Transition to Electric Car Endeavours

[scotview]

We have to look way beyond battery storage. Other technologies are available with far greater capacity. We need many more Dinorwic scale storages. Unfortunately we have neither the geography for more Dinorwics nor the policy to get other technology gigawatt scale storages built.

We do, however, have tidal energy available 24/7/365 around our coastline. Those systems which rely on tidal flow, as opposed to catching water at high tide, then releasing it at low tide, seem to have the most promise. Put tidal flow turbines in our estuaries and the cost is probably less than a nuclear station.

TJH

The nature lobby will crucify any such tidal projects and I tend to agree with them. Salmon, sea trout, dolphins, jelly fish, lobsters, hermit crabs etal all have more right to estuary access (say 5 million years worth) than we have.

Any way, what's wrong with modern gas boilers firing at very low turn down ratios ?

Thanks for the FT link IAAG.

[88V8]

We have to look way beyond battery storage. Other technologies are available with far greater capacity. We need many more Dinorwic scale storages. Unfortunately we have neither the geography for more Dinorwics nor the policy to get other technology gigawatt scale storages built.

We do, however, have tidal energy available 24/7/365 around our coastline. Those systems which rely on tidal flow, as opposed to catching water at high tide, then releasing it at low tide, seem to have the most promise. Put tidal flow turbines in our estuaries and the cost is probably less than a nuclear station.

I thought that.
Not all estuaries of course, as some are important seabird breeding and feeding grounds.

However, there was a company called Atlantis, building and installing tidal turbines.
I think my entry point was around 30p
Click on 5Y to see it now

V8

[scotia]

As I probably have stated previously , I don't hold out much hope on Tidal generation
Have a look at Meygen https://saerenewables.com/tidal-stream/meygen/ which is operating in the Pentland Firth - some of the fastest tidal water in the UK. Construction started in 2015, and Phase 1 full power of 6MW was achieved in 2018. Later phases have been proposed , but not constructed, although there is a target of a further 28MW in Phase 2, with a proposed commissioning date of 2027.
Meanwhile, just round the corner, off the Caithness coast, the Beatrice Wind farm was constructed - offshore work starting in 2017, and completed in 2019.https://www.beatricewind.com/
It has 588MW installed capacity. I wish Tidal generation well, but I think this suggests that Wind generation is a much simpler solution than Tidal generation, albeit with less predictable output.

[scotview]

While travelling up from London yesterday we crossed over the Forth Rail Bridge. In the past you could see the massive Longannet coal fired power station, with it's tall chimney.

Today there is NOTHING there, it's gone. We may come to regret that.

[TUK020]

FT Article behind firewall
https://www.ft.com/content/87cb8e92-8e8 ... 43f8f63e1d
Toyota says solid-state battery breakthrough can halve cost and size

In the article it says:
Toyota claimed it had made a “technological breakthrough” to resolve durability issues and “a solution for materials” that would allow an electric vehicle powered by a solid-state battery to have a range of 1,200km and charging time of 10 minutes or less.


This would be a tipping point in that it would make refilling the tank less time consuming than an ice car.
Date being talked abot for this to happen at scale would be 2027.
Only question is whether all of the fuel station forecourts have adequate power supply - they would need their own 'substation ' connection to the primary distribution network.
Think I now know when I am going to buy my first battery only EV. My next car will probably be a second hand hybrid

[GrahamPlatt]

FT Article behind firewall
https://www.ft.com/content/87cb8e92-8e8 ... 43f8f63e1d
Toyota says solid-state battery breakthrough can halve cost and size

In the article it says:
Toyota claimed it had made a “technological breakthrough” to resolve durability issues and “a solution for materials” that would allow an electric vehicle powered by a solid-state battery to have a range of 1,200km and charging time of 10 minutes or less.


