I'm all for electric cars but....

[visibleman]

At home on 240v you will get 3kW or 7kW. If you can get 3 phase 400v you can move to 11kW, or if you are lucky and have a double charger in your Tesla, 22kW.

But that's limitations of current EV chargers (well, a select few; as stated, there are 700kW induction chargers) rather than hard limitations of future charger/battery technology or potential power supply (7kW certainly isn't the limit for single phase).

That is as far as any plans for any improvements to the National Grid go.

I'm sure there was a poster in the Tesla 3 thread, who worked at the National Grid, who stated that there was ongoing improvements to the network and infrastructure to increase capacity.

So i'm not sure why you believe the National Grid aren't doing any improvements on the network?

....only people with Teslas can use them.

Again, this is the current situation and it boils down to standardisation, like with any new product or technology. Once charging protocols become standardised then this whole argument becomes somewhat moot.

As previously mentioned, Tesla have open sourced a lot of their patents around their chargers, so other manufactures are open to use it in their products.

...power stations (nom nom fossil fuels)

Why fossil fuels? Why not nuclear or renewable?

....wasting money on batteries, which are so obviously limited.

You'd possibly be correct if everyone had the narrow view that it's impossible to improve on the current battery (and surrounding) technology; but this simply isn't the case.

Stating that a technology, which is still in its infancy and heavily being researched and developed, is 'dead' because of current specifications or limitations seems a bit idiotic to me when discussing a future replacement for the ICE.
If we took the same stance then the hydrogen fuel cell is dead because there's only four filling stations in the UK.

 

[Skeeter]

Ok, apologies to those who will just see me repeating myself, but anyway...

240v 32A will support a 7kW home charger. 400v 32A will support a 22kW home charger. Both of those would require a feed of 100A+ into the home. Going beyond that is not really possible for most places in the UK and isn't on the radar for any National Grid improvements. Most UK homes have 240v feeds well below 100A.
Home Charging has limits we are reaching already, and falls down the moment you put 2 or more EVs in a home.

And battery technology is not in its infancy at all. Battery powered cars pre-date petrol powered ones! 100+ years of development and battery technology is nowhere near petrol.
The most energy dense battery available commercially today is 40x less dense than petrol. Well based estimates put the cap on that at about 4x improvements, meaning the limit to the technology we have access too is still 10x less dense than petrol.
There are theoretical Lithium-Air batteries at the same energy density as petrol, but all research into these is hitting blockers.

We don't have the grid to support widespread adoption of battery EVs. Even if we could generate the power we can't distribute it to people.

Battery EVs don't provide a solution for high mileage cars, taxis, police, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, vans, ambulances, etc. And they have no solution to road or rail freight, or air travel, which count for over half our transport fuel oil use.

Battery EVs only work as a niche market, in limited numbers, often as a second car, and only serving those with suitable requirements who have the facilities to support them.

Battery EVs are not the future. The electric motor is, but not (large) batteries. We have to find another way.

 

[Skeeter]

I honestly cant think of one "massive" benifit hydrogen has over petrol.

How quickly would we run out of Hydrogen?

 

[Domi]

We don't have the grid to support widespread adoption of battery EVs. Even if we could generate the power we can't distribute it to people.

Battery EVs don't provide a solution for high mileage cars, taxis, police, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, vans, ambulances, etc. And they have no solution to road or rail freight, or air travel, which count for over half our transport fuel oil use.

Battery EVs only work as a niche market, in limited numbers, often as a second car, and only serving those with suitable requirements who have the facilities to support them.

.

A simple 3 pin plug from any household or workplace is pretty much all that is needed for a small family EV. In what way do you think the grid could not be upped to cope with this.

There are plenty of vehicles that could not easily be replaced by evs but most of the ones you just listed are absolutely ideal for it.

Delivery vans , taxis and emergency vehicles do high mileage often over short distances and much of there time are set in a depot or holding area where they could be on charge.

You would have to be in to exceptionally high mileages before the on the road/charged time caused issues (and I mean at 240v).

I would be surprised if even 10% of car drivers regularly do over 300 miles in a given day and if you think the high mileage company car drivers would not change if electric becomes practical and most important cheaper you are sadly mistaken.

Then there is the simple fact that most of us do very little mileage at all.

I would think at least half of all cars are barely doing 6000 miles per year, with a 250 mile range that is only 2 full charges per Month.

