Electric Cars. Yes No or whatever!

[Malcolm]

Hopefully advances in battery technology will either speed up charging to under 10 minutes or preferably drastically improve the range to over 500 miles or even 1000 miles would be perfect. I could tolerate an overnight charge if I got two weeks or a months worth of motoring.

This is the unrealistic part. Range is basically determined by battery capacity. Expecting battery capacity to double, or the energy required to travel a given distance to halve is just unrealistic, and is not going to happen. You may be able to shave/add a few percent here and there by clever engineering, but massive improvements (of the order of 50-100%) in either are just not going to happen.

Tesla 3's are (apparantly) available in 54, 62 and 75Kwh versions, and claim 350 mile range for the 75Kwh version - (got my doubts about that on a cold winter night but lets go with it for now). To get 500 miles unrefuelled range you're looking at probably 100Kwh, and 1000 miles 200Kwh capacity. It will take twice as long to recharge a battery that's twice the capacity. Even the new V3 supercharger stations are only 250Kw, so close to an hour to recharge a fully flat car 200Kwh - and that's assuming no-one else is sharing the charging station with you.

What people don't understand is how good petrol is at storing energy. You can pump 50-80L into your car (enough to do 500+ miles usually) and be gone in under 10 minutes. Refilling an electric car will take 3-4 times longer. If your daily usage is rarely over 200 miles, and you can recharge overnight at home then great, go for it.

But can you imagine a Priory/Elder Forest exercise day. 200 miles to Lincolnshire, then 8 hours of racing around various airbases chasing after 3T123, and then 200 miles home again. Oh - we'll miss the 18 WGAF Alpha Jets in Waddo because I've got to stop for 30 minutes to recharge.

[slogen51]

I was talking in the long term 50 to 100 years - we can't know what scientific advances will be made? New elements are being created , new materials , advances in super conducting materials etc

I think people do understand how much energy is stored in a litre of petroleum , not as much as in the same volume of gas and by the way if you like energy content then Uranium is king by a factor of about 50 million!

I won't be rushing out to buy a battery operated car unless forced into the decision by the government either by carbon taxes or non availability of petrol cars.

Why are we rushing into banning petrol and diesel cars ? Normally new technology becomes established simply because it is better or people like it ; either faster , lighter or cheaper etc but I can't think of another technology that had been forced on the population by laws - it's a bl00dy cheek!

[Tooks]

One of the things it took me a while to get my head around is how much energy is in a gallon of petrol, which is around 40 kWh.

So a 50 kWh Electric Vehicle has the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of petrol on board, and the fact it can then travel around 200 miles on that is quite impressive.

[ArabJazzie]

One of the things it took me a while to get my head around is how much energy is in a gallon of petrol, which is around 40 kWh.

So a 50 kWh Electric Vehicle has the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of petrol on board, and the fact it can then travel around 200 miles on that is quite impressive.

Yes it is impressive when you put it that way, but one of my cars got me from Luton to Dundee on 10 gallons in just under 8 hours, 1 food stop, and that car was 17 year old. If i am doing that electric, there is a possibility i need 2 extra stops where i am twiddling my thumbs because i could have been doing over a mile a minute on the motorway.

A question though, if you have noticed. Does your car use regeneration through the driving cycle, and how much does that help your range?

[Malcolm]

One of the things it took me a while to get my head around is how much energy is in a gallon of petrol, which is around 40 kWh.

So a 50 kWh Electric Vehicle has the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of petrol on board, and the fact it can then travel around 200 miles on that is quite impressive.

Yes, true. However, you also then have to appreciate that from your 50kWh battery about 90% can be turned into useable power to move you forwards - so you can get perhaps 45kWh. The internal combustion engine is rarely much more than 30% efficient, so 1.25 gallons only yields 12kWh to move you forwards. 45/12 is roughly 4, so you actually need 5 gallons of petrol to go 200 miles. (I can only dream of 40MPG from my two cars )

If you're already extracting 90% of the theoretically available energy from the battery, then at best there is 10% more to be gained by improving efficiency. Which is why battery improvements can only be incremental, another few percent over the next 10-20 years perhaps, but its ever decreasing returns.

[Malcolm]

I was talking in the long term 50 to 100 years - we can't know what scientific advances will be made? New elements are being created , new materials , advances in super conducting materials etc

No, I'm saying never. The chemicals involved in batteries are all fully understood. Their theoretical properties can be calculated. Small incremental improvements of a percent here and there perhaps, giant leaps for mankind no.

[Tooks]

One of the things it took me a while to get my head around is how much energy is in a gallon of petrol, which is around 40 kWh.

So a 50 kWh Electric Vehicle has the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of petrol on board, and the fact it can then travel around 200 miles on that is quite impressive.

A question though, if you have noticed. Does your car use regeneration through the driving cycle, and how much does that help your range?

Under heavy ‘braking’ from high speed, say for a roundabout, I can see up to 80kW being fed back into the battery.

