Are Electric Vehicles that Green?

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Known to whom? How is it known?

Current demand and supply (well capacity potential) is already know to the national grid.

It is what they use their predictive models for.

The hard part is getting the customers to take advantage of it.

[MikeSharp01]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

The hard part is getting the customers to take advantage of it.

I refer my learned friend to my previous answer....

[Ed Davies]

19 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Current demand and supply (well capacity potential) is already know to the national grid.

 

They know today what the wind will be doing on February 25th?

[Jeremy Harris]

32 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

You don't have to be cynical to get that this is exactly what will happen because the profit motive will drive it - something like this...

"Which charge option would Sir / Madam like, we have the always full model where you pay a small monthly premium on your standing charge and a charge anytime rate, for your connection so that we allow you to charge your car anytime and we never use it for load balancing OR you can have the hope it will be all right where we can stop your car charging if the grid is overloaded you pay slightly less for the electricity you do get but we cannot be sure you will get it all the time" as we, he says under his breath, can charge people on rate the always full tariff more for it." 

 

The alternative, where the power of the consumer really comes into play, so when he grid is suffering the DNO gets into a bargaining position with you about how much they will pay you to flatten your battery - imagine the trading algorithms,  won't be allowed so you can forget that. Better off building yourself a power station and doing your own thing - suddenly off grid becomes more attractive if you can generate it and store it. 

 

 

The model for this is already used for supplying electricity to large commercial consumers.  They can choose to pay a lower tariff and be higher up the LFDD (Low Frequency Demand Disconnection) list, or pay more for their electricity and be lower down on that list.  Best recent example was probably Newcastle Airport, following the Hornsea/Little Barford incident last August, where, under the tariff that Newcastle Airport had agreed with their supplier, they were in the first tier to be disconnected as the grid tried to get the frequency back up.

 

The cost to the airport was apparently rather high, as the knock-on impact of the airport being closed for an hour or two extended over several days.  I gather that they have since agreed to go on a more expensive tariff, in return for not being on the tier one LFDD list...

[Ed Davies]

Funny how we have a society which is obsessed with doing things through ”the market” which can't get a grip on the idea of deciding when to move energy around based on a market.

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

They know today what the wind will be doing on February 25th?

Not sure where this is going.

 

3 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Funny how we have a society which is obsessed with doing things through ”the market” which can't get a grip on the idea of deciding when to move energy around based on a market.

Isn't it more a case that we, as a society, have tried to turn market failures into markets.

This is quite simple to do, just charge a lot for something that was cheap before, and that is before government legislation throws a spanner in the works.

This Tory government (well the last few years of it) has always stated that it want to keep consumer prices low, then, probably out of ignorance rather than malice, puts in legislation that makes that hard to achieve i.e. now new onshore wind, higher connection fees for PV, stopping grants for building improvements etc.

But interesting, the markets has risen to all this and achieved what we thought was impossible a decade ago, and at a relatively low price to the consumer.

 

[epsilonGreedy]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Most BEV owners seem to do much the same, but that's mainly because most early adopters have off street parking, and access to home charge points.  There are a lot of people who don't have off street parking, and would be unable to take advantage of off-peak home charging, and that may well be one of the biggest problems to overcome.

 

 

I foresee car usage fragmenting into 3 profiles:

1. Well off people living outside large cities with large plots that can accommodate two driveway BEV charging spaces.
2. Rich city dwellers who desire their own car which will be hydrogen powered.
3. The majority of urban people who will summon a self driving BEV taxi via their mobile phone. The taxi pool will manage recharging at purpose built city centre recharging compounds.

[epsilonGreedy]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That is why I picked Wind as the RE source.

A lot of the E7 period is linked in with nuclear.

 

 

All of our present nuclear power capacity is due to be retired by 2032. The only replacement being built is Hinkley C which is likely to come online in 25/26 though they have already used up all their project contingency while building the foundations.

 

And re. Wind. The headline capacity is meaningless, last month wind generation averaged 7.5GW.

[ProDave]

Whenever I have been house hunting, having my own off road parking (and preferably a garage or space to build one) has been a must have. Indeed it was my primary reason for moving up from my first 1 bedroom rabbit hutch.  When I was in Oxfordshire, that ruled out about 90% of the houses that I could afford. One estate agent even branded me as a time waster and refused to give me any more viewings because in spite of me telling them my requirements, they kept sending me to see houses that either only had on street parking, or parking in a communal car park away from the house.

 

Before it was just so I had somewhere to work on a car, or just for better security. Now it would be even more important.

