Interesting read on electric cars

[austastar]

Hi,
    There will be various options depending on existing wiring and the potential to retrofit.
I had a 20Amp dedicated powerpoint and several 15Amp powerpoints installed in the garage when we built in 1986. That was for welding, but it will be handy for charging.
I read somewhere that it will be possible in some cases to combine power points on different fused circuits, effectively doubling the Amperage available. Conditions will apply of course.
Cheers

Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk

[tryagain]

yeah I just realised what I asked as I was eating dinner just now, there's no need to fast charge over night ...so anyone know how much draw a slow charge does? Is it more or less then say an air con unit in a house for instance

Is a little bit of a piece of string question, similar to an Aircon unit though would probably be a good answer.

[Alan Loy]

Hyundai Kona review https://www.caradvice.com.au/736825/2019-hyundai-kona-electric-review/

You can also buy a Hyundai wall-box charger for $2000 fitted, running off your house’s AC power and stowed in your garage, with a maximum charging rate of 7.2kW. This means you can charge the car overnight with the supplied cable in about 9.5 hours from nil to full. Just don’t forget to plug in when you get home from the office.

Can someone convert this to charging from an ordinary 15 amp plug?

Battery Type   Lithium-ion Polymer  Voltage   356V  Battery System Capacity   64.0 kWh

[#jonesy]

7.2 kw = 7200 watts
7200w / 240v = 30 amps
(I think)

[Alan Loy]

so @ 15 amps about 20 hours (from empty)

Range is over 400 km so if your commute was 100km return then about 5 hours to top up

[tryagain]

http://the Kona’s 450km real-world (WLTP-tested) driving range based on consumption of 14.3kWh per 100km

so it would need 28.6kWh of power to recharge from a 200km trip, with a 7.2kW charger it would take approximately 4 hrs to recharge. 

The big qualifier here is that as a battery approaches full charge, the charge rate decreases.



So if it was going from 45-90% it would be about 4hrs, but going from 55-100% would take longer.

[WilSurf]

Our next car will most likely to be an electric car.
If only the prices were going down quicker.
My wife's car, now a hybrid, does the run around. That would be perfect for an electric car.
You do your school run and shopping and when coming home plug it in to charge from our solar system.

[Bigfish]

All these charge rates are based on Lithium batteries.  Within the next decade newer batteries that will last twice as long, charge a lot quicker and cost a lot less will be available. Technology will just keep racing along.

[Alan Loy]

Seems to me if you had one you get into the habit of plugging it in every night.  This should solve the charging issues.

My preferred option is an EV for town and diesel 4Wd for touring.  The EVs are still a bit expensive for me however.

[Rumpig]

Seems to me if you had one you get into the habit of plugging it in every night.  This should solve the charging issues.

it's a pretty easy habit to get into, I used to do it daily with my 80ltr fridge in my 4wd after getting home from work before fitting a solar panel on my 4wd...the short drives I was doing to work wouldn't charge the second battery enough, so would plug it into 240V each night to save draining the battery.

[rags]

it's a pretty easy habit to get into, I used to do it daily with my 80ltr fridge in my 4wd after getting home from work before fitting a solar panel on my 4wd...the short drives I was doing to work wouldn't charge the second battery enough, so would plug it into 240V each night to save draining the battery.

I do similar, but I always worry that I will forget to unplug before driving away so I ensure the plug is left outside the tailgate.

I can just picture the mother who puts the handbag on the car roof , puts kids into their seats in rush to get to school then yoga, who will forget to unplug the car.
Also how long can these car recharging leads be? As in most houses on 400sqm blocks the owners cannot get their car into the garage because of the junk in the garage. They will be lucky to get near the rechargers.

[prodigyrf]

"I can just picture the mother who puts the handbag on the car roof , puts kids into their seats in rush to get to school then yoga, who will forget to unplug the car."

They've already thought of that particularly with public charge stations whereby you carry and supply your own lead (Tesla have the lead on the 'bowser'). The car won't drive while the charge cable is connected and the screen will be staring you in the face telling you why it won't. When you think about it public chargers won't want their own leads being knocked around and requiring periodic replacement so they'll just give you the socket/s for your particular lead and plug although settling on the one standard is the issue-
https://insideevs.com/news/318042/dc-quick-charging-battle-just-beginning-chademo-vs-sae-combo-vs-tesla-supercharger/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/edgarsten/2019/05/03/wireless-electric-vehicle-charging-puts-an-end-to-range-arms-race/#505d0aa650b9
And then there's running out of 'gas'-
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/rac-develops-the-uks-first-lightweight-ev-charger/

[Cruiser 105Tvan]

question for those in the industry....will the neighbourhood  grids be able to handle a pile of houses in each street drawing all that power each night on the set up we now have, or will that somehow need upgrading to handle an increase in demand? Got me thinking the middle of Summer with all the household aircons running and add in all these cars charging, it may be an issue somehow?

Convince them to hook it all up to the Solar input, it'd be the clean green way to do it, .......right?

