Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

EricMears

There's a lot to be said for new drivers having their first few lessons in an EV (or even an automatic ?) to get used to steering the car, accelerating & braking without the distraction of changing gear and clutch control.  Anyone's guess whether they'd want to go back to an EV after a couple of manual ICE  cars or stick with it to get the more flexible licence.

shinytop

NigeWick said:

shinytop said:

I really need that 250 mile cold, wet, motorway range.  

Do you really drive 250 miles without a break every working day?

No, I don't and I'm not sure why you are asking.  I do a  240 mile round trip every couple of weeks.  120 miles is well within both my safe driving limit and bladder capacity.  I don't want to spend the limited destination time I have looking for a working charger and charging an EV.  My wife does the same trip alone on occasion and she is even less likely to do this.     

In fact now you've made me think about it more I'd probably need 280 miles or so to allow for unforeseen circumstances so that EV looks like it's even further away.  I might even get a diesel next to save a bit of money on fuel.

orrery

Well, it looks like the hydrogen-for-vehicles fantasy is just about hitting the buffers, or more likely a very slow motion car crash. This from the excellent Chris Goodall's Carbon Commentary Newsletter: https://www.carboncommentary.com/

"Heavy trucks and hydrogen. A scientist at the respected German research institute Fraunhofer published a paper suggesting a very limited demand for hydrogen fuel cell heavy vehicles. The only exception to its conclusion might be very large trucks in remote locations with poor electricity availability. The writer concludes that the next generation of battery heavy trucks, which may be able to accept a charging rate of 800 kW, would be able to take on enough electricity within 45 minutes to drive 400 km. 45 minutes is the mandated rest period of EU commercial drivers after 4.5 hours of driving. The researcher says that very fast recharging rates leave no clear space in which hydrogen will be the cheaper or more efficient alternative. This is a major change from a Fraunhofer paper of less than 18 months ago which argued that Germany needed to install about 140 hydrogen stations to meet a need for about 1.3 million tonnes of the gas for a quarter of a million heavy freight vehicles...."

CKhalvashi

orrery said:

Well, it looks like the hydrogen-for-vehicles fantasy is just about hitting the buffers, or more likely a very slow motion car crash. This from the excellent Chris Goodall's Carbon Commentary Newsletter: https://www.carboncommentary.com/

"Heavy trucks and hydrogen. A scientist at the respected German research institute Fraunhofer published a paper suggesting a very limited demand for hydrogen fuel cell heavy vehicles. The only exception to its conclusion might be very large trucks in remote locations with poor electricity availability. The writer concludes that the next generation of battery heavy trucks, which may be able to accept a charging rate of 800 kW, would be able to take on enough electricity within 45 minutes to drive 400 km. 45 minutes is the mandated rest period of EU commercial drivers after 4.5 hours of driving. The researcher says that very fast recharging rates leave no clear space in which hydrogen will be the cheaper or more efficient alternative. This is a major change from a Fraunhofer paper of less than 18 months ago which argued that Germany needed to install about 140 hydrogen stations to meet a need for about 1.3 million tonnes of the gas for a quarter of a million heavy freight vehicles...."

Which should be transferrable to buses also, working on similar driving rules (and of course generally on much shorter lines where a 30 minute rapid charge should be acceptable in most cases).

Coaches will have similar schedules and rules to trucks, so if the battery capacity is adequate and charging facilities are available, this should reduce the emissions from these vehicles considerably.

In addition, would it be possible to build charging ports etc into the freight Eurotunnel trains to allow a charge between docking and disembarkation? It's things like this in reality that would make things even more realistic, especially as batteries becomemore capable and lighter.

JKenH

Porsche Taycan Just Outsold Every ICE Car Combined In Norway

I’m not sure what to make of this story. Undeniably it is a success story that Norway is in touching distance of what it set out to achieve (zero non PEV sales by 2025) but at what cost? To achieve so much so quickly has necessitated a massive distortion of market forces which economically and politically may not be sustainable.

Many will argue that as the TCO of PEVs is less or better than ICEs (in Norway’s case with incentives that might well be true for most) the car buying public is benefiting. But someone has to pick up the tab. Perhaps Norway can afford it (because it is funded by their vast oil wealth) or perhaps not. Was that the best use of resources and was the timing right?

Was it worth pushing this policy so hard before price parity was achieved between PEVs and ICEs? Norway is such a small market that sales there have not contributed to economies of scale for many ICE car manufacturers (except perhaps Tesla). Norway has picked up the tab for a lot of TMSs that in real terms are much cheaper now (kWh for kWh) and for which a cheaper car such as the TM3 (once available) would have been the better choice for most. Could incentives have been better targeted at smaller and cheaper EVs that were on the horizon?

Is this level of subsidy sustainable? Once 2025 has been reached will Norway row back on the incentives and create a political storm? Already in the UK there is talk of road charging to claw back revenue lost from ICEs. Norway presumably will have to consider similar measures. 

