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 +++

No need to apologise Stephen. I'm not claiming to have all the facts. Just stating my thoughts on the issue (as I presently see it). I'm a man of science, so I enjoy a good debate. Please do tell me if any of my assumptions are wrong :)

Off-peak charging is a very good point. I hadn't considered that. But do we have sufficient off-peak energy available? I mean, are we not already offsetting peak usage to some degree with things like 'pumped hydroelectric energy storage'. And incentives such as 'Economy 7', for electricity consumers to use off-peak electricity for storage heaters, etc, must go some way towards balancing the demand. No doubt smart charging systems could take advantage of any remaining dips in demand and store the energy for later use, but will that really be enough? There's also storage efficiency to bear in mind. I don't know how efficient the latest energy storage systems are, but there will always be energy losses in the charging/discharging stages. I would be surprised if they manage any better than around 60-80% efficiency.

The BBC news article about the National Grid capacity is the newest info I could find (with just a quick search) but has the notable downward trend really been reversed in recent years? I suppose the switch to technologies such as LED lighting, for example, will have had some positive effects, but is that enough to offset our increasing use of technology and the energy needed to power it?

I'm very much pro-EV and I really do hope that we can 'make room' for EV charging by making use of off-peak electricity and reducing energy demands in other areas but how do the figures stack up? It would certainly be interesting to see a 5/10 year projection, comparing EV growth and energy requirements vs the available/surplus electrical energy capacity.

I'm confident we can solve all the technical challenges over time, I'm just not sure we can solve them quickly enough to make the leap from ICE to EV as quickly as we perhaps need to, but I remain open to persuasion if there's good evidence to indicate that we have sufficient surplus electrical energy to accommodate the huge demand of charging millions of EVs. In the absence of such evidence my money would still be on hybrid vehicles continuing to bridge the gap in the short-term.

I think one way forward might be hybrid vehicles that use small combustion engines purely to charge the batteries. I drove a brand new Prius recently and I was actually quite surprised how good they are. Ugliness and mini-cab associations aside, they do drive well and, with the help of regenerative braking, they're extremely efficient. The Prius of course sits half way between being an ICE car and and EV, with a small engine supplementing the electric motor and making up for the lack of battery range. They have some of the advantages of both ICE cars and EVs but most of the disadvantages too.

I think it would be better to go full-EV (like the Teslas) but provide a small on-board generator for charging the batteries instead of an engine. Such a generator could run on fuels that are much more environmentally-friendly and it could even be made removable/optional. One way to give the vehicle wider appeal would be to use a removable, modular battery section. If you had say 20% of the battery that was removable, which could be replaced with a generator for those that need/want to be able to charge their batteries on the move. Anyone who doesn't need/want the generator could instead remove it and plug in the battery extension for a greater range.

Wow! :eek:

I hadn't actually done the maths and I was thinking 450KW would probably be enough to charge many cars simultaneously. Still, it should be sufficient to charge a few cars simultaneously at slower charging rates.

I don't know what the charging rate of a typical EV is but, if we take a Tesla P100D, for example, which I believe has a 100kWh battery pack, it would take 100kW of energy for one hour to fully recharge it. Assuming a 400 volt battery pack, that's a 'mere' 250 amps!

Of course if you want to charge the same battery in 15 minutes (do any EVs charge that fast yet?) that would be 400kW @ 1000 amps!


At the other end of the scale, if my maths is correct, you could charge the same battery pack overnight (say 10 hours) using 10kW @ 25 amps, which would theoretically allow simultaneous charging of 45 cars from a 450kW supply.

I know I am a Luddite when it comes to EVs, and this kinda sums it up for me

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/ele...wkaAomfvkplIBU

How can they build something as lovely as that and ruin it by not fitting the V8 in it..we live in sad times indeed IMHO. If I ever have grandkids (unlikely really:))
they will never experience the raw noise of a V12, V10 or V8 and I think that's rather sad.

(just away to find my flameproof suit) :ROFL:

V8/10/12 engines are like steam trains: utterly lovely, but with no future :eek: (runs for cover in a flameproof suit to an underground bunker not marked on the map... :rolleyes: ).

That doesn't make me particularly happy either as an individual who loves his V8 (more than steam trains ;) ) but progress is progress, and I love my Tesla just as much as my stunningly lovely S8, and - on balance - it is better at what it's supposed to do.

The 450KW is a single charger for a single vehicle https://www.electrive.com/2018/12/13...ing-at-450-kw/

At 450KW they can give 60 miles range in 3 minutes, which is a game changer for long journeys. Stop for a coffee for ten minutes and you have another 200 miles of range.

Given the infrastructure required to do this I expect we will see a hybrid approach where these things only exist at motorway services where there is room for the kit, and charging at home is done overnight at lower rates.

ah that's where we disagree, it's not quite there yet:p

That vill no safe you.
Ve knowing whoe the Manchester Bunker ist!!

I know exactly what you mean Brian.

For me it's not just the sound. It's the power, the science, the engineering achievement and the thought of all those precisely machined parts moving in perfect harmony, at an incredible rate. And it's the awe I feel from seeing all of that in an engine large enough to accelerate a great deal of weight very quickly.

But I get all of that by experiencing a powerful EV too, just in a very different way. As the electricity rushes into those powerful motors and they urgently whir into life, rapidly accelerating the car with such force, it's still a thrilling sound to hear. The moving parts are fewer but I feel a similar sense of awe and achievement thinking about the electronics and computations that are making it all happen (but I'm an electronics engineer so maybe that's just me).

What I'm trying to say is that one does not replace the other for me. I like big engines and fast EVs for similar, yet quite different, reasons.


