When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[phil from seattle]

Fuel cost for a coal plant is currently 2.5 cents US$ (newer plants probably less). So as I said, ways to go.

I suspect PV will be there quicker. Has to come from further, but I think there is just more room to drive it down.

Fuel cost is just a part of the cost.  "Fuel" cost for wind power is 0 but I hope you would agree it ain't free.  Life time cost of generation is a far better metric (called LCOE for levelized cost of electricty). Wikipedia has a decent section on generation costs (which are general given in $/MWHr).

You will see in the chart that geothermal generation is the cheapest. Onshore wind is the second cheapest.  Most expensive?  Coal. and it's not close. Also, you should note the steep drop of wind power costs in the historical summary of projections.  And finally, it appears that the industry expects combined cycle NG and wind power to be almost exactly the same LCOE cost by 2022.

So, wind with CCNG looks like a real winner. At least for the US which has plentiful supplies of NG.

[Fungus]

Fuel cost for a coal plant is currently 2.5 cents US$ (newer plants probably less). So as I said, ways to go.

So.... what's the "fuel cost" for wind and solar?

[radar_macgyver]

Large-scale solar on roofs is a pipe dream? Southern California (where they produce *too much* power at some times of the year) would beg to differ.

The article title says the grid can't handle it. That is another (universal) problem and also the main reason you will need local storage which ruins the economy of solar panels.

There you go again. Take one edge case, state that it doesn't work (including words like 'universal problem' - citation needed, btw), and therefore the general idea is bad/wrong/impractical. Your premise that rooftop solar on a large scale is fictional isn't true - there are plenty of examples of large scale deployments, and I linked to one. Sure, they might make too much power a couple of days a year, but so what? Doesn't mean they don't exist.

You will see in the chart that geothermal generation is the cheapest. Onshore wind is the second cheapest.  Most expensive?  Coal. and it's not close. Also, you should note the steep drop of wind power costs in the historical summary of projections.  And finally, it appears that the industry expects combined cycle NG and wind power to be almost exactly the same LCOE cost by 2022.

The coal costs include sequestration. LCOE for solar PV would depend on geographical location, since energy production is in the denominator. I'm assuming the DoE numbers were averaged over the entire US. This would mean the south west would have a lower regional LCOE than average. This paper includes a table of LCOE vs install location, and seems to show lower costs for AZ and NV.

[DougSpindler]

It will be intesting to see if Tesla and Toyota can break the laws of physics.

https://youtu.be/k6GeHnMwl1c

[Fungus]

It will be intesting to see if Tesla and Toyota can break the laws of physics.

You mean all those cars out there are breaking laws of physics? Wow! Tesla is even smarter then I thought.

[f4eru]

Let's break the law of physics with electric cars.
Cool.

On another note:
well to wheel chain efficiency of fossils in a conventional ICE is close to 11%, very low.
The same well to wheel chain efficiency with an electric powertrain and an oil burning electric station is in the range of 27%. (Of course, using partly renewables, this improves a lot already today, and will go up in the future)

Why is that ? because ICE in cars run at a very low average efficiency because they are subject to a non-optimal ever changing load.
A turbine generator in an electric station on the other end is always running at peak efficiency. It's also more efficient due to it's bigger power rating, and non space constraints.

So yeah. We don't need to brake the law of physics to make cars better. Thermodynamics are already on our side
Economics have leveled of between ICE and BEV already.

Also, Cadogan is just full of BS on this one.

[DougSpindler]

Also, Cadogan is just full of BS on this one.

Care to explain why you say Cadogan is full of BS on this one?

He explains the physics and the math for his BS, can you point out where hs is wrong or full of BS?
Or are you a Tesla Cult follower?

https://youtu.be/LlvYv1SJJEY


https://youtu.be/k6GeHnMwl1c

[paulca]

well to wheel chain efficiency of fossils in a conventional ICE is close to 11%, very low.
The same well to wheel chain efficiency with an electric powertrain and an oil burning electric station is in the range of 27%. (Of course, using partly renewables, this improves a lot already today, and will go up in the future)

I expect there is some cherry picking going on there.  Say taking an American V8 gas guzzler as the example of the ICE and a bleeding edge, completely impractical new tech EV for the EV sample.

