Electric Car Challenges

[Tom Bender]

Here's my concern

If I don't own a parking spot because I live in an apartment I can't charge my car while I'm home.

Can I use a public charger? Well my car needs a couple hours charge every day or two. I'm not going to sit there and wait. I'm going to work or sleep or otherwise get on with my life. Now that charger is unavailable to anyone else. To install a lot of them in a sizable parking lot is going to be expensive and require a big power feed to the site.

[John Lanciani]

Until there are generic easily swappable batteries EVs will continue to be a niche. My vision is a standardized battery that can be replaced in just a few minutes by a robot and is leased from an energy provider. This would solve most of the hurdles to EV.

[Jim Matthews]

Is this your living situation, or just a hypothetical concern? 80% in 54 minutes from a DC charger.

https://www.chargepoint.com/

Buggy whip makers said much the same.

[John Lanciani]

Is this your living situation, or just a hypothetical concern? 80% in 54 minutes from a DC charger.

https://www.chargepoint.com/

Buggy whip makers said much the same.

So to put some perspective on that; I work for an electric utility in MA and we are working on securing a grant to install a level 3 DC fast charger. Just the cost of the charger from charge point is in excess of $50,000. On top of that is the infrastructure and installation cost. That's a lot of buggy whips...

[Doug Dawson]

Here's my concern

If I don't own a parking spot because I live in an apartment I can't charge my car while I'm home.

Can I use a public charger? Well my car needs a couple hours charge every day or two. I'm not going to sit there and wait. I'm going to work or sleep or otherwise get on with my life. Now that charger is unavailable to anyone else. To install a lot of them in a sizable parking lot is going to be expensive and require a big power feed to the site.
At what point did apartment or condo complexes start phasing out hitching posts and put in striping for a parking lot? Or commercial establishments for that matter?

[Jim Matthews]

So to put some perspective on that; I work for an electric utility in MA and we are working on securing a grant to install a level 3 DC fast charger. Just the cost of the charger from charge point is in excess of $50,000. On top of that is the infrastructure and installation cost. That's a lot of buggy whips...

That's an appeal to authority. Perhaps you might be able to verify your assertions.

Meanwhile, Chargepoint compares favorably to the cost of outfitting a traditional gas pumping station.

https://smartchargeamerica.com/electric-car-chargers/commercial/chargepoint-express-250/

($41,000 for one - volume discounts available.)

Starting a gas station from an empty lot is a multimillion dollar proposition. Franchising from a legacy network approaches half a million USD.

https://www.profitableventure.com/cost-start-a-gas-station/

None of this addresses the issues raised by the OP.

456729

[John Lanciani]

That's an appeal to authority. Perhaps you might be able to verify your assertions.

Meanwhile, Chargepoint compares favorably to the cost of outfitting a traditional gas pumping station.

https://smartchargeamerica.com/electric-car-chargers/commercial/chargepoint-express-250/

($41,000 for one - volume discounts available.)

Starting a gas station from an empty lot is a multimillion dollar proposition. Franchising from a legacy network approaches half a million USD.

https://www.profitableventure.com/cost-start-a-gas-station/

None of this addresses the issues raised by the OP.

456729
OK, so use your price of $40k for a charger sitting on a pallet. Let's assume $20k for installation and infrastructure improvements. So $60k up and running to sell 65 kwh of electricity in an hour. At my utility that would be +/- $9 gross revenue and under $1 net profit. Pretty lousy investment, no?

ETA- Please don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in favor of EVs, but there are still some very expensive logistical hurdles to cross. The biggest being time to charge and cost of infrastructure, followed closely by electricity supply.

[Doug Garson]

I think the charging issue works both ways. While some, like Tom, may not have a convenient option, others can charge at home or work and never have to go out of their way to charge except on a trip and even then may be able to charge free at some destination. I'm sure there are a few people who never drive past a gas station in their normal routine and have to go out of their way to gas up.
John's numbers make it sound like installing a charging station doesn't make economic sense yet thousands of new charging stations are being added so someone thinks it's a good investment.

[Dan Friedrichs]

A simple 240V, 20A outlet is sufficient to get a reasonable rate of charge (e.g. 15 miles of charge in 1 hr of charging). The cost to install a 240V outlet is not anywhere near that of a fast charger. Employers and landlords are installing these as perks (as are hotels, campgrounds, coffee shops, etc...)

[Jim Matthews]

OK, so use your price of $40k for a charger sitting on a pallet. Let's assume $20k for installation and infrastructure improvements. So $60k up and running to sell 65 kwh of electricity in an hour.

Two things: your public utility is applying for a grant for this installation?

Will users pay the low rate your utility charges, or will there be an adjustment for convenience?

My home based charging (glorified 30 amp dryer outlet) costs me $.20 kWh. Most of the ChargeAmerica and ElectrifyAmerica kiosks charge a premium by the minute users are connected - to discourage "camping".

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/pricing/




At my utility that would be +/- $9 gross revenue and under $1 net profit. Pretty lousy investment, no?


I'm suspicious that your calculus is incomplete. Most of our fellow SMC readers are homeowners, and the objections raised have a whiff of sensationalism - rather than practical concerns.



ETA- Please don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in favor of EVs, but there are still some very expensive logistical hurdles to cross. The biggest being time to charge and cost of infrastructure, followed closely by electricity supply.

Time to charge isn't an issue for most owners, who charge at home. The OP provided a specific case, ignoring the fact that increasingly renters without a dedicated parking space don't own cars, at all.

https://www.naahq.org/news-publications/transformation-parking

[Jim Matthews]

A simple 240V, 20A outlet is sufficient to get a reasonable rate of charge (e.g. 15 miles of charge in 1 hr of charging). The cost to install a 240V outlet is not anywhere near that of a fast charger. Employers and landlords are installing these as perks (as are hotels, campgrounds, coffee shops, etc...)
Yup.

There seems alot of handwringing about non-existent EV drivers.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have stayed in several motels in the winter on skiing trips and the motel had plugs in the parking lot for engine block heaters.

[Thomas McCurnin]

China doesn't seem to have a problem with this and they have more people and more cars than we do. I spent nearly a month there in 2019 and visited three major urban areas and about 1,000 miles over the road in a car. Nearly 100% of the cars are electric. Larger trucks and buses are fuel based, but for average Joe, it is all electric.

[Mel Fulks]

The cars in China have to be electric....with any more pollution they wouldn’t be able to see well enough to drive.

[Mike Henderson]

My opinion is that EVs will sell first to people who own homes. They have the ability to charge overnight. Next will be renters who have dedicated parking spots, perhaps in the bottom of the building. Those will be provided with power outlets and those outlets will be metered and charged to the renter.

The last group will be renters who do not have dedicated parking spots and they will have to use public chargers. Depending on their employment, they may have access to charging at work.

Mike

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have to figure out how to reword this..

It came across all wrong.

We have 6 rental houses & they all will need some sort of (expensive) wiring done to make them EV friendly.

[Larry Frank]

The EV car issues are interesting and challenging. The last time I bought a car I looked at them. I was concerned due to the range in cold weather which is greatly reduced. In brutal cold weather, the range is short and takes significant power to heat the car.

I would also like to hear if they have the capability to recycle the batteries. The use of rechargeable batteries is greatly increasing and there is a need to safely and economically recycle them. It reminds me of the issues of trying to take care of spent nuclear fuel.

[Tom Bender]

China doesn't seem to have a problem with this and they have more people and more cars than we do. I spent nearly a month there in 2019 and visited three major urban areas and about 1,000 miles over the road in a car. Nearly 100% of the cars are electric. Larger trucks and buses are fuel based, but for average Joe, it is all electric.

This is interesting, how are these cars charged?

[roger wiegand]

Swappable batteries seems like a relatively simple and stunningly obvious solution.

My son's company does a lot of Tesla charger installations, mostly in older homes. Cost runs $2500-3000 installed assuming the service panel is adequate. These would surely be adequate in an apartment situation where cars are parked overnight. The per unit cost would go down if you were installing a coupe dozen of them, but might well require a service upgrade.

We spent the equivalent of $530 billion (not including the Big Dig or the new Bay Bridge, I'm guessing) to build the interstate highways. Our great grandparents would have thought that to be a absurd impossibility.

I'm guessing that here in the Boston area we're up to perhaps 5% electric cars on the road now, everyone I know is assuming their next car will be electric, at least a plug in hybrid that will cover 80-90% of their use on electric (including me). Clearly there will be a progression with those with access to easy charging converting first, and, as always, those in poor neighborhoods living in unstable rental housing being last. Virtually every parking lot, public or private, in the leafy green suburbs now has a row of chargers. Someone clearly thinks they are going to make money from them! If you buy power for ~12 cents/kwh and sell it for 28 (as Tesla does now) it certainly seems possible.

Here's a very interesting web site that calculates a full life cycle cost for lots of vehicles. Despite higher upfront and infrastructure costs the EV's are pretty consistently at the low end of TCO (total cost of ownership). This is biased by the tax credit that EVs other than Tesla get, but the numbers are pretty compelling that EVs will save money for most of us in the long run. Early data suggest that repair costs as vehicles age may be dramatically lower. They sey they've modeled the full cost of recycling batteries, I retain a little skepticism about that. They've at least made an effort. They have, to the extent possible, factored in costs of power generation and distribution. https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore

[Dan Hunkele]

I ask where is the electricity to come from. Every Summer seems to bring fear of blackouts when everyone turns the air conditioners on. These cars aren't being "trickle charged".

[Dan Friedrichs]

I ask where is the electricity to come from. Every Summer seems to bring fear of blackouts when everyone turns the air conditioners on. These cars aren't being "trickle charged".

It's not likely that they are being charged during peak A/C hours. In fact, they are a great solution to "load balancing" - a bunch of EVs charging at night makes use of energy from base load power plants (e.g. nuclear) that are otherwise not useful for meeting peak load demands during the day.

For that matter, in the distant future, it's foreseeable that EVs become a way to avoid blackouts. Should the grid require more energy than exists from available generation, its conceivable that EVs sitting in people's garages or workplace parking lots could sell stored power back to the grid to meet transient demands.

[Rod Sheridan]

The EV car issues are interesting and challenging. The last time I bought a car I looked at them. I was concerned due to the range in cold weather which is greatly reduced. In brutal cold weather, the range is short and takes significant power to heat the car.

I would also like to hear if they have the capability to recycle the batteries. The use of rechargeable batteries is greatly increasing and there is a need to safely and economically recycle them. It reminds me of the issues of trying to take care of spent nuclear fuel.

There's a large Lithium Ion battery recycling facility being built in Rochester at the old Kodak site if I remember correctly.

Just like the recycling sucess that lead acid batteries are, other battery technologies will be as well.........Rod.

[Keith Outten]

Dan has asked the most important question. If you expect to convert 25% of the countries gas powered vehicles to electric you better start building power plants today. Nuclear plants take about twelve years to build and most of the USA cannot support any more hydroelectric plants. Using gas, oil or coal defeats the purpose. Surely we don't want to plan to use solar or wind power to provide such a huge demand for electricity, the technology is unproven and the lifespan is to short at this point. Today it takes a lot of coal to produce silica for solar panels, once again it defeats the purpose. Currently we purchase about 60% of our solar panels from China, this is not a comfortable situation.

California might be able to continue to impose black-outs because of poor planning but the majority of our country will not welcome loss of electricity in extreme cold or hot seasons. On second thought it is probably to late because we don't have anywhere close to the number of qualified construction workers to even consider a massive construction program. It takes at least ten years to train people so they will be able to work in the industry. In the 1970's we never had enough construction workers to keep all of the nuclear construction projects going effectively. Quality Control Inspectors were very rare to find and employ, we could leave any job on Friday and be working on the following Monday with a huge raise in pay. Most of my friends were bouncing all over the country in those days.

The cart is presently before the horse IMO.

[Jim Matthews]

There's already enough capacity, if every car became electric overnight. Factor in all the redundant pump jacks, refineries and fuel depot's and there's a surplus of power.

That's today - no new power sources required.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/theres-enough-electricity-in-the-world-for-electric-vehicles-heres-who-will-charge-them-51605368406


This has been done to death for ten years now.

