The Electric Car

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

I did my thesis on a lot of this subject area and i have no hesitation in saying the electric car, while being powered by lithium batteries has absolutely no chance of replacing fuel powered vehicles.

You think that battery cars have no chance of replacing fuel powered cars ?

Would you like to bet on that ? say 100,000 Euro's that within the next 10 years that battery cars will not sell as well or possibly over take the sale of ICE cars ? 100,000 Euro's ?

Electric bicycles have overtaken car sales in the E.U which is substantial because we have a much larger population than the U.S and Canada combined.

This is one example of battery vehicles coming of age. Not comparable to cars ? maybe not but it shows that there are interests in alternative modes of transport.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

1. Lithium is an extremely rare metal, there isn't enough on this planet to power even a minority of the amount of vehicles used worldwide. 20,000 Tonnes of lithium are refined every year, compare that to 1.4 million tonnes of Nickel.

You're joking, right ? there are vast reserves of lithium that haven't even begun to make full production. Refined amount does in no way reflect the available reserves.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

2. Most of worldwide lithium production is already required for the electronics industry. This makes lithium extremely expensive. A huge increase in demand with no additional supply available is going to push prices through the roof. Electric cars are already struggling to produce cheap batteries, if they became mainstream (their is 1 billion vehicles worldwide) the price could easily be $50,000 - $100,000 per car just on the lithium batteries

Maybe it is but the major auto makers are starting to buy lithium mines and Toyota has already acquired one, and I guarantee Toyota, the worlds largest car maker wouldn't do it if they didn't believe Lithium would power cars for the future.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

3. Lithium degrades over time, meaning the battery can hold less charge, and range decreases over time

Yes , but it'f far more complicated than that.

Sacrifices have to be made to for safety reasons.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

4. Charging times are ridiculous for an average individual, fast charging isn't a solution because it severely damages the batteries with regular use

Some batteries can charge in 5 mins to 80% but again safety is the primary focus, and the facelift Nissan Leaf can charge from a home 32 amp supply in 3 hours form 0%, so for most people this will be 2-3 hours charging. Most cars sit far longer when not in use. So I don't see the problem plugging in ? Maybe people are too lazy ?

fast charging a Leaf can take 30 mins to 80% from 0, so most fast charging will be 5-20 mins depending on what you need to get home, the Renault Zoe can fast charge in the same time but it makes better use of all the public chargers, the non fast chargers will charge Zoe in 1 hour from all ESB public chargers, so plenty of time for a bit of lunch as again it will take less than an hour to bring to 100%. Zoe has a built in 44 kw charger only needing 3 phase power.

Your home electricity supply can not charge Zoe that fast so that's a limitation of infrastructure and not the car. A note to new home builders to get a 3 phase supply.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

5. Lithium has a low energy to weight ratio, making large range capabilities impossible to achieve in a passenger vehicle.

Is that right ? so what about the Tesla model S with it's 300-350 miles range ?

Lithium air is the next step and has theoretical densities of gasoline, however most would except 3 times the range of a Leaf. i.e 240 miles.

The greatest thing needed for electric cars is faster charging and longer lasting batteries. If you can charge to 80%in 5 mins or less why do you need a very big heavy expensive battery if most of your driving is 80 miles a day or less ?

A Boards.ie member (natural blue) soes significant weekly mileage by driving his Leaf to the City West Luas and the car is charged for his return trip giving potential real life range of 140 miles, and that's not using fast charging which is not recommended for the Leaf daily.

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

6. Lithium batteries are explosive when a cell is punctured, I wouldn't be too comfortable driving one

nails have been shot into the Leaf's battery and pretty much most batteries of automotive quality, and guess what ? yes nothing happened, the Leaf, Zoe Tesla have all undergone the same tests as any other car, so that is mis informing the public as to their safety.


http://www.evworld.com/library/lithium_shortage.pdf

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

Electric vehicles will never be a success with these batteries, no conspiracy about it.

That link is dead ? so that's gospel then is it ? I guess he can tell the future ?

TheBikeGuy wrote: »

There are alternatives out their which are viable, although not without some problems, so theirs no danger that the car will become a piece of history once oil prices sky rocket

Let me guess , hydrogen ?

Hydrogen is probably less likely than batteries to be successful because of the expensive of the materials to make fuel cells, and the huge amount of energy needed to make hydrogen, it can be done but we need lots of Nuclear power for this kind of economy. But the energy is much more efficiently put into charging batteries.

Charging ev's can make current power generation much more efficient by charging at night, because the power stations have to be kept burning to be ready for demand wasting huge amounts of energy.

