Electric Car Economics

[a64pilot]

[QUOTE=Dave9111;3016710]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Noise makers will I believe soon be required, there was at one time a huge movement to “bell the Prius” as many claimed the blind would be run down in wholesale numbers.


I believe they are requiring sounds on electric cars somewhere in Europe.



I still find it creepy to see cars moving in parking lots almost totally silent.

I remember that, I was on a chat board called Prius Chat.
We voted on the sound and the majority wanted the George Jetson car sound
https://youtu.be/LnT1VgeXOF0

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

One must be careful about where you get information on costs of producing electricity, range of EVs etc. There is so much FUD being spread by big oil/big chemical that you really have to look for your information. Information such as wind energy is the cheapest form of electrical energy production now.

I see so much misinformation being promulgated here when the discussion turns toward EVs and renewable energy.

That goes both ways, usually the most ridiculous claims are by fans, I assume because they are stupid and or have nothing to lose.
I was talking to a guy the other day who had an I3, according to him the power plants have so much excess power that most of the time they “dump it into the ground” .
He then made the clam he could run his AC’s on his boat off so Solar and wind. He said well I have two 450W wind generators, that’s 900 W and 500W of Solar, that’s 1400W. So I can run my Air conditioning.

Curious though what are the Nordic countries doing with their Nuclear waste?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Dave9111

As Gord said, SUVs have become very popular which is evident in most parking lots. What I find hilarious, is that the SUV is basically a Mini Van with rounded corners. The "Sport Utility Vehicle" started with the Chevy Blazer, Ford Bronco etc. The modern SUV is nothing like those vehicles.


Everyone wanted to sit higher than a sedan, but no one wanted to be driving a "Mini Van"/ kid transporter, etc - so the modern "SUV" was invented! Ha ha....

Back when I was going to continue to work, I put down money for the initial launch of the Nissan Leaf, they botched that and I’m not even sure I ever got my money back, but anyway the idea was for me to drive the Leaf as I lived close to work and the Wife to drive the Prius as the Leaf didn’t have enough range for her.
But I decided to Retire instead.

On the SUV thing, I believe the initially became popular because the early ones were built on truck frames, which meant they were V8 powered, rear wheel drive and a frame vehicle, all three things I believe people like even if they don’t know it, but they were and are still considered “commercial” vehicles so they don’t have any gas guzzler tax, don’t count against a manufacturers CAFE standards etc.
In short they cheat and don’t have to meet the same standards and rules.

But yes years ago they became mini-vans with different doors and big tires, it seems any hatchback if you put big tires on it is now considered a “crossover”.

Sad because a good four door, four adult passenger sedan that achieves 60+ and perhaps well better than that is easy, people just don’t want it.
The upcoming gasoline fueled Diesel can apparently increase mileage by 30%, and it doesn’t make news at all, because no one cares.
Ford has given people what they want more than any other manufacturer, I believe their electrics will be an SUV and a Pickup.

I believe if you look at least for US auto’s the average fuel mileage hasn’t changed much, but Americans are driving bigger and heavier vehicles that cancels out the increased efficiencies.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...f-fuel-economy

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

One must be careful about where you get information on costs of producing electricity, range of EVs etc. There is so much FUD being spread by big oil/big chemical that you really have to look for your information. Information such as wind energy is the cheapest form of electrical energy production now.

I see so much misinformation being promulgated here when the discussion turns toward EVs and renewable energy.

Where electric cars are concerned (unlike electric boats, where there is simply almost no data), there is plenty of objective information if you dig even just a little bit. I don't believe in a conspiracy of "big oil", the universal cartoon villain, but even if there is, there is no way for big oil or anyone else to control the vast amount of hard data which is out there. There are millions of electric cars on the road now and what their practical range is, downsides, problems, and advantages are, is very well known and easy to find.


Where power generation is concerned -- I know a little about this from my day job. I know A64 has written that he is concerned that the grid can't handle increased demand from widespread electric car usage, but I'm not seeing that problem at all in Europe. First of all, a great deal of electric car charging takes place at night when there is a vast amount of spare capacity. But also electrical power is a vast interconnected market which is not that hard to expand. It's expanding anyway, at least in Europe, where non-carbon emitting generation capacity is being expanded in huge quantities purely for political purposes. If greater absolute capacity is required because of a big wave of electric car adoption, then this just delays taking some of the older generation plant off line.


