Pure Electric Vehicles

[Willem]

I'm still using the "good old" Muscles so far

IF i buy an E-bike it will only be used to travel between home and work (roundtrip= approx. 26 Km), so with latest good ones a charge every third or even fourth day
is enough, and if necessary i can even charge at work.
I've been thinking about buying one for a couple of years now, since every kid >12 seems to ride one nowadays, (God forbid they use their own muscles) and i'm 61, so yeah perhaps it's time.

I am only 73, and still use my own muscle power, both for trips in town (mostly about 5 km one way) and for multi week camping tours when I ride about 60 km a day: https://fietsvakantie.home.blog/over/ I can see there is an argument in favour of Ebikes for long commutes of 10 km one way or more, but other than that? Daily cycling is an ideal way to mainstain a basic fitness.

 

[Soundproof]

In the Netherlands the market share of fully electric new cars is now above 50%, and continuing to go up. Of the remainder nearly all are hybrids. The bulk of new car sales in the Netherlands is for leased company cars, and businesses not only want to project a modern and green image, but are also cost conscious. The new car market share of EVs is likely to go up even more, both because of fuel costs, but also because of a new tax regime for company cars that will make ICE cars and hybrids prohibitively more expensive. So yes, in a sense this is political, but from a conservative government. The only resistance comes from a small but vocal minority of populist culture warriors.
The charging infrastructure is very good, with fast DC charging points at every pump along the highways, and many public AC ones in towns as well. Almost every one with a private home has solar panels, and if they have a driveway to park their car, many now have their own chargers. The challenge will be to arrange for those who have panels but no driveway because and have to park in the street. This will need new regulation.
The grid remains a challenge, and will stay that way for quite a few years. There is a lot of investment going into it, but demand continues to increase ever faster, not only for EVs, but also for heatpumps and industry. One thing that eperts believe will help is a smarter grid with dynamic pricing, and on the car side of things more cars with Vehicle to Grid capability, using the huge battery of an EV as a home battery to stabilize supply and demand. It is coming, but more slowly than I would like.
As for the cars themselves, Chinese cars are now beginning to arrive in larger numbers, and most of those are electric. They are loaded with gimmicks that I don't care much about, and often look pretty smart, but don't handle as well as most European cars. The only American cars we see are Teslas, but those are made in Germany.

The only variant of hybrid tech I'm positive towards is the T-hybrid solution by Porsche. Beyond that, doubling up for the drivetrain adds complications and service costs. And weight. They are almost gone for regular cars for average people hereabout, the remnants being accelleration boosters for performance cars. They were attractive due to lower taxes.

As far as thermal pumps goes (for homes), there are mainly 2 options - air and ground, and both reduces the energy usage for heating significantly.

Believe Stellantis and so are a couple of generations behind technologywise, and I believe one has to do some homework before choosing a specific car. The cost cutting operations in European car industry, will have some casualties, and some Chinese brands will sink. Thus picking the right one for private ownership may contribute significantly to lowering the ownership costs. Leasing is a different matter, but the leasing costs for comparable cars may very well be an indicator for how they picture the risks and loss of value for people purchasing too...

The genie will not return to the bottle, but when the market and tech moves so fast, it is difficult to make sensible picks.

 

[Willem]

I am not a fan of hybrids either. They made sense a long time ago, but no longer. I think they will disappear sooner rather than later. I agree that it seems like Stellantis is behind on the electrical side. However, a car is more than just the electrical components. My son has a Peugeot 308 EV company car, and it is superbly comfortable and the same is true for the classy handling. This is what Peugeot has always been very good at, and for him that mattered more than the EV technology itself (he is a high mileage driver).
We enjoy our heatpump for home heating and hot water (we already had floor heating which is a practical requirement for heatpumps). The high cost does not necessarily make it a good financial proposition, but our gas boiler was on its last leg and we had to look for a solution for the next 15 years. It also saves us the connection charge for natural gas. The home insulation that we did was certainly a very good financial investment, and had to come before moving over to a heatpump anyway. Solar panels were another good investment. In total, we now have an electricity bill of 135 euros a month, which is really not much for a 220 sq m detached house in the north of the Netherlands. We are planning to move over to an EV, but only to one with V2G, so we are still holding off for perhaps another year or so.

