Guest post by David Middleton
The purveyors of greenschist (a geologically inspired euphemism for green sh!t) seem to have an obsession with a phrase that they clearly do not comprehend: Tipping point.
Electric Cars Reach a Tipping Point
David Fickling
Sep 10, 2017
Say goodbye to gasoline. The world’s slow drift toward electric cars is about to enter full flood.
China, one-third of the world’s car market, is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel-based vehicles, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, told an industry forum in Tianjin on Saturday. That would probably see the country join Norway, France and the U.K. in switching to a wholly electric fleet within the lifetime of most current drivers.
[…]
Tipping Point…
Electric Cars Reach a Tipping Point? Only in Fantasy Land
Electric cars have not reached “a tipping point.” Even using Bloomberg New Energy Finance Fantasy’s insanely optimistic forecast, the imaginary “tipping point” is still a decade away.
The announcement by a Chinese bureaucrat that their government will at some point in the future establish some sort of timetable for phasing out the sale of ICE (internal combustion engine) passenger cars can hardly be described as a “turning point.”
China Fossil Fuel Deadline Shifts Focus to Electric Car Race
Bloomberg News
September 10, 2017
[…]
Xin Guobin, the vice minister of industry and information technology, said the government is working with other regulators on a timetable to end production and sales. The move will have a profound impact on the environment and growth of China’s auto industry, Xin said at an auto forum in Tianjin on Saturday.
The world’s second-biggest economy, which has vowed to cap its carbon emissions by 2030 and curb worsening air pollution, is the latest to join countries such as the U.K. and France seeking to phase out vehicles using gasoline and diesel. The looming ban on combustion-engine automobiles will goad both local and global automakers to focus on introducing more zero-emission electric cars to help clean up smog-choked major cities.
“The implementation of the ban for such a big market like China can be later than 2040,” said Liu Zhijia, an assistant general manager at Chery Automobile Co., the country’s biggest passenger car exporter that unveiled a new line for upscale battery-powered and plug-in hybrid models at the Frankfurt motor show last week. “That will leave plenty of time for everyone to prepare.”
[…]
Deadline: “a date or time before which something must be done.” The timetable, if it ever materializes, may or may not contain a deadline. China’s fossil fuel deadline resides alongside the PEV (plug-in electric vehicle) tipping point in fantasy land.
What can explain this “irrational exuberance” for electric vehicles?
BNEF (Bloomberg New Energy Finance Fantasy) sees li-ion batteries declining to $73/kWh by 2030. I guess that’s good. How many kWh does a PEV need to have in order to have a useful range? The average PEV consumes 30 kWh per 100 miles. So, a 60 kWh battery should be good for at least 200 miles. At $73/kWh, a 60 kWh battery should sell for $4,368. A brand new crated Chevrolet 350/290 Deluxe V-8 Engine has an MSRP of $3,448. By 2030, a 60 kWh battery will only cost 27% more than an 350 cubic inch V-8 internal combustion engine… if BNEF is right.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch… Or a Moore’s Law for PEV’s or any other greenschist
There seems to be a fantasy land assumption that PEV’s and other greenschist will follow the same sort of growth trajectory as integrated circuitry.
AUG 21, 2017
Electric Vehicle Prospects: Bad Analogies Are Worse Than No Analogies
I analyze petroleum economics and energy policy
[…]
Any number of pundits from Al Gore on down have compared adoption of electric vehicles to the history of the cell phone, which, some note, was not predicted by McKinsey in 1980. Others point to the rapidity with which the Model T gained favor with consumers.
But this is not necessarily more valid than using the laserdisc as an analogy for pessimism or the repeated previous failures of the electric vehicle to become a mass market item: why is always the pertinent issue. And this is something that so many pundits do not consider. In the Financial Times, John Dizard makes the poignant point: “Batteries, though, are not atomic bombs, integrated circuits, or penicillin. With a great deal of effort on the part of engineers, you get progress, not breakthroughs.”
Because electronics are not a good analogy for batteries. Batteries are chemistry, and, as Dr. Fred Schlachter, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, stated it quite clearly. “There is no Moore’s Law for batteries.”
