Electric Vehicles

[wallus]

32 minutes ago, nate82 said:

The rebate for EV's should be going to hybrids only with no rebate or government subsidy for EV's.  Actually there should be no government subsidy for anything.  But if you want to help the environment then giving the subsidy to hybrids should have been the go to option and not EV's.  This would have made hybrids more affordable to lower income drivers.  Lower income individuals tend to have older cars with worse emissions.  Higher income individuals tend to have newer cars with better emissions. 

The government once again got it backwards not surprising as our politicians sure love to stick it to the middle and lower class.

Why would hybrids be better for the environment? 

[nate82]

12 minutes ago, wallus said:

Why would hybrids be better for the environment? 

Lower emissions of fully ICE cars.  They are also lower in cost you can get more people to buy thus lowering emissions more.

If you can move 30% of vehicles on the road now to hybrids it will have a higher net positive than the current 1-5% of EV’s. 

[wallus]

1 minute ago, nate82 said:

Lower emissions of fully ICE cars.  They are also lower in cost you can get more people to buy thus lowering emissions more.

If you can move 30% of vehicles on the road now to hybrids it will have a higher net positive than the current 1-5% of EV’s. 

There are a few cheap EV options right now but the role out has been slower than what I had hoped. The issue is lithium costs exploded but now they have come back down.

[LouisEly]

12 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

All I'm saying is the blanket mandates for EVs make no sense for a place with winter and they really need to be retooled/phased in much more gradually in cold weather climates.

What in the world are you talking about?  There is no "blanket mandate for EVs" in Chicago or Illinois. 

The nine states planning to adopt zero-emission mandates (not EVs specifically - just zero emission) are all coastal states.  Most people in NY are in the NYC area which doesn't get that cold (I lived there for 1.5 years - the Atlantic currents keep the NYC area fairly moderate).  Same with MA and Boston.  Same w/WA and Seattle.  VT, yes, but there aren't even 700k people in VT.

[owbc]

Good thing in never gets cold in Norway, where EVs are now 90% of new vehicle sales. (81% full EV, 9% PHEV).

Most people weigh cost vs convenience. Gas is roughly $8/gallon in Norway. 

So it isn't surprising that the US states with the most expensive gas prices are the ones that have gotten to around 20% of new vehicle sales being EVs. Which is honestly pretty incredible given they were a fraction of 1% just a few years ago. 

[homer]

On 1/16/2024 at 7:44 AM, Fear The Chorizo said:

Can't help but think some of the recent issues EV owners in Chicago and many of the other northern cities are having with the recent cold snap killing their car batteries and turning their days into white knuckle waits at charging stations that don't work well when it's zero have them second guessing their purchases for where they live.  People are frustrated at Tesla for not having much of any comment or solution to this issue, to which I'd say that they probably wouldn't want to hear the reason Tesla is quiet is there isn't a solution in very cold weather besides not driving your EV at all and just leaving it inside your garage on a trickle charger until it warms up outside.  

Widespread EVs for personal use have a purpose in the near future...just not everywhere and definitely not for everyone.

It wasn't so long ago that people had to put blankets over their car batteries at night so their combustion engines would start in the morning. I imagine in the 10 years from now until any kind of mandate kicks off they'll make all kinds of technical advancements in EV batteries and charging stations as they relate to cold weather.

[SeaBass]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

Good thing in never gets cold in Norway, where EVs are now 90% of new vehicle sales. (81% full EV, 9% PHEV).

Most people weigh cost vs convenience. Gas is roughly $8/gallon in Norway. 

So it isn't surprising that the US states with the most expensive gas prices are the ones that have gotten to around 20% of new vehicle sales being EVs. Which is honestly pretty incredible given they were a fraction of 1% just a few years ago. 

