When the power goes out

[tanner0441]

HI

You're talking as someone who uderstands battery use. I had customers that wondered why the shiny new battery they paid so much for last year, after their boat had been out of the water for winter storage who didn't want to pay for shore power hook up wouldn't start their engines because the batteries hadn't been used. So they had to buy more shiny new batteries. Only one customer removed his batteries and used them on his companies vehicles over the winter.

Electric vehicles if you live in a tower block 15 floors 3 appartments per floor one car per household 30Kw charging point each that is 1.3Mw not counting the power the building needs and in the UK bottled or mains fed gas is not allowed in high rise dwellings. If every one has an electric car we will never need snow clearance the underground cables will warm the roads up. I aggree with Chris on this one. In the UK they are talking a lot about hydrogen until you find the energy density isn't any where near current fuels.

Makes a good topic for discussion though. especially with polititions who specify it and don't have to implement it.


Brian

[JW]

One thing about most inverters they will shutdown at 11 volts

[ChrisOlson]

Batteries are ideal for silent night time operation where loads are absolutely minimal, or for just covering a few hours while the power utility resets whatever had tripped.

We got one of those little Honda EU2000's. It's an older one but for light loads it just idles running a few lights or the freezer. As load increases it speeds up. But running at about 500 watts load you can stand by it and talking in normal tones is louder than the generator. And it runs for 8 hours on a gallon of gas.

In the summer when we have the boat docked, I carry it down to the dock and plug the onboard charger that charges our 24V bank in the boat into the little generator. I leave it running all night to charge the batteries in the boat. Sitting on the deck on the house relaxing for the evening, with the generator running down on the dock, can't even hear it 120 feet away.

[ChrisOlson]

In the UK they are talking a lot about hydrogen until you find the energy density isn't any where near current fuels.

Hydrogen isn't very practical either. Costs too much to make it.

Here in the US we use a lot of ethanol. It is about 10% of all the motor fuel gasoline used. The US produces more than we use - in 2021 US farmers exported 1.24 billion gallons of ethanol to 88 countries on six continents. The single largest importer of US ethanol is Germany.

Here in the midwest we can get E85, which varies in the blend by time of year. In winter it's usually 50% ethanol, 50% gasoline. In summer it's 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline. We burn it in our RAM 1500 pickups, they are Flex Fuel capable. We have 395hp Hemi's in our pickups, on regular E10 gas they get about 21 mpg. On E85 they get about 19 mpg. Pure ethanol has a pump octane of 108 so modern Flex Fuel engines can run significantly more timing advance on E85 than they can on E10. On E85 the horsepower is bumped up to 420hp too.

Emissions-wise, the only emissions from ethanol is CO, CO2 and water vapor. There is no HC or NOx emissions. Ethanol is hydrogen, carbon and oxygen molecules. At the ethanol plant, the last time I was there, I seen that they have big liquid CO2 tanks there. I asked one of the guys what those are for?

The ethanol plants are farmer-owned cooperatives. One of their farmer-owners, who is also an engineer and chemist came up with it. In the still they have heat and water vapor. The still is fired by natural gas. They put a CO2 scrubber in the exhaust on the still, capture the CO2, compress it and liquify it. In the presence of an electric field in the vapor, feed carbon into it and you get alcohol. All you need is a carbon source. That's what they use the CO2 for. They put a big electric grid in there to create the field, feed the CO2 in and get the alcohol. It improves the yield of the still by 80%. All the plants got it now. The farmer that invented it is a billionaire.

It is pretty cool technology - pull CO2 out of the air and make fuel with it.

[ChrisOlson]

In my opinion, nuclear power is under-used. Previous Mars rovers were all solar powered. But the amount of power available is very low with solar and they have all gone weeks of inactivity waiting to get enough power to resume exploring the planet. The latest one that landed a year ago is nuclear powered. It has a RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). 10.6 lbs of plutonium will power it for 14 years and it's a 2,200 lb vehicle with computers, cameras, radios, propulsion motors, and a built-in remote control science lab.

