Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[Tommy Cookers]

... Note that wind turbines received a lot of public funding at the start with subsidised tariffs etc....

well
the consumer is still (and so always ?) paying the renewables subsidy

best illustration is with PV farms the subsidy is set to ensure full earnings over the life the 'earlier' PVs
regardless of incoming newer EVs that are higher performers economically
the investors are literally relieved

though eg when the car industry supplements/follows an 'earlier' model with a more attractive one ....
the investors have to eat the economic downside - they are not relieved

[Andres125sx]

That´s what I find more dangerous about nuclear. As mentioned on posts above, humans and specially governors only focus on short term. It looks like if they´re safe for next 50 years everthing is ok, but nuclear reaktors or even just their waste products can ruin complete ecosystems for centuries, if not thousands years, and I´m extremelly skeptical about the contention

..
Right on the money Andres!
Tell you a story.
We had this governor that was on the Atomic Energy Commission. So she was in charge of the state getting rid of nuclear waste. She thought it was a good idea to put it in 55 gallon drums and bury it in the ground. Now some of the waste was liquid in the first place and in the second where they chose to bury them was dry for this part of the country but still exposed to rain and snow.
Do I need to tell you that after a number of years, 20 or 30 maybe the barrels rusted and began to leak.
This woman was I believe the head of the commission and voted into office partly because she was supposed to be sooo smart.
Yeah so smart it didn't occur to her or others on the commission or people in charge at the state level , that metal barrels full of liquid buried in the ground would eventually leak.
You/we can't trust the powers that be to make intelligent decisions, especially about something so deadly and dangerous.

Wait a minute... just into a drum? With no concrete cover at all? Are you serious?

I was afraid about the concrete cover usually used, but digging a drum with radiactive wastes without any other cover is beyond reckless!!

I bet they did that far from their own homes. Someone should take those drums and dig them into their own backyard

[Brake Horse Power]

... Note that wind turbines received a lot of public funding at the start with subsidised tariffs etc....

Yep, but now in the Netherlands the first offshore wind farms are contracted without public funding. Only the state is still providing the grid connection. Which is not cheap offshore, but at least the energy is cheap enough. Next problem is prices of energy will be so low that investors wonder if they get a good return without public funding.

The punlic funding isn't a problem any way. You fund what you like and you tax what you don't like. All we need is a higher price on CO2 in the EU. And put tariffs for outside EU polluters to keep a level playing field

[Ferry]

Todays energy prices in Norway is 0,044 NOK/kWh. "Grid rental", in lack of a better English word, is 0,497 NOK/kWh. Total price to the customer including all taxes, VAT etc. is 0,541 NOK/kWh, or 0,048 €/kWh. My BMW i3 consumes approx. 0,12 kWh/km. That's 0,0058 €/km. Petrol is 15 to 20 times the cost pr. km now. Very cheap electricity these days. A warm winter combined with a lot of snow and water in the mountains. Less demand due to the corona situation. Solar panels would be nice, but they never pay off with these rates.

[Just_a_fan]

Not sure if graphene use in batteries has been mentioned previously. This little video suggests that the technology might be beneficial as it matures.

[Andres125sx]

Not sure if graphene use in batteries has been mentioned previously. This little video suggests that the technology might be beneficial as it matures.

"It is so strong that just two atomic layers of the material can be bulletproof"

Is this real?


Apart from this, the rest in a bit deceiving to me. He´s only talking about power density, but the limiting factor with current batteries is not power density, but energy density, increasing capacity for same volume or weight. Moreover, the numbers he´s using about power density are far from impressive. Anycase power density is secondary, it means how much power you can get from the battery, wich in other words is how fast you can discharge a battery, but none want a battery for his car, phone or laptop wich can be discharged in 2 minutes (that is plausible today with lipo batteries btw), so the parameter to improve is not power density, but energy density or capacity for same volume

But he talks about a previous video where Samsung is using graphene to increase energy density, wich he linked in the description, so here it is. Not a lot of new info, but interesting

[humble sabot]

has this video been posted yet?

[humble sabot]

If you were wearing an item two atoms thick of homogeneous graphene it would be true that it would not allow a bullet to pass through it, it would still be only two atoms thick and therefore be incredibly supple and would no more protect you from the bullet than a produce bag. The only advantage being that you could yank the bullet out of the wound by pulling on the rest of the garment.