 

It was made even more stupid by the fact at the cheaper end of the market, it was stupid house builders that made these ridiculous housing estate layouts that denied you an "on plot" parking space, when with a bit of thought they could have done that, and still built the same number of houses.

[Ed Davies]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not sure where this is going.

 

AFAICS, we can generate plenty of electricity without messing up the world too much but with the snag that its availability is hugely more variable which will need mechanisms at all sorts of levels to even out. E.g., batteries, grid to gas to burn in power plants for times when it's not windy. But that sort of thing is expensive and inefficient so it still makes sense to modulate demand as far as possible to match the cheaper generation. Again, this can be done at all sorts of levels but still domestic demand for heating and BEVs, etc, can often be time shifted to help. So, there needs to be a mechanism to signal to households when to use electricity for various purposes and when not to plus a motivation for them to take notice of this signal which can either be some sort of a legal requirement or via price. We get to chose.

[Jeremy Harris]

Just now, ProDave said:

Whenever I have been house hunting, having my own off road parking (and preferably a garage or space to build one) has been a must have. Indeed it was my primary reason for moving up from my first 1 bedroom rabbit hutch.  When I was in Oxfordshire, that ruled out about 90% of the houses that I could afford. One estate agent even branded me as a time waster and refused to give me any more viewings because in spite of me telling them my requirements, they kept sending me to see houses that either only had on street parking, or parking in a communal car park away from the house.

 

 

Me too, and for several years having "winter yacht parking space" was also on the essentials list!  The first house we bought in Scotland was a new build, and I got the builder to put an additional concrete hardstanding in, accessed via a double gate, so the boat could sit around the side of the house, rather than down at the sailing club, during the winter.

 

The first house we ever bought had a drive large enough for one car, and by the time we sold it that had been widened to take two cars (just).

 

The main problem area as far as on-street parking goes is almost certainly in cities and urban areas, and isn't really connected to wealth.  I have a friend that lives in a fairly expensive part of London (Regent's Park), in a large house, and he has no off-street parking.  Similarly, in our rural village we have a significant on-street parking problem, as all of the older houses (a lot date back a couple of hundred years or more) and the two small council-owned housing estates, don't have any off-street parking.

 

Providing charging facilities for all those who have no choice but to park in the street is something that I'd like to see the government invest in.  handing out (up to) £500 grants for people to have "smart" charge points fitted to their homes isn't good value, as it seems that, as with many similar schemes, the providers of the charge points are just inflating the price by £500 to increase their profits.

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

On 30/12/2019 at 20:02, Jeremy Harris said:

The snag is that maximum recharge rates are (as of a couple of days ago) limited to 250 kW, which is roughly 900 mph charging speed

 

 

I am puzzled how this is possible. If charging efficiency is 95% that must mean the battery in the Tesla floor plan is cooking itself with 12.5kW of internal heating while charging at 250kW.

 

Reading a little further I gather the peak charge rate tails off above 25% charge capacity. If we assume most drivers will be looking to recharge at 10% remaining capacity, then these rapid recharge rates only apply to quick get me home top ups (300 mile range * 15% = 45 miles).

 

As a comparison at the end of my recent holiday in Cornwall I refilled my Mokka to the brim near Truro and saw 605 miles on the predicted range display, drove home to Lincolnshire via a long dogleg into Dartmoor to look at granite kerbstones. Then drove around locally in Lincolnshire for another two weeks before refilling.

[Jeremy Harris]

44 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I am puzzled how this is possible. If charging efficiency is 95% that must mean the battery in the Tesla floor plan is cooking itself with 12.5kW of internal heating while charging at 250kW.

 

Reading a little further I gather the peak charge rate tails off above 25% charge capacity. If we assume most drivers will be looking to recharge at 10% remaining capacity, then these rapid recharge rates only apply to quick get me home top ups (300 mile range * 15% = 45 miles).

 

As a comparison at the end of my recent holiday in Cornwall I refilled my Mokka to the brim near Truro and saw 605 miles on the predicted range display, drove home to Lincolnshire via a long dogleg into Dartmoor to look at granite kerbstones. Then drove around locally in Lincolnshire for another two weeks before refilling.

 

Remember that every cell in the battery pack is wrapped with a liquid-heated/cooled alloy strip, that has tiny channels through which liquid is pumped, with any excess heat (most of which comes from the motors) being dissipated by a small radiator and fan.  Lithium cell charging efficiency is close to 100% for most of the charge cycle anyway, there are virtually no charging losses in the cells during most of the charge, really only during the final few %, when the BMS goes into cell-balancing mode.  Rapid charging doesn't even have this inefficiency, as it doesn't allow the pack to charge to the cell-balancing stage, it usually only charges to around 80% or so of the pack's real capacity (real capacity and usable capacity are two different things, for a host of reasons).

