Honda and JPL create a new type of battery that could be the future of EVs

[Guest]

Just now, Blademaster91 said:

A Leaf for $4000? Sure you can find a Leaf or Prius for around that much, but you will spend way more than $4000 replacing the batteries.

The trick is to buy new sell when the battery reaches 85%. They keep a lot more of their value than petrol cars. Buy for 40k, save 3k on gas and sell for 35k. Has happened and can be done. 2k a year is way cheaper than what I spend on gas, so thats a great deal. Its easier to dismiss electric cars when you need a lot of range or have low fuel prices like in America, but for me, its a nice deal I wish I could take. 

[Guest]

Just now, emosun said:

why you are barely worth my time

I know how much I'm worth thanks. 

[emosun]

4 minutes ago, justpoet said:

OT: I've actually been thinking about picking up a used version of the econo-sport car I had in college, probably with a dead engine, and converting it to electric.  Beyond a separate motor to run pumps for things like brakes and power steering, what are common things people forget to consider (basics like weight, battery management, how to mate to the drivetrain without blowing it up from torque, etc are things I've already thought about).  Are there any go-to controllers these days (been a while since I looked at specific hardware, as this thought has been swirling for many years now).

the controller we used were from a forklift so i have no clue what others use

ours were experiements to reduce the initial cost of an ev to ridiculously low amounts . we found that even out 3-4000$ ev's would actually have to be driving almost constantly during the year to make up for the cost of a 2000$ gas car with 2000$ worth of gasoline. That wasn't included the time it took to charge.

we concluded the experiments knowing full well that the evs we built just could not be a substitute for a gas car and that it wasn't possible for them to be much cheaper initially. was fun to build though and i'm glad to be in a "been there done that" position with evs now.

[Sithon1]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

why you are barely worth my time

Yeesh. Be nice folks, it's just the internet. Unless you were joking , then NM

[D13H4RD]

Just wait for the VTEC EV

[corrado33]

2 hours ago, Sithon1 said:

Less greenhouse gases , with that power to weight ratio electric airplanes become real contenders and much cheaper energy costs.

Question: Where does the energy come from? How efficient is that plant?

 

How efficient is your charger? Oh you want fast charging? That'll be less efficient charging. How far is the charger from the power plant?

 

More than likely EVs produce more greenhouse gases than standard gas cars. 

 

Until renewable energy is dominant, EVs are a bad idea. 

[williamcll]

Aren't powerplants far more efficient than cars?

[CarlBar]

5 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

More like close to 40 years. I'd also be concerned about the nature of the Fluoride. We know the safety profiles of Lithium pretty well, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

Yeah chemists have an enormously healthy respect for fluorine for a dammed good reason. 

 

59 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Aren't powerplants far more efficient than cars?

 

Yes but the margins are shrinking, that said in europe renewable energy is being pushed fairly hard so it''s a bit messier.

[jagdtigger]

4 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

The trick is to buy new sell when the battery reaches 85%. They keep a lot more of their value than petrol cars. Buy for 40k, save 3k on gas and sell for 35k. Has happened and can be done. 2k a year is way cheaper than what I spend on gas, so thats a great deal. Its easier to dismiss electric cars when you need a lot of range or have low fuel prices like in America, but for me, its a nice deal I wish I could take. 

Not for long, very soon governments will start to implement what ours did. Require an extra electricity meter for current used to charge the car and they gonna tax it... There goes your cheap charging. Plus making an overhaul on an IC car is still cheaper than replacing an EV's battery .

[Brooksie359]

4 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Question: Where does the energy come from? How efficient is that plant?

 

How efficient is your charger? Oh you want fast charging? That'll be less efficient charging. How far is the charger from the power plant?

 

More than likely EVs produce more greenhouse gases than standard gas cars. 

 

Until renewable energy is dominant, EVs are a bad idea. 

Power plants are quite efficient and much more so than a internal combustion engine. Not only that but where I live in the US a significant portion of the energy produced is by renewable energy purely because it cheaper to add new wind turbines than it is to add new natural gas power plants. You also have to consider than the internal combustion engine produces much nastier byproducts than a natural gas power plant so there are many reasons why electric cars result in less harmful gasses being released in the atmosphere. 

