By P Gosselin
Green technology debacle
“Hidden gas guzzlers”…The wonders of electric cars are turning out to be pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
Massive energy losses from generation, to transmission, to charging and during battery storage are turning electric mobility into a cost nightmare.
“E-cars lose massive amounts of power during charging,” reports the online 24hamburg-de here, citing results of tests conducted on a variety of electric cars of different price classes and sizes by Germany’s ADAC automobile association.
This makes electric cars even more expensive, and less affordable, than previously thought.
The ADAC’s results show, “electricity consumption when charging electric cars is significantly higher than indicated on the consumption displays.”
Manufacturers forgot to tell e-car buyers that lots of energy – about 10% – in fact gets lost during charging and battery storage.
Wasting huge amounts of energy
“The result is devastating,” reports 24hamburg.de.
“With a gasoline-powered car, that would be like spilling a few liters when refueling,” says the ADAC.
Apparently. significant energy gets lost by all the electrical systems, from the charging station, to the on-board charger and the drive battery in the car itself.
Currently e-car owners are forced to contend with a myriad of obstacles in their quest to achieve the level of convenience and comfort that combustion engine vehicle drivers enjoy. “Not surprisingly, a survey by the German automobile association ADAC had previously shown that e-car drivers were still extremely dissatisfied with the infrastructure of charging stations,” reports 24hamburg.de.
Major charging losses
The ADAC tested electric vehicles were all connected to the same 22-kW wall box at 23 degrees ambient temperature, all under the same conditions. According to the test results: “a 100 kWh battery in a Tesla Model X100D actually requires 108.3 kWh. The Kia e-Niro Spirit requires 72.3 kWh for a 64 kWh battery. Even the Jaguar I-PACE EV400 needs at least 10 kWh more for a 90 kWh battery,” reports 24hamburg.de.
With skyrocketing electricity prices in Germany, these hidden costs are turning out to be substantial. But the news will soon get a lot worse, 24hamburg.de reveals: “Electricity prices will rise by 320 percent. […] Driving electric cars is and will be more expensive for drivers than previously thought.”
Currently charging rates in German cities are at about 50 euro-cents a kilowatt hour. With a 300% rise, mobility is about to become a luxury only affordable by the rich.
Germany’s once much ballyhooed “Energiewende” is unraveling, and turning into a grand technological fiasco.
But doesn’t electricity come from wall sockets?/s
Yes! Just like those miracle cash-dispensing machines.
3…2…1…
Insert Griff Denial and praise for renewable German Energy costs
That article is pure baloney. Compared to an internal combustion engine powered car, an electrical vehicle is about four times more efficient from well to wheel. Did you ever wonder why an ICE car has a huge radiator out front? That’s to dump most of the 75% energy loss from combustion.
where does the electricity come from? Out of the air?
No the electricity comes from varied sources, including fossil fuels. But a combined cycle gas fired electrical generating plant can be up to 65% efficient. Even allowing for small losses due to transmission, it’s far better to burn fossil fuels this way and produce electricity than to burn them in an inefficient ICE car.
Like the one Hunter found in China, with the Big Guy getting his
usual 10%?
Move along, nothing to see here.
Said the FBI agent in charge.
Peeloose visit to island of Formosa put an end to that love-in.
“…those miracle cash-dispensing machines.”
We disabused our children of that notion early on in life.
When I was a kid I thought money grew on trees!
It does. Just ask Drax.
Electricity is generated by Green gerbils without environmental impact, just as babies are believed to be delivered by Stork at the age of convenience.
Only in Scotland
https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/08/16/scottish-coppers-given-evs-but-nowhere-to-charge-them/
“The party claims that one Police Scotland officer said: “Where I work they gave us five new EVs but no charging point. They had to charge them via one cable through an office window and into a domestic three-point socket – guess what happened to the socket.”
Did it take long to put the fire out.
They’ll just have to wait by a nice warm wood fire using those 14 million trees they harvested to make room for the bird choppers. Eventually they’ll be able to charge them. when the wind blows. mean time, enjoy the fire w/a wee dram.
They’ll need more than a wee dram to stay warm, especially while inside the EVs. Since they won’t be allowed to use the heaters.
The current Oz federal government would suggest that the fix for this is more EVs, similar to their plan to fix our dearth of renewable energy due to low wind/sun by installing more wind/solar systems
This is described as “doubling down on stupid”.
The current batch of Western politicians are dangerously deluded about “demon” CO2.
Carbon pollution.
/sarc.
I am waiting for Albo and comrades to explain where the skilled labour would come from to speed up the transition to wind and solar within the short period his government’s ministers are talking about.
And including the unreliable dedicated grid system transmission lines and feeder transmission lines to the grid.
I wonder how many EV charging points there will be in the outback. In the Nullabor, say.
Nullabor. Just from its name I can tell it’s a long long way from anywhere.
Nullarbor Plain. No trees. And the Eyre Highway doesn’t actually drive on much on the Plain, just a small corner of it. A company is attempting to sell combo diesel/EV charger units for use out there.
Hi hi 😀
A great big DUH!
There is energy loss any time energy is converted from one form to another. Nothing is 100% efficient. The energy to charge EV’s has been converted from one form to another just to get the electricity. That’s the first loss. Then it has to be converted to high transmission lines, which is another loss. Every time it is stepped up or down are more losses. There is loss in the charging STATION itself. Then there is the loss of charging the battery itself.
Or, you can just burn gas. Like my Dodge Magnum SRT8… 🙂
And how much oil is used to convert tha required oil to gasoline, and how much diesel and electricity is required to deliver that gasoline to you?
Most of that are sunk costs, already priced into the price of gasoline. The ancillary costs for electric vehicles is *NOT* already priced into the cost of electricity. That’s why it keeps on just going up as more and more inherent costs are identified and must be paid for.
And, nobody is talking about the insurance rates for a more expensive car, or what might happen to home-owner’s insurance rates if the EV is parked and re-charged in an attached garage. It seems that all of the virtue-signalling advocates for EVs are wearing blinders.
And ear plugs.
Mr. K: Yes, when using hands-over-ears and yelling “lalalalalala” just won’t do.
That’s reflected in the cost at the pump.
A few percent, Just a tiny fraction of the amount needed to convert and move electricity.
Who pays for new transmission lines to nowhere (wind) and how much does it cost per mile in construction? The same applies to new transmission lines to somewhere when demand soars.
But diesel and gasoline can come from the same barrel of oil.
How much energy does it take to manufacture solar panels or wind turbines? Nothing is for free even when it is so called ‘free energy’.
Zig? When you do a non sequitur try and make sure your new argument actually stands up.
You know how people call Big Oil Big Oil? Cause they have successfully managed to make a Big Profit over the decades. They are not running at a loss.
So, holding that thought think about the price paid at the pump. That is the final end user sell price. Remove tax and profit margin of the fuel sellers, and then remove tax and profit margins of the delivery, and then remove the costs of refining, and the costs of harvesting the crude… And it is STILL profitable.
Muse on that.
Also, and this is also a mildly important point in context, when your car tells you that it will take 60L in the fuel tank (or whatever) it tends to take 60L. Not 60L plus 10%.
Then when the manufacturer claims you can get up to 5L/100 you can expect to get that amount, and if not you can expect to get a consistent fuel consumption over time that you can plan against. You can decide you need to drive 300km round trip for a weekend away and predict you will not need to refuel in that period.
In context to argument, this is important.
Think about it.
Actually the excess fuel in a refinery is largely unwanted waste product, and the oil use for the refinery is only 1-2% due to good thermal engineering. For example hot product is used to heat the oil going into a fractionation column, the heat loss is minimal.
Batteries have loss during discharge as well as charge, due to the internal resistance so more energy goes as heat (that’s why they have the battery cooling systems operating whilst driving). The charge inverter is probably about 90% efficient (as noted) but the motor controller is similar too, so another 10% lost as heat.
I really wonder when these Greens will bother to learn just a little engineering /s!
Tough audience here. You get 30 dislikes just for asking an obvious question for which the answer is obviously not zero.
I disagree with a commenter that those are sunk costs. They are, (+excise taxes) however, reflected in the pump retail price so you know what you’re paying. The retail price of electricity also reflects losses along the way. Neither of these losses matter much in the end—it costs what it costs.