Before the next, inevitable tangent is taken "Whaddabout...?"

Electrification is about energy independence. If you're opposed to energy independence you're buying your power (particularly in the form of Oil) from foreign interests, corporations that answer to no authority and a deeply entrenched military escort.


https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/the-true-cost-of-powering-an-electric-car.html

https://cleanenergy.org/blog/evs-are-here-plug-in-now-elmer-and-other-fud/

I leased my first plug in four years ago.
My wiring upgrade and level 2 charger cost $600.

None of this has anything to do with the OP.

[Doug Garson]

Swappable batteries seems like a relatively simple and stunningly obvious solution.
Don't think so, most EV's are built with the batteries as an integral part of the structure to save weight. The batteries weigh over a thousand pounds. Don't think any EV makers are considering swappable batteries, do you know of any who are?
Agree with the rest of your post.

[Bill Dufour]

In California when someone buys an existing gas station the first step is to pull out the old tanks and the dirt around them and throw it all away. Even more if any gas is found in the soil. Then they install the multiple layer gas tanks with sensors in each layer. They do this so they can not be sued if gas is found in the soil later on or water table nearby. That liability to clean it up lasts fore ever even after the property is sold unless you can prove you did not cause it.
So 50,000 for charger seems cheap to me with no long term liability for petroleum spills.
Bil lD

[Bill Dufour]

Tesla's Mega chargers for their semitrucks are literally meagawatt chargers. Some thing like 400 amps at 240 volts for each charger.
Bill D.

[Malcolm McLeod]

....

The cart is presently before the horse IMO.

There is a horse?? That part is clearly ...uhhmmm, well ...unclear.

Tho' this thread is clearly on the way to it's doom, for the same thinly veiled reason as its predecessors.

[Mike Henderson]

Tesla's Mega chargers for their semitrucks are literally meagawatt chargers. Some thing like 400 amps at 240 volts for each charger.
Bill D.

I think the truck megachargers operate at a higher voltage than 240 volts. I don't remember exactly but I think it was about 600 volts. You really have to do that because cables that could handle 400 amps would be heavy, expensive and difficult to handle.

Mike

[Barry McFadden]

I have never thought of buying an electric car because I assume they are meant to be an "around town" vehicle. When I've gone to Florida.... around 1200 miles I stop every few hours and fill up with gas in 5 minutes and I'm on my way. I can't imagine stopping every few hours and sitting around for 2 hours or more to charge up.

Also, I'm suprised in this day and age they can't make a system that charges the battery while the car is driving.

[Malcolm McLeod]

... make a system that charges the battery and the car is driving.

Tech is simple*. We'll just need your money to pay for installation. ALL of it. ....Sorry.

(*- even my toothbrush can do this.)

[roger wiegand]

The solar panels on our house would easily keep two vehicles charged at our usage levels without adding any need for new power generation or distribution capacity. That won't work for people whose cars are not at home during the day, but there are a lot of us who are (a lot more now than before COVID). I was surprised at my last company how many of our 20-30-something age employees either chose not to have a car or to have one they only used on weekends for non-commute activities. We ended up needing only five parking spots for 22 employees.

For them the shared Zip cars that live at a charging station and can be checked out for their occasional needs are perfect. I strongly suspect this model will continue to gain in popularity, at least in cities.

[Jim Koepke]

I ask where is the electricity to come from. Every Summer seems to bring fear of blackouts when everyone turns the air conditioners on. These cars aren't being "trickle charged".

More solar panels on roofs and windmills in open areas. The industry for this is in its infancy. It will likely grow exponentially in the coming decade or two.


California might be able to continue to impose black-outs because of poor planning but the majority of our country will not welcome loss of electricity in extreme cold or hot seasons.

The poor planing has more to do with wind and lack of tree trimming. Most of the "imposed black-outs" have been to prevent fires, not lack of capacity.

Hopefully new technologies will find solutions to many of the perceived problems with EV.

In the mean time motels, restaurants and retailers with charging stations will have created an incentive for some to choose them for their business.

Currently two of the local grocers also have gas stations on their property. Not sure if both of them have the same policy but my shopping is mostly done at one of them. For every $100 in purchases in one of their stores we get a 10¢/gallon discount on gas. That added up to a little more than $12 off on my last fill up.

When EV gets more established they may do something similar for electric charging.

Then there is always federal and state incentive programs. There could be incentives to build charging stations.

The world is changing. We can choose to change with it or we can fight it.

jtk

[Stan Calow]

Apparently, the major automakers (GM, For, Toyota,VW, etc) have all decided EV is the way to go. They're not known for gambling or for not analyzing the situation thoroughly.

I dont think we should just assume that people and society will act the same as they have in the past. Just like the pandemic has accelerated changes in the way we work (much of that at home, not in offices) and shopping has changed from malls and retail stores to online. Maybe the way we travel will also change, so that we dont see the need for large gas-powered vehicles to commute short distances, or drive everywhere. Range of EV is not an issue if you only need to drive a few miles a day.
I will consider a EV for next daily-use vehicle, and keep a gas-powered vehicle for longer-trips or rent one if I need it.

[Tom M King]

The whole electrical grid infrastructure is going to have to be updated, and not just for electric vehicles. Just around here, I know of 7200 acres of solar farms being planned, and that's on top of whatever is already here, and only the ones I've heard of because I know the people who own the land. But the updating is not just going to be for that. How long will it be before the population doubles again? which brings that much more demand.

We're just going to have to stop burning so much of anything. It might as well be sooner, than later.

EV's are already a fair percentage of the cars that educated people around here drive. Most people that are renting lake houses to work out of, are driving them, as are all my Scientist friends. We almost bought one, this past year, but the range we need wasn't there yet.

[Erik Loza]

My wife and I have talked a lot about this. Even though you can't officially buy a Tesla here in TX, we are seeing more and more of them in our neighborhood as California tech ex-pats come to Austin. We will probably always have a gas-powered 4Runner since it's a lifestyle-enabler for us but can also see ourselves with some small electric car for around-towning.

Erik

[glenn bradley]

Before retirement we had charging stations in many lots on the UC campuses. The first two hours were free to the driver. After that they were direct charged to their credit card for each additional interval (20 minutes I believe). This helped to keep the charging station available although a co-worker got caught in a meeting and paid a lot to park their car more than once ;-)

[Doug Garson]

I find it amusing that some of the arguments against electric vehicles replacing internal combustion cars are the same or inverse of some of the arguments against internal combustion cars replacing horse and buggy. When IC cars were introduced there wasn't a network of gas stations so range was limited. When IC cars were introduced there was concern that they were too noisy and would scare the horses, now a concern with EV's is they are too quiet and pedestrians can't hear them coming.

[Kev Williams]

I have one EV, probably the only one I'll ever have: A Segway nine-bot. For hitting the Walgreens and the bank it works pretty good. ;) And as far as actual driving a car goes, since we work from home, we don't drive much. Haven't put 2500 miles on the wife's Mustang we had for 6 years. We've only put 60,000 miles on the wife's other Mustang we've owned 26 years... My 19 year old bought-new truck has 62,000 miles, less than 4000 per year. Guess I could consider an EV, but why? My carbon footprint from gasoline driving is probably less than an EV car driven 30k miles a year...

Several years ago we starting buying our retirement toys, and we now have quite a stockpile. All of which are IC powered of course...

So I have to ask: what's the future prognosis of electric houseboats and boats in general, electric jumbo jets and other aircraft, electric 40' motorhomes, just for starters-? I can see electric motorcycles and ATV's and such, but vacationing in an electric houseboat or big RV just seems like half the vacation would be spent charging batteries...

[Bruce Volden]

I'm an ICE guy, nothing against EV's.
It's a 80 mile roundtrip for me to get groceries and other necessities so I have an SUV and p/u.
I own stock in an EV company. I don't think they're going away any time soon but I don't think they'll be the next model T either.
Oil will not be going away, even in my grand kids lifetime. It is necessary in building solar and wind energy and a myriad of other "stuff".
If we were dead serious on energy we would be building more nuclear plants, like Europeans have been (France).
EV's are not the solution to clean air, carbon, green etc.
Heck we can't even pick up our own litter/trash from the hiways now we want to try other things? I remember the "crying Indian" from my high school days. Makes no sense to me.
Please don't flame me, I just had to get it off my chest.

Bruce

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

A company I once did some legal work for recently put in those high power charging stations for use by employees. They can charge their cars while they work. There is a new electric motorcycle that has a range of 120 miles and can go 160MPH. Takes a hour at a public charging station. Not exactly a no hassle cross country road trip vehicle, but if your weekend place is under 100 miles, or you need to commute, it seems it may be the ticket. I understand some big city parking garages already have charging stations, for customers, (a premium parking fee of course) I remember seeing an electric car (a Sparrow) in rush hour traffic in DC for a few years back in the 1980's or 1990's. I also knew a guy that put solar panels on his English racing bike and on a very bright sunny day on flat terrain, it would do a constant 8 to 10 miles per hour. The time is coming for electric vehicles. Whether there will be interchangeable batteries, or quick charge technology, the one thing, it that what we currently view as a limitation, will be either overcome or solved by some other means. When automobiles first ran around the USA, there were only a few places to purchase gasoline. If you ran out of gas, you paid a farmer or teamster to haul your car to gas. Whether reduced charge times will become available, quicker charge vehicles, better batteries, more efficient motors, gamma ray electrical production (one of Nikolai Tesla's ideas) charging stations at employees, charging stations mandated to be supplied by landlords, like electricity, cable and heat. A solution will occur.

[Dave Lehnert]

Wonder how it will work if everyone goes to Grandma house for thanksgiving
1) there will only be one charger to use if she has on at all
2) If she does have a charger, she not going to want everyone to run up her electric bill to charge the car.

Someone was telling me the car is built around the batteries and are not replaceable???? So much for selling a used car.

[Dave Lehnert]

On average, What does it cost to charge a car?

[Mike Henderson]

Wonder how it will work if everyone goes to Grandma house for thanksgiving
1) there will only be one charger to use if she has on at all
2) If she does have a charger, she not going to want everyone to run up her electric bill to charge the car.

Someone was telling me the car is built around the batteries and are not replaceable???? So much for selling a used car.

The batteries are replaceable by the dealer or manufacturer - but not by the user. I think replacement batteries for a Tesla Model 3 are about $5,000. The batteries should last 150,000 miles, or more. They will degrade over that lifetime so you won't get the same range as when the car was new.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

On average, What does it cost to charge a car?

Let's say you have a car with a 90 KiloWatt hour battery. You're not going to run the battery completely down, just like you generally won't run your car until the gas tank is empty.

So let's say it's half empty so you need to charge it with 45 Kilo Watt hours. Electricity prices vary depending on where you live but let's say you charge it a the minimum cost time, which I'll assume is $0.10 per Kilo Watt hour. That would be $4.50.

If your electricity is more expensive you can do the math - $0.20/kWhr would be $9.00.

Mike

[Actually, charging a battery is not 100% efficient, but it's very high. So it takes a bit more than 45 kWhr to put 45 kWhr into a battery.]

[Lee DeRaud]

They will degrade over that lifetime so you won't get the same range as when the car was new.Given that 150K miles would take 20-25 years at this stage of my life, it gives "lifetime warranty" a whole new meaning. :)

Obvious followup question is, is it just miles (AKA charge/discharge cycles) or is there a straight-up time factor in the degradation?

[Jack Frederick]

It is early in this race, but the race must be run and will be won by alternative fuels. Both our vehicles are gas and we drive only 6K miles on each. When in my business I averaged 55K mi/yr. Last year I self installed a 7.5 kw system. Total cost of $16,300. The local pro shops were right at $30k for a smaller system. I installed 4 50 amp plugs for my welder in the shop and could handle a vehicle. When the right electric PU comes along I might give up on the ‘08 Tacoma, but that will be hard. I spoke with an older than I fellow the other day who was riding an electric bike. He has put 2400 miles on it and said. “It has changed my life.” We don’t know exactly what will win, but our entire electric grid needs re-doing. A little of this and a little of that and we will get there. Keep pushing ahead. Ahead being the direction.

