Author Topic: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?  (Read 460047 times)

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Offline Fungus

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #175 on: April 03, 2018, 01:42:37 pm »
If you don't like it, you can pull the blanking plug out of one of the 3 12V utility sockets, pull teh carpet back and stuff it in the hole muting it. :)

Alternatively you can go to any carphooler website or even the manufacturer tuning brand (TRD) and buy different plug to change the sound for £35 each.... for a plastic plug.  A plastic wine 'cork' will do too.

If I were the manufacturer I'd add a $1 electric valve, a $0.50 switch labelled "sports mode", and sell it as a $250 option.
 

Online paulca

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #176 on: April 03, 2018, 02:03:40 pm »
If you don't like it, you can pull the blanking plug out of one of the 3 12V utility sockets, pull teh carpet back and stuff it in the hole muting it. :)

Alternatively you can go to any carphooler website or even the manufacturer tuning brand (TRD) and buy different plug to change the sound for £35 each.... for a plastic plug.  A plastic wine 'cork' will do too.

If I were the manufacturer I'd add a $1 electric valve, a $0.50 switch labelled "sports mode", and sell it as a $250 option.

You know the VW Bettle (The new one based on the Polo?)  I found out the other day that the plastic sunflower you see on the dash of those is actually a purchase time option with a fairly non-trivial value for a plastic plant you can buy at a market stall for $0.99!
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Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #177 on: April 03, 2018, 04:40:41 pm »

Fast charging is just all about physics. You need a huge energy dump at once.
Which is not only very difficult to do for the grid (you can back that up with batteries to some extend), but also bad for the electronics and batteries, as well as being potentially dangerous.
Nowadays charging to around 80% in 15min is possible, which I think is already very reasonable.

I still don't understand why so many people get hung up on fast charging. Most of us already plug in our phones every night, how much of an adjustment is it to plug in our cars every night too? I know several people with electric cars now and that's exactly what they all do. Pull into the driveway or garage, get out, plug the cord into the car then head into the house. All of them love the fact that it's so convenient, it's like having a gas station right in their own driveway.
 

Offline b_force

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #178 on: April 03, 2018, 05:17:24 pm »
PS: Engine noise can be synthesized.
Noise? As in lack of noise you mean i guess?

No, I mean noise. Some people don't believe they're driving a car unless they're annoying the neighbors with an obnoxiously loud exhaust system.

It's already a solved problem - many luxury cars already have enhanced engine sound at the push of a button.

Some manufacturers are even faking it without telling the buyers. Salesman: "Listen to the engine, that's real power!" :-DD


Fast charging is just all about physics. You need a huge energy dump at once.
Which is not only very difficult to do for the grid (you can back that up with batteries to some extend), but also bad for the electronics and batteries, as well as being potentially dangerous.

The trick would be to increase the voltage, not the amps.
Increasing voltage or amps, it's still the same amount of ENERGY, which is dangerous.


Fast charging is just all about physics. You need a huge energy dump at once.
Which is not only very difficult to do for the grid (you can back that up with batteries to some extend), but also bad for the electronics and batteries, as well as being potentially dangerous.
Nowadays charging to around 80% in 15min is possible, which I think is already very reasonable.

I still don't understand why so many people get hung up on fast charging. Most of us already plug in our phones every night, how much of an adjustment is it to plug in our cars every night too? I know several people with electric cars now and that's exactly what they all do. Pull into the driveway or garage, get out, plug the cord into the car then head into the house. All of them love the fact that it's so convenient, it's like having a gas station right in their own driveway.
It's about when your batteries are empty after a long drive, halfway your journey.
For daily commute you can charge at night yes

Online coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #179 on: April 03, 2018, 05:28:33 pm »
I still don't understand why so many people get hung up on fast charging. Most of us already plug in our phones every night, how much of an adjustment is it to plug in our cars every night too? I know several people with electric cars now and that's exactly what they all do. Pull into the driveway or garage, get out, plug the cord into the car then head into the house. All of them love the fact that it's so convenient, it's like having a gas station right in their own driveway.
Fast charging is all about long journeys, not the daily run around.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #180 on: April 03, 2018, 05:35:06 pm »
I still don't understand why so many people get hung up on fast charging. Most of us already plug in our phones every night, how much of an adjustment is it to plug in our cars every night too? I know several people with electric cars now and that's exactly what they all do. Pull into the driveway or garage, get out, plug the cord into the car then head into the house. All of them love the fact that it's so convenient, it's like having a gas station right in their own driveway.