[DougSpindler]

Ever done the calculation to see home much gas a V8 with dual quad cabarators consumes with the pedal to the metal?  1 gallon every 42 seconds.

When crude oill was first being refined over 100 years ago there was no use for gasoline so it was just poured into local streams by the barrel.

The car industry just over 100 years ago was in a 3 way race to see what kind of technology customers would buy.  Would it be electric, ICE or ECE?
Women liked electric,  Quite, no fumes.  Electric cars and truck had the same limitation then as they due today, limited range due to battery technology. 

ECE or External combustion engines lost out.  In order to take a drive, the driver would have to start the fire to generate the steam about 30 minutes before wanting to leave.

ICE is what consumers wanted and what one out.  Gas is energy dense.  One could drive several hundred miles on a tank of gas about the size of a suitcase.  And refueling was easy.  Just a quick trip to the local drug store to get another tank of that very inexpensive gasoline.  And remember after World War II less than half of the homes in America had electricty.

The problems electric cars had 100 years ago are the same ones we are experiencing today.  Or in 100 years of technological advances the same laws of physics still apply.

Now before folks start bashing me, I own an electric hybrid plugin car and am very pleased.  I will never buy another gasoline only powered car again.

The Tesla engineers are even buying electric hybrid plugin cars instead of the cars they are designing.  Why?  Lake Tahoe is about 20 miles beyond the range of a Tesla.  Only way they can get there is to get a charge along the way,  And I’ve seen 14 cars lined up waiting for a charge or use a electric hybrid plugin.  One of the last major snow storms in Tahoe knocked out power for 4 days,  Everyone who had an electric car was left stranded.

When will electric cars become mainstream?  When the laws do physics and thermodynamics change.

Electric cars are great.  But they sure have limitations,   

[paulca]

It gets confusing when you 'merkins keep calling it gas, when we have cars that actually run on gas, like Liquid Petroleum gas (LPG), Hydrogen gas, methane/natural gas etc.

Petroleum or Petrol makes it quite a bit clearer.

On efficient engines.  They don't have to be super slow and boring.  My car on the "highway" can get 42mpg (British gallon), but on a race track I averaged 5.4 mpg.  So that was about one gallon every 3 laps, or 1 gallon ever 5 minutes.

[Marco]

Fuel cost is just a part of the cost.

The fossil fuel plants are present any way, wind and solar just save fuel. For the moment there is distortion because of subsidies and special value signaling contracts, but on a large scale without subsidy fuel cost is the relevant cost for break even. As for gas, it's much harder to stockpile than coal. A coal based backup is more robust.

[Fungus]

When will electric cars become mainstream?  When the laws do physics and thermodynamics change.

Batteries have a long way to go yet. There are batteries in laboratories with nearly three times the energy density of gasoline:

https://phys.org/news/2013-09-molten-air-battery-storage-capacity-highest.html

Electric cars are great.  But they sure have limitations,   

Today's electric cars are great.  But today's electric cars sure have limitations.

FTFY.

[Marco]

https://phys.org/news/2013-09-molten-air-battery-storage-capacity-highest.html

Seems way too complex to me, air such a nasty poisonous medium to work with ... I don't see high cycle counts in the future of these batteries.

Mechanically recharging Zinc-Air seems more promising to me, not quite the energy density of Aluminum but Zinc-oxide is easier to reduce back to Zinc. With large batch processing purifying the Zinc is easy, so all the contaminants from the air won't pile up like in a rechargeable air battery.

PS. on second thought, maybe hybrids would make most sense ... replacing the anodes and electrolyte every 100 cycles or so.

[DougSpindler]

When will electric cars become mainstream?  When the laws do physics and thermodynamics change.

Batteries have a long way to go yet. There are batteries in laboratories with nearly three times the energy density of gasoline:

https://phys.org/news/2013-09-molten-air-battery-storage-capacity-highest.html

Electric cars are great.  But they sure have limitations,   

Today's electric cars are great.  But today's electric cars sure have limitations.

FTFY.

Compare the energy density to that of Nuclear fuel.  Not even close. 

The world will have another 2 billion people, batteries are just a storage medium, where's the energy going to come for to charge the battereis?

