Living with Electric Vehicles

[Hawkear]

While we all would like to see more batteries with greater capacity, that means higher energy density. Energy density is what designers of explosives love. With the ability for electricity to discharge almost instantly that makes for a disconcerting view of the future in respect to safety.

 

[grubstake]

While we all would like to see more batteries with greater capacity, that means higher energy density. Energy density is what designers of explosives love. With the ability for electricity to discharge almost instantly that makes for a disconcerting view of the future in respect to safety.

Possibly, but I'm not sure that makes batteries more hazardous than petrol's ability to ignite almost instantly.

Also, big lithium batteries include internal Battery Management Systems to prevent overcharging, undercharging, overheating, over current discharging, detect faulty cells, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_management_system

 

[Ridge Runner]

While the current conduct of the PRC is often deplorable, the guy that put that video together does nothing but produce anti Chinese videos. (From what I can tell).
In China there are a huge number of EVs on the road and models from there. BYD have been in Europe and NZ for a while.
I suspect from the 2 mins research I just completed, you might find that there is no more likelihood of any ev catching fire than there is of a ICE powered vehicle catching fire, and probably less.

Many of the reports of fires aremore about what has happend in the early years of EV's and many of the fires have been caused by the vehicle being in an accident, There is no info as to whether the car in that video had ever been in an accident during it's life time and if so was the repairs carried out to the correct standard, without the full SP it's hard to know the truth.

I have a heap of Lithium Phone batteries and at leased 4 LiFePo04 SoGens from 500Wh to 1800Wh and my brother has 2X 1800Wh and one 2400Wh which he uses all 3 every day of the year and treated right they work as intended,

A lot of EV can not handle the really fast charging speeds that are now available where some of them can't handle charging speeds of above 6 to 8Kw where a lot of chargers in the UK have some charging speeds as quoted up to 150Kw, with speeds ranging from 3.7Kw Slow, 7Kw Slow, 22Kw Fast, 43-50Kw Fast and 150Kw Rapid which will charge most suitable cars in 20 to 30 minutes, By using the wrong charger can do a lot of damage,

 

[Greg_wilson]

Possibly, but I'm not sure that makes batteries more hazardous than petrol's ability to ignite almost instantly.

Also, big lithium batteries include internal Battery Management Systems to prevent overcharging, undercharging, overheating, over current discharging, detect faulty cells, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_management_system

It’s not so much the batteries, it’s the shoddy cheap to non existent management systems common in cheap goods from places like china

 

[Ridge Runner]

When charging an EV you can choose whether you want to charge it by AC or DC as well as differant charging rates, DC and Slower charging is meant to prolong battery life, Where some folks have just blasted their batteries and had them loose storage capacity in 3 to 5 years where they should be lasting in excess of 10 years plus,

The actual claims are that if you bought an EV from new it would take you 25 years of ownership for you to break even for it to be Carbon Nutural due to the amount of fossil fuels/Power used during the cost of production and the making of all the parts, But due to how so many people just Blast the Batteries with fast charging adding to early failure you end up having to buy new batteries and the cost of production of those sets you back even more years to becoming Carbon Nutural adding another 5 or 10 years to the Original Target of 25 years.

As for UK Long Term Plans and Something I remembered from last year.


The UK GOV are jumping on the band wagon big time and although this all sounds impressive in the eyes of the world with their goal of becoming Carbon Nutural by 2035/2050-ish is only possible a few times of the Year, The UK can Never be free of Pollution even if it band all fossil fuelled vehicles right this very second For One simple Reason, Last year 6 months ago there was a big Dust storm in one of the African countries and the sand travelled over 2000 miles / 3200+Ks and covered my Van in Orange / Brown Dust for about 3 weeks,

As to why the UK will always have pollution is very simple, France / Mainland Europe is 21 miles away OR 33.789Ks from the UK, And Tomorrow we have Easterly Winds of 16mph OR 25.74Kph So what ever Pollution happens in Europe will arrive in the UK in 1 hour 18 minutes Later, And with russia and china being east of the UK what ever they pollute will come this way also, As an example of this when Icelands Volcano erupted a few years back Soot was found in the Northern Arctic Circle and as far South as Southern Spain and beyond so regardless of what the UK sets out EV's are not going to solve the problem, And one New Company who was set to manufacture Batteries has had to foreclose because the monies promised from those in power failed to make things a reality.

