BEVs

Use this board for general non-cycling-related chat, or to introduce yourself to the forum.

I appreciate the BEV mostly because they...

cost less to run than an equivalent petrol or diesel car
9
12%
are reducing the harm done to our planet and its lifeforms
10
14%
are quiet and smooth
7
10%
can be refuelled with my own renewable energy production
10
14%
can supply energy to the home and Grid
4
5%
No! I am concerned they are just another way of making the car seem acceptable
33
45%
 
Total votes: 73

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PedallingSquares
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Re: BEVs

Post by PedallingSquares »

Jdsk wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 1:22pm
PedallingSquares wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 1:18pm
Jdsk wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 12:50pm I know many EV owners who can't charge from where they live. They mostly use parking bays with chargers or shops with chargers. Seems to work fine for them.
That's because they have to?The reason EV owners need home chargers is because the vehicles have absolutely rubbish mileage and there isn't the infrastructure in place.
I've already commented on the inadequate roll-out of chargers.

But even if that was as good as it should have been there would be many potential (!) EV owners who still wouldn't be able to charge where they live.

As above charging in parking bays and at shops seems to work well for them.
Jonathan
Once again, as per, you part quote and dodge the parts you don't want to answer.
You are quite clever at this I'll give you that....but I see you Jdsk :wink:
I see you.
geocycle
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Joined: 11 Jan 2007, 9:46am

Re: BEVs

Post by geocycle »

Infrastructure is improving and range is extending all the time. Even now my son has a second hand Zoe with a range of 200 miles and can’t charge at home because of a prepayment meter. He is managing pretty well as far as I can tell. There are various government schemes to incentivise operators to install more charge points although I know the grid and regional electric companies are a brake on installs.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

PedallingSquares wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 1:18pm
Jdsk wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 12:50pm I know many EV owners who can't charge from where they live. They mostly use parking bays with chargers or shops with chargers. Seems to work fine for them.
That's because they have to?The reason EV owners need home chargers is because the vehicles have absolutely rubbish mileage and there isn't the infrastructure in place.
No - they really don't... they have perfectly good enough range.
This is what I'm talking about when I say that people can't get their head around why anyone would swap out their horse for one of these new fangled horseless carriages.
Jdsk wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 12:50pm I don't know any ICEV owners who only refuel where they live.
Jonathan
That is the single most pointless statement I have ever seen.
No - having been to a petrol station a couple weeks ago... I'd forgotten how unpleasant they actually are.
Smelly, cold, windswept, dirty floor, dirty hands, just nasty environments.

You stick with your horse.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

reohn2 wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 5:15pm
Biospace wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 1:35pm .......Prices of battery packs are still very high second hand,

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363935804948
Even half that price is bloomin' expensive for a s/h battery* plus fitting(£300 to £500?) to shellout on a 10year old(?) car that's probably only worth the cost of the new s/h battery after fitting and the buyer of the battery having no idea of how much and what kind use and charging stats it's had.

As I've posted up thread I'm sure all these things will be resolved and system found in the fullness of time but until then it's all a bit up in the air and chance it

*I don't know how much/if the owner would get something for the old dud battery or if it'd be a nightmare to dispose of.

You seem to assume that prices can't change, and that low supply is a bad thing... just think about what low supply actually means for the industry, it means that there aren't many packs in need of a second life yet.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Carlton green wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 8:08am As outlined and supported in posts not far above about 2% per year for a Leaf’s battery, less for a Tesla with its different chemistry and cooling. Teslas are exceedingly expensive whilst Leafs are just rather expensive, abilities to fund vary.

We tend to run our cars into their second decade, we buy at near new and then pretty much run them for as long as is practical. Degrading by those guides would see me with a range reduced by 30% of its original value; the showroom new range of a Leaf, even a 40KWh version (145 miles), is arguably constraining and a reduced range even more so.
Cars plural???
In which case I'd wager that one of them never does more than 50 miles in a day...
You might just change the way you operate, you might run cars for slightly less time and sell them on to others with lower range requirements.

The "but they don't work like horses" attitude is really quite bizarre.
I’d like to see ways to regain and improve the battery life of older BEV’s.
And there are, though it would be really good if they were more standardised, but the market is still young.