[Brooksie359]

17 hours ago, emosun said:

the controller we used were from a forklift so i have no clue what others use

ours were experiements to reduce the initial cost of an ev to ridiculously low amounts . we found that even out 3-4000$ ev's would actually have to be driving almost constantly during the year to make up for the cost of a 2000$ gas car with 2000$ worth of gasoline. That wasn't included the time it took to charge.

we concluded the experiments knowing full well that the evs we built just could not be a substitute for a gas car and that it wasn't possible for them to be much cheaper initially. was fun to build though and i'm glad to be in a "been there done that" position with evs now.

I think you aren't thinking about this correctly. Your entire experiments hinges on the electric car to be 2x expensive as a gas car which is a fairly large assumption to make. If you plan on spending 30k on a car and a have a choice between an electric car and a gas car of the same price it would stand to reason that you would save money by going with an electric car. 

[RejZoR]

8 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

EV: $5 tank and no tax

Petrol: $60 tank and tax

Diesel: $50 tank and road user charges + tax

LPG: oh dear

 

Electric cars are the future, can’t hide in the past old man!

But conveniently not factor in the price of EV cars... Average petrol hatchback costs around 12.000 €. Average EV car costs 30.000€ (no Tesla premium nonsense, regular types like Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq/Kona), usually with all the green incentives included. That's 18.000 € difference lost right in the beginning. Do you know how much fuel you get for 18.000 € ? Unleaded 95 is 1,23€ per liter in my country right now. That's 14.634 liters of fuel. I don't do much driving, done 40.000 kilometers in 8 years. That's 5000 kilometers a year, 417 kilometers a month which means I roughly refuel my ~500 kilometers range per tank car once a month (for the sake of easier calculation). My tank has 53 liters times 96 months (8 years time) is 5088 liters consumed. And even if I factor in yearly service of an engine that doesn't have to be done with EV's that's still roughly 100-200€ a year. Lets take the higher value of 200€, that's 1600€ for 8 years. I didn't even come to a half of what I'd overpay an EV for upfront in total fuel and engine service costs. So, a 7000€ total difference with all costs included. For my situation, just not worth it. Sure, EV's are cool and all and you get the green bonus points, but that's still 7000€ difference. That's half the cost of a brand new modern hatchback. Unless you're situated well above average working class, it's not insignificant.

 

Yeah, I want electric car, I'm not gonna deny that. But it's just financially not feasible for me on any level. As for ecology, we have greater issues no one seems to be bothered addressing, like all the shit we dump into rivers and oceans, but that's ok, coz you drive an EV and all is forgiven to the humanity.

 

Also, you do pay tax for electricity and when masses will hook EV's on the powergrid, all charging huge batteries on huge charging stations at home, rest assured, electric companies will ramp up the prices of electricity because they'll have to dramatically upgrade infrastructure. The public charging stations are a nightmare to use with all the stupid providers each running their own dumb system of charging you for electricity and the costs of quick chargers which are not really all that cheaper than petrol + they are hugely inconvenient compared to gas stations which are identical across entire Europe. I can pull over at any of them and refuel in minutes without any hassle for as long as I have money or debit/credit cards to pay which are accepted globally. No stupid fiddling with charging cards or mobile apps which I think is beyond retarded and usually only work in one country. I really don't understand how charging stations can't have a debit/credit card terminal at which you could easily hook up a car, simply pay the cost and be on your way. Like, I'm a freaking geek who fiddles with phones, apps and computers daily and I find the system retarded, now imagine your grandpa or even your father or mom doing it. Just freaking no.

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Power plants are quite efficient and much more so than a internal combustion engine. Not only that but where I live in the US a significant portion of the energy produced is by renewable energy purely because it cheaper to add new wind turbines than it is to add new natural gas power plants. You also have to consider than the internal combustion engine produces much nastier byproducts than a natural gas power plant so there are many reasons why electric cars result in less harmful gasses being released in the atmosphere. 

Nuclear engineer here (being a strong proponent of clean energy... I hate to be the bearer of bad news)

 

 As it turns out... they are not actually more efficient. 

