Electric cars - how 'green' are they?

Sporky

crunchman said:

Even if the real world range is only 200 miles rather than 312 miles, that makes a big difference over where battery cars are at the moment.  It would get me to my Grandma's on a single tank.  It would allow me to do a round trip to my parents on a single tank.  No electric car on the market at the moment, or in the near future is likely to let me do that.

Nonsense. The Teslas already do that, and there are plenty on the horizon with similar ranges.

crunchman said:

You are also forgetting that fuel cell cars will improve.

Am I? Do you have any evidence for that claim?

exocet said:

Sporky said:

Hydrogen has low energy density - that's a fact which you "might need to read up on".

Isn't it "just" a case of compressing it more?  I'm sure that's more difficult than it sounds but this source claims that its possible to get very good energy density.

http://www.rebresearch.com/blog/hydrogen-versus-battery-power/

They're talking about compressing to 10,000 psi - that means a very strong, very heavy tank. In the Mirai the tanks weigh nearly 90kg to store just 5kg of hydrogen. You'd store as much energy in less than half the weight with petrol.

I'm not anti-hydrogen, nor anti-electric, but neither is the single answer to all the problems.

BigMonka

Fretwired said:

chillidoggy said:

Fuck me, it'll be hell up our road, then. It's already 'parking wars' on a daily basis, so access to the two street lamps we have is likely to end up in pitched battles.

Yep, and guess what. Angry householders will pinch the cables or disable the charge point as people from other streets take advantage - vandalism will be rife. And the local kids will have fun as well.

Agreed. It also sounds like the billing is linked to the cable, so if during the night you borrow the one plugged in to your neighbours car then you can get a few hours free charging.

i really hope that someone has correctly done the electrical cable calculations too. Replacing an old street lamp with an LED type will only free up 1A max at each point, which is all the supply cables will be rated to. An electric car fast charge station can be well over 100A max, which is pretty different!

crunchman

Sporky said:

crunchman said:

Even if the real world range is only 200 miles rather than 312 miles, that makes a big difference over where battery cars are at the moment.  It would get me to my Grandma's on a single tank.  It would allow me to do a round trip to my parents on a single tank.  No electric car on the market at the moment, or in the near future is likely to let me do that.

Nonsense. The Teslas already do that, and there are plenty on the horizon with similar ranges.

Ok, the latest Tesla is quoting 335 miles for the 100kWh battery in their latest top of the range model (I was still thinking they were around 200 miles like the earlier models when I wrote that).  Having said that, the real world range is probably a lot less. It's an extreme example but when Clarkson was hooning around with one of the earlier models, he only did 55 miles.  That might translate to 90 miles with the latest model.  You aren't going to drive like that on the road, but you are probably in the 200 mile range for "real world driving".  The quoted range is still 30 miles less than the Fuel Cell version of the Honda Clarity.

Having the range doesn't solve the charging problem though.  Even if it can do the distance, a 100kWh battery will take 2 hours to charge from even the fastest charger on the market.

I've just googled and if I did go to visit Grandma in an electric car, the only charging point I can find in my home town over 3kW is in the car park of a hotel, is only 7kW, and is probably only for the use of their customers.  The only realistic option in the town would be to recharge off a 13A socket, which would take almost  a day and half.  There are a few 50kW ones out near the motorway services about 6 miles out of town, but I don't want to sit in a service station for 2 hours with young kids.  While I might be able to go and see Grandma I couldn't easily get back.

Yes, there will be more and better charging points in the future, but I still don't want to hang around for hours waiting while the car charges.

Sporky said:

exocet said:

Sporky said:

Hydrogen has low energy density - that's a fact which you "might need to read up on".

Isn't it "just" a case of compressing it more?  I'm sure that's more difficult than it sounds but this source claims that its possible to get very good energy density.

http://www.rebresearch.com/blog/hydrogen-versus-battery-power/

They're talking about compressing to 10,000 psi - that means a very strong, very heavy tank. In the Mirai the tanks weigh nearly 90kg to store just 5kg of hydrogen. You'd store as much energy in less than half the weight with petrol.

