What would make you drive an EV?

[peterb]

I really think that all the car companies should team up, with a battery manufacturer, and develop a way of having replaceable batteries.

"Requires four AA cells, not supplied"

[MrComputerSaint]

Tesla did do a video about swapping batteries around, but I don't think it is implemented as far as I know: -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY

That's my thought exactly. Now if each EV from each manufacturer could have the same batteries, shape, size etc, then the cost of manufacture would likely come down.
Maybe the difference will be the actual content of the batteries so there could be the less powerful batteries and you pay a little less for them. The high end stuff goes into the likes of the Tesla's.

[PorcupineTime]

I think that's a bit what Elon Musk is trying to do with his Gigafactory out there in the American desert. He intends to produce so many batteries the cost of buying them will drop by a third. At least, I think that's what I read.
I for one can't wait to try and drop a Tesla super battery into a Renault Twizzy. But then, I am a special case.

[DanceswithUnix]

The alternative is to not change the battery, but to change the electrolyte and use a flow cell:

http://www.nanoflowcell.com/

Then you can fill your electric car up at a pump (two pumps to be pedantic )

[peterb]

Interesting, although the website is short on detail.

More info here
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Albrecht/20...thium-Ion.html

and here

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/salt...ar-not-so-fast

[PorcupineTime]

That looks great and very impressive, but I will hold my judgement until I root out pictures of it in the flesh. The dash in particular looks brilliant. It all seems a little bit too 'concept car' for me, and very little like the finished article.
That's saying nothing of the tech, which peterb's links are casting some doubt on.

[DanceswithUnix]

Sadly that car seems to have been latched onto by some of the "car runs on just water - fact!" nutter sites that talk about it between UFO and chemtrail rants. You have to be careful what you read about it

Shame, as flow cells are a real thing and have been for some years. I think the efficiency has traditionally been down compared to traditional rechargables, but they have been of interest in things like bulk grid storage thanks to the idea that your energy storage is proportional to the size of storage tanks because you are flowing the electrolyte over the electrodes. If these guys have managed to scale it down to the size of a car cell array, then that is really nice. I presume that is where the supercapacitors come from as well, if you can't draw enough continuous power from the cell for full acceleration.

There could also be the possibility of charging in place rather than having to buy charged electrolyte, that is how they usually work.

OTOH, if it was a clear win them I would have thought Mr Musk would have bought them out by now.

Edit to add: I get the impression the nutter sites don't know the difference between "a salt" and "the stuff you sprinkle on chips"

[peterb]

That looks great and very impressive, but I will hold my judgement until I root out pictures of it in the flesh. The dash in particular looks brilliant. It all seems a little bit too 'concept car' for me, and very little like the finished article.
That's saying nothing of the tech, which peterb's links are casting some doubt on.

I wasn't casting doubts on the tech as such, more on the lack of detail about it on the referenced website - which concentrated on the car rather than the tech!

The other two links I posted were the result of a quick search and gave a bit more detail.

Fuel cells, either 'conventional' or flow cell are an interesting alternative to the secondary cell technology. That said, battery technology has advanced considerably in the last ten years, with lithium batteries offering relatively high energy densities, and, just as significantly, the ability to release large amounts of energy safely for acceleration. Batteries also offer scope for energy saving by reclaiming kinetic energy through regenerative braking, which fuel cells can't do. However I did see that the power train for the Quant seemed to feature a capacitor which might be used to recapture energy during breaking, but as I said, there is a lack of detail on the system!

[directhex]

http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx

Interesting half hour presentation from last night of Tesla's new SUV

[Gerrard]

I could only watch it without sound at work and it is interesting. The falcon doors look cool and practical, although they did miss the obvious problem during their demonstration (again, wasn't listening and may have mentioned something); the falcon doors opened fine but the driver's door is still standard and looked to still be the normal problem. By having a boot in the front, it gets over some of the problems with mini-MPV's of not having a boot at all.

