electric cars

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Valuethinker
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Post by Valuethinker »

Frugal Al wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:But we won't get electric cars if we don't seed the market. The UK government has looked at this one in detail, it appears it is smarter to...

C'mon Vt, you really had me ready to agree with 80% of your thoughts on this, and then you go and use the words government and smart in the same sentence (I hold the US government in the same esteem as the UK government, btw) :wink: .

The Tesla situation is a prime example of misallocation of resources common with government subsidies.

There is a lot of "low hanging fruit" for EV technology that can be picked without a lot of subsidy. We do not have an emergency where we just need to shovel money blindly at EV. EV is not some new disruptive technology--it's been around in various forms for decades. I'm disappointed that the US has virtually ignored clean diesel.
Subsidies are wasteful almost by definition, but some things don't happen except with subsidies.

High speed rail is an excellent example- -the countries that got there first did so because the governments (of Japan and France) chose to go there. So too most of the aviation industry. And of course the canonical example, the US interstate highway system. The microelectronics industry. The nuclear industry (of course).

US public policy has some unique dysfunctions arising from the interaction between legislative and executive-- the Osprey comes to mind as well as the continued procurement of various systems even the military does not want. The executive is relatively more powerful in Parliamentary systems, paradoxically (that ranges: you get pathological cases like Italy or Israel, and you get relatively successful ones like France, the UK, Germany, Sweden).

Just as with the solar and wind revolutions, they ain't gonna happen without the 'push' from legislation and subsidy.

But that was true of civilian nuclear power.
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Post by Valuethinker »

Frugal Al wrote:
The Tesla situation is a prime example of misallocation of resources common with government subsidies.

There is a lot of "low hanging fruit" for EV technology that can be picked without a lot of subsidy. We do not have an emergency where we just need to shovel money blindly at EV. EV is not some new disruptive technology--it's been around in various forms for decades. I'm disappointed that the US has virtually ignored clean diesel.
On Tesla, I think the mistake is to subsidize the producer rather than the end customer.

Where the subsidies need to land is on the provision of refueling (because that's a classic chicken and egg where a free market will not provide) and on the early adopters.

On public policy of course it's normally better to tax than to subsidize. Europe for example loves high fuel taxes. *that* forces conservation. Diesel fuel generally incurrs lower duty, but it's the high cost of fuel generally that makes consumers choose diesels over petrol engined cars.

Road tax (annual car registration fee) here is now based on CO2 emissions and that has triggered a move in corporate fleets towards lower CO2 cars.

Clean diesel was about US environmental regs. Until low sulphur fuel was made mandatory, it just was not possible. Also GM spoiled the consumer market by a disastrous series of diesel engines in the late 70s. (the Mercedes diesels were quite reliable, the GM ones were disasters).

Europeans basically accept worse urban air quality (particulates! and NOX) than you do in return for having better fuel economy (although there are petrol engined cars which beat comparable diesels-- see the latest BMWs and VW Polos). A public policy decision to favour diesel fuel-- made in France first (almost inevitably).

The 1970s kicked off some pretty profound rethinks in certain countries: Denmark (self sufficiency through wind and biomass), Japan (energy efficiency), France (nuclear power, high speed rail, diesel cars). 30-40 years later we see that playing out. Israel may follow (electric cars) because of unique strategic vulnerabilities (the local joke is 'we pay dollars for Arab oil, which they then return in the form of missiles').

Given your air pollution sink problems (LA, Denver) it's a tough one-- most European cities are not so big nor with mountain geograph. Although the US is a vast country, its people tend to concentrate in megalopoli (Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth, Denver, LA, Bay Area, NYC) which are as dense (over the total area) as many parts of western Europe-- and that brings local air pollution problems.

Since particulates are the new frontier in air pollution control, following clear evidence that they are a significant health hazard (particularly micro particles-- the hardest ones to control), that makes diesel a hard choice.

Moving your light truck and SUV fleet over to diesels would have a big difference to your Average Fuel Economy.
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indexfundfan
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Post by indexfundfan »

Another EV, the Mitsubishi i is now open for reservation.

http://i.mitsubishicars.com/
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Frugal Al
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Post by Frugal Al »

Looks like a practical design, but a bit on the small side for the US market. It's about 1/2 ft shorter than a Toyota Yaris hatchback, and about 1 1/2 foot shorter than a Honda Fit. Wish it was about $6k cheaper.
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ualdriver
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Post by ualdriver »

Frugal Al wrote:Looks like a practical design, but a bit on the small side for the US market. It's about 1/2 ft shorter than a Toyota Yaris hatchback, and about 1 1/2 foot shorter than a Honda Fit. Wish it was about $6k cheaper.
It is 7500 cheaper after the tax credit!
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nisiprius
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Post by nisiprius »

Wow. Sounds a bit too good to be true, we'll see how the reality settles out.

$20,500, 85-mile range, available in 2012? Translation: $24,000, 30-mile range, available in 2014 in your ordinary local Nissan dealer without bribing the salesperson to put you on the waiting list and paying thousands over MSRP and accepting one that's an ugly color.

...the ability to cram in four people when needed (I'm not sure I believe "spacious,") ergo the ability to cram in grocery bags or suitcases or camping equipment. And like all cars (and unlike bicycles), weather protection, and the ability to keep up with traditional-car traffic.

This looks like a game-changer to me.

I can almost see one of these MiEV's as our next car... if only there were a nearby ZipCar location.

