Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Couple of articles (vlogs) on the CyberTruck, the first one talking about design, and how looks are only a small part of design (fair point, I would have misused the term). But it caught my attention when origami was mentioned and that reminded me that someone (Z I think) had mentioned it earlier:

Tesla Truck - why we're all wrong about the Cybertruck design

and a second vlog, just because it's really funny with a homemade cybertruck out and about ..... kinda!

I MADE My Own TESLA CYBERTRUCK - (And drove it around town...)

silverwhistle

zeupater wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that both Renault & Zoe owners will need to reconsider the idea of the added complexity afforded by the lease option..

Thanks for saving me some typing by your reply! I would have added that I keep my cars a long time and have quite low annual mileage, all of which militates against the lease idea.



As we have seen with the rent a roof scheme for PV (or any investment scheme for that matter) complexity both adds and obscures costs and reduces flexibility.



It should be added that the lease idea (and early Nissan Leafs likewise) was partly to overcome consumer fears about battery life and not just a juicy and continuing income stream! With improved technology and experience it now appears more like it's just the latter..

Martyn1981

Got a nagging feeling this has been posted already, or is similar to October, but as milestones go, I think it's worth repeating, electric cars (let's go with 'electrified' cars) reached 10% of sales in November:

New car sales fall again as UK demand for diesel vehicles dives

Demand for the latest battery electric cars more than tripled to 4,652 in November, up from 1,415 a year ago. Sales of plug-in hybrids rose by 34.8% to 4,362 cars, while hybrids were up 15% to 6,118 vehicles.

More than one in 10 cars joining UK roads are now either hybrid, plug-in hybrid or pure electric – equivalent to 16,052 cars in November. They reached a record market share of 10.2%, up from 9.9% in October.

I look forward to seeing two more milestones, PEV's reaching 10%, and then BEV's.

Martyn1981

This surprised me, a possible shift of focus by Nissan from the 'cheap' end of BEV's to the higher end.

The vid is from Transport Evolved, and I have to say I think it's the most unbiased of the channels I trawl, and also extremely professional.

Is Nissan About To Pivot Its Attitude To Electric Cars?

Personally I think Nissan have done a great job with the Leaf, in so much as it's proven the viability of mass market BEV's, and whilst i appreciate they are now struggling with the competition, I'm really not sure they want to go 'high end' as that'll pit them against Tesla and the TM3/TMY, and I can't see that ending well for Nissan.

GreatApe

It makes sense to sell hybrids & plug in hybrids that are not just about efficiency but power and speed too

Toyota sells more RAV4 SUVs in the USA than Tesla sells all its output combined in the while world

The 2020 RAV4 comes in petrol or hybrid or plug in. The plug in version will be the fastest and if people plug in daily it will be about 95% of the clean credentials as s full BEV

almillar

I was talking about the technology rather than tax arbitrage
How much does it cost to make a BEV Vs it's twin ICE?

Sure, but I'm talking about how much it costs for a consumer to buy. And I just remembered you quoted an i10 at £7k+VAT - what's the point in that? I'm just asking for a level playing field. Include VAT for both, or don't.

Going by the E Corsa it's £14,500 extra

I really hope you haven't just picked the cheapest ICE Corsa to compare against. You should know better. The EV will be faster and better spec. Choose spec for spec. I've no doubt EV will still be more expensive, but play fair!

It should be added that the lease idea (and early Nissan Leafs likewise) was partly to overcome consumer fears about battery life and not just a juicy and continuing income stream! With improved technology and experience it now appears more like it's just the latter..

Agreed. It's amazing how fast it's gone from 'Oh, you don't want to own an EV battery, you don't know what'll happen to it, so let it be the manufacturer's problem' to 'What, you have to lease a battery? What a ridiculous extra expense, I want to own it!'
For me personally, I ordered my Zoe in May 2015, and the lease was just bundled in with the car monthly cost. Owning the battery would have cost far more and the lease was a no-brainer.
Hoping Renault will do something good, soon, for existing battery lessees (my sister has my car now), now that they've abandoned the idea for the new Zoe.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

Sure, but I'm talking about how much it costs for a consumer to buy. And I just remembered you quoted an i10 at £7k+VAT - what's the point in that? I'm just asking for a level playing field. Include VAT for both, or don't.

