Electric cars - the future?

[Nick]

I imagine they are. Doesn't make it more of a risk though

Indeed.

There are something in the order of 3 million plug-in electric vehicles on the world's roads. Probably a billion laptops and tablets, judging by current shipment rates, and just shy of five billion mobile phones. The majority of those will have lithium batteries in them. We can reasonably assume that a sizeable number of these devices crash, or are dropped, crushed, and sat on every day. Yet fires are so rare that a burning Tesla hits the front pages. (Note, by the way, that it was burning, well alight, but did not explode. The car's only occupant exited the vehicle safely having driven with it aflame for some unspecified time.)

Yes, lithium batteries are energy dense and potentially dangerous. So is much of modern life. There are a myriad ways in which most of us could be poisoned, injured or killed in the next 24 hours by routine aspects of 21st century life. But those risks are held at bay by design and regulation. And by learning from mistakes.

Be aware, yes, but let's not descend into simple scaremongering.

[Jon898]

A few "home thoughts from abroad":

1.  In the interest of full disclosure I drive an 11 year old hybrid SUV with 155,000 miles on the clock.  Either the battery is getting weaker or I'm driving harder as the mpg has dropped from 27 to 24 (US gallon, so 34 to 30 in imperial units).  Replacement battery pack runs about $3,000 installed at the dealer and about half that in the increasingly available non-dealer garages.  I bought it as it was the quickest accelerating Toyota available at the time (locked rotor torque guys!).  At the time of purchase, there was a government incentive of a tax credit - but I couldn't use it based on my tax status.

2.  I've just moved from a 70%-retiree development largely populated with ex-academic city-dwellers - car of choice the Prius.  Apparently the ninth beatitude was Blessed are the Prii for they shall save fuel.  With the rise in Wall Street, some are now trading those in for Teslas.  Possibly not surprising with the apparent competition between Toyota designers to make each new Prius uglier than the last and still have it sell.

3.  Bumper sticker seen on the back of a Tesla "This Car Runs on Coal" - doubt it was placed there by the owner.

4.  In my experience, when a government gets to promote a technology (think MTBE in fuels, ethanol in fuels, etc.) they often find out later they've got it wrong by which time enormous investments have been made.

5.  There's an acronym current over here CATNAP - stands for Cheapest Available Technology Narrowly Avoiding Prosecution - that explains a lot.  Guess the Audi CEO pushed the envelope a bit too hard.

6.  Every now and then hydrogen is raised as a possible fuel.  Until someone opens a hydrogen mine on Jupiter, it will remain an energy transportation method and not a fuel.  Hydrogen comes from either electrolysis (rare, electric power intensive and, if on a massive scale, what do you do with the oxygen) or predominantly from catalytic reformation of a hydrocarbon (usually methane or petroleum gas) so the CO2 output is similar to just using the hydrocarbon even before you consider the efficiency of the plant and the distribution infrastructure.

7.  Increasing the national energy use of electricity is going to require huge investments in generating plant and will delay retirement of less efficient/dirtier plant unless brown-outs are politically acceptable.  Without significant improvement/deployment of central power storage systems (batteries, pumped storage, etc.) emissions can actually increase with the use of solar/wind generation as a result of older plant being needed as slow-roll backup.

8.  There have been several comments in this thread about the advantages of low/zero road tax for electric vehicles - what's the betting that will continue if a large proportion of vehicles no longer pay for the roads and the politicians cast about for ways to fill the gap in revenue.

9.  If I remember my courses and lab work on engines at college, a diesel works best/cleanest at constant speed and load, so I've never understood why road vehicles have not gone the diesel-hybrid route.  Maybe things have changed in 40+ years?

Personally, I think there will be an increasing role for electric vehicles be they pure electric, plug-in hybrids or even traditional hybrids.  Electricity storage is the key to the success of any of these technologies and, while huge strides are being made in that field, the energy density inherent in deploying systems that perform in a similar way to the current "dirty" alternatives (petrol/diesel ICE's) will present issues that I fear are only just becoming apparent to "the powers that be" (see 4 above).  Remember when people were being told that they could not fly with their Samsung smartphones?

