Range anxiety is becoming a thing of the past as electric vehicle technology advances

[Into the Night]

It was both a steam and jet engine.

Nope. Just a steam engine. Pretty damn weak too.

It was not particularly great one of either, but it was both.

Nope. Just a steam engine.

You like to point out that sometimes people use gasoline to generate the electricity for an EV.

That can be done.

Here is the question, can people use electricity to generate gasoline for an ICE? Of course not.

People can and do use electricity to distill gasoline. Indeed, oil refineries use electricity to do just that.

If you have an ICE, you are tied to one source of power: gasoline.

By definition. So?

Electricity means you can use any source of power, because they are all used to generate power.

You have to generate almost twice the power to move your EV the same distance as a gasoline car.

I have high hopes for nuclear power, coupled with solar/wind, and some sort of storage.

Solar is the most expensive method generating electrical power, watt for watt, by far.
Wind is the second most expensive method.

Both are piddle power.

The SDTC (formerly California) is preparing to shut down it's last nuclear plant. You probably should pay attention to the economic disaster that took place in Germany concerning nuclear power.

Nuclear tends to give very steady power(when demand goes up and down). Solar and wind give very variable power, but not variable in sync with demand. I think it could all be made to work well.

A single nuclear reactor can generate more power than an entire State filled with wind turbines.

We definitely need to rebuild our grid.

We already do. It's being modernized constantly.

Even if we were not to convert to a smart grid,

Already have it.

our grid is so old it needs a complete rebuild.

WRONG. It is constantly maintained and improved.

With the smart grid, with many sources moving electricity all over the place, we can have a new grid, and a more reliable grid.

Already there.

Or we can just keep trying to use to same old, tired, not working solutions.

The grid works (other than some sections of the ERIC, which still suffers from massive blackouts and has suffered TWO black starts!).

 

[Into the Night]

How many trillions will that cost and where's the money coming from?

He's confused. He thinks the grid is a power source. It isn't.

 

[Into the Night]

I am realizing your opinion has no value. If you cannot see the revolutionary improvement in lithium ion batteries over lead acid batteries, even in hindsight, your opinion has no value to me.

There isn't any.

Lithium ion cells are very lightweight (the lightest of the cells). It's internal resistance is quite low too, but not as low as lead-acid cells. Lithium is also more expensive than lead, despite the popularity of lead-acid batteries.
There are times you WANT a heavy battery, and lead-acid cells are perfect for that, along with their superior internal resistance characteristics. That's why you find them in forklifts and similar EV equipment. The battery is not only the power source, it's a counterweight.

Lead-acid cells are cheap, reliable, and charge quickly. Lithium cells are more expensive, but they are lightweight, and do not charge as rapidly or discharge as rapidly (due to their higher internal resistance). Lithium-ion cells have one very bad characteristic as well...they can enter thermal runaway, starting a battery fire. Lead-acid cells don't have this problem.

 

[Into the Night]

The two questions you should ask are how many trillions will it cost not to invest, and how many trillions will it cost to invest? Unfortunately we have lost hundreds of billions, and years to privatization, but that happened and we have to move on.

The fact is that if we are not investing into having a modern electrical grid, we will not be a first world nation in the second half of the 21st century. That makes it a priority, and we should spend accordingly.

We already have modern grids in place. Even the ERIC has improved a lot. It hasn't required a black start in quite some time now.

 

[serendipity]

Li-ion batteries ARE solid state.

The most common electrolyte in lithium ion batteries is a lithium salt solution such as lithium hexafluorophosphate.

 

[Into the Night]

There is no "revolutionary improvement." Lithium batteries still put out about 3 VDC per cell. They discharge at the same rate they did in the 1960's. The only improvement has been in the rechargability of one. That's it. Yes, they are a bit more efficient than a lead-acid battery, and a bit more efficient than a nickel-iron battery, although the Ni-Fe ones have longer lives, and are better in that respect than Ni-Cd batteries.

But what they aren't is some massive revolution in battery technology. I could buy the same battery going into a Tesla today back in the 1980's sans some minor improvements.

Efficiency of battery???