Can Norway’s electricity system support an EV fleet once all the ICE vehicles work their way out of the system? (It is already creaking at the seams with very few, if any, new sites available for hydro electricity.) What then? Norway becomes a significant importer of electricity, perhaps dirty electricity at that. 

So what is the net benefit to Norway of this success?

https://carbuzz.com/news/porsche-taycan-just-outsold-every-ice-car-combined-in-norway

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

Porsche Taycan Just Outsold Every ICE Car Combined In Norway

So, my first thought was "how come the majority of people in Norway buying a new car can afford a £70k-plus option?"

Then I looked at the linked articles which says " A total of 181 Taycans were delivered in January, with just 175 gas- and diesel-powered vehicles sold collectively in the same period".  So, how come so few cars were sold in total in a month?  356 cars for the whole country of 5 million people - how many cars would be sold in a typical month?

QrizB

Grumpy_chap said:

Then I looked at the linked articles which says " A total of 181 Taycans were delivered in January, with just 175 gas- and diesel-powered vehicles sold collectively in the same period".  So, how come so few cars were sold in total in a month?  356 cars for the whole country of 5 million people - how many cars would be sold in a typical month?

That isn't the story.

"175 gas- and diesel-powered vehicles" wer sold in the period, but "83.7% of all new vehicles sold in the country were electric".

Almost 8000 vehicles were sold that month.

https://insideevs.com/news/565428/norway-plugin-car-sales-january2022/

Coastalwatch

orrery said:

Well, it looks like the hydrogen-for-vehicles fantasy is just about hitting the buffers, or more likely a very slow motion car crash. This from the excellent Chris Goodall's Carbon Commentary Newsletter: https://www.carboncommentary.com/

"Heavy trucks and hydrogen. A scientist at the respected German research institute Fraunhofer published a paper suggesting a very limited demand for hydrogen fuel cell heavy vehicles. The only exception to its conclusion might be very large trucks in remote locations with poor electricity availability. The writer concludes that the next generation of battery heavy trucks, which may be able to accept a charging rate of 800 kW, would be able to take on enough electricity within 45 minutes to drive 400 km. 45 minutes is the mandated rest period of EU commercial drivers after 4.5 hours of driving. The researcher says that very fast recharging rates leave no clear space in which hydrogen will be the cheaper or more efficient alternative. This is a major change from a Fraunhofer paper of less than 18 months ago which argued that Germany needed to install about 140 hydrogen stations to meet a need for about 1.3 million tonnes of the gas for a quarter of a million heavy freight vehicles...."

On a similar theme I came across this vid over the weekend which did little to convince me of a place for hydrogen other than by FF interests continually greenwashing in order to extend their financial gains further and accelerating climate change into the bargain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS5XnXEhRaA

EVandPV

Problems for Aberdeen's hydrogen buses too ......

Aberdeen's hydrogen buses taken off the road due to technical issue

First Bus said an issue had been identified with the 15 hydrogen buses and the vehicles had been taken off service until the technical issue could be "better understood".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-60266199

thevilla

JKenH said:

Porsche Taycan Just Outsold Every ICE Car Combined In Norway

I’m not sure what to make of this story. Undeniably it is a success story that Norway is in touching distance of what it set out to achieve (zero non PEV sales by 2025) but at what cost? To achieve so much so quickly has necessitated a massive distortion of market forces which economically and politically may not be sustainable.

Many will argue that as the TCO of PEVs is less or better than ICEs (in Norway’s case with incentives that might well be true for most) the car buying public is benefiting. But someone has to pick up the tab. Perhaps Norway can afford it (because it is funded by their vast oil wealth) or perhaps not. Was that the best use of resources and was the timing right?

Was it worth pushing this policy so hard before price parity was achieved between PEVs and ICEs? Norway is such a small market that sales there have not contributed to economies of scale for many ICE car manufacturers (except perhaps Tesla). Norway has picked up the tab for a lot of TMSs that in real terms are much cheaper now (kWh for kWh) and for which a cheaper car such as the TM3 (once available) would have been the better choice for most. Could incentives have been better targeted at smaller and cheaper EVs that were on the horizon?

Is this level of subsidy sustainable? Once 2025 has been reached will Norway row back on the incentives and create a political storm? Already in the UK there is talk of road charging to claw back revenue lost from ICEs. Norway presumably will have to consider similar measures. 

Can Norway’s electricity system support an EV fleet once all the ICE vehicles work their way out of the system? (It is already creaking at the seams with very few, if any, new sites available for hydro electricity.) What then? Norway becomes a significant importer of electricity, perhaps dirty electricity at that. 

So what is the net benefit to Norway of this success?

https://carbuzz.com/news/porsche-taycan-just-outsold-every-ice-car-combined-in-norway

You're expressing your desire to delay and prevaricate again! 

Would there ever have been any 'cheaper EVs that were on the horizon' if early adopters like Norway hadn't shown the way?  Is the use of fossil fuel money in greasing the wheels of an EV revolution not a good use of resources?  Better than building ever taller buildings and islands of expensive apartments imop.

Norway's reported electricity supply issues will be faced across Europe and they are well placed to learn the lessons we will all benefit from.