There is reasonable hope for other improvements on the horizon with, for example, sodium batteries already being used in EVs - they have substantially better charging characteristics and much lower price than lithium, at the expense of a little energy density. If you can halve the degradation rate (and sodium may well do that and more) then you're almost certainly past the point where the rest of the vehicle will have failed before the battery is substantially degraded (I'm thinking about corrosion on bodywork, mechanical parts, etc)
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Carlton green
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Re: BEVs

Post by Carlton green »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 9:40am
Carlton green wrote: 29 Mar 2023, 8:08am As outlined and supported in posts not far above about 2% per year for a Leaf’s battery, less for a Tesla with its different chemistry and cooling. Teslas are exceedingly expensive whilst Leafs are just rather expensive, abilities to fund vary.

We tend to run our cars into their second decade, we buy at near new and then pretty much run them for as long as is practical. Degrading by those guides would see me with a range reduced by 30% of its original value; the showroom new range of a Leaf, even a 40KWh version (145 miles), is arguably constraining and a reduced range even more so.
Cars plural???
In which case I'd wager that one of them never does more than 50 miles in a day...
You might just change the way you operate, you might run cars for slightly less time and sell them on to others with lower range requirements.

The "but they don't work like horses" attitude is really quite bizarre.
I’d like to see ways to regain and improve the battery life of older BEV’s.
And there are, though it would be really good if they were more standardised, but the market is still young.

There is reasonable hope for other improvements on the horizon with, for example, sodium batteries already being used in EVs - they have substantially better charging characteristics and much lower price than lithium, at the expense of a little energy density. If you can halve the degradation rate (and sodium may well do that and more) then you're almost certainly past the point where the rest of the vehicle will have failed before the battery is substantially degraded (I'm thinking about corrosion on bodywork, mechanical parts, etc)
An interesting response, some useful bits.

Please name and direct me to ways to regain and improve the battery life of older BEV’s. My searches have come up with nothing, and reading on other forums suggests that that which was once available is totally uneconomical.

Yes, in the longer term new forms of battery will transform matters. However, as best I can tell we’re a decade or so away from such change and so a long way away from meeting needs now - indeed many of us will be dead and gone by the time such technologically is in common use.

I’m puzzled by “ The "but they don't work like horses" attitude is really quite bizarre.” What’s that all about and how is the comment meant to be constructive?

In general I find that it’s better not to make assumptions but rather to ask particular questions that will then help with constructive comment.

My post, which you have used above, was in answer to questions from JDSK. When quoting others it’s good practice to do so in context, please.
Last edited by Carlton green on 30 Mar 2023, 10:26am, edited 1 time in total.
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Nearholmer
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Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: BEVs

Post by Nearholmer »

Something that might be interesting/informative/useful to do would be for each of us that owns a car to jot down each trip we make, and how far it is, then plot a bar graph of number of trips in, say, five mile slots (<5, 6-10, 11-15…..).

Obviously, the outcome will depend upon where we each live (urban, deeply rural etc), and lifestyle (daily commuter to distant workplace, quietly retired etc), but it is pretty sure that if such a plot was made for each car in the country, a very high proportion would show a lot of short trips, well within the range of batteries that have been called “rubbish” in this thread, and very few long trips that might require re-charging en-route.

When it comes to getting the first-cost vs lifetime running cost vs environmental impact balance right, many (most?) people will probably find that the sweet spot isn’t to have a whopper battery with mega range, but what is now becoming a fairly modest range (100-150 miles maybe), and to approach the occasional long trips differently, maybe using the train, maybe planning a physical needs and charging stop for half an hour every two hours. And, that might apply even with more energy-dense battery technology.

As a BTW, I don’t have an EV, but my petrol car is used in a way that would be far better served by an EV. The reason that it isn’t an EV is entirely down to first-cost, because when I bought it five years ago there was no EV with meaningful capability that didn’t cost £10k more than I could afford. EVs are still uncomfortably high in first-cost for low-mileage users even now*, less so for high mileage users who can get much shorter payback times due to fuel cost differentials.

