This cylindrical form factor might make sense for batteries that have thermal runaway potential, to keep the unit size small so that the whole battery doesn't go into thermal runaway, only one cell.
But for LFP or iron based batteries which don't have such issues, the blade design should be cheaper, more maintainable, more space and weight efficient etc. There's no glue so you can actually just switch individual blades. Cooling channels can be straight.
Volumetric efficiency is not a big concern for EVs. They already have more storage than an equivalent ICE vehicle (frunk, no trans tunnel, etc). Giving up space for better weight and cooling is worth it.
offset every row and significant reduction in “wasted space” also cooling is a huge part of what makes these work. We have to stop looking at battery’s from purely a cell level.
Add in the structural element, and the claim is they are now more volumetric and weight efficient than traditional packs.
You can see that the cooling channels in the Tesla pack are these hollow undulating aluminum shapes. Can imagine they're not very cheap. Also the Tesla packs are filled with some kind of bonding foam, making repairs near impossible.
It definitely isn’t the same. The square packing in the first picture uses pi/4 ~ 79% of the space; the second uses pi/(2*sqrt(3)) ~ 91% of the space.
They don’t bother with smaller secondary batteries because the extra manufacturing cost and operational complexity isn’t worth it for a 5%-10% bump in volumetric energy density.
I didn't mean to say the two packings were the same. 90% is better than I thought circle packing was though, I've mostly seen multi-scale packing used in thermal pastes and stuff and it is probably a bigger difference in 3d sphere packing.
Didn’t someone prove about 15 years ago that there’s an oval shape that packs tighter still? Given the hollow core that could probably be done, but cylinders are probably easier for the assembly line to handle. So then it comes down to whether that space is being utilized (for cooling, or weight per cubic inch of the support structure).
I suspect the original picture is from either the end of the assembly line or a shipping facility. Your first clue that it’s not in a pack is the lack of connections between the batteries. Nobody makes an all parallel pack. 3V at how many amps would be too hot. They wire a bunch in series to triple digit voltages and then comment those packs together in parallel.
You could probably ship them staggered, but I’m betting they are at a weight limit anyway so making them more dense doesn’t save you anything.
They currently use some of both NiMh and Li-ion. Toyota is notoriously conservative when choosing technologies. My guess is they still use a lot of NiMH because they have proven long-term reliability, more forgiving characteristics in harsh use, and they already have a lot of existing tooling to support them.
If there any single car that has made the general public comfortable with very expensive batteries in their car: it’s the Prius.
All those things are true when comparing NiMH to NiCd but definitely not compared to lithium batteries. There's not a single metric for which you can't find a superior suitable lithium chemistry. Except for one: $Cost
Just Toyota doing Toyota things.
Also I would strongly disagree on the Prius comment. A lot of "HV battery fault" cars out there back in the day, refurbing them was a pretty good business for a while. The NiMH pack in the Prius was the basis for so many slack jawed comments "EVs will never work! You're just going to have to replace the battery every 5 years!"
Cost, as you mentioned, is one reason. However they also fare better at extended temperature ranges and under long periods of self discharge. They are, generally speaking, more forgiving of a battery chemistry.
Your quote about rollout of the Prius is exactly my point. That opinion was widespread when the Prius was introduced. The reliability of the Prius since then has changed public opinion greatly.
None of that makes any sense. What are you using as the basis for those statements? I feel like I'm hearing doublespeak where down is up.
NiMH infamously has HORRIBLE self discharge performance in comparison to pretty much any lithium chemistry.
Multiple lithium chemistries outperform NiMH in low temperature performance. Even LFP which is generally not recommended for unregulated conditions below about -10 degree will function at reduced capacity at -40c. Nearly all chemistries, except maybe LMO, have superior high temperature performance.
I also don't understand what you mean by more forgiving chemistry?
Production yields? Modern lithium cell plants can easily do 80%+
Tolerance to production variations? Multiple lithium chemistries are just as tolerant.
Fire/puncture resistance? Multiple lithium chemistries areas as safe or safer
Voltaic efficiency/Energy Efficiency/etc? Lithium chemistries are SIGNIFICANTLY better
Memory effect or reduced voltage? NIMH yes while lithium none
Cycle life? Once again nearly every lithium chemistry is superior. Some even still have acceptable performance after an order of magnitude more cycles than a NiMH cell.
At this point there is literally no reason someone would chose NiMH for a ground up design in a consumer vehicle other than cost ....seriously like none.
Also yes Prius reliability is pretty good, but the reliability and performance of the NiMH battery packs were not even in the range for what would be acceptable in a commercially successful EV.
At the time when commercial lithium batteries were $1000-$5000/kwh hour sure they were a fantastic compromise, but it's not even close now.
If Tesla had started with NiMH they would have been dead meat right out of the gate. Gone out of business in a couple years at most.
I was comparing specifically to Li-Ion in the comment above. As to why major automakers are not using LiFePO4 or other chemistries in their cars, I don’t know, but it’s not anything that makes Toyota unique, which was what I was talking about.
There are, for sure, a tons of great lithium chemistries in existence. But, outside of some very specific markets, they are not used in cars yet.
As a Canadian who's currently driving a 9 year old Mazda 3, I'm waiting for the day it decides to call quits so I can move to an EV (9 isn't that old, so I'm hopeful at least another 2-3 years)
That said, I wish there was a site that simply told me now's the right time to buy an EV. With supply chain issues, long waits for a new car, government rebates, and the influx of new inventory/models, it's hard to keep up when's the right time to transition!
