
It isn't an on/off switch. Today, perhaps only a few would gain more time and freedom with an EV. Tomorrow, a larger percentage will, the the day after that yet more.
The bigger issue is the perceived time and freedom an ICE gives. That will take some time, but people will continue to figure that out.

 

This is why I have a PHEV.

I gain time and freedom when I'm home (since I don't have to fuel up) and I gain time and freedom when I'm away from home (since I get longer range and retain fast and convenient fueling).