Li-ion cells have a HIGHER internal resistance then a lead-acid cell.

ALL rechargeable cells have a common problem: electrode distortion.

Recharging a battery is essentially an electroplating process. How the material is deposited on that electrode is going to be different then the way the electrode was originally machined. Ions are kinda dumb, ya know. They don't know or care what the electrode originally looked like.

Enough distortion and the cell won't charge anymore.

NiCad batteries had a big problem with distortion, which is why they tended to die after awhile and wouldn't hold a charge.

Lead acid cells have an additional problem if allowed to discharge through their internal resistance and to sit for a while...sulfating. Lead sulfate builds up in the bottom of the battery box over time. When it touches plates, they won't hold a charge anymore. You can actually rejuvenate a lead-acid battery by dumping out the electrolyte, washing out the lead sulfate, and filling with fresh electrolyte, then putting the initial charge on it again. The distortion in the plates as still occurred so it won't last as long, but it does extend the life of said battery.

Ni-Fe cells are heavy, just like NiCad, but they don't suffer electrode distortion quite as fast, and they have a lower internal resistance.

Chemically, all batteries are the same. All are based on dissimilar metals and an electrolyte, even the lead-acid battery (the dissimilar metal is a lead oxide coated plate, and a just a regular lead plate, producing a potential of 2.6v). These lead-acid batteries are normally charged at a voltage of 3.1v.

You should be aware that voltage is not joules. Battery capacity is measured in joules. You might be more familiar with watts. One joule is one watt per second. Watt-hours are really just joules. One watt-hour is 3600 joules.
Batteries often have an amp-hour rating. This is kinda fake. Amps mean nothing without voltage to drive the current. What is really being described here is watt-hours, or joules.

Voltage is just like pressure in a pipe. Current is just that...the flow in the pipe. The power such a flow can do requires both the pressure and the flow. Yes...Ohm's law works for pipes. Even resistance is there (the friction in the pipe).

Voltage (pressure) and no flow is no work. If the battery had infinite internal resistance, it would never discharge. Of course, all electrical and electronic components are combinations of resistance, inductance, and capacitance. Even a wire, which is why you have to meet certain wire sizes depending on length of run and the current flowing on it, and why you have to use a conduit larger than the wires inside it to allow them to cool.

A battery is no different.

 

[Into the Night]

The batteries in the Telsa have 10 times the energy density of anything available in the 1980's, so no you could not.

Nope. Lithium still has the same joules per mole. That's a physical characteristic in electrochemistry. It doesn't change.
The ONLY way to increase range is to use a bigger battery.

 

[Into the Night]

They ain't popular in rural America. Try to find a charging station. One of the largest dealerships here isn't selling many EVs because they have the only charger within 25-30 miles. The next closest charger is at another dealership.

Joey soils diaper. Again.

Imagine an EV combine harvester during harvest season.
Yeah...THAT's going to work!

 

[Into the Night]

You can have your own charging station at home. Can you have your own oil pump, refinery, and gas station at home? Just asking.

You can have your own oil pump, refinery, and gas station at home too.

Of course, neither is practical for apartments and condos.

You can't take your home charging station with you on long trips.
It's easy to carry extra gasoline though, or to find a gas station easily.

 

[Into the Night]

There are a lot more electrical outlets than gas stations. In fact, a gas station will not work without electricity, as people found out the hard way with Hurricane Katrina.

Gas stations DO work without electricity. They just use a gasoline generator to run the electric pumps, or use manual pumps.

 

[Into the Night]

What's the cost of a personal charging station? And the monthly cost to drive electric? Affordable for the average middle class family? Especially these days...when many families are living paycheck to paycheck?

IF you own the home, and IF you have a garage, and IF the electrical panel is somewhere either in the garage or nearby, and IF the electrical loads at the service entrance allow the extra load, then you can expect to spend about $2750 for an electrician to install the service (including the charger itself and the permitting required).

If you do not own a home, you are SOL.
If you do not have a garage, you are SOL.
If the electrical panel is far away, costs go up (with the possible requirement of cost of trenching and underground wiring to be installed).

