Electric Cars: Chev Bolt seems to be the first practical one.

[California]

I don't know how greenies are so certain that the dreams of green technology are going to save the world , end pollution and provide limitless cheap energy. Ask the technical people such as engineers and accountants that deal with real world facts, they say something else.

Greenies??? You're a brownie then cause you like pollution?? Let's back off on the name calling. It doesn't solve any problems, it just divides us further. Peace?

I don't think any reasonable person expects energy for free or that pollution will end. But back in the real world ... the reason California has been the leader on air pollution control is simply because the air here became unbreatheable. I have a photo on here somewhere showing the State Capitol as seen from the western slope of the Sierras, it is hidden in murky yellow crud that looks like the photos we see today of China. Our politicians didn't go nuts, rather they (finally) responded to their voters who demanded that they Do Something. Sorry that your officials enacted the same things elsewhere! In the broadest sense the adoption of electric vehicles in China and India and to a far lesser extent here, will help keep the air breatheable all over the planet. The US won't be the leader in adopting this, we don't have the critical need that particularly China does right now to turn down the steady increase in air pollution since so much has been done already. But I would like to help in that regard if costs were similar. They aren't, as you noted, so I still drive 2005 and 1999 vehicles, about 120k miles on each, that work like new but are technologically obsolete. I'm curious about motor vehicle progress, not someone who will throw money at Making A Statement with what I drive.

Natural gas (and hydro) is the big source for electrical generation here, not coal or imported petroleum. But OPEC price-setting in the middle east and Venezuela is a primary basis for energy pricing, so we are partly dependent on their goals for what we pay. Look at the recent example of OPEC flooding the market with cheap petroleum with the goal of driving the N Dakota drillers out of business. If we could sever the dependence on energy pricing that is based on what the Saudis want, we could ignore them - and the chaos they are funding all over the middle east. Let them figure it out, bring the troops home. I realize these are long term ideals, not a basis for present choices. But where our choices can move progress forward without costing any more, why not choose that direction.

 

[California]

No battery degradation ha been observed.......................... I wonder how they measured battery capacity and how they avoided normal deterioration that occurs with battery use?

Battery degradation - I think it was Tesla I was reading about but I'll bet GM is doing the same thing: The battery capacity shown on the dash display and in the published ratings is less than the actual technical capacity, and the charging circuits don't use that extra capacity in the early years, so the first owner will see little to no degradation in what appears to be available. The car will meet its published specs for a long time due to the intelligent charger which only gradually 'sees' that it needs to charge to the real 100%. It's the owner's experience that remains uniform over several years, not the battery.

(Related: I've read that Tesla's stationary batteries are their means to recycle automotive batteries).

And something I read related to Bolt: the advertised quick charge, something like 90 miles in 30 minutes, is qualified by some unreasonable conditions. 1) weather that allows full charge but prevents overheating, around a constant 70 degrees. 2) Only if starting from a near-depleted battery. This isn't good for the battery and doesn't match a real world owner's use of the vehicle. Nobody with a 235 mile range will intentionally just make it home with only 2~5 miles of capacity remaining. 3) Charging only persists at maximum for the first 50% of capacity (including that claimed 90 miles) then the rate drops until 70%, then drops again to slower charging for the final 30%. Owners have documented this while I don't think it is in the published specs. In summary overnight charging works fine for a commuter, expecting to go on a road trip and use public fast chargers along the way is a little optimistic.

There's a lot to learn. EV's don't have a lot in common with traditional auto technology.

 

[vvanders]

Battery degradation - I think it was Tesla I was reading about but I'll bet GM is doing the same thing: The battery capacity shown on the dash display and in the published ratings is less than the actual technical capacity, and the charging circuits don't use that extra capacity in the early years, so the first owner will see little to no degradation in what appears to be available. The car will meet its published specs for a long time due to the intelligent charger which only gradually 'sees' that it needs to charge to the real 100%. It's the owner's experience that remains uniform over several years, not the battery.

(Related: I've read that Tesla's stationary batteries are their means to recycle automotive batteries).

