Electric cars

Car_54 · 5 July 2018 at 8:41AM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Interesting episode on ultra capacitors from Fully Charged. The idea being that they can cope with a few seconds (perhaps 5s) of very high charge or discharge, so able to cope with hard acceleration/braking and complimenting the 'big battery' by doing the harsh part of EV driving.

Skeleton Ultra Capacitors | Fully Charged

As in "My, what a big battery you are"?;)

NigeWick · 5 July 2018 at 9:16AM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The S curve cometh? At a growth rate of approx 50%pa.

Likely to double that rate from this year?

NigeWick · 5 July 2018 at 9:18AM

silverwhistle wrote: »

it points out that market penetration is higher in higher income countries.

Like China?

silverwhistle · 5 July 2018 at 11:34AM

:DWell, they were talking about Europe and that market, and the contrast in penetration between north and south - basically based on per capita income! Although I have to say the past prevalence of Mercedes imported into Greece does rather beg a few questions.;-)

But as I said in my post, they didn't say how they were addressing the issue.. They do really need to get their volumes up and prices down and introduce some basic models. Come on Dacia!

almillar · 5 July 2018 at 1:26PM

If the CHEMISTRY was all the same, then the components would all be the same and in the same ratios. So how come Tesla/Panasonic has a lower level of cobalt?

OK, I'll change the statement for semantics - BASIC CHEMISTRY. Lithium Ion. I'm just trying to keep separate stuff we can currently drive, versus stuff that's not in production - there's a massive difference between the two.

Lithium Ion was the 'basic chemistry' that made the EVs on our roads feasible today. It's a mature enough technology that it can even be put in bumpy fast moving things, and there's not much more to be extracted by it. Range is going up because of actual bigger batteries, tweaks to the innards of the cells (cobalt etc), and battery management. There's more to go, but not much. Cost per kWh will continue to go down though.

AdrianC · 5 July 2018 at 2:50PM

Al - you're right, but with the mild caveat that there are different chemistries within the basic umbrella of Lithium Ion. At the moment, though, there's only one relevant - we're in agreement on that. The others may or may not break through sooner or later, but even then cost (and probably availability) will be a major factor for quite a while.

I'm not sure cost/kWh has that far to go - the technology is mature enough that individual cells are already very cheap, and rising production means supply may become difficult on some of the ingredients, especially given their limited (and politically "interesting") source countries. Battery pack design may have some way to go, and EV-focussed chassis design may well start to make larger-capacity packs more mainstream, but the weight issue won't go away in a hurry. A big-battery Model X is around 2.5t, which doesn't leave a heck of a lot of payload headroom before you start butting up against 3.5t C&U/licencing limits in many markets.

Stageshoot · 5 July 2018 at 2:55PM

@Almillar

Quote - "Range is going up because of actual bigger batteries, tweaks to the innards of the cells (cobalt etc), and battery management"

If that's the case how come my Renault Zoe 41kw battery is just 15kg heavier than the old 22kw battery. And is in a case the same size as the old 22kw battery so it's interchangable with the old battery

In your world of limits have been reached such a thing is not possible ?

AdrianC · 5 July 2018 at 3:07PM

Stageshoot wrote: »

@Almillar

Quote - "Range is going up because of actual bigger batteries, tweaks to the innards of the cells (cobalt etc), and battery management"

If that's the case how come my Renault Zoe 41kw battery is just 15kg heavier than the old 22kw battery. And is in a case the same size as the old 22kw battery so it's interchangeable with the old battery

In your world of limits have been reached such a thing is not possible ?

The packs contain the exact same number of cells - 192 - they're just higher-capacity cells, 65Ah instead of 36Ah. They're the same generic 18650 format as Tesla use in the S and X packs.

But we're talking about historic increases here, not future ones.

Will capacities for the format rise? Probably.
Will they rise substantially without major internal changes? You can bet everybody's trying, but the technology is mature enough that it's unlikely - the big capacity increases are likely to be through chemistry changes, not tickles.

Martyn1981 · 5 July 2018 at 3:11PM

almillar wrote: »

OK, I'll change the statement for semantics - BASIC CHEMISTRY. Lithium Ion. I'm just trying to keep separate stuff we can currently drive, versus stuff that's not in production - there's a massive difference between the two.

Cheers, sort of important as the issue raised was that all the batts are the same, but it seems some perform better than others due to differences. The Fully Charged episode looking at the EV conversion E-Type Jag was interesting as the company said that they only use Tesla packs now as they are the best. But it's hard to say anything nice about Tesla on here without risking Fanboi counterclaims.

almillar wrote: »

Lithium Ion was the 'basic chemistry' that made the EVs on our roads feasible today. It's a mature enough technology that it can even be put in bumpy fast moving things, and there's not much more to be extracted by it. Range is going up because of actual bigger batteries, tweaks to the innards of the cells (cobalt etc), and battery management. There's more to go, but not much. Cost per kWh will continue to go down though.

Yep, cost will continue to tumble. The learning curve / Swanson's law has storage competing up there with PV [edit - meaning a high industry learning curve.]. Long term forecasts are excellent too.

All eyes on solid state for the next decade?

Martyn1981 · 5 July 2018 at 3:29PM

I doubt any ICEV's will still be selling/sellable in 2040 anyway, but nice to see Shell on board.

Shell would support UK bringing forward petrol ban from 2040

Electric cars

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