The technology exists to make nuclear powered cars. The US Navy has been powering ships and submarines with nuclear power since 1955. A modern aircraft carrier requires about the same power as a city of 800,000 people. The reactors aboard a Nimitz-class carrier produce 450MW of power, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for 20 years before they need to be refueled. Once these ships are brought online and commissioned they are never shut down, even when docked for re-provisioning. The amount of power it takes to push an 1,100ft 102,000 ton ship at 35kts is astronomical and can only be achieved in any practical sense with nuclear power.

Nuclear IS the power source of the future. It's been powering this planet with the big fusion reactor in the sky for billions of years. It's just that humans haven't learned how to responsibility control it yet.

[Mary B]

That is pretty much why I never bother with Ham Radio these days. 
Any child can instantly call his friend half way around the world on his mobile phone, its all just too easy.

I can remember when just booking ahead for an interstate telephone call through several manual telephone switchboards was a really big deal.

You need to look back into ham radio, with all the new digital modes including KB to KB chat modes(PSK31...) it is coming back.

I bounce signals off the moon on 2 meters, and adding that capability on 70cm and 23cm this summer/fall... new WSJT modes are setting records for low power moonbounce comms, someone recently made a contact with 50 watts and a single yagi on 23cm! And they had a 50% signal strength loss because the other station was circular polarization. Other station was a 12' dish running 600 watts. Similar records are being set on other bands.

I run four 20' long 2 meter yagis on an H frame and 750 watts and recently worked an Australian station that was running a single yagi and 200 watts, his signal strength at my station was -28db! Yes way below the noise floor and way below what the human ear can decode. Digital mode was Q65 60A a fairly new mode in the last year or so. These modes use limited data transfer just to make the contact, they are not a rag chew mode!

23cm EME stations often chat on SSB! The bigger ones on 70cm do it too. My small 2.1 meter dish on 23cm will have ~ 28db gain! My 2m antennas only have 19db gain so the higher you go in frequency the greater the gain and the easier it is to make a voice contact BUT after 23cm generating transmit power gets very very expensive. Even on 23cm it is not cheap, my 550 watt amplifier was $3300!!!

I enjoy building stuff and EME is a builders hobby, not a lot of off the shelf parts for some bands.

[ChrisOlson]

I agree with Mary. Lots of ham operators like ham radio just for the experimentation aspect. I too like the weak signal digital modes, although on HF, don't even own a VHF rig. Well, shouldn't say don't own one - I got one someplace but it got lost in a box during our move to the new house and wife hasn't found it yet even though that was two years ago. I have high suspicions that that box was one that my wife took to the Goodwill place 

[ChrisOlson]

Electric vehicles if you live in a tower block 15 floors 3 appartments per floor one car per household 30Kw charging point each that is 1.3Mw not counting the power the building needs

Yes indeed it is, and this is what I don't fully understand about the push for electric vehicles. For a Tesla car, for instance, if you plug into a 120V outlet it maxes the circuit out at 20 amps and only charges the battery in the car 1.5 miles of range per hour. That's 2.4 KWh consumed to go 1.5 miles. That is worse "mileage" than a comparable gas car that gets 25 mpg. At 33 KWh contained in a gallon of gas, the gas car only consumes 1.98 KWh to go 1.5 miles.

If you put in the "fast charger" it requires an 80 amp service @ 240V, or 19.2 KW to charge your electric Tesla. And this big charger will charge the battery adding 12 miles of range per hour of charging time. It is called the "Level 2" charger.

If you get the "Level 3" charger, this one is 480V three-phase @ 300 amps, or 144KW. It charges the battery adding 90 miles of range per hour of charging time.

The electric car is less energy efficient than gasoline, costs more operate, it is not "zero emissions" and how many of you have a 480V three-phase 300A service in your house to be able to charge the car up in three hours? Add to that in cold weather in the northern latitudes at 0F your lithium battery only has 70% of the capacity it has at 59F. Over half of that has to be used to heat the interior of the car and defrost windows unless you want to drive around in a snowmobile suit.

