20+ moving parts versus 2000+ moving parts. Will EVs become way cheaper?

Dinarius

An article in the Financial Times a couple of weeks back mentioned that petrol cars have about 2000+ moving parts versus the 20+ moving parts in an electric vehicle.

Can EVs go the way of all electronic goods over the last 25 years (computers, TVs, take your pick...) and become way better and way cheaper?

In short, there is virtually nothing to an EV and little to be maintained.

Are there opportunities for Tesla-like startups to produce dirt cheap EVs?

Is an IKEA-priced EV possible?

Do we still need Toyota like infrastructures to build the EV cars of the future?

Or are governments too in love with all that tax, and is the car lobby too powerful?

D.

the_amazing_raisin

Cheap EVs are very much a reality, just look at the range of budget EVs from China available for under €5k

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56178802

Will you be able to get a 4 seat EV that can travel 400+km for those kinds of prices?

Probably not, car makers have gotten pretty good at selling people cars they don't need and I doubt they'll stop

Plus as you mentioned, governments make a lot of tax money from higher value cars and there isn't a huge incentive for them to change this

However, there's a strong possibility that car ownership might become a thing of the past for many city dwellers. Small car rental services using cars like the Citroen Ami seem to be getting more popular.

Go Car in Ireland seem to be doing well, and if you don't need a car for commuting then it's probably more cost effective to sign up for a car sharing service like that

Pivot Eoin

There will come a time when a Huawei, or more recently a Xiaomi comes in and disrupts the market from a price perspective.

You could argue someone like Dacia has paved the way for this to happen in EV market.

In terms of parts etc. yes its a no brainer, this stuff will just naturally become less costly to produce with better performance to boot.

But you can bet the likes of VW, Ford and BMW will be fighting tooth and nail with regulators to stop something like this when the time comes to it.

Dinarius

Interesting points.

The EV has redefined the car. We now have something that is a simple as an electric scooter, albeit on four wheels. There is little to them.

But, there are powerful vested interests.

D.

magicbastarder

i assume the stat mentioned in the thread title relates to the engine/motor, and not the car?

a single wheel's worth of suspension would probably contain that many moving parts.

Dinarius

Yes, I assume so. The FT didn’t quote a source, just made a statement. This tallies with what was written. https://driveelectric.org.nz/individuals/what-is-an-ev/

D.

orangerhyme

I think battery EVs are unsustainable and just a stepping stone to something else. Possibly wireless induction charging.

Maybe all main roads with certain volumes of traffic will have wireless charging and you just need a small battery to fill in the gaps. So you could just buy a cheap EV with a small battery with a range of 50km maybe for like E10,000 or less even.

EVs will definitely take over though,far better product. Far more efficient, much simpler engine.

The big question is self-driving cars. Will they be common in 10 years?

If so, then why bother buying a car, just pay a subscription for a certain quota of miles.

Car ownership will fall off a cliff and numerous car companies will go bust. China might dominate instead of Germany then.

Lots to ponder. Enormous change coming in the next decade. AI, EVs, self-Driving cars, lab grown meat, renewables, crispr gene editing, vertical farming.

orangerhyme

By the end of this decade. Car ownership could be a relic of the past. Petrol/Diesel cars non existent. Petrol stations gone.

Livestock industry on the way out also.

Back Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VbDgBZTUWg

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118128495#Comment_118128495

By the end of the decade? Doubt it, maybe by 2050

If you want a great example of urban planning in favour of public transport and cycling or walking, look at the Netherlands

They have a very good division between main roads for cars and pedestrian oriented streets. In fact they've a whole plan around this setup

But it's taken over 30 years to get to this point, and that's for a country which is generally knows what it's doing

For our banana republic it'd probably take 60 years 😏

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118129162#Comment_118129162

Maybe not exactly end of the decade but self driving cars is very scalable so once it's cracked, it can become mainstream quickly.

Enormous amount of research going into it right cos it's potentially a multi trillion dollar industry.

That's why Tesla is so overvalued, as they're perceived to be furthest ahead.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118129189#Comment_118129189

Again, the whole self driving thing is a bit of a sham. A lot of the companies doing research into that lost huge amounts of value over the past two years

Basically investors are realising that true self driving cars are a lot longer out than had been previously advertised

And then when we get self driving cars, who's going to pay for them? They're not exactly cheap in terms of sensors or computing power. It seems more cost efficient to just put a load more buses on the road

orangerhyme

Yeah maybe you're right. There's no clear finish line on self driving cars.