Or Sweden where Volvo is based out of. They make a lot of EVs. Probably know how to account for cold there too.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Norway is the population of minnesota, and their EV rollout/subsidy program was heavily aided by the oil royalties that have basically given them an economy that makes everyone upper middle class.  They intentionally made EVs cheaper than ICE vehicles and funded that incentive through selling oil.  Sweden is not much different.  Those two Scandinavian countries also have a limited driveable area, meaning they don't need to drive 100 miles+ routinely to get around developed parts of the country.

 

Now that they're that heavily shifted to EVs, Norway has to figure out a way to pay for road upkeep now that their gas tax revenues have dried up and EVs are exempt from it.  They'll figure it out by taxing people a little more and allowing more oil to be pumped out of their provable reserves, no doubt.

 

Again, I'm not anti-ev....I'm an environmental consultant.  But I am a realist.

[Fear The Chorizo]

9 hours ago, LouisEly said:

What in the world are you talking about?  There is no "blanket mandate for EVs" in Chicago or Illinois. 

The nine states planning to adopt zero-emission mandates (not EVs specifically - just zero emission) are all coastal states.  Most people in NY are in the NYC area which doesn't get that cold (I lived there for 1.5 years - the Atlantic currents keep the NYC area fairly moderate).  Same with MA and Boston.  Same w/WA and Seattle.  VT, yes, but there aren't even 700k people in VT.

I'm referring to the current 2032 fed emission standards that essentially will force auto manufacturers to produce a large percentage of EVs in order to meet it.  Chicago/Illinois is in the United States, so the type of vehicles available for purchase in that area will be impacted.

[SeaBass]

4 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Again, I'm not anti-ev....I'm an environmental consultant.  But I am a realist.

I'd be more riled up if all this was happening in a year or two. Not even close though. Zero reason for alarm. 9 states, 10 years. Zero effect on already owned and manufactured ICE vehicles. Zero effect on ICE vehicles manufactured in states that do not have the ban. ICE vehicles are going to be around for decades yet. 20 to 30 years minimum.

[Fear The Chorizo]

42 minutes ago, homer said:

It wasn't so long ago that people had to put blankets over their car batteries at night so their combustion engines would start in the morning. I imagine in the 10 years from now until any kind of mandate kicks off they'll make all kinds of technical advancements in EV batteries and charging stations as they relate to cold weather.

I think that's the hope...but I will say both auto manufacturers and battery developers are growing pretty skeptical about getting there when the current emission standard milestones need them to be.

To me, a smarter approach is to adjust those standards based on geography to phase them in at a later time where winter weather is a concern

[BrewerFan]

11 hours ago, LouisEly said:

What in the world are you talking about?  There is no "blanket mandate for EVs" in Chicago or Illinois. 

The nine states planning to adopt zero-emission mandates (not EVs specifically - just zero emission) are all coastal states.  Most people in NY are in the NYC area which doesn't get that cold (I lived there for 1.5 years - the Atlantic currents keep the NYC area fairly moderate).  Same with MA and Boston.  Same w/WA and Seattle.  VT, yes, but there aren't even 700k people in VT.

They're talking about the 2035 timeframe in which manufacturers are also saying they'll be...manufacturing exclusively electric vehicles. GMC for one has said they will not only make Electric Vehicles by 2035. 

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I'm referring to the current 2032 fed emission standards that essentially will force auto manufacturers to produce a large percentage of EVs in order to meet it.  Chicago/Illinois is in the United States, so the type of vehicles available for purchase in that area will be impacted.

I thought it was 2035, but in any event...I rented a Rivian for a trip...and I won't be doing that again. I wanted to test drive it before deciding if I was going to buy one. 

It just added WAAAY too much time to the trip and was far too inconvenient. I'd guess by the time there's any type of EV mandate(which I don't think will come in the next 8 or 11 years) the infrastructure will improve dramatically. 

It was an awesome truck and I'd even have swallowed the "Max pack batter," or whatever, but it's still just too hard to find places to charge it and there are too many dead zones. 

