By Rud Istvan,
This is the first of two loosely related technology posts that ctm suggested might be interesting to WUWT. In full disclosure, the details stem from my financial interests in energy storage materials and related topics, having spent much time and money since 2007 on fundamental now globally issued energy storage materials patents for supercapacitance (the Helmholtz double layer physics that creates lightning in thunderstorms). Some of the info cited below is slightly dated because I was too lazy to make everything current. Some of this info was borrowed from my ebook The Arts of Truth and from a 2017 Climate Etc post. All conclusions nevertheless remain valid.
This post’s message (the abstract, if this were a normal clisci peer reviewed paper) is simple. Hybrid vehicles make economic and ‘climate’ sense. Plug ins may or may not depending on their architecture. Full electric vehicles (EVs) make neither economic nor climate sense.
Terms
There are various levels of vehicle electrification, so some definitions are needed. Hybrids all involve some degree of electrification of an otherwise fossil fueled vehicle. There are three generally accepted levels:
1. Simple engine off at idle, aka start/stop. This is not as technically easy as it sounds, since hydraulic fluid coupled automatic transmissions must be fully redesigned and starter batteries beefed up. Depending on drive circumstances, idle off can save about 5% fuel efficiency.
2. Regenerative braking, where the vehicle’s kinetic energy is recaptured to electrical storage and then reused in some fashion rather than dissipated as heat. Depending on vehicle size/weight and drive circumstances, regen braking can save about 7-9% fuel efficiency. Combined with idle off it is commonly known as mild hybridization, and typically cited mild hybrid values are something less than 15% net fuel efficiency gain. (There aren’t a lot of milds out there to provide real data.)
3. Full hybridization, which includes idle off, regen braking, and electric acceleration assist (plus some degree of electric only slow speed short distance motoring). Full hybrid fuel efficiency gains can be as high as 35-45%. Prius is the best known. Full details follow.
Then there are Plug in Hybrids (misleadingly aka PHEV), which can motor for some significant distance under battery alone. These come in two basic architectures. One is an ordinary full hybrid with a different or bigger battery, like the Prius Prime. The other is actually a range extended electric vehicle (not a true hybrid), like the Chevy Volt. The idea is to remove EV range anxiety, since a gasoline engine kicks in only when the battery is nearly exhausted. Details follow.
Then there are true electric vehicles like the Chevy Bolt or Tesla models. These operate on battery electric power alone, must be recharged from the grid, and commonly present ‘range anxiety’ for some subset of ordinary car use.
This post develops common sense conclusions for the following practical economic and environmental categories/cases:
-Start/Stop may make sense for both cases, but Milds do not;
-Full Hybrids almost always make sense for both cases;
-Plug Ins do or don’t make sense depending on the architecture;
-EVs never make sense for either case.
Hybrids
Simple start/stop makes economic and environmental sense by itself when the automatic transmission technology is changed from hydraulic fluid coupling to electronic dual clutch mechanical transmissions (DCT). Ford has announced that by 2019 all Ford transmissions (including pickups) will be DCT (which can simulate manual). Even without start/stop, the DCT alone gains 5-8% fuel efficiency by eliminating hydraulic fluid coupling losses. With a beefed up starter battery enabling start/stop, the full fuel efficiency savings are 10-13% while the incremental cost is minimal, maybe $100 for a beefier starter battery.
Mild hybridization has been tried several times, but it has almost never worked economically. There are two problems: a battery capable of accepting regen charging energy is pretty big if having acceptable vehicle life, and the extra machinery for using that electrical energy for whatever purpose. The only present commercial mild system is Valeo (a belt driven bigger combined starter/alternator for both regen and traction boost, plus a supercap plus PbA ‘hybrid’ storage system). Valeo’s system is only on a few of Peugeot’s Citroen diesels in Europe.
Full hybridization like the Toyota Prius or my 2007 Ford Hybrid Escape [i] works in several synergistic ways to improve fuel efficiency, and makes more economic sense in larger vehicles. (Note, in 2007, both hybrid technologies were identical, just scaled to different vehicles. Ford traded its European small diesel technology to Toyota in return for the Toyota Prius hybrid technology, no cash exchanged nor royalties owed.)
Full hybrid idle-off saves ~5% depending on traffic. Regenerative braking saves another ~7-9% depending on traffic. The additional power and torque of the electric motor enables two further major savings. First, the internal combustion engine (ICE) can be downsized, saving both weight and fuel. My AWD Escape hybrid uses a small 1.5L I4 engine yet is functionally comparable to the heavier AWD Escape V6. Second, the ICE can be converted from the Otto cycle to the Atkinson cycle. Atkinson ICE saves about 20% in fuel economy, but at the expense of significant torque loss. (Typical Otto ICE vehicles are ~26-30% thermally efficient, the lower number from regular gas compression ratios, the higher from premium gas compression ratios. Higher octane rating enables higher compression ratios and more efficiency.) The newest Prius I4 5th generation 2018 Atkinson ICE gets an incredible 37% thermal efficiency on regular! Atkinson ICE torque loss doesn’t matter in a full hybrid; the electric machine provides more than the lost torque. The 2018 Prius family gets combined 52MPG. It couples a 95 HP 1.8L Atkinson I4 with a 71 HP electric motor for a total of 192 HP in a mid size sedan.
There are two 2018 Prius battery choices. All models except the Prime use NiMH, same as my Escape and as Prius from its 2000 launch. The Prius Prime is their Plug In. No different than the other 2018 models in any respect EXCEPT a lithium ion battery (LIB), onboard charging, and a different battery control software scheme. To get >10 year >100,000 miles life NiMH needs to be floated between about 45% and 55% state of charge (SoC). It is only possible to motor a couple of miles at speeds under 20MPH before the engine kicks in so the alternator can recharge the NiMH traction battery. LIB allows the Plug In Prius Prime to motor 25 miles at any speed before the ICE kicks in. Prime 240V recharge time is just 2 hours. Warranty is 10 years or 100,000 miles, same as the NiMH non-plug in versions. Toyota’s only real incremental Prime costs are the incremental LIB over NiMH and associated onboard AC/DC charging electronics. Yet Toyota charges a $3,100 Prime premium (starting Prime 2018 MSRP $27,300). Makes sense for Toyota, and for enviro customers who want plug in cache. Whether it makes climate sense is a question explored below using the Volt as the example.
