Electric Vehicle Thread!

[Arwin]

Nuclear energy has too many indirect costs, which independent of safety issues means it is just far more expensive to a society that has them than is being represented in energy prices. Germany is showing how well solar and wind energy can work - and right now they are using the surplus to cut down on Nuclear energy (they recently had big problems with leaking underground waste storage that cost billions to fix)

I just this weekend visited a coal mining operation in Germany showing current energy statistics. Nuclear down 47 percent, almost completely taken over by solar and wind. Energy prices down significantly for daytime energy again for a large part due to solar and wind. We should invest more in local energy surplus storage and better grids for sure.

Also the biggest digging machines in the world for getting that coal out, 13000 tonne beasts that are 96m high? Running on electricity - in fact, more than 60% of everything on that digging site runs on electricity.

 

[tuna]

Many people here use appropriate V8 trucks. Hauling heavy loads requires a lot of torque and HP and the structural integrity to haul it without breaking down. We have a couple V8 trucks (one heavy duty and one light duty as well a couple V6 trucks) out at the family ranch. It comes in handy when you need to haul over 1 ton of cargo. Something a Tesla isn't going to be doing for the forseeable future.

What I could see when I was in the USA was that a lot of people drove really big trucks without hauling anything, wasting a lot of fuel (and generating CO2) in the process. Like "I haul my boat twice a year so I need a V8 truck which I then will use driving every day.".

 

[Simon F]

T
Truck "platooning" trials are already underway.

In some areas** of Australia they've been doing something like that for decades.. except with only one prime mover. Overtaking them, however, is bl**dy scary.

(Note: Other fossil fuel suppliers are available)
**The less mountainous bits!

What I could see when I was in the USA was that a lot of people drove really big trucks without hauling anything, wasting a lot of fuel (and generating CO2) in the process. Like "I haul my boat twice a year so I need a V8 truck which I then will use driving every day.".

And you don't need a V8... my father would tow 3/4 of a tonne of sand/gravel with our 60's 4 cylinder.

 

[nutball]

I live in the outskirts of a mid-sized city (population 300k), I work in the outskirts of another similar-sized city 30 miles away. My daily commute is a 40-45 minute drive each way. According to Google Maps if I were to take public transport (bus + train) it would be a 2h35m trip to work, and a 2h40m trip back. Google also says that it would take me 2h39m to cycle. It's as quick to go by fucking bike as by train/bus. See, public transport in most parts of the UK (ie. outside London) is just so deeply special.

Much as I love the environment, am I going to waste an extra 4hr per day of my life just to use public transport? No, I am not, and although I could do with the exercise I'm not going to cycle either, for the same reason. For my commute I could quite happily use an electric car, hell we even have charging points at work. Likewise my partner mostly tends to drive around the city in her car (we have two cars, sensible mid-sized European models), and she could happily do that in an electric car.

However once in a while we like/have to go further afield, on holiday to other parts of the UK, or I travel for work, or I need to tow something, or we need to collect the son and all his shite from University, etc., etc., etc. If we replace both our current cars with small, short-range electrical jobbies what do we do then? Hire something when we need it (extra cost on top of running two EVs)? Keep three cars? I know this seems a bit dumb (I feel dumb writing it!) but it's not the day-to-day requirements that really dictate why we have what we have, but the less frequent, less predictable, one-off uses.

I'd love to replace my cars with EVs, but until EVs are a genuine drop-in replacement it's always going to be a hard sell. I am semi-seriously thinking of replacing the smaller car with an EV when it comes to it, depending on cost, but I can't see us getting rid of the diesel estate for the foreseeable future.

 

[tuna]

Maybe you could replace one of your two cars with an EV?

 

[Malo]

What I could see when I was in the USA was that a lot of people drove really big trucks without hauling anything, wasting a lot of fuel (and generating CO2) in the process. Like "I haul my boat twice a year so I need a V8 truck which I then will use driving every day.".

Yep that's pretty much what we have here in PA. My neighbor does it right with his big v8 for towing his 10,000lbs caravan but he has a high efficiency car as well for normal driving. Most of the townsfolks don't have multiple cars though yet spend ridiculous amounts on their trucks.

 

[Xmas]

What you write about will undoubtedly become an important system for travel, but it can't be the main form of transportation, because even self-driving taxis carrying tens or hundreds of thousands of people to and from their jobs would still clog up roads and cause congestion. We need proper mass transport systems also that can handle the bulk of our daily travel needs.

I think you either overestimate the capacity of traditional public transport or underestimate the capacity of the road network when paired with self-driving cars. The latter could easily improve the throughput of the road network by an order of magnitude.

