BEVs still selling in Norway
February 23, 2022 6:54 AM Subscribe
In 2021, almost 65% of new cars sold in Norway were electric, up from 20.8 percent in 2017. Among private buyers (i.e. not leasing or fleet sales) the number was 83.1%. The secret sauce is still incentives.
It's also been consistency of incentives. Compare with the Dutch incentives which have gone up and down and been chopped and changed a number of times, the Norwegians have had a consistent (but slowly decreasing) set of EV related incentives.
The UK, France, and Germany were all closing in on 20% in 2021 and had notably higher EV sales in Q4 than Q1 i.e. UK was 18.6% for 2021 but 33% for December (including PHEVs).
I really think that the UK 2030 and EU 2035 new ICE sales phase-out targets (Norway is 2025) will go from looking really ambitious when they came out to outdated and trivial by the time those dates are actually reached.
Most people I know still have ICE cars but everyone knows their next car will be electric. I used to occasionally see an EV, these days walking through the neighbourhood about in 20 parked cars is an EV.
posted by atrazine at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
The UK, France, and Germany were all closing in on 20% in 2021 and had notably higher EV sales in Q4 than Q1 i.e. UK was 18.6% for 2021 but 33% for December (including PHEVs).
I really think that the UK 2030 and EU 2035 new ICE sales phase-out targets (Norway is 2025) will go from looking really ambitious when they came out to outdated and trivial by the time those dates are actually reached.
Most people I know still have ICE cars but everyone knows their next car will be electric. I used to occasionally see an EV, these days walking through the neighbourhood about in 20 parked cars is an EV.
posted by atrazine at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Norway is only 4 million people. We literally don’t have enough lithium being refined in order to equip the world with BEVs little alone every other use we need lithium for.
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis to become mainstream if only so we can keep from destroying the Earth in a never ending quest for lithium.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:44 AM on February 23, 2022
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis to become mainstream if only so we can keep from destroying the Earth in a never ending quest for lithium.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:44 AM on February 23, 2022
Meanwhile in the US:
It’s bad enough that it’s a seller’s market right now, but that advantage makes things worse when customers are being put through the wringer for simply being interested in a new model. Take what’s going on with one of the hottest new EVs on the market, the Kia EV6. Prospective EV6 buyers are reporting that dealers are putting them through unnecessary headaches — and through my own investigation, many don’t even seem to be interested in selling the EV at all. Of course, it’s mostly California dealers doing this.
posted by octothorpe at 7:46 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
It’s bad enough that it’s a seller’s market right now, but that advantage makes things worse when customers are being put through the wringer for simply being interested in a new model. Take what’s going on with one of the hottest new EVs on the market, the Kia EV6. Prospective EV6 buyers are reporting that dealers are putting them through unnecessary headaches — and through my own investigation, many don’t even seem to be interested in selling the EV at all. Of course, it’s mostly California dealers doing this.
posted by octothorpe at 7:46 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis to become mainstream if only so we can keep from destroying the Earth in a never ending quest for lithium.
We're going to need surplus carbon-neutral electrical power to produce this hydrogen, which we don't have. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen to use as a fuel than it can supply.
posted by drstrangelove at 7:51 AM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
We're going to need surplus carbon-neutral electrical power to produce this hydrogen, which we don't have. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen to use as a fuel than it can supply.
posted by drstrangelove at 7:51 AM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
Its always worth bearing in mind when incentives to buy EVs come up, that governments have historically and continue to provide large, long-term incentives to use fossil fuels. Here, lefty tree huggers, the International Monetary Fund, sets out the scale of FF subsidy and the disbenefits it causes.
posted by biffa at 7:55 AM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by biffa at 7:55 AM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
We literally don’t have enough lithium
* Fears of a lithium supply crunch may be overblown
* At a toxic lake in Calif., enough lithium to transform North America's EV industry
Geothermal: deposits at the Salton Sea may provide much of the element necessary to revolutionize the U.S. electric vehicle supply chain. (archive.fo version)
* China lithium deposit discovered near Mount Everest may be boon in push to secure critical resource
Of course, mining has its host of ethical concerns, but the worry about a long term mineral crunch seems to be fading. In addition: Some see Sodium Ion as replacement for Li-ion in the future.
posted by gwint at 7:57 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
* Fears of a lithium supply crunch may be overblown
* At a toxic lake in Calif., enough lithium to transform North America's EV industry
Geothermal: deposits at the Salton Sea may provide much of the element necessary to revolutionize the U.S. electric vehicle supply chain. (archive.fo version)
* China lithium deposit discovered near Mount Everest may be boon in push to secure critical resource
Of course, mining has its host of ethical concerns, but the worry about a long term mineral crunch seems to be fading. In addition: Some see Sodium Ion as replacement for Li-ion in the future.
posted by gwint at 7:57 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
The secret sauce is still incentives.
Does revenue to pay for that sauce come from general taxation, or taxes on ICE cars, or from the sovereign fund?
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis
Toyota is making a big push into hydrogen cars. However, they are working with the Japanese government to buy dirty coal from Australia to create the electrical infrastructure to supply refueling stations with hydrogen. Not so great.
There may not be enough lithium for EVs for all, but getting people off of the ICE car-and-gasoline cycle in the short term seems a worthwhile goal.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:58 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Does revenue to pay for that sauce come from general taxation, or taxes on ICE cars, or from the sovereign fund?
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis
Toyota is making a big push into hydrogen cars. However, they are working with the Japanese government to buy dirty coal from Australia to create the electrical infrastructure to supply refueling stations with hydrogen. Not so great.
There may not be enough lithium for EVs for all, but getting people off of the ICE car-and-gasoline cycle in the short term seems a worthwhile goal.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:58 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
We got an EV in 2018 and the change just between then and now is big. My office - which used to lack even a wall plug - now has 2 dedicated charging spots and they are always full. Charging options on my two main long drives have doubled. Destination charging hotels are easy to find in most cities. And it's not all Bolts and Teslas: there are Leafs and Volvos and VWs and Porsches and Audis and that beautiful Mustang. Kia and Hyundai's new models look amazing. Demand for the F-150 is high. It's all really promising.
But the dealer model is a big hindrance in the US for sure. It's not just a lack of interest in selling them, in some cases there seems to be an effort to steer people away altogether. That makes sense: in 3.5 years of ownership, my maintenance outlay has been three tire rotations for about $100 total. I hope manufacturers figure out a way to make selling EVs interesting to dealers.
posted by AgentRocket at 8:02 AM on February 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
But the dealer model is a big hindrance in the US for sure. It's not just a lack of interest in selling them, in some cases there seems to be an effort to steer people away altogether. That makes sense: in 3.5 years of ownership, my maintenance outlay has been three tire rotations for about $100 total. I hope manufacturers figure out a way to make selling EVs interesting to dealers.
posted by AgentRocket at 8:02 AM on February 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
Electric pickups are an example of how much of a joke EVs could become.
posted by drstrangelove at 8:06 AM on February 23, 2022
posted by drstrangelove at 8:06 AM on February 23, 2022
We're going to need surplus carbon-neutral electrical power to produce this hydrogen, which we don't have. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen to use as a fuel than it can supply.
It takes more energy to store electricity in batteries than the battery can supply. It takes more energy to make electricity to put in batteries than the electricity can supply outside the power plant.
It takes more energy to get any work done than the work itself takes. Entropy is a thing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
It takes more energy to store electricity in batteries than the battery can supply. It takes more energy to make electricity to put in batteries than the electricity can supply outside the power plant.
It takes more energy to get any work done than the work itself takes. Entropy is a thing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
>three tire rotations for about $100 total
I get my tire rotations for free so my costs with my Leaf since 2018 have been one set of tires @ 30,000 miles.
Also have rooftop solar now so am getting a "fuel" cost of $0.60/gallon (normalizing to a 32 MPG car), down from $2.40/gallon w/ PG&E's somewhat high power rates.
My Leaf came with $15,500 of gov't and PG&E rebates so it's worked out pretty well for me (at least in-town, 150+ mile trips are somewhat bothersome given its limited pack cooling capability)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
I get my tire rotations for free so my costs with my Leaf since 2018 have been one set of tires @ 30,000 miles.
Also have rooftop solar now so am getting a "fuel" cost of $0.60/gallon (normalizing to a 32 MPG car), down from $2.40/gallon w/ PG&E's somewhat high power rates.
My Leaf came with $15,500 of gov't and PG&E rebates so it's worked out pretty well for me (at least in-town, 150+ mile trips are somewhat bothersome given its limited pack cooling capability)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
The issue with lithium supplies is most likely not so much about total resource as it is about development timescales for new mines whether those are spodumene hard rock, brine evaporation, or yet to be proven DLE technologies. We are already hitting a capacity crunch now and lithium hydroxide and carbonate spot prices are through the roof.
* Fears of a lithium supply crunch may be overblown
Strange headline given the content from the always-good Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is pretty clear that a near-term supply crunch is now inevitable.
posted by atrazine at 8:23 AM on February 23, 2022
* Fears of a lithium supply crunch may be overblown
Strange headline given the content from the always-good Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is pretty clear that a near-term supply crunch is now inevitable.
posted by atrazine at 8:23 AM on February 23, 2022
I’m curious to know how the charging infrastructure works out in heavier density neighborhoods. Parking lot charging? On street? (I imagine in urban centers the answer is just that you don’t need a car)
posted by condour75 at 8:24 AM on February 23, 2022
posted by condour75 at 8:24 AM on February 23, 2022
Battery technology will evolve. We will find other things to make batteries with.
posted by Slinga at 8:39 AM on February 23, 2022
posted by Slinga at 8:39 AM on February 23, 2022
Any given solution didn’t need to fix every possible adjacent problem to still be a worthwhile solution.
posted by aramaic at 8:43 AM on February 23, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 8:43 AM on February 23, 2022 [13 favorites]
I’m curious to know how the charging infrastructure works out in heavier density neighborhoods.
