Electric cars may make driving too expensive for middle classes, warns Vauxhall chief

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

It will be very interesting to see how the new graphene battery performs when they install it into the Aion V which they are stating goes into production in September 2021 using these new batteries. If the claims are realised this car and its battery will be a game changer in the EV market and Tesla and others will be playing catch up.

https://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5655

https://www.graphene-info.com/gac-group-announces-its-aion-v-sporting-graphene-battery-will-start-production

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aion_V

http://chinamobil.ru/eng/gac/aion-v/?view=props

As you can see the price at $25-37K depending on what model you have is very competitive with ICE as well based on the CATL lion battery, hopefully the graphene battery doesn't add cost.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Rob Plant

[RichieRich216 + 454]

The middle class could care less about all this “Green” bullshit, they just want to make the best life possible for themselves! 
 

Its always extreme groups on one end or the other that push this bullshit no matter what the current topic! Look back 50 years and all the JUST CAUSE MOVEMENTS are mostly the same extreme groups from opposite ends of the spectrum and the middle class could care less!

You are not going to change the minds of the majority when billionaires, Hollywood shitbags and political groups are the only ones interested!

What they will accomplish if by erasing cheap energy is an extreme backlash when these millions by millions of middle class Americans get pissed off !

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

11 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

US Government Says Electric Vehicles Cost 40% Less To Maintain

In its latest study, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy says,

“The estimated scheduled maintenance cost for a light-duty battery-electric vehicle (BEV) totals 6.1 cents per mile, while a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) totals 10.1 cents per mile. A BEV lacks an ICEV’s engine oil, timing belt, oxygen sensor, spark plugs and more, and the maintenance costs associated with them.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/06/22/its-official-us-government-says-electric-vehicles-cost-40-less-to-maintain/

I see two problems with this analysis: brakes and tires. If you learn to use regenerative braking properly, you use your actual brakes very rarely except to hold the car after it has stopped, so I expect that there is very little wear. However, most EVs have so much torque that drivers tend to accelerate too quickly, which wears out the tires more quickly. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

6 hours ago, Boat said:

In and around Houston that little car would be a death trap. 4-8 lane freeways are the arteries you can’t escape. Once you’ve taken the off ramp it does get a little safer since the speed drops and there are more traffic lights. Can autonomous tech make driving safe? Kind of like herd immunity, only if the majority have it and use it. And of course it has to work like advertised.

That's why I put a down payment on an F150 lightning.  Electric vehicle, but no worries about getting crushed or smashed accidentally.  Going to get it in red just in case

[Eric Gagen + 713]

9 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

I see two problems with this analysis: brakes and tires. If you learn to use regenerative braking properly, you use your actual brakes very rarely except to hold the car after it has stopped, so I expect that there is very little wear. However, most EVs have so much torque that drivers tend to accelerate too quickly, which wears out the tires more quickly. 

Probably a wash then?  As for tires, most EV's with high performance specs are all wheel drive which should serve to spread the wear out more evenly at least.  

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

18 minutes ago, Eric Gagen said:

Probably a wash then?  As for tires, most EV's with high performance specs are all wheel drive which should serve to spread the wear out more evenly at least.  

I think the tires predominate, so it's not a wash, but I need to go find that study. It would be trivially easy for the EV manufacturer to add a "tire saver" mode to the software to limit the torque, but for me personally it's just too fun to accelerate quickly and I will just pay for tires.

(added) here is an article, but I though I saw an actual study, with statistics, and I cannot find it.

    https://zohr.com/blog/getting-the-most-out-of-your-ev-s-tires/

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Dan Clemmensen
added link

[Piotr Berman + 82]

Because of the fashion for all-electric cars, the price of hybrids dropped to the same level as conventional gasoline.  In highway traffic, hybrid are equivalent to conventional gasoline, in local traffic (many stops) they are roughly twice more efficient.  Urban traffic has many stops even on divided highways.

The rough calculation for an individual what wants one car for all needs is;

a hybrid uses 250 gallons for a year of driving (assumption: 50 mpg, 12,500 miles)

in 10 years, you use 2500 gallons

instead, you can buy an all-electric for 7-10 thousand dollars more, so you loose a bit assuming electricity is free.  In many urban areas this is far from true.  Where I live it is 5c/kWh, in Boston, 10c., that can mean 4 dollars for an hour of driving with 40 kW instead of one gallon?  That would be more than gasoline, perhaps the average power is much smaller.