Regeneration is part of the overall miles per kWh calculation so it’s hard to say how much it extends the range, but I suppose as Tesco would say, every little helps!

[Tooks]

One of the things it took me a while to get my head around is how much energy is in a gallon of petrol, which is around 40 kWh.

So a 50 kWh Electric Vehicle has the equivalent of about 1.25 gallons of petrol on board, and the fact it can then travel around 200 miles on that is quite impressive.

Yes it is impressive when you put it that way, but one of my cars got me from Luton to Dundee on 10 gallons in just under 8 hours, 1 food stop, and that car was 17 year old. If i am doing that electric, there is a possibility i need 2 extra stops where i am twiddling my thumbs because i could have been doing over a mile a minute on the motorway.

I just ran the numbers, and my ID.3 would take 9.5 hours for the same trip including the charge stops.

So, it would use much less energy overall, but would be slower.

If it had a 400 kWh battery, it could of course also do it non stop, but as Malcolm has said I can’t see that being a realistic possibility anytime soon.

Actually, to do it non stop, it would need ‘only’ a circa 130 kWh battery, or the energy equivalent of just over 3 gallons of petrol. Still a big battery, and far too much for everyday usage, so reinforces the need for a good charging infrastructure to enable such trips in an EV.

It’s all interesting stuff, and food for thought!

[slogen51]

I was talking in the long term 50 to 100 years - we can't know what scientific advances will be made? New elements are being created , new materials , advances in super conducting materials etc

No, I'm saying never. The chemicals involved in batteries are all fully understood. Their theoretical properties can be calculated. Small incremental improvements of a percent here and there perhaps, giant leaps for mankind no.

I am not an advocate for electric cars and I will continue to use petrol If permitted! But I strongly do not agree with you that battery technology will not drastically improve in the next 20-30 years. As I said before new materials , new technologies , organic technology , solid state physics etc.

But my main issue is range and recharge time - I don't care about the source of power or the drive chain - I just want a car that can do the trip. Also I can buy a cheap car with a small tank and drive to Scotland and back maybe by filling up three or four times. However to do the same trip in a EV I need a car with a large capacity battery and that car is more expensive. The car is a very liberating vehicle allowing to some extent people of all budgets to travel where they like , if they can afford the petrol but the high cost of luxury battery storage is almost undemocratic.

Richard Branson can drive to Monaco in his Ferrari Grand Tourer - fine but my crappy ford focus can do the same trip albeit without the glamour. I would need to be Elon fecking Musk to be able to do the same trip in a EV

I read that a top of the range Tesla or Jag can do 400 miles but they cost the earth , price used to be about performance not how far you can drive from home.

Why are batteries expensive? Because they use rare metals. Why are the metals rare ? Because they are scarce!

Hydrogen fuel cell is the way to go I believe - it is just a case of splitting hydrogen away from oxygen - energy intensive but that could change by using windfarms or some new blue sky technology not yet invented.

[Malcolm]

I was talking in the long term 50 to 100 years - we can't know what scientific advances will be made? New elements are being created , new materials , advances in super conducting materials etc

No, I'm saying never. The chemicals involved in batteries are all fully understood. Their theoretical properties can be calculated. Small incremental improvements of a percent here and there perhaps, giant leaps for mankind no.

I am not an advocate for electric cars and I will continue to use petrol If permitted! But I strongly do not agree with you that battery technology will not drastically improve in the next 20-30 years. As I said before new materials , new technologies , organic technology , solid state physics etc.

The new chemical technology you refer to is called Unicornium, which I understand is extracted from the ground up horns of some especially rare beastie. However, it appears BoJo is good at convincing the British public that Unicorn thinking is possible, so perhaps....

That doesn't solve the other problem though. Even if you come up with a battery tech that can store (say) 200kWh in the size and weight of a sugar cube, how do you intend to get 200kW's of energy into it in a reasonable amount of time? 5 Minutes means 2.4MegaWatts charge rate. 10 Minutes cuts that to (a still massive) 1.2MegaWatts. Home chargers are 7kW or 22kW (3 phase), No-Name rapid charging stations are typically 40-50Kw/h, Tesla Type 2 chargers are 125Kw (shared between up to 2 cars), and Tesla Type 3 are 250kW (shared between all the cars at that site up to 8 AIUI).

As the best engineer that never lived once said "Ye cannae change the laws of physics Jim". Personally I think he should have included the laws of Thermo-mechanics too, but that makes it less pithy.

[pg1610]

[/quote]



But my main issue is range and recharge time - I don't care about the source of power or the drive chain - I just want a car that can do the trip. Also I can buy a cheap car with a small tank and drive to Scotland and back maybe by filling up three or four times. However to do the same trip in a EV I need a car with a large capacity battery and that car is more expensive. The car is a very liberating vehicle allowing to some extent people of all budgets to travel where they like , if they can afford the petrol but the high cost of luxury battery storage is almost undemocratic.