Darn it, what's wrong with Detroit? This is the car GM should have produced, the obvious follow-up to the EV-1. Sure, they could have done the Volt, too, to round out the product line, but it should have been a "too," not an "instead of."
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Frugal Al
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Post by Frugal Al »

ualdriver wrote:It is 7500 cheaper after the tax credit!
Yes, I know, I mean even including the credit. It's a really small vehicle, but seems to have a practical, usable, layout. I really want to like it. It would be a perfect candidate for my wife's vehicle, but I need it to be cheaper for such limited usage and size. If they could sell it for about 21k BEFORE the tax credit I could probably live with it ...and it's homeliness.
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Frugal Al
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Post by Frugal Al »

duplicate
Last edited by Frugal Al on Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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indexfundfan
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Post by indexfundfan »

If you think electric cars will perform like golf carts in a crash --

Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt get top safety ratings
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thirdman
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Nissan Leaf

Post by thirdman »

I drove and ordered a Nissan Leaf. It fills the niche for a car I can drive all around the city. It will cost me $32,000 including tax credits and sales tax.

The car is a practical layout and size. It drives like any other car, very smooth and silent. I can control the climate control in the car via my iPhone. I can recharge at home and I am insulated from gasoline prices.

The battery pack in the Leaf weighs 630 lbs. Obviously batteries are in a development stage, but are currently practical. Nissan expects to update the battery and onboard charger in 2013.
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kingsnake
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Post by kingsnake »

Im moving closer to work...although I often must go to another office 4 city miles away from the main one, in the opposite direction of my house...

an electric car may be the perfect car for just a work application, or short errands.

Anyone notice a vespa can get 70-90 miles per gallon and costs 2-5K?
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dratkinson
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Post by dratkinson »

DAK wrote:...
Anyone notice a vespa can get 70-90 miles per gallon and costs 2-5K?
Always wanted a Vespa growing up. I remember them being advertised in the Sears catalog. Eventually scratched that itch with a Honda 350 CL after leaving home. :)

I'll see your Vespa, and raise you an Island Hopper Folding Motorized Bike, 30 mph, 150 mpg: http://www.edgesports.net/html/bike_engines.html .
(Half way down the page.)
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ryuns
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Post by ryuns »

nisiprius wrote:Wow. Sounds a bit too good to be true, we'll see how the reality settles out.

$20,500, 85-mile range, available in 2012? Translation: $24,000, 30-mile range, available in 2014 in your ordinary local Nissan dealer without bribing the salesperson to put you on the waiting list and paying thousands over MSRP and accepting one that's an ugly color.

...the ability to cram in four people when needed (I'm not sure I believe "spacious,") ergo the ability to cram in grocery bags or suitcases or camping equipment. And like all cars (and unlike bicycles), weather protection, and the ability to keep up with traditional-car traffic.

This looks like a game-changer to me.

I can almost see one of these MiEV's as our next car... if only there were a nearby ZipCar location.

Darn it, what's wrong with Detroit? This is the car GM should have produced, the obvious follow-up to the EV-1. Sure, they could have done the Volt, too, to round out the product line, but it should have been a "too," not an "instead of."
The trend is to go cheaper and a bit more basic. Here's an example coming out of Eugene, OR of all places: http://www.grist.org/list/2011-04-26-ar ... generation
and http://www.arcimoto.com/products

But you'll have to work your math on that one. $17,500 is the one with the 40 mile range (not 80 mile), and if I had to guess, it's also the one with no doors.

Ryan
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nisiprius
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Post by nisiprius »

To repeat what I said in the "book" thread: at 1/4 of the way into Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy, by Seth Fletcher, I'm finding it fascinating and willing to recommend it on the basis of what I've read so far. Specifically, anyone interested in electric cars should find it fascinating (unless perhaps they've been following battery technology closely and already know all this stuff).
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Post by cjking »

I've just had a close-up look at a Renault "Fluence" electric car. It's a large (by UK standards) sedan. Setting aside that I don't really like the looks, the only significant drawback I can see is that a lot of the trunk has been stolen for battery space. You could fit one large suitcase and a small bag or two in the space that is left.

Overall it is extremely (apparently deliberately) conventional. It looks like they've just taken a normal car, taken out everything under the hood and replaced it with the electric equivalent. The electric motor is smaller and shinier than a gas one. There are a suprising number of fluid containers, not sure what for. Was advised not to touch the orange braid, which apparently surrounds the high-voltage leads. Much to my suprise, there is a radiator and fan.

The only thing I like about it, compared to the Leaf (which I haven't seen in as much detail) is that they've put the charging point in the right place, next to the drivers door. That is the one spot that is guaranteed to be accessible, no matter where the car is parked. The Leaf's port in the nose would be very inconvenient for me.
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Re: Nissan Leaf

Post by wander »

thirdman wrote:I drove and ordered a Nissan Leaf. It fills the niche for a car I can drive all around the city. It will cost me $32,000 including tax credits and sales tax.

The car is a practical layout and size. It drives like any other car, very smooth and silent. I can control the climate control in the car via my iPhone. I can recharge at home and I am insulated from gasoline prices.

The battery pack in the Leaf weighs 630 lbs. Obviously batteries are in a development stage, but are currently practical. Nissan expects to update the battery and onboard charger in 2013.
Good for you. I searched for charging stations in my area and found out that the closest station was 30 miles away.
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nisiprius
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Post by nisiprius »

Meanwhile, the only electric car I've seen on the road is the GM EV-1 I saw in 2005 or 2006. (Yes, I know it's impossible, but I saw it).

I have yet to see a Chevy Volt or a Mitsubishi Leaf in the wild. And I've been looking.

I've seen Segways on the sidewalk, and the other day while riding on a bicycle rail-trail I met a guy with an electric-powered bicycle. But no electric cars.

Methinks these are fictional beasts, like the hydrogen and fuel-cell cars that were claimed to be "in production" but apparently sold only in tiny quantities under contract to municipal fleets, or whatever.
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dratkinson
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Re: Nissan Leaf

Post by dratkinson »

thirdman wrote:I drove and ordered a Nissan Leaf. It fills the niche for a car I can drive all around the city. It will cost me $32,000 including tax credits and sales tax.

The car is a practical layout and size. It drives like any other car, very smooth and silent. I can control the climate control in the car via my iPhone. I can recharge at home and I am insulated from gasoline prices.

The battery pack in the Leaf weighs 630 lbs. Obviously batteries are in a development stage, but are currently practical. Nissan expects to update the battery and onboard charger in 2013.
How did I miss that?

