Massively improved EV range coming soon?

What about the many millions of car users who have no off road parking? Where are cash strapped local councils going to find the money for secure charging points along every residential street?
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
What about the many millions of car users who have no off road parking? Where are cash strapped local councils going to find the money for secure charging points along every residential street?
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Stop at a fuel station and swap the battery...
 
wuyanxu said:
EV battery range is more than adequate in today's EV's. People need to stop irrationally overestimate their needs and look at how they actually use their cars, how long do you actually drive in one leg of your journey. Now, it's only the charging infrastructure need to catch up.
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Here we or more accurately you go again, we've done this to death, lets not go there again. The range is not sufficient in very many cases as has ben stated a million times, it might work for you but not everyone and having to stop etc is a backwards step. Embrace the future young man, newer better designed batteries mean you dont have to stop and you might only recharge your car 3 maybe 4 times year, how can that be such a bad thing.
The EV infrastructure wont need a massive upgrade, do you have shares in some sort of EV infrastructure company. Did you declare that when cars where doing 20 mpg that we needed more petrol/fuel stations or did you demand cars should do 45/50 mpg.
I really dont kno where you are coming from.
 
MatBin said:
Embrace the future young man, newer better designed batteries mean you dont have to stop and you might only recharge your car 3 maybe 4 times year, how can that be such a bad thing.
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I'll believe any mass media news of new technology or breakthroughs when I see it physically in cars we can buy. (I would also accept new car announcement with specs)

Until then, unlike you, I am embracing the future of personal transportation. The future is now, the future is here.

MatBin said:
The EV infrastructure wont need a massive upgrade,
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I don't think car manufacturers or energy company agree with your personal opinion there. Just ask BP, Shell, VW, BMW etc.
 
wuyanxu said:
I don't think car manufacturers or energy company agree with your personal opinion there. Just ask BP, Shell, VW, BMW etc.
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Cherry picking out of context, you know full well I meant if the new batteries need less charging and have a greater density.
 
MatBin said:
Cherry picking out of context, you know full well I meant if the new batteries need less charging and have a greater density.
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Sorry, It didn't look like it. It was a new paragraph with "EV infrastructure" as main subject. To me, that sounds like you are talking about existing EV infrastructure, which was also the subject of my post you've quoted.

If it were indeed linked with your first paragraph, I would question how you can recharge a quarter of your annual transport energy with existing EV infrastructure in a timely manner without massive upgrades.

Either way, sounds like we agree that current EV infrastructure is inadequate.
We just don't agree what is adequate range of the car.
 
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wuyanxu said:
Sorry, It didn't look like it. It was a new paragraph with "EV infrastructure" as main subject. To me, that sounds like you are talking about existing EV infrastructure, which was also the subject of my post you've quoted.

If it were indeed linked with your first paragraph, I would question how you can recharge a quarter of your annual transport energy with existing EV infrastructure in a timely manner without massive upgrades.

Either way, sounds like we agree that current EV infrastructure is inadequate.
We just don't agree what is adequate range of the car.
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Apology accepted, as things stand infrastructure is inadequate but is this new battery a game changer?
Read the article, the guy is suggesting the battery will do 1500 miles between charges, easily swappable in 90 seconds and costs £3,500 as opposed to a similar battery cost £30,000
 
MatBin said:
Read the article, the guy is suggesting the battery will do 1500 miles between charges, easily swappable in 90 seconds and costs £3,500 as opposed to a similar battery cost £30,000
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I refer my honourable friend to the old proverb that if something looks too good to be true: it probably isn't true. :thinking:
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I refer my honourable friend to the old proverb that if something looks too good to be true: it probably isn't true. :thinking:
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I wont be rushing to invest my life's savings in it. :)
 
If the 1500 mile claim of this battery gets close to fruition, that’s over 24 hours straight at an average speed of 60mph - an easy week or two of charge for most.

I think 600 miles range is the holy grail for EVs and that is not far away. A decently priced 350 mile range car would do me and most others I’d imagine.
 
decigallen said:
If the 1500 mile claim of this battery gets close to fruition, that’s over 24 hours straight at an average speed of 60mph - an easy week or two of charge for most.

I think 600 miles range is the holy grail for EVs and that is not far away. A decently priced 350 mile range car would do me and most others I’d imagine.
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Trouble is our needs can change, at present I do a 110-120 miles per day without the possibility/desire to do a charge up (I commute 55 miles each way) so I'd need 200 mile range as a minimum in case I needed to use my car after I got home straight away. Next year when I retire I may not need anything like 200 miles range but I wouldn't want to buy a car with a certain need of range say 120 miles then find I need a car with 250 mile range 3 months down the line, as swapping it out would be expensive (depreciation etc) so I'd buy a car based on what I thought I'd need to cover most eventualities. Replaceable battery packs with greater or lesser range would be ideal of course, but I think you are right, most people would want 300 miles.
 
