Guest essay by John Hardy
Full disclosure: I own an electric car, and I think they are useful for city transportation. However, having owned one for a decade, I can say that it hasn’t been practical or cost-effective. John Hardy believes they are the future, I’ll let you, the reader, decide. – Anthony Watts
Part 1 of this series expressed the view that regardless of “the environment”, EVs are poised to inflict a massive disruption on the automotive industry, and outlined the strengths of the technology and some of the reasons that it is happening now.
Part 2 discussed the main issues for Western automakers in handling this disruption
Part 3 below is devoted to common misconceptions which cause some to mistakenly conclude that EVs will not be practicable in the foreseeable future.
The demise of the Western auto industry: Part 3 – common misconceptions
Misconception 1: batteries will never get us to acceptable range.
The combination of a 300 mile range and fast charge should be plenty. How many people routinely drive more than 300 miles without stopping for toilet and/or food? For most people, most of the time averaging 20 – 30 miles per day [1], charging could be done once a week. “Fast charge” needs to be fast however: 20 minutes from empty to 80% charge. The batteries are well able to handle this. The infrastructure uses well-understood technology (300+ Kw charging stations already exist in Beijing for buses [2]). Several current production EVs have a range of over 200 miles and some over 300.
Misconception 2: if EVs take off, electrical distribution networks won’t cope.
With an average daily mileage for private cars of 20-30 miles per day and 3-4 miles per kW-hr the average charge needed is 5 to 10 kW-hr a day, equivalent to running a 7 kW electric shower for 40 to 80 minutes or warming up a few storage heaters over 5-6 hours.
Another mistaken assumption is that everyone will come home and charge at peak time in the early evening. Once again this is highly unlikely to become a problem. Incentivising people to charge off peak is trivial, as is the technology. I have my car set to start charging at 1:00 a.m. when my electricity price almost halves.
Misconception 3: EV charging will require rewiring all the houses in the land.
UK standard sockets handle almost 3 kW. Recharging an average day’s driving just from a wall socket might take 2 – 4 hours. Electric showers may run over 10kW, so adding a 10kW EV wall box is no more complex than installing an electric shower and would recharge an exhausted battery in a 300 mile range car in 7-10 hours.
Misconception 4: Generating capacity will be insufficient
It is sometimes said that if EVs take off, a huge increase in generating capacity will be needed. In the UK there were some scary (and ill-informed) press comments on a document published recently by the National Grid entitled Future Energy Scenarios (FES). The National Grid looked at four different scenarios. One of them concluded that additional demand resulting from an all-EV world would be about 5 Gw. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to compute: to recharge an EV like the Chevy Bolt or the Tesla Model 3 takes about 75 kW-hrs. 5 Gw over 24 hours is 120 Gw hrs or 120 million Kw-hrs, so 5 Gw extra sounds like it would cope with maybe 1 – 2 million EVs rather than the 30 million or so that would be on UK roads today if all our piston-engined cars became EVs overnight.
There are two factors at work here. Firstly as discussed earlier, EVs used as private cars need an average 5-10 Kw-hr per vehicle per day, so 120 Gw-hr would in theory support a population of 12 million vehicles.
There is another critical issue though: exploiting the variability of demand. Let us do some mental experiments:
Figure 1 is a graph of UK power requirements on a typical working day in winter. (The pattern and the numerical values will be different in Australia or the USA, but the principle is the same). The area under the line (the blue area in Figure 1) is the total electrical energy required during the 24 hours – 965 Gw-hrs in this example. Note that the power requirement varies greatly from a low around 30000 Mw (30 Gw) in the early hours of the morning to almost 50 Gw at 6:00 in the evening.
If the system was capable of sustaining 50 Gw for 24 hours, an additional 230 Gw-hrs could be generated (Figure 2):
230 Gw-hrs is 230,000,000 kw-hrs. Recall that to recharge an EV that has covered the UK average daily private car mileage, 5 – 10 Kw-hours are needed. So if we could put all the available 230 Gw-hrs into EV batteries we could, crudely and theoretically, service a population of between 32 million and 46 million EVs without any additional capacity. At the end of March 2017 there were around ~37 million vehicles licensed in Great Britain, of which ~31 million were cars [3]
Of course this analysis is simplified. It ignores a myriad of variables such as pumped storage, power imported from other countries, battery powered trucks, capacity currently used to refine and distribute petrol and so on, but as an order-of magnitude approximation it is useful.
Is it possible to manage demand like this? Certainly it is. All that is required is to give the control of “normal” charge rate to centralised automated processes (with appropriate over rides, agreed contractual arrangements and financial incentives). The technology to achieve this is straightforward.
But there is an even simpler way: between midnight and 7:00 a.m. the cumulative “energy available” is about 133 Gw-hrs: sufficient (theoretically) to do an average day’s charge on between 18 million and 26 million EVs. My electricity almost halves in price during those hours and my EV is capable of starting to charge at any time I wish; so I do most of my charging in those hours (Figure 3).
There is another consideration here. One of the juggling acts that the controllers of any grid system must manage is spikes and troughs in demand. Electricity must in general be consumed as it is generated: so a sudden change in demand may require the start-up of additional generating capacity, the use of pumped storage, reducing supply to a flexible consumer, additional imports etc. If they do it right, voltage and frequency stay steady and nobody notices. If they get it slightly wrong we have temporary brownouts. If they make a complete mess of things, or are hit by too many variables at once the system can collapse as happened recently in South Australia.
Figure 4 is an example of just such a peak. It is half time in a televised football (soccer) match. Within a minute or so the demand goes up by around 1 Gw. This is about the total output of the Sizewell B nuclear power plant, or a quarter of the capacity of the Drax power station – largest in the UK.
