Electric and Hybrid road vehicles

[Metra Electric Rider]

The whole Tesla (the automotive) phenomena is quite interesting: it drove a lot of introductions of electric cars and research - especially from European luxury brands, witness his new factory opening in Berlin, who were losing sales, yet I'm hearing that those very same buyers are going back to gas because of range, price and quality issues* I think they are great looking cars, but would be more useful in a hybrid model (and a small city car).

*I also think that there are odd sales issues due to their non-dealer sales network, but that's not really the tech.

 

[MARC Rider]

I think they are great looking cars, but would be more useful in a hybrid model (and a small city car).

Sooner or later Tesla's patents are going to expire, and the cost of the battery technology is going to drop. Even the sale price of the patented technology will drop once the company that owns the patents make their development costs and realize that they can make more money selling more units at a cheaper price. That's the way all new technological features in the "automotive space" seem to get introduced. Remember when anti-lock brakes were found only on certain car models marketed to rich people? Once electric cars are comparable in price to conventional cars, their advantages will be very obvious, and the long-term cost of ownership will be less. It isn't just cheaper electricity vs. gasoline, it's also that electric motors don't need the same level of maintenance that internal combustion engines require.

The main technological hurdle seems to be speeding up recharging -- there are electric cars on the market with 300 mile ranges, but getting a fresh charge for road trips seems to be a sticking point. On the other hand, most people don't drive 300 miles a day, so these cars are really fine for general use. One solution might be to eliminate the car-ownership model and sell subscriptions -- having an electric car you can use for daily driving that can be swapped out with a plug-in hybrid you can use for longer road trips and even the availability of pickup trucks and other utility vehicles when you might need them. Of course, if we had compact, walkable neighborhood design, you might not even need a car for daily errands too long to walk, some sort of glorified golf cart with a maximum speed of 30 mph would work fine for that, too.

As for paying for roads, we should probably ditch the fuel tax and replace it with a mileage tax.

By the way, there was a book written by a guy who took his Tesla, started at the Rio Grande and drove it to Panama. He was sweating bullets getting to his night stops before the battery ran down, and then he had to have a whole box of electrician's tools and parts to devise various electrical hookups. But he did succeed in driving it through Mexico, and Central America to his planned destination, which is tricky enough to do, even with a regular car.

 

[SwedeC]

My problem with owning an EV is my residence. I live in a condominium with a nice parking space in the first-floor garage. But how do I put a charging device at my parking space?
I can't just plug into the 115v convenience outlets since that would deflect my costs onto all the condo owners.
I can't run wires from the condo to the garage thru several layers of concrete.
Ultimately, the COA will have to find a solution.

 

[Ziv]

Good questions, Swede. There is no one answer. I bought a plug in car back in 2013 when charging was even worse, so I got a Volt. I owned a condo in an old building with fee based garage parking. There were limited spaces and you had to pay $60 a month for a parking spot there. So I rented a spot and then went to the condo board and asked them to allow me to charge my car and pay both the regular fee plus another fee for the extra electricity my car used over normal electrical use by other condo owners. I expected problems but the question was asked in a condo meeting of the owners and once they heard that any plug in car owner would pay the regular parking fee plus an extra $25 per month for the electricity there were no objections. We later raised the electricity fee to $30 a month. The building engineer didn't even charge me for the 120 volt electric outlet they installed near my parking spot. He said the material cost less (50 feet of conduit and a 15 amp outlet box) than a months charging fee so he figured I was covered. I think he exaggerated how cheap it was, but not by much.
The downside is that charging at 120 volts/15 amps I only got an additional 3.5-4.0 miles of all electric range per hour of charging. So if I was home for just 10 hours, I would only be able to gain 35 to 40 miles of range. That worked with my PHEV-40 Volt, but if you drove a lot on one day every week, it would mean it might take a few days to completely top off your battery if you weren't home for more than 10 hours every night.
The moral of my story is that there are usually electrical lines nearby, even in older parking garages. Offering to pay a fee for the extra electricity your car uses seems to help. But I had a group of older condo board members who liked the idea of our building being "BEV Friendly".
YMMV.