Indeed, and in reality it's probably better (as far as the planet goes) to keep on using the same car as long as possible because that means no new one has to be produced. Kinda hard to offset that with an EV even. At least I seem to recall that was the consensus but I cannot find where I got that. HN, I'd guess :)
I'm guessing in about a year. Supply chain problems, primarily chips but also some other parts, continue to plague auto manufacturing. In my industry (RFID), we're expecting the pipelines to unclog in about Q1 of '23 though we might see some relief before then.
In late '22 there will likely be a wave of car buying, from pent-up demand, dumping lots of used cars on the market. Might be a good time to shop used. You might be able to find some good deals on used EV's (Leaf, Bolt, older Teslas).
The car glut will be in non-EV's. There are a lot of buyers who don't care what type of car they have, and will buy an EV the moment they get cheaper than a gas car - therefore sucking up any glut.
They're already cheaper, so I think it's primarily range anxiety that holds up most people from making the switch. Once you get comfortable with how the EV works and trust that it isn't lying about range, it's an easy choice. Especially so for anyone who keeps their cars a good long time.
It seems non Tesla EVs deprecate quickly. If you just need a commuter car, or car for local shopping. They can be a great deal. For example a 2013 Nissan Leaf that gets ~70 miles of range can be bad for 6k.
I think it's too early to know how it will play out. In the past, non-Tesla EVs have all been compliance cars. The more recent batch of competitive EVs that go toe-to-toe with Tesla on features and performance probably won't depreciate anywhere near as fast as a Leaf.
I guess it depends a lot on the mileage but I know people with 20 year old Toyota Corollas with more than 200 thousand miles that are still going strong. No crazy maintenance costs either.
Older cars can work great but I just lose confidence in taking longer trips. If it’s statistically going to die soon I feel like there’s a large risk of getting stranded somewhere.
>If it’s statistically going to die soon I feel like there’s a large risk of getting stranded somewhere.
If you're in North America are you really going to be 'stranded' or just footing the cost of a one-way rental and waiting for the check from the junkyard which will almost certainly cover it?
You could be waiting for hours or overnight on the side of the US interstate (possibly in below freezin/0F temps) for a tow truck that may or may not show up. The salvage check may or may not cover the tow and replacement temporary transportation. A majority of Americans can't come up with $1000 for an emergency, which is somewhat close to the cost of a one way rental at the moment.
True, but statistically the average HN user with a beat up car won't be a McDonald's employee buying the only car they can afford, but more likely someone working in tech that's aiming for FIRE or whatever they're calling it and saving a ton of money.
Highly unlikely the average HNer can't come up with $1000 for an emergency (nota bene: for sure some can't, that why I didn't say "every HNer").
Phew, as long as we're only having to worry about HNers. That's gotta be what, a whole 1% of the driving population? Seriously, why is an HNer filter being applied?
FWIW: that's a survivorship bias effect. Old cars don't have "crazy maintenance costs" until they do, at which point they get scrapped and aren't in the population of "old cars" anymore. It's absolutely possible to find 20 year old Corollas (or whatever). But that's not representative. (Also, those 20 year old cars tend to be running around with components from a bunch of parted-out 14 year old vehicles!)
It's absolutely not. Twenty years isn't remotely near the median road lifespan[1] for any vehicle. You see a lot of 20 year old Corollas because c. 2002 the Corolla was the most popular car in the world. I'm sure it's more durable than many other vehicles, but it's not magic.
[1] Let me specify "passenger vehicles" and "US roads" lest someone jump in to point out that box trucks last longer or that cars get shipped to foreign markets at end of life, etc...
> The average age of a car on U.S. roads rose to 12.1 years in 2021, according to IHS Markit. The average age had been 11.9 years in 2020. In 2002, the average age was 9.6 years.
And in most of the rest of the world, it's even longer, as the vast majority of the rest of the world is poorer.
Depends who owns it and what their financial situation is.
Anybody who has to stiff someone to scrape up the lump sum to replace a transmission is probably going to replace the transmission rather than roll the dice spending the same or more on a different car that might need something else in short order. Those people also aren't the same people who rack up big bills for random suspension wear parts because they don't have those parts replaced until they start impeding the vehicle's ability to get from A to B <clutches pearls> because they can't afford to indulge in that kind of maintenance.
With what, though? Not a new part. A transmission from another vehicle that got scrapped. That's the point: these cars don't "last" on their own, they're just the winners in a cannibalism race.
I sure see a lot of Toyota survivors on the road. While it’s not strange to see a 1970s F150 on the road, it is strange to see one from the 90”s or early aughts.
Of the 40 cars on my block, 8 are over 10 years old and it’s 7 toyotas, a vw, a miata and a subie.
It is funny how there's a window of less desirable age of 10-20 years, but as soon as it hits 25 years to qualify for classic status it becomes desirable again.
Toyotas are unkillable. But OTOH, with 3-4x the running costs compared to electric, I don't think over the span of 200K miles it works out favorably for any ICEV, even a very efficient one.
If you call $1200 - $2500 every 10 months or so not a crazy cost, then sure. For me it felt like a crazy cost when the total resale value of the car was around $2000, being optimistic. But to be fair, Camry not Corolla.
With our last purchase, we went half-way and got the plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica minivan (which replaced a Prius which replaced a Mazda 6 so it's been a continuous evolution). It's likely that the next car will be a full-on EV.
Assuming you have an acceptable parking/charging solution available, a plug-in hybrid is a good option. The Chrysler uses gas more often in the winter to run the heater but even before the pandemic, we'd go a year on five tanks of gasoline (four of which were in the winter months).
I'm curious if you've run into any issues (Or worried about) cycling gas that long. I know that gas can "go bad" over the span of 6 months - 1 year. Do you ever intentionally run the gas, just so you can burn some and put new in?