"Honest, officer, I wasn't talking on my phone. I was programming my climate control. No old-fashioned knobs for me!" :shock:

Kinda reminds me of the first digital LED watches. The LEDs were red and sucked up a lot of battery juice, so the display was blank until you pressed a button to activate it. Saturday Night Live did a skit where a man's hands were full and had to ask a stranger to press the button so he could tell the time. The skit's punchline was that the new digital LED watches were as convenient as "... asking a stranger for the time."
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Post by JW-Retired »

nisiprius wrote:Meanwhile, the only electric car I've seen on the road is the GM EV-1 I saw in 2005 or 2006. (Yes, I know it's impossible, but I saw it).

I have yet to see a Chevy Volt or a Mitsubishi Leaf in the wild. And I've been looking.

I've seen Segways on the sidewalk, and the other day while riding on a bicycle rail-trail I met a guy with an electric-powered bicycle. But no electric cars.

Methinks these are fictional beasts, like the hydrogen and fuel-cell cars that were claimed to be "in production" but apparently sold only in tiny quantities under contract to municipal fleets, or whatever.
Can't speak for the Volt but a neighbor has a Nissan Leaf he parks on the street a half block away. Don't know where he recharges it. Another friend in town has a Leaf. I wouldn't put up with the Leaf's limited range but some obviously will.
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Post by cjking »

nisiprius wrote:I have yet to see a Chevy Volt or a Mitsubishi Leaf in the wild. And I've been looking.
I haven't been keeping score, but I'd guess I encounter a Leaf daily during my commute. It may depend where you live. Electric cars are currently more suitable for some locations than others. I don't know about Nissan, but I think some previous electric car sellers in the US targeted their sales to a few favoured locations.
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Post by Midpack »

nisiprius wrote:I have yet to see a Chevy Volt or a Mitsubishi Leaf in the wild. And I've been looking.
Surprising to me I just saw my 4th Chevy Volt yesterday, two on the road and two on dealers lots. I live in a small city about an hour out of Chicago, but all my sitings have been far away from Chicago. However, last time I looked they've only sold 3,895 thru Sept, far below GM's projections. Time will tell.

Haven't seen a Leaf yet, though they appear to look something like the Versa so maybe I just haven't recognized one yet.
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Re: electric cars

Post by travellight »

I just test drove a Volt today. It was very cool. Price is 44K though and close to 50K after all fees/taxes etc. You do get the 7500 tax credit after that. They had only one available and that was only because someone had backed out; the preorder list is a year long I am told.
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robertts12
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Re: electric cars

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LAbob
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Re: electric cars

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We've had a RAV4-EV and a GEM (neighborhood electric vehicle) for about 7-8 years after getting our EV1 yanked and crushed by GM.

We just saw Revenge Of The Electric Car...the sequel to Who Killed The Electric Car. It is an outstanding documentary with the inside stories for GM, Tesla, Nissan and Reverend Gadget* ( a local fabricator and television personality who has been doing conversions for quite a while) in their current efforts to bring EVs to the marketplace.

*For info about Gadget, see http://reverendgadget.com/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=13
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dmcmahon
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Re: electric cars

Post by dmcmahon »

Eliminating oil imports is not possible for the USA in anything under decades, if ever. Fortunately most of our imports come from other North American countries. Oil won't be replaced any time soon as a transport fuel for aircraft, long-haul freight, and ships, nor as a power source for heavy machinery, nor will it be replaced as a feedstock for chemicals, paints, plastics, etc. So, realistically, we're going to need to develop resources so we'll have them to use in future decades.

Electric vehicles suffer from one big disadvantage - the energy density of batteries is about 40-50 times lower than the best liquid fuels. Since internal combustion engines are around 30% efficient, versus 90% or more for electric, this translates to a net disadvantage of around 15 times less usable energy to propel a vehicle. Battery technology is pretty mature (I think it's 150+ years old?). Rare metals needed for batteries as well as motors and such are also a likely constraint on pure EVs. An analysis I read suggested that more fuel could be saved by building a large fleet of hybrids, versus the much smaller fleet of pure electrics that could be built from the same finite supply of rare metals. Research continues on ways to avoid rare metals in motors and such, but breakthroughs don't come on a schedule. Certainly we should continue to research and test-market EVs, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to make a big dent in petroleum use.

Hydrogen suffers from many disadvantages, the biggest being that there's no natural source for it. Today it's produced in an energy-losing process from natural gas. The small molecules easily escape tanks, pipelines, and such, making it difficult to transport and store. Assuming we could produce hydrogen from (say) nukes or renewables, IMO we would be more likely to use it directly in industrial processes where we currently use nat gas derived hydrogen. Examples include fertiliser production, cracking heavy oil in refineries, etc. If yet more hydrogen were available it would IMO make more sense to use it as part of a coal-to-liquids scheme, again instead of nat gas, rather than trying to build new infrastructure to deliver hydrogen directly to vehicles. If we are to see fuel-cell electrics, they would be more likely IMO to run using on-board reformers - in other words, they would in effect be more efficient liquid-fuel-powered vehicles.

Biomass-derived fuels may be needed in the very long run, and can supplement fossil fuels now, but these too have a big disadvantage - the up-front efficiency of photosynthesis is low. Plants capture an order of magnitude less solar energy than solar PV panels. After that, every processing step needed to convert the feedstock into a usable fuel just loses more energy. Plus plants need water, use arable land, and production often has environmental side-effects such as topsoil loss, fertiliser run-off, etc. In other words, PV appears in every way superiour as a means of collecting solar energy. Certainly per unit of land we're willing to dedicate to energy production, PV won't be beaten by photosynthesis, IMO. It's true that energy in the form of a liquid fuel may be more useful, however PV-derived electric power can displace (say) nat gas or coal, freeing up those fossil sources to be used to propel transport. To the extent that spare "waste" biomass is available, it could be used to make fuels, however it strikes me that more of the energy it contains could be extracted by burning it for electricity in a gasification plant, because this avoids all the energy-losing steps needed to make a liquid fuel - once again the power produced could free up more fossil resources for use in transport.

