All electric.

[Eugen]

Not worries Bob, you actually gave me some good for thought. Indeed gas and diesel have really high energy density per volume. There was a joke when we were kids that I liked. This guy was walking down the street pulling behind him an enormous cart. Some kids stop him and ask what the time is. The guy says it's 10am, 20 minutes, 35 seconds, and 42 milliseconds. He then tells the kids the exact time in all capitals on the globe, and all planets in the solar system, and all kind of other trivia. The kids are mightily impressed. As he was about to leave, one kid can't help himself and asks what's so big and heavy in the cart he's pulling. The watch batteries, he says. This was before computers were as small as a watch. But you get my point.

I suppose they could make a car big enough to haul much bigger batteries. Another thing is that if there was a national network if service, and if car batteries were easily replaced, after whatever many miles you'd pull over, back up your car to the replacement slot, and a robotic arm would replace your battery with a fully charged one. You'd pay for the charge only, and some sort of membership for the batteries and system maintenance. It even doesn't make sense to own the batteries. Here's my SF ramble for tonight.

[MattA]

People will eventually get over electric car range anxiety as the public charging infrastructure improves. The same problem existed when internal combustion cars were new. Most electric car owners charge up a partially discharged battery at home overnight on a level 2 240V charger and have a full battery at the start of the day with around 300 miles of range where as with an internal combustion vehicle you fill up when needed and typically don't start out with the full vehicle range.

Hyundai's new Ionic 5 car has the ability to charge from about 10% to 80% state of charge (roughly 240miles of range) in 17 minutes when connected to a 350KW DC fast charger (that's 350,000 watts). Now this does require the DC fast charger to be outputting its maximum power, the car's battery to be in the optimal temperature range (not freezing cold) ect... Using fast chargers in the 50KW to 150KW range obviously takes longer and could take upwards of an hour or so to charge the battery to 80%.

The math to figure it out is relatively easy... the car has approximately 70KWH (that's 70 kilowatt hours, 70,000 watt hours) of battery storage (think gallons in your gas tank) and your charging at 50KW. 70WKH / 50KW = 1.4 hours charge time. Sure there are charging losses (<10%) but I'm trying to keep things simple here.

Why fast charge to 80%? Beyond 80% the battery charge rate decreases. The reasoning has to with the rate at which the batteries can safely absorb the charge. Likely also has to do with preserving the batteries usable life.

What if the battery becomes depleted? Hyundai's Ionic 5 has something called vehicle to load (V2L) which is essentially an inverter which you can use to power appliances or charge another vehicle. In North America I think the output is 15Amps at 120VAC. Your not going to charge an electric vehicle very fast at 1.8KW. Your probably adding 6-7 miles of range per hour. I believe the F150 lightning also has this capability with somewhere in the 10KW range output. Certainly enough to charge another vehicle or run your power tools at the job site. There are apps to help you locate fast charging stations so you don't run out of charge. You certainly don't want to be stuck somewhere charging from 120VAC. That could take nearly two days.

Its been almost 10 years since I left my job as an electrical engineer in the lithium ion battery industry. I can tell you the battery capacity has been steadily increasing while the price has been steadily decreasing. I don't know exactly how much because I do something else for a living. I do see a lot of activity around solid state batteries promising much more storage capacity while being safer but I'm really not up to speed on the solid state batteries.

Well there's my rant for now. Didn't mean to rant for so long Hopefully I won't get flamed or didn't offend anyone

[Eugen]

I think we're able to have an opinion here without bothering others, that's why it's called an opinion LOL

Good points Matt. In my opinion, everything has a time and a place, and not everything is a good fit for everyone. At the moment an all electric vehicle isn't a good fit for me. For once, it's too expensive to buy. But I do like to at least read about new technology. No harm in armchair-speculating about electric tractors either.

As for myself, at this very moment I would like a small D100 backhoe for the 644, and a diesel engine. No harm in dreaming either.

[Spike188]

At one time in life I considered building a backhoe that could be ran off of 240volt 3 phase. Ideal for use indoors.

[Timj]

My brother in law works for a lawn and garden dealer and they sell small tractors and machinery. He said they took on a line of battery powered skid loaders. They were supposed to last 8 hours. He said the company rep didn't give an answer for how long they would keep that run time. So time will tell. He said the large dairy farms have been buying them up. They like the no exhaust in the buildings and can plug them in when not in use.
I believe there's a time and place for everything. If you have a little lawn, there is some good pluses to an electric mower. As for me, I have a large lawn and I love to hear my Onan's working.

[thebuildist]

There is no question that lithium ion batteries have higher performance than the NiMH and lead acid batteries that they replaced. And LiON batteries do seem to be making steady incremental increases in density and price attractiveness.