It is very much those vehicles that are being targeted first and I just do not see that putting the strain on the infrastructure that you are foreseeing.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I think the main problem with hydrogen at the moment is the cost of storage AND more importantly the fact it takes significantly more energy to separate the bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen (or carbon, depending on source) molecules than we gain from it as fuel.

Well of course it takes more energy in than out, otherwise you'd have perfectly efficient storage of energy, and nobody has managed that yet (not even pumping lakes up hills is perfectly efficient). The same is true of batteries - you don't get out exactly what you put in. The key thing in your sentence above is that subtle word "significantly" which you inserted. Is your insertion of that word based on looking at comparisons with other sources or did you insert it, as people usually do, as a short-hand for "I don't have figures but I do have a conclusion I want to reach" ?

Here are some stats:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/education/pdfs/thomas_fcev_vs_battery_evs.pdf

Yes, they're from a Hydrogen company, yes they are still factual and were submitted to the US government energy department. Look under the efficiency stats and you'll see that the energy in vs. energy out (efficiency) for HFC vs. a battery vehicle with a 100 mile range (the greater the range, the heavier the battery) is the same. Additionally the comparative efficiency of the batteries in this decreases with increased range because their weight rises much more rapidly than tanks of hydrogen. The paper is from 2009 so a little out of date, but still shows that you shouldn't be sneaking the word "significantly" in there. No means of storing and transporting energy gets you the same amount out as you put in. The question is whether it's better or worse than batteries and as you can see, it can actually be better.

Start producing hydrogen from nuclear power stations, and the scenario becomes very good indeed.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Essentially the model for refuelling your EV car will become similar to cash withdrawal systems at the moment, where you can go to your banks ATM and withdraw money for free, along with any other banks arm that is part of the link alliance.

One more area of life, alongside movies, music and operating systems where you no longer own property, but it shifts to continuous payments for your "service." and there can be no independent garages and maintainers.

The Windows 10 of the car world.

 

[h4rm0ny]

One of the big problems with both hydrogen and EV is the electricity requirements. That will be an issue for both equally, especially if hydrogen fuel stations go with the local production model. Then again getting high voltage/high current power supply to an industrial unit is a common challenge many know all about,so is certainly not insurmountable.

There's little reason to do the hydrogen production at the point of distribution and that shouldn't be used as a consideration of its pros and cons vs. batteries. Produce hydrogen at the power source where it's most efficient to do so. You immediately eliminate the infrastructure costs and power losses of providing long-distance high voltage electricity. You can't charge lots of batteries at source and get the benefits of centralized production (well you can, but they're heavy to transport and hard to "top up" from), but that's exactly what you do with hydrogen.

 

[h4rm0ny]

At this point in time no electric vehicle is sensible for romping up and down the motorways including a Tesla but I genuinely believe that both batteries and charging will continue to get better.

Consider they get a nissan leaf or similar "family" car to be able to do 300 miles on a charge for roughly the same price as a petrol leaf.

Today a chadmo yes will only give it maybe 60 miles range in 30 mins , but lets just say they improve it a bit and can make that 80 miles in 30 mins.

But maybe chadmo gets replaced with chadmo 2 at 100Kw and it gets a 160 miles of range in 30 mins.

Or maybe just even 50 miles range for 5 mins charging.

At this point you have a family runabout that will do 450 miles with a 30 min stop and I can absolutely see this happening and I believe it is closer than most people think.

What I repeatedly see in your posts, in the nicest way, is a lot of handwaving of details and references to what you believe or see happening. In all honesty, a post like the above is a series of 'this could happen' and 'maybe this other good thing will be discovered'.

Don't misread all of my hydrogen posts. Battery vehicles can become viable and probably will be a thing. But they are, to my mind, very much inferior to HFCs and I think the latter has much more potential both immediate and long-term. You're talking about pipe-dreams where unspecified technological leaps might allow for 50 miles on 5 minutes charging (nobody is planning any such thing, btw) whereas I'm talking about reality right now where you can get three hundred miles from a couple of minutes at the pump with hydrogen.

 

[Orionaut]

One more area of life, alongside movies, music and operating systems where you no longer own property, but it shifts to continuous payments for your "service." and there can be no independent garages and maintainers.

The Windows 10 of the car world.

Everything I hate about how the modern world is going

 

[h4rm0ny]

What's also worth pointing out with today's electric cars is that most families will have two cars. Making one an EV (usually the smaller ones as Tesla are the only manufacturer really selling larger cars) just means if you need to do that 300 mile run you use the petrol car. The EV is the around town second car/ daily commuter...

I doubt there would be that many times someone with a leaf would regret buying it because of the range. The style and everything else, well I'd totally agree there...

