EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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#2970924 21-Sep-2022 12:17

wellygary:

...

I'm pretty sure they might be building a few more power plants over the next 10 years.

Tell your mate not to worry

And likely a lot more rooftop solar in 10 years.

Scott3

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#2970931 21-Sep-2022 12:52

lchiu7:

I was having discussion with a friend in California about EV's and shared this article

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/08/evs-electric-power-grid-strain-charging

He is strongly against the CA mandate of no ICE's by 2035. He made this argument

My Central AC uses 3.5KW an hour. So charging a Tesla could run my AC for 28 hours. Even a small car like the Nissan Leaf has a 40KW battery which would run my AC for 11 hours. So charging these cars at night from say 10:00PM to 4:00AM is like running your AC for 6 hours minimum. CA has 14.2 million registered cars with 435K being electric. What happens to our grid when 50% of these cars are electric? Its like a summer heatwave every single evening! We can’t even support 430K cars we have today. I am not opposed to electric cars but if the government is going to force us to switch over to electric they will have to build more power plants. And if they are going to ask us to put solar on our roofs and store the power during the day in batteries that will add so much cost that it will price it out of range for the average person.

Anybody see any flaws in this argument?

Firstly the comment shows a lack of understanding of electrical units.

The units are kW & kWh. (What letter's you make capital is important for SI units).

kW/h, refers to a ramp rate, not something that applies in this situation. And I suspect the person was referring to the 40kWh (total not usable) leaf.

Few big issues with the argument:

California's 2035 ban on "Gasoline only" cars still allow's Plug in hybrids, so the impact is far less than going Full EV only.
Energy needs are overstated: Assumes the full EV range will be used every day. Cira 240km for a Nissan leaf. Driving 87,600km a year would actually be exceptionally high. Most people on a typical day will just drive to work, or run errands etc, and return home and plug in to replace the 20 - 60km of range they have consumed. As current EV owners will know the impact on your power bill isn't huge.
California's grid does support the number of EV's it has today. Yes they had to ask for people to cut power use in the heatwave, but no rolling blackouts were needed.
As a general rule, power grids have heaps of capacity available in the 10pm - 4am window. Of anything, adding more load in this period makes large renewable base load generation projects more viable.
With a general move towards electrification (not just EV's, but also stuff like industry (and houses) moving from natural gas to electricity for stuff like process heat, cooking, water heating), will require more power plants built. Model's I have seen for NZ basically show that EV uptake is going to be slow enough that we can do this without issue. In the case of California the average age of the fleet is 12 years. Ignoring the difference between average and median, and the differing use patterns of older / newer car's, this means that it will take until 2037 before half of the fleet is plug in. Even then a decent chunk of the plug in's will be plug in hybrids.

Dingbatt

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#2970946 21-Sep-2022 13:38

These power plants you speak of. What are they to run on?

Reliables, or un-reliables?

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

wellygary

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#2970951 21-Sep-2022 13:47

Dingbatt:

These power plants you speak of. What are they to run on?

Reliables, or un-reliables?

Well they are gonna keep this baby round a bit longer

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/01/1119778975/california-lawmakers-extend-the-life-of-the-states-last-nuclear-power-plant

DS248

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#2971018 21-Sep-2022 15:58

DS248:

FWIW, average miles per vehicle per capita in CA is ~8,794 ...

Oops. That should have been "average miles per capita in CA is ~8,794 ...".

Initially was going to give 'per vehicle" directly, then changed to 'per capita' as that was the way it was given in the link. Except, I added the 'per capita' but forgot to remove the 'per vehicle"!

Batman

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#2972190 23-Sep-2022 16:03

darn I'm going to miss out on this $200,000 car, how am I ever going to save the planet!

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/21/gm-to-close-reservations-for-electric-hummer-ev-after-topping-90000.html

Batman

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#2972775 25-Sep-2022 17:44

i'm not sure which car this copies (looks familiar) but it looks the part! MG4 EV

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DS248

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#2972808 25-Sep-2022 21:06

Batman:

... but it looks the part! MG4 EV

Mentioned here #2962073

Batman

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#2973335 27-Sep-2022 09:25

Nissan Ariya high beam is basically a circle torch dot in the middle

tukapa1

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#2973874 27-Sep-2022 21:41

I'm seriously considering purchasing an EV very soon.

I was going to hold out for the Atto 2 as a hatchback would suit us, and I was hoping it would come in around $40k before the rebate, meaning a spend of around $32k.

But it now appears that car might not arrive until this time next year.

Leaning towards the Atto 3 now. Workmate has one and raves about it.

I'm wanting to get in before the rebate disappears as that is a big incentive. Waiting to this time next year means risking the government stopping that, unless anyone has any concrete information in this.

Was thinking of going with the ANZ good energy home loan at 1% for three years so roughly $600 a year interest cost

The rebate, when received, would go straight off my mortgage.

Currently would save at least $300 month in petrol, so $3,600 a year. That would be almost $11k over the three year term of the loan at a cost of $1800.

Would probably save about another $1000 over the three years in interest by using the rebate to reduce the mortgage early on.

This would bring the cost of the Atto 3 to $48k at the the year mark.

We currently have a 2002 Corolla and a 2003 Caldina, so definitely time for for an upgrade.

Can anybody see anything wrong with my financial workings? Anything I've missed out or need to take into account?

Cheers.

HarmLessSolutions

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#2973884 27-Sep-2022 22:15

@tukapa1

Your reasoning seems sound. Also worth factoring in an EVSE (home charger) as this will require an extra investment (but is crucial for the future EVs in your life) and gives you independence from public EV charger rates. If you have access to (or plans of PV) all the better in that respect.

The prices of EVs is moving downwards and will continue to do so, so don't be pressured to jump into the latest deal. We're still in early adopter territory in many respects.

We bought our first EV (a LEAF) back in 2014 so have had plenty of time to see the progression of EV uptake and we're rapt to see the rate of uptake now taking place. We took the plunge and got a Polestar2 earlier this year and are very happy with our step up in the EV stakes.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

Batman

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#2973926 28-Sep-2022 07:30

Nzd is tanking and war is brewing so I'm not sure if prices are going down or up

Dingbatt

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#2973938 28-Sep-2022 07:59

Even with the rebate, it is very difficult to justify purchasing a new EV on financial benefit alone. You need to have another reason to do it. It may be as simple as the ‘feel good’ factor involved in owning an EV. That can stem from environmental concern, or not being tied to imported energy sources (yes I know we are importing coal), or even just enjoying the driving experience.

If you are looking at running costs you also need to factor in servicing costs (for both), (future) road user charges and electricity costs.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

tdgeek

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#2973940 28-Sep-2022 08:00

Batman: Nzd is tanking and war is brewing so I'm not sure if prices are going down or up

Actually, the US is tanking the exchange rate for other countries

GV27

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#2973942 28-Sep-2022 08:04

tdgeek:

Batman: Nzd is tanking and war is brewing so I'm not sure if prices are going down or up

Actually, the US is tanking the exchange rate for other countries

Close, but only half the story. We're walking backwards relative to our two other benchmark currencies, the Yen and AUD.

So even though there is big repatriation towards USD in currency markets globally, we are not making or holding ground against our other major trading pairs. We also haven't made any ground against the Pound and they are diving relative to everyone else.

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