Author Topic: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?  (Read 459862 times)

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Offline nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1500 on: July 22, 2018, 08:09:47 am »
Stop posting until you are sober again. I never made any claims about the Kill-a-watt meter being inaccurate. You are mixing people up now.

OK - calm down.  :o  I read your post where you  said " I highly doubt the mains voltage matters"  as " I highly doubt the mains voltage meters"  If you read my response it should be clear that is  what I was responding to.  (I've added a note to bottom of posts with my error)

Now, for the issue of 120 versus 240V charging.  I responded to Dougs post stating that 220 V would be less efficient than 120V due to more heat being generated.

I'm not an engineer by trade but even I know that assertion is nonsense. Do you agree with his assertion that increasing the voltage will mean more heat (for a given power)?

PFC or not, increased voltage/decreased amps generally improves power electronics efficiency. Are you disagreeing with that?
In theory yes but in practical electronic circuits the efficiency depends on many things. First a 120V mains supply is probably wired using thicker wires compared to a 230V/240V mains system given the same power output requirements. So I expect little difference in there.
The same goes for the charger. Due to higher currents the designer probably used thicker wires in there as well. Another factor is that power supplies (a charger is a power supply) are usually designed towards an efficiency target. They are not made as good as possible but as economic as possible. All in all I expect very little difference between a 120V and a 230/240V charger for a Volt when it comes to efficiency.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline gildasd

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1501 on: July 22, 2018, 08:17:21 am »
I strongly doubt the mains voltages matters. In any consumer power supply they make 300V from either 120V AC (full bridge rectified) or 220V AC (half bridge rectified). The next stage is a PFC ofcourse.

Not so sure I would agree as you are not factoring in the current.  There is twice as much current at 220.  Would it not make sense more heat would be generated due to higher current and voltage?

Yes more heat, but less than twice as much, so more efficient (in simple terms).

On this ship, we have some UPSs on 240V, but the big ones are on the 440V, as charging them on 240 would be quite absurd, 120 would need a silly jumbo sized charger.
Hell, we even have a 24V system, but them, we would need a bigger ship

It would be even better on the 690V rail, but we can't do that as it is reserved for propulsion.
I'm electronically illiterate
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1502 on: July 22, 2018, 08:38:15 am »
I strongly doubt the mains voltages matters. In any consumer power supply they make 300V from either 120V AC (full bridge rectified) or 220V AC (half bridge rectified). The next stage is a PFC ofcourse.
Not so sure I would agree as you are not factoring in the current.  There is twice as much current at 220.  Would it not make sense more heat would be generated due to higher current and voltage?

Sorry, I'm lost. P=I*V, what am I missing?
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Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1503 on: July 22, 2018, 10:35:51 am »
You need to stop jumping to conclusions, and instead look at the real world numbers that the owners of BEV / PHEV vehicles are posting here

Real world numbers, for you, seems to be whatever the car tells you.
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Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1504 on: July 22, 2018, 06:08:00 pm »
Sorry, I'm lost. P=I*V, what am I missing?

Nothing. Doug is.

All this is OT though really. I’m sure that EV charging efficiency has some range, depending on the supply charger, the EV’s on board charger, charge cord gauge and length, etc, etc.  A range of 85 - 95% is probably reasonable.  That’s really pretty good.

In the end it makes little difference to the bottom line - which is that “payback” on any price premium (if there even is one) for any BEV or PHEV is going to at worst take 5-10 years depending on miles driven, gasoline/diesel vs electricity prices, etc.  And in many cases payback will be nil or occur in just a couple of years.

And of course cost is just one of many considerations. Some may try to deny it but we ALL make choices in our purchases based on factors other tham cost alone, which is why very few cars on the road are the cheapest most basic needed just to move people from A to B.

The transition to EVs is occurring whether some like it or not. When they will compromise a majority of cars on the road is anyone’s guess.  I’d guess it will happen 15-20 years from now IF society as  a whole can continue to hold together (a big if IMO).

