Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Gale Hawkins]

To keep the battery power tool thread more focused on hand tools this thread can be for cars, trucks, tractors, etc that are here today and new ones of the future.

Clearly Europe is ahead of the USA in battery based vehicles and for several reasons. McDonald's putting in car charging stations in 100% of their stores countries like Norway and the Netherlands helped me see this is no small thing. Tax breaks are huge in some countries.

Yesterday I read at some point in recent years the USA government funded a $118 million grant and is one reason there are free charging stations in some areas per that article.

Today there was an article claiming a 620 mile range for the very expensive Tesla Roadster to be out like next year.

I think we will see 1000 mile battery ranges within the next 10 years and at a cost more like the 100 mile range vehicles of 5 years ago. While the technology may not pan out in the article below there is too much being spent on finding more powerful and longer life rechargeable vehicle batteries for it not to bear fruit going forward.

Tech Breakthrough: Is This The End Of Lithium-Ion Batteries? | OilPrice.com

While Cracker Barrel has been installing EV chargers for the last 10 years the rumor at a local dealership is that they are putting in some EV chargers soon in Murray KY. One of the new hotels has three charging stations for guest usage. The Ford dealership has two that have been in for several years. A Walmart in Paducah even reports having a fast 50 amp EV charger.

 

[Agvg]

Here in Norway the market share of 100% electric cars are over 40% in 2019, so electric cars do work like a charm, even in very hard winter conditions.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Agvg it was the story how Mercedes sales in Norway was down by $22 million US dollars due to people moving away from gas and diesel powered vehicles that helped me see what was about to happen in the USA.

Here is an article from last year that got my attention.

This is the Fendt e1 Vario electric tractor - FutureFarming

 

[Agvg]

Audi e-tron and the new Mercedes will be selling in big numbers, the new e-tron is very common already, Volvos Polestar im sure will sell very good as Norway is considered a part of Volvos home market, Tesla will meet a lot of competition. Here in Norway a lot will go on electricity, the new car ferry where i live will be electric, we are seriously thinking on use electric passenger plane on the short routes and the list goes on. In agriculture it has been very little focus on electrification.

 

[/pine]

Electric Motorcycles | Harley-Davidson USA

 

[Oaktree]

Clearly Europe is ahead of the USA in battery based vehicles and for several reasons. McDonald's putting in car charging stations in 100% of their stores countries like Norway and the Netherlands helped me see this is no small thing. Tax breaks are huge in some countries.

Comparing vehicle adoption between the U.S. (or Canada for that matter) and Europe is a bit apples and oranges. First of all, Europe is much more urban than the U.S., with people driving shorter distances than here in North America. Secondly, how well do you think these would be received without the heavy government subsidization they currently receive? This seems to be setting a troublesome precedent...I don't see anyone offering free gasoline/diesel to those of us who drive conventional vehicles, why should electric vehicles have "free" or heavily discounted charging? At what point will this end, or will it?
What about road use taxes? Where will the money come from for highway maintenance should these vehicles become more than a novelty?

Does the power grid have the capacity to charge all these vehicles should they become mainstream? All questions that need to be answered.

I'm sure the technology will improve over time, maybe even to the point where these vehicles are practical but I think the 10 year time frame is a bit optimistic.

 

[airbiscuit]

We also subsidize big oil.

 

[airbiscuit]

The technology on batteries is advancing very rapidly. It's not if, but when we will see more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles. It will be a natural for farms to have giant solar arrays on their outbuildings to charge the battery banks for their large tractors. Their will be self driving mules to deliver charged battery modules to the field tractors.

 

[/pine]

The technology on batteries is advancing very rapidly. It's not if, but when we will see more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles. It will be a natural for farms to have giant solar arrays on their outbuildings to charge the battery banks for their large tractors. Their will be self driving mules to deliver charged battery modules to the field tractors.

Actually it's not...if anything it has regressed a bit...Tesla (a leading battery R&D investor.) is having lots of issues with their current (NPI) batteries and have not made any advancements in the last 18 months...

FWIW...Tesla stock is a bellwether for battery tech...

 

[bunyip]

A lot of shopping centres and car parks have free fast charging bays here and if we went for an electric car we can get a deal with the power companies for $1 a day to charge, unfortunately the charging platform is cost prohibitive to make it a deal for me and we live too far away from charging stations.
I seem to recall seeing that a Tesla charger is about $20k.
The $1 a day is charged if you use the car or not.