a) In the world we live in an awful lot of people have to park in the street.
b) Long journeys or overnighting away from home.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #181 on: April 03, 2018, 05:40:59 pm »
Fast charging is just all about physics. You need a huge energy dump at once.
Which is not only very difficult to do for the grid (you can back that up with batteries to some extend), but also bad for the electronics and batteries, as well as being potentially dangerous.
The trick would be to increase the voltage, not the amps.
Increasing voltage or amps, it's still the same amount of ENERGY, which is dangerous.

Not quite: Voltage is more manageable than amps, danger-wise - see the discussion of arc flash in the analog vs. digital meter blog thread.

What I really meant to say was that less amps is better for the batteries/cables/connectors. As a side benefit you also get less overall losses in the system.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2018, 05:44:27 pm by Fungus »
 

Online coppice

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #182 on: April 03, 2018, 05:53:30 pm »
I still don't understand why so many people get hung up on fast charging. Most of us already plug in our phones every night, how much of an adjustment is it to plug in our cars every night too? I know several people with electric cars now and that's exactly what they all do. Pull into the driveway or garage, get out, plug the cord into the car then head into the house. All of them love the fact that it's so convenient, it's like having a gas station right in their own driveway.

a) In the world we live in an awful lot of people have to park in the street.
b) Long journeys or overnighting away from home.
Street parking could be a problem, but there are plenty of others. Tesla has sold a lot of cars in HK. Most people who can afford one have an assigned parking space within their apartment block. However, the building management people won't usually give permission for power to be laid on at that parking space. Thus, they can only charge at a supercharger, but those are occupied all day long. If you go to the superchargers in the middle of the night you'll find a line of Teslas driven by Filipino maids, getting the car ready for the boss in the morning. With gas powered cars the boss takes 5 minutes a week to refill their own car.

I think issues like this are mostly short term. Facilities will improve. At some point I expect all the HK Tesla owners will get power at their parking space. Streets heavily used for parking will get some kind of outlet. The longer term need for fast charging is really long journeys.
 

Offline SparkyFXTopic starter

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #183 on: April 03, 2018, 06:32:59 pm »
By that time it will be financially far more efficient to dump the car in the scrap yard and buy a new one than to replace the battery, which will probably cost a sizable portion of a whole new car!
They are actually servicable with exchange of single cells based on wear and all that. There is surprisingly little information about cars which needed new batteries in the wild.

Quote
If electric car popularity jumps by an order of magnitude in the next 10 years that will seriously raise the price of a lot of other things.
Some mines are about the be reopened because it suddenly became economically viable again to operate them. That might slow down an upward spiral.

Quote
Recycling of the batteries is lagging behind too.
With increasing price recycling becomes a business too. In general i wouldn´t panic because of such predictions as such systems tend to self moderate over time.  Materials that stay in solid form can and will be recycled when it is necessary. I wouldn´t buy into - "it is dead, therefore it is worthless" claims but kind of see these as what they are.

Rather consider it a problem blowing oil irreversibly(*) into the atmosphere without the ability to produce new oil - or breathing that.

Support your local planet.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #184 on: April 03, 2018, 06:39:17 pm »
a) In the world we live in an awful lot of people have to park in the street.
b) Long journeys or overnighting away from home.

Those aren't really the target market for electric cars. There are many millions of people who park in their driveway or garage, and the vast majority of their driving is commuting to work. The guys I know with electric cars are in two-car households with one conventional car and use the electric primarily for commuting to work. I hear loads of people in similar multi-car households getting hung up on the same issues that really are hardly relevant to them. Just because it's not a solution for everybody doesn't mean it's not a solution for a large number of people.