 

Offline nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1505 on: July 22, 2018, 06:36:27 pm »
The transition to EVs is occurring whether some like it or not. When they will compromise a majority of cars on the road is anyone’s guess.  I’d guess it will happen 15-20 years from now IF society as  a whole can continue to hold together (a big if IMO).
We'll probably see a transition into electric vehicles which have a predictable usage so their batteries can be sized accordingly. Vehicles like city busses, airport shuttles, small delivery trucks can be made electric because it is easy to predict their daily mileage and size the charging infrastructure accordingly. But for general purpose cars I don't see it happen within 20 years and I wouldn't bet any money on EVs becoming the majority of the cars after that.

The smaller vehicles like bicycles, mopeds and small trolleys are much easier to electrify and people have room to charge them at home. This will probably eat into using cars. When I built a new shed I deliberately added extra outlets for charging a moped or an electric bike.

You are right about people buying cars for different reasons than price. The commercials of car manufacturers always seem to appeal to non-techincal feel-good stuff. And there are lots and lots of rebrands so the same car from different brands can be targeted at different people. For example: The Ford Focus I own  >:D has also been sold as a Volvo. And it is the second car we have owned that was also sold as a Volvo. Volkswagen has several brands like Audi, Seat and Skoda which have pretty much identical cars.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 06:42:17 pm by nctnico »
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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1506 on: July 22, 2018, 07:50:36 pm »
I strongly doubt the mains voltages matters. In any consumer power supply they make 300V from either 120V AC (full bridge rectified) or 220V AC (half bridge rectified). The next stage is a PFC ofcourse.
Not so sure I would agree as you are not factoring in the current.  There is twice as much current at 220.  Would it not make sense more heat would be generated due to higher current and voltage?

Sorry, I'm lost. P=I*V, what am I missing?


You are not missing anything, you would just need to expand what you have and apply Kirchhoff law.  What’s not included in your thinking is efficiency.  Heat loss can be measured in watts.  Your P = I*V is for the entire circuit.

I was told charging at higher voltage which reduces the charging time generates more heat and is less efficient.  When charging at a lower voltage I was is more efficient because less heat is wasted in charging.

The way I look at it is the difference between walking and running.  Walking or running you can cover the same distance.  But with running one is trading speed for inefficiency or the production heat.


 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1507 on: July 22, 2018, 08:06:01 pm »
You know all of this talk about EV and ICE being more efficient or less efficient is really a joke when one looks at how electricty is being wasted around the world.

Anyone looked at how much of an electrical energy waster crypto-currencies are?  They were specificly designed to due usesless computer calculations as in 3.3 × 10^21  or 3.3 sextillion every ten minutes.  Any idea how much electricty that is?  It’s just a wee bit more than all of the electricty the entire island of Ireland uses every second.  In California there is a company mining for Bitcioins....  There electricty bill is over $12,000 per month.

Now this is just for one crypto-currency.  How many other ones are there?

Just think about how much coal and fossil fuels are being burned just to do useless Bitcoin calculations every second.

Crypto currencies are turning out to be an ecological nightmare for our planet.

 
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1508 on: July 22, 2018, 09:01:38 pm »
Just think about how much coal and fossil fuels are being burned just to do useless Bitcoin calculations every second.

Crypto currencies are turning out to be an ecological nightmare for our planet.
Off-topic but it is sad but true. However people could choose to boycot crypto-currencies so it is no longer profitable to mine them.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1509 on: July 22, 2018, 09:38:19 pm »
There are a few cryptocurrencies that are quite energy efficient, including some that I'm still mining. My cluster uses about 20W and generates about $45/month at current difficulty. Last year, it peaked at $150/month, at which point the money obtained per energy used was about the same as driving to work in a hybrid car, even with the very unrealistic assumption that the workplace uses no energy. Thus, I hope the ones criticizing my mining cluster for its energy use are the ones who walk or bicycle (or telecommute) to work! (And my cluster is solar powered, so it's carbon neutral.)
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

