Can 3 million EVs replace 30 million oil cars?

The 'bad' news is these 3 million EVs with perhaps 15 kWh battery packs wont be providing much in the form of energy storage capacity to the grid. The total storage capacity is only 3% of what you would get if you model 30 million uk BEVs with 50kWh average sized batteries.

Another factor will be that these will probably typically charge ~3 times per day. Once during the night time and twice during the day adding some 2.5GW of night demand and 5GW of day demand but with some ability to avoid the most peak 3 hours during winter evenings

But the good news is this will make BEV deployment very rapid and cheap
A $20,000 half size robo EV doing 80,000 miles a year with 120 mile range and 15kWh battery is going to have 1/10th the per mile capital cost of a personal drive yourself EV

You could have bigger battery packs so less day charging and more night charging but then you add weight and cost with no real benefits to a taxi apart from a 20 mins supercharge during the day. The sweet spot will be somewhere in the region of 10-20 kWh batteries getting 7-10 miles per kWh

Piddles wrote: »

....and the elderly (a fast growing but increasingly isolated section of society) and the unemployed (cheap, fast transport to a far great range of employment opportunities). Inclusion is big part of the benefit of autonomous vehicles. There will be a big increase in usage, but that's good thing.

In urban areas, there will likely be more shared riding (think platooning minibus sized pods), and demand pricing like Uber. So, on end user cost grounds (parents will be paying by then....) the kids will be riding in these.

Yes there will be sharing especially kids to school

The point I'm making is that it looks like you may only need as many as 1/10th in self drive EVs Vs personal transport

The reason is demand for transportation isn't one huge peak to get to work and one huge peak to get back. Demand is far more smooth throughout the day than anyone realises.

Commuting to work is only about 25% of car trips
The result is such that one car can indeed be used for 10 times as many miles

A robo EV might start work at 5am and spend the next 4 hours carrying commuters to work.
It carries 12 commuters to work (3 trios an hour) and assuming no pooling. Or perhaps 36 assuming pooling

Then at 9am it switches to moving people around for choirs shopping family visits and trips.
It might spend 9am to 4pm moving these people around. Clocking up 20 trips done. Then from 4pm to 8pm it goes back to catering for commuters returning for work.

All in all this car can do 250 miles of trips a day rather than 25 mile average of human cars

Demand really could be reduced from 30 million human driven to 3 million robo driven

markin wrote: »

Im going to guess the is around 18m kids under 18, lets say half will want a ride and has to be in class by 8AM, even if you half it again its more than 3 million, or will you just ban kids? They will use them to a lot, And then disabled use will also rise.

And many will by tied up on longer journeys, you would need some set aside for local and others for long distance, once at the end they can do local trips or will just have to park, or drive in circles.

Also you forgot the age 16-18 kids start at different hours/times
And you could have have councils set schools to start over a period of 1 hour
So 1/4th start at 8am. 1/4t start at 8.20am. 1/4th start at 8.40am and 1/4th at 9am but this probably won't be necessary.

Plus the average trip is about 1.3 miles for primary and 3 miles for secondary so these robo EVs can make multiple trips per hour.

Oh and having just looked at the stats

42% of 5-16 year olds walk to school
35% take a car to school
23% take a bus

Also yes you could ban/incentivise kids from taking any form of transportation depending on the distance
About 80% of kids walk when the distance is sub 1 mile
Whereas this drops to about 40% when the distance is 1-2 miles
Both those could be closer to 90% and not for easing road congestion but for health.
Kids walking 30 mins to school and 30 mins back is more healthy than taking a bus or car sitting down

PasturesNew wrote: »

The trouble, as I see it, is that if you're poorer you can have/own an old car and keep it running 10-15-20 years or so, using it when you like, with it working out cheaper than using buses/taxis/hire cars.

Shared EVs would be smart, quite new, well maintained, regularly serviced, regularly cleaned - all higher costs. Poorer people wouldn't be able to afford to buy into the dream of the shared EV model.

My next car will be petrol.... and I expect to pay under £2k for it. I expect that car to last 5-10 years.

What is your annual per mile cost?
I think I run at about 30p a mile excluding depreciation
Insurance (~10p a mile) and fuel (~15p a mile) being the two big ones plus maintenance

So even if you are able to buy a car for £2k and run it for 50,000 miles So you only pay 4p a mile on depreciation your cost is still about 35p a mile

Can self drive share robo EVs beat this 35p a mile for a cheap second hand car?
I think it's quite likely

£20,000 EV used for say 600,000 miles over a 6 year period and then scrapped
It's capital cost is only 3.5p a mile. That is actually lower cost per mile than buying the old petrol car for £2k and using it for 50,000 miles and binning it. Fuel maintenance and insurance per mile will be considerably cheaper too

My best guess is these self drive EVs will come in at 35p a mile (why undercut the cheap self own second hand market just charge the same and people will rather use this shiny new car than the second hand self drive one). If competition comes in (that is to say 3+ companies figure out self drive) then I think costs will reduce towards 15p a mile (plus whatever the government charges per mile to make up for lost fuel taxes)

Also you have to remember some 800,000 kids become adults per year in the UK
For them it's much more expensive to start driving
£2k lessons £2k insurance £2k crappy car plus fuel and maintenance and they might be looking at £8k to get into their crappy first new car. Or use the robo fleet for 35p a mile (falling to 15p a mile). Most of them will opt never to go through the expensive capital cost of learning and getting their first car. That is a huge customer base there even if the oldies decide to stick with second hand cars

Also human owned cars have other expensive costs
I probably spend about £500 a year on parking (London :mad:)
That is another cost you don't pay with the robo EV fleet
Plus you save time. No day lost to upkeep and repair. No washing. No shopping for insurance. No stupid insurance/car ads. No stupid buying expensive cars to keep up with the neighbors. Safer.