Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Exiled_Tyke

Martyn1981 said:

For longer trips, a mix of batt and Rx can usually be used, so as to stretch out the battery (and max power availability), if so desired. The beauty of a Rx is that the ICE runs at peak efficiency, unlike in a PHEV. So possibly a better solution, and an even better way to serve those teetering on the edge between a BEV and PHEV. But not much choice, probably need legislation to shift production/supply from PHEV to BEV Rx.

I thought PHEVs could run their engines pretty close to peak efficiency by balancing the electric motor power with an appropriate amount of power input from the ICE to best meet requirements.  PHEVs can even chose to operate as you indicate, by using the ICE to generate electricity which runs the engine.  

  This is taken from the Tuscon PHEV manual 

Martyn1981

Exiled_Tyke said:

Martyn1981 said:

For longer trips, a mix of batt and Rx can usually be used, so as to stretch out the battery (and max power availability), if so desired. The beauty of a Rx is that the ICE runs at peak efficiency, unlike in a PHEV. So possibly a better solution, and an even better way to serve those teetering on the edge between a BEV and PHEV. But not much choice, probably need legislation to shift production/supply from PHEV to BEV Rx.

I thought PHEVs could run pretty their engines pretty close to peak efficiency by balancing the electric motor power with an amount of power input from the ICE to best meet requirements.  PHEVs can even chose to operate as you indicate, buy using the ICE to generate electricity which runs the engine.  

  This is taken from the Tuscon PHEV manual 

Good point. I shouldn't have conflated the two issues of long drive and empty battery (when the PHEV drives more like an ICE*). Perhaps this is a better description:

For longer trips, a mix of batt and Rx can usually be used, so as to stretch out the battery (and max power availability), if so desired.

The beauty of a Rx is that the ICE runs at peak efficiency all the time, unlike in a PHEV. So possibly a better solution, and an even better way to serve those teetering on the edge between a BEV and PHEV. But not much choice, probably need legislation to shift production/supply from PHEV to BEV Rx.

* Although I'm setting another trap for myself, as the PHEV in smooth and steady high gear use, can also charge the battery, so further blurring the lines between PHEV and Rx.

Life will be simpler when we all have BEV's (and personal robots). 

Martyn1981

Good article, and well worth a read. It tackles an issue often brought up (in comments) when discussing the rising BEV/PEV fleet in Norway, and the impact on fuel consumption. PEV fleet size isn't a simple way to estimate falling fuel demand* as newer vehicles tend to drive more miles. But that gets further complicated by the growing range that BEV's offer, v's the early years (eg 24kWh leaf).

*Total fuel consumption is also impacted by improving fuel efficiency, rising car ownership, and also rising vehicle size/weight.

Some takeaways for me, and I appreciate that these are just 'noteable' milestones, not critical points, are:

• Average annual mileage by BEV's is now greater than that for petrol or diesel cars.
• The BEV fleet %age is approaching 25% perhaps year end, or early 2024.
• The decline in the petrol and diesel fleet total, seems to be accelerating. This makes sense since ICEV's have an approx lifetime, so with falling replacements, the decline will speed up.
• The combination of growing BEV fleet size, rising annual mileage, and falling mileage for petrol, means that the BEV fleet now covers more miles than the petrol fleet, and is now rapidly closing the gap on the diesel fleet too.
• Potentially, fuel sales (for cars) in 2030 could be about 10% of what they were in 2008.
• Norway's PEV fleet could hit 50% by the end of 2026, and 75% by 2030.

End Of The Oil Age Preview: Norway’s Fleet Transition To EV

It’s time for another update about progress of the Norway’s fleet transition to EV powertrains. As of the end of September 2023, full electric vehicles (BEVs) comprised 23.6% of Norway’s total passenger vehicle fleet, with 675,503 units on the road. Plugin hybrids comprised a further 7.1% (203,323 units). Combined plugin EVs thus formed 30.7% of Norway’s fleet.

Given the cost savings, I would expect commercial vehicle fleets (buses, trucks, vans) to move over to electric kilometres driven at least as quickly as the passenger vehicle fleet, and thus see just as precipitous a drop in their demand for road fuels by 2030. We have much less data about this segment of road transport, but will track what we can as the data arises.