[prodigyrf]

Problem is owners will want to charge them at home at night and if they want them to charge overnight rather than around 24 hours from a standard power point they'll need to install a heavier charger for $2k to do that. Superchargers will be much higher than that but slow is best for expensive battery longevity and your car will warn you about that with too much supercharging. That makes paywave per km autonomous EV cars of the future problematic and why the introductory ones in the US are hybrids already.  EVs at current pricing don't stack up against hybrids and many ICE cars anyway and the minders must have tapped Battery Bill on the shoulder about that and why he's already backing off the fairy tale promise the closer he gets to the Lodge.

[Symon]

yeah I just realised what I asked as I was eating dinner just now, there's no need to fast charge over night ...so anyone know how much draw a slow charge does? Is it more or less then say an air con unit in a house for instance

A middle of the road Tesla Model 3 with a 62kWh battery pack will take 30 hours from 0% to full charge from a 10A GPO, or 20 hours from a 15A GPO.  You could put in a 32A single phase outlet that will get it down to 10 hours but you may run into issues if you have an older house, as the consumers mains for old houses is often only 6 sq mm.

If you have three phase available you can get it down to 5 or 6 hours.

I think most people will need local battery storage and a fast DC charger if they are routinely running their BEV down to a low state of charge.  The general idea is to charge up your home battery during the day via solar and then use that to charge the BEV overnight.  However if you do the maths on that you would need around a 20kW array so you would want a damn big roof.

question for those in the industry....will the neighbourhood  grids be able to handle a pile of houses in each street drawing all that power each night on the set up we now have, or will that somehow need upgrading to handle an increase in demand? Got me thinking the middle of Summer with all the household aircons running and add in all these cars charging, it may be an issue somehow?

A good question and it is difficult to answer as there are a lot of variables at play.  My initial response would be 'in general' the grid is not ready for BEV's, and it would be a very costly exercise to modify/upgrade it to fully manage the future demand.  However there is a number of mitigation strategies that can be used to even out the peaks and troughs, some include using the BEV plugged in to a home charger as a source of supply to prop up the grid during periods of high load.  This as well as other methods can delay the need for immediate upgrades to the network, but there will come a point where some money will need to be spent on upgrades.

I don't buy into the idea that the future is decentralised power generation and that the grid will no longer be required - although some in the renewables industry are pointing in that direction.

[Symon]

All these charge rates are based on Lithium batteries.  Within the next decade newer batteries that will last twice as long, charge a lot quicker and cost a lot less will be available. Technology will just keep racing along.

Charging efficiencies are already above 90%, so the battery technology is essentially irrelevant in regards to charge times.  Energy is energy no matter what stores it.

A 40A charger will still only deliver 40A, no matter what it is charging.

The energy density of the batteries will improve over time though, but this only improves the range, not charging times.

I read somewhere that it will be possible in some cases to combine power points on different fused circuits, effectively doubling the Amperage available. Conditions will apply of course.

Only really feasible if it is only a single phase house.  Fraught with danger if you try to do that on a three phase house...

[GeoffA]

.......However if you do the maths on that you would need around a 20kW array so you would want a damn big roof.

Got 28+kW on our roof....

Can't see me in a Telsa any time soon, though.

I don't buy into the idea that the future is decentralised power generation and that the grid will no longer be required - although some in the renewables industry are pointing in that direction.

Agree with that Symon. There are plenty of situations where renewables just don't work.

 

[prodigyrf]

All these charge rates are based on Lithium batteries.  Within the next decade newer batteries that will last twice as long, charge a lot quicker and cost a lot less will be available. Technology will just keep racing along.

Lithium battery tech is the best we have for mobile battery use and it's now old mature technology albeit Tesla are the best in the world at it at present. There's a common misconception that battery tech is like the digital information revolution when energy is completely different being bound by the iron laws of physics and economics as this physicist ably argues with some sobering big picture stuff-
 https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible

A thousand years of Tesla's Gigafactory output just to store 2 days worth of current US electricity demand you say? Then on top of that sort of output the magical thinkers reckon all our vehicles will have them too (4410 of Tesla's 2170 lego lithium bricks in a Tesla M3 battery pack) and at the same time they'll all need replacing every 10-15 years or so? That just aint gunna happen in anyone's lifetime as any serious attempt to do so will drive lithium battery raw materials prices into orbit. Portable electronics move over your power source is required elsewhere.

With the solar/wind/battery revolution whole societies have taken complete leave of their senses and any rational analysis and the whole fantasy is now running on very expensive emotion. That simply won't cut it up against physics and concomitant economics.

[gronk]

Concomitant ??    Geez, I had to look that up.

[Pete79]

Concomitant ??    Geez, I had to look that up.

You should also look up the Manhattan Institute...