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Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1510 on: July 23, 2018, 05:05:43 am »
There are a few cryptocurrencies that are quite energy efficient, including some that I'm still mining. My cluster uses about 20W and generates about $45/month at current difficulty. Last year, it peaked at $150/month, at which point the money obtained per energy used was about the same as driving to work in a hybrid car, even with the very unrealistic assumption that the workplace uses no energy. Thus, I hope the ones criticizing my mining cluster for its energy use are the ones who walk or bicycle (or telecommute) to work! (And my cluster is solar powered, so it's carbon neutral.)

Which ones are energy efficient?  Can’t be one’s with decentralized DBs.

How is it solar is one can claim solar powered devices are carbon neutral?  What about the energy to make mine the silicon, aluminum as well as the energy to produce the panel and then transport it to your location?  Don’t see how that’s carbon neutral.

And for now let’s leave out how carbon un-neutral recycling solar panels are.

 

 

Offline DougSpindler

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1511 on: July 23, 2018, 05:16:11 am »
A bit off topic, but this is the BS marketing companies have come up up with.

I was looking in a department store for tea kettle.  On the box3s for several of the tea kettles it states save up to 66% in energy.  Okay so how is it one tea kettle can save up to 66% when boilining water?

The magic of the 66&% energy saving is.....  here’s the very fine print.  One saves 66% in energy if one boils one cup of water instead of a liter.  Well duh, that would apply to any tea kettle.  Go to love the people who come up with this BS.
 
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1512 on: July 23, 2018, 09:12:27 am »
Tesla desperately needs money.
The last 5 years they never ever made any profit, till now investors have had high hopes it all would go well.

Today an article in the WSJ1 states that Tesla asked their suppliers to give back a substantial part of their profits of the last two years to Tesla,
as an investment for future business  :wtf:
Tesla responded it was asking for discounts for future products but that was not what was in the memo apparently.

I guess they need to start making profit fast, eg the investment sources are drying up ?

1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-asks-suppliers-for-cash-back-to-help-turn-a-profit-1532301091
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1513 on: July 23, 2018, 12:50:58 pm »
Which ones are energy efficient?  Can’t be one’s with decentralized DBs.
Mostly the obscure ones. One example that used to be that way was earnhoney, but then it became somewhat less obscure and the difficulty went up dramatically. Also Perk, until it crashed.
A bit off topic, but this is the BS marketing companies have come up up with.

I was looking in a department store for tea kettle.  On the box3s for several of the tea kettles it states save up to 66% in energy.  Okay so how is it one tea kettle can save up to 66% when boilining water?

The magic of the 66&% energy saving is.....  here’s the very fine print.  One saves 66% in energy if one boils one cup of water instead of a liter.  Well duh, that would apply to any tea kettle.  Go to love the people who come up with this BS.
Some legitimate ways to make it more efficient would be to insulate the container better and use a Peltier heat pump for the first stage of heating.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1514 on: July 23, 2018, 01:08:15 pm »
I was told charging at higher voltage which reduces the charging time generates more heat and is less efficient.  When charging at a lower voltage I was is more efficient because less heat is wasted in charging.

And that's right. Recharging at 1/2C the losses are much less than at say 2C (and also, the battery will last longer), I²R losses are 16 times less, for example.
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Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1515 on: July 23, 2018, 03:10:32 pm »
You can always use 240V and select a slower charge rate. But I expect the losses to be minimal until you get well into really fast charging. (Someone in the Nissan Leaf community probably already tried it and documented what charge rates are the most efficient.)
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 
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Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1516 on: July 23, 2018, 03:56:01 pm »
I was told charging at higher voltage which reduces the charging time generates more heat and is less efficient.  When charging at a lower voltage I was is more efficient because less heat is wasted in charging.

And that's right. Recharging at 1/2C the losses are much less than at say 2C (and also, the battery will last longer), I²R losses are 16 times less, for example.