Prius comfortably seats 5 along with 24.6 cubic feet (cf) of cargo space (or 65cf with the rear seat folded down). Range is 633 miles from ~52 mpg. 2018 price is ≥$24,200 depending on model and trim. Toyota unsurprisingly sold ~1,170,000 Prius from 2010 (year of Volt introduction) through yearend 2015.
Now compare the alternate architecture, a range extended EV like the Chevy Volt. The 2016 Volt is powered by two electric motors providing only 149 HP, fed from a 18.4 Kwh LIB providing a marketed ~50 mile EV only range, twice that of the 2018 Prius Prime. The original all-electric range was chosen because about 2/3 of US urban trips are under 40 miles. With a 240V charger, Volt recharging takes 4.5 hours (with 120V charging, it takes 13 hours). The battery is warrantied for only 8 years or 100,000 miles. The LIB battery weights 405# (189kg) and is a 5.5 foot long T shaped monster. The range extending gasoline engine is a 1.5 liter 101HP I4 driving an onboard 54 Kw generator. With a full tank of gas and a fully charged battery, Volt range is ~408 miles. Seating is essentially only 4, and cargo capacity is only 10.6cf. For those middling vehicle values compared to Prius Prime the MSRP is ≥$33170. Unsurprisingly, Chevy has only sold about 117,000 Volts from 2010 launch through YE 2015 (the same time frame as Prius sales above, so a fair comparison). The comparable sales data say the Volt does not make much economic sense.
Do plug ins make environmental sense? Lets take the Volt, because it is more reliant on the generation grid.
EPA fuel economy ratings are required by law to be prominently placed on all new vehicles for sale in the US. This familiar sticker provides three numbers: city, highway, and combined (55/45) mpg.
Ambiguity arises from the changed plug in meaning of ‘miles per gallon’. Plug in range extended EVs like the Chevy Volt operate partly on a battery recharged from the grid, so no gallons for those miles. Volt gets a combined 37mpg in extended range mode using its gasoline engine to generate electricity. If a Volt never traveled more than about 40 miles before being recharged from the grid, its engine would never start and it would never use any gallons of gasoline. Its combined miles per gallon would be very ambiguous since division by zero is mathematically undefined.
To solve this very fundamental problem the EPA did two things. First, they calculated an energy equivalent 93 MPGe for electric ‘no gallons’ mode. We shall see that this equivalence is based on faulty assumptions. Then they explicitly assumed the Volt travels about 45% on battery alone, giving a weighted average of 60 MPGe. Except in environmental reality the Volt cannot possibly get that ‘official’ EPA mileage.
One gallon of automotive gasoline contains about 132 megajoules of heat energy. Volt’s combined ‘extended range’ (using its engine/generator) 37 MPG rating is about (132/37) 3.6 megajoules/mile. One KWh is also 3.6 megajoules; the gasoline rating is equivalent to 1 KWh/mile. This of course includes the engine/generator’s thermal losses, which are proven by the Volt’s exhaust and radiator.
The EPA sticker also says the Volt gets 36 KWh per 100 miles when the battery is powering the Volt’s electric motors! That is only 0.36 KWh/mile, 2.8 times the efficiency from the same electric motors! This discrepancy proves that the EPA MPGe rating does not include the fact that grid electricity generation is on average about 45% efficient (mixed now about half and half coal at 34% and CCGT at 61%), with up to 10% of that lost in transmission and another 10% or so in distribution. Power plants have smokestacks and cooling towers just like Volts have exhausts and radiators. Correcting for the laws of thermodynamics (which were only applied to Volt’s extended range mode), the Volt operates in battery mode about (.36/[0.45*0.8]) 1KWh/mile in comparable net energy/emissions equivalents. Of course moving the car takes the same energy in either gas or battery mode; Volt’s electric motors don’t care about their source of electricity.
EPA’s battery MPGe should be reduced to account for the thermal losses in generating and distributing grid electricity, since these were included in the 37mpg gasoline rating. The true energy equivalent battery mode is about (93*.45*.8) 33.5 MPGe. No surprise that this is even lower than 37 MPG using gasoline. Charging and discharging the Volt battery is inefficient, causing additional energy losses; the Volt battery is liquid cooled and has its own radiator partition. We can even estimate that EPA’s measured Volt battery energy efficiency is about (33.5/37) 90%. Using the EPA’s assumption about all electric driving, the final overall rating should be about (33.5*0.45+37*0.55) 35 MPGe. The 60MPGe EPA rating just nonsense, and clearly the better environmental choice by a factor of (52/35) almost 1.5x is a less expensive Prius of some sort.
A final observation. It follows without further analysis that the EV Chevy Bolt makes no sense either economically or environmentally. And by extension, neither do any other EVs. Economically the Bolt is horrible (and higher priced Teslas are worse). Range is only 238 miles. An hour of 240V recharging provides only 25 miles of range; to get 238 miles requires about 8-9 hours of charging. The Bolt essentially seats four, with only 16.9cf of cargo space. Yet the MSRP is ≥$37500. On a correctly compared environmental ‘global warming’ basis, Bolt has to be even worse than the Volt.