My problem with owning an EV is my residence. I live in a condominium with a nice parking space in the first-floor garage. But how do I put a charging device at my parking space?
I can't just plug into the 115v convenience outlets since that would deflect my costs onto all the condo owners.
I can't run wires from the condo to the garage thru several layers of concrete.
Ultimately, the COA will have to find a solution.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

$4000 over the life cost of your vehicle? My vehicle is hopefully not approaching the end of its life, but I have spent over $4000 just servicing vehicle emissions components that presumably wouldn’t be needed in an electric car. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand Elon Musk.

i think the technology and design of Teslas are pretty good, but I’ve been waiting until a company who actually knows how to assemble cars properly (very much not Tesla) builds a vehicle that fits my needs (a midsize or large van like my current Mercedes Metris or the larger Sprinter) with at or above 200 miles range (which is all I need) without an absurd amount of horsepower (I don’t need a 0-60 time better than 10 seconds, and neither does anyone else) and hopefully without an infotainment system that is beyond my ability to use while actually driving (I won’t hold my breath on that one- I think the MCS unit in my Metris might be the last one sold in the US that qualifies). Fords electric Transit van is close but 120 miles of range is inadequate. As for the cost of them, actually electric cars will very likely end up cheaper than ICE cars in the long run. Especially when they start building models that aren’t excessively fast and over-ranged with related excessively expensive motors and batteries.

Elon Musk, with everything he does, strives for ‘sexy’ or perhaps rather S3XY. While the technology of electric cars is currently a little on the sexy side, what really matters is nuts and bolts of a practical car- proper construction, effective dealer network, easy parts service, repair ability, good interior packaging, universal fueling standards and frankly energy efficiency. Tesla stinks at every item I llusted above, which makes them ultimately bad cars. Musk can’t seem to focus on that practical stuff; he’s too busy trying to come up with another moonshot.

I would imagine that permeates to every one of his enterprises.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Somebody in my neighborhood had one of those wedge shaped electric cars in the early 80's (or even late 70's) - they ran an extension cord from their apartment across the sidewalk and parkway to charge it when parked on the street!

The issue for me is the driving I do is usually to places where I couldn't charge after a long drive (and it's unlikely to every get miles of wire strung to provide EV charging) hence I stick with my ICE car. I could in theory install a plug in my garage for the home charging, but it's rented from my building and the electric for the garages is on all the owner-residents of the buildings common electric bill.

 

[daybeers]

Electric cars are not a long-term solution to transportation. They're still cars and take up tremendous amounts of space and weigh significantly more than ICE vehicles.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Electric cars are not a long-term solution to transportation. They're still cars and take up tremendous amounts of space and weigh significantly more than ICE vehicles.

There is also the issue of battery manufacture requiring large quantities of minerals some of them toxic that have to be disposed of and requiring extensive mining of said minerals mostly in developing countries with inadequate environmental protections.

 

[MARC Rider]

Electric cars are not a long-term solution to transportation. They're still cars and take up tremendous amounts of space and weigh significantly more than ICE vehicles.

Cars of any sort aren't a long-term solution to our transportation needs, except perhaps for people living in rural areas, and that needs to be a very small percentage of the total population. For urban dwellers, our cities and towns should be designed that one doesn't need a car for the daily activities of life, and they should be available only for special needs (like self-delivery of bulky/heavy items) or for weekend getaways and vacation road trips. But for those purposes, once they solve the issues with recharging times and price them at affordable levels, all cars should be electric.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

There is also the issue of battery manufacture requiring large quantities of minerals some of them toxic that have to be disposed of and requiring extensive mining of said minerals mostly in developing countries with inadequate environmental protections.

It's curious how elements like cobalt are portrayed as a huge ethical problem for battery production but never brought up for their role in fossil fuel refining.

 

[Cal]

Electric cars are not a long-term solution to transportation. They're still cars and take up tremendous amounts of space and weigh significantly more than ICE vehicles.

There is also the issue of battery manufacture requiring large quantities of minerals some of them toxic that have to be disposed of and requiring extensive mining of said minerals mostly in developing countries with inadequate environmental protections.

