Pilot EV Charging

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I think the big problem is a thing that EV aficionados generally ignore is that once there are a lot of EVs on the road, the charging time problem is not so much how long it takes to charge YOUR car, but the wait time while all the OTHER cars in front of you get their charge.

Yes indeed, as there were more gasoline cars on the road, we had to wait longer and longer at gas stations to get gas.

Oh waiddaminnit, remarkably that is not how that worked. As there were more gasoline cars on the road, we got more and more gas stations.

Which is pretty much what Tesla is doing. When I got my Tesla in 2018, the closest Supercharger was 15 miles away and I had to go ~35 miles to find a 2nd one. Now there are about 5 superchargers that I drive past all the time in the miles around my house.

Which also ignores that I go to a supercharger way less than once per month, 99.9% of my charging is done while I am sleeping in my house.

R:

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In term of efficiency, self-driving car and car sharing would be the solution. A car would arrive in minutes whenever and wherever you need it, no driver involved. No need to own a car except for hobby.

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Just who is going to build out a huge population of public charging stations when EVs are almost always charged at home?

C’mon Ray, don’t argue both sides of a false dilemma, pick one and stick to it!

Or do you really think we can simultaneously have too many and not enough chargers?

Notice the people with EVs are not having a problem getting them charged on trips. And each year it gets easier, because,… wait for it … as demand for chargers increases more chargers get built which actually makes it easier for everybody, you no longer have to pick the one charger in 75 miles, you can more and more drift into a gasoline mentality of I’ll charge when I’m ready because there will be a charger there.

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I think the ideal setup for a two car family is to have one electric car and one plug in hybrid car.

Even as a Tesla pure EV owner, I have to say Hybrids are amazing. 60+ mpg I think on many of them? I think people really underestimate the value of being way better at not burning gas in their rush to what on the face of it looks more perfect. Even EVs being charged on the grid have to be assigned some proportion of the fossil-fuel used to generate electricity.

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And every electric I have driven has been a heck of a lot of fun to drive. Driving a gas powered car with laggy torque and transmission shifting is a real buzz kill after the instant acceleration of electrics.

I know! I’m pretty sure there are a lot of Tesla drivers who are driving it because it is a rocket ship. I think ICE cars are technical marvels, but it is so complex it seems like it is close to the end of where ICE is going, while EVs are mostly just getting started. I think batteries are still improving something like 6% a year. Add that to the increasing speed at which EV batteries get charged and seriously, the whole range anxiety thing sounds like a message board in the 1920s talking about how autocars will never catch on because you have to wonder where you are going to get gasoline out in the boonies.

For my family the overall ownership experience of electric is just better with the exception of the current range limitations.

With 4 years or so of Tesla, I can’t believe how much the charging infrastructure has grown and speeded up. I think for me it is sort of fun stopping to charge and getting out and walking around. I’m not saying y’all should accept that, but there will be a time where you are just not spending that much time stopped even in an EV. Chargers get faster and faster. EVs are sort of like laptops that way, remember when the time to start up a laptop was annoying? But we still used laptops anyway, and now we hardly wait at all for startup.

R:

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Even as a Tesla pure EV owner, I have to say Hybrids are amazing. 60+ mpg I think on many of them? I think people really underestimate the value of being way better at not burning gas in their rush to what on the face of it looks more perfect. Even EVs being charged on the grid have to be assigned some proportion of the fossil-fuel used to generate electricity.

Speaking as a Honda Clarity PHEV owner, I’m looking forward to transitioning to a pure EV - as are, or already have, a bunch of other Clarity owners in the groups I follow. There’s nothing wrong with the car. It has the highest range of any PHEV, AFAIK (shared with the Volt), is comfortable, roomy, decent performance (think an Accord V-6 but slightly larger), great price (after tax credits), etc. Gets around 45 MPG when running only on gas - the MPGe of course depends on how much non-electric driving one does.

But I’m still carting around an entire ICE, it needs all the maintenance that goes with having an ICE, lots of extra parts that can fail, and so on. Honda apparently agrees as they stopped making Claritys last year and are preparing for a bunch of pure EVs in their next generation.

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Even EVs being charged on the grid have to be assigned some proportion of the fossil-fuel used to generate electricity.

I suppose that’s fair.

No agenda here, but if you really want to get bummed out about car guilt, search for “tire wear pollution”.
The issue is particulates, many of which are at the nasty PM2.5 range, some of which are toxic.

The interesting thing is that, as tailpipe emissions have fallen over time, tire wear pollution has risen.
It rises with vehicle weight and torque, things that aren’t dodged by EVs.
Some geeky folks have tried to measure it
https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-los…
TL;DR version: definitely worse than what comes out the tailpipe, very much worse in some cases.