But you’re talking about power. Doug was only referring to voltage which is just plain wrong. For a given power, increased voltage = decreased amps (P=I*V). And all else being equal, increased amps=increased losses.

Of course in the real world, it depends on whether you’re comparing different chargers,  wire gauges, etc.

 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1517 on: July 23, 2018, 04:09:34 pm »
Tesla desperately needs money.
The last 5 years they never ever made any profit, till now investors have had high hopes it all would go well.

Tesla’s ability to thrive as a large independent auto maker has always depended on the Model 3.  They’re learning that production of autos on a massively large scale is not so easy. 

They’ve achieved some remarkable things with the Model S and X - designing, building, marketing and selling a completely new kind of car in the USA - threatening the “big 3” US automakers- something that has never been done here before.

If the Model 3 fails, Tesla will not go away - but Musk will likely loose control as they are either acquired by another company or are forced to file Chapter 11.
 

Online Marco

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1518 on: July 23, 2018, 05:35:36 pm »
The magic of the 66&% energy saving is.....  here’s the very fine print.  One saves 66% in energy if one boils one cup of water instead of a liter.  Well duh, that would apply to any tea kettle.  Go to love the people who come up with this BS.
On the other hand, I think people who have single cup boiling water dispensers will on average save some power (ie. press a button, butter some toast and it will fill one mug with boiling water, at least that's about the speed at 3kW). Not that it's significant, but they are very convenient.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1519 on: July 23, 2018, 05:40:01 pm »
Tesla desperately needs money.
The last 5 years they never ever made any profit, till now investors have had high hopes it all would go well.

Tesla’s ability to thrive as a large independent auto maker has always depended on the Model 3.  They’re learning that production of autos on a massively large scale is not so easy. 

They’ve achieved some remarkable things with the Model S and X - designing, building, marketing and selling a completely new kind of car in the USA - threatening the “big 3” US automakers- something that has never been done here before.

If the Model 3 fails, Tesla will not go away - but Musk will likely loose control as they are either acquired by another company or are forced to file Chapter 11.
True, I am also quite sure that if Tesla did not start the EV hype other conventional carmanufacturers were not in a hurry to develop their own cars. They were quite comfortable selling their poluting diesel cars and had just invested billions in its development. In that sense Tesla is already a succes in bringing EV manufacturing forward 5 to 10 years.
 

Online Marco

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1520 on: July 23, 2018, 06:51:02 pm »
They might have delayed the development of new battery chemistries though.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1521 on: July 23, 2018, 08:48:33 pm »
They might have delayed the development of new battery chemistries though.
Interesting, how so?
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1522 on: July 23, 2018, 09:12:15 pm »
They might have delayed the development of new battery chemistries though.
Interesting, how so?
By creating a market for the current generation of Li-ion batteries. This made it unnecessary to invest in battery technology which is truly useful for electric vehicles on a large scale AND did cause more investments in Li-ion batteries which need to pay for themselves first.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1523 on: July 23, 2018, 09:27:09 pm »
But AFAIK there is no viable alternative to invest in and have a product within two years, or is there?
All the interesting new Research is in the laboratory phase it can take years even a decade before mass production, or what am I missing?
Most promising what I heard is the solid state battery but still very expensive and not mass producable.
 

Offline coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #1524 on: July 23, 2018, 09:55:00 pm »
But AFAIK there is no viable alternative to invest in and have a product within two years, or is there?
All the interesting new Research is in the laboratory phase it can take years even a decade before mass production, or what am I missing?
Most promising what I heard is the solid state battery but still very expensive and not mass producable.
Not long ago there was a burst of press reports about Toyota being very close to mass production with solid state batteries. Toyota quickly corrected this, and said 2030 looks like a reasonable date. It took years to polish lithium batteries to be as safe and consistent as they are today (apart from the odd screw up, like the Samsung Note 7). Solid state batteries haven't even started down that polishing path yet.
 
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