What isn’t so clear, and the article was trying to look at, is how much of the electricity flowing through your meter, which determines the price you pay, actually goes into the battery to give you driving range. Then how much of that charge actually gets to the motors. There are internal resistance losses, plus the overhead that the battery needs to keep itself at normal operating temperature, for instance. This is analogous to running the cooling system of a gasoline car’s engine, but what fraction of the stored energy of both systems is used for this non-motive purpose? But in the end, you can still calculate cost per km traveled.
At least with internal combustion, heating the cabin is free!
Yes.
I can accept the argument that the cost at ‘the pump’ is what you pay for, and no ‘hidden losses’. Unfortunately, there are significant ‘hidden losses’ between the tank and the wheels. There are also hidden losses between the battery and the wheels.
From my understanding, electric drives are somewhat more efficient than ICEs overall. I’m not sure how it balances out when this 10% loss is factored in, but I suspect EVs come out slightly ahead.
As you say, I was merely trying to point out that it’s not unique to EVs, but it’s obviously too much of a trigger for some!
“From my understanding, electric drives are somewhat more efficient than ICEs overall.”
This seems to be common knowledge but I still question if it isn’t myth more than fact. Most of the cutaways for electric drive motors for EV still show a gear train associated with the motor, just like the gear train in a differential on an ICE vehicle. since there are either two or four motors there are actually more gear trains in an EV than in an ICE. Gear trains are where you get some significant efficiency losses.
What say you?
Transmissions are very efficient but the efficiency depends on the complexity and the number of gears involved. For a typical gas car today a transmission. will have about 6 sets of cars Most EVs on the market right now only have one set of gears So most EV shave only one gear ratio for forward and revers. So the transmission losses are less in a EVs.
As to differentials if you have one motor driving 2 or more wheels you must have a differential. So for most EVs there is no difference in the differentials.
However if you have one motor per wheel on a EV you don’t need any. Right now this is the rarest EV design..Tesla is planning to start deliveries of the tesla Semi in the next couple of months which has 4 motors driving 4 wheels. This allowed Tesla to delete 4 high torque differentials, drive shafts and the transmission.as well as the engine exhaust and fuel systems. A massive amount of weight.
“For a typical gas car today a transmission. will have about 6 sets of cars”
Only one of which is in use at any one time. Not much different than an EV.
“Most EVs on the market right now only have one set of gears”
One set per electric motor. The Prius has one motor per wheel (or at least it used to) so it has two for a 2WD version and four for a 4WD version. Many EV’s use differentials just like ICE vehicles do. One differential for the front and one for the back. The differentials are for safety reasons so you won’t swerve to one side of the other in case a drive motor fails.
See the attached cutaway of an EV drive motor from https://edquip.co/en/ntp-centr/cutaway-model-of-control-unit-of-electric-vehicle-motor
Lot’s of gears in there!
For charging a battery it is about 10% loss.
For discharging the battery about 10% loss.
For the electric motor it is about 6-10% loss.
Which means about 70 of the energy that went into the battery us used to move the vehicle.
For gasoline care about 70% of the energy in the fuel is lost a het noise or vibration. Leaving only about 30% to move the car. for Diesel only about 40% is use to move the vehicle.
A regular gas car gets bout 30 to 40 miles per gallon. Since the fuel has a known amout of energy in it. you can calculate a miles per gallon equivalent rating for EVs. According to the EPA the esla model Y gets about 130 MPGE. EV are not somewhat more efficient they are vastly more efficient.
Lol. Clownworld Ziggy
Transmitting energy also involves losses.
Moving that electricity hundreds of miles from remote wind and solar stations to where ever the EV is located also results in substantial losses.
Wind and solar tend to be a lot more remote then are fossil and nuclear power plants.
It’s not just the losses in electricity. A 100+ mile 345kV transmission line is currently be built in my area to get wind power from Iowa to Wisconsin. Cost ~$1,000,000/mile. Guess who’s going to be paying for it regardless of the amount energy actually delivered?
Correction: Final cost now projected to be ~$500,000,000. $5,000,000/mile.
Some of that is the cost of extortive “consultations” with various rent-seeking parties who contribute nothing but can obstruct the project forever if not paid off.
Sounds about right. A large transmission line project in Aust is costing A$2.4m/km, which translates to around US$5.48m/mile.
Given that the vast majority of the charging stations are in urban locations and given that the ‘lost’ electricity is usually released as heat, what will the effect of adding hundreds more of these in most major urban areas do to the (already significant) UHI effect? Asking for a friend!
Mr. Page: Experience teaches that the effect will raise temp readings, and CliSci’s will be very happy with that- they don’t have to adjust it up if it’s already in the pudding.
There is very little energy loss when you pump gasoline into your car’s tank. But charging — AND DISCHARGING — a battery is a whole ‘nother world. You have to move a whole lot of positive and negative particles around to create the potential for electric discharge, and to actually do the electric discharge, in a battery. These ionic movements create heat and lots of it. Try charging/discharging one of these high-capacity Li batteries in your home and feel the burn. Thus the almost 10% loss — both ways. All those other losses you mentioned shrink to insignificance by comparison.
David Solan
Do not forget in cold climates, the battery is heated to 32f before allowed to charge.
Not to mention operational heaters..
It is the middle of winter in Wyoming, and your EV needs to be recharged. There is a long line at the recharging station(s). How do you keep the battery temp above freezing while waiting? If it does get below freezing, how does one heat the battery if it is discharged by the time it is your turn?
If your battery freezes, the type of electrolyte determines tempature it happens at, you buy a new battery pack for >20k.
That is if you can find one…
If it has discharged while waiting in line, how do you even get the car to the charging jack? Get out and push?
Buy a longer charging cord!
You keep the battery from freezing by using power from the battery to run the heaters. Don’t get to 0 or you may not be able to charge.
We need to a continuous Energiewende Watch group to inform others.
That’s what you get when your Energy comes from Wind…Energy-wind
Gee! Electricity flowing in a system creates heat. This heat generally dissipates as lost energy. Who knew?
Keep in mind EV proponents also believe in the perpetual motion machine of “sustainability.” They are blissfully unaware of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Or even the first law.
So, they are thermodynamic scofflaws?
Thermodynamic deniers.
Am curious how they measured that – real batteries in real cars wouldn’t let you completely discharge them.
OK, you start your test with a half-full battery but who/where/what is deciding that the battery is actually = half-full
Not the car itself I do trust.
It gets vastly worse. Those losses come from turning AC power into (carefully regulated) DC power to put into the batteries
BUT..
…the entire process is run in reverse when you use the batteries and drive the car
The DC power is ‘chopped up’ into a variable frequency/voltage/current so as to drive the motors of the car.
then…
…..the motors themselves will have ‘DC power’ losses – unless of course we now have superconducting wires inside said motors and perfectly lossless magnetic components. Do we say the car’s motor itself uses 5% of what its fed just to warm itself up
All all those losses are (sort of) compounded, like interest at the bank.
(I get that to be 76.95% of what came out of the wall-socket actually gets to propel you and your car – your ’50cent electric’ effectively costs 65cents)
The transmission grid itself will have losses but, I suppose, they would be occurring no matter what you were using the ellektrickery for
(Do Teslas still have a ‘standing’ power consumption – they did used to go completely flat if not used for any more than 3 months? Seeingly the onboard computer never slept and continued to burn about 25Watts even when the beast was garaged, locked up and going completely nowhere)
Re transmission grid losses
I suppose it depends on where you want to start your comparison of losses re a proper car. You could compare including transmission losses with that of fuel as it leaves the refinery by estimating the energy used to transport the fuel to the moment it leaves the nozzle into your tank.
Exactly
All costs from building an oil rig, putting it to sea, to drilling to extraction, transportation, refining and ending up at the gas pump is reflected in the cost at the pump.
There are losses, of course, but the utilisation of an entire barrel of oil, for gas, plastics, tarmacadam etc. is remarkable and contributes to it’s low cost to the consumer. At least until Biden came along.
If the world returned to sensible energy policies and ditched madcap renewables and bio fuels etc then the consequent cheap electricity would probably make EV’s a viable proposition for some.