[Mike Henderson]

Given that 150K miles would take 20-25 years at this stage of my life, it gives "lifetime warranty" a whole new meaning. :)

Obvious followup question is, is it just miles (AKA charge/discharge cycles) or is there a straight-up time factor in the degradation?

Straight recharge cycles. The capacity degrades with recharge cycles. I believe Tesla (the car) can tell you how much your battery is degraded (like 5%, 20%, etc.). As it degrades you lose capacity (miles) which means you can use it a long time if you don't need the max miles.

AT least that's my understanding.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Wonder how it will work if everyone goes to Grandma house for thanksgiving
1) there will only be one charger to use if she has on at all
2) If she does have a charger, she not going to want everyone to run up her electric bill to charge the car.

Someone was telling me the car is built around the batteries and are not replaceable???? So much for selling a used car.

Let's say that Grandma has one 240 volt, 50 amp outlet and the guest will spend 6 hours at Grandma's. That equals 57.6kWh of electricity if it's used the whole 6 hours. Probably enough for some of the guest to top up their car. If electricity is $0.15/kWhr, that's $10.14. I suppose Grandma would be willing to pay that to see all of her kids. If not, one of the kids can give her a 10-spot.

Mike

[Note that the cars will only pull 40 amps on a 50 amp outlet. It's an 80% rule.]

[Rick Potter]

No way I would be owning an electric car if I lived in a cold climate, that degrades the range too much. That being said, I don't live in a cold climate. Living in SoCal is an ideal place for electric vehicles.

I have solar panels on my house, and three plug in hybrids in the household. My electric bill is just $10 or so a month to cover the line fees. We run around town, and plug in every time we hit home, sometimes three times a day, to keep the cars full of electrons. We have taken them to Wyoming, Arizona a lot, and long trips in CA. We run the gas motors on those trips, and never bother plugging in somewhere.

We have about 35K on two of the cars (the other is grand daughters), and over 80% of our driving has been on electricity. I just gassed up mine yesterday and it was the first time since January, when we went to the Grand Canyon.

Around my area Tesla's are common, they were the best selling sedan in CA for half of last year, according to the news. Like I said, it depends a lot on where you live, how practical an electric car may be. I will not buy another new car without a plug, preferably a plug in hybrid.

PS: Grandma moved to a condo. There are no parking spots for Thanksgiving guests, so she doesn't have to face that problem.

[Jim Matthews]

On average, What does it cost to charge a car?

At home, or at a public charging center?

My home has relatively expensive electricity at $.20 kWh.
Figure $13 to go 250 miles.

I've never needed, or used a public charger.

Haven't been to a gas station in two years.

[Jim Matthews]

Given that 150K miles would take 20-25 years at this stage of my life, it gives "lifetime warranty" a whole new meaning. :)

Obvious followup question is, is it just miles (AKA charge/discharge cycles) or is there a straight-up time factor in the degradation?

Tesla projects 1500 change cycles, equivalent to 500,000 miles of driving. The advantage of an EV over this sort of distance is the simple power train.

My lease warrantees the entire drivetrain, including battery for 100,000 miles - no restrictions.

Even the next wave of (upcoming) Chinese imports will have fewer things to wear out and go wrong than even the most basic gas motor.

https://rechargd.com/how-long-will-tesla-car-battery-last/

FYI - What killed range in the first generation Nissan Leaf was "topping up" the battery pack which lead to memory problems, just like in our first cordless hand drills.

[Rod Sheridan]

On average, What does it cost to charge a car?

Mike Henderson gave you a great answer.

Where I live it's 25 to 35% of the cost of gasoline..........Rod.

[Jerome Stanek]

At what point did apartment or condo complexes start phasing out hitching posts and put in striping for a parking lot? Or commercial establishments for that matter?
My drug store has hitching post that get used every day

[Ole Anderson]

I may or may not ever be in the position to own an EV, we are retired, in our early to mid 70's. and only need one car, we have a 2020 Cherokee which should last us at least 15 years as we are likely to be under 10k miles per year. But we have two boats, a class A MH and a snowmobile. I don't see those getting swapped for electric versions in our lifetime. But that is just us.

I see a lot of coal burning plants getting retrofitted for natural gas, still a fossil fuel. I see no rush in the US to go further nuclear, a truly green fuel if we can agree on waste disposal. Wind and solar are great, but suffer from the issue of storage in off hours. Solar is only good for less than half of the day if the sun is shining, wind only good if the wind blows. So you need clean energy to fill in the gaps. All of the hydro power is already taken and environmentalists will never allow damming up more rivers. Giant battery farms? I doubt it. Pumped storage currently creates 23 GW (2%) of off-peak power compared to total US generating capacity of 1,170 GW. Still a drop in the bucket. Wind is at 118 GW capacity (10%) when the wind blows. Hydro is at 80 GW (7%). Nuclear is at 96 GW (8%). Solar is at 97 GW (8%) when the sun shines. That means we are at about 33% "clean" electrical energy in the US at this time, less considering the wind and solar off times.

[Bill Dufour]

Giant battery farm in OZ.
Bill D.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

[Jim Matthews]

Mike Henderson gave you a great answer.

Where I live it's 25 to 35% of the cost of gasoline..........Rod.
Hydropower!

Same for Norway. Cars deriving power from falling water.

[Jim Matthews]

My drug store has hitching post that get used every day


Uh-huh.

https://www.ohiosamishcountry.com/medina

[Alex Zeller]

There's very few EVs around here. I don't think I've ever seen a charging station being used (other than by the power company's EV). My issue is that we have two vehicles. A full size truck to tow my tractor and a small SUV for commuting and trips. An EV would only be useful for commuting. Our trips are more than a single charge can handle and I'm not waiting around for my car to charge back up. I will look into a plug in hybrid when it's time for a new SUV.

EVs are the future, I just don't think batteries are. Hydrogen is a much better option as it can be made at the same place power is made (hydro dams and nuke plants). It can be trucked and piped. Converting it to ammonia makes it safer than just pure H2. A tank can be filled at the same speed as a gasoline tank. In fact very little power is needed (just like filling a propane tank) so no issues with the power grid. There's no issues like the battery degrading. People didn't abandon the large pickups and SUVs because there wasn't anything to replace them and they aren't going to replace ICE vehicles until the alternative is just as convenient as what it's replacing.

[Mike Henderson]

There's very few EVs around here. I don't think I've ever seen a charging station being used (other than by the power company's EV). My issue is that we have two vehicles. A full size truck to tow my tractor and a small SUV for commuting and trips. An EV would only be useful for commuting. Our trips are more than a single charge can handle and I'm not waiting around for my car to charge back up. I will look into a plug in hybrid when it's time for a new SUV.

EVs are the future, I just don't think batteries are. Hydrogen is a much better option as it can be made at the same place power is made (hydro dams and nuke plants). It can be trucked and piped. Converting it to ammonia makes it safer than just pure H2. A tank can be filled at the same speed as a gasoline tank. In fact very little power is needed (just like filling a propane tank) so no issues with the power grid. There's no issues like the battery degrading. People didn't abandon the large pickups and SUVs because there wasn't anything to replace them and they aren't going to replace ICE vehicles until the alternative is just as convenient as what it's replacing.

The problem with hydrogen is that it's likely to be more expensive than electricity for powering a vehicle. Let me give an example.

Let's start with 100 units of power in the form of electricity (assume this electricity comes from solar or wind). If you transmit that power to a home to charge a car, you'll lose about 5% in transmission losses - so you now have 95 units of power. Then you put it into a battery and you have a small amount of loss, maybe 5%, so you now have about 90 units of energy to send to the motor(s) to drive the car.

For hydrogen, let's start with the same 100 units of energy. We use those 100 units to extract hydrogen from water and wind up with about 70 units of power in the hydrogen. Then we have to compress the hydrogen and lose perhaps 5%, giving us 66.5 units of energy. Let's ignore transportation of the hydrogen which is expensive because transporting hydrogen has problems - in pipelines it attacks the steel pipe, causing embrittlement so special pipes are required. Shipping by truck is also very expensive.

Then you put the hydrogen into a fuel cell which is about 50% efficient, giving us about 33.25 units of energy to send to the motors to drive the car.

The energy cost per mile will wind up at least three times more expensive for hydrogen than for a battery EV.

Mike

Another problem is how to safely store sufficient hydrogen in a vehicle so that you can get 200-300 miles per fill-up. This requires compressing the hydrogen to a very high pressure, and that takes special tanks and space in the vehicle. Then there's the question of safety in an accident. If the tank ruptures - or even gets a small leak - it will almost certainly catch fire. Hydrogen ignites very easily - much, much easier than gasoline, and it burns with an almost invisible flame. The problems of hydrogen powered vehicles are so great that I doubt if we ever see any volume of them on the highways.

And, of course, there's no hydrogen infrastructure (where you can fill up with hydrogen). At least you can charge your battery at home. Also note that fuel cell cars are significantly more expensive than battery cars.

[David Bassett]

I don't know much about hydrogen cars, you don't see many around here right now. But it seems like they'd offer advantages which would avoid most of the complaints about current battery electric cars.

I have noticed that the sanctioning body for Formula-1 has an all electric series, Formula-E, running right now. Traditionally motorsports has fostered automobile technology development. So battery cars will likely be different beasts in 5, 10, and 20 years.

OTOH- the body that sanctions Le Mans is working on a hydrogen electric series. The announcers were talking about the demo and plans they'd shared with the public earlier in the week during the race. They ran a "last-generation" prototype around the course at "competitive" speeds. (Competitive with the prototypes, the current gasoline-electric hybrid cars.) They said the next generation they're working on will be faster. They also said they're working on a hydrogen based series, which will require only roads and water as local resources. Their goal is to show up with extra containers which unload / unfold in to a solar array and hydrogen generating facility to fuel the cars.

That reporting got one of the announcers reminiscing about a demo day he'd attended earlier in the year outside of London. He mentioned 4 to 5+ manufacturers participating. He got to drive a Hyundai sedan and said, other than missing the growl of a big V-8, it drove as well as any street car he'd ever driven. His drive included stopping at a "gas station" along his route (M-40? I don't remember or know London roads.) and having the refill go pretty much the way gasoline or diesel fuel goes.

I'd speculate we might eventually see cheaper battery cars to run errands and get around town and more expensive hydrogen cars for cross country and heavy duty vehicles. But that's just speculation.

[Mike Henderson]

One other thing about hydrogen fuel cell cars - they also have batteries. The fuel cell is designed to produce sufficient power for cruising on the highway and for charging the battery (this is essentially the same as a hybrid vehicle). When the car needs more power than the fuel cell can provide, the battery provides that extra power - that includes starting off from a stop. If the fuel cell was designed to produce sufficient power to rapidly accelerate the car it would be too expensive - you'd never be able to sell the car.

Regarding the problems and cost of transporting hydrogen, Google "problems with transporting hydrogen". Here's one report (https://planetforlife.com/h2/h2swiss.html#:~:text=Hydrogen%20is%20difficult%20t o%20store,%2D%2Dit's%20lighter%20than%20helium.&text=Hydrogen%20contains%203.4%20times%20more,to%2 0be%20useful%20for%20transportation.&text=Hydrogen%20is%20difficult%20to%20store,%2D%2D it's%20lighter%20than%20helium.&text=Hydrogen%20contains%203.4%20times%20more,to%2 0be%20useful%20for%20transportation.). Everything I've read says that hydrogen just has too many problems for use in consumer vehicles (cars, SUVs and light trucks).

Mike

[Alex Zeller]

Just read where 20% of those who bought an EV replaced it with an ICE vehicle. The number one complaint is charging. Either they didn't have access to an outlet or it was a 120v outlet which is just not up to putting enough of a charge into EV. I suspect there'll be more as people get ready to buy a new vehicle.

Hydrogen isn't easy to transport but ammonia is. Ammonia is just NH3 and has lots of benefits. It's still a little early yet but it has too many advantages. EV's are just a stepping stone IMO. In fact as the advance they are also helping hydrogen due to the fact that they share so much.

[Mike Henderson]

A problem with using ammonia is that first you have to create the ammonia. That requires that you first generate hydrogen, then use the Haber-Bosch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) process to produce ammonia. Then you ship the ammonia. At the receiving site, you have to convert the ammonia back to hydrogen because fuel cells can't take ammonia.

