Hybrid Electric Vehicles

[ytz]

Not solar without batteries to store it as most vehicles are charged at night.

I know economics is hard for some. But most owners would try to charge when electricity is the cheapest. The cars have functions to load rate schedules and will charge accordingly. Right now, that's at night for most people. But if there's a surplus of solar during the day that makes charging cheaper during the day that's when charging will shift to. We are already seeing this in places like California which have a surplus of solar. That's literally the purpose of time of use pricing: to shift consumption behaviour.

Given that average car commuter does 40 km each way, and average consumption of an EV is 15-20 kWh per 100 km, that works out to 12-16 kWh per commute. Given that a NEMA 5-15 has a theoretical max of 1.8 kW, if we assume 1.5 kW, an average outlet at a work parking spot could provide 70-100% of the charging needed of the average commuter over an 8 hr work day. This isn't nearly as difficult as people imagine. And we'll get to the point where most regularly used long duration parking have a basic outlet at them. No different than plugs for block heaters.

 

[YZT580]

You didn't worry about it before. You don't need to worry about it now. Demand drives capital investment. There will be plenty of investment into power generation and grid expansion.

Whatever is cheaper and more efficient will win.

Those two statements say it all. Go for a free market system without the enormous amounts of cash that are currently being spent on subsidies and let the market decide. With what we have invested in battery plants we could have had another pipeline or two up and running providing jobs and a good income to a hell of a lot more folks than all those windmills contaminating much of south-western Ontario. We could have developed and opened new copper mines to provide the raw materials for the infrastructure needed to support the AI age and our electric bills would be low enough to entice high energy users to our jurisdiction. We could have several new natural gas power stations up and running providing stable power to both us and to NY state when their grid starts to fail: which it is. Let the markets decide!

 

[Good2Golf]

I won't say "no". I will say minimal. They are giving away the cars and can't sell them. You are so committed. Why don't you have one? Literally every sale helps them right now.

As the car reviewer pointed out, the cars themselves are ridiculous. The infrastructure is non-existent for most of the world.

I have consistently held the ‘worthy of consideration’ (not everyone transition to them now, infrastructure notwithstanding) position on HEV/FCEVs, noting that BEV/PHEVs aren’t the ‘end-of-EVolution’ that you and others make them to be. Your static BEV/PHEV is and always will be the pinnacle of personal vehicle development is inconsistent. ICEVs are dodos, the future market has spoken today on HEV/FCEVs and they’re already in decline. Your position is clear, BEV/PHEVs are the bomb. Got it.

Personally, I’m going to run my current, fully-paid clean diesel SUV until it becomes impractical to sustain. I suspect that will be 10+ years. I remain interested in and will watch my neighbour’s continued experience with his Rivian R1T BEV pick-up. If for some reason I change my intended vehicle path in the near-term and consider a BEV, it would be something like the R1T I would buy/invest in. If my plan for my continue vehicle works out and I’m looking for a a new vehicle in 10 years, I will absolutely look at HEV/FCEV options.

Out of interest, are you an all-EV family?

 

[PuckChaser]

Apply all the tax rates in the cost of gas to any electricity used by an EV charger. I think the "cost savings" gap would close significantly.

 

[captloadie]

Those two statements say it all. Go for a free market system without the enormous amounts of cash that are currently being spent on subsidies and let the market decide. With what we have invested in battery plants we could have had another pipeline or two up and running providing jobs and a good income to a hell of a lot more folks than all those windmills contaminating much of south-western Ontario. We could have developed and opened new copper mines to provide the raw materials for the infrastructure needed to support the AI age and our electric bills would be low enough to entice high energy users to our jurisdiction. We could have several new natural gas power stations up and running providing stable power to both us and to NY state when their grid starts to fail: which it is. Let the markets decide!

If you watch the Caleb Hammer clip posted in the Cost of Housing discussion, you'll see how this train of thought (let's rely on our nation's natural resources) will continue to stagnate our economy, and we'll continue to move closer to our African cousins as a country.