 

Most of the time the liquid temperature management system is used to heat the battery up, ready for rapid charging, not cool it down, anyway.  Waste heat from the motor cooling system is pumped around the cells to warm them up, ready to accept a fast charge.  The battery pack spends far more time being actively heated than it ever does being cooled.

 

Almost all the charging inefficiency when charging from AC is in the onboard charger, and likewise with DC rapid charging most of the inefficiency is from the AC-DC converter in the supply to the Superchargers (these are big, fan cooled units, often sited close to the bays).  Not sure where you've got the 95% and 25% figures from, but they don't seem to be related to any of the EVs/PHEVs I've owned.  All three have charged at full rate until about 96% to 98% of usable capacity, then charge tapers off for the last few % as the cells balance.  Looking at the data for the Tesla, it seems that cell balancing starts at around 99% of usable capacity; last night it charged at maximum current until the pack hit 99%, then the current tapered off a bit over about 10 minutes during the final 1%.

 

Rapid charging typically gains me around 250 miles range, and at a V3 Supercharger will take around 17 minutes.  I've not ever stopped to charge on route anywhere, either, in either the BMW i3 or the Tesla.  Home and destination charging is easy - just takes a few seconds to plug the car in when I get home, or park when away somewhere, and it's fully charged by the following morning.  Charging on route is something we may have to do once in a blue moon, but isn't needed most of the time.  I like knowing that my car is sat on the drive now with a near-fully charged battery, as it almost always will be every morning.

[Markblox]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

 

Rapid charging typically gains me around 250 miles range, and at a V3 Supercharger will take around 17 minutes.  I've not ever stopped to charge on route anywhere, either, in either the BMW i3 or the Tesla.  Home and destination charging is easy - just takes a few seconds to plug the car in when I get home, or park when away somewhere, and it's fully charged by the following morning.  Charging on route is something we may have to do once in a blue moon, but isn't needed most of the time.  I like knowing that my car is sat on the drive now with a near-fully charged battery, as it almost always will be every morning.

And what is usually ignored when comparing BEV to traditional cars is the fact that BEV's are just so much better to drive.  It would seem that comparisons are assuming that basically they are the same as each other to drive but BEV's are worse because they don't have the range or whatever.  Have a drive in one and you will then know what all the fuss is about.

[Jeremy Harris]

27 minutes ago, Markblox said:

And what is usually ignored when comparing BEV to traditional cars is the fact that BEV's are just so much better to drive.  It would seem that comparisons are assuming that basically they are the same as each other to drive but BEV's are worse because they don't have the range or whatever.  Have a drive in one and you will then know what all the fuss is about.

 

Exactly!

 

An interesting observation is that my energy efficiency tends to be a lot better when my wife is in the car.  As other Tesla owners have noted,  the high pitched noises from the passenger area whenever the accelerator is depressed  tend to be performance-limiting...

 

During the time I owned the little BMW i3 I became a great fan of one-pedal driving, and with the automatic "hand brake" feature that the Model 3 now has that's become absolutely brilliant.  I very rarely ever need to touch the brake pedal, as just lifting off stops the car fast enough, and if you get the timing right you can take your foot right off the accelerator just as the car gently rolls to a stop, which automatically applies the brakes to hold the car stationary.  Makes for a quick start when pulling away from traffic lights, too, as all you need to do is just stamp on press the accelerator...

 

I drove most of the way down to South Devon for our Christmas break on autopilot, and have to say that it's better than I thought it would be.   Makes driving in busy traffic a lot less stressful, and a lot safer, as I found I could concentrate more on keeping a good look out all around.

[epsilonGreedy]

18 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Remember that every cell in the battery pack is wrapped with a liquid-heated/cooled alloy strip, that has tiny channels through which liquid is pumped, with any excess heat (most of which comes from the motors) being dissipated by a small radiator and fan.  Lithium cell charging efficiency is close to 100% for most of the charge cycle anyway

 

 

Tesla owners who measure their charge cycles at home indicate a 70% to 80% efficiency is the norm though that will include DC conversions losses external to the battery as you say. I do know that my iPhone warms with 5W to 10W of charge efficiency losses when charging so I am struggling to believe that even Elon Musk is immune from laws of physics.

 

https://forums.tesla.com/en_GB/forum/forums/charging-efficiency-0

 

42 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Rapid charging typically gains me around 250 miles range, and at a V3 Supercharger will take around 17 minutes. 