By the time you do all that, you have a very expensive fuel. Then you put that expensive fuel into an expensive vehicle.

But even beyond that, there's no hydrogen infrastructure. People complain about not having enough public EV chargers and yet we have over 210,000 available today. There are about 168,000 gas stations in the US today. Adding hydrogen distribution to even half of those stations will likely cost billions of dollars and would take decades. You'd have the "chicken and egg" problem. No one would want to install hydrogen distribution points until there were enough vehicles to make it worth while and no one is going to purchase a hydrogen vehicle until there are places to purchase hydrogen.

Battery electric vehicles are here now and they have range of over 300 miles per charge. Improvements are being made to batteries to provide even greater range. I cannot see how hydrogen is going to overcome the head start that battery EVs have, or the problems of hydrogen infrastructure and costs.

Studies available on the Internet all say the same thing - hydrogen is not a viable fuel for consumer vehicles.

Mike

[Note that there's no natural source of ammonia (in volume). The Haber-Bosch process saved the world because prior to that process (to produce nitrogen fertilizer) it was obvious that the world could not produce enough food to feed the growing world population.]

[Doug Garson]

Currently there are 76 electric vehicle models available from 43 different manufacturers and 6 hydrogen vehicle from 5 manufacturers worldwide. There are over 40,000 public charging stations in the US and almost 100,000 public charging connections (plus home charging connections). There are 115,000 gas stations in the US and 45 hydrogen fueling stations in the US.
Seems like the industry is leaning toward EV's over hydrogen vehicles.

[Mike Henderson]

Another way to look at ammonia as a transport medium is to do an energy equation. Note that when we looked at generating hydrogen for a fuel cell - and ignored any transportation cost - the cost per mile for hydrogen was a bit less than three times the cost for electricity for a battery electric vehicle. And that was taking into account the cost of transporting the electricity

Now, let me do a "back of the envelope" calculation for converting the hydrogen to ammonia, transporting it, and then converting it back to hydrogen.

We start with 100 units of power in the form of electricity and use that for electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen. Our output is about 70 units of power in the form of hydrogen. Then we input that hydrogen to the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia. Let's say that costs us 10%, or 7 units of power, giving us 63 units. Then we ship the ammonia and let's say that takes 5%, or 3.15 units, giving us a bit less than 60 units. Then we convert the ammonia back to hydrogen and compress the hydrogen to about 10,000 pounds per square inch to put it into a vehicle. Let's say that takes 10%, or about 6 units or power, giving us about 54 units. Then we put that hydrogen into a fuel cell at 50% efficiency, which gives us 27 units of energy to feed to the motors.

Note that for a battery electric vehicle we started with that same 100 units of power, allocated 5% to transmission and 5% to losses in charging the battery, giving us about 90 units of power.

As a back of the envelope calculation, hydrogen will be a bit more than three times as expensive as power from electricity per mile.

Add to that, a fuel cell vehicle is more expensive than a battery electricity vehicle and you wonder how many could be sold - completely ignoring the question of where the buyer is going to purchase the hydrogen.

Mike

[And there are a lot of safety issues with hydrogen that would have to be overcome before you could have a mass market system.]

[Jim Matthews]

Just read where 20% of those who bought an EV replaced it with an ICE vehicle. The number one complaint is charging. Either they didn't have access to an outlet or it was a 120v outlet which is just not up to putting enough of a charge into EV. I suspect there'll be more as people get ready to buy a new vehicle.

Found the originating study.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/11n6f4hs

Sample size less than 2000 drivers - all in California.
Vehicles purchased from 2012-2018.

"The survey received 4512 responses, 1856 of these had made a subsequent purchase decision regarding the first PEV we surveyed them about. Discontinuance in this sample is 20.96% (387 households), while 79.04% (1459 households) continue to own a PEV.
Downward trend in the last two years studied."

Small surveys are notorious for unreliable results.

Most of the respondents declining another vehicle had plug in hybrids or first generation EV (likely Nissan Leaf - given the years listed).

The extrapolation taken by Business Insider to impugn the choice is not only misleading, but deliberate in obscuring the pertinent facts.

Plug in hybrid vehicles are answering a question no buyer has asked.


https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-electric-cars-in-united-states/

[Alex Zeller]

Just like with batteries the price would drop if production ramps up. Right now we don't have the electrical grid to support everyone switching to EVs. Transmitting electricity over long distances is also an issue. There's limited ways of storing electricity. To speed up charging a battery you need to speed up the amount of electricity going into it. That creates problems. First the cable either needs to be a much larger diameter (which would be an issue for some people) or the voltage would need to be upped. That would mean going to thousands of volts. The standard wire jacket can't handle those kids of voltages.

Swapping batteries would work but without a standard and the fact that they degrade is also an issue. Would you want to spend $100k on a Tesla and then on your first trip swap out your nice new battery for who know what? I don't even like doing it with my propane bottle.

But all of this is nothing compared to the charging at home issue. Most houses don't have a 240v outlet in the garage or near where people park. Around here a lot of apartments are older homes that were converted and parking is usually on the street or in a haphazard way. In the winter snow gets piled high so getting to an outlet becomes very hard. New apartment complexes have parking for one vehicle per unit in a place that could have a charger (like a car port). What works in Southern CA doesn't work in a lot of other places in this country. Which means if we are going to go to one standard (like gasoline is right now) it needs to work everywhere. That's the challenge.

[Alex Zeller]

Citation, sample size and methodology please.

https://electrek.co/2020/12/29/once-you-go-electric-you-dont-go-back-survey/


Small surveys are notorious for unreliable results.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/551207-new-study-explains-why-nearly-20-percent-of-electric

The poll you linked is 2000 people in the UK, this one done by the University of CA Davis (whoa re pro EV) is 4000 households in the US. That 20% is people who were early adopters who bought in. As more and more people who are less excited about buying an EV the number who swap back will increase. Davis is looking into ways to counter this but charging is always going to be an issue. I've timed it and I can pull off the road into a gas station, pay at the pump, fill my wife's Rav4, and be back on the road in as little as 3 minutes. That's going to be hard to come close to and most people get annoyed having to wait a couple minutes when a flagger stops at a construction site.

[Jim Matthews]

Right now we don't have the electrical grid to support everyone switching to EVs.

Yes, we do.
EVs don't require more than 30A 220v to charge overnight.

[Bill Dufour]

Hydrogen is the smallest molecule and hence leaks the easiest of any gas or liquid. To test vacuum chambers they will pressurize with hydrogen and sniff for any leaks. It will leak out gaps that air cannot fit through.
Bill D

[John Stankus]

[And there are a lot of safety issues with hydrogen that would have to be overcome before you could have a mass market system.]

The Joule-Thomson inversion temperature is fairly low for hydrogen so the gas would warm as it expands... might be a safety issue with a flammable gas leaking.

There are definitely safety issues with transporting liquid ammonia

[Mike Henderson]

(1.)Just like with batteries the price would drop if production ramps up.
(2.) Right now we don't have the electrical grid to support everyone switching to EVs.
(3.)Transmitting electricity over long distances is also an issue.
(4.)There's limited ways of storing electricity.
(5.)To speed up charging a battery you need to speed up the amount of electricity going into it. That creates problems. First the cable either needs to be a much larger diameter (which would be an issue for some people) or the voltage would need to be upped. That would mean going to thousands of volts. The standard wire jacket can't handle those kids of voltages.

Let me address your points:
(1) The problem is to get volume built up for hydrogen vehicles. What we're looking at now is an expensive vehicle and expensive per mile cost in fuel. The reason the vehicle is expensive is because of the fuel cell, the batteries, but most of all, the tank for the high pressure hydrogen. Another problem with volume adoption is the lack of hydrogen infrastructure - where are the early adopters going to get hydrogen?
(2) Yes, the electrical grid, today, could provide power to EVs even if everyone bought one. During sunlight hours, California often has to pay other states to take our excess electricity from all the installed solar. The outages you heard about in CA were from transmission lines being shut down because of fire danger, not a shortage of electricity.
(3) There's absolutely no issue with transmitting electricity long distances. We do that today in the grid.
(4) True, but it doesn't affect the sale and use of EVs.
(5) Let's look at the numbers for quick charging a 90 kWh battery. First, rapid charge only charges the battery to 80% of capacity so that's 72 KWh. You're not going to drive the car to completely empty so let's assume half or 36 kWh in 30 minutes. The CCS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System) can provide up to 125 amps at up to 850 volts. That's a bit over 106 kWh per hour. It would take a bit over 20 minutes to supply 36 kWh.




Swapping batteries would work but without a standard and the fact that they degrade is also an issue. Would you want to spend $100k on a Tesla and then on your first trip swap out your nice new battery for who know what? I don't even like doing it with my propane bottle.

But all of this is nothing compared to the charging at home issue.
(6)Most houses don't have a 240v outlet in the garage or near where people park.
(7) Around here a lot of apartments are older homes that were converted and parking is usually on the street or in a haphazard way. In the winter snow gets piled high so getting to an outlet becomes very hard. New apartment complexes have parking for one vehicle per unit in a place that could have a charger (like a car port). What works in Southern CA doesn't work in a lot of other places in this country. Which means if we are going to go to one standard (like gasoline is right now) it needs to work everywhere. That's the challenge.

(6) Installing a 240 volt 50 amp outlet in your garage is not that difficult and essentially everyone who has an EV has done so. It's less complex than putting in a subpanel. I recently installed two 50 amp outlets in my garage.
(7). People who live in apartments without dedicated parking spaces will have to charge at public charging stations. I expect having to do that will make EVs less attractive to those people. I expect some apartments which provide reserved parking for tenants may begin to build solar structures, underneath which the cars will park. Each parking space could have a charger. The reason the apartment owners might do this is to make their place more attractive to potential renters, which will allow them to increase the rent. This would also be like a carport, providing shade for the cars, and some protection from rain.

Mike

[Bill Dufour]

I see compressed natural gas ford f15o pickups for sale om craigs list. Ex caltrans. Good shape, a little cheaper then a gas engine one but.. The nearest CNG filling station is about 100 miles away or 230 miles. And I am near several major highways and big cities that lack them.
These are not dual fuel so just enough capacity to drive to the pump fill up and come home. No side trips allowed at either end.
Bill D

[Malcolm McLeod]

... compressed natural gas ford f15o pickup... nearest CNG filling station is about 100 miles...

If you have natural gas service at home*, there are appliances (aka "compressors") that allow you to fill the tank. I've never used one but, suspect its like charging EV batteries, since the utility gas delivery pressure is so low and line size small, it would likely take >3-4 hrs.

*-guessing you might have to leave CA to avail yourself of this in the long run??

[Mike Henderson]

The Joule-Thomson inversion temperature is fairly low for hydrogen so the gas would warm as it expands... might be a safety issue with a flammable gas leaking.

There are definitely safety issues with transporting liquid ammonia

This is interesting. Liquid hydrogen has to be kept under pressure to keep it in its liquid state. In transporting liquid hydrogen, some heat is bound to penetrate the tank and warm some of the liquid hydrogen, causing it to transition to a gas. Seems that would cause the pressure to increase but I assume they have a pressure vent that allows some hydrogen gas to escape while maintaining the critical pressure.

But if the hydrogen warms as it expands, it seems that you could have a runaway condition - some liquid hydrogen would convert to a gas, but that would add heat to the contents of the tank, and that would cause more hydrogen to transition from liquid to gas,

What's your take on this?

Mike

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I could be wrong but there was an agricultural fertilizer company in northern Illinois that used propane powered trucks for their representatives back in the late '60s when I lived there before qualifying for the draft.

[Doug Garson]

Another issue with hydrogen is hydrogen embrittlement. Steel exposed to hydrogen can become brittle which can lead to catastrophic failure. There are ways to prevent it, but it is an issue.
A comment to those who say EV's aren't for everyone. So what? ICE vehicles aren't for everyone, heck cars (or trucks) aren't for everyone. Lot's of people in big cities don't own cars. Some people still ride horses. We don't need to get to 100% EV's to reduce CO2 emissions and fight climate change.

[Ronald Blue]

The Joule-Thomson inversion temperature is fairly low for hydrogen so the gas would warm as it expands... might be a safety issue with a flammable gas leaking.

