Two Months with an Electric Car

[travelover]

I think I got this discussion going in the wrong direction by talking about my experiments with range.
...........

No, the problem is you went out and bought an electric car without permission from the experts here and now you have the nerve to be actually enjoying it.

Have you no shame?

 

[NW-Bound]

Nah, we never have consensus on anything. Travel or stay home. Pay off the mortgage or not. Drawing SS early or late. Retire and let wife work or not. OMY or not. Eat out everyday or cook at home. Buying a 2nd home or not. Be a landlord or not. Picking stock or indexing. Dividend stock or growth.

I just want T-Al to know nobody's picking on him personally.

 

[FIREmenow]

Why do they all have to be so damn ugly?

I would easily have bought a used one by now for my 8mi ride to work if they didn't look like crap! (yeah, I care about that). No amount of fun can overcome that for me right now......

[Edit] - I can't afford an i8 or a Tesla.

 

[NW-Bound]

Hey, "ugliness" is in the eye of the beholder. I have not owned one, but I think they look fine.

Some recent ICE cars I have seen are ugly as sin. Some have headlights that look like those on toy cars. The missus even agreed with me.

 

[ERD50]

...

I just want T-Al to know nobody's picking on him personally.

The idea that anyone is picking on him, or don't like that he is enjoying the car seems totally manufactured to me. I have no idea why anyone would think that way? It just strikes me as a straw man to knock down. But why?

The only thing I can figure, is those people want to be able to reject any and all critiques of an EV, so they lump them all together as 'sour grapes' or knee-jerk reaction, or whatever?

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

It is the latter.

There have been different conclusions drawn related to the issue of overall environmental impact. That doesn't concern me much. I chose an electric car for the fun and the simplicity of it. ...

You should have left it as "(environmental impact) doesn't concern me much".

But then you throw in a source that says EVs are better. Might make a guy feel like he needs to respond to that...

-ERD50

 

[swakyaby]

Some people just seem like thread-killers.

But I do enjoy your musings on owning an electric car, TA.

 

[HFWR]

I drive whatever I want, and y'all can kiss my ICE!

 

[TromboneAl]

This thread made me think about what it is I enjoy about having an electric car. I've decided it's:

1. The simplicity of fewer moving parts.
2. Fewer liquids

Moving Parts

I have a clear memory of hearing, as a child, a commercial that touted a product as having fewer moving parts. I recall wondering why that was a selling point. My dad explained the advantage of fewer moving parts, and ever since I've been a fan of things that have fewer moving parts.

It's why I like this:

better than this:

or this:

An electric motor has fewer moving parts,

An ICE has more.

Plus, an electric car doesn't need a transmission:

The Tesla motor is predicted to last 1,000,000 miles.

Fewer Liquids

I liked physics better than chemistry because there were fewer messy liquids involved. That's why I didn't consider a car with a gasoline range extender. I wanted to be done with gas and oil. Yes, there are some liquids in the LEAF.

The two times I've driven our 1999 Tacoma since getting the LEAF, it's felt clunky and old-fashioned. Granted, it is eighteen years old, but starting it up and putting gas in it and having exhaust come out just seems messy.

-------------

So, those are my musings about why I like having an electric car. I can't defend them as valid, but it's how I feel.

 

[NW-Bound]

I am all sold on EVs. And I do not care for a muscle EV like the Tesla either.

But I will hang out for a while to make sure their battery will last. Besides, my existing cars still run, and I am frugal and not a car lover.

 

[travelover]

This thread made me think about what it is I enjoy about having an electric car. I've decided it's:

1. The simplicity of fewer moving parts.
2. Fewer liquids

...................................................

I have a clear memory of hearing, as a child, a commercial that touted a product as having fewer moving parts. I recall wondering why that was a selling point. My dad explained the advantage of fewer moving parts, and ever since I've been a fan of things that have fewer moving parts.

So, those are my musings about why I like having an electric car. I can't defend them as valid, but it's how I feel.

Nice try, Al. You may get forgiveness, but never permission.

 

[ERD50]

This thread made me think about what it is I enjoy about having an electric car. I've decided it's:

1. The simplicity of fewer moving parts.
2. Fewer liquids

...

So, those are my musings about why I like having an electric car. I can't defend them as valid, but it's how I feel.

Far fewer moving parts is a definite attraction for an EV (along with quiet and impressive acceleration). Here's an alternative I've talked about - only one added moving part, and eliminates the range issues (that are very real for most people, even if you have not experienced them... yet).

The Route Powertrain | Wrightspeed Powertrains

Add a turbine engine, it runs at only one speed/load to recharge the batteries when needed, and provides a real environmental benefit (reduced fuel consumption and cleaner burning, rather than moving the pollution to the electric generation plant).

This doesn't appear to scale down to passenger cars presently, it looks like the turbine needs to be truck-sized. It is too expensive and I think not efficient enough at smaller sizes for a car. Future advances in material sciences might make a turbine practical at small sizes in the future, but maybe not. But that's a good thing in a way, as Wright points out, these trucks consume a LOT of fuel (low mpg and high annual miles). Better to focus on mpg improvements where it counts. More in this thread:

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...t-the-bad-and-the-ugly-73304.html#post1746288

And while the lower parts count is certainly attractive, in real terms it seems to not be a very big deal. The drive trains of today's cars are so reliable, it seems that there are really very few problems. Spark plugs rated for 100,000 miles. I think one is much more likely to have problems with all the common accessory parts - A/C-heat, window mechanisms, radio, etc.