 

 

Is such a simple mathematical extrapolation wise? This article hints your 17 minute charge expectation is too optimistic.

 

Quote

The 250-kW rate may be short-term: less than 10 minutes, maybe just 5. But no matter how Tesla calculates, the idea the Model 3 can take on enough just for “up to 75 miles [suggesting city and not highway range]” is excellent. Getting to 80 percent charge, based on a Tesla-charging video, suggests you’ll be at the SuperCharge site for just under a half-hour 

 

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/287280-teslas-quarter-megawatt-supercharger-v3-enables-fasts-model-3-pit-stops 

 

This one says much the same in more detail:

 

Quote

The difference was obvious immediately. The charging speed jumped up to 250 kW and stayed there until the battery had reached 28 percent. It then dipped to 170 kW and stayed there until the battery reached 45 percent, then began the same long, linear decline as the battery's state of charge increased. 90 percent state of charge was reached in 37 minutes.

 

https://www.motortrend.com/news/teslas-v3-supercharger-tested/

 

The earlier tests were more disappointing leading me to wonder if Tesla loan out software tweaked demo cars that thrash the battery to obtain a headline charge rate at the cost of battery longevity.

 

Anyhow my earlier assertion that peak charge rates decline beyond 25% charge was sound.  

[epsilonGreedy]

40 minutes ago, Markblox said:

And what is usually ignored when comparing BEV to traditional cars is the fact that BEV's are just so much better to drive.  It would seem that comparisons are assuming that basically they are the same as each other to drive but BEV's are worse because they don't have the range or whatever.  Have a drive in one and you will then know what all the fuss is about.

 

 

James May makes the converse point and claims the Toyota offers a more sophisticated experience beyond the woohoo peddle to the floor acceleration of the Tesla. He reckons the touch screen is dangerous. 

[Markblox]

Just now, epsilonGreedy said:

 

James May makes the converse point and claims the Toyota offers a more sophisticated experience beyond the woohoo peddle to the floor acceleration of the Tesla. He reckons the touch screen is dangerous. 

And what did you think when you drove one?

 

I thought it took a couple of minutes to adapt as did the one pedal driving, although that has since been improved by an over the air update. About the same time as they gave a free 5% power upgrade!  Has your present car had one? 

 

Rather than select online quotes that fit your argument why don't you try one for yourself and make your own mind up?

[epsilonGreedy]

23 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I drove most of the way down to South Devon for our Christmas break on autopilot, and have to say that it's better than I thought it would be.   Makes driving in busy traffic a lot less stressful, and a lot safer, as I found I could concentrate more on keeping a good look out all around.

 

 

That is interesting coming from someone who a few months ago thought auto pilot driving was further over the horizon. ?

 

Were there any anxious moments when you needed to regain manual control?

[Jeremy Harris]

32 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Tesla owners who measure their charge cycles at home indicate a 70% to 80% efficiency is the norm though that will include DC conversions losses external to the battery as you say. I do know that my iPhone warms with 5W to 10W of charge efficiency losses when charging so I am struggling to believe that even Elon Musk is immune from laws of physics.

 

https://forums.tesla.com/en_GB/forum/forums/charging-efficiency-0

 

 

Is such a simple mathematical extrapolation wise? This article hints your 17 minute charge expectation is too optimistic.

 

 

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/287280-teslas-quarter-megawatt-supercharger-v3-enables-fasts-model-3-pit-stops 

 

This one says much the same in more detail:

 

 

https://www.motortrend.com/news/teslas-v3-supercharger-tested/

 

The earlier tests were more disappointing leading me to wonder if Tesla loan out software tweaked demo cars that thrash the battery to obtain a headline charge rate at the cost of battery longevity.

 

Anyhow my earlier assertion that peak charge rates decline beyond 25% charge was sound.  

 

 

Lots of selectively quoted stuff there, and some it is a bit old and been overtaken by both technology and software improvements, but there are two points worth noting about rapid charging. 

 

The first is that the UK only has one V3 250 kW Supercharger area, at Park Lane, that opened about 2 weeks ago, and only Model 3 Teslas with the software update rolled out about a month ago can take full advantage of it, so any experience of it has to be limited at the moment.  The highest power non-Tesla rapid chargers are currently around 200 kW, I think, but these cannot charge a Tesla as fast as a Supercharger can (for several reasons, from the way data is passed between the car and the charger to the point below about preconditioning).