There are definitely safety issues with transporting liquid ammonia


We transport huge amounts of liquid ammonia here in farm country in the spring and fall specifically. I'm unaware of any safety issues that have arisen. Leaks are quite rare. Them meth cookers used to steal it for their processes. Not so much these days so maybe they found a replacement.

[Ronald Blue]

I could be wrong but there was an agricultural fertilizer company in northern Illinois that used propane powered trucks for their representatives back in the late '60s when I lived there before qualifying for the draft.

Ken that used to be quite common in this area but I don't know if anyone still does the propane conversions. There are semis running LNG and some citites are also powering their buses this way.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Hydrogen is the smallest molecule and hence leaks the easiest of any gas or liquid. To test vacuum chambers they will pressurize with hydrogen and sniff for any leaks. It will leak out gaps that air cannot fit through.
Bill D

I'd have to devote time I don't have to confirm this, but I seem to recall that H2 can leak 'through' solid steel. With pressure, molecules are small enough to slip between those of the steel.



The Joule-Thomson inversion temperature is fairly low for hydrogen so the gas would warm as it expands... might be a safety issue with a flammable gas leaking.

There are definitely safety issues with transporting liquid ammonia


This is interesting. Liquid hydrogen has to be kept under pressure to keep it in its liquid state. In transporting liquid hydrogen, some heat is bound to penetrate the tank and warm some of the liquid hydrogen, causing it to transition to a gas. Seems that would cause the pressure to increase but I assume they have a pressure vent that allows some hydrogen gas to escape while maintaining the critical pressure.

But if the hydrogen warms as it expands, it seems that you could have a runaway condition - some liquid hydrogen would convert to a gas, but that would add heat to the contents of the tank, and that would cause more hydrogen to transition from liquid to gas,

What's your take on this?

Mike

There is more chemistry here than engineering, but first pass says the situation above would obviate the Ideal Gas Suggestion :confused: , where PV=mRT (Pressure * Volume = Mass * R ("gas constant") * Temperature. Or, rewritten as PV/T= mR, since the right side is a constant. And for 2 cases (or situation changes), (P1 * V1)/T1 = mR = (P2 * V2)/T2, and get rid of the mR term. If you allow a typical gas to expand (so V2 > V1), then P2 and or T2 MUST change to compensate and balance the equation ---> either P2 decreases, or T2 increases, or some combination thereof. (I'd think in the case of a H2 transporter leaking, P2 would definitely decrease and dominate the equation.)

Always and forever, except for H and He - clearly NOT ideals.

The thing saving us from hydrogen annihilation (and helium too) is, I dimly recall, that the Joule-Thomson temperature increase situation holds true near room temperatures and pressures. So, I'd think typical storage pressures and temperatures in the real world might keep us out of the runaway reaction zone. But again, a little out of my everyday calcs.

I'm certain I'm not Mr. Stankus (pardon the usurpation) and that this is TMI. Slainte Mhaith!

[Stan Calow]

There are many accidents every year from ammonia leaks, from agricultural use, railroad accidents and in refrigeration leaks. It comes out at such a low temperature that it will freeze human flesh instantly. There's a lot more of it around than most people realize.

[Bill Dufour]

I used to follow the liquid N truck up the hill to the lab on weekend mornings. Interesting to see the long zig zag of intercooler piping to the pressure relief valve under the frame. c. I was told if it vented at the liquid tank temperature the valve would likely ice open with water ice and not shut off until the entire tank was vented. The cooler did drop small chunks of water ice on the road as it hit bumps in the road. That is basically how they lost a nuclear submarine. Air valves into the ballast tank iced over and they could not blow water out of the tanks to float up. When the sprung a leak.
Bill D..

[John Stankus]

I'm certain I'm not Mr. Stankus (pardon the usurpation) and that this is TMI. Slainte Mhaith!

Actually, it's Dr. Stankus. My PhD is in Physical Chemistry. I am a Laser Spectroscopist by training. I do teach my Universities Physical Chemistry: Thermodynamics course. (I'm not a Thermodynamicist, but I do teach the Senior level undergraduate Thermo course for Chemistry and Biochemistry students)

A couple of issues with my earlier off the cuff response. With a little google-foo There is a European Commission funded inititative Hysafe- Safety of Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier.

http://www.hysafe.org/

http://www.hysafe.org/download/997/brhs_ch1_fundamentals-version%201_0_1.pdf

Critical point is 33 K (-240 C, -400 F) 1.297 MPa (12.8 atm, 188 psi) So likely will be in a supercritical fluid state (definitely behaving non-ideally)

The Inversion Temperature is 193 K (-80 C, -112 F) above which the temperature increases on depressurization. (example in above reference quotes 6 degree Celsius increase with a sudden pressure drop from 20 MPa to ambient. Though it claims explosion is more likely due to electrostatic charging of dust particles during depressurization). Higher pressures and temperatures increase the temperature rise.

One reference I found spoke of needing to pressurize to 700 bar (70 MPa, 690 atm, 10000 PSI) to get the needed storage density.

There has been work on using Metal Hydrides for storage that might reduce pressure requirements (this work goes back to the 70s...did a science fair project on it...Mercedes had a hydrogen powered demonstrator bus using metal hydride storage)

I think my main point, is that hydrogen storage for transportation use is a fairly complex problem. There are non-trivial safety issues that need to be addressed.


Also, my off-hand comment on Ammonia transport hazards is not meant to minimize the common safe use in agriculture, but rather point out the issues of having large quantities of hazardous materials in dense population areas. An ammonia accident in rural agricultural applications usually only affects the immediate workers and is not in a confined area (concentration can dissipate quickly). In transportation applications you may have confined areas and many people. Look at ammonia based refrigeration accidents.

Though this being said, thinking about the hazards of having 20 gallons of gas parked in your garage would be an interesting thought experiment regarding safety.


John

[roger wiegand]

The latest and greatest Tesla Model S Plaid has an EPA range of 520 miles and can recharge 175 miles of range in 15 min at a supercharger. Pretty much everyone I know needs to stop for a 15 min break every 2-300 miles anyway, so I think those kinds of numbers (assuming they aren't off by more than 20% or so in the real world pretty much solve my range problem for 99.8% of the trips I ever take. (not to mention 0-60 times under two seconds-- who has tires that good??)

Granted that particular car is not affordable by mere mortals (heck, you could probably buy two Martin sliders for that price!), but to me it pretty strongly suggests that within ~3 years the technology will trickle down to much more affordable cars and the range discussion will largely fade into the background for most of the population of the country. The model 3 currently will recharge from 10 to 80% in 22 minutes; it won't take too much to push that to be pretty competitive with a gas fill-up.

The vehicle that gives me range anxiety is my 2007 F350 diesel pickup, with a camper and my organ trailer the range is only about 220 miles and I often find myself in places where I can't get the vehicle to the advertised diesel pump because of its size. I've gotten to a pump running on fumes way more often than I'm happy remembering. I leave the major highways only with significant trepidation. Planning is always required and the Ford doesn't have a slick trip planner to do it for me. Getting in and out of most truck stops in less than 20 minutes, at least in the Northeast where they tend to be very busy, is rare.

[Mike Henderson]

This is a bit off subject but I recently read a news article about the direction for software in new cars - both ICE and EV. The manufacturers are going to offer software enhancements for a monthly fee. As an example, suppose they put in the hardware for a heated cup holder in the car (to keep your coffee warm). They might charge you $1/month for the software upgrade that makes it work. Not everyone will want that, of course, but many people will. That $1/month is pure profit to the company.

More elaborate features, like self parallel parking, would cost more, maybe $3-$5/month. The enhancement will be downloaded to the car over the Internet - you just have to connect your car to the WiFi in your home.

Note that this will be for all vehicles, ICE, hybrid and EVs.

This is good and bad. It will encourage the manufacturers to keep making new features available for your car. Today, your car is generally what it is when you drive it off the lot. And people who don't use certain features won't have to pay for them - the price of features today is bundled in the price of the vehicle. The bad thing is that you will never "pay off" your vehicle - you'll pay monthly for as long as you own the vehicle.

Mike

[Lee DeRaud]

This is a bit off subject but I recently read a news article about the direction for software in new cars - both ICE and EV. The manufacturers are going to offer software enhancements for a monthly fee. As an example, suppose they put in the hardware for a heated cup holder in the car (to keep your coffee warm). They might charge you $1/month for the software upgrade that makes it work. Not everyone will want that, of course, but many people will. That $1/month is pure profit to the company.

More elaborate features, like self parallel parking, would cost more, maybe $3-$5/month. The enhancement will be downloaded to the car over the Internet - you just have to connect your car to the WiFi in your home.

Note that this will be for all vehicles, ICE, hybrid and EVs.

This is good and bad. It will encourage the manufacturers to keep making new features available for your car. Today, your car is generally what it is when you drive it off the lot. And people who don't use certain features won't have to pay for them - the price of features today is bundled in the price of the vehicle. The bad thing is that you will never "pay off" your vehicle - you'll pay monthly for as long as you own the vehicle.

MikeI'm not seeing it: the price of the "optional" features will still be bundled in the price of the vehicle because the hardware (e.g. sensors, wiring, switches) required to implement them will have to be installed in every car.

And I'm envisioning conversations like:
Owner: "My cruise control stopped working."
Service writer: "Oh, I see the problem...the credit card you used for your subscription expired."
Nope, not gonna happen.

[Bill Dufour]

The recent Tesla car that crashed with no driver Musk stated then driver had not subscribed for the fancier self driving function it just had the basic free cruise control.
Bill D.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm not seeing it: the price of the "optional" features will still be bundled in the price of the vehicle because the hardware (e.g. sensors, wiring, switches) required to implement them will have to be installed in every car.

And I'm envisioning conversations like:
Owner: "My cruise control stopped working."
Service writer: "Oh, I see the problem...the credit card you used for your subscription expired."
Nope, not gonna happen.

Here's an article about it from Bloomberg. It's a newsletter I receive via email.
++++++++++++++++++++
Yes, the Porsche Taycan is flying out of dealerships. And yes, it charges faster than a knife fight in a phone booth. But you may not have heard much about the most vanguard feature on Stuttgart's newest electric whip.
For $474 up front — or $12 a month — Porsche HQ will remotely switch on what it calls the intelligent range manager (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzcm9vbS5wb3JzY2hlLmNvbS9lbi9wcm9kdW N0cy90YXljYW4vcmFuZ2UtMTg1NjAuaHRtbCM6fjp0ZXh0PUlu JTIwdGhlJTIwTm9ybWFsJTJDJTIwU3BvcnQlMkMlMjBTcG9ydC x0aGUlMjBtYXhpbXVtJTIwc3BlZWQlMkMlMjBmb3IlMjBleGFt cGxlLg/5d60173a6780897078554114B5ea90cee), an over-the-air software update that limits the maximum speed and tweaks the car’s navigation system to stretch how far it will travel on a single charge.