Wind energy complicates this juggling act because the output of a wind turbine is intrinsically variable and can change extremely rapidly. A sudden storm hitting a wind farm such as the London Array (630 Mw) could take ½ Gw off line in seconds. With the right technology and the right contractual arrangements between householders and the energy companies, 30 million EVs provide a powerful and flexible tool for the unseen (and under-valued) grid jugglers.
Time for another thought experiment.
Suppose our 30 million EVs had a battery capacity of 75 kW-hrs (similar to today’s Chevy Bolt and entry level Tesla Model 3). Suppose the contractual deal was that the grid managers could help themselves to (say) 10% of that capacity any time the vehicle was plugged in, provided that it was fully charged by a specified time. That would theoretically provide a 200+ Gw-hr buffer which could be dialled up and down almost instantly. In practice of course it would be less (not all the EVs would be plugged in and some would be less than 90% charged), but even (say) 50 Gw-hrs would be handy: it far exceeds the UK’s current pumped storage capacity for example.
[As an aside, whilst this sort of buffer would be very helpful in managing short-term peaks and troughs, the idea of 100% wind/solar with battery back-up for days or weeks is infeasible with current technology in the foreseeable future. Vey roughly UK demand in winter is around 1000 Gw-hr/day. If the sun didn’t shine and the wind didn’t blow for ten days, the UK alone would need ~10,000 Gw-hr of battery storage. That is 4-5 times the total battery capacity of a fleet of 30 million electric cars, and more than 300 times the total world output of lithium ion batteries in 2014]
Misconception #5: EVs will be constrained by a shortage of lithium
There is not enough lead around to power a large fleet of EVs, but there is almost certainly enough lithium.
Two factors in particular help
- Lithium is not like oil. Oil is dug up, refined, distributed and burned. The supply requirements are ongoing. By contrast, lithium is extracted, made into batteries and, er that’s it for ten years or so. It is then (at least partially) recycled. Once lithium is in the system it will (mostly) stay there.
- Lithium is not like lead. Very roughly, 60% of the weight of a lead acid battery is lead [4] and the energy density of a lead acid battery is about 30 watt-hours per kg; so a 75 Kw-hr lead acid battery (Chevy Bolt size) would weigh about 2,500 kg, of which 1,500 kg would be lead (that explains why lead acid EVs are experiments, not serious transport). Estimates of the amount of lithium used in a lithium ion battery vary greatly from about 80 grams per Kw-hr to 250 grams per Kw-hr [5]. These figures translate to a lithium content of between 6 and 19 kg of lithium for our hypothetical 75 Kw-hr battery. Either way there is about two orders of magnitude difference between the weight of lead and the weight of lithium used to produce a battery of the same capacity.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) suggests that “reserves” of lithium globally are about 14 million tons (this is measured as mass of an equivalent amount of pure lithium), but suggests a “Resources” figure of about 40 million tons [6]. At 13kg per car, 1 million tons of lithium would be sufficient for 76 million cars. One estimate is that global car production in 2016 was ~72 million [7]. If we assume the “worst case” of:
- No lithium recycling (there are plants already up and running, but let’s be devil’s advocate and assume this)
- Only 25% of reserves available for cars (the rest going into ceramics, commercial vehicles, grid storage etc)
- No substitution of lithium by other metals in batteries
- Only the USGS “reserve” of 14 million turned out to be available (i.e. the 40 million “resources” never materialise)
- No substantial increase in efficiency of usage (i.e. Kw-hrs per kg of lithium remains unchanged)
If we make all these assumptions we can make the case that there is only enough lithium to support 3 or 4 years of car production in a world where all cars are electric. This is however a false picture for several reasons:
· The price of a finished battery is very insensitive to the price of the lithium raw material. This means that the price for lithium can increase greatly without having a noticeable effect on battery prices. This gives lots of financial headroom for exploiting reserves that are not economic at current prices. If the price goes high enough, it would in theory be possible to extract it from seawater. One estimate put the amount of lithium in the world’s oceans at 230 billion tons [8]
- Over the years, reserves of oil have gone up very greatly (see for example [9]). It is not unreasonable to expect lithium reserves to increase in a similar way
- As hinted earlier, lithium is in fact reclaimed from old batteries. Again, if shortages develop there is financial headroom to increase the efficiency of this process
- Lithium is used in the battery cathode because it is the “best” element electrically. If shortages developed alternatives could be used (see for example [10])
Misconception #6 – No I’ll stop here
There are dozens of arguments fielded against EVs; I have yet to encounter one which stood up under examination. It is going to happen regardless of “the environment”; and if the Western manufacturers can’t or won’t adapt, the economic outlook for the rising generation does not look good.
References
[1] Average daily private car mileage in the UK is about 21 [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/632857/nts0901.ods. 7,800 miles per year for privately owned cars = 21 m.p.d. [Company cars 18,900 = 51 m.p.d. but they are a small percentage]. In the US it is about 30 [https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10309, 11,244 miles per year for cars = 30 miles per day]
[2] “…The new station at the Xiaoying bus terminal in the Chaoyang district is home to 25 electric vehicle (EV) chargers operating at 360kW and five chargers operating at 90kW. Reportedly all 30 chargers can operate at once….” From https://cbwmagazine.com/bus-charging-beijing/
[3] See table veh0102 accessed from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/all-vehicles-veh01
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93acid_battery
[5] http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1826 Note that this article is old and a bit dated
[6] https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2017-lithi.pdf. Note the heading “Data in metric tons of lithium content unless otherwise noted”. This is important as the material mined, and the materials used in battery production are not metallic lithium, but lithium compounds. Lithium carbonate for example is less than a fifth lithium by weight
[7] http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial
[9] http://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=oil&graph=reserves
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_battery#Overview
Keep wondering why Electric cars are so important to warmist ecoloonies,when the Battery is VERY toxic,does poorly in cold weather and not economical,requires a large increase in power generation facilities.