I'm not anti-hydrogen, nor anti-electric, but neither is the single answer to all the problems.

Even if it is less energy dense than petrol, the efficiency of the electric motors will largely cancel that out.  The best combustion engines are around 40% efficient, while electric motors are upwards of 80%.  Add in regenerative braking as well, and it's not really an issue.

You might not agree, but it seems clear to me that the Fuel Cell is the best all round option to clean up our air in the long term.  Even if batteries do improve, they will take too long to charge (even if the grid can cope) - and that will only get worse with bigger capacities.

The big problem at the moment is what's happening in the short term.  The government's latest proposals will mean nothing being done to clean up our air in the next couple of years.

Danny1969

 I think Top Gear were sue'ed over faking the early car running out of power after 55 miles. No idea of the outcome though

Early indications using data harvested by Tesla Users and analysed by one guy suggest a Tesla model S battery could last 25 years in normal use so it's feasible the main component people fear replacing in a used  electric car could potentially outlast a normal internal combustion engine from a normal car in terms of a working life

There's a load of problems to overcome, electric cars are far from perfect but there's a simplicity to the basis idea of a Tesla that really appeals to me ...... think about it,  it's got a 3 phase induction motor that has no moving friction parts other than 2 bearings. You open the bonnet and you can put your amp in there cos there's no engine. The boot is huge as well. The actual motor and battery pack sit low in the car maintaining a low centre of gravity. The Tesla model S also received the highest safety award of any car ever tested. 

I think Ultra Capacitor technology will come into use with electric cars, a bank of ultra capacitors installed in the car can be charged with a huge current in a couple of minutes, then the low voltage output of the caps can be used via an inverter to charge the actual battery pack over the course of the car being parked or actually driven. You can't use Ultra Caps as batteries because of their internal leakage and non linear discharge rate but as a very quick high current low volts energy storage tool they work well and have a cycle life in the millions. I'm working on an electric bike at the moment which uses this principle as where I live the hills are massively steep and bike brakes wear out in weeks of normal use. The idea is instead of heavy braking the hub motor is switched to charging a bank of super caps which can take a larger charging current than the LIM packs and the output of the caps is buck converted up and used to help recharge the LIM packs when braking stops.  

At the moment you would need a huge amount of the largest ultra caps we currently have to do the above but the technology is advancing all the time  ..... have a read of this to see what I mean  

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/26/graphene-supercapacitor-breaks-storage-record

Bucket

Much as I'd like to get on board, seeing as I live in London with its filthy air and traffic problems, electric/plug-in hybrid cars are regrettably a non-starter for me as I'm living in a block of flats with on-street parking - how would we propose to change this for many other people living in similar places to me? I assume providing more plug-in power points on the street, but surely it'd be very impractical and expensive, and a target for vandalism?

If I could, I would love something like a BMW i3 or a VW Golf GTE once they've come down a little on the used market.

boogieman

Price is the biggest turn off for me. I had a look at used Teslas online yesterday, on the UK site they start at over £50k for a three year old basic model, rising to well over £80k. The "free" supercharging isn't quite what I thought either; it's only free for roughly the first 1000 miles per year, then it's pay per charge. They state it's still cheaper to run than a petrol equivalent, but then don't factor in the initial purchase price.  

ICBM

All of these concerns are valid at the moment, but I bet the horse people said much the same sort of things about internal combustion engines in the early 1900s. Cars were hugely expensive, weren't very efficient so had a short range, it wasn't always easy to buy fuel everywhere, etc etc.

And in fact, one of the major advantages of the internal combustion engine at the time was that it was seen as a clean technology, which massively reduced pollution in cities... ie no horse shit.