[i] Personal economic data from comparable vehicle functionality. My AWD 2007 Escape Hybrid (small true frame based SUV [not a crossover]) with a class 1 tow hitch is most comparable to the 2007 AWD Escape with a 3L V6 engine and class 2 tow hitch. V6 was 240 HP, my hybrid has a combined 247 HP–153 from the 1.5L I4 Atkinson ICE plus 94 from the electric motor. The 2007 MSRP hybrid premium over the V6 was ~$3400. BUT that year’s federal tax credit for this hybrid was $3500, so we were $100 better off on day one. Better, the AWD V6 EPA combined mileage was 23mpg, while my equivalent Hybrid is EPA combined 30mpg. That is 30% better mileage, saving gas for now 11 years and 85k miles. Best, the V6 used premium, my hybrid uses regular. The price difference in our area is over $1/gallon. So not only less gas, also cheaper gas. The fuel savings work out to about $6700 so far. The NiMH traction battery is still going strong and the vehicle has been basically problem free.
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BEVs are the technology of the past. My great-grandmother owned an electric car at the time of WWI. So did Mrs. Henry Ford. At that time, BEVs were a third of the cars on the road.
BEVs are really are pretty much the same now as they were then. The basic mechanism hasn’t changed. Wire some batteries to an electric motor. Close the circuit and go. Want to go faster? Use bigger motors and bigger batteries. Better tires, and better aerodynamics help, but they are independent of the power train.
BEVs are basically the same now as they were a century ago when my great-grandmother drove a BEV. Mrs. Henry Ford drove one too. By the time I knew her Granny had switched to Buicks.
BEVs are like vinyl sound recordings and mechanical watches, Nostalgia technology for a very limited coterie.
After reading the interesting article (thanks, Rud) and all the comments, my conclusion is that without subsidies at all layers, the market would sort this out by itself pretty quickly. IMHO hybrids would have a niche but full EVs would disappear, probably for decades. But I can’t see governments getting rid of all their subsidies any time soon, so we will be stuck with this mess for a long time.
BoyfromTottenham
My thoughts as well.
I heard something on the radio the other day that whilst London (predictably) is forging ahead with charging stations for the EV’s government have mandated will be sold from 2040, all other cities are lagging behind.
Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Imagine that, the epicentre of the liberal green world (funny that, calling city dwellers green) with the country’s parliament at it’s hub being able to afford all sorts of things like EV charging, Crossrail etc. whilst all other cities are scratching for cash.
I used to imagine my fellow Scot’s mad when they bitched about all the country’s money being spent in London, now I don’t think they’re quite as mad as I used to.
And yet not one single, meaningful power station of any description is located within the M25 (the motorway about 20 miles out from London that encircles the city for those not familiar), all those nasty emissions are farmed out to power stations in the countryside because the country bumpkins don’t understand what it’s like living with London air pollution. Nor is there a meaningful wind farm or solar array operating in the green belt around London because, well, we don’t want our quaint Kent countryside sullied with those monstrosities. Send the horrible things up to the wilds of Scotland and Wales, or out to sea, just not near us.
So how good are pure EV’s? Because make no mistake, when the bandwagon is rolling, London will ban everything except pure EV’s from it’s streets so the air is purer and cleaner than that surrounding the countryside power stations supplying all the charging.
They are great until one has to do an 800 mile round trip from Dartford (SE of London) to Glasgow and everyone will be squabbling for the few charging stations outside London. EV’s won’t suit most people so it must be hybrids of one sort or another and the latest report I saw was that most hybrids are company owned and no one plugs the damn things in to charge them. They are functioning for most of the time purely on petrol or diesel. Hardly surprising though as 40% of people in the UK have no driveway so must park on the street.
Imagine that, a perfect government theory predicated on human nature that doesn’t work in the real world because humans are, well…….human.
I mean, the switch over to diesel because they produce less CO2 than petrol cars went well in the UK, didn’t it?
None of this would be a debate were it not for bonkers politicians meddling in things they simply don’t understand. Remember, that in order to be a politician one (rightly) doesn’t need a qualification to ones name. So these ill educated nonentities hand pick their experts to advise them on how to get something done which seems like a good idea to them. If an expert doesn’t give them the answer they want, they simply move onto one that will. Stern Report anyone?
Hot Scot
‘I mean, the switch over to diesel because they produce less CO2 than petrol cars went well in the UK, didn’t it?’
Back in the 1990’s the EU commissioned a report that stated that diesel was worse than petrol. The commission was starting to legislate when the german car makers and govt heard of this lobbied the commission and turned the advice on its head.
So it was diesel vehicles that came out the winner in the legislation even though it was known at the time of the harm they did, and to live up to their lobbying VW had to falsify the software on their cars.
Now of course it is diesel vehicles being demonised and those who bought these on the govt advice are being castigated.
ironically I understand the very latest generation of diesels are now better than their petrol equivalents but I suspect its too late for the govt to do another somersault.
Mind you, it seems it is the wood burning stoves used by virtue signallers that might be worse than the fossil fuel vehicles. we will have to wait and see how that one plays out
This is slightly off topic. In 2022 for the Tokyo Olympics Japan is planning to demonstrate Hydrogen power for vehicles by installing infrastructure across Tokyo. In tandem there is a new technology – The Hazer process – which separates Methane to produce high quality graphite and H gas.
Yes, and there is another one developed by the CSIRO (also Australian, like the Hazer process) and I believe now licensed to Toyota (I think).
I have seen only one reference to it in a talk by the then head of the CSIRO a year or two ago about current bleeding edge CSIRO tech. This one uses (if I am remembering correctly) Hydrogen Peroxide to transport the hydrogen and nano-filters to separate the hydrogen at the fuel cell point. The filtering tech was the big innovation. It effectively does cold power free electrolysis. My recollection was that the hyrogen feed was for the purposes of generating electric power in the fuel-cell. The key advantage of the hydrogen peroxide (again I hope I have remembered the “fuel” correctly) claimed was that existing petro-chemical infrastructure and transport facilities could be re-tasked with little effort, so petrol stations and pipelines would become hydrogen peroxide providers. It also eliminated the explosion risk, etc of hydrogen as a fuel. It sounded interesting at the time but was hush-hush so only limited details were provided in the talk. I haven’t heard or seen anything about it since then, but then I haven’t been looking either.