Balance: you loose only a little with much larger up-front, and much less versatile vehicle -- sometimes you want to go for a trip...  For a working class person, we are talking about quite a bit higher cost during the first several years, increasing the incidence of borrowing from the credit card.  A definite NO.  People with more income, in USA, own more than one car, and calculation is more complex.  At that point, this is a choice of life style that you like, some feel a boost from following the trend: "everybody" drives SUV, you drive SUV, "everybody" drives electric, you drive electric.  Some prefer to be in a minority.

If your goal is to commute several miles each day, an electric bicycle could save up-front money, energy, parking, insurance... I use a regular bicycle so I can save on an exercise facility as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 6/12/2021 at 6:50 AM, Eric Gagen said:

This is an interesting question/problem, which is how difficult will it be to 'rebattery' these vehicles in the future?  Sure an old leaf might be worthless 'as is' but if you could slap a new battery pack into it, would it be worth trying to do?  Looking ahead, 5-10 years, if there are much better, or much cheaper batteries available could you 'repower' your old Tesla or Mustang Mach E with the new system?  After all the electric motors will still be in fine shape, and so long as the rest of the car wasn't thrashed it might be a great option.  

What percentage of EV's are being built with the capability of easily replacing the battery? With any reasonable way of replacing the battery? With no potential for replacing the battery affordably i.e. planned obsolesence. 

[Michael Sanches + 187]

I wonder how gas vs. electric will affect the lowish middle class. I find that the sweet spot is a 2-3 year old car with 20,000 miles that can be driven for 10 years.

In 1981 I bought a 1976 Honda CV with about 20,000 miles.

In 1991 I bought a 1989 Toyota Tercel with about 20,000 miles.

In 2001 I bought a 1999 Malibu with about 20,000 miles.

After 10 years I went overseas for 8 years.

In 2019 I bought a 2017 Hyundai with 17,000 miles on it for $13,000 at Carmax, which charges a premium.

With EV's costing more initially and depreciating less, will there be a market for high priced used EV's? It would seem that if an EV owner is only offered 60% - 70% of the new price after only two years, they will be inhibited from selling their old EV and buying a new EV. If they get 70% of the new price after 2 years and 20,000 miles on a $45,000 EV, they paid $13,500 to drive that car for 2 years, not counting charging, insurance, etc.

It seems that the state of the used car market will have a big influence on EV sales of the EV new car market.

[NickW + 2,714]

On 6/12/2021 at 5:28 PM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Nissan Leaf, you can replace the battery by testing each module etc.  Cars like TESLA?  No.  Battery is a complete unit so unless TESLA starts selling 100% new batteries....

You can buy used Nissan Leaf's for ~$1000 that have the battery problem.  IF you never want to drive more than 50 miles... and use it as a glorified golf cart... It will work.

That can work very well as a household runabout - drop the kids off at school, do a bit of shopping etc. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

16 hours ago, ronwagn said:

What percentage of EV's are being built with the capability of easily replacing the battery? With any reasonable way of replacing the battery? With no potential for replacing the battery affordably i.e. planned obsolesence. 

Depends on how cheap and capable the new battery is when compared to the cost of popping open the old vehicle 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Eric Gagen

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

2 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

Depends on how cheap and capable the new battery is when compared to the cost of popping open the olD vehicle 

Use a graphene battery

https://www.graphene-info.com/gac-group-announces-its-aion-v-sporting-graphene-battery-will-start-production

[Eric Gagen + 713]

28 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

Use a graphene battery

https://www.graphene-info.com/gac-group-announces-its-aion-v-sporting-graphene-battery-will-start-production

I was thinking more long term future - so, for example, you have a 2019 Tesla model S, and in 2029 you can get a battery half the size and weight of the one the old model S came with for say $2,500.  At that point, if the rest of the car is in decent shape is it worthwhile extracting the old worn out battery that struggles to hold a charge now and putting the new one in as a replacement?  

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

2 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Use a graphene battery

https://www.graphene-info.com/gac-group-announces-its-aion-v-sporting-graphene-battery-will-start-production

So, some Chinese have reverse engineered some 15 year old Sony/Panasonic/Samsung/TESLA/Carbon lead acid etc cells...  "this" is a breakthrough?  

It is NOT a graphene battery.  It is a graphene "enhanced" standard LI-ion battery.

I suppose it could be Lead acid based as well or any other battery type.  Adding Graphene helps all battery types. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by footeab@yahoo.com

[pscoughlin + 8]

Some thoughts. I recently bought a Volkswagen ID.4. MSRP was $46,335 so I'm looking forward to putting the $7500 rebate directly to the loan when I get it next year.  My previous car was a 2019 CRV and I was surprised to learn that insurance for the ID.4 was almost the same cost.  The CRV was about $15,000 less.  One negative is I live in East Texas and fast charging stations are few and far between for non-Tesla cars.  I charge on 240V at home and the office and it cost about $4/day to recharge to 80% from the 130 mile roundtrip to work. Plenty of fast chargers in the bigger cities but seems like it will take awhile for the infrastructure to catch up.