I'd personally be happy with a Model 3 standard range (200+ miles), enough to do my 60 miles commute 3 times, and rely on Tesla supercharger network for long distance travel.

But for any other car brands, without Tesla charging network, it's understandable why people would feel more comfortable with 300+ miles. I'd want the same, due to having experienced the very slow improvement in public charging infrastructure over last 2 years of my EV ownership.
Only one 10+ stall petrol-station-like public rapid charging hub for the whole country......... most trunk route charging locations are still only 1 or 2 stalls, susceptible to queueing..........


In related news, government are considering special number plate for EV's. So local council can have local incentives for EV. Whilst a good idea to rise awareness on paper, this could create the low emission vehicle resentment you see in the US with the LEV 'zil' lanes. Their money is much better spent managing charging hub rollout IMO. You put up those, get people to see they are avaliable should they need to use it, and the adoption will come.
 
MatBin said:
Trouble is our needs can change, at present I do a 110-120 miles per day without the possibility/desire to do a charge up (I commute 55 miles each way) so I'd need 200 mile range as a minimum in case I needed to use my car after I got home straight away. Next year when I retire I may not need anything like 200 miles range but I wouldn't want to buy a car with a certain need of range say 120 miles then find I need a car with 250 mile range 3 months down the line, as swapping it out would be expensive (depreciation etc) so I'd buy a car based on what I thought I'd need to cover most eventualities. Replaceable battery packs with greater or lesser range would be ideal of course, but I think you are right, most people would want 300 miles.
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Yes I agree most of our trips are less than 200 miles but we do a few longer trips a year to visit family and for my photography so any car we have will need to be able to do 300 miles or so
I’m not convinced as well about the environmental benefits long and short term of electric vehicles I believe that small economic petrol cars are the way ahead
Older desiels are pretty bad for people’s health though I’ve followed some that belch out black smoke I don’t understand why they are still allowed on the road
 
On Radio 4 this morning they were talking about a combined £700 billion being required to make electric car use practical for the majority of British citizens. This included the provision of 24 million on-street charging points plus all the other changes required to replace internal combustion vehicles.

{EDIT} The BBC web page has changed the figure to £300 billion so that's a relief (or not) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland
 
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wuyanxu said:
In related news, government are considering special number plate for EV's.
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That's so the rest of us know why the car in front is doing 55/60 on a motorway, bit like P plates :)
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
On Radio 4 this morning they were talking about a combined £700 billion being required to make electric car use practical for the majority of British citizens. This included the provision of 24 million on-street charging points plus all the other changes required to replace internal combustion vehicles.

{EDIT} The BBC web page has changed the figure to £300 billion so that's a relief (or not) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland
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Couldn’t find the story. Is it based on current EV tech without regarding battery breakthroughs that will appear over the next two decades?
 
MatBin said:
Trouble is our needs can change, at present I do a 110-120 miles per day without the possibility/desire to do a charge up (I commute 55 miles each way) so I'd need 200 mile range as a minimum in case I needed to use my car after I got home straight away. Next year when I retire I may not need anything like 200 miles range but I wouldn't want to buy a car with a certain need of range say 120 miles then find I need a car with 250 mile range 3 months down the line, as swapping it out would be expensive (depreciation etc) so I'd buy a car based on what I thought I'd need to cover most eventualities. Replaceable battery packs with greater or lesser range would be ideal of course, but I think you are right, most people would want 300 miles.
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But if there was a charger at your place of work you wouldn't need that range. So better infrastructure would in fact solve the issue for you.

But yes, 300+ miles would be ideal for most. And not costing £40K, which is the bigger barrier.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
But if there was a charger at your place of work you wouldn't need that range. So better infrastructure would in fact solve the issue for you.

But yes, 300+ miles would be ideal for most. And not costing £40K, which is the bigger barrier.
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Agreed re charger if there were enough for everyone who uses an EV. I work on a business park at present with in excess of 300 cars parked daily, I cant see it happening. Bigger gaps between charges would also solve the issue. Sorry that sounds like I want to have the last word.
 
MatBin said:
Agreed re charger if there were enough for everyone who uses an EV. I work on a business park at present with in excess of 300 cars parked daily, I cant see it happening. Bigger gaps between charges would also solve the issue. Sorry that sounds like I want to have the last word.
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Yeah I used to work on a similar business park, would cost a lot to do. But ultimately, if that's what has to happen for a mass shift to electric, then maybe that's where the govt should look at investing. It's the same reason that at present it wouldn't work for me without having something with the range of a Tesla, but I'm not spending that kind of money on a car.

