When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[b_force]

Think I've said this before but the major issues are:

Not having a dedicated driveway or garage at which to charge the car is a pretty fundamental problem. Many Scottish houses do not, and even the new ones are often built with separate shared parking. The problem there would be that an illegal parker in your space means no use of the car tomorrow.

Not everyone is a commuter. Some people only use their cars for longer distance journeys. Even with a 200 mile range, as soon as you go beyond 100 miles you risk being stranded if there are no charge points. Or if they are all in use.

The cost of a hotel room for an overnight charging stop totally outweighs any fuel cost saving. (and when you consider the extra energy used in an overnight stop, overall energy use is probably more than returning home with an IC engine)

The majority of the car market is for used cars. Buying new is very expensive in terms of depreciation.  Used electric cars will be a big gamble due to battery condition questions.

We are constantly being told to turn off lights to save the limited amount of energy provided by renewables. One electric car motor, 2000 lightbulbs or more. No calculator needed for this one. It is simply unsustainable to add transport to the demands placed on renewables.

In the Netherlands the have the same issue with parking.
What's being developed here is just shared charge areas. So multiple cars can charge.
Therefore you don't need your private parking spot.

Not everyone is a commuter, but like said before, the numbers show that more than 90% is a commuter.
I guess the car market really depends where you're from than, because here most cars are new or just 2nd hand cars that are less than 2 years old.

Your last comparison is totally absurd (sorry for saying it that blunt). You need to compare it how much energy and emissions combustion engines produce.
According to new regulation most countries are not gonna pass them if they don't change anything about it at all.
Besides, the amount of fuel (oil) is limited and will be gone at some point, so do we have a choice?

It's not a matter IF electric cars will become mainstream. Most governments WILL make sure the become mainstream because they don't have a choice.
And I think for the long distance an hybrid electric-hydrogen car would be pretty awesome.

[Fungus]

Think I've said this before but the major issues are:

Not having a dedicated driveway or garage at which to charge the car is a pretty fundamental problem. Many Scottish houses do not, and even the new ones are often built with separate shared parking. The problem there would be that an illegal parker in your space means no use of the car tomorrow.

Things can change!

If there's enough demand then parking spots can be designated as "electric only" between certain hours of the day. The number of spots can increase with time.

Something similar already happens here in Spain for disabled people. If you're disabled you can apply for a parking spot next to where you live, the council will assign you a bit of road and paint it yellow for you.

We are constantly being told to turn off lights to save the limited amount of energy provided by renewables. One electric car motor, 2000 lightbulbs or more. No calculator needed for this one. It is simply unsustainable to add transport to the demands placed on renewables.

Demand is uneven. Cars can be charged at night when people are in bed.

[nctnico]

Besides, the amount of fuel (oil) is limited and will be gone at some point, so do we have a choice?

Bio-fuels based on agricultural waste will fill that void. My prediction is that electric cars will never fully replace cars with a combustion engine. In Brazil for example a significant portion of the fuel used is bio-fuel.

I guess the car market really depends where you're from than, because here most cars are new or just 2nd hand cars that are less than 2 years old.

You should brush up your statistics. The average age of a car in the Netherlands is 10.2 years old.

[f4eru]

That doensn't scale.
In many cases it's not "agricultural waste", but actively planted.
This means it robs surface from food culture!
For example in the cases of rapeseed or Soybean oil, or corn....

[b_force]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.
If you wanna destroy nature anyway, than just stick to fossil fuels, Than at least we have some beautiful forests. 

[Someone]

That doensn't scale.
In many cases it's not "agricultural waste", but actively planted.
This means it robs surface from food culture!
For example in the cases of rapeseed or Soybean oil, or corn....

All true, but it can be made from non-food sources or food production wastes that otherwise have little use:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse
Of course at the moment they're burnt and in a biomass power plant this is sold as "green" energy. Energy demands of many nations don't fit their available renewable resources so the general problem is people wanting to use more energy than is available long term.

[Someone]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.

