Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by van ordinaire »

myglaren wrote: 07 Mar 2019, 11:34 True enough but this seems to have been a conscious decision on the part of the driver.


"conscious"???

Anyway, as Don Henley warned us (in a song that really should have been recorded by Asleep at the Wheel) " . . . drivin' with your eyes closed
You're gonna hit somethin'
But that's the way it goes"

As for the American lady in the RV, if she equated cruise control to "George" whatever would she make of autonomous?
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by Mandrake »

I'm a bit late discovering this thread so apologies to replying to old posts...but your post made me chuckle... :)
admiral51 wrote: 06 Jan 2019, 17:23 So how often would you need to change the oil/fuel/air filter on a pure 100% electric vehicle?
How about never ? Because they don't have oil/fuel/air filters ? :rofl2:
Cambelt changes get replaced by a drive belt, drive belt goes what damage does it do,either vehicle is stranded but what is the damage ?
Drive belt ??? Sorry, you've lost me. There are no belts of any kind on a pure EV. The motor goes through a single ratio step down gear and into a differential then to the driveshafts. Where would you put a belt ?
So what role do dealerships play, how will they make money.

The fact that dealerships make most of their money on servicing and don't have much "servicing" to do on an EV is one of the major reasons why dealerships are so reluctant to sell EV's, in fact many "anti-sell" them even if they have them on the lot. It's one of the conflicts of interest that legacy car manufacturers and dealerships are struggling with.
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by Mandrake »

Subsonicnat wrote: 06 Jan 2019, 21:19 Got me going this one bobin,
I for one am struggling with electric home bills ,Let alone leaving a car on charge with a massive battery all night..

Umm, you do realise that the cost of the electricity to charge an EV is a lot less than the petrol or diesel to run a petrol or diesel car whose mileage it is replacing ?

It's not as if you are suddenly paying for the same amount of petrol AND extra electricity... :roll:

To give you an example, I do 1000 miles a month commuting, If I were to do that in my Xantia V6 (which can only manage about 20MPH commuting) that would be around £180 a month in premium unleaded petrol. If I was to do it in a 40MPG diesel it would be around £90 a month in diesel.

To charge my Ion for 1000 miles a month costs me about...... £30.

So I pay £30 more a month in electricity and £90-£180 less a month in petrol or diesel. Seems like a good deal to me... :wink:

Add in zero VED, and basically no scheduled maintenance (no coolant changes, oil changes, timing belts, thermostats, etc etc) just as-needed maintenance like brake and suspension components.
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by Mandrake »

myglaren wrote: 02 Mar 2019, 18:43
white exec wrote: 02 Mar 2019, 18:37 I think those upset by Tesla's success will be heartened by news of fires, irrespective of cause.
I recall Opel/Vauxhall Zafira (was it?) being out front for their cars catching fire without warning... :shock:

It was but as I recall was due to the fitment of after market parts - aircon control unit after the original failed.

Vauxhall's claim that it was due to after market parts was later disproved and it was found that many of the fires had occurred in cars with original factory parts that had not been replaced. It was a design flaw not bad after market parts.
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by bobins »

Mandrake wrote: 07 Mar 2019, 21:46
Subsonicnat wrote: 06 Jan 2019, 21:19 Got me going this one bobin,
I for one am struggling with electric home bills ,Let alone leaving a car on charge with a massive battery all night..

Umm, you do realise that the cost of the electricity to charge an EV is a lot less than the petrol or diesel to run a petrol or diesel car whose mileage it is replacing ?

To give you an example, I do 1000 miles a month commuting, If I were to do that in my Xantia V6 (which can only manage about 20MPH commuting) that would be around £180 a month in premium unleaded petrol. If I was to do it in a 40MPG diesel it would be around £90 a month in diesel.

To charge my Ion for 1000 miles a month costs me about...... £30.



Whilst it's perfectly true that it currently costs a piddling amount to fill up an EVs 'tank', at what point will the cost start to creep up ? With the roll-out of smart electricity meters and their ability to vary the unit charge throughout the day, and moving towards the ability of a smart meter to recgnise when an EV is being charged which would permit the implementation of a 'charging tax' - at what point will the cost of charging an EV start to rise through engineered energy pricing ?
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by Mandrake »

white exec wrote: 07 Mar 2019, 09:50 I still find it odd that the basic building block of the battery packs is something the size/shape of an AA. Must be a good reason for that; can't just be lack of imagination on Panasonic's part... Interconnection aside, I suppose it does give a certain amount of flexibility for vehicle battery-pack design, let alone all the other, non-automotive, applications.