[Marco]

The world will have another 2 billion people, batteries are just a storage medium, where's the energy going to come for to charge the battereis?

The US has more than enough deserts for PV to supply it's energy needs. Europe not so much of course. For HVDC the world is a small place ... but the geopolitical implications of dependency are annoying, as they are now with our dependence on Russia.

[phil from seattle]

The Tesla engineers are even buying electric hybrid plugin cars instead of the cars they are designing.  Why?  Lake Tahoe is about 20 miles beyond the range of a Tesla.  Only way they can get there is to get a charge along the way,  And I’ve seen 14 cars lined up waiting for a charge or use a electric hybrid plugin.  One of the last major snow storms in Tahoe knocked out power for 4 days,  Everyone who had an electric car was left stranded.

Way to use anecdotes to prove a point. Yes, Tahoe is farther than the range of any Tesla on a single charge. Note on the supercharger map that there are SCs along the way. In fact, they were put there specifically to make Tahoe easily reachable from the Bay Area.  So, these "tesla engineers" aren't using teslas because they might have to charge en route? Yeah, that sounds plausible.  And  how many times a year does a major storm broadly knock out power for 4 days?  And also not cripple everything else?

[phil from seattle]

The world will have another 2 billion people, batteries are just a storage medium, where's the energy going to come for to charge the battereis?

The US has more than enough deserts for PV to supply it's energy needs. Europe not so much of course. For HVDC the world is a small place ... but the geopolitical implications of dependency are annoying, as they are now with our dependence on Russia.

Out of curiosity, how much area do all the rooftops in Europe take up? How much area for the parking lots?  I read that in rough numbers, 1 hectare of solar panels can generate 1 MW at peak.

[boffin]

Got the VIN number of my new electric car today, it's getting real. 
Now it just needs to be shipped from Halifax to Vancouver.  Apparently it'll be ready for pick up in 4 weeks or so ! WOOOOT

[DougSpindler]

The Tesla engineers are even buying electric hybrid plugin cars instead of the cars they are designing.  Why?  Lake Tahoe is about 20 miles beyond the range of a Tesla.  Only way they can get there is to get a charge along the way,  And I’ve seen 14 cars lined up waiting for a charge or use a electric hybrid plugin.  One of the last major snow storms in Tahoe knocked out power for 4 days,  Everyone who had an electric car was left stranded.

Way to use anecdotes to prove a point. Yes, Tahoe is farther than the range of any Tesla on a single charge. Note on the supercharger map that there are SCs along the way. In fact, they were put there specifically to make Tahoe easily reachable from the Bay Area.  So, these "tesla engineers" aren't using teslas because they might have to charge en route? Yeah, that sounds plausible.  And  how many times a year does a major storm broadly knock out power for 4 days?  And also not cripple everything else?

How many cars can a super charger charge at a given time?  If fourteen cars are all lined up to be charge how long does the person in the fourteenth car have to wait to get a charge?  And super chargers don’t give you a full charge so even when they get a charge their mileage is limited.
.

[nctnico]

Out of curiosity, how much area do all the rooftops in Europe take up? How much area for the parking lots?

Not enough. Parking lots are also rare. Usually parking garages are underground or at least multi-story buildings with a small footprint. Land is really scarse especially in the west part of Europe where most of the industry is.

As written before: solar panels need storage and infrastructure to carry the electricity to the place where it is needed. During the day electricity is in demand by heavy industry. Try to bring a feed from a residential area with solar panels towards a steel mill... Together with storage it will be terribly expensive. If you have 1000 households and a sunny day the electricity grid for that area will need to be able to handle the situation where everyone turns the washing machine and vacuum cleaner on at the same time. Local grids are not designed for such situations because they never occured before. And they are designed that way to reduce costs. Putting solar panels on roofs in residential areas is a pipe dream. It is way too expensive if you add everything up because you can't avoid upgrading the grid and/or using local storage. For kicks look at the pricing of Tesla's wall battery. There is no break even point if you add that to the cost of your solar panel setup.

It is a much better idea to place solar panels together with large wind turbines somewhere on unused land or out in the sea. That way you can transport the electricity over a few lines and feed it into the backbone of the mains grid directly. Also maintenance will be easier because the installation is more uniform.

