Electric Cars coming in a year or two

[Simon]

Well this is my point, you seemed to make out 80% EV by 2050 was a fact.

Anyway these threads bore me, why worry about the future - live now and enjoy petrol

 

[Glaucus]

Some of us enjoy technology, but yes they do get boring when we cover same grounds, probably in this thread as its just bumping an old thread, with new articles.

 

[Angilion]

Except that's trying to include current car prices. That £10k more off course squeezes the figures. Batteries and controllers are getting cheaper and power storage density is increasing.

1) Even if you ignore all those things, you're still left with parity. The only reason EVs look cheaper to run is massive subsidies from public money. So no, it wasn't even including the current prices of everything other than fuel.

2) Current prices should be included when considering the current cost of something, obviously. You can state confidently that the costs will automagically disappear in the future, but that's just a statement of belief and it has nothing to do with the real costs in the real world at this real time.

When it comes to EV advocates talking about costs, I'm not sure if the right word is "faith" or "propaganda", or maybe both. But it's certainly not "truth".

 

[Angilion]

If you had bothered reading, of course they'll tax it, it's silly to think otherwise. Not only is electricity cheaper, it's also far more efficient from "well to motor"

If you had bothered learning, you'd know that your statement of faith is not truth.

You may as well say that drivers can get a big reduction in running costs by praying to <insert your god(s) here> for better fuel economy.

 

[Glaucus]

Massive subsidy of 5k.
I don't think you'll find me saying once, they are current cheaper.
It's like saying petrol would never take off as cars were stupidly expensive and no infrastructure. With time these things change. Not only that but technology advances, manufacturing process improve and of course economy of scale.

In that quote I am talking about cost of electricity, that is indeed cheaper than petrol and you get more out of it. So again try reading.

But again I didn't wantto get in this pointless debate Again, we've don that before. Can't you guys just talk about the new articles or leave it? Rather than assuming this is a new thread and starting at the beginning again.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Massive subsidy of 5k.
I don't think you'll find me saying once, they are current cheaper.
It's like saying petrol would never take off as cars were stupidly expensive and no infrastructure. With time these things change. Not only that but technology advances, manufacturing process improve and of course economy of scale.

See I thought I had already covered why that isn't going to be the silver bullet but you haven't seemed to have grasped it?

Needed to pressed 10x battery cases doesn't mean the stuff you put in the cells becomes any cheaper does it.

Raw materials will increasingly become the choice of stocks as people wake up to us needing the limited supply materials.

 

[Angilion]

Massive subsidy of 5k.

You ignore reality even when it's shoved in your face repeatedly.

There's a subsidy of about 65% of running costs for every single inch travelled and you ignore it. You know it's there, you just ignore it.

Your position is faith-based. I'm not going to keep wasting my time arguing against faith with reason. That's pointless.

 

[Glaucus]

See I thought I had already covered why that isn't going to be the silver bullet but you haven't seemed to have grasped it?

Needed to pressed 10x battery cases doesn't mean the stuff you put in the cells becomes any cheaper does it.


Raw materials will increasingly become the choice of stocks as people wake up to us needing the limited supply materials.

No, but when there's battery prototypes that use cheaper materials and in cheaper manufacturing process, it makes a huge difference.

For example, the last battery article I linked to, which is what I was hopping people would comment on, rather than starting from the beginning again, which is pointless.

Envia’s next-generation rechargeable battery has achieved the highest record energy*density*of 400 watt-hour/kilogram for a rechargeable lithium-ion cell. The industry standard for EV batteries is around 125 watt-hours/kilogram and costs upwards of $250 to $350 per kilowatt-hour to operate, Envia CEO Atul Kapadia told me in an interview. Envia has developed a battery that can deliver 2.5 times more energy than what’s currently in electric vehicles at a projected cost of*$150 per kWh, Kapadia said.

Envia developed a low-cost cathode material using inexpensive materials including manganese. It also designed a silicon-carbon anode and a high-voltage electrolyte, Kapadia said. All of these innovations resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the cost of battery packs used in 300-mile range electric vehicles.*The upshot? An electric vehicle for around $30,000 — a price that’s more closely in line with gasoline-powered cars and within reach of the average consumer.