With that said it is such a vast problem to get all the Ducks in a Row and make things happen, And in Australia due to the vast Land Mass it is going to be all but impossible to make EV's a viable propersition and the only place they can work is In the major Towns and Cities and for those who do not Travel interstate etc. In an Ideal world it is a Rosey Picture but the realities for Australia are a lot more Harsh when it comes to EV's.

One thing for sure some of them EV's are Rocketships and they go like a cut Snake, but until they can Double the Battery Power / Range they are of little use to me let alone to you Guys.

If I could get 500+ Miles out of one Garuanteed / 800Ks I'd have one, Where with my Van I can drive over 1160 to 1355kms on 60L of Diesel and only have to stop Once, If I drove an EV loaded with my Gear and drove to Scotland I's have to stop 10 or 11 times to charge it to equal One tank of Diesel, that in it's self is going to add 8 to 14 hours to my Journey time,

 

[EVIE/BEE]

When charging an EV you can choose whether you want to charge it by AC or DC as well as differant charging rates, DC and Slower charging is meant to prolong battery life, Where some folks have just blasted their batteries and had them loose storage capacity in 3 to 5 years where they should be lasting in excess of 10 years plus,

The actual claims are that if you bought an EV from new it would take you 25 years of ownership for you to break even for it to be Carbon Nutural due to the amount of fossil fuels/Power used during the cost of production and the making of all the parts, But due to how so many people just Blast the Batteries with fast charging adding to early failure you end up having to buy new batteries and the cost of production of those sets you back even more years to becoming Carbon Nutural adding another 5 or 10 years to the Original Target of 25 years.

As for UK Long Term Plans and Something I remembered from last year.


The UK GOV are jumping on the band wagon big time and although this all sounds impressive in the eyes of the world with their goal of becoming Carbon Nutural by 2035/2050-ish is only possible a few times of the Year, The UK can Never be free of Pollution even if it band all fossil fuelled vehicles right this very second For One simple Reason, Last year 6 months ago there was a big Dust storm in one of the African countries and the sand travelled over 2000 miles / 3200+Ks and covered my Van in Orange / Brown Dust for about 3 weeks,

As to why the UK will always have pollution is very simple, France / Mainland Europe is 21 miles away OR 33.789Ks from the UK, And Tomorrow we have Easterly Winds of 16mph OR 25.74Kph So what ever Pollution happens in Europe will arrive in the UK in 1 hour 18 minutes Later, And with russia and china being east of the UK what ever they pollute will come this way also, As an example of this when Icelands Volcano erupted a few years back Soot was found in the Northern Arctic Circle and as far South as Southern Spain and beyond so regardless of what the UK sets out EV's are not going to solve the problem, And one New Company who was set to manufacture Batteries has had to foreclose because the monies promised from those in power failed to make things a reality.

With that said it is such a vast problem to get all the Ducks in a Row and make things happen, And in Australia due to the vast Land Mass it is going to be all but impossible to make EV's a viable propersition and the only place they can work is In the major Towns and Cities and for those who do not Travel interstate etc. In an Ideal world it is a Rosey Picture but the realities for Australia are a lot more Harsh when it comes to EV's.

One thing for sure some of them EV's are Rocketships and they go like a cut Snake, but until they can Double the Battery Power / Range they are of little use to me let alone to you Guys.

If I could get 500+ Miles out of one Garuanteed / 800Ks I'd have one, Where with my Van I can drive over 1160 to 1355kms on 60L of Diesel and only have to stop Once, If I drove an EV loaded with my Gear and drove to Scotland I's have to stop 10 or 11 times to charge it to equal One tank of Diesel, that in it's self is going to add 8 to 14 hours to my Journey time,

Ridge Runner,
You mentioned pollution several times (dust).
The end goal is to prevent CO2 build up in the atmosphere (which is not a pollutant).

