Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

. . . . .  Apologies if my posts are Cleantechnica heavy, but that's just because it's one of the trusted sites I check in the mornings. . . . . . 

You really shouldn't need to apologise for posting any links !

Readers are free to follow or ignore any of them and you usually include enough detail in your comments for them to decide which is more appropriate for them.

NigeWick

Martyn1981 said: Where needed H2 may be a solution for vehicles

I suspect H2 will be used for BIG transport options such as trains and ships. Possibly buses & HGVs too, but, IMHO certainly not personal transport. It looks as though battery energy density and charging speeds will be acceptable to devout petrol heads in two or three years. Tesla M3 can charge at 250kW already.

Martyn1981

joefizz said:

Thats the crux of it, its not about efficiencies, its about supplying the poor people who have to drive, get to work, heat homes etc, not just those who can afford EVs and home battery systems. Moving away from oil to gas and then something else/combination with something else.

So back in the real World with real examples, I previously mentioned a comparison:

A comparison of BEV (Tesla Model 3) to FCV (Toyota Mirai) costs at the beginning of the vid (in the US) had the FCV at approx 8x the cost per mile.

Price wise the TM3 standard range plus costs approx $41k, whilst the Toyota Mirai costs approx $59k.
So it would seem for comparable vehicles that BEV cost less, and are cheaper to run, and of course their costs are falling.

Martyn1981

An oldish article but perhaps timely to remind us how far BEV's have gotten already. [Long forgotten article but I think I read about China celebrating 100,000+ BEV buses about 5yrs ago.]

RATP Dev London's route 94 goes fully electric with 29 BYD ADL Enviro400EV double deckers

BYD Europe and Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL) jointly announced today that one of West London's best-known bus services, route 94, is going fully electric with the delivery of 29 pure electric, 100% emissions-free BYD ADL Enviro400EV double decks. The vehicles go into service this week with operator London United – a subsidiary of RATP Dev. BYD is a global leader in batteries, energy management and electric mobility, while ADL, the UK's best-selling bus manufacturer, is a subsidiary of leading independent global bus manufacturer NFI Group Inc. (NFI).

Route 94 provides a 24-hour service for West London residents, from Acton Green to Piccadilly Circus via Westfield, Notting Hill and Oxford Street. With an overall 67-seat capacity (24 in lower saloon, 43 in upper saloon), the 10.9-metre BYD ADL Enviro400EV achieves up to 160 miles on a single charge. Power is delivered through BYD's pure-electric drivetrain comprising the electric motor and 382 kWh Iron-Phosphate batteries. Double deck bodywork from ADL features a striking glazed staircase, long wheelchair bay and an automatic wheelchair ramp at the rear doors.

joefizz

ABrass said:

Efficiency is part of the discussion but it isn't the only factor. Green hydrogen is always going to be less efficient than batteries charged from the grid, which means it will always be more expensive than battery power.

That might change if you include effectively free energy supplied when grid demand is lower than the supply you're generating. Then the hydrogen is almost free and you're looking at production equipment, distribution  and storage costs. Right now hydrogen is similar or more expensive than petrol and it's mostly from the cheaper, non green, sources. Green hydrogen would have to plummet in cost to be equal to petrol costs and plummet further to equal grid electricity. That might happen but it's not going to be soon.

In the mean time electric cars are already approaching price parity and are continuing their price drops (or frozen prices and capability upgrades). For passenger cars Hydrogen has missed the bus. It might have missed the bus for buses and HGVs as well.

Green hydrogen is very useful as a storage medium and as a replacement for natural gas. But cars? Nah.

Not disagreeing with anything you say (well until the last word ;-)).

Agreed its not happening soon but as I posted before the current plans for wind coming ashore in 7 years or so will mean huge excess capacity. Ive also posted before about the uk car industry asking for scrappage schemes to EVs (which were on the cards before covid) and I made the smart alec comment that in about 6-7 years like dieselgate we accidently find out EVs are really bad for the environment and that H is the solution for the now diminished personal transport option.

That was of course pre covid when public transport looked like the green solution but now its our 'civic duty' to avoid it.
As I mentioned before Ive seen a marked increase in requests for info on scrappage schemes in the last couple of weeks so we will see where that goes. Lots of new cars sitting with shipping stickers on covered in dust near me.
What to promote though with any potential scrappage? Certainly not diesel, probably EVs to a lesser extent and smaller petrol engined small cars arent really going to have a problem being sold.

As for H missing the bus for passenger cars, Ive mentioned before about watching what is coming out of Japan and Korea in this regard and about 6 months ago I would have mostly agreed with you but we are in a different world now, onshoring is something governments will be promoting (whether they do or not is a different matter) and the likes of local fuel generation comes back in focus. So cost plays less of a part against national security.
Agreed its not going to be soon, but certainly will play out in the timeframe of the next gen of offshore wind, which is about 2 development cycles for japanese cars.

Coastalwatch

Interesting times ahead for the BEV market, as well new models coming on stream with increasing ranges commercial vehicles are beginning to appear as well. Only this week we passed an all electric DPD delivery van where we live here on the east coast. On top of this development of solar panels intergrated into vehicle design continues as per below. At a potential 33 kms per day of charge that would cover the majority of our short EV journeys while applying no stress to the grid either!

Lightyear & DSM to develop solar roofs for vehicles

Lightyear, the startup company that emerged from the solar team at the Technical University of Eindhoven, presented its long-distance solar car Lightyear One last year. Now the startup wants to push the development of solar roofs for electric vehicles with the Dutch company DSM.

