VW plans to sell electric Tesla rival for less than 20,000 euros - source

[Zak33]

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-vo...-idUKKCN1ND2QP

Yeah....right.

With a list price starting at £18,340 for a vanilla Golf right now in the UK... who on earth thinks an electric car to compete with Tesla will be £17,400?
And moreover why would it NEED to be so cheap?

Currently the E-Up ( The Yorkshire Electric Vehicle of deams) is £22k
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/up-pa/explore/e-up

tiny little thing...

[Saracen]

Arguably, somebody needs to start producing "cheap" electric cars, in large numbers and damned soon, for there to be any chance of that large ch6nk of the car-using public that can't afford anything like £20k, let alone £50k or £150k to get in on the second -hand budget market any time in the next decade or two. Because we're going to want large numbers depreciated into the sub-£5k or even sub-£2k market.

Failing that it will remain the preserve of middle and higher-middle earners.


Personally, I'd love to see someone produce a viable (by my definition) Golf or even Polo sized e-car in that orice range. I mihht even buy one .... if it were someone like Toyota. But given :-

a) the emissions standard, and especially
b) Brexit

I will be applying my own personal veto to anything and everything I feasibly can originating from any EU state. I might let a few cans of Tuscan tomatoes and a chunk or two of 3--year Parmesan past my non-tariff barriers but hell will freeze over before I buy another German car.

[philehidiot]

I will be applying my own personal veto to anything and everything I feasibly can originating from any EU state. I might let a few cans of Tuscan tomatoes and a chunk or two of 3--year Parmesan past my non-tariff barriers but hell will freeze over before I buy another German car.

Didn't realise Nigel was administering this forum in his spare time.

Also, the maths and thermodynamics don't work until we make the energy and batteries for electric cars more efficiently than by just burning the hydrocarbons directly. It does move the pollution out of the cities though.

And this is VW. They gassed a bunch of monkeys in the name of research and also gassed around 5000 people to death with the emissions stuff. I'm sure they'll find a way to make electric vehicles unnecessarily fatal.

[Saracen]

Didn't realise Nigel was administering this forum in his spare time.

....

I could respond to that, at the risk of saying what I really think of the EU, but this isn't a Brexit thread and I don't want my throwaway comment to turn it into one.

[DanceswithUnix]

Also, the maths and thermodynamics don't work until we make the energy and batteries for electric cars more efficiently than by just burning the hydrocarbons directly. It does move the pollution out of the cities though.

I think electric cars have enough problems without making more up


Only half the electricity we are generating is fossil fuel vs 100% in ICE cars. http://gridwatch.co.uk/

Then the best of the diesel car engines are about 40% efficient, vs 60% for CCGT power plant. So even if you were charging your car purely from gas generators, the transmission and battery storage losses still mean less energy overall in the electric car.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-...el_consumption


But back on topic, I always thought VW cars were ludicrously overpriced for what you get, so I would be surprised at that price to get anything more than an ugly Fabia with a 30 mile range.

[badass]

I think electric cars have enough problems without making more up


Only half the electricity we are generating is fossil fuel vs 100% in ICE cars. http://gridwatch.co.uk/

Then the best of the diesel car engines are about 40% efficient, vs 60% for CCGT power plant. So even if you were charging your car purely from gas generators, the transmission and battery storage losses still mean less energy overall in the electric car.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-...el_consumption


But back on topic, I always thought VW cars were ludicrously overpriced for what you get, so I would be surprised at that price to get anything more than an ugly Fabia with a 30 mile range.

A couple of things:

1. By buying an electric car, technically it's nuclear powered. That's beyond words awesome. I want a nuclear powered car. Like the "no, this sucker's electrical" Delorean.
2. If 100% of our power was CCGT, then take the MPGe figure and multiply by 0.6 to get an equivalent MPG on the same cycle a petrol powered car would get. On the NEDC, a BMKW I3 uses 0.21KWh/mile or 160 MPGe or The equivalent energy consumption of a 96 MPG car on the NEDC (probably closer to a real world energy consumption equivalent of around 75MPG). Compare that to something similar in size and performace like a VW Polo GTI and you get a claimed 47 MPG that's probably closer to 40 MPG in the real world.

[jimborae]

I will be applying my own personal veto to anything and everything I feasibly can originating from any EU state. I might let a few cans of Tuscan tomatoes and a chunk or two of 3--year Parmesan past my non-tariff barriers but hell will freeze over before I buy another German car.

Not just me that's disillusioned with BMW now then????? Please explain if serious.

[Saracen]

Not just me that's disillusioned with BMW now then????? Please explain if serious.

