[Rant] Electric cars, in particular Nissan Leaf

[Rick Law]

Last word is mine!

It is a typical tactic of climate change deniers to point out an aspect of climate science, say "This has a cooling effect!", claim that scientists are ignoring it, and move on to another topic before they can be called out on it.

The fact is that in almost all of these cases, scientists are investigating these phenomena. It just doesn't make for sensationalist headlines because in almost all cases the effects are shown to either be negligible, or in support of anthropogenic global warming.

In regards to albedo and clouds, read this summary:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/earth-albedo-effect.htm

Since you are not IanB to whom I said I wouldn't reply, and since you are suggesting that I am moving on to other topics because someone "calls me out", I suppose I should reply.

No, I am not moving on because "someone call me out."  I am however aware that there comes a point when discussion is no longer productive or interesting.  He is not seeing my point that "something an order of magnitude different should be investigated."  I am not seeing his point on why "average matters more than max and min".  So further discussion is no longer of use.

You are certainly right that "in almost all of these cases, scientists are investigating these phenomena."  That is what makes it more interesting that it is entirely ignored in this case.

[nctnico]

I don't even think climate change is relevant.

Whether or not the climate is warming (it most likely is) we cannot go on using oil which is becoming more political and even harder to find.

We also cannot use biofuels because, in my opinion, it is morally wrong to take something which is usable as a food product and which is restricted by supply, and use it for fuel. It will only cause food prices to rise which will hit the most needy hard.

That will change very soon (although a lot of bio fuel is already being made from used fats like vegetable oil used to fry food). In the near future (starting next year) there will be large scale factories which use agricultural leftovers to produce bio-fuel (www.poet-dsm.com). This means no food or land useful to grow food gets lost. Food may actually become cheaper because more of the crops can be used (well, the farmers probably get richer ). Currently bio-fuel already accounts for about 3% of the world's fuel consumption for transportation.

[Rufus]

<snipped>
 This means no food or land useful to grow food gets lost. Food may actually become cheaper because more of the crops can be used (well, the farmers probably get richer ). Currently bio-fuel already accounts for about 3% of the world's fuel consumption for transportation.

Don't forget water. Water is the key resource that will limit bio-fuel. And everything else.

4/5ths of the globe is kms deep in water. Where I live around 800,000 gallons just falls from the sky for every man woman and child in the country every year. Water is 100% recyclable and we have a solar powered purification plant the size of the planet.

[nctnico]

IMHO not really. Range is still a problem even for Tesla. The review in the NYT from last winter made that painfully clear.

Actually that article make it exceptionally clear just how adequate the Tesla's range is. Broader had to try really, really hard to make it run out of juice, repeatedly giving it less and less time to charge up, driving well above the speed limit, turning the heating up high and basically doing everything he could to flatten the battery. The fact that he found it so hard shows just how much better the range was than he expected, and how far you can really go in a Tesla.

Did you actually read the article? Broder got tired of waiting (in the bitter cold) and charged to Tesla until the range indicator showed he had enough charge to make the trip planned for the next day. However the next morning it became clear the cold batteries had lost a significant amount of charge. Secondly the range indicator isn't pessimistic. If you read the follow up article showing Tesla's graph you can clearly see its way too optimistic. You can argue what you want but Tesla basically says you should drive slow to achieve the range the range indicator shows and that you shouldn't turn on the heater even if your fingers are freezing off. That doesn't make for a compelling argument to buy an electric vehicle.

A lot of technical people see users make stupid mistakes because the user doesn't seem to understand the underlying technology. IMHO that is a failure of the technical people. They should make a product in a way the user doesn't have to understand the underlying technology.

[nctnico]

Did you actually read the article? Broder got tired of waiting (in the bitter cold) and charged to Tesla until the range indicator showed he had enough charge to make the trip planned for the next day.

Which was moronic. Who stands there in the bitter cold waiting for the car to charge instead of just going indoors or sitting in the car and checking their email on the nice 17" LCD screen in the dash?