Not sure how they can bend the facts on electric vehicles and people believe it. Of course, they bend the facts on home wind turbines too, and people believe that. People are gullible. But electric vehicles are a non-starter from a practicality standpoint.

[bigrockcandymountain]

Most specs i see are in the 5km per kwh range.  I also see lots of people that can make good use of an electric car.  Most of those people are suburban commuters with say a 20km commute one way.  That's 8 kwh a day, which is easily charged at home. 

Winter time would double that, but still be practical. 

[Bruce S]

ChrisO;
While pure EVs do currently have a much much slower re-fueling time.
Saying they are less efficient is not true, unless you have proof and wish to share your notes.
Gas/Diesel cars have a ton more parts that will need maintenance than any Electric I've seen (this includes the 3-wheelers and mini-units coming over in tankers from China that cost just as much to have them shipped to your doorstep as they do to buy.
This doesn't even count the fact that I can pull off the line faster than any of the new so-called muscle cars.
Need to drive over 300 miles a day, go with gas/diesel for now, unless you opt for the new Aptera that will get you over 1000mi (which means we could head to Myrtle Beach) on a single charge, but it'll also set you back ~50K.
 
There's tons of opinions about which way to go, there's good and bad in each one.

[ChrisOlson]

Saying they are less efficient is not true, unless you have proof and wish to share your notes.
Gas/Diesel cars have a ton more parts that will need maintenance than any Electric I've seen

Bruce, only the electric motor is more efficient. The rest of the system, from where the power comes from, losses in lines and transformers, losses in the charger, losses in the inverter and battery - is less efficient than combustion engine by a pretty large margin.

As far as maintenance? They always advertise new stuff. Lithium batteries lose capacity not only with charge cycles, but also with age. One cell goes bad, you are out a battery. As they lose capacity they become increasingly inefficient to charge. And the batteries don't last near as long as a combustion engine in a car. Wait until you get the bill to replace the battery in your Tesla.

Edit:
The invoice is hard to read, I just scanned it. But yeah, $16,550 to replace the battery in a Tesla Model 3 because it had a cell fail just out of warranty and the charger refused to charge it anymore. The cell expanded and burst - lucky it didn't burn the garage down. The car was totally worthless with a bad battery in it - couldn't even give it away. Do you know how much gas I can buy for $16,500? Over 4,000 gallons, which would power a conventional car that gets 25 mpg over 100,000 miles. So now you're out not only the cost of the electricity to charge it, which is about the same price as gas, you're out a $16,500 battery in a 5 year old car with 47,000 miles on it. Don't ask me how I know, but after the paying the bill, I just do. It was our daughter's car, and she HAD to have a Tesla after she got out of college. At least until she came to mom and dad to pay to fix it. And that was just for one module. The car has four of 'em and now she's got problems with the other three modules that have aged and lost capacity and they're telling her she needs to put the other three in at a cost of $40,000.

It's no different than an off-grid battery bank in a string. One goes bad, you have to replace 'em all or they'll never balance.

If you want to believe the sales propaganda, go for it.

[tanner0441]

Hi

A friend of mine enquired about a Renault EV and if you don't have (UK) 440V 3 phase you can't have any form of quick charging at home  around 15Kw on a standard domestic 240V supply. Quick charging seems to be 30 to 50Kw, Mercedes are talking about 100Kw charging. That is industrial power levels. I don't see how charging at those levels the batteries aren't melting.

We so far only seem to have E10 at the pumps, and years ago I race tuned a 1 ltr enginge and ran it on Methanol yes 98 BHP at the crank  at 6800RPM but  only 8 MPG on the road and our gallons are 4.5 ltrs

Brian

[tanner0441]

Ouch. I'm sticking with petrol.

Bran

[Warpspeed]

You need to look back into ham radio, with all the new digital modes including KB to KB chat modes(PSK31...) it is coming back.
I enjoy building stuff and EME is a builders hobby, not a lot of off the shelf parts for some bands.