 

The other main consideration is that reviewers almost always seem to forget that it is essential that the battery be preconditioned (warmed up) in order to accept the full fast charge rate.  The car does this automatically IF the driver taps the Supercharger location on the nav screen at least 20 minutes to half an hour before arriving there (something you'd do if route planning anyway).  Doing this starts a routine in the car that measures the temperature of all the key stuff and starts diverting motor coolant around the battery pack to warm it up, so that when you arrive at the Supercharger the battery pack is at the optimum temperature to accept the fastest charging rate possible.  If the battery pack is cold it will not accept a full rate charge for long, and sometimes may not charge at a very high rate at all.  Once rapid charging, the car temperature control system works hard to maintain an even temperature throughout the whole battery pack, as this is key to enabling efficient rapid charging.  Battery pack cooling does kick in towards the end of a rapid charge, and this can be heard as the coolant fan kicks.

 

AC charging efficiency varies a lot with charge rate.  Charging at a low power is less efficient than charging at a higher power, as most of the losses in the on board chargers are fairly fixed.  According to the data I've been pulling off the Tesla API, it looks like the overall energy transfer efficiency is around 83% (electricity in to energy actually used by the car), but I've only ever charged at the maximum available from a single phase supply, 32 A.  I suspect that if I had 3 phase, so could use the full 11 kW OBC capacity that might increase to around 85%.  Still a heck of a lot better than wasting ~75% of the energy put into the tank of a petrol engined car.

 

[Markblox]

Just now, epsilonGreedy said:

 

That is interesting coming from someone who a few months ago thought auto pilot driving was further over the horizon. ?

 

Were there any anxious moments when you needed to regain manual control?

You obviously don't know what the product is by that comment 

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

That is interesting coming from someone who a few months ago thought auto pilot driving was further over the horizon. ?

 

Were there any anxious moments when you needed to regain manual control?

 

 

I'll admit to being very sceptical about the whole AP/FSD thing before I tried it.  It's clear that FSD is a long way off, but the basic AP functionality is very good indeed on some roads.  Driving along the very busy A303/A30 AP worked flawlessly.  Where it falls over is at junctions, and particularly roundabouts, where, at least at the moment, it's better to take over control manually.

 

The biggest single benefit is the very much enhanced situational awareness, as the car's cameras and sensors are looking all around the car all the time.  After a while, it becomes second nature to just glance at the right hand side of the car's screen to get a really good picture of traffic all around, especially useful for spotting the nutters who choose to "undertake" at speed when in congested road conditions.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

especially useful for spotting the nutters who choose to "undertake" at speed when in congested road conditions.

That is more to do with our outdated motoring rules.

I found it very easy to drive on freeways in the USA.  Even in Connecticut, where everyone seems to be nutters on out of state plates.  On a good run you can cross that state in forty minutes when driving up to NY from PA.

[epsilonGreedy]

1 minute ago, Markblox said:

Rather than select online quotes that fit your argument why don't you try one for yourself and make your own mind up?

 

 

Most people chose to delegate product reviews to others they trust, for example I would not risk wasting 2 hours of my time viewing a film at the cinema without checking what the BBC's Mark Kermode thinks. James May is hardly a randomly selected online quote of convenience, he is the sane, wise and thinking component of a British car review institution.

 

His critique of the touch screen makes absolute sense, why do you think interacting with a mobile phone while driving is regarded as a dangerous criminal act?

 

Taking a Tesla for a test drive would be a waste of my time, if I had £30k to £40k spare for a Tesla it would go on speeding up my self build schedule. I could not contemplate owning a Tesla with its £200 per wheel tyre replacement cost because £200 = a wall hung Gerberit toilet.

 

16 minutes ago, Markblox said:

About the same time as they gave a free 5% power upgrade!  Has your present car had one? 

 

 

My Mokka is not a live experimental technology platform, why would I need a software upgrade. The Mokka is rubbish compared to say a Ford Focus for example the indicators frequently fail to cancel but that will be a mechanical design error in the stalk, however I purchased it for £9,200 with 16k on the clock from a pensioner who had been in hospital for a year could no longer drive. I am content with my Jurassic PV powered steed for the next 5 years.

 

Would I buy an EV? Yes for sure, say in 5 years a time. My acceptance criteria would be a 400 mile range, the cabin and driving sophistication of a Ford Focus, Google's latest auto pilot and £75 tops for a replacement tyre.

[epsilonGreedy]

36 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

especially useful for spotting the nutters who choose to "undertake" at speed when in congested road conditions.

 

 

That is now routine near London or Birmingham. Our British highway code conventions breakdown when say 5% of drivers passed their test in another country.

 

27 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is more to do with our outdated motoring rules.

 

 

Yes the American undertaking system works there, the problem is when drivers apply different conventions on our roads.