Electric cars

AdrianC

Herzlos wrote: »

It doesn't make sense at current prices for a Prius Hybrid. No-one said it did

Great. So we're all in agreement on that. Group hug.

and no-one but you is talking about Prius hybrids.

Despite it being the only even vaguely mainstream production electrified vehicle with a PV roof option (if we exclude any irrelevant fripperies that just provide a bit of interior-air-stirring, such as Audi were doing a decade ago).

Costs will go down and efficiency will go up. Would you select it as a £50 option?

Non-PV pano roofs are £400ish+ options, where they're a cost option, well north on premium brands. If the unit cost gets as low as £50ish, it'd simply be standard-fit.

And, for a third time, can I remind you that even Musk dismissed it as a gimmick, after initially talking the idea up?

It may be a bigger sell from a convenience point of view.

I thought range anxiety was a non-issue...? So it can only be a simple financial question, can't it...?

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Great. So we're all in agreement on that. Group hug.

Despite it being the only even vaguely mainstream production electrified vehicle with a PV roof option (if we exclude any irrelevant fripperies that just provide a bit of interior-air-stirring, such as Audi were doing a decade ago).

Non-PV pano roofs are £400ish+ options, where they're a cost option, well north on premium brands. If the unit cost gets as low as £50ish, it'd simply be standard-fit.

And, for a third time, can I remind you that even Musk dismissed it as a gimmick, after initially talking the idea up?

I thought range anxiety was a non-issue...? So it can only be a simple financial question, can't it...?

Hi

So back to the basics .... if a PV panel, including glass, frame & connectivity costs ~30p/Wp then would it be logical to conclude that the actual cells would be less than this? ... if so, then would it not also be logical to assess that the on-cost for PV enabling a glass panel roof would be relatively minor ... but hold on, there are other material options available that could slot into the same space as the glass - how about pressed metal with bonded flexi-PV, or a metal/PV/glass sandwich construction - there's plenty of options available for the engineers to ponder, almost all of which would result in a solution costing far below £400, let alone the £1500 you're obviously raising for little more than the sake of argument ....

Let's take a step back & consider the typical margin available to automotive manufacturers when options are offered within standard price lists before remembering what the effect on the entire vehicle cost has historically been when they eventually become standard specification items ... electric windows, sunroof, alloy wheels, anti-lock braking, satellite navigation, mobile phone integration, high spec audio, driving lights ... add all of those 'options' together at some time in the past & you'd be close to the cost of another vehicle, yet having become standard equipment on many ranges the price of vehicles has moved relatively little (other than inflationary movement), so when you read £400 or £1500 for an option, remember that's a hugely overinflated figure until it finally becomes standard fit ...

Anyway, let's not dwell on 180Wp when there are plenty of vehicles which could readily accept 300-500Wp of PV range assistance, and let's not limit ourselves to the UK in order to argue against the technology ... I'm sure that there are going to be plenty of EVs sold elsewhere too, many in places where insolation is far more suitable for the technology to be cost-viable than here! ... :cool:

HTH
Z

Herzlos

AdrianC wrote: »

Despite it being the only even vaguely mainstream production electrified vehicle with a PV roof option (if we exclude any irrelevant fripperies that just provide a bit of interior-air-stirring, such as Audi were doing a decade ago).

Correct, that's why we're talking about not viable yet.

Non-PV pano roofs are £400ish+ options, where they're a cost option, well north on premium brands. If the unit cost gets as low as £50ish, it'd simply be standard-fit.

How about answering the question? Would you choose it as an option if cheap enough?

And, for a third time, can I remind you that even Musk dismissed it as a gimmick, after initially talking the idea up?

I thought Tesla was a disaster of a company?
He doesn't think they are viable, he may be right or wrong but the science still stands.

I thought range anxiety was a non-issue...? So it can only be a simple financial question, can't it...?

It's less of an issue, but there will always be road warriors who'll benefit from an extra few miles a day range. Or infrequent users away from the grid. Even for normal users it translates to less time plugged in. Like I said; for many users in good weather it potentially means never having to refuel cars except on special occasions. Average mileage is 150/week, if you can get 2m2 of panels on a car roof that means you need about 75 hours of sunlight to cover that mileage at current technology. That's 10 hours 45 a day, which is achievable for a lot of places over summer. Getting PV to 30% brings that down to about 6 hours.

Martyn1981

Herzlos wrote: »

Getting PV to 30% brings that down to about 6 hours.

To support your statement, and just to prove I'm not 'blowing smoke' on this issue, some articles from the last few days:

Tandem cells at 28%

“We are continuing to push our perovskite-silicon solar cell technology, with a roadmap that extends beyond 30% efficiency.”