I think the expectation is that bigger towns will tend to have more resilience in the local network, but may need some reinforcing. I think the current thinking (hope!) is that EVs will charge offpeak so won't cause massive demand spikes. We'll see how that goes. Potentially if heat pumps take off they will be more of a struggle for local grids since they will tend to be more likely to accrue at the network periphery and may also mean more volatile demand.
posted by biffa at 9:03 AM on February 23, 2022
I think the expectation is that bigger towns will tend to have more resilience in the local network, but may need some reinforcing. I think the current thinking (hope!) is that EVs will charge offpeak so won't cause massive demand spikes. We'll see how that goes. Potentially if heat pumps take off they will be more of a struggle for local grids since they will tend to be more likely to accrue at the network periphery and may also mean more volatile demand.
posted by biffa at 9:03 AM on February 23, 2022
U.S. dealerships will have to come around. I don't know if it's education or what. When I bought my bolt in 2020 mine offered me three years of free oil changes.
posted by gordie at 9:17 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by gordie at 9:17 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I imagine in urban centers the answer is just that you don’t need a car
I mean, that's kinda the general thing: electric cars save us from a leeetle bit of spot emissions (modern emissions control systems mean that we're pretty much just getting water and CO2 out of the tail pipe), but they don't save us from tire dust and other particulate pollution, from the deferred maintenance debt of so much infrastructure that can never pay for itself (not to mention adding more lanes), from congestion, and from death and dismemberment from impacts.
They're still, like internal combustion automobiles, subject to a host of subsidies that are bleeding us as a society dry.
We just replaced our electric car with another electric car, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can replace my beater truck with an electric truck, but the larger problem is that I'm part of the problem, and we need to be working towards a society where automobiles in general aren't so heavily subsidized and where automobile ownership is optional, rather than mandatory.
(And, yeah, our new electric is a Bolt, and it's fine for a car that we've been asked to only drive half of the range we've bought it for lest it burn our house down, but holy shit Chevy does not understand software, electric cars, or user interface design. And yes, the appointment scheduling for a software upgrade that should have been over the air asked if I wanted an oil change...)
posted by straw at 9:21 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I mean, that's kinda the general thing: electric cars save us from a leeetle bit of spot emissions (modern emissions control systems mean that we're pretty much just getting water and CO2 out of the tail pipe), but they don't save us from tire dust and other particulate pollution, from the deferred maintenance debt of so much infrastructure that can never pay for itself (not to mention adding more lanes), from congestion, and from death and dismemberment from impacts.
They're still, like internal combustion automobiles, subject to a host of subsidies that are bleeding us as a society dry.
We just replaced our electric car with another electric car, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can replace my beater truck with an electric truck, but the larger problem is that I'm part of the problem, and we need to be working towards a society where automobiles in general aren't so heavily subsidized and where automobile ownership is optional, rather than mandatory.
(And, yeah, our new electric is a Bolt, and it's fine for a car that we've been asked to only drive half of the range we've bought it for lest it burn our house down, but holy shit Chevy does not understand software, electric cars, or user interface design. And yes, the appointment scheduling for a software upgrade that should have been over the air asked if I wanted an oil change...)
posted by straw at 9:21 AM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
electric cars save us from a leeetle bit of spot emissions
My hope is that they'll also reduce the demand for oil, thus reducing (or slowing the growth of) a whole number of evils, including oil extraction, oil tankers travelling the world burning bunker fuel, refinery activity, petrol tankers on the roads, etc.
posted by Luddite at 9:43 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
My hope is that they'll also reduce the demand for oil, thus reducing (or slowing the growth of) a whole number of evils, including oil extraction, oil tankers travelling the world burning bunker fuel, refinery activity, petrol tankers on the roads, etc.
posted by Luddite at 9:43 AM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
how the charging infrastructure works out in heavier density neighborhoods
In the médium run people propose using the cars themselves as neighborhood batteries for peak smoothing. I don’t know if people will go for it, but I’ve been told by engineers who should know that it saves net energy and smooths the necessary upgrade of regional electric systems to handle the Electrification of Everything.
In the short run I see charging cables run out under sidewalks and tree lawns. No idea if it’s legal. Also, I’m in a streetcar suburb that wasn’t laid out for universal car use so has had goofy parking ever since cars came in (about fifteen years after layout, a hundred years ago).
In the long run how likely is it that we can fit regular use of a ton of personal commute into 3t CO2eq/personyear, including emergy and social use?
posted by clew at 9:44 AM on February 23, 2022
In the médium run people propose using the cars themselves as neighborhood batteries for peak smoothing. I don’t know if people will go for it, but I’ve been told by engineers who should know that it saves net energy and smooths the necessary upgrade of regional electric systems to handle the Electrification of Everything.
In the short run I see charging cables run out under sidewalks and tree lawns. No idea if it’s legal. Also, I’m in a streetcar suburb that wasn’t laid out for universal car use so has had goofy parking ever since cars came in (about fifteen years after layout, a hundred years ago).
In the long run how likely is it that we can fit regular use of a ton of personal commute into 3t CO2eq/personyear, including emergy and social use?
posted by clew at 9:44 AM on February 23, 2022
You can thank the members of seminal Norwegian pop group A-Ha for the country's decision to not impose taxes and tolls on electric vehicles, as detailed in this piece from the Guardian.
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Curious about how well the EVs work in such northern climates in winter. I've seen comments in the US that battery storage (and therefore range) radically diminish in extreme cold after a few years. My Prius is still going strong after 14 years, but looking toward what's next, I wonder why there aren't more cars that do what the Volt was supposed to do: use the battery till it ran out (rare since most trips are short), and only then does the ICE kick in.
posted by rikschell at 9:46 AM on February 23, 2022
posted by rikschell at 9:46 AM on February 23, 2022
Curious about how well the EVs work in such northern climates in winter.
I'm an automotive journalist who regularly tests EVs in the Canadian winter. You're looking at 30-40 percent reduction in battery range at below-freezing temperatures, depending on how the vehicle manages heat and pre-conditioning. Some OEMs do it much better than others.
This is similar to the reduction in efficiency for ICE vehicles.
As for your question about the Volt—there are close to 30 plug-in hybrid vehicles on the market today that do exactly what you are describing (EV until the battery runs out, then ICE engine).
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:54 AM on February 23, 2022 [16 favorites]
I'm an automotive journalist who regularly tests EVs in the Canadian winter. You're looking at 30-40 percent reduction in battery range at below-freezing temperatures, depending on how the vehicle manages heat and pre-conditioning. Some OEMs do it much better than others.
This is similar to the reduction in efficiency for ICE vehicles.
As for your question about the Volt—there are close to 30 plug-in hybrid vehicles on the market today that do exactly what you are describing (EV until the battery runs out, then ICE engine).
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:54 AM on February 23, 2022 [16 favorites]
Ah, thanks. Haven't gotten into deep research yet, and only saw hybrid and plugin only options. Hard to know how to search for some of these things. Does that 30-40% reduction include running the heat to make the cabin comfortable? Does it increase as the battery ages? I'm interested in plugin, but I don't have a garage, and the driveway isn't directly next to the house. Lots of variables to work out, and hard to know what sources to trust when you only buy a car every 15 years.
posted by rikschell at 10:14 AM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 10:14 AM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
If anything we need hydrogen power from renewable electrolysis to become mainstream if only so we can keep from destroying the Earth in a never ending quest for lithium.
Hydrogen vehicles have been a total failure everywhere they have been tried. Here in BC, government has been pumping money into trying to make hydrogen work for decades and it never goes anywhere. It's very clear at this point that battery electric has won and no hydrogen-filling network is going to be built.
Lithium supply is a much simpler problem than the many problems that come with hydrogen for vehicles.
Hydrogen has a use as a replacement for coal in steelmaking and in some other industrial uses, but for transportation, it clearly isn't happening.
posted by ssg at 10:18 AM on February 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
Hydrogen vehicles have been a total failure everywhere they have been tried. Here in BC, government has been pumping money into trying to make hydrogen work for decades and it never goes anywhere. It's very clear at this point that battery electric has won and no hydrogen-filling network is going to be built.
Lithium supply is a much simpler problem than the many problems that come with hydrogen for vehicles.
Hydrogen has a use as a replacement for coal in steelmaking and in some other industrial uses, but for transportation, it clearly isn't happening.
posted by ssg at 10:18 AM on February 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
rikschell, it does include running heat, but a fair bit of it is also linked to how battery chemistry reacts to colder temperatures.
The percentage of loss is all over the place depending where you look: some vehicles use heat pumps that really help (better managing cabin temperatures) as well as thermal management and pre-conditioning for the battery packs themselves.
Testing also occurs at a wide variety of temperatures (some use freezing, some go below), and that accounts for reporting variance. Most of my experiences with EVs in cold weather occur at between -10 C and -20 C, with occasional dips to -30 C (rare). Within the -10 to -20 range is where I see 30-40 percent loss, although some newer EVs from Kia and Hyundai (for example) are able to use thermal management so effectively that there's only a 25 percent or so drop in range.
posted by jordantwodelta at 10:23 AM on February 23, 2022
The percentage of loss is all over the place depending where you look: some vehicles use heat pumps that really help (better managing cabin temperatures) as well as thermal management and pre-conditioning for the battery packs themselves.
Testing also occurs at a wide variety of temperatures (some use freezing, some go below), and that accounts for reporting variance. Most of my experiences with EVs in cold weather occur at between -10 C and -20 C, with occasional dips to -30 C (rare). Within the -10 to -20 range is where I see 30-40 percent loss, although some newer EVs from Kia and Hyundai (for example) are able to use thermal management so effectively that there's only a 25 percent or so drop in range.
posted by jordantwodelta at 10:23 AM on February 23, 2022
I'm starting to pay attention to an aspect of EVs with substantial potential impact: degradation. We have a PHEV, an Audi. It has a battery that, when new, provided ~20 miles of driving (and gas engine thereafter). Crucially, that covers my 12-mile commute easily.
5 years into ownership, with just under 100k miles, we are getting 7-10 miles on it.
Audi's battery warranty "covers" 8 years/100k. But, they tell me, this is "normal" degradation, batteries don't last forever. They won't cover it.
Any EV that loses half of its range in 5 years is going to become a trash heap; it's not like a gas car that can limp along on repairs. And that's going to add up to a LOT of waste. Quickly.
posted by Dashy at 10:32 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
5 years into ownership, with just under 100k miles, we are getting 7-10 miles on it.
Audi's battery warranty "covers" 8 years/100k. But, they tell me, this is "normal" degradation, batteries don't last forever. They won't cover it.
