The Electric Vehicle Thread

[braumeister]

Darn, I'm going to miss seeing it. I should be well dead by then.

Hang in there, man.

 

[RobLJ]

+1

I think that as "the rubber hits the road", and the use of EVs becomes more commonplace and ho-hum, their disadvantages will be less speculative and more real to the average American. As that happens, I predict (also with a no money back guarantee) that the demand for them will quietly trail off and then vanish.

I don't know about that. We've had the Bolt for 2&1/2 years and it is a fine car, a great replacement for our Forester which was going to need a lot of work and a bit of a gas hog.
I have an in-garage charger, electricity is cheap (ignoring the solar panels) and don't take long trips, so that's a caveat, but ubiquitous high-speed charging will be here in a couple years; in fact I could easily take it now to visit the grandkids over Donner to the Central Valley with a 30 minute stop in Lodi or Stockton. We usually stop for coffee or to eat lunch anyway. 8.50 for a 300 mile charge is dirt cheap, in fact.



For folks in an apartment without convenient access to charging or where electricity is high or take frequent cross-country trips, this would not be true. I do miss the all-wheel drive in winters but most new EV models have them available and charge faster than the Bolt, so these issues will become less common. I hear talk about how inconvenient and expensive EVs are, but haven't experienced it.

 

[swakyaby]

When it came to distance travel primarily to visit my elderly mother who lived 375 miles away, and less frequently visit to my in-laws who lived 500 miles away, I thought about an electric car. As soon as I saw the Tesla supercharger network was sufficiently developed along the highway I was to travel to both, I purchased a ModelS in 2014. It has exceeded my expectations. The much-written-about “range anxiety” quickly stopped being a concern because operating the car becomes so intuitive.

It’s also in demand for local driving. Even though I have another gas combustible engine car, the EV is the one I prefer when making multiple local short hops. Owning 2 cars is convenient for a couple, but the use of a gas car becomes much less when you also own an EV and convenient charging (whether in your garage or local supercharger station).

 

[Koolau]

Base load power plants can't just be turned on & off...overnight there's plenty of capacity for recharging...so even if the above use cases requires recharging only off-peak such is feasible.

Yeah, I think it's accepted fact that base load is, well, base and not adjustable. But as far as recharging is concerned, how do you recharge a freight train?

 

[Chuckanut]

Darn, I'm going to miss seeing it. I should be well dead by then.

Three words:

Cold Fusion, Baby!

 

[audreyh1]

DH got to visit a cold fusion lab back in the 80s.

Oh well, all the excitement then. Didn’t pan out, ha ha. Science is hard.

 

[Koolau]

Three words:

Cold Fusion, Baby!

I'd settle for plain old hot fission plants - like we used 70 years ago. YMMV

 

[audreyh1]

Interesting Forbes article: (might be behind a paywall)

A different perspective on our concerns worries about designing EVs to have repairable/replaceable EV batteries.

Electric Car Batteries Lasting Longer Than Predicted Delays Recycling Programs

Thanks for that interesting article. I had no idea the creative reuses already for a full car battery pack, and I get the impression that it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Or about the shortage of car batteries to recycle anyway.

Musk reiterated similar in the Tesla shareholders meeting yesterday from a CNBC article.

At the same time, the company is recycling only 50 vehicle battery packs per week in Nevada, Musk revealed Thursday, explaining that the number is so low because most battery packs from Tesla cars are still in vehicles in use today.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/04/elo...18-month-recession-teases-share-buybacks.html

 

[Chuckanut]

Thanks for that interesting article. I had no idea the creative reuses already for a full car battery pack, and I get the impression that it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Or about the shortage of car batteries to recycle anyway.

Musk reiterated similar in the Tesla shareholders meeting yesterday from a CNBC article.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/04/elo...18-month-recession-teases-share-buybacks.html

Steve Jobs made the observation that the app store might become a billion dollar market some day. It is now over 100 Billion.

Who knows? Maybe it’ll be a billion dollar marketplace at some point in time. This doesn’t happen very often. A whole new billion dollar market opens up. 360 million in the first 30 days, I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.

We humans often underestimate ourselves.