 

IC engines have in recent years approached 50% thermal to mechanical efficiency (even F1 cars operate in the 45-50% regime). The "most efficient" power plants in the world (next gen coal/LNG that operate at fluid temperatures up to 850C, soon to be joined by high temp nuclear and concentrated solar via brayton cycle at 750C) also only reach a MAXIMUM of 50% total cycle thermal to electric efficiency (thermal to electric being harder than thermal to mechanical by a significant margin). Current generation plants generally operate in the 30-40% regime.

 

Add in the 80-90% charging efficiency... and the 85-90% discharging efficiency, and it turns out that IC engines are more 'efficient' than electric cars. With that said, large scale power generation has a much lower specific cost than petrol, so it is almost always notably cheaper (after massive subsidies in car design) than gas cars.

 

As far as pollution goes... an electric car is only as clean as its grid. A mainly coal backed grid will be actually be more polluting than LNG and/or petrol cars, but a portfolio with a strong nuclear/renewable presence is generally much cleaner than IC engines.

 

I say generally, because batteries are HORRIFYINGLY BAD for the environment. I cannot emphasize enough how much specific toxin and pollution goes into the pre-production of the high power lithium ion batteries currently in use, and how bad the batteries are after being 'recycled'. E-waste is one of the bigger growing pollution streams we are trying to figure out.

 

For transportation, it is a hard balance, but eventually (including published work I was a part of) for bulk energy storage, we expect to move away from electrochemical storage (aka batteries) to pure thermal solutions. By pure thermal solutions, I mean massive vats of well-insulated molten salts that can be 'charged' during high power generation, and 'discharged' during peak power utilization.

[asus killer]

10 hours ago, Sithon1 said:

Less greenhouse gases

actually if the electric power comes from burning coal, like it still happens in most cases all over the world (30% in the US for example) it's actually much worst then a normal car.

[emosun]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Your entire experiments hinges on the electric car to be 2x expensive as a gas car

no it hinges on them being the same price , you dont just ignore fuel cost

honestly just dont respond if you cant read

[RejZoR]

27 minutes ago, emosun said:

no it hinges on them being the same price , you dont just ignore fuel cost

honestly just dont respond if you cant read

They aren't the same price. Most mainstream EV's like Leaf and Kona EV are 30k €. And they are literally ordinary hatchbacks on electricity. Same models with petrol engine are at least half the initial price of EV.

[CarlBar]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

They aren't the same price. Most mainstream EV's like Leaf and Kona EV are 30k €. And they are literally ordinary hatchbacks on electricity. Same models with petrol engine are at least half the initial price of EV.

 

Most people i know when it comes to buying a car don't go out and say "this is what i want, how much is it going to cost", they go out "this is my budget, what can i get for that". So anyone who's buying a 30k EV would alternatively be buying a 30k Fossil Fuel, not a 12k fossil Fuel.

[RejZoR]

1 minute ago, CarlBar said:

 

Most people i know when it comes to buying a car don't go out and say "this is what i want, how much is it going to cost", they go out "this is my budget, what can i get for that". So anyone who's buying a 30k EV would alternatively be buying a 30k Fossil Fuel, not a 12k fossil Fuel.

You're looking at it from wrong perspective as you're assuming people go from the upper price and looking down to cheaper ones. Anyone looking at regular hatchback will never consider EV because of massive price difference for essentially the same thing, only difference being the powertrain.

 

With your logic, why would I buy a rather boring Hyundai Konda EV for 30k € if I could for the same price get their Hyundai i30 N hothatch with 275HP ?

[CarlBar]

Just now, RejZoR said:

You're looking at it from wrong perspective as you're assuming people go from the upper price and looking down to cheaper ones. Anyone looking at regular hatchback will never consider EV because of massive price difference for essentially the same thing, only difference being the powertrain.

 

With your logic, why would I buy a rather boring Hyundai Konda EV for 30k € if I could for the same price get their Hyundai i30 N hothatch with 275HP ?

 

I don;t understand what you think i was saying TBH.. What you've said just doesn't parse there.

[RejZoR]

Lol, you just assume everyone will automatically select an EV if it costs the same. And that's what I was getting at. If you're looking function, a 12k € hatchback does the same as a 30k € EV hatchback. And whoever will throw 30k to buy a car, how many would prefer a 30k EV over a 30k petrol hothatch? You'd really have to specifically look for features like silence to consider an EV from that perspective. Or for green points in eyes of others.