[…]
Disagree? In 1981, you could buy 5 and ½ inch floppy disks that held 128k of memory, a box of 12 was about 20 dollars. Now, a 4 Gb memory stick is not only smaller but costs about $6. For the same amount of money, you get roughly 100 billion times more memory in a smaller package. A 12 volt, lead-acid battery for your car costs roughly the same today as it did in 1981 with slightly improved performance.
Indeed, the most optimistic projections for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles has improved in price by only about 15-20% per year, compared to the 100% per year for memory. And even that appears exaggerated by comparing the costs for batteries when production numbers were small. Most forecasts are for continuing, but relatively slow, declines in cost.
[…]
As Mr. Lynch points out, there’s…
No Moore’s Law for batteries
The public has become accustomed to rapid progress in mobile phone technology, computers, and access to information; tablet computers, smart phones, and other powerful new devices are familiar to most people on the planet.
These developments are due in part to the ongoing exponential increase in computer processing power, doubling approximately every 2 years for the past several decades. This pattern is usually called Moore’s Law and is named for Gordon Moore, a cofounder of Intel. The law is not a law like that for gravity; it is an empirical observation, which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unfortunately, much of the public has come to expect that all technology does, will, or should follow such a law, which is not consistent with our everyday observations: For example, the maximum speed of cars, planes, or ships does not increase exponentially; maximum speed barely increases at all.
Cars require a portable fuel, preferably one that is widely available, low in cost, and with a high energy density. Gasoline is nature’s ideal fuel. A full tank of gasoline contains as much energy as 1,000 sticks of dynamite. However, cost, national security, global climate change, and pollution lead to a national need to wean ourselves from powering cars with gasoline. There are not many alternate candidates. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and hydrogen can presently be produced only at a high energy cost and has low energy density. And then there is electricity. We power our mobile phones and our laptops with lithium-ion batteries—why not power our cars this way? We already have an infrastructure for generating and distributing electricity. If only we had batteries that could store enough energy to power a car several hundred kilometers and that were not too heavy and would not cost a fortune.
Sadly, such batteries do not exist. There is no Moore’s Law for batteries. The reason there is a Moore’s Law for computer processors is that electrons are small and they do not take up space on a chip. Chip performance is limited by the lithography technology used to fabricate the chips; as lithography improves ever smaller features can be made on processors. Batteries are not like this. Ions, which transfer charge in batteries, are large, and they take up space, as do anodes, cathodes, and electrolytes. A D-cell battery stores more energy than an AA-cell. Potentials in a battery are dictated by the relevant chemical reactions, thus limiting eventual battery performance. Significant improvement in battery capacity can only be made by changing to a different chemistry.
[…]
In addition to increased performance and lower cost, batteries need to be safe. Of course gasoline is not safe, there are hundreds of thousands of car fires every year in the United States. Nonetheless, the public is more wary of electricity than of gasoline, and the recent safety issues of lithium-ion batteries on Boeing 787 aircraft have done little to reassure the public about the safety of such batteries. Consumers are questioning the practice of putting into cars batteries that can burst into flames.
[…]
Improving the energy efficiency of cars is not a long-term solution to the problems related to combustion of fossil fuels, as cars will still be powered by gasoline. However, improved energy efficiency can happen and is happening. A good example of improved energy efficiency is hybrid cars, which can be considerably more energy efficient than traditional cars. We must take this pragmatic direction while awaiting that terrific breakthrough in battery technology we all so desire.
Moore’s Law started out with the observation that the number of transistors per square inch of integrated circuitry was doubling every year. That pace has slowed to roughly one doubling per 18 months. This “empirical observation” enabled the explosive growth of computing and communication technology over the past 40-50 years. We may not have Warp Drive, Phasors or Transporter Beams… But we do have far superior information technology today than could have even been imagined by Gene Roddenberry.
The energy density growth rate for batteries over the past 60 years has been about 3% per year (Zu & Li, 2011)… a doubling period of about 24 years. The inapplicability of Moore’s Law pretty-well covers the full gamut of greenschist tech.