Have to agree on the building part, that holds far more interest to me than just rag chewing on twenty metres on commercial equipment. Still have all my old Yeasu HF gear, and a 1.5Kw tube linear. No antennas here though, where I am now.
I was probably the first to have two way QSO from the Antarctic on six metres when the band opened up unexpectedly for a couple of hours.  But apart from that I have too many other interests these days.

If a big EMP wipes out civilization, I might think about getting back on the air with a simple tube type CW rig. That should be quite possible.

[ChrisOlson]

A friend of mine enquired about a Renault EV and if you don't have (UK) 440V 3 phase you can't have any form of quick charging at home  around 15Kw on a standard domestic 240V supply. Quick charging seems to be 30 to 50Kw, Mercedes are talking about 100Kw charging. That is industrial power levels. I don't see how charging at those levels the batteries aren't melting.

Those quick-charging stations use the big Level 3 (for the Tesla) chargers. But there's a downside to using those too. They wreck cells charging at C/2 and cause you to have a $16,500 battery repair, and it's not covered under warranty. Don't ask me how I know.

The Tesla Level 2 charger for at home is a 19KW unit. But a 200A residential service will not handle 80 amps continuous on one circuit for more than a couple hours, and that charger is incredibly expensive to run once you get your electric bill, especially in California where our daughter lives. Don't ask me how about that either. That's just based on the $500 checks that my wife sends to our daughter when she calls up and says she don't have enough money to charge the car to get to work because her electric bill is $600. It's always, "can I borrow $500 this month from you and dad to pay my electric bill?" "Borrow" - yeah, right - more like a monthly contribution to Southern California Edison.

[mab]

Electric vehicles if you live in a tower block 15 floors 3 appartments per floor one car per household 30Kw charging point each that is 1.3Mw not counting the power the building needs

Yes indeed it is, and this is what I don't fully understand about the push for electric vehicles. For a Tesla car, for instance, if you plug into a 120V outlet it maxes the circuit out at 20 amps and only charges the battery in the car 1.5 miles of range per hour. That's 2.4 KWh consumed to go 1.5 miles. That is worse "mileage" than a comparable gas car that gets 25 mpg. At 33 KWh contained in a gallon of gas, the gas car only consumes 1.98 KWh to go 1.5 miles.

wrong: tesla model 3 long range AWD EPA figures are 251 Wh/mile - ie about 4 miles per kWh. Other ev's with smaller batteries and lower performance can do better

If you put in the "fast charger" it requires an 80 amp service @ 240V, or 19.2 KW to charge your electric Tesla. And this big charger will charge the battery adding 12 miles of range per hour of charging time. It is called the "Level 2" charger.

If you get the "Level 3" charger, this one is 480V three-phase @ 300 amps, or 144KW. It charges the battery adding 90 miles of range per hour of charging time.

The electric car is less energy efficient than gasoline, costs more operate, it is not "zero emissions" and how many of you have a 480V three-phase 300A service in your house to be able to charge the car up in three hours? Add to that in cold weather in the northern latitudes at 0F your lithium battery only has 70% of the capacity it has at 59F. Over half of that has to be used to heat the interior of the car and defrost windows unless you want to drive around in a snowmobile suit.

if the electric vehicle is so inefficent, how come it doesn't produce enough wast heat to heat the cab or defrost the windows? Ev's are better than 70% efficient; the best ICE cars are about 40% efficient ( but all that wasted energy does heat the cab nicely in the winter  )

Not sure how they can bend the facts on electric vehicles and people believe it. Of course, they bend the facts on home wind turbines too, and people believe that. People are gullible. But electric vehicles are a non-starter from a practicality standpoint.

pot calling the kettle - you seem to have bent a lot of facts yourself.

As for practically: an ev isn't suitable for every circumstance; if you need a 'supercharger' at home then an ev probably isn't for you; but many folks are fine with a 'granny' charger working overnight even if they use most of their battery capacity every day, but many only use a fraction of their mileage range in daily use and for them an ev can be a very good option.

