Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Gale Hawkins]

To keep the battery power tool thread more focused on hand tools this thread can be for cars, trucks, tractors, etc that are here today and new ones of the future.

Clearly Europe is ahead of the USA in battery based vehicles and for several reasons. McDonald's putting in car charging stations in 100% of their stores countries like Norway and the Netherlands helped me see this is no small thing. Tax breaks are huge in some countries.

Yesterday I read at some point in recent years the USA government funded a $118 million grant and is one reason there are free charging stations in some areas per that article.

Today there was an article claiming a 620 mile range for the very expensive Tesla Roadster to be out like next year.

I think we will see 1000 mile battery ranges within the next 10 years and at a cost more like the 100 mile range vehicles of 5 years ago. While the technology may not pan out in the article below there is too much being spent on finding more powerful and longer life rechargeable vehicle batteries for it not to bear fruit going forward.

Tech Breakthrough: Is This The End Of Lithium-Ion Batteries? | OilPrice.com

While Cracker Barrel has been installing EV chargers for the last 10 years the rumor at a local dealership is that they are putting in some EV chargers soon in Murray KY. One of the new hotels has three charging stations for guest usage. The Ford dealership has two that have been in for several years. A Walmart in Paducah even reports having a fast 50 amp EV charger.

 

[Agvg]

Here in Norway the market share of 100% electric cars are over 40% in 2019, so electric cars do work like a charm, even in very hard winter conditions.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Agvg it was the story how Mercedes sales in Norway was down by $22 million US dollars due to people moving away from gas and diesel powered vehicles that helped me see what was about to happen in the USA.

Here is an article from last year that got my attention.

This is the Fendt e1 Vario electric tractor - FutureFarming

 

[Agvg]

Audi e-tron and the new Mercedes will be selling in big numbers, the new e-tron is very common already, Volvos Polestar im sure will sell very good as Norway is considered a part of Volvos home market, Tesla will meet a lot of competition. Here in Norway a lot will go on electricity, the new car ferry where i live will be electric, we are seriously thinking on use electric passenger plane on the short routes and the list goes on. In agriculture it has been very little focus on electrification.

 

[/pine]

Electric Motorcycles | Harley-Davidson USA

 

[Oaktree]

Clearly Europe is ahead of the USA in battery based vehicles and for several reasons. McDonald's putting in car charging stations in 100% of their stores countries like Norway and the Netherlands helped me see this is no small thing. Tax breaks are huge in some countries.

Comparing vehicle adoption between the U.S. (or Canada for that matter) and Europe is a bit apples and oranges. First of all, Europe is much more urban than the U.S., with people driving shorter distances than here in North America. Secondly, how well do you think these would be received without the heavy government subsidization they currently receive? This seems to be setting a troublesome precedent...I don't see anyone offering free gasoline/diesel to those of us who drive conventional vehicles, why should electric vehicles have "free" or heavily discounted charging? At what point will this end, or will it?
What about road use taxes? Where will the money come from for highway maintenance should these vehicles become more than a novelty?

Does the power grid have the capacity to charge all these vehicles should they become mainstream? All questions that need to be answered.

I'm sure the technology will improve over time, maybe even to the point where these vehicles are practical but I think the 10 year time frame is a bit optimistic.

 

[airbiscuit]

We also subsidize big oil.

 

[airbiscuit]

The technology on batteries is advancing very rapidly. It's not if, but when we will see more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles. It will be a natural for farms to have giant solar arrays on their outbuildings to charge the battery banks for their large tractors. Their will be self driving mules to deliver charged battery modules to the field tractors.

 

[/pine]

The technology on batteries is advancing very rapidly. It's not if, but when we will see more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles. It will be a natural for farms to have giant solar arrays on their outbuildings to charge the battery banks for their large tractors. Their will be self driving mules to deliver charged battery modules to the field tractors.

Actually it's not...if anything it has regressed a bit...Tesla (a leading battery R&D investor.) is having lots of issues with their current (NPI) batteries and have not made any advancements in the last 18 months...

FWIW...Tesla stock is a bellwether for battery tech...

 

[bunyip]

A lot of shopping centres and car parks have free fast charging bays here and if we went for an electric car we can get a deal with the power companies for $1 a day to charge, unfortunately the charging platform is cost prohibitive to make it a deal for me and we live too far away from charging stations.
I seem to recall seeing that a Tesla charger is about $20k.
The $1 a day is charged if you use the car or not.

 

[drssg]

I could definitely see owning an electric car as one of the vehicles in our household. If I’m not on a long multi-day trip, I can just charge every night at home. The public recharging infrastructure is irrelevant.

On the very rare occasions that I go on a long trip, if I don’t like the charging options, I would take the wife’s car.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Electric Motorcycles | Harley-Davidson USA

Good find. While HD's future is a bit like the Towncar as in its customers are dying at a fast rate locally and the video game generation are not into Hogs and Towncars so much. It will be interesting to see if HD can save itself fast enough as the market moves away from IC engines world wide.