Supposedly the tech was working at the time, but it required commercialization R&D (whatever that meant in this case – Probably filter construction and durability work, etc). I think it was a National Press Club (Australia) speech where I saw/heard all this. It was one of product in a series of innovations that he covered in the same talk. CSIRO have a very good track record in successful fundamental research leading to commercialization- the best known example is probably Wi-Fi, although there are literally hundreds of others.
” It also eliminated the explosion risk, etc of hydrogen as a fuel. ”
Are you (and CSIRO) out of your mind? Hydrogen peroxide is highly unstable and explosive. Ever heard of the german Me 163 “Komet” rocket fighter? Guess what it used for fuel? Right, hydrogen peroxide.
Yes – Good point. Silly me. Like I said – I was retelling this from memory of a once off speech, where I was actually interested in a different tech he was spruiking. I looked it up now (obviously it isn’t hush anymore since it was easy to check) – the fuel was Ammonia.
Since I was reading up on rocket technology around that time the two ideas probably merged in my brain.
“EPA’s battery MPGe should be reduced to account for the thermal losses in generating and distributing grid electricity, since these were included in the 37mpg gasoline rating.” The MPG gasoline rating describes how far you can generally expect to drive using a gallon of gasoline’s worth of energy, and The MPGe rating similarly describes how far you can generally expect to drive using an amount of electrical energy equivalent to a gallon of gasoline’s worth of energy. The MPG gasoline rating has nothing to do with the process of generating the gasoline fuel, only with how efficient the car is at converting that fuel to motion so why should the MPGe rating be determined any differently?
A rather silly article that attempts to prove a hybrid is more fuel efficient than an
all electric and somehow superior in other ways as well. Of course, as we speak a lot of
the article’s aruments becomeless and less plausible as battery prices decline. For it is battery prces, and nothing else, which renders gas powered vehicles cheaper to build. Technologically, an electric car is far simpler, easier and cheaper to repair, requires virtually no maintenance, and is far more reliable. It also does not produce deadly small carbon particles. Arguing about energy efficiency is rather ridiculous, as an electric car can and oftenis powered by nuclear or hydro -in my state almost 60% power is nuclear and a gas powered car cannot run onnuclear power, the cleanest power available and with the advent of molten salt reactors, will also be the cheapest power. REgardless, electricity averages 12 cents per kWhr in this country and that is what EV owner pay, on average.
Power from DC fast chargers is limited almost exclusively for travel. This author’s small hybrid gets 30MPG and using regular gas, costs about 8 cents per mile in fuel costs. An equivalent EV can be expected to achieve 3 ro 4 miles per kWhr, costing between 3 and 4 cents per mile or less than half
the author’s fuel costs. He also is required to change the oil, filters, transmission fluid, cooling fluid, etc Tesla has a number of aged Model S vehicles which have acheved over a million miles with no repairs required. Tesla will warranty the electric motors on its semi trucks for one million miles. And reapirinng/replacing an electric motor is child’s play and no electric car requires a transmmission overhaul or replacement, an expensive proposition. Electric cars are inherently cheaper to repair and require far less drivetrain repairs. The author’s note that he has had no major repairs is meaningless – there are many,many major repairs required for the very complicated ICE engines and transmissions. The main points made by the author cherry pick the electric cars it references. It bemoans the Bolt’s 238 mile driving range , which is one of the shorter ranges showing up on recently developed EVs, many of which exceed 300 miles and, what’s more important, can be recharged at DC stations now at the rate of 80% capacity in less than 10 minutes. Slower recharge rates using 240Volt outlets at home are, quite frankly,irrelevant, given the fact that driving ranges are totally adequate for daily driving. Except for the battery costs, anelectric car will, over the next several years, be cheaper to build than a gas powered vehicle. All of the automakers are planning for EV-only products within a few years from now. Gas engines have
run their course – they are too complicated, cost too much to fuel, emit emissions that are harmful
and are too unreliable and require an expensive transmission.
kent beuchert
Why have petrol/diesel vehicles dominated the market for over 100 years?
Why is it necessary to subsidise EV’s to make them attractive to users?
kent beuchert
I just looked at the price of a Nissan Leaf in the UK
“£27,890 OTR (INCLUDING GOVERNMENT INCENTIVE)”
This is a small family saloon which, as you point out, is far simpler than a conventional ICE vehicle to build yet I can buy a similar sized ICE car for around £15,000.
So to my simple mind, remove the government subsidy and you’re getting on for £35,000. That would seem to suggest that in excess of £20,000 is the cost of the battery.
Forgive me again if I’m wrong but, being that there have been over 1M Toyota Prius’s built, economies of scale have long since been reached in the EV/hybrid market yet there is still an enormous gulf in pricing, so where are more economies of scale to come from?
I’m afraid the entire endeavour smacks of fascism, governments in bed with big manufacturers to impose ideological principles on the public, none of which are affordable or practical. These ideologies are already causing riots in the streets of France.
Just take a look at the facts. The government and its agencies (like the IPCC), and the MSM, pushing climate change as impending doom, when we know nothing could be further from the truth, based on a dishonest concept that a single trace gas in the atmosphere is causing this disaster when there is no evidence that it does anything but good.
The western world is now being told what to do by governments, not the other way around. Big business is agreeable to this because they can work with governments to maximise profits. The EU has perhaps accomplished this better than anyone else up until now by installing an unelected bureaucracy to make decisions ‘on behalf of’ 27 formerly independent nations. They pass laws in secret, tariffs are imposed on goods not coming from EU countries and the concept of climate change is making a lot of wealthy people even wealthier whilst the poor are enduring rising costs for energy.