The problem is EV’s aren’t competing with ICE’s on a level playing field thanks to subsidies. But resources to replace every ICE in the world with EV’s will see us run out of minerals very quickly and they will become even more prohibitively expensive.
EV’s should be getting cheaper but they defy market norms because everyone is scrambling for minerals, that’s not going to improve and will probably be the death of the concept.
Car manufacturers know this.
True but this is ONLY considering the losses from the nozzle to the fuel tank, as it were. The losses in an EV system, from generation to the recharge station are not considered in this article but would be significant over and above the losses mentioned. It’s likely that the true losses from generation through to the battery would be higher than 25%, possibly more so when considering the inefficiencies in electrical power generation.
T&D losses are typically ~10%.
What’s ‘T&D’ and, given the losses mentioned in the article are already somewhere around the 10% mark, how much would this add to the total? 10% + 10% looks not that far off what I was saying.
Transmission and distribution (T&D) losses in the US are estimated at 5%, according to the EIA.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Since the article deals with “at the pump” scenarios, they don’t have to be considered in this case, as they will be covered by the per kW-hr charge at the charging station, just like all the infrastructure and processing costs, etc., for gasoline are considered in the per gallon price.
Apparently, EIA T&D doesn’t include converting DC into AC for transmission, then back to DC for charging?
Thought not.
The goal is the death of mobility.
Public transport will replace the need to own a private vehicle.
It will be exactly the same… provided of course you want to go where we run routes, at the times that we run routes and are willing to occasionally have us shut down the entire system to deliberately force you to remain at home.
Apart from that… EXACTLY the same.
Is it? I can carry a lot of stuff in my car and often do, but when I go on a bus with 6 bags of cement and a couple of wheel barrows the driver objects and throws me off. When shopping we often have several large bags and a couple of boxes, same thing. Public transport is actually pretty useless.
Don’t forget that many municipal transit systems have become rolling flophouses for homeless drug addicts who pee and poop in the subway and LRT cars. Transit honchos even have a name for this: “non-destinational travel.” Even pre-Covid, the “light” in LRT refers to passenger loadings, not the rolling stock itself, which is often heavier than “heavy rail” that runs on regular railway tracks. Hard to see how any of these Obama-era boondoggles will ever be sustainable during the Great Resignation.
That’s the *real* problem with the high speed rail they have tried to build in California. No one wanted to ride it! It didn’t go where they want to go!
And don’t forget, ideal is a slow trickle charge (similar to a Carnot heat engine with its adiabatic and isothermal reversible stages.) But they have to blast those batteries full (and it still takes six hours.)
PRetty sure it does- because it IS a battery after all…
But they do have other features, like a sentry system that flips on the lights if something gets too close… it may not take much power to run, but it does take some, and I noticed his security comes on quite a few times an hour. Overly sensitive…
Which reminbds me of the silly folk who drive around in blinding sunshine with their headlights on. This idea came from Sweden the land of daylight darkness when Saab and Volvo started it.
The idiots think light is free.
It’s the law in Europe
Created by on-technical politicians, of course!
There is no off switch on many cars of the past two decades.
Low light morning and evening hours used to be the top times for motor vehicle collisions and those decline significantly in jurisdictions with “lights-on” rules. Some of these ideas, another being traction control, soon mandatory back-up cameras are done because they work, whether you think they are silly or not.
But more relevant and useful in high latitudes where twilight is long all year. And someone has to make a judgment call about how much extra cost in fuel is worth a motor vehicle crash. It’s not values-free. With a gas car where you can refuel anywhere, no worries keeping the lights on. But in an EV with range anxiety at latitude 40 degrees, you might wish you could turn the lights off at noon.
DoE, Energy organizations, Electrical standards, and Save-the-Planet focused manufacturers are all working on different solutions to use DC power at the site (usually sourced from PV to batteries) to remove that specific conversion loss AC/DC-DC/AC. Also in the works are design standards for 100% DC powered buildings. All of these initiatives are in the background to override objections to the solar panel mandates.
I will say this about that; good luck, they’re going to need it.
Just better hope you don’t have to stop at one of those solar PV-powered stations at midnight.
Not to worry…the diesel powered generator will kick in.
Good luck on the DC powered buildings. AC is polarity insensitive. DC is not. How much equipment in a DC building will be lost from being plugged in wrong where the equipment designer didn’t provide for polarity problems? Sparks will fly, smoke will be let out of components, and end-user costs will go up!
I suppose you think a plastic float on a thin metal rod is more accurate? That is what liquid fuel tanks use to “measure” their fuel?
That means many toilets are more accurate at measuring water levels than electric car batteries that use electronics to measure charge levels.
I’m not sure if RenewableGuy frequents here… he infested CFACT for awhile.
He claimed his Tesla Model 3 got 250 Wh mile-1 at 50 MPH (which is a crock… that’s more efficient than a brand-new Tesla Model 3 vehicle with a brand-new battery… his battery was half-way through its projected lifespan).
So I wrote:
There’s also the reactive load lost to some form of electrical magic or something.
3 gallons of gasoline US is 100kwh. At $0.50 a kwh that is $50 for 3 gallons of gasoline equivalent. Yikes.
I haven’t done the conversion arithmetic. Does this energy get to the rear wheels, or did you stop when you burned the gas. Not a diss if you did – just aksin’…
This is not hard, BigOilBob.
A Prius gets 50 mpg. At the national average gas price of $4.00 it costs $8.00 to go 100 miles. An efficient EV can go 3 miles on a kWh (remember the 10% charging loss and how poorly EVs perform in Winter). That’s 33 kWh to go 100 miles. The breakeven price is 24 cents per kWh. The average price of residential electricity is 15 cents per kWh, so if you charge at home an EV is cheaper to drive (not accounting for the exorbitant price of EVs)
Unfortunately, the average cost at a commercial fast charger is 31 to 42 cents per kWh depending on whether you’re a member. If you can’t charge at home, a Prius is cheaper to drive.
I fully anticipate [SNIP] you BigOilBob, responding by saying that a heavy duty truck or some such ridiculous comparison doesn’t get as good mileage as a Prius.
[It requires such a small amount of effort to remain polite and civil. Please do so. -mod]
Thx mod. Bitter late than never. I think the metric should be to allow critique of comments, but without the mid school name calling. Meab actually tried to make a valid point at first, but in the end reverted to type…
This is a science website
Name calling should be at a college level
Wake me when that happens. Oops! Forgot. I was called a CAD once. Not collegial, but certainly old school.
Why stop there? Make it truly epic. Sling insults like the Bard of Avon:
Microsoft Word – {925496743685564506}.doc (scholastic.com)
I prefer Cyrano de Bergerac for insults.
Or at least at a Monty Python level.
Actually, Monty Python insults are at a much higher level than current universities.
Do you mean like word salad Bob?
Good example. Awfully good. Please look back and see how often I responded….
Well the name fits. You could give Kamala Harris a run for her money. Although I think you are much smarter. That poor woman 🙁
“Meab actually tried to make a valid point at first, but in the end reverted to type…”
Meab did make a valid point; it wasn’t just an attempt.
You ignored it.
Worse than just ignoring it, belittled it.
Next time you say that you are “just askin”, it should be apparent to everyone that you don’t really care.
mod
When I was insulted by bigoilbob, nothing was done. ‘Selective Enforcement’ is just like the DOJ.
His was not even an attempt to critique my comments. It was entirely devoted to an ageist insult. bigoilbob is, among other things, a hypocrite.
The “moderator” snipped some of my intentionally belittling language, That’s almost ok as he left a trace of what he did there, anyone can see that he modified part of my comment. What isn’t ok is he changed part of my comment without leaving a trace – that’s totally and completely unacceptable.
Anthony, you need to advise your moderators to never do this.
I use the language I do to call out posters who intentionally lie or mislead. Don’t want to be referred to in a rude way? Don’t intentionally mislead – when you’re proven wrong admit it.
(Here are some of Anthonys policy statement: Respect is given to those with manners, those without manners that insult others or begin starting flame wars may find their posts deleted.