Short of hitting a deer, etc I plan our next four vehicle purchases to be EV's. The son is currently spend $3000 for gas annually in a 25 MPG car. In his case he needs an EV with a battery range of 200 miles to play it safe. Since my wife broke her hip in the horse lot the first day of this summer I take her to work and pick her up so that works out to be 70 miles a day. Thankfully she is back to work but has a very long walk from the parking lot with a limp by the end of the day. The daughter has several more years of college I expect and has racked up the miles on her 2007 Dodge Dakota over the last 5 years of driving.

A few months ago it hit me that Europe is well advanced with EV cars and trucks and in 2020 China plans to add 1.5 million EV's to their roads.

That was when I decided to never buy another car that required oil changes, tune ups and pollution stuff throwing check engine lights for local daily driving. I hope to pick up a 5 year old low mileage Nissan Leaf with the 24 kwh battery at is good for 70+ miles just to start to learning the ropes of EV ownership. At 68 with physical limitations my goal is to be in a self driving car someday for safety reasons. Self braking and lane keeping features are of interest to me.

IC engines will be around for a while but when EV's range between charging gets up to about a 1000 miles the ICE will not be installed in cars.

I do not have COPD thankfully but some days I get behind vehicles that makes it hard for me to breath. Renewals are here so we can stop burning old dinosaurs.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Audi e-tron and the new Mercedes will be selling in big numbers, the new e-tron is very common already, Volvos Polestar im sure will sell very good as Norway is considered a part of Volvos home market, Tesla will meet a lot of competition. Here in Norway a lot will go on electricity, the new car ferry where i live will be electric, we are seriously thinking on use electric passenger plane on the short routes and the list goes on. In agriculture it has been very little focus on electrification.

Thanks for sharing what you are seeing in Norway. We are so far behind the curve in the USA but I expect we will see a lot of catching up over the next three years. I was like others in thinking our rural country side would not be possible to go mainstream with EV's then I got to reading about the huge advances in EV battery size and a million miles of life coming down the pike.

EV's will work where ever people live that can buy solar panels and the sun shines. The storage batteries are here today and getting better and cheaper year by year so we can recharge in a flash before we leave the house the next morning.

Below is an article about charging stations in Spain. They sound like they may work for the semi trucking industry.

Repsol Launches The Most Powerful Charging Station In Europe: 400 kW

Repsol Launches The Most Powerful Charging Station In Europe: 4 kW

 

[Agvg]

Tesla has the range to be good enough for many people, here I Norway distances are quite great and people travel often and long so Tesla had easy times, and one thing that might be more of a Scandinavian demand is towing hitch and most electric and lots of hybrids can't tow anything so Tesla X sold a lot on been able to tow.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I think the ability to tow and a range of 200 miles or better will be import in rural USA as well to drive the demand for EV's. I picked up a 2010 Subaru Forester two years ago and I plan to keep one around for towing and bad weather. An electric version would be nice. Tesla being an aerospace and battery maker gives it an edge over car makers trying to electrify because they had to start from scratch to make a vehicle chassis and they do it mainly with robots more and more.

 

[Agvg]

In US towing is a big thing, in many parts of Europe I do not believe it to be such an issue, in Norway it's very commen to own cabins and vacation homes far away from where you live so range and towing is important for that reason.

I own two places with 4 to 5 hours drive between, my wife needs to drive 24h to visit here relatives so I'm on diesel for both my van and car.

 

[shooterdon]

I would be interested in an electric vehicle as a second car. Town is 25 miles away. I rarely put on more than 100 miles a day unless on vacation. Then I need 400 miles of range.

Two issues are battery life between replacement and charging. If charging stations were easily available and charging times were not too long, an electric vehicle could even be my primary vehicle.

I see heating/defrosting/and air conditioning taking a toll on power usage even if just sitting there.

A small on board generator that could charge overnight would minimize the need to plan long trips around charging station locations.

 

[bunyip]

A small on board generator that could charge overnight would minimize the need to plan long trips around charging station locations.

I think small is out of the equation which would put you back in a hybrid.

 

[Grumpycat]

Am I the only one here who owns a Tesla?

Tesla currently has 704 Supercharger sites in the USA. Most have 8 or more charging stalls of at least 120 kW each. Some have over 24 charging stalls. Rarely spaced much more than 100 miles apart, adding 100 miles of range to the battery takes about 20 minutes. Battery charge rate slows the last half, so it is faster (and kinder to the battery) not to charge to full.

With 250+ mile range there is little need to charge anywhere but overnight at home but for cross country travel. And that is exactly what the Supercharger is intended. The "gas station" model does not work, and is not needed.

See the map at Supercharger | Tesla

 

[joefromga]

This is much like old people who refuse to use battery powered tools. They are taking over. Get used to it. And they're better.

5 years will be the flip point from more EV than gas cars. Trucks will take another couple of years.

When everyone has one every company will be focusing on the profits of better batteries and chargers and accessories.

Gasoline is the wagon wheel. Get on board or get left behind.