Yonder ecoloonies seem determined to lead us down a cul-de-sac of unworkable technology in order to conclude, “See? Cars don’t work; we must all go back to horses.”
Horses produce greenhouse gasses and must be taxed accordingly (CA).
There is always a “catch 22”.
Not so long ago, from the WUWT site I read an essay comparing a top of the line BMW versus the Tesla. The BMW produced less CO2 . The math was pretty simple, could not find a flaw in the author’s math.
Introduction of solar panels on EVs would help. In a sunny clime, drive to work, park in the sun, trickle charge during the day, drive home.
What good would two 70-watts of solar panels (or so) do for batteries that store kilowatts? Are they worth the trouble and added cost?
You can still operate the hazard lights.
Maybe be able to finish listening to your jam?
EV’s are essentially rich man toys. They are not something the middle class is going to find handy any time soon. I do over a 70 mile round trip each day with a 1500 foot elevation change. I’m thinking this might be a problem.
How many people routinely drive more than 300 miles without stopping for toilet and/or food?
Me.
Then this song is for you, S.S.
[snip -don’t visit then] -mod
If the Eco-nazis ever get their way and impose this useless technology, sure as eggs are eggs, someone will “invent” a much cleaner more energy efficient method burning a fuel that supposedly produces just perfectly clean CO2 and H2O.
There’s a simple reason that carbohydrate fuels will always be preferrable and it’s this: like a rocket v. jet a battery has to carry to “Oxygen” side of the equation around with it, whereas when burning fuel, you get free oxygen from the air.
The only people interested in electric cars are Warmistas and Alarmistas. Electric cars only move the pollution from one place to another. Electric trains and Electric buses are one thing, but electric cars are quite another. Where are our electric planes? When electric cars have a range of 700-1000 km and charge in 10 minutes, do not cost the Earth, have batteries that are cheap and last over 3 years and electricity prices have fallen because the CAGW scare is over, I will be interested. As they say in the movies “Enough with the Electric Cars!” Wake me up when it’s over.
“Where are our electric planes?” I just heard this morning that Uber will begin testing their electric VTOL by 2020. Now, when this runs out of juice in the sky, will bring a whole new level of the meaning of a brick.
https://www.verticalmag.com/news/uber-launch-electric-vtol-aircraft-dallas-dubai/
I can’t help but wonder if Nikola Tesla would have had cars and planes draw energy from towers through the air if he hadn’t been stifled by the greedy elite.
Now you’ve done it Frosty, Made me Flip!
Loved that show as a kid. Thanks Pop.
This is a little bit of a misconception/
The standard plug is fitted with a 13 amp fuse and therefore handles 3kW. However, the wall socket is run on a 16 amp cabling on a ring main, and thus the socket can safely handle 32 amps. Most people have a number of double sockets and thus one could theoretically run a wire terminating with two wall plugs(specially designed to be formed into one unit) both of which could be plugged into the double socket, and one could therefore safely deliver 25 amps, equivalent to 6kW without significant re-wiring.
Electric shows are run on 45 amp cabling, usually single run and not part of a ring main, and are usually fused with either 32 amp or 45 amp fuses. Electric cookers are also usually wired on a separate 45 amp circuit.
Most fuse boxes will not handle an electric shower, a cooker, domestic hot water tank, fridge, washing machine, miscellaneous items, and a car all being used at the same time, but could, of course, be adapted to do so..
it is inevitable that these cars will have to be charged at night when there is minimal other household demand, which will cause a change in off peak demand.
This depends where you live. I have a house on a small estate of around 150 or so houses. My house is fitted at the road with a 40 amp fuse, likewise my neighbours, it use to be fitted with a 25 amp main fuse, and I had to have extra cabling run into the house when I upgraded it to 40 amps. I wanted more power than 40 amps, but the only option was to have triple phase, which I did not go for. I think that there are a few houses on my estate with triple phase,
My house could not run a 10 kW charger, even at night. Most the houses on my estate cannot, and I suspect that there are tens of thousands of such properties which will require substantial upgrading if EVs are forced upon them.
I am reasonably certain your double socket will not feed 32 amps. the wiring is 16 amp, one wire with one neutral. at 13 amps your really at your maximum load and sustained for hours at a time is probably going to start a fire. In most cases electrical devices consume watts of power not kilowatts. This whole Idea that every house in a development could suddenly start charging car batteries at 3kw for 4 to 5 hours and not cause problems is ridiculous. There is a reason your typical charger for a EV is a multi phase box. This is a little easier in the US in areas with modern 200amp mains (the limitations of wiring and circuit load are still a big deal). Even in California if your going to install an EV charger over level 1 (1.4kw @ur momisugly 120volts) you need to get a permit and have an electrician set up the install. I can’t imagine the havoc that a 3kw charger would have on a house with 40amp mains and 16 amp wiring. (peak vs sustained current is the issue).
Remember that Europe uses double the voltage that the US does. Cuts the amps per watt in half.
pop, doesn’t change the fact that circuits are not designed for max continuous loading. 40amp uk service is like a 70 amp US. 13amp ring circuit with 16 amp wire is still 13 amp for the entire circuit. Your 3kw charger plus anything else is going to melt the wire and cause a fire. UK still uses single phase….
It is two wires of 16 amps that forms the ring main, and both of these wires run back to the fuse box to a 32 amp fuse. Actually, although the cable is rated 16 amps, it is of a thickness that can carry 22 amps and over a longer distance than is typically used in the ring main of domestic building which usually uses short runs of cable.
And as Pop noted, the voltage is nominally 240 volts.