After a certain amount of time (and/or some other conditions) the Pacifica hybrid will go into "fuel and oil refresh mode" while you are driving and start using the fuel to run the engine.
It has a pressurized gas tank. The way I found out about the Pacifica plug-in was when I rented a conventional one, and noticed that it also has a pressurized gas tank.
I usually do a 180 mile round trip once a month in mine, so I don't need to worry about bad gas.
Gas doesn't go bad as fast as people pretend. Yes it has lost a bit of octane rating sitting around, but unless you are driving a 30+ year old performance engine with high compression your car isn't going to notice the loss of a few octane points. Anything within the last 15 years measures and adjusts for fuel octane rating automatically and won't care, and anything non-performance that is older was designed expecting fuel octane to be lower than what it is sold as. Also these days most places add 10% ethanol to all pump gas which has a higher octane than gasoline and is replacing some of the old high-octane components of fuel that evaporated and caused gas to go bad sooner.
I honestly have no idea. We use the stock 120V charger at home and occasionally will charge at a public charging station if it's available. I couldn't tell you word one about amps.
Is your 30 amp wire at home? Do you have a 30 amp circuit breaker as well? An electrician told me that if there is a mismatch between the current and the circuit breaker amperage it can cause the software to think that something is wrong (not sure how the car's software would infer anything about the breaker but so I was told).
Once you switch, it's hard to imagine ever going back. No more gas stations, dramatic drop in fuel cost, always ready to go fully charged each morning. I'm addicted.
Do you live in a house with your own dedicated charger? How does this apply to someone living in an apartment or other similar situation to not having dedicated chargers?
Sure, there will always be some folks that cannot, for whatever cause, enjoy overnight charging where they park. For those folks, it is essentially a lateral move. They can enjoy the performance benefits, of course, but their running costs and convenience probably won't be any better with an EV.
Who knows, though, maybe one-plug-per-spot will become enough of a selling point that apartment owners will start to deploy the infrastructure. I don't think it will affect EV adoption one way or the other, however, at least not for a number of years. Apartment dwellers are just a fraction of car owners.
I live in an apartment in SoCal and have an EV. I just charge on the weekend and haven't had much issues, but yeah, it can be an inconvenience. My "full tank" is only 7$ though so I can't complain. lol
Not being an EV owner or someone seriously considering getting one enough to research the cost of a "full tank". Does that full tank charge (in $$ not volts) come out to the same if it's a super/hyper charger vs charging at home? I'd assume using it would be more expensive at a public charger since it is a business providing a service so markups on electricity would be expected. Just hadn't thought of it in those terms before.
Your hunch is correct. At-home charging tends to be the cheapest while supercharging is going to command the highest premium.
I live in SoCal which has high EV adoption with loads of chargers everywhere and off the top of my head.
Off-peak home charging costs about 7 cents / KWh. My car's battery has about a 71KWh capacity so that's about $5 for a full charge.
Super charging prices vary on the time of day and region, but let's pick the worse time. You'll see about a 20-40 cents charge / KWh. That will cost me about $15-30. You can see those prices go down if you're charging at good hours though. Tesla will have morning incentives for instance.
Supercharging costs are higher because:
* Supercharging stations (for Tesla) cost about 300-400k USD per unit.
* Electricity providers charge a premium for higher amps/volt service.
As far as I know, Tesla doesn't try to make a profit with chargers. They keep it close to cost.
> Electricity providers charge a premium for higher amps/volt service.
This can somewhat vary and can depend on your time horizon and usage. Energy providers like reliable usage, they don't usually like massive swings in usage. If you're able to reliably tell the energy providers how much energy you're going to be using at which times, you can sometimes get your per-kWh price cheaper than the regular wholesale rates even though you're pulling a large amount of energy. Then if you're timescale is long enough the higher upfront cost of the equipment to deliver the power really isn't crazy expensive compared to the full cost of all the energy you've pulled through it over a decade.
Obviously this varies quite a bit even in the US, there's lots of variations between the states and even then there can be some variation within a state. I can definitely say though that the datacenters down the street from me pay waaaaay less per kWh than I do. I know because I know the retail prices they charge, which is still way less than my residential service meanwhile they've got redundant grid connections, generators, and giant batteries to pay for as well.
Just for the record- it only takes about 21k miles of driving (a year or two for most people) to release as much CO2 as the production of the battery for a long range Tesla Model 3. The standard range Model 3 comes in just under 16k miles. It seems to me like most people expect more.
Also, I don't think EV prices have really changed that much.
Chip shortages haven't really affected it. High gas prices and inflation are probably the only numbers you really need to worry about.
The math: standard/long-range Model 3 batteries are 62 and 82 kWh. First link puts GHG byproducts of production at 75 kg/kWh- 4650 and 6150 kg. Mazda 3 gets 30 mpg combined and the second link gives 8.78 kg CO2 per gallon.
For the co2 equivalency analysis you really need to compare the total GHG byproduct of the production of each entire car and their fuels. The EV has a battery which is energy intensive to produce, but some of that would also be required to build and engine/transmission etc.
and extracting oil and turning it into gasoline and delivering it has GHG byproducts, as well as producing and delivering electricity.
Union of Concerned Scientists still did the most in-depth analysis I've seen, and they agree with the ~6mo-18mo time period to offset the more-intensive manufacturing. And it's so old now that I think you can assume the transition to cleaner grids has progressed further in some cases.