An EV is definitely better.
But, like counting power generation externalities, it’s not a move from 100% to 0% that some might expect.

Jim

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I’m not saying y’all should accept that, but there will be a time where you are just not spending that much time stopped even in an EV.

We have a lake we go to regularly and the trip is ~220 miles door to door when we drive the route with Supercharger access. We have been taking our Tesla more this year simply because of gas prices and with free supercharging it seems silly not to if our schedule allows. It just so happens there is a DQ one block away from the Supercharger, so every time we stop we walk over there for a meal or ice cream (how’s that for bringing this back on topic). It’s a nice stop but one I wouldn’t have to make in one of my ICE vehicles. Even with a dilly bar to take my mind off of it, it still bothers me.

I’m trying to be patient until I can upgrade into something with 400 miles of range on the dash. Maybe a Rivian R1T Max Pack… or maybe I’m too cheap.

Jeff

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From one point of view, even better would be to have just one hybrid and be done with it.
Then, with the same amount of currently scarce battery material, another 2-5 families could have the same, and nobody gets range anxiety.
A long range battery-only vehicle is nice, but in one sense it’s a waste of resources.
Most cars aren’t driven more than 30 miles in a day on average.

- Jim

You sound like Toyota’s Chief Scientist, Jim. From my X-Posted thread I just put up on Destiny Solutions:

https://discussion.fool.com/tm-chief-scientist-world-not-ready-f…

Currently, he picks PHEVs as the better choice, and he uses his wife’s own Tesla to prove his point. “I can talk about that from experience. My wife and I bought a Tesla Model X, because we’re good friends with a chief engineer on that car. It’s an incredible car. But my wife used it to commute 30 miles a day, which meant 90% of the battery wasn’t being used most of the time. We were just dragging all this weight, all these raw materials, around.”

"We all know that we’re in an era of limited battery supply. Well, couldn’t those battery cells have been used for a better purpose in eight PHEVs like the Toyota RAV4 Prime, where the battery capacity would have contributed to much more total emissions savings on almost every journey?

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We were just dragging all this weight, all these raw materials, around."

So instead of dragging the bigger battery around, he’s going to drag an internal combustion engine around that he doesn’t use? OK.

But my wife used it to commute 30 miles a day, which meant 90% of the battery wasn’t being used most of the time.

That’s the thing about cars. People don’t want one that works “most of the time”. They want one that works all of the time, including longer trips, even if they only take them a couple times a year.

I’ve been looking for a good plug in hybrid but can’t really find one to my taste. I’m thinking about the KIA EV6, except none of the dealers around here have them yet.

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From one point of view, even better would be to have just one hybrid and be done with it.
Then, with the same amount of currently scarce battery material, another 2-5 families could have the same, and nobody gets range anxiety.
A long range battery-only vehicle is nice, but in one sense it’s a waste of resources.
Most cars aren’t driven more than 30 miles in a day on average.

Her is my driving for June:


 	Driving History
Distance  135 miles
Idle Time 5h 6m
Avg Speed 10 MPH
Trip Time 13h 25m
Avg MPG   53 MPG
Max Speed 55 MPH

So 135 miles/30days = 4.5 miles per day. I drove only about 6000 miles per year, but that is now down because the two friends I drove far and often are now both dead.

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An EV is definitely better.
But, like counting power generation externalities, it’s not a move from 100% to 0% that some might expect.

Agreed. But you are missing one factor in the overall equation.

When you buy a new ICE car today it will (basically) never be cleaner than it was the day you bought it. Not in CO2, nor in smog emissions.

If you buy an EV today it will likely get cleaner over the years as the grid gets cleaner.

Mike

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pure EVs are much better for virtue signalling

Maybe, but it’s not efficient lugging around a mostly superfluous ICE and transaxle, either.

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When you buy a new ICE car today it will (basically) never be cleaner than it was the day you bought it. Not in CO2, nor in smog emissions.
If you buy an EV today it will likely get cleaner over the years as the grid gets cleaner.

Seems plausible.
The range of improvement is pretty constrained based on where you charge, I guess.
In France in a normal year around 7-8% electricity is generated from fossil fuels.

I suppose an optimist would not that a combustion engines in general burn fuel which could come from
various sources over time, so there could be some room for improvement in total life cycle impact.
Not that I’m particularly optimistic on that front, just mentioning it for completeness.
It’s not like I can pop down the corner and top up with furfural or some thermal depolymerization product from ag waste.

Jim

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Maybe, but it’s not efficient lugging around a mostly superfluous ICE and transaxle, either.