So if you have a double socket in the kitchen, you can run two 3 kW kettles side by side from the same socket, without any problems.
A typical ring main circuit.
http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/project_images/ringmain/ring_main.jpg
A picture of the typical socket. The 3 pin plug is separately fused.
http://www.wilko.com/content/ebiz/wilkinsonplus/invt/0116479/0116479_l.jpg
The 3 pin plug is separately fused (in this picture it is fitted with a 3 amp fuse, but could be fitted with a 13 amp fuse). .
I am suggesting that a special double plug could be manufactured so that it has 6 pins that align precisely with the 6 holes in the wall mounted double socket, and then one could use 32 amp rated cable to deliver say 25 amps of power to the on board car charger, which at 240 volts is nominally 6kW. This would avoid the need for any special rewiring.
Obviously, one would have to make sure that other equipment on the ring main was not being used at the time of the charging, but that ought not to be a problem if one is charging the car over night when one is in bed.
I did require my house, but that was close to 30 years ago so I am not up to date on current regulations. Obviously, anyone carrying out wiring needs to know the current rules and regulations and be guided accordingly. The fundamentals of electricity has not itself changed over the past 30 years.
If I recall correctly, the standard cable used for a ring main on a power circuit, is 2.5 mm cable, so theoretically it can carry up to 27 amps without undue problems. But there are building/electrical regulations that do not permit you to lawfully use it at such power in consumer settings, and that is why the ring main terminates with a 32 amp mcb fuse.
I think that if you use this cable as a single spur (not a ring main) it can be used at 20 or 22 amps. That is why I referred to it above as a 22 amp cable, although commonly it will be fused with a 20 amp mcb.
For lighting circuits, the standard cable is 1.5 mm.
Obviously, there are a number of installation factors that need to be taken into account when determining safety and power use, but a large safety tolerance is built in.
I don’t know where this 3 KW goes from. In the US house wiring is 110 V and it looks as if they are limited to 13 A so that’s 1,300 W [my house is 240 V and 10 A]. And while you can briefly draw over that amount it would be unwise to do so for hours especially if you have an old switchboard.
If EVs are forced upon us it will cost lives because shoddy operators will flock to the subsidies.
Normal breaker rating on wall plugs is 15 A at nominal 110-120 volts in the US. I agree though with your point, trying to use the capacity continuously is not a really good idea.
Richard, I only see a hot a neutral and an equipment ground in your ring circuit. I would love to see a photo of the UK fuse box, but I am pretty sure that if your two 3k kettles elements were on at the same time you might be unhappy with the outcome. Also you only showed a 3amp on the one which is more in line with a single circuit feeding the whole house. Other than the kitchen most of your outlets are probably not set up for big current. The reason your wire is not rated for what it could carry is because its in a wall and can build up heat. Electrical codes have reductions for types of wall, insulation and other factors. Most of which has changed over the last 30 years. Every time a house burns to the ground from electrical issues they modify the code based on whatever happened. Although the UK is a bit weak on their safely codes compared to the US. Only one of those wires is carrying anything hot. you may be talking about a 4wire setup where they alternate hots, that usually what is done in the US for convenience but it doesn’t change the rating of the outlets. Finally when was the last time your 3k kettle took 5 hours to heat up the water?
@Davis Riser
You don’t seem to have read Richard’s comment at all closely.
A 3kW kettle will draw c. 13A (at 230 nominal voltage), so two of them on the same ring (whatever sockets they are plugged in to) will draw 26A which is less than the 32A that Richard said his is fused at. If a 32A fuse (actually an MCB) is fitted then the wiring will take that load.
However little else could be used on that ring at the same time. Hence in practise a separate circuit would be installed for an EV charging point, the same as there are separate circuits for electric cookers, electric showers and immersion heaters.
“Also you only showed a 3amp on the one which is more in line with a single circuit feeding the whole house”
Actually Richard said “The 3 pin plug is separately fused (in this picture it is fitted with a 3 amp fuse, but could be fitted with a 13 amp fuse)”, making it clear that the 3A fuse was purely illustrative. Typical fuse rating in the UK are 3A, 5A & 13A. Thing like electric kettles have 13A fuses in the plug.
“Although the UK is a bit weak on their safely codes compared to the US”
And now you are parading your ignorance as knowledge. I have visited the US and I have seen numerous examples of wiring that would not be allowed in the UK.
I did read what he wrote, but I am also sure that AC works on a one wire concept, ie there is a reason each outlet is limited to whatever is on their local fuse. If this ring circuit which looks modern is up to current electrical safety ideas plugging a 3kw or 6kw EV charger to it wont happen regardless of the fancy plug idea. Even if you use a two wire in the same jacket concept the limitation with wire involves heat so while theoretically the wire is rated in single sub wire use at 22 amp its not rated that for the use in that ring circuit. If your reading this article I would have a discussion with your electrician before buying an EV as to what is legal and safe. Additionally while 230volts seems like a good idea in single phase, its twin the dual phase is a dangerous beast in the UK. 400v is at that point where any kind of degradation to the wiring will cause a serious hazard to people.
David I totally agree. The original house I live in was built prior to 1927 when individual wires were tape wrapped and separated [by] ceramic insulators. That was upgraded in the 1980’s and only part of it was done to the newer parts to the house. That to code we had to rewire everything 5 year’s ago to handle new technologies. You really need to have a professional to look things over before making changes that could burn your place down if you don’t.
@ur momisugly Tom
Most newer residential construction has 20 amp breakers, My home was built in 1994, and there is not a single breaker in the box that is less than 20 amps.
Richard, what about houses that need 2 or 3 chargers?
They would all need to have their own circuit back to the switchboard. In the days of wire fuses you could put a heavier fuse wire in it but you can’t fiddle a 10A circuit breaker.