 

[Soundproof]

I have a rather positive impression of Peugeot, past and present, and the Renault 5 Turbo EV reinvention is pretty cool. Just believe it is worth keeping in mind - as with Skoda being a gen behind their VW sieblings for fossiles and 4wd.

As for household energy, the initial investments are significant for sure, and some of the insulation used is less than healthy, as fires tells a different story than the marketing. Believe it is important to choose machinery/piping and so on having as much off shelf hardware as possible. Replacing an electric motor, pump, wiring/plugs and pipes ++ is much cheaper to replace if you can get it anywhere. Solar water heater panels/loops in the system would likely do miracles to the heating bill aswell.

 

[Willem]

Another unexpected advantage of heatpumps combined with floor heating is that in summer you can use it to mildly cool your house. This will not cool your house as strongly as US style air systems, but enough for most European homes. This summer we had unprecedented heat waves with a fair number of days around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (and more in Southern Europe). Inside temperatures in our house reached up to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit for a number of days, and the cooling would have reduced it by 3-4 degrees, which would have been a meaningful difference. I still have to investigate what changes are necessay to our existing floor heating, and decide if I will find it worth the money, but the friends who have already done this say they are very happy. And Summer temperatures are likely to rise even more. The electricity cost will be virtually zero, given that our solar panels will produce a quite massive amount of free electricity.

 

[Soundproof]

Another unexpected advantage of heatpumps combined with floor heating is that in summer you can use it to mildly cool your house. This will not cool your house as strongly as US style air systems, but enough for most European homes. This summer we had unprecedented heat waves with a fair number of days around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (and more in Southern Europe). Inside temperatures in our house reached up to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit for a number of days, and the cooling would have reduced it by 3-4 degrees, which would have been a meaningful difference. I still have to investigate what changes are necessay to our existing floor heating, and decide if I will find it worth the money, but the friends who have already done this say they are very happy. And Summer temperatures are likely to rise even more. The electricity cost will be virtually zero, given that our solar panels will produce a quite massive amount of free electricity.

For air heating, one trick is to bury a long pipe deep into the ground with an inlet box. Cools down the inlet air in summer, heats it at winter. Hardware is cheap and it works, provided your ground is large enough.

A far stretch from EV's, but with solar ++, energy produced and energy saved, the surplus is for EV.

 

[mhardy6647]

What about that '30 years' proclaimed in the past, as well in the future?

As we used to say at the first biotech company at which I worked:

Bringing you yesterday's products tomorrow.

That said, I still can't help but think that controlled & sustainable nuclear fusion is the only real answer to our species' (and our successor species, AI's) survival given our thirst for, shall we say, exogenous power.

 

[Mr. Widget]

I am only 73, and still use my own muscle power, both for trips in town (mostly about 5 km one way) and for multi week camping tours when I ride about 60 km a day: https://fietsvakantie.home.blog/over/ I can see there is an argument in favour of Ebikes for long commutes of 10 km one way or more, but other than that? Daily cycling is an ideal way to mainstain a basic fitness.

I'm approaching 70 and ride daily, but I have hung up my beautiful road bikes and now ride E bikes... I have a steep 900' (275m) climb to get home. I just can't make it up the hill anymore, but with the aid of the electric motor I can still ride everyday to go shopping or just recreationally.

To keep in shape, I mostly ride with the motor off or on its lowest setting, but during the steep climbs, it has been a game changer for me.

 

[Tassin]

For air heating, one trick is to bury a long pipe deep into the ground with an inlet box. Cools down the inlet air in summer, heats it at winter. Hardware is cheap and it works, provided your ground is large enough.

Do you know of any evidence/studies to back this up?

I've seen vids on YT suggesting the same, but my gut feeling says the soil cannot keep up warming up or cooling the air flowing through. Not at the rate you would need to condition the volume of air inside your house.

Unless I see real evidence, I opt to not believe in this.

 

[Soundproof]

Do you know of any evidence/studies to back this up?

I've seen vids on YT suggesting the same, but my gut feeling says the soil cannot keep up warming up or cooling the air flowing through. Not at the rate you would need to condition the volume of air inside you house.

Unless I see real evidence, I opt to not believe in this.

