Is electric really the answer?

[MPx]

6 hours ago, Bibs said:

With my driving profile, I should only need to charge it once a week unless I've some work trips but getting that at 4p overnight seems pretty sweet. 

Yes, Agile can be very good, but I've also heard that you need to be pretty active at managing your general use away from the high demand times of day otherwise you quickly loose all that you gained.  Also, the 4p rate is I think just for 4 hours?  We have Octopus but a normal economy 7 deal - so 10p overnight.  If you have a 7kW charger like Barry suggested then it will obviously charge reasonably quickly, but depending on the size of the battery pack, it may well take longer than 4 hours.  My solution would be to charge more often from not as flat so that its done in the 4 hours.  There's some that harp back to the old battery charging issues saying that's bad for battery life.  But in reality most EVs have plenty of headroom built into their charging tech so that 0% remaining is not really a flat battery, and 100% is not actually fully fully charged.  We've had absolutely zero degradation in 30 months.

[MPx]

Oh....and if you do want to go to Octopus and use my referral link (or indeed anyone else's!), then we both get £50. .....just sayin.🤑

[pete]

We are all electric and use majority of our electric over night on economy 7(7hours cheaper) and bulb are consistently cheaper than anyone else

[C8RKH]

I have often thought that Tesla is similar to a Ponzi scheme - obviously I am not suggesting it is doing anything illegal, more the concept of assets versus cash etc

Ever since the original dot.com boom of the noughties I have marvelled at how "tech" companies can reach such valuations.

• Tesla delivered less than 500,000 cars in 2020 yet added almost $750billion to its market value as its shares continue to surge
• After a dip on Monday, they rebounded to more than $853 per share
• Yet experts warn that the company would need 1,600 years to earn as much money as has been invested on the stock market at this current earnings rate
• Its share price is currently 128 times the amount of earnings per share
• The industry average is for share price to be around 15 times the price of earnings per share

[eUKenGB]

That's just the stock market isn't it. I agree, utter madness.

[C8RKH]

Yes and no.  It's also the idea that a company that has had so much cash invested in it that it would take so long to build the assets to cover it.

So yes, it's the stockmarket, but also, crazy investors as if the whole thing was to crash they would get practically zero back. So it's a bit like investing in fresh air really.  Utter madness.

[mdavies]

Surely this known, but surprised not here, so my edited note version for elsewhere. No time to write another version, but link to article below.  From good source (Nature Energy) but no guarantee.  If this stands up, a spoke in many wheels.

Nature Energy: Penn State University: EV batteries: charge in 10 minutes - travel for 250 miles. Lithium ion phosphate batteries can quickly heat and cool - key to rapid charging and long life. Professor Chao-Yang Wang: “a pretty clever battery for mass-market EVs with cost parity with IC engine vehicles; affordable." To recharge, batteries need to heat to around 60C then cool when not being used. Despite their small size, the batteries produce a large amount of power in a matter of seconds and have a lifespan of 2 million miles, the researchers said. EV with this battery could go from zero to 60mph in three seconds and would drive like a Porsche.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/18/new-electric-car-battery-can-charge-10-minutes-keep-going-250/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1326472&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES20210119&utm_campaign=DM1326472

[mdavies]

Following the above, I find it now widely reported by many good sources, incl Pennstate News site.  Suspect emergency reviews of giga-factory plans and EV designs on-going.  Although getting into mass production can't be very rapid, presumably the factories can be revised and after $multi-multi millions have changed hands, the car designs also.

" According to the Penn State engineers, the self-heating technology also prevents uneven deposition of lithium on the anode, which can cause the dendrites that often lead to lithium-ion battery failure. It is claimed that the EV battery has a potential lifespan of around two million miles – several orders of magnitude greater than current technology."

“This battery has reduced weight, volume and cost,” said Wang. “I am very happy that we finally found a battery that will benefit the mainstream consumer mass market…this is how we are going to change the environment and not contribute to just the luxury cars.”

And, by the way, top end EVs will surely have to use it - else can't compete (in overall operation) with lower level ones that do - reduced weight, volume and cost sounds rather Lotus-worthy. 