You may be able to draw heavier current connecting to the stove circuit which has heavier wiring but you would need to remember you can’t use the stove at the same time and I doubt it would be legal. Your insurance company might wipe you if you had a fire too.
David, You may have read what Richard wrote but your response was based on you not having done so, e.g. regarding the 3A fuse as normal when it was clearly just illustrative.
“If this ring circuit which looks modern is up to current electrical safety ideas plugging a 3kw or 6kw EV charger to it wont happen regardless of the fancy plug idea.”
You don’t say why not so it is not possible to know if your objection is valid. However I very strongly suspect that it is not.
UK wiring will take 3kW loads with no problems. Pretty much every home has a kettle that is c. 3kW (albeit they are only used for short periods of time) but one can easily buy things that are 3kW and used for long periods of time such as fans heaters, e.g.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delonghi-Horizontal-Fan-Heater-KW/dp/B005I3N2W2/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Glen-GF30TSN-Electric-Heater-Kilowatt/dp/B000ARG0SO
These do not come with a warning that nothing else may be plugged in at the same time. UK circuits can supply a lot more than 13A
However this whole point is more than a little moot and you seem to be getting worked up about pretty much nothing.
Richard initially pointed out that whilst charging from a UK domestic socket is possible there are practical limitations because that greatly restricts what else can be used at the same time and I emphasised that in my last post.
Richard’s main point, at least it seems so to me, is that if the main supply to a house is 25A or 40A then running a 10kW EV charging unit is physically not possible. Hence if EVs are to be commonly charges at home all houses with that sort of main supply can have to be uprated, and this would be a major job.
Can you imagine what would happen during a hurricane that just hit Florida and Texas and then all of the electric cars trying to get out of the way. I’m thinking major disaster, and not just the homes and businesses.
Disasters don’t happen often, but it just takes one to kill you if you can’t get out of the way. You can’t build a system that *only* tolerates the average, or it *will* fail.
Well, since you get DAYS of warning — anyone that had not fully charged their EV would have been quite stupid or living under a rock.
Another False and Failed argument
An immediate thought is that all of these ideas and suppositions that current power generation can cope with 34 million EV’s is fundamentally flawed for two reasons:
The proposed shift to ever-increasing levels of renewables cannot cope with this; and
It takes no account of the massive energy requirements to manufacture the batteries.
It is just airy-fairy green delusions
Progressives want lovely clean solar as a primary power source and low-cost night-time charging of their EV’s. What could possibly go wrong?
Too many assumptions made in part 3 of your series. People don’t buy a car for 90% of it’s intended use and forget about the 10%. They may make small considerations in feature trade offs but not with range and fueling availability. Who changes their lifestyle to conform to a product? Clearly you don’t understand the electrical infrastructure required to go from 1% to even 10% much less 100% EV ownership. In SoCal where I live it would have to double just to get to 50% EV usage. All you have to do is witness the daily long mass migration to and from the Inland Empire to understand just a small part of the problem. In Los Angeles County alone there are 8 million registered vehicles. Saying you could manage peoples’ charge times to solve the problem of generation doesn’t answer where the extra energy will come from. There’s a reason we have more generated capacity today than we use and it’s not because we’re wasteful. And you can’t just dial up more sun or wind and put it into alternative storage capacity because you want to. All the EV solutions involve hypothetical (so far) technology at massive cost. The faithful need to stop preaching EV usage based on unsubstantiated beliefs. Buy one if it meets your needs or makes you feel good but stop preaching. I may buy one eventually because my driving is shrinking into the acceptable range of an EV and I prefer the EV driving experience over that of an ICE vehicle. They are smoother, quieter, accelerate better, more roomy on average for the same body style, and handle better with the lower center of gravity. I just hope I can afford to buy and maintain one when I’m, and it’s, ready for my needs.
These figures seem very low figures to me. If they are correct, it would appear that mileage rates have obviously dropped dramatically as roads have become clogged up, and motoring has become more expensive. Alternatively it is something to do with the fact that most people have access to more than 1 car. I myself at one time owned 5 cars, so that somewhat reduced the mileage of each.
When i was young, and I had my first car as a student, for the first 3 years I averaged 30.000 miles per year. One week, I went to watch the tennis at Wimbledon, 4 times. This was in the days that you could get into centre court just by queuing outside, involving a round trip of about 270 miles, so over the week some 1,100 miles, just to watch the tennis. I obviously drove a lot on the other days.
In those days, typical mileage, as a private person, was considered to be 10,000 to 12,000 miles per year. A typical 5 year old second hand car would have about 50,000 to 60,000 miles on the clock.
For the US: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
Average Annual Miles per Driver by Age Group
Age Male Female Total
16-19 8,206 6,873 7,624
20-34 17,976 12,004 15,098
35-54 18,858 11,464 15,291
55-64 15,859 7,780 11,972
65+ 10,304 4,785 7,646
Average 16,550 10,142 13,476
On that data, and assuming that the mass market is the 20 to 55 age group, it would suggest that annual mileage is closer to 18,000 than 12,000 miles per year.
Thank you John Hardy for your efforts and time hosting this interesting and enjoyable discussion. It will be interesting to see ‘que sera’ in the auto industry.
The OP misses many factors. Some of these are highlighted by other readers.
1) I get 500 miles per fillup on my Prius. I frequently drive 600-800 miles in a day with my wife when driving cross-country. 300 mile / 80% / 20 minutes doesn’t fit my parameters. I want 500 miles in 5 minutes and then be away from the “pump.”
2) The ONLY way to get such high power density to “fill” the EV goes far beyond safe power cabling. Can’t ever do it. Thus, we will see this when we switch to a different architecture: cartridge power that is actually recharged somewhere other than in the vehicle.