Oh, I was serious.

I'm not entirely happy with BMW, and certainly not that happy with my local dealer, which of course isn't the sams thing. I could get round the latter by going further afield but I just don't like the styling of the M3/M4 last time I looked. They may have improved in the latest models but, frankly, I haven't looked and now, don't intend to. I'm also not impressed with VW, in large part because of the emissions scandal ( which wasn't just VW) but also because of the disparity between the way I see US owners and European owners bring treated.

My broader point, which I don't want to get into in this thread, was Brexit-related.

[philehidiot]

People just won't do the maths properly. There's the ENTIRE process of energy production and transmission and CCGTs are only part of the equation. There's the conversion losses, transmission losses, more conversion losses, the charging losses, the discharging losses, the fact that this idea of 95% efficiency of electric motors is peak and not constant and this is rarely, if ever accounted for as a variable and kept as a constant in calculations which always have an agenda behind them.

You MAY be close on efficiency now but given variable compression petrol engines are due to be introduced next year and the way people use electric / hybrid (mostly the latter) vehicles (badly) that efficiency gap is set to massively increase. That's before you consider the scale of the problem and that whilst a power station in isolation is more efficient usually, the shifting of massive amounts of energy being released in one place, transmitted and then stored and then released again isn't going to be as efficient as a modern pretrol / diesel engine. Notice I said modern.

The environmental cost of mining the lithium offsets any direct efficiency savings immediately.

Do the maths as a system, look at it even from a favourable perspective and it just doesn't work. It's a very bad idea unless you're going to start producing affordable energy from nukes or have a viable method of producing reliable energy from renewables. Electric vehicles are a feel good option unless we actually put in some real effort as a society and with the emergence of plentiful fossil fuels from fracking and the collapse of the price of oil, I doubt that is going to happen. EV could seriously help offset emissions but right now they won't.

On top of that, WE may have shut down a lot of big coal plants (which may have screwed us) and converted them to burn wood pellets but that's even WORSE for the environment unless you listen solely to a bunch of lobbyists (unfortunately since the pellet industry is now massive and includes a lot of Yank wealth we won't be listening to the studies and shutting down the big coal fired stations) but other countries have most certainly not. We don't just use CCGTs we have a mix and that's essential. Taking the best option for variable output and comparing to a petrol as a spot measurement isn't a valid comparison. Look at Australia for a good example of why coal is so popular still. Also, them very same CCGTs actually contribute to our problem if you look at how they play into the renewables system, having to be constantly on spinning reserve for backup. These wonderful calculations rarely account for any of this because people want a feel good option.

And Saracen, the Nigel joke was a friendly dig. Please don't take it seriously!

[directhex]

People just won't do the maths properly. There's the ENTIRE process of energy production and transmission and CCGTs are only part of the equation. There's the conversion losses, transmission losses, more conversion losses, the charging losses, the discharging losses, the fact that this idea of 95% efficiency of electric motors is peak and not constant and this is rarely, if ever accounted for as a variable and kept as a constant in calculations which always have an agenda behind them.

You MAY be close on efficiency now but given variable compression petrol engines are due to be introduced next year and the way people use electric / hybrid (mostly the latter) vehicles (badly) that efficiency gap is set to massively increase. That's before you consider the scale of the problem and that whilst a power station in isolation is more efficient usually, the shifting of massive amounts of energy being released in one place, transmitted and then stored and then released again isn't going to be as efficient as a modern pretrol / diesel engine. Notice I said modern.

The environmental cost of mining the lithium offsets any direct efficiency savings immediately.

Do the maths as a system, look at it even from a favourable perspective and it just doesn't work. It's a very bad idea unless you're going to start producing affordable energy from nukes or have a viable method of producing reliable energy from renewables. Electric vehicles are a feel good option unless we actually put in some real effort as a society and with the emergence of plentiful fossil fuels from fracking and the collapse of the price of oil, I doubt that is going to happen. EV could seriously help offset emissions but right now they won't.

On top of that, WE may have shut down a lot of big coal plants (which may have screwed us) and converted them to burn wood pellets but that's even WORSE for the environment unless you listen solely to a bunch of lobbyists (unfortunately since the pellet industry is now massive and includes a lot of Yank wealth we won't be listening to the studies and shutting down the big coal fired stations) but other countries have most certainly not. We don't just use CCGTs we have a mix and that's essential. Taking the best option for variable output and comparing to a petrol as a spot measurement isn't a valid comparison. Look at Australia for a good example of why coal is so popular still. Also, them very same CCGTs actually contribute to our problem if you look at how they play into the renewables system, having to be constantly on spinning reserve for backup. These wonderful calculations rarely account for any of this because people want a feel good option.

And Saracen, the Nigel joke was a friendly dig. Please don't take it seriously!

tl;dr: 100% refined petrol appears at petrol stations by magic, and definitely has no environmental costs related to extraction, refining, and distribution. Certainly don't look too closely at the electricity involved in the refining process.

[Saracen]

....

And Saracen, the Nigel joke was a friendly dig. Please don't take it seriously!

That is how I took it. A friendly dig, not serious.

However, I was deadly serious about a personal veto on EU products. And, for that matter, on personal travel to any EU country .... which hurts, as I'm very fond of a couple of them. Oh well.

Which left me with a problem. My comment was very serious but your dig wasn't. I wanted a response to the dig, but without giving the impression my comment about personally boycotting EU products wasn't serious. Because I was as serious as a fatal heart attack.

[badass]

People just won't do the maths properly. There's the ENTIRE process of energy production and transmission and CCGTs are only part of the equation. There's the conversion losses, transmission losses, more conversion losses, the charging losses, the discharging losses, the fact that this idea of 95% efficiency of electric motors is peak and not constant and this is rarely, if ever accounted for as a variable and kept as a constant in calculations which always have an agenda behind them.

You MAY be close on efficiency now but given variable compression petrol engines are due to be introduced next year and the way people use electric / hybrid (mostly the latter) vehicles (badly) that efficiency gap is set to massively increase. That's before you consider the scale of the problem and that whilst a power station in isolation is more efficient usually, the shifting of massive amounts of energy being released in one place, transmitted and then stored and then released again isn't going to be as efficient as a modern pretrol / diesel engine. Notice I said modern.

The environmental cost of mining the lithium offsets any direct efficiency savings immediately.

Do the maths as a system, look at it even from a favourable perspective and it just doesn't work. It's a very bad idea unless you're going to start producing affordable energy from nukes or have a viable method of producing reliable energy from renewables. Electric vehicles are a feel good option unless we actually put in some real effort as a society and with the emergence of plentiful fossil fuels from fracking and the collapse of the price of oil, I doubt that is going to happen. EV could seriously help offset emissions but right now they won't.

On top of that, WE may have shut down a lot of big coal plants (which may have screwed us) and converted them to burn wood pellets but that's even WORSE for the environment unless you listen solely to a bunch of lobbyists (unfortunately since the pellet industry is now massive and includes a lot of Yank wealth we won't be listening to the studies and shutting down the big coal fired stations) but other countries have most certainly not. We don't just use CCGTs we have a mix and that's essential. Taking the best option for variable output and comparing to a petrol as a spot measurement isn't a valid comparison. Look at Australia for a good example of why coal is so popular still. Also, them very same CCGTs actually contribute to our problem if you look at how they play into the renewables system, having to be constantly on spinning reserve for backup. These wonderful calculations rarely account for any of this because people want a feel good option.

And Saracen, the Nigel joke was a friendly dig. Please don't take it seriously!

Citation needed. Any evidence really. The figures I used that showed an electric car being hugely more efficient - literally half the energy consumption per mile (based on 100% power for the grid being CCGT) were from official figures for both cars. In reality a significant portion of UK power comes from Solar and wind.

All of your argument is devoid of any figures and research. The phrase you are looking for is lifecycle energy analysis/consumption.

P.S. I shared your opinion about 4 years ago with the same basis for it. Then I did some research and completely changed my position.

[philehidiot]

Citation needed. Any evidence really.

...

P.S. I shared your opinion about 4 years ago with the same basis for it. Then I did some research and completely changed my position.

I've read quite a few different analyses but the most entertaining (and the one I can easily remember) came from a guy called Autoexpert on Youtube who is an ex automotive engineer, ex automotive journalist and now makes his money selling cars bypassing the dealers. He has done a few videos on this subject and I think his summaries are probably the best and certainly the most entertaining. As for the other sources I've read well, you know how it is, you read stuff over the years and you forget where and when. A lot of what I've read has been in snippets of Private Eye over the years but that's more related to what we're burning rather than what we're driving. I've tried a couple of youtube searches and the best one for the videos you'd want is "auto expert electric cars" - it's the balding Australian guy. Can be annoying and prattly but knows his stuff. He did one video where he borrowed a car from a manufacturer and proceeded to cover it with equations in marker pen which he then talked through. If you're a nerd who likes a bit of mindless banter then you'll enjoy his videos. He also does videos where he responds to critics in the comments which is very useful as well as he brings more evidence. He is quite abusive to people but when you watch a bit you'll find it's friendly banter and not serious. I also like the guy as he gives out driving tips, one of which has directly saved me and my missus being hit by an airborne bicycle on the motorway by teaching me how to evade at high speed. I sent him a thank you email for this.

Equally, given you have held my position and then reversed it, I'd be extremely interested in your data as well. I am pretty sure I'm right (someone above mentioned about the infrastructure for petrol - it's kinda the same for all the other stuff we burn - our wood pellets come from the US by ship for starters) but I am definitely open to being wrong and having my mind changed so if you've got some sources I really would be intersted in reading them, especially as you have U turned on my existing position. I find that in itself very interesting and potentially informative.


EDIT - bearing in mind we're burning wood pellets at Drax now and classing them as renewables through what is basically a fudge, and that they ignore the gas turbines on spinning reserve when counting intermittent renewable input (which a study a while back showed means the actual emissions savings become somewhere between trivial and nil) you can see why I have a problem with a lot of these studies. I was speaking to an engineer a while back about this same thing and the only thing we disagreed on was the solution. He said tidal lagoons all around the country was the only way forward for the UK. I can see how this gets rid of the engineering issues but the price they were wanting was more than nuclear. I do agree with him that tidal (or wave)is the way forward for the UK but not in that manner if the ongoing cost is going to be so high. Initial cost, yes, ongoing, not so much. I think they got greedy.

[badass]

I've read quite a few different analyses but the most entertaining (and the one I can easily remember) came from a guy called Autoexpert on Youtube who is an ex automotive engineer, ex automotive journalist and now makes his money selling cars bypassing the dealers. He has done a few videos on this subject and I think his summaries are probably the best and certainly the most entertaining. As for the other sources I've read well, you know how it is, you read stuff over the years and you forget where and when. A lot of what I've read has been in snippets of Private Eye over the years but that's more related to what we're burning rather than what we're driving. I've tried a couple of youtube searches and the best one for the videos you'd want is "auto expert electric cars" - it's the balding Australian guy. Can be annoying and prattly but knows his stuff. He did one video where he borrowed a car from a manufacturer and proceeded to cover it with equations in marker pen which he then talked through. If you're a nerd who likes a bit of mindless banter then you'll enjoy his videos. He also does videos where he responds to critics in the comments which is very useful as well as he brings more evidence. He is quite abusive to people but when you watch a bit you'll find it's friendly banter and not serious. I also like the guy as he gives out driving tips, one of which has directly saved me and my missus being hit by an airborne bicycle on the motorway by teaching me how to evade at high speed. I sent him a thank you email for this.

Equally, given you have held my position and then reversed it, I'd be extremely interested in your data as well. I am pretty sure I'm right (someone above mentioned about the infrastructure for petrol - it's kinda the same for all the other stuff we burn - our wood pellets come from the US by ship for starters) but I am definitely open to being wrong and having my mind changed so if you've got some sources I really would be intersted in reading them, especially as you have U turned on my existing position. I find that in itself very interesting and potentially informative.


EDIT - bearing in mind we're burning wood pellets at Drax now and classing them as renewables through what is basically a fudge, and that they ignore the gas turbines on spinning reserve when counting intermittent renewable input (which a study a while back showed means the actual emissions savings become somewhere between trivial and nil) you can see why I have a problem with a lot of these studies. I was speaking to an engineer a while back about this same thing and the only thing we disagreed on was the solution. He said tidal lagoons all around the country was the only way forward for the UK. I can see how this gets rid of the engineering issues but the price they were wanting was more than nuclear. I do agree with him that tidal (or wave)is the way forward for the UK but not in that manner if the ongoing cost is going to be so high. Initial cost, yes, ongoing, not so much. I think they got greedy.

First thing I did was look into energy efficiency of lithium cells - i.e. how much comes out/how much goes in. It was way higher than I thought. A quick google will show lots of information.
Then I looked into losses through power transmission. I thought it was around 20% but it turned out that's too high. https://publications.parliament.uk/p...386/38607.html

Then there is efficiency of electric motors used in cars. It stays extremely high all the way through the usable range of speeds. Admittedly wikipedia but here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...rgy_efficiency

A quote from the article:
"Internal combustion engines have thermodynamic limits on efficiency, expressed as fraction of energy used to propel the vehicle compared to energy produced by burning fuel. Gasoline engines effectively use only 15% of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiency of 20%, while electric vehicles have on-board efficiency of over 90%, when counted against stored chemical energy, or around 80%, when counted against required energy to recharge.[73]"

A common mistake when comparing is comparing peak efficiency of a petrol/diesel engine to average or peak efficiency of an electric motor.