[corrado33]

8 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Power plants are quite efficient and much more so than a internal combustion engine. Not only that but where I live in the US a significant portion of the energy produced is by renewable energy purely because it cheaper to add new wind turbines than it is to add new natural gas power plants. You also have to consider than the internal combustion engine produces much nastier byproducts than a natural gas power plant so there are many reasons why electric cars result in less harmful gasses being released in the atmosphere. 

Wrong and wrong again.

 

Power plants are, at max... 35% efficient. (This includes coal fired plants, nuclear plants, natural gas plants, etc) And the only reason they don't produce more chemicals is because they're FORCED not to, same as new car manufacturers.

 

Internal combustion engines in cars are anywhere from 25%-50% efficient. 

 

Do you really think that there is less than a 10% loss when going from the plant to your house, to your charger, into the batteries. That's.... laughable. 

 

Source: I got my PhD in this stuff. 

[BuckGup]

Battery development is such a slow process.

[justpoet]

Power distribution is…."interesting".  Interesting in a "why the heck is it this bad?" kind of way.  EV's make sense cost-wise if you're commuting a reasonable distance every day, but can still do it on a single charge for the day.  They especially make sense financially if you have solar or wind power at your residence (solar becoming quite common), provided you can charge the car while the panels are producing well, rather than at night.

 

Those are a lot of gotchas and if's.  So, everybody's situations are different.  As somebody in the US where gas is cheap, a 50 mile commute (which isn't too uncommon, but is slightly further than average), puts my wife and I in a great spot for something like a Hyundai Kona or Ioniq, except that we can't get them because we're not in Cali.  The similar combustion car is a little cheaper (only 1k-2k after tax incentives), but electricity, even bought from the grid, will pay the difference in a few years at most with today's low gas prices ($2.30'ish per gallon where I am).  If you consider a lifespan of 10 years on the car, it's definitely cheaper…and you also have none of the normal ICE maintenance to do, such as coolant flushes, oil changes, spark plug swaps, etc, and you'll replace brakes far less often thanks to regenerative braking.

 

EV's aren't for everybody, or every situation, for sure.  Once tax credits go away, they become a LOT harder value proposition.  But if it is a commuter car and you're going a reasonable distance, they often work out with the financials in their favor right now, even without solar or similar, which makes them WAY cheaper in the long term when you compare new to new.

[Mihle]

15 hours ago, emosun said:

stamping a steel gas tank produces less pollution than assembling 1000 chemicals from around the world to make a battery

@corrado33

 

Current batteries isn't created by 1000 chemicals.

 

It's also calculated that if you drive 30k km(Norwegian electricity composition) or 50k or so (EU electricity composition) (don't remember exact numbers), the exstra pollution in the production cancel out with the exstra a petrol car produces. After that electric car pollute less.

 

Those numbers wad done with an electric VW Golf if I remember right.

 

Most cars live more than 100k km, so electric would produce less than 50% of the pollution in total.

[Mihle]

8 hours ago, RejZoR said:

 

Also, you do pay tax for electricity and when masses will hook EV's on the powergrid, all charging huge batteries on huge charging stations at home, rest assured, electric companies will ramp up the prices of electricity because they'll have to dramatically upgrade infrastructure. The public charging stations are a nightmare to use with all the stupid providers each running their own dumb system of charging you for electricity and the costs of quick chargers which are not really all that cheaper than petrol + they are hugely inconvenient compared to gas stations which are identical across entire Europe. I can pull over at any of them and refuel in minutes without any hassle for as long as I have money or debit/credit cards to pay which are accepted globally. No stupid fiddling with charging cards or mobile apps which I think is beyond retarded and usually only work in one country. I really don't understand how charging stations can't have a debit/credit card terminal at which you could easily hook up a car, simply pay the cost and be on your way. Like, I'm a freaking geek who fiddles with phones, apps and computers daily and I find the system retarded, now imagine your grandpa or even your father or mom doing it. Just freaking no.

Not if you live in a country that has a relatively good power grid already. (At least main grid, the last bit in to the house probably depends how old the are you live in is)

 

For day to day stuff, most people would charge at home every night and not need to charge on public stations.