 

[Davros]

Regarding Tuna's requiremnt for a car with a range of 300km
If you had a petrol engine with the only job of charging the batteries so they could last 300km not provide enough electricity to indefinitely power the car
so for example if the batteries were good for 200km and at 50kmh the batteries would last 4 hours then we would just need an engine capable of charging the batteries 50% over 4 hours.

Afaik the only variable from the engines pov (with regard to power generation) is how fast it can rotate some coils in a magnetic field. The engine doesnt need a lot of power just high rpm and of course the rpm of the coils can be increased by using gears
so does anyone have a rough idea how small an engine could be used remember we can make petrol engines so small they can be used in r.c cars.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And you don't need a V8... my father would tow 3/4 of a tonne of sand/gravel with our 60's 4 cylinder.

Yes, we did that in the past. It's generally not so bad on side roads where the speed limit is low and there aren't a lot of drivers, so you don't generally hold up traffic. But all our hay and feed suppliers aren't only accessible via side roads. We also sometimes have to haul cattle or horses multiple hundreds of miles. A 4 cylinder truck is completely insufficient for that, especially once you start climbing up steep mountain grades (we live near the Rocky Mountains and regularly have to haul cattle or horses over them to the next state over.

Regarding Tuna's requiremnt for a car with a range of 300km
If you had a petrol engine with the only job of charging the batteries so they could last 300km not provide enough electricity to indefinitely power the car
so for example if the batteries were good for 200km and at 50kmh the batteries would last 4 hours then we would just need an engine capable of charging the batteries 50% over 4 hours.

Afaik the only variable from the engines pov (with regard to power generation) is how fast it can rotate some coils in a magnetic field. The engine doesnt need a lot of power just high rpm and of course the rpm of the coils can be increased by using gears
so does anyone have a rough idea how small an engine could be used remember we can make petrol engines so small they can be used in r.c cars.

Get rid of the mass of batteries and that would almost be my ideal car depending on its performance. A small ICE to generate electricity for the power train.

The biggest limitation of full EV cars is the battery. Not only does it increase weight, reducing efficiency, but it puts a hard limit on the distance you can travel conveniently.

I wouldn't mind a light vehicle with an ICE providing electricity for an electric powertrain. And while we're at it, get rid of all the air bags and other heavy safety crap. Japan has it right. Ultra safe cars for people that want and can afford it. Cheap affordable cars for people who don't want all the safety crap or who can't afford a vehicle with all those safety features.

That would provide for an extremely efficient vehicle. With extraordinary MPG or MPG equivalent.

I love my current vehicle, but absolutely hate that fact that its weight is bloated by all the mandatory safety features. It's more fuel efficient than my previous car with caveats. It has to be driven for a suitable distance without a lot of steep streets that you have to drive up. IE - to leverage it's superior rolling efficiency. It doesn't need much power to maintain a certain speed, but its weight means it spends an inordinate amount of power to accelerate from a stop or to climb hills. Since my local commute has a lot of stop signs combined with steep hills. It actually gets significantly less miles per gallon than my previous vehicle (which was 20 years old, and over a thousand pounds lighter despite being in the same car class) in my daily commute despite being marketed with far superior MPG. It does, however, match the claimed MPG in the cases I mentioned. So for long distance commutes it equals or betters my previous car.

Bleh, I really hate living in a country that is increasingly becoming a nanny state.

Yep that's pretty much what we have here in PA. My neighbor does it right with his big v8 for towing his 10,000lbs caravan but he has a high efficiency car as well for normal driving. Most of the townsfolks don't have multiple cars though yet spend ridiculous amounts on their trucks.

Yup, it's called living in a free country. While we're at it we should also complain about people wasting electricity on hair dryers, electric shavers, air conditioners, high power amplifiers, big screen HDTVs, gaming computers, gaming consoles, etc. Not to mention all the environmental pollutants from their production and later disposal (whether dumping or recycling). Or wasting petrol on lawn mowers (especially the riding variety) or wasting electricity on electric lawn mowers. Or potentially polluting the environment by using dish soap and laundry detergent. The list goes on an on.

Regards,
SB

 

[WhiningKhan]

Regarding Tuna's requiremnt for a car with a range of 300km
If you had a petrol engine with the only job of charging the batteries so they could last 300km not provide enough electricity to indefinitely power the car
so for example if the batteries were good for 200km and at 50kmh the batteries would last 4 hours then we would just need an engine capable of charging the batteries 50% over 4 hours.

Afaik the only variable from the engines pov (with regard to power generation) is how fast it can rotate some coils in a magnetic field. The engine doesnt need a lot of power just high rpm and of course the rpm of the coils can be increased by using gears
so does anyone have a rough idea how small an engine could be used remember we can make petrol engines so small they can be used in r.c cars.

