EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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#2621159 14-Dec-2020 07:47

Dingbatt:

To that I would respond and say anyone to doesn’t realise what the energy source of their vehicle is, probably shouldn’t hold a driver’s licence.

If I had a dollar for every time I've thought "Anyone who doesn't understand X, shouldn't be allowed to Y" then I'd already own my own private island ringed with anti-aircraft and -ship defenses to keep them all out.

On Mars.

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SaltyNZ

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#2621161 14-Dec-2020 07:52

WyleECoyoteNZ:

The second from Tim Burton (aka Shmee150) around the running costs of his new EV (Taycan Turbo S)

"Range Anxiety" from a man who can afford a Taycan? Get out.

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Scott3

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#2621198 14-Dec-2020 09:47

SaltyNZ:

"Range Anxiety" from a man who can afford a Taycan? Get out.

The key issue as identified in the video was that Tim was yet to get a charger set up in his apartment building basement parking. (Due to delays with getting approval from building management).

This meant he didn't leave with a full battery, and chose to charge before returning home so the car would have charge for the next day. With a home charger, 3 charging stops would have turned into one.

Also the Taycan is fairly big an inefficient, compensated for with a large (assuming biggest pack) 93.4kWh Total, 83.7kWh usable battery pack. This means that it is pritty slow to charge on anything but the fastest chargers. This is not a 24kWh leaf where you can charge from 16% - 76% in 25mins on any common 50kW charger.

Of course normally the ability to charge while you sleep and start the day with 463km of range would normally far outweigh this slow charging, but it is not really ideal for somebody relying on public charging - Picking fast ones is critical.

I don't watch enough of the video to see why, but the first charger used was a AC rapid charge, intended to pump 22kW or 44kW into an old shape Zoe depending on drive train option (New Zoe supports CCS for DC rapid charging). The Taycan only supports 11kW AC charging, so unsurprisingly the charge their was very slow. Any CCS type 2 charger would have been substantially faster. Tim commented on the noise from the charger, and obviously didn't get that AC charging uses the vehicle mounted charger, rather than the one in the pillar.

With home charging and targeting 120kW+ fast chargers, the ownership experience would be much improved.

frankv

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#2621229 14-Dec-2020 11:13

Murray's comparison of the emissions costs of a VW ID4 against a Lotus Elan is completely flawed. Firstly, he compares doing 12,000 miles/year in the ID4 against 1,000 miles/year in the Lotus. And then he totally ignores the CO2 manufacturing cost of the Lotus "because it was all done years ago", whilst factoring in replacing the ID4 every 2 years. But the replacement parts to keep the 20 year old Lotus on the road still need to be manufactured. And, after a couple of years when you buy your new ID4, you aren't going to crush your old one. You'll sell it, and it will continue to be used, so the emissions involved in building should be shared with the new owner. So the true emissions cost of driving the Lotus would probably be quite close to the cost of driving the ID4, not 1/20th.

I get that he was saying that replacing EVs often is as bad as driving an ICE, but it would be fairer to compare the emissions cost of owning a new ICE (with 4 seats!) against that of a series of ID4s. He does himself (and his viewers) a disservice with this nonsense comparison.

kingdragonfly

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#2621314 14-Dec-2020 12:55

Yeah I noticed that. Of course he's heavily biased to wanting to take his antique car into central London, with as little inconvenience as possible. I'm guessing he's not a fan of the congestion charge either.

Comparing a rarely-used never-replaced weekend-only car
to a daily commuter replaced every 3 years is ridiculous.

If I compared the energy usage microwave oven used daily replaced every 3 years to a 1950's toaster oven sometime used on a weekend, the 1950's toaster oven would look better.

The cost of production of his car collection didn't disappear into a black hole. It should have been counted.

MarkH67

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#2621386 14-Dec-2020 16:02

Have you guys noticed the calculation of carbon emissions for the manufacture of the EV? If you buy a car and then replace it after 3 years then over 10 years you have gone through 3 1/3 cars . . .

Except that you obviously would NOT have fully consumed a car in 3 years! That car isn't used up, it will be bought by someone else and used for 7+ more years. The carbon cost for a car would be the amount of CO2 used to manufacture it divided by its entire lifespan NOT by how long its first owner has if for. I put a comment on the youtube video, but with almost 4k comments it is likely to be lost in the noise.

Of course there is also the carbon emissions from extracting crude, transporting the crude, refining and transporting the petrol that might not be taken into account when people work out the carbon emissions for running a petrol car.

I would agree that classic cars that are mostly kept in a garage are not big contributors of CO2. They have already been manufactured and they are burning very little fossil fuels. I'm not sure why anyone would have any issue with them. The daily driver on the other hand, that really should be a BEV if at all possible.

