Electric car efficiencies

[drmiller100]

Neil was too shy to start his own thread to explain why pure electric cars are not suitable for mainstream America.

Go for it Neil!

[NeilBlanchard]

Electric cars are capable of meeting 9 out of 10 drives here in the USA:

Green Car Congress: Another cut at US electric vehicle range requirements and usage patterns; fully-charged LEAF could handle 83-95% of all driving days

Here's my recent blog post:

Neil Blanchard Designs: What Do We Do Now?

It is critical that we do something about global climate change and our unsustainable consumption of many important resources -- because we can have an affect. We started the ball rolling, and by the same token, we can work to reverse what we have started. It won't be easy and it will be painful, but as moral beings we have to try.

Paul Gilding in his book "The Great Disruption" talks about an approximate time line of 5 or 6 years of status quo before we hit a big tipping point, and then very aggressive reduction of carbon output over the next 25-30 years, followed by as much carbon sequestration as we can muster.

We need to take the 2C increase very seriously, and we must not pass ~450ppm or all hell will really break loose. We need to return back down to <350ppm to avoid the worst effects. The equilibrium we had for ~650,000 years was ~270ppm.

When and if we can do this, the world won't be back to what we had, because there is real and lasting damage to biodiversity, but it will probably settle down.

We and all life forms here in the present are the results of all life that has come before us. We would not even have oxygen in the air without plants splitting water in photosynthesis. Each and every molecule in our bodies has been part of myriad other life forms before, many times over.

Think of this as a kind of reincarnation. I love this quote from Neil deGrasseTyson:

We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically ***

Each and every drop of water has been cycling through life forms, the soil, and the rocks of this planet -- over and over and over and over again and again and again... The oxygen carrying iron in our blood came from the stars. All the gold we have came from supernovas. The soil itself was produced by all of life forms down through the eons.

This is a balanced and efficient and bountiful cycle. The carbon we have so blithely thrown up into the atmosphere in less than 2 centuries was packed away underground over a couple of billion years. We have made a very basic change, and we must take responsibility for it.

++++++++++

A recent study said that 83-95% of ALL daily drives in the USA could be done in a Nissan Leaf.

Can you imagine the day when ~90% of all cars in America are electric? We wouldn't need a military any where near as large as we have now. We would stop spending 1.5 BILLION a DAY on foreign oil. Our carbon output could be 20-25% lower (if I am anywhere close on this?), and the air pollution would be hugely reduced, saving many lives and many people would be far healthier with out it.

We could all have solar PV panels on our roofs and we would save another 20-30% of carbon output because all the oldest coal plants could be shut down. We can get almost all out hot water from solar heat vacuum tube collectors, and the most efficient heat pumps, some being geothermal heat pumps would let us heat and cool our houses completely carbon free.

We could employ 250,000+ people building and assembling wind turbines and wave power machines, solar PV panels, and solar heat systems -- in a few decades we could get 100% of our electricity from fuel free renewable energy sources. We would lower our carbon output by 80% overall and we would stop killing coal miners and have zero oil spills and not need to devastate the boreal forests of Alberta or dig for uranium around the Grand Canyon, or poison drinking wells with fracking fluid.

If we switched back to farming like we did it 75 years ago, we would not be poisoning the rivers with chemical runoff, not create dead zones in the ocean, and not add nitrous oxide (the results of chemical nitrogen fertilizers!) to the atmosphere, adding to global climate change. We would all be much healthier and all food could be local and fresh and in season and safer and cancer rates would drop and all food would be fully nutritious and have full flavor.

And we would avoid the worst of global climate change. If we can stay below ~450ppm and keep the Antarctic ice sheets frozen and not mess up crop productivity too much, and not cause too many 1,000's of more species to go extinct and not flood our most populous river deltas and low lying coastal plains and only displace a few million people -- then we might just survive the next millennium, and have chance to correct what we have done in the last century and a half.

We would come back into step with the natural cycle of life that has sustained life for millions of years.

*** This was used in a song, that I blogged about earlier, called "We Are All Connected"

[Ladogaboy]

I need to chime in here, because I think that there are some glaring problems with the conclusion that the Leaf is right for 90% of the population. This conclusion is based ONLY on driving habits. Take me as an example. Sure, for my daily work commute (15 miles each way), the Leaf will work. Throw in my daily errands (~5 miles), so again, the Leaf will work. Now, take into account my lifestyle driving (4-5 days a week, ~60 miles @ 65 mph each of those days). At this point, I'm starting to get worried about the range. 100 miles per day with much of that at night and at highway speeds means that I'm already at the edge of the Leaf's capabilities.

And then, it gets better. I park my Leaf at my apartment and... @$%&!?! I don't have a power outlet. But I don't feel so bad, because the thousands of people (literally) who are living in the surround apartment complexes don't have power outlets either. My work doesn't have an electric car charging station, and I doubt that most of my neighbors have one at work either.

And then you need to consider the people who live in rural areas (my parents have to drive 45 miles to get to the nearest grocery store); the people who live in areas with extreme climates (Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Northeast, etc.) and possibly can't leave their cars even semi-exposed during the day (let alone at night); the people who have to haul objects that won't fit in a small car; the people with extreme 80-100+ one-way commutes.

