Electric Car Experiences

[NiHaoMike]

Hi. Someone in our town needed new batteries in his Prius and didn't like the price, took the car to the scrap metal yard. When the recyclers looked into what to do with the old battery, they found lots of restrictive laws, no depot in the country equipped/authorized to recycle them, so there it sits! They can't dispose of the battery.

They should just auction it off, plenty of DIYers would like to get one for dirt cheap. Some other DIYers would be interested in the rest of the car to build a plug in hybrid out of.

[f4eru]

Not that easy to build a good PHEV out of a prius, unfortunately, because when reaching 50-60km/h the ICE must unfortunately turn because MG1 needs to deliver power.
One option would perhaps be to rip out the ICE and build a full EV. Not sure if it has been done

[stefan_trekkie]

.. This discussion it seams will be endless. I have few words to say.. On the political/people point of view.
I have worked on 'electro-car' fork lifters and little pickup trucks like used inside factories for more then a decade now. They all are with Lead-acid style battery packs and seems to do good job .. Around 5 years of life and can be recycled .. All day use, all night in the charging station ~ 250 work days per year.. But after 5 years that is 3k€ for a new pack.. A lithium based pack will be at least 3-4 times more in price.. As that said we come to my original idea to write in this topic - In not so developed counties like mine is crazy expensive to get an EV, there is no charging stations, most of the people live in big blocks of apartments with no garages .. And most of them have 2nd hand 20+ years old ICE cars.. I they will use them util total failure happens with absolutely no thoughts for the nature and how bad the emissions are. When i ask some of them about that responses are something like: I don't care; people after me must think about that; are you crazy ?; why do you care? etc.. etc.. And they still use coal vastly for heating in the winter. Coal power plants have ways of reducing sulfur by combining it with another stuffs and get gypsum in the end. Using few stages of burning and get away will "most" of that bad stuff in the Coal. That way you can use that somewhat more clean way to get electrical power and used for heating and EVs .. And the nuclear energy is mostly clean, water energy is clean too. People don't want to save, they want everything cheap and in the moment, no matter that they will have nothing tomorrow ... And that is everywhere in the world but is more true for more poorer counties .. If you have EV and charge it with wind turbine in your house - that will be the perfect thing to do.. Nothing more then EVs for a personal transport will economy be viable .. ever.
Let's hope that solid state batteries are coming soon.
On the oil side of things - The asphalt in the roads is the last and heaviest product leftover from the oil refineries, the tires are mostly from similar products, the plastics too, the paints.. The manufacturing energy and the materials are mostly fossil fuels or they use mostly fossil fuels to make them .. It is too big to covered it all.
Don't hate me please.. 

[SilverSolder]

Not that easy to build a good PHEV out of a prius, unfortunately, because when reaching 50-60km/h the ICE must unfortunately turn because MG1 needs to deliver power.
One option would perhaps be to rip out the ICE and build a full EV. Not sure if it has been done

Plug-in Prius does 72mph on electric?

[f4eru]

The newest prius PHEV can go faster on electric but is not available used for cheap because it's new,
so not a good candidate either for a full EV conversion.
In a few years, when the ICE in it will be hopeless, and the price down, maybe

[sokoloff]

The newest prius PHEV can go faster on electric but is not available used for cheap because it's new,
so not a good candidate either for a full EV conversion.
In a few years, when the ICE in it will be hopeless, and the price down, maybe

When waiting for a Toyota HSD ICE engine to die, it’s advised to bring a lot of patience. That system has proven extremely reliable, low maintenance, and long-lived.

[SilverSolder]

The newest prius PHEV can go faster on electric but is not available used for cheap because it's new,
so not a good candidate either for a full EV conversion.
In a few years, when the ICE in it will be hopeless, and the price down, maybe

When waiting for a Toyota HSD ICE engine to die, it’s advised to bring a lot of patience. That system has proven extremely reliable, low maintenance, and long-lived.