The monthly costs for an EV must include the higher maintenance costs (EVs require specially equipped shops to be maintained...essentially everything is a dealer repair and maintenance!), and the higher insurance costs (EVs are easily totaled in any kind of accident since all it takes is for ONE single cell to be damaged and you have to replace the entire 2000lb battery pack), the constant worry of charging the damn car, and of course, the cost of garaging the car where it can be charged, and the prevailing electrical rates. You can also look forward to additional taxes being levied on EVs since they don't pay road taxes at the pump like gasoline cars do. You should probably amortize the higher price of the car as part of those monthly expenses as well, just like you would for a gasoline car. After all, most people either lease the car or purchase a car using a loan. That's also a monthly expense.

 

[Into the Night]

fair.....my granddaughter may teach her childen to drive in an electric vehicle......unless they run out of rare metals before then...

Lithium is found in many places, but it's hard to mine. It tends to occur in dry desert areas and refining it enough for shipment requires LOTS of water and sulfuric acid. It's also a long process, involving evaporating all that water away.

Because production is slow and difficult, the price of lithium is going up. It's tripled since 2008, when the first Tesla Roadster hit the streets. That curve of rising price is steepening too.
Cobalt is much more difficult to obtain. It's very limited. There is some somewhat successful attempts to get rid of the dependency on large amounts of cobalt in the batteries, but it's currently a big factor. Most cobalt is mined using child slave labor in Africa. Legitimate mines can be found in Australia and South America, but they don't produce as much.

Shipping all this stuff around is getting more expensive as well. That's done by diesel engines (not EVs!).

 

[Into the Night]

That’s a canard. E vehicles are already viable or there wouldn’t already be millions of the things on the road. That’s already been proven otherwise the automakers wouldn’t be investing billions in improving efficiencies, economies of scale and infrastructure. That viability issue has already sailed. Its done been proven.

Not really a canard at all. Less than 1% of the cars on the road are EVs.
Both Ford and Toyota are getting out of EVs. They're losing too much money on them.

 

[Into the Night]

Too bad they are NOT green. Even the very best emits 31 tons of CO2 over its lifespan.

"Despite emissions from battery production, EVs emit on average less greenhouse gas (GHG) than ICE models. From all the cars tested, the Fiat 500e represents the smallest carbon footprint (31 tons of CO2), while the first ICE car comes in at sixth place with 41 tons: the diesel engined Skoda Octavia 2.0 TDI."

https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-...e-evs?t[0]=Electrification; CO2 target&curl=1

There is no such thing as a 'greenhouse gas' except in the Church of Global Warming.
No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth.

 

[RB 60]

There are a lot more electrical outlets than gas stations. In fact, a gas station will not work without electricity, as people found out the hard way with Hurricane Katrina.

Don't come to my house expecting to plug your car into my outlets when they need charged. Of course, you won't find an working outlet with a power outage either. Duh!

 

[Into the Night]

You do not need a charging station. The cars come with chargers that will recharge just by plugging into a garage outlet.

Which will require days to charge an EV, assuming fully discharged to full charge.

If you want faster charging, you can get a 2nd level charger installed. It is often about 600 to 800 bucks.

That's just the cost of the charger. The cost of INSTALLING it adds considerably to the cost. Then of course if the increase in your electrical bill.

EVs save money.

Nope. They are:
* more expensive to buy (making any lease or loan more expensive for it's monthly payments!).
* higher insurance rates (due to how easy it is to 'total' an EV in an accident of any kind).
* higher maintenance costs (due to the requirement of specially equipped shops for any kind of maintenance).
* cost of owning a home and a garage to install your charger.

They also eliminate the trips to gas stations.

Instead, you can worry about charging your EV daily! I can drive almost two weeks before stopping at a gas station on my way to work or back home. It's not even out of my way. I buy groceries more often.

Living on the edge is easier with an electric. Far less maintenance.

Maintenance costs are HIGHER due to the requirement of specially equipped shops to work on them.