 

[Kirkhill]

Those two statements say it all. Go for a free market system without the enormous amounts of cash that are currently being spent on subsidies and let the market decide. With what we have invested in battery plants we could have had another pipeline or two up and running providing jobs and a good income to a hell of a lot more folks than all those windmills contaminating much of south-western Ontario. We could have developed and opened new copper mines to provide the raw materials for the infrastructure needed to support the AI age and our electric bills would be low enough to entice high energy users to our jurisdiction. We could have several new natural gas power stations up and running providing stable power to both us and to NY state when their grid starts to fail: which it is. Let the markets decide!

We could have been building clean, green Combined Heat and Power Incinerators in every city.

How Sweden Sends Just 1% of Its Trash to Landfills

The country incinerates nearly half its garbage to create the energy that powers its homes and buildings.

reasonstobecheerful.world

What it does with the other half is what sets Sweden apart from much of the world. Nearly all of Sweden’s non-recycled waste is burned to generate electricity and heat. It’s a method that, while emitting CO2, is far better for the climate than sending garbage to landfills, according to the Swedish government and proponents of waste-to-energy technology. “Energy recovery is the best available technology for treating and utilizing the energy in different residual wastes that can’t easily be recycled,” says Klas Svensson, a waste-to-energy technical advisor at Avfall Sverige, Sweden’s waste management association. “For many other countries in Europe, it represents an opportunity to both replace Russian gas, and at the same time phase out landfilling.” It also happens to earn Sweden a good deal of money.

Sweden was an early adopter of waste-to-energy. Its first plant started operating amid a post-war home-building boom in the late 1940s. The new houses were connected to district heating networks, which generate heat at a central location and pump it out to individual homes, rather than each house having its own boiler. Over the years, more of the energy powering these district heating networks was supplied by waste-to-energy power plants, with major expansions beginning in the 1970s. Today, Sweden has 34 waste-to-energy plants supplying 1,445,000 households with heat and 780,000 households with electricity — impressive figures for a country with a population of only 10 million.

Hydrocarbons to plastic bags. Plastic bags as fuel.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I know economics is hard for some. But most owners would try to charge when electricity is the cheapest. The cars have functions to load rate schedules and will charge accordingly. Right now, that's at night for most people. But if there's a surplus of solar during the day that makes charging cheaper during the day that's when charging will shift to. We are already seeing this in places like California which have a surplus of solar. That's literally the purpose of time of use pricing: to shift consumption behaviour.

Given that average car commuter does 40 km each way, and average consumption of an EV is 15-20 kWh per 100 km, that works out to 12-16 kWh per commute. Given that a NEMA 5-15 has a theoretical max of 1.8 kW, if we assume 1.5 kW, an average outlet at a work parking spot could provide 70-100% of the charging needed of the average commuter over an 8 hr work day. This isn't nearly as difficult as people imagine. And we'll get to the point where most regularly used long duration parking have a basic outlet at them. No different than plugs for block heaters.

I am not opposed to EV, but the option of even being able to plug in even a 110v line at night is not there for many people. I personally think Hybrids achieve 80% of the solution without the major infrastructure requirements. I am opposed to any more subsidize for EV and expect that owners pay a road tax that goes to road upkeep like everyone else does.

Going by reports I have seen by Tesla owners, that in the cold areas, a 110v extension cord to a car outside will struggle to charge and most of the input will be used by the battery thermal management system.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Where did the electricity come from when everybody got air conditioning? Where did the electricity come from when the internet took off and we built data centres? Where will the electricity come when we need more data centres for AI? By the way, the average charging load for a commuter using an EV is the same power draw as an air conditioner overnight.