 

[Chuckanut]

Here is the Consumer Reports review of the new Rivian Truck:

https://www.consumerreports.org/hyb...r1t-electric-pickup-truck-review-a3029848158/

The Rivian R1T is the most cutting-edge pickup truck the industry has seen in a very long time, with a shockingly wide repertory of capabilities. The 835-horsepower all-electric pickup can accelerate with the ferociousness of a supercar, claw its way up and over boulders with the tenacity of a Jeep Wrangler, carve through corners better than many SUVs, and tow a trailer of up to 11,000 pounds.

Not that it’s all wine, roses, and eco-friendly interior materials. Rivian took a page from EV-rival Tesla’s controls-layout playbook, requiring nearly every interior function has to go through the oversized center-dash infotainment screen. In fact, at this point we’d say that this screen-over-reliance is the truck’s biggest fault.
Still, we can’t wait until the R1T that we’ve long had on order arrives at our test track, because driving the Rivian for just one day was nowhere near enough time to explore it fully.

I think they liked what they saw.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yeah, I think it's accepted fact that base load is, well, base and not adjustable. But as far as recharging is concerned, how do you recharge a freight train?

It's a wild dream about battery-operated freight trains.

No, just overhead wires, like they do in Europe. Cheap, works good, lasts long time.

 

[nphx]

When my son drove his Tesla to TX with a tiny trailer, he occasionally had to unhook the trailer to fit into a charging stall. ,,,

Its common for one stall to have a pull in face first stall. I see these on Tesla super chargers off the highway exits, not at the shopping mall.

 

[NW-Bound]

Interesting Forbes article: (might be behind a paywall)

A different perspective on our concerns worries about designing EVs to have repairable/replaceable EV batteries.

Electric Car Batteries Lasting Longer Than Predicted Delays Recycling Programs

It is true that the new breed of lithium batteries lasts longer than expected. However, eventually when they hit the end of life cycle, there will be a flood of them. Hopefully, by that time, the battery recycling business is up and running to catch up with the supply of worn-out battery.

About battery reuse for storage, this is possible if the EV maker designs to allow it. Reusing an entire working pack should not be too difficult, because you can plug it into a host system, the same way you plug the battery to a real EV.

Here's the latest Munro video on this new Tesla battery. They confirm once more what I thought. Grind it up for raw material is the only thing one can do, if the battery contains a defect. You also don't salvage parts of the battery. You either reuse an entire battery, or recycle it.

 

[NW-Bound]

Back in 2020, Tesla got a fine in Germany for its battery disposal. How many Tesla cars in Germany in 2020?

Perhaps they have a process in place now to handle used batteries.

I don't know how other EV makers are doing.

Tesla was recently issued a big fine in Germany for allegedly failing to comply with battery recycling duties. The €12,000,000 ($14,000,000 USD) fine was levied by the German Federal Environmental Agency, and reported by Tesla in a recent filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

 

[explanade]

One overview of EV battery recycling.

https://www.autoblog.com/article/electric-car-battery-recycling-reuse-storage/

 

[aja8888]

Hang in there, man.

I'll try, but fusion energy in 2050 will be of no help in changing the diaper of a 107 year old.

 

[NW-Bound]

One overview of EV battery recycling.

https://www.autoblog.com/article/electric-car-battery-recycling-reuse-storage/

Recycling lithium cells is indeed a hazardous and dirty job. We keep reading about a single EV caught on fire that's hard to put down. How about a big stack of just batteries without car frames at a recycling center?

And indeed, Ronstar shared the news of a laptop lithium battery collecting place that caught on fire, causing evacuation of thousands of people living nearby. And that's just laptop batteries.

Search on the Web for "EV junk yard fire", and see what grief a single EV fire can cause. Now, you have possibly thousands of them in a pile. Fun time.

But then, there have been just worn-out tire fires that were horrible too.

Yes, we enjoy our "stuff", but choose to close our eyes and ears about the problems in the production and disposal of our toys. Nope, not our problem.

 

[aja8888]

Recycling lithium cells is indeed a hazardous and dirty job. We keep reading about a single EV caught on fire that's hard to put down. How about a big stack of just batteries at a recycling center?

And indeed, Ronstar shared the news of a laptop lithium battery collecting place that caught on fire, causing evacuation of thousands of people living nearby. And that's just laptop batteries.

