A majority of auto executives still think battery electric cars will fail, survey says

MPGe is a wonderful metric for measuring energy efficiency. It is a lousy metric for measuring CO2 intensity. It is also a lousy metric for measuring your weight
CO2 produced by EVs is pretty simple to calculate, especially from the fuel.
For a specific car in a particular zip code: EV Emissions Tool | Union of Concerned Scientists
For a more comprehensive look:
New Numbers Are In and EVs Are Cleaner Than Ever - Union of Concerned Scientists


As for the Northeast, the average electric vehicle does very well in most of the Northeast.

 

I am a harsh critic of MPGe because it is often misused.
I could have avoided confusion by stating miles per kWh electricity

The Mirai story starts with 60 kWh electricity at the meter, converts it to compressed H2, and ends up moving 67 EPA* miles.
The Tesla Model 3 LR starts with 60 kWh electricity at the meter and moves 126 * 60/33.4 = 226 EPA miles.

*I'm using 'EPA' to mean the combined city/highway drive cycle of the US EPA

 

And by the way ...
My EV miles are supplied by the same PV panels in my yard that supply the electricity to my house.

No additional H2 production, compression, transport and delivery equipment. Just an EVSE that cost about $500 (although I could have bought a much cheaper model.)

 

I am a very harsh critic of misusing tools of measurement.
I am a very strong proponent of MPGe when used correctly. I see no reason to dismiss MPGe when properly used, just because it may have been misused in another argument.

 

I've read some more, and want to update this calculation a little.

1. Wikipedia was most helpful in reporting 50 - 80 kWh of electricity to make 1 Kg of H2 via standard electrolysis. The range appears to be mostly a matter of scale, but the larger plants are typically further away from the end user and incur larger distribution costs.
2. Compression to 700 bar takes about 6 kWh per Kg H2
3. Distribution has additional costs that are hard to simplify. ?Truck ?Pipeline ?distance. I've excluded them from the calculation even though they are hardly miniscule.

This works out to a range of 56 - 86 kWh electricity from the meter to make 1 Kg of 700 bar compressed H2 from electrolysis which then moves the Mirai 67 EPA miles.

If the electricity was instead used in a Tesla Model 3 LR, EPA driving miles in the range of
56*126/33.4 = 211
to
86*126/33.4 = 324
miles would be achieved.
If one cares to take the middle ground, then 267 miles.

267/67 = 3.98x more energy to move the Mirai compared to the Tesla.

-----------
Personal opinion: I expect further improvements in H2 LCA and would not write off the technology for niche cases. As one example, high temperature electrolysis attached to utility scale solar thermal has remarkable H2 production efficiency in the lab scale shown thus far. For cars ? No

 

You are never going to get this. I guess I'll have to do it for you.

Start with 40 mile EV-only range car at 1,500kg, getting 4.2miles/kWh average.

Now extend this range to 450 miles using one of two methods - battery or fuel cell.

At 4.2miles/kWh, you'll need 97kWh which, at 200Wh/kg, will weigh 488kg, making the car weigh 1,988kg. However, that will cause increased rolling resistance and acceleration losses. That will reduce efficiency to about 3.45miles/kWh. That will require 119kWh weighing 594kg, totaling 2,194kg. That will decrease efficiency to 3.2miles/kWh. That means you actually need 128kWh weighing 640kg totaling 2,240kg. This asymptotes around 2,250kg and 3.15miles/kWh.

At 4.2miles/kWh, you'll need 97kWh which, at 1,000Wh/kg, will weigh 97kg, making the car weigh 1,597kg. However, that will cause increased rolling resistance and acceleration losses. That will reduce efficiency to about 4miles/kWh. That will require 102.5kWh weighting 102.5kg, totaling 1,602.5kg. That will decrease efficiency to 4miles/kWh, which is the asymptote.

So the H2 car is much more efficient at electricity consumption, but we haven't accounted for poor round-trip efficiency yet. The round trip efficiency gap is the difference between about 85% and about 35%, but only for a portion of the miles. If you include that, you find that the battery car uses 373Wh/mile, the H2 car uses 294Wh/mile for 3/4 of its miles and 714Wh/mile for 1/4 of its miles. To make it simple, the battery car uses 1,492Wh to go 4 miles and the H2 car uses 1,596Wh to go 4 miles. These two numbers are so close together that which is better depends heavily on your initial assumptions, your round-trip efficiency assumptions and your usage rates. In other words, it's a wash within margin of error and there's certainly no slam dunk either way.

Oh, but the H2 car will cost half as much and refuel 10 times as fast.

 

Sorry, your nice person-umputions are leading you to ridiculous conclusions.

Tesla Model 3, circa 2017
Curb weight. Standard: 3,549 lb (1,610 kg) Long-range: 3,814 lb (1,730 kg)
Range: SR 220 miles, LR 310 miles* (ALL EPA)
Cost: SR $35k, LR $44k. Tesla projects average gross margins of 20%

*Tesla decided to low-ball the range for the sticker. The actual range is IIRC 334 miles.

Toyota Mirai, circa 2017
Curb weight: 4075 lb
Range: 312 EPA miles
Cost: LOL. The customer pays $57k; Toyota is thought to absorb $100k loss per vehicle.

