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

[DanceswithUnix]

Interesting article on how much it currently costs to build power plants. Wind and solar are cheapest to build per unit of power produced and getting cheaper.

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-coal-and-gas/


Edit: There is also an article about VW on there which gives costing details for the batteries. VW have earmarked 50B euros to buy batteries for 50M cars. That's 1000 euro per battery, so these are either range extended/hybrid cars or pitiful range EVs. I presume they are PHEV.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/11...cars-ceo-says/

Or being VW perhaps they have slapped some cheap Chinese ni-cads in a box and then written "li-ion" on the side in crayon. They have a lot of trust to build atm.

[philehidiot]

I keep getting to this thread at the end of the day.

The energy mix is not just a good thing, it's essential. It does mean that any comparison that doesn't take into account its realities is automatically unrealistic.

As for solar and so on, my parents have a solar array. It's only viable as they got on the last lot of really good government subsidies. Without them it's a waste of money in this country.

Once we get to be able to store the energy (and there's some really cool cryostorage tech being trialled which might make it work) properly and release it for use on demand then we'll be making progress.

Ni-cads? Nah they're not toxic enough for the monkey gassing Germans (yes, VW gassed a bunch of monkeys in the name of science).

I think (and this is opinion) that part of the reason it's costing so much to build power plants is we haven't done it for so long that we've lost a lot of the skill base abroad and are having to bring it in and also they all know how well bent over the barrel we are as a country. We're not building power plants casually, we're building them desperately.

[badass]

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.

Just to sharpen the figures a bit:

Average power loss when comparing power generated to power sold in America was 6.5% in 2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...mission#Losses - this automatically takes into account Every loss involving AC/DC conversion, step up, step down, discharge, resistance etc all the way from every power source to every household. The link to the government website I shared earlier stated an average of 8% for the UK. I think it would be fair to use 8% however even using 15% the numbers still add up vastly in favour of BEV's

Finally, my calculations demonstrating a BEV has double the efficiency/half the fossil fuel usage of an ICE powered car made the assumption that 100% of UK power always came from fossil fuels. Right now, according to gridwatch.co.uk - 25% of all UK power is coming from solar and wind. I ignore the "renewables" part because it's BS. I suspect that your wood pellets are included in renewables as that includes biomass.

Finally, I noticed that I didn't include electricity transmission losses in my comparison thus unfairly making the BEV look better. However even making the BEV 8% less efficient it goes from being twice as efficient to nearly twice as efficient. The argument doesn't change.