Batteries In EV and Hybrid Cars

[Talamakara]

@LinusTech

In your latest episode of the WAN show, you spend some saying how much you like your electric vehicles.
I ask this question as a legit curiosity, not in an attempt to troll or be an a$$.

With the batteries in hybrid and electric cars requiring rare earth materials such as lithium ion, copper and of course petroleum for the plastics; is the amount of destruction we are doing to the earth to get these materials worth it? Do you feel that going to EV or even Hybrids will end up doing less damage to the earth than the petroleum industry, esp when the oil and gas sector is done with an oil sands projects they can reclaim the land?

[wanderingfool2]

My opinion on this is that overall it will eventually be better with EV's...even now it's sort of better.

 

While it is important to recognize the destruction that some of the mining operations can do, it's also important to know that future technology is coming out that does help mitigate some of this sort of thing.  An example is with Lithium where there are some technologies that are starting to be demoed where the amount of water and other chemicals used are highly reduced (thus reducing the impact).

 

Overall, we will also hit a point where recycling the batteries actually makes sense (currently a decent amount of batteries setup for recycling from what I've heard, could be wrong, ends up still effectively in a battery landfill).  This is because the processing of all these hasn't caught up yet...but as there are more and more EV vehicles I'm willing to bet that you will see more recyclers coming online.

 

Actually, if something like graphene ever makes it into commercial production levels (currently no one has really figured out how to mass produce it at scale and quality) then a few other Lithium battery types come into play which would reduce the need as much lithium...but that might never happen, because graphene really seems like fusion tech   If we are lucky and a company makes a breakthrough though in graphene then yea, EV's might become a lot less environmently impactful (from my understand, could be wrong, the best proposed battery would be a lithium sulphur battery which uses graphene to prevent the leakage of sulphur between the anode and cathode...which is the current problem with sulphur batteries...in that its cycle life is terrible because it gets blended in during charge/discharge).

 

While it's a nice concept of reclaiming land with oil sands, similar things can happen with regular mines as well.  You also have things like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which dumped in 210 million gallons of oil into the ocean.

 

Honestly though, I think the better approach would have been the governments instead of imposing hard deadlines to cut off gas vehicles instead focused on trying to create sustainable mining of the materials needed and pushed for technology that reduces the costs as well...EV's biggest drawbacks is the pricing, and until the price comes down (for decently ranged EV's) gas will always dominate.

[Vishera]

Sodium-ion batteries are expected to replace Lithium batteries in the coming years.

There have been huge breakthroughs and CATL plans to make lots of them.

Safer,no need for cobalt nor copper,you can extract sodium from salt and use Aluminum instead of copper.

[RAM555789]

Yes there is significantly more environmental issues with producing EV's and their batteries (though hopefully with more development in new battery tech this can be improved), however over the lifetime of the vehicle it should end up being less, assuming we continue to produce more power through renewable, and nuclear kinds of power.

[wanderingfool2]

12 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Safer,no need for cobalt nor copper,you can extract sodium from salt and use Aluminum instead of copper.

Cobalt is pretty much phased out already for Tesla, from my understanding other EV makers are also transitioning away from it already.  They are moving towards Nickel batteries.

 

Could be wrong, but I thought most of the copper needs for electric vehicles came from the motor windings and just the amount of cabling you need to attach the batteries and high voltage system together.  (And less so in the batteries themselves)

[Eigenvektor]

1 hour ago, Talamakara said:

With the batteries in hybrid and electric cars requiring rare earth materials such as lithium ion, copper and of course petroleum for the plastics;

- Rare earths can be recycled and re-used. Oil burned as fuel can't.

- Regular cars use plastics as well

 

1 hour ago, Talamakara said:

is the amount of destruction we are doing to the earth to get these materials worth it?

You can ask the exact same question for oil. Except you need more and more since it can't be recycled, while rare earths can. Also, oil spills exist.

 

1 hour ago, Talamakara said:

Do you feel that going to EV or even Hybrids will end up doing less damage to the earth than the petroleum industry, esp when the oil and gas sector is done with an oil sands projects they can reclaim the land?