So, neither the decline in battery prices nor the energy density of batteries can genuinely accelerate. That said, batteries will slowly become less expensive and the energy density of batteries will slowly increase. This will certainly lead to continued slow growth in PEV sales. This coupled with improvements in fuel efficiency could eventually lead to a peak in oil demand. Peak oil demand will probably happen long-before we actually reach Hubbert’s Peak Oil (unless we already reached it). However, neither Peak Demand, nor Peak Oil, constitutes “goodbye to gasoline” or supports the idiotic notion that “oil’s future is grim.”
Why Fantasy Land turning points aren’t going to put a dent in petroleum consumption
Why The Oil Industry Shouldn’t Fear Peak Demand
By Peter Tertzakian – Dec 01, 2016
[…]
The notion behind peak demand theory is fairly simple: some time over the next five-to-25 years many of us will hang up the gas pump nozzle for the last time. When that happens, the world’s insatiable consumption of more and more oil, growing year over year, soon to exceed an energy-obese 100 million barrels a day, will plateau and then start trending down.
Every pundit has an opinion about when peak demand will happen. Articles, podcasts and snappy videos mostly debate in what year our 150-year addiction to the product will begin to wane. Some think it’s as early as 2020; the authoritative International Energy Agency conjectures 2040. So there is a wide range of views.
Anybody with a spreadsheet can juggle cells and posit when the last growth barrel is likely to occur, but the real question is, “So what then?”
What does a peaking of oil market growth mean to producers? To investors?
[…]
In any maturing business environment, flat-to-declining markets make the battle for consumers’ business hyper competitive. In response, producing companies get rid of their unproductive assets (baggage) and shift their sole focus away from price. The emphasis moves lower down the income statement, toward how to cut costs, be more efficient in production and how to be profitable at lower prices. Conveyor belts become more efficient and the manufacturing emphasis shifts to just-in-time delivery and not being burdened with too much inventory. Leading companies place additional emphasis on how to improve their product offerings too – improving proverbial, “bells and whistles.”
Inefficient laggards who don’t adapt to the new competitive realities don’t survive the Darwinian cut.
Am I missing something? This sounds a lot like the oil business today.
[…]
Producers in the U.S. and Canada are already leading the way. So when peak demand sets in, today’s progressive light, tight oil producers in North America will already be positioned as “lean manufacturers” that are able to respond to price signals much faster.
There will benefits to the era of peak oil demand even though there is no sign that it’s happening yet. When it happens, the industry’s emphasis will be on profitability and a leaner carbon product, not so much on growth at all costs. Ironically, the industry is already adapting to the inevitability of peak demand, whenever that may be.
PEV’s may one day actually have a measurable impact on crude oil consumption; however the International Energy Agency doesn’t see that happening any time in the near future because growth in demand for petrochemicals, aviation, freight and maritime use will dwarf any savings in passenger cars, buildings and power generation.
Freight, as in big trucks carrying heavy loads over long distances, is not amenable to PEV conversion, despite Telsa’s latest Ponzi scheme…
Tesla is revealing a semitrailer this month that it won’t deliver for years — here’s why
Matthew DeBord
Sep. 6, 2017
Tesla is expected to reveal a design for a semitrailer this month. CEO Elon Musk has been heralding this move into the freight business since last year, when he rolled out his “Master Plan, Part Deux.”
According to Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker, the vehicle will be what’s known as a Class 8 truck — a great big old over-the-road semi designed to haul large amounts of stuff. Despite that, Shanker doesn’t think the Tesla semi will have a long-range battery delivering 600 or more miles of range; something like 300 miles is more realistic, because of battery costs, and Tesla will deal with the range issue by swapping batteries or enhancing its charging capabilities.
In a note published Wednesday, Shanker suggested that Tesla wouldn’t start selling the semi until 2020, but that won’t prevent the company from lining up customers.
“We expect Tesla to start taking orders for the truck from the day of the event (we estimate a refundable $5,000 deposit),” he wrote. “We believe this could set off competition for intelligent trucks in the industry.”