Any EV that loses half of its range in 5 years is going to become a trash heap; it's not like a gas car that can limp along on repairs. And that's going to add up to a LOT of waste. Quickly.
posted by Dashy at 10:32 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
It takes more energy to store electricity in batteries than the battery can supply. It takes more energy to make electricity to put in batteries than the electricity can supply outside the power plant.
Round trip through a lithium-ion battery is about 95% efficient; round trip through electrolyzer, distribution channels and onboard fuel cell puts hydrogen at around 50%. So a fully hydrogen fuel cell fleet needs about twice the electricity generation capacity of a fully lithium-ion BEV fleet.
Hydrogen fuel cells are probably best reserved for large vehicles like buses, semitrailers and trains that need long range and rapid refuelling, where both the weight and the recharge time of batteries would pose unacceptable performance restrictions.
posted by flabdablet at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
Round trip through a lithium-ion battery is about 95% efficient; round trip through electrolyzer, distribution channels and onboard fuel cell puts hydrogen at around 50%. So a fully hydrogen fuel cell fleet needs about twice the electricity generation capacity of a fully lithium-ion BEV fleet.
Hydrogen fuel cells are probably best reserved for large vehicles like buses, semitrailers and trains that need long range and rapid refuelling, where both the weight and the recharge time of batteries would pose unacceptable performance restrictions.
posted by flabdablet at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
It takes more energy to store electricity in batteries than the battery can supply. It takes more energy to make electricity to put in batteries than the electricity can supply outside the power plant.
It takes more energy to get any work done than the work itself takes. Entropy is a thing.
The point, which you missed, is that we don't have an overabundance of electricity just sitting around waiting to be used. Before we start adding more things to power we should be trying to figure out how to make our existing electrical load carbon-neutral.
posted by drstrangelove at 11:14 AM on February 23, 2022
It takes more energy to get any work done than the work itself takes. Entropy is a thing.
The point, which you missed, is that we don't have an overabundance of electricity just sitting around waiting to be used. Before we start adding more things to power we should be trying to figure out how to make our existing electrical load carbon-neutral.
posted by drstrangelove at 11:14 AM on February 23, 2022
Any EV that loses half of its range in 5 years is going to become a trash heap; it's not like a gas car that can limp along on repairs. And that's going to add up to a LOT of waste. Quickly.--Dashy
I can't speak for your experience, but the average Tesla still has 90% of its original capacity after 200,000 miles. And a lot of the components of the battery, like the Lithium, are not consumed, and are still 100% there at the end of the battery life. They can be recycled. There are already profitable EV battery recycling companies in existence like Redwood Materials.
posted by eye of newt at 11:21 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I can't speak for your experience, but the average Tesla still has 90% of its original capacity after 200,000 miles. And a lot of the components of the battery, like the Lithium, are not consumed, and are still 100% there at the end of the battery life. They can be recycled. There are already profitable EV battery recycling companies in existence like Redwood Materials.
posted by eye of newt at 11:21 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Lithium Extraction from Seawater through Pulsed Electrochemical Intercalation
Turns out that overbuilding renewable generation plant by a factor of about 4, then improving the dispatchability of the result via demand-based power pricing and a massive distributed energy storage facility in the form of spare capacity in everybody's vehicle batteries, could potentially do exactly that.
posted by flabdablet at 11:22 AM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are 43.6 M tons of Li on land sources, including 16.7 million tons in ores and 26.9 million tons in brines. The current method to extract Li from brines, which typically have Li concentrations between 100 and 1,000 ppm is based on evaporation and chemical precipitation which is highly time-intensive due to the pre-treatment process to concentrate Li ions. In contrast, there are 5,000 times more Li present in the seawater of above 200 billion tons, but where Li concentration is only 0.180 ppm.Before we start adding more things to power we should be trying to figure out how to make our existing electrical load carbon-neutral.
...
Here, we report the use of the TiO2-coated LiFePO4 electrode combined with a pulsed electrochemical method to extract Li with high selectivity through intercalation chemistry.
...
Starting from an authentic seawater sample obtained at Half Moon Bay, California, we have demonstrated 10 cycles of stable Li extraction with 1:1 Li/Na ratio. This is equivalent to a molar selectivity as high as 1.8 × 104. Besides seawater, we also demonstrated the use of electrochemical intercalation method to extract Li from a higher initial Li to Na molar ratio solutions as well as lake water. We achieved 50.2% ± 0.78%, 94.3% ± 4.0%, ∼100%, and 98.1% ± 1.0% Li/(Li + Na) recovery from solution which has Li/Na ratio of 5.4 × 10−5, 5.0 × 10−4, 4.0 × 10−3, and natural salt lake water, respectively.
Turns out that overbuilding renewable generation plant by a factor of about 4, then improving the dispatchability of the result via demand-based power pricing and a massive distributed energy storage facility in the form of spare capacity in everybody's vehicle batteries, could potentially do exactly that.
posted by flabdablet at 11:22 AM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The point, which you missed, is that we don't have an overabundance of electricity just sitting around waiting to be used. Before we start adding more things to power we should be trying to figure out how to make our existing electrical load carbon-neutral.
We need to do both at the same time. We can't wait around for a few decades to improve our electrical generation and distribution systems and then think about electrifying transportation, heating, industry, etc. We simply don't have the time.
The good news is that renewables are cheap, in most cases cheaper than new gas powered generation. We don't need to add more gas-fired electrical generation as demand increases. There are supply and demand matching issues to resolve, but they are really not that difficult and we have a lot of tools in the toolbox to handle them (existing storage in hydro reservoirs, pumped hydro and other gravitational storage, demand management through time of day pricing, better grid interconnections, etc).
The good thing about electrification is that we save a huge amount of energy through efficiency. Battery electric vehicles use roughly half as much energy as gas powered vehicles, even with charging losses, because gasoline engines are horribly inefficient. Heat pumps for space heating use about a third as much energy as natural gas, depending on your climate. Electric stoves are way more efficient than gas (induction is about twice as efficient, resistance electric a little less than double). And we still have a lot of opportunities to reduce energy demand by making buildings more efficient in general.
Hydrogen fuel cells are probably best reserved for large vehicles like buses, semitrailers and trains that need long range and rapid refuelling, where both the weight and the recharge time of batteries would pose unacceptable performance restrictions.
BC put a huge amount of money into hydrogen powered buses that ran for five years and then they got rid of them and replaced them with diesel buses, because they cost a huge amount to run.
Meanwhile China has some half a million battery electric buses.
And we already have electric trains, which have worked fine for many decades.
posted by ssg at 11:55 AM on February 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
We need to do both at the same time. We can't wait around for a few decades to improve our electrical generation and distribution systems and then think about electrifying transportation, heating, industry, etc. We simply don't have the time.
The good news is that renewables are cheap, in most cases cheaper than new gas powered generation. We don't need to add more gas-fired electrical generation as demand increases. There are supply and demand matching issues to resolve, but they are really not that difficult and we have a lot of tools in the toolbox to handle them (existing storage in hydro reservoirs, pumped hydro and other gravitational storage, demand management through time of day pricing, better grid interconnections, etc).
The good thing about electrification is that we save a huge amount of energy through efficiency. Battery electric vehicles use roughly half as much energy as gas powered vehicles, even with charging losses, because gasoline engines are horribly inefficient. Heat pumps for space heating use about a third as much energy as natural gas, depending on your climate. Electric stoves are way more efficient than gas (induction is about twice as efficient, resistance electric a little less than double). And we still have a lot of opportunities to reduce energy demand by making buildings more efficient in general.
Hydrogen fuel cells are probably best reserved for large vehicles like buses, semitrailers and trains that need long range and rapid refuelling, where both the weight and the recharge time of batteries would pose unacceptable performance restrictions.
BC put a huge amount of money into hydrogen powered buses that ran for five years and then they got rid of them and replaced them with diesel buses, because they cost a huge amount to run.
Meanwhile China has some half a million battery electric buses.
And we already have electric trains, which have worked fine for many decades.
posted by ssg at 11:55 AM on February 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
We literally don’t have enough lithium being refined in order to equip the world with BEVs little alone every other use we need lithium for.
There's no shortage of lithium in the world. There's a shortage of cheap lithium, and the cheap lithium that is available is unfortunately located in places that have gotten the shit end of the resource-extraction stick for generations (like Congo, which is also cursed with an abundance of cobalt).
What we should probably do is heavily subsidize cleaner methods of lithium mining (like brine extraction) in places with strong regulatory environments, in order to make it preferable to having children dig lithium-bearing rock out of the ground in Africa. I'd rather have well-regulated lithium mining in the US, than poorly-regulated lithium mining in Congo or Chile. Mining doesn't have to be a race to the bottom in terms of environmental and human impact, if we don't let it.
But fundamentally, one way or another there is going to be mining. Right now, we "mine" coal and petroleum, at vast human and environmental expense. If we want to stop doing that, we're going to end up mining lithium (for batteries, mostly) and cobalt (for anodes, so-called "rare earth" magnets, etc.). On balance, the Li/Co mining is almost certainly preferable to fossil carbon. There aren't any particularly viable alternatives at the moment. I'm all for continuing to look for new battery chemistries, better nuclear reactor designs, fusion energy, you name it, but right now the best shot we have at not slow-roasting the ecosphere involves getting a hell of a lot of lithium out of the ground (or the ocean water). Everything else is a pretty iffy bet to stake civilization on.
Once you dig a pound of lithium out of the ground, you have a pound of lithium. Unless you do something stupid like drop it in the ocean, or mix it into a bunch of hazardous trash and bury it, you're always going to have that pound of lithium. Contrast that to carbon, where once you burn it, it's gone—on to pollute the atmosphere and cause global warming.
Vehicle battery recycling is one of the few aspects of recycling that we do pretty well. Something like 90% of the lead in car batteries gets recycled. (I mean, room for improvement certainly, but that's better than nearly all other "recyclable" commodities.) We need a lot of lithium in the short term, but once we extract enough for the 20 pounds or so that each car requires, plus whatever additional we need for grid storage and other uses, the demand will likely taper off. (If the global population peaks and starts to decrease, as we better hope it does, then the numbers are even better.) Eventually, the amount we need to mine each year is only the relatively small amount that's not recycled—and we have a lot of levers to pull to encourage recycling (deposit / core charge schemes, extraction taxes and import duties on virgin Li), if we want to use them.