[NickW + 2,714]

Word has it these car stickers are going to be made mandatory in the USA. AOC and Kamala are working on it now. 

 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

On 6/28/2021 at 7:37 PM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

So, some Chinese have reverse engineered some 15 year old Sony/Panasonic/Samsung/TESLA/Carbon lead acid etc cells...  "this" is a breakthrough?  

It is NOT a graphene battery.  It is a graphene "enhanced" standard LI-ion battery.

I suppose it could be Lead acid based as well or any other battery type.  Adding Graphene helps all battery types. 

Its not been released yet, so how do you know this? Or are you guessing?

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

On 6/28/2021 at 8:50 AM, Rob Plant said:

Use a graphene battery

https://www.graphene-info.com/gac-group-announces-its-aion-v-sporting-graphene-battery-will-start-production

Every week, there are one or more press releases about battery breakthroughs. This has become so pervasive that least one of the greenie news site (Cleantechnica) has told their reporters to quit mentioning them. Sure, maybe one specific one of them will actually get into production, but which one? Yes, rapid improvements in batteries are being made, and $/kWh  and kg/kWh continue to decrease, as does dependence on scarce resources. But don't go out and buy stock based on one of these announcements.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

7 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Its not been released yet, so how do you know this? Or are you guessing?

Because I, unlike you, read the links instead of the headline BS article to figure out the specifics. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

5 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Every week, there are one or more press releases about battery breakthroughs. This has become so pervasive that least one of the greenie news site (Cleantechnica) has told their reporters to quit mentioning them. Sure, maybe one specific one of them will actually get into production, but which one? Yes, rapid improvements in batteries are being made, and $/kWh  and kg/kWh continue to decrease, as does dependence on scarce resources. But don't go out and buy stock based on one of these announcements.

It’s like little oil companies releasing super hyped up ‘news releases’ about their next prospect or the IP of their last well.  99% of it is to generate buzz in the investor community.  1% of it represents something interesting, but which ones?  

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

10 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Because I, unlike you, read the links instead of the headline BS article to figure out the specifics. 

That would be a first then!

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

2 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

That would be a first then!

Enjoy 2nd preferably not never

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

Looks like trouble ahead for EV's and their affordability and availability.

https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/A-Permanent-Lithium-Shortage-Is-Looming.html

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

8 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Looks like trouble ahead for EV's and their affordability and availability.

https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/A-Permanent-Lithium-Shortage-Is-Looming.html

Rob, that article depends on some simple extrapolations and concludes that Lithium will be in short supply starting in a few years (other more detailed articles say in about 2027). Lithium is currently still in oversupply due to overoptimistic demand projections leading to development of new sources five years ago.

the article neglects two major trends: development of new types of sources (e.g., geothermal brine), and new battery types that don't use Lithium.  Eventually, only high-performance EVs will use much Lithium. Normal EVs and (especially) fixed utility and home batteries will not use Lithium, so the demand curve will flatten. Then, when EVs and existing fixed batteries finally begin reaching end-of-life, the lithium in their batteries will be recycled. The end game occurs when all vehicles on the road are EVs (2060?). Almost all new batteries will use recycled Lithium, so new Lithium will be needed only to make up recycling losses and any increase in the number of vehicles.

To make a valid prediction, you will need to evaluate all of these trends and create your own curves for each of them. The prognosticators totally blew it in 2015, and I have no reason to believe they are doing any better this time.

Copper may be a bigger problem. It can also be recycled, but there are a lot more competing uses for copper. Lithium batteries must use copper instead of aluminum conductors within the cells themselves. Fortunately, some non-lithium battery chemistries can use aluminum.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

General Motors has struck a deal with a mining company to source lithium, a key ingredient in electric-car batteries, from geothermal deposits in the US. The automaker is making a “multi-million dollar” investment in Australia’s Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) to bolster the mining firm’s efforts to extract lithium from California’s Salton Sea Geothermal Field.

It’s a risky bet by GM, given that there is no full-scale lithium production in the US from geothermal wells. Most of the world’s lithium comes from two places: lithium brine deposits in South America’s “lithium triangle” of Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia; and hard-rock deposits in Australia. But its a sign that GM is trying to think holistically about the challenge of becoming an EV-only company by 2035.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/2/22559718/gm-lithium-ctr-ev-battery-investment-salton-sea