For this purpose, the company will be using the solar roof developed by Lightyear, which was first presented in 2019 in the Model One. Here solar cells are integrated into a surface area of five square meters into the roof and the front hood of the car. The end result is supposed to be so stable that an “adult man can walk on them without causing dents”.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/05/14/lightyear-dsm-to-develop-solar-car-roofs/

Coastalwatch

Fascinating insight(for me at least) of the scale and progress of construction at Tesla's Gigafactory 3. 

I wonder if there are plans to export their products or whether they are merely for the home market!

Tesla Giga Shanghai Construction Progress May 13, 2020: Video

Video tip: Drone footage from the construction site of the Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, China shows impressive progress of the second car assembly building that will be home to a new production line for the Model Y.

https://insideevs.com/news/423227/tesla-giga-shanghai-progress-may-13-2020/

Martyn1981

joefizz said:

Agreed its not happening soon but as I posted before the current plans for wind coming ashore in 7 years or so will mean huge excess capacity. Ive also posted before about the uk car industry asking for scrappage schemes to EVs (which were on the cards before covid) and I made the smart alec comment that in about 6-7 years like dieselgate we accidently find out EVs are really bad for the environment and that H is the solution for the now diminished personal transport option.

But none of that is actually true, and your environmental claims about BEV's is pure hypothesis on your behalf and continues to ignore all of the additional infrastructure and generation capacity needed to meet the vastly greater gross energy consumption for a fleet of HFCV's.

I assume you mean huge excess generation, not huge excess capacity in 7years, but that's not true, we won't have anywhere near enough to meet 100% of UK demand for regular and sustained periods. We still have large gas generation, and a retiring nuclear fleet (about 20% of UK gen). We won't have excess RE capacity until the installed capacity can meet average annual UK demand.

What we will see in 5-6yrs time as the newly contracted off-shore wind comes on line, will be greater displacement of FF's (gas), and greater periods of curtailment due to short periods of generation in excess of our ability to use. This will not be enough to justify any large scale long term H2 storage infrastructure, but will continue to justify and make viable intra-day battery storage. We will need around 500GWh of this before we can meet 100% RE generation, and before we will need additional long term storage. Nobody is going to try to make money from inefficient storage that might only get cycled once a week (or less), when demand for high efficiency intra-day storage still exists.

A simple source of batt storage for excess is ......... wait for it ........ BEV's, and this is already happening at the moment with BEV customers encouraged to charge vehicles when supply is high and demand low. There is no capital outlay for this form of excess storage as it's a side benefit of buying a BEV.

Later on down the line, as we attempt to go 100% RE, 100% of the time, we will need storage to feed back into the grid, not just consume excesses, and that's where V2G comes in. This again won't involve capital outlay for the leccy supply industry for the batts when supplied by BEV's, but costs for chargers, and peak price payments to those supplying the energy will need to be paid.

Martyn1981

Gigafactories or Terafactories?

Lots of speculation for the upcoming Tesla Battery Day, including tabless batteries, dry electrode batts allowing vastly greater production from the same factory space, batts that last longer, maybe V2G through Tesla Autobidder, and so on and so on.

All spelled out in pure speculation in this issue of In Depth but whilst I find it fun to listen to in the background whilst failing to complete a Sudoku, others may find it boring.

And similar(ish) news in this article, but in short, rumours of cheaper, better, and more flexible batts with RE/grid support functions:

Rumors Suggest Ground Breaking Battery News From Tesla Coming Soon

Solarchaser

joefizz said:

Solarchaser said:

If you have so much excess energy that your batteries are already full, then sure, use it for hydrogen,  but to use it for something very inefficient before using on very efficient seems very silly indeed, I guess that will be my o level physics tripping me up again🙄

What was the labour party slogan in the last election? For the many, not the few?

Thats the crux of it, its not about efficiencies, its about supplying the poor people who have to drive, get to work, heat homes etc, not just those who can afford EVs and home battery systems. Moving away from oil to gas and then something else/combination with something else.

As for using inefficient before efficient, Ive read for years on here about immersion diverters rather than export to grid... I can not use the electricity I generate at the minute, so the majority gets exported to the grid. Countries can do that but what if every country is exporting to the 'grid'. It will have to be curtailed or used. 

Labour Party, dunno mate, they died in Scotland about 5 years ago, surprised you take note of them in NI tbh.

However I take (slight) offence to your suggestion that EV's and home batts are for rich folk.
I type this from a council housing estate... or scheme as us Scots call it. 

I bought a 3-4 year old EV for a similar price to a similar sized 3-4 year old ice car, so not because I'm rich.
In doing so I've saved £600 a year in petrol and yet done double the mileage (so you could argue saved £1200) not to mention no road tax saving £200 odds, and no breakdowns (so far).
So in about another 2-3 years it will have paid for itself.

I think a socially responsible council/government should fund solar and solar thermal on low income household rooves as a way to reduce heating bills.

Solar diverters, yeah why not, seems a great way to .... save money ... if you already have a tank.

And the smart plugs you get now can do the same thing with grid excess, heat your hot water tank to save on heating bills.
I also think in addition to solar, low income /Council homes should be fitted with batteries and be able to use tou tariffs to their advantage. 

So for me the question would be, do I want to spend 10kwh on electricity and get 10kwh of heat, or spend 10kwh on hydrogen and get.... maybe 7kwh of heat?

Again, if all the more efficient tech is full, and you still have excess, then absolutely fill the less efficient tech, but to do it the other way round.... well its not green, and its not ethical imo