The discussion for the i10 was to show how cheap a ICE powertrain actually is
Many people think a petrol engine and all the other bits to make it work are a big cost when in fact they aren't. They are light weight use abundant cheap materials and are easy to manufacture and are fairly low carbon able to get 100 grams per KM. A model 3 after losses us about 2.8 miles per KWh at the power station. If the nation is marginal gas fired like the UK that works out to 75 grams/KM. If the nation is marginal coal like the world's biggest auto market it's 150 grsms/km

I really hope you haven't just picked the cheapest ICE Corsa to compare against. You should know better. The EV will be faster and better spec. Choose spec for spec. I've no doubt EV will still be more expensive, but play fair!

I doubt people who buy a Corsa place much benefit on speed. Plus the negative side of a faster more expensive car is that all other things considered it will be more expensive to insure.


Just to be clear, I like BEVs they are a good technology they just aren't viable compared to ICE cars for now nor are they any cleaner maybe marginally so and often much less so. Right now hybrids make more sense than anything else. A hybrid doesn't cost a huge amount to manufacture (eg the hybrid ionic is only £19,000 a hybrid Corolla £22k) primarily because it only requires a 1-2KWh battery and much smaller electric motor and power electronics. Hybrids can also be very efficient getting a true 100grams/km. By comparison a model 3 in the world's biggest car market China which is marginal coal gets ~150grams/KM so is 50% worse on carbon. Second biggest car market is USA and depending on which state you are in its about 75grams if gas fired 150 grams of coal fired compared to the petrol hybrid at 100 grams.

For the 2020s hybrids make sense
You could ban non most non hybrids perhaps as early as 2025 and it would have a huge impact
You can build 50 hybrids for one model 3 batteries


BEVs will make sense when the local grid is marginal green (which isn't expected for the large auto markets China USA Germany Japan all marginal coal/gas for all of the 2020s) and when prices are much closer to ICE cars. Things may look good in the UK with heavy fuel taxes so it's a tax saving machine not really a fuel savings machine. But in the world's big auto markets like China and USA petrol prices are significantly less in the USA they are closer to 50p a litre

almillar

The discussion for the i10 was to show how cheap a ICE powertrain actually is
Many people think a petrol engine and all the other bits to make it work are a big cost when in fact they aren't.

Most private individuals include VAT - for a person's car, I think you should.

They are light weight use abundant cheap materials and are easy to manufacture and are fairly low carbon able to get 100 grams per KM. A model 3 after losses us about 2.8 miles per KWh at the power station. If the nation is marginal gas fired like the UK that works out to 75 grams/KM. If the nation is marginal coal like the world's biggest auto market it's 150 grsms/km

I'll accept your calculations. 100g/KM for a tiny petrol car vs 75g/km for a massive Tesla, on the UK grid, or 150g/km on 'the world's biggest auto market''s grid.
So by your own skewed figures EVs are already cleaner in the UK.

Skewed? Several problems with your comparison.

The petrol figure won't change, as long as you accept that petrol cars aren't going to get much more efficient. You've chosen about the smallest petrol car you can and compared it to a big Saloon. Not fair.

For EVs, the electric they run on is getting cleaner all the time, so your 2 figures will go down all the time.
UK Grid is becoming more renewable all the time.
And whilst you're adamant about taking into account losses in the grid to get power to the wheels of an EV, you seem to be completely ignoring the mining, refining and distribution of petrol.

Apart from that, you're spot on!

I doubt people who buy a Corsa place much benefit on speed. Plus the negative side of a faster more expensive car is that all other things considered it will be more expensive to insure.

What a joke and assumption. Compare the ICE car that does a similar speed, and has similar spec. Simply choosing the base model is just not fair. I've already called you out comparing a Model 3 to a Corolla, if you can't be bothered working out equivalent models, don't bother making the comparisons.
Your naughty list:
Corolla vs Model3
Hyundai i10 vs 'Tesla' (Model S?)
Base spec Corsa vs eCorsa.

Stop it!

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

Most private individuals include VAT - for a person's car, I think you should.

Not when I'm talking about manufacturing costs, vat is a tax on purchase not a cost on production

I'll accept your calculations. 100g/KM for a tiny petrol car vs 75g/km for a massive Tesla,

I didn't say that only small cars get 100g/km
100g/KM is available on a Prius or a hybrid Corolla or a hybrid Camry that last one is bigger than the model 3

On the UK grid, or 150g/km on 'the world's biggest auto market''s grid.
So by your own skewed figures EVs are already cleaner in the UK.

How are they skewed?
Model 3 is about 25% cleaner than a hybrid in the UK not including the higher up front manufacturing cost.