Some political jurisdictions and parties are more hostile to large infrastructure projects than in past decades, and large projects take longer to complete than they used to. It's usually not prudent to assume that something can be approved and completed before at least one major change of political affiliation in the responsible governments. That risk gets factored into planning and go/no-go decisions. When the NDP government took over in BC, the continuation of Site C dam construction was not assured; the question should never have been in doubt. Politicians will cancel expensive undertakings on a dime to suit themselves (eg. Chretien and helicopter acquisition, BC NDP and work towards a bridge replacement for Massey Tunnel) and block private projects as well.

The projections I've seen for anticipated expansion of supply do not match projections for anticipated increase of demand. The ordinary functioning of competitive markets cannot be guaranteed against political interference.

 

[YZT580]

If you watch the Caleb Hammer clip posted in the Cost of Housing discussion, you'll see how this train of thought (let's rely on our nation's natural resources) will continue to stagnate our economy, and we'll continue to move closer to our African cousins as a country.

Never said that. What I said was that with the money spent we could have gotten a much bigger bang. The harvesting of resources must go hand in hand with industrial development. We are building battery factories but not developing the mines needed to supply the raw materials. With China putting a limit on their export and with most other sources not available (no development in those countries either) those plants will never come close to breaking even. ytz says that charging my EV takes the same power as my air conditioner. OK. Many power grids won't support adding an air conditioner to every home. A lot of homes are still on 60 amp service. So we need more copper, and more rare metals (sourced from China) to upgrade our systems. We export most of the copper mined here instead of developing the industry to use it. We should be exporting the finished product. So yes, relying on our natural resources is a good way to become a third world country. But relying on those same resources to feed industry and shipping the finished product would put us ahead of the game. We need those cheap energy sources. Our labour costs far exceed China's and Viet Nam's to name but two, but cheaper power would keep us in the game and we need those factories

 

[YZT580]

Never said that. What I said was that with the money spent we could have gotten a much bigger bang. The harvesting of resources must go hand in hand with industrial development. We are building battery factories but not developing the mines needed to supply the raw materials. With China putting a limit on their export and with most other sources not available (no development in those countries either) those plants will never come close to breaking even. ytz says that charging my EV takes the same power as my air conditioner. OK. Many power grids won't support adding an air conditioner to every home. A lot of homes are still on 60 amp service. So we need more copper, and more rare metals (sourced from China) to upgrade our systems. We export most of the copper mined here instead of developing the industry to use it. We should be exporting the finished product. So yes, relying on our natural resources is a good way to become a third world country. But relying on those same resources to feed industry and shipping the finished product would put us ahead of the game. We need those cheap energy sources. Our labour costs far exceed China's and Viet Nam's to name but two, but cheaper power would keep us in the game and we need those factories

A good example of this is Ukraine. They both mine and process. Their major exports are grain crops and steel.

 

[ytz]

I have consistently held the ‘worthy of consideration’ (not everyone transition to them now, infrastructure notwithstanding) position on HEV/FCEVs, noting that BEV/PHEVs aren’t the ‘end-of-EVolution’ that you and others make them to be. Your static BEV/PHEV is and always will be the pinnacle of personal vehicle development is inconsistent. ICEVs are dodos, the future market has spoken today on HEV/FCEVs and they’re already in decline. Your position is clear, BEV/PHEVs are the bomb. Got it.

My position is that the market has decided on EVs. 15 years ago, you could have said it would go either way. Once Tesla started building the Supercharger network it's when it became game over. Like I keep saying on this thread, the Canadian perspective is lagging. Go to Europe and you will see several competing chains of Supercharger networks. It's like having Shell, Petro-Canada, Esso, etc. What you will also see are that the most popular places to charge are grocery stores. You can get enough charge to commute for a week, in the half hour it takes to do groceries. It's all this development and correspondingly little development on the hydrogen side that has ended H2's chances as a personal transport fuel.

If anybody can show me a single place in the world where hydrogen fuelling investment is outpacing EV charging investment, I'll change my tune. So far, nobody has been able to show me that.

Out of interest, are you an all-EV family?