I’m far from a conspiracy theorist but unintentionally or otherwise, the western world, led by Europe is sleepwalking into fascism. And we know from Christina Figueres and others that there is a will to change the world order.
Were it not for government mandates, EV’s would not see the light of day in any meaningful time frame despite their limited advantages.
Don’t forget that as many more batteries are required, so are the raw materials, just take a look at the cost increases in Cobalt & Lithium over the last 10 years.
Batteries will soon start to get more expensive not less.
Except that the Cobalt and Lithium are recyclable.
The subsidies are sham. Tesla buyers spending $80k to over $100k don’t need a $7.5k tax incentive.
It sounds great to get $7500 off a $32500 car though. But what reall7 happens is that when the subsidy/tax credit goes away, you get $0 off of a $25,000 car. They don’t sellnfor $32500 anymore.
The subsidy really goes to the manufacturer.
and with the advent of molten salt reactors
so when are these molten salt reactors going online? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Here’s a comment by “T12432” I’m re-posting from the Seeking Alpha site, followed below the line by a comment of mine:
T12432 @Brucie,
The term hybrid and electric vehicles covers a broad range of technologies, some which take petrol or diesel, some that plug-in, and some that do both. So what’s what?
We’ll start with the non-plug in hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius. These cars run exclusively on petrol (or diesel in some cases), but one or more motor-generators allow energy usually wasted, such as during idling or braking, to be recovered and used later to help acceleration. Many hybrids are capable of driving completely on electric power for very short distances at low speeds.
If we take this concept and add a larger battery and an on-board charger, we can add some electricity (which is cheaper and cleaner than petrol) to further improve the concept- hence a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or PHEV.
We then have the pure electric vehicles [BEVs]. A much larger battery and motor replaces the combustion engine and fuel system, and the car can be charged at home overnight and driven during the day. The vast majority of models feature DC rapid charging so that long journeys can be completed without having to stop for several hours to recharge en route.
If we add an on-board generator to an electric vehicle, we can drive the vehicle locally on electric power, and then use petrol on a longer journey- this means the car benefits from silent and cheap driving in daily use, but has the flexibility to use either charging points or petrol stations on longer trips- hence the term extended range electric vehicle, or EREV. [This is also known as a serial hybrid, as contrasted with a parallel hybrid like the Prius.]
BMW’s i3 is available as a pure electric vehicle, or with an optional range extender- a 650cc motorcycle engine that charges the battery with no connection to the wheels. The electric motor has 170bhp, but the petrol engine produces just 33bhp. Theoretically this would mean the petrol engine would have no chance of filling up the battery as quickly as the motor can empty it. However, the 170bhp figure is of course the peak power available during hard acceleration. When cruising, the power consumption is far less, and when braking, the vehicle can actually recover energy and put it back into the battery. Because the range extender can run at a constant speed regardless of vehicle conditions, it only needs to top the battery up at the same rate as average consumption, not the consumption at that moment in time.
So, what’s the difference between a PHEV and an EREV? The answer is that it’s a bit of a grey area- some are nearly all electric with a small backup engine, whereas others are essentially a hybrid car with a large battery that can be plugged in. The government lumps them all into the same category. The generally accepted view is that a vehicle that can drive at full power on electricity (such as the Vauxhall Ampera) is a range-extended electric. Cars that need the combustion engine’s help during hard acceleration (such as the Mitsubishi Outlander) are in the plug-in hybrid category.
The last thing to mention is driving modes- all PHEVs and EREVs use electricity preferentially. The ICE will cut in when the battery is low.
The EREV currently seems to be winning the investment $ from the larger manufacturers.
====================
The comment above fails to mention the 48-volt “mild hybrid,” in which regenerative braking and a small petrol engine top up a 48-volt battery that in turn supplies juice to power-hungry modern accessories and takes control of certain accessories traditionally powered by belts connected to the engine or by hydraulics (e.g., water pump, power braking, power steering, fan) and controls their operation more flexibly, based on digital inputs. It is claimed to provide 2/3 of the benefits of a hybrid (in terms of efficiency) at 1/3 of the cost. See https://www.google.com/search?num=50&newwindow=1&client=safari&rls=en&ei=szh_W5veA6mL0gK-053gAw&q=48v+mild+hybrid+cars&oq=48-volt+car+electrical+systems&gs_l=psy-ab.1.5.0i71k1l8.0.0.0.618545.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1..64.psy-ab..0.0.0….0.gtrX2Z5fFTI
There are also big efficiency improvements among new Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs). These include, starting with the most likely to succeed soon:
Bosch-tweaked clean diesel engines. See http://bit.ly/2I1MRC1
Mazda’s SkyActiv-X and SkyActiv-3 Spark-Controlled Compression Ignition (SPCI) petrol engine. See https://gas2.org/2018/01/30/mazda-says-new-skyactive-3-engines-will-clean-electric-cars/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD1mPPkuRIE
Achates Opposed Cylinder 2-stroke, 3-cylinder, no-valve diesel engine. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D-WUD1CqlE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf6OH4iVUkY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF5j1DvC954
https://youtu.be/JoQkTIfAB2U
Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder (OPOC) engine (backed by Bill Gates)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y8QqeuvArE
Free-piston linear engine range extender by Sir Joseph Swan Centre for Energy Research at Newcastle University and Toyota. YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4b0_6byuFU
LiquidPiston mini X improved rotary engine having the size of a smartphone and not needing oil or pistons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtDXNEn-hFA
The company’s website is http://liquidpiston.com.
PS: Rud: I believe the word is spelled “cachet,” not “cache.” (The latter is a stored-away bunch of food, supplies, valuables, etc.)
Caché
cachet [kaˈSHā]
NOUN
1.the state of being respected or admired; prestige.
cache [kaSH]
NOUN
1.a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place.
