The Slow Death of the Internal Combustion Engine

[RedDevil]

I had to get back to this:

Originally Posted by Taylor95

... The new 35k Tesla announced has a range of 220 miles. Once the battery capacity is at 80% (the recommended time to get new batteries) the range would only be 176 miles. Who would want to drive a car that could only go 150 miles or so before it has to be charged again? ...

Because it does not work like that.

First and for all, it is unlikely the pack would degrade that far. Most Model S or X packs still have way more capacity than just 80% after 300,000 miles. The Model 3 packs are supposed to be superior.

But let's assume it does indeed degrade to 80%.
If the battery degrades to 80% the new range of the Model 3 with standard battery is down from the 220 miles which it had when it was new to probably about 213 miles.
Because the '220 mile' standard range battery and the 264 mile midrange battery are the same, except for software limiting the range of the standard one.

In practical sense the standard battery's 220 mile range should never deteriorate until the battery is on the verge of collapse, if that ever happens.

Some users speculate about the price tag or the timescale on which Tesla will release the extra capacity to Standard range owners...

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Japan is 85% mountainous, and the remaining flatland is needed hard for agriculture.
....
We do not only need EVs but also tunnels to move them.

Mountains have valleys. Mountain valleys are opportunities for hyperlooped resorts and pumped hydro storage.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

I will truly be impressed when they can equal the range of some trucks I know of (like 700+ miles on a 35 gallon tank). What will keep ICE appealing is the short fueling times and they are still better for long distance travel.

Why waste the extra 25 gallons in the truck .. take your lunch box in an Insight and go 700+ miles on just ~10 Gallons

Originally Posted by Taylor95

I did not know that you can repair batteries. I wonder if that is feasible to do yourself.

More often repair battery packs , by replacing the bad or weak modules, or cells.

It is easier than engine rebuilds , transmission rebuilds , etc .. things that numerous back yard mechanics do .. but like those , it does take some tools , knowledge , and skills.

Cost is a tiny fraction of new.

As more PHEV, HEV , BEVs get out there .. the availability trends to increases .. the costs trend to cheaper and cheaper.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Power generation must match demand at all times, so cars hopping on and off the grid can really be tricky to manage.

Although a long way off .. eventually with larger scale energy storage .. those two are no longer 'must match' .. and then the generation only has to meet the 'average' over an extended period of time.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

So not much of a point in building chargers faster than the current 120kw units.

Humans have a history of wanting more .. and then afterwards rationalizing why we now 'need' that thing we lived fine without before .. rinse , repeat.

As far as I've read .. they seem to be already pushing for 350-400kw 'next generation' ultra fast chargers (using grid buffer battery) , to start appear for public in the 2020's.

At ~3 miles per kwh .. ~400kw is a ~1,200 MPH charging rate

GM Partnership
Charge Point
BMW / Porshe

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The one other thing I didn't notice mentioned about a vehicle fire comparison .. is just simple energy .. it is after all , the definition of the ability to do work .. any kind of work you like to do requires some amount of energy to do it .. and the more energy you have , then the more work you can do .. be it move a car .. or burn something to ash .. and because of the horribly low conversion efficiency from fuel to shaft of the ICE vehicles , it is very common for them to carry with them many many times more energy .. the ~35 Gallons mentioned above is about ~1200 kwh of flammable chemical energy (depending on the type) .. it would take about ~10 fully charged high range Teslas to have enough energy to create as much of a fire/heat/etc as that 1 ICE vehicles 35 gallons .. it would be more likely for any one vehicle .. such as one with that one 35 gallon ~1200 kwh to have an issue , than it would be to simultaneously have 10 vehicles in the same place, just to get the same ~1200kwh of energy to do the same work.

[Taylor95]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

I had to get back to this:


Because it does not work like that.

First and for all, it is unlikely the pack would degrade that far. Most Model S or X packs still have way more capacity than just 80% after 300,000 miles. The Model 3 packs are supposed to be superior.

But let's assume it does indeed degrade to 80%.
If the battery degrades to 80% the new range of the Model 3 with standard battery is down from the 220 miles which it had when it was new to probably about 213 miles.
Because the '220 mile' standard range battery and the 264 mile midrange battery are the same, except for software limiting the range of the standard one.