No problem! I keep it in mind because I keep hoping I see an updated report some day that goes that in-depth. Or possibly a report that refutes/contradicts what I've read. They dug into the USA regional energy mixes in the report I linked! And they claimed to include transmission + charging efficiency losses. I was surprised at how comprehensive it seemed.
> Also, I don't think EV prices have really changed that much. Chip shortages haven't really affected it.
EV prices have shot up along with other new cars. Probably the 2 best known EVs, the Tesla Model S and Model 3 went from $77.4k to $99.5k and from $38.1k to $46.1k in 2021. 28% and 21% increases respectively.
Does this assume the electricity is emission free? Because where I live less than 40% of our electricity is from renewables (even those aren't completely 0 carbon impact, as they have to produce panels/wind mills/etc...). The rest is from oil & gas plants.
I understand you are comparing driving an ICE vehicle vs. production of an electric one. But it seems a little misleading to ignore the co2 impact of driving the electric car which is far from 0.
I would guess the more you extend the comparison the worse it gets for combustion cars. Most people get their electricity from natural gas plants delivered through a pipeline, and there is a future prospect to shift this to more renewables. Oil is pumped and delivered to a refinery, then the gas is put on a truck, and delivered to a gas station. All these things require either electricity or gas to run.
I wasn't suggesting to extend the comparison. I was saying that for the comparison done they were ignoring the environmental impact of driving the EV.
Obviously EV comes out on top over a very long period of time. I'm just suggesting that period of time is longer than suggested by the parent.
Personally I'd love to buy an EV but in our climate battery life is reduced by 30%, renewables are a low portion of our electricity, EVs cost a lot more than ICE vehicles, and many aren't built to drive in snowy/icy conditions. I've been patiently waiting for these variables to change before my next car purchase - driving my current ICE into the ground.
> I'm just suggesting that period of time is longer than suggested by the parent.
The parent's estimates track with adjustments made to the "Polestar 2’s LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)". The assessment originally stated the break even point was somewhere around 50,000 miles but it was quickly pointed out that the paper was neglecting to take into account the carbon impact of ICE vehicles and fuels at several stages. As well as identifying discrepancies due to geographic production and completely unsubstantiated irregularities.
After taking those things into account the break even point was estimated to be 16,000 mi.
> Because where I live less than 40% of our electricity is from renewables (even those aren't completely 0 carbon impact, as they have to produce panels/wind mills/etc...).
Energy is not the same as electricity. That burning is for heat. Your clue is that petroleum is not used for electricity; it is used for transport and a small amount of heating oil.
One thing to realize is that EV's have significantly lower emissions even on a grid that has no renewables. Power plants are much bigger than car engines, so they lose way less energy to heat. Also, the grid is more efficient than trucking gas around to gas stations. All in all, an EV will use about half the fuel as a gas car even before you start looking at renewable energy. Also, EVs change where emissions happen which is a major win for air quality.
You mean gas plants. Gas in a powerplant produces .41 kg of CO2 per kWh[1]. A Model 3 gets 4.37 miles per kWh, so 2.81 kg of CO2 per 30 miles.
Even if a Model 3 is running on a 0% renewable, 100% gas grid, the 30 mpg Mazda produces 3.12x more CO2 per mile. 5.2x more on your grid, so only a 20% increase in the distance to make up for the battery.
Instead of 16k/21k miles you would have to drive 19k/25k miles.
There was a time where the embodied energy of efficient vehicles was much higher than bad ones and it made the objective math a lot fuzzier. Maybe things have gotten better.
The future always has the potential to be better but now is already very good, unless you have specific needs, like towing a big trailer long distances etc.
Most people who own EVs have been loving them and working out well.
Fwiw, I work in the sector and track the TCO comparisons for business modeling. Unless there’s a major shift (ex. Resurgence of tax rebates), you’re looking at 2025-2026 being the sweet spot where EVs will have plentiful options and actually make sense financially for most people instead of keeping a used ICE car.
Right now probably isn't because the car market is insane with dealers getting away with markups above sticker price because the market is so hot. Otherwise the tech seems to mostly be there the biggest issue is charging networks on longer trips. I've watched a few different videos that highlighted that other companies that rely on charging networks instead of going DIY like Tesla has have some issues with finding chargers in areas. It's a fixable problem but the people would often drive to a charger only to find it's a slow or broken charger and there was no way to know before they got there. (Or at least it wasn't easily visible in the navigation information like you can see with Teslas).
Well there's not really a sticker price vs dealer price for Teslas because they're not sold through the traditional dealer system (though they did bump the price up across the board late 2021). Also it's a tiny number of cars Tesla is ~2% of the US new car market despite their insane stock price.
I'm in a slightly different situation --my 2003 Ford Focus Mk1 is still puttering along very nicely with no major issues. I am only doing about 10k miles per year but I need 400 miles autonomy!
For me the best next move is to wait for the car to give up the ghost in the road --just hoping I do not become a ghost inside it!
Sorry, it's only 330 miles, did miles/km conversion wrong ;)
Yes, having the possibility of doing a fast charge in 10-15 minutes could do the trick. Still don't think the charger network is really that big here in Spain (what happens in Summer when everybody tries to charge their car in the same charging stations?)
Depending on where you live in Spain the situation can be very good or not that good. I'd suggest playing a bit with A Better Route Planner (1) for your route(s) to see if it would be a problem or not.
The right time to buy a new car is when your current car doesn't meet your needs. You got your money's worth. Don't feel bad about buying a new one; unless "your needs" are being as frugal as possible.
Why shouldn't you feel bad about buying a new car? Surely the environmental impact of creating such a large piece of machinery must be very significant? I don't care what people do with their money, but let's try to be frugal with our environment.