It's true that pure electric vehicles offer the potential to be run off of solar and wind derived power. Here, the realities of the power grid need a serious look. The biggest unsolved problem for intermittent renewables is energy storage - we don't have a good, scalable way to buffer power from these sources for use at our convenience. A very large buffer is needed because the capacity factors are quite low. Solar, for example, produces the rated power in a "bell curve" manner for an average of 4-5 hours/day. Thus, to run entirely on solar, you'd need to build 5 times the capacity and have a "battery" big enough to store 20 hours of power. There is a (lagged) correlation between daylight hours and peak power usage, so perhaps you'd only need to buffer 16 hours of power in a typical day - but it's still too great an amount for any means currently at our disposal. Then there's the problem of having some sort of backup capacity for long runs of reduced/no output (e.g. during a long storm cycle). Some proponents assume that somehow these things will average out with wind-derived power, but these assertions don't match experience or studies which show that days-long "lulls" are common enough to be a problem. The best storage technology in use today is pumped hydro - you need a convenient dam/reservoir somewhere to buffer your excess power. Wind power leader Denmark effectively uses Nordic hydropower as their "battery". It's a good solution (about 70% efficient) until you reach the limits of your hydro capacity - but then what? The UK is confronting this reality now as it tries to craft a lower-carbon energy policy for the next few decades. Solar thermal plants aren't as efficient as PV, but there is the potential to bank energy in "thermal mass" (e.g. a molten salt) - this technology can't really be called "commercialised" yet. Without a solution to power storage, renewables will only take us so far before the grid becomes unstable. Demand shifting could potentially get us a bit farther. After that, we need to be honest about where baseload power is going to come from, especially since that power is likely to be what goes into any EVs. Right now, at least in the USA, half of it comes from coal. We could switch away from coal to nat gas, or to nukes

In short, we're up against law-of-physics realities on most of these alternatives and IMO it's best to be realistic about what we're likely to see in the balance of our lifetimes. IMO the most likely way forward is simple efficiency. European diesels already get 50mpg, as do some gas/electric hybrids. Looking at mpg figures is looking at the problem upside-down. If you go 100 miles in a 20mpg vehicle you'll need 5 gallons of fuel. Go the same distance in a 40mpg vehicle and you'll need just 2.5 gallons. You've saved 2.5 gallons on this trip. Assuming you could invent an 80mpg vehicle, you'd save just 1.25 gallons more. It's a diminishing returns situation. Avoid the trip entirely by taking public transport, living closer to the destination, or using telepresence saves the entire 5 gallons.
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Re: electric cars

Post by Indices »

dmcmahon wrote:
It's true that pure electric vehicles offer the potential to be run off of solar and wind derived power. Here, the realities of the power grid need a serious look. The biggest unsolved problem for intermittent renewables is energy storage - we don't have a good, scalable way to buffer power from these sources for use at our convenience. A very large buffer is needed because the capacity factors are quite low. Solar, for example, produces the rated power in a "bell curve" manner for an average of 4-5 hours/day. Thus, to run entirely on solar, you'd need to build 5 times the capacity and have a "battery" big enough to store 20 hours of power. There is a (lagged) correlation between daylight hours and peak power usage, so perhaps you'd only need to buffer 16 hours of power in a typical day - but it's still too great an amount for any means currently at our disposal. Then there's the problem of having some sort of backup capacity for long runs of reduced/no output (e.g. during a long storm cycle). Some proponents assume that somehow these things will average out with wind-derived power, but these assertions don't match experience or studies which show that days-long "lulls" are common enough to be a problem. The best storage technology in use today is pumped hydro - you need a convenient dam/reservoir somewhere to buffer your excess power. Wind power leader Denmark effectively uses Nordic hydropower as their "battery". It's a good solution (about 70% efficient) until you reach the limits of your hydro capacity - but then what? The UK is confronting this reality now as it tries to craft a lower-carbon energy policy for the next few decades. Solar thermal plants aren't as efficient as PV, but there is the potential to bank energy in "thermal mass" (e.g. a molten salt) - this technology can't really be called "commercialised" yet. Without a solution to power storage, renewables will only take us so far before the grid becomes unstable. Demand shifting could potentially get us a bit farther. After that, we need to be honest about where baseload power is going to come from, especially since that power is likely to be what goes into any EVs. Right now, at least in the USA, half of it comes from coal. We could switch away from coal to nat gas, or to nukes

In short, we're up against law-of-physics realities on most of these alternatives and IMO it's best to be realistic about what we're likely to see in the balance of our lifetimes. IMO the most likely way forward is simple efficiency. European diesels already get 50mpg, as do some gas/electric hybrids. Looking at mpg figures is looking at the problem upside-down. If you go 100 miles in a 20mpg vehicle you'll need 5 gallons of fuel. Go the same distance in a 40mpg vehicle and you'll need just 2.5 gallons. You've saved 2.5 gallons on this trip. Assuming you could invent an 80mpg vehicle, you'd save just 1.25 gallons more. It's a diminishing returns situation. Avoid the trip entirely by taking public transport, living closer to the destination, or using telepresence saves the entire 5 gallons.
What you're saying only makes sense if we have ZERO technological improvements on battery technology from this day forward. That is highly unlikely considering the billions being spent on the technology by various huge companies like Sony, GM, Ford, Nissan, LG etc. and the tens of thousands of scientists and engineers working on it. We have NO choice but to look for alternatives to oil because it is horribly polluting when burned and we are running out of it as prices demonstrate. By advocating that people telecommute or use public transport, you are already advocating the use of electricity for travel anyway.
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Re: electric cars

Post by interplanetjanet »

dmcmahon wrote: <snipped>
I just wanted to thank you for a thought-out, well written description of some of the attributes and pitfalls of our "energy economy".