And something I read related to Bolt: the advertised quick charge, something like 90 miles in 30 minutes, is qualified by some unreasonable conditions. 1) weather that allows full charge but prevents overheating, around a constant 70 degrees. 2) Only if starting from a near-depleted battery. This isn't good for the battery and doesn't match a real world owner's use of the vehicle. Nobody with a 235 mile range will intentionally just make it home with only 2~5 miles of capacity remaining. 3) Charging only persists at maximum for the first 50% of capacity (including that claimed 90 miles) then the rate drops until 70%, then drops again to slower charging for the final 30%. Owners have documented this while I don't think it is in the published specs. In summary overnight charging works fine for a commuter, expecting to go on a road trip and use public fast chargers along the way is a little optimistic.

There's a lot to learn. EV's don't have a lot in common with traditional auto technology.

Li capacity degradation is a factor of two things, temperature and to a lesser degree charge capacity. Li hates being too warm, overheating is the number one way to kill capacity. The other way is to leave them in a state of 100% charge for a long period of time. The reason your phone battery degrades over ~1 year is that unless you're hitting the thermal governors for the SoC they'll happily run hot to give you better performance. They're basically there to prevent you from bricking your phone, and in some cases they'll even turn them off to make benchmarks look better. Same thing is true for charging your phone. I used to work as an engineer in the cell phone space so this is an area that's not unfamiliar to me.

Tesla deals with this by having active thermal management for the pack(and GM too although I know less about their systems). Nissan didn't for the first gen leafs which is why their capacity started dropping significantly in the warmer climates like Phoenix, AZ and similar places. There's actually a set of louvers near the front on the Model S that will open when needed. For instance when supercharging(~120kW VDC) within the first couple minutes they're usually open and the cooling system is going full-tilt.

On DCFC(DC, Fast Charging) you're right in that current charge of the pack affects charging speed. Tesla starts tapering at 35% down to about 70% from 120kW to 60kW. It still means that you can get enough to go supercharger to supercharger in about 20-30 minutes. I do a 300mi trip about once a week and if weather is bad I can pop in for ~5 minutes and then have enough to make it home.

I've got a little over 50k miles right now and have seen less than 2% degradation, including supercharging just about every week.

 

[houstonscott]

Greenies??? You're a brownie then cause you like pollution?? Let's back off on the name calling. It doesn't solve any problems, it just divides us further. Peace? I don't think any reasonable person expects energy for free or that pollution will end. But back in the real world ... the reason California has been the leader on air pollution control is simply because the air here became unbreatheable. I have a photo on here somewhere showing the State Capitol as seen from the western slope of the Sierras, it is hidden in murky yellow crud that looks like the photos we see today of China. Our politicians didn't go nuts, rather they (finally) responded to their voters who demanded that they Do Something. Sorry that your officials enacted the same things elsewhere! In the broadest sense the adoption of electric vehicles in China and India and to a far lesser extent here, will help keep the air breatheable all over the planet. The US won't be the leader in adopting this, we don't have the critical need that particularly China does right now to turn down the steady increase in air pollution since so much has been done already. But I would like to help in that regard if costs were similar. They aren't, as you noted, so I still drive 2005 and 1999 vehicles, about 120k miles on each, that work like new but are technologically obsolete. I'm curious about motor vehicle progress, not someone who will throw money at Making A Statement with what I drive. Natural gas (and hydro) is the big source for electrical generation here, not coal or imported petroleum. But OPEC price-setting in the middle east and Venezuela is a primary basis for energy pricing, so we are partly dependent on their goals for what we pay. Look at the recent example of OPEC flooding the market with cheap petroleum with the goal of driving the N Dakota drillers out of business. If we could sever the dependence on energy pricing that is based on what the Saudis want, we could ignore them - and the chaos they are funding all over the middle east. Let them figure it out, bring the troops home. I realize these are long term ideals, not a basis for present choices. But where our choices can move progress forward without costing any more, why not choose that direction.

Six of the top ten most polluted cities in the USA are in California, so let's get the over the leader on air pollution control stuff. Second USA is world leader in world energy production, we have all we need, no need to import, we are exporting now. USA has several thousand years of know energy reserves, and lots of NG. There is simply no reason to move to electric cars. If you want one that's cool. I want a new series 70 Toyota diesel land cruiser too, but the government won't let my buy one. I wonder if stripping the African land scape for the rare earth minerals necessary for your electric batteries, is really worth it to let you drive electric cars around the wine country, or if you should pay a big fat tax to do that because California doesn't seem capable of solving its air pollution problems alone.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/19/most-polluted-cities-california/100615102/

 

[IslandTractor]

Six of the top ten most polluted cities in the USA are in California, so let's get the over the leader on air pollution control stuff. Second USA is world leader in world energy production, we have all we need, no need to import, we are exporting now. USA has several thousand years of know energy reserves, and lots of NG. There is simply no reason to move to electric cars. If you want one that's cool. I want a new series 70 Toyota diesel land cruiser too, but the government won't let my buy one.