It looks like another expensive and over-engineered design, but I think that is what Tesla should be; sort of like Dyson when they first started. The base technology is quite expensive (as everyone has said above), so you might as well go overboard and make things like this. A "normal" electric car is around £25,000, where there's a lot of competition and to be honest, it is very difficult for them to look competitive in any aspect, even running costs. With Tesla pushing the car into a much higher bracket, the overhead of the technology is reduced and they can compete on a more level-footing with other luxury brands. The people buying these aren't looking to reduce their running costs and at most will have a certain "smugness" about "saving the environment" (again, has been brought up many times the actual benefit).

I like their cars (apart from the stupidly large touchscreen as I mentioned before) and the engineering, but I don't think I would ever buy one, even if I won the lottery.

[Biscuit]

Ho much enviromental damage is done in the creation of these huge batteries?

I'll stick with what I have for the moment thanks.

[directhex]

Ho much enviromental damage is done in the creation of these huge batteries?

I'll stick with what I have for the moment thanks.

You know the entire story of "oh, batteries in cars with batteries are so bad to produce compared to petrol cars" comes from a single report about how a Prius is worse than a Hummer to produce, sourced to an industry group backed by Hummer claiming a non-existent University produced the report?

It's all bull****.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...vs_hybrid.html is one 2008 debunking. Any swapping out of the models (e.g. the story told in the UK replaces the Hummer with a Land Rover) is just Very Smart People guessing "well, car X is basically the same as car Y, so I can swap them out when talking about it".

[Mister]

A better setup would be a hydrogen internal combustion engine charging a capacitor, which drives a motor. Cars like the Prius are a false economy really and only a stop-gap.

The problem is the government will never allow it to be "cheap" to run a car. If everyone eventually starts driving around in 200mpg, 0 emission cars. They would find another way to keep it expensive, to keep the tax income up.

[peterb]

A better setup would be a hydrogen internal combustion engine charging a capacitor, which drives a motor. Cars like the Prius are a false economy really and only a stop-gap.

The problem is the government will never allow it to be "cheap" to run a car. If everyone eventually starts driving around in 200mpg, 0 emission cars. They would find another way to keep it expensive, to keep the tax income up.

Except you need to generate the hydrogen - usually by electrolysing water - needs energy, hydrogen is difficult to store, although there are hydrides that can store hydrogen by chemical bonding, hydrogen has a relatively low calorific value, so you need lots of it to generate appreciable amounts of energy. You would need a large capacitor - or something like a battery!

If you are doing all that, you might just as well burn the hydrogen in the internal combustion engine and drive the car directly, although you would lose the regenerative braking energy recapture, although that couylkd be turned back to heat for internal car heating.

[Gerrard]

Supercapacitors could be an answer, but at the moment they are about ten times worse than Li-ion batteries in Wh/Kg terms. They would be able to cope with the numerous charge/discharge cycles better in a KERS-type system. Interestingly, the Mazda 6 has one as part of their i-Eloop thing, but it only works for the alternator rather than actually driving the car.

Another alternative could be a flywheel, but whilst I have seen a bike with one and I know busses have them, the only cars I have heard of having them were the Porsche GT3R and Audi e-tron Quattro; both racing cars.

[directhex]

Except you need to generate the hydrogen - usually by electrolysing water - needs energy, hydrogen is difficult to store, although there are hydrides that can store hydrogen by chemical bonding, hydrogen has a relatively low calorific value, so you need lots of it to generate appreciable amounts of energy. You would need a large capacitor - or something like a battery!

Looking at current real-world fuel-cell cars, the Toyota Mirai has a 1.6kWh battery and storage for 5kg of hydrogen (about £20, 300 mile range). And bear in mind 300 miles of range charging a Li-ion BEV costs less than £2.50, although it would require a 75 kWh battery which isn't a thing currently on anything short of a low-end Tesla Model S

But hydrogen is way further off than BEVs - there are 20 places to refuel in the UK, and a fuel cell car is still £53k after a £15k government subsidy.