This would be a tipping point in that it would make refilling the tank less time consuming than an ice car.
Date being talked abot for this to happen at scale would be 2027.
Only question is whether all of the fuel station forecourts have adequate power supply - they would need their own 'substation ' connection to the primary distribution network.
Think I now know when I am going to buy my first battery only EV. My next car will probably be a second hand hybrid

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ctric-cars

- no paywall

[staffordian]

It's interesting to see Toyota now extolling the virtues of battery powered vehicles.

It doesn't seem long ago that they were downplaying the potential of BEVs, insisting that hydrogen was the future.

Looks like they were sensibly hedging their bets all along...

[GrahamPlatt]

It's interesting to see Toyota now extolling the virtues of battery powered vehicles.

It doesn't seem long ago that they were downplaying the potential of BEVs, insisting that hydrogen was the future.

Looks like they were sensibly hedging their bets all along...

Toyota have been collaborating with Ilika since 2008.

[odysseus2000]

It's interesting to see Toyota now extolling the virtues of battery powered vehicles.

It doesn't seem long ago that they were downplaying the potential of BEVs, insisting that hydrogen was the future.

Looks like they were sensibly hedging their bets all along...

Toyota have been saying almost the same thing since 2017, just the dates keep changing.

Toyota gambled on combustion, carrying on unchanged, but sales of their combustion cars are plummeting with the Tesla model Y now the best selling car on the planet.

There have been management changes at Toyota, but as of yet Toyota are showing no sign that they can pull out of their death spiral. Remember how Kodak went after they said digital cameras would never compete with film.

Regards,

[ReformedCharacter]

It's a long time since I've been to a scrappers for used car parts but it looks as if the days of piling them up and moving them around by forklift may be coming to an end:

Damaged electric cars ‘quarantined’ over fears they will explode...Electric cars that sustain minor bumps are being kept 15 meters apart in repair yards over fears they might explode, adding to insurance bills.

Government guidelines recommend electric vehicles with damaged batteries should be “quarantined” from other vehicles due to the risk of battery fires. Damaged batteries pose a risk of “thermal runaway” where the energy stored in the battery releases rapidly, creating temperatures of up to 400C.

But the practice threatens to increase costs for the insurance industry by more than £600m, costs which ultimately could be passed onto drivers in increased premiums, according to a report by automotive risk firm Thatcham Research

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/insurance/car/damaged-electric-cars-quarantined-fears-explode/

RC

[murraypaul]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/germ ... -xf2wdj80s (Paywall)

Germany’s three big carmakers have cut their European production by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels, amid competition from Chinese rivals and falling demand for electric vehicles.

Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were already struggling with long-term problems, ranging from rising energy and labour costs in their central European heartlands to malfunctioning software and a tricky pivot away from the internal combustion engine. Initially they were able to ride out the effects of the pandemic thanks to a backlog of orders, but a recovery seems to be running out of steam.

The three collectively made half a million fewer cars at their European factories between January and May than they had done over the same months in 2019, according to figures released by MarkLines, an analytics service, to the Handelsblatt newspaper. This equated to a fall of nearly 20 per cent.

Volkswagen, in particular, appears to be suffering. Of 93,000 vehicles in the battery-electric ID range made in Europe over the first five months of the year, only 73,000 were sold, according to the data.

Thomas Peckruhn, vice-president of the Central Association of German Vehicle Dealers, said a relatively healthy number of new registrations was belied by a darker picture emerging from order books. “New orders for electric cars are down by 30 per cent to 50 per cent on where they were a year ago,” Peckruhn told Handelsblatt.

[odysseus2000]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-car-companies-suffer-heavy-electric-shock-xf2wdj80s (Paywall)

Germany’s three big carmakers have cut their European production by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels, amid competition from Chinese rivals and falling demand for electric vehicles.

Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were already struggling with long-term problems, ranging from rising energy and labour costs in their central European heartlands to malfunctioning software and a tricky pivot away from the internal combustion engine. Initially they were able to ride out the effects of the pandemic thanks to a backlog of orders, but a recovery seems to be running out of steam.