The principle is well known and works just as it does with water/liquid in pipes.

How well it works will depend upon dia and length needed whatever the conditions are in situ. Wherever the ground freezes in the winter season, the depth of "the freeze" will vary year by year - if snow arrives in sufficient quantities and stays before the ground freezes, snow is an excellent isolator.. If the air temp stays say -20 for 2 months before the snow arrives, the pipe has to be deep in the ground. If snow arrives early and stays, the ground may be +5C to +7C at 3 meters. If the outdoor air temp is -10C or -25C that's a significant difference at the house inlet.

It all depends upon your in situ conditions and the right dia and length. Hereabout, pipes for water/sewage has to be abt 2.5-3 meters below surface to cover worst case winter scenarios....

Works the same way in tempered climates. It depends upon the ground temp at the depth of the pipe. If it is +40C daytime, and the ground temp at 3m is +15 C, that is again a significant difference at the house inlet.

 

[Salt]

In

The principle is well known and works just as it does with water/liquid in pipes.

How well it works will depend upon dia and length needed whatever the conditions are in situ. Wherever the ground freezes in the winter season, the depth of "the freeze" will vary year by year - if snow arrives in sufficient quantities and stays before the ground freezes, snow is an excellent isolator.. If the air temp stays say -20 for 2 months before the snow arrives, the pipe has to be deep in the ground. If snow arrives early and stays, the ground may be +5C to +7C at 3 meters. If the outdoor air temp is -10C or -25C that's a significant difference at the house inlet.

It all depends upon your in situ conditions and the right dia and length. Hereabout, pipes for water/sewage has to be abt 2.5-3 meters below surface to cover worst case winter scenarios....

Works the same way in tempered climates. It depends upon the ground temp at the depth of the pipe. If it is +40C daytime, and the ground temp at 3m is +15 C, that is again a significant difference at the house inlet.

With water condensing on the wall of the pipe one might grow a field of funghi over the times ... and thus potential health hazard.
Just one thougt.

But if you're going digging, why not liquid driven circles?

 

[Soundproof]

In

With water condensing on the wall of the pipe one might grow a field of funghi over the times ... and thus potential health hazard.
Just one thougt.

But if you're going digging, why not liquid driven circles?

Agree wrt funghi, but you can borrow a building heater and push air more than hot enough to kill funghi, through the pipe whenever that could be a concern.

Why not water pipes? The installation/hardware will be way more expensive, besides, you won't get fresh cool/warm air into your house, and houses need fresh air even if you have liquid fluid heating/cooling in all your floors.

The geothermal air solution is dead simple technically, the pipes are cheap, the fan /regulator/sensors can be off the shelf with no specialized store overhead and so on. Fan can be regulated with any sensor/switch combo suitable. It's cheap - as long as the digging is.

The 2 solutions are not mutually exclusive though.

If you think it through, have a look at Sanaa (Yemen) or some old buildings in India, they all take advantage of simple thermal solutions for ventilation and chill of the houses.

I have used "windsails" for ventilation - works better than any mechanical ventilation solution if done right. Dead simple: A good dia pipe, two vertical plates in cross on top - picks up wind from any direction - and a circular horizontal plate on top of that to keep rain out. Works like a charm.

 

[ErVikingo]

I tried to put a geothermal cooling system in my house because the ground temps here stay around 70–72°F and a simple closed‑loop water setup would’ve worked perfectly. The equipment was about twice the cost of a conventional HVAC system, but the long‑term efficiency made it worth considering.

What killed the project wasn’t the drilling or the engineering. It was the permitting. After designing it and spending close to a year with the building department, the required environmental studies and impact assessments were quoted at more than $150,000 before a single hole could be drilled and no guarantees it would be approved. That’s more than I paid for 4 fully installed 5‑ton 26 SEER conventional units.

Once the regulatory costs were added, geothermal ended up costing more than double a standard system with nothing actually installed yet. I went conventional not because geothermal didn’t make sense, but because the process treated a small residential closed‑loop system like a major environmental hazard.

Curious if anyone else has run into this or if some states handle residential geothermal with a lighter touch.