In practical sense the standard battery's 220 mile range should never deteriorate until the battery is on the verge of collapse, if that ever happens.

Some users speculate about the price tag or the timescale on which Tesla will release the extra capacity to Standard range owners...

That's interesting... why make a lower range model with the same battery?

Originally Posted by IamIan

Why waste the extra 25 gallons in the truck .. take your lunch box in an Insight and go 700+ miles on just ~10 Gallons





The one other thing I didn't notice mentioned about a vehicle fire comparison .. is just simple energy .. it is after all , the definition of the ability to do work .. any kind of work you like to do requires some amount of energy to do it .. and the more energy you have , then the more work you can do .. be it move a car .. or burn something to ash .. and because of the horribly low conversion efficiency from fuel to shaft of the ICE vehicles , it is very common for them to carry with them many many times more energy .. the ~35 Gallons mentioned above is about ~1200 kwh of flammable chemical energy (depending on the type) .. it would take about ~10 fully charged high range Teslas to have enough energy to create as much of a fire/heat/etc as that 1 ICE vehicles 35 gallons .. it would be more likely for any one vehicle .. such as one with that one 35 gallon ~1200 kwh to have an issue , than it would be to simultaneously have 10 vehicles in the same place, just to get the same ~1200kwh of energy to do the same work.

That's a good point. And I was talking about diesel fuel, so it would be a little bit more energy. Now what we need is good comparable data on survival rates in these fires and how often they occur.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by JSH

Not mentioned here is that the car isn't the future of transportation. It doesn't matter if we drive gas cars or EVs, there isn't enough space in cities to accommodate them. Traffic is already horrible and there is no space for new roads or parking lots to accommodate the millions of people moving to cities.

I still believe private vehicle ownership will remain somewhat relevant, even though it may also embrace something other than a conventional car.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by iamIan

Cost is a tiny fraction of new.

As more PHEV, HEV , BEVs get out there .. the availability trends to increases .. the costs trend to cheaper and cheaper.

That goes for inverters, chargers, heaters, seats.......

R. B. Fuller talked about wired to wireless and tracked to trackless, and built three prototypes of his Omnidirectional Transport, a flying not-car.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

That's interesting... why make a lower range model with the same battery?

The standard needs to have a smaller range or everybody would buy that instead of the current midrange.
It is Tesla's own 'compliance car'; compliant to their $35.000 price target.
Yet, the 220 mile range would make it only slightly smaller than the midrange pack.

If Tesla designed a new pack they would have to make a separate production line, different BMS and other components and need to test them all for possibly maybe $1,000 cheaper construction.
They'd lose the chance to sell an OTA range upgrade or release it in an emergency.
So they didn't.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Taylor95

That's a good point. And I was talking about diesel fuel, so it would be a little bit more energy. Now what we need is good comparable data on survival rates in these fires and how often they occur.

1st I think we also need to recognize some of the choices being made.

BEV fires like those seen in some Tesla video's are a result of deliberate choices .. not necessarily a requirement of having a BEV.

Rich on rich rebuild , his fire (linked to above) was not about the Tesla battery system .. Rich was extremely negligent .. he disabled the Tesla safety systems .. he had no BMS .. no balancing .. no thermal regulation .. the charger didn't turn off when the battery was fully charged .. then instead of leaving it alone or using ABC dry/foam fire extinguishers they started sprayed the burning Li batteries with water .. any rookie fire fighter knows you don't spray water on a live electrical fire , but the rich video did just that , causing more electrical short-circuits on other cells .. any rookie fire fighter knows you don't spray water on a burning puddle/pool of floating flammable liquid .. like a large tank of gasoline .. the floating flammable liquid will just float on the water surface and spreads the fire .. but that's what they did in the rich fire video .. the venting liquid flammable electrolyte spread by the water , the already over heated and fully charged battery short circuited by the water .. it was almost like they deliberately went out of their way to cause the fire , and make it worse .. the enormous number of video camera angles they had setup in advance , also make it further suspect .. for people who supposedly knew better they seemed to go out of their way to deliberately do many things wrong .. all while having lots of cameras in place to catch the whole thing on video.