Rud -interesting article but the following caught my eye:
with up to 10% of that lost in transmission and another 10% or so in distribution
I’m an electrical engineer in electrical T&D and have done considerable work in energy losses in public grids. Typically, transmission losses are 1-2% and distribution around 5-7%. From memory, the US is about 7-8% for T&D combined on average.
The moment I read that a hybrid made sense I stopped reading and went to the comments.
It will never makes sense to carry a spare engine and energy source around with you. Either an electric car can do what a fossil fuelled car can or it cannot. A milk float is great if all you ever do is 20mile trips. Hybrids frequently do less to the gallon on longer trips than petrol or diesel.
Stephen Richards
In one of my earlier comments I mentioned a study done on usage of plug in hybrids in the UK. Most of them are company vehicles and virtually none of them were ever plugged in, instead the drivers relied on the petrol/diesel engines.
Hybrids to date have proved their worth in city driving, where they capture and regenerate braking energy, and get nearly 50 mpg. They make sense as taxis. Toyota has sold over a million Prius’s, and its March 2019 Rav4 hybrid crossover will get 39 mpg vs. its previous gas-only Rav4’s 29 mpg.
And here’s a supplemented reprint-extract from my long comment a little bit above:
the (inexpensive) 48-volt “mild hybrid,” in which regenerative braking and a small petrol engine (Mazda’s forthcoming 2021 version will use a tiny (50-pound) rotary engine running at constant optimal speed (no seal losses)) top up a 48-volt battery that in turn supplies juice to power-hungry modern accessories and takes control of certain accessories traditionally powered by belts connected to the engine or by hydraulics (e.g., water pump, power braking, power steering, fan) and controls their operation more flexibly, based on digital inputs. It is claimed to provide 2/3 of the benefits of a hybrid (in terms of efficiency) at 1/3 of the cost. See https://www.google.com/search?num=50&newwindow=1&client=safari&rls=en&ei=szh_W5veA6mL0gK-053gAw&q=48v+mild+hybrid+cars&oq=48-volt+car+electrical+systems&gs_l=psy-ab.1.5.0i71k1l8.0.0.0.618545.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1..64.psy-ab..0.0.0….0.gtrX2Z5fFTI
Not if you consider the advantage of regenerative braking. Also a hybrid allows the ICE to be run more often at its ‘sweet spot’ which also leads to more efficiency.
Now almost 92 I no longer drive a car, instead I use Taxi’s. We are amazed at how much better off we are financially.
In todays world running a car with all of its extra costs, Maintaince, Insurance, registration, lincence, plus fuel, is a very expensive business for the actually travelled distance.
True we do occasionally miss the car, but not all that much.
I think long term governments will tax private travel out of existance and we will be forceed to use public transport.
MJE
True. The whole system penalizes the light car user, and benefits the heavy user. Fixed costs of owning a car are probably around £1000 a year, and much higher if your car is new. Fuel costs for the occasional user probably don’t even amount to this. Since public transport is not a universal solution and taxis are crazy expensive, that creates a situation where have car, will use car.
Worse still are the residential parking zones where residents without driveways have to pay to park onstreet, usually 8am to 6pm. That forces residents to drive to work every day or else pay a penalty for leaving the car at home, even if work is within walking distance. I can’t think of any measure worse for creating unnecessary traffic.
Why burn natural gas to generate electricity to charge a battery to move a vehicle? Instead use compressed natural gas powered vehicles.
NG plant’s (ccgt) are only about 45% efficient. It may be true that a dated individual compressed natural gas engine is about 15%, giving the plant a 3x advantage, but state of the art CNG is more like 22%. A 2x plant advantage is more realistic. The cost advantage of CNG vs EV. Compressed natural gas at $5.00 mcf is half the cost of EV at $0.15 kwh (do the math with these current Cali prices) even at 22% engine conversion efficiency. Transportation of NG via pipelines is much more economical than electricity through wires. CNG refilling is fast and simple so the $100’s of billions of new electric distribution for home recharging is avoided. EV’s are a serious waste of money now that NG is once again abundant…they are a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, the same as >30 MPG fuel requirements. Want to really be smart? Convert all USA vehicles to CNG and export refined gasoline to the rest of the world for their gasoline powered cars…except of course for those markets using coal-fired generation to power their EV’s.
What makes a lot of sense is to use natural gas cogeneration plants which will improve the energy efficiency up into 80%+ range.
Another factor to be considered is domestic supply capacity. In the USA, many houses have 200A at 2x120v, in the UK it’s typically 80A at 240V single phase. Either would charge an EV in a reasonable time so long as you don’t expect to run other heavy loads at the same time. However in Europe it’s a very different situation, with French or Spanish houses often having no more than 40A supplies. The limit on this is quite strict too, even a few amps over will cause a tripout.
On all supplies some allowance will have to be left for other household uses, so the situation on the 40A supply is actually a LOT worse than on the 80A or 200A supply.
Are all such houses to be upgraded? How much will this cost? The UK smart meter rollout is projected to cost £14 billion, and I can imagine that a full cabling upgrade would cost a whole lot more than that, including digging up roads, etc.
Ian Macdonald
It’s worse than you thought!
40% of UK households don’t have off street parking so there would need to be on street charging facilities.
I’m one of those 40% and we have three cars in our household. One of the proposals is to use lamp posts as charging points, but I believe these are conventional single phase 240V supplies. Our street is lined with, probably 20 cars, and there are 2 lamp posts convenient for conversion. But a single phase supply won’t charge 10 EV’s any time soon, quite apart from the ‘huddle’ of cars around them for which there are no parking facilities. So that means 3 phase cabling must be run to dedicated charging points which presumably means a dedicated parking spot for each vehicle.