I just like the idea.

Buses are underated in terms of cost and effectiveness but there's something grim about them.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118129304#Comment_118129304

Oh for sure, I feel like all the armchair urban planners who say buses are great should be forces to sit at the back of the number 4 from ballymun for a day

In fairness, the folks are very generous, I've never been offered so many drugs in my life 🤣

Not so great on the 41 from Swords, every time I get it on a night out to Dublin there's a fight on the bus (no, I'm not involved 😜)

Maybe I just have bad luck

One of the problems is that per capita Ireland spends very little on public transport compared to other European countries

So we have expensive tickets and rubbish services for it. Also because we have a very spread out population, many bus routes are difficult to make a profit on

At least when they move to electric buses they should be a lot cheaper to run, and things like V2G for bus fleets can be a good money maker on the side

magicbastarder

i've regularly got the 4 - there's a stop outside my house - and i've never been offered drugs. i'm disappointed now.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118125059#Comment_118125059

A generic 4 wheeled scooter ? Yip. Pretty much.

https://www.foxconn.com/en-us/press-center/press-releases/latest-news/456

MIH is a software and hardware open platform for electric vehicles. Other manufacturers can then plonk their body and interiors on top. Like back in the days of the VW Beetle being used for kit cars.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118128495#Comment_118128495

You left out fusion reactors.

And the only way I can solve the number 4 drugs conundrum is if magic b is the one doing the offering :)

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118129878#Comment_118129878

Haha, I used to get the 4 into town from DCU a fair bit. One time we ended up sitting at the back chatting to some homeless guys. One of them probably offered me drugs a dozen times 😂

I think he was giving it away for free as well, generous man. Although he'd just settled a court case againt Dublin Bus for €50k after he got run over by a bus, so maybe that explains why he was feeling generous

He also showed us the foot where he'd had 3 toes amputated after the incident, kinda wishing I'd taken up the offer of the drugs before he did that 🤮

Anyway, back to EVs...

zg3409

EVs are already cheaper total cost of ownership for those with long commutes. If you match your commute to a cheap EV the annual total cost going EV will be less. In terms of sales price yes there will be a point where EV is cheaper than exact same ICE. This is mainly due to battery costs dropping and economy of sale and various incentives and emissions targets. Some manufacturers are delaying as some EVs are less profitable than ICE and others are manufacturing the minimum amount with long waiting lists. Some dealers in Ireland have cars in stock now, but won't hand them over to customers until January 2022 due to manufacturer emissions targets.

Car sales in general in Europe are going down, it's a mature market with high cost of ownership. Many apartment dweller's have no or one parking space. Many young people are on scooters and never take driving test. Bike sharing schemes are popular as will be scooter sharing schemes.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118134939#Comment_118134939

Jokes aside, you've hit on one of the big issues with relying on new techologies to fix climate change, which is that it takes decades to bring products to market and deploy them at scale

We only have until 2030 to achieve a massive reduction in emissions, so basically we've got to work with what's available now

Kinda lends itself to my comment above about better publc transport and urban planning. It's definitely the better plan for the future, but it'll take 30 years or more to implement. Whereas changing the vast majority of transport over to electric is something that's doable with current technology

Similarly, nuclear power plants might be "clean" and "reliable" (spoiler alert, those statements may have been embellished a bit 😏), but it's taken France 14 years and €19 billion to build their latest reactor, and it still isn't finshed

You could install a lot of wind and solar and still have change left over for batteries, pumped hydro and infrastructure upgrade for EV chanrging and V2G with that money and still get it done by 2030

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118135043#Comment_118135043

Which one is that? ITER? fusion is not expected to deliver energy before 2040 and even that is optimistic.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136992#Comment_118136992

Oh I'm talking about bog standard nuclear fission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3

Wasn't even thinking about Fusion 😁

There's been a lot of people ringing the nuclear bell recently and while I'm not opposed to nuclear power, I feel everyone talks about the advantages without speaking about any disadvantages or how it won't help fix any of the problems were currently facing