I replaced all my lights with LED's. The intention being that while my old lights continue to work, replacing them now will be better for the environment than waiting for them to die.
Without an ability to do a full analysis of all the variables, I made my best guess. I hope it would be the same for a car.
Replacing a gas car with an electric car is always a win for the environment. Driving the car until it's a rust bucket just creates needless carbon emissions.
Is that true even if you only drive a relative small amount is miles per year? And how do you know that? Building car takes a lot of energy and uses irreplaceable resources.
We recently bought a 2022 Nissan Leaf (SL 62kWh) as a 2nd car and it's solid. (Primary family car is a Honda Odyssey.) The 2022 Leaf has 3x as much range as the 2015 Leaf I leased awhile back. Simpler design and better UI vs. Tesla, and quite a bit cheaper. Numerous driver assist features but no false-advertising "Autopilot". Handles fine in the snow.
Also a Canadian who was driving a 12 year old Mazda 6. Bought a Kia Niro EV in Sept 2020. Was maybe a bit premature but the charging network in Ontario at least is pretty decent. I've had a 30 amp charger installed at home, and I've managed to do Toronto->Ottawa->Toronto in a single day without much issue. The lack of government rebates is really annoying right now, but I don't think the demand is any less. There were only 3 Kia dealerships in Toronto dealing with EVs and they each brought in a single Niro EV per week. Made negotiating on price kind of hard (though not impossible).
That said, I'm with the other people, when your current car is no longer worth it, that's when the right time to get a new car is, and if your car usage lines up well with EVs, it's a great time to transition.
If you live in a part of Canada that is pretty cold, I would do a lot of tests before committing to a specific car. I have a model S and while it's an incredible car, its range is about 40% less if I drive it up North. I live in SoCal though so I don't have issues.
I have a similarly aged car. If not for the pandemic and the lousy mpg of vehicles I might have bought one earlier. I had my eye on the Ioniq until I saw the EV6, but it’s about 15% more expensive than I thought it was going to be (probably got my wires crossed between the 2 vehicles) and you have to buy the high end one to get a sun roof, so now I’m not sure what I’m gonna do.
This is Panasonic's production. Tesla's own lines are running now, and we're at this moment just barely starting to see 4680 cars leaving the Austin factory.
"Panasonic Corp (6752.T) said on Monday it will begin mass production of a new lithium-ion battery for Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) before the end of March 2024 at a plant in Japan."
Was this detail added by the article writer? Unless something has changed, Tesla cells are produced at the Tesla factories. These 4680 production lines are for Panasonic to sell to customers.
Tesla has been a huge proponent of the 4680 and rely on Panasonic for a huge number of batteries. I doubt they will supply them exclusively to Tesla but the vast majority will likely go there since no other EV platform (that I'm aware of) is ready to accommodate 4680s.
Of course, but the 4680 Y in Austin is being manufactured this year, possibly even right now. The cells aren't provided by this plant in Japan, they are currently being provided by Tesla's own equipment in CA.
I'm just guessing as to how they might use these cells that won't be produced in volume for at least two years. To me, new vehicles that haven't yet been announced are the most likely candidates. That could easily turn out to be wrong, of course.
There's one thing that worries me about EVs: local pollution.
So, ICE cars release CO2 + they release local pollutants (NO, CO, etc), particulate matter, that kind of thing.
EVs obviously don't directly release CO2 nor do they release those local pollutants.
However, EVs are on average much heavier (probably 200-400kgs heavier), which means that they probably need bigger tires and they wear them out faster. They probably also wear roads faster.
For local pollution, is the extra tire & road wear and tear equal or worse to the ICE tire & road wear and tear + exhaust gases?
I'd be surprised if it was even 1. There was no measurable wear on the brake pads over the lease of my Nissan Leaf. It didn't even engage the hydraulic brakes often enough to knock the rust off the discs.
The question is reasonable and I'm not sure why it was heavily downvoted, tire wear and road wear depends polynomially on the vehicle weight (I remembered it's the cube, I tried Googling but Google has turned completely fucking useless for anything serious)
Tire wear you can just directly calculate from the useful lives of tires on a given car. Search around on Tesla owners' forums to see at what mileage people are replacing their tires. Then you just back it out from diameter x width x tread depth. Teslas come out poorly on this because they are a performance-focussed car with large, soft tires. Some other electrics like the BMW i3 have tiny rock-hard tires that practically never wear out.
It's downvoted by EV fanboys because EVs must be pushed into the mainstream at all costs. I'm not kidding.
To EV fanboys: issues should be discussed, not hidden away because they're not nice or not solved yet.
I think EVs are a great idea, they're great for the environment and personally, I was hoping they'd also be great for air quality. But it seems the air quality part will not happen for quite a long time, until batteries become much lighter, unfortunately.
"This chapter estimates the non-exhaust PM emission factors from electric vehicles and compares these factors with those of internal combustion engine vehicles. Assuming lightweight EVs (i.e. with battery packs enabling a driving range of about 100 miles), the report finds that EVs emit an estimated 11-13% less non-exhaust PM2.5 and 18-19% less PM10 than ICEVs. Assuming that EV models are heavier (with battery packs enabling a driving range of 300 miles or higher), however, the report finds that they reduce PM10 by only 4-7% and increase PM2.5 by 3-8% relative to conventional vehicles. Additional simulations indicate that the uptake of electric vehicles will lead to very marginal decreases in total PM emissions from road traffic in future years. In scenarios where electric vehicles comprise 4% and 8% of the vehicle stock in 2030, their penetration reduces PM emissions by 0.3%-0.8% relative to current levels."
