Plug-In Vehicles: A Luxury No Nation Can Afford

Edited to explain that the paragraph above is the first paragraph from the linked article, not anything cacti is saying here.

Also, the thesis seems to be that EVs take too many batteries, so we should stick to current hybrids in greater quantity to maximize savings. This is a quick read, but originally this post kind of went after cacti as a possible troll, and I don't think that is true at all.

 

The problem in the article is this claim:

The claim is one EV requires 10 times as much battery capacity as one hybrid. There are some very light capacity 'hybrids', the GM belt-assisted ones, that barely merit being called a hybrid, in that range. But building 'auto-stop' vehicles and calling them a hybrid forgets the goal is to save fuel.

Bob Wilson

 

Prius has 1.31kWh HV battery pack. I don't know any EV with 13kWh. Even the Volt plugin hybrid has 16kWh pack. Nissan Leaf has 24kWh.

18x is more accurate than 10x they claimed.

 

If I undertsand the article correctly, he is saying it would be more effective for this one plant to put its production into hybrids, not EVs. I don't see anything about improving the economics of the overall market by producing more EVs. Interesting, but limited.

 

To me, the big picture is that all degrees of electrification are needed. We don't want volts running up and down the freeways, yet it could make great sense for many (price aside) who live mostly within its AER. Certainly, BEVs should be driven enough to warrant their consumption of available batteries. But the free-market will take care of this if allowed, ensuring the best use of each type vehicle and of battery production capacity.

 

And inexplicably, the author presumes the earth has a giant creamy nougat center, filled with magically replenishing fossil fuel, so that we'll never never run out ... which is convenient, when you want the status quo to continue on ad infinitum. Curiously, the author writes NOTHING about any of the following that NO Nation Can Afford:

Nukes:
Hate mongers:
Food Shortages:
Trillion Dollar Defense Budgets:
Trillion Dollar Budget Defecits:
Bio-Wepons:
etc.

Yet countries always seem to manage to find a way to have things that they can't afford to have.

.

 

I read the whole thing including the comments and it was NOT a quick read. I agree with your thought but more, the author is stuck without ANY concept of the future. It took forty years to perfect the ICE car and it will take a large fraction of that to perfect the EV. But the EV must be adopted for use to be developed. This is what the author is overlooking. He has no concept of the POSSIBILITIES which can happen with adoption of the EV. He must actually see them to believe them.

Given this limitation, he is actually a pretty good thinker. He is not flattered by the article alone. He elaborates and responds to comments in the comment section. It really is worth the time to read it all.

There will be a lot of lead time needed for what ever alternative seems to be most promising. A better storage device for electricity would be best. Lacking that, really fast and widely available mass transit will be needed. Those who follow us need to be ready for the inevitable end of cheap petroleum.

 

I admit, I didn't read the whole article. But I have to chime in. I think right now the best solution for the USA is the plug-in hybrid. For example, something like the Prius that can go 10 to 20 miles on a charge, and run the rest of the time on gasoline. These don't require nearly as large of a battery. Lets think about it, if 100% of the population were driving vehicles such as this and driving the first 10 to 20 miles of their daily drive on electric, and only using gasoline when needed, I'd bet our gasoline consumption (for personal transit) would probably be only 5% to 10% of what it is today.

 

I read the summary only because the authors conclusion seems to rest on no increase in demand for oil and therefore increases in price AND no advances in (battery) technology. IOW, seems to presume that gasoline costs won't increase appreciably and that battery cost/EV technology costs won't decrease. Both seem to be directly at odds with history.

• There was a time that cars themselves were luxury items that only the uber-rich could afford.
• Aren't all great inventions things that were once thought to be impossible? There was a time we could not go to the moon.

An interesting aside to me is could we actually wean ourselves off oil before supply runs out, such that oil will become relatively cheap, even worthless? Wouldn't that be ironic? However, human behavior and market economics will probably preclude same.

 

My two cents.

First, the article is poorly argued. It assumes that factory capacity for producing batteries is the limiting factor in sales of hybrids. Only if that is true does diverting capacity to EVs reduce the number of hybrids or PHEVs.

But the limiting factor in hybrid sales is sales, not production. Near as I can tell. So there's no argument there, at least not at present.