We need to get better at mining, because it's not going away unless humans go away. BEVs are probably our last, best shot at electrifying transportation, which is something like 26% of total energy use. If we panic and run away from it (like we essentially did with nuclear energy in the US), rather than making it work, it will almost certainly drag out carbon extraction even further.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:11 PM on February 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
There's no shortage of lithium in the world. There's a shortage of cheap lithium, and the cheap lithium that is available is unfortunately located in places that have gotten the shit end of the resource-extraction stick for generations (like Congo, which is also cursed with an abundance of cobalt).
What we should probably do is heavily subsidize cleaner methods of lithium mining (like brine extraction) in places with strong regulatory environments, in order to make it preferable to having children dig lithium-bearing rock out of the ground in Africa. I'd rather have well-regulated lithium mining in the US, than poorly-regulated lithium mining in Congo or Chile. Mining doesn't have to be a race to the bottom in terms of environmental and human impact, if we don't let it.
But fundamentally, one way or another there is going to be mining. Right now, we "mine" coal and petroleum, at vast human and environmental expense. If we want to stop doing that, we're going to end up mining lithium (for batteries, mostly) and cobalt (for anodes, so-called "rare earth" magnets, etc.). On balance, the Li/Co mining is almost certainly preferable to fossil carbon. There aren't any particularly viable alternatives at the moment. I'm all for continuing to look for new battery chemistries, better nuclear reactor designs, fusion energy, you name it, but right now the best shot we have at not slow-roasting the ecosphere involves getting a hell of a lot of lithium out of the ground (or the ocean water). Everything else is a pretty iffy bet to stake civilization on.
Once you dig a pound of lithium out of the ground, you have a pound of lithium. Unless you do something stupid like drop it in the ocean, or mix it into a bunch of hazardous trash and bury it, you're always going to have that pound of lithium. Contrast that to carbon, where once you burn it, it's gone—on to pollute the atmosphere and cause global warming.
Vehicle battery recycling is one of the few aspects of recycling that we do pretty well. Something like 90% of the lead in car batteries gets recycled. (I mean, room for improvement certainly, but that's better than nearly all other "recyclable" commodities.) We need a lot of lithium in the short term, but once we extract enough for the 20 pounds or so that each car requires, plus whatever additional we need for grid storage and other uses, the demand will likely taper off. (If the global population peaks and starts to decrease, as we better hope it does, then the numbers are even better.) Eventually, the amount we need to mine each year is only the relatively small amount that's not recycled—and we have a lot of levers to pull to encourage recycling (deposit / core charge schemes, extraction taxes and import duties on virgin Li), if we want to use them.
We need to get better at mining, because it's not going away unless humans go away. BEVs are probably our last, best shot at electrifying transportation, which is something like 26% of total energy use. If we panic and run away from it (like we essentially did with nuclear energy in the US), rather than making it work, it will almost certainly drag out carbon extraction even further.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:11 PM on February 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'm an automotive journalist who regularly tests EVs in the Canadian winter. You're looking at 30-40 percent reduction in battery range at below-freezing temperatures, depending on how the vehicle manages heat and pre-conditioning. Some OEMs do it much better than others.
I have a Leaf in Minnesota and while I haven't carefully analyzed it, I would have ballparked the number closer to 20%. But I'm just one car and maybe I've been lucky.
Regardless, the change in range is pretty insubstantial in terms of how it actually affects my usage - I rarely drive 150 miles in a week, so going from 200 miles to 150 miles of range is hardly affecting me. It might be different if I didn't have access to off-street charging-capable parking at home, of course. But my driving habits are, from what I understand, not unusual. You can lose a lot of range in percentage terms and it still only means plugging every few days instead of once a week.
posted by nickmark at 12:30 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have a Leaf in Minnesota and while I haven't carefully analyzed it, I would have ballparked the number closer to 20%. But I'm just one car and maybe I've been lucky.
Regardless, the change in range is pretty insubstantial in terms of how it actually affects my usage - I rarely drive 150 miles in a week, so going from 200 miles to 150 miles of range is hardly affecting me. It might be different if I didn't have access to off-street charging-capable parking at home, of course. But my driving habits are, from what I understand, not unusual. You can lose a lot of range in percentage terms and it still only means plugging every few days instead of once a week.
posted by nickmark at 12:30 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
BC put a huge amount of money into hydrogen powered buses that ran for five years and then they got rid of them and replaced them with diesel buses, because they cost a huge amount to run.--ssg
Oakland, California put a huge amount of California taxpayer money into hydrogen powered buses starting all the way back in 2002.
They later bought more with much bigger batteries (all hydrogen vehicles also have big batteries to handle acceleration--they are effectively hybrids) which were much more usable. More recently they have been buying electric buses. They still have the hydrogen buses because most of the expenses are being paid for by the state. This is true for just about all hydrogen vehicles all over the world--it is a big, expensive, taxpayer funded boondoggle.
They came out with a big (pdf) report last year comparing the different bus types. A quick glance shows that electric buses look to be a little less reliable but are cheaper to buy and cheaper to run.
posted by eye of newt at 12:36 PM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oakland, California put a huge amount of California taxpayer money into hydrogen powered buses starting all the way back in 2002.
They later bought more with much bigger batteries (all hydrogen vehicles also have big batteries to handle acceleration--they are effectively hybrids) which were much more usable. More recently they have been buying electric buses. They still have the hydrogen buses because most of the expenses are being paid for by the state. This is true for just about all hydrogen vehicles all over the world--it is a big, expensive, taxpayer funded boondoggle.
They came out with a big (pdf) report last year comparing the different bus types. A quick glance shows that electric buses look to be a little less reliable but are cheaper to buy and cheaper to run.
posted by eye of newt at 12:36 PM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
It has a battery that, when new, provided ~20 miles of driving (and gas engine thereafter). Crucially, that covers my 12-mile commute easily.
5 years into ownership, with just under 100k miles, we are getting 7-10 miles on it.
It depends on how many cycles (roughly, a full discharge/charge) is on the battery. If your commute was done entirely on battery power, that's more than half a cycle. Do this for four years (0.6 cycles * 50 weeks * 5 times a week * 4 years) and that's 600 cycles, just on commuting, and for only 12,000 battery-powered miles out of your 100K total. Five hundred cycles is around where the battery is only expected to maintain 80% of its capacity, afterwards it falls more rapidly.
Teslas and other EVs shouldn't be approaching this cycle count quite so fast, and there already are nine year old Model S cars. Their batteries are rated for ~300 miles. So they should get to 150K miles before they hit 500 cycles. Also, they're over-provisioned so those 300 miles are not actually using 100% of the battery capacity - there is extra capacity thrown in there just for longevity's sake.
posted by meowzilla at 12:37 PM on February 23, 2022
5 years into ownership, with just under 100k miles, we are getting 7-10 miles on it.
It depends on how many cycles (roughly, a full discharge/charge) is on the battery. If your commute was done entirely on battery power, that's more than half a cycle. Do this for four years (0.6 cycles * 50 weeks * 5 times a week * 4 years) and that's 600 cycles, just on commuting, and for only 12,000 battery-powered miles out of your 100K total. Five hundred cycles is around where the battery is only expected to maintain 80% of its capacity, afterwards it falls more rapidly.
Teslas and other EVs shouldn't be approaching this cycle count quite so fast, and there already are nine year old Model S cars. Their batteries are rated for ~300 miles. So they should get to 150K miles before they hit 500 cycles. Also, they're over-provisioned so those 300 miles are not actually using 100% of the battery capacity - there is extra capacity thrown in there just for longevity's sake.
posted by meowzilla at 12:37 PM on February 23, 2022
Round trip through a lithium-ion battery is about 95% efficient; round trip through electrolyzer, distribution channels and onboard fuel cell puts hydrogen at around 50%. So a fully hydrogen fuel cell fleet needs about twice the electricity generation capacity of a fully lithium-ion BEV fleet.
I think this is kinda conflating generation capacity with energy consumption. Neither fleet needs to be plugged in to operate, so their generation capacity impacts are not necessarily known - and certainly can't be compared on the basis of their overall efficiency.
posted by nickmark at 12:38 PM on February 23, 2022
I think this is kinda conflating generation capacity with energy consumption. Neither fleet needs to be plugged in to operate, so their generation capacity impacts are not necessarily known - and certainly can't be compared on the basis of their overall efficiency.
posted by nickmark at 12:38 PM on February 23, 2022
And we already have electric trains, which have worked fine for many decades.
If we were genuinely serious about these issues then passenger rail and transit, powered electrically, would be the top priority. Not only is it more efficient but the equipment itself lasts much longer. I doubt EVs go much longer than regular cars simply thanks to the electronics, meanwhile trains go many decades. Not to mention the insane resources that goes into maintaining our highway system.
posted by drstrangelove at 12:39 PM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
If we were genuinely serious about these issues then passenger rail and transit, powered electrically, would be the top priority. Not only is it more efficient but the equipment itself lasts much longer. I doubt EVs go much longer than regular cars simply thanks to the electronics, meanwhile trains go many decades. Not to mention the insane resources that goes into maintaining our highway system.
posted by drstrangelove at 12:39 PM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
The point, which you missed, is that we don't have an overabundance of electricity just sitting around waiting to be used. Before we start adding more things to power we should be trying to figure out how to make our existing electrical load carbon-neutral.
In many places, we already do have at least the occasional overabundance of electricity sitting around waiting to be used. Wholesale power prices have gone negative a few times on the GB grid and elsewhere due to increases in the proportion of variable renewables and with the amount of renewables in the pipeline, this is sure to happen more rather than less often.