It turns out that EVs are not much heavier when compared to the similar priced luxury market. Model 3's are 3,648 to 4,250 lbs where as BMW M3's are 3,840 to 3,990 lbs. Model S is 4,561 to 4,766 lbs and BMW m7 is 4,244 to 4,855 lbs.
That's 18% to 38% heavier, it's a huge difference.
And most cars are not luxury cars, across the world. Nor are they SUVs.
I fear we're both going to wreck roads much faster and affect air quality, at least for the next 5-10 years, until we improve battery capacity and reduce their weight :-(
Because we are in the incremental improvement phase of lithium ion batteries. Until a new chemistry/technology get developed we probably won't see giant increases in range.
Without a breakdown of vehicle costs it's hard to know exactly why they haven't increased range. Out of PURE speculation, I think it's due to lack of competition. If you get a better battery then you can reduce manufacturing cost, improve reliability, and reduce weight if you don't increase the range. Without competition, there is no reason to increase range. Especially if their charging infrastructure is lightyears ahead of everyone.
My guess is that its for the same reason phones battery life hasn't really changed much over the years: the current range is enough for most people. 300 ish miles is enough for local driving for a few days without worrying about recharging, and enough that most people will need to take a break when driving long distance more often than the car needs recharging.
It does increase slightly. There have been a handful of OTA updates that eek out 10-15 more miles of range, but those improve software efficiencies or better temperature management.
One, they have increased to some extent. The base Model 3 was announced as a $35k vehicle with 215 miles of range. Today, the closest trim to that has risen in price from ~38k a year ago to ~45k today, but also to 270 miles. The LR was RWD at launch and ~325 miles. It has since grown to AWD and ~350 miles.
Beyond that, they've really focused on margin expansion more than range expansion. The current LR vehicles are remarkably practical for the majority of their use case, especially as the supercharger network has continued to expand to allow charging at the most optimum times in most cases. They seem to have a realization that consumers will tend to choose the highest range, even when its past the real needs for their use case and have slowed range expansion as a result.
They aren't totally wrong. I do think they will resume expanding range once competitors really start to push them to do it. I think that situation is still 2-3 years away, though.
You could lose the entire world's lithium mines in the corner of one of hundreds of large-scale iron ore mines. Lithium ponds are also currently about 500 times smaller than the world's table salt ponds. Really, it's incredibly small and eliminates the demand for much more destructive oil and gas exploration.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 224 ms ] threadDid the share price spike? If so who made money?
But for LFP or iron based batteries which don't have such issues, the blade design should be cheaper, more maintainable, more space and weight efficient etc. There's no glue so you can actually just switch individual blades. Cooling channels can be straight.
You can see that the cooling channels in the Tesla pack are these hollow undulating aluminum shapes. Can imagine they're not very cheap. Also the Tesla packs are filled with some kind of bonding foam, making repairs near impossible.
Is that maybe to reduce the spread of fire? I know Tesla put a lot of work into that. Others too, I hope.
They don’t bother with smaller secondary batteries because the extra manufacturing cost and operational complexity isn’t worth it for a 5%-10% bump in volumetric energy density.
You could probably ship them staggered, but I’m betting they are at a weight limit anyway so making them more dense doesn’t save you anything.
If there any single car that has made the general public comfortable with very expensive batteries in their car: it’s the Prius.
Just Toyota doing Toyota things.
Also I would strongly disagree on the Prius comment. A lot of "HV battery fault" cars out there back in the day, refurbing them was a pretty good business for a while. The NiMH pack in the Prius was the basis for so many slack jawed comments "EVs will never work! You're just going to have to replace the battery every 5 years!"
Your quote about rollout of the Prius is exactly my point. That opinion was widespread when the Prius was introduced. The reliability of the Prius since then has changed public opinion greatly.
NiMH infamously has HORRIBLE self discharge performance in comparison to pretty much any lithium chemistry.
Multiple lithium chemistries outperform NiMH in low temperature performance. Even LFP which is generally not recommended for unregulated conditions below about -10 degree will function at reduced capacity at -40c. Nearly all chemistries, except maybe LMO, have superior high temperature performance.
I also don't understand what you mean by more forgiving chemistry?
Production yields? Modern lithium cell plants can easily do 80%+
Tolerance to production variations? Multiple lithium chemistries are just as tolerant.
Fire/puncture resistance? Multiple lithium chemistries areas as safe or safer
Voltaic efficiency/Energy Efficiency/etc? Lithium chemistries are SIGNIFICANTLY better
Memory effect or reduced voltage? NIMH yes while lithium none
Cycle life? Once again nearly every lithium chemistry is superior. Some even still have acceptable performance after an order of magnitude more cycles than a NiMH cell.
At this point there is literally no reason someone would chose NiMH for a ground up design in a consumer vehicle other than cost ....seriously like none.
Also yes Prius reliability is pretty good, but the reliability and performance of the NiMH battery packs were not even in the range for what would be acceptable in a commercially successful EV.
At the time when commercial lithium batteries were $1000-$5000/kwh hour sure they were a fantastic compromise, but it's not even close now.
If Tesla had started with NiMH they would have been dead meat right out of the gate. Gone out of business in a couple years at most.
There are, for sure, a tons of great lithium chemistries in existence. But, outside of some very specific markets, they are not used in cars yet.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbPKE62aM0U
That said, I wish there was a site that simply told me now's the right time to buy an EV. With supply chain issues, long waits for a new car, government rebates, and the influx of new inventory/models, it's hard to keep up when's the right time to transition!