Electric power of lots of stuff is the future and we'll need more and more of it in any case. Who would have thought a couple of decades ago that we would be consuming such a large proportion of generated power in telecomm and IT sectors?


It only takes a few years now to get a new wind farm online, and after a few decades of development, wind power has now finally become a mature technology which is beating all other sources of electrical power on cost.


There is a new generation of nuclear power plants called the European Pressurized Water Reactor which offers profound advantages in inherent safety and cost, and although the first plants have had construction delays and cost overruns, and the builder, EDF, has had financial problems, new EPR plants are going ahead will come on line in Finland, France and the UK in the next years. Finland plans to be at 60% nuclear by the end of the next decade, and the UK has allocated billions to build three new nuclear plants of EPR design.



As awareness of climate change has taken hold in Europe, there have been profound changes in public opinion concerning nuclear power. In Sweden, for example, after the Fukushima disaster, 60% of Swedes were against nuclear power, now only 19% are against, and 66% favor nuclear power, and almost everyone feels it is important to stop burning coal and gas to produce electricity.


I am pessimistic about a few different big things happening in the world today, but capacity of the electrical power grids is not one of them. I am pretty sure that these will smoothly expanded as demand increases and electricity will be used to power more and more things in our lives, and not just transportation.


In fact, I believe I will see the day when there will no longer be any political or external pressure to conserve energy. This is an unpleasant and unnatural situation, by the way, driven by externalities. Once the externalities have been eliminated from it, so that non-renewable resources are no longer being used to produce it, and the environment is not being harmed in any other way to produce it, and it is being produced on a commercial basis which allows someone to earn an honest profit on it, then everyone will be able to use as much as he wants and can afford, just like other commodities. This particular issue will be better in the future, than it is today, I feel quite sure.

[Belezar]

I didn’t read through all 300 plus posts to see if your question was answered by actual owners or just keyboard jockeys. I have had a Tesla S for 4.5 years and almost 60k miles. It’s a fantastic car, and of course your economics will depend on usage and fuel prices. My rough calculations are that when you adjust for fuel and maintenance, it turns out to be about a $50-60k ICE vehicle equivalent. No maintenance other than tires and wiper blades. And a wonderful car to drive.

[a64pilot]

They just aren’t old enough to know, the above report at 60K miles, and less than five years old, that’s nothing really.
For an example Tues our 10 yr old 250,000 mile Prius will get its first replacement part, the plastic intake manifold, I believe the EGR path may be carboned up and if I weren’t cruising I’d remove and clean it.
Pretty sure it’s largely from my Daughter not using top tier fuel.

But anyway when the electrics accumulate a decade and a quarter millions miles or more, then we will have a better idea. By the way our Prius should be needing a traction battery soon, the design life limit is 10 years and 250,000 miles.

Electrics are fine, I have no issue with them at all, the infrastructure isn’t there yet in my opinion, you can’t travel realistically yet etc.
Our plan years ago was the Prius for traveling and when the range was needed, and a Leaf whenever we could live with its limitations. But we went cruising instead. But an electric won’t work for a whole lot of people, they live in apartments etc and don’t have a garage for a charging station, think how some one living in a high rise apt could do it? Charging stations outside of a major city are far and few between, our Daughter in college for example, couldn’t make one work.
But what will bug me is that soon the idea of efficiency will go out the window and of course we will see electric SUV’s and pickup trucks, where I believe we need to be efficient, regardless of energy source, Nuclear is the greenest source of energy, but what do you do with the waste?

We really could cut our personal energy consumption in half without a reduction in life style, however the desire isn’t there, and that is what I have a problem with all these cries for government mandates and taxes etc. that’s not what will cause change, what will is getting the public behind it, and militant tactics won’t work, never has.

However water cooled reactors is well, stupid, it was Rickovers idea of how to get there quickly and with 1950’s technology, to put on a submarine, but it is inherently dangerous and dirty, there are better technologies that are very safe and don’t have as much waste issue, but back to the desire, it’s not there.
There are many, a quick google for safe nuclear reactors will get some info.

A real problem with both Solar and wind is it’s variable and no real way to store massive amounts of power, so far as cars charging at night during off peak hours, guess when Solar doesn’t work and wind usually dies down?
So Solar and wind are great augments, but they can never become primary unless you develop massive storage or can just live with shortages.