The world (UK) is so confused.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Ridge Runner,
You mentioned pollution several times (dust).
The end goal is to prevent CO2 build up in the atmosphere (which is not a pollutant).

The world (UK) is so confused.

Yes I know it is because of CO2 build up, My point is would be the same as Bribie Island trying to rid the place of CO2 while Brisbane carries on polluting, having the wind in the wrong direction the CO2 from Brisbane would still effect Bribie Island because the distances are similar to the distance of the UK and France being 33Ks apart,

If CO2 was the real issue the the UK Gov would not give Heathrow Airport the Go Ahead to add a 5th Runway where One Plane taking off is equal to 6000 Semi's driving for a 24 hour period, they said it was not about money and in the next breath they said that it would bring in more Trade in to the country which contadicts what they said about it not being about Money because Trade Is about Money,

The EV's are a sore subject because not only do they not pay Rego at the moment, But the power companies have put the cost of Home electricity up by over 150% / 200% To an average of $0.73815c per Kwh yet to charge their EV's they are paying $0.37c per Kwh, It's the same electricity yet they pay 0.37c and I have to pay 0.738c per Kwh plus a daily standing charge equal to the cost of One KW, To me it seems like the home Owner is having to subsidise EV owners and thats not right, where some home owners power bill have risen to over $8325.00 per year. And some power companies have sent enforcers around to break in to peoples houses and illegally fit Pay as You Go Electric Meters where the power companies can help them selves to the credit you have on your card

And then the cost of EV's puts them out of reach of the common man with an average price of around $83,250 for a run of the mill vehicle,

I appologize if this post appears to be all over the place but the EV's and the power companies etc are interelated because they are charging me more money for electricity so someone else can drive their EV at my expense, Yes it is NUTS I agree, And I only noticed the price they pay to charge EV from that Video I posted of the guy with the caravan and then compared his charging cost to my power bill.

The up side to all this is because I bought all those Low Wattage Appliances a while back I have managed to keep my power bill under control where I on average am using between 400w to 800w per day,

 

[Mackka]

Great story RR and I was wondering with wind turbines having approximately 90% of their towers made from steel, how do you make steel without coke?
Mackka

 

[grubstake]

Great story RR and I was wondering with wind turbines having approximately 90% of their towers made from steel, how do you make steel without coke?
Mackka

Google has the answers.

A third of steel is now made without the use of coking coal, either through scrap recycling or gas-based steel production:
https://greenallianceblog.org.uk/20...s a myth that,full-scale hydrogen steel mill.
A Swedish steel maker delivered the first fossil-free steel a couple of years back:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidr...first-fossil-fuel-free-steel/?sh=7c2db21e6b55

 

[Hawkear]

Google has the answers.

A third of steel is now made without the use of coking coal, either through scrap recycling or gas-based steel production:
https://greenallianceblog.org.uk/20...s a myth that,full-scale hydrogen steel mill.
A Swedish steel maker delivered the first fossil-free steel a couple of years back:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidr...first-fossil-fuel-free-steel/?sh=7c2db21e6b55

The bottom line is that steel making requires energy to reduce the iron oxide (ore) to elemental iron. Coking coal or gas provide that energy, Hydrogen requires energy for its production as does electricity If you want to say you can do it those ways. Where the original energy is going to be sourced is the issue. Wind, Solar, Nuclear?

