Electrickery is coming. GULP!
 

A long read, but I like stuff like this and thought it might interest others here

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/10...edium=referral

Yup.

I'm not sure it's Tesla they need to worry about, it's the likes of Hyundai etc.

Model 3 deliveries in the UK are akin to Duke Nukem Forever release dates.

Who cares whether it's Tesla or not? Musk doesn't (really..). Model 3 UK configurations will happen this spring, with deliveries to clear the 18k+ backlogged day 1 reservations in the summer.

That'll please my colleague, in the time he's been waiting he's seen my Zoe be delivered, driven for 2 and a bit years and handed back to RCI.

He should had bought a used Model S while he waited then, like a lot of M3 reservation holders have done: then he would have had the full Tesla experience - useable range n'all ;)

Interesting article +++

However, he fails to mention the main challenge facing BEV mass adoption; infrastructure scalability.

Presently the number of BEVs on the road is relatively low, yet I believe queuing for a charging spot at service stations is already becoming quite common. But there's an even bigger problem to address. Even if you can install new charging stations fast enough to keep up with BEV sales, how do you generate enough electricity to keep up with the charging demand of all those vehicles? Considering that to fully charge a BEV probably takes about as much energy as the average home consumes in a single day, unless we can make every charging point self-sufficient, we're probably going to need to double the capacity of the National Grid to get anywhere close to mass adoption.

The problem is, the National Grid is already being pushed to the limit, especially during winter months. If it's to cope with the extra demand, we'll need a LOT more wind farms and power stations, not to mention thousands of miles of extra cables to carry the load. While that's all technically possible, in practice it will cost billions and take several decades to achieve. Generating electricity local to the charging stations is another possibility but, to generate electrical energy on a par with that which is currently provided by fossil fuel-based service stations, every service station would need to invest in biomass generators, wind turbines, solar panels, etc ... which would also require a lot of land.

As much as I like Teslas and believe that BEVs are the future, unfortunately, in the short term at least, I believe HEVs are the way forward. The article suggests that most car manufacturers have 'got it wrong' by focusing on HEVs, citing a trend in which the Prius became "the #1 traded-in car for a Tesla Model 3 in the US". Well that's hardly surprising since most Prius drivers will already be EV-converts, making the Prius a stepping stone in the leap toward BEVs. Also, most car buyers only care about the short-term benefits and the practicalities of owning a BEV right now (or for as long as they plan to own the car at least). But what happens when there are millions more BEVs on the road and long queues at the charging stations? Or worse, what if large-scale BEV adoption leads to power rationing because the power stations can't cope with the demand? If the situation gets bad, we could even see a ban on BEVs and owners rushing to trade them in for HEVs.

In short, I think Teslas are great cars and BEVs are definitely the future but we're not ready for them yet. Maybe in another decade or two. In the short-term, the only practical way towards mass-adoption of EVs is with self-charging hybrid technologies.

Does the Tesla experience include the ability to sh*t money? :ROFL:

Given the market sector for the M3 and other aspects such as paid Supercharger access, I'm not sure how well that'd pitch. Either that or some pricing expectations are about to take a bath.

As you might expect Mark, I disagree with that analysis, for several key reasons (apart from the fact that the link is to an article that's nearly 4 years old :) ).

1. Energy peaks and changing dynamics in usage: as car owners switch to EVs, their modus operandi changes from "fill when you're empty" to "fill when convenient to". Smart technology for EVs helps with this, in lots of ways, from scheduling charging, using mobile apps to guide users to available charge points, accurate monitoring of range, etc, etc. Allied to which most of this energy usage is likely to be off-peak - e.g. overnight, whilst shopping in the evening/weekends, etc. This takes a while for ICE (and new EV!) owners to get their head around, but it happens, eventually.

2. Efficient storage: this in becoming much more common, whether at a local/individual level or at a macro level, and will continue to increase, further diluting the risk of "peak" issues. In addition, we've only just scratched the surface of the idea of using the cars themselves to "load balance" by feeding back into the grid, where required: that might sound far fetched, but is really no different in principle to the FIT approaches used at present.

3. Cabling and infrastructure: Whilst I agree some of this will be needed, it's hardly a showstopper for the grid. If you work on the (reasonable) assumption that a lot of the wind/wave power is remote/coastal, then that tends to be not far from where a lot of our current nuclear sites are - and will continue to be. The same applies to "point of use" infrastructure: if Tesla can install more than 10000 superchargers as a start-up, just imagine what the established players - who actually have some cash - could do.

4. The tipping of the Hydrocarbon vs "Clean Energy" end-to-end value chain: The full cost of the former is rising all the time (including, but not limited to, greater extraction cost - fracking anyone?), whereas the latter is falling exponentially, meaning that the economic tipping point for owners of refuelling has already arrived. In that context, Hybrids make no real sense to own and run, other than that they have been cheaper than "proper" range EVs - until the arrival of the Tesla Model 3/Hyundai Kona/Ionic/etc - which have been quite expensive to buy, though this article: (https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-own-run-study) in today's news quotes a survey that says EVs are already cheaper to own and run.

Hybrids on the other hand are, almost without exception, "compliance" cars designed and built to meet emissions standards/take advantage of tax breaks/mislead naive consumers on fuel efficiency, and are likely - as the article states - to be traded in for the "real thing" once owners get wise to this. This can already be seen in the poor resale values of such vehicles, which are falling almost as quickly as diesel car values in the more advanced car markets. And how is it sensible or efficient to have two forms of propulsion in one vehicle? it's a compromise, and a poor one at that.

So, if I was a betting man, I'd stick with EVs, all the way - sorry Mark.:D

I was reading about the new generation of 450KW charging stations recently and it just blew my mind. Most EVs appear to have 400V battery systems, so thats a charge current of over 1000 amps :eek: It needs a liquid-cooled connector which is just mental. If that much power escapes it will happily vapourise any inadvertently-connected human and pretty much anything else which is in the way. Its an entirely new paradigm to have that much elastictrickery in the hands of the general public so it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

Also worth pondering - a typical 11KV local substation has a total rating of 1MW, so basically two of those chargers! To put half a dozen of them at a service station, Tesla-style, you'd need a dedicated 132KV industrial supply line and associated (large) substation. Ironically, that might be fine in the countryside where there's plenty of space and you can run new power poles, but getting that sort of juice in cities is going to be a real challenge. Its entirely likely chargers of this type will have to be one-to-a-site simply because there isn't enough infrastructure to support more, which backs up the queues for chargers scenario.

Interesting times +++