3) The issue with a 10kW power source in the home is not rewiring the home. It’s rewiring the neighborhood. Neighborhood transformers can’t handle that kind of power in more than a few homes.
I believe we WILL get there… with different battery technology. It will be a while.
@ur momisugly MR Pete
You obviously don’t know the capacity of Residential Service lInes — they are 13,800V @ur momisugly somewhere between 1000 and 10,000 amps.
That is stepped down to 240V/400 amps at the home transformer home amperage at the breaker box is usually 200 or 300 amps
Karl, you misunderstood, in a number of ways. Yes, the primary side can be as much as13.8kV (although more typically 7.2kV) with rather high power. And yes, I’m sure you have 200A, 240V service. And you probably live in a reasonably recently-built home.
You ignored quite a lot in your calculations. Just a few examples:
* NEC (Nat’l Electric Code) allows significant overload in home calculations. They only require the first 10kW to be counted at 100%… then down to 40%, even 25% of potential full load.
* The same is true for neighborhood step-down transformers. You assumed each home has its own step-down. True in rural areas, YES. Not in urban/suburban. More on that below, because it is crucial.
Other factors impact your assumptions in larger ways.
1) Many homes are not “all electric.” Gas heat, gas dryer, gas range, gas water heater, gas oven. They could easily get away with 60A let alone 100A service.
2) 60A service (24.9kVA) was standard in homes built before 1975. 100A (41.5kVA) since then, unless you have a lot of electric appliances/load. Yes, 150/200A service is more common now but not actually required by NEC. Most homes do NOT have 200A service.
3) Urban/suburban “neighborhood” distribution transformers typically serve several homes. A typical 50kVA pole/pad transformer may serve a dozen or more homes (on a tesla forum, one guy found out his neighborhood 50kVA was serving 26 homes! That’s right, way less than 20A per home! Why? Because people didn’t all run power-hungry appliances at the same time.
50kVA, running at 100% (really bad for transformer life) provides 50000/(sqrt(3)*240) = 120 Amps total. 28.8KW of simultaneous load.
Any neighborhood with such a transformer needs an upgrade if more than 2 of 10 homes wants a 10KW supercharger. Happens all the time.
BTW, the guy with 26 homes on one 50kVA? His power company would only “upgrade” with a second 50kva. 13 homes per transformer.
NOW please explain how we all can run 10KW overnight?
And… do you still believe I’m clueless about residential service?
BTW, one other real-world factor. Neighborhood distribution transformers usually *survive* serious overload for quite a while. So yes, we CAN all run our AC for a while without a meltdown. But that degrades the transformer and eventually you’re in trouble.
Bottom line: our existing grid capacity needs serious upgrades if we’re going to push so much power through residential homes.
@ur momisugly Pete
After all, a home with 240V and 300 amp service has a max draw of 72 KW
A home with 200 amp service and 240 volts has 48 KW max draw.
@ur momisugly Pete
When my HVAC is running it draws 7.9 KW (33 amps @ur momisugly 240 volts)
@ur momisugly Pete
Plus my Dryer is 240V/26 amps = 6.24 KW draw
I can assure you there have been many times when my dryer and HVAC have been on simultaneous — which equals an almost 14 kilowatt draw — and my 200 amp service handles it just fine — with the dishwasher running, the refrigerator, the televisions, the computers and the lights.
AA very cogent and well reasoned argument. As I posted on your Part 1 article, I would withhold judgment until you had completed your series.
I feel that you have failed to convince me.
I’m a motorcyclist and there are truly compelling arguments, for me, to use an electric motorcycle. My daily commute is significantly shorter than your norm. I ride to the train station, then use commuter rail to get to work. Even if the bike sat all day not charging, there would be more than sufficient charge remaining to get me home. There would also be more than sufficient time, from my arrival home, to recharge before having to depart the next day. Sounds good to you, right?
Except, that this is also a recreational vehicle. I’ve ridden my Yamaha WR-250R into some seriously gnarly back country woodlands. Even with its tiny 6 litre tank, I’m good for 150 miles. In bad terrain, that drops to 90 (in seriously bad, as low as 60). How do I cope? Well, my BMW buddies with giant tanks can bleed off enough petrol to get me to the next filling station. For about the length of time it has taken me to type this sentence. I could spend less than £200 and replace that with a 20 litre tank, nearly tripling my range.
I’ve ridden through streams and creeks to a depth up to my knees, whilst standing almost upright on the foot pegs. Gave me serious concerns about whether or not I’d engulf the airbox. How would an electric motorcycle deal with that? I’m almost afraid to find out.
So we’ve made it to the summit, or camp ground, or clearing, or wherever we’ll spend the night. Now I’m screwed. I abhor walking. Can’t stand it. But an electric motorcycle leaves me there to wave goodbye to my friends as they roar off. Nope, not a good plan.
Which leads me to something of great importance to motorcyclists that some might not consider. Riding! I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to control my speed with throttle and gear selection. Do electric motorcycles have “engine braking”? I don’t know. That’s a vital part of the ~feel~ of riding. Can I ride around it? Sure. But there’s a learning curve. {Although, I must admit, being able to just pin the throttle and go from dead stop to max velocity (without having to shift) very quickly has a certain appeal to me.}
Which then leads me to the fact that whilst the WR (a motorcycle I’ve grown to love), is expensive. It is far less expensive than its’ electric counterparts. I have zero incentive to replace the love of my life with something less practical.
electric motorcycles DO have “engine braking”. Actually, they even have better, as the engine power can be use to brake.
And you don’t even have to worry about airbox. The thing can probably run fully submerged, with water up to your chin.