There are also other options, for example if you need to overnight somewhere or take a long trip once in a while, it's possible to rent a car, or ride share, or get a ride from a friend. Lots of people don't own any car at all and do one of these things whenever mass transit cannot meet their needs. For street parking it would be possible to install curbside charging stations but for the time being those people are probably better off with conventional cars. I just see so much of this "well it won't work for me therefore it's unsuitable for anybody" logic, it's ridiculous.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2018, 06:42:24 pm by james_s »
 
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Offline richard.cs

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #185 on: April 07, 2018, 09:59:58 am »
Those aren't really the target market for electric cars. There are many millions of people who park in their driveway or garage, and the vast majority of their driving is commuting to work. The guys I know with electric cars are in two-car households with one conventional car and use the electric primarily for commuting to work. I hear loads of people in similar multi-car households getting hung up on the same issues that really are hardly relevant to them. Just because it's not a solution for everybody doesn't mean it's not a solution for a large number of people.

This. Right now electric cars are suitable for a huge number of people, just not everyone, and people get too hung up on the everyone bit. My girlfriend is determined her next car will be electric, she primarily wants the convenience of overnight charging in her garage, environmental and cost benefits are a consideration but secondary. Her car essentially only does long  (> charge range) journeys when we go on holiday and when we do that we already (in a petrol car) stop for an hour or so in a few hundred miles, neither of us want to drive much further than that without a break. Other's might want to take it in turns to drive a thousand miles in one stretch* but they are not currently the target market and should probably buy a diesel BMW. Once she gets her EV we might use public chargers on occasion or use my car occasionally on a day when we might more conveniently have used hers, but that's outweighed by the many petrol station detours saved.

Electric cars are already good enough to be more "mainstream" than motorcycles.

*not in the UK though, you'd end up in the sea or back where you started
 

Online paulca

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #186 on: April 07, 2018, 10:30:52 am »
Base on this:
https://pod-point.com/landing-pages/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-an-electric-car

To drive from, say, Belfast to Malaga, approximately 1800 miles, would require...

Starting from a full overnight charge before hand.  Assuming motorway service stations can be found at all stages for fast charging and the car supports 22kW charge rate:

"80 miles of range per hour"  or  (1800 - 200 initial range) / 80 mph charge rate = 20 hours charging time.  PLUS the 31 hours actual driving time.  So 51 hours if done with drivers taking shifts.

Making it more realistic with 16 hour days, 8 hours sleeping, 2 drivers in shifts and an average speed, mostly motorway of 60mph and a 200 mile range.

3 hours = 180 miles + 2.25 hours charging = 5.25 hours per "stint", per 180 miles.
Swap drivers repeat.
3 stints per day, giving 15.75 hours, 9 hours driving, 6.75 hours charging, 540 miles travelled per day.
You will reach Malaga late on the 4th day.

In a petrol car the numbers are significantly different.
3 hours = 180miles + 0.25 hours refilling = 3.25 hours per stint, per 180 miles.
Swap drivers repeat.
5 stints per day, giving 16.25, 15 hours driving, 1.25 hours refilling, 900 miles.
You would reach Malaga end of the second day.

This does not account for the petrol car having as much as 400 mile range, although the driver shifts of 3 hours seems fair.

Not to mention how much you will shorten the battery life of the car rapidly charging it from nearly flat to full 8-12 times each way.

I don't know how much rapid chargers cost to use, presumably it's cheaper than petrol still, but for the electric you have the added cost of an extra 2 over nights in B&Bs at 100+ Euro a night for 2 sharing.

Any mistakes in the petrol car and you call a recovery service to bring you petrol.  Any mistakes in the electric and you need a tow truck.  You would be safer in a semi-hybrid like the BMW which has a generator to slow charge the battery if you get stuck.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2018, 10:40:22 am by paulca »
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Offline Fungus

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #187 on: April 08, 2018, 09:34:08 am »
Base on this:
https://pod-point.com/landing-pages/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-an-electric-car

To drive from, say, Belfast to Malaga, approximately 1800 miles, would require...