Everyone always points out France as the leading nuclear producer and to be fair they did a pretty good job of building reactors in the 1970s, but there's no point in looking at older designs because no-one is going to build them now. You can't use those as a point of reference, you have to look at the latest which is Flamanville Unit 3, which by all accounts is a bit of a debacle

Hinkley Point C is the same design and it also facing major delays and cost overruns, so it isn't an isolated case

Abundant nuclear power in France is also creating a few other problems

• Cheap energy has led to France having some pretty poor energy efficiency figures. Same happens in the US and other countries where energy is historically cheap
• Nuclear is best suited to baseload power, where a constant load of power is supplied. It doesn't respond to changes in demand very well
• Consequently France has very poor ability to respond to changes in demand, which can be extreme in winter due to poor energy efficiency. They're dependant on being able to export or import lots of power
• If every country in Europe went nuclear, then this ability to respond to demand would disappear, or would have to be met with gas turbines, and we're back to square 1
• Also worth noting that 30% of France's 94 reators are offline because they hit operating problems or have been shut down because they weren't econimical to run

While I'm ranting, here's a few interesting facts about the current (self inflicted) gas crisis

• You may have heard the idea that every time of plenty contains the seeds of the next famine? Turns out the gas industry skipped this lesson
• Historically most gas contract were done on a long term basis, buyers would buy gas for 6 months or so ahead and lock in a set price to insure against fluctuations. This is what would be called the common sense approach
• A few years ago (~2016) there was an oversupply of gas, so the spot price of gas went really cheap. All the gas traders decided to ditch their long term contracts and just buy the spot price because it's always cheap right? It works as long as the gas price doesn't go up (spoiler alert, it did)
• Then we had a cold winter in Eurasia which cut into reserves. On top of that, the pipline from Russia is experiencing "issues" (read into that one as much as you'd like), Norwegian output is down and strong demand from Russia and China is driving up prices
• Spot price shoots up as a result, and consequently energy prices go up because there's no reserves or long term contracts to provide price stability

Sorry for the massive rant, just wanted to get that off my chest 😂

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118136992#Comment_118136992

Yes, it's just latest revision of the 1st in series of fission power plants by ex. Framatome/Areva. The Finnish version of the same design than Flamanville and Hinkley Point just completed last month after just over 15 years in construction and over 10 years late from the original estimation.

slave1

There's still complexity in EVs and a lot more than 20 moving parts, very selective quote that.

Tesla are ahead in terms of software, app integration and SuC. Their gigacasting and structural batteries are also ahead of the game. They also have an CEO with outlandish strategy that delivers.

Look what Tesla have done in a decade, it's unreal and turned the global car industry sideways...

Once degradation settles and replacement battery become accepted we've reached another plateau

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59215474

Shares in electric vehicle firm Rivian are set to start trading in New York on Wednesday, after raising about $10.5bn (£7.75bn) from investors. ... Amazon... owns 20% of Rivian ... said it will buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from the firm

That makes them bigger than Renault and nearly twice as big as Mazda, and Amazon have very deep pockets and lots of lawyers.

Yellow_Fern

Smart phones have no moving parts but still break down

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137209#Comment_118137209

Something on the scale of Hinkley C would never work here, too long to plan and build, and far too big. We would also need two to make up for down time. However using small modular reactors could avoid most of the problems you mentioned.

Fingleberries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144368#Comment_118144368

I'm a bit out of the loop on Nuclear power, and don't want to sound all Eamonn Ryan, but is there still the issue of dealing with the radioactive waste? (e.g. The spent rods that still have really long half-life that need to be disposed of somewhere other than the Irish Sea)

Dinarius

A little light relief....

https://iplayerhd.com/player/video/dae6a69a-adb1-4692-aaba-cff7e6bcd493

D.

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144643#Comment_118144643

Modern (gen 4) reactors can burn the worst of the waste produced (using it as fuel) leaving much lower volumes with a much shorter half-life.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/small-mod-nuke-reactors-fuel-new-waste-debate/

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118145766#Comment_118145766

Do any Gen 4 reactors exist yet? From reading that article you would think all of this wonderful new tech was in operation and proven in the real world.

It's only when you get to the end of the article (which many won't), that almost as a footnote,

"a BWRX-300 plant might not be built in Japan until the 2030s and building a PRISM plant in Japan might not be possible until the 2040s."