The what, in this case, isn’t as interesting as the how. Taking a cue from Tesla, Porsche is finally treating its 5,000-pound computer like the SAS platform that it is. It’s selling a slightly brighter shade of green like a Netflix subscription or some kind of extra swag in a video game. Get ready to see a lot more of this.
“It’s a subscription world and we just live in it,” says Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com. “There could be dozens — even hundreds — of unique capabilities that you may or may not have soon, depending on what you pay every month.”
Most major automakers are fleshing out a strategy for selling upgrades via over-the-air software updates and a rash of them (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY29uc3VtZXJyZXBvcnRzLm9yZy9hdXRvbW 90aXZlLWluZHVzdHJ5L3doeS15b3UtbWlnaHQtbmVlZC10by1z dWJzY3JpYmUtdG8tZ2V0LWNlcnRhaW4tZmVhdHVyZXMtb24teW 91ci1uZXh0LWNhci8/5d60173a6780897078554114Bdd86f132) will start popping up in the wild in the next few months, starting with luxury vehicles. “If you don’t have digital experiences, you are not on the radar screen,” Kjell Gruner, CEO of Porsche Cars North America, recently told (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FydGljbG VzLzIwMjEtMDQtMjYvbW92ZS1vdmVyLXR1cmJvcy1wb3JzY2hl LWNlby1zYXlzLXRlY2gtdGFrZXMtc3RyYXRlZ2ljLXByaW9yaX R5P2NtcGlkPUJCRDA1MDEyMV9HUkVFTkRBSUxZJnV0bV9tZWRp dW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJnV0bV90ZX JtPTIxMDUwMSZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249Z3JlZW5kYWlseQ/5d60173a6780897078554114B224a48fb) Bloomberg. “You’re irrelevant.”
Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes all confirmed that these options will appear on flagship vehicles soon, though nearly all of them said, via e-mail, that it was too early to discuss details. It’s “part of a global BMW strategy,” said spokesman Phil DiAnni. “When and how the concept gets rolled out in individual markets, and to what extent, is still to be determined.”
General Motors is all-in as well. On Friday, some 900,000 of its vehicles in the wild got an over-the-air version of Maps+, an app-based navigation tool. Similar software pushes are in the works for the company’s Super Cruise autonomous driving function. Underpinning it all is a massive electrical hardware update launched at the end of 2019. Dubbed the Vehicle Intelligence Platform, the system can process 4.5 terabytes of data per hour, a five-fold increase over its predecessor.
In truth, GM and its rivals are treading a somewhat fraught path. While drivers are used to paying monthly fees for music, movies and free-shipping, subscriptions for seat warmers, active-safety features or efficiency measures may take some getting used to by the sweaty masses.
Indeed, BMW has already learned some hard lessons about what may, or may not, fly in the automotive cloud. In late 2019, the company walked back (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2FyYW5kZHJpdmVyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2EzMD EzOTAzNC9ibXctYXBwbGUtY2FycGxheS1mcmVlLw/5d60173a6780897078554114B418269b3) an $80-a-year fee for Apple’s CarPlay after getting throttled on social media. More recently, the company has incited some more sporty Twitter debate (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9famFrZWdyb3Zlcy9zdGF0dX MvMTM3NDg3MjAyMzU5NjQxNzAyNA/5d60173a6780897078554114B8e0daba9)with its smart high beam feature, another software-enabled subscription. “Hostageware” quipped (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9KYWZhZmFIb3RzL3N0YXR1cy 8xMzc1MjE2MTUwNjgyOTkyNjQy/5d60173a6780897078554114Ba5ee4d41) one critic. “Cars are like printers, just W-A-Y more expensive,” wrote (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9tYXJrY2hyaXN0aWUvc3RhdH VzLzEzNzQ5OTQ2NzgzNDEzMDg0MjQ/5d60173a6780897078554114Bd8c5d070) another.
“You can easily see a major backlash to all this,” said Gartner analyst Michael Ramsay. “ And guess what, they’re probably going to have to walk back some of these other things they’re playing around with.”
Still, as the auto industry refines a new way to sell it’s also coming up with new things to sell, including a range of features that have never been on a vehicle (think: programmable ambient lights, automated driving features and technology tricks to idiot-proof the humbling act of backing up a trailer).
Ramsey, who helps car companies craft their tech strategies, has a simple rule: just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. For now, manufacturers should focus their software upselling on things that aren’t normally expected in a vehicle, features that have value only at certain times and/or personalized touches. Possibilities include a traction algorithm for people who drive on snow a lot, climate-controlled cupholders and advanced analytics to log certain trips, say, for someone who travels for work and expenses her mileage.
A few of the features BMW currently has on offer (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25uZWN0ZWRkcml2ZS5ibXd1c2EuY29tL2FwcC 9pbmRleC5odG1sIy9wb3J0YWwvc3RvcmU/5d60173a6780897078554114Be967b025) remotely fits Ramsey’s criteria nicely. They include real-time traffic alerts and a drive recorder (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25uZWN0ZWRkcml2ZS5ibXd1c2EuY29tL2FwcC 9pbmRleC5odG1sIy9wb3J0YWwvc3RvcmUvQmFzZV9Ecml2ZV9S ZWNvcmRlcg/5d60173a6780897078554114B2249ca03), which records a 40-second loop from the front of the car and can be used to replay an accident.
Crusty consumers aside, the rewards on over-the-air options appear to outweigh the risks. Not only will over-the-air updates provide a healthy revenue stream, they represent a strategic coup, shifting the decision on expensive options away from dealership salesman and extending it indefinitely. The potential to upsell a swanky feature will improve every time an owner gets a raise, every time a vehicle changes hands on the used market.
Morgan Stanley reckons (https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/23710151.136036/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FydGljbG VzLzIwMjEtMDItMDIvbW9yZ2FuLXN0YW5sZXktc2F5cy1mb3Jk LWdvb2dsZS1kZWFsLW1heS15aWVsZC01LWJpbGxpb24tcHJvZm l0P2NtcGlkPUJCRDA1MDEyMV9HUkVFTkRBSUxZJnV0bV9tZWRp dW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJnV0bV90ZX JtPTIxMDUwMSZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249Z3JlZW5kYWlseQ/5d60173a6780897078554114B8f8ba176) that Ford Motor’s cloud computing foray, including digital subscriptions, could one day be a $100 billion business, roughly three times the company’s current market cap. That’s right: Ford Software = (Ford Motor x 3). The math is relatively straightforward: $10 a month from the 75 million Ford’s on the road adds up to $9 billion a year — and an extremely profitable $9 billion a year at that.
Here’s the takeaway from Morgan’s team of auto analysts: “We believe the industry is in the early innings of a profound shift to securing revenue measured in data, derived from its hardware ‘real estate’ and monetized through a range of recurring business models.”
Every automaker is doing similar math at the moment, giddily crunching what the Silicon Valley software set calls “multiples.” However, if they are ham-handed with the cloud, they might not sell many cars at all.

[Ronald Blue]

[QUOTE=Stan Calow;3118072]There are many accidents every year from ammonia leaks, from agricultural use, railroad accidents and in refrigeration leaks. It comes out at such a low temperature that it will freeze human flesh instantly. There's a lot more of it around than most people realize.

Train derailments involving ammonia spills are actually rare. I might have overlooked something but my search came up with 2003 as the most recent derailment involving ammonia.

Being a common industrial cooling medium it stands to reason that it would also be the least regulated systems too. Any transport method has to meet DOT standards. Whether by rail or by road. The nurse tanks used in ag are also DOT certified. After doing some searching it appears the majority of leaks have occurred at large storage tanks (Ag use) where they refill smaller tanks for field application or at facilities using ammonia in refrigeration. I also saw it's used as a dehydration agent in some food processing. So after looking there are more incidents than I thought but most are not related to transport.

[Bill Dufour]

Hydrogen safety my chance to mention the BRT at the lab. They had a hydrogen bubble chamber with something like 400 gallons of liquid hydrogen in it. They had a emergency drain valve on the bottom that drained into a special sewer underground that ran by gravity to the top of the BRT just downhill. The hydrogen was at a critical temperature so any particles going through it would form bubbles that could be seen and tracked. Probably just under boiling point?
Any way. The brt was a 20' diameter sphere filled with old aluminum cans, squashed flat, as a heat sink so the liquid would vaporize and be flared off if needed.
BRT= Big Round Thing.
Bil lD

[Alex Zeller]

The recent Tesla car that crashed with no driver Musk stated then driver had not subscribed for the fancier self driving function it just had the basic free cruise control.
Bill D.

That's what the media is spinning it to sound like. What I got from his quote is the car didn't have their new self driving option. That's an option where you can call the car to you from a parking spot and has the ability t follow markings on the road without any input from a driver. Not the same as their "autopilot" which is a fancy cruse control that brakes and steers while a person has their hands on the steering wheel. The clue is that the package Kusk said wasn't on the car costs $10k.

What most likely happened is they had the autopilot on and found a way around being in the driver's seat and having a hand on the steering wheel. Still a problem for Tesla.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Actually, it's Dr. Stankus.

...(definitely behaving non-ideally)...

Clearly a higher authority! And I am definitely behaving so, just ask SWMBO.


... the direction for software ...

I bet a month's pay this is the onrushing model for nearly all software dependent devices; from cell phones, to PCs, to cars. It creates an ongoing revenue stream for the entire organization.

Microsoft has been buttery for years at the idea of 'renting' you a hole in their firewall. You will possess a Thin Client (box) and thru the MS hole will pass everything - until you forget to pay the bill. What blue screen of death? That's just the nonpayment reminder.

Software vendors have already started down this path: purchase a runtime license for $8000 (1-time CAPEX); or rent it for $1500/yr forever (or at least the life of the application). But renting is in OPEX! And what Project Engineer doesn't themselves get buttery at saving a few bucks on their budget - and shifting it over to those slugs in Operations.

Trying to maintain topic - -
For EVs, motors make enormous sense in this application. Motors have been around a long time. The efficiency & maintainability is there.
We (at least in the US) CAN charge/fuel them with current. If (__*__) doesn't squash it, the energy is there.

So why has it taken 100 yrs or more to get to this current age's stampede to EV ownership?
The storage medium -- the battery -- is the weak link, and has been for decades. I'd argue the oil industry conspiracy has never had to squash ANY EV tech. The auto makers handle that quite nicely all by their lonesome - with more than a little bit of help from basic battery chemistry. (Someone mentioned buggy whips - - Wonder how many folks thought horse breeders, wagon builders, and whip makers conspired to halt Mr. Ford? That evil Derby Cabal!) ...Believe what you will.

Doesn't take much research to find buckets of data on new battery tech: Li-S, aluminum, solid-state, mass-less structural, and so on. Everyone of them has some generally significant drawback in raw material sourcing, cost, lifespan, charge time, weight, toxicity, metallic dendrite growth, or energy density. Everyone of them generally needs some sort of 'breakthrough' to enable it. LOTS of research in the area, and we'll get there. Where ever there is. But at the moment there's an old saying about 'wish in one hand, and...' - - well, you have probably all heard that.

*- insert whatever organization you wish. And be sure to take a look at population growth too.

[Jerome Stanek]

When I worked for a crop service we had 25 smaller ammonia tanks and 1 large one never had any accidents in the 10 years I worked there.

[Alex Zeller]

The problem with subscription based services is that people (or companies) find a way around it. Whether it's reverting to an older version, hacking it, or just replacing the software with something free. Android sales took off mainly because of Apple's tight control over everything iPhone. The first car company to try this will most likely loose sales to other brands. GM has tried to offer monthly services like On-Star but it's never taken off. I've seen a few vehicles that say they can connect directly to the internet (for a monthly fee) yet if it was popular every model of every brand would have it as an option. Why would I want to pay an extra fee to make my vehicle connect to the internet when my phone already does and is much more portable than my car? That's the great thing about capitalism. If you get too greedy someone will undercut you.

[roger wiegand]

If you get too greedy someone will undercut you.

Android outsells Apple nine to one worldwide by unit sales.
Apple's market cap is twice that of Google (2 trillion vs 1 trillion)
Apple made $261 billion last year, Google (Alphabet) made $162 billion.
Apple made nearly as much on iPhones ($142 billion) as all of Alphabet.

I'd say they are both doing fine.

[Mike Henderson]

The problem with subscription based services is that people (or companies) find a way around it. Whether it's reverting to an older version, hacking it, or just replacing the software with something free. Android sales took off mainly because of Apple's tight control over everything iPhone. The first car company to try this will most likely lose sales to other brands. GM has tried to offer monthly services like On-Star but it's never taken off. I've seen a few vehicles that say they can connect directly to the internet (for a monthly fee) yet if it was popular every model of every brand would have it as an option. Why would I want to pay an extra fee to make my vehicle connect to the internet when my phone already does and is much more portable than my car? That's the great thing about capitalism. If you get too greedy someone will undercut you.

Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to have your vehicle connected to the Internet. You will connect your car to your in-home WiFi, just as you connect your smartphone to your in-home WiFi. The reason for doing this is so that you can receive software updates to your vehicle. Your vehicle will also report its maintenance status to the company so that they can inform you of problems that need service. I suspect they will collect a lot more data that they don't tell us about. When you drive away from your home, you will lose that Internet connection.

This connection to the Internet is not just for EVs. Ford, for example, does this for all of their new cars.