But given that our governments tend to be fairly short sighted, I can't currently see it happening either.
 
Successive Governments of both persuasions have been happy to take the tax revenue from motorists but remarkably reticent in investing much in return.

I cannot see the State funding an expansion in EV charging infrastructure; I can however see the State looking for ways of increasing the tax revenue from EV owners to offset the decline in its VED, VAT and fuel duty income as ICE sales tail off.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Good idea. Which cars have that feature?
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As I mentioned in another thread on his subject... There was a piece on the BBC news channel a while back about electric cars in India and apparently they have this swappable battery feature and showed it in action, the car pulls in and the battery is swapped and the car drives off, just like a petrol station. I don't know how widespread this is but it seems so sensible a solution that it's hard to understand why it isn't being pushed.
 
woof woof said:
As I mentioned in another thread on his subject... There was a piece on the BBC news channel a while back about electric cars in India and apparently they have this swappable battery feature and showed it in action, the car pulls in and the battery is swapped and the car drives off, just like a petrol station. I don't know how widespread this is but it seems so sensible a solution that it's hard to understand why it isn't being pushed.
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According to some, if you purchased an EV now the battery pack would represent probably 50% of the cost of the car, so assuming you bought your car today and it needed a battery swap in 2 days time you might be swapping out for a 5/6 yr old battery worth possibly a lot less than 50% and not having the same capacity, that is apart from the fact you cant do it of course as that isnt how car manufacturers have decided to design their vehicles. Odd really because the same people claim the battery will last 10 years, a case of having their cake and eating it I think.
 
MatBin said:
According to some, if you purchased an EV now the battery pack would represent probably 50% of the cost of the car, so assuming you bought your car today and it needed a battery swap in 2 days time you might be swapping out for a 5/6 yr old battery worth possibly a lot less than 50% and not having the same capacity, that is apart from the fact you cant do it of course as that isnt how car manufacturers have decided to design their vehicles. Odd really because the same people claim the battery will last 10 years, a case of having their cake and eating it I think.
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Sorry, in this case I think the company owns the battery not the individual so there's no great loss unless you get a dud that needs to be swapped out after 20 miles not 100, or whatever. Googling might find the article or another source but I was in the kitchen washing or cooking or something at the time and couldn't 100% focus on the telly.

The sliding in and out of a battery pack does seem a good idea to me but of course there'll need to be a number of different packs as what would happily power a small hatch back wouldn't be much use for a larger car but I'd imagine that it could maybe be feasible if there was a will and the main thing would be that it would cut the refueling time to that of filling the tank with petrol.

Someone in motor sales told me years ago that one European manufacturer had decided that electric was the future and that there was no other option. That plays to the little conspiracy theorist in me as if manufacturers and in some cases governments have put everything in this one basket they possibly wont be too willing to admit they're wrong and jump to some other tech even if it's better. Maybe.

I hope I am wrong but at the mo and with the tech we have I just can't see electric cars in their current form as the answer.
 
MatBin said:
According to some, if you purchased an EV now the battery pack would represent probably 50% of the cost of the car, so assuming you bought your car today and it needed a battery swap in 2 days time you might be swapping out for a 5/6 yr old battery worth possibly a lot less than 50% and not having the same capacity, that is apart from the fact you cant do it of course as that isnt how car manufacturers have decided to design their vehicles. Odd really because the same people claim the battery will last 10 years, a case of having their cake and eating it I think.
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Claim battery will outlast the car.
vs
Worry about getting swapped a 5/6 years old battery with degradation and thus shorter range on your brand new car.

There is zero contridiction here. I don't get what is your point, which bit seems odd to you?

woof woof said:
The sliding in and out of a battery pack does seem a good idea to me
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This idea has been trialled by Tesla initially, and Chinese EV startup Nio are building these stations for their huge SUV.
In fact, if you watch Rich Rebuilds, who does DIY repair on Tesla's. You can see you can undo a dozen bolts and lift the car frame up, the battery stays on the trolly jack. So the early Model S had this capability built in: undo a dozen bolts and lower the battery down into the ground.

Unfortunately, only way for them to work on the same level as today's petrol stations is if majority of manufacturers get on board with this. If we have a standard for batteries so any car can use the station and receive their corresponding battery. Eg. city car, hatchback and large vehicles.
Seeing how long the CCS charging standard took the motor industry (and it's still inferior to Chademo in reliability and features).......... I feel by the time they work out battery swap standards, rapid charging speed may not be far off to filling up with petrol.