The two times I've driven our 1999 Tacoma since getting the LEAF, it's felt clunky and old-fashioned. Granted, it is eighteen years old, but starting it up and putting gas in it and having exhaust come out just seems messy.

And granted, it can haul firewood like I've seen in some of your other posts. Not much of a comparison. Your Leaf has an exhaust pipe too, it's just miles away at the fossil fuel plant on your grid that powers the marginal added electric power needed for your EV.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

An advantage of the EV is that electric motors are much more efficient than combustion engines.

One gallon of gasoline has the energy of 33 kWh. T-Al said his Leaf gets 3.9 mi/kWh. So, that would be 129 mpg for the ideal conversion. That high number allows for a lot of inefficiencies in the power generation, transmission, charging, and discharging processes. Large generating stations are much more efficient than a bunch of little ones.

From what I see, the real drawback remains the cost and lifetime of the battery. I am very curious to see if Elon Musk can solve this problem as he promised.

By the way, the 33kWh that is contained in 1 gal of gasoline costs me $2.31 during off-peak hours, and $7.21 during on-peak, as delivered to my wall outlets. That's pretty darn good, and we should not forget to give credit to the power companies (yes, some of them burn coal to give us that cheap power ).

 

[ERD50]

An advantage of the EV is that electric motors are much more efficient than combustion engines.

One gallon of gasoline has the energy of 33 kWh. T-Al said his Leaf gets 3.9 mi/kWh. So, that would be 129 mpg for the ideal conversion. That high number allows for a lot of inefficiencies in the power generation, transmission, charging, and discharging processes. Large generating stations are much more efficient than a bunch of little ones. ...

Not really such a big difference in efficiency overall. I did the math with clifp a while back. While the most modern generation plants are listed as ~ 60% efficiency, these are not common - they need to be co-located where the lower level heat can be used.

From my notes, 35%-40% is more typical for a large gas turbine at the generating station. Then offset by ~ 8% grid loss, and 10%-15% charging losses, and ~ 10% driving losses (rough estimates), and you have:

.37 * .92 * .87 *. 9 ~ 26.7% efficiency for an EV. Good, but a modern hybrid probably is pretty close to that? Or .37 * .92 * .87 * the 129 mpg-e (the driving losses are included in the 129 # I think) you mentioned would be ~ 38.2 mpg, which a hybrid can beat.

Of course this can keep going into the weeds, including the refining 'costs' for the gasoline versus the coal/NG for an EV, etc. But rough cut wise, while the electric motor is amazingly efficient at converting the energy in the battery to forward motion, it is only a small step in the overall process, and doesn't appear to be so great compared to a modern hybrid.

(edit for driving losses included, I think, in the 129 mpg estimate)

-ERD50

 

[Beldar]

This thread made me think about what it is I enjoy about having an electric car. I've decided it's:

Oh how I remember working with those things!

_B

 

[GravitySucks]

Oh how I remember working with those things!



_B

I remember having to adjust the tracking.

 

[Totoro]

Nice sneak preview of the Tesla Gigafactory. Preview as in you don't get the see the actual manufacturing process.

This thing is huge ..

 

[TromboneAl]

A recent experiment: Driving 12 miles at 55 MPH with no sudden accelerations used up 18% less juice than driving those same miles with two pedal-the-the-metal accelerations and a speed of 65 MPH.

Our longest trip without charging was 70 miles, and we had 20 remaining when we got home.

And most important: It still has some new-car smell.

 

[Koolau]

And most important: It still has some new-car smell.

Probably just some ozone!

 

[meierlde]

Not really such a big difference in efficiency overall. I did the math with clifp a while back. While the most modern generation plants are listed as ~ 60% efficiency, these are not common - they need to be co-located where the lower level heat can be used.


-ERD50

Note that the quoted efficiency for a combined cycle gas turbine is about 60% since the waste heat from the gas turbine is used to make steam and drive a steam turbine. It is these plants that are making older coal plants and nuclear plants uneconomic.
BTW as an aside the first central station plants were about 5% efficient (input energy to output energy at the Pearl Street Edison Station in NYC). Apparently it was hard to get a lot of efficiency from a reciprocating steam engine. It is this factor of 12 increase in efficiency that has resulted in the drastic fall in the real cost of electricity since 1880.

 

[ERD50]

Note that the quoted efficiency for a combined cycle gas turbine is about 60% since the waste heat from the gas turbine is used to make steam and drive a steam turbine. It is these plants that are making older coal plants and nuclear plants uneconomic. ....

Yes, but as I understand, Combined Cycle plants make up a small portion of total electrical power. You need a co-located demand for the lower heat output.

This source:

Cogeneration / Combined Heat and Power (CHP) | Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

mentions CC makes up ~ 9% of total US electrical production, and talks about the effects of reaching 20% by 2030 (though they are not forecasting that number).

So 60% efficiency is great, but if it applies to say 15% of the output, and the other 85% is at 30%, it only moves the average from 30% to 34.5%.


-ERD50