Trolls, flame-bait, personal attacks, thread-jacking, sockpuppetry, name-calling such as “denialist,” “denier,” and other detritus that add nothing to further the discussion may get deleted;) SUNMOD
Mr. tommy: I do give as good as I get here (he said, feigning humility), but Mr. bob is relishing in insulting Mr. Spencer here. He seems to think “name calling” is the only form of insult regulated. Any chance you will give Mr. Spencer a reply?
Never called you a name. Never. But I have pointed out many logical flaws and alt. facts in your posts. Self serving conflation city folks. See, not a name…
Absolutely false. Charles Rotter can attest to your insult as I called it to his attention.
I’m sure that by mentioning your many, many, irrelevant wool gathers from 50+ years ago, as well as your outright cloud yelling you have clutched your gemstones repeatedly, and cried real tears. You might even have read “ageism” into it, seeing as to how those behaviors intersect. But never a name, a la the regular “Communist” ad hominem from Lord Monckton, or pretty much every whiny retort from Jim Steele – both posters here.
Never been mod’d, Meab style. But if Mr. Rotter has the time (most posters here do) I’m sure he’ll be all over this attestation…
https://www.target.com/c/baby-dolls-dollhouses-toys/cry-babies/-/N-5xt8zZx3fl2
Mr. Spencer: Notice how he denies “calling you a name”, and is now insulting you again, but a deniability is built in (“I didn’t call you a name”). He didn’t call you a “wool gatherer”, he said you did it many many times. You yell at clouds, but that’s not name-calling. Finally, he relishes what he perceives as support of the mod In another thread today, I posed a legit question, giving him a chance for a reply with substance. We will see.
All true. I mention goofy behaviors. They’re fair game….
Would you please repost this “legit question”? These back and forths get pretty convoluted, and unlike most here, I’ve got **** to do…
I asked if Admin is discouraging oil production. But you go do your **** and get back to me when you can.
No, they’re not. I disagree with their leasing position. I would rather the grant the leases, enforce previously slacked drilling obligations and API best practices, make the leaseholders get current with actual lock boxed cash for their current asset retirement obligations, and post bonds/cash for P90 future asset retirement obligations as they occur.
But it doesn’t matter. New leases will ripen very, very few PDP’s*, which are the only kind worth discussing..
Do you have any actual data or evaluations on how much is being slowed down, or is it just the usual BDS?
“No, they’re not.” Yes, they are, notwithstanding their illegal conduct in leasing. The leasing is an evasion for you, so as to avoid the things Biden promised to do from day one, and has been doing. Pipeline? Using SEC to cut off financing is, what, NOT being done? Your denial indicates you are not serious, as I have been saying. This time, in a civil tone.
“The leasing is an evasion for you, so as to avoid the things Biden promised to do from day one, and has been doing. Pipeline? Using SEC to cut off financing is, what, NOT being done?”
First, thanks for your left handed admission that I’m right on leasing. Second, please expand on how any Biden based pipeline delays reduced current or near term production numbers. Remember, the metric is how anything that Biden did “discouraged oil production”. There are zero backups for any upstream CAPEX changes that resulted. For example, please find any proof that the best shaler out there, Scott Sheffield with Pioneer, blamed POTUS at all for his sound business decision to limit 2022 Permian CAPEX to sub reserve replacement levels.
A gentle reminder. Above ground, your claim, your job to back it up…
I never claimed that he “called me a name,” so his response is a strawman argument. Which is a further demonstration of his hypocrisy. I refused to respond to him for some time, and only did so recently to point out the uneven application of censoring comments. bigoilbob is back on my black list.
Mr. Spencer: He belongs there, but I will continue to mock him when I choose. See above, an attempt at civil is met with “thanks for admitting” he was right on what I called “illegal” lease misconduct” by Brandon admin. Then he launches into some rant against frakking (again), ignoring the SEC (ESG) point. He’s a propagandist (oooh, name-calling) who should be exposed. For the mod, in case there’s some doubt, please see the comment where bob tells us ebikes are safe if safely driven with helmet. Really?! I bet Insurance Co won’t even take your premium if one tried to insure it, according to bob there’s no risk (of other vehicles?). The comment is typical. Anyway, I am grateful to the mods for the very light hand leaving bob free to post his fabrications, and I’m free to point ’em out.
More than a few e-bike riders are clueless about safe and sane riding, while mounted on a motorized vehicle that can travel much faster than bicycles.
Mr. Carlo: Our oil expert says those riders either 1) don’t exist; or 2) present no risk to “safe riders with helmets.” If it’s “green”, there’s no risk at all. It was a toss-off remark for him, but it tells you that he’ll say any fool thing.
Indeed it does.
MSRP
Tesla model 3 = $46,990
Toypta Prius = $25,075
So, you can buy $21,915 worth of gasoline for the Prius, which at my local price of $3.959 would be 5,535 gallons (rounded). If the Prius gets 50 MPG, that’s 276,750 miles of driving. There are varying estimates regarding the average miles per year for the US driving public, but a central estimate of 13,500 per driver is probably close. So, we could drive that Prius for 20.5 years on the difference in price between those vehicles. I’m not feeling the EV love yet.
You’d long run out of being able to pump gas into your Prius due to it’s eventual elimination in 12 states by 2030 before you would ever use the price difference at the pump
No EV love. Doesn’t matter when it’s a shotgun wedding.
3 gallons of gasoline contains 100 kWh of heat energy. But you only get 20-25 kWh (depending on how you drive) of shaft output work from burning it in a heat engine. 25 kWh @ $0.50 is $12.50 for 3 gallons, so close enough for government work.
Whoa, I’m no fan of the green blob but lets be fair – ICE cars are far less efficient than electric.
What do you mean by “efficient”?
That’s mostly because of unfair comparisons. EV cars typically weigh more than an ICE vehicle for similar payloads – because of the heavy battery. That means more tire wear and more road wear – things which the users have to pay for one way or another.
Not just that, but most EV enthusiasts only compare battery to wheel vs tank to wheel.
Leaving out most of the losses for EVs.
And the laughable sales pitch that EV can be plugged in to supply power to your home.
But less wear on the fuel pump, water pump, transmission, radiator…
Since all of those will outlast the car, so what?
The claims that EVs will outlast ICs has never been supported by real world data.
I have a 2000 Honda Civic, clutch. Drove the crap out of it through Ontario salt winters the first 5 years, then switched jobs where I didn’t have to drive much, now retired. 250,000 km on it. Only one service bill has reached 4 figures. No rust. My wife’s car is nicer but mine costs almost nothing to run, even insurance is pay as I go.
ICE cars last a long long time now, if you’re not one of those folks who need a new car every three years.
Those components have been very developed over the years. It’s not uncommon to get 200,000 miles or more today out of these components. We don’t have enough experience yet to know if EV’s can match that, or anywhere near that! The weight of that battery *will* have an impact on the entire vehicle in the form of tensions and torsions applied to the supporting structure.
Tim Gorman: “That’s mostly because of unfair comparisons.”
–
–
Good point, Tim. Rarely is usage beyond getting from point A to Point B ever considered.
The video of the EV pickup vs the gas-powered truck towing identical trailers that recently made the rounds partly illustrates the point.
Time is money and range is still a factor. Both trucks had degraded efficiency due to load. IIRC, the EV had to stop, having run out of range and the gas truck had enough fuel to make it back to the start.
The point being that when used for commercial purposes, say a work crew sent out to another state, the business might have to pay a whole crew for idle time while waiting for recharging while a gas or diesel truck might complete the trip with no stops. You are paying for the driver as well as the ‘fuel’ be it electricity or gas.
And then take the same comparison during a Wyoming Winter. and the issue is magnified.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the unfair comparisons you were thinking of Tim. But looking at the efficiency of a fleet for employees, just the total cost of fuel isn’t looking at the total cost of putting an EV fleet on the road vs an ICE fleet.
“the business might have to pay a whole crew for idle time while waiting for recharging while a gas or diesel truck might complete the trip with no stops.”
Hadn’t thought of that one. Good point.
Report in UK last few days where main cause of EVs failing the annual MOT test is worn tyres.
Because the neck-breaking acceleration causes them to lay rubber?
Sooner or later it won’t be just tires. EV’s are heavier than ICE vehicles. That puts a strain on every single component in the car, from the frame to the door panels. A pothole hit by a heavier vehicle puts more strain everywhere.