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

I've seen similar comments in the past on some articles and other forums. I think it's a good idea, but might not be too popular with some.

However it (finally) dawned on me, that what you are almost describing is a BEV Rx (range extender). They come with a small ICE that generates leccy for the motor/battery, and doesn't drive the wheels. This would tend to have the same result, as the available power is reduced once the batt is empty, and limited to the kW output of the Rx.

Nissan have taken that idea a step further and left out the plug to save weight

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

1961Nick said:

If PHEVs were all fitted with fairly inadequate combustion engines, then there would be an incentive to overnight charge them.

A 2 tonne SUV with a 100bhp combustion engine wouldn't be much fun but it would get you to your destination. Add 200bhp of electrical energy to the mix & you've got a very capable vehicle.

I've seen similar comments in the past on some articles and other forums. I think it's a good idea, but might not be too popular with some.

I'm old enough to remember when 3.5 tonne GVW vans came with 65PS diesel engines. I even owned one for a short while!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_TN

silverwhistle

JKenH said:

silverwhistle said:

Really, you really don't understand why many people are cynical and sceptical about Toyota? Nobody wants them to fail, the repercussions would be major, but mine and others' opinions won't be the cause of the failure. 

No, you will have to enlighten me. 

I've been away but in reply to your deliberately obtuse question can I quote another poster:

There's also, of course, the elephant in the room, or the 'turd in the punchbowl', which is Toyota. As they've been actively campaigning against BEV's for about a decade, and trying to promote PHEV's and HFCV's instead. They use the forked tongue approach of pretending they are trying to offer more choice, whilst not offering BEV's themselves (till now), and trying to undermine confidence in them at the same time. That's largely backfired for them, but I suspect VWG were extremely grateful as it shifted the focus off them, for poor environmental actions.

Toyota could (and should) have been leading the charge on BEV's. In fact, I feel they made a massive mistake, as they could have taken the Tesla appraoch and started with small numbers of expensive BEV's, to minimise losses/investment, and expanded from there. And all of this could have been done under the Lexus brand, to avoid any issues/criticisms. Even after missing the chance to lead, they still could have lept into action in 2012, when the Tesla S proved that BEV's were viable, in that segment.

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 said:

But, and this is a heavily caveated but, if a PHEV displaces an ICE purchase, and the buyer can't make a BEV work for them, afford it, or honestly believes it's not viable, then driven mostly on leccy, it's a great compliment to the transition to BEV's. [I may be lying to myself, but I hope not, that PHEV sales largely displace ICE sales, so it's a net plus.]

I appreciate that sounds a bit dubious, but some PHEV owners really do go all in on the leccy side. Though I take your point about rapid charging v's petrol costs, also, the PHEV may only have 7kW A/C charging.

I've seen both: my niece who has a fairly short range PHEV but is able to use it for local runs for shopping, kids to football and rugby and so forth and plugs in at home as often as possible. Down my road an Ioniq that I've never seen plugged in and is probably a tax incentive car.

I'm sure the balance will change. For my part I didn't see the point of lugging around two drive systems with added cost and complexity, and the MG4 SE certainly has enough range for the trips I do and reasonable charging speeds too. As ever it's personal circumstances, but as charging improves I'm sure people's confidence in the BEV solution will as well, particularly as they become more widespread amongst their aquaintances.

Martyn1981

Old v's new news, on the difficulties faced by legacy auto in transitioning to BEV's (fast enough).

Couple of years ago Herbert Diess suggested that VWG needed to transition as fast as possible to EV's, or risk 30,000 job losses:

VW Boss Says A Delay In Transition To EVs Could Cost 30,000 Jobs

Volkswagen chief executive Herbert Diess has warned that the German car manufacturer could lose up to 30,000 jobs if its transition to electric vehicles is too slow.

Diess told a supervisory board meeting in September that competition from new entrants in the German market, such as Tesla, means the company needs to speed up its transition to electric vehicles. He noted that Tesla plans to produce 500,000 cars annually at its Berlin factory with 12,000 employees, while Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant builds 700,000 vehicles annually, albeit with 25,000 employees.