I would also like to take a moment to recommend (to anyone interested in the science behind energy production and use, and where the limiting points are) David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air". It's freely available for browsing and download:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

He's a physicist and approaches the problem of energy production and consumption with a very fair-handed perspective. The numbers used in given assumptions are all out in the open and can be tuned as you see fit to evaluate different technological developments coming to pass.

-janet
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robertts12
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Re: electric cars

Post by robertts12 »

LAbob wrote: "We've had a RAV4-EV and a GEM (neighborhood electric vehicle) for about 7-8 years after getting our EV1 yanked and crushed by GM."

It seems that now there are more producers than in that times, and in more countries.
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robertts12
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Re: electric cars

Post by robertts12 »

Site about electric cars:
http://www.evworld.com/index.cfm
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Re: electric cars

Post by Valuethinker »

dmcmahon wrote:. The best storage technology in use today is pumped hydro - you need a convenient dam/reservoir somewhere to buffer your excess power. Wind power leader Denmark effectively uses Nordic hydropower as their "battery". It's a good solution (about 70% efficient) until you reach the limits of your hydro capacity - but then what? The UK is confronting this reality now as it tries to craft a lower-carbon energy policy for the next few decades. Solar thermal plants aren't as efficient as PV, but there is the potential to bank energy in "thermal mass" (e.g. a molten salt) - this technology can't really be called "commercialised" yet. Without a solution to power storage, renewables will only take us so far before the grid becomes unstable. Demand shifting could potentially get us a bit farther. After that, we need to be honest about where baseload power is going to come from, especially since that power is likely to be what goes into any EVs. Right now, at least in the USA, half of it comes from coal. We could switch away from coal to nat gas, or to nukes
.
Lots to reply to on the transport side.

But let's look at wind. The wind goes through 'lulls' but they are anything but continent-wide, and long distance DC power is widely used (less in USA, but widely used everywhere else). Just because Texas is cut off from the rest of the US grid, is not an argument that Texas cannot have more than x wind power because during heat waves Texas doesn't get much wind-- the ERCOT separation from the US grid is deliberate and could be altered. And the wind cycle just offshore in Texas is different.

Offshore wind is on its own cycle, and 150' above the ocean the winds are a lot more constant than they are at sea level.

On pumped storage you don't 'run out of' hydro. The UK is in North American terms basically flat (highest peak something like 1800 feet) and we have major pumped storage facilities. the problem of local fights over flooding valleys is more serious. And the Canadians are looking at using mines to do this-- drop the water down when you need it, pump it up when you have spare capacity.

And there is still compressed air, flywheels, fuel cells, hydrogen etc.

All technologies have their downsides. Nuclear is not despatchable in grid terms either: nuclear shutdowns are either sudden and unplanned, or happen for weeks on months. That's not so very different from a diversified portfolio of wind assets.

Solar is of course almost entirely predictable (bad weather causes production to drop, but not drop to zero).

Whether we can get wind over 50% of kwhr from wind is an interesting point. The National Grid in the UK is on record as saying it could take c. 40%. After that your requirement for backup gas turbines starts to grow very quickly. But we are aiming for 40GW+ of wind capacity, and that would imply at least 15% of all electricity burned.

yes the UK is confronting all this. The dynamic to go nuclear however is largely political and will involve a 'fix' on the electricity market to guarantee high enough prices for the plants to get built. So much for 'free' electricity markets. And it's unlikely the 10 plants (about 20% of total demand) will all get built: one of the big utilities has just pulled out. At least not without further intervention via loan guarantees from the UK government. We'll probably build 4-6 plants and by that time the ever falling cost curves of renewable energy (plus Carbon Capture and Storage) will pick up the slack. And none of those nukes will be running this side of 2020 it doesn't look like.

Gas their seems to be a lot more around that we thought but we'll still need CCS on it. Coal is the low hanging fruit on CCS, but gas will also require it.

(roughly speaking, coal take you from 1kg CO2/ kwhr, gas to 0.5 kg/ kwhr, and CSS will take you down below 0.1 kg/kwhr).

In essence in chasing the nuclear chimera the UK wind up 80% gas, and then wind will pick up the slack. Ocean power as well (the decision not to build the Severn Barrier is wrong, as that would be c. 8% UK power consumption, but I don't expect it to be revisited for a decade or two).

The 'realist' view that it can't be done by renewables (plus CSS) ignores the 'unrealistic' problem that nuclear cost inflation is severe (and post Fukushima will get worse), the waste problem is still not solved. As to coal, well it's essentially a crime against the future to build a coal plant without CSS, and eventually (in 20 or so years) I suspect it will become impossible-- utilities are already beginning to worry about the liablity issue.
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Re: electric cars

Post by robertts12 »

I think Nissan's plans to produce electric cars are very serious. They will produce more and more electric cars. They won't desist. They are working in several countries to sell electric cars.
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Mitsubishi in U.S.

Post by robertts12 »

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Re: Mitsubishi in U.S.

Post by ryuns »

A good write-up: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/10/26/2012 ... ve-review/

Also some reportedly good news out of Tesla--lots of orders for the late-to-arrive Model S: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/11/01/musk ... -sold-out/ I can't help but root for them, after an heroic revival of the NUMMI plant in Fremont (which is painfully geographically close to the shiny and vacant Solyndra plant).
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Re: electric cars

Post by robertts12 »

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Re:

Post by getRichSlower »

Valuethinker wrote: - even if electricity is generated in the most dirty manner possible (coal fired power plants) it still is a net benefit over burning gasoline, in air pollution terms
This is an internet rumor if you make the correct comparison, which is to a high efficiency gas powered car such as this: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-hybrid/.
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Re: electric cars

Post by cjking »

If anyone has $1 million spare to spend on an electric car...
The Rimac has the equivalent of 1,088bhp, with a 92kWh battery powering electric motors within each wheel. The top speed is 190mph, with 0-62mph in 2.8sec and a theoretical range of 373 miles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/new ... ebuts.html