There are some good ideas which could produce resources from otherwise low value land, aquaculture in arid/desert areas is very interesting and there is active research in production of biofuels in such ways:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
If it scales up to industrial efficiencies then this could be another part of the energy supply.

[cdev]

The relative price of electricity to fossil fuels, is important. Both can change, and there are other costs and factors too, as we've seen in our various discussions.

Many of the factors are complicated.  The big picture is quite complicated.

[Someone]

The relative price of electricity to fossil fuels, is important. Both can change, and there are other costs and factors too, as we've seen in our various discussions.

Many of the factors are complicated.  The big picture is quite complicated.

On current prices an electric vehicle is a cheaper option for many people (hard to quantify exactly how many but the majority of countries have cheaper electricity than liquid fuels) which means that electric cars are now viable and mainstream. All the major brands are getting on board and not just the exclusive to California models they had in the past to meet the local regulations.

[james_s]

Electricity is quite a lot cheaper than gasoline or diesel in every place I've ever looked. Otherwise people would be generating their own electricity using gasoline or diesel generators but they don't outside of emergencies because it ends up being absurdly expensive per kWh.

This thread contains a ridiculous number of excuses and mental gymnastics over why something can't possibly work, when quite obviously it does work for a great many people and can work for many more. There seems to be a fallacy that we must put all our eggs in one basket so to speak, and settle on one single technology to meet all our needs. Electric cars are simply another available tool for the task of getting around, they're a tool that will work for some people and not others but we are nowhere even close to saturating the market of those for whom it is practically ideal. Once that happens then we can talk about what makes the most sense for those where it is not so clear.

[thm_w]

True but it is something to consider when purchasing a used EV. It would make life easier if there is some way to read the state of health of a battery pack. Unfortunately that technology is still under development. I had a similar issue when buying my current car. My previous cars had diesel engines and the last one suffered quite a few engine related issues common for that model. All in all modern diesels have become relatively unreliable beyond the first 150k km and expensive to repair so I didn't want to take the risk and bought a car which runs on gasoline. It is more expensive to run but I don't risk needing to spend several thousands on engine repairs which cannot be predicted. Just like a battery you can't see how far an engine is worn and what is about to fail from the outside. You can only go by looking at problems which happen often and choose to take the chance or not.

You can get a very good idea on a nissan leaf with a cheap ODB adapter and the leaf spy app (shows capacity and number of charges, etc.).
Even looking at the expected range and available bars on the UI will tell you a bit about battery condition. You can also look at the car history report, if the car was originally used in a very warm climate the battery could be degraded.

Neither of these issues is a problem when you buy within the 8yr/100k battery warranty. If the capacity drops below ~75%, you would be covered.
Considering the cheapest car maintenance you can get is a Toyota at $5.5k/10 years (https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/the-most-and-least-expensive-cars-to-maintain-by-maddy-martin), having to replace the battery for $5.5k is not unreasonable (of course get a good one if you can, and in a moderate climate it will last more than 10 years).

[Someone]

Electricity is quite a lot cheaper than gasoline or diesel in every place I've ever looked. Otherwise people would be generating their own electricity using gasoline or diesel generators but they don't outside of emergencies because it ends up being absurdly expensive per kWh.

Conversion efficiency has to be accounted for somewhere, but right now (as in today) in Melbourne energy pricing is:

Domestic "Gas" 7c/kWh
Vehicle LPG 11c/kWh
Petrol/Diesel 14c/kWh
E85 ethanol 17c/kWh
Electricity 25c/kWh

Those are the prices that we buy the energy for as a consumer, hiding in there are taxes, supply charges, and many complexities. Trigeneration is quite cost effective for premises that have the demand scale for it. Right now an electric car generally doesn't make sense economically in Australia especially a large and heavy long range one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/problems-if-we-all-had-tesla-cars/msg705793/#msg705793
Smaller short range vehicles do make sense as they can be lighter and more energy efficient.

[SparkyFX]

Electricity is quite a lot cheaper than gasoline or diesel in every place I've ever looked. Otherwise people would be generating their own electricity using gasoline or diesel generators but they don't outside of emergencies because it ends up being absurdly expensive per kWh.