MarkH67

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#2621398 14-Dec-2020 16:12

Another thing I would take issue with:

"The power grid isn't as green as desired, therefore the government should fix that before pushing us to change to EVs." (my paraphrasing)

NO! That is very bad reasoning. There should be a very strong push to go with EVs, right now! Of course there should also be a lot of effort put into cleaning up the power grid in all countries (even NZ) to make those EVs even greener. The idea that a country should spend the next 10 to 20 years improving the power grid and then start pushing the populace towards EVs (which would take another couple of decades) is totally stupid. Think of how much time is lost doing that. Obviously the right approach is to encourage EV uptake and then regulate (maybe banning new sales of fossil fuel burning cars by 2030) the market, while at the same time building new green generation, both for the new demand and also to replace any old coal or gas plants that reach the end of their life - then 20 years from now most cars on the road will be BEVs and the national grid will be at least mostly green (and getting greener).

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SaltyNZ

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#2621403 14-Dec-2020 16:17

Yes, both of those are the tired old bad-faith arguments that oil companies push to discourage EVs. Another other one is that EVs kill children because the cobalt is all mined with child slave labour. Which, leaving aside the facts that most companies try to avoid conflict cobalt (if for no other reason than terrible optics) and the fact that cobalt use is decreasing and will probably be zero in a few years, ignores the paragons of human rights that your petrol comes from, like Saudi Arabia.

I have also heard 'but you have to mine lithium, and that's bad for the environment.'

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frankv

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#2621414 14-Dec-2020 16:36

SaltyNZ:

I have also heard 'but you have to mine lithium, and that's bad for the environment.'

???

Lithium is mined in Australia, where most of the world's lithium supplies currently come from. Mines aren't necessarily holes deep in the ground. They can also be at or near the surface, where overburden is scraped off, then the ore is scraped up.

SaltyNZ

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#2621490 14-Dec-2020 18:27

frankv:

Lithium is mined in Australia, where most of the world's lithium supplies currently come from. Mines aren't necessarily holes deep in the ground. They can also be at or near the surface, where overburden is scraped off, then the ore is scraped up.

That's not even the stupidest part of that argument. The stupidest part is that you also have to mine the oil, which you burn once and it's gone and so you have to keep mining it forever. Unlike the lithium, which is recyclable.

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GV27

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#2621496 14-Dec-2020 19:30

The irony being the lithium supply chain already exists and has been refined a hell of a lot more to supply the world's gameboys, cellphones and other portable electronics with power long before EVs were a thing - and even then we're still getting massive gains in processing, recycling, etc. And given the costs involved, there's significant incentives to improve the efficiency of what are mining and eliminate expense/politically sensitive elements like cobalt altogether.

Where as oil... that's pretty much as good as it's going to get.

kingdragonfly

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#2621631 15-Dec-2020 07:19

It's funny how cobalt / Congo always comes into the discussion, but almost never the many oil states making life for everyone worse from Russia to Saudi Arabia.

Wikipedia: Dutch Disease / resource-cursed

"Dutch disease first became apparent after the Dutch discovered a huge natural gas field in Groningen in 1959.

The Netherlands sought to tap this resource in an attempt to export the gas for profit.

However, when the gas began to flow out of the country, its ability to compete against other countries' exports declined.

With the Netherlands' focus primarily on the new gas exports, the Dutch currency began to appreciate, which harmed the country's ability to export other products.

With the growing gas market and the shrinking export economy, the Netherlands began to experience a recession.

This process has been witnessed in multiple countries around the world including but not limited to Venezuela (oil), Angola (diamonds, oil), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (diamonds), and various other nations. All of these countries are considered "resource-cursed".

Carnegie Endowment: The Oil Curse: A Remedial Role for the Oil Industry

"The oil industry’s business plans tend not to accurately reflect these aggregated costs, nor to recognize the upsides possible if oil curse symptoms—Dutch Disease, acute corruption, and insecurity—were better mitigated."

GV27

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#2622283 16-Dec-2020 07:13

Irony enough being some researchers trying to remove rare-earth catalysts from hydrogen set-ups are now looking at using cobalt.

Meanwhile, battery researchers are making a point of trying to make useful batteries out of the most plentiful, abundantly-found stuff possible:

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/12/20201214-hkust.html

Our cathode structure shows improved performances in a pouch cell configuration under high sulfur loading and lean electrolyte operation. A 1-A-h-level pouch cell with only 100% lithium excess can deliver a cell specific energy of >300 W h kg−1 with a Coulombic efficiency >95% for 80 cycles.

kingdragonfly

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#2625217 22-Dec-2020 08:29

EV Awards 2020 - Celebrating Advancements in Electrification

Joe Scott: Why 2021 Could Be A Tipping Point For EVs

A little annoying, because of all the tangents. You can jump to 6:30 point.

Geektastic

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#2625227 22-Dec-2020 08:47

It’s really quite straightforward: once EVs are available that are no less convenient than current ice vehicles to charge, have as many useful variants and cost similar amounts, people will happily swap.
Until that time, it’s going to be a niche for early adopters and/or the well off.

Hydrogen is probably more practical in many ways for many users.

I can’t see NZ significantly adopting either in less than 25 years.

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