In the UK in 2011, there were an average of 12 cars per 10 households. You're suggesting most families will have two cars?

What you're arguing here, is that the limited range of a Leaf or equivalent is a non-issue because we'll massively increase the number of cars on the road. Bad argument or conclusion.

A more likely scenario, is an increase in renting vehicles for non-standard scenarios. A family that uses their car for little local runs daily might rent a different vehicle for their long-distance holiday.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I honestly cant think of one "massive" benifit hydrogen has over petrol.

Same as batteries - it's producible from clean energy sources like nuclear power and doesn't involve bombing Iraq or propping up the Saudi regime.

 

[Skeeter]

Ok, lets flip it round and see if I can make my point a different way.

Internal Combustion Engines: An ICE, connected through a gearbox is the means of propelling a vehicle for most things on the road. The fuel for that varies wildly however. You can run them on Petrol, Diesel, LPG, Biofuel, Ethanol, old chip fat, etc, etc. The fuel you use is (broadly) specific to the circumstances. If you put aside the artificially created drive for Diesel cars, the distribution of fuel is broadly petrol for cars and small vehicles, and diesel for larger vehicles and freight due to the differing characteristics of the engines.

Electric Motors: These replace the ICE part of the current structure of a vehicle. Electric motors are far superior to ICE's for propelling vehicles (the run at about 95% efficiency, compared to 35% for ICEs). But then the question is, why do we have to power them with just one "fuel"? Why is battery the only way? Why does nobody who supports EVs see there being scope for multiple electricity sources? In the same way we power ICE vehicles with a range of fuels, why can't we have multiple fuels for EVs? Batteries, Hydrogen, gasoline powered generators, gas turbines, nuclear power cells, whatever.

I've never said battery EVs don't work. They do, and can be the best option for some people in some cases. My point is they don't work for most road users, meaning battery EVs will never be the mass market replacement to ICE vehicles. Anyone who thinks they are is blinkering themselves. There will need to be (multiple) other ways too. There already are. Battery EV supporters dismissing Hydrogen is stupid. Theres no reason both technologies can't exist together as they fill very different needs. It would be like people supporting Petrol and saying that Diesel is a dead technology and everything should just use Petrol.

 

[GAC]

hydrogen would be a good thing but the motor industry is only pushing forward at pace with electric due to tesla going for it, toyota have been testing hydrogen for years and there are filling stations in california but thanks to the very slow pace of its development and deployment id be surprised if it ended up being used for home cars.

now, something iv suggested to a few people iv come across in haulage and coach/bus hire over the past few years would be for them to go hydrogen rather than electric. as most of the larger firms have depots with infrastructure to deal with all the issues that are at hand, but would take investment.

as for electric cars, they are a good thing and people still bleating on about range yes its true SOME people will have issues with range, while a lot of people wont. i bet some 90% of the daily commuters wont have much of an issue if they are just going to work and back and their cars parked up for 8-9 hours doing nothing at work where it could be on charge. again investment would have to take place but if you could charge your car at work for say £5 a week im sure many would pay it gladly compared to normal fuel costs.

again electrics as they stand arnt for everyone, but to say they arnt a good idea is just rather dense, the cost of production of batteries is coming down yearly and the density of them is going up, so as has been pointed out in a couple of years you could have a 400-600 mile car, OR you could have a 300 mile car with half the weight of batteries and an increased range due to less weight.

dont forget at the moment the range of electric cars is rather limited as car companies work out which way is best, but i can see super mini's being the next one up for a japanese car company to try and grab the K market in japan and then they will slowly filter over here.

the sad and rather annoying issue in all of this is the pertol companies who are dragging their feet as they really dont want to help something which could end a few of them in a decade or so unless they get in on hydrogen and it takes off, and again no one seems up for that.

 

[kkelly]

I drive a Zoe and for just going to and from work it is great (16 miles each way), however having tried a few longer trips it just isn't worth it. There are plenty of chargers about but in a recent trip to Newcastle we *used* 24 different chargers 14 although reporting fine on the app(s) where out of order when we got to them.

But again small journeys the car is great and until there is a standard charging network (The chargers have three different types! -- frequently the AC one is kia and the DC is fine) without the need for multiple memberships it wont take off, we've got 3 different memberships to use the different chargers I've came across.

 

[McPhee]

I'm not sure charging is actually a problem TBH. A 7kWh home charger gives all EVs roughly 22-30 miles per hour of charge regardless of battery size. If you get home at 8 and leave again at 7, you'll have gained roughly 242-330 miles from that charge.