You can extrapolate out to sky high ranges to make your case, but in the meantime I'll be driving my SR Tesla Model 3 anywhere I care to go, using the Supercharger network as needed. And I don't doubt that battery specific energy density and charging rates will continue to improve, but I don't really care. And in 2018 and for years and years to come, I'll fuel my Model 3 with mostly home PV that costs me about 0.5 cents a mile while the occasional Supercharger use will cost about 3 cents a mile.

 

10 times as fast....once you find a refueling station. Love how H2 proponents gloss over the infrastructure facts.

 

At 3-5 MILLION USD a station, not too many.
IIRC, 8 slot Tesla Superchargers run about $200k.

Chump change, if you live in Lee's H2 delusion wherein he ignores the 4x energy cost per mile and the manufacturer $60/kW fuel cell cost (and current ~ 75k mile life.)

 

Your selection of numbers is intriguing. I don't believe they are representative, they are also too constrained. Aren't H2 stations currently 1000 bar, not 700?

How can you conclude that H2 cars will cost half as much and refuel 10 times as fast?
Why use 450 miles to draw a conclusion about the h2 vs evs in general?
Car requirements vary widely. For me, and thousands of others, todays evs meet their needs quite nicely. 450 miles seems excessive for the bulk of the market. I get that it isn't for you, and that is fine.

And just when do you expect h2 cars to cost half as much as EVs? Or, is that limited to a car of each type with a 450 mile range.

 

This is nothing new. @Lee Jay has long selected numbers and stats to fit what his beliefs are. His positions and degrees only entrench his stances and arguments in his mind. I'm afraid we are all wasting our breath/typing.

 

I get the spec cherry picking, but I don't quite follow the refusal to use actual EPA data like car weights, usable kWh capacities and ranges to you know ... add some fact based reality to the model.

E.g.,

Tesla Model 3 SR:
220 mile range
(Estimated) 50 kWh usable battery
miles per kWh: 4.4
Weight: 1610 Kg

Model 3 LR:
334 mile range
78 kWh usable battery
miles per kWh: 4.28
Weight: 1730 Kg

 

Please do not feed the troll.

 

He is not a troll. In fact, he is a talented engineer who usually is spot on with his analysis and comments and is very informed.

In the case of clean hydrogen based FCV though, he falls off a cliff.

 

I agree he is not a troll. But cherry picking data to fit whatever he believes isn't that much worse.

 

The numbers against clean H2 FCV are so outrageous, I cannot help but laugh.
E.g., just looking at refueling infrastructure a little bit more for sh1ts and giggles:

H2 station: 4 million USD today on average
Expansive Supercharger station: $200,000 USD today

That might lead a rational person to stop right there, but it is actually much, much worse. Why ? 90% of EV miles are fueled from home. So the car load per station is 9:1 when comparing FCV to EV. Eventually Superchargers will be saturated and more will have to be built, but by then EVs will be 800v, 400 Amp charging monsters giving a throughput of 24 miles a minute, or 10 minute stops.

5x as many H2 stations would be needed, so the actual cost difference in infrastructure is
20 Million for H2 for every 0.2 million for EV

100x more expensive refueling infrastructure.

---
To summarize:
100x more expensive refueling infrastructure
4x more expensive fuel
4x more expensive car
1/3x car longevity

 

Where did you get the "% of EV miles supplied by home charging" stat at?

(Totally agree and can understand that stat, just want to have a good source for when non-believers are telling me how insufficient the charging infrastructure is.)

 

I suspect that number is shifting as EVs get greater range (increasing the percentage) but also that more and better infrastructure is in place, making long trips and ownership by apartment dwellers easier (thus lowering the percentage).

Looking at a recent snapshot of the Tesla SuperCharger network, that number is closer to 80% worldwide.
You can find these at most Tesla Service centers or Stores. The bottom of the screen will show the total kWh delivered and miles enabled. If you ask for the fleet mileage, most often someone there can get that number for you.

 

I've wondered about Apartment dwellers too, but it is far from obvious that they will increase the Supercharger miles fraction as the EV revolution plays out. I say this for 2 main reasons:

1. Workplace chargers may become the norm as EV ownership rises
2. Apt complexes may decide to install L2 chargers as EV ownership rises

Moreover, the tendency to use Superchargers today to cover destination miles will decrease as destination charging improves.
My crystal ball says a transient increase in Supercharger miles fraction, but a long-term drop.

Edit:
Two other factors that suggest the Supercharger miles fraction will drop over time:

• 1. The data to date is mostly from Model S and Model X owners. Their charging habits were skewed by free Supercharger use. In the future the lion's share of Tesla owners will not be so behaviorally challenged.
• Those two cars are close to the penultimate touring car. Model 3 ownership will bring Tesla back to the median.

Mark,
I'll post links when I come across them again. One new one I just found is from a Tesla blog that says 400 kWh covers the average Tesla owner annual Supercharger use. That is ~ 1300 miles annually,

1. about 240 minutes a year
2. or about 40 seconds a day

 

I haven't seen anyone looking at the big picture here. What about the world wide view of the development of the electric car. A lot of the countries don't have the oil we do and have to buy all or most of it. If we don't lead the way to the electric car China will. We are falling so far behind on things as it is. The future by volume of cars is in China.