However, 6l of gasoline are ~ 60 kWh; efficiency considered, that’s ~20 kWh electricity, which would require over ~40 l / ~100kg Li-ion battery pack. Electric engine would be smaller and lighter than the current ICE, but all in all you would add ~80 kg to your motorcycle. I say: Meh!
Six liters of Gasoline = 53.3 Kilowatt hours — less if it has ethanol in it
Next you do a false equivalency between kWh efficiency and kWh in lithium batteries.
If a Car that weighs 3500 lbs gets 4 miles per kWh — a motorcycle will get 10-12 at least
as evidenced by the Zero S that gets 160 miles on 13 kilowatt-hours of battery — at a total weight of 408 lbs
http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/
dang
FACTS have a way of ruining assumptions
The final question for me is still why? Why a massive switch over to EVs when we have proven technologies that cost less and work better, more people like them, they are accessible to far more people across the spectrum worldwide, and are themselves improving? I just don’t see it happening without insidious government coercion and market manipulations.
Why is the thing that most commenters here won’t accept…
A need to reduce CO2 by reducing fossil fuel use.
A thought experiment: assuming that CO2 really was a problem and reducing it worthwhile (yes, its a stretch – give it a go) then renewable energy and EVs make sense and government incentives towards them also make sense.
for people and governments accepting the science of climate change, then of course they are acting responsibly and rationally.
Griff, try Googling “begging the question”.
No, renewables make no sense whatsoever.
If it really was necessary only Nuclear fits the bill.
Therein Griff, you, other people and governments are basing your opinions that climate changes are caused by Humans and not nature and natural cycles of our solar system. When observed reality over history show natural cycles are the source of climate changes and increasing CO2 has not caused the climate to change as alarmist have been saying it would. Making the demonizing of fossil fuels a fabrication of their imagination, that is only an attack upon “Capitalism” as far left political philosophers from the 19th century have been pushing since Hagel and Marx wrote about inequality. They fail to realize the observations of history that their ideologies are what creates the largest gap of inequality and class separation of the population. There is this ideology that a “One World Government” can fix everything by destroying individual countries independence. That Capitalism is the enemy keeping them from having a “Star Trek” type Utopia where money is eliminated and everyone has equality and are part of “The Greater Good” by being sheep to the “Federation” of chosen diplomats that make all the rules how people must conform to society norms. Ignoring that they created classes of people by rank and abilities that have more power to rule over everyone else and they get the best of everything. That they are not to help new planets population’s and let them evolve naturally – ignoring that is what they did to governments on Earth by making them conform to their ideologies. Depressed countries in the Paris Agreement are examples of this, that are being held back from having low cost energy because of CO2 emissions. The USA is attacked because for 30 years we created the richest country on Earth through “Capitalism” that left other countries far behind…until Global Markets failures caused the Stock Market to collapse and our “Great Depression” that was still better off than those of other countries beset by WWI because Germany though it was superior. Then they didn’t get the hint and started WWII. Now, Germany is who tends to lead the whole of Europe by their ideologies and economy of a “New World Order” and all the other countries just gave up their independence without a fight. If you cannot see how this war on Fossil Fuels is part of that, you are mentally blind.
Because they don’t cost less.
I calculated — ans was corroborated that ALL vehicle miles driven in the US for light duty vehicles could be powered by between 8% and 12% of electrical generation.
12% is 500 Billion Kwh which costs $75 Billion
At 35mpg and $3 per gallon of Gas — the cost is $210 billion
That’s an over-payment of $135 billion a year to use ICE
Scroll to the bottom and look at my conversation with Michael
On China, they may have charging stations all over the place, but they also have ghost cities enough for ~60 million people as I recall.
Buying a car that can meet your AVERAGE demand is hardly more helpful than building an electricity grid that can meet demand ON AVERAGE or a bridge designed to carry average load.
Try to ring him up on his average telephone number :=)
90% of trips by drivers in the US are 30 miles or less
95% of trips by drivers in the US are 50 miles or less
Well, don’t get me wrong, I think electric cars are cooler than the other side of the pillow but the reason why they can never displace fossil fuel powered vehicles on a large scale seems fairly clear to me. Let’s take for example a typical situation down here in Austin, Texas. I’m loading up two kids and the wife along with the dog and luggage, golf clubs, fishing poles and an ice chest heading to beautiful Corpus Christi 250 miles south. It’s summertime and it’s 98F and I’m bucking a typical 15 mph southeast tradewind down I37 to have fun on Padre Island. The AC is on and I’m in competition for a lane on I37 with trucks going 85 while trying to keep with my buddy in his 355 hp Suburban carrying a similar payload expect he’s also pulling his 22 foot Shallow water fishing boat. He’s going 80. Me, I’m going 70 mph fearing for my life looking for a top off of much needed electrons about half way there. Some green bachelor guy in LA might not mind a 3 hour fuel stop in Sweeny Switch but I doubt the wife and kids would enjoy it much.
Temperature, speed, wind and payload all radically limit range on my EV and when I realize the $60K I spent on a cool lithium powered tin can could have bought the Suburban instead, I’ll probably kick myself real hard in the rear bumper..
There is no mention of the use of an ev outside an urban environment the use seems to be purposely avoided thus has been a bogus discussion.
Look at the open vastness of north America for one. I take extra gas depending on my route. I guess with an ev I could tow a generator. Hey unless I missed it these articles ignore winter. Powering through snow, heater, wipers, headlights oh ya reduced range grow towing that generator.
How would all of this look in the US? We have much larger distances, routinely longer commutes, extremes of temperature from +100 F to -40 F depending on the season and region, and a serious car culture. Not to mention long standstill creeping along in slow traffic for hours. I’m betting not very well.
We have similar distances in Australia. I live in Townsville, the state capital, Brisbane, is 850 m south. There is a stretch, Mackay to Rockhampton that is 450 m. [This is the tropics so aircon is mandated.] It would be hard to put a recharging station halfway because there is no electricity supply. Houston, we have a problem.