(... something complicated with teams of drivers that took 4 days)

Why didn't they just rent a gasoline car instead of all that?

and, (b) The more mainstream they become, the more charging stations, etc.

 

Online paulca

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #188 on: April 08, 2018, 11:00:07 am »
Why didn't they just rent a gasoline car instead of all that?

and, (b) The more mainstream they become, the more charging stations, etc.

Because a car, with cross Europe support, costs between £100 and £200 a day + mileage surcharges.

However, if we get to a stage were 90% of commuters own electric cars and rent petrol cars for long trips the pricing of rentals might come down as demand rises.

To be honest, it would of course be cheaper to fly.  If you are not taking your own car, it limits the reason to take a car at all.  Then the debate becomes one of CO2 per passenger, per mile versus the car.

More charging stations won't help, the example assumes plenty are available.

« Last Edit: April 08, 2018, 11:01:46 am by paulca »
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Offline Fungus

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #189 on: April 08, 2018, 02:49:12 pm »
Because a car, with cross Europe support, costs between £100 and £200 a day + mileage surcharges.

If you're driving all the way across Europe instead of flying  then I don't think it's because you enjoy driving, you have a very good reason to be doing it. A reason that probably involves earning money, so...  :-//

and, (b) Of course there's pathological cases. The point is that most people don't drive that way.
 

Offline boffin

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #190 on: April 08, 2018, 04:11:50 pm »
Mine's on order, and 30A / 240V outlet has been installed in the garage.
 

Offline Galenbo

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #191 on: April 08, 2018, 08:42:38 pm »
EDIT: On that later point.  I envision "pluggable" batteries.  Standardised packs the size of a suitcase that goes where the spare wheel would have.  Garages can sell these in a swap an empty for a full one in the same way we do gas cylinders.  This would go a long way to easy range anxiety.
Pluggable batteries are technically an easy task, but in opposition to total weight and distribution of mass.
The batteries are placed/distributed now in the most ideal location, making them removable with decent fast trays will surely change that.
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Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #192 on: April 08, 2018, 09:13:28 pm »
Very few people go on 1800 mile road trips. I've done it myself but only 2 or 3 times in my entire life, if I had an electric car I'd rent, borrow or buy a fuel powered car for the occasion and still come out far ahead. That's one of those edge cases that doesn't really matter for more people. If you need to deal with an edge case that your electric car won't handle easily, you do the same thing millions of people with no car at all do.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #193 on: April 08, 2018, 09:21:22 pm »
Because a car, with cross Europe support, costs between £100 and £200 a day + mileage surcharges.
If you're driving all the way across Europe instead of flying  then I don't think it's because you enjoy driving, you have a very good reason to be doing it. A reason that probably involves earning money, so...  :-//
Exactly. If you need to visit a couple of cities across Europe a car quickly becomes more viable than an airplane due to the flexibility (been there, done that). Ofcourse the current EVs are not an option due to limited range and charge time.

@James_s: people actually do exactly the opposite of what you are claiming: they buy cars which fullfill that edge case. The less space and/or the more taxes on ownership the more versatile the car must be. For example: if people have a caravan they buy a car which can pull a caravan even though they only pull the caravan 2 or 3 times per year.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2018, 09:37:24 pm by nctnico »
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Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #194 on: April 08, 2018, 10:09:24 pm »
This discussion illustrates again why a plug-in "serial hybrid"  (like the Volt or others) makes perfect sense. They give you 30-50 miles of all electric range (which probably covers >90% peoples daily needs) plus the ability to do longer trips using gasoline and not worry about range or recharge time.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #195 on: April 08, 2018, 10:17:54 pm »
Yes that's because many people are dumb, if they want to spend way more money to buy a car for an edge case that's their problem, it's their money. That's kind of my point though, people get hung up on largely irrelevant details and edge cases when there are perfectly sensible ways of working around them.
 

Offline Galenbo

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #196 on: April 08, 2018, 10:33:52 pm »
This discussion illustrates again why a plug-in "serial hybrid"  (like the Volt or others) makes perfect sense. They give you 30-50 miles of all electric range (which probably covers >90% peoples daily needs) plus the ability to do longer trips using gasoline and not worry about range or recharge time.