The three collectively made half a million fewer cars at their European factories between January and May than they had done over the same months in 2019, according to figures released by MarkLines, an analytics service, to the Handelsblatt newspaper. This equated to a fall of nearly 20 per cent.

Volkswagen, in particular, appears to be suffering. Of 93,000 vehicles in the battery-electric ID range made in Europe over the first five months of the year, only 73,000 were sold, according to the data.

Thomas Peckruhn, vice-president of the Central Association of German Vehicle Dealers, said a relatively healthy number of new registrations was belied by a darker picture emerging from order books. “New orders for electric cars are down by 30 per cent to 50 per cent on where they were a year ago,” Peckruhn told Handelsblatt.

Meanwhile the Tesla model Y has become the best selling car in the world.

Regards,

[TUK020]

FT article behind firewall
https://www.ft.com/content/9cf0c851-798 ... cbb7cfa4db
UK to back plans to speed up construction of power networks

[CliffEdge]

When I was a little boy I was given a torch for Christmas. It was fantastic. I was delighted.You could slide filters along to change the colour of the light, red, green or blue. And white of course.

It took two U2 batteries. Unfortunately they only lasted 10 minutes. I was de-lighted. Piece of junk. Lesson learned.

[odysseus2000]

FT article behind firewall
https://www.ft.com/content/9cf0c851-798 ... cbb7cfa4db
UK to back plans to speed up construction of power networks

It is, as so often before, a muddle of things all being forced into action by the need for more electrical power and ideally storage too.

Meetings in Downing Street are one thing, legislation is another and with the next election coming strongly into focus a need to either go to sleep on this and leave it for the next government, or press ahead as fast as possible and sign some very big contracts so that the new government has to follow the lead set by the current one. The latter will likely lead to controversial legislation and spending and so the odds favour the former which will then be a hot potato for the new government to handle.

Regards,

[TUK020]

FT article behind paywall
https://www.ft.com/content/e9588967-ea5 ... 42a16567da

How a lack of power grid capacity is holding back UK economic growth
Businesses warn that the struggle to meet demand for new connections is putting decarbonisation plans at risk

[odysseus2000]

FT article behind paywall
https://www.ft.com/content/e9588967-ea5 ... 42a16567da

How a lack of power grid capacity is holding back UK economic growth
Businesses warn that the struggle to meet demand for new connections is putting decarbonisation plans at risk

This is money as usual.

The folk who run and maintain the grid have been wanting money to upgrade it for decades. They have cited the dangers of grid failure and all manner of other stuff, all trying to convince the politicians to give them money to upgrade. Mixed up with this is the debate about storage and how a smart grid with storage will operate and be paid for.

At some point in the future solutions will be created, but it may take some serious outages and politicians fearing losing votes, or the politicians may open up the grid to new entrants under the condition that the new licenses come with binding grid up grade commitments.

Regards,

[TUK020]

Finally taken the plunge and bought a battery electric car.
Sold the 20 year old diesel for scrap.
Bought a 5 yr old Nissan Leaf 110kW, 40kWh with 45k miles for £11k. This is a 2018 model - first year of the Gen 2 Leaf.
11 months MoT, 1 yr warranty, plus 3 years left on the manufacturers guarantee for the battery.
Battery report still showing >97.5% capacity.

Range:
Urban driving, mild weather gives me around 160 miles range fully charged.
Put the aircon on, and the range estimate drops to ~150 miles on fully charged.
According to the specs this drops to around 105 miles in cold weather motorway driving.