That's because diesels are way dirtier than we thought a few years ago. The US doesn't have a big problem with NOx except in some urban areas but the world has a big problem. Europe, where diesel cars are common, has much worse NOx levels and deaths due to poor air quality in cities.

Electric cars charged by fossil fuel power plants are of course not zero emission but they are much better for urban areas than any ICE vehicle and definitely better than diesel. As the proportion of wind, solar, hydro, nuke, tide etc electric generation increases, electric will become cleaner than it already is.

The biggest advantage of electric and hybrid vehicles today IMO is their ability to recapture true zero emission energy through regenerative braking. Why not recapture that energy rather than burn up brake pads?

 

[California]

Article: Volvo won't develop diesel engines any longer, will shift effort to EV's.

"Volvo Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson said that the current generation of diesel engines will be the automaker's last and that they will instead focus on electric vehicles. And he also gave credit to Tesla for launching demand for electric vehicles

He "hinted that they could stop production of diesel engines, which represents about 50% of the market in Europe, altogether after 2023.

"These are more aggressive timelines than previously stated by the automaker, which had only announced a goal to accumulate a global fleet of "up to 1 million electrified cars by 2025 globally".

"Volvo's first all-vehicle will hit the market in 2019. The company confirmed that they are aiming for a range of "at least 250 miles".



Times they are a-changing ... get out of the way if you don't understand - as somebody said 50 years ago.

 

[Redneck in training]

Middle east oil has little to do with electrical grid power generation in the US. Coal, nuclear and hydro electric carry the load.
There are these warm fuzzy feelings, nice thoughts, best wishes etc...........These nice things don't change the laws physics or reduce costs. The solar roof and Tesla battery will never pay for themselves unless your electricity is 50-60 cents per kw.
I don't know how greenies are so certain that the dreams of green technology are going to save the world , end pollution and provide limitless cheap energy. Ask the technical people such as engineers and accountants that deal with real world facts, they say something else.

In fact, 34% of the US electric energy generation is from NG. Coal is number two with 30%. Nuclear produces about 20%.
Electric cars are not only about saving the planet. They are about 4-5 times more energy efficient than ICE. ICE uses about 5% energy from the fuel due to transportation and processing losses. Electric cars use about 20-25 % of energy accounting for the same transportation and processing losses. If the energy is generated by renewables they could use up 90%. The issue is that fossil hydrocarbon can be used to make better stuff than generating energy by burning it in cars.

 

[houstonscott]

Article: Volvo won't develop diesel engines any longer, will shift effort to EV's. "Volvo Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson said that the current generation of diesel engines will be the automaker's last and that they will instead focus on electric vehicles. And he also gave credit to Tesla for launching demand for electric vehicles He "hinted that they could stop production of diesel engines, which represents about 50% of the market in Europe, altogether after 2023. "These are more aggressive timelines than previously stated by the automaker, which had only announced a goal to accumulate a global fleet of "up to 1 million electrified cars by 2025 globally". "Volvo's first all-vehicle will hit the market in 2019. The company confirmed that they are aiming for a range of "at least 250 miles". Times they are a-changing ... get out of the way if you don't understand - as somebody said 50 years ago.

Oh, we understand, be careful though, you'll end up in a dumpster someday.

 

[California]

Oh, we understand, be careful though, you'll end up in a dumpster someday.

Houstonscott this will make your head explode:

India cancelling huge coal power station because it wants to focus on renewable energy

Country wants to become a solar power leader by 2030

"Gujarati state officials had planned a 4,000-Megawatt ultra-mega power project (UMPP).

"It would have been the state of Gujarat's second UMPP.
But the government decided focusing on renewables was a better longer term strategy.

 

[California]

Oh, we understand, be careful though, you'll end up in a dumpster someday.

houstonscott who are you going to trust? Buy some of this and you'll feel better.