This video, I feel, does a good job at talking about some of these issues.

 

[Ziv]

I like my cars. And people that attack them really don't understand how much most car owners would despise joining the sweating masses and sit cheek by jowl on a bus. There is a reason that SE Asia is buying more cars of late. The people that live there really DON'T want to ride on buses or trains to get to work.
And I don't think that an idiot saying that "the 95% of Americans" should have to live in a lower level life style is a winning argument.
And yes, he is an Urbanist D!ckhead.
Just my two cents.

This video, I feel, does a good job at talking about some of these issues.

 

[SwedeC]

Has anyone addressed the expansion of the nation's electrical grid, and the expanded power generation, needed to power all these EV's?

I can see it now, 400 sqft of solar panels to charge one car for ten hours and it can only be done during the day.

A number of thoughts in this vein can be found at:
https://www.novatorwf.org/calendar/special-events/electric-vehicle-situation
Idealists rush in where angels fear to tread.

 

[west point]

GaN batteries may change the Li ION battery metric. Am doubtful but read the following for your own conclusions,
NOTE' Both semi conductors and batteries.

How GaN is changing the future of semiconductors (msn.com)

 

[George Harris]

I like my cars. And people that attack them really don't understand how much most car owners would despise joining the sweating masses and sit cheek by jowl on a bus. There is a reason that SE Asia is buying more cars of late. The people that live there really DON'T want to ride on buses or trains to get to work.

This last sentence may be true for some people but is not true as a general statement. I spent quite a few years in Taiwan plus a couple in Hong Kong and a few months in Singapore, and knew plenty of local people who had cars (or motorscooters) but still took a bus or transit system to work, and frequently used public transportation for quite a few other trips as well. They stayed with public transportation for the same reason as many people do not have cars in San Francisco and New York City. Cost of, convenience of, and in many places in these cities simple non-existence of parking and overall traffic congestion. Most of the middle size to major cities in these countries already have traffic congestion beyond anything imaginable in the USA. Those that lived in rural areas and smaller cities and towns in Taiwan did mostly bail from buses to motor scooters and cars when they could afford to do so and primarily for the same reason of convenience and availability that has happened in this country. By the way, that is not "sit cheek by jowl" in most cases in these places, it is stand cheek by jowl / shoulder to shoulder.

 

[Deni]

This last sentence may be true for some people but is not true as a general statement. I spent quite a few years in Taiwan plus a couple in Hong Kong and a few months in Singapore, and knew plenty of local people who had cars (or motorscooters) but still took a bus or transit system to work, and frequently used public transportation for quite a few other trips as well. They stayed with public transportation for the same reason as many people do not have cars in San Francisco and New York City. Cost of, convenience of, and in many places in these cities simple non-existence of parking and overall traffic congestion. Most of the middle size to major cities in these countries already have traffic congestion beyond anything imaginable in the USA. Those that lived in rural areas and smaller cities and towns in Taiwan did mostly bail from buses to motor scooters and cars when they could afford to do so and primarily for the same reason of convenience and availability that has happened in this country. By the way, that is not "sit cheek by jowl" in most cases in these places, it is stand cheek by jowl / shoulder to shoulder.

The metro system built in Taipei transformed that city and really increased the air quality, people love it.

I do think the statement made about people in SE Asia buying cars because they don't want to take transit are missing the fact that most of SE Asia has terrible public transit. There are no metro lines in Vietnam (though there is construction underway), Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, or The Philippines. Of the places that have metro systems, Singapore has the most comprehensive to make it a daily transportation option, and people use it. Bangkok's is better than when I first visited but still not a great many lines considering the size of the city. But ridership in those cities that do have them is actually quite good. Give them a comprehensive system of rail instead of tired old buses that sit in the same traffic as the cars and they'll take it. I really don't think as many people are so in love with their cars that they would never take transit as George Harris believes.

 

[MARC Rider]

The last 20 years I was working, I had a choice of 3 different cars, yet I had no problem deciding to ride to work using the train/metro, even though driving would have been a half hour faster each way. And this was in the USA, home of car culture.