I stand next to my car when I pour fuel in it and most gas stations require to turn of the ignition so waiting outside for an electric car to charge isn't abnormal behaviour. Maybe Tesla should somehow encourage drivers to sit inside the car and wait for it to charge. For people used to gasoline powered cars its far from obvious to sit inside the car while its being 'fueled'.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Ah yes, the Dolt continues to lose traction. Sales down 38% even with a $5000 price reduction. The good news is if you want to lease a Volt in the US, you could end up paying $4000 or less, for a two year lease. See the two below articles:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/10/02/chevy-volt-september-sales-plunge-cost-taxpayers-over-13-million
http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/09/13/gm-admits-there-no-market-chevy-volt

--It has been argued in this thread (with supporting citations) that total lifetime energy costs for EVs are not markedly different from that of ICE equipt vehicles, if the energy used in construction is counted. If one were to assume arguendo that this contention is correct, then the argument for taxing the working poor in order that the more well to do can drive EVs, loses much of its raison d'être, with or without AGW. Yes? And, of course similar arguments could be made with regard to Wind and PV Solar. The exception being Passive Solar which is a proven winner, at least here in the Southern US, and similar Latitudes.

--I am not against EVs. Far from it. If that is what people want and the market is willing to provide it, more power to them both. But if it does not fit, do not force it. If Dave can save money and headaches by using PV to power an EV "Peevy Eevy", plus have a whole lot of good electronics fun, which is one of the reasons for owning gear, I say good on ya. I would likely do the same, if I could, not for the Polar Bears but just out of plain cussedness. For now I have to get along, by recycling other peoples discards be they vehicles, appliances, or what have you.

--Also, Tom makes a very good point about EVs being indifferent to the ultimate end source of their electrons, a point very much in their favor. If I want to use my electric lawn mower, or weed eater, I do not have to drive and ICE or and EV to the Gas Station to get fuel.

"I don't know what the term is in Austrian ..."
Barack Hussein Obama 1961 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[Phaedrus]

Broder also drove his Tesla in circles in a parking lot for several hours to force it to drain battery...

[nctnico]

Not several hours. About 15 minutes IIRC. My wife also does that trying to find a parking spot she thinks is the closest to the shop.

[Fluxed Matter]

Just saw this on the news this morning. According to the new the driver hit something in the road that caused damage to the battery packs which caused the fire. They had to cut the battery pack open to put it out.

[Poe]

I can't wait to own an electric car, but I don't think battery tech is there yet.

The OP comparing the Tesla/Leaf/Gas cars is very silly though.  That's like being amazed clothes at WalMart are not as nice as the cloths you purchase at 5x the price.

Just out of HONEST curiosity, I would have asked these questions:

1. How much would the Tesla models cost without subsidies and tax waivers (given to manufacturers and buyers)?  Some reports as much as +60% MSRP when all said and done.  How does the Leaf compare?
2. Raw materials now account for 75% of lithium cell cost, so future savings are highly unlikely.  Do they foresee a way to produce a less expensive car without a new battery technology? 
3. When Tesla engineers decided to use 18650 cells, I can only assume it was for their low price per Joule.  Unfortunately we in the industry know that low price was due to Panasonic going crazy over producing that format while the industry started to move away toward foil bags for smaller size.  Do they foresee battery pack cost increasing considering the cost of these cells is expected to rise significantly?
4. The Prius only uses 40% of it's total battery capacity to increase lifespan and number of usable cycles.  It keeps it's battery between 40% - 80% to eek out 10 years to 75% capacity.  Do you have to do this in the Tesla for their claimed seven years / 100k miles?  Once per week I travel 220 miles round trip.  No owners on the forum appear to do this kind of driving.  Reports of tests performed on 100k battery packs were lightly cycled.  Nissan appears to just underrate and electronically limit usable capacity to 60% based off some articles.
5. What kind of warranty or replacement program do they have for those batteries?  I know Tesla's battery-quick-swap is temporary and you get charged a rental fee until your return it.  They stopped the $12k replacement program when it became apparent they were going to loose money.  How much to get a whole new pack after the seven years ($40k?).  How much is the Leaf's battery and how long is it expected to last?
6. When factoring the cost of battery replacement alone every seven years, wouldn't I have to travel over 200k miles in those seven years before it STARTED to be cheaper to operate than a car which gets ~20mpg? 
7. I see in the warranty that I'm responsible for rbattery eplacement if it ever completely self discharges.  What happens then?  Looks like it would happen on vacation if your airport isn't close by.  Tesla's solution is to leave it plugged in, but that doesn't sound ideal.  e.g. No road trips or airports where you can't rely on a hotel that gives power line access.  What happens if an electrical breaker trips or cable comes unplugged and I don't catch it because I'm on vacation?  $40k is a big mistake for just missing a breaker.  Their phone call alerts depend on your car's wireless signal.  I would be pissed to cut short a vacation because my car needed charged.  Why can't they completely disconnect the batteries at 5%?
8. Have there been any long term testing in (real) cold climates?  Knowing what I do about how lithium batteries and cold, I wouldn't expect good performance.
9.  Speaking of cold weather, I understand the batteries are heated.  Some reports claim as much as 4kiloWatt hours per day in IDLE electricity usage.  Is this primarily due to the battery heater, or some other set of electronic systems?  Although that's plenty of wasted power, ~$200 bucks in additional electricity usage isn't a big issue I guess.  I'm kind of curious if a fix is possible or is it an essential technical compromise due to lithium's cold weather performance.  Maybe it's the sum product of all the individual battery monitors?
10. When using a supercharge station, how does that affect your battery?  I can see busy people only using the supercharge station as they currently only use gas stations.  Would these quick 20min charges prematurely wear out your battery's capacity?  I would love to see residual capacity of a battery after 100k miles were put on it via charged at home to 100% then discharged to nil and supercharged to 50% then topped off again at home each cycle.
11. As I understand it, the amount charged during the initial 20min interval depends on the car's present charge.  So a half full battery can only charge to 50% in 20min if empty.  If you need to go on a 150mile trip and your car has enough for 100miles, you'll need to wait much longer than 20min.  Is this correct?  Where can I find some better detail?
12. Is regenerative braking really disabled in cold weather?  Why? 
13. Cold weather range is 160 miles based on some reports.  What is typical?  Sorry for all the cold weather questions, I don't live in Cali.
14. Tesla has so far only sold about as many cars as GM sells in a week, has service kept up with their growth?  I don't want to spend luxury car money and get Nissan quality service.
15. How long and how much do repairs take?  I have seen some pretty painful reports, but can't tell if those were outlier cases.  I see none have caught fire.  That's good, but how many have been in a bad enough accident that the battery shell was compromised?  I don't see how they prevent the simple chemical reaction of Lithium + Oxygen + Heat.

[free_electron]

Just saw this on the news this morning. According to the new the driver hit something in the road that caused damage to the battery packs which caused the fire. They had to cut the battery pack open to put it out.

incorrect.
The driver hit something that went in the front of the car. it punctured the standard 12 volt battery that sits there , that caught fire ,melted the brake and steering fluid lines and that stuff got fire.
The main battery pack was never damaged, the firewall between cabin and nose was not breached.

So essentially this is a non-event. take any car , set its 12 volt nose mounted battery on fire and you will have the same, or worse (since there is also gasoline), outcome...

Here is what is in the nose of a tesla , under the cargospace. the battery sits even more forward in the bumper area, like most cars

[Rufus]

incorrect.
The driver hit something that went in the front of the car. it punctured the standard 12 volt battery that sits there , that caught fire ,melted the brake and steering fluid lines and that stuff got fire.
The main battery pack was never damaged, the firewall between cabin and nose was not breached.

Yeah I'm sure you are correct as usual while 5 minutes on the web will reveal lots of incorrect people like Tesla themselves stating....

"The fire was caused by the direct impact of a large metallic object to one of the 16 modules within the Model S battery pack. Because each module within the battery pack is, by design, isolated by fire barriers to limit any potential damage, the fire in the battery pack was contained to a small section in the front of the vehicle."

[nctnico]

Just saw this on the news this morning. According to the new the driver hit something in the road that caused damage to the battery packs which caused the fire. They had to cut the battery pack open to put it out.

incorrect.
The driver hit something that went in the front of the car. it punctured the standard 12 volt battery that sits there , that caught fire ,melted the brake and steering fluid lines and that stuff got fire.
The main battery pack was never damaged, the firewall between cabin and nose was not breached.

So essentially this is a non-event. take any car , set its 12 volt nose mounted battery on fire and you will have the same, or worse (since there is also gasoline), outcome...

Here is what is in the nose of a tesla , under the cargospace. the battery sits even more forward in the bumper area, like most cars

I've never seen a car with the battery behind the bumper (it would be hard to get a good rating on pedestrian-collission safety). Its always as close as possible to to the front window and in newer cars the battery is often placed in the rear. Oh and who said an electric car isn't complicated? I spot several electric coolant pumps and high pressure lines from a heat pump system running across the entire front.