 

[Into the Night]

I put in a level 2 charger in my garage for $1,600 so I charge there 95% of the time. Super convenient. And I pay about half of the cost of gas. I've gone on long trips with no problems finding chargers. There are many apps available that will plan out a trip for you and show you the chargers along the way and how much charge you need to get there. Simple.
I love technology.

So you:
* have a garage and home that you own so you can put in such a charger. A lot of people do not own a home.
* are limited to major freeways on long trips, and your 'long trip' doesn't get far away from cities.
* depend on an app that may very well lead you to a malfunctioning charging station or one that is too busy to use.
* ignore the cost of a charging station (comparable with gas stations).
* ignore the delays caused by charging the car (instead of a few minutes at a gas station, and you only need to stop half the time an EV has to).
* ignore the reduced range cause by poor conditions such as rain, snow, freezing temperatures, driving at night, excessively high temperatures, etc.

 

[Into the Night]

Just type in EV chargers on your phone or computer and your zip. They will be flagged. You will be surprised how many there are.

Damn few.

I don't need an app to find a gas station!

 

[Into the Night]

Again I have to stress that the viability of electric vehicles is a non issue. It’s already been proven. Anyone who denies this is either uninformed or is playing tribal politics.

No, it has not been proven. Circular argument fallacy (fundamentalism).

Let’s start with the environmental aspects of e-vehicles vs. internal combustion vehicles. Based on material balance calculations, which is the only real method for calculating environmental efficiency, where engineers calculate all material inputs into a process (including energy) vs. all outputs and determining how much of those outputs are waste. To state the obvious the lower the quantity of waste in the outputs of the process the more efficient a process is and the lower its environmental impact will be. So when engineers design an industrial process this is one of the first steps they take is calculating a total materials balance for that process as it permits the engineer to identify where waste occurs in the outputs of a process so that they can reduce or eliminate waste in that process. In a total material balance calculation e-vehicles win hands down, when determining all outputs of waste vs. internal combustion vehicles. It’s not just all about e-vehicles being more energy efficient either. E-vehicles have other efficiencies.

EVs use almost twice the energy of a gasoline car. You have to charge them, dude. Most of this energy is waste heat. The losses associated with the power plant generating the power, the losses in the transformers and transmission lines, and the losses in the battery during charging and AGAIN during discharging, is why the EV uses almost twice the energy of simply burning the gasoline to drive the car.

Namely that electric motors are just far simpler and efficient than internal combustion engines.

Uh...no. You've obviously never had to rewind one.

Because of this e-vehicles are far simpler to design and assemble and thus e-vehicles are easier to design and assemble.

Uh...no. The entire vehicle structure is centered around carrying that heavy battery. It is why most EVs cannot tow at all (not even an empty trailer!). They also require special tires and brakes to handle the extra weight of the car.

The reason why is that internal combustion vehicles have far more moving parts of greater complexity.

Despite the higher number of moving parts in a reciprocating engine, they are a lot more efficient, using about half the energy of an EV. Those moving parts are pretty damn tough too, rarely requiring any servicing at all.

E-vehicles don’t need motor lubricating systems

Yes they do. Motors won't run without lubrication.

or coolant systems

Yes they do. The motor is liquid cooled. The battery has it's own liquid cooling, complete with radiators.

or a transmission.

Yes they do. You must get the output of the motor to the wheels. That's a transmission, dude, even if it's fixed gear.

So no pumps,

Yes there are. There are pumps to move coolant through both the motors and also through the battery. There are also pumps for windshield washing equipment, and for providing cabin air.

reservoirs,

Yes there are. Both the battery and the motor have reservoirs for their coolant systems.

radiators,

Both the battery and the motor have radiators in their cooling systems.

belts, pulleys,

Some EVs DO have belts and pulleys.
Oh, replacing the belt on a gasoline car is extremely easy to do by yourself with common tools. You usually don't have to bother until at least 100,000 miles.

transmissions,

EVs have transmissions.

In addition electric engines don’t need tune ups

Neither do modern gasoline cars.

or complex power robbing post combustion systems.

I assume you mean the exhaust system. No, it doesn't rob power. Most power limitations in a gasoline car is due to the induction system, and is by design.