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144368#Comment_118144368

Yeah but that goes back to my comment about inventing our way out of problems. Modular reactors have been around in concept form for decades, but the technology never took off or scaled. Simply put there wasn't any market for it

On the asumption that changed, and modular reactors made financial sense, it would still take decades of development and testing to become a viable product

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144643#Comment_118144643

I'm kind of deliberately avoiding that topic since it incenses several nuclear pundits. But yes, particularly for a country with no nuclear industry, Ireland would need to figure out what to do with spent nuclear fuel. If you thought the NIMBYs for wind turbines were bad, imagine a nuclear waste disposal facility 😁

And then there's the ever present spectre of an accident. They're rare, but unfortunately not quite as rare as the nuclear industry claims, it's supposed to be once in a thousand years, so far we've had 2 major ones in 50 years.

I saw a great comment recently that Chernobyl and Fukoshima set decarbonisation back decades because they made people afraid of nuclear power. That person evidently forgot they rendered fairly large areas of land basically uninhabitable for centuries

At least if a coal or gas power plant burns down, once the fires are out the cleanup operation is much smaller by comparison

And if a wind turbine falls over, well it sucks for anyone underneath it but the damge it limited to that

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144814#Comment_118144814

Haha, there's the battery swap market showing it's head again 🤣

Dinarius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144352#Comment_118144352

Interesting.

Have to wonder if the relative simplicity of EVs will allow a lot of new small, independent players to compete - thereby bringing down costs.

D.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118146855#Comment_118146855

If today's costs of converting an existing car to electric are anything to go by then Yes and No.

Foxconn are huge ($215Bn a year) and No an independent player would not be able to compete with them in the general market.

But Yes they could get a flat-pack chassis from Foxconn and bolt their own design on top.

It would be nice if there were drop in replacements for older cars, it shouldn't be too difficult given that manufacturers would have standardised mounting points across their lines. Batteries are made from cells so it should be possible to assemble them from smaller units with plugs on them so there is more flexibility in retro-fitting them and weight distribution instead of having to fit a massive battery in one go. But that potential market is shrinking every years as cars are scrapped.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118147601#Comment_118147601

There do seem to be a few companies around that are focusing on developing platforms for EVs that they can build and sell to others

In that case then you could see a whole network of new brands popping up

It might be better for support as well, more common platforms means one service center could service a lot of brands

Of course the major brands could just counter this by opening up their platforms and tools for anyone to use... 😏

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148408#Comment_118148408

Or do like John Deere and lock out everyone except authorised service centres.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118146434#Comment_118146434

Interesting, 2 accidents in 50 years from 400+ nuclear power plants is one in 10000 years...

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118146400#Comment_118146400

Very true, most of the new designs seem to be stuck in the development and testing phase. Development of Thorium reactors was abandoned decades ago mainly because they burn off byproducts required for weapns.

I suppose there hasn't been a need while buring fossil fuel was still acceptable but they may start making more financial sense, Bill Gates seems to think so.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148735#Comment_118148735

So renaming Windscale to Sellafield worked ? Thus far the average exclusion zone per nuclear power plant is something like 10 square kilometres. (also your stats suggest we are due another accident soon)

Besides EV's will kill nuclear power. Demand for charging changes over the day and over the weekends and nuclear can't meet changing demands. And lots of batteries means that grid connected EV's can soak up lots of renewable power and can step in at peak times, this will undercut margins for nuclear.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148779#Comment_118148779

Thorium reactors only exist to make highly enriched Uranium-233 which bomb grade from the get go. The only problem is the byproduct U-232 is highly radioactive and gives off gamma rays and heat. The first means workers would have to use robots or remote presence so tricky but not impossible. A simple gun type design should work but you'd probably want a longer weapon to keep the explosives away from the heat.

Regardless nuclear power is very expensive which would make EV's more expensive to run.

Markus Antonius

I have no flags nailed to any mast but that 20+ moving parts figure sounds like a load of b*oll*ox

Sonic the Shaghog

Actually one thing I've been wondering.

When your battery is on the way out will it possible to get a third party battery rather than having to get the official specific battery?

For instance if you need an 2010 Audi A3 engine you have to it. But would a lot it cars have batteries of the same size etc and be more versatile so for instance you could pull a battery pack out of a Nissan Leaf for a Golf etc?