Shanker calculates that the truck business could add up to almost $12 billion in business by 2028.
This all sounds pretty good, but remember that Tesla has taken something on the order of 500,000 deposits for its Model 3 sedan, at $1,000 a pop. As of August, just more than 100 vehicles had been delivered as Tesla ramped up production. But even with an aggressive ramp, it will take Tesla years to fulfill those preorders.
Shanker expects Tesla semi deposits to be refundable, and by now everyone knows that putting down some money to get a place in line to buy a Tesla can mean a bit of a wait. But in the short term, if Tesla debuts the semi alongside some industry partnerships and can encourage a healthy pace of preorders, it will have another funding stream at a time when its cash needs are rapidly intensifying.
[…]
What size battery could propel a semi 300 miles? Cummins has already unveiled a concept vehicle with a 100-mile range.
Cummins Aeon concept beats Tesla to the all-electric semi punch
AUTOMOTIVE
Scott Collie August 31st, 2017
While the world waits for a Tesla long-haul truck, Cummins has swooped in with the Class 7 Urban Hauler EV concept demonstrator. The all-electric Urban Hauler, which also paves the way for range-extender hybrid long-haul vehicles, hints at a cleaner, greener future for heavy haulers.
The new Class 7 Urban Hauler EV, also known as the Aeos, eschews the usual diesel engine for a 140-kWh battery pack and electric motors. That means peak range is about 100 mi (160 km) and gross vehicle weight (GVW) is capped around 75,000 lb (34,020 kg). Extra battery packs could extend that to around 300 mi (483 km).
According to Cummins, the base battery and electric motors weigh about the same as the engine, gearbox, emissions treatment system and fuel tank in a conventional tractor. The company hasn’t said how much the battery packs weigh individually, but logic would suggest adding extra cells to boost the range will also add some serious weight.
[…]
A 140 kWh battery pack, which weighs as much “as the engine, gearbox, emissions treatment system and fuel tank in a conventional tractor,” yields a 100-mile range… presumably hauling a 75,000 lb load. At $200/kWh, that works out to $28,000 worth of battery. Triple that price tag and weight for a 300-mile range ($28,000), sextuple it for a 600-mile range and you get a semi with a $168,000 worth of batteries that can’t haul much more than its own battery packs… Brilliant! A new diesel tractor trailer runs “anywhere from $110,000 to $125,000 for a new tractor and $30,000 to $50,000 for a new trailer.” A tractor trailer averages around 6 mpg and has a total fuel tank capacity generally between 100 and 300 gallons. This yields an unrefueled range of 600 to 1,800 miles.
If we use an average fuel capacity or 240 gallons (2 x 120-gallon tanks), a typical tractor trailer can haul a heavy load 1,440 miles. If a 140 kWh battery yields 100 miles of range, it would take 14.4 140 kWh battery packs to yield a 1,440-mile range. Even if the cost of batteries falls to $73/kWh and the energy efficiency doubles by 2030, the 1,440-mile battery pack would cost $146,765 (2,016 kWh @ $73/kWh) and it would weigh 7.2 times as much as “the engine, gearbox, emissions treatment system and fuel tank in a conventional tractor.”
So… Neither Red China’s nebulous deadline, nor Tesla’s latest Ponzi scheme is not going to put a dent in petroleum demand anywhere outside of fantasy land.
Here is a land of imagination, hopes and dreams. In this timeless land of enchantment the age of chivalry, magic and make-believe are reborn and fairy tales come true. Fantasyland is dedicated to the young and the young at heart, to those who believe that when you wish upon a star your dreams do come true.
— Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955
About the author
In the interest of full disclosure: I have been employed in the U.S. oil industry as a geophysicist/geologist since 1981, with a six-year exile into management (2007-2013). I have always worked for “little oil” (as opposed to BIG OIL). I am a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and Houston Geological Society (HGS). Despite my penchant for ridiculing greenschist, green is actually my favorite color… Oil is colored green on maps and well logs and I am a life-long New York Jets fan (argh).
