Zero-emission vehicles, their batteries & subsidies/rebates for them.- No politics regarding the subsidies!

[Doodski]

I live ~ 50kms from work (100 every day), rural area. If I want see family they are ~ 300kms away. No public transport to speak of. My overriding purchase priority would range and reliability plus thr ability to recharge the vehicle at home (i've solar, soon battery pack). ATM there isnt much EV infrastructure around my area so I'll hold off untill then.

Yes, presently you would need 2 charging stations for that 300km trip. @ home and @ the destination for many electric vehicles. Apparently there is new Panasonic lithium battery technology coming that has much more storage capacity and increases the range substantially. The battery will have five times the storage capacity of current Tesla battery packs and will cost 50 percent less to build. The development of battery technology is paramount at the moment and I think the rewards for a successful technology are huge so the race is on for the leader to capitalize well.

 

[q3cpma]

I have simply never understood what I'm supposed to need a car for.

Some people don't like to live in the bug nests that medium and big cities are.

 

[Doodski]

Also interesting is the capability to convert ICE vehicles to electric. Ford has a new E-Crate electric motor that can power all 4 wheels of a vehicle or can be used on on each axle.

 

[Doodski]

Some people don't like to live in the bug nests that medium and big cities are.

I love living in the core of the big city! Everything is nearby. I like the autonomy and the availability of stuFF that I need. I lived in the country and in small towns for awhile and it was small, remote and required lots of fuel to commute, had a small selection of retailers and people to choose from whom I wanted to associate with. I think small town and rural living will not be serviced well by charging stations till after the main cities are serviced and the main traffic arteries have charging stations too.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Two things will make electrics, hydrogen powered or whatever work or not. It is the big idea Musk had. You don't make things like electric cars sell by making them super cheap and limited and asking people to do the right thing. Electrics or whatever will be popular when you make them affordable enough and make them desirable by having them beat IC powered cars in some way. That and Musk saw you start at the top of the market not the bottom and build into affordability as the market improves and the infrastructure to supply batteries improve.

That is how the auto industry unfolded initially. Early automobiles were niche and very expensive. They improved, manufacturing evolved, and they got better and cheaper. Finally Henry Ford put it all together with the model T. Maybe the Tesla model 3 is the electric model T in a sense. Tesla's have advantages over their price parity competition already with each model they make.

The thing I don't think that has been accomplished yet is getting them inexpensive enough. Electrics are still mostly fit for the upper half of the car market due to pricing. Total cost of ownership is in their favor, but that isn't so visible to the consumer as a low sticker price.

Conventional cars already last almost too long. Most people could buy only two new cars and drive them their entire life with good maintenance. Electrics will probably last even longer. People have other reasons to change cars beyond wearing them out. Like having kids and needing a van instead of a sports car. GM had a good idea on this. Build a universal skateboard chassis which could have multiple bodies swapped out. As interiors wear and needs change you just purchase the new body. A sports car when you are young, a mini-van when you have a family and a big luxury sedan body when your kids are grown.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Also interesting is the capability to convert ICE vehicles to electric. Ford has a new E-Crate electric motor that can power all 4 wheels of a vehicle or can be used on on each axle.

I saw just this morning they have now sold all the crate motors they have available. I didn't see how many that was, but apparently the demand for a $3900 electric crate motor was much higher than Ford thought.

 

[Ron Texas]

There are some hinderances to adoption. The charging infrastructure is insufficient. Batteries do not last the life of the vehicle. An 8 or 9 year old vehicle needing an expensive battery is basically worthless. Consumers have noticed rapid product evolution and are fearful of making a major investment in something which will be obsolete very soon.

Automakers like electric cars because they are simpler to put build. Once the above problems are solved consumers will choose EV's over ICE without subsidies or government moves to prohibit ICE sales.

The issues I have mentioned will keep me from buying an EV for a while. The characteristics I like are great acceleration, mechanical simplicity and low noise.

 

[Doodski]

The thing I don't think that has been accomplished yet is getting them inexpensive enough. Electrics are still mostly fit for the upper half of the car market due to pricing. Total cost of ownership is in their favor, but that isn't so visible to the consumer as a low sticker price.

