Progressive Automotive X-Prize [Final] Round

[AK47]

Patrick is right on track with his WTW and PTW comparison. Anyone who has followed the XPRIZE events can smell something wrong in the EV arena, and it isn't just overheated battery packs. All those EV's lined up plugged in to a recharger after each event like junkies at a hippie fest.

I think the most practical car is the BITW Technologies' entry. Sure, it isn't as slick as an Aptera or even those Edison 2's but would you really trust one of those on a long trip or even just around town? Don't let the 51.1 mpge throw you off. Their car gets much better mileage than that figure suggests. Do many know that this team completed all three efficiency events with their economy systems disabled? Go to the BITW Technologies blog for an explanation. When the events were completed George Voll drove his car off the track and straight to his home 350 miles away, at 60-70 mph normal driving averaging nearly 70 mpg actual. I would really like to buy a car like it.

The BITW Team of country boys created an automobile for less than $10,000, nearly all self-funded, and competed against the big money teams. I would say that if the rules had not been changed early on to favor the electric cars with short tests this car would have been the only one left still operational. It's a daily driver and George Voll has put over 17,000 actual road miles on it in the past year or so with no failures. Same engine, same transmission. No Mickey Mousing with "virtual" mpg figures. This is the kind of car many of us really want for a daily driver. One we can drive to work or to the grocery while not requiring a complete replacement of the entire World's fuel infrastructure and that won't leave us out in the middle of New Mexico with nary a recharger in sight.

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The 33.4kWh / gallon of gasoline is a direct BTU equivalency. The X-Prize wants to measure the efficiency of the vehicle, so this is completely fair and accurate.

It's foolish to look at energy passing through the vehicle, rather than energy used on account of the vehicle. It would be smarter to look at carbon footprints, in which case the correct figure is 15.1KWh/gal for grid electricity.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Additionally, you must include the oil used for lubrication (or maybe the above numbers already do?).

I recycle three liters of lubricating oil per ten thousand miles. I will round that to "zero".

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

As far as emissions goes, if electricity has to include the source, generation, and grid losses, then the gasoline also must include the exploration, drilling, refinement, and transportation loses.

I do account for this. Refining and distribution is 83% efficient. The stuff is called "black gold" for a reason: The energy density of it is mind-boggling. Sure, it takes huge amounts of energy to refine, but the output is far more enormous. Meanwhile, electricity transmission is around 90% efficient, and electricity generation is around 34% efficient as implemented in the US today. You'd be negligent to ignore that last figure.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The 40gm/km source-to-wheel (including waste disposal, too!) vs the 450-500gm/km for gasoline is comparing apples-to-apples -- electricity has far lower emissions.

Those numbers are not even close to correct. They're hopelessly optimistic on the electric car (or maybe it's plugged in to a grid like France's low-carbon one) and hopelessly pessimistic on the gasser. Off by a factor of ten.

Neil, I challenge you to tell me the lifecycle CO2 content of US average electricity, and that of a gallon of gasoline. I find these figures to be 600-700g/kWh and ~11000g/gal. (600 to 700) / (11000) = 15-17KWh/gal. Podcasts are not credible sources, but if there are research papers in their bibliography, those are fair game of course.

________

This is a very important issue. If people believe that electric cars have zero emissions (the claim has been made, believe it or not), or that 33.4KWh = 1 gal, then people will choose a plug-in SUV over a Prius. That's not the end of the world, until the price of batteries drops, and someone decides they want an electric vehicle that can go 0-60 in 5.7s and can seat seven in luxury and style while towing a 5000lb boat. If you disbelive that people would ask for such a car, just look at the Trailblazer SS. The BEV version would have a huge carbon footprint and would be an enormous tax on our electric grid.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The best thing about EV's is they have the potential for getting cleaner and cleaner as they are used -- because electricity *can* come from renewable sources! Liquid fuels can too (biodiesel, etc.) and methane from biomass is also renewable -- but gasoline as we know it is finite.

Therefore I applaud (PH)EV hobbyists, and I want to see some (PH)EV's on the road. I also point out that CO2 equivalence, cost equivalence, and lifecycle energy equivalence are poor figures of merit. I encourage you to think about plugging in, even though it won't reduce your carbon footprint much if you're running grid average juice. The fact that it doesn't save energy is okay too, because renewable electric sources are presently viable and affordable while renewable liquid fuels are not.

We must first develop a greener grid BEFORE we begin to plug vehicles in to it on a large scale.

[NeilBlanchard]

For the purposes of the X-Prize, they chose to measure just the energy used by the vehicle. I think they did the right thing. And even if they did do source-to-wheel, then the EV's would have done even better.

Why is it so hard to understand how it is that EV's are so much more efficient? My electric lawn mower uses the equivalent of just 0.0012 gallons of gasoline in an HOUR -- this is less than a teaspoon full. A gasoline powered lawn more would burn through ~0.09375 gallons (1.5 cups) in an hour -- about 78X more.