How many decades of destruction are we talking before these reclaim operations take place? How long until the reclaimed land is actually green again? The exact same cleanup operations can be done for other mines, so this isn't something unique to the petroleum industry.

 

EVs certainly aren't perfect and have their own set of issues, but over the lifetime of a vehicle it should be less damaging to the environment.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/electric-cars-have-much-lower-life-cycle-emissions-new-study-confirms/

[Amias]

5 hours ago, Talamakara said:

is the amount of destruction we are doing to the earth to get these materials worth it? 

 

"Doctor, the patient has extensive infections across his body, necrosis is forming soon and will they will likely die. Do you think the damage of the needle for the drip in his arm is worth it? You're breaking his skin ...!!!"

[Tams]

2 hours ago, Amias said:

 

"Doctor, the patient has extensive infections across his body, necrosis is forming soon and will they will likely die. Do you think the damage of the needle for the drip in his arm is worth it? You're breaking his skin ...!!!"

You're being dishonest with their poorly argued initial argument.

 

The resource extraction damage absolutely does need to be considered and addressed.  Hell, there's even pressure for deep sea extraction, even though many of the users of these raw materials don't even want them.

[wanderingfool2]

9 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

- Rare earths can be recycled and re-used. Oil burned as fuel can't.

Yes this, although it will be interesting to see.  Not sure how labor intensive/chemical intensive it is to recycle some of the current batteries stored in vehicles.  I mean, when you consider that a cost of a battery is like $10k...that means the recovery processes for the battery itself likely needs to considerably cheaper.  Apparently it was around $17,000 per ton...which is around $2000 per vehicle (I am rounding up a decent amount because I couldn't find exact numbers...I calculated around $1,100)....and maybe $200 in copper.

So that means each battery pack, you would need to extract (and refine) all the metal for less than $2200 (labor melting costs...separating the metals).

 

I think eventually we will get there, but likely will need government subsidies to initially get things going in the development of recycling

 

9 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

You can ask the exact same question for oil. Except you need more and more since it can't be recycled, while rare earths can. Also, oil spills exist.

Yes exactly   Also it should be noted, the requirement to have bio-fuels have caused so much environmental impact and economical impact.

 

You had so much carbon released into the air as corn was planted, you had corn prices jump through the roof as well (it was more beneficial to grow bio-fuel corn than feed).  So the mandate to use bio-fuels caused, increase in CO2 emissions (which won't be captured until years and years down the line).  The higher feed prices meant higher food costs.  The higher cost of making bio-fuels meant higher gas prices which then leads to higher cost of goods overall.  Overall the push to using oil/clean oil has had so many negative consequences (some of which aren't really talked about)

[Zodiark1593]

The scope and scale of electrifying even just the US’s fleet (let alone the world) requires vast amounts of resources up-front, especially as drivers expect comparable range and performance to the ICE contemporaries. Moving thousands of pounds of metal simply requires a lot of energy.

 

Additionally, it’s pretty telling that even with a paltry ~20-28% efficiency in converting fuel to work, gas/petrol still manages to achieve greatly superior energy density. Battery technology has a long way to go. This is especially true with Lithium Iron Phosphate cells, which trades energy density for longevity and faster charge/discharge rates. 
 

One other concern I had for the large batteries is the weight. The additional weight while still achieving the high expected standards of vehicle performance will put a lot of strain on the tires, which themselves are environmentally damaging. (Though this is probably offset by lack of engine oil) Roadways may also be put under more strain due to additional weight, and the vast amounts of torque the motors generate. 
 

Ultimately, I think EVs to be better for the long term. However, unless one of the touted breakthroughs actually makes it to production in a product mere mortals can actually buy, I feel the challenges of electrifying our nation’s fleet, while maintaining similar performance and range, to prove a steep challenge. So much so that I question the long term viability of ubiquitous private transport. 

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Moving thousands of pounds of metal simply requires a lot of energy.