Regarding hacking the software in a car, there are ways to detect "foreign" software in a system, as your virus detection software does. I suspect that if they detect any "foreign" software they will treat it as a virus and shut down that part of the car, or even the whole car. It will likely also void the warrantee. Tesla has a pretty robust software protection system in their vehicles - I haven't heard of anyone hacking it yet.

If there is a hole in the software security, they will send out an update to patch the hole, as Microsoft does with Windows today. Hacking a vehicle's software is something that a lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about. If your vehicle's software could be hacked, a lot of dangerous things could be done. For example, your brakes might not work, or your car might accelerate to 70 miles per hour and you wouldn't be able to slow down. Keeping foreign software out of the vehicle system is a very high priority to the companies.

Regarding subscriptions for various features, we'll just have to wait and see. But the financial advantage to the company is so great that I don't see any way to stop it.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Android outsells Apple nine to one worldwide by unit sales.
Apple's market cap is twice that of Google (2 trillion vs 1 trillion)
Apple made $261 billion last year, Google (Alphabet) made $162 billion.
Apple made nearly as much on iPhones ($142 billion) as all of Alphabet.

I'd say they are both doing fine.

Yeah, the reason companies use Android is that it's the only viable software system that's available to them. If you're not Apple and you want to compete in the smartphone business, what are you going to use for your operating system? To be successful, there has to be a lot of apps that run on your smartphone so you can't write your own operating system. You have to use Android because that's where the apps are (if you're not Apple).

The primary reason Android systems sell so many units is because the manufacturers who make cheap smartphones use Android. But even with that, I believe Apple sells more units of smartphones than any other single manufacturer.

Mike

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Some of our Walmarts have special shelters for the Amish to park their buggies with the horses having shade and even water at some. At the Walmart on the south side of Ephrata PA, I think the shelter has 8 bays for horse and buggy parking.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Wow, an insurmountable problem, how to heat an EV in very cold weather. Ironic how the Amish are able to heat their enclosed buggies in Winter without expending the horses energy. (I returned from an outdoor trip during zero degree weather and my daughter asked how I stayed warm. I showed her the pocket warmers I had left over from hunting trips 40 years ago. I explained how they work. She gave me a puzzled look and then asked "You carried a fire around in your pocket?" )

[roger wiegand]

I believe early EVs used resistance heating, which will certainly kill a battery in a hurry. AFAIK more modern ones use a heat pump-- an automotive mini-split as it were. Much more efficient.

[Jerome Stanek]

Wow, an insurmountable problem, how to heat an EV in very cold weather. Ironic how the Amish are able to heat their enclosed buggies in Winter without expending the horses energy. (I returned from an outdoor trip during zero degree weather and my daughter asked how I stayed warm. I showed her the pocket warmers I had left over from hunting trips 40 years ago. I explained how they work. She gave me a puzzled look and then asked "You carried a fire around in your pocket?" )
Have you ever seen a Amish buggy in the winter. They bundle up and stay close to each other

[Jim Matthews]

The clue is that the package Kusk said wasn't on the car costs $10k.

What most likely happened is they had the autopilot on and found a way around being in the driver's seat and having a hand on the steering wheel. Still a problem for Tesla.

Chris Porter, the comedian took this on, in 2018 -
"Ugly and Angry".

*There's enough people on this planet to start culling the herd. I'm not suggesting we kill the stupid. Just let them do it themselves. Start taking some warning labels off.*

The YouTube clip is NSFW so I shan't provide the link.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

There are several types of Amish. Around here, they have heaters in their storm front carriages, even defrosters of a sort. I am only 20 miles from Lancaster PA and have Amish neighbors. And the way the boys "customize" theirs, with shag carpet, stereo's, etc. They even have hydraulic brakes. I get a magazine for "plain communities" and there are multiple ads for carriage heaters every issue. (The newly made wringer washers that operate on power tool batteries are another odd thing)

[Tom M King]

I hear that there is a dramatic improvement in air quality in Chinese cities, after going to EV's.

[Erik Loza]

There are several types of Amish. Around here, they have heaters in their storm front carriages, even defrosters of a sort. I am only 20 miles from Lancaster PA and have Amish neighbors. And the way the boys "customize" theirs, with shag carpet, stereo's, etc. They even have hydraulic brakes. I get a magazine for "plain communities" and there are multiple ads for carriage heaters every issue. (The newly made wringer washers that operate on power tool batteries are another odd thing)

Not to jack this thread but I always found the Amish (and Mennonites?) really interesting to talk with from a woodworking machinery perspective. I don't really deal with them now that I'm with Felder but did quote often during my Italian days. I remember one gentleman asking if we could offer an edgebander without motors (we wouldn't). He bought it anyway and I guess, sold the motor? Anyhow, the interesting part was how the various groups ran their equipment. Some seemed to run machines normally, but their facilities were powered by diesel generators. Others gutted out the machines and ran them off some giant steam-powered mainshaft with pulleys. It seemed like every group had their own way of driving things, which was super-interesting.

Erik

[Mike Henderson]

Not to jack this thread but I always found the Amish (and Mennonites?) really interesting to talk with from a woodworking machinery perspective. I don't really deal with them now that I'm with Felder but did quote often during my Italian days. I remember one gentleman asking if we could offer an edgebander without motors (we wouldn't). He bought it anyway and I guess, sold the motor? Anyhow, the interesting part was how the various groups ran their equipment. Some seemed to run machines normally, but their facilities were powered by diesel generators. Others gutted out the machines and ran them off some giant steam-powered mainshaft with pulleys. It seemed like every group had their own way of driving things, which was super-interesting.

Erik

I had a chance to visit an Amish woodworker's shop. On first look, it looked like any other woodworking shop. All the machines were modern. On closer examination, I found that all the motors had been replaced by hydraulic motors. There was an engine (gas or diesel, don't know) at one end of the shop that pumped the hydraulic fluid and each tool had valve.

Hand tools, like sanders were more of a problem. He had long flexible shafts that were driven by a hydraulic motor and came down into the tool where the motor was. That seemed to make them awkward to handle but they managed. The shop had lots of skylights in the roof and they could be opened for exhausting heat in the summer.

But they were not beyond using modern things. He had a bunch of top chair rails (maybe for rocking chairs) in the shop. They had a design in the center of the rail. I said to him, "Do you carve these during the winter?" He replied "No, I buy them that way. The manufacturer uses a high pressure press and presses the design into the rails."

As long as it's not forbidden by their religion, they'll use it.

Same with combines (harvesting). The need power on the combine (to process the corn, for example) so they can have a diesel engine on the combine, but the combine has to be pulled by horses. Essentially all welding is arc type welding so they use electricity for that. But it has to be generated at the shop - can't connect to the grid. They can't have phones in their houses so they would have a "phone box" in front of their house with a land line in it. Now days, they need cell phones for their business and many seem to have them. I don't know about Internet access.

I visited an Amish store and it was illuminated with gas lights. Interesting things in the store, such as white gas powered clothes iron. You light it, just like the old Coleman gas lanterns, wait for it to get hot, and iron away.

The Amish run businesses and the bishops are aware that they have to compete with "The English" (non-Amish people) so many compromises are made. My first wife's family lived in Amish country and we used to visit. Took the opportunity to learn more about the Amish and the Mennonites, who also live in the area. The joke was that the difference between them was that the Mennonites would ride as a passenger in a car.

Mike

[Far as I know, the Amish sell the motors they take out of the big power tools.]

[Keith Outten]

The topic of this thread is Electric Car Challenges.

[Doug Garson]

When I lived back in Ontario a few decades ago we were near Mennonite country. The dairy farms needed to have refrigeration for the milk to meet health department rules. So the barns had electricity but the houses did not. Last time we were back east a few years ago we still saw horses and buggies. Guess they won't be adopting EV's real soon. :)

[Erik Loza]

The topic of this thread is Electric Car Challenges.

Sorry, Keith.

[Alex Zeller]

Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to have your vehicle connected to the Internet. You will connect your car to your in-home WiFi, just as you connect your smartphone to your in-home WiFi. The reason for doing this is so that you can receive software updates to your vehicle. Your vehicle will also report its maintenance status to the company so that they can inform you of problems that need service. I suspect they will collect a lot more data that they don't tell us about. When you drive away from your home, you will lose that Internet connection.

This connection to the Internet is not just for EVs. Ford, for example, does this for all of their new cars.

Regarding hacking the software in a car, there are ways to detect "foreign" software in a system, as your virus detection software does. I suspect that if they detect any "foreign" software they will treat it as a virus and shut down that part of the car, or even the whole car. It will likely also void the warrantee. Tesla has a pretty robust software protection system in their vehicles - I haven't heard of anyone hacking it yet.

If there is a hole in the software security, they will send out an update to patch the hole, as Microsoft does with Windows today. Hacking a vehicle's software is something that a lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about. If your vehicle's software could be hacked, a lot of dangerous things could be done. For example, your brakes might not work, or your car might accelerate to 70 miles per hour and you wouldn't be able to slow down. Keeping foreign software out of the vehicle system is a very high priority to the companies.

Regarding subscriptions for various features, we'll just have to wait and see. But the financial advantage to the company is so great that I don't see any way to stop it.

Mike

Tesla uses AT&T cellular service as well as wifi. I'm not talking about your car connecting through your house or cell phone wifi. What I'm talking about is a vehicle that has it's own wireless connection. With Tesla the car can connect to AT&T's cell service for information that Tesla wants. Tesla charges $10/ month for anyone who wants to do things like stream music directly through their car's cellular service vs connecting their car to their cell phone.

[Mike Henderson]

Tesla uses AT&T cellular service as well as wifi. I'm not talking about your car connecting through your house or cell phone wifi. What I'm talking about is a vehicle that has it's own wireless connection. With Tesla the car can connect to AT&T's cell service for information that Tesla wants. Tesla charges $10/ month for anyone who wants to do things like stream music directly through their car's cellular service vs connecting their car to their cell phone.

Certainly, if you don't want Internet access on the go, don't subscribe to it.

Mike

[Ron Selzer]

Was in Amish area in Ohio a week ago, think I saw 1 regular bicycle the rest were electric, lot of solar panels around also at houses. Interesting how fast the Amish have adopted the electric bike not certain how they feel about electric cars.

[Rick Potter]

The Green Car site just reported that plug in cars of all types are almost at 10% of new car sales in California. Makes sense here, not everywhere.

Seems like most local high schools now have parking lots full of solar carports. I assume there must be some State and Federal grants involved. In local industrial areas, many warehouses have their roofs covered with panels, and some even have vacant lots with solar farms.

Things are changing swiftly around here.

[Bill Dufour]

15. years ago in the high dessert there were a lot of billboards with solar powered lights for night. made good sense rather then paying to run a power line for miles.
Bill D

[Aiden Pettengill]

Not so sure about charging issues but they're weird to jumpstart. You only use the positives when I was asked to jump my bosses car it was quite the head scratcher! Thank god for YouTube!

[Lee DeRaud]

Not so sure about charging issues but they're weird to jumpstart. You only use the positives when I was asked to jump my bosses car it was quite the head scratcher! Thank god for YouTube!Ok, you'll have to parse that one a bit for me: it looks like English, it sounds like English, but I'm not understanding it.

[Aiden Pettengill]

Ok, you'll have to parse that one a bit for me: it looks like English, it sounds like English, but I'm not understanding it.
On a Prius (which is hybrid and not fully electric), to jump start the car, you done use the negative at all and instead, there is only a place to hook on the positive to the battery. To top it off, the battery prong is hidden under a cap that blends in with the rest of the engine. I messed up typing it the last time! It should have been: "You only use the positive so when" instead of "positives when".

[Lee DeRaud]

On a Prius (which is hybrid and not fully electric), to jump start the car, you done use the negative at all and instead, there is only a place to hook on the positive to the battery. To top it off, the battery prong is hidden under a cap that blends in with the rest of the engine. I messed up typing it the last time! It should have been: "You only use the positive so when" instead of "positives when".Ok, hybrid, not EV: different animal.

Not having access to the ground side of the battery isn't that unusual...in fact, my GF's car has the battery under the back seat and (only) a positive connector in the engine bay. In any case, it's usually easier/safer to hook the negative jump cable to an unpainted engine bolt or other ground source.

