Electric Cars are failing with Taxi Drivers

I've put 30,000 miles on my LEAF in a bit less than two years and the battery pack is holding up fine. The issue with LEAFs as taxis is likely due to the battery never having a chance to cool down, as it is passively cooled and quick charging generates a lot of heat. An EV with a thermally managed pack should do much better in taxi service. However, only the pricey Tesla S supports fast charging AND has a liquid cooled pack.

And, yes, electric cars are generally greener, in spite of the FUD.

 

We have no idea how much capacity the batteries lost and how many (if any) capacity bars they lost (see pic at Battery Capacity Loss - MyNissanLeaf, it's the thin bar all the way on the right).

As for how much would it cost, we have no idea. Nissan to this day has still provided no price on entire battery pack. The said they'd give us price in spring. I doubt that replacing a few modules would help in most cases. I'd imagine the wear would be pretty uniform across modules.

 

It probably could. Yes it manages 6 seaters, wheelchair accessible cars, estate cars (station wagons) etc, so probably could be upgraded to EV's. The problem is that the longer runs, especially the 'back to back' airport or station runs are where you make the money.

 

PNNL: News - Mileage from megawatts

Old news from 2006:
"Department of Energy finds that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 70% percent of the U.S. light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet, if they were plug-in hybrid electrics"
So the whole "7x as many power plants" line is complete BS.

Large coal and nuclear power production can't be turned up and down to match demand curves. This is why a lot of off peak generation is simply wasted that electric vehicles could take advantage of if there were off-peak rates encouraging off-peak charging facilitated by a smart grid that communicates when supply is in excess. This would mean less pollution, especially since the grid in many places is cleaner than car ICE power, and it would make wind power more effective by creating more of a market for off peak power.

That said, taxis are the worst application for electric vehicles due to frequent charging stressing the batteries. Electric vehicles are best used as commuter vehicles where they can be slow charged between uses, as rapid charging affects battery life in a bad way.

 

There is a bogus idea floating around that refining a gallon of gasoline takes 5-8 kWh of "electricity". That much energy, not electricity, is actually used/lost in the refining process. A kWh is a unit of energy measurement.

The energy is almost entirely in the form of fossil fuel derived from the petroleum being refined and from natural gas. Only a fraction of a kWh (0.1-0.3) is actual grid electricity that could have been used directly to charge an EV instead of refining oil.

 

Really my point, it doesn't matter if the drivers need new batteries, what matters is per mile:

electricity_cost + battery_cost/miles_traveled ?= alternative_taxi_fuel_cost

Pieces of information provided by article = 0

 

LOL! So it IS about the money.

No, but seriously, the cost of the batteries is UNKNOWN. If a customer wants to pay to replace their entire Leaf battery pack, there's no price on it, yet.

 

...I wasn't going to mention it but you are correct.
Yes its urban legend at this point.

PS - I might mention early Nissan Leaf ad material used the bogus numbers briefly, which is partially why some believe it.

 

So who is going to break the news to James?

 

So why are there always massive power stations next to all the petroleum refineries? Just a convenient place to locate them? And before you tell me they're oil powered, the ones I see over here have mountains of coal next to them.

 

Well, I'm tentative to send the wife that way...

 

It looks like the UK has some regulatory schemes that encourage integration of refinery outputs (propane ?) in coal burning plants to achieve a lower carbon footprint for the electric generation. It also looks like the UK refineries are having a hard go of it just being a refinery and adding an electric power plant to their operations keeps them afloat economically.

 

oh that's right ... you can't charge EV's off PV. Funny thing about this kind of Nickel Metal/sudburry mining FUD is that it just keeps getting rehashed & rehashed & rehashed. Kind of makes you wonder how I could be running smog free / carbon based fuel free AND getting 100miles/charge even after 2 years. Not to say the Leaf doesn't have its fair share of warts .... but when you take irrelevant FUD off somwhere near Neptune - talking about dirty electricity - and you gotta ask why you aren't worrying about the dirty nuke power and the dirty coal power that runs your dirty refinery. That's how I spell hypocracy. Yes - refinery emissions continue to drop - but EV's can run completely free of coal / nuke / natural gas. Life is a series of tradeoffs.
.

 

like I said in the Tesla thread... we need to know more about battery performance especially loss of charge when unplugged by hour and temp when unplugged. also with degradation loss by year. you don't have to wonder how the Tesla would perform under the same circumstances.

 

With blankets in cold weather, Nissan Leaf taxi experiment not working in Osaka

This is not working for taxis!

 

The public may accept that in Japan, but I know I'd have had got lots of abuse if I'd have even suggested wearing a blanket. lol

 

Can't use the same blanket all day long for all of the passengers!

 

The Japanesecustomers would probably feel somewhat patriotic in cutting down their electric consumption in the shadow of Fukushima.

 

This seems like a very bad application for a short range ev, and a PR blunder by Nissan. There are lots of great scenarios for BEVs, but this is not one of them unless the battery pack is much larger.

 

It would be nice if one of these articles included some data.