The Prius has the lowest maintenance costs of all comparable cars, according to an article I read recently...   It is truly a remarkable vehicle.

[boffin]

Hi. Someone in our town needed new batteries in his Prius and didn't like the price, took the car to the scrap metal yard. When the recyclers looked into what to do with the old battery, they found lots of restrictive laws, no depot in the country equipped/authorized to recycle them, so there it sits! They can't dispose of the battery.

It's about a 20 minute job to remove the small NiMH battery pack from a Prius, at which point it would appear like any other car to a recycler.
Here's a video on a full replacement, done in the driveway.

[nctnico]

are you crazy ?; why do you care? etc.. etc.. And they still use coal vastly for heating in the winter. Coal power plants have ways of reducing sulfur by combining it with another stuffs and get gypsum in the end.

Uuhmmm... no. In the EU fuel is free of sulfur (since 2015) but coal power plants are still emitting SO2 (*). So in the end an EV will emit way more SO2 compared to an ICE car. Ofcourse this will vary per country depening on how much coal is used. Keep in mind lots of electricity is generated locally using coal but the CO2 emissions are compensated through emission trade. The same goes for NOx emissions. In the Netherlands the average EV is barely meeting the Euro6 standard when it comes to NOx emissions and more strict emission regulations are coming up for ICEs. SO2 and NOx are the emissions that make people sick and EVs put out more of these in areas where a significant portion of electricity is generated by coal. Currently the best option if you buy a new car is to get a hybrid. Low CO2 and toxic gas emissions.

* If coal power plants have to filter out all the SO2 then electricity would become way more expensive. The same for NOx.

[NiHaoMike]

With an EV, you can reduce its emissions by installing your own solar power. Also, it would be interesting to find out what emissions the refinery puts out in the making of gasoline or diesel.

* If coal power plants have to filter out all the SO2 then electricity would become way more expensive. The same for NOx.

So then do that and the emissions of all the EVs will drop. Of course, that would also make them less competitive compared to hybrids.

[nctnico]

With an EV, you can reduce its emissions by installing your own solar power. Also, it would be interesting to find out what emissions the refinery puts out in the making of gasoline or diesel.

* If coal power plants have to filter out all the SO2 then electricity would become way more expensive. The same for NOx.

So then do that and the emissions of all the EVs will drop. Of course, that would also make them less competitive compared to hybrids.

Not quite because an EV needs a lot more materials to build which need to be mined and processed. This usually happens in countries with little or no regulations with great effect on the people's health over there. EVs are simply not the solution if you look at the big picture. Way too many downsides both from an environmental and logistics (material availability, infrastructure,  costs, etc) point of view. China and Germany (where EV sales are next to zero) seem to have noticed these downsides and are currently giving hydrogen a huge boost. I estimate the chance that pure EVs will dissapear again in the next 10 years at 80% due to hydrogen and bio-fuels being better alternatives if you look at the big picture.

[sokoloff]

are you crazy ?; why do you care? etc.. etc.. And they still use coal vastly for heating in the winter. Coal power plants have ways of reducing sulfur by combining it with another stuffs and get gypsum in the end.

Uuhmmm... no. In the EU fuel is free of sulfur (since 2015) but coal power plants are still emitting SO2 (*).

Citation?

I see that the EU mandated Euro-V/ULSD (limit of 10 parts per million sulfur, down from 50 ppm in Euro-IV standard) in 2009, but can't find any more recent 0 ppm reference.

[nctnico]

are you crazy ?; why do you care? etc.. etc.. And they still use coal vastly for heating in the winter. Coal power plants have ways of reducing sulfur by combining it with another stuffs and get gypsum in the end.

Uuhmmm... no. In the EU fuel is free of sulfur (since 2015) but coal power plants are still emitting SO2 (*).

Citation?

I see that the EU mandated Euro-V/ULSD (limit of 10 parts per million sulfur, down from 50 ppm in Euro-IV standard) in 2009, but can't find any more recent 0 ppm reference.