An 18650 cell as used in a Tesla Model S is quite a bit bigger than an AA cell. In fact it's 18mm diameter x 65mm long. :wink: And the 21700 cell used in the Model 3 is even larger at 21mm diameter and 70mm long.

In any case, Tesla are actually one of the few EV's using "small" cylindrical cells. Most other EV's are using either large prismatic cells (my Ion, BMW i3, others) or large pouch cells. (Hyundai Kona, Leaf, many others) The 18650 cells are only about 3.4Ah while the large prismatic and pouch cells are anywhere from about 50Ah (my Ion) to about 150Ah.

There's actually a lot of debate in the industry as to which cell format is the best in terms of cost, energy density, ability to cool them etc. Tesla are adamant that cylindrical cells are the best while other manufacturers are equally adamant about the cell types they have chosen. This is quite a good video that goes into the different cell types:



One big advantage of Tesla's approach of lots of small cells instead of fewer large cells is redundancy and fault tolerance.

In my Ion there are 88 cells in series, each one 50Ah, in a series only configuration. If a single cell goes faulty the entire battery pack stops working, at least until that cell is replaced, and a single weak cell with lower capacity limits the usable capacity of the entire pack.

However in a Tesla pack you have cells grouped together in parallel in groups of about 74 cells to give you 232Ah. Each of these groups of 74 paralleled cells is then connected in series with another group to give in total about 96 groups in series with a total of about 7104 cells. Every cell has its own individual spot welded fuse wire.

On a Tesla pack if a single cell goes shorted the individual fuse wire will burn out and isolate it from the rest, or if it goes open circuit it will likewise no longer affect the rest of the group. The end result is that parallel group only has 73/74 of the original capacity or 98.6%.

So a complete cell failure would only cause a 1.4% loss of usable range/capacity which may not even be noticed compared to an individual cell failure in my car putting it off the road...
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Spot the difference! Still much more tiny than I would have thought :-D

Image

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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by white exec »

Thanks, Simon. Explains a lot.
Have had several occasions here where the failure of a simple series set has been completely compromised with just one cell going down - eg 24v battery unit on a Bosch drill.
Have recently used some 18650-3000 to renovate a Fuji-Siemens Lexia tablet. At least with that, cells were paired, then seriesed.
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Re: Electric Cars Going Forward And Thoughts

Post by Subsonicnat »

bobins wrote: 07 Mar 2019, 22:09
Mandrake wrote: 07 Mar 2019, 21:46
Subsonicnat wrote: 06 Jan 2019, 21:19 Got me going this one bobin,
I for one am struggling with electric home bills ,Let alone leaving a car on charge with a massive battery all night..

Umm, you do realise that the cost of the electricity to charge an EV is a lot less than the petrol or diesel to run a petrol or diesel car whose mileage it is replacing ?

To give you an example, I do 1000 miles a month commuting, If I were to do that in my Xantia V6 (which can only manage about 20MPH commuting) that would be around £180 a month in premium unleaded petrol. If I was to do it in a 40MPG diesel it would be around £90 a month in diesel.

To charge my Ion for 1000 miles a month costs me about...... £30.



Whilst it's perfectly true that it currently costs a piddling amount to fill up an EVs 'tank', at what point will the cost start to creep up ? With the roll-out of smart electricity meters and their ability to vary the unit charge throughout the day, and moving towards the ability of a smart meter to recgnise when an EV is being charged which would permit the implementation of a 'charging tax' - at what point will the cost of charging an EV start to rise through engineered energy pricing ?


Thanks for that mate,was wondering as I and a good many more do not know how it works on cost.
As said eventualy the electric companys will consider it too cheap, and guess what,.?,
Thry will look ay what it was costing you in liquid fuel and make their move accordingly..
Obvious really,le the Deisel Saga,hook you then move in to change their minds again in their favour ,cost of investment comes to mind,+ The goverment want their huge petrol taxes back..
All a con when all said and done,SAVE THE PLANET,,,YES,,,,,.
But don't take us all for compleate fools,I am not..
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