Fair enough, but I guess the point is that there are no shortages or capacity constraints in the supply chain of internal combustion engines.

And in any case, they weigh less than a big battery.
Our friend Mr Google tells me that the weight of a Prius is 2530-3375lb with two power trains, and a Tesla Model 3 is 3552-4072 lb with one.
The Prius is of course quite a bit cheaper, too, and doesn’t engender range anxiety or long pit stops.

With no constraints on the supply of batteries, charge points, charge times, green electricity
generation, grid capacity or end user purchasing power there is no doubt a pure EV is a much better choice.
Less nasty stuff coming out the bung hole.
It rapidly becomes complicated depending on the priorities, societal and personal.

The main argument against hybrids is they don’t sell very well.
Those who want to be green or be seen as green go all electric.
Those who don’t care will buy what hits the largest number of their function and style goals at their price point, which is usually combustion.
There is a decent case that hybrids are the best solution to minimizing total vehicle emissions in the next 20 years, but not if nobody will buy them.
Many regulatory frameworks and subsidy schemes seem designed with that as a goal.

Jim

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Our friend Mr Google tells me that the weight of a Prius is 2530-3375lb with two power trains, and a Tesla Model 3 is 3552-4072 lb with one.

Those Prius numbers include the regular non-plugin hybrids, which don’t have the size traction battery to properly be considered two power trains. The Prius Prime, with 25 miles plug-in range, weighs 3,365-3,375 lbs. Still lighter than the Model 3, but edging up to the lower end of Model 3 weights.

I’ve personally lived through a BIG change in my personal plug-in EV’s (a 2012 Chevy Volt) emissions, when the local coal plant was replaced by an advanced natural gas plant, cutting CO2 by ~65% and cutting smog forming emissions by 99%. Of course emissions from the miles I drive while the gas engine is running are only getting worse, as the engine and pollution control systems age.

I will note that in my experience the amount of maintenance and repairs for my Volt’s ICE powertrain have been WAY lower than I’d expect from a full ICE vehicle. I’ve gone up to two years between oil changes when I wasn’t taking many long trips, and I’ve had zero other maintenance or problems with that part of the car thus far.

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If you buy an EV today it will likely get cleaner over the years as the grid gets cleaner.

or dirtier as grid gets dirty.

Here is a very possible scenario. Europe may very well have to start their coal plants. Come next winter, Russia may/ can/ will punish Europe by shutting down pipeline.

So Europe has another few months to get ready. But Europeans are not particularly bright folks, so we will see what happens.

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"Come next winter, Russia may/ can/ will punish Europe by shutting down pipeline. So Europe has another few months to get ready.

A few months? Maybe not.

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM) has declared force majeure on gas supplies to Europe to at least one major customer, according to a letter from Gazprom that will add to European fears of fuel shortages.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-gazprom-decl…

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“If you buy an EV today it will likely get cleaner over the years as the grid gets cleaner.”

Maybe not…

"Battery anodes for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems rely on graphite for more than 90% of their raw materials. With no immediate, widescale alternative, ESG issues have come into sharper focus as consumers question the sustainability of existing supply chains.

Natural graphite, mined mainly in China and, increasingly, Mozambique and Madagascar, is subject to traditional mining ESG concerns, such as water use and equipment and transport emissions. However, battery-grade graphite involves intensive purification and shaping into spherical form, which relies on large quantities of hydrofluoric acid (HF). This downstream process, currently only done in China, has much deeper ESG concerns.

Lithium: high water consumption versus high carbon emissions?

The lithium sector faces a binary problem. Buyers – auto manufacturers, cathode manufacturers and other OEMs – must choose between two routes: brine or mineral sources. Each involves a distinct ESG challenge, centred on either water consumption or carbon emissions.

Brine sources:
Concerns over high water consumption at lithium brine operations have led to conflicts with local and state authorities in South America, and investigations into the efficacy of production. Plus, brine producers not only have greater water consumption rates than mineral concentrate producers, but they’re operating in some of the driest places on earth, with high levels of water risk.

Mineral sources:
Most lithium mineral concentrate is shipped to Chinese refineries reliant on coal power. In terms of embedded emissions per tonne of refined lithium produced, this refining stage contributes 70-90% of all carbon emissions within the mineral concentrate supply route. This doubling up effect, of high energy consumption and high emission fuel use within the mineral supply chain, makes refined lithium produced via mineral concentrate 3.5 times more CO2 intense than brine.

The list goes on…

https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/energy-transition-metal…

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or dirtier as grid gets dirty.

You are looking at a possible short term edge case that doesn’t apply widely.
Try looking at the big picture…

Mike

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