Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

It is good to see that third party battery swaps/upgrades are available for the Leaf. As battery technology moves on hopefully the costs will come down and the size of battery packs increase. New larger batteries for other cars such as the e-Golf might become available. 

 Although the costs are probably not economic today, if you can pick a Leaf up with an exhausted battery pack for around £5-6k the diy enthusiast can have a 44kwh EV for around £15k. The old Leaf batteries would probably still have value for home storage applications so the cost might be even lower. Great news for those who love their old Leaf 24s and want to keep them on the road.

Some government incentives should be offered as this would avoid perfectly useable vehicles being scrapped and the manufacting cost of new cars avoided.

https://forococheselectricos.com/2020/02/renueva-la-bateria-del-nissan-leaf-con-un-pack-de-lg-de-44-kwh-y-por-10-500-euros-gastos-de-envio-incluidos.html

https://evbatteryrebuilds.com/

Martyn1981

Some extracts from this week's Carbon Commentary Newsletter:

9, EV sales. Battery-powered vehicle sales are increasing rapidly around the world, but from a low base. How are manufacturers looking at the trends? The sales of the ZOE, a moderately priced small car only available in Europe that is the cornerstone of Renault’s electric range have spiked upwards. The vehicle provided almost 15% of the company’s European volume in January, up from 5% in the same month in 2019. VW announced a new arrangement with its German dealer network for the upcoming ID cars that moves the company far closer to the Tesla sales model. The purchase of an ID can be entirely online and the car is sold directly by VW to the customer, rather than through the dealer. The low maintenance requirements of EVs will radically reduce the size of the dealer network and VW needed to begin the process of capturing the sales of the ID itself.

10, Lithium. Is the world short of lithium for batteries? The simple answer is almost certainly no: lithium is the 25th most abundant element on the planet and exists in small but measurable amounts in all seawater. The real question is the cost of extraction from the underground brines in which it is currently found, mostly in Latin America. The Gates-led Breakthrough Ventures led an investment in a new technology for ‘filtering’ the lithium from water. This promises much quicker and cheaper capture of the valuable light metal. It’s worth noting that this isn’t the only start-up working on lower cost lithium separation. And, perhaps more importantly, any improved lithium filtration method is likely to hugely expand the range of locations in which lithium can be mined. Most obviously, many geothermal wells, such as those now being drilled in Cornwall, UK, will have vast resources of brines that can be used to extract lithium. The new Breakthrough investment may also make geothermal energy exploration more financially attractive by creating a second stream of revenue.

Martyn1981

Article on super capacitors. This is something that really interests me as they are able to charge and discharge at extremely high levels, so perhaps, just perhaps, a small supercap in a BEV, let's say just 1kWh, could take the brunt of abuse when it comes to high acceleration or high re-gen. This would protect the main battery from the most abusive parts of driving, perhaps making them last longer, or allow simpler, cheaper batts? It also occurs to me that a smallish amount of supercaps would allow for the enormous acceleration that the high performance Tesla's (and upcoming Roadster) can achieve, but without needing such enormous battery capacities (100-200kWh) to allow for the massive discharge, again without shortening the life of a smaller battery.

Super Duper Supercapacitors Could Accelerate Electric Car Revolution

There are batteries and there are supercapacitors. Both do the same thing — store electrical energy. Batteries charge relatively slowly and discharge slowly. Supercapacitors charge quickly and discharge quickly. Batteries are capable of storing large amounts of energy, supercapacitors are best for storing smaller amounts of energy. The bottom line is that batteries do some things better than supercapacitors and supercapacitors do some things better than batteries.

That may explain why Tesla bought one of the leading supercapacitor manufacturers — Maxwell Technologies — in 2019. In coming years, supercaps, as they are known, may replace the lead acid batteries currently used by all electric cars to store power for such routine functions as operating door locks, providing interior lighting, and so forth. They also may permit electric car manufacturers to use them to do the things they do best — charge and discharge rapidly — while allowing the main storage battery to do what it does best — move the car down the road for many zero emissions miles.

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

It is good to see that third party battery swaps/upgrades are available for the Leaf. As battery technology moves on hopefully the costs will come down and the size of battery packs increase. New larger batteries for other cars such as the e-Golf might become available. 

Just remembered, I posted about 3yrs ago that Nissan had announced a $5k/£5k batt swap for the 24/30kWh Leaf (including a $1k/£1k trade in for the old batt) which sounded great, perhaps £10k all in with an old worn out battery Leaf for 10yrs of cheap motoring. Then almost immediately, just a few weeks later, they changed the price to about $8k/£8k. Grrrr!  Not sure what they offer / charge now.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

JKenH said:

It is good to see that third party battery swaps/upgrades are available for the Leaf. As battery technology moves on hopefully the costs will come down and the size of battery packs increase. New larger batteries for other cars such as the e-Golf might become available. 

Just remembered, I posted about 3yrs ago that Nissan had announced a $5k/£5k batt swap for the 24/30kWh Leaf (including a $1k/£1k trade in for the old batt) which sounded great, perhaps £10k all in with an old worn out battery Leaf for 10yrs of cheap motoring. Then almost immediately, just a few weeks later, they changed the price to about $8k/£8k. Grrrr!  Not sure what they offer / charge now.

I don’t know what the cost of a Nissan refurbed 24kwh battery pack is but out of interest in the U.S. Nissan are replacing 30kwh batteries with 40kwh under warranty!

Martyn1981

Anyone ever thought "if only there was a BEV that looked like a classic American hot-rod that got its nose crushed between two trucks', if so, then this is Shirley the car for you.

Shockwave Motors Introduces 3-Wheeled Electric Vehicle

Perhaps if ZZ Top want a greener version of the Eliminator for future videos!

silverwhistle

buglawton said:

Any truth in this? Aren't BEVs able to 'release' their wheels to freewheel for towing?

I'd say it was more an alarmist piece! You can certainly tow EVs, and maybe need an action, from what I was reading, that may be a little less instinctive than stamping your foot on the clutch as you'd do with an ICE engine seizure.. But either way, not a major issue, and it was raised by someone who is a supporter of smart motorways, so I'm being a little suspicious about motives!

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 said:

Article on super capacitors.

I'd have thought they might also be useful for the starting up and pulling away of buses, where there's a heavy requirement for power and acceleration?

EricMears

silverwhistle said:

I'd say it was more an alarmist piece! You can certainly tow EVs, 

Indeed,  I've seen posts in other threads from people who have managed to put some life into an empty battery by towing in max regen mode.  Not something I'd actually advocate but it certainly disproves that you can't tow at all.

Martyn1981

TMY deliveries starting in Mch. Total and utter guess/speculation, but if Giga Berlin starts production of TMY's next year(?), perhaps UK RHD by 2022 ......?????

Tesla Model Y Deliveries Starting In March

March is just a few days away, and as we reported one month ago (after breaking the news of this possibility way back on October 15, 2019* — which Deutsche Bank echoed on December 3, 2019) — Tesla Model Y deliveries are beginning early, way early. Whereas it was long expected — due to guidance from Tesla — that Model Y deliveries would begin in the second half of 2020, production prep has apparently been going swimmingly and everything is far ahead of schedule.