One thing when that point is often overlooked when talking about this though is that regenerative braking is a thing.  I mean strictly speaking in a 100% efficiency for regen and acceleration weight wouldn't matter.  Of course it's not a perfect world but it's only like 10% to 20% based on the EV.  So while weight still matters, to an extent it's not as simple as saying it's a lot heavier.  Gas vehicles don't get luxury of regen braking.  Hybrids do, but if you run on gas for too long you end up with a full battery that can't accept the charge

[Heliian]

I like to compare this phase of the EV industry to the "squiggly bulb" light bulb.  The CFLs were a great reduction in daily consumption but were quite toxic.  We've moved on to LEDs which are more efficient and less toxic.  Battery technology will advance to be more efficient and less toxic the same.  

[TexasBulldog74]

EV's are incredibly dirty and unless battery tech and chemistry required changes we wont have enough to keep it going for too long if all these countries start making gasoline vehicles illegal to sell past a certain date.

 

It just simply isn't going to work.  I live in Southern California and as it stands already during the summer we have rolling blackouts because the energy grid can't handle what we have now.  Electrical companies have access to shut down your homes Air Conditioning to try and keep the grid up already so whats going to happen when everyone gets home at 3-5pm and plugs their cars in?  The grid simply can't handle it.

 

 

[TexasBulldog74]

17 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

- Rare earths can be recycled and re-used. Oil burned as fuel can't.

- Regular cars use plastics as well

 

You can ask the exact same question for oil. Except you need more and more since it can't be recycled, while rare earths can. Also, oil spills exist.

 

How many decades of destruction are we talking before these reclaim operations take place? How long until the reclaimed land is actually green again? The exact same cleanup operations can be done for other mines, so this isn't something unique to the petroleum industry.

 

EVs certainly aren't perfect and have their own set of issues, but over the lifetime of a vehicle it should be less damaging to the environment.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/electric-cars-have-much-lower-life-cycle-emissions-new-study-confirms/

Do you even know what strip mining is?  Do you know the damage it does to the land?  its incredibly dirty and most of these materials being mined are in countries with no labor or epa regulations. 

[SimplyChunk]

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.  Simply because you drive them.  Your tank shows nearly empty.  You pull into a station.  Fill it up in a few minutes.  Pay and drive off again.  Sound familiar?

[TexasBulldog74]

Just now, SimplyChunk said:

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.  Simply because you drive them.  Your tank shows nearly empty.  You pull into a station.  Fill it up in a few minutes.  Pay and drive off again.  Sound familiar?

I hope so.  Makes far more sense than EV.

 

As of now we should focus on that, let the few companies making electrics keep pushing forward wihtout setting an end date for petro powered vehicles.   Too many people think because they are plugging it into their wall or a tesla charger that its not coming from diesel generators, coal etc...    With the destruction of land to mine rare earth elements wealthy countries are just passing the disaster to lesser countries willing to destroy their lands for a buck today.  China, Africa etc...

[Blademaster91]

10 minutes ago, SimplyChunk said:

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.  Simply because you drive them.  Your tank shows nearly empty.  You pull into a station.  Fill it up in a few minutes.  Pay and drive off again.  Sound familiar?

I think a hybrid system is better than only EV with current battery tech, fuel up when you need to and no range anxiety if you want to take a trip without the need to rent a car.

[Blademaster91]

17 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Rare earths can be recycled and re-used. Oil burned as fuel can't.

Is there any company recycling EV batteries? Last I checked Tesla wanted to however it's very expensive and recycling batteries requires a lot of dangerous chemicals.

17 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

EVs certainly aren't perfect and have their own set of issues, but over the lifetime of a vehicle it should be less damaging to the environment.

The lifetime of EVs is shorter than most modern gas cars because of battery degradation, there really isn't a used market for Teslas or Nissan Leafs unless you're willing to spend more than the vehicle is worth replacing the batteries.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.  Simply because you drive them.  Your tank shows nearly empty.  You pull into a station.  Fill it up in a few minutes.  Pay and drive off again.  Sound familiar?