Not that that relates to the topic at all.

[izzy]

has this video been posted yet?

he's right isn't he, he just didn't really need to say the same simple thing over and over and over again for 8 minutes

to have an EV you need a home charging port of some kind then most people can start every day with a full charge, just on a normal household supply

And now with covid-19 there's lots of working from home and so afterwards will there be a bit less commuting? It's a bit crazy the distances some people commute, and the whole HS2 thing is so people can go hundreds of miles to London a bit quicker, and what for exactly

[Phil]

So if the concept of having “public charging stations” is one that doesnt apply to EVs as it does for fossil powered cars, what will those people do who travel farther than what a fully charged EV can manage?

To ensure the freedom and a future of where only BEVs exist, we need both, the ability to charge your vehicle at home but also in public.

[djos]

So if the concept of having “public charging stations” is one that doesnt apply to EVs as it does for fossil powered cars, what will those people do who travel farther than what a fully charged EV can manage?

To ensure the freedom and a future of where only BEVs exist, we need both, the ability to charge your vehicle at home but also in public.

I think you are intentionally missing the point of the video.

[Phil]

I dont think i did. I actually think the video does highlight rather nicely that pretty much everyone who doesnt yet own a BEV has a fossil fuel oriented mindset. That is undoubtedly true.

My point however is that in an envisioned future of “BEV only”, it will require public stations too, as people use cars for more than just the daily commutes.

This is why we, for the most part, buy cars that check as many points as possible:

- we want to be able to have 5 seats even though most of the time we travel alone

- we want a big boot even though we rarely use all that space

- we want it to be fast yet comfortable and convenient at the same time

If these things didnt matter, we might all be owning multiple cars (each for a different use), sportscars or just bikes.

The same applies to EVs. We might all do daily commutes 97% of the time where a fully charged vehicle in the morning is sufficient to do anything you’d need it to, but we also buy cars for the 3% uses that fall out of the order. The times you might do a prolonged road trip, drive for pleasure, for “freedom” and all sorts of other reason where a BEV might simply be not that adequate for the job.

Depending on where you live or what you use your car for, those non-typical uses might be more or less.

For me? Sure, i wouldnt say no to a BEV, but only as a second car. As the sole vehicle? No chance. Too many use-cases that wouldnt work for me.

[strad]

@Phil
RIGHT THE HELL ON.

[Andres125sx]

So if the concept of having “public charging stations” is one that doesnt apply to EVs as it does for fossil powered cars, what will those people do who travel farther than what a fully charged EV can manage?

To ensure the freedom and a future of where only BEVs exist, we need both, the ability to charge your vehicle at home but also in public.

Not sure if intentionally or not (I think yes it´s intentional as I think you´re a wise person), but you´re confusing "we don´t need to convert every fuel station into a EV fast charging station" with "we don´t need fast charging stations at all"

Obviously we will need them, at least while batteries does not improve some orders of magnitude, but maybe we´ll need 1/10 or 1/20 of current fuel stations, only in inter-city roads, or at the exit of cities, but not all around as we need now with fuel stations

I´ve said this repeatedly in this thread, no need for fast charging for most people, and no need to improve infrastructure as dramatically as most people think, but looks like nowadays people only listen to youtubers

[Just_a_fan]

For me? Sure, i wouldnt say no to a BEV, but only as a second car. As the sole vehicle? No chance. Too many use-cases that wouldnt work for me.

Agree with all of that except the bit quoted here. I think the not-BEV will be the second car for most people. Most journeys and uses will be done by the BEV but the road trip, the Sunday blast around, the towing the horse trailer / caravan trips will be done by the second vehicle kept just for that purpose.

So BEV for the commute, the trip to the supermarket, picking up the kids etc.. Porsche/Mustang/Corvette/<sports car of choice. for the blast or the road trip, SUV for the trailer.

Obviously, those in rural locations are likely to be "late adopters" of BEV, where the urban residents are early adopters. And we're seeing this already, aren't we? The simple fact that the resources required are more readily located in urban environments than rural ones.

I have no doubt that there will be places in deepest rural USA, Australia, Russia, Canada, etc., that will be using ICE powered vehicles long after they have disappeared from the streets of New York, Sydney, Moscow, Montreal. That's to be expected.