Things will change again, and faster than most of us think. The government's 2040 date is likely to be meaningless because it will have been overtaken by events well before then.

crunchman

Danny1969 said:

 I think Top Gear were sue'ed over faking the early car running out of power after 55 miles. No idea of the outcome though

Tesla lost:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/mar/05/top-gear-tesla-jeremy-clarkson

Danny1969

boogieman said:

Price is the biggest turn off for me. I had a look at used Teslas online yesterday, on the UK site they start at over £50k for a three year old basic model, rising to well over £80k. The "free" supercharging isn't quite what I thought either; it's only free for roughly the first 1000 miles per year, then it's pay per charge. They state it's still cheaper to run than a petrol equivalent, but then don't factor in the initial purchase price.  

There's been a 3 stage plan from Tesla, first they make a very fast electric car to rid peoples minds of electric cars as not being sporty. Then they make a luxury electric car to compete with the BMW and Mercs. Now the model 3 is about to come out. This will be priced around $35,000 new in the States so maybe around £28,000 over here .... that's not much more than a spec;ed up Ford Focus ..... lots of info here  

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/tesla-model-3-performance-specs-news-rumors/ ;

boogieman

Danny1969 said:

boogieman said:

Price is the biggest turn off for me. I had a look at used Teslas online yesterday, on the UK site they start at over £50k for a three year old basic model, rising to well over £80k. The "free" supercharging isn't quite what I thought either; it's only free for roughly the first 1000 miles per year, then it's pay per charge. They state it's still cheaper to run than a petrol equivalent, but then don't factor in the initial purchase price.  

There's been a 3 stage plan from Tesla, first they make a very fast electric car to rid peoples minds of electric cars as not being sporty. Then they make a luxury electric car to compete with the BMW and Mercs. Now the model 3 is about to come out. This will be priced around $35,000 new in the States so maybe around £28,000 over here .... that's not much more than a spec;ed up Ford Focus ..... lots of info here  

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/tesla-model-3-performance-specs-news-rumors/ ;

Fair enough. I was comparing what's around at the moment. To put it in perspective: a 3 year old Tesla in basic (although admittedly still decent) spec is £50k. I paid £28k for our five month old better spec'd Jaguar XF. 

Danny1969

@boogieman Used Tesla's tend to hold their prices as the early ones came with free Supercharging which is transferable between owners. 

In real terms of spec there isn't really any other cars that are comparable ..... I mean sure a Jag \ Merc might have nicer trim but you don't get ludicrous mode acceleration, Autopilot driving, 17" touchscreen and such with a Merc or Jag

I do love a Jag though, had an XJ40 in the ninities then an XJR in the noughties .... now ride a pushbike )

Cirrus

Fretwired said:

I'm pretty sure the USS Enterprise was a nuclear powered ship ... :-)

Ships and planes can be run on electricity - both Airbus and Boeing are investing heavily in green tech ..

Actually I believe it was run off the energy generated by injecting small amounts of matter and antimatter, regulated by Dilithium crystals...


Ahem...


OK, to my mind electric cars aren't the industry re-defining thing - self driving cars are the shock that's going to totally change how we see car transport in the future.

All the talk about specific technologies for generating, capturing, storing and ultimately releasing energy to propel a vehicle are very interesting and I've enjoyed all the posts in this thread. My perspective on it is more on the overall system.

At the moment, the 'system' of personal motor vehicle use is massively inefficient. We bumble around in our individual bubbles of personal space doing all kinds of things that waste energy - everything from pointless acceleration-brake cycles to the way we collectively cause traffic jams to making journeys that didn't need to be made in the first place to taking a less efficient route because we didn't factor in a windy country road or the real-time traffic situation. Plus, because we all drive our own cars and are fallible, we need to spend money designing very safe cars that can protect us in major crashes, which adds weight to the vehicle itself. The average human weighs like 60-70kg, but every time a single human goes for a drive we also need to propel anywhere from 10 to 30 times that weight in the form of the vehicle itself. Taking a wider view, mass car ownership has totally changed the way we structure out lives - everything from where we live and work to out of town shopping parks. Not many people could sustain their current way of life without a car, having got used to owning one.