It’s not unusual today to have a 20 year old ICE vehicle still in running condition and that is for *all* parts, even the wheels. That’s not proven at all to be the case with an EV. Because of the weight it wouldn’t surprise me that ten years from now we start seeing EV’s with broken frames, detached dashboards, lose seat mounts, etc.
Volvo did a back to back study on a single model rolling off the same production line, one ICE the other EV.
They found it takes the EV travelling 90,000 miles before it breaks even with the ICE in terms of production emissions.
I would guess that’s at least one battery change which I don’t think they included, so that projects the emissions recovery out another 45,000 miles(?).
In terms of getting power to the wheels, sure, an EV is more efficient but what’s the difference if the electricity is so expensive it’s cheaper to run an ICE vehicle?
Have you got a link to that study? And batteries go a hell of a lot further than 90,000 miles in todays cars. The truth is we don’t know exactly how far because we will have to wait, but the lithium-iron phosphate blade batteries are expecting to get closer to 750,000 miles. Now they may not, but even at half that they will be a whole lot better than 90k.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lithium+phosphate+blade+battery+milage%3F&oq=lithium+phosphate+blade+battery+milage%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160l3.12342j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Just so long as you don’t take them in to really cold enviroments like USA and Europe 🙂
The absolute lowest operating temperature is -20 and real world BYD customers find 600-kilometer battery life is only 230 kilometers at 0 (32F).
I know lets add heater jackets to them 🙂
My advice, at this time, if you live in a climate that, that is that cold, don’t buy an EV. That will change though.
More lies from simple.
N.B. that it doesn’t post any facts or studies. Instead a google search… That’s a laugh!
Inflated claims are normal for new technology.
A) it is still a lithium battery.
B) None of the sources mention the weight of the lithium iron phosphate batteries. The same sources laud Lifepo4 batteries as so much lighter than lead acid.C) Claims are made about rapid charging times. So rapid are the charging times, that only high voltage systems can supply sufficient charge capacity.
We notice that better battery technology is always coming soon.
If by some chance, the battery is better than existing batteries, than natural market forces will prove their worth. Charlatanism will not work.
Please stop the childish name calling. If you have a valid point I’m sure you can do it like an adult.
Now where did I lie? I merely quoted an article. And as I acknowledged we will have to wait to see how far/long these new batteries last. But they are definitely going to do more than Hotscots 90k. And battery tech is now moving at speed. Things will not be the same in 5 years as they are now.
Roughly 65m people in the UK. To build sufficient EV’s to replace the car fleet would take 5 times the known reserves of certain minerals (Kelly).
350m(?) people in the US = 25 times known reserves.
Then Europe, 500m people = 38 times known reserves.
Then we have over 2Bn people in China and India alone (with fewer cars admittedly).
Please explain to me how we deal with this without hitherto unimaginable mining and processing using unimaginable amounts of energy and water.
You really have no idea do you.
To get the world to 200 -250 m EVs by 2030 the IEA estimate will require 30 – 50 new lithium mines, 41 – 60 new nickel mines and 11 – 17 new cobalt mines : that is 82 – 127 new mines!
In the past they have said it takes up to 16 years to bring a new mine into full operation – it is only 8 years till 2030.
“To get the world to 200 -250 m EVs by 2030 the IEA estimate will require 30 – 50 new lithium mines, 41 – 60 new nickel mines and 11 – 17 new cobalt mines : that is 82 – 127 new mines!”
I think you might be a little behind in battery tech. They are looking to remove these minerals and have been successful to a degree. Still a way to go but it’s happening.
I don’t doubt we have challenges. At the forefront it is the batteries that present the main problem. Outside of those there is less goes into an EV than an ICE car. But there is so much exciting research and development going on there is every chance they will sort these issues. Biden’s new bill is going to pour billions into this going forward. One would think that can only help. I for one am very keen to see where this research takes us.
And no one is saying the transition has to happen today. It is going to take years and lots of hurdles, but I think we will get there.
There are 1,001 alternatives to Li-ion, but not one has made it to scale.
The first car was battery driven, since then the technology has barely progressed.
Nor is it the batteries which are the problem, it’s the minerals required to make them. Just replacing the UK car fleet would require more than 5 times the known reserves of certain minerals. (Kelly) How do you propose to overcome that problem?
A batteries life is measured in charging cycles and time. Your phone battery doesn’t last for more than two years before beginning to deteriorate. You can just about make a phone last for 5 years, but that’s it.
The average UK mileage is around 10,000 a year, 90,000 represents nine years and EV batteries will not get close to that life without having deteriorated considerably.
You are living in fantasy land. What’s changed in battery technology over the last five years? Nothing. What makes you think the next five years will be any different?
Volvo admitted late 2021 that building an EV produces 70% more emissions than building an ICEV and it takes around 4 years for the EV to become better than an ICEV for emissions.
On a similar issue the President of Toyota has said because” most electricity is produced from coal and gas”
“The more EVs we build, the worse the carbon dioxide gets. When politicians are out there saying ‘lets get rid of all cars using gasoline’, do they understand this?”
https://climatechangedispatch.com/toyota-warns-were-nowhere-near-ready-to-jettison-gas-powered-vehicles/
As regards the lithium iron phosphate battery the IEA in its Global EV Outlook 2022 ‘Securing supplies for an electric vehicle’ said
“Lithium iron phosphate battery does not need nickel or cobalt but comes with lower energy density and is therefore better suited to shorter range vehicles. SUVs equal half of all EV models available globally and require larger batteries to travel the same distance.”
Brother just bought the Byd Otto 3. His has lithium ion phosphate batteries in the blade formation. 420km range. Not great, but not bad. Means in a long days driving you stop once
And turn a one-day trip into a two-day trip while you wait for a recharge!
Not true if you consider the well to wheel cycle for both types of vehicles.
“ICE cars are far less efficient than electric.”
Not if one considers that, on a nationwide basis, about 60% of grid electrical energy comes from coal and natural gas (i.e., fossil fuels). Electrical power plants (excluding the most modern CCGT ones) average somewhere around 35% overall efficiency when converting fossil fuels to electricity . . . about the same overall efficiency of an ICE car engine converting gasoline to mechanical energy at the drive wheels.
My detailed calculations, taking the above into consideration, show that the best EV cars have an efficiency advantage of about 20% compared to the best gasoline-fueled, none-hybrid ICE cars . . . thereby falsifying the “far less” claim.
According to the EIA the US emits 0.85lbs CO2 per kWh. A gallon of gas when burned will emit 17.87 lbs of CO2. Comparing Tesla3 with a Prius:
Tesla3: (0.85 lbs CO2/ kWh) / (3.5 miles/KWh) = 0.24 lbs CO2/ mile
Prius: (17.87 lbsCO2/gallon) / (58 miles/gallon) = 0.31 lbs CO2/mile
Personally I don’t care. However, a Tesla model 3 emits only about 3/4 the CO2 per mile as a Prius. Again, I don’t give a rip, but those are the results using EIA emissions intensity average for the US and EPA estimates for Prius and Tesla. The results will be better for Tesla in some regions (California, Texas, Oregon) and worse in others (Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia). But that is the average for the US.
Interesting . . . using your numbers of CO2-equivalent per mile as an indirect measure of efficiency: 0.24/0.31 = 0.77. This would indicate the Tesla EV is about 23% more efficient than the gasoline-fueled Prius.
This is not far from my calculations concluding that the best EV is “about 20%” more efficient than the best gas-fueled ICE car.
First, I have no idea why someone downvoted my previous comment. I mean seriously, what is wrong with people on this forum? I know they act like ravenous wolves if you say anything like “wind power is morally neutral” but I don’t understand what about simple division would set someone off.
Second, I wouldn’t use “efficiency” when describing this math. Efficiency can be short for:
Engine/Motor efficiency
Well to wheels energy efficiency
Dollar cost efficiency (dollars per mile driven)
CO2 efficiency
I don’t understand the emotional attachment people place on CO2, so I would consider CO2 efficiency the least interesting metric above. But that is what both you and I were referring to. In this case since “efficiency” could mean things that are so much more relevant I would refer to this as either emissions efficiency or CO2 efficiency. I personally would avoid “carbon efficiency” since C and CO2 are different. Personally I don’t like “emissions” since in other settings it refers to things that actually matter (lead, mercury, SOx, NOx, ozone, etc.). However, in modern parlance emissions means CO2. I guess I should get my panties untwisted about how people equivocate Carbon with Carbon Dioxide, but that is a bridge too far for me.