I'm gonna stick with the hybrids until then, but hopefully in the next decade, you'll have a charging station and a quicker charging capability by then. Given how quickly battery technology is coming, that seems pretty reasonable. Of course, there are people who seem just fundamentally opposed to Electric Vehicles just because they're EVs. 

I like the Turndra's that are electric under 35(under 45-50 would be nicer, but I'm admittedly pretty ignorant as to why they've got that type of shut-off) and then go to gas when you're on the freeway. 

[MrTPlush]

On 1/16/2024 at 10:42 PM, nate82 said:

They are also lower in cost you can get more people to buy thus lowering emissions more.

Till you give tax credits and the price suddenly spikes. 

[nate82]

1 hour ago, MrTPlush said:

Till you give tax credits and the price suddenly spikes. 

Thank you captain obvious.

[MrTPlush]

12 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Thank you captain obvious.

Okay, so if you knew that...then what is the point of giving tax credits for hybrids?

[owbc]

19 hours ago, SeaBass said:

Or Sweden where Volvo is based out of. They make a lot of EVs. Probably know how to account for cold there too.

The Volvo XC-40 has better cold weather battery performance than Tesla in my opinion. The XC-40 is pretty popular on the west coast but if they make a longer range XC-40 and get the price down a bit it will sell like crazy. I can understand why people would prefer a RAV-4 right now. 

It's worth noting that one of the reasons that Detroit is so pro-EV is that EVs are soon going to be cheaper to manufacture than ICE vehicles, which could be quite lucrative from a profits perspective. 

 

[Fear The Chorizo]

21 hours ago, owbc said:

Good thing in never gets cold in Norway, where EVs are now 90% of new vehicle sales. (81% full EV, 9% PHEV).

Most people weigh cost vs convenience. Gas is roughly $8/gallon in Norway. 

So it isn't surprising that the US states with the most expensive gas prices are the ones that have gotten to around 20% of new vehicle sales being EVs. Which is honestly pretty incredible given they were a fraction of 1% just a few years ago. 

This equates to 25% of its current fleet of personal vehicles on the road in Norway, so they're still a long ways off eliminating ICE vehicles, too....obviously that percentage will change over time, but even that small country will have to deal with expanding its network of chargers/power supply infrastructure  four-fold to meet the demand they are imposing with their current incentives/subsidies/tax exemptions.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years, for sure.

[LouisEly]

29 minutes ago, owbc said:

It's worth noting that one of the reasons that Detroit is so pro-EV is that EVs are soon going to be cheaper to manufacture than ICE vehicles, which could be quite lucrative from a profits perspective. 

This is true.  There are technological advances on the near horizon that are supposed to dramatically cut the cost of EV battery manufacturing, which is the biggest cost of those vehicles.  Add to that the cheaper costs to the consumer for EVs (lower maintenance costs, lower "power" costs - I've calculated the cost/mile of gas to be about $0.15 and electricity for EV recharging to be about $0.05), and there may not need to be financial incentives to purchase them. 

Note that the 2032 EPA guidelines are "technology neutral" - they don't require EVs, just emission standards.  There could be other technology that could also be developed/used to meet the standards.

[owbc]

10 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

This is true.  There are technological advances on the near horizon that are supposed to dramatically cut the cost of EV battery manufacturing, which is the biggest cost of those vehicles.  Add to that the cheaper costs to the consumer for EVs (lower maintenance costs, lower "power" costs - I've calculated the cost/mile of gas to be about $0.15 and electricity for EV recharging to be about $0.05), and there may not need to be financial incentives to purchase them. 

Note that the 2032 EPA guidelines are "technology neutral" - they don't require EVs, just emission standards.  There could be other technology that could also be developed/used to meet the standards.

Parts is also a huge one. They will eventually be able to ditch many of their parts suppliers.

It also will help that we found lithium deposits everywhere once we started looking for them. 