Lots more pictures and info here

http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept ... duction-20
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Re: electric cars

Post by nisiprius »

A Slashdot item pointed me to a National Geographic article, Second Life for Old Electric-Car Batteries: Guardians of the Electric Grid. It says that electric car batteries that have outlived their usefulness for traction still have enough capacity to be useful for household or grid power storage:
"In a car, you want immediate power, and you want a lot of it," said Alexandra Goodson, business development manager for energy storage modules at ABB. Many grid storage applications, on the other hand, involve slow, steady delivery of energy. "We're discharging for two hours instead of immediately accelerating," she said. "It's not nearly as demanding on the system."
Interesting if true, and a nice little fillip that makes the electric car ecosystem a little greener than if the batteries had to be disposed of immediately once they were too degraded to power cars.
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Re: electric cars

Post by nisiprius »

A ComputerWorld story, DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years, now under discussion in Slashdot here. The discussion isn't very interesting but I thought I should credit my source. Anyway, the original article says
The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years... The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.
(I don't remember ever hearing that Bell Labs had much to do with the Manhattan Project. But since none of the snarky people on Slashdot seem to have picked up on that, maybe it did).

Anyway: can the DOE's wishing make it so?
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Re: electric cars

Post by umfundi »

nisiprius wrote:A ComputerWorld story, DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years, now under discussion in Slashdot here. The discussion isn't very interesting but I thought I should credit my source. Anyway, the original article says
The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years... The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.
(I don't remember ever hearing that Bell Labs had much to do with the Manhattan Project. But since none of the snarky people on Slashdot seem to have picked up on that, maybe it did).

Anyway: can the DOE's wishing make it so?
The DOE does believe that if you assign enough Ph.D.s to a problem for a sufficient number of years, it will be solved.

Also, it is easy to schedule future miracles in your project planning software.

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Re: electric cars

Post by nisiprius »

A New York Times writer, John S. Broder, wrote a piece, Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway. It concerns his experience trying to drive a Tesla model S from Washington, D.C. to New York.
Having established a fast-charging foothold in California for its electric cars, Tesla Motors has brought its formula east, opening two ultrafast charging stations in December that would, in theory, allow a speedy electric-car road trip between here and Boston.

But as I discovered on a recent test drive of the company’s high-performance Model S sedan, theory can be trumped by reality, especially when Northeast temperatures plunge....

The new charging points, at service plazas in Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn., are some 200 miles apart. That is well within the Model S’s 265-mile estimated range, as rated by the Environmental Protection Agency, for the version with an 85 kilowatt-hour battery that I drove — and even more comfortably within Tesla’s claim of 300 miles of range under ideal conditions.
Unfortunately, the drive was made in cold weather. Everything went well for the first leg of the trip to the Wilmington charging station, where he charged up to an estimated 242 miles of range. After that, everything started to go wrong. He drove 68 but the remaining range dropped 85. He only just barely made it to the next charging station in Milford.

The next day, he made a side trip to Stonington, CT, staying overnight with the intention of returning to Milford, 46 miles away. When he parked the car, it showed 90 miles of range. The next morning, it showed 25. From there, the story gets worse, with frequent calls to Tesla, with them telling him to do things that didn't work.

Then Elon Musk got furious, and there is now a major media mudfight going on, with Musk basically charging Broder with lying, and of intentionally sabotaging the test by driving improperly. One of the funnier side notes is that Musk claims that Broder spent an unreasonable amount of time driving around the parking lot where one of the chargers was located, implying that Broder was deliberately trying to run the battery down, while Broder says he was just trying to find the charger, which he says was very hard to find.
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Re: electric cars

Post by leonard »

nisiprius wrote:A New York Times writer, John S. Broder, wrote a piece, Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway. It concerns his experience trying to drive a Tesla model S from Washington, D.C. to New York.
Having established a fast-charging foothold in California for its electric cars, Tesla Motors has brought its formula east, opening two ultrafast charging stations in December that would, in theory, allow a speedy electric-car road trip between here and Boston.

But as I discovered on a recent test drive of the company’s high-performance Model S sedan, theory can be trumped by reality, especially when Northeast temperatures plunge....

The new charging points, at service plazas in Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn., are some 200 miles apart. That is well within the Model S’s 265-mile estimated range, as rated by the Environmental Protection Agency, for the version with an 85 kilowatt-hour battery that I drove — and even more comfortably within Tesla’s claim of 300 miles of range under ideal conditions.
Unfortunately, the drive was made in cold weather. Everything went well for the first leg of the trip to the Wilmington charging station, where he charged up to an estimated 242 miles of range. After that, everything started to go wrong. He drove 68 but the remaining range dropped 85. He only just barely made it to the next charging station in Milford.

The next day, he made a side trip to Stonington, CT, staying overnight with the intention of returning to Milford, 46 miles away. When he parked the car, it showed 90 miles of range. The next morning, it showed 25. From there, the story gets worse, with frequent calls to Tesla, with them telling him to do things that didn't work.

Then Elon Musk got furious, and there is now a major media mudfight going on, with Musk basically charging Broder with lying, and of intentionally sabotaging the test by driving improperly. One of the funnier side notes is that Musk claims that Broder spent an unreasonable amount of time driving around the parking lot where one of the chargers was located, implying that Broder was deliberately trying to run the battery down, while Broder says he was just trying to find the charger, which he says was very hard to find.
All the problems in that article could have beens solved with an extension cord and an electrical outlet - 2 extremely available items.
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Re: electric cars

Post by btenny »

Boy I see others thought the writer was really trying to make a story. I read the original story about the car having to be towed and the difficulty in towing it and wondered what happened. Then I thought about it for a few minutes and wondered why the writter just did not plug the car into a 110 volt socket for an hour or two or maybe overnight since the guy was staying at some hotel.