The work of Marc Perez is interesting here. He took a few simple principles:
-Cheap PV and wind production
-Expensive but getting cheaper lithium ion batteries
-Load profiles
and calculated the cheapest way of matching load with generation all the time. Turns out that:
-The implicit cost of insufficient generation is very high and much higher than the cost of excess generation
-Batteries cost a lot more than generation
That means the model says that the cheapest power comes from "over"building renewables so as to minimise the use of expensive storage. This is cheaper even if you throw all your extra electricity right in the garbage. If you can find literally any use for it and sell it for a few $ / MWh the economics get even better. So the future is about a wholesale power market where most hours are wildly, massively oversupplied and energy has little marginal cost and a small number of "uh oh" hours where energy is super valuable and in fact we probably will have quite a lot of cumulative spare energy for anyone who can figure out how to use it right.
posted by atrazine at 12:47 PM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
In many places, we already do have at least the occasional overabundance of electricity sitting around waiting to be used. Wholesale power prices have gone negative a few times on the GB grid and elsewhere due to increases in the proportion of variable renewables and with the amount of renewables in the pipeline, this is sure to happen more rather than less often.
The work of Marc Perez is interesting here. He took a few simple principles:
-Cheap PV and wind production
-Expensive but getting cheaper lithium ion batteries
-Load profiles
and calculated the cheapest way of matching load with generation all the time. Turns out that:
-The implicit cost of insufficient generation is very high and much higher than the cost of excess generation
-Batteries cost a lot more than generation
That means the model says that the cheapest power comes from "over"building renewables so as to minimise the use of expensive storage. This is cheaper even if you throw all your extra electricity right in the garbage. If you can find literally any use for it and sell it for a few $ / MWh the economics get even better. So the future is about a wholesale power market where most hours are wildly, massively oversupplied and energy has little marginal cost and a small number of "uh oh" hours where energy is super valuable and in fact we probably will have quite a lot of cumulative spare energy for anyone who can figure out how to use it right.
posted by atrazine at 12:47 PM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
we probably will have quite a lot of cumulative spare energy for anyone who can figure out how to use it right
For example, direct air capture of carbon at massive scale, if we could get that technology working.
posted by allegedly at 12:58 PM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
For example, direct air capture of carbon at massive scale, if we could get that technology working.
posted by allegedly at 12:58 PM on February 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
>Any EV that loses half of its range in 5 years is going to become a trash heap
BEV sellers in the US are required to replace/refurbish packs that lose 35%+ (?) of their range within 8 years/100,000 miles
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:04 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
BEV sellers in the US are required to replace/refurbish packs that lose 35%+ (?) of their range within 8 years/100,000 miles
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:04 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have a spreadsheet where I compared my cost per day over 15 years to run an old used car vs a new EV, assuming 90% of charging was done at home, and not including the cost of the solar panels to do it. The old car was $2.61/day, the EV would be $3.96/day if the BBB act passed. ($3.70 if not living in TN, which has a really special $100/year fee for running an EV).
But I don't have much hope for the US passing the BBB any time soon. Car market is also insane and dealers seem to rarely even stock EVs. I decided to wait out the remaining lifetime of the old car. :-(
posted by joeyh at 1:06 PM on February 23, 2022
But I don't have much hope for the US passing the BBB any time soon. Car market is also insane and dealers seem to rarely even stock EVs. I decided to wait out the remaining lifetime of the old car. :-(
posted by joeyh at 1:06 PM on February 23, 2022
Any EV that loses half of its range in 5 years is going to become a trash heap; it's not like a gas car that can limp along on repairs. And that's going to add up to a LOT of waste. Quickly.
I've been looking for a cheap used car lately, and it seems like every other listing online is a 2014-2018 Leaf.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:29 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've been looking for a cheap used car lately, and it seems like every other listing online is a 2014-2018 Leaf.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:29 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
It might be different if I didn't have access to off-street charging-capable parking at home
This is a pretty significant issue that I haven't heard a lot of discussion about. Maybe I'm just not plugged-in (ha) to the right sources, but it seems like current BEVs are great if you're a suburbanite commuter with a garage or carport at home, and access to a 220V Level 2 charger at night. In that scenario, there are cars currently on the market that offer practically a drop-in replacement for gasoline cars.
It's a tougher sell if you live in an apartment building with a big garage, or worse a surface parking lot. The electrical infrastructure required to put a charger at every parking space is substantial. No way are landlords going to foot that bill, unless they are dragged kicking and screaming, paying fines and court costs the whole way, and even then I have confidence they will find a way of getting renters to foot the (significant) bill. Some sort of subsidy/funding scheme probably needs to happen, but at least in the US that's likely to be difficult because a lot of political power resides in the suburbs, and suburbanites are loath to pay for urban infrastructure. (See also, public transportation.)
I have a plug-in hybrid vehicle (Chevy Volt, RIP) that I use largely as a BEV, and it's great. It was exactly the stepping-stone that we needed to move from gas/diesel towards electric, and our next car probably will be a total BEV, although I foresee that being a while because the Volt is an absurdly well-built car and we use it mostly as an electric. (Naturally, GM cancelled it, because that's the sort of thing GM does with good ideas.) But I've lost count of the number of friends who've ridden in it and said "wow, I'd love an electric car... but I have no place to charge it where I live". Even people in townhouses with off-street parking are often prohibited from adding charge ports to the exterior of their houses, or running cords across sidewalks/pathways. It's a real problem.
If we were genuinely serious about these issues then passenger rail and transit, powered electrically, would be the top priority.
I agree with this in theory, and I'm a huge train buff, but there are some pretty major problems you'd have to solve if you wanted to go this route. It would mean a wholesale dismantlement of ~60 years of car-centric infrastructure and development in the US. Communities built around rail transportation (and arguments about the viability of 20th c. "streetcar suburbs" aside, there are some, especially in the UK) don't look like archetypal US suburbs. They basically look like "blobs" of walkable, high-density/mixed-use communities arranged every few miles along rail lines. Getting to that from where we are now would be an immense lift. I have significant concerns about whether that would be feasible, given the timeline we have to meet to prevent catastrophic ecocide due to CO2 pollution.
But long-term? Like 100+ years? Trains, definitely. They're a fundamentally better technology than just about everything else. Steel wheels on steel rails are more efficient than rubber tires will ever be, and they don't spew microplastics everywhere as they wear. (They produce iron oxide, but what's a little rust between friends?) Provided you have speed-separated rights-of-way, you can run them almost arbitrarily fast (well, up until the speed of sound, you might run into issues there). Although Amtrak wouldn't make you believe it, they can operate in a greater variety of weather conditions than aircraft, and no aircraft will ever be able to touch them in terms of theoretical passenger-mile energy use (okay, fine, maybe zeppelins; but those require helium or have Hindenberg problems). You can use a variety of primary energy sources to run them, and much of the energy is recoverable if the locomotive is designed to do regenerative braking.
Somewhat ironically, none of this is a new realization. The Pennsylvania Railroad—a stupendously forward-thinking company for its time—basically foresaw the end of coal-fired steam engines and made big bets on electric trains in the early 20th century. They had the entire NYC/Harrisburg section electrified, for passenger and freight service, in the 1930s. (If you take Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service, much of the electrical infrastructure was originally built by the PRR. It's still 25Hz!) What the PRR's engineers unfortunately didn't foresee was a couple of World Wars and Eisenhower's unfortunate fascination with autobahns. But the underlying engineering calculations were as true today as they were then.
it seems like every other listing online is a 2014-2018 Leaf.
It's apparently well-known in car circles (at least it was when I started looking at electrics, a couple of years ago) that the Leaf has a... suboptimally designed battery. At least, from my perspective it was suboptimal. When designing a BEV you can make a bunch of tradeoffs in the design, and one of them is battery lifespan vs. range. You can make a car's range longer by depleting the battery further before telling the user it's out of electrons, but this shortens its overall lifespan if the user drives the car 100%-to-0% regularly. There are also tradeoffs with cooling/heating, fast charging, etc. The Leaf's designers apparently decided to cut corners in order to get a higher advertised range, and as a result a lot of used Leafs have batteries with reduced total capacity remaining. In contrast, the designers of the Chevy Volt (which is what I ended up buying) put an absurdly overengineered, oversized battery pack into it, given that it's a plug-in hybrid and only has a ~50mi stated range on battery alone. But it will supposedly maintain that range for at least 100,000 miles, because it switches over to gasoline when the battery pack really isn't completely depleted. (Also, no DC fast charge.) Used as a purely electric commuter car, nobody seems entirely sure what the lifespan of a Volt's battery actually is. I look forward to figuring it out, hopefully over many years. (Though I suspect Northern Virginia's penchant for spewing magnesium-salt brine all over the roads will cause the body to rust out first. Boo.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:49 PM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is a pretty significant issue that I haven't heard a lot of discussion about. Maybe I'm just not plugged-in (ha) to the right sources, but it seems like current BEVs are great if you're a suburbanite commuter with a garage or carport at home, and access to a 220V Level 2 charger at night. In that scenario, there are cars currently on the market that offer practically a drop-in replacement for gasoline cars.
It's a tougher sell if you live in an apartment building with a big garage, or worse a surface parking lot. The electrical infrastructure required to put a charger at every parking space is substantial. No way are landlords going to foot that bill, unless they are dragged kicking and screaming, paying fines and court costs the whole way, and even then I have confidence they will find a way of getting renters to foot the (significant) bill. Some sort of subsidy/funding scheme probably needs to happen, but at least in the US that's likely to be difficult because a lot of political power resides in the suburbs, and suburbanites are loath to pay for urban infrastructure. (See also, public transportation.)
I have a plug-in hybrid vehicle (Chevy Volt, RIP) that I use largely as a BEV, and it's great. It was exactly the stepping-stone that we needed to move from gas/diesel towards electric, and our next car probably will be a total BEV, although I foresee that being a while because the Volt is an absurdly well-built car and we use it mostly as an electric. (Naturally, GM cancelled it, because that's the sort of thing GM does with good ideas.) But I've lost count of the number of friends who've ridden in it and said "wow, I'd love an electric car... but I have no place to charge it where I live". Even people in townhouses with off-street parking are often prohibited from adding charge ports to the exterior of their houses, or running cords across sidewalks/pathways. It's a real problem.
If we were genuinely serious about these issues then passenger rail and transit, powered electrically, would be the top priority.
I agree with this in theory, and I'm a huge train buff, but there are some pretty major problems you'd have to solve if you wanted to go this route. It would mean a wholesale dismantlement of ~60 years of car-centric infrastructure and development in the US. Communities built around rail transportation (and arguments about the viability of 20th c. "streetcar suburbs" aside, there are some, especially in the UK) don't look like archetypal US suburbs. They basically look like "blobs" of walkable, high-density/mixed-use communities arranged every few miles along rail lines. Getting to that from where we are now would be an immense lift. I have significant concerns about whether that would be feasible, given the timeline we have to meet to prevent catastrophic ecocide due to CO2 pollution.