In July of 2016, nineteen U.S. Senators delivered a series of speeches denouncing climate change denial from 32 organizations with links to fossil-fuel interests, including the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy.
"shine a little light on the web of climate denial and spotlight the bad actors in the web, who are polluting our American discourse with phony climate denial.
This web of denial, formed over decades, has been built and provisioned by the deep-pocketed Koch brothers, by ExxonMobil, by Peabody coal, and by other fossil fuel interests. It is a grim shadow over our democracy in that it includes an electioneering effort that spends hundreds of millions of dollars in a single election cycle and threatens any Republican who steps up to address the global threat of climate change. . . .
It is long past time we shed some light on the perpetrators of this web of denial and expose their filthy grip on our political process. It is a disgrace, and our grandchildren will look back at this as a dirty time in America’s political history because of their work.”

[tryagain]

A thousand years of Tesla's Gigafactory output just to store 2 days worth of current US electricity demand you say? Then on top of that sort of output the magical thinkers reckon all our vehicles will have them too (4410 of Tesla's 2170 lego lithium bricks in a Tesla M3 battery pack) and at the same time they'll all need replacing every 10-15 years or so? That just aint gunna happen in anyone's lifetime.

It's not really that hard to fathom, the Giga factory is only about 30% complete, assuming that when it's finished it will output 3 times as many lithium cells, build a 100 factories (that's like 2 factories per US state)  and you would probably have enough supply to do 3 days worth of storage replaced ever ten years as well as vehicles.

any serious attempt to do so will drive lithium battery raw materials prices into orbit.

Based on what? lithium battery demand has increased dramatically and prices have actually gone down, there are plenty of new mines coming online as well and some are predicting an oversupply in the near future.


Source: https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-battery-prices/

But say prices for the raw materials did go up, from the above source.

A 50% increase in lithium prices would for instance increase the battery pack price of a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) 811 battery by less than 4%. Similarly, a doubling of cobalt prices would result in a 3% increase in the overall pack price.

[edz]

Maybe they should revisit Thorium power  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68A_HPYGdlk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9e64AFieCM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY

[WilSurf]

And now Tesla has "slashed" their prices. Up to $58,500 off, however still $137,700 for the Model S Performance. :-)
https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/tesla-slashes-prices-renames-entire-range

[Symon]

It's not really that hard to fathom, the Giga factory is only about 30% complete, assuming that when it's finished it will output 3 times as many lithium cells, build a 100 factories (that's like 2 factories per US state)  and you would probably have enough supply to do 3 days worth of storage replaced ever ten years as well as vehicles.

Based on what? lithium battery demand has increased dramatically and prices have actually gone down, there are plenty of new mines coming online as well and some are predicting an oversupply in the near future.

But say prices for the raw materials did go up, from the above source.

It's worth keeping in mind that even though Panasonic / Tesla dominates the western media on battery technology, they are currently only #3 on the world battery production rankings.  By 2025 LG Chem will have double the production capacity of Panasonic, and CATL will have almost triple.  BYD will overtake Panasonic by 2022, and Wanxiang will overtake them sometime before 2025.

The Tesla gigafactories won't make as much of an impact as the media is portraying - the Chinese and Koreans are already producing and ramping up at an incredible rate.

As Lithium designs improve they are using less and less cobalt, so I would think that will become less of an issue in the future.

Got 28+kW on our roof....

Show off 

[Pete79]

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says an electric vehicle can't tow a boat or trailer.

The claim:

In response to Labor's plan to accelerate Australia's uptake of electric vehicles by introducing a target of 50 per cent of new car sales being electric by 2030, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that "Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend".

Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, he said: "[An electric vehicle] won't tow your trailer. It's not going to tow your boat. It's not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot with your family."


The truth:

The experts noted that standard electric vehicles now on the market could travel, on average, 300 to 400 kilometres on a single charge. Some models — the Tesla Model X, for example — could reach up to 500 kilometres, with towing capacity.

This means that the most efficient of these models could make a trip from Melbourne to the Grampians on a single charge, depending on driving style and conditions. The same holds for driving from Sydney to Narooma.

.....

Many of the world's leading car manufacturers — General Motors, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Hyundai — have all started manufacturing fully-electric models.

In the US, Ford recently announced it would build a fully electric version of its popular F-Series pick-up truck.

Toyota has committed to hybrid, electric and hydrogen fuel-cell variants for its entire range to be made available to markets in China, Japan, the US, Europe and India by 2025, and which includes its HiLux and LandCruiser SUV.


.....

Can electric vehicles tow?

https://youtu.be/rvk4fNxF0l4

Experts told Fact Check it was incorrect to suggest that electric vehicles generally did not have towing capacity.

Most electric vehicles have plenty of pulling power, reflected in their high output of torque.

A number of electric vehicles currently on the Australian market (and coming in 2019) generate power not too dissimilar to a standard petrol-fuelled vehicle. These models produce between 300 and 600Nm of torque.

The Tesla Model X P100D produces 967Nm of torque, with a 2.25 ton towing capacity.

....


The verdict on this latest scare campaign:




The full story:
https://abc.net.au/news/2019-05-10/federal-election-fact-check-electric-vehicle-tow-boat/11078464?pfmredir=sm