It's started

[georgepds]

I notice on the George's bubble graph in post #82, that specific energy (i.e. longer range) is increasing more rapidly than specific power (i.e. horsepower). I assume this is because some EV's are already hitting what most would consider acceptable power numbers, with very impressive low-speed torque, and most see their primary shortcoming as range.
....

The graph has more to do with battery chemistry than cars.

On the issue of battery power you can design for power or energy or something in between. In the lead acid world there are starter batteries(power) storage batteries (energy) and something in between( marine)

 

[begreen]

The graph has more to do with battery chemistry than cars.

On the issue of battery power you can design for power or energy or something in between. In the lead acid world there are starter batteries(power) storage batteries (energy) and something in between( marine)

What about combining battery with a supercapacitor for motive power and acceleration?

 

[Ashful]

The graph has more to do with battery chemistry than cars.

On the issue of battery power you can design for power or energy or something in between. In the lead acid world there are starter batteries(power) storage batteries (energy) and something in between( marine)

Yes, of course! It will only be a matter of time before one of the automakers starts paralleling these attributes in a power storage unit, to provide the best of both worlds. I just hope it's under $100k, when it happens.

We are living in a second golden era of ICE cars, now. For the first time in history, the average person can buy a car which will perform on-par with the elite supercars of two decades past. I can't help feeling like it's the final crescendo, though... I doubt our kids will drive sports cars with 600 hp ICEs, unless they're wearing antique plates.

 

[spirilis]

Yes, of course! It will only be a matter of time before one of the automakers starts paralleling these attributes in a power storage unit, to provide the best of both worlds. I just hope it's under $100k, when it happens.

We are living in a second golden era of ICE cars, now. For the first time in history, the average person can buy a car which will perform on-par with the elite supercars of two decades past. I can't help feeling like it's the final crescendo, though... I doubt our kids will drive sports cars with 600 hp ICEs, unless they're wearing antique plates.

I was thinking about that the other day. Right at the dawn of the EV revolution, we've finally perfected the gasoline ICE... Life is ironic that way.

(Recent news about Mazda's new HCCI, i.e. gasoline-running-like-diesel engine really drove this sentiment home)

 

[jharkin]

The graph has more to do with battery chemistry than cars.

On the issue of battery power you can design for power or energy or something in between. In the lead acid world there are starter batteries(power) storage batteries (energy) and something in between( marine)

Exactly.

Car starting batteries are designed for high specific power using sponge like lead plates that provide a lot of surface area to support a fast chemical reaction. The downside is less active material resulting in a lower total capacity per cycle. Deep cycle batteries are build with thick solid lead plates for the opposite reason.

The same effect in lithium battery design. My batteries experience is with R/C hobbies where we use lithium polymer batteries that a built to handle charge rates up to 5C (i.e. 12 minute recharge) and discharge rates up to 30C+ burst (i.e. use the entire capacity in 2 minutes)... The downside is that they have less capacity per weight/volume than the typical lithium cell from a laptop/phone/car thats optimized for much lower charge rates. And they dont last nearly as long.

Typical high end hobby battery is a 3Ah-5Ah brick wired for 22.2v (6 cell) or 44.4v (12 cell)..... Discharge rates run into the hundreds of amps over a 3-5 minute run time then users recharge them in 15-20 minutes. Abused like that packs last a few hundred cycles over a year or two, max.

The big power density isn't really needed in cars other than the fact it supports a faster charge. Your 300 mile range Tesla driven at 60mph works out to a very mild C/5 average discharge rate. BeGreen's idea about pairing a battery with capacitance might be a solution for the peak load issue.

I was thinking about that the other day. Right at the dawn of the EV revolution, we've finally perfected the gasoline ICE... Life is ironic that way.
(Recent news about Mazda's new HCCI, i.e. gasoline-running-like-diesel engine really drove this sentiment home)

But isn't that generally true with every technology wave? - it reaches a peak of refinement right as sometime better comes along (either because we have run out of ideas to improve it, or the something better made further refinements moot).

 

[georgepds]

Re caps.

What about combining battery with a supercapacitor for motive power and acceleration?

They do something like that in portable versions of the navy rail gun

 

[georgepds]

Rail gun... more on power vs energy

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPor..._naval_railgun_faq_is_finished_heres_a_taste/

"A 64 MJ shot is equivalent in energy to just a few gallons of marine diesel (accounting for inefficiencies when converting to electricity and then to kinetic energy). About 300 laptop batteries. But batteries put out too little power.