Then it dawned on me there would be no good story if the car just ran low of electricity in the cold. Duh :oops: So then I decided the writter was making a story to get publicity. Now I wonder how the guys at Tesla will get even. Or maybe any publicity is good publicity and thus this is good.

Interesting stuff
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Re: electric cars

Post by ualdriver »

nisiprius wrote:A New York Times writer, John S. Broder, wrote a piece, Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway. It concerns his experience trying to drive a Tesla model S from Washington, D.C. to New York.
Having established a fast-charging foothold in California for its electric cars, Tesla Motors has brought its formula east, opening two ultrafast charging stations in December that would, in theory, allow a speedy electric-car road trip between here and Boston.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-pe ... test-drive

Whenever I read a story in the media about aviation, they almost always get it wrong. And it seems the same is true concerning the stories I read about electric cars. To this day, I'm still having to explain that Volt batteries don't explode :(

Linked above is Elon Musk's response to this NY Times test drive. Unfortunately for Mr. Broder, the Tesla has a pretty sophisticated "black box." If one has any interest in this topic, I would suggest that they read the NY Times article, then read the rebuttal linked above, replete with lots of numbers and graphs that Bogleheads love to immerse themselves in. There seems to be some inconsistencies in Mr. Broder's article.
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Re: electric cars

Post by Imperabo »

leonard wrote:
All the problems in that article could have beens solved with an extension cord and an electrical outlet - 2 extremely available items.
All of the problems? Doesn't fix the issue of the car greatly under-performing its listed miles. Also, he said he tried charging it on a normal outlet and it barely did anything. Is it reasonable to expect someone to have to stay the night in hotel and bum an outlet to fuel up their $100,000 car?
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Re: electric cars

Post by madbrain »

leonard wrote: All the problems in that article could have beens solved with an extension cord and an electrical outlet - 2 extremely available items.
Not really. A typical 120V/15amp outlet recharges at a very slow rate and is impractical for road trips. This is called level 1 charging. It is only good for home charging.

A Tesla 85 kWh battery would take approximately 70 to 85 hours to fully charge the battery on a normal wall outlet. That's about 3 to 3.5 days worth of charging.

And 120V outlets are not even that common on public roads - I have actually never seen one.

On my Nissan Leaf, level 1 recharges 1 kW per hour, the equivalent only 2.9 miles/hour at level 1 . I am not sure what it is on the Tesla S but I would guess even less, as the Nissan is more efficient than the Tesla in terms of miles/kWh.

On 240V/15A, which I have at home, it charges about 10 miles/hour. The reason it's triple and not double of the 120V is because of the battery cooling pump which causes 30% charging losses with a normal 120V outlet.

Both level 1 and level 2 are too slow for road trips. They are mostly good for home and work chargers when the car sits around a while.

For road trips you need a faster charger than level 1 or level 2.

Tesla created its own supercharger which is very fast, I am not sure how long it takes for a full charge. The Nissan Leaf SL has the ChaDeMO charger, which I used only once for 10 minutes so far as the chargers are so rare. Chademo and can recharge the Leaf battery from 0 to 80% in under a half hour.

The Chademos are prohibitive to install in terms of cost. Last I checked, $15k for the cheapest unit on the market. And you need 480V AC line. Mostly businesses can get that. I could get that at my home from PG&E due to its location next to the city water tank that uses high power pumps - the utility pole that serves that tank also serves my home. It would be another $5k in labor and to replace the main panel most likely. I am not going to pay $20k for a fast charger. Anyway, the place I really need the fast charger is on the road, not at home. The level 2 is fine for home use.
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Re: electric cars

Post by madbrain »

nisiprius wrote:A New York Times writer, John S. Broder, wrote a piece, Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway. It concerns his experience trying to drive a Tesla model S from Washington, D.C. to New York.
Having established a fast-charging foothold in California for its electric cars, Tesla Motors has brought its formula east, opening two ultrafast charging stations in December that would, in theory, allow a speedy electric-car road trip between here and Boston.

But as I discovered on a recent test drive of the company’s high-performance Model S sedan, theory can be trumped by reality, especially when Northeast temperatures plunge....

The new charging points, at service plazas in Newark, Del., and Milford, Conn., are some 200 miles apart. That is well within the Model S’s 265-mile estimated range, as rated by the Environmental Protection Agency, for the version with an 85 kilowatt-hour battery that I drove — and even more comfortably within Tesla’s claim of 300 miles of range under ideal conditions.
Unfortunately, the drive was made in cold weather. Everything went well for the first leg of the trip to the Wilmington charging station, where he charged up to an estimated 242 miles of range. After that, everything started to go wrong. He drove 68 but the remaining range dropped 85. He only just barely made it to the next charging station in Milford.

The next day, he made a side trip to Stonington, CT, staying overnight with the intention of returning to Milford, 46 miles away. When he parked the car, it showed 90 miles of range. The next morning, it showed 25. From there, the story gets worse, with frequent calls to Tesla, with them telling him to do things that didn't work.

Then Elon Musk got furious, and there is now a major media mudfight going on, with Musk basically charging Broder with lying, and of intentionally sabotaging the test by driving improperly. One of the funnier side notes is that Musk claims that Broder spent an unreasonable amount of time driving around the parking lot where one of the chargers was located, implying that Broder was deliberately trying to run the battery down, while Broder says he was just trying to find the charger, which he says was very hard to find.
As an EV driver, I have followed the story with interest - from the original article by Broeder, to the blog reply by Elon Musk , to the reply by Broeder today, and the test where CNN tried to replicate the test drive today.

A lot of things still don't match between the reporter story, even after his followup response, and the reply from Elon Musk.

For one thing, Musk says that the car never shut down, yet Broeder says it did and it was not operational when it had to be flatbedded. So one of them is still lying, or the car's data recorder has a problem.

The reporter appears to have done some stupid thing intentionally when he left for a 64 mile drive with the car's only showing 32 miles of range. I doubt Tesla personnel would have told him to do that, as he now claims.