 

[Soundproof]

I tried to put a geothermal cooling system in my house because the ground temps here stay around 70–72°F and a simple closed‑loop water setup would’ve worked perfectly. The equipment was about twice the cost of a conventional HVAC system, but the long‑term efficiency made it worth considering.

What killed the project wasn’t the drilling or the engineering. It was the permitting. After designing it and spending close to a year with the building department, the required environmental studies and impact assessments were quoted at more than $150,000 before a single hole could be drilled and no guarantees it would be approved. That’s more than I paid for 4 fully installed 5‑ton 26 SEER conventional units.

Once the regulatory costs were added, geothermal ended up costing more than double a standard system with nothing actually installed yet. I went conventional not because geothermal didn’t make sense, but because the process treated a small residential closed‑loop system like a major environmental hazard.

Curious if anyone else has run into this or if some states handle residential geothermal with a lighter touch.

Am an outsider, but I have had dealings with EPA and various states related to environmental matters, and more or less identical dealings with the European counterparts.

Boiled down and in my experience: US environmental entities are defined by legal protection issues, rules and regs governed accordingly. Further, they are part financed by incidents and permits. Way way WAY more bureaucratic than Europe, and way more expensive.

As for your case, in Scandinavia I would argue there are typically 2-3 obstacles which may be prohibitive or indeed costly: 1 in environmentally sensitive areas like bordering to wetlands, creeks or ocean/lakes. Which people would or definately should know before spending. 2: The archeological authorities who are notified, may or may not find the land interesting, and if they decide to excavate (as a result of landowner's digging plans), they can pin the costs on the landowner. All or some of it. THAT can be expensive. 3: if the property is considered protected by historical interest, e.g the garden or a 400 year old oak, there may be restrictions to ensure the protected elements are not altered or damaged.

Beyond that, if it's not wetland or such, it's your land, and there should be no issues, no requirements for permits or so apart from getting fixed electric installations approved - following rules/regs and caretake safety.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Hereabout people like wind turbines a lot, as long as they are not placed here or anywhere they can be seen

I love watching windmills working, back in the day either milling or pumping, now generators.
I walk my dog on the Ridgeway and one of the sights I look forward to is watching the wind turbines in the Vale of the White Horse. There are only a few but I like them and wish there were more.
My wife's best friend, they have been friends since primary school, have 3 wind turbines on their farm on the Moray Firth coast. Beautiful to watch. IMO

 

[Frank Dernie]

@Frank Dernie you should move to Australia.
My solar made 75kWh yesterday, only early days of Spring here - will double that generation in peak summer. Combined with a small battery - can remain energy independent, enough to charge the EV. Still have a petrol guzzling performance car as well though.

No tarrifs here, so Chinese EVs are really cheap as well, plus government incentives to go EV. Insurance, registration, lease, servicing, running costs etc. - all pre-tax, 45cents per dollar

Too hot for me!
I have loads of friends in Australia and have visited often but 25C is the highest temperature I will voluntarily go outside in

 

[Frank Dernie]

I'm still using the "good old" Muscles so far

My two V8s are in storage.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The only variant of hybrid tech I'm positive towards is the T-hybrid solution by Porsche. Beyond that, doubling up for the drivetrain adds complications and service costs. And weight.

By far the simplest drive train for cars is the (patented) Toyota hybrid system which, because of its sensible design needs no clutch or multi ratio gearbox, is light simple and reliable. I agree with you in the case of all the others.
OTOH you have to choose a Toyota or Lexus to get it.
The Porsche T-hybrid is similar to the system we used in Formula 1 for years which is excellent but the turbos become expensive when fitted with a motor/generator which can take the speed and heat.
Ironically when the current engine rules were being planned Porsche were one of the manufacturers considering entering the series, so were invited to the discussions.
They voted to ban the MGU-H, which was the turbo with motor generator, because it was too expensive to be worth developing for road cars, so shouldn't be in F1.
Renault and Audi also voted to drop it for these rules and here we are without it whilst neither Porsche nor Renault are in F1 and Porsche have indeed produced a road car with it .
I do like it, since it is efficient and reduces the lag of a turbo engine (I despise turbocharged engines for their poor response for road use), but electric motors are simply better than piston engines in every objective way for a road car so my piston engined cars only come out for nostalgia and to remind me how antediluvian they are.

