Featured Toyota says electric cars with 1500km range are just around the corner

People are so used to driving around in vehicles that are hideously inefficient that they don't even realize it. I'll explain.

The majority of cars on the road have one passenger in them. The average vehicle of today weighs around 4,500 pounds, empty. Put a 170 pound person in a 4500 pound car and your cargo mass fraction is 170 / (4500+170) = 3.64%, meaning 3.64% of what you're moving is the actual cargo (the person). Now add an ICE at 20% average efficiency. 20% of 3.64% is 0.73% efficient, overall. Add an electric system instead at 80%, and the total is 2.9% efficiency. Does any of that sound good? With a small, light electric car, two people and some cargo, you might get to 10%. Still horrible.

Now take an electric velomobile. Cargo mass fraction is around 50-60%. Add an 80% efficient electric system and total efficiency can be in the 40-50% range. Now compare 40-50% to the best from above - 2.9% for one person. Make it a tandem and you can exceed 50% with two people, compared to 10% above.

To give you an idea of how bad 4 miles per kWh is, let's put a kWh into perspective. Go to the trailhead of a 14,000 foot mountain. Toss an average person over your right shoulder. Toss another one over your left shoulder. Carry them to the top of the mountain. Now repeat that. Congratulations, you've just imparted about 1kWh into those 4 people - the same energy it took to push your efficient electric car 4 miles on flat ground.

 

I was curious about this since it did not match my experience:

Using the 2019 EPA metrics, I looked at the drag and efficiency metrics:

• Electric only - the Prime has significantly lower drag than the Model 3
• ICE mode - the Prime has significantly higher drag due to 40% ICE
  • Before the catalytic converter warms up, ICE efficiency << 40%

I have speculated that replacing the Prime ICE with an equivalent weight in batteries, would make it an efficient if short range EV ... closer to a BMW i3. But the Prime engine is so relatively inefficient compared to a pure EV drivetrain, along with the warm-up penalty, my Prime was inefficient. My Prime literally cost 3x per mile to drive before considering the limited driving profile of a 25 mi EV mode.

The Prime has use cases where EV only mode would be more efficient than the Tesla. But turn on the Prime engine either accidentally or deliberately, it fails. My Prime was the lowest trim and may have had less efficient control laws.

Bob Wilson

 

Do you get that on your winter day skiing outings over the Continental Divide on those -41F mornings? Including the uphill segments?

I'll wait for the EPA rating.

Do you use each of these vehicles on your winter day skiing trips 180 miles each way, over the Continental Divide, when it is -41F in the morning and +5F on the return?

 

I no longer have my first model year, lowest trim Prime to replicate results. My particular car was expensive to operate versus the replacement Tesla Model 3.

Bob Wilson

 

The vast major of utility electric power plants are thermal. I've never heard of any such thermal plant getting anywhere close to 80% efficiency.

 

As a motorcycle, the Aptera won't have an EPA rating. I'm considering one as a commuter. As a three wheel two seater, that is about the extent of its abilities. I'll likely be taking the Outback into work the days that predict harsh weather.

 

TL-DW (beyond first dozen minutes).

What I did see in the beginning, was an all-Interstate map, in this case I-75 to I-24 to I-64 to I-70. No tourist or recreational activity stops at National or State Parks or other POIs mentioned. No scenic "roads less traveled". So not just different skills and techniques, but an altogether different travel style. Emphasis on getting from Point A to Point B, not on taking in and enjoying the journey.

 

Perhaps he prefers quality time at home with family?

Monday I am driving ~700 miles to Auburn Hills MI for an "Open House" at Munro Associates on Tuesday. There is a wonderful Ford museum I've visited before and will see about working it into my schedule. My destination has interesting things. Along the way, not so much.

Bob Wilson

 

I get my travel energy from the solar on my roof.

The Aptera isn't a motorcycle, it's classed as an autocycle, and they do plan to get an EPA rating for it. Since an option is all wheel drive, it will be as capable as a normal car (or better) in lousy weather.

 

Tomato, tahmahtoe. Autocycles follow the same regulations as motorcycles when it comes to safety and emissions. Aptera is free to put their autocycle through the EPA tests for marketing, but the results won't be certified by the EPA.

So you never drive in snow deep enough to have wheel ruts from the four wheel cars?

 

That's changing. For example, they've been excluded from helmet laws in places.

Around here, snow plowing is so effective that, no I don't - not since the 80s or so.