Also it is always a good time to buy a new car*
*according to ads
Indeed, and in reality it's probably better (as far as the planet goes) to keep on using the same car as long as possible because that means no new one has to be produced. Kinda hard to offset that with an EV even. At least I seem to recall that was the consensus but I cannot find where I got that. HN, I'd guess :)
In late '22 there will likely be a wave of car buying, from pent-up demand, dumping lots of used cars on the market. Might be a good time to shop used. You might be able to find some good deals on used EV's (Leaf, Bolt, older Teslas).
You need to be careful with old Leafs. 70 miles would very good, 30 is common.
If you're in North America are you really going to be 'stranded' or just footing the cost of a one-way rental and waiting for the check from the junkyard which will almost certainly cover it?
Highly unlikely the average HNer can't come up with $1000 for an emergency (nota bene: for sure some can't, that why I didn't say "every HNer").
Can't we be lackadaisical anymore? :-p
[1] Let me specify "passenger vehicles" and "US roads" lest someone jump in to point out that box trucks last longer or that cars get shipped to foreign markets at end of life, etc...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/cars-on-american-roads-keep-...
> The average age of a car on U.S. roads rose to 12.1 years in 2021, according to IHS Markit. The average age had been 11.9 years in 2020. In 2002, the average age was 9.6 years.
And in most of the rest of the world, it's even longer, as the vast majority of the rest of the world is poorer.
Anybody who has to stiff someone to scrape up the lump sum to replace a transmission is probably going to replace the transmission rather than roll the dice spending the same or more on a different car that might need something else in short order. Those people also aren't the same people who rack up big bills for random suspension wear parts because they don't have those parts replaced until they start impeding the vehicle's ability to get from A to B <clutches pearls> because they can't afford to indulge in that kind of maintenance.
With what, though? Not a new part. A transmission from another vehicle that got scrapped. That's the point: these cars don't "last" on their own, they're just the winners in a cannibalism race.
Of the 40 cars on my block, 8 are over 10 years old and it’s 7 toyotas, a vw, a miata and a subie.
Assuming you have an acceptable parking/charging solution available, a plug-in hybrid is a good option. The Chrysler uses gas more often in the winter to run the heater but even before the pandemic, we'd go a year on five tanks of gasoline (four of which were in the winter months).
Your lawn equipment with its poorly sealed fuel tank and carburetor is a different story.
I usually do a 180 mile round trip once a month in mine, so I don't need to worry about bad gas.
Who knows, though, maybe one-plug-per-spot will become enough of a selling point that apartment owners will start to deploy the infrastructure. I don't think it will affect EV adoption one way or the other, however, at least not for a number of years. Apartment dwellers are just a fraction of car owners.
I live in SoCal which has high EV adoption with loads of chargers everywhere and off the top of my head.
Off-peak home charging costs about 7 cents / KWh. My car's battery has about a 71KWh capacity so that's about $5 for a full charge.
Super charging prices vary on the time of day and region, but let's pick the worse time. You'll see about a 20-40 cents charge / KWh. That will cost me about $15-30. You can see those prices go down if you're charging at good hours though. Tesla will have morning incentives for instance.
Supercharging costs are higher because:
* Supercharging stations (for Tesla) cost about 300-400k USD per unit.
* Electricity providers charge a premium for higher amps/volt service.
As far as I know, Tesla doesn't try to make a profit with chargers. They keep it close to cost.
This can somewhat vary and can depend on your time horizon and usage. Energy providers like reliable usage, they don't usually like massive swings in usage. If you're able to reliably tell the energy providers how much energy you're going to be using at which times, you can sometimes get your per-kWh price cheaper than the regular wholesale rates even though you're pulling a large amount of energy. Then if you're timescale is long enough the higher upfront cost of the equipment to deliver the power really isn't crazy expensive compared to the full cost of all the energy you've pulled through it over a decade.
Obviously this varies quite a bit even in the US, there's lots of variations between the states and even then there can be some variation within a state. I can definitely say though that the datacenters down the street from me pay waaaaay less per kWh than I do. I know because I know the retail prices they charge, which is still way less than my residential service meanwhile they've got redundant grid connections, generators, and giant batteries to pay for as well.
Also, I don't think EV prices have really changed that much. Chip shortages haven't really affected it. High gas prices and inflation are probably the only numbers you really need to worry about.
https://www.oliver-krischer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/En...
https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
The math: standard/long-range Model 3 batteries are 62 and 82 kWh. First link puts GHG byproducts of production at 75 kg/kWh- 4650 and 6150 kg. Mazda 3 gets 30 mpg combined and the second link gives 8.78 kg CO2 per gallon.
and extracting oil and turning it into gasoline and delivering it has GHG byproducts, as well as producing and delivering electricity.
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-cradle-grave
edit: this report https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl...
EV prices have shot up along with other new cars. Probably the 2 best known EVs, the Tesla Model S and Model 3 went from $77.4k to $99.5k and from $38.1k to $46.1k in 2021. 28% and 21% increases respectively.
I understand you are comparing driving an ICE vehicle vs. production of an electric one. But it seems a little misleading to ignore the co2 impact of driving the electric car which is far from 0.
Obviously EV comes out on top over a very long period of time. I'm just suggesting that period of time is longer than suggested by the parent.
Personally I'd love to buy an EV but in our climate battery life is reduced by 30%, renewables are a low portion of our electricity, EVs cost a lot more than ICE vehicles, and many aren't built to drive in snowy/icy conditions. I've been patiently waiting for these variables to change before my next car purchase - driving my current ICE into the ground.
The ideal scenario would be to just drive less. I put around 3k miles per year on my car and having been trying to reduce that.