I think the 90% figure is completely unrealistic and over-exaggerated. Sure, if you can help to start developing the infrastructure so that it can manage and sustain the extra load on the power grid; people can reasonably and easily recharge their cars; and several different, reasonably-priced EVs with 150-200 mile ranges are made available, then you can approach that 80-90% figure. Until then, from what I've seen, the number is probably closer to 35-50% in the extreme.

[jamesqf]

Lots of false assumptions in that. Of course the most glaring one (which I'll refrain from discussing further, as it's political) is that the size of the military is related to oil consumption.

But consider the logic in the statement that 83-90% of DAILY drives could be done in a Leaf. That means a lot of people would need a second car to handle the rest - so why not make the first car a Volt-style plug-in hybrid, which would handle ALL drives?

Then consider that life's not exactly predictable. Just for a real-life example, I live off US 395 between Reno and Carson City. Lots of people commute between, or either on from places along the highway. These trips should be perfectly doable in a Leaf. But suppose, as happened last week, we have a little fire or other situation that closes the highway, and the shortest alternate route adds maybe 40 miles of mountain driving? You have lots of stranded people. Human nature being what it is, some of them are going to get stranded in ways that block the roads, preventing emergency vehicles from getting through...

Then on the bright side, you have to consider that some substantial fraction of those daily drives are in fact unnecessary, since they involve commuting to do jobs that could as well be done at home, via the internet.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Ladogaboy

...there are some glaring problems with the conclusion that the Leaf is right for 90% of the population.

I think you mis-read Neil's conclusion. He said that it works for 90% of DRIVES, as in individual trips, not 90% of drivers. The real problem is the other 10% of individual trips--that, and the perception of the need for those trips.

Speaking about the perception: How many people do you know who drive a super-duty pickup truck because they tow a boat twice per year? How many who own one because they might at some point want to tow a boat, even though they haven't in the last two years?

Given the current constraints on refueling and energy storage, electric cars could be feasible for a good-sized segment of the population, like you and me. But only if a longer-ranged or more-capable vehicle was easily available at need, like when you want to take that 150-mile weekend trip or when you need to haul lumber for that project or tow that boat.

If we can figure out how to get more efficient (more energy, less weight and size) storage of electrical power, and if we can improve the re-charging process so it takes a reasonable amount of time, the distance concerns become much less pressing.

-soD

[Ladogaboy]

Originally Posted by some_other_dave

I think you mis-read Neil's conclusion. He said that it works for 90% of DRIVES, as in individual trips, not 90% of drivers. The real problem is the other 10% of individual trips--that, and the perception of the need for those trips.

I did misread it, but I think my most salient point is still valid: You can't consider the Leaf to work for 90% of daily drives if, at the end of each daily drive, a considerable portion of the population cannot recharge the car.

Emphasis added:

Assumingthe electric car is charged overnight only, a Nissan LEAF with a 62-138 mile range would be able to satisfy 83-95% of all travel days...

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But consider the logic in the statement that 83-90% of DAILY drives could be done in a Leaf. That means a lot of people would need a second car to handle the rest - so why not make the first car a Volt-style plug-in hybrid, which would handle ALL drives?

Hit the nail on the head.

EVs have limited range which forces people to own a 2nd car. This isn't a problem for generation homes and otherwise big households where cars can easily be shared, but small households will more often than not find EVs to be impractical. Hybrids like the Volt and Zing! which rely primarily on batteries for short drives but offer no compromises when you need to travel are a much better "one size fits all" solution.

[Frank Lee]

Yah sure if you dig around you can conjure all kinds of naysayer reasons why an EV wouldn't be suitable. Putting every possible, even far-fetched scenario on one's primary vehicle is how we ended up with full-sized pickups and SUVS as our primary *severely underutilized* vehicles.

The fact remains, the vast majority of households are multi-vehicle already, and the vast majority of trips are short distance, single occupant.

When gas is $10/gallon I think you'll find ways to overlook/adapt.

[dcb]

Originally Posted by Ecky

...Hybrids like the Volt and Zing! which rely primarily on batteries for short drives but offer no compromises when you need to travel are a much better "one size fits all" solution.

They do make compromises, in efficiency for long trips especially, I don't know why that isn't better understood. I think the volt gets like 35mpg in range extending mode or something well under par, especially for that price range.

2001 honda insight, mild hybrid with fairly optimal hiway engine and drivetrain (manual trans) = 60mpg hiway!
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Power...ht&srchtyp=ymm

Throw a cvt in there and watch it drop to 49mpg.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Yah sure if you dig around you can conjure all kinds of naysayer reasons why an EV wouldn't be suitable. Putting every possible, even far-fetched scenario on one's primary vehicle is how we ended up with full-sized pickups and SUVS as our primary *severely underutilized* vehicles.

The fact remains, the vast majority of households are multi-vehicle already, and the vast majority of trips are short distance, single occupant.

When gas is $10/gallon I think you'll find ways to overlook/adapt.

As well as going a long way toward solving the atmospheric carbon content issue.

regards
Mech