* A quick comparison still shows a first-cost differential of £10k+ for roughly similar medium-sized cars.
Last edited by Nearholmer on 30 Mar 2023, 10:34am, edited 1 time in total.
francovendee
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Joined: 5 May 2009, 6:32am

Re: BEVs

Post by francovendee »

I think BEV have been around for most of the last decade?
If that is the case then are there any on-line reviews of buying say - a 6 year old lower price bracket and it's range and running costs.
I'm still very sceptical about battery life and I'd like more information. I'm not talking about theory but real world use.
To explain, I've only ever bought one new car, the rest have been between 6 and 10 years old.
reohn2
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Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: BEVs

Post by reohn2 »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 9:33am You seem to assume that prices can't change, and that low supply is a bad thing... just think about what low supply actually means for the industry, it means that there aren't many packs in need of a second life yet.
Battery prices for the foreseeable aren't going to suddenly plummet if demand for BEVs increases,possibly the opposite,and most certainly for older BEVs if they have to rely on s/h batteries which have limited supply.

As I posted before BEVs aren't a mature product in the sense that there currently aren't enough charging stations which fuels(sorry)range axiety and batteries aren't either interchangeable or readily able to be swapped,things will get better in time but it isn't here yet.

IMHO BEVs can be very good for shorter journeys such as commuting upto 60mile round trips but I don't believe cars are the answer,with a very few exceptions,going into towns and cities BEV or otherwise are the answer that should be taken care of by good public transport,for longer journeys BEV infrastructure and or affordable vehicles aren't available yet.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

reohn2 wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 12:14pm
[XAP]Bob wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 9:33am You seem to assume that prices can't change, and that low supply is a bad thing... just think about what low supply actually means for the industry, it means that there aren't many packs in need of a second life yet.
Battery prices for the foreseeable aren't going to suddenly plummet if demand for BEVs increases, possibly the opposite, and most certainly for older BEVs if they have to rely on s/h batteries which have limited supply.
Prices have only dropped by 80% in the last 12 years...
https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

And the technologies being worked on at the moment are all aimed at cheaper manufacture.
As I posted before BEVs aren't a mature product in the sense that there currently aren't enough charging stations which fuels(sorry)range axiety and batteries aren't either interchangeable or readily able to be swapped,things will get better in time but it isn't here yet.
You can't swap the pistons from a mercedes into a volvo either, I don't think that means the market isn't mature.
Range anxiety isn't something that people who use BEVs encounter regularly, the majority of journeys start with a full battery and have some stops where a trickle charge top up is available (e.g the supermarket, cinema, museum, or home).
It's only ever a possible issue on 1 journey we do regularly.
IMHO BEVs can be very good for shorter journeys such as commuting upto 60mile round trips but I don't believe cars are the answer,with a very few exceptions,going into towns and cities BEV or otherwise are the answer that should be taken care of by good public transport,for longer journeys BEV infrastructure and or affordable vehicles aren't available yet.
"I don't believe cars are the answer"
Whilst there will always be a small proportion of people for whom a car is the most suitable, rather than just the most convenient, means of transport... you're right, in the vast majority of cases they aren't the correct answer - but at the moment they're what is being chosen, and BEVs offer a substantial reduction in harm both to the global environment and more particularly to those in their immediate vicinity.

If your complaint is that there aren't enough chargers... well there are hundreds of millions of charge points all over the country... every three pin socket you see is a charge point.
The average UK car does 20 miles a day, thats about 5kWh of electrons, or under two hours plugged into the slowest charger versions we have - it's only 3.5 hours at the slowest rate the Type2 standard supports.
I know - you were complaining about the lack of DC charge points. There are nearly five thousand rapid charge locations - and well over thirty thousand AC chargers, which is encouraging, particularly since the majority of people very rarely need to use public charging.