"When firing, the [30 MJ prototype] draws an average ~12.5 GW(3% of the US grid). They need a hefty power supply to store and then release that energy.

 

[begreen]

"When firing, the [30 MJ prototype] draws an average ~12.5 GW(3% of the US grid). They need a hefty power supply to store and then release that energy.

That'll dim the lights in the neighborhood.

 

[woodgeek]

Memories.

A buddy and I once played around with building 'mini-railguns' using a 3 kJ HV capacitor he bought surplus from NASA. I think we estimated that we got peak currents of 100,000A and peak powers of 100 MW (for a few tens of microseconds). The graphite rail gun projectiles always just vaporized without any obvious acceleration. Boring. We made a Lenz effect accelerator...a 2cm 20 turn solenoid (at 100 kA) put a lot of speed on a copper projectile (penny). Of course, the solenoid itself was destroyed by each 'shot'....its copper conductor fragmented into uniform ~1mm pieces due to the magnetic stresses from the pulse (and, um, were blown clear across his dorm room). We hypothesized this was the speed of sound in copper times the duration of the shot.

We closed the circuit with a pinball rolling down a chute onto two copper nails.

 

[georgepds]

Yes, of course! It will only be a matter of time before one of the automakers starts paralleling these attributes in a power storage unit, to provide the best of both worlds. I just hope it's under $100k, when it happens.

We are living in a second golden era of ICE cars, now. For the first time in history, the average person can buy a car which will perform on-par with the elite supercars of two decades past. I can't help feeling like it's the final crescendo, though... I doubt our kids will drive sports cars with 600 hp ICEs, unless they're wearing antique plates.

The economist agrees with you about the end of the ICE

https://www.economist.com/news/lead...n/bl/n/20170810n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/54751/n

 

[georgepds]

Memories.

A buddy and I once played around with building 'mini-railguns' ......

Of course, the solenoid itself was destroyed by each 'shot'....its copper conductor fragmented into uniform ~1mm pieces due to the magnetic stresses from the pulse ....

We closed the circuit with a pinball rolling down a chute onto two copper nails.

The current rail gun barrels weigh 15 tons... helps a bit with barrel erosion

 

[begreen]

Lecture on the disruption coming for the auto and oil industries. It's a long presentation, but covers some interesting territory.

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[woodgeek]

Lecture on the disruption coming for the auto and oil industries. It's a long presentation, but covers some interesting territory.

I watched the whole thing....an improvement over the old lecture, and nicely done video quality.

Lot's to respond to. I was left cold by his TaaS (transportation as a service) stuff in earlier talks....and here he actually persuaded me. I still suspect that people who can afford it will keep their individual cars, and the transition to full TaaS will be generational.

Kinda like how young people don't watch much broadcast TV, but old people watch it ALL DAY. Broadcast TV has been disrupted, and old people can certainly watch Netflix, but good old TV still has some (waning) cultural sway...and will for another generation.

But maybe he'll convince me on the timeline in his next lecture.

The part I found most interesting was his take on the used car market. If the number of cars needed starts dropping (due to TaaS adoption at the margins and with younger people) in the early 2020s, at the same time that EV propulsion eats ICE, what is the value of a used ICE car?? Tony thinks (half jokingly) that it goes negative (About 40-45mins into the video). I hadn't thought about that, but it makes me think I want to trade my remaining ICE car for a lease in a few years!

One thing that a lot of EV skeptics talk about is 'the incredible depreciation' of EVs such as the LEAF. They say they cost $35k MSRP and then three years later (off lease) they sell for $12-15k! Incredible they say, and evidence that they (i) are stupid to buy and/or (ii) obviously don't have any value or (iii) have low implied durability. When in fact all these reasons are wrong....in fact the new car is rolling off the lot with so many incentives that it costs $20-$25k new, and the depreciation is not that bad at all, the value is high and so is the durability.

How funny/ironic if all the people using used car prices to justify the correctness of their current ICE-ey decision making are stuck with a perfectly functional luxury ICE car that they can't get parts for, aren't legally allowed to drive into their nearby city (or have to pay $10 fee to do so), and that no one wants to buy, in like 2023?? I think history often has these little ironies....

 

[begreen]

I agree it will be a generational thing, but the change is already occurring and I think he is correct that it will be relatively quick in urban areas. Neither of my sons has a car or wants one, even if given to them. They use public transit and uber if needed. When a car was offered my older son countered that they didn't want to deal with the maintenance, insurance and parking hassle for something they would only use occasionally. In rural areas I think the transition will be slower yet eventual, driven perhaps by rising fuel costs or higher gas taxes? There still will be utility needs like a truck for hauling, though I see now the Mitsubishi Fuso has a multipurpose electric truck chassis capable of hauling 5 tons and with a 100 mile range, so that will change too with cheaper battery tech that has more capacity.