That’s about the conversion efficiency of a turbo-charged engine. Conventionally aspirated is nearer 30%, depending on compression ratio and combustion chamber design.
I thought the conversion efficiency of power stations was a bit higher than 35%, but transmission losses do bring the conversion efficiencies into line by the time power gets to the vehicle’s drive wheels.
There are lots of losses involved in either case.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant:
“This is a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant. These achieve a best-of-class real (see below) thermal efficiency of around 64% in base-load operation. In contrast, a single cycle steam power plant is limited to efficiencies from 35 to 42%.”
As you point out, one needs to subtract the transformer and distribution line losses (inefficiencies) to arrive at net efficiency of electrical energy generation as delivered to a home or business.
I stand by my stated average of about 35% efficiency, excluding CCGT power plants.
I thought coal generation was a bit better than 35%, but does seem to be in that range for older generations. Even HELE and USC seem to have much lower efficiency than CCGT. 64% is quite impressive.
64% is fantastically impressive, and has been achieved on commercial products.
However, it is at ideal load levels at ideal temperatures. Real world averages are considerably below that even for the plant it is run on. Think about the difference in your mpg if you decide to drive on the highway at 40mph on a 60 degree day with the wind at your back. Now drive the same vehicle up and down winding mountain roads at 70 mph on a 90 degree day.
64% is the first, operation is the second. Same vehicle.
You are being far too kind to CCGT plants, around 50% is achieved in the UK. You have taken all the best possible numbers here, but real CCGT plants have to adapt continuously for the wind and solar outputs as these are not so easily adapted to the load. You can see from this that wind and solar are actually an efficiency reducing problem for the other power sources, leading to even more unfair comparisons. Wind and solar producers should have to pay for the CCGT plants matching load to supply, but they do not! (UK). All wrong! Nuclear and coal have long response times and basically have to work at fixed and usually full output (base load).
Ummm . . . 64% thermal efficiency for a CCGT plant is not my number, it came from Wikipedia (as I carefully noted).
And because most electricity comes from coal and gas worldwide even the President of Toyota, Aiko Toyoda has noted that “the more EVs we build the worse carbon dioxide gets”
MSRP
Tesla Model 3 = $49,990
Toyota Camry LE ICE = $25,945
( larger and much more reliable than Tesla 3 )
2022 Dodge Durango
Seats 7 (3 rows)
19-26…20 MPG
22 Gal Tank
Refuel in 6 minutes
440 mile range
Towing 5000 lbs range 300 miles
$37,000
…
2022 Tesla X (equivalent SUV)
Seats 7
100KW battery
Refuel in 14 hours at 220V
330 mile range
Towing 5000 lbs range 110 miles
$120,000
…
Difference $83,000
Faster ICE refueling
Better towing range
Better driving range
…
At $2.50 per gallon that’s almost 36,000 gallons of fuel
20 MPG 720,000 miles of driving just on the price difference
…
At $4.00 per gallon that’s almost 21,000 gallons of fuel
20 MPG 420,000 miles of driving just on the price difference
Dodge Durango SUV by far more cost effective than the Tesla equivalent
The electric motor is more efficient than the gasoline or diesel engine but the overall cycle is almost the same. Compare the efficiency of refining the gallon of gasoline versus the efficiency of generating the electricity to take you the same distance in an EV and most of the point-of-use efficiency is lost. You have to look carefully at the subsidies and taxes (oil producers and consumers pay taxes, EV owners get a subsidy). Compare the cost of the two types of autos. You can buy a lot of fuel for the cost differential between an EV and a similar IC auto.
“between an EV and a similar IC auto”
or a cheap, used IC auto!
The true measure of efficiency is being able to get into your means of transport and arrive at your destination in the best possible (reasonable) time for the most reasonable cost. Whether popping down to the shops or across the state on a 500 km trip. Plus the least amount of fiddling around during the trip to get there, like charging, servicing, filling gas etc. All other measures are incidental.
Not at all true— inefficiencies in power generation, transmission, charging, storage and heat losses from the motors, considering the mix of electricity production in the US (hi proportion is from fossil fuel) the typical EV is only ~30% efficient –quite comparable to the PE of fuel vs KE produced in an ICE vehicle– and the “carbon footprint” of each is also similar….(and the ICEs now in development are approaching 50% efficiency)….EVs only have an efficiency & “carbon” advantage when the power comes exclusively from Unreliable Sources.
Um, yea-ah. Second law of Thermodynamics is the best-case scenario. But that never seems to apply to “green” tech.
And it seems that the majority of battery charging points in Germany do not contain any meter of the energy delivered so you have no idea what you are getting. This stems from charging being free at the start but as battery car owners are now finding out, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I question the efficiency numbers for EV’s. There is a huge drop in EV range when using the AC or heater. 15% is the number I see.
This argues strongly that EVs take less energy to move than equivalent ICE. This cannot be due to the motor or battery. Rather the cars themselves must take less energy.
Otherwise the range loss for an EV would match an ICE regardless of engine efficiency in converting PE to KE.
Why do you say EV’s take less energy to move? They are typically heavier than an ICE vehicle of the same payload capacity. That means more power required (F = ma) to move them and more tire and roadbed wear.
And they create more wear and tear on roads and to my knowledge do not pay for roads and highways.
Yes no fuel duty or ‘road tax’ for EVs in the UK. Together they raised £37bn for the UK Treasury in 2019 – 2020.
Automobiles theoretically account for very little “wear and tear” on roads based on life cycle structural loads. Trucks are the ones that limit pavement life cycle due to cyclical structural loads.
OK but in Canada, tax on motor fuel (31 Can. cents per litre in Ontario) is not earmarked for road maintenance anyway. It’s just another tax that goes into the maw of government. EV drivers don’t pay that tax. If they did, it would more than double their charging costs, assuming home charging at night.
ferd’s point is there seems to be some disconnect in the calculations such that apparently EV’s don’t require the same kW-hr input to move from point A to point B as do ICE vehicles. Which is what doesn’t make sense; you take a 1,000 kilo chunk of matter on wheels and push it from hither to yon, it doesn’t matter what provides the energy, once in motion it’s all about rolling friction. Can regenerative braking make that much difference?
It’s all uphill driving.
Drive, say, 400 miles on a highway and regenerative braking is meaningless.
Well, air resistance friction, mostly, at highway speed particularly.
The recent test comparison of Ford’s EV 150 Lightning proves just how poor batteries are at moving vehicles, people and goods.
And all of the claims above still ignore grid transport and charging losses for EV cars. e.g., the 25% lost converting AC to DC for charging.
Add in the fact that people will drive to work and charge their car, drive home and charge their car.
Not counting weekends, that is 10 charging cycles per week just for commuting; which means a very short life for EV batteries. Including simple’s newest favorite.
That’s true – few seem to factor in the “dead weight” of an EV, which is its fuel source. This is rather like having two athletes – one a slender track runner and the other a football linebacker. Imagine both are the same height, and the runner weighs 175lbs while the linebacker weighs 300lbs. While the linebacker has more muscle and fat, (and therefore more overall power, and maybe he’s a fast runner over short distances too) he will have to consume more fuel and expend more energy simply to move and maintain his much larger body than the runner. Most likely he will take longer to refuel, as he will eat more and spend more time eating. And he will wear out his shoes more quickly as well (assuming comparable athletic shoes). In addition, he will probably also be more likely to have joint issues from carrying around all that extra weight. And finally, if both men are running as fast as they can from point A to point B, the runner will of course be the most efficient of the two.
I would add that in sports there is a purpose for both of the hypothetical athletes in their respective sports. Whereas, in a vehicle, the purpose of which is to transport people and/or cargo from one place to another, there really is no advantage to having that extra weight (though, I don’t know, maybe a Tesla is less likely to get stuck in snow, well, that is, if anyone would want to drive one in such bad weather!).
Some people seem to believe that a heavier vehicle gets around better in snow. They seem to forget that they may speed up easier but they are a huge bitch to stop on snow or ice. There’s only so much friction available and inertia is also a bitch.