No oil changes needed

Yes there are, every time the motor housing is serviced.

or coolants

Yes there are. Both the battery and the motors are liquid cooled.

or flushes

I have never had to flush the coolant on a gasoline car unless it was quite old.

or hydraulic fluids,

EVs have hydraulic fluid. It is used for the brakes and for the shocks. It is also used as coolant.

no clutches

None in modern gasoline cars either. No manual transmissions anymore. They are all automatic transmissions. CV transmissions are quite popular these days.

These efficiency’s are already being felt with e-vehicles having a lower total cost to own,

EVs are more expensive to own.

less maintenance

Same maintenance, but EVs require specialized shops to perform them.

and better reliability

Tesla has more recalls than any other brand of car.

and performance.

Only acceleration. Turning and braking are considerably worse in an EV.

So that’s why I don’t understand the political hostility.

The hostility stems from governments mandating and subsidizing the fucking things. That's just fascism and communism.

Im excited about the advances and I will consider an e-vehicle.

Since you are ignoring the advances of the gasoline engine, your loss.

I’d even suggest that when the front end cost for an e-vehicle is equal to an equivalent IC vehicle than IC vehicles will be obsolete as they will not be able to compete with e-vehicles significantly lower total cost to own.

Won't happen in a free market.

This is why the automakers are investing heavily in e-vehicles manufacturing, supply chain and infrastructure.

Both Ford and Toyota are getting out of EVs. They are losing too much money on them.

Keep in mind this mostly being driven by market forces.

Quite the opposite. Less than 1% of the cars on the road are EVs. There's a reason.

Putting all that horse shit aside I’d tell everyone to drive one and judge it objectively.

No need. EVs can't tow even an empty trailer in most cases. Some that CAN tow have very limited capability at it and severely reduced range when towing.
I drive cross country fairly often too, often on roads that have NO charging stations.
No EV can haul my tractor (diesel) the distance I need.
No EV can use a fuel can to fuel the vehicle.
No EV can carry extra charge like a gasoline vehicle can carry extra gasoline.

Now, about handling. EVs have better acceleration, and that's about it. They have poorer handling due to the extra weight of the battery. Poorer braking too, since you not only have the heavy battery, the computer tries to be 'smart' about it, using what it can to recharge from momentum. Handling sucks. I've driven them. Handling sucks.

I was impressed with the two I test drove. The S model was a rocket ship. An absolute blast to drive. 0-60 in 3 point something and excellent handling.

It's not a drag race, dude. Handling is much poorer than a gasoline car of the same size, due to the extra weight of the battery.

The 3-model is quite impressive at its point price. It’s surprisingly engaging and fun to drive.

Again, it's not a drag race. Handling is poorer other than acceleration.

So like or not EV’s have already gone mainstream but it’s still just the beginning.

Nowhere near it. Less than 1% of the cars on the road are EVs.

 

[Into the Night]

That drive is something like 450 - 500 miles. It's like you driving from Boston to Nova Scota in 9 hours. The drive is done mostly at 75 to 80 mph, with brief slowdowns for the occasional town. There's little traffic to deal with until you hit AZ 260 and even then, it's moving at 65 to 75 mph.

Driving from one side of Arizona or N. Mexico to the other is like 6 hours. Texas takes a full day (24 hours) to cross including stops for fuel and such and that's doing 80+ mph the whole way. Hell, driving from one side of the metro Phoenix area to the other side is an hour plus at 75 mph on freeways. It is quite literally 75 miles across the metro area. People that have lived on the East Coast in the New England down to about DC area have no concept of distance like you have to have in Arizona.
The accountant that does my taxes lives 160 miles from my house for example.

It's nothing like driving on the US East Coast, which I've done too.

It takes a full day to cross Montana and North Dakota at 80mph. No town to have to slow down for if using I-94 (until you reach Fargo, ND).
Last time I drove that road, I saw ONE EV, in Bozeman, MT. Didn't see another until I got to Fargo, where I saw TWO of them. They both had Minnesota plates on them, probably from Minneapolis. They probably figured that Minneapolis to Fargo was a 'long drive'!