Edited January 19, 2021 by mdavies

[eUKenGB]

I actually think the best potential new tech. is from QuantumScape, a Bill Gates-backed startup developing next-generation batteries for EVs. They've found a way to use no actual anode but Lithium is deposited there during charging and completely removed when discharging, so each cycle puts the battery back to its initial state with no possibility of build up of contamination and/or dendrite growth that over time kills a traditional Li-ion battery. Effectively the anode is created afresh during each charge.

Obviously a way to go before we see it outside the lab, but it certainly looks promising and Bill Gates is not known for backing duds.

[Techyd]

Yes, and I read recently that a Chinese firm is two years ahead in development of their own, quoting 650 mile range and 10 minute charge time.  Solid state batteries I think...??

[Bibs]

I just read that myself! 

https://news.sky.com/story/new-electric-car-battery-can-be-fully-charged-in-five-minutes-12192253

[Bibs]

My first new car!

[exeterjeep]

That's not the new lotus suv then.

[Techyd]

Congrats @Bibs - I've heard these are very good, yet to try one myself, personally I'm drawn to the Honda e!

Look forward to reading your thoughts on it, and maybe a drag race between that and the Evora 😉

[pete]

Don't forget to unplug it

[Barrykearley]

Don’t worry @pete it won’t let you engage drive with it plugged in.

@Bibs - you will love it - they are superb motors. The exhaust note however is shit.

[USAndretti42]

On 20/01/2021 at 11:28, Bibs said:

I just read that myself! 

https://news.sky.com/story/new-electric-car-battery-can-be-fully-charged-in-five-minutes-12192253

But, if you have a 90kWh Tesla-type car, charging in 10minutes would need a 540kW supply.  Even a 40kWh Nissan Leaf would need a 186kW supply to go from 10% to 90% charge in 10minutes.  Is a this reasonable supply to expect at a "filling" station, especially if there are several cars charging together?

[MPx]

We have a habit of accepting "what's possible" by reference to what we already know.  In the IT world, CPU's have transcended what was previously thought possible many many times over my lifetime - and generationally by apparently going beyond what was previously believed was an absolute limit based on knowledge of basic physics/materials science at the time.  It seems we're cleverer than we think and someone always seems to come up with a new and bright idea - a few of which actually work.

So back on charging.  Seems unlikely to be possible for widespread uptake in the ways we currently do things.  One of the ideas I've read is that we could have vast battery parks (populated by ex EV batteries??) where a constant and achievable feed charges the park batteries and the EVs are charged by a massive fast download from these batteries as required.  Clearly, overall there would have to be more electrons in vs out, but maybe over a fixed period like 24 hours this could be sustainable, rather than always looking at peak demand.  And as I say, that's only based on current thinking which is in its infancy.  We've not really had to innovate yet as so few have been bothered enough to get involved.  I'm confident that when we have to, we will...and it will be in a way no one on here previously even considered, let alone considered it a possibility.  Tomorrow has a habit of achieving today's science fiction.

[eUKenGB]

23 minutes ago, MPx said:

…  Tomorrow has a habit of achieving today's science fiction.

I always like the Arthur C. Clarke quote:-

"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

[yeller77]

On 29/01/2021 at 06:37, Bibs said:

My first new car!

For some reason, this is the first impression I got of this. Um, welcome to the future?

[Bibs]

iCar on the way...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/apple-to-invest-3-6-billion-in-kia-to-make-evs-donga-says?

Will be really expensive and beautifully packed but tens of millions of people will want one!

[pete]

Hyundai recalling the Kona and Ioniq to replace the batteries

[C8RKH]

On 29/01/2021 at 19:03, Barrykearley said:

Don’t worry @pete it won’t let you engage drive with it plugged in.

Yeah, cos even Hyundai knows how thick the average EV driver was and so had to build that in as a feature!   

On 03/02/2021 at 13:40, Bibs said:

Will be really expensive and beautifully packed but tens of millions of people will want one!

And won't be compatible with the "open" road.

[Barrykearley]

2 hours ago, pete said:

Hyundai recalling the Kona and Ioniq to replace the batteries

Old news - it’s only a few cars they are looking for. Worse case the car catches fire while being charged. Nothing to see here 😂

[pete]

Hyundai is to replace the electric batteries in nearly 82,000 of its electric vehicles worldwide because of a fire risk. Most of the affected vehicles are Kona cars built between 2018 and 2020, tens of thousands of which have been sold in the UK, vehicle-registration