Search on the Web for "EV junk yard fire ", and see what grief a single EV fire can cause. Now, you have possibly thousands of them in a pile. Fun time.

But then, there have been just worn-out tire fires that were horrible too.

Yes, we enjoy our "stuff", but choose to close our eyes and ears about the problems in the production and disposal of our toys. Nope, not our problem.

NW-Bound, do not worry about little items like recycling lithium batteries and big fires you can't put out for days. Fusion energy will save us all and there will be birds singing and flowers blooming over the landfills created by all the disposed of EV's and other junk we humans generate.

As braumeister said, just hang in there until 2050.

 

[ls99]

Need new technolgy for creating heat for power plants,. A furnace that devours junked EVs, the burning plastic and battery pile should prvide plenty of input btus. Could replace coal, gas and oil. If any metals left, should be able recycle. Hey is that GREEN or what?

 

[Ronstar]

Update on the nearby lithium battery fire. Now 13 months after the fire, I read a few days ago that all of the burned batteries have been removed. They have several monitoring stations around the site, so I’m sure they are still collecting data. Site is totally fenced off. But otherwise, life in the neighborhood appears to be normal.

 

[Chuckanut]

It looks like the subsidies to those who buy EVs may be rather difficult to get. There are lots of hoops to jump through.

But the proposal would stiffen the requirements for an electric vehicle to qualify. Only U.S.-built vehicles would be eligible. It also pushes car companies to bring more manufacturing to North America, including setting minimum thresholds for the value of battery components that must be manufactured or assembled in the region. Essentially any EVs with battery components made or processed in China would be ineligible for the subsidy.


These thresholds also target crucial battery materials, such as lithium and nickel, requiring a certain percentage to be sourced domestically or from the U.S.’s free-trade partners.


Car-industry lobbyists say meeting the new requirements on batteries could take years to achieve. The majority of processing for major battery minerals, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, is done in China, according to research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

 

[NW-Bound]

Update on the nearby lithium battery fire. Now 13 months after the fire, I read a few days ago that all of the burned batteries have been removed. They have several monitoring stations around the site, so I’m sure they are still collecting data. Site is totally fenced off. But otherwise, life in the neighborhood appears to be normal.

I searched on the forum for your post, but could not find it.

However, I can find this fire on the EPA Web site: https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=15259.

Below is the background. Note the 184,000 lbs of lithium cells. That's only 200 EVs worth. A big EV like the Rivian is 2,000 lbs of battery. A semi-truck battery will be 10,000 lbs. That fire could have been just the batteries from 18 semis.

At approximately 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, an old paper mill storing an estimated volume of 184,000 lbs of lithium batteries caught fire due to unknown causes. The Grundy County Emergency Management Agency ordered a 1/2 mile evacuation of nearby residents due to the presence of hazardous substances within the building. At approximately 2 p.m., Illinois EPA requested assistance from U.S. EPA due to the large scale of the fire and the proximity to residential areas.

 

[Ronstar]

I searched on the forum for your post, but could not find it.

However, I can find this fire on the EPA Web site: https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=15259.

Below is the background. Note the 184,000 lbs of lithium cells. That's only 200 EVs worth. A big EV like the Rivian is 2,000 lbs of battery. A semi-truck battery will be 10,000 lbs. That fire could have been just the batteries from 18 semis.

Not a big site - only 3 acres of which maybe 1.5 acres was under roof. Wasn't a big fire - they just had a hard time putting it out. I've ridden around the outside of the fence, but cant really see what's going on inside. But I don't think they will be storing lithium batteries there anymore.

 

[RobLJ]

Recycling lithium cells is indeed a hazardous and dirty job. ...
But then, there have been just worn-out tire fires that were horrible too.

Yes, we enjoy our "stuff", but choose to close our eyes and ears about the problems in the production and disposal of our toys. Nope, not our problem.

Not to mention the coal sludge pits, nuclear waste "disposal" sites, etc, etc., most of which we have not addressed in the last 50 years, although the Superfund clean-ups continue since the original owners are long gone.

 

[braumeister]

NW-Bound, do not worry about little items like recycling lithium batteries and big fires you can't put out for days. Fusion energy will save us all and there will be birds singing and flowers blooming over the landfills created by all the disposed of EV's and other junk we humans generate.

It's all in how you look at it.