And that is for a brand new battery in optimum circumstances, like calculating gas mileage on a stationary dynamometer. Wait a few years until the battery is only 80% efficient compared to new, and the losses will only get worse. And then winter…it may actually be much worse long term than the article points out.
If Entropieblunder isn’t a German word, it ought to be.
The rich who buy EVs just plug in to their large detached home with drive and garages and don’t bother to check what’s happening at the electricity meter and pay by DD and not even notice. Me, I’m bubblewrapping a couple of Citroen diesel Picassos.
And solar panels…
Like the complimentary free solar panel Nobama got for installing a
2500 gal propane tank!
How many solar panels to charge your Tesla Model 3 or even Nissan Leaf overnight? And while it’s charging, is there enough power left for the heat pump, or the electric heating, and maybe light or two? Oh. Wait. Or are you using the Leaf to power the heat pump and lights overnight. But then what do you do in the morning when the battery is drained and you have to get to work somehow? Or you’ve paid the price for a Tesla PowerWall. How many kWh? Is it enough to charge the Leaf and power the house? The marketing info says ~13kWh for a single PowerWall, and continuous power of 9.6kW for the + model. The Leaf marketing info says the basic battery is 40kWh for basic and 60kWh for deluxe. So many questions.
A million solar panels won’t pump in so much as a single KW overnight. That takes a Powerwall. And for a full recharge on a nearly depleted Tesla you need a 100kWH Powerwall battery to plug your charging cable into.
A single 5.6KW unit costs $10,500 and 2 cost $17,000 and have 11.6KW. The 100kWH battery would require almost 8 units to recharge from nearly depleted so around $68,000.
Additional thought…
Recharging a Battery from a Battery will only “Pump” in electrons to a point that both batteries have equal charge. To recharge a 100kWH battery from a Battery requires charging from a 200kWH battery source. So instead of 8 powerwall batteries you’ll need 16 for $136,000
Not quite true if there are electronics in the way, but the solar > battery> another battery is clearly daft and the work of a moron. Getting 100kW from solar in a day would be quite a large area even in CA!
And getting 100kW from solar is quite impossible at night … sooo … The only way to recharge at night is either from the grid or from battery storage that was charged from rooftop or ground mounted solar during the day
Well Griff, I’m about to find out the hard way exactly what solar panels are worth in a less than ideal situation. I fear I may have been a little overzealous in presenting my point or it may be that he’s a bit of an (expletive deleted) anyway. In any case, I got into a mildly indecorous shouting match with an acquaintance with the result that I am about to install a modest array of the things. He has promised to help me install them. Exactly how, I’m not sure. Hook tender and hoist operator maybe. He’s a sea level type and clumsy enough that I wouldn’t want him up top dancin’ in the breeze with me anyway.
We have agreed on the time they should have payed for them selves and (without going into all the gruesome details of the bet) basically, once we get them installed and working, each month that they exceed the payback rate I’ll give him the surplus, but each month that they fall behind it he’ll make up the difference. Then depending on whether they pay out within one year after the date we’ve estimated, the loser will eat a major helping of crow.
Should be interesting. After all we live in one of the world’s few temperate zone rain forests and around here for a good part of the year “Stick that somewhere the sun don’t shine.” just means put it outside ::) 🙂
Watch for more details.
Ill,
I’ll be interested to see how this bet with your acquaintance turns out. But I have to say, I am truly impressed with your handle, a very inspired play the titles of a few JS Bach’s pieces. Clever.
Chuck
There are yet Green politicians insisting on shutting down the last 3 nuclear power plants this winter (let alone reactivating the 3 shut down last winter). Their argument is simple: they would not suffice to safe the system anyway. The same thing goes for coal, when singled out. If all due measures together could safe the grid is another question, they carefully avoid.
Rather for them it is a done deal for Germany to run out of power this winter, and they hope this will promote the transition to renewable energy. If factories need to shut down, jobs get lost permanently, industries either close or go abroad, then energy demand will shrink for good.
Yes that sounds like politicians the World over. Never mind how many they kill in the process etc, in both Germany and the UK it will be 10’s of thousands.
Now combine these results from the latest Big Idea, currently (attempting) to be implemented in Utrecht, The Netherlands—using battery cars as grid storage, called vehicle-to-grid (V2G), or bidirectional charging. Taking charge out of the cars incurs the same losses, converting more usable energy into heat.
Entropy Rules!
I really want to see how this will work, both electrically and expense wise. Whose going to sync all these “generators” to the network and who is going to pay the car owner for using their battery?
My guess is that a lot of people will refuse to let their batteries be used this way. Then what happens?
Once they are brimmed, folk will unplug them. They may be thwarted by a built-in timer in the charger, which refuses to let them beginning charging until after 10 pm. (Who wants to get up at 4 am to unplug their EV, in case there’s high demand at breakfast? I suppose there is always an inline timer switch.)
The IEEE Spectrum made this Utrecht experiment the cover article for the August 2022 issue. Not a single word anywhere about charge-discharge losses.
If the grid goes down for whatever reason, the IEEE distributed power standards dictate that generator must disconnect themselves within less than 1 cycle. Without a grid frequency to synch with, they all become useless bricks PDQ.
Germans are planning to get ~1/2 of their storage from EVs & hybrids-
40GWh. A snowy, cold windless day would put a YUGE dent in German energy & its economy!
https://probidenergy.com/2022/03/21/residential-segement-continues-to-drive-german-battery-storage-market-but-grid-scale-could-see-comeback/
Germany’s new national anthem!
Currently, very few cars have the on board electronics needed to dump battery power back to the grid.
Adding that electronics is going to add several hundred dollars to the price of a car, and 10 to 20 pounds to their weight.
You wouldn’t want those electronics “on board”. You need an inverter, which could be part of the stationary charge point, and you certainly don’t want to lug around that useless ironmongery; something else to kill your range.
So all the on-street chargers like in the West End of St. Louis are going to have inverters in them? Customers parking at businesses risk getting their batteries discharged on cold/hot days?
Mm….. I foresee a *lot* of problems ahead!
Apparently there is a big push to implement this nonsense, someone is gungho for it. The Utrecht experiment has quite a number of different car manufacturers involved, including the big-T.
May be a “look squirrel” moment as “someone “ realizes how many kWh of storage are needed over the course of a year if aiming for no FF.
And creates more wear and tear on the battery shortening its life and leaving the car owner wondering if there remains enough energy in the vehicle to be able to perform the next day’s travels.
Sign me up!
Certainly not me!
UK is also actively pursuing V2G.
Look, I’m no electric-car fan, but that report is hardly “devastating.”
Still, it is food for thought. According to Randal O’Toole, an average ICE car expends about 3445 BTUs per mile. If an electric expends, say, 0.27 kWh/mi and wastes an additional 8.3% in charging, etc., that comes to 0.29 kWh. According to the Transportation Energy Data Book, a fossil-fuel-fired power plant has to expend 9104 BTUs to get a kilowatt-hour to the socket, so that’s 2662 BTUs/mi, or about 70% of what the average car expends.
But that’s an average car. You probably do better in energy terms with a hybrid than a plug-in electric, at least if you get your electricity from fossil fuel.
If you get your electricity from hydro, of course, the considerations are different.
There are two big problems with your comparison.
First, electrics are a lot heavier than IC vehicles.
Second, you are ignoring the many losses between power source and electric car.
When the entire well to wheel cycle is compared for both vehicle types, electrics end up being a lot less efficient.
Well, I can’t say that I’m entirely confident about my numbers’ sources, so I’m not going to argue too forcefully for my conclusion.
But the number from the Transportation Energy Data Book does purport to take the losses between initial combustion and delivery of electricity to the socket into account. That’s the reason why its number is 9104 BTU/kWh rather than the normal 3412.14 BTU/kWh conversion factor. And I wouldn’t think loss between well and combustion would necessarily favor cars.
Also, once you know the electric car’s mileage I wouldn’t think any further account would need to be taken of the vehicles’ weight difference.
Now, I do believe that electric-car manufacture probably requires more energy expenditure for various reasons, but that’s much too complex for me to figure out.