Now I'll duck from all the incoming munitions...

Jon

[daffy]

Well Jon, no gunfire from me after your excellently written post. Most informative and well received by yours truly. Thanks.

The future alone will tell how successful, or not, the latest buzz-subject will be in the long term.

[joe cassidy]

Would anyone here fly in an electric-powered airliner ?

[PLD]

In the long term, yes they are probably the current favoured option for the future, but they're not there yet. The battery technology still needs to develop further before they can truly satisfy everyone's needs.. Personally I'd like to see more exploration of the hydrogen fuel cell route. It should overcome the range and recharge/refill downtime issues which are the biggest (legitimate) criticisms of Battery Electric Vehicles, and conversion of existing infrastructure is also relatively easy - most fuel stations already supply LPG which uses very similar storage and dispensing methods.

As a side point; a survey by (I think) the AA last year indicated that over half of pure electric vehicles in the UK were not the only car in the household. Most EV users also had access to a second usually conventional vehicle so even those who do own them don't see them as fit for all purposes...
Use the EV round town where it gets you an exemption from the congestion charge and genuinely offers running cost savings, but use the Proper motor' for long hauls out of town. (Think alao all those celebrities who like to shout on chat shows that they drive a Prius, while neglecting to mention that they also own a Ferrari and two Range Rovers...)

Best of both maybe - a practical but expensive solution...

[Nick]

Would anyone here fly in an electric-powered airliner ?

Yes, absolutely. Why not? Obviously such a thing doesn't exist yet, but manufacturers and airlines are  working toward one in the not too distant future.

[Newportnobby]

Would anyone here fly in an electric-powered airliner ?

Yes, absolutely. Why not? Obviously such a thing doesn't exist yet, but manufacturers and airlines are  working toward one in the not too distant future.

They could mow the grass when taking off and landing then

[Portpatrick]

They may be the future but at present I cannot see it for decades unless the technology improves very rapidly

a) Life of battery.  My petrol Golf has a range of up to 500 miles of motorway driving, better if I keep the speed down,  and takes 5-10 minutes to refuel (en route?)  When will we see batteries that can do that?. 
b)Infrastructure for charging.  My younger daughter lives in a street of Edwardian terraced houses.  Often has to park in a different street.  So how does charging work?  And can the grid cope?
c)physical life of the battery, its size and weight.
d) Environmental impact of making all those batteries, including replacements if less than the overal life of the car, and the issues of disposal
e) my elder daughter is registered partially sighted.  Electric cars must be able to make an audible noise at a similar level to a regular car..

Out of interest with current hybrids, where does the battery go?  Is it in the boot, in which case where is the spare wheel.  Incidentally I was not impressed that when I bought my most recent Golf, I had to pay extra (off E Bay) for one of those get you home spares.  How daft selling cars without a spare.  I have needed to use it.

As you may guess I like the idea of electrics, and even hybrids, but there are far too many issues before I will feel able to change from a low emission petrol engine.  And frankly I don't believe the Govts avowed targets are sensible.

[Snowwolflair]

The current thinking is the same answer as your flashlight.   The car industry will come together to agree on standard interchangeable batteries.  Filling stations will become places to swap batteries, probably by robot, and you will take out a subscription for the service based on your mileage.  you would never own the battery.