With rapid chargers, there's little need more than 150-200 miles in 30 minutes. There aren't many who will do more than that without stopping. Tesla aren't far off those numbers now. As demand increases, the availability of superchargers will increase too.

While BEV vs HFCV is a fun debate, the truth is we'll need both due to each technology's inherent drawbacks. BEVs are useless for freight, haulage, agriculture, flight, and for those who like to travel long distances without stopping, or where poor infrastructure necessitates a higher density fuel (large rural areas - Canada, Austin Outback etc). On the flipside, HFCVs will be more expensive to buy, more expensive to fuel and are considerably less efficient:

Running a HFCV in place of a BEV, where a BEV meets the user's needs, simply makes no sense.

 

[platypus]

Ok, lets flip it round and see if I can make my point a different way..

I think you've made it pretty well, some people just aren't grasping it .

 

[Skeeter]

A 7kWh home charger gives all EVs roughly 22-30 miles per hour of charge regardless of battery size.

The issue is that doesn't scale if you add more cars. The same capacity is spread across them. Which means...

While BEV vs HFCV is a fun debate, the truth is we'll need both due to each technology's inherent drawbacks.

...this is 100% the case. BEV serve a purpose, and work well as a second car. They are not the all encompassing solution to everything, and arguing that the solution is a single technology (of any type) is a misguided stance.

 

[McPhee]

The issue is that doesn't scale if you add more cars. The same capacity is spread across them. Which means...



...this is 100% the case. BEV serve a purpose, and work well as a second car. They are not the all encompassing solution to everything, and arguing that the solution is a single technology (of any type) is a misguided stance.

That's not the case,. You can have two 7kWh chargers on a domestic supply, but you have to notify the DNO and it's generally more sensible to go with one 7kWh and one 3kWh charger.

I think you're looking for faults TBH. I mean, we're now talking about a household with two 250 mile capable EVs. You're suggesting that's impractical because they will both run low on charge on the same day, the day before both drivers need to do a journey of a few hundred miles, and neither will have the time to stop at the services to top up. That's not a scenario that many people will come across ever, never mind often. For those who are likely to wind up in that situation, I'd suggest a hybrid (petrol or hydrogen) would be a better solution. For then other 99%, EVs will be fine.

 

[visibleman]

Both of those would require a feed of 100A+ into the home. Going beyond that is not really possible for most places in the UK and isn't on the radar for any National Grid improvements.

Again you're basing it on current limitations.
If battery EV's were to become mainstream then it isn't out of the realms that dedicated EV circuits would installed into properties to support them, ie - make it mandatory for new builds (likewise with solar); retrofit older properties.

And battery technology is not in its infancy at all. Battery powered cars pre-date petrol powered ones! 100+ years of development and battery technology is nowhere near petrol.

Battery technology has only had a real push in the last 20/30 years due to then need from portable devices.
And yes, lithium technology, which is what is commonly used in EV, is in its infancy - a commercial product wasn't available until 1991.

We don't have the grid to support widespread adoption of battery EVs. Even if we could generate the power we can't distribute it to people.

Again, currently.
Improvements to the network and infrastructure could support battery EV's. And you could supplement it with localised solar and battery storage to alleviate some of pressure on the network.

Battery EVs don't provide a solution for high mileage cars, taxis, police, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, vans, ambulances, etc. And they have no solution to road or rail freight, or air travel, which count for over half our transport fuel oil use.

Battery EV's are already being used in a number of those areas (EV buses and taxis are used in a number of cities, Schiphol taxis spring to mind; commercial vehicles like the Renault Kangoo etc) and there's plenty of development in other commercial/freight areas (BMW, E-Force, Paneltex and others have developed battery EV lorries/trucks; and you have electric aircraft from Airbus, Boeing and smaller companies like Pipistrel).


I'm not disagreeing with you in that right now, current technology and infrastructure is a massive limitation with battery EV's. If you asked me whether or not we could transition today to battery EV (transportation), then i would have to say no.
However, you can't say it's a dead technology by purely basing it on today's limitations; to do so would suggest there would be no advances what so ever, which is complete poo as it's a highly active area in terms of research and development.

 

[Nix]

Hi All,

Didn't really want to put this in Motors as this is more an environmental question rather specifically on the cars.

My question is, what's going to happen in 10 years time with all the batteries from these electric cars?

I'm all for helping save the environment, but are these batteries going to cause more problems later down the line?

People will lick them and have the bestest of times.