Second, for PHEVs, the factories making the PHEV batteries (such as A123 here in the US) are completely divorced from those making batteries for hybrids. In fact, A123 was in the running for the Volt but didn't get the contract. So, making Hymotion-conversion Prius PHEVs diverts nothing from Prius production, up to the point where we hit that mythical shortage of lithium.

So, the whole idea that there is some tradeoff is fantasy. It's a production-oriented view of the world, but production isn't the limiting factor for hybrid sales, and at present PHEV and hybrid battery lines are not interchangeable.

So, right now, the basic argument is wrong.

That said, I own a PHEV Prius, and there is definitely diminishing marginal returns to battery size. I think that PHEV may in fact be the optimum tradeoff right now, in terms of substituting (expensive) battery for gasoline. Only if battery prices fall a lot (and it sure looks like they will) would you buy more battery capacity.

Once upon a time I took the National Household Transportation (or Trip?) Survey and ran the numbers. It's a survey of actual driving and other transport use. Let me assume you can only recharge once per day, so I can look at total vehicle miles in a day, and figure out what fraction of total US gasoline driving you'd displace with an N mile battery pack, for the average of all US household driving.

5 mile pack - 12%
10 mile pack - 23%
15 mile pack - 32%
20 mile pack - 40%

That's conservative in a lot of ways -- one recharge per day, average person (instead of persons whose driving is well-suited to PHEV). But it shows the point.

Supposed you wanted to double the savings to 80% -- how much battery do you need under these circumstances? Four times as much -- 80 mile pack.

I got the Hymotion conversion, and at current prices, no way it'll pay for itself. I'd have to drive over half a million total miles. But if the battery were half that price, and gas were twice as expensive, it would pay for itself in a vehicle lifetime.

But it's no cure anyway, if you charge off the grid. In Virginia, I estimate that my electrical miles generate about 30% less C02 emissions than my gasoline miles. So in terms of bang-per-buck, it's far from the cheapest way of avoiding C02 emissions.

If I had it to do over, I'd still do it. It's interesting, it's American tech, it helps some (I estimated a 2 year period to "pay back" the carbon generated in manufacturing the battery). It's not cheap. And I don't think I'd get an EV at this time, I think PHEV hits the current sweet spot based on battery prices, gas prices, and the capital cost of a car.

 

I was surprised as an EV owner and driver for several years that this article together with the comment section actually changed my perspective on the subject. It is hard to know who is correct when obviously smart folks disagree. How is all of this going to play out? Will someone come forth with a game changing invention which we do not know about yet?

There are two things which are fairly certain. Petroleum will run out and batteries which are feasible to carry presently do not store enough energy for the length of trip that many wish to be able to take. Beyond that that it gets hazy. So I now agree with chogan that my draw to EVs is because I like them not because they make hard sense in the big picture. I also cling to the belief that EVs must be owned by real people if they are to be developed for the future. If I am misguided, this is probably a harmless position to take.

More specifically, however, EVs DO make sense as a partner for ICE cars by taking over short range trips which are the weak area for ICE cars. I am finding that by keeping my ICE car longer and supplementing it with a short range EV, it is not a financial burden. In fact, by relieving my ICE car of short trips, it wears much better. Actual numbers (cost and miles) probably would not be very useful since my one experience may not be representative nor statistically useful. But it works.

The bottom line is that those who REALLY prefer not to burn gasoline can make almost as much a contribution as burning NO gasoline by driving a PHEV at a fraction of the cost. This should make a greater aggregate contribution to the problem. This is a good example of the perfect being less useful than the good.

 

The title of this topic: "Plug-In Vehicles: A Luxury No Nation Can Afford: is so unthinking. Please, folks, allow inventive ideas to take root. Then the future will be profitable, productive, and healthy for everyone everywhere.

Jim

 

Jim, I am surprised at your comment! I often see thoughts which suggest that some people are not open to the thinking of others, "closed minded", in other words. Surely you don't count yourself as "closed minded".

Sometimes those who have a different point of view DO have SOME merit in what they say.

I read the comment section to this IN SPITE of the article title and found the responses to the article fascinating. The author chimed in, often, with responses to which the commenters then responded. The exchanges were stimulating and informative.

If you didn't read the comments section, you missed the best part!

Allan