You need power to generate power. Just wiggling coils effortlessly around magnets won't do much good.
If your battery has 40kWh capacity, charging it in 4 hours requires 10kW average power output at minimum. So an RC car engine isn't going to get you too far...

 

[Davros]

Generating electricity comes from spinning coils in a magnetic field, so the question is how fast do you need to spin the coils to produce
10kwh (or whatever is required) and what size engine is needed to spin those coils at that speed. I'm no expert on engines but i'm sure engine size and rpm are unrelated.

 

[Malo]

Yup, it's called living in a free country. While we're at it we should also complain about people wasting electricity on hair dryers, electric shavers, air conditioners, high power amplifiers, big screen HDTVs, gaming computers, gaming consoles, etc. Not to mention all the environmental pollutants from their production and later disposal (whether dumping or recycling). Or wasting petrol on lawn mowers (especially the riding variety) or wasting electricity on electric lawn mowers. Or potentially polluting the environment by using dish soap and laundry detergent. The list goes on an on.

I'm not sure how to take this response sorry. Are you saying that people in free countries shouldn't care about emissions and oil consumption of vehicles because they don't have to? I thought this thread was here to discuss efficient electric vehicles for that very reason. Of course we have the right to those vehicles, but I thought it was ok for me to critique that choice here?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm not sure how to take this response sorry. Are you saying that people in free countries shouldn't care about emissions and oil consumption of vehicles because they don't have to? I thought this thread was here to discuss efficient electric vehicles for that very reason. Of course we have the right to those vehicles, but I thought it was ok for me to critique that choice here?

I'm saying that, yes, they don't need those big honking trucks. But then again people don't need petrol powered or electric powered lawn mowers either. They don't need A/C either. Or gaming consoles, enthusiast graphics cards, deodorant, or whatever.

That mini rant at the end of my previous post wasn't directed at you, although I quoted your post since that's what instigated my mini rant. I probably should have mentioned it wasn't directed at you. For that I apologize.

It's just directed at the whole thing with people being critical about the things that other people want to spend their money on. Whether it be a 1000 watt stereo, nose hair trimmer, scented bath soap used only for decoration, a dishwasher, 100" TV, whatever. I've been around people that complain about all of the above and more. The implication being that what they do and what they use makes them better than those "other" people that are so "wasteful." Again not implying that you are necessarily saying that.

I'm personally very conservative with my energy usage for both personal and financial reasons. But I don't care if my neighbor isn't. My values aren't his.

I understand that it's human nature to complain about things. There was a psychological study a while back that discovered that people need something to feel bad about and that translates into complaining about other people's behaviors because it in turn makes them not feel so bad about the things they feel bad and/or guilty about their own behavior. Anyway, it's human nature but it still annoys me. Which in turn makes me complain about it which annoys me about myself and hence makes me complain about it.

Regards,
SB

 

[WhiningKhan]

Generating electricity comes from spinning coils in a magnetic field, so the question is how fast do you need to spin the coils to produce
10kwh (or whatever is required) and what size engine is needed to spin those coils at that speed. I'm no expert on engines but i'm sure engine size and rpm are unrelated.

Output power is a function of rpm and torque. Sure you can make an engine that run on ridiculous speeds but what good does it do if it does not have enough power to turn the generator?
If you spend 1W to turn a generator, the most you can get is less than 1W electric power from the generator.

 

[tuna]

Yup, it's called living in a free country. While we're at it we should also complain about people wasting electricity on hair dryers, electric shavers, air conditioners, high power amplifiers, big screen HDTVs, gaming computers, gaming consoles, etc. Not to mention all the environmental pollutants from their production and later disposal (whether dumping or recycling). Or wasting petrol on lawn mowers (especially the riding variety) or wasting electricity on electric lawn mowers. Or potentially polluting the environment by using dish soap and laundry detergent. The list goes on an on.

Regards,
SB

Driving around a big inefficient truck every day is vastly more hurtful for the environment than any of the activities you listed.

Also, aside from chemical pollution (mercury etc), I think the only way to solve the problem is a carbon tax (that will increase every year).

 

[Davros]

Output power is a function of rpm and torque. Sure you can make an engine that run on ridiculous speeds but what good does it do if it does not have enough power to turn the generator?

Granted but turning a generator requires a lot less torque than powering the wheels of a car and we have cars with 1 litre engines so the size of an engine needed just to rotate coils will be smaller than that, would a 500cc engine be enough ? how about a 50cc engine like mopeds have ?

EV/PHEVs seem to use about 0.3kWh/km in real world driving when in electric mode.