Read this, the first paragraph is interesting, see how much advancement there has been in the last decade
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...limate-change/

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

If we solve the waste problem, then nuclear not only becomes viable, but likely the most logical. But I agree not Rickover’s water cooled reactor, great idea for the 50’s and I’m sure the quickest way to a nuclear Navy, but maybe not the best for power plants.
Waste is the problem

The waste problem is as much a political problem as a technical one.

The waste problem in the US was vastly exacerbated when one James Carter issued a decree banning the reprocessing of waste because he thought it would assist with the proliferation problem. The French reprocess and appear not to have a serious waste problem, or at least a far more manageable one.

The major generator of waste in a uranium reactor appears to be the very low burn up rate wherein only a few percent of the uranium is transmuted before the reaction is poisoned by non, or low, fissionable contaminates. If the promoters of thorium as a reactor fuel are telling the truth this is not a problem with thorium as the burn up percentage is much higher with only a few percent remaining of relatively short lifetime nuclear waste.

If the proponents of the LFTR reactor are telling the truth these contaminates can be continuously removed whilst the reactor is running and a number of them are valuable medical and industrial isotopes.

I think that the eventual outcome will be a combination of solar and small modular nuclear. Wind can never contribute sufficient reliably deliverable power (at least the sun rises in most places on a very regular basis)

Electric vehicles could play a large part in solving the storage problem with renewables. I forsee a time when big bad oil realizes they are in the fueling business and adopts a business model where they become battery providers rather then hydrocarbon provision. You will own the car, they will own the batteries and sell you the electricity. They will own the rooftop panels and rent the real estate from you the rental of which will reduce your electricity costs.

[a64pilot]

Yes the whole big bad oil thing is silly, they aren’t stupid, before oil looses its profitability, they will become big bad Solar and big bad Wind and Nuclear, or I don’t know maybe big bad pot

I can see maybe a fuel cell vehicle powering your house or being part of solving that storage problem, even a few million battery powered cars should be able to store quite a bit of power.

Concept being if your allowed buying the power when it’s cheap and selling it back when it’s not. I’ve never lived where power charges change for households, to begin with I’m sure it would take s special meter that was able to be communicated or some other way to know when you consumed power.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

One must be careful about where you get information on costs of producing electricity, range of EVs etc. There is so much FUD hype being spread by big oil/big chemical greenies and wind/solar lobbyists that you really have to look for your information. Information such as wind energy is the cheapest form of electrical energy production now is one example.

I see so much misinformation being promulgated here when the discussion turns toward EVs and renewable energy.

There, FIFY

[cj88]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Concept being if your allowed buying the power when it’s cheap and selling it back when it’s not. I’ve never lived where power charges change for households, to begin with I’m sure it would take s special meter that was able to be communicated or some other way to know when you consumed power.

We just have a simple system for grid-tied solar. You buy your power from the grid at normal rates and any excess power you generate with your solar is sold back to the grid at a preset rate. In the early days it was a very attractive rate but unless you are grandfathered in, it has now dropped substantially but it is still worthwhile, just the payback timeframe on the solar system is a bit longer now.

Pumped hydro is a pretty good option where possible for supplementing wind and solar. Don't forget that when it might be particularly rainy/cloudy or the wind isn't blowing in one area it is probably the opposite somewhere else which is the beauty of the grid, being able to draw from one area to feed another.

Just recently a Virtual Power Plant utilising household solar and batteries in South Australia has also been used to send power to Queensland when they had issues with their coal power generation.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-au...t-fails-51385/

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

But what will bug me is that soon the idea of efficiency will go out the window and of course we will see electric SUV’s and pickup trucks, where I believe we need to be efficient, regardless of energy source

That's apparently a pretty hard sell right now though, right? How much ribbing do you endure over the Prius?

Nuclear is the greenest source of energy, but what do you do with the waste?

Nuclear reactors produce so little waste (by comparison) that it can realistically be stored... if people are prepared to think of centuries instead of a handful of fiscal quarters. I fully expect that today's nuclear waste will be used or destroyed in future reactors.

We really could cut our personal energy consumption in half without a reduction in life style...

We (North Americans) absolutely could make big cuts in consumption without feeling a serious pinch. Some of the changes would actually make us healthier and happier...

however the desire isn’t there, and that is what I have a problem with all these cries for government mandates and taxes etc. that’s not what will cause change, what will is getting the public behind it, and militant tactics won’t work, never has.

