Author Topic: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?  (Read 64146 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline nctnico

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 26751
  • Country: nl
    • NCT Developments
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #450 on: January 10, 2020, 01:51:42 am »
But it isn't. Compared to an modern hybrid (we are not going to compare 20 year old diesel cars with brand new EVs ofcourse) the hybrid wins both on SO2 and NOx. Even in China <10ppm sulfur content fuel is mandatory for cars (and trucks). However coal and gas fired plants (and also the plants which burn bio-mass!) are under much less strict regulations compared to ICE cars. These are simple government regulations which make EVs much more dirty to operate. Now ofcourse people can continue to claim this will change in the future but fail to state when exactly. Fossil fuels aren't going away in the next 5 years (and probably longer because at some point fossil fuels can't be replaced without storage) so a modern hybrid is the cleanest choice *in china*.
You somehow forgot that point, again, for the third time. Has a single person from China or India posted in this thread?
Even in your own country its only 15% coal: https://build.export.gov/build/groups/public/@eg_us_ca/documents/webcontent/eg_us_ca_112261.pdf
With the commitment to shut all coal plants down by 2029.
The Netherlands is just a small country in Europe. SO2 doesn't stop at the border. And natural gas powered plants still emit lots of NOx. If you look at Europe then you'll see fossil fuels are near 50% and this number is massively skewed by France due to their nuclear power plants. Other countries are still far behind; Poland for example which get 80% of their energy from coal according to your document. Or look at Denmark. Just to highlight that EVs aren't a universal solution to preventing pollution. There is a much bigger picture than cherry picking countries which seem to be ahead. The differences in Europe are huge.

Besides that we'll have to see if the coal plants actually get shut down in the NL since 2029 is far away. There are contracts to burn bio-mass and the political climate may change too. The climate sceptic parties have quite a lot of voters behind them. The biggest problem is that the energy transition in general is going to hit the people who have least to spend the hardest. Look at how the French nearly got into a revolution last year because the fuel prices where increased.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 02:02:00 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • !
  • Posts: 2699
  • Country: tr
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #451 on: January 10, 2020, 08:45:16 am »
There are about 275e6 cars in the USA (1), electricity generation is 4171e9 kWh/year (2), double the generation figure and you could have 4171e9/275e6/365.25= 42 kWh/car/day.

(1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/183505/number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-1990/
(2) https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

I'm not following what you are trying to say here or what your point is.

If all the cars in the USA were EVs, how much more electricity would they need?

Generating 2x as much, they'd have 42 kWh/car/day which is +200 km/car/day (124 miles).
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 

Offline lpickup

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 98
  • Country: us
  • Uncle Bobby Dazzler
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #452 on: January 10, 2020, 02:57:26 pm »
There are about 275e6 cars in the USA (1), electricity generation is 4171e9 kWh/year (2), double the generation figure and you could have 4171e9/275e6/365.25= 42 kWh/car/day.

(1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/183505/number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-1990/
(2) https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

I'm not following what you are trying to say here or what your point is.

If all the cars in the USA were EVs, how much more electricity would they need?

Generating 2x as much, they'd have 42 kWh/car/day which is +200 km/car/day (124 miles).

If this is what you're trying to determine, then may I suggest you go this route:

In the US, the average car drives 14,000 miles per year, or about 40 miles per day.

Most EVs get between 3.5 and 4.5 miles per kWh (at least today).  I will stipulate that in the future, as bigger and less aerodynamic EVs like SUVs and pickup trucks are made electric, that figure will probably drop.  So let's even call it 3 miles/kWh.

That would be 13.33kWh per car per day, not 42kWh/car/day.

So that is the additional energy that must be generated.  But something you did not address (but which I see asked about all the time) is this:

13.33kWh/car/day = 4869kWh per car/year
times 275e6 cars in the US = 1339e9 kWh per year for cars
which is 32% more than we are generating today

Does that mean we need 32% more generating capacity in the US?

Definitely not, because most of our generating capacity is sitting idle at times that EVs would be charging.


 
The following users thanked this post: thm_w, SilverSolder, boffin, sokoloff

Offline sokoloff

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1799
  • Country: us
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #453 on: January 10, 2020, 03:08:51 pm »
because most of our generating capacity is sitting idle at times that EVs would be charging.
Further, as an electric car owner, I don't care when my car gets charged (and I have a low capacity LEAF); I just need to ensure it gets charged two to three times per week, anytime.

I'm going to be fairly responsive to any incentives offered to charge at a time that is convenient for the electric utility, especially if it's easy for me.

Give me a charger that "decides" when/how fast to charge (with an ability for me to override it if I really want to charge now), and you can create a ready-made 25+% of the total grid load controllable load to help you create a smoother baseline than is even possible today.
 
The following users thanked this post: thm_w, GeorgeOfTheJungle

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • !
  • Posts: 2699
  • Country: tr
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #454 on: January 10, 2020, 04:18:10 pm »
In the US, the average car drives 14,000 miles per year, or about 40 miles per day.