I like oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power and I even kind of like wind power…
Peak Oil is real but not really very relevant, abiotic oil is possible (despite a total lack of evidence for it) and is also irrelevant. Neither the reality of Peak Oil nor the lack of evidence of abiotic oil are part of a conspiracy to keep oil prices high. If it was, it would be a pretty p!$$ poor conspiracy because oil prices have been low for most of my career. And, no, ExxonMobil is not hiding the secret formula for turning (fill in the blank) into oil… But they did know all about Gorebal Warming waaay before Al Gore invented it… They knew it was wrong. When it comes to Gorebal Warming, I am a “luke warmer”… Gorebal Warming is just as irrelevant as Peak Oil, Abiotic Oil and Peak Demand.
As usual any and all sarcasm was purely intentional… except where it wasn’t.
I must say, I enjoyed reading this article. Really it comes down to energy density. An electric car gets away with having a lower energy density than gasoline, because the “engine” is more efficient. BUT. Storing energy and releasing energy from the battery results in loses, so the calculation of energy in and driving miles out is a lot more complicated than one might think. Electricity, like all energy, does not like to be contained, and each transformation of the power, from a solar cell, to a transformer, to a battery, back out of the battery to run an engine, exacts a toll. In some ways it only appears to be more efficient, because all the losses happened before the electricity entered the drive train.
And I find it quite amusing that many assume batteries will advance, but ICE engines will remain frozen going forward. Internal combustion engine efficiency has historically been limited more by the state of technology than innovation. Gasoline direct injection was known and attempted in production more than 50 years ago, but direct injection has only become widely available in production within the last decade and now makes up approximately 38 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales. It will soon be 100%. Another example is low-temperature combustion in which fuel and air are injected during the intake stroke and then compressed until the entire mixture reacts spontaneously. Mazda just made a huge breakthrough on this technology.
Many of the things making electric vehicles better are making everything else better.
There are a number of other innovations waiting in the wings.
One is using solenoids to open the valves rather than a cam shaft. Solenoids are more expensive and the reliability hasn’t been proven yet, but the advantage is that by changing when and how the valves open as the engine speed changes, you can get more efficiency over a wider range.
This whole battery versus ICE (or any other fuel-air device) never ceases to amaze me. A battery is an electrochemical device which holds both fuel and oxidizer. A steam engine, internal combustion enlgine, external combustion (e.g. Stirling) or air-oxidized fuel cell each draws its oxidizer from the air. It is, on its face, impossible for a battery to ever compete with either an electrochemical or thermodynamic power source which has to carry only fuel. Nevertheless, I fully expect someone on this thread to contest that point. But it is incontestable.
All I can muster is….LOL
Someone better than me with details could perhaps answer the important question. If China replaces all it’s current cars with electric vehicles do they have enough electricity generation to cope ? If not, how many more power stations have to be built ? ( AGW supporters can answer that with the number of wind turbines required!)
Then look forward with the rate of growth in the number of cars going onto the roads, in say the next ten years –how many more power stations are required.
This links to a Chinese govt study on the future of renewables in China in 2050
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/29/china-government-study-sees-86-renewables-2050/
China is planning on building around 600 coal plants over the next decade.
Haven’t checked the figures lately, but they cancelled a lot and banned new ones in many provinces, plus plan to shut down many old small ones. The situation changes rapidly, but no, I don’t think they are building 600 now,
The math is easy… if anyone knows how many miles the average ChiCom car owner drives in a year.
This says the average journey length is 11.2 KMs (not sure of date of publication)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CwuBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=average+vehicle+journey+length+china&source=bl&ots=Hf7SKYDpI7&sig=Lr0b0wAmRENVVxyDPQ9CrAUOcsQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG77PrpaLWAhVmCMAKHcw7DHQQ6AEIOzAB#v=onepage&q=average%20vehicle%20journey%20length%20china&f=false
Other information suggests chinese drivers spend much time stuck in trafic jams.
(My father visited China in 70s and 80s and can remember when Beijing traffic was 99.9% bicycles…)
China currently has about 194 million automobiles. About 600,000 are EV’s. It appears that the average vehicle is driven about 12,000 miles per year.
If all 194 million automobiles were EV’s, China would need to generate an additional 696,240,000,000 kWh of electricity. That’s 696.24 TWh. In 2016 China generated 6,142.5 TWh. So… It would only require an 11% increase in their current output.
The Chinese are clever.
They already banned gasoline-powered rollers from many cities around Shanghai and this was a great solution! The air became much clearer over there.
And – it is very convenient! Many chinese use the electrorollers. And you can charge the battery nearly everywhere, for nothing!
Then, developing new E-Cars, China will beat Tesla and German car makers easily, keeping China economical boom much more sustainable for far far future.
China is more likely to use excess nuclear energy (during non-peak times) to manufacture ultra clean hydrocarbons (synfuels). It fits nicely into their strategic needs to reduce oil imports as well as utilizing the power plants they’re building.
Obtw, the Chinese do seem to misdirect and agree to things that will never happen.
There’s no Moore’s law for batteries. There’s Snail’s law of battery. Edison invented the nickel-iron battery in 1901 and commercially produced it from 1903 to 1975 by the Edison Storage Battery Co. Edison also invented an electric car circa 1895. Up to now Elon Musk is still talking about battery and electric car as the future. What other technology is slower to develop?
Edison and his electric car
Until I can drive as far as I want, filling up at a gas station in 5min as I progress and traveling 100’s of mi at a time, using all the heat, ac and electronics I want and a reasonable price….I have 0 interest in an ‘electric’ car.
Thank you David Middleton for a thoughtful article.
I have a certain liking for electric vehicles because of the simplicity of the drive train – due to the simplicity and the excellent torque-speed characteristic of the electric motor vs the internal combustion engine. But the battery is the weak point, as you have capably pointed out, and there is no Moore’s Law for batteries.
Nevertheless, there are technology breakthroughs from time to time, and we cannot rule them out. For example, fracking of shales, first for natural gas and later for oil, was not foreseen by many energy professionals, and yet it has revolutionized the industry. Maybe someone will make a quantum breakthrough in battery technology – we will see.
It IS frustrating to see politicians make really foolish decisions about energy. Most politicians are far too uneducated to even opine on the subject, let alone formulate energy policy. For example, it was obvious from the start that hydrogen-as-fuel was a dead end, because of very low energy density. Corn ethanol is also a poor and destructive idea, as are most food-to-fuel schemes, which have contributed to excessive drawdown of the Ogalalla Aquifer in the USA and widespread rainforest clearcutting in the tropics.
In general, green energy policies have been a costly disaster for society, causing great environmental damage, increasing energy cost and reducing grid reliability. This damage has been high in the developed world but even higher in the developing world, where green energy nonsense has denied struggling populations with cheap, abundant energy systems.
Fossil fuels comprise about 85% of global primary energy, whereas green energy provides less than 2%, despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies. Imagine how much better the world’s poor would be if these vast sums had been spent intelligently on clean water, sanitation and efficient energy systems.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple. When politicians fool with energy policy, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of global warming alarmism.
Best regards, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
Renewables have not reduced grid reliability – nor damaged the developing world: where were the fossil fuel schemes and grid extensions in (for example) Africa in the last 50 years? Now they are getting a better deal at last through renewables.
you give me a list of all the programmes to bring more electricity to Africa…
Programs don’t generate electricity.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/lamu-island-coal-plant-kenya-africa-climate/
42 GW of coal-fired generation vs the US AID program…
7 GW, 63% of which is fossil fuel generation.
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1860/PA_FINAL_508c.PDF
You win that set on the basis of raw US aid numbers if I’m correctly understanding what your list represents)
for the next round:
I’d argue that fossil fuel roll out won’t go much farther than that of the last 50 years to electrify Africa.
The Kenyan govt programme now underway only manages to get all citizens electricity by including renewables.
Less old fashioned aid donors than the US will be reaching more people at a lower level with renewables.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/14/africa-microgrids-changing-peoples-lives/
Griff… We could argue about the *future* till we’re blue in the face… 😉 But… It’s just math…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/opinion/the-poor-need-cheap-fossil-fuels.html?_r=0
http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-chi…nel-1445466967
Added the last sentence re wind and solar power:
It IS frustrating to see politicians make really foolish decisions about energy. Most politicians are far too uneducated to even opine on the subject, let alone formulate energy policy. For example, it was obvious from the start that hydrogen-as-fuel was a dead end, because of very low energy density. Corn ethanol is also a poor and destructive idea, as are most food-to-fuel schemes, which have contributed to excessive drawdown of the Ogalalla Aquifer in the USA and widespread rainforest clearcutting in the tropics. It was also obvious that grid-connected wind and solar power schemes were costly and ineffective, primarily due to intermittency.
What I want to know is, who is selling lithium-ion batteries at $300 per kWh in 2016? I am still paying $1000/kWh for mine and no price reductions in sight. 🙁
@Steve Keppel-Jones: Tesla buys in bulk and signs volume agreements with their partner Panasonic. They are the largest purchaser of lithium-ion batteries on the planet. The Gigafactory adds additional scale to reduce the price even further.
I wonder if companies such as Freightliner, Peterbilt, Ford, and others that manufacture large commercial tractors (as in tractor and trailer transport systems) have given any thought about using the sort of diesel-electric combination you find in diesel locomotives put out by GE? It would seem to me that you could operate the diesel motor as simply the generator for an electric drive motor at each wheel or axle. You could power the motors via the battery and have regenerative braking reduce the load put on the diesel generator to keep the battery charged. There could be other benefits as well. An example could by throttling the electric motors as needed to generate two wheel through some mix of wheel combinations between providing locomotion to free spinning (2 – 8+ wheel drive). Presumably, you could also put traction control on trailers as well, if those trailers included electric motors to the wheel/axle. This would add some additional weight requirements to an already “heavy” system, but I wonder if you would be able to gather efficiency during periods when your rig is “stop and go”, like in a high traffic city center?
one thing this sudden proclaiming of all things EV has good , has brought out is the greens hatred for personal motorized transport full stop . No mater what powers it is very clear they rather no one had their own car and so even EV are opposed .
Owner cars does make people hard to control of course and clearly in the ‘golden past ‘ the fair dust greens wish to return to ,no one needed nor wanted to go further than 5 miles from home so you can see why they hate car’s so . Just a shame then that their golden past ideas are BS of the first order , and that genie is long out of the bottle and is not ever going back even to ‘save the planet ‘
Telsa is still losing money, despite a $1 billion of taxpayer subsidies per year.
Please itemize what $1B in subsidies that Tesla receives. $7500 tax credit? Nope, goes to owner not Tesla. $465M ATVM loan? Nope, paid back early with interest? ZEV Credits? Nope, paid for by OEMs too lazy to make ZEVs in CARB land. So I ask again, what imaginary subsidies is Tesla receiving again?
When the government cuts a check to your buyers, it’s a genuine subsidy. When the government forces your competitors to cut you a check, it’s a genuine subsidy.
When Tesla delivers its 200,000th EV, the tax credit begins to phase out. When the market is saturated with other manufacturers’ EV’s, the ZEV checks will fade into history. At that point, every automaker other than GM and Nissan will have about a 2-yr period of full subsidies, while Tesla’s are fading away.
@David Middleton JP said Tesla gets $1B per year yet can’t say what they are. No one is forcing OEMs to buy ZEV credits and they aren’t Tesla specific. CARB would actually like those OEMs to make ZEV cars. Apparently they are too lazy to do that, but most Republicans are all about states rights. Given that, I have no issue with California setting a criteria to sells cars. Level playing field, everyone has the same rules. California said “we want to eliminate smog” and set about a program to do just that. And it worked. If an OEM is too lazy to make a ZEV, they can pay the price. Those same OEMs fought emission controls that California was pushing on them too, but as CARB got bigger, OEMs got the message and just made it work. Their choice. Nissan and Tesla have both benefited from ZEV, but slowly but surely the other OEMs are making ZEVs too and the effect of the program will go to zero.