An ICE will hit its peak thermal efficiency at precisely one RPM and load point in the rev range. The Brake specific fuel consumption is at its lowest. Generally at high (not max) load and lowish RPM. This is where the difference is 15% real world efficiency for a petrol car vs up to twice that at the point of peak thermal efficiency. For a motor used in a car, the lowest efficiency when the motors are actually being driven (i.e. not at 1% load as it wouldn't be any different to 0% load for reduced deceleration) is still well over 70%

This link is admittedly on a tesla fanboy forum, however the graph for the motor (not on a tesla) doesn't lie: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thre...diagram.54948/

Worst efficiency is 77% on a prius motor.

Based on actual data even taking worst case numbers for BEV's and best case for ICE cars, a BEV simply uses so much less energy (less a third) than an ICE car that no amount of magic can make the ICE car somehow better.

Based on official NEDC figures - i.e. not correct but apples to apples (BMW i3 consumption vs Polo GTI consumption) demonstrate that even when not supplied by electricity powered by renewables, the i3 has double the overall lifecycle energy efficiency

I shall also pass an observation - this is not an unfriendly dig BTW - you've used absolutely no numbers to back up your position. Mine has been backed with numbers and sources. If you genuinely wish to learn then you need some numbers and sources. Also, try to read your post from a different readers perspective. Would you think a youtube channel from an automotive (ex)journalist comes across as a high quality source?

[philehidiot]

Your reply has been saved on my desktop to look into properly when I'm not just about to go to bed, thanks.

I'll be honest, the reason there were no figures is that, whilst I had them in my head, I really couldn't be bothered because I was really getting angry at next door's loud party. They were shouting and screaming from around 1900 to 0100 and that was after being told to shut up at around 1200. I was just grumpy.

Figures I have in my head (although I haven't double checked I've recalled them properly) are:
- optimistically around 60% efficiency at the power station but that's if you have a CCGT and as mentioned earlier a lot of our production isn't and even that which is advertised as emissions free just plain isn't.
- around 15% loss in transmission taken as a rough average as it obviously varies a lot.
- then a conversion loss from AC-DC which I can't remember
- Then around 15% loss both in and out of the battery when charging and discharging
- then the usual losses in the motor which are quoted often as being 95% efficient which is only in optimal conditions. You'd probably have to create a mean efficiency for general use - this is not something I've ever seen done.
- Transmission losses I've always just ignored as both vehicle types have them although obviously the designs are very differnent. A mistake by the sounds of it.

These numbers are rough averages of ranges rather than strict values. I think the charge / discharge was a range of near 10-20% and so it's just easier to pick a rough average.

As I say, I shall have a good look at what you've provided, thanks.

[DanceswithUnix]

EDIT - bearing in mind we're burning wood pellets at Drax now and classing them as renewables through what is basically a fudge,

AIUI the wood pellets was a seemingly good idea that went horribly wrong when locally grown wood didn't happen like it was supposed to. That is being legislated for, the situation should improve over time. But still, the reason I compared to CCGT was that right now that is what we generate with in terms of fossil fuels. As I type, it is a factor of 6.0 higher than biomass, with biomass being about the same as coal. I did colour the figures I used by comparing against a diesel engine despite me not personally liking diesels, and knowing that a lot of petrol cars are out there which makes it look worse for ICE cars.

The fact that we have a fuel mix in the generation of electricity just feels like a big plus point to me. The whole "they told me to buy diesel and now they tell me it's bad for the environment" thing goes away when the mix of how electricity is generated can change over time and can track available fuel sources vs "put petrol in it".

I think one of the compelling ideas with electric cars is that you can generate your own solar power to charge your own car. It likely doesn't happen much in reality, but just the fact that is it possible for many is pretty awesome. I can't see me every growing enough sugar at home to make synthetic petrol, I certainly won't be drilling for oil in the back garden and even if I could the planning permission for my personal petrol refinary would be tricky to say the least

To be honest though, I think my main interest in electric cars comes from every modern ICE car I have driven being a bit rubbish. Even my current Alfa, whilst OK to drive isn't as nice as previous petrol Alfa models that I have owned thanks to all the high tech engine wizardry. That wizardry only works on motorway driving as well, and I spend most of my time constantly changing speeds through either traffic or changing speed limits on country roads. If electric gets me the low down torque of a normally aspirated V6 or V8 of 20 years ago then sign me up as soon as I can afford one. Please don't anyone tell me their 4 pot diesel has bags of torque, I will just point and laugh, it isn't the same.