 

After two years with a motorcycle license, you don't need to wear a helmet on a two wheel motorcycle in Pa.
What states are requiring autocycles to meet federal safety standards for cars, and crash testing?
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Then what is causing all those road closures you go on about? Snow only falling past the closure sign?

If you limit your driving to only when the roads are clear, you aren't any different limiting their travels to where chargers are.

 

In my case, a forest fire, three accidents and a rock slide, for the five times I've had to turn around and go back.

 

The most efficient large thermal plant uses GE CCGT turbines and is at 63.6% efficiency. GE sells these all over the world. There are more efficient plants but they are smaller and count using there waste heat to heat other things, which means they are unlikely to be charging your plug-in. When you do 7% grid losses then it will be 59%. Texas grid is 30% renewable mainly wind and 11% nuclear. That means if all those fossil plants were the most efficient then it would at the plug ghg producing would be around the same as . Many older ccgt plants are 40% efficient, and there are many old coal and steam natural gas that are 35% efficient or less. I would put the average ccgt plant after grid losses at about 50% to the plug. Oil to gasoline also is not close to 100%, and oil is a lot more scarce than natural gas in North America. Bottom line is no fossil power plant supplying plug in cars is going to approach 80% efficiency in supply plug-ins but but because of efficiency and the use of renewables plug-ins except in rare cases are more efficient in terms of fossil fuels and ghg.

My pedal assist bike is a lot more efficient than my plug-in vehicle. It certainly is not practicle, and my plug-in is very efficient. Today I needed to take my dog and my partner to a after wedding brunch 4 miles away. It was in the high 90s when I got there, and 100 when I left. Now I do have a trailer so could have put the dog in that. My partner could have rode her non pedal assist bike. Still it was nice going in one vehicle and not being sweaty when getting there. 5 minutes before leaving I turned the air conditioning on in the car, and it was a much more pleasant ride back. I am not sure why anyone would say my car is inefficient because you could take something else.

Aptera, maybe they will have production motor cycles (that is how they would be classified in texas) maybe they will not. Now the earliest they say is 2025 and they need to raise money quickly to hit that date. I don't think I would ever choose one over a plug-in car, and that is the US market.

 

I'll expand my rooftop solar once a plug-car is acquired. It doesn't make sense to expand now, because I'm already net-zero, and this state gives excess production away to the utility for free.

But my rooftop solar will cover only local transport. Our other travels far exceed the round trip battery range of anything being talked about now, even the 1500km Toyota Vaporware battery.

 

My family wants a lot of that quality family time to be away from home, in the form of outdoor recreational activity or other travel adventure. The spouse gets cabin fever very quickly, and is continually combing through trail and park guides, travelogues, historic sites descriptions, etc., for new places to see and things to do and experience. The whole country, and world, are very heavily loaded with points of interest. My task is to cull her oversized wish list down to something that will fit the available time and budget and general route.

I'm not expecting a former ski bum, ski resort tram operator, and travel agent, to ever be happy staying home.

If we were doing that, we'd fit in the remainder of the Natchez Trace Parkway that we didn't have time to bicycle or drive during a Mississippi trip just before the Pandemic. We had to turn around at the Meriwether Lewis Monument, missing out on the northernmost 60 miles of that 444 mile Parkway. This diversion adds just under 60 miles to your AL to MI trip, though we could spend a whole day exploring various stops along this segment alone. Spouse also had a decent list of things to see in Nashville, which she still wants to visit someday.

I don't remember exactly what we did where your route crosses our 2015 cross-continent return route in Ohio, but we did visit a number of wooden covered bridges and bicycled a trail approximately there. We stopped comparatively little in that zone from Niagara Falls to the Mississippi River, due to falling behind schedule and needing to make up some distance quickly. But the spouse did bring a good list of ideas.

Given a chance, she would find plenty more interesting things to do along your route. The biggest problem is that she'd spend more time finding, reading up on, and making a list of good POIs than your trip will actually take. And it would take me a couple days to cull the list to fit.

Fortunately for you, your route has a much better density of Tesla chargers than does our normal rural northwestern region.

 

Lifetime in my Model 3 is 4.85 m/kwh (206 wh/m).

Mike

 

Mine was delivered Mar 26, 2019 and based in Huntsville AL about 70 miles from the Tennessee border. It has 110,683 miles and charged to 85%, predicts 181 miles range.

I’ll share the lifetime metrics later (4:30 AM and shoes off.)

What many fail to understand is Tesla keeps a body that works but updates the guts to give more recent cars better performance and tends to fewer and better parts. For example, mine predates the heat pump.

Bob Wilson