[The Q]

I've already converted my motorboat, it now has a  10Kw 3 phase electric motor, 24 2v Lead acids. 4 solar panels, and a 4kw generator.
Battery power alone gives me a range of about 10 miles, generator on and it's hundreds of miles.. but for all the short journeys I do, Solar panels are enough.
It used to have a 1.5l BMC diesel ( a huge 35HP when new, most of which had escaped), that  died...

so sort of like a diesel electric loco....

generator runs at it's most efficient and supplies the tractive power.....

what 'notch' do you run in 

Oh it's much more modern than that, it's a frequency controlled motor with a little joystick  on the dashboard. As you potter a long and open  up you csn hear the generator loading .
So my " notch" is generally just below when the generator starts working hard...
You cannot use t he generator alone. Which is handy as it means I get 30% off the broads tax ( like road tax but for boats). If it were direct generator drive I'd have to pay full broads tax. So it saves me about £100 a year..in about 100 years it will have paid for itself.....

[geoffc]

The current thinking is the same answer as your flashlight.   The car industry will come together to agree on standard interchangeable batteries.  Filling stations will become places to swap batteries, probably by robot, and you will take out a subscription for the service based on your mileage.  you would never own the battery.

From what I have been told by a friend who works in a M-Benz dealership, they have an area of the workshop cordoned off when changing batteries and the fitter wears a full chemical protection suit incase the battery explodes. So it is not like swapping a battery on your cordless drill.

I am given to understand if one cell fails then the battery is scrapped, there seems no provision to replace just one cell.

When I did my apprenticeship I was always told that to prolong the life of a lead acid battery was to run it almost flat and then slowly charge it, fast charging would buckle the plates and shorten the life of the battery. Does this happen with Lithium  batteries?

I think electric cars do have a future when they have the range and the charging problems sorted, but that is a long way off and no doubt I shall be too old to drive then anyway.

Geoff

[acko22]

Would anyone here fly in an electric-powered airliner ?

On the BBC today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-44529509/will-norway-s-electric-plane-take-off

Bit small but watch the whole video and well electric cars may just need to come on fast since in 7 years time they are going to be the only ones sold in Norway!

[guest311]

a serious question, but if you get a flat battery, is there any point in calling the AA / RAC / GREEN FLAG etc, or are they not equipped to charge  these.

while I can see the supposed advantages of electric vehicles, I would certainly not consider one. more power stations generating the leccie, to me equals more emissions, just not from an exhaust pipe but from a chimney.

if I need to go somewhere I want to be able to get in, start and go. not have to plot a series of 60-70 mile hops between charging points.

if anything, the idea of electric drive would have, IMHO, be linked to a petrol or diesel engine, not a stand alone system.

I seem to remember TG, the proper one, doing a comparison between the impact of a Prius and a 3.5 Range Rover, over a lifetime of IIRC 20 years.

taking into account the impact of building the vehicles, running / servicing them, and disposing of them, the Range Rover won hands down.

[njee20]

I think we're just repeating ourselves now:

- EVs aren't great for long distances, but most people don't do long distances most of the time, however it's hard to argue with wanting to be able to do it unimpeded
- the infrastructure needs to improve in order for them to be a viable alternative to ICE powered cars

I think hybrids will proliferate for a couple of decades at least for these reasons, the benefits are there, with fewer/none of the drawbacks. Ultimately we may gravitate toward full EVs, but not at the moment.

As for the Prius/Range Rover comparison it's impossible to be objective about things like that. What's the mix of energy production for the electricity? How's it driven? What's "better" about the production or disposal of one or the other? We've already touched on the ethical issues around production of the li-ion batteries. I think over a period of 20 years there are far too many variables to really be able to make a meaningful comparison.

Interesting question about the AA et al though, you'd think that a "portable charger" would be useful, but no idea if they're so equipped, or if such a thing would give a useful amount of charge in a sensible time.

[PLD]

a serious question, but if you get a flat battery, is there any point in calling the AA / RAC / GREEN FLAG etc, or are they not equipped to charge  these

AA if you have the "Relay" option in your cover will transport you to the nearest charging point. (note: Most EVs have to be lifted and can't be towed so it's wait for the lorry rather than a man in a van job).

I presume joining a motorway with insufficient charge to reach the next charging point carries the same offence and penalties as not having enough fuel to reach the next fuel station?