Quick Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-low-sulfur_diesel#European_Union This says single digit ppm already in place before 2015.

[sokoloff]

Right. So not zero. Therefore, a claim that coal-based electricity definitely has more sulfur emissions requires math to check the validity of.

[NiHaoMike]

Not quite because an EV needs a lot more materials to build which need to be mined and processed. This usually happens in countries with little or no regulations with great effect on the people's health over there. EVs are simply not the solution if you look at the big picture. Way too many downsides both from an environmental and logistics (material availability, infrastructure,  costs, etc) point of view. China and Germany (where EV sales are next to zero) seem to have noticed these downsides and are currently giving hydrogen a huge boost. I estimate the chance that pure EVs will dissapear again in the next 10 years at 80% due to hydrogen and bio-fuels being better alternatives if you look at the big picture.

I'm under the impression that making hydrogen is a lot less efficient than charging batteries, or have things changed? Also, fuel cells are still really expensive thanks to the exotic materials needed.

Biofuels would be a good idea if implemented well. In particular, biofuels from ocean algae would solve the water and land use problems.

[richard.cs]

I've been struggling to find some hard numbers for sulphur dioxide emissions from UK electricity generation, accounting for our actual fuel mix. The numbers don't seem easily available but could be worked out from the known fuel mix and typical numbers for different generation types. Nor is it helpful that the office for national statistics lumps generation from pumped storage into an "oil and other fuels" category so it's hard to see how much, if any, heavy fuel oil is actually still burned (I suspect very little). If however we take a stab at it and say UK electricity SO2 is entirely dominated by the 5% of generation from coal, and that the coal used is 1% sulphur (the upper limit allowable in the UK for power generation), and that the scrubbers remove 90% which seems to be fairly typical for modern designs. One tonne of coal is about 24 GJ, at a typical 37% efficiency that's 8.9 GJ /2.47 MWh of electricity generated, with 10 kg of sulphur burned to 20 kg SO2, of which 90% is removed leaving 2 kg SO2.

My annual average in the Zoe is about 4 miles per kWh, so that tonne of coal and 2 kg SO2 would get me about 9900 miles. The UK grid is actually about 5% coal with the remainder largely negligible sulphur, so that 9900 miles would come closer to 100g SO2. If I drove that same distance in a diesel car at 50 mpg, that would be 900 litres / 765 kg of ultra low sulphur diesel. At 10 ppm sulphur (by weight?) that's about 15 grams of SO2. So, SO2 emissions for a diesel car burning 10ppm sulphur diesel *are* lower than for an EV charged from the UK grid, by a factor of around six (though please check my maths). That's not entirely surprising because modern diesel is very low sulphur, there is an open question as to what the public health implications are of a lesser amount being emitted on city streets versus a greater amount from a tall chimney.

I guess I should do the same calculation for nitrous oxides. Coal power station exhaust seems to be 1-5 ppm NOx which compares very favourably with 50-1000 ppm for diesel exhaust (I'm not sure why, perhaps the lower combustion pressure?) I am struggling to find a source for per-unit-energy numbers. I have seen a US paper claiming coal plants come in at 0.04 to 0.07 lb per million BTU, I guess that's BTU thermal not electrical. Can't see any numbers for natural gas (which will dominate UK electrical NOx emissions).

My suspicion is that piston engines generally and diesels in particular end up better than EVs on SO2 but much worse on NOx (and last time I did the calculation better but not hugely so on CO2). Just need to find some references for CCGT power station emissions to back that up.

Of course this was supposed to be the EV experiences thread where drivers discuss stuff related to EV use and ownership rather than the wider "EVs are good/bad/whatever" thread that we've already had so many of.