Now we have leaks, speculation, guesses perhaps, from inside VWG, suggesting 20,000 jobs could be on the line. Hope the link works, as it's a German article, but getting coverage on many EV news sites. But note, it could be exaggerating the issue, or possibly understating it. So potentially too big to ignore, but could be wrong.

VW examines promotions and job cuts: Group faces difficult council meeting

Week of truth at VW: The Wolfsburg vehicle manufacturer's supervisory board (AR) will meet next Friday (November 17th) to determine the cornerstones of medium and long-term financial planning as part of planning round 72. According to information from the Hamburg editorial office Be Honest for Elektroauto-News.net , this will also involve the socially acceptable reduction of up to 20,000 jobs in the group. Corresponding reduction options are therefore being discussed very controversially internally.

A spokesman for the VW works council led by Daniela Cavallo responded to a question about an internally discussed reduction of up to 20,000 jobs: “This information is incorrect. Such a number has no basis . ”

A conversation partner in the editorial team with well-founded insights into VW's calculations said: "If only just under a third of the savings are to be realized through cuts in personnel costs, the figure of 20,000, which was, as far as I know, discussed in secret meetings, is still far too low. "

JKenH

I don’t think VW transitioning faster would have avoided these structural market problems. Even Tesla is not immune, having had to slash prices to try and maintain market share in the face of cheap subsidised EVs from and within China. VW’s sales have been good but it is the order book that is the problem. Certain countries like China and Norway have sufficient resources to manipulate the market for new cars but they are the exception. Europe is where the real problem lies as demand there is saturated and it will take an awful lot of incentives and penalties to drive sales forward from here. 

Various pundits have been keen to suggest that EV adoption will follow the famous S curve of disruption exhibited by other revolutionary technologies such as smart phones, digital cameras and even the original ICE car but all of these have actually proved to be a significant step forward in what they do or the speed at which they do things. This is not the case with BEVs. A BEV essentially does just want an ICE car does at a similar speed and with a similar degree of utility. An EV may be marginally better at some things (and maybe not so good at others) but not to the extent that you or your business will be left behind if you don’t adopt the technology - at least not in a practical or productive sense.

Yes, certain sectors of the population, notably those who like the latest tech and those who are very concerned about the climate would have bought EVs anyway but we are nearing the limit of those sectors and penetration of the mass market is purely being driven by the aforementioned incentives and penalties. This is patently apparent by the divergence in levels of uptake in countries such as China and Norway and areas of the world without these incentives/penalties such as Eastern Europe. It isn’t that people care less about the environment in the latter or don’t like new tech but without the external drivers uptake striuggles to push much beyond the first adopters and the climate concerned. 

Whenever Tesla enters a new market initial uptake is rapid and then flattens off as natural demand is met. As incentives kick in another tranche of those who can benefit step in but a lot of people look at EVs and ask what do they do for me that an ICE car doesn’t? In the UK we have seen the extent of new BEV sales that go to fleets to take advantage of BIK incentives but private demand is stubbornly low and falling. 

Governments (unless they have the resources of Norway’s SWF) won’t be able to sustain the levels of incentives indefinitely, particularly with increasing numbers of EVs on the road not contributing to the tax take (VED and fuel duty) and politically there is a limit to how many penalties they can pile on ICE drivers, particularly as such penalties are regressive. Of course China can continue with their policies as what the public think doesn’t really come into it. 

This article from The Verge also suggests in some markets like the USA (and to an extent the UK) tribal politics is also having an impact on demand. https://www.theverge.com/23934889/electric-vehicle-ev-transition-sales-delays-politics

I think it is too simplistic to put VW’s problems down to them not having rolled out EVs fast enough - in fact the reverse is the case - they have gone too fast before the demand is there. Even Tesla are scaling back expansion plans and no one can accuse them of being late to the party.

Netexporter

cheap subsidised EVs from and within China

VW have moved all ID3 to China (they already make ID3s for the China market there)

I think it is too simplistic to put VW’s problems down to them not having rolled out EVs fast enough

The problem is they can't make them cheap enough, in Europe. They don't represent value for money. It is interesting that Stelantis can make a £20k ID3-size EV in Europe, though. Perhaps it is "subsidised?