The thing to remember, unless you are going on long trips it's very likely that you hope into your car in the morning and it's at full capacity (and no need to worry about it).  I mean the lowest range Tesla is like 400km or something like that...which is enough to travel to and from work for most people 2 times (based on the average driving distance)...and that assumes without charging.  You plug it in when you get home and you have close to 4 hours of highway driving capacity.

 

The other thing to remember, Hydrogen isn't anywhere near where it needs to be.  Hydrogen still is an EV vehicle, you are just referring to a BEV though.  Anyways, hydrogen generation is inefficient at the moment (best cases are 80% electricity to hydrogen...then like another 50-80% loss converting hydrogen to electricity again...then the transportation loss as well).  Then you lose out on regen braking.  So overall, hydrogen is a decent amount less efficient than BEV, costs more, and still uses rare earths.  I don't really see much point, except in cases of long haul trucks.

 

5 hours ago, TexasBulldog74 said:

Too many people think because they are plugging it into their wall or a tesla charger that its not coming from diesel generators, coal etc... 

Actually, powering an EV even from a "dirty" source can still be better than driving ICE vehicles.  ICE is around 30-35% efficiency, natural gas power plant efficiency is around 42% efficiency (which makes up the majority of fossil fuel plants), the average coal efficiency is apparently 33% but the modern ones built are 45%.  The other thing to note is the power plants being situated in one area are also prime candidates of capturing the CO2 released and also the other particulates...compared to vehicles.  So overall it can be cleaner even though it's from the same "dirty" kind of source.

 

5 hours ago, TexasBulldog74 said:

Do you even know what strip mining is?  Do you know the damage it does to the land?  its incredibly dirty and most of these materials being mined are in countries with no labor or epa regulations. 

Uhm, you do realize that mining the oil-sands has a very similar effect to strip mining?  Also, Australia is the major producer of Lithium, so yea, the "no labor or epa regulations" isn't an argument.  Cobalt mining isn't great but again most EV's are already moving away from it or already eliminated.  There are a decent amount of companies starting up now as well in developed countries that will start producing those rare earths as well...it's just it takes like 5 years to ramp.

 

As was mentioned in the post as well, there will hit a point where recycling of the materials will start being a thing...at which point mining will hopefully taper out.

 

  

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Is there any company recycling EV batteries? Last I checked Tesla wanted to however it's very expensive and recycling batteries requires a lot of dangerous chemicals.

The lifetime of EVs is shorter than most modern gas cars because of battery degradation, there really isn't a used market for Teslas or Nissan Leafs unless you're willing to spend more than the vehicle is worth replacing the batteries.

They just haven't created a system to recycle yet...but it's starting...we will have to see though.

 

Also, don't relate Teslas to Leafs.  Leaf's has a fundamentally flawed design for their BMS.  A Tesla on the other hand will outlast a lot of ICE vehicles.  At 160k miles (250k km), I think the average Tesla battery is above 90%.  So you only lose about 10% performance.  All things considered a Tesla at least will on average last about the same as an ICE vehicle (because at 160k miles on an ICE vehicle, I can tell you that the MPG will have dropped, and maintenance of it will be starting to add up)

 

Leaf there isn't an used market because they literally don't cool their battery, they have almost literally designed the vehicle to be a throw-away vehicle

 

Tesla there isn't an used market because very few Tesla owner consider selling their vehicle...and those who do end up selling it for nearly the same price they purchased it for (it's retained value is one of the highest out of all vehicles, including ICE vehicles)

[Kronoton]

9 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.

a) turning electricity into H2 and back is very ineffective

b) high pressure tanks are no toy

c) you can't charge them at home and there is no network of fuelling stations, which means very few will buy them which means no point in building more fuelling stations

d) you will still need a battery for regenerative braking making H2 cars more like hybrids (aka complex)

 

>IF< new battery techs actually hold what they promise it might be possible to charge at 100km/5min which would make them feasible for the broad public. If not the whole idea of "no new ICE by 2030/35/40" becomes moot.