Or maybe even companies manufacturing their own brand batteries for cars?

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148966#Comment_118148966

True, the '+' makes the number irrelevant.

Might as well say that both ICE and EV are 1+

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148981#Comment_118148981

Yes, there are plenty of hobbyists that have cracked Nissan software and done this. Tesla have also open their battery management software in the US for third parties to reprogram donor batteries to vehicles

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148922#Comment_118148922

My understanding of the Thorium cycle is that the U-233 produduced in the cycle is used as fuel as part of the cycle. It is highly radioactive but short lived and does not require storage or handling.

Thorium reactors are also considererd to be proliferation resistant: "This is not an issue if thorium is in a reactor, as U-232 is eventually burned during the production of energy. However, it is hazardous when crafting a military bomb with U-233, as trace U-232 can damage underlying electronics." http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/dai1/

It can be used to dispose of Plutonium waste by using it as part of the fuel to enrich the non fissile Thorium.

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/295301/Paper2_PartII_BWR_submission_as_accepted.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Nuclear power is very expensive, mostly due to the massive size and development of current reactors (e.g. Hinckley C) and the waste issues. The results of research into smaller scale and safer nuclear solutions may keep electricity prices low as we switch off fossil generation - renewables may need some help, at least in the short/ medium term. Energy prices are going up either way...

Anyway, this is probably the wrong thread for this discussion.

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148981#Comment_118148981

Batteries can be completly replaced, there are options for upgrading the packs in old Leafs and I sure more options will appear for current EVs as time goes on but most batteries will outlive their cars and go on to have a second life as home storage.

Where their are issues, usually the solution is to change problem cells and not the whole battery pack.

electricus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118149754#Comment_118149754

https://www.revisionenergy.com/blogs/drive-on-sunshine-save-big-bucks/

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148981#Comment_118148981

Yes and no

The battery pack in an EV is just lots of small batteries wired together to make a big battery. The individual cells are often grouped together into several modules which then group together into the battery pack

How they group together is manufacturer dependant. Also the size and shape of the overall pack varies between brand and even between models in the same brand

For example

• A Tesla Model 3 AWD pack fits into a Model 3 RWD, but not the other way around (at least on the early cars)
• All Nissan Leads use the same size pack, just more cells are put in the bigger battery car. So there have been examples of swapping out a 24kWh Leaf battery for a 62kWh one
• Renault Zoe 22kWh and 40kWh use the same size pack, but the 50kWh is different and incompatible with older cars
• All VW ID (and other MEB cars) use the same battery pack, so in theory it should be easy enough to swap battery packs

So it's a bit of a mixed bag

There's also the possibility of replacing cells or modules within a pack. Often when a relatively new EV suddenly loses a lot of range, it's because a single cell or module has gone bad. Because the batteries have to be kept in balance, this bad module will drag the others down as well, and should be replaced.

This requires opening the pack up which is generally a sealed unit. Technically this requires special training and equipment, but if you take a look at Youtube, it's reasonably simple. Official service centres won't do this becuase they don't have the expertise and it isn't worthwhile to pay for it. They'll just sell you a whole new battery pack instead

Several 3rd party shops have already demonstrated doing this and have restored EVs back to their original range for a fraction of the cost of a new pack. There's even a company in Spain which does a full replacement of the modules in a Nissan Leaf pack to bring it to over 60kWh capacity. Replacing cells within a module is also doable, but a bit harder since they're often glued into place, so it's generally simpler to replace modules

In theory replacing individual modules isn't ideal because the degredation of the replacement cells may not match the exisiting ones, and the pack will be out of balance. However if you can find modules that are close enough to the exisitng one then it seems to work out fine

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118148661#Comment_118148661

Hopefully not, but that's the way the world seems to be going. Don't fix it, throw it away. Cheaper to buy a new one. Only a few people can do limited repairs and they charge a fortune 🙄

josip

Sorry, I wasn't disputing that an ICE has more moving parts than an EV. I was saying that from a mathematical perspective, the use of '+' weakens the point being made. If you substitute '+' with 'at least', it might be more obvious that it's a poor choice of terminology. Much better to have chosen a maximum upper bound for the EV parts and said <100 vs 2000+ for example.