And I don't think your grandkids or mine (even less likely since I don't even kids!) wouldn't really need to miss out on the V8/10/12 experience. They may never know what it's like to drive one on a daily basis but I suspect there will always be plenty of combustion-engined vehicles preserved for posterity.

As Stephen implies, our V8/10/12s are the steam trains of the future, and steam trains have never really gone away (not for me anyway; I live less than a mile from the East Lancs steam railway so I hear them most days!). And personally, in much the same way, I find a modern high-speed train just as thrilling to watch as an old powerful steam locomotive.

Tesla might need to put longer cords on their chargers :ROFL:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...00a139ac3b.jpg

Does anyone know if the cable is giving out DC or AC?
Is the charger (AC-DC) in the car itself or in the lectern box?

It doesn't matter if there is not enough wind or sun, there is an acre of row upon row of diesel generators at a secret location near me run by https://www.greenfrogpower.co.uk/maintenance powering the EV hargers.:D

I would imagine it gives out DC, otherwise you'd need an enormous rectifier/regulator in the car to be able to handle that kind of power. It would make more sense to rectify and regulate the voltage at the charging station rather than burden each vehicle with the bulk and weight of the extra circuitry.

So behind every bank of 450KW chargers there's going to be a several MW gas-powered generator :ROFL:

No, they will be diesel obviously...…. :ROFL:

Then someone will look at that and say, hey we know how to build small efficient diesel engines cheaply so why not cut out the heavy expensive batteries and just put diesel in every vehicle.....

It depends by vehicle - the Zoe I had was AC charging. It's an AC motor anyway, so all they are doing is reversing the direction through the conversion system

Batteries are DC though. You can't store AC. The AC required for the motors is generated by on-board inverters. I don't have the technical details but it's likely that the inverters pulse the DC (thus generating a pseudo AC), and control the power to the motors by adjusting the duty-cycle (on-off ratio), also known as PWM (Pulse Width Modulation).

Even if the vehicle receives an AC charging feed, there will have to be rectification and voltage regulation for charging. For slow-charging vehicles it's practical to have that circuitry on-board. But, if you're fast-charging at hundreds of amps, you're gonna need some pretty big rectifier diodes!

Yeah exactly ^ The articles I've seen say that slow chargers tend to feed AC in to the vehicle's on-board charger up to about 20KW, but those 100+KW fast chargers feed DC direct in to the battery and have the power electronics in the charging station.

800V @ 500A DC :eek3:

That is a staggering amount of power! In fact I'm amazed they can fit the circuitry that can handle that into the charging station.

To put it into perspective, the closest PSU I can find is 800V @ 400A, available courtesy of the Suzhou Lingfran Electric Co., Ltd:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...445757754.html

https://i.imgur.com/J7Nj9ht.png


Should just about fit in a Tesla boot I reckon! +++

I'm amazed they can fit a consumer-safe connector of that scale in to a car.

Apparently the connector and the cable are liquid cooled, and the proof of concept 400KW charger's cooling system could heard over the neighbouring truckstop!

Yeah, that's certainly some achievement to produce a connector capable of handling that amount of power safely!

Especially when you consider the average domestic mains plug/socket tends to char and burn if you run it at the full rated power for more than about 10 minutes .... And that's just 240v @ 13 Amps! :eek3:

Like everything else in the pipedream realm
Nobody understands the power/weight ratio.


DC at that power needs a rather fat cable.


Car starter is 12 volts @ 100Amps and look at the size of the battery to starter cable.
Think of the heat that would be generated if a connection became slightly loose.
Then the connectors being used by Joe Public.
Hopefully not in my time.

Yep.

That's pretty much the process it uses. IIRC when charging it runs through an additional rectifier to the traction motor circuit, and then uses the motor's stator for inductance filtering.

As of when I handed mine back, most fast chargers (excluding the Tesla network) were 43AC/50DC. One assumes they'll have to come up with something new as the chargers increase their rate. Or abandon it completely, which seems quite possible given that they're more or less the only ones that are AC only.

very interesting reading
 

but being from derbyshire and a bit thick the only AC/DC i know is one of the best rock bands ever..
and its good to see the old Diesel Geny waiting in the back ground to help..
:)

And not so much in the background in some cases:

Attachment 20892 Attachment 20893


As Kermit used to say, "It's not easy being green" :D

Fantastic :) that shows derv is here to stay lol

trains
boats
planes
generators
home heating
cranes
jcb,s
diggers
dumpers
etc etc
ooh and hi-brids
ooh and
my A8 ++++++++++++

As our IC cars have engine numbers and these are printed on registration documents etc... do electric cars have motor numbers or similar?

That's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about that.

I suppose the serial number is more important with IC engines since it's necessary to tie mileage with the engine as a wear-indicator. With much less moving parts, I suspect wear is less important with EV motors.

Thanks moltuae.
What do you all think of this?
A TESLA powered AUDI!+++
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFr5Sm8KE5E

Next....
 

https://electrek.co/2019/03/07/tesla...on-first-look/ +++

On the related subject of renewable energy, this recent TED talk is well worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w

As we rush headlong into renewables, it seems that our misguided attempts to save the planet are actually destroying the environment and doing far more harm than good. And what's worse, we've had the answer to producing clean energy for more than 70 years but we choose to ignore it, rather than strive to perfect it and make it even safer, because a misinformed public opinion has deemed it to be dangerous, dirty and not worthy of consideration.

https://i.imgur.com/5GFjhkN.png


https://i.imgur.com/IvymsFK.png

Here's an interesting article also about the nuclear industry, and goes into how clean nuclear could really be. The link points to the Wayback Machine, as the link on the real site doesn't work.

https://web.archive.org/web/20131005...m/busted1.html