[ChrisOlson]

Ouch. I'm sticking with petrol.

The thing that amazes me is that people here should be 100% familiar with the downfalls of off-grid power systems using batteries. They are what makes off-grid power so expensive compared to utility power.

And yet these same people will go for the EV sales propaganda hook line and sinker - for vehicles that use some of the most expensive consumer batteries known to man. Doesn't make sense.

wrong: tesla model 3 long range AWD EPA figures are 251 Wh/mile - ie about 4 miles per kWh. Other ev's with smaller batteries and lower performance can do better

Try to tell that to somebody that owns one and drives it on California freeways at 80 mph going to work every day. They don't get even CLOSE to the advertised energy economy (or range) in normal driving. Plus what they claim for vehicle electric efficiency vs efficiency at the charger on the wall and what you get out of it on the road is two different things.

Edit:
Ever seen a Tesla Level 2 charger in person? If you're in a cold climate you can heat your garage with one, plus the heat output of the battery when it's charging. The charger cable has thermocouples on it that reduce the charger's power to prevent overheating the cables.

[mab]

Saying they are less efficient is not true, unless you have proof and wish to share your notes.
Gas/Diesel cars have a ton more parts that will need maintenance than any Electric I've seen

Bruce, only the electric motor is more efficient. The rest of the system, from where the power comes from, losses in lines and transformers, losses in the charger, losses in the inverter and battery - is less efficient than combustion engine by a pretty large margin.

wrong again (refer to figures in prevoius post) : also you counting transmission losses for ev's whilst assuming that gasoline appears in you car without 'transmission losses'; how much energy is spent on getting the oil out of the ground ( or seabed)?  Then shipping / pumping to the refinery, the energy (and environmental) cost for producing gasoline, then transportation to the gas station where you fill up.

As far as maintenance? They always advertise new stuff. Lithium batteries lose capacity not only with charge cycles, but also with age. One cell goes bad, you are out a battery. As they lose capacity they become increasingly inefficient to charge. And the batteries don't last near as long as a combustion engine in a car. Wait until you get the bill to replace the battery in your Tesla.

Edit:
The invoice is hard to read, I just scanned it. But yeah, $16,550 to replace the battery in a Tesla Model 3 because it had a cell fail just out of warranty and the charger refused to charge it anymore. The cell expanded and burst - lucky it didn't burn the garage down. The car was totally worthless with a bad battery in it - couldn't even give it away. Do you know how much gas I can buy for $16,500? Over 4,000 gallons, which would power a conventional car that gets 25 mpg over 100,000 miles. So now you're out not only the cost of the electricity to charge it, which is about the same price as gas, you're out a $16,500 battery in a 5 year old car with 47,000 miles on it. Don't ask me how I know, but after the paying the bill, I just do. It was our daughter's car, and she HAD to have a Tesla after she got out of college. At least until she came to mom and dad to pay to fix it. And that was just for one module. The car has four of 'em and now she's got problems with the other three modules that have aged and lost capacity and they're telling her she needs to put the other three in at a cost of $40,000.

well that is unfortunate,  but then again,  i know someone whose BMW just ground out its big end bearings at just 100,000 miles with a full BMW service history - he learned that there are quite a few that have suffered a similar failure. Battery cars are still a new and developing technology so one would expect some premature failures - I'm not sure what BMWs excuse is.

With some evs it is practical to swap out a failed cell - although there are still relatively few vehicle technicians who are up to the task

It's no different than an off-grid battery bank in a string. One goes bad, you have to replace 'em all or they'll never balance.

Actually that's not strickly true for lithium with a BMS - it's more down to how difficult the manufacturer has made it to dismantle and reassemble the battery

If you want to believe the sales propaganda, go for it.

[mab]

Ouch. I'm sticking with petrol.

The thing that amazes me is that people here should be 100% familiar with the downfalls of off-grid power systems using batteries. They are what makes off-grid power so expensive compared to utility power.