Exactly, price and cost are two separate things and usually people forget that on a small scale everyone optimizes individual gain, whereas on a large scale the total cost calculation is important (including each and everything related to it).

This thread contains a ridiculous number of excuses and mental gymnastics over why something can't possibly work, when quite obviously it does work for a great many people and can work for many more. There seems to be a fallacy that we must put all our eggs in one basket so to speak, and settle on one single technology to meet all our needs. Electric cars are simply another available tool for the task of getting around, they're a tool that will work for some people and not others but we are nowhere even close to saturating the market of those for whom it is practically ideal. Once that happens then we can talk about what makes the most sense for those where it is not so clear.

The difference between these arguments is in the question. What can work does not automatically make it mainstream.
It usually leads to moral vantage points and no result if such a discussion is based on bad examples as guideline if something is feasible at all, mixed with a different concept of what mainstream really means and how things scale.

I often wonder how many people actually regard that there is a value chain from pork to sausage (so to speak). Your average grocery store bought items went through extensive filtering and excess which might lead to the assumption things are better or scarce than they actually are. IMHO this is usually achieved by a strong increase of waste (again, difference between price & cost). Observing such developments in terms of energy contained or converted is a good method to get back to the total costs as a guideline.

[james_s]

Conversion efficiency is a very important detail though when you figure electric motors can easily reach 90% efficiency while internal combustion engines used in cars top out at what, around 35% efficiency? Generating electricity in a central plant using one or more very large generators that run continuously at a significant percentage of their maximum capacity is far more efficient than running thousands of smaller engines spending much of their time at very light load, even when you factor in distribution losses.

[Someone]

Conversion efficiency is a very important detail though when you figure electric motors can easily reach 90% efficiency while internal combustion engines used in cars top out at what, around 35% efficiency? Generating electricity in a central plant using one or more very large generators that run continuously at a significant percentage of their maximum capacity is far more efficient than running thousands of smaller engines spending much of their time at very light load, even when you factor in distribution losses.

But you skip the battery in wall to wheel efficiency, which for plugin electric cars ends up around 70-75% its easy to cherry pick which parts of the efficiency you do or don't count to make any specific example look good.

[james_s]

But you skip the battery in wall to wheel efficiency, which for plugin electric cars ends up around 70-75% its easy to cherry pick which parts of the efficiency you do or don't count to make any specific example look good.

I wasn't deliberately skipping it, I just didn't feel like writing a novel. I'd be curious to see some actual data here, surely all of the necessary data is available. Everything I've read suggests that electric is significantly more efficient all things considered, but I don't have the numbers on hand. Let's not forget the energy involved in refining and transporting gasoline, how do those losses compare to losses in generating and transporting electricity. Certainly in areas like where I live where a significant percentage of our electricity comes from clean hydro power and little from fossil fuels tilts the advantage further toward electric.

Either way I don't want to see gas and diesel cars disappear, having additional fuel options available can only be a good thing. The more different energy sources we have the less overall impact a shortage of any one fuel has on society overall.

[EEVblog]

You can get a very good idea on a nissan leaf with a cheap ODB adapter and the leaf spy app (shows capacity and number of charges, etc.).
Even looking at the expected range and available bars on the UI will tell you a bit about battery condition.

One bar lost can mean 15% capacity lost, 2 bars lost is 21.25% apparently, it's not linear.
Full data:
http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/Battery_Capacity_Loss

The lithium manganese oxide used in the older model LEAF's had capacity loss issue. Was very common for Nissan to replace packs under warranty.

Some car battery technology loss data
http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/163/9/A1872/F2.large.jpg

[b_force]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.

There are some good ideas which could produce resources from otherwise low value land, aquaculture in arid/desert areas is very interesting and there is active research in production of biofuels in such ways:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
If it scales up to industrial efficiencies then this could be another part of the energy supply.

I agree and there are some good bio alternatives.
Unfortunately it's not what practically is done at the moment right now.