 

[grubstake]

Wind and solar, mate - Australia's got unlimited potential for both. Either use the power to generate storable/pipeable hydrogen, or utilise concentrated solar with molten salt storage, for 24 hour power generation.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...nology-comeback-electricity-mirrors/102184372
Forget about nuclear, apart from the huge capital costs, lengthy construction timeframe and all the other often-discussed issues, we simply don't have the abundant cold water resources necessary for safe operation.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Great story RR and I was wondering with wind turbines having approximately 90% of their towers made from steel, how do you make steel without coke?
Mackka

To be honest I am not sure what condition the UK Steel Companies are in anymore because the last I heard they were sold off to an Indian Company and we never hear from them since they took it over,

 

[Ridge Runner]

Since I made that post yesterday my Brother phoned me about a booklet he got from the power company stating that If you charge your EV at Home between the hours 00:30 and 04:30 they will only charge you £0.07p per Kw which is equal to $ 0.1295c / OR 13 cents per Kw which they are calling Off Peak Hours, Before the price rise all Homes got an Off Peak discount that ran between 22:00PM and 06:00AM where the cost was normally around 50% less of the daily charge but that seems never show on my power bill anymore and neither does my duel fuel discount which suddenly vanished and I never noticed that they took it away until 8 months later and when I asked them about it they said they were no long doing it yet 2 years after the fact my brother was still getting the duel fuel discount,

This New discount for EV's only applies if you have got your own EV charging station installed at Home with a maximum of 7Kwh output so you still have to pay the $0.73c per Kwh to power your home, The cheapest cost of this instillation is around £800.00 which is about $1480.00 AUD.

LOL, But I have just thought of a workaround that little problem,

 

[user 23515]

If you are looking at information regarding EV charging this is not the place to look. There is some misleading and just wrong information in parts.

There must be some ok batteries coming out of China. Some if not all Fronius Hybrid inverters are only compatible with BYD (China) and LG batteries. If you are not familiar with Fronius, they are an expensive and considered to be premium brand manufactured in Austria.

 

[user 23515]

Since I made that post yesterday my Brother phoned me about a booklet he got from the power company stating that If you charge your EV at Home between the hours 00:30 and 04:30 they will only charge you £0.07p per Kw which is equal to $ 0.1295c / OR 13 cents per Kw which they are calling Off Peak Hours, Before the price rise all Homes got an Off Peak discount that ran between 22:00PM and 06:00AM where the cost was normally around 50% less of the daily charge but that seems never show on my power bill anymore and neither does my duel fuel discount which suddenly vanished and I never noticed that they took it away until 8 months later and when I asked them about it they said they were no long doing it yet 2 years after the fact my brother was still getting the duel fuel discount,

This New discount for EV's only applies if you have got your own EV charging station installed at Home with a maximum of 7Kwh output so you still have to pay the $0.73c per Kwh to power your home, The cheapest cost of this instillation is around £800.00 which is about $1480.00 AUD.

LOL, But I have just thought of a workaround that little problem,

Just charge your car for cheap then use its V2L or V2H to power your appliances.

 

[user 23515]

The actual claims are that if you bought an EV from new it would take you 25 years of ownership for you to break even for it to be Carbon Nutural due to the amount of fossil fuels/Power used during the cost of production and the making of all the parts, But due to how so many people just Blast the Batteries with fast charging adding to early failure you end up having to buy new batteries and the cost of production of those sets you back even more years to becoming Carbon Nutural adding another 5 or 10 years to the Original Target of 25 years.

Most sources will suggest that while it is difficult to be precise calculating the break even point regarding carbon emmisions, is probably around 20, 000 to 30,000 km. So in Australia that would a time range of months to a couple of years.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Most sources will suggest that while it is difficult to be precise calculating the break even point regarding carbon emmisions, is probably around 20, 000 to 30,000 km. So in Australia that would a time range of months to a couple of years.

No, I am not talking about personal carbon Nutural Targets, I am talking about the cost in terms of CO2 to produce the Vehicle it's self, Remembering that The Steel / Metals have to produced and smelted and then Cast into individual Parts, Copper and other Ores have to be dug up and crushed and melted in the production of all the miles of Copper Wire, then there is all the silcone Chips that has to be mined and processed to make the Chips, And the same for the Lithium that has to be mined to produce the Lithium Batteries, Along with the Wheels and Tyres and Brake Pads and Rotors etc and the List goes On.