[Eigenvektor]

11 hours ago, TexasBulldog74 said:

Do you even know what strip mining is?  Do you know the damage it does to the land?  its incredibly dirty and most of these materials being mined are in countries with no labor or epa regulations. 

Replacing oil drilling operations with rare earth mining does nothing to improve the environment, agreed. Reducing vehicles in general would be our best option, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.

 

With EVs we at least have the chance to scale back these operations over time, provided recycling becomes economically viable. I see no such path for ICEs. Any oilfield you shut down and reclaim must always be replaced with another one to satisfy demand.

[Needfuldoer]

12 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

The lifetime of EVs is shorter than most modern gas cars because of battery degradation, there really isn't a used market for Teslas or Nissan Leafs unless you're willing to spend more than the vehicle is worth replacing the batteries.

Not really. There are plenty of used Teslas out there closing in on a decade old with most of their original range, and early Volts were so massively overbuilt that them losing significant range from battery degradation is nearly unheard of (unless there was a manufacturing defect in a cell, but those problems would have cropped up at the beginning of the bathtub curve). Autotrader is full of them.

 

The first gen Nissan Leaf had no active battery thermal management. Heat kills batteries, and batteries get hot as they charge and discharge. Tesla and GM pass coolant through their battery packs to mitigate this problem, Nissan relied on air passing under the pack. That's why you see first-gen Leafs with only 20 to 30 miles of range left in them.

 

"EVs are useless in 5 years because you'll have to replace the $30,000 battery if you want to drive more than 5 miles" is folklore perpetuated by people who think LiFePO4 batteries kept between 20% and 80% state of charge over their whole lives age at the same rate as the spicy pillow in their phone.

[Talamakara]

Sorry been a busy weekend so haven't been able to reply. I want to thank people like @wanderingfool2 @Blademaster91 and @TexasBulldog74 for some well thought out replies, replies I want to answer in equally deserving thought.
 

In the mean time I really only have three thoughts to throw out till i have time to formulate my thoughts.

1) If gas powered vehicles could be brought up to 80+% would they be better than electric, and why in over a 100 years of having gas engines haven't they become more efficient.

2) What do you think it will take for EVs to be able to make it through a -30c + windchill without losing 50% (+/-) of their charge? We had a cold snap here and i had a couple different owners around so I asked. They said average range in summer is 450 again plus or minus when we had a cold snap they were down roughly 200KMs sorry no i don't know the tesla models.

3) If propane can freeze that means hydrogen can as well. This would put HV in worse shape than EV dealing with the cold. 

[Mihle]

On 4/3/2022 at 2:45 AM, SimplyChunk said:

Just my two cents here but i think Hydrogen based vehicles are gonna become the norm rather that EV.  Simply because you drive them.  Your tank shows nearly empty.  You pull into a station.  Fill it up in a few minutes.  Pay and drive off again.  Sound familiar?

Filling up your tank will cost more than twice the amount it costs to charge up and EVs

 

Unless you make it from Natural Gas, it uses plenty more electricity per km than EVs, so don't solve the "grid can't take it" unless you outsource it to another country that can.

 

Making hydrogen with electricity and water and then using that use something like 2-3x the electricity than just using the electricity.

 

One of the reasons why old EVs fall quite a bit in price is not nessesarly wear, new EVs have come out at similar price with more range, making the older models drop in price quite a bit. Some people that are buying EVs are willing to pay quite a bit extra for extra range.

 

Short term I am not sure, but in the long term, EVs will definitely be better.

 

I wish countries invested more in trains and metros, as well as making regulations that make cities more bikeable if nothing else. Because that is the best for the environment.

 

Countries should also invest more in electricity production and the grid than they o now.

 

[IntMD]

10 hours ago, Talamakara said:

3) If propane can freeze that means hydrogen can as well. This would put HV in worse shape than EV dealing with the cold. 

The freezing point of hydrogen is -259.2C. If you're getting down to that sort of temperature, you have other more serious problems than driving your car.