[nate82]

39 minutes ago, owbc said:

It also will help that we found lithium deposits everywhere once we started looking for them. 

Yes and we have an abundance of oil in the US also but we see how well that has worked out. 

This is what a lithium mining operation looks like:

Lithium mining is going to be like oil refineries NOT IN MY BACKYARD!  So we can find all the lithium we want but there is no way the EPA will allow for anything like the above in the US.  We will be dependent on other countries for this mostly from South America and Asia.  So the cost for lithium will more than likely rise than it will go down.

Also mining for lithium uses up 500,000 gallons or 1.9 million liters of water per metric ton of lithium.  I think that is more than what it takes to mine for gold. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Note that the 2032 EPA guidelines are "technology neutral" - they don't require EVs, just emission standards.  

While true, there simply isn't any other developing technology close enough to scaling up that would help with those guidelines in less than 10 years, thus the initial push in the last couple years to build and sell more EVs.  Since auto manufacturers are already dropping the rate at which EVs are being manufactured, I'd expect that either the emission standard value would increase if it stays at 2032 or the year that the standard needs to be met will get pushed further into the horizon.

I'm most hopeful for hydrogen being the true ICE replacement, with EVs serving to bridge that gap once enough people realize the practical limitations and environmental issues that sort of scaled manufacturing would be on a global scale, but hydrogen is still several decades away from being an option.  

[homer]

Found an interesting article on the future of battery technology:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/04/1066141/whats-next-for-batteries/

[Samurai Bucky]

After seeing the post on the What's Bugging You board about AAA and the wait for car batteries, I thought of a question:

What happens if a person "runs out of power" (akin to running out of gas)?  Would they need to get towed?  Is there a service that would have a generator or something that would allow them to charge the EV for a 20 mile trip to get to a charging station?

[Fear The Chorizo]

33 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

After seeing the post on the What's Bugging You board about AAA and the wait for car batteries, I thought of a question:

What happens if a person "runs out of power" (akin to running out of gas)?  Would they need to get towed?  Is there a service that would have a generator or something that would allow them to charge the EV for a 20 mile trip to get to a charging station?

I believe the only current option is to have a flatbed tow truck pick you up and take you to the nearest charging station/home.  Perhaps there will be a method developed for a mobile charging unit to drive out and give the car enough juice to get a few more miles down the road to charge, but honestly from a time/cost perspective it probably would be cheaper and more efficient to just tow the car off the road to a power source somewhere that will get it running again.

[owbc]

On 1/18/2024 at 12:50 PM, nate82 said:

Yes and we have an abundance of oil in the US also but we see how well that has worked out. 

This is what a lithium mining operation looks like:

Lithium mining is going to be like oil refineries NOT IN MY BACKYARD!  So we can find all the lithium we want but there is no way the EPA will allow for anything like the above in the US.  We will be dependent on other countries for this mostly from South America and Asia.  So the cost for lithium will more than likely rise than it will go down.

Also mining for lithium uses up 500,000 gallons or 1.9 million liters of water per metric ton of lithium.  I think that is more than what it takes to mine for gold. 

Nobody is saying that lithium mines are a panacea but they are certainly better than oil extraction and refinement. Showing these "scary" pictures shouldn't sway anyone. 

The water numbers sound bad until you do the math. A Tesla battery uses about 150 lbs of lithium, so one metric ton of lithium is enough for 16 EVs, over the entire life of the EV, so 31,000 gallons of water for 1 EV.

Meanwhile, 1 barrel of oil is estimated to take 1,850 gallons of water to extract and refine, so if you assume a 50 mpg car uses 70 barrels of oil in its lifetime, that's 130,000 gallons of water. 

Obviously there are other components besides lithium that go into EV batteries, but my point is that it's probably a wash at best. And it's really about the CO2 emissions more than water, and EVs obviously save a huge amount of CO2, even if you are burning fossil fuels to generate the electricity because power plants are way more efficient than cars.