We're a one car family in a condo. That makes an EV impractical for us at the moment. I would like R3 when we get posted and have a driveway though....

That said, one more sale to me won't make nearly as much of a difference as one more Mirai sold by Toyota to you, given that total hydrogen vehicle sales are a 4 digit number. Like I said above (with links), the world buys more 100x more dildos than hydrogen cars every year.

Apply all the tax rates in the cost of gas to any electricity used by an EV charger. I think the "cost savings" gap would close significantly.

Given that most people charge at home, you're going to have a tough time figuring out what people are using the power for. Fast chargers are already pretty expensive, so people don't use them unless they really have to.

Also, good luck figuring out how to convert excise figures based on litres of fuel to kilowatt-hours of electricity. What are you going to base your conversion on? How many joules are in a litre of gas? If you are using that, than 1L of gasoline is about 8-9 kWh. If you look at 25 cents excise tax (combined federal and provincial) that works out to about 3 cents per kWh. It's not going to move the needle much on somebody paying an extra $2 on the fraction of charges that are away from home.

I am not opposed to EV, but the option of even being able to plug in even a 110v line at night is not there for many people. I personally think Hybrids achieve 80% of the solution without the major infrastructure requirements. I am opposed to any more subsidize for EV and expect that owners pay a road tax that goes to road upkeep like everyone else does.

As detailed above, I am one of those people and I still don't get the opposition. Infrastructure catches up. When you go to other places you see it. Hybrids are great for now. But if you've ever owned one (and I do), you'll quickly see the downsides too. You don't have the cheap fuel, convenience of home charging, etc. And maintenance goes up because you have two powertrains to maintain. Having had this experience, personally, I'd rather go EV or pure gas next. No in-between. Also, so many EVs come with turbos (and all the problems those entail, along with premium fuel) and DSGs (that make driving a pain).

The subsidies are going away. At least on the consumer side. But let's be clear. A lot of them weren't there to help EVs so much as they were there to help the auto industry transition before they get crushed by Chinese EVs. A problem for legacy auto is that they can only protect their home markets. And that's not where the growth is. So in the long run, they are absolutely screwed if they don't transition. And so many of them are so indebted (go look at their balance sheets) and so reliant on the Chinese market to be net profitable, that they'll be out of business if they can't compete there at all. That's the financial shape most of them are in.

So if we're talking about eliminating subsidies and protecting our auto sector, let's understand what that means. That means the rest of the world gets absolutely dominated by Chinese EVs as their products keep improving, while our auto sector starts looking like the auto market in Communist countries during the Cold War. They had cars. They were all a decade behind technologically. And even that is no guarantee. Absolutely nothing stopping a Chinese company from licensing a lot of their IP and sharing their trade secrets with some startup and letting them wreck legacy automakers. What then? Have people run around like Luddites smashing mechanized looms?

As for road tax? Go for it. I don't think most EV owners are opposed to a road tax. But again, what are you going to base it on? Fuel consumption? Vehicle size? Vehicle weight? Personally, as a car guy I hate the epidemic of SUVs and pickups. I would love to see registration fees scaled to vehicle size to realistically reflect how much space is taken up on the road. But I'm going to guess that's not what you have in mind.

 

[ytz]

Some political jurisdictions and parties are more hostile to large infrastructure projects than in past decades,

Good thing we will shortly have a government changing that I guess.....

Building a society that caters to the whims of NIMBYs will have to change was a mistake. And it's something that will have to be reversed if we are to make any progress at all. Designing policy, around a fear of NIMBYs, as you suggest, is particularly ridiculous and self-defeating. Such thinking is the source of so many problems in this country. Including the housing crisis, lack of resource development, high cost of major infrastructure projects, etc.

 

[Good2Golf]

As detailed above, I am one of those people and I still don't get the opposition. Any infrastructure other than hydrogen catches up.

TFTFY.

So you’re no more personally supportive of BEVs than I am of HEV/FCEVs.

 

[ytz]

TFTFY.

