Toyota engineer explains how long range EV's aren't practical

He doesn't explain why EVs aren't practical, he gives the opinion that they aren't practical and that opinion is heavily flavored by Toyota's anti-EV stance. This is not information.

 

Long range EVs are not practical?

Says a man from a company that think selling a $120k car for $60k makes sense! Oh and a car that can only be filled up in about 50 places in the WORLD and the nearest one to me is 186 miles away.

I also like the idea that with an EV you can create your own fuel (solar) or buy it from a utility for £0.15p a unit. I've no idea how much a kg of hydrogen is this info is never given in pro hydrogen articles.

There is a place for hydrogen and fuel cells but there's also a place for BEVs for a growning number of people. UK sales of EVs and PHEVs are up over 1,000% from last year.

 

[Tanaka provided the following example. “If you were to charge a car in 12 minutes for a range of 500 km (310 miles), for example, you’re probably using up electricity required to power 1,000 houses.”]

Technically wrong, misquoted or lost in translation, mr.Tanaka example is not correct.
1000 houses for average or allowable peak? Either are distorted to compare with.

 

In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.

This chart compares the useful transport energy requirements for a vehicle powered from a hydrogen process (left) vs. electricity (right).

Read more at: Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense

 

Everyone deserves a chance:


To perform the experiment:


Bob Wilson

 

His underlying point is valid, although poorly stated.

IF.....every car on the road were to suddenly change to a plugin electric........it would overwhelm the electric grid.

OTOH, if the change over was gradual and only involved a percentage of the cars and they were charged at off- peak times, than no real problem.

Of course, any real significant long lasting change MUST move away from non-renewable sources of power, not only for cars but everything else too.

 

If ALL cars suddenly became electric over night then yes there would be a problem. But even if 25% became EV overnight, surely the electricity used to make petrol/diesel would offset that?

All that electric to make the petrol/diesel, all the electric running the petrol station; the lights, the pumps, the fridges, the a/c. All that over a State or Country must add up?

What about incentives to fit solar pv if you buy an EV? Or if a work place or business had to install a PV cover/roof over the charge port? Or am I getting silly?

 

Sorry I couldn't respond earlier about the position that EVs are not practical.
I was just finishing up a 1200 mile driving vacation with one

 

Richarh Muller physicist has been an EV-skeptic so I checked his argument on YouTube. Muller does not mention fast-charging as an issue, rather he says it is high cost of Li Batteries. In his books Physics for Presidents (and Energy) he mentioned the low energy density of batts as the issue. He has a new wrinkle as of about 2013 he seems to like lead-acid batts for limited 50-mile trips in the China scenario.

But it is all about energy density. One amazing property of gaso/diesel is the huge amount of energy in a tankful. If you are going to replace this with electrons, you're going to need one heckuva a lot of electrons and high power. At the moment, before the lower oil costs, the relative low cost of electron energy at least made the cost of using a humongous amount electricity reasonable. But we need to realize no matter how we make energy, it is costly we are probably guilty of under-charging for all energy.

EDIT- I should mention Muller is huge Prius fan and has owned one (not sure what he has now)

 

No certainly not.
Well......maybe just a little.
It all adds up.

 

I think it was poorly stated on purpose.
The charge rate, if we are going to charge for 500 km (310 miles) @ 104 mpge (average plug-in on epa, they do much better on japanese tests) in 12 minutes it would take 500KW. That 500 kw is the average power of 1000 Japanese homes. Now Toyota's Tanaka, the toyota chief fuel cell engineer has previously stated that the japanese only need 20 km of range a day. 500/20 = 25 days between 12 minute charges, makes it a very low average power. That means 3000 Japanese plug-in cars if averaged would use the same power as 1000 Japanese houses averaged;-)Japan has excellent training wheels with 3000 - 50kw quick chargers, that are not breaking the grid. Charge a little more to charge at peaks, and owners will charge at home or off peak.

Sure if everybody suddenly switched to 400 mile range bevs and started charging them at quick chargers in stead of at home, it would overwhelm the grid. Is that really the scenario that worries people? Those grid upgrades are much cheaper than hydrogen infrastructure at today's prices.

Yep and I'm sure Toyota can easily look at the quick chargers in japan and see that they don't all charge at once, and their aren't any cars that can charge @500kw today.

And Mr. Tanaka is proposing hygrogen for transportation, which should take up 3x or more renewable electricity to go the same distance. Japan can quickly improve grid stability with more ccgt natural gas plants, then slowly replace the natural gas with renewables. Again how is the underlying point valid?

Granted Japan has big problems with its grid, but long range plug-ins are not one of them.

 

I like beating a dead horse as much as the next person . . . .



but isn't this pretty much the same thread as Toyota/Lexus still hating plugins? Ok ... so this is a Toyota engineer saying it. The other thread is the Toyota Exec ... what next . . . are we going to hear from Lexus CEO's mom?

I know - the hydrogen community won't let it go ... and their folly is tantamount to a fighter leading with their chin ... just begging to get knocked down again ... what's a bat wielder to do ...

 

False logic.
Most people, and most jobs, don't require you to replace that power density.
Some do, and for those people, gasoline is the answer.
For those that don't require that power density they can enjoy the more convenient, clean, quiet, smooth, responsive and better performing electric.

 

Using today's technology, not any breakthroughs, we can fit 300 miles epa in a very fast car. That means batteries density in either kw/L or Kwh/L or KWh/kg are not a limiting factor. Proof is the 270 mile tesla S 85d, and the pack is a 3 year old design that doesn't take advantage of the lower costs today to put 100 kwh in that car.

Price is definitely an issue. Professor Muller was correct that price of batteries back in 2008 when he first wrote this was too high. Confusing Future Presidents, Part 2 | ThinkProgress
The DOE thinks battery prices will be down to $150/kwh and tesla $100/kwh by 2025. That means that a 50 kwh battery for a 200 mile bev will be down to $7500, if the doe is right. Tesla thinks its cost will be under $200/kwh when the gigafactory gets going, and that will be cheap enough to build their model 3. We should know in 5 years who is right.

Clearly density is good enough in a clean sheet design like the tesla. Its all about packaging that volume, and in a decade its likely the volume is 40% smaller. No cost of new phev and bevs is the only issue. I'm betting the price of batteries continues to decaline, but if it does not then Proffesor mueller will have had the correct predition. To put this in perspective, experts on silicon PV thought it could not go bellow $2/watt (device not installed), so thin film would have to be the winner. Then R&D found a way to make less expensive wafers for PV and now the price is down to $0.50/watt. Battery technology is so important to phones and tablets that people will invest the money to bring prices down and energy density up.

 

Concur!

 

Recall that Toyota is influenced by being located in Japan where there have been massive problems with electricity generation in the last few years. An island with few energy resources. And nukes a political flashpoint. Maybe that colors their corporate mindset.

 

no doubt. can you blame them? also, the market is so limited, they might prefer to actually see where it's going before jumping in. when you think about it, a lot of companies are still waiting to see if hybrids are going to catch on after 15 years.

 

I would like to see that study. How much electricity is involved with delivering 1 gallon of gasoline. This includes a few percent of the energy in refining (most of the 13% loss of energy in refining comes from the oil itself or NG). What is the electricity overhead to run a gas station...to run the pumps and runs the lights and HVAC in this building. I suspect it is less than 1% of the energy of the gasoline supplied.

Mike