Given the Co2 emitted in the production and transport of steel, aluminium and plastic components (without the mining for rare earths/lithium), I like the concept of recycling old cars or airframes (Cessna 337) to electric. Doesn’t it take around 100k km before the Co2 of a new electric car is set off against the existing stock of mainly 50 mpg petrol cars?
@aart interesting report, but the control would be a newly manufactured i3 against a 118d converted to an electric drive train.
Tesla, which appears to be a leader in electric autos, uses steel, and for the larger models, a lot of steel. While aluminium can be sourced from plants using hydroelectric power, steel manufacturing probably is still using a lot of Co2 electricity.
A mass program of converting the installed base of say post 2016 cars to electric, and some form of distributed leasing to improve utilisation would slash Co2 from the sector – assuming electric generation is mainly renewable. The auto manufacturing sector would have to be re structured to cope.
Or control against an ordinary IC engine vehicle which has already been manufactured and is already in service, thus nearly all the energy consumption and environmental damage related to its existence is a sunk cost which cannot be retrieved, and one may as well extract maximum value from it rather than throw it away.
It bizarre to think of taking lessons on sustainability from an industry which has a business model based almost entirely on encouraging us to dispose of a perfectly good vehicle while it still has a lot of life left and buy a new one. All that is changing is the sales pitch – where previously they appealed to your vanity, now they appeal to your need to keep your green credentials up to scratch.
Perhaps the end game is to eliminate the used car market and have everyone driving something new – I am certainly yet to see where the used market fits into the EV world. I note with amusement that the stated life of an i3 in that report is 150,000km.
What was stopping us from going EV was the fact we couldn’t charge at home (no off-street parking, we could convert the front garden but is rather keep it). Then we started to see the council install charging points in the lamp posts: and we took the jump. It’s slow but we just leave it overnight. And it’s cheap (£18 for a full charge which is 240 miles in our car). However we know we can’t use it very conveniently for long trips, the fast charging is still too random/slow. But then for longer distances we have the plane !
denopa wrote:
What was stopping us from going EV was the fact we couldn’t charge at home
If you cannot charge at home, I would say an EV is as good as useless from a practical point of view. From an economical point of view, electricity is cheap in Norway. I haven’t even bothered to figure out what it costs me to charge the car, as it doesn’t even cause a dent in the electricity bill. As a rough estimate it amounts to less than €200 per year, and that includes driving 20k km per year. Charging at work is free, but I never do it unless I have to.
Graham wrote:
So on a 400km journey you stopped to charge the car 2-3 times? Or are you saying it vastly outperformed the advertised range and you didn’t have to stop?
We went visiting an old relative of my wife who was sick. What we did was to charge a bit more than half way, combined with a coffee and a snack. Charges on the same way back combined with dinner. We also charged while at this relative, but that was only snail charging, thus mostly to plug it in and warm it up (it was -20 deg after all)
The advertised range on EVs must be understood. The range in cold weather will be reduced dramatically, and the charging time will be extended even more dramatically. For my old EV this was very evident, but my new one has battery warming system, so it is much better.
In general, the range will be reduced to almost the half in -20 deg compared to +20 degree. There is not much you can do about that. The heating of the compartment of the car takes a lot of energy, and also at -20 and snow, the rolling resistance is large, all the bearing etc have much higher resistance, snow tires instead of summer tires. A cold battery has much less capacity also. The battery warmer can of course warm it up, but that takes a lot of energy as well, especially in -20.
The charging time is another matter (for fast DC charging that is). In -20, it can take 6 times as long as in +20. But that is where the battery warmer sets in. With a battery warmer there is no visible change in the time from what I could see.
Then there is how these batteries are charged. There are small variations from car to car, but the general rule is they charges at full capacity from 0 to 80%. From 80% it drops of gradually. If you are in a hurry (relatively speaking 
), you only charge to 80%, then drive off.
@LeSving thanks for the info, interesting to hear how it works in practice.
Obviously you are able to make it work for you, but looking at it objectively the mission was heavily restricted by the capabilities of the vehicle. 200km each way, unless you are driving just for the pleasure of the trip itself, I don’t believe most people would be looking to stop en-route if they could avoid it. Also, what happens when you stop for your ‘meal/snack/coffee’ and all the fast chargers are in use? I put it in inverted commas because it is not the real reason you are stopping ;-)
I could perform that mission in my vehicle with no stopping to charge/fill anywhere (indeed, I would not necessarily even need it to be full at the start, 2/3 full would do) and can heat/cool the cabin to any temperature I like for the entire time with zero noticeable effect on range.
Not everyone has Norway’s cheap electricity (which must be very cheap if the cost for 20k km a year is 200 EUR), and of course the electricity is not the only cost. How much does the vehicle itself cost you? Even paying EUR 1.30 for a litre of diesel, I am willing to wager that my overall vehicle costs are significantly lower than yours.
Surely at the very low ambient temperatures experienced in Norway there are considerable comfort advantages to being propelled on your journey by an internal combustion engine that, as a side-effect of its primary purpose, is producing more heat than you could ever wish for?
Graham wrote:
Surely at the very low ambient temperatures experienced in Norway there are considerable comfort advantages to being propelled on your journey by an internal combustion engine that, as a side-effect of its primary purpose, is producing more heat than you could ever wish for?
Not necessarily. On old cars that was the case (cars manufactured in the 80s typically until 2005 or thereabout). Older than that, and the heater could be everything from almost adequate to almost nonexistent, depending on the car. Newer cars, and especially newer diesel cars have so high efficiency they don’t produce enough heat in the cold. A combustion engine increases efficiency when outside temp drops, thus gives off less heat in the cold. That depends also on the size of the compartment. A large compartment, like a mini van/bus are additionally heated electrically. The heat from the engine is not nearly enough in the cold.
Another issue is the time it takes to heat it up. At -20, with no electric pre-heater, you can forget to travel in any comfort the first 1/2 hour at least. On my newest electric car the heater is excellent, within a minute or two, and the heat is coming en mass. But that also use lots of battery power. Cars sold in Norway typically have:
Even in the cold, an electric car is better, much better when heating is concerned. Having it plugged in, it (pre) heats up automatically by schedule and/or by an app on the phone. It will also heat up by app/schedule when not plugged in, but then you exchange comfort for range. It’s the range that shrinks in the cold. But, as explained, for 99.9% of all the driving I do, range is no issue. It’s a problem that doesn’t exist. For longer trips, you have to plan, and enjoy life with no stress The point is those longer trips is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the driving I do.
I have to admit, I also have another car, a small diesel van. I use it as a kind of “truck”, but comfort wise it is like any fossil car. My wife and I needs two cars anyway, and have had two cars for the last 20 years at least. We could have taken that car, but why? Much better comfort in the EV + all kinds of “magic” electronic gadgets for driving aid, I hardly have to do anything except staying awake And it was not like we didn’t need coffee or dinner. We would have stopped anyway, only with the EV, you can do it in a relaxed fashion like in the “old days”, there is no other way with an EV
If you need to drive like Silvaire: 1400 km each way, each weekend, then forget about EV. Completely useless for that. Then again, I would say 1400 km is way into aircraft land as the only viable option on a regular basis, thus even a fossil car is useless.
Archie wrote:
Tesla proved that real success is achieved by building Electric from the start. That’s where the future will lie.
The evolutionary design technique used by Tesla is not appropriate to aviation. I used to own a Tesla, I became all to familiar with how to reboot the software.