 

[Deni]

The metro system built in Taipei transformed that city and really increased the air quality, people love it.

I do think the statement made about people in SE Asia buying cars because they don't want to take transit are missing the fact that most of SE Asia has terrible public transit. There are no metro lines in Vietnam (though there is construction underway), Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, or The Philippines. Of the places that have metro systems, Singapore has the most comprehensive to make it a daily transportation option, and people use it. Bangkok's is better than when I first visited but still not a great many lines considering the size of the city. But ridership in those cities that do have them is actually quite good. Give them a comprehensive system of rail instead of tired old buses that sit in the same traffic as the cars and they'll take it. I really don't think as many people are so in love with their cars that they would never take transit as George Harris believes.

I'll correct myself on one thing, Hanoi's first line opened last November, one line with 12 stations and 13 km long. Vietnam's first rapid transit "system."

 

[user 29618]

I'd gladly take transit, if the last stop wasn't a $100 taxi ride from there to my house.
Fix that, and get back to me.

 

[Deni]

I'd gladly take transit, if the last stop wasn't a $100 taxi ride from there to my house.
Fix that, and get back to me.

Sprawl in America is something that car culture created, not something for transit to fix. We need to have more density in this country to make transit a viable option for more people and to stop the NIMBYs from fighting that kind of development.

I'm curious if you had a choice where to live and it was a decision to live far away from transit. I often have people tell me they would take transit if it was closer but if you choose to live far away from transit then you really aren't all that willing to take it.

 

[MARC Rider]

Has anyone addressed the expansion of the nation's electrical grid, and the expanded power generation, needed to power all these EV's?

I can see it now, 400 sqft of solar panels to charge one car for ten hours and it can only be done during the day.

A number of thoughts in this vein can be found at:
https://www.novatorwf.org/calendar/special-events/electric-vehicle-situation
Idealists rush in where angels fear to tread.

I would not consider anything authored by Dr. Jay Lehr to be worth reading, even if he gets some of the facts right, he is in business to twist them to meet certain ideological positions that correspond to certain vested business interests. I'd rather hear directly from the industry giving me their honest opinions, rather than somebody attempting to be "impartial" feeding me what jis calls "bovine scatology," (more properly "male bovine scatology".)

Here's a background piece on the guy, admittedly from a website with an opposing point of view:
Jay H. Lehr - DeSmog
Heartland's Jay Lehr calls EPA "Fraudulent," Despite Defrauding EPA and Going to Jail - DeSmog

He was apparently involved in providing scientific cover for the tobacco industry (look towards the bottom of the middle column of the page
lpgk0102 - TASSC ISSUES 5 GUIDING SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES ;... - Truth Tobacco Industry Documents (ucsf.edu)

In other words, the guy has no credibility on this issue, or most other issues. And to think he was the editor of the journal that published my first published scientific paper.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

There are no metro lines in Vietnam (though there is construction underway), Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, or The Philippines.

Djakarta and Manila would like a word....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakarta_MRT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Metro_Rail_Transit_System

 

[joelkfla]

Djakarta and Manila would like a word....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakarta_MRT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Metro_Rail_Transit_System

Is MRT or Metro Rail Transit now the accepted terminology for heavy rail, as opposed to LRT? I hadn't heard this term before.

 

[Deni]

Djakarta and Manila would like a word....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakarta_MRT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Metro_Rail_Transit_System

I stand corrected.

But both of those still aren't expansive systems that make a difference in having quality transportation systems. (Really surprising Manila's has had one line for 23 years and still no new ones)

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Is MRT or Metro Rail Transit now the accepted terminology for heavy rail, as opposed to LRT? I hadn't heard this term before.

I think MRT is common in parts of Asia where it's the name for the metro/subway system or agency that runs transit more than terminology (and to some degree regional).

But both of those still aren't expansive systems that make a difference in having quality transportation systems. (Really surprising Manila's has had one line for 23 years and still no new ones)

That's certainly true - although the Philippines is, well, a mess in a lot of ways, so no surprise the system hasn't grown.