The problem is that there is WAY to much interest and a big huge lobby in the fuel industry.
Ironically all these alternatives have been known for many years.
In fact, the whole concept of 'global warming' was already investigated and reported by scientist in the 60s and 70s.
but in a world were profit is more important than anything else, it a bit like 

[SparkyFX]

But you skip the battery in wall to wheel efficiency, which for plugin electric cars ends up around 70-75% its easy to cherry pick which parts of the efficiency you do or don't count to make any specific example look good.

The battery does have losses during charging and discharging (it is heating up when doing so), i´d account around 80% each as a ballpark number for Li-Ion, so they are far away from perfect. Rectifier and VFD take their cut too.

To compare apples to apples... you buy fuel at the pump and electricity comes out the wall. But the fuel itself needed to be mined, transported and refined, each part taking a loss, times the efficiency of the actual consumer. Same goes for electric power of course.

35% efficiency is about right for a typical turbodiesel, 40% max or so, compared to calorific value of the fuel. But that only counts at the most economic operation point (load on the crankshaft and rpm-wise) in the BSFC and without transmission (95% for manual, 85% for conventional torque converter with partial use of the lockup). So on the road things look drastically different as long as the drivetrain is directly coupled to the engine.

[nctnico]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.
If you wanna destroy nature anyway, than just stick to fossil fuels, Than at least we have some beautiful forests.

Get your facts straight. I wrote bio-fuel from agricultural waste. That is waste from plants we grow to produce food. From most plants we only eat the seeds or leafs which leaves a huge amount of bio material we don't eat. Using more of a plant may even make food more affordable! See poet-dsm.com

[james_s]

Many people fall into the same trap with biofuels as with other alternate energy sources - assuming that for the source to be viable it must replace conventional sources 100% for everybody. Biofuel doesn't need to replace other fuels to be useful, it can supplement other fuels depending on availability. We should not be using viable food crops to produce fuel, but if we have excess crops or other bio substances that can be converted to fuel then by all means do so.

[NANDBlog]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.
If you wanna destroy nature anyway, than just stick to fossil fuels, Than at least we have some beautiful forests.

Get your facts straight. I wrote bio-fuel from agricultural waste. That is waste from plants we grow to produce food. From most plants we only eat the seeds or leafs which leaves a huge amount of bio material we don't eat. Using more of a plant may even make food more affordable! See poet-dsm.com

My grandfather had a small land, and a winery. He told me that there is no such thing as agricultural waste. What you throw out, is what the land needs to make next year's crops (or wine).
So biofuel tries to solve the pollution problem in transportation, with agriculture. A different industry, which is actually generating more pollution than transportation.

[nctnico]

Bio-fuel is a similar scam as 'solar freaking roadway'.
Bio-fuels means chopping up big forests for crops that grow fast to make fuel out of it.
If you wanna destroy nature anyway, than just stick to fossil fuels, Than at least we have some beautiful forests.

Get your facts straight. I wrote bio-fuel from agricultural waste. That is waste from plants we grow to produce food. From most plants we only eat the seeds or leafs which leaves a huge amount of bio material we don't eat. Using more of a plant may even make food more affordable! See poet-dsm.com

My grandfather had a small land, and a winery. He told me that there is no such thing as agricultural waste. What you throw out, is what the land needs to make next year's crops (or wine).
So biofuel tries to solve the pollution problem in transportation, with agriculture. A different industry, which is actually generating more pollution than transportation.

If your grandfather was that smart he could have saved Poet-DSM millions of dollars worth of useless investments 
The truth is somewhere in the middle. You can't leave too much waste on the land because fertilisation of land is a precise process to crow certain crops with maximum yield. According to Poet-DSM an optimum is reached when around 25% of the waste material is taken from the land.

[james_s]

You don't always have to grow crops specifically for fuel either, in developed nations huge amounts of food goes wasted, nobody will buy spoiled produce but some of it can be turned into usable fuel. Then in some cases there are crops that are much more productive or require much less effort or grow in places that are less than ideal for growing food, in that case it can make sense to grow something for fuel. At one time I recall reading some forms of algae showed promise.

[b_force]

The point is that there isn't enough waste to produce enough fuel.
So we do need use multiple solutions.