The parent's estimates track with adjustments made to the "Polestar 2’s LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)". The assessment originally stated the break even point was somewhere around 50,000 miles but it was quickly pointed out that the paper was neglecting to take into account the carbon impact of ICE vehicles and fuels at several stages. As well as identifying discrepancies due to geographic production and completely unsubstantiated irregularities.
After taking those things into account the break even point was estimated to be 16,000 mi.
https://insideevs.com/news/458458/legacy-automakers-backed-s...
Why the disparity? Just look at who published the assessment and where their interests lie.
You sure there is no burning of biomass?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/30/wood-pel...
The largest source of "renewables" ( ~40% )in the US and I'm betting it's higher in europe is biomass.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/renewable-sources/
Biomass is 1.4% of US electricity.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
You mean gas plants. Gas in a powerplant produces .41 kg of CO2 per kWh[1]. A Model 3 gets 4.37 miles per kWh, so 2.81 kg of CO2 per 30 miles.
Even if a Model 3 is running on a 0% renewable, 100% gas grid, the 30 mpg Mazda produces 3.12x more CO2 per mile. 5.2x more on your grid, so only a 20% increase in the distance to make up for the battery.
Instead of 16k/21k miles you would have to drive 19k/25k miles.
[1]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/22/swedish-ev-battery-stud...
Most people who own EVs have been loving them and working out well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-brand-of-sticker-shock-hi...
For me the best next move is to wait for the car to give up the ghost in the road --just hoping I do not become a ghost inside it!
Yes, having the possibility of doing a fast charge in 10-15 minutes could do the trick. Still don't think the charger network is really that big here in Spain (what happens in Summer when everybody tries to charge their car in the same charging stations?)
(1) https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
Without an ability to do a full analysis of all the variables, I made my best guess. I hope it would be the same for a car.
I suspect it's somewhere around 2-3000 miles a year.
That said, I'm with the other people, when your current car is no longer worth it, that's when the right time to get a new car is, and if your car usage lines up well with EVs, it's a great time to transition.
https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/08/06/typesetting-markdow...
The variables are defined as interpolated values in a YAML file.
Was this detail added by the article writer? Unless something has changed, Tesla cells are produced at the Tesla factories. These 4680 production lines are for Panasonic to sell to customers.
Actual press release: https://news.panasonic.com/global/press/data/2022/02/en22022...
I'm just guessing as to how they might use these cells that won't be produced in volume for at least two years. To me, new vehicles that haven't yet been announced are the most likely candidates. That could easily turn out to be wrong, of course.
There's one thing that worries me about EVs: local pollution.
So, ICE cars release CO2 + they release local pollutants (NO, CO, etc), particulate matter, that kind of thing.
EVs obviously don't directly release CO2 nor do they release those local pollutants.
However, EVs are on average much heavier (probably 200-400kgs heavier), which means that they probably need bigger tires and they wear them out faster. They probably also wear roads faster.
For local pollution, is the extra tire & road wear and tear equal or worse to the ICE tire & road wear and tear + exhaust gases?
Does anyone know any studies about this?
The thing is, that's another aspect where I'd naively assume tires are a much larger factor. I'm probably wrong, though.
Though I did discover when I do replace them they won’t be quite as good because copper sintering has been outlawed due to metal pollution.
edit: it's the 4th power for road damage (!): https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
Even the Model 3? That's more of an economy car, I'd expect it to have practical tires.
To EV fanboys: issues should be discussed, not hidden away because they're not nice or not solved yet.
I think EVs are a great idea, they're great for the environment and personally, I was hoping they'd also be great for air quality. But it seems the air quality part will not happen for quite a long time, until batteries become much lighter, unfortunately.
"This chapter estimates the non-exhaust PM emission factors from electric vehicles and compares these factors with those of internal combustion engine vehicles. Assuming lightweight EVs (i.e. with battery packs enabling a driving range of about 100 miles), the report finds that EVs emit an estimated 11-13% less non-exhaust PM2.5 and 18-19% less PM10 than ICEVs. Assuming that EV models are heavier (with battery packs enabling a driving range of 300 miles or higher), however, the report finds that they reduce PM10 by only 4-7% and increase PM2.5 by 3-8% relative to conventional vehicles. Additional simulations indicate that the uptake of electric vehicles will lead to very marginal decreases in total PM emissions from road traffic in future years. In scenarios where electric vehicles comprise 4% and 8% of the vehicle stock in 2030, their penetration reduces PM emissions by 0.3%-0.8% relative to current levels."
VW id.3 weight:
1,812 to 1,935 kg
VW Golf weight:
1,302 to 1,630 kg
That's 18% to 38% heavier, it's a huge difference.
And most cars are not luxury cars, across the world. Nor are they SUVs.
I fear we're both going to wreck roads much faster and affect air quality, at least for the next 5-10 years, until we improve battery capacity and reduce their weight :-(
One, they have increased to some extent. The base Model 3 was announced as a $35k vehicle with 215 miles of range. Today, the closest trim to that has risen in price from ~38k a year ago to ~45k today, but also to 270 miles. The LR was RWD at launch and ~325 miles. It has since grown to AWD and ~350 miles.
Beyond that, they've really focused on margin expansion more than range expansion. The current LR vehicles are remarkably practical for the majority of their use case, especially as the supercharger network has continued to expand to allow charging at the most optimum times in most cases. They seem to have a realization that consumers will tend to choose the highest range, even when its past the real needs for their use case and have slowed range expansion as a result.
They aren't totally wrong. I do think they will resume expanding range once competitors really start to push them to do it. I think that situation is still 2-3 years away, though.
Oil creates a global antropomorphic environmental cataclysm.
The two are not the same and this is weak whataboutism.