Then you have to include to CO2 caused by the production of Electricity being made by the fossel fuels in order to produce that Same Electricity that EV Owners pump in to their EV every time they Recharge their EV Car.

I have nothing against EV's personally, Except the lack of Mileage they have, But owning an EV might give someone a warm fizzy feeling Knowing they are doing their bit to save the planet but where that all goes wrong is in reality all they are doing is moving the CO2 from one place to another, EV's might lower the CO2 Levels in a City but the more power they use Adds to the CO2 levels that the power companies produce by having to produce more Power and the more EV's they produce and Sell adds to the CO2 levels because of all of the above.

EV's are fine but the costs in terms of CO2 when it comes to the levels of Production are twice that and more than it is for the ULP / Diesel counterparts. EV's are a great Idea but the cost in terms of CO2 is about Geography moving the CO2 from one place to another.

One major con about EV's is when they quote the mileage figure stating that a certain Vehicle can do 327 miles per charge, But driven under road conditions that same 327 miles turns in to between 170 to 225 miles +/-. The figures they quote are produced on either a Rolling Roads where there is no such thing as wind resistance or weather conditions or traffic and the like, Where as when I bought my Van the hand book quotes various figures quoting 57.6 to 64.2mpg OR 4.4L per 100Ks, So far I have managed to achieve 63.9mpg which is half a K short of what the manual says, and I average 55.6 to 58mpg in the City. That is a huge differance in terms of loss compared to what EV munufaturers claim their vehicles can do compared to the actual distance that the EV's can produce. which means they are coming up short by around 35 - 40% and if you Tow with one the extra weight etc is going to cost you upwards of 50%++ of the quoted figures.

It's not perfect by any means and EV's and Gas Guzzlers both have their draw backs but what is important is that a person knows what they are getting in to and know that an EV is no silver bullet and like Toyota Vs Nissan what ever a person buys is a personal thing and if they are happy with their choice then good on em.

 

[user 23515]

No, I am not talking about personal carbon Nutural Targets, I am talking about the cost in terms of CO2 to produce the Vehicle it's sel

Carbon break even point takes into account all of the C every step of the way from manufacture onwards so we are referring to the same thing. To come up with 25 years, I assume you are referring to a car that is being charged by 100% electricity from coal and only driving 3,000km per year.
From driving my EV, 100% of the WLTP range of an EV is very achievable. If I drive at 110 to 120 km on rolling hills it drops to 75% of the WLTP range. Mixed driving I get around 95% of the WLTP (lights and AC on). The electricity comes from my roof mostly.
I will leave out comment on the rest of your post or any future efforts.
I would strongly suggest any readers do their own research if considering an EV and talk to a few owners if possible.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Carbon break even point takes into account all of the C every step of the way from manufacture onwards so we are referring to the same thing. To come up with 25 years, I assume you are referring to a car that is being charged by 100% electricity from coal and only driving 3,000km per year.
From driving my EV, 100% of the WLTP range of an EV is very achievable. If I drive at 110 to 120 km on rolling hills it drops to 75% of the WLTP range. Mixed driving I get around 95% of the WLTP (lights and AC on). The electricity comes from my roof mostly.
I will leave out comment on the rest of your post or any future efforts.
I would strongly suggest any readers do their own research if considering an EV and talk to a few owners if possible.

Exactly which EV have you Got ??

I have also looked in to it And I have also seen many motoring reports where the took 10 differant EV's, But I would like an EV van as soon as they make one with a long enough range, The are getting better and better so they can't be far away,

 

[Nightjar]

Meanwhile, in reality just one of the wars raging around the world. If the world could be at peace and EV's do as is forecast we could achieve a reduction?
Astronomic carbon footprint Russian/Ukraine war.
Notably, the war has an extremely large carbon footprint. Ukraine estimates the emissions from Russia's invasion to be roughly around 33 million tonnes of CO2 from the conflict and 23 million tonnes CO2 from fires caused by the conflict.