[ElectroIrradiator]

I've never seen a car with the battery behind the bumper (it would be hard to get a good rating on pedestrian-collission safety). Its always as close as possible to to the front window and in newer cars the battery is often placed in the rear. Oh and who said an electric car isn't complicated? I spot several electric coolant pumps and high pressure lines from a heat pump system running across the entire front.

Not sure if this is what is meant by 'behind the bumper', yet a Lexus LS-400 has the battery right behind the LH front headlight, to the left of the radiator fan shroud. It sits just below the hood.

Many other Japanese cars have a similar battery placement, or possibly in the other side. So do some smaller German cars.

[free_electron]

I've never seen a car with the battery behind the bumper (it would be hard to get a good rating on pedestrian-collission safety). Its always as close as possible to to the front window and in newer cars the battery is often placed in the rear. Oh and who said an electric car isn't complicated? I spot several electric coolant pumps and high pressure lines from a heat pump system running across the entire front.

Not sure if this is what is meant by 'behind the bumper', yet a Lexus LS-400 has the battery right behind the LH front headlight, to the left of the radiator fan shroud. It sits just below the hood.

Many other Japanese cars have a similar battery placement, or possibly in the other side. So do some smaller German cars.

in my chrysler it sits in the before the front  left wheel. you need to take the left front wheel off to be able to remove it.
My volkswagen golf had the battery also front left of the nose. Same for my dad's renault Scenic.

[free_electron]

Yeah I'm sure you are correct as usual while 5 minutes on the web will reveal lots of incorrect people like Tesla themselves stating....

"The fire was caused by the direct impact of a large metallic object to one of the 16 modules within the Model S battery pack. Because each module within the battery pack is, by design, isolated by fire barriers to limit any potential damage, the fire in the battery pack was contained to a small section in the front of the vehicle."

The information i posted is based on what was known on wednesday from the firemans report (jalopnik) . So apparently Tesla knows more now. Good. i am confident they'll figure it out. It was an accident.

[tom66]

Normal car on fire: Huh. That sucks. Hope they're OK.
Tesla on fire: Oh my god! Tesla cars are unsafe!

Still, it's worrying why the intumescent material did not prevent the cell fire from spreading out of the pack. A pack being punctured is quite easy given the under-belly battery design. Maybe they'll reinforce the bottoms of the pack in some way in future cars.

[nctnico]

I stand next to my car when I pour fuel in it and most gas stations require to turn of the ignition so waiting outside for an electric car to charge isn't abnormal behaviour. Maybe Tesla should somehow encourage drivers to sit inside the car and wait for it to charge. For people used to gasoline powered cars its far from obvious to sit inside the car while its being 'fueled'.

Yes, you stand there when you pump flammable liquid into it. In Europe you actually have to old a lever down to make the petrol come out, otherwise nothing happens. With an EV you plug in and walk away. If you are not using a supercharger it can take hours to charge up, and clearly no one (except you) is going to stand there for hours waiting.

We where talking about the supercharger. And I'll like to see your face if some culprit unplugs your electric car at a charging station while you are off doing god knows what 

For what it's worth the owners manual does state that you don't need to stand next to the car watching it for half an hour while it charges. Tesla even provide a way to remotely monitor the charging process from you phone, so you can be notified as soon as it is ready.

Who reads manuals these days? Today I had an interesting discussion with a customer about this. He also sells devices to consumers. He told me the less buttons the better; the ideal device only has a mains plug. The key phrase to keep customers happy is 'managing expectations'.

[amyk]

Just saw this on the news this morning. According to the new the driver hit something in the road that caused damage to the battery packs which caused the fire. They had to cut the battery pack open to put it out.

Was an automatic fire-extinguishing system (like what they have on planes) too expensive?

[free_electron]

We where talking about the supercharger. And I'll like to see your face if some culprit unplugs your electric car at a charging station

Doesnt work. The tesla locks the plug in the socket. It will not release until the owner is around . As far as i know the remote that unlocks the doors needs to be within range for the charger to release as well.