Envia isn’t relying on economies of scale to reduce its manufacturing costs, Kapadia said. The $150 per kWh is achievable today, not once it becomes a large-scale manufacturer, he said. Instead, the company delivers its technology via partnerships with automakers. Kapadia wouldn’t give names, but he did say the company’s customers include automakers in Japan, Korea and the United States.

You ignore reality even when it's shoved in your face repeatedly.

There's a subsidy of about 65% of running costs for every single inch travelled and you ignore it. You know it's there, you just ignore it.

Your position is faith-based. I'm not going to keep wasting my time arguing against faith with reason. That's pointless.

Ignore it? That's funny, I've said it will be taxed eventually. Likely a good many years for early adopters.

Some idea of where EU wants to head
http://www.roadmap2050.eu/attachments/files/Roadmap2050ECNworkingdocument.pdf

Ireland's road map. Medium scenario 60% passenger car stock by 2050 and 10% by 2020.
http://www.seai.ie/Publications/SEAI_Roadmaps/Electric_Vehicle_Roadmap.pdf

It all adds upto where policy is likely to point and that's EVs with Ice having to meet tougher and tougher emission tests.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Problem with that is the reason they are probably suggesting 300mile packs is that a 100mile pack wont have the power density to provide appropriate performance. So this pack wont work in a LEAF to drive down cost of a city car. 300 mile EV cars will still be massively expensive due to the battery cost.

70kWh pack for a 300mile car @ $150/kWh is still $10k, although that would be in the realms of comparible to ICE.

FWIW mangenese is on current Li-ion battery technologies cathodes if you can manage with less power... exactly why you dont see them in hybrids.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

http://analysis.evupdate.com/batteries-power-trains/better-chemistries-still-way-research-suggests

Likewise, the British consultancy Element Energy, in a report for the UK’s government advisory body The Committee on Climate Change, sees price reduction as a long-term game. It reckons that the current cost of $800/kWh could be cut by 70%, but only by 2030.

 

[Angilion]

Thats a poor article.

Running costs of products available today based on conjecture of the future of what they might do with electricity with fuel still at £1.42 per litre?

I'm not sure what you're asking with that question.

Ignoring duty and VAT on diesel,

If you want a true comparison of actual costs, you have to consider taxation. It is not plausible to assume that the government will just accept a huge loss of tax revenue, or even that they could afford to do so. EVs can be massively subsidised today because there are so few of them that it doesn't matter. If there ever are more than a tiny handful of them, the situation must change. Comparing a highly subsidised product with a highly taxed product is not a fair comparison of the true costs of the products.

I'll make a "good" comparison using the usual EV advocacy standards. Obviously, this is going to be a reductio ad absurdum argument.

Assume that the government for some reason decides to promote McLaren cars by making petrol for the MP4-12C tax free, i.e. the same as they're doing with EVs. Remember, you've just argued that taxation level should be ignored to make a "good" comparison of the true running costs of cars.

Ignore the purchase price of the MP4-12C. Same reason.

Ignore all other running costs, i.e. like ignoring battery replacement costs for EV.

The cost of petrol is about 48p per litre to the oil companies and about 5p per litre to the end distributor.

A McLaren MP4-12C has an official figure of 24.2mpg, which is 5.3 miles per litre.

So the untaxed fuel cost of an MP4-12C is 10p/mile.

Compare this with the taxed cost of running the most fuel-efficient petrol-engined Ford Mondeo, to get a "good" comparison.

That has an official figure of 44mpg, which is 9.64 miles per litre.

At the current average UK petrol price with tax (we're going for a "good" comparison, so we're comparing the taxed cost of one with the untaxed cost of the other) of £1.357 per litre, the fuel cost of that 1.6L Ford Mondeo is 14.1p/mile.

Therefore a McLaren MP4-12C is 40% cheaper than a 1.6L petrol Ford Mondeo!

then using a high electricity tariff with what I consider high electricity use. Total BS to fill a webpage I guess.

They were using 12p per KWh, which is less than the current average retail cost (13.2p per KWh).

For some facts, I used 0.24 kWh/mile average in a Leaf doing 153 miles.

For some facts, they used the official KWh/mile figure from standard testing (0.34KWh/mile).