 

[Soundproof]

I love watching windmills working, back in the day either milling or pumping, now generators.
I walk my dog on the Ridgeway and one of the sights I look forward to is watching the wind turbines in the Vale of the White Horse. There are only a few but I like them and wish there were more.
My wife's best friend, they have been friends since primary school, have 3 wind turbines on their farm on the Moray Firth coast. Beautiful to watch. IMO

Guess we have different preferences then. The generators is only one part of the negative aspect though. The network of roads needed to place them and maintain them has a very significant impact on nature, changes and bars migration paths, and kill a lot of birds. I rather see safe micro thoriumbased nuclear powerplants.

By far the simplest drive train for cars is the (patented) Toyota hybrid system which, because of its sensible design needs no clutch or multi ratio gearbox, is light simple and reliable. I agree with you in the case of all the others.
OTOH you have to choose a Toyota or Lexus to get it.

Toyota likes to do weird things with the aestethics of their cars, not my cup of tea. My interest is limited to Land Cruiser and Hi Lux, and Lexus never did well in the Scandinavian countries as far as I'm aware. They are too closely assosciated with Toyota and the perspective people have on Toyota.

The Porsche T-hybrid is similar to the system we used in Formula 1 for years which is excellent but the turbos become expensive when fitted with a motor/generator which can take the speed and heat.
Ironically when the current engine rules were being planned Porsche were one of the manufacturers considering entering the series, so were invited to the discussions.
They voted to ban the MGU-H, which was the turbo with motor generator, because it was too expensive to be worth developing for road cars, so shouldn't be in F1.
Renault and Audi also voted to drop it for these rules and here we are without it whilst neither Porsche nor Renault are in F1 and Porsche have indeed produced a road car with it .
I do like it, since it is efficient and reduces the lag of a turbo engine (I despise turbocharged engines for their poor response for road use), but electric motors are simply better than piston engines in every objective way for a road car so my piston engined cars only come out for nostalgia and to remind me how antediluvian they are.

F1 is extremely important for technology development for sure. Porsche is very capable of passing costs on to their customers and secure some profit too

Guess their many, costly dealer/garage facilities, most of which came with Taycan/EV adds substancially to the overhead as well. Porsche only got real volume sales with the hybrid iterations of Cayenne, then Panamera shooting brake and Taycan shooting brake (both gone), and their garage/dealer network was scaled for that to continue. Significantly lower taxes for hybrids made that happen, and the sales dropped when the incentives disappeared. One has to pay attention if purchasing Porsche hybrids 2nd hand though.

Beyond my budget, and I am a mediocre regular driver at best (will never be able to take advantage of the performance), but the 2 I find attractive are the 911 Carrera 4 GTS and the 911 GT3 RS (which disappeared from their outbid in Sweden a few weeks ago).

I fully agree that electric motors are the way to go, the caveat being battery weight as charge cycle issues and fires are mainly solved. My beef with them is the contigency/vulnerability/grid dependency, not the technology.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The network of roads needed to place them and maintain them has a very significant impact on nature, changes and bars migration paths, and kill a lot of birds.

Common narrative, but depends what you mean by "a lot". The estimate is between 10k and 100k per year here compared to 55 million by domestic cats, and road deaths. New experiments on avoiding collisions show promise.

Toyota likes to do weird things with the aestethics of their cars, not my cup of tea. My interest is limited to Land Cruiser and Hi Lux

I am an engineer and styling is of less importance to me than engineering and as an engineer seeking efficiency all my career am psychologically incapable of considering a vehicle as awful as a SUV.

Guess their many, costly dealer/garage facilities, most of which came with Taycan/EV adds substancially to the overhead as well. Porsche only got real volume sales with the hybrid iterations of Cayenne, then Panamera shooting brake and Taycan shooting brake (both gone), and their garage/dealer network was scaled for that to continue. Significantly lower taxes for hybrids made that happen, and the sales dropped when the incentives disappeared. One has to pay attention if purchasing Porsche hybrids 2nd hand though.

I tried the Panamera hybrid estate car in 2018 but rejected it in favour of a Toyota 600kg lighter and much more mechanically elegant.

I also rejected the 911 in the mid 90s in favour of a different make, and they are, along with most modern cars, far too wide to be of any fun.