Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Similar article to the recent one about the 'Alice' BEV article. I think this aircraft has been mentioned in the past on here. Just thought it was worth another mention, as the article reports a large order from United Airlines, and carries 19 passengers.

United Invests In Swedish Electric Airplane Startup

What that means is that electric aircraft are not going to be shuttling 500 people non-stop across the Pacific Ocean any time soon. However, they may be be able to fly a dozen or more over short distances fairly soon. Swedish electric airplane startup Heart Aerospace says its ES-19 will be ready to begin commercial service on flights of 250 miles or less by 2026.

Unites Airlines, through its venture capital subsidiary, has agreed to purchase 100 ES-19 electric aircraft from Heart and anticipates having them transporting paying passengers before the end of the decade. Mesa Airlines, a subsidiary of United, has also signed up for 100 of the electric airplanes. Heart has also attracted investments from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

United currently operates 100 short-haul routes that could be serviced by the ES-19. “We expect the short-haul regional air travel market to play a key role in the evolution of the electric aircraft. As battery technology improves, larger-gauge aircraft should become viable but we’re not going to wait to begin the journey,” Leskinen says. “That’s why we’re looking forward to beginning our work with Heart, so that, together, we can scale the availability of electric airliners and use them for passenger flights within the next five years.”

Coastalwatch

Thankfully Mart, on short haul routes timescales for powering waterborne craft are somewhat less!

Bangkok to be home to 12 new electric commuter ferries

The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) has commissioned twelve new all-electric commuter ferries. The 47.5-foot fibreglass boats are powered by an integrated battery-electric system supplied by Torqeedo.

The twelve new electric ferries join the existing fleet of seven Torqeedo-powered electric boats that entered service in December 2020. Both orders are as part of a city-wide plan to reduce traffic and emissions, Torqeedo said.

The ferries are not new, but have been retrofitted. As part of the work, the old diesel outboard engines and tanks were removed. The boats are now powered by two ‘Torqeedo Cruise’ outboard motors with ten kW. These draw their power from four “Power 48-5000” lithium-ion batteries, according to the manufacturer.

https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/20/bangkok-to-be-home-to-12-new-electric-commuter-ferries/

EVandPV

Tesla to open Supercharger network to other EV brands

The Tesla Supercharger network will be opened to other electric vehicle brands later this year as confirmed by Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tesla/355605/tesla-open-supercharger-network-other-ev-brands?amp

Martyn1981

It's interesting news about Tesla, and we'll have to see how it pans out.

But looking at that article, and the final two paragraphs, I'm having trouble working out if they are talking nonsense, or if I'm missing something:

However, even if the Tesla Supercharger network is opened to British EV drivers, given the size of the Supercharger network here currently, it won’t be enough to satisfy demand once the sale of pure combustion vehicles is banned in 2030. 
The SMMT estimates that 700 charge points would need to be installed daily between now and the end of the decade to properly support the market. Currently, the installation rate stands at around 42 per day.

Now, even if we reach 100% BEV sales in 2030, that won't mean the whole fleet is made up of BEV's, probably more like 1/3rd*, but 700 charge points per day x 365days x 9 more years = 2.3m charge points, and if they can fast charge cars in 30-60mins, then let's go with a low end 2.3m x 12 cars per day = 27.6m cars charged per day, which would be the whole UK car fleet, needing a fast charge, every day ..... sounds unlikely!

But 42 x 365 x 9 = 137,970 charge points, and if they charge 12 cars per day, then that's 1.66m cars. That's probably enough fast charging per day for a fleet of ~30m BEV's isn't it? More than enough for say 10m BEV's by 2030 to all fast charge once per week ..... which of course most of us don't.

I wonder if they are conflating charging stations, with home/street charging points, but I assume those will simply rise in line with more BEV purchases.

Bit weird, but doesn't read like scare mongering, I read it as a genuine concern, so maybe one of us has got the numbers wrong?



*Rough guess based on rising sales from 0(ish)-100% over ten years, so 50% of the sales will be BEV's, and with cars lasting about 15yrs, then another 5yrs worth will be older ICEV's from 2015-2020.

michaels

There are about 8k petrol stations in the UK

Lets say so 64k pumps

Lets say a fast charger fills up an EV 12x slower than a petrol pump fills an ICE - 1 per hour vs 12 per hour

Then we need 768k fast chargers if the whole fleet is electric and charge only at rapid chargers.

If instead 40% of charging happens at home then that is 460k rapid chargers and enough home chargers for 50% of the fleet which is a lot more than 2.3m cars

Martyn1981

Not sure about 60% of charging being at rapid chargers, perhaps 6%? I suspect the vast majority of charging will be at home, office or other slower charging facilities.

Not sure what the figure of 2.3m cars relates to, or means?

JKenH

Not sure how the economics of installing/operating rapid chargers works out but here’s a back of an envelope stab at it.

Let’s say the charge companies can buy their  leccy at 13p and sell it at 30p/kWh then that’s £0.17/kWh profit. Let’s assume cars can charge at an average 50kw so that makes £8.50/hour gross profit. Over 12 hours that’s £102 per day or £85/day after VAT. There must be some costs associated with operating the chargers - office staff and overheads, maintenance, etc. If they account for 50% of the gross profit then we are left with £42.50/day = c£15.5k pa. If a rapid charger costs £150k (say) then finance costs at a conservative 2% are £3k. If the life of a charger is 10 years then depreciation is £15k per annum. That’s a loss of £2.5k pa. (That doesn’t take into account the cost of leasing the sites or business rates but I can’t even make a stab at those.)

