Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

michaels

ABrass said:

The German grid is around 400g/kWh normally. But it's a distraction because even at 400g/kWh EVs are cleaner than ICEs. So they're better to build than an ICE even if the grid never gets better.

But the grid will get better, so they're much better for the environment.

As has been discussed a million times and more you can't switch over from ICE to EV overnight. Pushing back EV introduction would be nuts, both ecologically and economically.

Data I found was that Germany was average 350 in 2019.  Don't know how that has changed since, obviously more renewables have been deployed but perhaps some more nukes closed down too?

Not sure how the intensity varies by time of day - solar is obviously more in the day(!) but wind may be a higher proportion at night when demand is low?

I think we have seen various reports suggesting that in almost every European country (possibly not Poland) that EVs are already less carbon intensive per mile over their entire lives including build than ice.  I would also question how closely real world ice emissions map to the quoted numbers, certainly most real world tests seem to get worse mileage than the manufacturers figures.  Best data would be from fleets comparing total fuel input over a year with total mileage driven.

JKenH

michaels said:

Not sure how the intensity varies by time of day - solar is obviously more in the day(!) but wind may be a higher proportion at night when demand is low?

You can see in this screenshot how it varies during the day. (Please ignore the accidental annotation)

JKenH

michaels said:

ABrass said:

The German grid is around 400g/kWh normally. But it's a distraction because even at 400g/kWh EVs are cleaner than ICEs. So they're better to build than an ICE even if the grid never gets better.

But the grid will get better, so they're much better for the environment.

As has been discussed a million times and more you can't switch over from ICE to EV overnight. Pushing back EV introduction would be nuts, both ecologically and economically.

I think we have seen various reports suggesting that in almost every European country (possibly not Poland) that EFs are already less carbon intensive per mile over their entire lives including build than ice.  I would also question how closely real world ice emissions map to the quoted numbers, certainly most real world tests seem to get worse mileage than the manufacturers figures.  Best data would be from fleets comparing total fuel input over a year with total mileage driven.

Over their entire lives, yes. The point I was trying to make is that there is a big upfront premium to pay in terms of CO2 and with a more CO2 intense grid that takes longer before  the EV breaks even with the ICE car before it then starts winning. Damage is being done during that first phase (in maths, it’s the area under the curve principle).

As far as official data is concerned with the new rules it should be as accurate for ICE cars as EVs. After Dieselgate, I suspect ICE emissions have been scrutinised more rigorously than EV consumption (which translates into emissions).

Martyn1981

michaels said:

ABrass said:

The German grid is around 400g/kWh normally. But it's a distraction because even at 400g/kWh EVs are cleaner than ICEs. So they're better to build than an ICE even if the grid never gets better.

But the grid will get better, so they're much better for the environment.

As has been discussed a million times and more you can't switch over from ICE to EV overnight. Pushing back EV introduction would be nuts, both ecologically and economically.

Data I found was that Germany was average 350 in 2019.  Don't know how that has changed since, obviously more renewables have been deployed but perhaps some more nukes closed down too?

Not sure how the intensity varies by time of day - solar is obviously more in the day(!) but wind may be a higher proportion at night when demand is low?

I think we have seen various reports suggesting that in almost every European country (possibly not Poland) that EFs are already less carbon intensive per mile over their entire lives including build than ice.  I would also question how closely real world ice emissions map to the quoted numbers, certainly most real world tests seem to get worse mileage than the manufacturers figures.  Best data would be from fleets comparing total fuel input over a year with total mileage driven.

&

1) How do the new EV fleets and the new ice fleets compare in vehicle size?  95g average I believe includes EVs and lots of small cars whereas EVs I think are probably larger than average as there are fewer small EVs available - ie we need to look at the efficiency of the ice alternative to the EVs actually sold not the average emissions efficiency which also includes EVs!

Hope you don't mind, but I combined these two as I agree, and think they are very important.

Totally correct about the 'various reports', and I'd have gone with 'multitude'. These explain how BEV's are better today (in CO2e terms) than most grids, but I believe that Poland and several US states get called out for being about the same (ICE v's BEV) or at least were when these reports started coming out years ago.

Crucially, BEV's don't emit anything like the localised pollution of ICEV's, at street level.

And of course, it goes (almost) without saying, that a BEV sold today, will get cleaner and cleaner as the grid(s) steadily green up over time, whereas an ICEV sold today will steadily get more polluting as it wears, loses tolerances, and thereby fuel efficiency.



Totally agree about the fleet makeup, and also we need to think just how 'young' mass production BEV's are v's ICEV's that peaked at around 100m sales pa. I'm very comfortable with my rough 1kWh/4 mile estimate of BEV impact on the grid, and perhaps should go a little more into detail why I've used that figure for years:

1. Big and heavy Tesla model 3's can manage 250Wh/mile at motorway speeds today, and I assume going into the future, all companies will be able to match and better Tesla's current technology.

2. My Ioniq BEV has continued to average over 4.5miles/kWh, and can return 5.5 by simply driving gently, and avoiding 60mph+ speeds.

3. With battery density improvements, we can expect battery weights to reduce over time, improving vehicle efficiency.

4. Electric motors are already extremely efficient, but I assume overall efficiency for BEV's will continue to improve, and even a simple change from door mirrors to side cameras gives a significant improvement in efficiency.

5. (Back to your point on fleet makeup) I assume that current energy consumption reflects larger and heavier BEV's, but we will over time, see more and more smaller BEV's, then lighter again due to smaller batteries, and vehicles likely to do far more of their miles on city roads where efficiencies can be much better.

So, overall, I see 5miles/kWh (or 200Wh/mile) being a reasonable figure, which after grid and charging losses, translates to around 4miles/kWh (or 250Wh/mile).

But, of course, whilst I think these assumptions are reasonable, reality could prove me wrong this time, and perhaps we should all fear the arrival of the Chelsea Tractor BEV's, that could seriously lower overall fleet standards, but at least they won't be pumping out pollution when idling, or crawling around London.


[And yes, my constant optimism does get to me too, but the last 10yrs on the G&E threads has taught me one thing - As big as I hope, reality always seems to go one better - be it PV cost reductions and efficiency gains, or the tumbling cost and rising load factors of offshore wind, or, coming full circle, the borderline disruption levels of BEV sales already, and the possibility that ICEV sales could collapse massively in the second half of this decade, who'd have thought. M]

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

[And yes, my constant optimism does get to me too, but the last 10yrs on the G&E threads has taught me one thing - As big as I hope, reality always seems to go one better - be it PV cost reductions and efficiency gains, or the tumbling cost and rising load factors of offshore wind, or, coming full circle, the borderline disruption levels of BEV sales already, and the possibility that ICEV sales could collapse massively in the second half of this decade, who'd have thought. M]

Speaking of reality outdoing my hopes and dreams, could we be getting every closer to FSD from Tesla, or will it forever remain "2 weeks away"?

I don't understand any of the science here, nor the machine learning, I only know that this is so hard as to be almost impossible, yet progress is being made, and I'm genuinely left speechless watching the vids posted of V9, then 9.1, 9.2 and V10. As I said a while back - 'It's way too much magic for me.'

Elon Musk: Tesla FSD Beta Button Going Out Next Friday

A couple of years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about the Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) package soon becoming “feature complete” in customer cars — by the end of 2019 was the clear target. Well, there were some unforeseen hurdles along the way. Numerous Tesla owners who ponied up the extra charge for this software package (which costs $10,000 today and cost $6,000 when I bought it in August 2019) are now super eager to finally test out the nearly-self-driving capabilities. You might say that some of us have gotten a tad impatient even.

After huge code rewrites, a switch to a vision-only approach, and countless hours of beta testing by a few thousand lucky owners, it appears that Tesla is finally on the verge of rolling out feature-complete FSD access to a wide swath of North American Tesla owners. Maybe.

Before I go further, for anyone new to this story, let’s quickly roll through what “feature-complete FSD,” which is now basically just referred to as “FSD Beta,” means. Elon actually summarized it well in mid 2019:

“Feature complete means the car is able to drive from one’s house to work most likely without interventions. It will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive. It will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy … you have low-speed autonomy with Summon, you’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and you have intermediate-speed autonomy which really just means traffic lights and stop signs. Feature complete means it will likely be able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it will still be supervised.”

In other words, it is the car being able to drive itself from door to door — with human driver supervision and the driver taking over if the car is unable to do anything, or do it safely.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

[And yes, my constant optimism does get to me too, but the last 10yrs on the G&E threads has taught me one thing - As big as I hope, reality always seems to go one better - be it PV cost reductions and efficiency gains, or the tumbling cost and rising load factors of offshore wind, or, coming full circle, the borderline disruption levels of BEV sales already, and the possibility that ICEV sales could collapse massively in the second half of this decade, who'd have thought. M]

Speaking of reality outdoing my hopes and dreams, could we be getting every closer to FSD from Tesla, or will it forever remain "2 weeks away"?

I don't understand any of the science here, nor the machine learning, I only know that this is so hard as to be almost impossible, yet progress is being made, and I'm genuinely left speechless watching the vids posted of V9, then 9.1, 9.2 and V10. As I said a while back - 'It's way too much magic for me.'

Elon Musk: Tesla FSD Beta Button Going Out Next Friday

A couple of years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about the Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) package soon becoming “feature complete” in customer cars — by the end of 2019 was the clear target. Well, there were some unforeseen hurdles along the way. Numerous Tesla owners who ponied up the extra charge for this software package (which costs $10,000 today and cost $6,000 when I bought it in August 2019) are now super eager to finally test out the nearly-self-driving capabilities. You might say that some of us have gotten a tad impatient even.

After huge code rewrites, a switch to a vision-only approach, and countless hours of beta testing by a few thousand lucky owners, it appears that Tesla is finally on the verge of rolling out feature-complete FSD access to a wide swath of North American Tesla owners. Maybe.

Before I go further, for anyone new to this story, let’s quickly roll through what “feature-complete FSD,” which is now basically just referred to as “FSD Beta,” means. Elon actually summarized it well in mid 2019:

“Feature complete means the car is able to drive from one’s house to work most likely without interventions. It will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive. It will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy … you have low-speed autonomy with Summon, you’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and you have intermediate-speed autonomy which really just means traffic lights and stop signs. Feature complete means it will likely be able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it will still be supervised.”

In other words, it is the car being able to drive itself from door to door — with human driver supervision and the driver taking over if the car is unable to do anything, or do it safely.

I do so want FSD although I don't think we have even began to consider how disruptive it will be.  My only 'skin' in the game is an order for a cybertruck with FSD but of course it will never be delivered in Europe

JKenH

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

[And yes, my constant optimism does get to me too, but the last 10yrs on the G&E threads has taught me one thing - As big as I hope, reality always seems to go one better - be it PV cost reductions and efficiency gains, or the tumbling cost and rising load factors of offshore wind, or, coming full circle, the borderline disruption levels of BEV sales already, and the possibility that ICEV sales could collapse massively in the second half of this decade, who'd have thought. M]

Speaking of reality outdoing my hopes and dreams, could we be getting every closer to FSD from Tesla, or will it forever remain "2 weeks away"?

I don't understand any of the science here, nor the machine learning, I only know that this is so hard as to be almost impossible, yet progress is being made, and I'm genuinely left speechless watching the vids posted of V9, then 9.1, 9.2 and V10. As I said a while back - 'It's way too much magic for me.'

Elon Musk: Tesla FSD Beta Button Going Out Next Friday

A couple of years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about the Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) package soon becoming “feature complete” in customer cars — by the end of 2019 was the clear target. Well, there were some unforeseen hurdles along the way. Numerous Tesla owners who ponied up the extra charge for this software package (which costs $10,000 today and cost $6,000 when I bought it in August 2019) are now super eager to finally test out the nearly-self-driving capabilities. You might say that some of us have gotten a tad impatient even.

After huge code rewrites, a switch to a vision-only approach, and countless hours of beta testing by a few thousand lucky owners, it appears that Tesla is finally on the verge of rolling out feature-complete FSD access to a wide swath of North American Tesla owners. Maybe.

Before I go further, for anyone new to this story, let’s quickly roll through what “feature-complete FSD,” which is now basically just referred to as “FSD Beta,” means. Elon actually summarized it well in mid 2019:

“Feature complete means the car is able to drive from one’s house to work most likely without interventions. It will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive. It will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy … you have low-speed autonomy with Summon, you’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and you have intermediate-speed autonomy which really just means traffic lights and stop signs. Feature complete means it will likely be able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it will still be supervised.”

In other words, it is the car being able to drive itself from door to door — with human driver supervision and the driver taking over if the car is unable to do anything, or do it safely.

I do so want FSD although I don't think we have even began to consider how disruptive it will be.  My only 'skin' in the game is an order for a cybertruck with FSD but of course it will never be delivered in Europe

I’m sure it will be the best driver assistance package on the market - most commentators think it already is. It is still going to be level 2 though. It won’t be disruptive; I think Tesla have already thrown the towel in on robotaxis (which were promised for 2020). 

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

[And yes, my constant optimism does get to me too, but the last 10yrs on the G&E threads has taught me one thing - As big as I hope, reality always seems to go one better - be it PV cost reductions and efficiency gains, or the tumbling cost and rising load factors of offshore wind, or, coming full circle, the borderline disruption levels of BEV sales already, and the possibility that ICEV sales could collapse massively in the second half of this decade, who'd have thought. M]

Speaking of reality outdoing my hopes and dreams, could we be getting every closer to FSD from Tesla, or will it forever remain "2 weeks away"?

I don't understand any of the science here, nor the machine learning, I only know that this is so hard as to be almost impossible, yet progress is being made, and I'm genuinely left speechless watching the vids posted of V9, then 9.1, 9.2 and V10. As I said a while back - 'It's way too much magic for me.'

Elon Musk: Tesla FSD Beta Button Going Out Next Friday

A couple of years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about the Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) package soon becoming “feature complete” in customer cars — by the end of 2019 was the clear target. Well, there were some unforeseen hurdles along the way. Numerous Tesla owners who ponied up the extra charge for this software package (which costs $10,000 today and cost $6,000 when I bought it in August 2019) are now super eager to finally test out the nearly-self-driving capabilities. You might say that some of us have gotten a tad impatient even.

After huge code rewrites, a switch to a vision-only approach, and countless hours of beta testing by a few thousand lucky owners, it appears that Tesla is finally on the verge of rolling out feature-complete FSD access to a wide swath of North American Tesla owners. Maybe.

Before I go further, for anyone new to this story, let’s quickly roll through what “feature-complete FSD,” which is now basically just referred to as “FSD Beta,” means. Elon actually summarized it well in mid 2019:

“Feature complete means the car is able to drive from one’s house to work most likely without interventions. It will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive. It will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy … you have low-speed autonomy with Summon, you’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and you have intermediate-speed autonomy which really just means traffic lights and stop signs. Feature complete means it will likely be able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it will still be supervised.”

In other words, it is the car being able to drive itself from door to door — with human driver supervision and the driver taking over if the car is unable to do anything, or do it safely.

I do so want FSD although I don't think we have even began to consider how disruptive it will be.  My only 'skin' in the game is an order for a cybertruck with FSD but of course it will never be delivered in Europe

Wow! You should have said ...... a CT!  At first, watching the reveal on the night, I was shocked to say the least at the design, but then equally shocked when they revealed the prices. On one of the youtube channels you have Zac and Jessie from 'Now You Know' who were there, and also wondering if this thing is for real, then the prices came up, and they immediately tried to order one, and pointed out that all around them everyone else was too, and it snarled up the ordering for some time.

I was, until recently*, convinced that it's simply way too big for UK roads. I used to go to US car shows (in the UK), for instance the ones at Billing Aquadrome in Northampton, used to attract around 3,000 yank tanks, and see the massive F-150's, that simply eclipsed the then UK Ford Rangers, which were simply Mondeo cabs, with a bed behind, or the gorgeous Hi-Lux's, or Nissan King Cabs. But what I've clearly missed is just how much these UK pick ups have grown. The Rangers, Hi-lux etc are now far, far bigger than the older ones.

* But a funny thing happened to me about 3 weeks ago. So, having not seen a F-150 for probably a decade, I ended up driving behind a modern one. I noticed it didn't look too wide anymore, just a bit wider, and the length wasn't ridiculous. It turned out to be going to the same park (and open car park) as myself. It parked near the entrance, and as I was walking out, I saw it had been joined by a new(ish) Ford Ranger, and the two guys were looking the F-150 over. At that point I realised it was only a tad larger than the Ford Ranger - my how things have changed.

Obviously, I'm not saying the CT will fit easily on UK roads, just admitting that it will fit a lot better than I'd thought. And if they do reduce its size slightly for Europe, then it almost becomes 'sensible'.

And by sensible, which was a slight joke, it could displace a couple of vehicles in a household, since it could do a work related roll, but also be a long distance family lugger. With its frunk, under (rear) seat storage, and under bed trunk, it has car like storage. Then it has upto 6 seating capacity, but let's assume 4 to 5 for Europe, for trips, and then the storage in the bed.

And lastly, and I'll caveat this bit with 'speculation' and 'rumour', it may not be as heavy as it looks - Obviously it'll be heavy, but the Ford and Rivian pick ups look to be tipping the scales in the US at around 6,000-7,000lbs+ empty. But the CT claims that it will have the ability to carry 3,500lbs in the bed, which to meet US regs and classifications, would have to have a loaded weight of 8,500lbs or less. That could mean the CT weighs in at around 5,000lbs, or 2,270kgs, which is no lightweight, but not the end of the world either, so to speak.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

And lastly, and I'll caveat this bit with 'speculation' and 'rumour', it may not be as heavy as it looks - Obviously it'll be heavy, but the Ford and Rivian pick ups look to be tipping the scales in the US at around 6,000-7,000lbs+ empty. But the CT claims that it will have the ability to carry 3,500lbs in the bed, which to meet US regs and classifications, would have to have a loaded weight of 8,500lbs or less. That could mean the CT weighs in at around 5,000lbs, or 2,270kgs, which is no lightweight, but not the end of the world either, so to speak.

A regular ICE Ford Ranger is a touch over 2000kg kerb weight (see page 31 of the brochure):
https://www.ford.co.uk/content/dam/guxeu/uk/documents/brochures/commercial-vehicles/BRO-New_Ranger.pdf
The TM3 weighs about the same as a Mondeo, so a Cybertruck might not be much heavier than a Ranger.

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

And lastly, and I'll caveat this bit with 'speculation' and 'rumour', it may not be as heavy as it looks - Obviously it'll be heavy, but the Ford and Rivian pick ups look to be tipping the scales in the US at around 6,000-7,000lbs+ empty. But the CT claims that it will have the ability to carry 3,500lbs in the bed, which to meet US regs and classifications, would have to have a loaded weight of 8,500lbs or less. That could mean the CT weighs in at around 5,000lbs, or 2,270kgs, which is no lightweight, but not the end of the world either, so to speak.

A regular ICE Ford Ranger is a touch over 2000kg kerb weight (see page 31 of the brochure):
https://www.ford.co.uk/content/dam/guxeu/uk/documents/brochures/commercial-vehicles/BRO-New_Ranger.pdf
The TM3 weighs about the same as a Mondeo, so a Cybertruck might not be much heavier than a Ranger.

Do you think that the CT could weigh 'that little' or Tesla are fibbing? The max payload for the Ford and Rivian BEV's are 2,000lb & 1,700lb respectively, with the smaller batt (lower vehicle weight) options, but 3,500lb for the Tesla.

I had assumed that the top range 500 mile CT would have a 200kWh battery, weigh around 3tonnes and average 2.5miles/kWh, but now I'm wondering if the aerodynamics (and lower weight) allow for a smaller battery?

But ~2.3tonnes, if that's a big battery model, just seems too good, even for Tesla ...... but as I said before, reality always seems to trump even my optimistic guesses!

Oh, and just to say, I really didn't think the CT would be suitable for the UK, but now I'm starting to think Michaels could be on to a real winner ...... not that I'm jelly ..... of course ....  ;-)