So you’re no more personally supportive of BEVs than I am of HEV/FCEVs.

The difference being that the tech you're cheering on really needs your support. The tech I am suggesting has won, doesn't need me at all.

But sure, you really need the internet win. Enjoy.

 

[lenaitch]

I know economics is hard for some. But most owners would try to charge when electricity is the cheapest. The cars have functions to load rate schedules and will charge accordingly. Right now, that's at night for most people. But if there's a surplus of solar during the day that makes charging cheaper during the day that's when charging will shift to. We are already seeing this in places like California which have a surplus of solar. That's literally the purpose of time of use pricing: to shift consumption behaviour.

Given that average car commuter does 40 km each way, and average consumption of an EV is 15-20 kWh per 100 km, that works out to 12-16 kWh per commute. Given that a NEMA 5-15 has a theoretical max of 1.8 kW, if we assume 1.5 kW, an average outlet at a work parking spot could provide 70-100% of the charging needed of the average commuter over an 8 hr work day. This isn't nearly as difficult as people imagine. And we'll get to the point where most regularly used long duration parking have a basic outlet at them. No different than plugs for block heaters.

So many balls to juggle. In southern Ontario anyway, I doubt there are many employers who provide power to employee parking, and certainly public and commuter lots do not. If an employer does it, do they cover the infrastructure costs? Does it become an employee benefit? For multi-unit dwellings like condos and apartments, new builds should probably include the infrastructure in their parking areas, either by building code or simply reading the emerging market, but trying to retrofit existing buildings would be a bit of a nightmare

Nighttime charging is predicated on the fact that most people are at home (Ontario has a rate scheme that offers really cheap overnight rates). Daytime charging assumes most people would be somewhere else, competing for the same electricity as industry and businesses, and that 'somewhere else' would need to provide the means.

 

[Good2Golf]

Enjoy

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Another issue with EV is that no one knows what the used market will look like in 5 years. The Teslas are in their 12th year, meaning they are opening up to people like myself who are generally the 2nd-3rd owner. We don't know how long the battery will last and if the incidences of fires goes up or remains steady. If insurance agencies detect a trend of car fires in EV of X years, then they will become impossible to insure without changing the battery. Those unknowns effect the price to a degree, but if cars of say 15 years become uninsurable, then the resale value of the car to the 2nd owner plummets, in which case the first owner is taking a huge depreciation hit.

Some the ugly bits about EV's is that after an accident, they have to be quarantined for a period and that means salvage yards need to be much bigger or have special concrete bays with fire systems installed. Recently the fire at a US port was traced to a written off EV stored in a container being shipped somewhere. There is a strong possibility that you will not be able to ship a damaged EV with a battery or ship damaged batteries in the future.

 

[ytz]

So many balls to juggle. In southern Ontario anyway, I doubt there are many employers who provide power to employee parking, and certainly public and commuter lots do not. If an employer does it, do they cover the infrastructure costs? Does it become an employee benefit? For multi-unit dwellings like condos and apartments, new builds should probably include the infrastructure in their parking areas, either by building code or simply reading the emerging market, but trying to retrofit existing buildings would be a bit of a nightmare

Nighttime charging is predicated on the fact that most people are at home (Ontario has a rate scheme that offers really cheap overnight rates). Daytime charging assumes most people would be somewhere else, competing for the same electricity as industry and businesses, and that 'somewhere else' would need to provide the means.

Mostly, my point is that the infrastructure and charging paradigm evolve with market conditions. If there's more solar, electricity pricing will change and so will charging behaviour.