And, gasoline has far more "embedded" energy in it than does electricity -- far more. Nissan says that it takes about 7.5kWh of electricity to do part of the refining of petroleum into gasoline (and it takes some natural gas, too!). So the embedded energy of that electricity IS ADDED TO THE GASOLINE. So, the gasoline has all of the exploration, drilling, transportation, refinement -- which includes enough electricity to drive 30-60 miles -- and you still have to transport it and store it, etc., and then you get to burn it in your car.

So, without ANY of the other embedded energy -- just use that 7.5kWh of electricity directly in a car -- and you have saved ALL of that other energy.

A gallon of gasoline contains a whole lot of energy -- about SIXTY THREE sticks of dynamite. And yet, we use less than 1% of that to actually move the driver...and about 80% or more of it is waste heat. How horribly inefficient is that?

To wait any longer to start being much more efficient -- by driving EV's, would be a crime. We are immorally using up this amazing resource AS FAST AS WE CAN, and we are completely altering our world, that we depend on. We cannot wait a moment longer. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Why is it so hard to understand how it is that EV's are so much more efficient? My electric lawn mower uses the equivalent of just 0.0012 gallons of gasoline in an HOUR -- this is less than a teaspoon full. A gasoline powered lawn more would burn through ~0.09375 gallons (1.5 cups) in an hour -- about 78X more.

Well I think one of us must be doing the math wrong. My Black and Decker electric lawnmower uses 12 amps at 120 volts AC: 12 X 120 = 1440 watts (about 2 hp). 1440 watts/1000 = 1.44 kilowatts. 1.44 kilowatts x 1 hour = 1.44 kilowatt hours. A gallon of gasoline contains 33,705 watt-hours of energy. 33,705/1000 = 33.71 kilowatt hours. 1.44/ 33.71 = 0.043 gallons of gasoline equivalent used.

I don't know of any gasoline lawnmower that would only use .09375 gallons in an hour. I wish I did. I couldn't find any fuel consumption figure for lawnmowers in particular, but I did find this for compressors that use similar engines. SS.FM -- Fuel Usage Table If we take the Honda 2.8hp engine as an example, the fuel consumption is 0.24 gallons per hour (and it has 40% more power than my electric lawnmower).

So 0.24 gph (gas) / 0.044 gph (equivalent electric) = 5.6 times as efficient, not 78 times. But, of course, this ignores conversion and transmission losses as you cannot just pour electricity into your lawn mower.

Let's look at it from a cost standpoint. Around here regular gas is about $2.67/gallon and I pay $0.10/kW-hr for electricity. So the gas lawnmower would cost $2.67 X 0.24 = $0.64 to run for an hour. The electric lawnmower would cost 1.44 X $0.10 = $0.144 to run for an hour. 0.64 / 0.144 = 4.44 times as much to run the gas mower, or 0.64 - .144 = $0.50 an hour more. Sounds really attractive right? Yes, until you have the hassle of an extension cord and the "range" limitation of the length of that cord. Lots of people are willing to pay the 50 cents/hour more not to have to drag a cord around. Now if only we could come up with an EV that had a 100-mile long cord reel. Hmm . . .

Anyway, how does my math look? Did I miss anything?

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

And, gasoline has far more "embedded" energy in it than does electricity -- far more. Nissan says that it takes about 7.5kWh of electricity to do part of the refining of petroleum into gasoline (and it takes some natural gas, too!). So the embedded energy of that electricity IS ADDED TO THE GASOLINE. So, the gasoline has all of the exploration, drilling, transportation, refinement -- which includes enough electricity to drive 30-60 miles -- and you still have to transport it and store it, etc., and then you get to burn it in your car.

So, without ANY of the other embedded energy -- just use that 7.5kWh of electricity directly in a car -- and you have saved ALL of that other energy.
!

Well, this sounds good on the surface. But how do we get that "embedded" electricity into our electric car? If our transmission system has 50% losses (just a PFA number, I have no idea what they really are), then the 7.5kWh of electricity at the plug has 7.5kWh of "embedded" electricity, too.

A gallon of gas has 33,705kWh of energy. So the "embedded" part of the electricity would be 7.5 / 33.7 = 22.2% of the total energy available. The transmission losses would have to be less than 22% for electricity to be a net winner on that basis. Maybe they are, I don't know, but the higher the losses the less weight the "embedded" argument holds.

If we could generate the electricity right on site and put it straight into our electric cars it would be great. But, unfortunately that is not the case for most people.

I still think that the well-to-wheels evaluation is the only fair way to look at the situation, as it takes into account all of these variables.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

A gallon of gasoline contains a whole lot of energy -- about SIXTY THREE sticks of dynamite. And yet, we use less than 1% of that to actually move the driver...and about 80% or more of it is waste heat. How horribly inefficient is that?

To wait any longer to start being much more efficient -- by driving EV's, would be a crime. We are immorally using up this amazing resource AS FAST AS WE CAN, and we are completely altering our world, that we depend on. We cannot wait a moment longer. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

I agree with your last sentence, but the problem for most people is that the cost/benefit ratio isn't there yet. The practical EVs available today (or in the near future), like the Tesla, Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt either cost a whole lot more than comparable gas cars, have limitations the gas cars don't, or both. Perhaps with the goverment incentives and eventual economies of scale we will get there someday.