Also worthwhile putting this into perspective.
The average UK car does 7,200 miles a year
That means a hybrid ICE will emmit 1.15 tons and the model 3 will emmit 0.86 tons so a saving of less than 0.3 tons. Well how much does the average UK family of 4 emmit per year? About 22 tons a year

So deciding to go for the model 3 rather than an efficient ICE will reduce 0.3 tons out of a family 22 ton contribution....just 1.3% reduction... pat yourself on the back you e saved the planet with your 1.3% reduction :rotfl:

The petrol figure won't change, as long as you accept that petrol cars aren't going to get much more efficient. You've chosen about the smallest petrol car you can and compared it to a big Saloon. Not fair.

No sir. You are jumping from one thing to another
The i10 was about a discussion on how cheap it is to manufacture ICE cars
The 100gram petrol cars are available in sizes equal to or bigger than a model 3
The Prius the corolla the Camry hybrid all get 100g/km realistic (I'm not using the manufacturer claims). These three cars are cars I'm considering buying hence I know the data for them but I suspect the figures are representative of other manufacturers efficient ICE ranges

For EVs, the electric they run on is getting cleaner all the time, so your 2 figures will go down all the time.

EVs add marginal demand
They can be either 100% clean or 100% not clean they aren't an average
For instance if you charged your EV last night it would have been 100% clean as we have too much wind and had to curtail. If you charge your EV right now it's 100% gas

Importantly the four biggest car markets , China USA Japan Germany are not going to be marginal green anytime in the next decade. So they will almost always be marginal coal/gas irrespective of their host grids getting a little cleaner over time

UK Grid is becoming more renewable all the time.

Yes but we are predominately still marginal gas not marginal green
And in a discussion about BEVs the UK is pretty irrelevant compared to the big 4 who are marginal coal/gas mostly coal actually since China is the biggest and it's almost all marginal coal

And whilst you're adamant about taking into account losses in the grid to get power to the wheels of an EV, you seem to be completely ignoring the mining, refining and distribution of petrol.

I don't have any particularly reliable information about that but I think it's reasonable for our discussion to assume the mining transport processing shipping etc of coal and gas to a power station isn't much more efficient or clean than the mining refining and transport of petrol to your petrol station

Apart from that, you're spot on!

:beer:
Glad you agree

What a joke and assumption. Compare the ICE car that does a similar speed, and has similar spec. Simply choosing the base model is just not fair. I've already called you out comparing a Model 3 to a Corolla, if you can't be bothered working out equivalent models, don't bother making the comparisons.
Your naughty list:
Corolla vs Model3
Hyundai i10 vs 'Tesla' (Model S?)
Base spec Corsa vs eCorsa.
Stop it!

You are nit picking

These are my points which I think you would actually accept as true and fair

BEVs still cost significantly more than ICE and need to drop in price for mass adoption
Efficient ICE are... efficient...emitting real world about 100g/km
BEVs in the big markets emmit somewhere around 75-150g/km depending on the local grid
BEVs can emmit zero where the local grid is marginal green eg France about 8 months of the year, UK for a handful of hours a year, Norway all year round, etc. But mostly the big grids are marginal coal (Germany China) or marginal Gas (Japan USA etc) not marginal green

And of course most important of all, for a family of 4 savings from their car being BEV or ICE are trivial vs their total fossil useage. In the UK a model 3 saves family of 4 perhaps 1-2% of their annual CO2 Vs an efficient ICE.

GreatApe

Why is so much time and discussion energy spent on BEVs when personal cars produce so little CO2?

Average UK household 2.35 persons @ 22T/Yr = 51.7T

Average cars per household 1.1 @ 7,200 miles a year @ 100g/km = 1.3 T from an efficient ICE

So even if you decided you'd just give up cars and walk/cycle everywhere the best you would achieve is a 2.5% reduction in your household fossil fuel burn. Even that's an over estimate because if you walked or cycled 7,200 miles a year you would have to eat more and it takes energy to produce and transport food

So just not using cars is about 2.5% saving (realistically less)
And switching to a model 3 would save this household 0.6% of their annual emmissions

The UK nukes going offline in 3-4 years save more CO2 than converting the entire fleet of UK cars to BEVs. If you want lower CO2 lobby your MP and representatives to encourage EDF to extend UK nuke lives by 10 years.

The result of that would be more than twice the emmissions savings as can be achieved by converting all UK cars to BEVs which in a timeframe of 3 years (or even 15 years) is impossible