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UW Extension service has a lecture series televised on public TV. This episode is given by the head of the Engineering school's dept of engine tech.....Very honest, down to the facts not the hopes on the topic.
She verifies many of the things some of us have been trying to say about alternative energy/EVs-- they are not nearly as Green as some would have us believe. As we've said here before, the carbon footprint of ICE vs EV is just about the same when a complete accounting is done from "cradle to grave" as oppsed to the short cut vehicle centered accounting (She goes into details)....She points out that manufacturing batteries is very energy intensive and that an EV needs to be driven from 30-70,000 miles before that carbon debt is repaid.
While battery tech has improved steadily through the years, so has ICE tech. The newest designs can achieve 50% (!!) energy effciency....BUT-
She believes the optimum situation will be to combine the reliabilty of the ICE with the fuel advantages of electricity in hybrids.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I agree with that, the hybrid has the advantage of better city efficiency, but also adding power. It's the best of both world's and eliminates the range anxiety, and the shortages of electricity in many areas, that is keep the 77% of us from considering an EV purchase in the future.
So the Bolt's battery is about 85x the size of the Prius Hybrid's battery!
In the future, probably better battery technologies will make widespread deployment of PHEV and BEV practical. That's likely beyond my lifespan, though.
The biggest issue will be the initial cost of the vehicle, and it will take several years, if not decades, for a changeover like this.
I remember the year I graduated from high school, 1972, and how electric cars were going to be the big thing. I even saw them in showrooms in Elkhart, IN. Yeah, I have learned to wait and see, and that predictions are not always reality.
I’ve always felt hybrids were the sweet spot despite being taken over by the hype for full EVs. Once you get to about 40 mpg combined City/hwy, the cost of gasoline isn’t that big of a deal (especially if the purchase price is $5-10k less) and you never worry about range or plugging in. That’s a luxury. A 10 minute stop at the gas station and you are good for 400-500 miles. Going ~1,000 miles takes 20 minutes worth of fueling up. How long are you waiting to charge to go 1,000 miles in the average full electric vehicle? I never had 1 second of range anxiety in my hybrid…even when I had drove 30 miles with the low fuel warning blinking. I don’t want to have to remember to plug anything in every day or night…heck, it’ll be nice when they have smartphones that can last a week on a charge.
Linked video is a biased source - she's a combustion engineer and that stuff is going the way of the dodo. Lifecycle emissions of electric vehicles have been proven over and over again to be significantly lower than combustion engines.
Linked video is a biased source - she's a combustion engineer...
??? She resented a well balanced & solidly documented critique of the situation. Shes's a recognized expert in the field, and came up with the exact same conclusions that I came up with years ago, armed with nothing more than an eclectic knowledge base, a good handle on the scientific method, a good abilty to use deductive/inductive reasoning and no pre-determined bias. I'm a pragmatist, above all...I've been hoping for the necessary technological improvements in solar & wind energy since I first read about it in the late 50s...Don't hold your breathe.
Those improvemts won't come along unless someone comes up with a completely new paradigm. The chemical battery concept may be 4000 y'o-- The "Bagdad Battery" may have been the first example of a Volterra Cell (probably not - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery ). The Volterra Cell is certanly over 200 y/o and that paradigm is still in use-- only improvement since then are those resuting from materials science advances. There is a theoretical limit to how many electrons you can cram onto one electrode, and we're near that limit now.
The one thing the video did not address was the socio/psyhological factors involved in vehicle purchases and uses....Why do we need muscle cars for the street that generate 800 hp?...It took us decades to accept autos that only sit 4 people insteasd of six....As long as KE= 1/2mv^2, the real way to save automotive energy is to reduce m & v, not devise new tech to improve heat loss as we turn PE into KE...Europeans figured this out a century ago when fuel cost them 10x more than it we paid.
With $1000s of extra cost to apply advanced, delicate electronics in HEVs, they still only give us the mileage numbers achieved by the simple, little GEO 35 yrs ago (thanks Lawyers for stopping that idea).
UW Extension service has a lecture series televised on public TV. This episode is given by the head of the Engineering school's dept of engine tech.....Very honest, down to the facts not the hopes on the topic.
She verifies many of the things some of us have been trying to say about alternative energy/EVs-- they are not nearly as Green as some would have us believe. As we've said here before, the carbon footprint of ICE vs EV is just about the same when a complete accounting is done from "cradle to grave" as oppsed to the short cut vehicle centered accounting (She goes into details)....She points out that manufacturing batteries is very energy intensive and that an EV needs to be driven from 30-70,000 miles before that carbon debt is repaid.
While battery tech has improved steadily through the years, so has ICE tech. The newest designs can achieve 50% (!!) energy effciency....BUT-
She believes the optimum situation will be to combine the reliabilty of the ICE with the fuel advantages of electricity in hybrids.
LOLLLLLL....Hybrids????? REALLLY?? What a joke :facepalm:
Hybrids are pretty bad.
ICE tech evolving is at a snailpace. Battery has a lot of evolution in front of them.
Solid State Battery EVs are the future.
They will have a range of 700 miles and will charge in 5 minutes.
It isn't pipe dream, already being used in Space and their cost is coming down.
"In 2020, Tesla unveiled its new 4680 battery cell, a new tabless cylindrical cell in a much bigger format that the company claimed produces six times the power and five times the energy capacity while significantly reducing the cost."
In future, you would be sent to jail for tailpipe emission. It would be a crime.
Since everyone is commiting, we think its ok.
The problem with hybrid is you are bearing the cost and complexity of two systems. Some of the big advantages of pure EV is that they have much fewer parts and take less labor to manufacture.
Electric cars are more simple than those with gas fuel engines and have significantly fewer parts. You typically find around 15,000 parts in an electric car whereas gas-driven cars will have closer to 30,000 parts. https://motorandwheels.com/electric-...e-fewer-parts/
Hybrid cars combine electric drive hardware with a conventional, internal combustion engine, and require more labor — about 9.2 man hours compared with 6.2 hours for a typical gas vehicle. But an all-electric vehicle cuts that down to 3.7 hours, Mark Wakefield, head of the automotive practice at consultancy AlixPartners, told NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/aut...uired-n1060426
We're a two car household. Our next vehicle will not be a hybrid- it will be EV. It will cover 75% of all our driving needs. No need to have two systems like a hybrid. Who needs the hassle of oil, filters etc. Just plug it in and go about our business.
The second vehicle will be my ICE truck- a 3/4 ton to carry a camper or go on long distance trips.
When you do the math (right now) the EV will win, especially with new offerings coming out.
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