Well... what won WWII? It took conscription and rationing and government redirection of industry. And propaganda, for lack of a less-loaded word. Victory gardens, etc. But our parents and grandparents got behind it, and it got done. The Greatest Generation...

Climate change isn't quite the immediate existential threat of the Axis, but it's serious enough that it needs an active and concerted effort, that will be more drastic and disruptive the longer we defer doing anything.

It absolutely requires government mandates. Here's one example - nuclear power - it's simply too big an undertaking, with permits, security and longterm storage issues, that it cannot be left primarily to the private sector. Can't find it right now, but previously I linked to an article which mentioned how France got behind nuclear power. In a nutshell... it was the government and they simply did it; figured out how many reactors they needed, and built'em. Done.

[a64pilot]

As far as the Prius it didn’t bother me, I also had a C-3500 four door dually diesel for pulling things, but it mostly sat until needed, I didn’t need to be the idiot driving my truck around empty. Anytime you go against the social norm most will ostracize you, but I don’t mind, I don’t give a damn about US football either.
People who run around dressing up in football stuff and saying “how bout them dawgs” are just fools, sheeple at best.
Now so far as WWII, that is likely the example of the masses rallying to support a cause like has never happened before or since, I’m fact a whole lot of the drives for scrap etc did noting to help the war effort, they were done solely to get public support.
Conscription? People lined up around the block to join.
Government redirecting manufacturing? Not hardly. Very quickly manufacturing learned that the real money was in producing war stock, they lined up in bidding wars, nobody made them.
If there were even 1/4 the support for reducing fossil fuel consumption that there was for the war effort in WWII, I assure you we would have reduced it by more than half.

You cannot make people do anything, not really. You can try and you will fail, it’s been shown time and time again.
But if you can get public support, then you can’t stop it if you wanted to.

Nuclear is still considered to be a horrible evil, that hasn’t changed, and I remember not too many years ago when California wasn’t going to build all those evil nasty power plants and suffered rolling brownouts, was that the 80’s?

Now I want to go on record that the Prius and the leaf I was going to buy weren’t motivated by beliefs of saving the Earth, it was a financial decision. Based on the lack of fuel consumption cost alone the Prius has way more than paid for itself, it became a free car years ago and is now making money not really

An SUV getting 12 MPG for 250,000 miles would have burned 20,833 gl of gas. If you assume $2.50 a gallon that’s $ 52,083 .

The Prius getting 50 MPG is 5,000 gallons of gas at a cost of 12,500.

That’s a price difference of $40,000, and that doesn’t include tires, oil changes and Insurence etc.
Lots of people have paid way more than $2.50 a gl over the last ten years too.

Only a fool would drive an SUV.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I’ve never lived where power charges change for households, to begin with I’m sure it would take s special meter that was able to be communicated or some other way to know when you consumed power.

We have time-of-day metering and smart meters. You can save substantially by moving whatever consumption you can to off-peak hours. Eg - we run the dishwasher when we go to bed.

As mentioned, it would be easy, with timers and other methods, to do the bulk of EV charging at lower demand periods.

[DeepFrz]

They just aren’t old enough to know, the above report at 60K miles, and less than five years old, that’s nothing really.

Quartz has an article on EV economics and how one small fleet of Teslas is driving their cars beyond 1/2 million miles. 17,000 miles a month per car. They also talk about cities in the US that are converting and they talk about the economics.

You might want to read the article and get some facts instead of spouting your biases.

Yes the whole big bad oil thing is silly, they aren’t stupid, before oil looses its profitability, they will become big bad Solar and big bad Wind and Nuclear, or I don’t know maybe big bad pot

So you think the companies that are shorting Tesla stock and losing billions are spending their own money? Big oil have spent over 2 billion in FUD on EV. One fund has lost approx. $10 billion on shorting Tesla. Elon Musk sent the CEO a box of shorts.

[a64pilot]

Really 17,000 miles a month? Let’s see that’s something like 24 mph 24 hours a day and never slowing down much less stopping. Now if you have ever driven a car that displays average speed you’ll know that it’s tough to average over time 30 mph even on the highway, and stop to go to the bathroom or refuel just kills average speed.
How do they do that? I guess they never stop even to recharge and have a sort of Leman’s thing going changing tires, brakes and switching out drivers?