Electric vehicles

[TominDales]

That is always an issue when constrained by the laws of physics as per our current understanding. If you think that a lead acid cell can only deliver around 2.2 volts, no matter how big you make it then it starts to make you understand the challenges. We want a lot of power but in a small package, much easier if you used a trailer for the power pack, can be exchanged very easily rather than recharged and a lot more miles on a pack.

Yes, the only way out is to find different intrinsic properties of the materials. That has been the thrust of R&D into automotive batteries. Lead acid is in water which limits the potential to 2.2v. The Lithium ion is in a solvent with no water present so has a potential of 3.7v.
This chart shows how different chemistries have enabled higher energy density to be developed. There are several practical reason that make Lead acid cost effective for ICE vehricles. However for EVs energy density is important for range.
One confusion is energy density is sometimes given by weight (gravemetric )where 200wh/kg is good, or by volume where 400Wh/l is good. Li-ion is not that dense. So some companies quote one and some another.

The past 20 years has seen a huge increase in energy density. This graphic from Tesla is typical, energy density has doubled since 2010 and most roadmaps in EU and US have it doubling again as new technologies includng solid state batteries are developed.

This graphic shows the potential for new technologies. Lithium sulphur and solid state being two potential winners. The Li air and Zn air are very much research batteries but of interest to aviation as they are lighter on take off and scavenge air during flight. Energy density today is about 1/8 of the limits due to the physics of Lithium batteries

 

[TominDales]

But Lithium batteries need babysitting, if you upset them you get an exothermic reaction which is not good. Over voltage, pulling to much current, high ambient temperature, short circuits and the need to maintain temperature during charging all can cause issues. It is interesting to note Lithium was first considered for batteries back in 1912 but took until the 1070's to hit the market.

Safety is the main consideration for commercial cells. The industry is generally very conservative. Some companies such as Tesla are pushing the technology so have the odd fire, whereas Nissan have a conservative approach, they have sold more EVs than any other makes and have NEVER HAD A FIRE- Tesla just overtaken Nissan in sales per month, but Nissan have sold way more than anyone else. The main manufacturers such as VW, Ford, JRL, Toyota take a very conservative approach as they don't want any reputational damage. A fuel tank is a hazard as it stores large amounts of energy, so its a similar risk management approach. There is a battery management systems that monitors cell packs and switches them out if any show abnormalities, such as temperature or strain excisions. Even power tools have a simple BM system to protect the battery and for safety. One test all cells have to pass for automotive compliance is the nail test. where the equivalent of a six inch nail is hammered through the pack. It must not catch fire to pass the test. Its must withstand most survivable accidents - similar to an ICE.

 

[TominDales]

Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.

My understanding on the manufactures role out plan is they are starting with the main family models first. One reason why the industry was pressing to keep 2040 as the phase out date was the sheer investment needed to change every model over. Its about £1bn for production line. So many of the vans you mention wont have decent choice until closer to 2030. Smaller companies with smaller balance sheets like JLR are finding it hard to invest at the pace required. The big guys such s VW and Toyota have the strength to do it and also the German government is pulling out every stop to help them achieve this. The way the regulations work, is companies are tasked over their whole range of vehicles, so if they switch the volume cars to EV they can achieve the Euro target emissions. So I expect vans further down the priority list.

 

[TominDales]

Another point is that the actual grid is being stretched to it's limits by all these housing developments, it is like pluging many extension leads and adaptors into one socket and eventually something has to give. The whole topic of electric vehicles, addressing greenhouse gas emissions and enviromental pollution requires some very radical decisions and massive changes in society, one of which is choice. We do not need loads of vehicle manufacturers, these need to be cut down to a basic few all using common modular power packs and then reduce the use of single occupancy private vehicles for getting to work, yes we need a huge investment in basic public transport and not getting up and down the country faster in HS2. Then what about all the power hungry data centres, as our fanatical obsession with data gets more out of control then more of these are needed consuming huge levels of power. The US data centres apparently consume 90 Billion Kwh a year, that is about 40% more power than the entire UK.

Yes, this is a huge programme. £40bn over the next five years. UK Regulator Approves £40B of Grid Investment, But Is It Enough? . This has for once been long anticipated, the government set up an energy institute to look into this challenge in the early 2000. £40bn is not considered enough the electricity grid was neglected compared to the gas grid for years. But it has had attention over the past 10 years and there is now a considerable amount of engineering capacity being created, so I suspect if there is a squeeze they will be able to work through it. Because electricity demand will rise, there is a good commercial re-investment case for the grid.