The cost of admission to owning a electric will come down although the price for energy is going up due to carbon taxes/levies and the elimination of cheap coal electricity generation. Natural gas electricity generation is now being cut out too. @ 1/2 the GHG emissions compared to coal I don't think we can afford to give up natural gas for awhile. I think the ongoing centralization of the population into major centers will result in more people not purchasing a vehicle and vehicle coops and sharing schemes will become very popular simply due to the high price of admission to electrics and the increased expense of the energy required to operate one.

Conventional cars already last almost too long.

I am used to, "Air Care." It's a program where the ICE vehicles are tested annually for emissions and the state of tune of engine. That eliminates all but the vintage plated vehicles because people don't want to put money into a 10 year old vehicle with emissions issues. So I did not see too many older ICE vehicles on the road where the Air Care program is. Additionally we have harsher winters and the salt and anti-icing compound applied to the roads corrodes vehicles and they don't last as long in Canada as in many regions with warmer drier climates. So the adoption of electrics will be sped up by these things. Perhaps building new vehicles from plastics and carbon fiber is a good idea for longevity of the new vehicles as well as lighter weight for economy and performance.

 

[Blumlein 88]

There are some hinderances to adoption. The charging infrastructure is insufficient. Batteries do not last the life of the vehicle. An 8 or 9 year old vehicle needing an expensive battery is basically worthless. Consumers have noticed rapid product evolution and are fearful of making a major investment in something which will be obsolete very soon.

Automakers like electric cars because they are simpler to put build. Once the above problems are solved consumers will choose EV's over ICE without subsidies or government moves to prohibit ICE sales.

The issues I have mentioned will keep me from buying an EV for a while. The characteristics I like are great acceleration, mechanical simplicity and low noise.

I don't know if this is quite true in a way that matters. What's a conventional car worth with a worn out engine and transmission? The cost of fixing those two items is about on par with buying a new battery pack. It appears battery packs last pretty well in the area of 150 to 200 kmiles. Well maintained IC cars last a bit longer than that, but the cost of maintenance eats into how much that helps with total cost of ownership.

I think the charging infrastructure will get there. There was a time you didn't drive cars out of the city because no one had petrol for you in the hinterlands.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The cost of admission to owning a electric will come down although the price for energy is going up due to carbon taxes/levies and the elimination of cheap coal electricity generation. Natural gas electricity generation is now being demonized too. @ 1/2 the GHG emissions compared to coal I don't think we can afford to give up natural gas for awhile. I think the ongoing centralization of the population into major centers will result in more people not purchasing a vehicle and vehicle coops and sharing schemes will become very popular simply due to the high price of admission to electrics and the increased expense of the energy required to operate one.


I am used to, "Air Care." It's a program where the ICE vehicles are tested annually for emissions and the state of tune of engine. That eliminates all but the vintage plated vehicles because people don't want to put money into a 10 year old vehicle with emissions issues. So I did not see too many older ICE vehicles on the road where the Air Care program is. Additionally we have harsher winters and the salt and anti-icing compound applied to the roads corrodes vehicles and they don't last as long in Canada as in many regions with warmer drier climates. So the adoption of electrics will be sped up by these things. Perhaps building new vehicles from plastics and carbon fiber is a good idea for longevity of the new vehicles as well as lighter weight for economy and performance.

I think the big break will come if they do manage fully autonomous self driving. When that happens nobody wants to own a car. You request one on your phone and one shows up to drive you where you want to go in a matter of a few minutes nearly anywhere you are. You pay a fee for the trip or maybe like you mention belong to a coop that owns the cars.

 

[bluefuzz]

Some people don't like to live in the bug nests that medium and big cities are.

I don't live in a big city – smallish ~50.000 population provincial town. But I do live a half hour by public transport from a big city, though it's probably less than twice a year I take that journey.

 

[Ron Texas]

I don't know if this is quite true in a way that matters. What's a conventional car worth with a worn out engine and transmission? The cost of fixing those two items is about on par with buying a new battery pack. It appears battery packs last pretty well in the area of 150 to 200 kmiles. Well maintained IC cars last a bit longer than that, but the cost of maintenance eats into how much that helps with total cost of ownership.

I think the charging infrastructure will get there. There was a time you didn't drive cars out of the city because no one had petrol for you in the hinterlands.

Batteries have a 7 year warranty. The failure rate is 50% at 10 years. ICE engines and transmissions last an average of 160,000 miles which is the life of the vehicle. The rate of transmission failures is much lower than it was before electronic controls were adopted. Some high performance engines have premature turbo failure.

 

[bluefuzz]

I think the big break will come if they do manage fully autonomous self driving.