And yet these same people will go for the EV sales propaganda hook line and sinker - for vehicles that use some of the most expensive consumer batteries known to man. Doesn't make sense.

wrong: tesla model 3 long range AWD EPA figures are 251 Wh/mile - ie about 4 miles per kWh. Other ev's with smaller batteries and lower performance can do better

Try to tell that to somebody that owns one and drives it on California freeways at 80 mph going to work every day. They don't get even CLOSE to the advertised energy economy (or range) in normal driving. Plus what they claim for vehicle electric efficiency vs efficiency at the charger on the wall and what you get out of it on the road is two different things.

like i said: evs won't suit every circumstance: if you live somewhere where it gets very hot or very cold you may well run into lithium battery issues - they don't like <0 celcius or >40 celcius.

Edit:
Ever seen a Tesla Level 2 charger in person? If you're in a cold climate you can heat your garage with one, plus the heat output of the battery when it's charging. The charger cable has thermocouples on it that reduce the charger's power to prevent overheating the cables.

again, i refer to my previous comments about appropriate use of evs: if you need to use a rapid charger daily then an ev might not be your best choice, especially if you live somewhere hot. By definition, rapid charging is less efficient and does the battery no favours. You don't take a knife to a gunfight, but that doesn't mean that knives are  no use for anything - I've never had much success making a salad with a shotgun.

[dnix71]

I used to eat breakfast at a Burger King with a German man who owned a Tesla as a second car. If he speed charged it he could watch the battery life decay. And he couldn't even go from Fort Lauderdale to Daytona Beach on one charge. If there is a hurricane the Tesla would have to be abandoned in favor of an ICE car to even escape Florida. My 1995 Toyota Corolla gets 35mpg on the highway. With the 12 gallon tank, that's enough to get me to Valdosta or Savannah on one tank.

[Warpspeed]

Not only that,
But your Toyota will accelerate just as fast on the very last quarter gallon, as on a completely full tank.
A battery car potentially gets slower and slower and slower.

[ChrisOlson]

again, i refer to my previous comments about appropriate use of evs: if you need to use a rapid charger daily then an ev might not be your best choice, especially if you live somewhere hot. By definition, rapid charging is less efficient and does the battery no favours

Like I said, if you believe in EV's, then go buy one. You're the one that has to pay for it. I'm just telling you about our daughter's experience, with real world figures, owning a 2017 Tesla Model 3. She drives 90 miles a day to work and back. And this is pretty typical for somebody that lives in the suburbs and works the high-tech job in the big city. She uses just about a full "tank" of electricity every day, 5 days a week, to get to work and back. She has to charge it up every single day or she can't make it on the second day. They advertise like 220 miles on a charge? Not even CLOSE in what is her normal everyday commute. It costs her $300/month in electricity to get back and forth to work.

Previous, she had a Chevy Equinox that got 29 mpg. She used to fill it up once a week at a cost of about $90. Everything is expensive in California, including gas. She believed all the sales propaganda and she HAD to have that Tesla because it was going to save her big money on gas getting to work. It's all the rage with the yuppies in California. Now she can't get rid of it because she's got payments on it and it was one of the most expensive huge mistakes she's ever made.

So like I said - go for it. Doesn't hurt to learn that real world is a completely different thing from advertising.

[mab]

Ha ha! Fair enough; i have to concede that i can't afford to    their prices are too high, and i need a vehicle that can occasionally tow a trailer - AFAIK the Tesla model 3 is the only ev that's rated to tow a trailer in the UK, and i definitely can't afford one of them.

I probably will get one - if the price is right. I did offer £1000 for one that had an electrical fault, but the owner hasn't taken me up on the offer - yet.

All I'm saying is don't exaggerate the shortcomings of evs; yes they have shortcomings and limitations,  but they are more energy efficient, and cleaner- as long as the grid they charge from has a good portion of clean energy.

I'm sorry to hear of your daughters experience - but there are a lot of people who are very happy with their ev's, and they are still selling like hot cakes, new and used - that's why I can't afford one.

[JW]

These current EVs operate will operate with like 600v from the traction system. I was a member of SAE and was able to see there patent.