So, in this case, I tend to think that the reporter was either biased, stupid, or both.

That is not to say that there aren't problems some with EVs. I have not driven a Tesla and can't comment on its performance.

On my Nissan Leaf however, which has 1/3 of the battery size of the Tesla being tested, the use of climate control, cold weather, driving freeway speeds, and driving uphill, all are very significant factors that affect the range significantly.
I had more than a few close calls with my Leaf but never had to tow it for lack of charge yet. I related one experience on Xmas night on Mynissanleaf.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11020

I am sure many of these things would apply to a Tesla as well on a long range trip.

IMO, the biggest impediment to the uptake of EVs is the availability of the quick chargers.

The fact that the auto industry has yet to standardize on a quickcharger - we have Tesla's proprietary supercharger, the Japanese Chademo, and possibly yet others coming - is not a good sign at all. And sadly I don't think it will be just a matter of having a plug adapter in this case.

Only the much lower speed level 1 and level 2 chargers are fairly standardized at this point on most EVs.
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Re: electric cars

Post by umfundi »

leonard wrote: All the problems in that article could have been solved with an extension cord and an electrical outlet - 2 extremely available items.
Well, if the extension cord had been 64 miles long ...

(Sorry, but it's long been a Detroit wisecrack that electric cars are awaiting a breakthrough in extension cord technology.)

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Re: electric cars

Post by nisiprius »

A hybrid, plug-in or not, pretty much fits into the same ecology as a gasoline-only car. (Not "disruptive technology"). I don't think anyone would think twice about driving a Prius or a Chevy Volt from Washington to New York. New infrastructure is needed in order for an electric car driver to feel the same way. As I understood the point of Broder's article, "Tesla Motors has brought its formula east, opening two ultrafast charging stations in December that would, in theory, allow a speedy electric-car road trip between here and Boston." So, he was basically testing the new infrastructure Tesla has built, and Tesla knew what he planned to do.

The question wasn't whether one can live happily with a Tesla S, the question was whether you can hop into one and drive from Washington to New York without special considerations other than knowing where the charging stations are. According to Broder's report, it would seem that Tesla has some work to do, and probably hasn't done enough testing in cold weather.

According to Broder's report, Tesla's range indicator is not accurate and that, worse yet, it is optimistic. "When I parked the car, its computer said I had 90 miles of range, twice the 46 miles back to Milford. It was a different story at 8:30 the next morning. The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining range." A gasoline analogy would be parking the car with 46 miles to drive and a gas gauge reading a bit below 1/4 of a tank, and waking up in the morning to find the needle within the thickness of the E mark and the "low fuel" light on.

And 10 degrees Fahrenheit is cold, but not anything like a wildly extreme temperature for the United States. It's not like the places where a good motel has AC outlets in the parking lot to plug in the block heaters. He doesn't say where he stayed in Groton. It's not clear whether Tesla Motors told him to plug it in overnight. It doesn't sound as if they did. I wonder what the owner's manual said? Maybe it was a ground-floor old-style motel, and if he could park next to it it was just a matter of people staring at an extension cord and a cold draft coming in the window. But, maybe he was on the fourth floor of a six-story structure and the parking space was across the lot from the building, and, not so easy.

In any case Broder says
Broder wrote:Tesla’s chief technology officer, J B Straubel, acknowledged that the two East Coast charging stations were at the mileage limit of the Model S’s real-world range. Making matters worse, cold weather inflicts about a 10 percent range penalty, he said, and running the heater draws yet more energy. He added that some range-related software problems still needed to be sorted out.
This seems sensible and plausible. I believe it.
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Re: electric cars

Post by umfundi »

And 10 degrees Fahrenheit is cold, but not anything like a wildly extreme temperature for the United States.
There's a second effect, that recharging the battery may have kept it warmer, so the efficiency loss due to temperature would not be as great.

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Re: electric cars

Post by Jack »

Broder has long had a burr under his saddle about electric cars so any story he writes on the subject should be suspect. But, in this case, the data logs clearly showed that he lied in his story -- about charging times, about driving speed, about temperature settings.

The root of the issue was that he intentionally failed to fully charge the battery before his final leg. It was like someone putting only three gallons of gas in their car on a trip because his calculations showed that was all he needed. If Broder had sensibly fully charged the battery before his last leg, he would have had no problem completing his journey on that charge.

The range indication in any car, gasoline or electric, can only be approximate because the car cannot know your future driving conditions, traffic, speed, or weather. It can only project an estimate based on recent history and current conditions. The range indicator on my gasoline car can be wildly off so I don't put in just the most optimistic, minimal number of gallons based on the range indication and then complain when I run out of gas. Further I don't drive past gas stations when my optimism proves unfounded and the low fuel light turns on as Broder did.

I can imagine his disappointment that the range indicated 90 miles when he parked for the night but only showed 25 miles range the next morning. However, the car could not know in advance that he was parking the car overnight, allowing the warm battery to cool, and that the temperature would drop to 10 degrees.

However, the car did accurately indicate that only 25 miles range remained when he started in the morning. Broder then stopped at a public charger and stayed only long enough to indicate 32 miles of range even though his remaining trip distance was 61 miles. What idiot puts in only one gallon of gas when he knows the trip will take two gallons? I'm guessing he is not an idiot but intentionally wanted to run out of fuel. He continued driving, passing several charging stations even when the display warned him he needed to recharge immediately.

Broder's excuse for passing up other charging stations is that he only wanted to test the Superchargers. Yet he never would have been in that position if he had only fully charged once at the Supercharger the day before. Note that he pulled the plug, at 72% charge and the car indicated a 185 mile range, when he knew that the next leg of his trip was 180 miles. Does that sound like a good faith test? Would you do that in a gasoline car based on its range indication? If he had just charged an extra 10 minutes he would have easily completed his trip to the next charger. He fell short by 20 miles after an overnight stay in which temperatures dropped to 10 degrees.

Broder is not a reliable source for information about electric cars.
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