Ok, but here goes that the car will consume more nuclear because an unused gasoline engine has to be transported,
or will consume more gasoline because the unused batteries have to be transported.

Combined with higher/double manufacturing/recycling gasoline costs.

A genset on trailer for Tesla would be a better solution, if you could rent these and drop where you want.
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Offline mtdoc

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #197 on: April 08, 2018, 10:50:15 pm »
This discussion illustrates again why a plug-in "serial hybrid"  (like the Volt or others) makes perfect sense. They give you 30-50 miles of all electric range (which probably covers >90% peoples daily needs) plus the ability to do longer trips using gasoline and not worry about range or recharge time.

Ok, but here goes that the car will consume more nuclear because an unused gasoline engine has to be transported,
or will consume more gasoline because the unused batteries have to be transported.

Combined with higher/double manufacturing/recycling gasoline costs

That's not the way it works. In the case of the Volt at least, it is not a gasoline car + EV stuck together. The engine functions primarily as a genset to charge batteries/power the more efficient electric motor.  When the battery is fully drained, the fuel efficiency of the ICE is on par with the most efficient ICE only autos.

As far as nuclear - that depends.  In my case, my Volt charging is done almost exclusively with solar PV (my own) and Hydro (Columbia river hydro grid power).
 

Offline Galenbo

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #198 on: April 08, 2018, 11:03:04 pm »
Braking energy recycling and a better efficiency in very slow modus are indeed big advantages of the Bi-cars
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Offline phil from seattle

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Re: When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?
« Reply #199 on: April 08, 2018, 11:26:56 pm »
I've been driving a Tesla Model S as my primary car since 2013 so I have a little experience with the issues. I went with an EV once the range got above 200 miles (320 km). Long drives might seem like an edge case to some but these are relatively frequent. While most people in the US drive less than 12 miles for their daily commute to work, the real issue for EV range is the longest monthly drive. It's quite common to have to do a lot of driving in a single day once a month or so.  When my kids were in school, they would sometimes have events that required at least an hour of driving, one way. Plenty of other things cause a need for a lot of driving. Total distance in a day of >100 miles is not at all uncommon.  So, that is what defines EV range requirements for consumers. This is why the first gen EVs with 70-80 mile range did not sell that well.

Sure, one could buy a hybrid like a Prius or a Volt though that's still depending on petrol. I personally wanted to cut that cord.

Now, unlike every other EV automaker, Telsa has built a fast DC charging network - SuperChargers. These are 90 to 120 KW units. There are over 1000 sites worldwide, almost 500 in the US. They are positioned on major motorways at about 2-3 hrs driving time apart (a lot closer in California and Florida). I can drive almost anywhere in the contiguous 48 states using the SC network. Recharging is fairly fast, less than an hour at the worst but you only need to charge enough to get to the next SC (the car will tell you when you can continue). Typically, you need to break for bathrooms/food/coffee/stretch every couple of hours anyway so it's not so bad. That 1800 mile trip is still longer in a Tesla than an ICE but it's not dramatically so.  The SC network is a strategic advantage that other automakers have yet to copy. The Tesla model 3 is currently outselling even the Toyota Prius Prime in the US. It may be an edge case but long distance travel is a factor in buying decisions in the US.

One of the things that isn't discussed very much about EVs is that they are much easier to manufacture. The head of the Korean auto workers union was recently quoted as saying something to the effect that EVs are evil. He sees jobs going away. I've seen numbers like 40% less labor to assemble an EV vs an ICE (and even bigger differential when you talk about true hybrids).

And, recently there have been some surprising reports about the amount of electricity needed to extract and refine a gallon of petrol. There is an imputed watt-hours per mile cost for ICE vehicles than can exceed the watt-hours per mile consumption of a pure EV. One of the logical extensions of this is that the carbon footprint of ICE vehicles needs to factor in the CF of electricity generation for extraction/refining.

« Last Edit: April 08, 2018, 11:35:44 pm by phil from seattle »
 


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