In a world of self driving cars, mass car ownership no longer makes sense for reasons already given in this thread - namely that you don't need a car sat on your drive waiting for you; you just order one as and when needed. A subscription model makes sense for this. Self driving cars can talk to each other, and will be able to talk to junctions. So ultimately, even if battery technology didn't improve massively, you'll still end up with a situation where an electric car can go much further because there won't be nearly as much stop start, the driving style will be far less wasteful in terms of not having needless acceleration, and vehicles will be able to be made lighter because the chances of a crash will significantly reduce. Ultimately, it's going to be a question of just reducing rolling resistance and avoiding making the things have to slow down.

I do think the social change will be the hard bit - we're used to owning our own cars, I suspect we'll end up feeling like people from the southern US states do regarding gun ownership - "they're trying to take away our cars and our freedom!" ultimately, who will own the vehicles? Who will control access to transportation? Who will lose out, and who will gain?

hotpot

Danny1969 said:

boogieman said:

Price is the biggest turn off for me. I had a look at used Teslas online yesterday, on the UK site they start at over £50k for a three year old basic model, rising to well over £80k. The "free" supercharging isn't quite what I thought either; it's only free for roughly the first 1000 miles per year, then it's pay per charge. They state it's still cheaper to run than a petrol equivalent, but then don't factor in the initial purchase price.  

There's been a 3 stage plan from Tesla, first they make a very fast electric car to rid peoples minds of electric cars as not being sporty. Then they make a luxury electric car to compete with the BMW and Mercs. Now the model 3 is about to come out. This will be priced around $35,000 new in the States so maybe around £28,000 over here .... that's not much more than a spec;ed up Ford Focus ..... lots of info here  

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/tesla-model-3-performance-specs-news-rumors/ ;

No wonder BMW have announced that they're 'electrifying' their model range.

TESLA MODEL 3 Owners Club, ran an interesting survey asking Model 3 reservation holders what car their upcoming Model 3 will be replacing.

Top of the list was BMW 3 series.

This also means that about a half million cars that would have been purchased over the next year or so, will not be bought, as their would-be owners are eagerly awaiting their new Model 3.

http://insideevs.com/poll-results-bmw-3-series-top-trade-tesla-model-3/

crunchman

Was just inspired by this thread to look at what's out there in terms of electric cars.  They are still very expensive to buy.  The only one that has a reasonable headline price is the Renault Zoe.  The problem with that is that you have to pay to lease the battery.  On the kind of mileage we do, that would cost around £70 per month - which makes it seriously expensive like all the other electric cars.

There is nothing with a decent range and/or size on the market for anything significantly less than £30k.  Even with cheaper running costs, the only way the sums add up is if you can use them to avoid paying the congestion charge in London.

Plugin hybrids are probably a better bet in the short term.  A Golf GTE is listed at about £2k more than a GTi.  That's a bit more palatable than some of the pure electric vehicles, but having two transmission systems has got to add weight and complexity.

Fretwired

Cirrus said:

Fretwired said:

I'm pretty sure the USS Enterprise was a nuclear powered ship ... :-)

Ships and planes can be run on electricity - both Airbus and Boeing are investing heavily in green tech ..

Actually I believe it was run off the energy generated by injecting small amounts of matter and antimatter, regulated by Dilithium crystals...

The aircraft carrier not the fictional star ship .. ;-)

Danny1969

crunchman said:

Was just inspired by this thread to look at what's out there in terms of electric cars.  They are still very expensive to buy.  The only one that has a reasonable headline price is the Renault Zoe.  The problem with that is that you have to pay to lease the battery.  On the kind of mileage we do, that would cost around £70 per month - which makes it seriously expensive like all the other electric cars.

There is nothing with a decent range and/or size on the market for anything significantly less than £30k.  Even with cheaper running costs, the only way the sums add up is if you can use them to avoid paying the congestion charge in London.

Plugin hybrids are probably a better bet in the short term.  A Golf GTE is listed at about £2k more than a GTi.  That's a bit more palatable than some of the pure electric vehicles, but having two transmission systems has got to add weight and complexity.