 :-+, that's a figure I didn't know. Then 40/124= 0.32 => no need to generate 2x as much, 1.32x would do.

So let's even call it 3 miles/kWh.

Agreed, 3 miles/kWh ~= 20 kWh/100km = the figure I used above.

Does that mean we need 32% more generating capacity in the US?

Definitely not, because most of our generating capacity is sitting idle at times that EVs would be charging.

Installed power is always > generated power (specially for renewables) buuuut, for any increase in load at peak hours you're going to have to increase installed power that's for sure. IOW, as it is now, you can only count on being able to increase generation at off-peak hours (or buy it from your neighbour, as Germany is doing now so often).

Most people would be ok recharging at night no problem I'd think, so it'd be fine I guess.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 04:32:46 pm by GeorgeOfTheJungle »
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 

Offline lpickup

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 98
  • Country: us
  • Uncle Bobby Dazzler
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #455 on: January 10, 2020, 04:35:14 pm »
Installed power is always > generated power (specially for renewables) buuuut, for any increase in load at peak hours you're going to have to increase installed power that's for sure. IOW, as it is now, you can only count on being able to increase generation at off-peak hours (or buy it to your neighbour, as Germany is doing now so often).

Which is how it's always been, EVs or not.  The grid has more or less been expanding every year since it was built, although in recent years it's more or less leveled off, presumably due to conservation and more efficient appliances and things like LED light bulbs.

Also consider that peak demand is also seasonal:  in most of the country, summer peak is much more than winter peak.  I suppose your point is still valid that if all cars in the US were EV and some percentage of them wanted to plug in in the middle of the hottest afternoon in the summer that the grid would have to be larger than it is today to handle that.  I'd agree with that.  At the same time, I would hope that future grid expansion for this scenario would be comprised of solar, particularly since there should be plenty of sun on those hot summer days.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • !
  • Posts: 2699
  • Country: tr
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #456 on: January 10, 2020, 04:45:09 pm »
Installed power is always > generated power (specially for renewables) buuuut, for any increase in load at peak hours you're going to have to increase installed power that's for sure. IOW, as it is now, you can only count on being able to increase generation at off-peak hours (or buy it to your neighbour, as Germany is doing now so often).

Which is how it's always been, EVs or not.  The grid has more or less been expanding every year since it was built, although in recent years it's more or less leveled off, presumably due to conservation and more efficient appliances and things like LED light bulbs.

Also consider that peak demand is also seasonal:  in most of the country, summer peak is much more than winter peak.  I suppose your point is still valid that if all cars in the US were EV and some percentage of them wanted to plug in in the middle of the hottest afternoon in the summer that the grid would have to be larger than it is today to handle that.  I'd agree with that.  At the same time, I would hope that future grid expansion for this scenario would be comprised of solar, particularly since there should be plenty of sun on those hot summer days.

If only PVs would work at night... we could comfortably recharge the EVs at home for free at night while sleeping. Damn it!
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 04:59:47 pm by GeorgeOfTheJungle »
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 

Offline boffin

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 1027
  • Country: ca
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #457 on: January 10, 2020, 07:00:38 pm »
In the US, the average car drives 14,000 miles per year, or about 40 miles per day.

Most EVs get between 3.5 and 4.5 miles per kWh (at least today).  I will stipulate that in the future, as bigger and less aerodynamic EVs like SUVs and pickup trucks are made electric, that figure will probably drop.  So let's even call it 3 miles/kWh.

That would be 13.33kWh per car per day, not 42kWh/car/day.

So that is the additional energy that must be generated.  But something you did not address (but which I see asked about all the time) is this:

13.33kWh/car/day = 4869kWh per car/year
times 275e6 cars in the US = 1339e9 kWh per year for cars
which is 32% more than we are generating today

Does that mean we need 32% more generating capacity in the US?

Definitely not, because most of our generating capacity is sitting idle at times that EVs would be charging.

You're comparing two different numbers
average miles driven per American per year: 13,476  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
but then multiplying it by the number of vehicles in the USA which are different things.  There are plenty of people who own more than one vehicle... (more than own 0 vehicles)

There are 263m registered vehicles in the USA, but only 222m registered drivers

so multiply your number by 222m not 275m....

 

Online tszaboo

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7305
  • Country: nl
  • Current job: ATEX product design
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #458 on: January 10, 2020, 11:34:19 pm »
If only PVs would work at night... we could comfortably recharge the EVs at home for free at night while sleeping. Damn it!
You can just charge it at work. Comes as an employee benefit.

And most of those countries have almost no people living in there. So meh...
Small countries like Brazil, right?

 
The following users thanked this post: thm_w

Online coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8605
  • Country: gb
Re: eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?
« Reply #459 on: January 10, 2020, 11:54:56 pm »
If only PVs would work at night... we could comfortably recharge the EVs at home for free at night while sleeping. Damn it!
You can just charge it at work. Comes as an employee benefit.

And most of those countries have almost no people living in there. So meh...
Small countries like Brazil, right?
The population density of Brazil is quite low. They have a lot of area gathering hydro energy to be used by a relatively small number of people.
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf