Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Not sure if this is new news, but some interesting survey results:

Top 3 Advantages of EVs

There are many electric vehicle (EV) advantages, but the top benefit according to EV drivers in survey after survey is the environmental benefit of driving electric. Our friends at Third Row Podcast recently broke that out into three distinct advantages. Those advantages are that they are energy efficient, reduce air pollution, and help prevent climate change.

Driving an EV has others advantages for sure — potentially no cost for fuel, quicker acceleration, newer tech, a smooth drive quality, potentially easy home or workplace charging.

pile-o-stone

silverwhistle wrote: »

Haha!. Sometimes Ken you make me laugh with your desperate efforts to defend/support GA. It's an idea that has been floating around for years. ISTR an Israeli company producing an implementation which was never taken up by the manufacturers, and a system already exists and is in use for mopeds in Taiwan.

Ken was also the person who insisted GA invented interconnectors, despite them actually in use in the UK before GA was born.

To be fair, I still hold the opinion that Ken and GA are one and same person, so I guess it was GA who thought GA invented the interconnector. :rotfl:

ABrass

Ionity charging prices are about to go through the roof.

£0.69 per kwh.

Tesla charge £0.24 per kwh and domestic bills are in the region of £0.15-£0.20 a kWh. Better if you have economy 7 or similar.

https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-vehicle-charging-prices-500-percent-january-31/

EVandPV

ABrass wrote: »

Ionity charging prices are about to go through the roof.

£0.69 per kwh.

Tesla charge £0.24 per kwh and domestic bills are in the region of £0.15-£0.20 a kWh. Better if you have economy 7 or similar.

https://electrek.co/2020/01/17/ionity-increases-electric-vehicle-charging-prices-500-percent-january-31/

Is that the new 350kw chargers ?
Think there's only 2 or 3 of them in the UK so far.

ABrass

I think that's for any charger they own and run. On the 350kw chargers you simply run up your bill faster.

Although apparently you may get preferential rates if your cars manufacturer has an agreement with them.

almillar

Great Ape:

Sure they want you to feel like you're getting s deal almost all the car companies do this and no one pays RRP
£24,526 for A4 available now

See the difference between me providing a number, and a source, and you just spewing out a number? The only confirmed number we've got is RRP, so just provide your source and we'll move on. I fully beleive you can get a new A4 for that (not pre-reg, factory order, like for like), by the way.

Lots of places and people asserting that BEVs will be cheaper than ICE within 5 years

Again, WHO? I haven't seen anyone in this thread say it.

This is 100% not going to be the case

To build, or to buy? We've been talking about building recently, but if all those lovely subsidies hang around big enough and long enough, you never know. I could also argue that it's already happened - I drove a Zoe for £4,000 for 15,000 miles/2 years, and I'm driving a Soul for certainly under £9,000 for 18,000 miles/3years. That Zoe was certainly cheaper than a Clio. NOT arguing that it was cheaper to build!

You can also look at generators for an idea of costs of ICEs
6.5KW Ford generator = £540
That's retail in units of 1 to any Tom !!!! or Harry
In some ways it's also more complex than a car engine as it is generating electricity

Err, we're comparing DRIVETRAINS. Remember? You're comparing Motor, battery against engine, gearbox, exhaust etc! Not just a generatorm which I suspect is much LESS complex than a modern ICE drivetrain. I mean, I could say that an electric motor is cheaper than an ICE one, but ignoring the battery would be completely disingenuous, wouldn't it? You wouldn't do that would you?

Wholesale in units of hundreds might be half that price
Manufacturer in units of tens of thousands half again
So my guess would be such a generator costs less than £135 to make and ship

Guesses piled up on guesses.

Any reasonable guestimates show just how affordable ICE powertrains are
All the way from scooters to A4 engines

How much is an A4 engine? Remember, it needs an exhast and gearbox and everything. We were comparing the cost of an EV against an ICE. That means everything that fits in between the wheels, not just the engine block you seem to be focussing on. DRIVETRAIN.

Ridiculous waste of taxpayers money
Wireless charging offers nothing but inefficiencies

I think we agree on something! (Wireless charging). It's alright for your toothbrush, but it shouldn't be deployed unless they can make it even vaguely efficient. Far quicker to get out of your car and plug it in!

If future batteries could charge at 10% per minute all the way from 10% to 90% that would be just 8 minutes and it would make the recharge issues non existent. Recharging would be just as convenient as filling up the car.

Oh dear. Have you just had an 'idea' that EVs should be able to charge faster?!!

The talk of 2022 when EVs are cheaper is likely nonsense considering the above facts

What talk? Quote it or shut up about it. You can quote my Zoe figure above if you like!!

Also charge and discharge rate improvements help plug in Hybrids more than BEVs

Would you like to list the hybrids that have rapid charging? I'll help.
1. Mitsubishi Outlander
2.....

If you think charging slowly is a problem, you're going to be really disappointed with the charging speed of most hybrids!

Martyn:

So, for a 'fair' powertrain comparison I'd have to leave this to the gearheads as I'm too out of date these days, but perhaps a BMW M3 or M5 get close, and I'm going to suggest that these vehicles will have quite a bit of cost targeted towards the powertrain, probably more like £12k than £2k.

I must disagree. BMW M cars are specialist sports cars and whilst a Model 3 might out do them in many ways, they are a different experience altogether. And I would also argue that BMW M cars are not mass market in the way a Model 3 is intended to be. Short version, M are meant to be special, Model 3 is intentionally ordinary. Golf/ioniq Hybrid, Focus etc vs eGolf, Leaf, ioniq electric. Niro/Juke/ vs eNiro, Kona, DS3 electric. Zoe, e208, Corsa-e vs Clio, Fiesta, 208, Corsa.
Important in comparing prices, is not to compare run out models against newly launched ones, either direction. Run out will be cheapest, new models most expensive.

Talking of the Model T and mass production, it's interesting to note that over 20yrs, the cost more than halved.

Precisely the point of comparing like-for-like in production age.

But, applying GAKEN logic, you will find that the total cost of all the other components is -£6000.

That's a bit harsh on JKenH considering he linked to an article with prices. GA promptly ignored it of course and kept 'estimating'.

JKenH

Prescient of GA

If by 'prescient' you mean 'predicting the 2010(?) Renault Fluence' which has removable battery. Renault tried it, and it wasn't successful anywhere except Saudi Arabia, off the top of my head. It solves the 'charging' problem, which is so much less of a problem than is perceived, and is becoming less of one with bigger batteries, faster charging, and more chargers being available. Cost of a battery swap station, versus the cost of a charger?!

Martyn1981

almillar wrote: »

I must disagree. BMW M cars are specialist sports cars and whilst a Model 3 might out do them in many ways, they are a different experience altogether. And I would also argue that BMW M cars are not mass market in the way a Model 3 is intended to be. Short version, M are meant to be special, Model 3 is intentionally ordinary. Golf/ioniq Hybrid, Focus etc vs eGolf, Leaf, ioniq electric. Niro/Juke/ vs eNiro, Kona, DS3 electric. Zoe, e208, Corsa-e vs Clio, Fiesta, 208, Corsa.
Important in comparing prices, is not to compare run out models against newly launched ones, either direction. Run out will be cheapest, new models most expensive.

The issue was comparing powertrains, and whilst the BMW M series may have other expensive tricks, such as suspension etc, those costs wouldn't come under powertrain.

So the point I was making, what would be the cost of a comparable powertrain, able to perform comparably to a TM3, and the logical leap was the M3/M5. Of course I'm sure there are many, many more, especially when we include all the forced induction Japanese models etc, but again ...... these will not be £2k powertrains.

As we all know, to increase the power of an ICE (without a reidiculous increase in size/weight through simply increasing engine size), requires an ever increasing cost spiral, that's all.

Edit - Actually you raise an interesting point about how BMW M series cars are not mass market, but actually quite specialist, and the same would apply to the more 'suped up' expensive versions of cars like the Focus etc to compare to 'lower' performance BEV's.

In short, for a cost comparison with comparable performance potential, you need to go into smaller production, specialist ICE models.

Hopefully this will be considered by GAKEN and end attempts to stick with cheap ICE powertrains, or small entry level options, when comparing powertrain costs going forward. Not that I hold out much hope for the GA component.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

Great Ape:

See the difference between me providing a number, and a source, and you just spewing out a number? The only confirmed number we've got is RRP, so just provide your source and we'll move on. I fully beleive you can get a new A4 for that (not pre-reg, factory order, like for like), by the way.

You can use any car supermarket website
I use carwow for comparison but there are many others out there

Err, we're comparing DRIVETRAINS. Remember? You're comparing Motor, battery against engine, gearbox, exhaust etc! Not just a generatorm which I suspect is much LESS complex than a modern ICE drivetrain. I mean, I could say that an electric motor is cheaper than an ICE one, but ignoring the battery would be completely disingenuous, wouldn't it? You wouldn't do that would you?

A generator is an ICE
It's not as complex as a car engine which I already said
But it shows how scalable and affordable ICE engines are

How much is an A4 engine? Remember, it needs an exhast and gearbox and everything. We were comparing the cost of an EV against an ICE. That means everything that fits in between the wheels, not just the engine block you seem to be focussing on. DRIVETRAIN.

Neither of us know how much an A4 engine costs to make so we are estimating
I've already highlighted a simple fact which is an A4 costs £20,000+Vat and there is a net profit in the region of 10% so the cost all in is £18,000

So what fraction is the ICE powertrain of this £18,000?
Someone posted an article which suggested 22-24%
If we go with the mid point of that it's £4,140 for the engine and the powertrain

If you do the same sums on a £13,350 car you get a cost of £2,760 for the ICE powertrain

£13,350+Vat is the average selling price of the top 10 best selling cars in the UK

So there is your answer. £2,760 for the most popular ICE cars sold in the UK
The estimate won't be right to the penny but it's probably within 20% of the actual figure

By comparison what does a BEV powertrain cost?
Sell it will be the difference in price plus the ICE powertrain cost
So an E golf costs say £6,700+Vat more than a regular golf
So the powertrain is BEV powertrain = cost in not having an ICE powertrain + £6,700
Which I make to be about £9,900 for the E Golf and that's a limited 35.8KWh pack vehicle

Works out to £277/KWh + Vat

Would you like to list the hybrids that have rapid charging? I'll help.
1. Mitsubishi Outlander
2.....

If you think charging slowly is a problem, you're going to be really disappointed with the charging speed of most hybrids!

I don't think charging slowly is a problem for plug in Hybrids
Hybrids don't need to rapid charge as they can always just use petrol
Even a granny charger is okay for plug in hybrids
2.5KW charger for a 10KWh pack is just 4h to charge perfectly fine
Most people will charge overnight or at work and seldom do they need to charge from totally empty to totally full

I was saying rapid discharge rates help hybrids more than BEVs because rapid discharge can allow small packs to give lots of HP. This isn't necessarily but it's an advantage when it eventually comes.

I was just using charge rates as an indication of how fast a battery pack can sustainably discharge
Model 3 charged at 5.5% per minute peak rate
It can probably discharge faster than this as repaid discharges only last seconds

A quick Google suggests 12% per minute discharge is doable
So a little more than double the charge rate
Buy presumably for short periods of time
This means a 10KWh pack can discharge at a rate of 72KW or nearly 100HP
That's pretty good. But imagine the same 10KWh able to discharge at twice that amount it would allow a 10KWh pack hybrid to have 200HP electric motor

pile-o-stone

almillar wrote: »

Again, WHO? I haven't seen anyone in this thread say it.

.....


That's a bit harsh on JKenH considering he linked to an article with prices. GA promptly ignored it of course and kept 'estimating'.

The obvious signs of a troll.

1) They build a strawman argument where they loudly refute something that no one has actually said.

2) They totally ignore any information that refutes their position. Often they will 'ghost' out of a conversation when their point has been completely discredited by a well-reasoned, factual argument, to then reappear a couple of days later on another thread and continue to push that discredited position.

Martyn1981

News here on the 'large' number of cases of 'sudden uintended acceleration' brought against Tesla. It seems it's yet another attack by the shorts* so hopefully is not 'real', plus Tesla have the data to confirm which pedal(s) were pressed in these situations.

*Tesla shorting is now down to something like 20-25%, but that's still an astonishing amount when most companies are more like 0-1%.

That NHTSA Tesla “Sudden Unintended Acceleration” Petition? Created By A TSLA Short Seller Who Doesn’t Own A Tesla

First of all, it seems this story was originally covered by CNBC (which has a history of negative Tesla coverage), and that article mentioned that the person who created the petition is a Tesla [TSLA] short seller. That’s a person who is financially betting that the stock price will go down. As far as I’m aware, there is no law preventing short sellers from pushing negative talking points regarding the companies they are shorting. However, there is a known problem of this happening.

This Tesla short seller, Brian Sparks, reportedly does not own a Tesla himself. Nonetheless, he has collected claims of SUA in Tesla vehicles and submitted them in a petition to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). This is something anyone can do to ask that a matter be investigated. I’ll leave you to try to determine why such a person would do that when they don’t own the vehicle in question but do short the company’s stock.

The story is also covered in reasonable detail on Tesla Time News by the excellent father and son team, from min 3 to 10. They also show (refer back to) the Tesla system that has 'obstacle aware acceleration' which when switched on changes acceleration if there's an obstacle in front of the car. Cool!

Tesla Time News - Sudden Unintended Acceleration!?


Edit - Statement from Tesla, with no punches pulled!

There is no “unintended acceleration” in Tesla vehicles

The Tesla Team 20 January 2020

This petition is completely false and was brought by a Tesla short-seller. We investigate every single incident where the driver alleges to us that their vehicle accelerated contrary to their input, and in every case where we had the vehicle's data, we confirmed that the car operated as designed. In other words, the car accelerates if, and only if, the driver told it to do so, and it slows or stops when the driver applies the brake.

While accidents caused by a mistaken press of the accelerator pedal have been alleged for nearly every make/model of vehicle on the road, the accelerator pedals in Model S, X and 3 vehicles have two independent position sensors, and if there is any error, the system defaults to cut off motor torque. Likewise, applying the brake pedal simultaneously with the accelerator pedal will override the accelerator pedal input and cut off motor torque, and regardless of the torque, sustained braking will stop the car. Unique to Tesla, we also use the Autopilot sensor suite to help distinguish potential pedal misapplications and cut torque to mitigate or prevent accidents when we’re confident the driver’s input was unintentional. Each system is independent and records data, so we can examine exactly what happened.

We are transparent with NHTSA, and routinely review customer complaints of unintended acceleration with them. Over the past several years, we discussed with NHTSA the majority of the complaints alleged in the petition. In every case we reviewed with them, the data proved the vehicle functioned properly.

For those interested in these 'games' the Tesla price (ticker TSLA) took a $10/share drop in out of hours trading when the SUA application/investigation was announced.