So the question still remains if the engine is just there to extend the range by 50% how small an engine can we get away with using?
Imagine your driving home and you realise you dont have enough charge to make it so you switch on your petrol engine and go and have a coffee while it charges up your battery seems like a good solution to me especially if this engine is really small

 

[Xmas]

I'm not sure how to take this response sorry. Are you saying that people in free countries shouldn't care about emissions and oil consumption of vehicles because they don't have to? I thought this thread was here to discuss efficient electric vehicles for that very reason.

That's an important reason, but in my view that's not even the main reason to consider EVs. EVs are simply on a trajectory of becoming all-round better cars than ICE ones.

And this, making products that are both more environmentally friendly and a better fit for what people actually want, is going to have much more of an impact than trying to tax emissions out of existence. Especially given that a tax in one country makes consumption somewhere else cheaper.

 

[WhiningKhan]

Granted but turning a generator requires a lot less torque than powering the wheels of a car and we have cars with 1 litre engines so the size of an engine needed just to rotate coils will be smaller than that, would a 500cc engine be enough ? how about a 50cc engine like mopeds have ?


So the question still remains if the engine is just there to extend the range by 50% how small an engine can we get away with using?
Imagine your driving home and you realise you dont have enough charge to make it so you switch on your petrol engine and go and have a coffee while it charges up your battery seems like a good solution to me especially if this engine is really small

One more time: You don't get power out of thin air. If you want to charge fast enough to not deplete the battery, your engine must actually provide MORE power than would be required to move the car directly, due to losses.

If you underspec the charger/engine so that it only can provide half of the power that is consumed (which would be really awkward, forcing you to stop or crawl slowly in the middle of motorway when battery is running out), the engine can of course be smaller but you really aren't going to get away with a moped engine if the car actually needs to move.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Driving around a big inefficient truck every day is vastly more hurtful for the environment than any of the activities you listed.

Also, aside from chemical pollution (mercury etc), I think the only way to solve the problem is a carbon tax (that will increase every year).

Why a carbon tax when carbon dioxide isn't a pollutant? It's necessary for life on earth. The periods of greatest bio-diversity on the planet were also the periods of greatest carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

There has been no conclusive proof that an increase in carbon dioxide is in any way harmful to life on earth. And when the proponents of AGW use "consensus" as their proof, that raises a lot of red flags. A few hundred years ago, the "consensus" was that the earth was flat. And when they try to shutter discourse on the subject by branding non-AGW proponents as modern day heretics, that raises even more red flags. Meh.

One more time: You don't get power out of thin air. If you want to charge fast enough to not deplete the battery, your engine must actually provide MORE power than would be required to move the car directly, due to losses.

If you underspec the charger/engine so that it only can provide half of the power that is consumed (which would be really awkward, forcing you to stop or crawl slowly in the middle of motorway when battery is running out), the engine can of course be smaller but you really aren't going to get away with a moped engine if the car actually needs to move.

Petrol is a vastly more efficient storage medium for energy than any battery in existence. Petrol at 34.2 MJ/L compared to the batteries used in vehicles at 0.9-2.63 MJ/L (and that doesn't take into account energy losses in charging the battery when thinking of total cost). A typical modern day automobile ICE (not one purpose built for this) has an efficiency around 35%. That leaves approximately 11.97 MJ/L to be converted into electricity. Alternators to convert mechanical energy (our ICE) into electricity has up 98% efficiency and not much worse than about 96% (IIRC). Rather than first charging a battery (~16% energy loss) then using that battery to provide electricity to the electric motor, it'd be far more efficient to just provide the electricity to the motor directly. That also doesn't take into account more efficient ICE technologies like Miller cycle engines (unfortunately patented and comes with high licensing costs) or Stirling cycle engines (expensive to manufacture) or gasoline turbine engines.

That problem is that it's a more complex design than current hybrid vehicles, and carries the politically toxic reliance on petroleum. The political backlash means that R&D into an ICE driven electric vehicle isn't encouraged. In many ways similar to how R&D into hydrogen powered vehicles are currently Politically discouraged. In the previous US administration it was encouraged as were many other alternatives to pure petrol driven vehicles. But the currently administration will not tolerate anything except R&D into full EV.

Regards,
SB

 

[Davros]

Why a carbon tax when carbon dioxide isn't a pollutant?

Its a greenhouse gas and contributes to climate change.
It is also a major cause of ocean acidification because it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid

One more time:

One more time I'm not asking what size engine is needed to power the car I'm asking what size engine is needed to partly charge the batteries

A few hundred years ago, the "consensus" was that the earth was flat.

But that was based on zero actual evidence.

There has been no conclusive proof that an increase in carbon dioxide is in any way harmful to life on earth.

Yes there is in fact we can investigate your claim with a simple experiment put a plastic bag over your head