For instance (one such example) the Toshiba SCiB LTO battery does not have a thermal run away condition .. Even if you puncture short-circuit it with nail .. it doesn't burst into flames like some of the other battery chemistry choices currently being used in BEVs .. sure it isn't a super conductor so there are is IR heating from the discharge .. but no fire from events that would cause a Tesla battery to burst into flames ..

Link

.. It also lasts about 3-4x more cycles / years than the other battery chemistry choices currently be used in BEVs .. .. but .. this choice is currently deliberate .. It is currently more expensive $/wh , and lower energy density wh/kg .. So the same size and weight Tesla Pack that got ~300miles of range new with a ~8year ~80% of marketed Capacity warranty .. would for a little more money only get ~150 miles using that Toshiba LTO , and be like ~24 years to ~80% of marketed capacity , and the added fire safety thing too .. the market value (consumer choice preference) for 24yrs or for the increased fire safety is too small to counter the market value of ~300 miles range for less out of pocket $ .. sure I drive a 19 year old car , but most people don't.

The same potential to 'swap' to a safer energy carrier , is not possible for gasoline or diesel to a 'non-flamible' safer energy carrier fuel .. gasoline and diesel fuels have to be the high energy flammable dangerous products they are in order for the ICE to work.

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As to your question:

NTSHA already studied it .. back when the 1st gen Volt caught fire after it was in one of their crash tests.

When an accident happens ICE or BEV .. at that time .. the BEV is not any more likely to have a fire than a ICE .. nor is there any greater chance of injury from a fire when it happens.

Given the reports of improvements to BEV safety in the years after that .. but no such reports of any fire safety improvements to ICE vehicles .. it stands to reason it is at worst , still no more dangerous or likely BEV or ICE .. and .. at best , less likely/dangerous in BEV than ICE.

Thus we do reasonably know .. it's no greater risk to happen (might be less) .. and we know we can make the energy carrier (batteries) more safe in the BEV (if we want to) .. but we can't make the ICE energy carrier more safe (even if we wanted to) , the ICE depends on it being the high energy flammable product it is .. and the BEV is very likely to bring with it far less energy to do any work (like burn or melt things) .. the 1st Gen Leaf (fully charged) had what , less than 1 gallon worth of ICE fuel energy.

Of course .. as was already posted .. we will have to wait many more years to see how things shake out for aging BEVs vs aging ICE .. and as the % of BEVs on the road increases .. but .. the old BEV reduces it's kwh of fammable potential over time .. has even less energy kwh than the new BEV .. soo , it seems to me to be pretty unlikely that trend/tide will flip directions.

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To the thread topic .. I agree with the previously posted position .. I expect it will be a slow transition .. 50-100 years .. and even then .. like horses and wagons .. there will be hold outs still using ICEs long after the vast majority of society no longer does.

Mobile fossil fuel use will not be as efficient as a stationary facility could be.

But even the stationary facilities are starting to buckle to RE.

RE has been getting cheaper $/wh over time .. and in many places it is already cheaper than it's fossil fuel counter part .. and that trend continues.

Sure there is RE ICE fuel .. but it just has not been keeping pace with the efficiency gains nor cost reductions of other RE options like Solar/Wind.

That RE side of the ICE to BEV equation will also take a long time .. it's a big job .. I suspect 50-100 years .. but the numbers are already there today in allot of places , and the trend to continue to improve the numbers only continues to push the others further and further.

[oil pan 4]

Where is this rich on rich batt fire vid?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

If Tesla designed a new pack they would have to make a separate production line, different BMS and other components and need to test them all for possibly maybe $1,000 cheaper construction.
They'd lose the chance to sell an OTA range upgrade or release it in an emergency.
So they didn't.

Do you have a source for that info on the standard range using the midrange pack?

Auto manufacturers have long meetings and argue about saving 2 cents on a vehicle, so spending $1000 extra per vehicle is not to be taken lightly.

I just found this info on the wiki that seems to contradict what you say too:

Battery 50 or 62 or 75 kWh (180 or 220 or 270 MJ) Lithium ion[2]
Electric range
220 mi (354 km) Standard Range[3]
264 mi (425 km) Mid Range (est. EPA-rated)[4]
325 mi (523 km) Long Range (EPA-rated)[3]