Charger:
Currently charging off the 3 pin 2.3kW charger.
Get my 7kW Type 2 charge point installed in a couple of days. (this will cost £1k installed, ordered from Octopus)

Fuel costs:
Switched to Octopus as energy supplier (no hassle), and got the Octopus Go tariff: 30p/kWh standard, and 9p/kWh at cheap rate (00.30-04.30am). The car has a location aware timer. At home, I program it to start charging at 00.30, and run to 07.30. This means that it will charge 70% of the battery at cheap rate, and then top up at higher rate. Assuming that the majority of the time I will not have depleted the battery more than 70%, and will be doing relatively local driving, then my fuel cost will be 83p (4 hrs x 2.3kW x 9p/kWh) to give 112 miles (70% x 160 range) = 1.35p/mile (mild weather, urban driving). Assuming reduced mileage/kWh for bad weather, and higher costs for external charging, and higher costs when I run the battery down below 70%, allow for some increase in teh cheap rate tariff - call it 2p/mile overall?

Other running costs:
Vehicle tax = 0
Nissan service plan for next 3 years = £17/month. This covers 1 service/year (annual or 18k miles), MoT (I think), Aircon regassing, and RAC Euro breakdown recovery to a Nissan main dealer. (Given range limitation, unlikely to take abroad). The service plan gives considerable peace of mind in two respects - it covers a lot, and it does so at a price that would indicate that Nissan believe in the reliability of their cars.
This doesn't cover tyres and consumables. I currently do about 6k miles a year, so guessing a set of tyres every other year plus wipers etc - guess overall maintenance and repair £500/yr
Insurance - no change from the ICE alternative.

Capital cost:
Should get 5 years motoring before it starts needing major expenditure, and even then it should have some resale. Call it £1k5 depreciation/yr?

Overall motoring costs of £2k5/year (depreciation, + fuel + service, maintenance,breakdown recovery) plus insurance on top? = £200/month plus insurance.

Driving impressions:
Very relaxing to drive, quiet, minimal fuss. Easy to drive in traffic as instant torque available for pulling out etc.

I had been intending to buy a bigger hybrid (Toyota Rav4), but the money being asked for a 5 yr old car seemed silly (>£25k). Didn't realise I could pick up a Nissan Leaf for this sort of money. Took it for a test drive and decided to take the plunge. We have several cars in the family. In the 2 weeks since I have had this, I needed to do a round trip of 100 miles one day, and swapped cars with my wife for that day. Think this works very well as a second car.

Other:
Experience so far of the local Nissan dealer has been very favourable.

Not tried yet - rapid charging at a external charging point.

Conclusion: So far, like it, and think it a success - nice to drive, think it will be very cost effective to run.

[odysseus2000]

I have still not personally met a BEV driver who didn't like what they had bought. A few have range concerns at first but then seem to forget about this. There are many on youtube who have a profound dislike of their electric cars and say they will never again abandon combustion, but I have yet to meet one in real life whereas the folk who own BEV are quick to point out how much they like them.

Good luck with the Leaf!

Regards,

[scotview]

A few have range concerns at first but then seem to forget about this.

Regards,

I have a VW ID3 with the 48kWh battery and have range concerns. The range reduces significantly in winter. My wife drives it in town 95% of the time. She is very happy with it, in the context of how it is used.

The ID3 is two years old and has just been in for its first service and software update. A few observations:

1 The software update was planned for two days and we got a courtesy ID4. I'm not sure how that works for VW as a business model if they give out a car for every 2 day software update.

2 The software update failed. The car had to stay in for an extra day, thats 3 days off the road.

3 The software update was done within warranty but I'm not sure if updates will be done for free after warranty or if VW will be so generous with courtesy cars in the future. Dont see how they will be making money on this.

4 The car was returned to us yesterday and we are getting a message "emergency messaging is inhibited, please return to garage".

5 My VW app no longer communicates with the car and I get a message saying that another user is logged on, probably the VW garage but who knows.

6 VW was initially slated for its software bugs and if this is what customers are going to get at the 2 year software upgrade, then there is going to be another backlash. I dont know what software satisfaction levels are with other manufacturers but it could be another weak link in BEV acceptance.

The ID3 is a lovely car and my wife loves it but this software upgrade hasn't been a good experience so far and it isn't finished yet.