[nctnico]

Well, since pollution came up... In the NL NOx is a big thing at the moment. I looked up the number of NOx per kWh electricity builders have to use (IIRC around 275mg) to determine the NOx footprint of a project. From there it is quite easy to calculate the amount of NOx per km from an EV which shows an EV is at the euro6 limit. And ofcourse you shouldn't compare diesel. Diesel is dead anyway; all car manufacturers are abandoning diesel. However a modern hybrid on petrol like the Toyota Prius emits only several tens of mg of NOx per km. So it definitely is better to drive a modern hybrid than an EV in the Netherlands.

[stefan_trekkie]

Very complex problem with many things to consider. I am on the opinion that the air is shared and if one country tries to go more clean and yet in few hundred km away in another country is pure anarchy and that takes away from the idea.
The bio fuels are crap .. In industrialized world every step in manufacturing of that fuel is already fossil fuel in it and the land needed for that mass scale will be huge.. There will be no forest left.
About the diesel .. Is the same as above .. Another country - still going strong for decades. The winds can blow in any direction .. Remember Chernobyl
Edit: The mass of the people dictates the trends and the same people are with not very conscientious

[nctnico]

The bio fuels are crap .. In industrialized world every step in manufacturing of that fuel is already fossil fuel in it and the land needed for that mass scale will be huge.. There will be no forest left.

Not quite. There are several companies making 3rd generation bio-fuels from agricultural leftovers. There are several factories running to do this on an industrial scale using leftovers from corn in the US for about 2 years already. Instead of needing extra land more of the plants grown for food can be used so in the end the land is used more efficiently. The EPA (the US government's energy department) expects to be able to double the ethanol production in the US while using no extra land at all. It is not there yet because more factories need to be build but the potential is huge. Most of the plants we eat grow in a single year so the CO2 cycle time is very short and since everyone has to eat anyway there is large supply of feedstock to make bio-fuel from. Currently most of the agricultural leftovers are left to rot which is a waste.

[stefan_trekkie]

I do not fully explain what i have in mind. To all fuel to go bio, all cars, buses, trucks, etc .. No just few % as is now.
Rotting is good, it is restocking the soil . Too much artificial staff in huge scale like that will collapse everything like house of cards . And for what - to drive cars

[nctnico]

I do not fully explain what i have in mind. To all fuel to go bio, all cars, buses, trucks, etc .. No just few % as is now.

Use of bio-fuel has been increasing steadily over the past decades. At this point there needs to be a change to more sustainable bio-fuels. The EU is going to ban (or already banning) bio-fuels from palm oil for starters. Such a ban needs to be planned because the downside is that a lot of palm-oil farmers in poor countries will be put out of business. But there will also be a need to use cars with a lowel fuel consumption. Which is something the EU already demands from the car manufacturers.

[coppice]

The EU is going to ban (or already banning) bio-fuels from palm oil for starters. Such a ban needs to be planned because the downside is that a lot of palm-oil farmers in poor countries will be put out of business.

Putting them out of business IS the plan.

[nctnico]

The EU is going to ban (or already banning) bio-fuels from palm oil for starters. Such a ban needs to be planned because the downside is that a lot of palm-oil farmers in poor countries will be put out of business.

Putting them out of business IS the plan.

In a sense that is true but AFAIK the idea is to have these farmers transition towards other crops which takes time. Ofcourse there will be farmers who are too set in their ways, don't make the change and then complain loudly about how they are being put out of business.

[boffin]

Can we please try and keep this thread on topic  "ELECTRIC CAR EXPERIENCES"

Arguing about hypotheticals, and not having any experience, is most certainly off-topic.

[f4eru]

To go back on topic :

I recently upgraded my EV charging at home from 12A Schucko to 32A/1phase/230V CEE blue single, with the Tesla EVSE.

I found out that, while it´s nice to charge faster, I also have more copper losses, due to long cables in my house.
(0.44 Ohm total source impedance at the car integrated charger input for a 32A load)
-> now I reduced the charging setting to 16A for 95% of the nights -> 24 km/h, which gives me 240km range for a 10-hour night.

And of course, if ever I arrive home very low, and really need the full range the next day, I can still temporarily set 32A charging.