 

[TominDales]

There are only so many hours in a day, I think the customer would not be happy if you were charging day rates and part of that was sitting in a service station waiting for the battery to charge. Imagine if your heating was down and you were freezing but the guy apologises for the delay as he is waiting for his van to recharge, no they have a way to go before these vehicles are fit for anything other than social and pleasure use.

I think two things will mitigate this. Firstly I cant see vans being replaced for a few years and secondly fast charging is being developed. I've seen a system for a US company that is developing USP systems that can charge in a five minutes it is a cell with very low internal resistance and does not change in size as it charges and discharges. Over time all sites will have charging points. As I'm mentioned earlier I've seen a project run by JLR, Warwick uni (WMG) and Coventry council to fit a street in Coventry with a trial set of under the road inductive chargers in parking bays. All of this technology seems a bit far fetched right now, but if ICE phase out becomes mandatory then the investments will have to be made. I still find it amazing that only 20 years ago I bought my first digital phone and had just started searching the web from home down a slow dial up line.
I do worry that the curbside infrastructure will not be fully installed by 2030, this date did not have industry backing, they were holding out for a 2040 date. I suspect there will be some exceptions made to the 2030 date in a few localities and vehicle types.

 

[TominDales]

83 rapid chargers! Wow, how will that cope with a day
So rapid charge is about 20 mins not an hour, so 3 cars per hour, so a maximum of 249 per hour, that's 5976 a 24 hour day.
Given the distribution curve for traffic use, the curve is actual spread around 12 hours, so that means only about 3000 vehicl
The average wet fuel forecourt can handle 12 to 15 cars per hour per pump, say 10 pumps, that's upto 150 cars per hour. That's 1800 per 12 hours and that's only one petrol station.

Proves that the infrastructure is decades away.

Oh and how many others at the same timd will also be "having their tea and sod off home" as you put it.?

There is a lot of development into rapid charging, by 2030 the charge-time will be down to about 5 minutes. However you do raise an interesting question as to whether we will have all the infrastructure in place by then. The industry was pushing for 2040 as date for phase out as it allowed more time for the massive investments to be made. The government forced through the law changes to 2035 and then to 2030 on the back of a few press campaigns, and we know that this prime minister does not listen to advice, but does his own thing. So there will likely be a mad scramble to meet 2030 and I suspect some slippage.

 

[TominDales]

The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.

That is not how progress is supposed to work.

There may be another option. Sustainable aviation fuels are being developed, ie fuel that is not derived from oil but from biological routes or from CO2 captured from the air and processed up to kerosene. This is 70% more expensive to produce right now, but may be made on a vast scale for aviation and shipping, so could be supplied for residue ICE vehicles but at a premium price.

 

[TominDales]

All these comments are fine as we wave the green flag. However like covid, unless the whole world moves in the same direction at the same time, it's all pointless.
What exactly are we trying to achieve alone here?
Let's Go metric they said? Get the whole world on a standard....no more of that whitworth rubbish either.
That was a good idea too until the US decided they were staying in feet and inches And we were already up to our necks in the brown stuff pushing forward.
And what of China? Taking away their coal fired industries. Stopping buying cast iron products?
Good lord!
And those rockets now being sent up by the thousand......
is it not more important just to leave this dying world behind, because there's more investment going into that than white elephant batteries?
Carbon footprint my a#####s.

Actually China is investing more than any country in low carbon energy, it has more wind and solar power than any country. It produced more EVs than any other country. It is very vulnerable to climate change so has a strong incentive to change, as does India (which is further behind in developing alternative energy). The problem with China is two fold, it is rapidly industrialising so its consumers are are going from very low to more normal rates of individual energy consumption. This growth is expanding all energy sectors, renewable and traditional coal based energy. The other problem is many of the regional state governments in china have invested in coal to support their local industry, they have tended to ignore the centres policies - quite common in china, being a huge country. However the central government is beginning to tackle this issue and is shutting down old smokestack companies quite ruthlessly. The president announced that China would achieve net zero by 2060/70, which is only 20 years behind the UK and given their current rate of growth that is quite a radicle target. I suspect their target has planning behind it, more than the UKs governments does. I also suspect they will bring their target forward as climate change has increasingly negative effects in China.