[RobertSmalls]

Agreed, electric is a great way to mow a lawn, and gas lawn mowers are a poor exemplar of the ICE's potential.

Patrick, electricity transmission losses are around 10%. It's the 35% efficient fossil fired generation that makes the arrangement as a whole only a little more efficient than an ICE + refinery.

By the time you add enough batteries to get 100mi of range, you've added enough weight to raise emissions to a level higher that of hybrid of similar specs. Most studies on the matter recommend a HEV or PHEV with not much more than 10mi range as being far cheaper and having slightly lower emissions than a BEV.

Neil, Nissan says it's >22% loss in refining, and I've used 17% throughout my calculations. My number does account for the other energy and non-energy products produced alongside gasoline, as well as all the purchased energy used during the process.

16KWh per gallon. Until a coal phase-out is well underway, mass adoption of electric cars will not be very exciting.

[NeilBlanchard]

I plugged my lawnmower into a Kill-A-Watt, and it drew ~13A on startup, but then ~4.1A continuous. (It is rated as a 12A motor, too -- but that doesn't mean it runs at 12A.) The total time was about 2 hours and 35 minutes, and I've misplaced the piece of paper I wrote it on; but the average was 0.38kWh per hour. And the mowing was anything but easy -- the grass was very thick and it was pretty tall.

Grid losses are no where near 50% -- I used to think this, but the EIA.gov figure is a national average of ~8% losses. U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis I was told that number was on the site, but I have yet to find it, actually.

And again, the gasoline/diesel has all of this embedded in it; including the losses. So, an apples-to-apples comparison is that petroleum based fuel are far more energy intensive. It takes something 3-5 days to distill/refine gasoline, and the process requires lots of heat and power. If the electricity has been transmitted to the refinery, then you don't need to then subtract more energy just because you are going to use it in an EV.

We cannot reduce the BTU equivalency of electricity vs gasoline because of the embedded energy in just electricity. This would not be fair, and it is meaningless -- the energy equivalency is what it is: 33.4kWh per gallon of gasoline. And E85 is MPG x 1.41 = MPGe, and diesel is MPG x ~0.89-0.9 = MPGe (IIRC). These are equations, and they cannot be changed on one side without doing the same thing to the other side.

So, if you adjust for the embedded energy in electricity, then you have to do the same for gasoline. And the approximate balance is 40gm/km vs 450gm/km.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

By the time you add enough batteries to get 100mi of range, you've added enough weight to raise emissions to a level higher that of hybrid of similar specs. Most studies on the matter recommend a HEV or PHEV with not much more than 10mi range as being far cheaper and having slightly lower emissions than a BEV.

Exactly. Toyota did a similar study. That's why their plug-in Prius (to be released next year) has a 13 mile range in EV mode.

[RobertSmalls]

450g/km? C'mon. Can you point at a number remotely close to that one in a reputable peer-reviewed publication? Or is that for a fleet average (25mpg) vehicle, with 100% of the energy for refining assigned to the gasoline generated and 0% assigned to the rest of the refined goods?

The fair comparo is a BEV against the thriftiest two-mode hybrid they could build for the same price, with the same acceleration, top speed, payload, and cargo volume as the reference BEV. This reference gas car would outperform the first-gen Insight and its 12 year old technology by a good margin, while seating four. 100mpg for everybody.

For that matter, 40g/km? That's about 40Wh/mi on the grid here. Non-sense.

I admire your conservationist spirit. I'm also concerned about our future. I've done the math, and I know that electrification of our fleet, without the greening of our grid, will not help the situation.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hey, the electric drive cars use less energy to go the same distance. And what is the lowest gm/km you have ever heard of for an internal combustion car -- about 80gm/km? Funny that fits very well with the MPGe at X-Prize.

The average for the gasoline alone is 120gm/km. EV's use less energy and put out less carbon, even without adding in the embedded energy of the gasoline -- how can that be bad for the environment?

Weight matters, but not as much as drivetrain efficiency. If weight was most important, then the Spira would have been the best -- it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best. I think aero is more important than weight, as well.

Because, we have three examples of heavy EV's that are much more efficient than light ICE powered cars: the Dolphin at 3,200 pounds, the FVT at ~2,000 pounds, and the Illuminati at 3,200-3,400 pounds -- all of them are more efficient than the Edison2 and the Spira.

The average EV got over 50MPGe *more* than the average ICE car., so the 85-95% electric motors more than make up for the extra weight. And, imagine if Dave Cloud were to put 500-600 pounds of lithium batteries (this could be 32-40kWh) and the Dolphin would be around 1,800 pounds -- and it would be well over 200MPGe; maybe even 300MPGe.

And how is it that the FVT eVaro (which is a serial hybrid, with a 21kWh EiG pack, can carry around the genset (it did not need it for the distances in the X-Prize -- it could go ~140 miles on that pack) and still get 157MPGe? Because it's custom made direct drive electric motors are so efficient.

[NeilBlanchard]