I still seriously doubt that the positive-only hookup works: it's pretty much the definition of "open circuit". Hint: if hooking up only the positive jumper cable worked, it implies that the regular battery (if it had a charge) would work with its negative cable detached...good luck with that.

[Aiden Pettengill]

Ok, hybrid, not EV: different animal.

Not having access to the ground side of the battery isn't that unusual...in fact, my GF's car has the battery under the back seat and (only) a positive connector in the engine bay. In any case, it's usually easier/safer to hook the negative jump cable to an unpainted engine bolt or other ground source.

I still seriously doubt that the positive-only hookup works: it's pretty much the definition of "open circuit". Hint: if hooking up only the positive jumper cable worked, it implies that the regular battery (if it had a charge) would work with its negative cable detached...good luck with that.

You are absolutely right. I did ground it, its just that when you're used to jumping dump trucks and loaders, it is quite a shock at first. Living in Maine, the majority of us have larger vehicles like SUVs, wagons, or trucks with four wheel drive and not so much small cars and hybrids (one word: snow) so its rare to have a hook up like that anyways here.

[Lee DeRaud]

...its just that when you're used to jumping dump trucks and loaders, it is quite a shock at first.Could be worse.

If you try to hook jumper cables to the main battery on the Prius, it will be quite a shock: 200V-350V, depending on the year and model. :)

[Rick Potter]

Let's make it even more weird. On my Ford C-Max plug in hybrid (equivalent of Prius Prime) the large high voltage battery can be fully charged, and if the little ordinary car battery goes dead, you cannot start it. The little battery is used somehow (magic) to excite the relay to the high voltage battery, and if it is dead...you need to jump it.

There is a red cover in the engine area that has a hot terminal, and a negative post that looks like a metal pencil that sticks up about 12" from the bottom of the engine area. Touch a 12V battery (a lantern battery would do it) to the two terminals and you get a relay click and a magically turned on car.

I bought one of those small pocket sized jump starters to keep in the car, because there is no provision for showing the condition of the regular 12V battery. I asked the dealer....no way the car warns you the battery is going bad. Must be one of those Ford better ideas.

I have two...the '13 model has quit on me several times, with the dealer finally replacing the faulty part, while the '14 went out once when the battery died, and the dealer fixed it the first try. That and a faulty A/C thermostat on the '14 is the sum total of problems with both cars since new. According to the Lie-O-Meter mine averages 101 MPG, hers is 140, the difference is that we usually take mine on long trips where we don't plug in, and either car averages 37 MPG city or interstate using just gas.

My next car will have a gas motor and a plug. For OUR SITUATION, it is the best choice. Toyota RAV4 Prime is looking good so far. It will be at least a year, since car deals are hard to find right now, and new choices will be coming out soon, plus I like to wait a year after new ones come out.

[Jim Matthews]

My next car will have a gas motor and a plug. For OUR SITUATION, it is the best choice. Toyota RAV4 Prime is looking good so far. It will be at least a year, since car deals are hard to find right now, and new choices will be coming out soon, plus I like to wait a year after new ones come out.

If you can't find a RAV4 prime at MSRP (there's been price gouging) the KIA Niro PHEV as a viable choice. We have a Niro EV and it's adequate. With the back seat folded flat, it can carry plenty.

The GDI engine is noisy, in normal operation.

(Prior to the EV, we drove the Optima PHEV and regularly bested 45 miles on electric only.)

[Lee DeRaud]

Let's make it even more weird. On my Ford C-Max plug in hybrid (equivalent of Prius Prime) the large high voltage battery can be fully charged, and if the little ordinary car battery goes dead, you cannot start it. The little battery is used somehow (magic) to excite the relay to the high voltage battery, and if it is dead...you need to jump it.Quite likely they are running all of the computers and control electronics off the 12V, like a 'normal' car.

The really odd bit is that even pure electrics have a 12V battery; the ones in Teslas are known for going dead at inconvenient times, but at least the newer ones have gone to a 12V lithium-ion pack instead of lead-acid. For the life of me I don't know why they bother. If the main HV battery is dead, about all the 12V is good for is running the charge-control electronics, but I suspect if the main pack is too low to provide that amount of power, something terminal has occurred, no pun intended. I found this article on the subject, but the reasons they give for requiring the 12V "backup" are IMHO unconvincing.
https://teslatap.com/articles/12-volt-battery-compendium/

[Roger Feeley]

Until there are generic easily swappable batteries EVs will continue to be a niche. My vision is a standardized battery that can be replaced in just a few minutes by a robot and is leased from an energy provider. This would solve most of the hurdles to EV.
I agree with you, John.
I read that the new Ford Lightening will have a range of 2-300 miles. Ford has also applied for a patent on a ‘range extender’ that is a generator that will mount in the bed like a toolbox. Two things occur to me:
1. Applying your idea of rapidly replaceable batteries, why not have a smaller battery installed when you don’t need a 200 mile range? If you are just going to work and back, 100 miles is gobs and there’s no need to cart around those heavy batteries.
2. Make the range extender so easily installed and removed that it could be rented. Now, you can go from a short range vehicle to something you can drive long distances.

[Alex Zeller]

The problem with swappable batteries is us in the north (or more the salt up here in the winter). Lifting/ dropping the battery from the underside would be the easiest but you'll have to deal with corrosion and ice in the wintertime. A door on the side of the car would work but making every door a standard size would be an issue. It can be done but not without working out some of the details.

[Doug Garson]

I think another issue with swappable batteries is that it would be a niche market. The vast majority of EVs are driven less than their full range in a typical day and can be charged overnight at home or during the day while the driver is at work. The range limit is just an issue a few times a year when you do a road trip. I'll bet, for everyone out there who drives over 200 miles a day on a regular basis there are a hundred people who drive less than 200 miles a week in their normal commute and thousands of people who drive less than 200 miles a day. The average annual mileage driven, according to the DOT is 13,500 miles or 260 miles a week or 37 miles a day.
I think the range issue will be solved by improvements in battery technology (think how much better today's cell phone batteries or power tool batteries are compared to ten or twenty years ago).

[Jim Matthews]

The F150 Lightning is equipped with a heavy skid plate to protect the battery. Any quick swap will require dropping those fasteners, too.

Claimed range on the Lightning is 300 miles.

Most importantly, and a clever inducement is that it doubles as a long term portable "generator" during power outages. This would require Ford's proprietary charging station and a transfer switch.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/future-cars/a36490165/ford-f-150-lightning-powers-home/

[Rod Sheridan]

Very true, my commute is 20 kilometres and takes an hour.

Range won’t be a problem for most drivers.....Regards, Rod

[Mike Henderson]

Rather than swappable batteries, I expect we'll see batteries that can be charged faster, especially to 80% of a full charge. So if your vehicle has a stated range of 300 miles, you'll be able to charge it to 240 miles quickly.

There are just too many problems with the concept of swappable batteries.

I really like the Ford Lighting concept of being able to supply electricity to the home during a power failure. Also their concept of putting a generator in the truck bed to give you more range on a long trip.

Really neat, inventive ideas are coming for electric vehicles.

Mike

[Lee DeRaud]

Also their concept of putting a generator in the truck bed to give you more range on a long trip.I keep reading that, and can't help but wonder just how big that widget would need to be to make a meaningful difference in the overall range.

[Mike Henderson]

I keep reading that, and can't help but wonder just how big that widget would need to be to make a meaningful difference in the overall range.

I suppose, technically, that all you need to generate is the amount of energy that the car is using cruising along the highway, plus a bit to put some in the battery for when you have to hill climb. Cruising along a flat road doesn't take a lot of HP - Google says between 10 and 20 HP. Ignoring efficiency, 15 HP is 11.25 kW. So the generator would have to be at least 15 kW and 20 kW would be better.

A 20 kW generator is not a small (or cheap) generator. It would take a lot of the truck bed.

Alternately, you could use a smaller generator and it would make the battery last longer but the battery would be depleted eventually. For example, if you needed 15kW to cruise, you could put in a 5 kW generator and then you'd only draw 10 kW from the battery, which would give you more range. A 5 kW generator is not that big. There are portables that are bigger than 5 kW. A 7 kW generator could essentially double your range.

Mike

[I did some more Googling and got higher HP results for cruising at 70 MPH. But the idea is the same. Whatever the generator supplies will extend the range of your battery.]

[roger wiegand]

A generator in the bed will be fine for 90% pf pickup truck users (witness the popularity of micro-beds in trucks), but a few of us use our trucks to actually move things around. Not so good for us.

There are already much better designs for plug-in hybrids than this. I suspect that this is an idea that sounds good at first hearing, but will go nowhere.

[Dave Mills]

And let's not forget the generator in the bed needs to be fueled by something, so you'd need a canister for that fuel.

<sarcasm on>
Gee, maybe they could permanently mount this generator and fuel canister somewhere in the truck so that you wouldn't need to be putting it in and out of the bed.
<sarcasm off>

To me, this sounds about like the pitch for attaching a solar panel to the roof. On first blush - brilliant! But the devil is in the details...

[Bill Dufour]

People with electric cars already have generators on a trailer.
Bill D

[Lee DeRaud]

I suppose, technically, that all you need to generate is the amount of energy that the car is using cruising along the highway, plus a bit to put some in the battery for when you have to hill climb. Cruising along a flat road doesn't take a lot of HP - Google says between 10 and 20 HP. Ignoring efficiency, 15 HP is 11.25 kW. So the generator would have to be at least 15 kW and 20 kW would be better.

A 20 kW generator is not a small (or cheap) generator. It would take a lot of the truck bed. Kinda what I expected. A quick look at the Harbor Freight catalog shows ~200lbs for a 10KW "portable" generator, which makes it a 2+ person job (or an engine hoist) to get it in or out of the bed.

[Lee DeRaud]

<sarcasm on>
Gee, maybe they could permanently mount this generator and fuel canister somewhere in the truck so that you wouldn't need to be putting it in and out of the bed.
<sarcasm off>Sounds a lot like a Chevy Volt. :)

Among the reasons the Volt was discontinued were (1) the whole lash-up is complicated/expensive and (2) it doesn't scale to larger, less-aerodynamic vehicles, like say, pickup trucks.

[Rick Potter]

Put a motor in the 'Frunk', making it a plug in hybrid, and I am there.

[John Lifer]

I'll assume those looking at EVs have seen the new F150 intro the last few days. Consumer reports (not anyone that I stand behind 100%) has estimated a less than 100 mile range if fully loaded to the 10K capacity touted.
And that was best case use. Winter use? Towing anything like an RV? You won't get out of a metro area. The new electric hummer? Such a joke. Unless you live 10 minutes from a place you MIGHT want to go off roading, what in the heck do you do if you get 10 miles out and you find you can't get back to the road? Carry on board generator? Joke.

Yes 14,000 folks were sent a survey, and 1400 said they wouldn't buy another EV or would buy a ICE. That is a big number. And Women were behind most of the changes. Oh, I saw someone post 1500 charging cycles. That is only 5 years if you have to charge your vehicle every day. Or less than 7 years if you only drive it to work 5 days a week and no other travel.
I'm not against electric vehicles, but I'm totally against forced conversion AND government grants to pay you to buy one.

[roger wiegand]

We have many, many billions of dollars in government support to go before we come anywhere close to subsidizing electrics to anything like the extent to which we've subsidized petroleum based fuels with tax dollars. Not saying whether that's a good or bad thing, but it's important to recognize that our current system has been heavily subsidized as well. Not giving the electrics something as well leaves them at a substantial, and some would argue unfair, competitive disadvantage.

[Rod Sheridan]

John, where I live most of the trucks have a single occupant with a briefcase heading for work downtown.

They are so pristine that you know they’ve never had a job box or concrete mixer in the bed.

An electric pickup is a great method of reducing the carbon footprint of that sort of owner.

Is it for everyone? No, of course not however many people who own a truck have no rational reason for owning one, this is a good solution to that problem...Regards, Rod

[Mike Henderson]

Kinda what I expected. A quick look at the Harbor Freight catalog shows ~200lbs for a 10KW "portable" generator, which makes it a 2+ person job (or an engine hoist) to get it in or out of the bed.

Once you put a generator in the truck bed, you've (in a way) converted the truck to a Chevy Volt:)

Mike