[/quote]

Is this not what the Gretta Tunbergs and David Attanboroughs of the world want though, people being restricted in where and when and how they can travel

Yes a conspiracy theory but one that is gaining traction the more you look at electric vehicles

Question how big a battery for a 44 ton articulated lorry ? or does the size of vehicle not matter , just to make sure we can still get food deliveries to the supermarkets when there is no more diesel etc

[slogen51]

At this rate we will all be living in tree houses with a windmill in the garden grinding something up to eat- the only thing a wheel will be useful for.

[Tooks]

I’m afraid that as the number of humans on the planet continues to grow exponentially, Pandemics aside, and the amount of ‘stuff’ we consume grows with it, it won’t just be the Greta’s and the David’s who will be concerned about our climate etc.

And no, I’m not offering up EVs as the solution to that either, but over the life of a vehicle they are shown to help versus what we’ve had before.

The answer, unfortunately, is for there to be fewer of us, consuming less of everything, and looking after what we’ve got rather better than we do at the moment.

It’s a long transition to the phasing out of fossil fuels for private passenger vehicles, I’m sure there will be other solutions like Hydrogen for larger vehicles etc.

For now, enjoy whatever you’ve got whilst you can.

[Malcolm]

Hydrogen fuel cell is the way to go I believe - it is just a case of splitting hydrogen away from oxygen - energy intensive but that could change by using windfarms or some new blue sky technology not yet invented.

And, whilst I'm cyber-bullying you on the interweb

"Just a case of splitting the hydrogen away from oxygen" eh. I presume you mean starting with water. Never mind the leccie, where exactly are you getting the water from? And before you answer that, what happens when you electrolyse Salt/Sea water - like what is typically found all around an offshore wind farm?

Plenty of places around the world struggle to get enough clean water to drink, feed their animals or water their crops. Greta will go berserk if the rich west starts stealing their (clean) water to electrolyse into Hydrogen (and Oxygen) to run our cars.

[slogen51]

Well it is my opinion , I am not claiming to be an expert or have all the answers like you seem to have but it would be a very dull world if there was only one opinion.

Anyway using wind power to desalinate water and then using electrolysis seems worth a try even if it turns out to be non starter.

Don't give up!

Ps cyber bullying is a thing.

[Malcolm]

Well it is my opinion , I am not claiming to be an expert or have all the answers like you seem to have but it would be a very dull world if there was only one opinion.

Anyway using wind power to desalinate water and then using electrolysis seems worth a try even if it turns out to be non starter.

Don't give up!

Ps cyber bullying is a thing.

I took an Electrical Engineering degree at a university you will have heard of back in 80's. One of the modules was on renewable energy, and energy storage. Some of the stuff I learned back then seems to have become more important now than it seemed back then. Obviously I only studied hard enough to get a Desmond, mainly because there were good train connections to places like Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Bentwaters, Alconbury etc.

I see no harm in trying to explain why various ideas have problems if I can back it up with some educational evidence. What I'm not trying to do is stifle debate, or bully. Hope it's not taken that way.

[slogen51]

I understand but I like blue sky thinking

I am typing this on a device in the middle of some woods near Brandon and I can follow the cricket and talk to you - who would have thought that possible in the 80s - when I started in IT ( it wasn't called that in the early 80s) the latest exchangeable disk looked like a wheel at the fun fair - the older guys had been using punched tape only a few years earlier.

The pace of change is incredible I certainly would not like to predict where energy technology is going

If the time machine is invented in the future I will pop back and let you know and get the ANG phantoms I missed in Leeming!

Cheers

[Malcolm]

If the time machine is invented in the future I will pop back and let you know and get the ANG phantoms I missed in Leeming!

Cheers

Fool. Think bigger. Go forwards and get next few weeks Euro millions winning numbers. Then you can come back, win the lottery, and buy your own time machine plus a top of the range DSLR to go back and get everything you ever wanted.

In the mean time I'm emptying the loft ATM. I've found a few boxes of 5.25" floppy disks, plus a couple of 8" floppies too. I think the 8" ones may be CPM-80 from an RMZ-80 we used at college?

I'm not sure talking to me, or listening to the cricket, is a good use for what we have learned in 40 years though . Neither will do your blood pressure or sanity any good whatsoever

[slogen51]

When England won the toss and decided to bat I thought that meant they were actually going to do some batting!

[C24]

Where does the energy come from, for instance tidal and geothermal energy? With tidal, does it come from the interaction between the earth and the moon - if so does the moon slow down? No

For tidal turbines to work, water has to flow past/through them - tides - the sea water is moved by the energy provided by earth-moon interaction. You get nought for ought . . . .
Similar problem (possibly) with wind turbines - too many could kill the trade winds, or at least change the weather!

The gravitational pull of the Moon acts Monday the sea water pulling it over the surface of the Earth. The interaction between the Earth and the Moon has no effect on tides. The Earth is just the container for the world’s water.

. .