Anyway. Tesla drivers are a civilised and courteous. They even have a tesla-nod now

There is more news about the fire.
So it is apparently confirmed the battery pack got damaged. And a pack ( not an individual 18650, but a group of them combined. The tesla batterypack is like a honecomb structure inside. The individual 18650 are clustered in packs.) hot damaged and started burning.

The honeycomb did its work. The intumescent activated and prevented the fire from spreading to adjacent packs. So the mechanically damaged packs burned out.

Apparently that pack was he closest to the front of the car. The damage from the impact had also severed hydrolic lines (brakes , uspension, steering) containig oil. So that is why there was the big blaze.

And then the firemen threw water on it....

There is no damage inside the passenger cabin. There is, just like in regular cars, a firewall between front and cabin. The tesla also has a firewall between cabin and battery.

So. If tesla is smart they will do 1 thing: change the hydrolic fluids to non flammable ones.
Surely there has to exist synthetic oils that are not flammable.

Then there is still the question of what was hit ? Lets say that was a leafblower or hedge trimmer that fell off a maintenance truck ( i've seen a few along the roadside..). Those contain a cannister with gasoline !

The firemen also hacked into the battery to try to exti guish it... Bad move ! They could have damaged more packs doing that making things worse
This actually raises another important question: we will need new strategies to deal with electric car fires... Just dumping water on it doesn't work !

And here is another succulent detail: amount of cars catching fire in one year ? 165000. But when a Tesla catches fire it is frontpage news. I remember certain ferrari series have a born in propensity to catch fire all by themselves if you just drive em. I also vagueley remeber boeing airliners having battery problems. And the chevy volt also had fires because of their batteries.

Anyway. I don't care. It is a non-event. It passed all crash testing and safety testing and they never managed to set the battery off. This is just a freak accident. Accidents happen.
Gottago dome some math now...

[elgonzo]

And then the firemen threw water on it....

What sort of firemen try to extinguish a car fire with water?

Even if they falsely assumed that a petrol car was on fire, you would not use water, but powder/dry/foam extinguisher. If you would try to extinguish a gas(petroleum) fire with water, the gas would just swim on the water film, continuing burning while it is flushed all over the road, not to mention the potential environmental contamination such action might cause.

Water would only be used for cooling in exceptional cases (for example, to cool a tanker whose cab is on fire).

Hacking onto/punching into the car while it is on fire is also an odd behavior for firemen.

That report really sounds somewhat strange to me...

[tom66]

Maybe they assumed electric cars are different? It does say "water is a suitable extinguishing medium".

[elgonzo]

Maybe they assumed electric cars are different? It does say "water is a suitable extinguishing medium".

Yes, for small batteries water is okay; i guess because the environmental impact is limited(?) or their reactive mass smaller(?).

But for large car batteries, what would be the risk of environmental contamination, if compounds from within the battery are flushed into the soil with the water?

I have to admit, i don't have knowledge about that. But usually it is disallowed to dump (Li) batteries into the general waste, so i guess they contain substances that are harmful to the environment.

To minimize the risk of contamination, especially when dealing with large batteries such as in cars, i would expect firemen to use either CO2 or (if the fire is larger) foam, but not water. The burning battery might also ignite other parts of the car made of rubber or plastics, in which case extinguishing with water would pose an additional potential for environmental contamination.

Somehow, water does not make sense at all...

EDIT: I stand corrected. German DEKRA did some tests with burning car batteries approx. 1 year ago (English here, German original here)and water is useful for cooling the burning battery, but it was less effective as extinguishing agent in its liquid form. A water-based gel would be among the preferable solutions, the DEKRA report suggests.

[nctnico]

Hacking onto/punching into the car while it is on fire is also an odd behavior for firemen.

That report really sounds somewhat strange to me...

If reporters had a proper education they wouldn't be reporters  AFAIK all firemen have already been trained dealing with electric cars.

[free_electron]

excerpt from the official report

"In an incident report released under Washington state's public records law, firefighters wrote that they appeared to have Tuesday's fire under control, but the flames reignited. Crews found that water seemed to intensify the fire, so they began using a dry chemical extinguisher.
After dismantling the front end of the vehicle and puncturing holes in the battery pack, responders used a circular saw to cut an access hole in the front section to apply water to the battery, according to documents. Only then was the fire extinguished. "

so they did throw water on it first, only later switched to a dry chemical
and yes they did hack into it... with a circular saw nonetheless.

time for some re-education...