Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

More public EV charging is great and this looks like a good facility. But I'm not sure how significant the solar contribution is; 210,000 kWh is not much compared with the potential output of 64 EV chargers is it?  (I assume it will also use mains leccy when the batteries run out).  OTOH, net zero is about incremental changes so every little helps.  I assume the battery can be charged off peak too? Just thinking out loud...

I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to make additional use of the land area by co-locating PV generation? Any generation will be beneficial, and profitable to the site.

As for contribution, if we simply use a 50% 24/7 usage figure for all the chargers, then the PV contribution will be 5%. A more reasonable usage figure will probably mean 10%+ from onsite generation, and of course weighted towards summer and daylight, when wind generation will be, on average, lower.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

JKenH

Autovolt 

A new magazine devoted to electric and hybrid vehicles has been launched. Here is an example of the content. Worth a look.

https://www.autovolt-magazine.com/autovolt-magazine-issue-33/

QrizB

I quite like the idea of pantograph cables on motorways (really, I do) but can't help but think that, after however-many years of "smart motorway" roadworks, another however-many years of contraflows while they fit more overhead gantries won't be popular!

Solarchaser

shinytop said:

More public EV charging is great and this looks like a good facility. But I'm not sure how significant the solar contribution is; 210,000 kWh is not much compared with the potential output of 64 EV chargers is it?  (I assume it will also use mains leccy when the batteries run out).  OTOH, net zero is about incremental changes so every little helps.  I assume the battery can be charged off peak too? Just thinking out loud...

I apologise as the pic isn't great, a digital pic of a digital screen... but anyway this is it generating 100KW a couple of weeks ago when I stopped by on the way back from Aberdeen.
At that point it had generated 12000 mwh which is pretty darn good as its not been long open at all.



So combined with the battery pack it was covering all the cars pulling up to charge. 
Admittedly there were only a couple on 7kw and 1 on a 22kw though, but 5 cars on the 50kw chargers too.

For me, this is the perfect use of solar, on the canopies supplying a battery so taking the ev loads off the grid when they are used in fits and starts, and the canopies give shelter from the rain and sun while charging.

And this was me parking like a !!!!!! to use the 11kw ac as at the time a leaf was using the 50kw cha de mo in the left hand bay and because Teslas ports are at the side, you can really only reverse into left hand bays as the 50kw and 11kw tethered leads don't stretch the length or width of the car.



Then he left, as did the mach e and the other model 3, leaving me parked like a !!!!!! for what looks like no good reason (there's no other bays to left of pic, so I wasn't obstructing anyone)
You can see the leaf taxi on right of pic also using a 50kw

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

Autovolt 

A new magazine devoted to electric and hybrid vehicles has been launched. Here is an example of the content. Worth a look.

So, do those lanes only get used by lorries fitted with the connectors for overhead power?

Wouldn't a simpler solution be to load the freight on trains for long distance and then only have local distribution in smaller vehicles (which could be electric)?

Martyn1981

Hiya SC, looking at that pic, do I take it you've removed the aero covers from the wheels? I like the look of the alloys, but being a tight git, the covers do add about 7% to range (apparently).

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

I don't know how important or significant this is, but an investigation has been launched in the US into the number of partially autonomous Tesla vehicles that have driven into stationary emergency vehicles at the scene of accidents/incidents etc..

Sounds like a sensible thing to investigate, and hopefully raises the need for drivers to pay attention until such time as the vehicles are fully autonomous.

The recent 2020 Impact Report issued by Tesla (and no pun intended), does show on page 37 that Tesla with autopilot engaged are involved in 9x less accidents, but that's no excuse for driving into emergency vehicles.

[Side issue - there's been a lot of news recently about the impact report, especially page 24, which states that EU and US laws will allow BEV trucks to weigh an additional 2tons (EU) and 0.9tons (US) to offset battery weight, and maintain weight limited capacity.]

U.S. Tesla Autopilot Probe — What We Know

The U.S. has opened a formal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot system, Yahoo! Finance and others reported have reported. The article stated that the investigation was opened after almost 12 collisions involving first-responder vehicles at crash scenes. The probe, which is being conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), will cover around 765,000 Tesla vehicles from the 2014–2021 model years. The regulator decided to investigate after 11 crashes that resulted in 17 injuries and one fatality.

The NHTSA wrote, “Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene-control measures such as first-responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones.

'almost 12 collisions' - is that 11?!

Unless we know how many collisions there are per billion miles driven compared to other vehicles it does not mean anything anyway. 

We may be seeing the first instance where driver assistance technology is safer than unassisted but is criticised/rejected because it is not 100% safe which I think we will see more of as driving becomes automated.

 Watched a vid yesterday by Sandy Munro, and thought you may be interested.

He has to be the ultimate car guy, having consulted on makes and models all over the World. He admits to being a fan of Tesla, but not a fanboi. In this vid he almost explodes about the enquiries and reviews being made into Tesla, and how they appear to be 'dodgy'. Like you (and me) he points out how the ratio of accidents needs to be considered.

He makes an excellent point that if interested parties manage to slow down Tesla (a US company) then the Chinese will simply continue to improve their 'computers on wheels' and beat the old US companies, so either way they will lose, unless they up their game to compete with the competition, rather than try to slow down the competition.

Really worth a watch as anyone who has seen his vids stripping down BEV's (recently the Mach E), will know just how much detail his team goes into, and the expertise that they have, so when someone like Sandy gets seriously annoyed, then something just doesn't smell right.

Sandy's Rant: Tesla AI Day + NHTSA & Congress

On a similar note, Tom Quinn, the Energy Advisor to President Biden, has recently posted on Linkedin about a battery research paper, stating that after 25 fast charge cycles the EV batts are effectively killed (below 80% of original capacity).

The research paper apparently charges batts at full speed from 0-100%, with no active cooling hitting temps of 60C.

Obviously batts are not normally fast charged from 0-100%, often have buffers so the battery isn't completely empty nor full, will have cooling, and even in the case of Nissan's 'Rapidgate', when the batts are hot, the car won't allow them to be fast charged, or charged too fast.


Something strange is happening in the US regarding EV's.

Martyn1981

It doesn't seem that long ago that the Tesla model 3 overtook the Nissan Leaf for top selling BEV, I think the figure was somewhere in the 500k-600k range. Now we have the milestone of a BEV reaching the magic million mark. Plus of course speculation that the TMY will overtake it once Berlin and Austin start 'chucking' em out.

[I wonder if Tesla know which car was the millionth, and if so if it was sold/delivered .... or launched into space!]

Tesla Model 3 Has Passed 1 Million Sales

One of our readers recently pointed out that the Tesla Model 3 has seemingly surpassed 1 million cumulative sales (deliveries). Indeed, looking at my own long-term records of Tesla sales, at the end of the 2nd quarter of 2021, the Model 3 had reached 1,031,588 worldwide deliveries.

That makes the Model 3 the first electric car to pass 1 million cumulative sales.

JKenH

UK car production plunges to lowest level since 1956

Meanwhile, the data also shows that just over a quarter (26pc) of all cars made in July use alternative fuels – battery electric, plug in hybrid or hybrid electric – their highest share on record.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/08/26/markets-live-latest-coronavirus-news-pound-euro-ftse-100/

shinytop

Solarchaser said:

shinytop said:

More public EV charging is great and this looks like a good facility. But I'm not sure how significant the solar contribution is; 210,000 kWh is not much compared with the potential output of 64 EV chargers is it?  (I assume it will also use mains leccy when the batteries run out).  OTOH, net zero is about incremental changes so every little helps.  I assume the battery can be charged off peak too? Just thinking out loud...

I apologise as the pic isn't great, a digital pic of a digital screen... but anyway this is it generating 100KW a couple of weeks ago when I stopped by on the way back from Aberdeen.
At that point it had generated 12000 mwh which is pretty darn good as its not been long open at all.



So combined with the battery pack it was covering all the cars pulling up to charge. 
Admittedly there were only a couple on 7kw and 1 on a 22kw though, but 5 cars on the 50kw chargers too.

For me, this is the perfect use of solar, on the canopies supplying a battery so taking the ev loads off the grid when they are used in fits and starts, and the canopies give shelter from the rain and sun while charging.

And this was me parking like a !!!!!! to use the 11kw ac as at the time a leaf was using the 50kw cha de mo in the left hand bay and because Teslas ports are at the side, you can really only reverse into left hand bays as the 50kw and 11kw tethered leads don't stretch the length or width of the car.



Then he left, as did the mach e and the other model 3, leaving me parked like a !!!!!! for what looks like no good reason (there's no other bays to left of pic, so I wasn't obstructing anyone)
You can see the leaf taxi on right of pic also using a 50kw

Yup, looks good.  I see the bays already have the obligatory oil patches. I didnt think EVs did that