Believe or not I have patent for low voltage traction engines. We will use carbon auto batteries not lead acid. There just to heavy.           

[ChrisOlson]

I'm sorry to hear of your daughters experience - but there are a lot of people who are very happy with their ev's, and they are still selling like hot cakes, new and used - that's why I can't afford one.

They're popular with the jetset, luxury yacht and yuppie crowd as the "in" status symbol toy. I believe we told our daughter she couldn't afford one but she had to have it anyway. I guess that's how 30 year old "kids" learn that advertising is a legalized form of deception, including the EV companies that get government subsidies to sell their product, and the politicians that create those subsidies owning stock in the companies that produce the product.

You can believe in the claimed efficiency and "zero emissions" claims - that's how they sell it. That's marketing. In engineering in producing and consuming energy there is no free lunch.

[JW]

 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8261575B1/en?oq=US+8261575+

[electrondady1]

now that Elon owns Twitter more information will come out about Tesla automobile

[Bruce S]

To the OP of this thread. Thanks for not asking the rest of us to get back on track  .
Tesla, yea,,, not my thing, way to much cost for my pocket book,,, and they detract from other EVs & hybrids, heck even GM & China have one that's kicked all but Tesla out of the top selling in China (Tesla is seen as a status symbol there)
A fellow IT'r owns not just 1 but a total of 3 Tesla vehicles; all three models I think, and all charged from his powerwall bank that gets it's charge from his banks of solar panels. He has yet to have any issues and I'm always asking.
I own a hybrid and don't think I'll go back to a pure ICE not when I constantly get better than 45mpg with the A/C or toaster on.
I am awaiting my turn (delivery) for a pure EV, yes the Aptera which I can get for around 30G_USD and will get me to and from work without ever plugging it in way past the day I decide to retire. I even like it's ability to become a camper for a "slight" additional charge.
As a note: I've already helped rebuild a battery bank for several EVs that popped a bad cell wasn't that hard, took longer to get the buggers out than to replace the cell, test, balance check and reinstall ( the first one being an older Camry that is still running).
Let us not forget, while Li-based units are getting most of the attention these days NiMH are still doing just fine and still holds the market share in Hybrids and lesser known mini-EVs.
I also still do and teach how to process nasty-a$$ed grease into burnable bio-fuel. I also know I can easily buy a V10 Chrysler rust-bucket for less than 2G_USD that would get a whopping 10m/gal, which would end up costing me a bit of time and lye to fuel it.

 

[Mary B]

Electric vehicles if you live in a tower block 15 floors 3 appartments per floor one car per household 30Kw charging point each that is 1.3Mw not counting the power the building needs

Yes indeed it is, and this is what I don't fully understand about the push for electric vehicles. For a Tesla car, for instance, if you plug into a 120V outlet it maxes the circuit out at 20 amps and only charges the battery in the car 1.5 miles of range per hour. That's 2.4 KWh consumed to go 1.5 miles. That is worse "mileage" than a comparable gas car that gets 25 mpg. At 33 KWh contained in a gallon of gas, the gas car only consumes 1.98 KWh to go 1.5 miles.

wrong: tesla model 3 long range AWD EPA figures are 251 Wh/mile - ie about 4 miles per kWh. Other ev's with smaller batteries and lower performance can do better

If you put in the "fast charger" it requires an 80 amp service @ 240V, or 19.2 KW to charge your electric Tesla. And this big charger will charge the battery adding 12 miles of range per hour of charging time. It is called the "Level 2" charger.

If you get the "Level 3" charger, this one is 480V three-phase @ 300 amps, or 144KW. It charges the battery adding 90 miles of range per hour of charging time.

