General > General Technical Chat
The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
peter-h:
The immediate issue is distribution at street level.
A few Teslas on a street, each charging at say 20kW (which itself needs an upgraded feed to the house, probably 3 phase) and the transformer at the end of the street will blow up :) So there is no way EV will work for serious commuters.
EVs will work for little cars doing short journeys, and a lot of people do that. What we don't know is how many people are willing to limit themselves to a little runabout vehicle, with little or no heating or aircon, when everything suggests people want the opposite. They could also run a big car like a Tesla but again only if they don't drive it much.
And modern diesels are really efficient. A VW Golf will do nearly 70mpg on a long run and amazingly averages over 50 in slow moving traffic. I never saw that in my petrol days; 10mpg in traffic was normal. When you get to the stage when you are filling up the tank only once a month, the case for getting rid of it is exactly zero.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: blueskull on February 14, 2020, 02:35:12 am ---Solar, wind, fossil and nuclear.
Even burning coal to make electricity is way more efficient than burning gas in your car.
The state of the art commercially operating coal generator has around 47.6% efficiency, and the average is around 40%, which is way higher than 31% in gas engines.
--- End quote ---
But it isn't. It is a very common misconception. Coal typically sits at 1000gr/CO2 per kWh electricity. Use that for an EV and the EV will produce about 200gr CO2/km (plus a shitload of NOx and SO which is the stuff that kills you). An efficient hybrid emits less than 100gr/CO2 per km (without taking addition of bio-fuels into account) AND emits almost no SO2 (even in China where <10ppm Sulphur content in fuel is mandatory) and several times less NOx.
BTW: This website has some very interesting numbers on how car makers are (not) on track to meet the EU CO2 emissions targets: https://www.paconsulting.com/insights/2019/co2-emissions-are-increasing/. Toyota is the only manufacturer which is on target. The rest is way off. And to give an idea of how little impact EVs have on CO2 emissions: In 2019 EVs had a 12% market share in the Netherlands and yet the average CO2 emission per new car went up instead of down. In 2015 the average new car (sold in the NL) emitted 105gr CO2 per km; in 2019 that has increased to 117gr CO2/km. And this is under the false assumption EVs don't emit any CO2 so the actual number is much higher. To me it is very clear that car manufacturers have -yet again- been succesful at lobbying to allow a 'solution' which doesn't work out. Fortunately the EU has been clever enough to set emission limits. The Netherlands even went a step further with an extra sales tax based on CO2 emission so inefficient cars are more expensive to buy.
VK3DRB:
--- Quote from: Dundarave on February 14, 2020, 01:34:43 am ---According to Wikipedia, 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, so the daily equivalent in gas would be 391.4 million x 33.7 kWh = 13,190 million kWh. That’s many millions of new kWh per day that would be needed to replace all the gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.
--- End quote ---
"Needed"? How about changing our lifestyle. Start by decentralising and stop consuming so much.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: VK3DRB on February 14, 2020, 09:52:44 am ---
--- Quote from: Dundarave on February 14, 2020, 01:34:43 am ---According to Wikipedia, 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, so the daily equivalent in gas would be 391.4 million x 33.7 kWh = 13,190 million kWh. That’s many millions of new kWh per day that would be needed to replace all the gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.
--- End quote ---
"Needed"? How about changing our lifestyle. Start by decentralising and stop consuming so much.
--- End quote ---
It is too late for that. The problem is that good jobs are near cities so prices of houses went up astronomically. This means that both partners of a family need to work because you can't afford housing from a single income. In turn this leads to finding a home somewhere close (but never optimal) to both companies where the jobs are so the commute isn't too far. A lot has to do with planning. The city I live in is relatively young (I'm older) and instead of having industry at the edge of the city the industrial/commcercial areas are mixed with the housing areas so -in theory- people can have a short commute.
Psi:
There has been a lot of new developments in making better and especially cheaper solar panels with acceptable efficiency.
So I imagine it's going to become a no-brainer to put solar panels on the roof of most buildings within the next 10 years.
Even if you don't feed onto the grid, being able to charge your electric car from it makes a ton of sense. (using powerwall or other intermediate storage unit)
Even in situations where solar panels are currently not considered due to not getting a lot of sun.
The economics/feasibility can quickly change if the price drops to 1/3.
Imagine being able to inkjet print solar cells onto a material. The price could potentially fall an order of magnitude once the technology full matures. That's probably more like 20 years away but 5-10 years is enough for a considerable price drop that makes it normal to have panels on your roof.
There's a reason Tesla is working on their powerwall and solarroof products.
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