Perovskite Solar Panels Edge Closer To Production As Prices Fall

A totally different kind of solar cell was created by Japanese researchers in 2009. Called perovskite, it doesn’t depend on silicon. Instead, it uses a hybrid organic-inorganic lead or tin halide based material as the light harvesting active layer. According to TechCrunch, Oxford PV, a company based in the UK, is working on developing perovskite solar cells that could have a conversion rate as high as 37%.

It’s not all honey and roses for perovskites, however. They don’t currently have the durability of conventional solar panels and tend to degrade rather quickly in any environment outside the laboratory. It’s not that they can’t be made to compete head to head with silicon based solar cells, they just aren’t there yet. But then again, consider where electric cars were 10 years ago and where they are today. Progress seems to take forever until you wake up one morning and it seems like the world changed overnight.

Martyn1981

Here's a fun idea, certainly a way to add/re-inforce charging to a workplace carpark for employees with EV's.

NYC Adds 50 Envision Off-Grid Solar EV Charging Stations

Envision Solar males a self-contained solar-powered EV charging station that is portable and completely off the grid. That means it can be towed to where it is needed and set up without digging trenches for a connection to the local utility grid. Using two axis tracking, it can generate enough electricity every day to power a typical electric car for 225 miles.

Herzlos

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Here's a fun idea, certainly a way to add/re-inforce charging to a workplace carpark for employees with EV's.

NYC Adds 50 Envision Off-Grid Solar EV Charging Stations

They'll be brilliant for places like caravans parks and construction sites. 225 miles doesn't sound like much, but you may only need to boost a vehicles range by a few miles for them to comfortably get back to a fast charger.

Martyn1981

Walking a tightrope!

Bloomberg: To Catch Up To Tesla, Big Auto Needs “Tricky Financial Stunt”

There are other challenges too. According to Bloomberg, “for the next decade or so, old-school car executives will try to pull off a tricky financial stunt: driving returns with gasoline engines until their electric models have enough momentum to start keeping pace. They are essentially using an old technology to fund the transition to the next, and the timing is fraught. Jump to the electric drivetrain too soon and the whole works will grind to a halt; jump too late and lose the EV race.”

In contrast, more recent “startups such as Tesla, critically, don’t have to make this awkward jump … they don’t have to worry about feeding a legacy business as it slowly winds down.”

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So lot's to take into account, but the big one most folk miss/ignore/ignorant too is the effect of temp on panel performance.

Yes, a few years ago in a sailing magazine a yacht owner compared the performance of their boat's system in the UK and in Spain and there was a remarkably small difference.


As to whether people will want on-car panels, I'd say yes, and the question will then be about cost. As I buy random second-hand cars depending on cost and availability the idea of options is foreign to me, but they will get sold and eagerly lapped up in the second hand market by the likes of me! I once had a sunroof and very rarely used it but if it came to a choice like the idea of even a small incremental gain.


Like other developments they aren't really there yet but change is happening, which will obviously amaze some on here when it does..

Martyn1981

Onward and upward.

Tesla Delivers 90,700 Vehicles In Q4, Sets New Production & Delivery Records

The article doesn't mention weekly TM3 'burst' rates, (the figure that fascinated so many FUD'ers last year), but I think Tesla may have gotten close to 7,000 in Q4. The production average is now close to 5,000 for the quarter.

AdrianC

Link to the actual Tesla release - http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q4-2018-vehicle-production-deliveries-also-announcing-2000

So there we have it... It's official. 61,394 Model 3 built in Q4. Over 13 weeks, that's an average of 4,730 per week. Only a 15% increase on Q3, and still at an average that they first reached back at the start of Q3. Bloomberg's estimate is within a couple of hundred cars for the second quarter in a row - their sources definitely appear solid.

And if we go back to the end-of-Q2 production letter, we find...

Tesla wrote:

Tesla expects to increase production to 6,000 Model 3s per week by late next month. (July)

...
...we are incredibly proud of the whole Tesla team for achieving the 5,000 unit Model 3 production rate. It was not easy, but it was definitely worth it.

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q2-2018-vehicle-production-and-deliveries

So it's official. The production bottlenecks are still firmly in place. Apology accepted, Martyn.

But...

Tesla wrote:

More than three quarters of Model 3 orders in Q4 came from new customers, rather than reservation holders.

So how many of those "reservation holders" are not wanting to actually order the car after all this time? The end of Q2 update letter stated that there were still 420,000 reservation holders. The end of Q3 letter didn't give an update, nor does this one - but they've delivered 116,389 cars. That should still leave about 300,000 reservation holders...

This makes for interesting reading on the subject:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/15/tesla-offering-model-3-refunds-to-reservation-holders-unsolicited/


The Q3 financial update said that of the 455,000 "less than 20%" had cancelled. It'll be interesting to see if the messages referred to in that article has changed that.http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/725970e6-eda5-47ab-96e1-422d4045f799