But one huge plus point for battery swap is that for all those battery underground awaiting to be swapped in, they can act as grid balancing devices. So you can integrate such station with local substation and the batteries act as giant energy buffer, this will improve renewable utilisation and reduce need to build stationary batteries.
(if for now, we ignore possibility of reusing aged EV battery for such use-case)
 
LCPete said:
Yes I agree most of our trips are less than 200 miles but we do a few longer trips a year to visit family and for my photography so any car we have will need to be able to do 300 miles or so
I’m not convinced as well about the environmental benefits long and short term of electric vehicles I believe that small economic petrol cars are the way ahead
Older desiels are pretty bad for people’s health though I’ve followed some that belch out black smoke I don’t understand why they are still allowed on the road
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Do You have any research or stats to back up this belief. I hope I don’t seem rude, but beliefs, feelings and guesses aren’t helpful here.

EVs do have an environmental impact but all reports would suggest it’s nothing like an ICE car (either diesel or petrol). Electricity production can be immediately renewable, oil production cannot. EV cars can potentially be carbon neutral and emission free over a lifetime, petrol cars cannot. Take Audi, for example, it’s evs are built on site (including battery) In a building with 95% of electricity coming from solar panels and other renewable sources. It then runs emission free for its lifetime before being recycled. ICE cannot compare to that.

There’s also the issue of localised pollution from ICE cars. This is a significant factor in people’s health, especially in cities. Diesel and petrol cars will likely never overcome that.
 
I wonder what end of life is like for electric cars though and batteries in particular? I suspect that it isn't very good. I have no evidence and I'm just judging from the con much recycling or commitment to do so seems to be.

The one company I have direct evidence of in this area made mid sized industrial and commercial equipment and before and whilst I was there, I worked there 12 years, they were never once asked to take something back at the end of its life.

I'm just worried that much of this will turn into a box ticking exercise with nothing much effective actually being done and done right. Some of it will possibly be justified by joining schemes and paying subscriptions and making statements but nothing else really and that possibility worries me and could reduce the viability of this technology and it's more green than fossil fuel status.
 
Battery second-life is big business already. Most of the EV manufacturers are investing in it. Even after an EV is done, the battery is still useful in a lot of applications such as household or grid storage. I imagine a lot of the elements involved will also be valuable for recycling so the financial benefits will dissuade box-ticking.

I'd be more worried about the ethics and environmental impact of Lithium and cobalt mining. That is my only issue with EVs.
 
The large surge in demand for rare earth materials for EV only really started in last 5 years, if that. The supply chain will need time to deal with this demand.

The oil industry had been established for hundred of years, yet the last war for oil ended less than 10 years ago.
 
decigallen said:
Do You have any research or stats to back up this belief. I hope I don’t seem rude, but beliefs, feelings and guesses aren’t helpful here.

EVs do have an environmental impact but all reports would suggest it’s nothing like an ICE car (either diesel or petrol). Electricity production can be immediately renewable, oil production cannot. EV cars can potentially be carbon neutral and emission free over a lifetime, petrol cars cannot. Take Audi, for example, it’s evs are built on site (including battery) In a building with 95% of electricity coming from solar panels and other renewable sources. It then runs emission free for its lifetime before being recycled. ICE cannot compare to that.

There’s also the issue of localised pollution from ICE cars. This is a significant factor in people’s health, especially in cities. Diesel and petrol cars will likely never overcome that.
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Audi may be 'assembling' EVs onsite but I would be surprised if every component they use is manufactured onsite. Most car manufacturers rely upon 'Just in Time' deliveries of parts made by a multitude of suppliers which are shipped in from all over the place by lorry or even by ferry/container ship.
 
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The good thing is that, unlike oil, the minerals used aren’t set in stone. Cobalt and lithium are used in today’s tech but not necessarily what they’ll use in 20 years.
 
broc said:
Audi may be 'assembling' EVs onsite but I would be surprised if every component they use is manufactured onsite. Most car manufacturers rely upon 'Just in Time' deliveries of parts made by a multitude of suppliers which are shipped in from all over the place by lorry or even by ferry/container ship.
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you’re of course right, they are paying carbon taxes on components brought in to get their EU certification.
 
decigallen said:
The good thing is that, unlike oil, the minerals used aren’t set in stone.
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Neither is the fuel used for internal combustion engines. There was an academic on the radio the other day claiming that converting current vehicles and infrastructure to Hydrogen would cost a fraction of the projected cost of electrification and protect the current high employment rate of the vehicle industry.

It's sad that electrification has become yet another bandwagon. :(
 
decigallen said:
The good thing is that, unlike oil, the minerals used aren’t set in stone. Cobalt and lithium are used in today’s tech but not necessarily what they’ll use in 20 years.
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A lot of engine oils are now fully synthetic. Fuel systems may well need upgrading, but ICE vehicles don't necessarily have to run on petrol or diesel.
 
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