Having recently filled a car up with fossil fuels I was reminded just how unpleasant an experience it is - and people think nothing of it, and won't hear the process criticised because it's what they've internalised as "normal".
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Carlton green wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 10:16am Please name and direct me to ways to regain and improve the battery life of older BEV’s. My searches have come up with nothing, and reading on other forums suggests that that which was once available is totally uneconomical.
Not something I look into often, but as you can see from above it's entirely possible to drop the battery from a leaf and replace individual modules - it's actually possible to replace individual cells if you really want to.
Again, there isn't much call for it, because the issue is one that doesn't actually affect many vehicles - that's why there aren't lots of cheap batteries and why there isn't a vibrant recycling industry (though that industry is starting to grow).
Yes, in the longer term new forms of battery will transform matters. However, as best I can tell we’re a decade or so away from such change and so a long way away from meeting needs now - indeed many of us will be dead and gone by the time such technologically is in common use.
Sodium batteries are already in their first production cars, and they are one of the main technologies worth looking at.
The raw material is substantially more abundant (and lithium isn't exactly scarce), and the packs can happily charge at 4C with no risk of what is euphemistically known as a thermal event.
I’m puzzled by “ The "but they don't work like horses" attitude is really quite bizarre.” What’s that all about and how is the comment meant to be constructive?
For many people there is a "but I currently do this with my car" and therefore I must continue to do this in exactly the same way.
This leads to very bizarre thought processes, like the people who seem to think that they must go to a public charger and stand over their car whilst it charges. Or who can't understand the concept of starting each day with a full battery, or of using the battery to reduce their domestic energy bills, or the concept of taking what ought to be a mandated brief stop on a long journey after several hours.
The number of people who never drive more than 100 miles in a day who "need" 700 miles range because they dont' want to "go and fill up" often, or those who think they won't have enough control without gears or other such rubbish.
This is the "but your horseless carriage doesn't run on oats" brigade - who present themselves as objecting to change on the basis that it's change - no doubt they'd have been using the above phrase a dozen decades ago.

Driving a BEV does require a change in approach to a number of facets of driving - in your case you might choose to keep your cars ages staggered, so that the one with a shorter range isn't the one used for the occasional long trip, or you might choose to replace vehicles slightly more often, selling them on to those with slightly less perceived need for range than you have.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
pete75
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Re: BEVs

Post by pete75 »

I think a lot of it is down to price. Even something from a lower priced manufacturer like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 is about £50,000 new.
From my research it does seem to be about the best on the market, apart from the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Mercedes EQE.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
pete75
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Re: BEVs

Post by pete75 »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 30 Mar 2023, 1:03pm
For many people there is a "but I currently do this with my car" and therefore I must continue to do this in exactly the same way.
This leads to very bizarre thought processes, like the people who seem to think that they must go to a public charger and stand over their car whilst it charges. Or who can't understand the concept of starting each day with a full battery, or of using the battery to reduce their domestic energy bills, or the concept of taking what ought to be a mandated brief stop on a long journey after several hours.
The number of people who never drive more than 100 miles in a day who "need" 700 miles range because they dont' want to "go and fill up" often, or those who think they won't have enough control without gears or other such rubbish.
This is the "but your horseless carriage doesn't run on oats" brigade - who present themselves as objecting to change on the basis that it's change - no doubt they'd have been using the above phrase a dozen decades ago.

Driving a BEV does require a change in approach to a number of facets of driving - in your case you might choose to keep your cars ages staggered, so that the one with a shorter range isn't the one used for the occasional long trip, or you might choose to replace vehicles slightly more often, selling them on to those with slightly less perceived need for range than you have.
The point is a BEV offers no real advantages over a diesel vehicle and several disadvantages like cost and range. If someone currently uses their car in a certain way, that's what obviously suits them, so why should they have to change?
Change that offers no real advantage is pointless and the only advantage I can see in a BEV is that it produces less atmospheric pollution at the point of use. A lot of people don't care about that.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

These horseless carriages will never catch on.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Biospace
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Re: BEVs

Post by Biospace »


The point is a BEV offers no real advantages over a diesel vehicle and several disadvantages like cost and range.
I would disagree with no real advantages, compared even with the simplest diesel from the early 1990s which requires nothing more than fuel to run, an electric motor and battery is mechanically beautifully simple.

Providing a battery lasts for as long as a car (say 200,000 miles) this simplicity means less repair costs, less maintenance costs, a smooth and near silent 'engine' and high levels of reliability, if the supply of electricity is reliable.

As well as simplicity, the electric motor provides maximum torque from 0 revs and the rev range is typically sufficient to not need a gearbox. So even more simplicity, lack of maintenance and silence. And easy, rapid acceleration from rest.

The EM is around 90% efficient, compared with a typical 20-40% for the ICE. Included in the cost of your 'fuel' are the transmission losses and the cost of burning fossil fuel to make it. With an ICEv you buy your fuel then convert its energy with huge losses. Additionally, electricity is barely taxed compared with petrol and diesel.

Unless you're frequently using a vehicle intensively, the advantages are across the board, with the exceptions of reduced capacity in cold weather and not being able to drive for 400 miles or more without stopping.
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