[bicycleguy]

I love to see all this negativity about electric cars. 

I drive a 2014 Chevy Spark.  It has the same 103 mile range on a hot day it did when new.  I got it new for $19k in 2015 because nobody wants them.  (the Chevy dealer doesn't even have 240V charging capability ! )  Then got a $7.5k fed tax rebate and a $2.5k state tax rebate, so $9k invested.

The car is ridiculously ( ludicrously ! ) fast.  Have yet to loose a 0 - speed limit dash.  By the time ICE luddites with potentially faster cars realize they really have to go balls to the walls with foot and rpm and noise, I'm already quietly slowing down regenerating on the way.

The dealer is constantly trying to get me to come in for maintenance.  When I ask them for what they can't come up with anything!  I still own an ICE car but keep forgetting the whole filling station routine and keep asking myself why am I changing this oil and doing this maintenance.

I plan trips around fast charging stations.  Still amazes me to plug in car, pick up 80 miles range in 15 minutes, barely enough time for coffee and can.  Other than long trips all charging will be from my roof top solar, as soon as I finish it.

But the luddites are starting to see the light.  Soon the fast charging stations will be clogged with EVs lugging oversize batteries so they can quell their range anxiety.  Wonder when an electron hog F150EV 4X4 will start blocking my view.

This is the golden age of the EV, better enjoy it before its over.

Edited car name duh

[coppice]

I drive a 2014 Chevy Volt.  It has the same 103 mile range on a hot day it did when new.

How do you get such a high range? It seems to be twice what Chevrolet claim. I only know people with the first generation Volt, and they seem to get the sort of range Chevrolet claim, which is about 30 miles. I understand the second generation is supposed to give about 50 miles.

[bicycleguy]

I drive a 2014 Chevy Volt.  It has the same 103 mile range on a hot day it did when new.

How do you get such a high range? It seems to be twice what Chevrolet claim. I only know people with the first generation Volt, and they seem to get the sort of range Chevrolet claim, which is about 30 miles. I understand the second generation is supposed to give about 50 miles.

Wow, that was stupid of me.  I laugh when others can't keep the silly Chevy names straight ie: Spark, Volt, Bolt but I did it myself .  I'll edit the post.

[mtdoc]

I drive a 2014 Chevy Volt.  It has the same 103 mile range on a hot day it did when new.

How do you get such a high range? It seems to be twice what Chevrolet claim. I only know people with the first generation Volt, and they seem to get the sort of range Chevrolet claim, which is about 30 miles. I understand the second generation is supposed to give about 50 miles.

Wow, that was stupid of me.  I laugh when others can't keep the silly Chevy names straight ie: Spark, Volt, Bolt but I did it myself .  I'll edit the post.

Yeah - I noticed that and suspected you meant the Spark.  FWIW, my gen 1 Volt gets 30-40 miles per charge. Warm days it's higher. My usual daily commute is 12 mi round trip so I rarely need to burn gas.  It's 6 miles down hill and 6 miles uphill (2000 feet elevation gain) to get back home.  In almost 4 years I've burned less than 100 gallons.

[james_s]

It gets confusing when you 'merkins keep calling it gas, when we have cars that actually run on gas, like Liquid Petroleum gas (LPG), Hydrogen gas, methane/natural gas etc.

Petroleum or Petrol makes it quite a bit clearer.

On efficient engines.  They don't have to be super slow and boring.  My car on the "highway" can get 42mpg (British gallon), but on a race track I averaged 5.4 mpg.  So that was about one gallon every 3 laps, or 1 gallon ever 5 minutes.

We have those too, LNG or Propane, both are mostly used for fleet vehicles like garbage trucks and school buses but I've seen a few private cars that had been converted to propane. Gas is short for Gasoline, I don't know why there are multple names for the stuff but it's not too hard to remember that gas = petrol and what you call "gas" is either propane or LNG (liquified methane).

Also not everyone in the US rolls around with a huge thirsty V8, I'd say 4 cylinder and V6 are the two most common engine configurations you see around. Fullsized trucks and really big SUVs are mostly V8 but they're not nearly as dominant as they were in the prior to the 80s. Personally I've always had 4 cylinder cars, mostly turbocharged.