The Tesla model 3 is about to be released, that's expected to come in around 28K new and it has a similar performance to a sporty BMW 3 series 

crunchman

Danny1969 said:

The Tesla model 3 is about to be released, that's expected to come in around 28K new and it has a similar performance to a sporty BMW 3 series 

And a waiting list of over a year!

chillidoggy

I can see the advert now - the middle-class swinger dinner-party with some George Clooney lookalike casually dropping his key fob into the bowl on the table, then we hear "Ooooh, a Tesla", after some fit milf picks up his keys. This, then, is likely to be the excecutive bullshitter's topic of conversation for the evening about how he's doing his level best to save the planet in a stylish way, when in reality he's just trying to get a leg-over.

Pass me a bucket!

Chalky

Cirrus said:

Fretwired said:

I'm pretty sure the USS Enterprise was a nuclear powered ship ... :-)

Ships and planes can be run on electricity - both Airbus and Boeing are investing heavily in green tech ..

Actually I believe it was run off the energy generated by injecting small amounts of matter and antimatter, regulated by Dilithium crystals...


Ahem...


OK, to my mind electric cars aren't the industry re-defining thing - self driving cars are the shock that's going to totally change how we see car transport in the future.

All the talk about specific technologies for generating, capturing, storing and ultimately releasing energy to propel a vehicle are very interesting and I've enjoyed all the posts in this thread. My perspective on it is more on the overall system.

At the moment, the 'system' of personal motor vehicle use is massively inefficient. We bumble around in our individual bubbles of personal space doing all kinds of things that waste energy - everything from pointless acceleration-brake cycles to the way we collectively cause traffic jams to making journeys that didn't need to be made in the first place to taking a less efficient route because we didn't factor in a windy country road or the real-time traffic situation. Plus, because we all drive our own cars and are fallible, we need to spend money designing very safe cars that can protect us in major crashes, which adds weight to the vehicle itself. The average human weighs like 60-70kg, but every time a single human goes for a drive we also need to propel anywhere from 10 to 30 times that weight in the form of the vehicle itself. Taking a wider view, mass car ownership has totally changed the way we structure out lives - everything from where we live and work to out of town shopping parks. Not many people could sustain their current way of life without a car, having got used to owning one.

In a world of self driving cars, mass car ownership no longer makes sense for reasons already given in this thread - namely that you don't need a car sat on your drive waiting for you; you just order one as and when needed. A subscription model makes sense for this. Self driving cars can talk to each other, and will be able to talk to junctions. So ultimately, even if battery technology didn't improve massively, you'll still end up with a situation where an electric car can go much further because there won't be nearly as much stop start, the driving style will be far less wasteful in terms of not having needless acceleration, and vehicles will be able to be made lighter because the chances of a crash will significantly reduce. Ultimately, it's going to be a question of just reducing rolling resistance and avoiding making the things have to slow down.

I do think the social change will be the hard bit - we're used to owning our own cars, I suspect we'll end up feeling like people from the southern US states do regarding gun ownership - "they're trying to take away our cars and our freedom!" ultimately, who will own the vehicles? Who will control access to transportation? Who will lose out, and who will gain?

You make good points and you also make me smile.  What you've written is very much like articles I read back in the 60s.

We know that populations can change completely how they view things that are considered 'normal'. Just look at clothing fashions.

Generally we have moved to greater diversity and independence.  Look at phones, tv channels, media sources, music genres and more, all diversified beyond belief of folks back then. Look at sexuality, social mobility, job mobility and the gig culture - all changed massively.

Back then, cars came in only one or two variants of a model and a few colours, for example, whereas now the variants and options are almost innumerable for most folks' minds.  Cars make a statement about the owners, and a woman is just as likely to have a strong view on what car she wants, same with your average man.  

I don't see that changing easily.

Rocker

The electricity for charging cars has to come from somewhere. Nuclear, Solar, Wind or Other. What benefit is derived by switching from one bad situation to another? The likelihood is that this policy will never be implemented anyway. I suspect it is a smokescreen, a diversionary tactic while something else is being implemented. As always, watch your back...