The Breakroom > The Water Cooler

Ban of sales of IC engined cars to support electric cars by 2040

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Jo:

--- Quote from: awemawson on July 30, 2017, 11:56:41 AM ---Solved by a removable 'battery pack' and a spare :)

--- End quote ---

I looked at that and it is not economical: battery life has to at least double and half in price.

It is however cost effective to dump my spare solar power into my emersion heater and any further excess (in cooler seasons) into a resistive space heater using a cleaver gadget I have  :thumbup:

Jo

BillTodd:
Uk average milage is about 8000 per year about 22 miles a day .  average commute is 90minutes 36% drive. that equates to 45miles each way or 90miles a working day

 I do typically 75 - 100 miles in a working day carrying 50kg of tools and 120kg of nephew  :lol: (my 2l  passat estate does about 60mpg , averages about 30mph peaking to 60mph on a good day)

a twizziy ain't gonna cut it  :D

Jo:
I did start thinking about what does this electric thingy mean for Hire Cars...

For example: When I fly to foreign lands (Edinburgh) I normally hire a car and then drive the remaining 60 miles to our site, stay for a few hours and return. When I arrive on site parking is normally impossible because all the locals have pinched the parking places  :bang: But worse than that I will need a fast charge point because I need the car fully charged so I can turn round and get back in time for my flight home again. And Hire Cars are normally "dropped off" in our case from 10 miles away. So that is 10 miles less the car is capable of doing before you start (unless you charge it first). And often they forget to drop off a car and we have to take one that someone else has returned the day before :( 


Returning to charging your car at work: We did start looking at the costs associated with charging cars and their recovery. So 20KwH of electric is not a lot and the paperwork/tracking for the business would be a pain and probably cost more than the electric but if it is free it will no doubt it will be seen in the eyes of the tax man as a taxable perk..

Jo

AdeV:
I wonder if driverless electric "taxis" aren't the future... so, to take Jo's example, rather than having up to 200 people driving 50 miles every morning, instead you use a smartphone app to hail an electric taxi. This takes you to wherever you're going, then leaves and takes someone else somewhere else. A computer can work out if any given taxi can or can't complete a journey on whatever charge it has left, thus it won't dispatch a car to somewhere it won't be able to make it to AND back to a charging station. Speaking of; suitable high-speed charging stations can be installed in suitable locations, the cars will automatically call in when they need topping up. Although this would require sufficient vehicles to cope with peak demand (bearing in mind we've become an incredibly impatient race - we want to go somewhere, and by golly we want to go RIGHT NOW thank you!).

Such a system could work extremely well in cities, but it could be made to work in rural areas too. People with solar panels, for example, could opt to sell their power to "the electric cab co". Even in rural areas, there's generally a pretty good electricity supply, so charging stations are practical even out in the sticks. It might take a bit longer to get a "cab" to your door, but us country folk are used to waiting a bit longer for things...

IMHO, that generally addresses the needs of a typical commuter. It doesn't, however, address many other aspects of travelling:

Leisure (I want to go to Cornwall for a week's camping holiday - try that on any form of public transport....). So, maybe I can book exclusive use of a "taxi" (possibly a larger one so I can fit the whole family + luggage in it). The vehicle itself might still take off during the night to re-charge.

Worker's van: Tougher one this. All those plumbers, sparkies, broadband engineers etc... I suspect they will have to just put up with the inconvenience of recharging their own vehicles.

Note: All these little driverless cars, we could call them "Johnnycabs", and have a head-on-a-stick to talk to during the ride :lol:

Big unaddressed problem: How to pay for it all.... who pays, how much, and when? I leave that as an exercise for the reader   :scratch:  :palm:


I do wonder if, ultimately, this is going to be another one of those times when something which has transformed our lives (the privately owned motor car/van/etc.) is phased out & there's nothing better to replace it with. Maybe it'll turn out that the late 20th/early 21st centuries were "peak convenience".

hanermo:
Within about 2-4 years, electric cars will be well available, from multiple manufacturers, at 60-80 kWh battery capacities as std.
Reason is money.

Currently, tsla has costs of about 112$ /kWh for 2170 cells at 380Wh/kg. World leader in usage, and costs, and lion tech.
BUT...
For == 17 years, lion cell capacities and thus costs have dropped 7-9% y/y exponential.
This means every 5 years the batteries are 50% cheaper/better.
This trend is now accelerating, because there is so much money in it.

Today, for tsla or another major manufacturer making 10 GWh/yr in lion cells (tsla is the only one today with advanced lion batteries in scale, but many others will appear and are building plants at this time), a 60 kWh battery thus costs == 60 x 112 == 7000 $ pack cost to the manufacturer.
5 years ago the cost was == 350$/kWh == 21.000$.
5 years from now, the cost will be 7000 / 1.5 = 4700 $, +/-.

At the real cost of == 100$ in 5 years, likely 60-80$, it will be trivial to make base pack sizes of == 100 kWh, for 6-8k$.

Of note:
A BMW3/Audi4 etc engine == 4000 $ to the manufacturer, gearbox about the same.
I used to sell cnc stuff to the auto manufacturers and suppliers, the nrs are pretty real.

Thus, practically *today* it is cheaper to make a high performance BEV car than a std ICE car.

A 3-phase 300 hp motor like the tsla one, is about 30 kg in mass and costs about 5€/kg, under 400$ to make.
It is just a high efficiency 3-phase motor.
The tsla-designed cheap vfd with std cheap igbts, is about 400$ in parts.

Tanks, radiators, firewalls, transmission axels, pumps, are not used, saving about 1000$.

Thus the auto industry will go to bevs, due to money, but this will mean that many/most auto companies will die ..
because they have huge liabilities in bonds and pension obligations, and personnel that cannot be easily and cheaply fired.

GM has 100-200B in assets. But they have 160B in debt.
And most of the assets are near-worthless in a post-ice world.

VW has about 20B in liquid assets, and another 30B in real ppe assets they could sell.
But they have about 900k Very Expensive personnel in germany alone, and cannot realistically reduce headcount by 50%-70%, that they would need to do to survive in a post-ice world.

The problem for VW/GM et al is not that they cannot pay their bills, next 3-5 years, while developing new tech, at a cost of 5-15B in that time.
They can pay, easily, and they can develop the tech, easily.
The real problem they have is that if/when the market sees them as having stranded assets - true - in 2-5 years, their market cap goes down.
This leads to them failing, because they then cannot, any more, put up 30B in equity to satisfy their bond obligations, pension funds, and bank covenants.

Big Auto can do 1, 2, or 3, or any 2 .. but not all 3 at once.
So far, they all have done "ostrich management", ie head-in-sand ignoring technical reality.

Markets are forward-looking.

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