As for the federal tax credit, we’ll just agree to disagree. If you deduct your mortgage interest, the government is providing a way for you to reduce your tax even though most would buy a house without it and the wealthy likely get the biggest break and need it the least. I don’t have a mortgage but don’t begrudge those that take it because I agree with the government’s goal of promoting home ownership. Not that I agree with everything the government spends money on, I’m sure few would. Some think the Cassini mission was a waste while I’m wildly happy about science programs like that. In the case of the federal tax credit, I made a deal with the government. They wanted 1 million EVs on the road to pave the way for sustainable transportation. In exchange I agreed to buy a car that was more expensive than an equivalent car. Let’s say I was paying ~$30k in tax, that year I would have only owed $22,500. The government still made money on me. I cost you nothing in the same way had I worked less and only paid $22,500 didn’t cost you anything. And again, this was nothing Tesla specific since any EV qualifies, and any OEM could have made them. Certainly Nissan did, they sold tons of Leafs. If I made all of my money from dividends and paid $0 in tax and bought a Tesla, I would not qualify for the tax credit (since you have to pay in tax to get it), yet Tesla would get the same amount of money for the car.
We’ll also disagree about how Tesla will sell once the 200k limit is reached. I think there is a very small percentage of people cross shopping a Bolt and Model 3. If the Bolt qualifies for $7500 and the Model 3 doesn’t and they are priced the same otherwise, I expect after one test drive, most will go for the Model 3, especially since the Model 3 has a companion SuperCharger network and you can drive it cross country easily while the Bolt doesn’t and charges much slower. Conversely, I think a Model 3 is going to sell very well against BMW 3 Series and Audi A4.
The “cross shopping” will likely consist of Model 3 sales cannibalizing Model S sales, which are supposed to fund Model 3 production.
Government does a lot of stupid things and Elon Musk is very good at harvesting the maximum benefit from government stupidity. There’s nothing wrong with that… But the Model 3 has to generate positive cash flow or Tesla will collapse like a house of cards.
I like the concept of the electric vehicle. I like that at least it adds an additional “fuel” option to the personal transport systems of the world. What I definitely do not like, is how the electric vehicle will increase the costs of a KWh provided by my power generating company. The electric vehicle, as adoption grows, will level the “peak” demand times not by lowering the consumption during the peak times, but by raising the consumption in the off-peak times. The power generating companies will need to “up their game” so to speak and build out new generation capabilities. Specifically, those that work at night. Which means coal, natural gas, or nuclear ( my preference is nuclear for the long term ). I’ve got no problem with that either, but it would defeat the purpose of the electric vehicle as a means to more “green” technologies wouldn’t it? Mind you, I see the diversification of “fuel” at the personal transport level a worthy purpose as well. I just don’t think you could “sell” the zero-emissions vehicle as a truly “green” technology (it isn’t truly zero emission anyway…only in terms of power generation). You are simply pushing the emission to the generating stations. Perhaps they are in a better position to clean their emissions than the engine manufactures, but that increased generating capacity will come with an increase in cost that will be distributed to the purchasers of the electricity. Will that cost calculation be consumption based ( e.g. you buy more…you pay more ) or simply spread evenly as a fee across the service subscribers ( e.g. your fee modulates regardless of your consumption )?
Try not to be so pessimistic David. Solid state batteries show some promise. Samsung and LG plan smartphones with them in the next couple of years. Toyota an EV for the 2022 model year. Apparently >2x power density, super fast charge times, thousands of cycles, and operating at -30C to 60C. Time will tell.
Twice in my life I’ve moved right next to my work. I walked to work. You’d think that in that situation, an electric car might work. Both times within a year and a half, they moved my workplace across the city. With the miles and commuting time and the driving of my kids to different activities all over, If I had an electric car, I would have been out of luck. I would have had to sell it and buy a gasoline powered car.
Flexibility is an important capability in an automobile.