But long-term? Like 100+ years? Trains, definitely. They're a fundamentally better technology than just about everything else. Steel wheels on steel rails are more efficient than rubber tires will ever be, and they don't spew microplastics everywhere as they wear. (They produce iron oxide, but what's a little rust between friends?) Provided you have speed-separated rights-of-way, you can run them almost arbitrarily fast (well, up until the speed of sound, you might run into issues there). Although Amtrak wouldn't make you believe it, they can operate in a greater variety of weather conditions than aircraft, and no aircraft will ever be able to touch them in terms of theoretical passenger-mile energy use (okay, fine, maybe zeppelins; but those require helium or have Hindenberg problems). You can use a variety of primary energy sources to run them, and much of the energy is recoverable if the locomotive is designed to do regenerative braking.
Somewhat ironically, none of this is a new realization. The Pennsylvania Railroad—a stupendously forward-thinking company for its time—basically foresaw the end of coal-fired steam engines and made big bets on electric trains in the early 20th century. They had the entire NYC/Harrisburg section electrified, for passenger and freight service, in the 1930s. (If you take Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service, much of the electrical infrastructure was originally built by the PRR. It's still 25Hz!) What the PRR's engineers unfortunately didn't foresee was a couple of World Wars and Eisenhower's unfortunate fascination with autobahns. But the underlying engineering calculations were as true today as they were then.
it seems like every other listing online is a 2014-2018 Leaf.
It's apparently well-known in car circles (at least it was when I started looking at electrics, a couple of years ago) that the Leaf has a... suboptimally designed battery. At least, from my perspective it was suboptimal. When designing a BEV you can make a bunch of tradeoffs in the design, and one of them is battery lifespan vs. range. You can make a car's range longer by depleting the battery further before telling the user it's out of electrons, but this shortens its overall lifespan if the user drives the car 100%-to-0% regularly. There are also tradeoffs with cooling/heating, fast charging, etc. The Leaf's designers apparently decided to cut corners in order to get a higher advertised range, and as a result a lot of used Leafs have batteries with reduced total capacity remaining. In contrast, the designers of the Chevy Volt (which is what I ended up buying) put an absurdly overengineered, oversized battery pack into it, given that it's a plug-in hybrid and only has a ~50mi stated range on battery alone. But it will supposedly maintain that range for at least 100,000 miles, because it switches over to gasoline when the battery pack really isn't completely depleted. (Also, no DC fast charge.) Used as a purely electric commuter car, nobody seems entirely sure what the lifespan of a Volt's battery actually is. I look forward to figuring it out, hopefully over many years. (Though I suspect Northern Virginia's penchant for spewing magnesium-salt brine all over the roads will cause the body to rust out first. Boo.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:49 PM on February 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yes! Overbuilding renewables is definitely the way to go.
We already have systems to use excess electricity — it's smelting aluminum, something that uses a massive amount of energy, so much so that it's worth waiting for cheap power. I'm sure with the right incentive structure, we could see steelmaking from scrap (which uses an electric arc furnace) and other industrial processes also soaking up excess electricity at cheap prices. Fundamentally, there is a huge range in industry where you can balance your energy cost with availability, from having electricity available 90% of the time at a small discount to deeply discounted energy available only 30% of the time or so.
posted by ssg at 1:50 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
We already have systems to use excess electricity — it's smelting aluminum, something that uses a massive amount of energy, so much so that it's worth waiting for cheap power. I'm sure with the right incentive structure, we could see steelmaking from scrap (which uses an electric arc furnace) and other industrial processes also soaking up excess electricity at cheap prices. Fundamentally, there is a huge range in industry where you can balance your energy cost with availability, from having electricity available 90% of the time at a small discount to deeply discounted energy available only 30% of the time or so.
posted by ssg at 1:50 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
What do you do if you live in the US West and want to go on a five hour road trip to a national park? Keep a backup gas powered vehicle for vacations? Not being snarky, I want to know.
posted by craniac at 2:06 PM on February 23, 2022
posted by craniac at 2:06 PM on February 23, 2022
There are chargers along major highways (at least, Tesla Superchargers). My dad spent 2021 driving across the western US to major national parks in his Tesla. Alternatively, you can rent a gas car.
posted by meowzilla at 2:13 PM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 2:13 PM on February 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is a pretty significant issue that I haven't heard a lot of discussion about. Maybe I'm just not plugged-in (ha) to the right sources, but it seems like current BEVs are great if you're a suburbanite commuter with a garage or carport at home, and access to a 220V Level 2 charger at night. In that scenario, there are cars currently on the market that offer practically a drop-in replacement for gasoline cars.
It's a tougher sell if you live in an apartment building with a big garage, or worse a surface parking lot.
Or (as is the case for millions of people in the UK) you live in a terraced (row) house built 130 years ago so obviously no driveway, where you have to jockey for street parking with everyone else so the odds of being able to park outside your house are low to zero. And even if you could park outside, you wouldn't be able to run a cable across the pavement anyway, as the council would be down on you like a ton of bricks, not to mention the risk of someone tripping on it, or someone deciding to cut the cable. And there are often only 3 or 4 lampposts in the whole street so lamppost chargers wouldn't work. Where I live, they turn off the streetlamps once it gets dark anyway to save money (yeah, I know). And kids would smash street chargers up anyway just for laughs.
In the street where I live, 16 out of the 30 properties have no access to a driveway, and our garages are in a block 50 yards away from the residences and have no electricity supply. I'm the only person who uses my garage for my car anyway, everyone else's is full of crap and they park their cars in the limited space available on the street.
We just don't have the infrastructure in the UK to make EVs viable for the majority and I can't see it changing any time soon. Public charging points are very hit and miss.
posted by essexjan at 2:17 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's a tougher sell if you live in an apartment building with a big garage, or worse a surface parking lot.
Or (as is the case for millions of people in the UK) you live in a terraced (row) house built 130 years ago so obviously no driveway, where you have to jockey for street parking with everyone else so the odds of being able to park outside your house are low to zero. And even if you could park outside, you wouldn't be able to run a cable across the pavement anyway, as the council would be down on you like a ton of bricks, not to mention the risk of someone tripping on it, or someone deciding to cut the cable. And there are often only 3 or 4 lampposts in the whole street so lamppost chargers wouldn't work. Where I live, they turn off the streetlamps once it gets dark anyway to save money (yeah, I know). And kids would smash street chargers up anyway just for laughs.
In the street where I live, 16 out of the 30 properties have no access to a driveway, and our garages are in a block 50 yards away from the residences and have no electricity supply. I'm the only person who uses my garage for my car anyway, everyone else's is full of crap and they park their cars in the limited space available on the street.
We just don't have the infrastructure in the UK to make EVs viable for the majority and I can't see it changing any time soon. Public charging points are very hit and miss.
posted by essexjan at 2:17 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Fast charging makes long highway trips very much doable, if your car doesn't already have the range for a five hour trip (which many do).
If you have a Chevy Bolt, for instance, which is actually not the best for fast charging, but is one of the more common and affordable EVs on the road, you have 259 miles of rated range and can charge 100 miles of additional range in 30 minutes. So if you're averaging 60 miles per hour, you can drive a few hours, stop for 15-30 minutes to charge, use the washroom, grab something to eat, and then continue on your way with more than enough range to go five hours / 300 miles.
posted by ssg at 2:18 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you have a Chevy Bolt, for instance, which is actually not the best for fast charging, but is one of the more common and affordable EVs on the road, you have 259 miles of rated range and can charge 100 miles of additional range in 30 minutes. So if you're averaging 60 miles per hour, you can drive a few hours, stop for 15-30 minutes to charge, use the washroom, grab something to eat, and then continue on your way with more than enough range to go five hours / 300 miles.
posted by ssg at 2:18 PM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Or if this is a couple times a year thing just rent an ICE vehicle.
posted by Mitheral at 2:31 PM on February 23, 2022
posted by Mitheral at 2:31 PM on February 23, 2022
What do you do if you live in the US West and want to go on a five hour road trip to a national park? Keep a backup gas powered vehicle for vacations? Not being snarky, I want to know.This is my situation exactly. My poor 40kWh Leaf is tolerable getting 150 miles to the coast & back but takes 2X as long as a gas car on that trivial trip. Anything longer is even worse.
It's not costing me any money now so when it's paid off in 2024 my plan is to get a battery-powered RV -- maybe a Cybertruck but I hope something else is competitive then -- for the longer trips, since for the really extended stuff a camper van/truck seems like the bees knees!
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:43 PM on February 23, 2022
What do you do if you live in the US West and want to go on a five hour road trip to a national park?
Rental?
posted by biffa at 3:34 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Rental?
posted by biffa at 3:34 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think this is kinda conflating generation capacity with energy consumption. Neither fleet needs to be plugged in to operate, so their generation capacity impacts are not necessarily known - and certainly can't be compared on the basis of their overall efficiency.
I don't think it is. It's basically saying, if you get 100kWh of electricity from your windfarm and put it in an EV, you get to use about 95kWh. If you electroyse water to hydrogen, compress it, transport it and stick it through a fuel cell you get to use about 50kWh. So in terms of energy going to work you get a lot less. you have to buy nearly double the energy to get the same effect. Fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure are going to have to be really cheap to cover the difference. This also means paying for more windfarms to have enough energy entering the system and a likely.slower transition.
posted by biffa at 3:42 PM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't think it is. It's basically saying, if you get 100kWh of electricity from your windfarm and put it in an EV, you get to use about 95kWh. If you electroyse water to hydrogen, compress it, transport it and stick it through a fuel cell you get to use about 50kWh. So in terms of energy going to work you get a lot less. you have to buy nearly double the energy to get the same effect. Fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure are going to have to be really cheap to cover the difference. This also means paying for more windfarms to have enough energy entering the system and a likely.slower transition.
posted by biffa at 3:42 PM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
Also, we also have an existing electrical distribution infrastructure, even if we will need to build it out a bit. In fact, there are already plenty of places to charge an electric car near a lot of campgrounds - they're just called "RV hookups"
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:49 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:49 PM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is the thing, though: simply replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with BEV can't be the whole of the solution. Shifting generation capacity to renewables can't be the whole of the solution. Encouraging small-scale generation like rooftop solar and community energy exchanges can't be the whole of the solution. It's all of those things, and changing our habits and lifestyle. The example given above, essentially "if I want to go long distances I must have an ICE vehicle, it's the only way" is a key part of the problem. We forget that - for the most part - travelling for recreation or pleasure is in large part a huge expenditure of energy which has only become common since the advent of the car. It's never been sustainable. We need to rethink *all* of our ways of getting around - public transportation needs to have vast levels of investment and infrastructure. Private passenger vehicles need to be de-emphasized, through walkable cities (not just neighbourhoods), carshare programs, locally-focussed business and education strategies that shorten or even end daily commutes. The crazy thing is that these solutions also can improve public health, mental health, social cohesion, reduce poverty, and a myriad of other benefits. Private vehicles are a problem, not a solution.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:39 PM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by prismatic7 at 6:39 PM on February 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
And there are often only 3 or 4 lampposts in the whole street so lamppost chargers wouldn't work. Where I live, they turn off the streetlamps once it gets dark anyway to save money (yeah, I know). And kids would smash street chargers up anyway just for laughs.