So use long cables…….with all this demand for copper the price will soar. There will be scrap metal gangs roaming the streets with heavy rubber gloves and cutters snipping lengths of cable to strip and sell. They do it right now on the railway network and with the transport Police patrolling, what chance do we have with a depleted Police force already suffering unbearable strain?
So what if each household in our street adds another car to their ‘fleet’? We were a 4 car family but I sold mine as I wasn’t using it. Where are the new charging points going to be situated? How are the parking spots to be allocated? Or is it just a free for all and if you can’t charge your car for work the next morning do you call in saying your car’s taking a sick day?
Then there’s visitors. Weekends and holidays are a joke for parking where we are, how is that to be accommodated?
The answer always seems to be that a single charge will last a week for a commuter from the smug EV loyalists. Oh yea? My wife travels around twenty miles to work and back every day. A one way trip is usually around an hour, stuck in traffic with either the heater or air conditioning on, never mind lights, radio, mobile phone charging etc. around four months of the winter. Then we have to use the car for shopping, visiting and numerous other domestic tasks.
Remember, this is not an isolated case, 40% of the UK population suffer this inconvenience.
Nor will our government provide solutions, they never do, these things always turn into mayhem when those blighter’s get their sticky mitts on them.
Having upgraded the House and Street Electrical system to cope we then get the Snowball effect, you have to upgrade the Sub Stations, then the Power Stations.
It is Utter MADNESS when we already have a system in place that works.
We have thousands of homeless, thousands using Food Banks, millions of old age pensioners on subsistence levels, lack of housing, schools, police, hospital beds, nurses doctors etc etc and they want to completely WASTE Billions on this boondoggle.
The word CRIMINAL comes to mind.
Instead of stealing the cable they might just steal the electricity to charge their car or run their house. Less obvious than cutting the cable, and if done stealthily the victim won’t even notice it going on. Not sure if there is any security built into these charging systems but even if there is, the crooks will find a way round it.
Ian Macdonald
Aye, they’ll do that as well. But the criminal mind works in mysterious ways. They would generally far rather nick a bit of cable than bother with anything sophisticated like nicking the leccy. These are not bright people.
I was a cop many years ago and nicked a guy who had spent hours one night stealthily cutting through a pub roof. He climbed in, stole the till float and tried to climb out again. He couldn’t reach the hole again despite stacking tables and chairs he kept falling from. So he pondered his predicament over a free glass of whisky, then another, then another. He spent the rest of the night and morning drinking until he passed out.
The barman opened the pub at 10:30 am or so and found him and called us. We realised what had happened, by this time he couldn’t move never mind speak, and walked (dragged) him out the front door, passing a set of 10′ ladders on the way, more than high enough for him to clamber out with a £5 till float.
He was well known in our community and never lived that one down, we made sure of it. 🙂
The power requirement is about the same as your computer and peripherals to charge overnight, on average. Did you have to upgrade the grid when you got your computer???
Two things: (1) The Volt can and does use both electric and gas at the same time.
(2) The power requirements to charge the Gen I Volt vary from 900 watts to 3300 watts depending on whether you use 120V at 8 amps, 120V at 12 amps, or 240V at 14 amps.
3300 watts is about how much a 15 SEER 48,000BTU central air conditioner uses–indoor fan and outdoor fan/compressor. It’s less than the 5000 watts a water heater or electric dryer use.
As far as electric grid capacity…probably the BIGGEST power user you’ll find in a residence is the electric aux heat used as backup for the heat pump. 20kW for mine. I guarantee you that when it got down to 0F here last year, pretty much all of those heat pumps around here were using the aux heat, every single one of them pulling between 40 and 80 amps. There were no brownouts nor did the power fail.
Start-stop systems are hardly economically and ecologically feasible – I have one in our Mazda 3 and while it saves maybe 1-2 minutes of idling each day, it destroyed the battery only after 3 years. And battery for start-stop costs about twice as much as a normal one, not to mention the recyclation costs and ecological impact.
Problem is that if the start-stop system should save any fuel, the battery drain can’t be compensated by recharging during normal driving, only when rolling (unless the charge drops below certain level). Therefore the battery in modern cars with start-stop system is almost empty most of the time, which drastically reduces its lifetime.
To say nothing of the wear & tear on the Engine & Starter Motor.
There is also a safety issue with some cars, my son’s Zaffira switches off at roundabouts, so he sees a space in the traffic to pull into, puts his foor down and nothing, he has to wait a few second while the Engine restarts. I hav ealso seen a young lady in a BMW Mini have a really close call due to the same thing.
This is bad enough in most areas, but somewhere like Hyde Park corner must be terrifying as all the drivers rely on the other drivers knowing exactly where they are going and fitting in to the “flow”.
I would never own a car that has it fitted unless it can be permenantly switched off.
ps, this Aussie sums it up really well.
Reminds of the people who were bellyaching about high efficiency ligth bulbs.
Nonsense, or you should fix the car.
I’ve driven many cars with start/stop. My MB also has the feature.
The engine starts immediately when you release the brake, before you have a chance to push the accelerator. Fitting in a small gap at a roundabout was never a problem.
Modern starters are direct drives. There is no reductors, so there is nothing to “wear & tear”
You are forgetting one very important point about EV’s like the Tesla – they are FAST. Mind bendingly quick off the line, and silently! Thats got to count for something?
Car nuts have known for decades:
“Loud pipes save lives.”
“they are FAST”
But the fast doesn’t last. Thy poop out if run with the pedal to the metal for more than 15 minutes or so. Perhaps a better term would be quick, which is useful in passing situations, and in entering a traffic-stream situation.