E.V's can also store some of the excess wind energy at night when they have to be turned off sometimes because the fossil fuel stations have to be kept burning because you can't just turn off a power station and expect it to be fully operational at the flick of a switch.

I'm truly shocked you did a thesis on this subject! :eek:

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Time to charge car 6-10 hours
Time to fill with petrol 2 mins

Are you having a laugh or just talking for the sake of running e.v's down and misinforming people ?

The Leaf facelift model can charge in 3 hours, 3 for the first gen and that's from 0%, so your car never sits at home for more than 3 hours ?

The zoe is limited by house wiring, so house supply is the limiting factor now and not the car, it will charge in under an hour, or 30 mins form a fast charger.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Range of elec maybe 100-150km
Range of petrol car 600km+

This is true, but a larg part of the population wouldn't use more than this a day, naturalblue who is on boards, covers significant weekly mileage by using the City West charger with the potential to cover 140 miles a day and that's not even using a fast charger. why would he need 600 kms range ? that would nearly be his weekly total mileage.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

charge required every day, if not more often. Petrol once a week or less.

Not practical at all...

Not practical at all to plug in at home ?

Petrol once a week or less ? it's hardly too much effort to plug in a cable is it ? too complicated perhaps ?

Looks like some of us are getting chastised by the mods for being naughty

I didn't intend to offend TheBikeGuy, and I'm sorry if you were offended, but I think you need to do a lot more research. I think someone who comes out of college with a degree/masters etc should have all the facts and should be at least open minded. we need people with degrees/masters because this technology will progress and improve it is the future and we are witnessing it's birth. In 30 years we'll be able to tell the young ones that yeah there was such thing as an electric car that would do 75 miles, but you know what ? we had to start somewhere and it was good enough, not perfect but good enough for a lot of people.

An E.V has a lot of potential for many people, and sure enough the Germans won't like the Leaf at 140 kph on the Autobahn wouldn't be too good for range. But for many people on a small island like ours they are suitable for a lot of people who don't need more than 140 odd miles a day range. Even for the Germans a lot of them won't drive more than 140 odd miles a day either and

There are many who can commute to the Luas stops, Naturalblue being one example of a high mileage EV driver, but we need work place chargers for those who need to use them such as high mileage commuters and apartment owners who can't install chargers or people who park on street, but we need the Government to address this issue and it isn't even on their minds at all.

Electric cars are not perfect nor is an ice ae ice car can go for many miles, it needs a lot more maintenance, that can work out quiet expensive over the life of the car.

It's unknown yet how long the battery will last in the Leaf before it's unusable, but the thing is every manufacturer will use a different chemistry in their battery and so if the Leaf lasts 150,000 miles doesn't mean the Zoe won't last 300,000 miles etc etc.

There are a few things you can do to prolong the life of the battery such as in the case of the leaf only using the charge to 80% function and not discharging below 30%, don't keep it at 100% for more than a few hours. Never leave the car fully charged on a hot day, never leave the car fully charged for days or fully discharged for days.

Don't fast charge every day, not full fast charges while on a road trip is ok, you need it use it. You need all the range ? use it.

That seems like a lot of effort to many ? but given time it would be 2nd nature, the leaf does a good enough job to protect the battery but the simple fact is the more of your battery you use the shorter it's life, using the middle part will greatly extend it's cycle life.

If Nissan said that they would exchange the battery at 70% capacity and buy your used pack that would be terrific but it won't happen the best you will get is 70% repaired pack maybe more but the guarantee is 70%.

Only time will tell as to how long the battery will actually last.

heat is the biggest problem and fortunately Ireland's climate is very kind to batteries.

If there is a change to the tax system again or some mandate that all cars must be xxx emissions by xxxx you'd be surprised how many people will change to electric if the system favours them over Diesel.

Currently there is no incentive for anyone that only pays 20-30 Euro's in petrol or diesel a week and less to change to an electric car as fuel is affordable and so can people afford to maintain their cars, some people anyway. And a lot if not all these people do not care in the slightest what gets them from A to B as long as it gets them there and they can afford it, and they have no interest in electric because what they got now does them fine. So you see it's not just the technology isn't good enough there are more factors involved.

copeyhagen wrote: »

pitty its the burning of fossil fuels that generates the leccy for these charge points

More and more renewables are being added to the mix.

When power stations have to be kept burning to be ready to meet sudden demand it wastes a lot of fuel and so ev's charging at night greatly enhances efficiency much more than power stations burning fuel for nothing.

Ev's are also a lot more efficient even considering transmission losses in the electric network.

In the future electric cars will be used to store wind electricity, and no you won't be left with a dead battery, they will make use of the power that would otherwise be turned off when demand is low or when there is excess.