There is plenty of electricy supply — It’s called Solar Thermal and PV with battery and Underground Thermal Energy Storage.
Duh
Nope
90% of all drivers in the US drive less than 30 miles per day
95% of all US drivers drive less than 50 miles per day
FACTS that have been posted in this thread multiple times
As an electronic geek of 40+ years, I’d quite fancy the idea of an electric toy.
As it happens, Renault have made it easy to compare electric vs diesel costs – via their (new) little Zoe car
See here:http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/news/154974/2017-renault-zoe-full-prices-specs-and-battery-details
As I work it out, the most economical way of doing it is to assume 10,500 miles per year – where you pay Renault £89 per month for battery rental. This actually, over the 5 year warranty for the battery, is the same as buying it outright – between £5,000 and £6,000, spec dependant (fast charge versus long range – cannot have both)
Taking UK electricity at 15 pence per unit, that gives a ‘per mile’ cost of 12.5 pence (assuming *maximum* 250 mile range)
AS I am constantly checking/aware, my VW diesel costs 9 pence per mile in fuel costs.
So the Zoe is roughly 40% more in ‘fuel cost’
So that make it simple to see – and possibly how electric cars are ‘getting close’
If battery costs were to halve, the electric car has it
And yes, the Zoe has a smartphone app so you can tell it (remotely) to warm up its battery and interior before you set off and while it’s still plugged into the grid… saving the battery.
Will battery costs halve? I doubt it, it is basically a commodity not a technology.
We have been putting lead/acid batteries in cars for 100 years and been making many millions a year. Have you bought a cheap one lately? The law of diminishing returns applies to everything but computers.
Your running cost comparison should be very worrying for any EV owners because it only includes the 5% tax on electricity.
When there are enough owners for the government to feel the pain of the 60% taxpaid on ff vehicles they will find a means of clawing it back.
That will decimate the false fuel economy figures that you show are already marginal over the diesel equivelent.
Your VW Diesel gets better than 50 miles per gallon?
Because Diesel in the UK is L4.46/gallon L1.18 per liter
Which requires 50 mpg to meet your 9 pence per mile claim
Purchased new with the 250 mile per 44 kilowatt-hour battery pack (26,000 pounds),
See here:http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/news/154974/2017-renault-zoe-full-prices-specs-and-battery-details
the entire cost of ownership including charging at 15 pence per kilowatt hour for 10,500 miles per year (258.3 pounds per year) is 28,583 Pounds Sterling
The fuel cost of this 50 mpg diesel is 9300 pounds over the same time frame, leaving the purchase price of the putative 50 mpg diesel at 19,217 Pounds or less — just to meet parity.
Drive any more (say 12,000 miles) and the diesel can cost no more than 18,250 pounds
Ooops — forgot to add oil changes, coolant changes, belts and hose changes
Here is a list of UK cars under 18,000 Pounds Sterling — except when you look at top of the line (like the 26000 pound Zoe — you can’t buy a 50 mpg diesel for 18,000 pounds and get the same amenities
I suggest you go back and redo the numbers.
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/top-10-new-crossovers-for-gbp18000-or-less/
The calculations are for 10 years of ownership
Not. Yet. Stop forcing me to force it.
It seems to me that, for the foreseeable future, a diesel electric with enough battery for 50 miles, under normal conditions, is the best option.
For short trips you can run purely on battery and recharging overnight would not be a significant problem. For long trips the diesel would cut in and refuelling would use the existing infrastructure. This would also protect you from problems such as power cuts when you want to recharge or excessive energy use due to problems such as being stuck in snow.
Under normal circumstances the generator would keep the battery at a healthy charge, say 10-20%; however, it could incorporate overrides so that one could operate on battery in cities and recharge during motorway cruising.
Granted you would be carrying a diesel generator around but seldom using it, however, the small battery pack would compensate for this.
Some people could have pure EV as a second car, that and the diesel electric would build up manufacturing and maintenance experience and develop the infrastructure for slow charging. Fast charging and an increase in EV could come later.
BillP I think you are largely right for most people. A propane or NG generator would reduce pollution and 150 mile battery range would greatly reduce the size of generator needed. Generator would only be used to charge batteries and could run constantly on long trips, from start, through meal and pee stops, etc. That would work well for me at least. An average trip about 70 miles with occasional long trips would be my usage. The generator would be a range extender only and not capable of sustained operation of the car. little different from a hybrid.
I think this line of thinking with a small dedicated power supply of some sort, whether it be a gasoline fuel cell, or a propane/diesel ICE engine, is the bridge that is needed to making this work with current electric infrastructure, at home, work and on the road. This isn’t a pure Hybrid under that definition that has the ICE engine also driving the wheels through more complexity, but just the ability to charge the battery on the fly, or while parked anywhere you like. Or escaping the hurricane for the long drive to safety.
Smaller battery packs mean a lower range on EV alone, but enough to completely do the entire average commute and practically an unlimited range with the small partial hybrid. Most of the time, one would charge just on a normal drier sized 30 Amp 240 volt charger, or even trickle charge on a 120 VAC 15 amp circuit all night. So no need to re-wire your house even if you only have a 60 Amp breaker panel with the 15 Amp option. Plus it makes it more appealing for the millions of people who currently reside in some housing without a dedicated parking spot or a source to plug into, although they could still get a fast charge at the commercial charging station. This concept is the holy grail for advancing the EV into mainstream convenient use. Why this hasn’t been addressed by Tesla will be in my opinion, the ultimate failure of Tesla. Or a least why they fail in the competitive marketplace of EV’s with hauling around a 3/4 ton of expensive batteries with a limited lifespan.