Perhaps some day they'll compete with hydrocarbons. But as of now, hydrocarbon powered vehicles are are at least 10 times better than battery operated. So the battery cars have a ways to go.

Battery cars are too expensive. And will only get more so as Lithium reserves are already under strain, even though the theoretical market for LiON batteries isn't even 2% filled. Every home on earth and every car on the planet and every Truck on the highway and every tractor in every field, and every ship in the ocean and presumably every plane in the sky is supposed to have a massive LiON battery. There isn't enough lithium on the planet to make the first round, let alone replace them all 5 to 10 years later.

Battery cars have too little range, as I expressed in my first post.

Battery cars take too long to recharge. A battery swap scheme would help. But that makes them even more expensive.

Battery cars are too hard on the environment. It is said that more emissions are expended in the manufacture of the electric batteries than the equivalent car will emit in its entire lifetime. I don't know if that's true or not, but it seems possible. And there is currently no economically viable solution for LiON battery recycling, unless you front load an EVEN HIGHER price on the cars. So those batteries are currently going into landfills, which is going to be a full-on environmental disaster down the road. Our grandkids will look back and say, "How could they let that HAPPEN?"

Battery cars are too hard on the electric grid. One battery powered car takes the same grid capacity as three to five normal homes. Multiple states are already straining to meet peak electric demand. Wind and solar generation have already added a lot of stress to the grid, and every electric car that's sold is pushing the grid to the breaking point even faster.

Battery cars remove population travel autonomy. They are a central planners' dream, because the omniscient bureaucrats can restrict who is allowed to charge their cars and when, which gives them complete control over the population's ability to travel. But I'm so arrogant and smug, I think I can do a better job running my own life than then geniuses in D.C. can. Crazy me, right?

A breakthrough battery would change a lot of this, not all of it. But breakthroughs cannot be commanded into existence. You can hope for them, but you can't plan for them. Will there ever be a battery breakthrough? Maybe. Maybe not.

So, will electric cars ever become truly viable? I have my doubts. What I worry about is the omniscient geniuses announcing that we're required by law to give up cars that work in exchange for pretend cars that don't. Like California just announced. The more people that can be mislead into thinking of battery cars as being equivalent to real cars, the less pushback there will be when such an irresponsible, ridiculous policy is announced.

So I want to illustrate the reality to anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck reading what I've posted! Because we're going to have to stand shoulder to shoulder to fight off the evil schemes of the clueless elites.

Bob

[DavidBarkey]

What we need right now is a Flux Capacitor factory And a Dilithium Crystal mine and anti-gravity generators to jump start the electric vehicle revolution.

[thebuildist]

I'm done ranting, but I just came across this and it's timely and eye-opening.

If you have a late model Chevy Volt with 70,000 miles, it's probably time for a new battery. Here's what it costs:

Do you think they're still glad they took the "free" $7.000 government money as incentive for buying this car?

My heart breaks for some young couple who finally gets a few dollars scraped together to where they can finally buy a new car. And they get tricked into buying one of these. Drive it for 70K and then take it to the scrap yard. They may even still owe money on the loan.

It's just shameful what's being done.

Bob

[Eugen]

Terrible!

[MattA]

It will be interesting to see how the electric grid evolves to meet the demand of electric cars. I think a lot of the demand is going to come from solar panels with lithium ion battery backed storage. The reason I say this is that it’s easier, cheaper and more efficient to upgrade the grid at the point of use rather than try to beef up the entire grid. Right now the electric usage over the day is following what is referred to the duck curve. Basically electric demand drops mid day due to everyone’s solar panel systems coming online and then in the evening there is a sharp rise in electric demand due to everyone returning home from work and everyone’s solar panel systems going offline. People with battery backed solar systems can draw from the batteries overnight. My electric company now has a program where they will pay you $235/year per kilowatt of electricity you can put on the grid during the peak demand with a limit of 60 times per year. Basically they are developing a smarter electric grid to meet the peak demand without adding more power generation stations. Ford (and possibly other vehicle manufacturers) have been working vehicle to grid technology where your electric vehicle can help power the grid during peak demand (and power your house during a power outage). With electric vehicles we can set the time and the rate at which they charge. A lot of electric vehicle charging happens overnight when the electric grid demand is at its lowest. This is also due to some electric companies offering lower rates between midnight and 6am.

Now that Volt repair bill is ridiculous. I've seen the same happen to Tesla and Nissan Leaf owners especially in southern states where the cars bake in the sun all day. GM's supplier LG has had some trouble with battery cells. Part of the issue here is that the dealers are not setup to repair the battery packs. The dealers simply replace the entire battery pack. The problem could be the battery management system (BMS) or even a single cell in the series string. That single bad cell limits the entire battery packs usable capacity.