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Given that 150K miles would take 20-25 years at this stage of my life, it gives "lifetime warranty" a whole new meaning.Originally Posted by Mike Henderson
Obvious followup question is, is it just miles (AKA charge/discharge cycles) or is there a straight-up time factor in the degradation?
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"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
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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.
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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.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?
AT least that's my understanding.
Mike
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 04-29-2021 at 1:53 AM.
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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.]
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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.
Last edited by Rick Potter; 04-29-2021 at 3:26 AM.
Rick Potter
DIY journeyman,
FWW wannabe.
AKA Village Idiot.
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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.
Member
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.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?
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-t...-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.
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Mike Henderson gave you a great answer.
Where I live it's 25 to 35% of the cost of gasoline..........Rod.
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My drug store has hitching post that get used every day
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.
NOW you tell me...
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Giant battery farm in OZ.
Bill D.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
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Hydropower!
Same for Norway. Cars deriving power from falling water.
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Uh-huh.
https://www.ohiosamishcountry.com/medina
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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.
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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.
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 04-29-2021 at 5:14 PM.
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