FWIW, our family stopped watching broadcast tv except for pbs sometime in the 90's. I couldn't even tell you what any popular program is about. Makes me suck at trivia games if the topic is tv.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

FWIW, our family stopped watching broadcast tv except for pbs sometime in the 90's. I couldn't even tell you what any popular program is about. Makes me suck at trivia games if the topic is tv.

I haven't watched tv since I was 16 except in rare circumstances. Not many movies either. You can generally tell how shallow someone is when they react negatively if I don't know anything about a tv show like "The World's Most Dangerous Catch" or whatever happens to be popular at the moment. Some people wonder how you could survive. I tell them there are plenty of people following it, I'm sure it's safe for me to do something else.

I saw 5 minutes of that Alaskan fishing tv program and, as an ex Alaskan commercial fisher, I felt like puking more than I ever have in rough seas. Disgusting way to take a noble profession and misrepresent it to people who can't tell a Coho from a Sockeye and who think you're talking about a STD when you tell them how many crabs you caught. Reality tv is anything but!

 

[begreen]

No cable tv here either. We watch series like The West Wing a year or two later when they come on DVD and show up in the library system. Thinking back though I have to admit we did get sucked into 24 sometimes until it got too silly and repetitive.

 

[georgepds]

Re cars...

Was in academia till I was 30, and never had a car... two reasons

1) poor as a church mouse and couldn't afford the upkeep
2) lived in the center of the city and didn't really need it

 

[begreen]

Looks like Mercedes is joining the party here in the US.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/22/16350506/daimler-mercedes-benz-eq-1-billion-expansion

 

[semipro]

What I find so compelling about PEVs is that they effectively get "cleaner" with age as more renewable energy is added to the grid.
Compare this to ICEs that basically get dirtier from day one as the engine wears.

Even with line losses, use of the electrical grid for energy distribution -- versus tanker trucks and pipelines - makes sense on so many levels; especially as residential solar and other local/regional generators contribute to a much more distributed grid.

All we really need is the battery storage tech to put the last nails in the coffin of fossil fuels for transportation. Then fossil fuels can be relegated to feedstock for chemical production where they belong - not as motor fuels.

 

[Ashful]

It will be interesting to watch the "classic" car market, in the wake of the inevitable EV revolution. What will we pay for 2017 big V8 Corvettes and Hellcats, when the only ICE's are cars manufactured 20 years' past?

What will our kids think of the sublime pleasure we derived from a roaring noise of a high-HP ICE?

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

What will our kids think of the sublime pleasure we derived from a roaring noise of a high-HP ICE?

If they're smart kids, and most kids are, they will think you're a doddering old man who is too demented to recognize that your gas "performance" vehicle falls far shy on performance compared to their faster electric car with superior torque, AWD and ludicrous acceleration that causes anyone who drives it in sport mode to break out in demented and maniacal laughter. They will think you're out of touch for even thinking that big V-8 could be considered high performance. They will disrespect you for declining a race. And they will lose further respect for you just thinking about how that silly gas car is completely dependent on remote infrastructure costing millions of dollars like distant oil refineries, oil rigs and the inconvenience of remote gas stations. As they charge their car each night in the comfort of their spotless, well lit and fresh smelling garage, with electricity harvested during the day from the sun, they will wonder why you think that slow, stinky, boring impractical and ugly thing consumes so much of your time and resources. In short, they will know you are a bumbling idiot.

 

[begreen]

Kids might be very grateful that these dotards are no longer able to drive. It's their future at risk, not ours. My guess is that in a decade or two ICEs may be taxed out of existence.

 

[begreen]

1100 miles on a charge. Not bad for a full sized bus.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/0...bus-just-drove-1100-miles-on-a-single-charge/

 

[begreen]

Paris is going electric only by 2030.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-f...h-all-but-electric-cars-by-2030-idUSKBN1CH0SI

 

[blades]

i wouldn't be too quick to totally dismiss the ice, lot of new designs out there some good, some questionable, point Solar & Wind even with hydro tossed in isn't going to cover every situation. Short comings of Electric is power storage that area is being addressed but a long way from having great answers and reasonable cost. Another issue is the grid system here stateside won't even get into the status of that.