 

[Angilion]

I actually like the idea of electric cars. I think that at some point in the future EVs will be the norm for general-usage vehicles and other engines will be used only in some commercial vehicles and some cars that some people use as a second car for fun. I think that there probably will be significant improvements in technology in the fairly near future that will make EVs a lot closer to being viable as a general replacement for ICEVs.

What I don't like is the very common practice of evangelising EV advocacy that is a mixture of extreme bias, wildly optimistic forecasts of technological advances coming to market, ignoring the massive and completely unsustainable subsidy of EVs that makes them superficially look like they might be close to being maybe viable in the real world for normal use and some blatant untruths when all that isn't enough.

I dislike it for what it is and also because I think it's counter-productive. Anyone who looks into the subject even in a cursory way will notice that the advocacy is unfounded and that taints the whole idea of EVs. If it's all a house of cards, why buy into it?

 

[Jonnycoupe]

It's quite simple, when electricity is taxed to the same degree fuel is then the £1.42 a litre figure in the article will be an irrelevant number. EU diesel is going to have some serious supply issues due to refinery infrastructure.

Running costs that ignore the two largest factors in the pricing of retail forecourt fuel are not running costs, it's daft to compare them anyway. A polo is not the same class as a Leaf and we all know new tech need cash rich early adopters.

It's actually far more appropriate to consider now and the next two years rather than guessing a new road tax system like you are suggesting. It's not plausible to assume anything other than today's fuel prices.

I'm not sure why we have the angry tone from you again, it was your suggestion to ignore purchase price anyway, unless you're were trying to lead the conversation this way to pull the MP4-12c and Mondeo card? What depreciation curve were you citing for the cost comparison anyway?

I bet you the average EV driver isn't average 13.2p for obvious reasons, a lot with be FIT... Careful that figure doesn't go negative on you . Is your figure retail for broad UK or domestic?

Like I said its a poor article. This future look at EV 'tax' has ignored urea filling for 2015 EU6 compliant cars and the increase in their purchase prices aswell whilst we are digging detail.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Glaucus is a massive advocate of anything new with little application understanding, I'm with you there that's for sure, whether it be propfan engines, 4th gen thorium reactors or EV with the powered rail motorways to charge from.

 

[Angilion]

[..]
It's actually far more appropriate to consider now and the next two years rather than guessing a new road tax system like you are suggesting. It's not plausible to assume anything other than today's fuel prices.

It's not plausible to compare a heavily taxed product with a heavily subsidised one if you're looking for the true cost of the products.

If someone says "EVs are cheaper to run than ICEVs right now because governments can afford to massively subsidise them as long as hardly anyone uses them", then I'm fine with that because it's true.

If someone says "EVs are cheaper to run than ICEVs" as evidence that EVs are better/more efficient/etc, I'm not fine with that because it's not true. Not now, probably not very soon.

I'm not sure why we have the angry tone from you again, it was your suggestion to ignore purchase price anyway,

Really? Where? I don't recall doing that. Can you tell me what post of mine you saw it in?

unless you're were trying to lead the conversation this way to pull the MP4-12c and Mondeo card?

No, that popped into my head at the time as a suitable example of the absurdity of the argument. I wanted "supercar" and "ordinary workhorse car" and those are the ones that popped into my head.

What depreciation curve were you citing for the cost comparison anyway?

That would be an interesting question, maybe not as obvious as it might first seem. But I hadn't thought about it at all.

I bet you the average EV driver isn't average 13.2p for obvious reasons, a lot with be FIT... Careful that figure doesn't go negative on you .

You can get any numbers you like when the government is shovelling public money into propping up completely unsustainable and impractical things for political gain.

Is your figure retail for broad UK or domestic?

Domestic, average price at the moment.

Like I said its a poor article. This future look at EV 'tax' has ignored urea filling for 2015 EU6 compliant cars and the increase in their purchase prices aswell whilst we are digging detail.

I now have an image of people peeing in their tanks.

There are probably some people claiming that cars could run on pee, but Big Oil has suppressed it. Who killed the pee car?

 

[Simon]

I liked the mondeo analogy

I think EV works now die to its subsidy and benefit in the fleet averages. Will be interesting to see how that changes.