The electric car is less energy efficient than gasoline, costs more operate, it is not "zero emissions" and how many of you have a 480V three-phase 300A service in your house to be able to charge the car up in three hours? Add to that in cold weather in the northern latitudes at 0F your lithium battery only has 70% of the capacity it has at 59F. Over half of that has to be used to heat the interior of the car and defrost windows unless you want to drive around in a snowmobile suit.

if the electric vehicle is so inefficent, how come it doesn't produce enough wast heat to heat the cab or defrost the windows? Ev's are better than 70% efficient; the best ICE cars are about 40% efficient ( but all that wasted energy does heat the cab nicely in the winter  )

Not sure how they can bend the facts on electric vehicles and people believe it. Of course, they bend the facts on home wind turbines too, and people believe that. People are gullible. But electric vehicles are a non-starter from a practicality standpoint.

pot calling the kettle - you seem to have bent a lot of facts yourself.

As for practically: an ev isn't suitable for every circumstance; if you need a 'supercharger' at home then an ev probably isn't for you; but many folks are fine with a 'granny' charger working overnight even if they use most of their battery capacity every day, but many only use a fraction of their mileage range in daily use and for them an ev can be a very good option.

Huge problem is battery cost to replace when it dies at 40k-50k miles... that battery costs MORE than my SUV cost me when I bought it used, 3 years old, 15,500 miles on it.

My average trip is 60 miles, that is a trip to the doc, get groceries etc. A Tesla in MN winter couldn't handle it when temps are -20f... 50+% of battery life is lost due to cold, another 50% is lost to the cabin heater. So that 250 mile range is now 62.5 miles and borderline for my use in winter. No chargers available in the towns I go to.

Electric grid here in town is already over loaded and fails when someone farts... add 100 electric cars and it melts down and dies.

[tanner0441]

Hi

I'm a boring old fart who when I watch TV I tend to watch documentories. The first electric vehicles were produced in 1908 and aimed at women because they couldn't use a cranking handle. They did up to 100 miles at 12 MPH. Then the starter motor was invented and good old Henry started producing Fords with electric start which killed the electric vehicle sales. The Fords were faster, more comfortable and had a greater range.. Sounds familiar.

Brian.

[OperaHouse]

Getting back to when the power goes out.....

In the summer I live on a street with only about 15 houses, five of them have propane backup generators which seems like a lot for a fairly urban location. I am always amazed on how little energy I live on.  It is camp living although I don't feel I am sacrificing much.  Everything is PV except the stove. I have hot water, refrigeration, dishwasher with heated dry, large LG clothes washer and that washer has its own hot water tank and all cycles use hot water.  I do this with just a car battery from a vehicle I don't bring with me.  The basics even work with a couple days of rain.  And my battery has to be full in the evening to run some stuff to keep me alive.  The system didn't cost me much more than my wife's wine bill for a couple of summers. The wine club keeps reminding me of how much has spent over the years.

I compare that to home where my utility bill tells me I am using more power than my typical neighbor.  I like that close connection to power when I generate it.  Having to schedule use isn't that bad and it is nice to know that I can survive If I have to.  Not to bring up Tesla, but I am thinking of buying an EV just so I can run air conditioning in the summer. My home and garage can not be spotted from google earth and some of my panels are not even on my property.  Fortunately, EC charging stations are about on every corner. I can charge up for the night when grocery shopping. Cost really isn't an issue. It really pissed ne off when Will Prouse said on a video he had had four Tesla and I hadn't had any!

[MattM]

Hybrids IMHO are over-priced but much more practical.

I think too many cars are over-engineered, too.  My wife wanted a Tahoe but settled on an Arcadia.  The annual miles are > 20k.  She gets about 25 mpg how she drives.  I take the same trip and get 35 mpg in her vehicle.  The engine encourages her plumbum footwork, whereas I purposely drive for efficiency.  Until they train people how to be efficient its all lip service.

[Mary B]

Hybrids IMHO are over-priced but much more practical.

I think too many cars are over-engineered, too.  My wife wanted a Tahoe but settled on an Arcadia.  The annual miles are > 20k.  She gets about 25 mpg how she drives.  I take the same trip and get 35 mpg in her vehicle.  The engine encourages her plumbum footwork, whereas I purposely drive for efficiency.  Until they train people how to be efficient its all lip service.

Horsepower is there to be used LOL