With existing technology it would be possible to implement resonant wireless power transfer in every parking bay, and have any vehicle that finds itself over a resonant wireless power transfer coil sign onto a grid account and implement the vehicle owner's chosen policy for buying and selling power while maintaining an appropriate charge reserve in the car.
The impediments to making this happen are all essentially political. We'd need technical standards for resonant wireless power transfer equipment (for both energy transfer and accounting components) and public funding to install the under-road hardware.
posted by flabdablet at 11:10 PM on February 23, 2022
With existing technology it would be possible to implement resonant wireless power transfer in every parking bay, and have any vehicle that finds itself over a resonant wireless power transfer coil sign onto a grid account and implement the vehicle owner's chosen policy for buying and selling power while maintaining an appropriate charge reserve in the car.
The impediments to making this happen are all essentially political. We'd need technical standards for resonant wireless power transfer equipment (for both energy transfer and accounting components) and public funding to install the under-road hardware.
posted by flabdablet at 11:10 PM on February 23, 2022
We just don't have the infrastructure in the UK to make EVs viable for the majority and I can't see it changing any time soon. Public charging points are very hit and miss.
This is a big issue (I also live live in an older terraced house) but only 25% of UK drivers don't have access to off-street parking so it isn't quite the majority.
posted by atrazine at 1:54 AM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is a big issue (I also live live in an older terraced house) but only 25% of UK drivers don't have access to off-street parking so it isn't quite the majority.
posted by atrazine at 1:54 AM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Concerning off street parking, I was interested to see the UK papers running articles in the last week which suggest banning paving over front gardens to help flood defences. Better flood defences are clearly needed in some places but it seems like the effect would be to restrict adding off street parking for many who are considering how they can fit an EV into their lives.
posted by biffa at 3:26 AM on February 24, 2022
posted by biffa at 3:26 AM on February 24, 2022
It's not costing me any money now so when it's paid off in 2024 my plan is to get a battery-powered RV -- maybe a Cybertruck but I hope something else is competitive then -- for the longer trips, since for the really extended stuff a camper van/truck seems like the bees knees!
Ford Europe is launching the E-Transit, a range of EV vans and chassis-cab vehicles in different wheel bases. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and found out if I used one for long-distance travel, I would have to rely on nightly charging and two 40-minute rest stops each day for the days we were hauling ass. I think that sounds quite practical for a vehicle I intend to use for leisure anyways.
posted by Harald74 at 4:04 AM on February 24, 2022
Ford Europe is launching the E-Transit, a range of EV vans and chassis-cab vehicles in different wheel bases. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and found out if I used one for long-distance travel, I would have to rely on nightly charging and two 40-minute rest stops each day for the days we were hauling ass. I think that sounds quite practical for a vehicle I intend to use for leisure anyways.
posted by Harald74 at 4:04 AM on February 24, 2022
banning paving over front gardens to help flood defences.
There are lots of options for permiable parking areas from regular old gravel to lattice paving to porous asphalt. Even regular old concrete can be used if one just paves two narrow strips for tires instead of a complete apron.
posted by Mitheral at 4:44 AM on February 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
There are lots of options for permiable parking areas from regular old gravel to lattice paving to porous asphalt. Even regular old concrete can be used if one just paves two narrow strips for tires instead of a complete apron.
posted by Mitheral at 4:44 AM on February 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Five hundred cycles is around where the battery is only expected to maintain 80% of its capacity, afterwards it falls more rapidly.
So this is basically saying is what Audi is saying: this car is expected to be cooked in 5 years. Which is my point, really -- that's super wasteful.
And it was not anywhere clear to me that I was buying a 5-year car, I don't think would have bought an EV expecting to contribute it to the world's garbage heaps in 5 years.
BEV sellers in the US are required to replace/refurbish packs that lose 35%+ (?) of their range within 8 years/100,000 miles
I think this is only true in California, where I am sadly not. If you have a more definitive link, I'd certainly appreciate it. Audi is definitely not on board.
Also, these two things that I quoted are inconsistent in expectation.
posted by Dashy at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2022
So this is basically saying is what Audi is saying: this car is expected to be cooked in 5 years. Which is my point, really -- that's super wasteful.
And it was not anywhere clear to me that I was buying a 5-year car, I don't think would have bought an EV expecting to contribute it to the world's garbage heaps in 5 years.
BEV sellers in the US are required to replace/refurbish packs that lose 35%+ (?) of their range within 8 years/100,000 miles
I think this is only true in California, where I am sadly not. If you have a more definitive link, I'd certainly appreciate it. Audi is definitely not on board.
Also, these two things that I quoted are inconsistent in expectation.
posted by Dashy at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2022
that's super wasteful
It is if the spent batteries are indeed wasted. It isn't if they're recycled and remanufactured. By the time BEVs dominate the world's fleets, there will be plenty of money being made in spent-battery materials recovery, and metals recovered from spent batteries will be cheaper both in money and energy terms than those mined from ores, simply because their concentrations in the batteries are so much higher than their concentrations in ores.
posted by flabdablet at 8:42 AM on February 24, 2022
It is if the spent batteries are indeed wasted. It isn't if they're recycled and remanufactured. By the time BEVs dominate the world's fleets, there will be plenty of money being made in spent-battery materials recovery, and metals recovered from spent batteries will be cheaper both in money and energy terms than those mined from ores, simply because their concentrations in the batteries are so much higher than their concentrations in ores.
posted by flabdablet at 8:42 AM on February 24, 2022
"Most automakers have an 8 to 10-year or 100,000 miles warranty period on their batteries. This is because federal regulation in the U.S. mandates that electric car batteries be covered for a minimum of eight years.
However, the terms of the warranty can vary. Some automakers only cover an EV’s battery pack against a complete failure, while automakers like Tesla, Nissan and Volkswagen will honor the warranty if the capacity percentage drops below a specified threshold, typically 60-70%, during the warranty period.
Before purchasing any vehicle, it’s best to check the warranty fine print. For example, the Nissan Leaf has a percentage guarantee of approximately 75%; however, they use their own measurement units represented in “bars.” A full Leaf battery has 12 bars, and the included battery warranty guarantees it for nine bars of charge."
Devil in the details, as ever
posted by Dashy at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
However, the terms of the warranty can vary. Some automakers only cover an EV’s battery pack against a complete failure, while automakers like Tesla, Nissan and Volkswagen will honor the warranty if the capacity percentage drops below a specified threshold, typically 60-70%, during the warranty period.
Before purchasing any vehicle, it’s best to check the warranty fine print. For example, the Nissan Leaf has a percentage guarantee of approximately 75%; however, they use their own measurement units represented in “bars.” A full Leaf battery has 12 bars, and the included battery warranty guarantees it for nine bars of charge."
Devil in the details, as ever
posted by Dashy at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is if the spent batteries are indeed wasted.
Right now, it doesn't seem that there's any (ok, reasonable) option for me to replace or recycle the EV battery in my car, despite the idea that batteries should generally be recycleable and replaceable.
So there's growing problem of 5-ish year old EVs, sounds like Kia Souls, and my own, that are headed for a junkyard. Very early in a lifespan of a car.
posted by Dashy at 8:47 AM on February 24, 2022
Right now, it doesn't seem that there's any (ok, reasonable) option for me to replace or recycle the EV battery in my car, despite the idea that batteries should generally be recycleable and replaceable.
So there's growing problem of 5-ish year old EVs, sounds like Kia Souls, and my own, that are headed for a junkyard. Very early in a lifespan of a car.
posted by Dashy at 8:47 AM on February 24, 2022
Google says:
How much does it cost to replace an Audi e-tron battery?
The cost to replace the hybrid battery in a Audi e-tron will be around $35,775 if you purchase a new OEM replacement battery from the dealer. The labor to replace the battery is between $935 and $1,179.
posted by Dashy at 8:52 AM on February 24, 2022
How much does it cost to replace an Audi e-tron battery?
The cost to replace the hybrid battery in a Audi e-tron will be around $35,775 if you purchase a new OEM replacement battery from the dealer. The labor to replace the battery is between $935 and $1,179.
posted by Dashy at 8:52 AM on February 24, 2022
Considering that the dealer price is $6187.59, I suspect that you might have quite a bit of wiggle room for negotiation with any dealer who quotes anything like $35k.
posted by flabdablet at 9:04 AM on February 24, 2022
posted by flabdablet at 9:04 AM on February 24, 2022
Nissan pack capacity warranty is for ~65% of original 8 yrs/100k miles.
The warranty states they only have to refurb you back up to 70% but thus far they're just putting new packs in, even upgrading 30kWh models to 40kWh.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 AM on February 24, 2022
The warranty states they only have to refurb you back up to 70% but thus far they're just putting new packs in, even upgrading 30kWh models to 40kWh.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 AM on February 24, 2022
I like my car a lot, but for $10k after labor and taxes and whatnot (doubtlessly a Safe Battery Disposal Fee) .... we're more likely to look at a new car instead. And I really doubt if we sell it or trade it in, that anyone else is going to sink $10k into it either.