 

[Rorschach]

One solution to this is induction charging in the street. JLR and Coventry city are trialing some streets with this technology for on street parking. Quite high power charging with some advanced induction and power electronics.

Can you see that being installed in poor neighbourhoods though?

 

[Amateur]

Actually China is investing more than any country in low carbon energy, it has more wind and solar power than any country. It produced more EVs than any other country. It is very vulnerable to climate change so has a strong incentive to change, as does India (which is further behind in developing alternative energy). The problem with China is two fold, it is rapidly industrialising so its consumers are are going from very low to more normal rates of individual energy consumption. This growth is expanding all energy sectors, renewable and traditional coal based energy. The other problem is many of the regional state governments in china have invested in coal to support their local industry, they have tended to ignore the centres policies - quite common in china, being a huge country. However the central government is beginning to tackle this issue and is shutting down old smokestack companies quite ruthlessly. The president announced that China would achieve net zero by 2060/70, which is only 20 years behind the UK and given their current rate of growth that is quite a radicle target. I suspect their target has planning behind it, more than the UKs governments does. I also suspect they will bring their target forward as climate change has increasingly negative effects in China.

I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote.
This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
There are failing in the rosy picture you paint.
Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not.
And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?

China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
Looking after China..
.......
and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth

 

[CornishWoodworker]

The argument for EV use is strong but simply unaffordable for a vast majority of motorists.
So unless you are happy to rent an EV( PCP or lease) then they are not anywhere in the ballpark when it comes to cost and I'm not wiping out a quarter of my saving to buy one, when I can buy an acceptable car for under 20k
Yes, if charged at home, the cost is low but as we all know, when the crossover point is reached , the government will hammer the public charge points with taxes and connection charges.
Anyway , I couldn't get a rapid charger in my immediate vicinity, as the network provider has just maxed out on capacity without upgrading the local network. There are 4 rapid chargers in households nearby.
Look up EV infrastructure plans in your local electricity network suppliers website, it makes interesting reading

 

[Danieljw]

If it is a motorised form of transport, at least a proficiency test should become law. (That should be for cyclists too)
Road tax and insurance should be compulsory.
All other road user laws should apply.
Same as any car or motorbike.
Is it not discrimination, cyclist over motorists? Soon they will be saying you don't need to have a license if you are lgbt

 

[Sachakins]

Yes, this is a huge programme. £40bn over the next five years. UK Regulator Approves £40B of Grid Investment, But Is It Enough? . This has for once been long anticipated, the government set up an energy institute to look into this challenge in the early 2000. £40bn is not considered enough the electricity grid was neglected compared to the gas grid for years. But it has had attention over the past 10 years and there is now a considerable amount of engineering capacity being created, so I suspect if there is a squeeze they will be able to work through it. Because electricity demand will rise, there is a good commercial re-investment case for the grid.

Wasn't HS2 also estimated at £40bn, and look were that is now.
Now there's a budget spend with minimal gain for end user. Just like the £12bn for smart meters.

So cost projections just finger in air guesses I think.

 

[Jacob]

If it is a motorised form of transport, at least a proficiency test should become law. (That should be for cyclists too)
Road tax and insurance should be compulsory.
All other road user laws should apply.
Same as any car or motorbike.
Is it not discrimination, cyclist over motorists? Soon they will be saying you don't need to have a license if you are lgbt

Yes it's discrimination in favour of transport which is very safe, cheap, with zero carbon footprint, non polluting, silent, available to all including children, very good for your health, requires little in terms of infrastructure and roads.
Difficult to see a connection but if you are worried about lgbt issues maybe you need to talk to somebody?

 

[Danieljw]

I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote.
This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
There are failing in the rosy picture you paint.
Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not.
And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?

China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
Looking after China..
.......
and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth

Perfectly correct.

 

[Rorschach]

Yes it's discrimination in favour of transport which is very safe, cheap, with zero carbon footprint, non polluting, silent, available to all including children, very good for your health, requires little in terms of infrastructure and roads.
Difficult to see a connection but if you are worried about lgbt issues maybe you need to talk to somebody?

How do I bring half a dozen bags of sand & cement home on my cycle?

 

[John Brown]

How do I bring half a dozen bags of sand & cement home on my cycle?

One at a time.

 

[Droogs]

carefully

 

[Rorschach]

One at a time.

With the hills around here I think I would have to just fill my pockets up great escape style.

 

[MikeJhn]