Chargers are relatively new tech and as with all new tech costs will fall and the technology will improve (compare solar panels, wind turbines, batteries etc.) What you are investing in might very rapidly become obsolete tech so the depreciation in the real world might be much higher. It is possible that as the number of chargers increases drivers will become more price sensitive, i.e. there will be competition and price pressure and the stand alone charging companies might find it hard to compete against those companies operating the chargers as an adjunct to some other services where there is cross subsidy.

Now I am sure someone can insert other figures that make the sums work out more profitably but it doesn’t like look a compelling business case unless there is a subsidy somewhere along the line.

ABrass

JKenH said:

Not sure how the economics of installing/operating rapid chargers works out but here’s a back of an envelope stab at it.

Let’s say the charge companies can buy their  leccy at 13p and sell it at 30p/kWh then that’s £0.17/kWh profit. Let’s assume cars can charge at an average 50kw so that makes £8.50/hour gross profit. Over 12 hours that’s £102 per day or £85/day after VAT. There must be some costs associated with operating the chargers - office staff and overheads, maintenance, etc. If they account for 50% of the gross profit then we are left with £42.50/day = c£15.5k pa. If a rapid charger costs £150k (say) then finance costs at a conservative 2% are £3k. If the life of a charger is 10 years then depreciation is £15k per annum. That’s a loss of £2.5k pa. (That doesn’t take into account the cost of leasing the sites or business rates but I can’t even make a stab at those.)

Chargers are relatively new tech and as with all new tech costs will fall and the technology will improve (compare solar panels, wind turbines, batteries etc.) What you are investing in might very rapidly become obsolete tech so the depreciation in the real world might be much higher. It is possible that as the number of chargers increases drivers will become more price sensitive, i.e. there will be competition and price pressure and the stand alone charging companies might find it hard to compete against those companies operating the chargers as an adjunct to some other services where there is cross subsidy.

Now I am sure someone can insert other figures that make the sums work out more profitably but it doesn’t like look a compelling business case unless there is a subsidy somewhere along the line.

The cost for the charger installation is the biggest bit. For a 50Kw charger it is a lot less.

The research revealed that costs for charging infrastructure components ranged from $2,500 up to $7,210 for a Level 2 commercial charger and from $20,000 up to $35,800 for a 50-kilowatt DC fast charger.

Although that isn't likely to be averaging 50kW for 12 hours a day. Even half that would still show a profit with the lower upfront cost.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/ev-charging-infrastructure-has-a-soft-costs-problem

Apparently it cost around $100-170,000 for a superchager back in 2013.

The cost for Tesla is between $100,000 and $175,000 depending on the station, and a lot of those come from the permanent modifications needed at the site to support the Supercharger itself

Those will be the comparatively arthritic V1 with only 150kW split over two stalls, which is probably really good value for money. I'd hope the cost will have dropped over the last 8 years even for the more capable V3s that can deliver 300kW (in theory).

https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/26/inside-teslas-supercharger-partner-program-the-costs-and-commitments-of-electrifying-road-transport/amp/

It's all about the depreciation.

QrizB

ABrass said:

It's all about the depreciation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ovZ8gf2w3k

(Apologies, I couldn't resist.)

JKenH

ABrass said:

The cost for the charger installation is the biggest bit. For a 50Kw charger it is a lot less.

The research revealed that costs for charging infrastructure components ranged from $2,500 up to $7,210 for a Level 2 commercial charger and from $20,000 up to $35,800 for a 50-kilowatt DC fast charger.

Although that isn't likely to be averaging 50kW for 12 hours a day. Even half that would still show a profit with the lower upfront cost.


It's all about the depreciation.

The problem there with 50kw chargers is that a lot of the overheads will remain the same. At an average 25kW for 12 hours revenue would drop to £42.50/day which would just cover the office costs and overheads, maintenance etc. in my example so there would be nothing left to cover finance costs, business rates and depreciation. The other problem is if you install 50kW chargers in a couple of years they will be unable to compete as most new EVs being rolled out are capable of charging at much higher speeds. Yes, those of us driving old tech cars will still use them but the price/kWh will be lower and we will be sitting at the chargers much longer so revenue/hr will be lower while office costs, maintenance are the same. 

I am not claiming my figures are right but it is difficult to make the numbers add up. The super chargers are no doubt cheaper to produce than a few years ago but the cabling cost to the site is a significant part of the cost and that is only going to keep on going up as the power increases. 

I read that the Gridserve Braintree site was one of a 100 in a £1billion investment, so pro rata that’s £10million per site. If the buildings are a couple of £m then that leaves around £8m for 36 chargers some of which are just 7kW.

Yes, I agree it is all about the depreciation and not only will that impact on profit but also on the ability to raise finance cheaply. More depreciation = more risk = higher finance costs.

I would love to see someone post a link with a working business model and prove me wrong but I suspect that information would be commercially sensitive.

The correlation between the number of chargers in Scotland (compared to England) and the extent of subsidies does suggest that at the moment new charging sites are only going to appear where there is some form of external subsidy or cross subsidy. If anyone can explain how the Gridserve model works (which presumably it must) I would love to hear.

I can see the advantage in getting the prime sites established in your portfolio (as in getting the motorway services tied up ) as that is one of the jam tomorrow schemes that drives investment today (e.g. all the new EV start ups) and doesn’t sit with my old fashioned way of looking at an investment as something that delivers a return on capital deployed by way of generating actual profit.