People worry about this stuff way too much (mostly because they are trolling for excuses). Seriously, did anybody here really get stressed out in the 80s and 90s when AC adoption was picking up. Were all of you furiously arguing that this would crash the grid and that's why this evil should be stopped? Adding EVs to the grid is really not much different than adding AC to everybody's home. It's pretty similar on how much load is being added. And it's pretty similar on the timelines that this will happen. It's a gradual change that happens over several decades and the market and utilities know how to do that. They don't need randos on the internet to figure it out for them. Indeed, most utilities are pretty happy about this. Electricity consumption has been declining since the 2000s as everything gets more efficient. EVs are a great line of business for them. Which is also why the biggest charging networks in Canada are being developed by utilities. Hydro Quebec and OPG are more than happy to take your mobility fuel dollars instead of Shell or Esso or PetroCanada. And they'll happily invest in more infrastructure to grow that business.

 

[ytz]

We don't know how long the battery will last and if the incidences of fires goes up or remains steady.

There is emerging data from hyperusers. Like fleets that bought Teslas to use as taxis or shuttles, who put on substantially more miles than the average user. Most famously there was a fleet company that used them to provide long distance shuttle service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Some of their fleet were approaching half a million miles in 2019. Look at what they say:

The results reveal Tesla to be a company still ironing out bugs in its products, but one that pushes the limits of what vehicles can do. “When we first started our company, we predicted the drive train would practically last forever,” Tesloop founder Haydn Sonnad told Quartz. “That’s proven to be relatively true.” He notes that every car except one, a vehicle taken out of service after a collision with a drunk driver, is still running. “The cars have never died of old age,” he added.

It’s difficult to know how representative this data is of Teslas overall, given that Tesloop’s fleet is small, but it likely includes a large share of the highest-mileage Teslas on the road. Several are nearing 500,000 miles. Finding conventional vehicles to compare is virtually impossible since most fleet cars are typically sold off after 100,000 miles.

Tesloop’s maintenance logs show the company has spent at least $152,216 on its fleet of seven vehicles, along with four others it operates but does not own, over five years. Most of the money was spent on normal wear and tear and replacing parts such as tires, windshield wipers, new keys, brakes and fixing actuators, and windshield assemblies.

Not all repairs were minor. Tesloop has also had to replace about six batteries across its fleet (all of them under warranty). Sonnad says although the batteries have proved durable, despite degradation, they were swapped out due to factory or installation issues. One Tesloop Model X has seen its original battery’s range fall from 260 miles (23%) to 200 miles after covering 330,000 miles (for comparison, pooled data from Tesla owners shows batteries losing about 10% of their charge after 155,00 miles).

Other hardware issues have come up: two axels ($2,557.12) and a row of seats ($5,375.90) have been replaced, and a new windshield took three months to arrive. Finicky retractable door handles in the Model S have failed (1,500 to replace), and a flash memory chip (replacement cost $1,800) was logging so much data the car was effectively burning it out, a common problem.

For fleet operators, it’s all about the cost per mile. Tesloop says its cost per mile for maintenance is around $0.06, which is comparable to the industry average for legacy vehicles. However, the company’s Teslas spend less time in the garage, and they’ve been serving long past the usual fleet vehicle retirement age of 100,000 miles. Sonnad predicts Tesloop’s Model 3s will serve for over 500,000 miles, and will reach a total cost per mile (including depreciation) as low as $0.18 to $0.25 per mile - far lower than the current average of $0.32 to $0.35 for legacy sedans.

There's also this famous case of a guy who put on 1.2 million miles driving all over the world over a decade. He went through 4 battery packs and 14 motors.

https://insideevs.com/news/699413/highest-mileage-tesla-model-s-3-batteries-14-motors/

And all those cars were designed in a different era with different battery packaging, less effective thermal management systems, etc. Here's the difference with a more modern battery:

While you're worried about what your 20 - 30 000 km per year might do, every fleet owner is going to electric because they drive enough that the savings actually matter to them. Somehow, I don't think Amazon is less concerned about fire risk for their vehicles when they park them in warehouses that cost tens to hundred of millions. And they have an order in for 100 000 Rivian electric vans with 20 000 already delivered. I am sure you're a smart guy. But I doubt anybody here has the data and actuarial skills of whole teams at Amazon.