Boring post here. Traded in my 64,000 mile Citroen Picasso 5 seat plenty space for identical copy 1800 miles for £8000 total, getting 52.5m/English gallon with Urea tank for exhaust cleaning. EVs not on my horizon
Coeur de Lion
One of the best cars I ever had, 2007, 1.6L turbo diesel Grand Picasso. Pounded up and down to Scotland from Kent frequently with 2 adults, 2 children, 2 dogs, a roof box full of family kit, at 95 MPH when I could, and still got high 40’s MPG. Over 400 miles each way and no more than a splash and dash for the last 50 miles or so. My 2015 Mercedes E class estate was faster, but I didn’t go any faster, was no more comfortable or secure, but cost about £20K more.
I haven’t seen an EV which can compete with that.
Indeed a good article; but it makes me wonder whether all this technology is achieving very much. My 1987 Merc. diesel does about 37mpg. Range 500 miles. with 173000 on the clock. My last Merc. clocked up 859000 miles before corrosion finally hit. OK improvements can be made on consumption/ gadgets etc.; but ride, comfort and reliability are brilliant.
Seems to me that the diesel hybrid with regen braking, and electric propulsion in urban areas is a sensible way forward, with reliability being a main factor; as total lifecycle is where our attentions should be. Obsolescence being a major emitter; but that is a very different subject as we need to wean ourselves off this weird obsession with CO2.
Very informative. Thank you!
A couple of things that I haven’t seen discussed with regard to EVs and hybrids:
1. In many places in the country, we get WINTER. This means the need to heat the passenger cabin and defrost the windshield. In a pure electric vehicle, my guess is that this would absolutely kill the range.
2. Hybrids have essentially two drive systems. Does this complexity mean less reliability and more maintenance issues?
My Honda Hybrid gave great mileage and I didn’t notice any difference in winter. maintenance costs were actually less than conventional ICE of similar capacity.
We are looking at Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivan. Gets 33 miles on a charge before gas kicks in. 7500 tax rebate.
We have Yukon for long trips.
But it is still hard to justify with gas being 1.97 a gallon like I saw yesterday. I live in Tx. Take away state and fed gas tax that would be 1.50 a gallon.
“7500 tax rebate” == 7500 tax paid by someone else
It is an Incentive to encourage the market to do something faster than it otherwise would.
Kind of like when you pay your kid to empty the garbage. 😉
That rebate ends for each manufacturer after they sell 200,000 plug-ins in the US. Tesla’s subsidy will drop to $3750 in January 2019, and GM will follow 3 months later.
Thank you for the article. It helps in comparison shopping when you have something like that to review first.
I no longer own a car because renting one as needed is a lower cost per month than my auto insurance rates were, and that provides an opportunity to “test drive” many different kinds of vehicles. Mostly, I just run errands locally. Gas in my area is so much lower per gallon now than it was 6 years ago that with the “economy” factors added to a vehicle’s gas mileage, I found several that could run for a very long distance and show high MPG results. However, if I”m going to take a car on a road trip, I’d prefer something more solid and likely to suffer less damage than a Hyundai econobox.
If/when I ever get a car again, I’m going to stick with Ford. Not impressed with Chevrolet and do NOT under any circumstance want a car that has the fatal rep that the Tesla has developed.
Thanks for the article.
The amount of co2 used by ev’s depend on source of electricity. Is it nuclear, coal, gas, solar etc
There is huge range here. If you get electricity from old coal plant then this is not very efficient so EV won’t help much with co2
If you get electricity from old coal plant
In the US the sources are all mixed together onto the distribution network. One can’t distinguish any individual source.
German Diesel technology beats the Prius mileage and efficiency. I am driving MB E200d and getting 1000 km (633 miles) or more on single fill is normal.
Pure ev cars are interesting. Of course, these must be SUVs and not the funny small cars. The SUV can carry a big battery and saves the weight of combustion engine.
Chinese have shown a set of excellent full electric SUVs recently with mileage of 400 miles and more on single charge.
The price tag is somewhere around $15k for Chinese market.
Why buy an electric car, if it is going to cost the same to drive as a conventional ICE car?
I have mentioned before on WUWT, that the west coast governments of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California are thinking about mileage taxes for electric cars. Electric car owners don’t buy gasoline. So, that lost tax revenue will be have to be collected somewhere else.
Here are two examples
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Metro Vancouver’s mobility pricing commission starts consultations
No firm proposals on the table yet but new revenue sources needed for transportation system, mayors say
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mobility-pricing-metro-vancouver-1.4371429
Moving around Metro Vancouver: EXPLORING NEW APPROACHES TO REDUCING CONGESTION (36 pages)
An exploration of the regional baseline, and implications for mobility pricing
https://www.itstimemv.ca/uploads/1/0/6/9/106921821/its_time_e1_research_report_-_moving_around_metro_vancouver_-_oct_24.pdf
Washington Road Usage Charge Pilot Project
Test Drive the Road Ahead
GAS TAX WON’T MEET FUTURE NEEDS
https://waroadusagecharge.org/
Found in today’s newspaper…
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As B.C. moves to electric vehicles, TransLink will need to replace gas tax
Experts suggest using money from other sources, such as mobility pricing, development cost charges, property taxes and sales taxes instead.
The B.C. government’s move to require all new vehicles sold in the province to be zero emissions by 2040 should be a wakeup call to the region’s transit authority to wean itself off the gas tax, according to experts.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/as-b-c-moves-to-electric-vehicles-translink-will-need-to-replace-gas-tax
Plug in range extended EVs like the Chevy Volt operate partly on a battery recharged from the grid, so no gallons for those miles. Volt gets a combined 37mpg in extended range mode using its gasoline engine to generate electricity. If a Volt never traveled more than about 40 miles before being recharged from the grid, its engine would never start and it would never use any gallons of gasoline.
A friend of mine bought one of this type as his wife’s daily commute vehicle, they’ve had it more than a year and not had to use gasoline at all, they’re delighted with it.
Thanks, Rud, nice compilation of info on EVs & their variants.
Still won’t ever have one tho.
Cars and batteries go together really well, now I don’t have to crank my car to start it!