Move to Norway – except they say much of their hydro is short of water this year 🙂
“E-cars lose massive amounts of power during charging,”
…
“The result is devastating,” reports 24hamburg.de.
Devastating:
causing severe shock, distress, or grief:
“the news came as a devastating blow”
synonyms:
shattering · shocking · traumatic · overwhelming · crushing · extremely upsetting · distressing · severe · savage · terrible ·
“Manufacturers forgot to tell e-car buyers that lots of energy – about 10% – in fact gets lost during charging and battery storage.”
50% would be “lots.” 10%, not so much.
This is the same kind of headling-grabbing “news” that we have criticized with respect to Global Warming “news.”
When I fill up at the pump, I get EVERYTHING I pay for.
If I were dumping two gallons of gas every time, and thus effectively paying ~$0.40 per gallon, I would be spending about $8.00 every week – call it an even $400.00 a year.
That’s three good “date night” dinners at the steak house we favor, including drinks and dessert.
The wife would DEFINITELY call that “lots.”
This story is rather light on facts and unconvincing. What is convincing is that all-electric cars generally cost about double the price of best-selling small and midsized sedans and crossovers. EV break even on fuel savings would be 20+ years, if the battery and car even last that long.
When Elon can sell us a new, nicely-equipped, reliable long range Tesla for $25-30,000 US, we might be interested. Otherwise, they are for the wealthy status-seekers with money to burn.
For those of us in rural areas, where charging stations will *always* be far apart, EV’s will probably never be useful. What do you do when your EV truck battery dies with a load of hay on? Haul in a generator? Or go get a can of gas?
I suspect this is going to jack up the current split between elite urban dwellers and fly-over country dwellers even more than it already is.
Not mention that it is tough to get 440 volt service in rural areas for a fast charger.
Tough? It’s probably impossible. Easier to use a 220v, 3phase to 440v transformer. Not sure about the cost of a 22kva transformer tho.
Nah, flyover country will just lease more land to wind farms to sell electricity to cities to charge EVs. Everyone in the city driving an EV will lower gasoline demand and make that cheaper for people who drive ICEs.
The most interesting side effect of all this will be shortage of all the petrochemicals for plastics and manufacturing, they will have to dump unusable product somewhere, probably a massive flare-off tower! CO2? Never!
Around here there are quite a few strategically placed highway signs showing distance to the next gasoline station, typically. of about 73 miles to 105 miles. My round trip of 200 miles for groceries would defeat many EV without a long wait for charging in the middle.
For the first time in decades, I managed to run out of gas. My son was driving; he’s practicing on his learner’s permit. The fault was mine, not his. I set out to pick him up from soccer practice and never even glanced at the gas gauge. Just about 200 yards from home, it quits on the hill. He gets out and heads home for the gas can we use for the lawn mower. His observation on return was, “That would have been really bad if this were an electric vehicle.” I said “Yeah, it’d suck for you to have to drag the spare battery pack from home.”
I’ve seen Teslas being used as taxis. Bought nearly new I presume, which argues that there is a rapid depreciation.
Yes! After a decade, especially if sitting in the sun a lot, or in a hot climate like Phoenix, plastics start to get brittle. Thus, one can expect upholstery and dashboard components to start needing replacement. Obtaining repair parts for short-lived or limited-production models, becomes problematic after a decade.
Subaru uses the marketing angle that 90% of their vehicles are still in service after 10-years. The implication being that most other cars can’t match that. All too frequently things have to be thrown away because a repair part, such as an inexpensive run-capacitor for a freezer motor, is no longer manufactured.
Just ran into that. One of the refrigerator slider compartments broke on ours a month ago. It’s only about eight years old. Guess what? No replacement parts available. Not for the ice maker, not for the compressor, not for the shelves or sliding compartments. Just haul it to the land fill if it quits and spend another $1000 for a new one! Unfreakingbelievable!
Made in China?
Not a single mention of the relevant metric. How much does EV “fuel” cost users/ HP*HR delivered to the wheels, versus gas/diesel. Seeing as to how the article dwelled only on production to consumption electric losses, maybe we can lose the motorized goal posts a la “Bbbbutt, how long do batteries last?” for once.
yeah, tell me all about it when my combine stops because the battery died. Are *YOU* going to haul a generator 11 miles to recharge me?
Ah, the predictable – and predicted – motorized goal post deployment. As in not the subject being posted.
I can actually second that. We regularly hook up our Escape 5.0 TA bed hitch trailer to our Colorado Z71 CCLB 2.8 diesel, and drive ~2000 miles from St. Louis to Pismo Beach for the summer. An e pickup just wouldn’t get it. But while we’re there, and back in St. Louis, most of our transport is via 2 mid drive e bikes. With a Bikebob single wheel trailer we can shop and errand run to our hearts content. Moral: It’s all about fit for purpose vehicle selection, and thanks to electricity we are now a one 4 wheel vehicle couple. We are retired, ‘cept for the COVID immunizations nurse wife does in the fall and per Sam Jackson we’re – “Spendin’ the rest of our lives spendin'”. But if one of us had to commute that might trigger the purchase of a Bolt. Again, fit for purpose.
Now, do you have anything relevant to say?
I must say I agree with BoB’s take on vehicles selections and use.
If you take “indulgence”, “fashion”, “prestige” and “virtue” out of the equation, we’d all just get a ride that did what we needed it to do for us, with due consideration for our budgets.
There really is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to transportation.
However, the ‘e bike’ sounds like virtue signalling. Any two wheeled vehicle is inherently dangerous on snow and ice, especially for retirement-age people. It does snow in St. Louis. It is uncomfortable using a bike in the rain, or on hot, humid days, and difficult to carry a week’s worth of groceries on a bike. Just more of his hypocrisy.
Yes Clyde, all those points apply.
However, it’s BoB’s call as to what he chooses as a suitable conveyance for his situation.
And if his choices expose him to risk, well that’s why we have the Darwin Awards.
Bikes are safe for safe, helmet wearing riders. Save for phone zone drivers. But you can see them zone out, since your view is improved on a bike.
“It does snow in St. Louis.”
And we drive on those 2-5 days/year.
It is uncomfortable using a bike in the rain, or on hot, humid days.
Rain, yes. The rest, not on an e bike.
And difficult to carry a week’s worth of groceries on a bike.
We shop more frequently, for freshness. Please note my comment about the Bikebob trailer (70# rated).
We drive in other instances as well. Heavy/bulky items. 5 passengers to a restaurant. Like that. But it sure beats making up excuses for too many cars, too big, why do they make me pay for more of the true cost of gas, and why can’t I see my p****r without a mirror…
Well, how much does a new e-bike battery cost, or would it be cheaper to buy a new e-bike and dump the old one?
for some reason, my local utility would give me a $300 credit if I purchase an e-bike.
even with the credit, battery is cheaper than a new bike.
400 to 1000 for a battery … 1500 to 8000 for a bike.
They’ll more than make up the $300 in the electricity they sell you.
I would imagine it’s a lot easier to replace the battery on an e-bike than say a Tesla.
You are assuming that you will be able to find a battery when it is time.
No, they are 20-30% of the e bike cost. Ours have lasted for over 4 years of near constant use, with no diminishing of capacity. Same for the 5+ year old battery I bought for an earlier conversion.
E bikes are qualitatively different than those of even 5 years ago. They are now an economic, standardized. useful commodity.
I can tell you that (in pounds).
I recently bought my first e-bicycle. I’m not able to own a driving license for medical reasons. The bike has given me a brilliant opportunity to travel around London without having to wait on unreliable public transport or pay expensive fares.
The new bike (incl battery) cost £2000. The battery lasts about 5 years. A new battery costs about £500. If the bike was still in decent nick in 5 years time I’d be happy to get a new battery. However, I reckon in 5 years time new bikes will be cheaper than £2000 (that’s how the free market works), so I’d just buy a new bike. The money I save on not paying for public transport makes it worthwhile – an annual travel card costs at least £2000 a year.
E-Bicycles have become a big success in London, but purely through market forces. Couriers started using them and then other members of the public woke up to how good they are. The e-bike industry is thriving and prices are coming down. Unlike the UK govt trying to force electric cars on the public by attempting to ban the sale of ICE cars in the next few years – that isn’t how new tech successfully enters the market.