That's why and how a bunch of similar cars will end up in junkyards, as I've said. I think this is a potentially substantial problem, and for sure is counterproductive to the EV movement.
posted by Dashy at 12:20 PM on February 24, 2022
That's why and how a bunch of similar cars will end up in junkyards, as I've said. I think this is a potentially substantial problem, and for sure is counterproductive to the EV movement.
posted by Dashy at 12:20 PM on February 24, 2022
Is your car actually incapable of being driven with an dying battery? Granted you'll be lugging around useless battery weight, but wouldn't it just run on gas? I wouldn't classify that as ready for the junkyard.
Granted, other the the one company, it seemed like most of the hybrid and battery efforts of car companies were pure greenwashing. More so for luxury brands, which have a reputation for being both less reliable and more expensive to maintain and repair.
posted by meowzilla at 12:25 PM on February 24, 2022
Granted, other the the one company, it seemed like most of the hybrid and battery efforts of car companies were pure greenwashing. More so for luxury brands, which have a reputation for being both less reliable and more expensive to maintain and repair.
posted by meowzilla at 12:25 PM on February 24, 2022
What do you do if you live in the US West and want to go on a five hour road trip to a national park?
I travel across the US along I40 a few times a year. There are parts with over 100 miles between cities. Teslas are by far the most common luxury car I see making the trip. Corvettes would be #2.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:09 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I travel across the US along I40 a few times a year. There are parts with over 100 miles between cities. Teslas are by far the most common luxury car I see making the trip. Corvettes would be #2.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:09 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Average lifespan of us automobiles is only 12 years. Accidents, acts of God, theft, and fires significantly cull the herd in addition to mechanical problems. And it's not like at 70% capacity (or 50% even) they turn into pumpkins. Going forward a lot of cheap first cars are going to be BEVs with reduced range. Heck even now 99% of my driving is less than 50 km per day. A 60% leaf would work fine because I can plug it in every day.
posted by Mitheral at 2:30 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 2:30 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I travel across the US along I40 a few times a year. There are parts with over 100 miles between cities.
True, but there are vanishingly few places in the US where you are more than 100 miles between services. Even for electric car charging, this article says that the longest distance between charging stations is Caspar to Rawlins.
Electric pickups are an example of how much of a joke EVs could become.
I disagree. Like lots of people, I own an old, inefficient pickup as a second vehicle that mostly gets used for local trips. Sooner or later, there will be a workable electric option to replace it, and I will. The massive demand for the Ford Lightning suggests how large that market is going to be.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:46 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
True, but there are vanishingly few places in the US where you are more than 100 miles between services. Even for electric car charging, this article says that the longest distance between charging stations is Caspar to Rawlins.
Electric pickups are an example of how much of a joke EVs could become.
I disagree. Like lots of people, I own an old, inefficient pickup as a second vehicle that mostly gets used for local trips. Sooner or later, there will be a workable electric option to replace it, and I will. The massive demand for the Ford Lightning suggests how large that market is going to be.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:46 PM on February 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
These range anxiety discussions always get silly. Look, the Leaf from five years ago didn't have great range, but the situation has changed now. You have a bunch of different, reasonably priced cars to choose from now with ranges from 250 miles upwards and some cars with ranges over 400 miles. No one needs to stop every 100 miles to charge.
For some people, a low range, used EV like a five year old Leaf will be fine. For others, that would be too limiting and they need to choose a new option with a 250+ mile range. If you're planning long distance road trips, don't buy a used Leaf! But all the hand wringing about range feels a bit weird when there are better options widely available. This idea that every EV, even older models, should be the perfect solution for everyone's driving habits and shouldn't involve any compromises at all is kind of strange.
posted by ssg at 7:31 PM on February 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
For some people, a low range, used EV like a five year old Leaf will be fine. For others, that would be too limiting and they need to choose a new option with a 250+ mile range. If you're planning long distance road trips, don't buy a used Leaf! But all the hand wringing about range feels a bit weird when there are better options widely available. This idea that every EV, even older models, should be the perfect solution for everyone's driving habits and shouldn't involve any compromises at all is kind of strange.
posted by ssg at 7:31 PM on February 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Nissan Leaf Review After 10 Years! | Fully Charged (YouTube, 17m40s, Apr 24 2020)
New Batteries for Old EVs : 150% more range for a Nissan LEAF | FULLY CHARGED (YouTube, 15m39s, Apr 2 2021)
Return of the LEAF: Robert drives his range extended EV home from Holland (YouTube, 20m45s, Dec 28 2021)
there's growing problem of 5-ish year old EVs, sounds like Kia Souls, and my own, that are headed for a junkyard. Very early in a lifespan of a car.
The last of these three videos has Robert Llewellyn disagreeing in emphatic fashion with that point, and considering the amount of time he's spent examining technological progress in electric vehicles, I'm happy to defer to his opinion on it.
Also quite often missed is the fact that vehicle batteries whose state of health is reduced enough to make them annoying to the vehicle owner still represent a massive amount of completely useable storage. A ten year old Nissan Leaf battery pack that was originally good for 20kWh might now be down to 12kWh, but that's still more storage than a new Tesla Powerwall that sells for ~$10k. The trip that any given Li-ion cell takes from factory to recycler could easily be several times as long as the expected service life of the vehicle it was originally sold in, especially if that expectation is as weirdly low as 5 years.
posted by flabdablet at 11:33 PM on February 24, 2022
New Batteries for Old EVs : 150% more range for a Nissan LEAF | FULLY CHARGED (YouTube, 15m39s, Apr 2 2021)
Return of the LEAF: Robert drives his range extended EV home from Holland (YouTube, 20m45s, Dec 28 2021)
there's growing problem of 5-ish year old EVs, sounds like Kia Souls, and my own, that are headed for a junkyard. Very early in a lifespan of a car.
The last of these three videos has Robert Llewellyn disagreeing in emphatic fashion with that point, and considering the amount of time he's spent examining technological progress in electric vehicles, I'm happy to defer to his opinion on it.
Also quite often missed is the fact that vehicle batteries whose state of health is reduced enough to make them annoying to the vehicle owner still represent a massive amount of completely useable storage. A ten year old Nissan Leaf battery pack that was originally good for 20kWh might now be down to 12kWh, but that's still more storage than a new Tesla Powerwall that sells for ~$10k. The trip that any given Li-ion cell takes from factory to recycler could easily be several times as long as the expected service life of the vehicle it was originally sold in, especially if that expectation is as weirdly low as 5 years.
posted by flabdablet at 11:33 PM on February 24, 2022
In other words, the dealer who includes a Safe Disposal Fee for the old battery in the quote for a battery swap is probably the same guy who sells $6k Audi batteries for $35k.
posted by flabdablet at 11:43 PM on February 24, 2022
posted by flabdablet at 11:43 PM on February 24, 2022
The secret sauce is that Norway built its wealth on fossil fuels, promises to KEEP pulling more fossil fuels out of the ground, unlike its neighbors, and then uses that wealth to greenwash its consumption.
posted by indica at 1:11 AM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by indica at 1:11 AM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Indica is right. I found Branko Milanovic's Is Norway the new East India Company? to be a great primer on that point:
Norwegian government is one of the most active government in highlighting the threat of the climate change. It tries to replace almost entirely country’s use of gas-fueled cars by electric cars.... Yet at the same time, for half century, Norway has been one of significant world producers, and even more so important exporters, of oil and gas. For gas, it is the third largest in the world, and some 50% of the value of Norwegian goods exports consists of gas and oil. Moreover, the government has recently decided to expand exploration and production of gas and oil in one of the areas that the very same government acknowledges are most sensitive to climate change—the Arctic Circle.posted by daveliepmann at 1:27 AM on February 25, 2022
Norway thus increases the production and sales of a commodity that herself deems noxious, and sells it, like the East India Company did with opium, to far-away foreigners while staying domestically clean. “Money has no smell”.
Australia runs the same scam. The usual suspects on the climate change denial side bang on endlessly about what a tiny proportion of the world's emissions we account for, and therefore how ineffective any climate change policy we could possibly enact is bound to be, and all the while we're absolutely playing in the big league of fossil fuel exporters.
The US, of course, does exactly the same thing without even the fig leaf of being a minor domestic emitter.
Capture of governments by fossil fuel interests is a worldwide problem. Given the frankly incredible ongoing lack of public will to engage with political issues more deeply than with team sports or the latest celebrity goss, our last best hope might actually be action within the private sector.
posted by flabdablet at 2:20 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
The US, of course, does exactly the same thing without even the fig leaf of being a minor domestic emitter.
Capture of governments by fossil fuel interests is a worldwide problem. Given the frankly incredible ongoing lack of public will to engage with political issues more deeply than with team sports or the latest celebrity goss, our last best hope might actually be action within the private sector.
posted by flabdablet at 2:20 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
The trip that any given Li-ion cell takes from factory to recycler could easily be several times as long as the expected service life of the vehicle it was originally sold in, especially if that expectation is as weirdly low as 5 years.
Sure, but the rest of the car would be scraped if battery replacement wasn't worth it.
posted by Mitheral at 4:52 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sure, but the rest of the car would be scraped if battery replacement wasn't worth it.
posted by Mitheral at 4:52 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
>>The trip that any given Li-ion cell takes from factory to recycler could easily be several times as long as the expected service life of the vehicle it was originally sold in, especially if that expectation is as weirdly low as 5 years.
>Sure, but the rest of the car would be scraped if battery replacement wasn't worth it.
I doubt that most cars would get scrapped at that point (reduced range but can still be driven) -- just like with a gas engine car that has developed problems as it ages, it is likely to be sold on as a lower priced used car.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:05 AM on February 25, 2022
>Sure, but the rest of the car would be scraped if battery replacement wasn't worth it.
I doubt that most cars would get scrapped at that point (reduced range but can still be driven) -- just like with a gas engine car that has developed problems as it ages, it is likely to be sold on as a lower priced used car.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:05 AM on February 25, 2022
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* Germany’s Plugin EV Share At Record 36% In December
* Porsche's electric Taycan outsells 911 in record 2021
* Hyundai Motor closes gas engine development division to focus on EVs
It feels like we're nearing a tipping point.
In the US and looking to buy an EV? EV Incentives database
posted by gwint at 7:32 AM on February 23, 2022 [3 favorites]