Not likely to happen in any of our lifetimes. The AI required for truly self-driving vehicles (on actual public roads) is decades if not centuries off.

 

[Doodski]

I think the charging infrastructure will get there. There was a time you didn't drive cars out of the city because no one had petrol for you in the hinterlands.

It is possible to drive a electric across Canada right now. There is charging infrastructure. I read the other day that GM is installing 60,000 charging plugs in North America, including 4,800 in Canada. They will be computerized, tied into a network that is accessible by cel tel for info about each one.

 

[JeffS7444]

There's no such thing as a "zero emissions vehicle": The manufacturing process is enormously resource-intensive, as is the infrastructure (roads, parking spaces).

The technology and 100% torque from 0 RPMs is alluring, and I imagine that development of newer types of electronic devices such as silicon nitride transistors, was largely driven by the rise of this new industry, so kudos there. I think there's much potential for EVs to be part of a future built around fewer but more-efficiently utilized (i.e.,, not sitting idle 98% of the time) cars overall. Because in the USA, one of the most common complaints about driving is the poor condition of streets. So why not scale back our network of paved roads to a level which we can afford to maintain?

Speaking of roads, I don't suggest that we abolish them, since they've proven to be so useful to humans at least as far back as the days of the Roman Empire. But we could take some of the current bandwidth away from cars and devote it to transit, pedestrians, bicycles, among other things.

If it were available in the USA, I might want a Honda E:

As far as stuff which is actually sold in the US of A, meh, I'm that customer which no automaker wants: Electric Deux Chevaux? I'm listening, but I'm probably the only one.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Batteries have a 7 year warranty. The failure rate is 50% at 10 years. ICE engines and transmissions last an average of 160,000 miles which is the life of the vehicle. The rate of transmission failures is much lower than it was before electronic controls were adopted. Some high performance engines have premature turbo failure.

ICE cars don't have 160,000 mile warranties even though they last that long. Most recent Tesla's have either 8 yr/100,000 mile or 8yr/120,000 mile warranties on drive unit and battery. Again that doesn't mean most are worn out by that point as most from the limited data available seems to indicate they last longer.

I've not seen data that the failure rate at 10 years is 50%, can you point to where that info is?

PS-I'm surprised the 160,000 miles is average for ICE. The last three vehicles I've sold had 285,000 miles and fully functional when I sold it. 230,000 miles and fully functional (I happen to know it went onto 310,000 at which point someone ran a stop sign and killed it). And way back when I had 140,000 miles on a car which was working just fine when someone crashed into it. Two of those I purchased 2nd hand so I didn't put all the miles on them.

 

[JeffS7444]

I find the notion that an automobile might be heirloom-quality very charming:

Parts of Japan are promoting wood products, because they've actually got too many trees planted early in the 20th century, and some of those woods are now in need of thinning. Wood can be a fine way to sequester carbon as long as you don't burn it!

 

[Doodski]

ICE cars don't have 160,000 mile warranties even though they last that long. Most recent Tesla's have either 8 yr/100,000 mile or 8yr/120,000 mile warranties on drive unit and battery. Again that doesn't mean most are worn out by that point as most from the limited data available seems to indicate they last longer.

I've not seen data that the failure rate at 10 years is 50%, can you point to where that info is?

The last new ICE vehicle (GM) that I purchased I put on 140,000km/~87,000 miles in 2 years. I bought the extended warranty for $1200.00 and it was thoroughly used for repairs. I don't think 100,000-120,000 miles is that much. There is the batteries, the motors but there is all the peripheral mechanics and electronics that can go bad. Electrics are simpler, apparently require less maintenance although they need to last for much longer in order to make this viable for GHG emissions to be reduced or we are going in a circle of confusion and wasted energy.

 

[Doodski]

I find the notion that an automobile might be heirloom-quality very charming:

It's bad for the economy.

 

[Inner Space]

I kind of backed into EV ownership, because the giant V-8 SUV I need for my isolated rural place is hopeless when I stay in town - too many cold starts and one-mile trips to the grocery, getting 8mpg and wearing it out. So I put a toe in the water with a Chevy Bolt. It's great. At town speeds, the computer gives me over 400 miles of range. I charge it every couple weeks from the wall. Best thing is the "one pedal" mode - it makes for very fluent, precise driving through traffic. Gas engines-plus-gearboxes now feel lurching and clumsy in comparison.