Structural batteries in electric vehicles

[Piotrsko]

To replace that coolant tube, there's a ton of disassembly required including removing the skateboard.. The Tesla beancounters figured out how much that cost was. The guy that fixed it with a hardware store part (which may or may not be 100% compatible) didn't disassemble so cheaper repair. He did void the remaining warranty.

[Xist]

Weird. I logged in and clicked on Read Unread.

The page reloaded.

I clicked on Page 2 and the page reloaded.

I finally clicked on Go Advanced and scrolled down to read the new messages.

That isn't right!

[Piotrsko]

It is if someone like me is editing the page or reply.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

To replace that coolant tube, there's a ton of disassembly required including removing the skateboard.. The Tesla beancounters figured out how much that cost was. The guy that fixed it with a hardware store part (which may or may not be 100% compatible) didn't disassemble so cheaper repair. He did void the remaining warranty.

But...

1. How easy is it to do damage to a fairly new engine or transmission to the point that it requires the whole engine and/or transmission to be rebuilt or replaced? Would running over a piece of tire tread or similar and immediately pulling over and turning off the vehicle do that much damaged?
2. Would it cost $16,000 to do that, to take apart a new engine or transmission and put it back together to fix one broken piece of plastic inside it caused from running over a piece of tire?

The point is that if it costs $16,000 to fix a battery that has perfectly good cells and perfectly good electronics and only needs a plastic fitting fixed, how much will it cost to fix the battery once the whole battery needs replacing?

It seems to me that our only hope is that the battery in our EV's lasts as long as the rest of the car and as long as an ICEV would last. Otherwise replacing or repairing it would be prohibitively expensive.

This also shows why insurance on EV's is so high. If manufacturers put a little plastic tube on the front of the car that costs $16,000 if it gets cracked your car is an expensive repair bill waiting to happen.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Xist

That isn't right!

If the posts are in reverse order and the illustrations are missing, it is.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

But...

1. How easy is it to do damage to a fairly new engine or transmission to the point that it requires the whole engine and/or transmission to be rebuilt or replaced? Would running over a piece of tire tread or similar and immediately pulling over and turning off the vehicle do that much damaged?
2. Would it cost $16,000 to do that, to take apart a new engine or transmission and put it back together to fix one broken piece of plastic inside it caused from running over a piece of tire?

The point is that if it costs $16,000 to fix a battery that has perfectly good cells and perfectly good electronics and only needs a plastic fitting fixed, how much will it cost to fix the battery once the whole battery needs replacing?

It seems to me that our only hope is that the battery in our EV's lasts as long as the rest of the car and as long as an ICEV would last. Otherwise replacing or repairing it would be prohibitively expensive.

This also shows why insurance on EV's is so high. If manufacturers put a little plastic tube on the front of the car that costs $16,000 if it gets cracked your car is an expensive repair bill waiting to happen.

Tesla isn't really a good benchmark.

A) They aren't focused on the ability to repair the car. (The giant new structural casting is another example of a stupid idea that makes a car very likely to be totaled instead of repaired)
B) They don't have independent dealers that can compete against one another and they don't sell parts to independent shops. Tesla wants to control every part of the ownership experience.

However the idea is that an EV battery will last the life of the car and then be repurposed into another use. Time will tell if that happens - we are only a decade into EV sales at any scale. With the exception of the Leaf battery life is looking good so far.

[Isaac Zachary]

Good points.

Originally Posted by JSH

However the idea is that an EV battery will last the life of the car and then be repurposed into another use. Time will tell if that happens - we are only a decade into EV sales at any scale. With the exception of the Leaf battery life is looking good so far.

I wonder where one could find a list of EV's and their average battery degradation over the years. I suppose more of that kind of info will come out with time.

I have heard good things of many besides Nissan's batteries too. Time will tell.

My intuition tells me that the batteries in EV's are a lot like cellphone and laptop batteries. Those seem to lose capacity and die after 5 years or so. And they don't sit out in the elements like a car does. That and I've had an impossible time finding decent aftermarket replacement batteries. Half the time they have the same or worse capacity as the aged original and die within months.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

However the idea is that an EV battery will last the life of the car and then be repurposed into another use. Time will tell if that happens - we are only a decade into EV sales at any scale. With the exception of the Leaf battery life is looking good so far.

Lots of turmoil in the Bolt forums the last 8 months. GM released 3 "fixes" for relatively uncommon fires related to defective LG batteries, but apparently that didn't do the trick.

GM is advising owners to only operate the vehicle between 30%-80% charge, and to park the vehicle outside immediately after charging as they work on the 4th solution to the problem.

Hyundai already issued a recall to replace Kona batteries produced at the same Korean LG manufacturing plant, so that may be a sign of things to come for GM.

Batteries are still a huge unknown liability for manufacturers. Hopefully batteries degrade peacefully, but there's a balancing act of tuning the chemistry to maximize the many relevant performance metrics.

[Xist]

The Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) had more than 600 electric cabs operating in New York with smaller fleets in Boston, Baltimore, and other eastern cities by the early 1900s

In New York, the downtime it took to recharge batteries was addressed by converting an ice arena into a battery-swapping station where a cab could drive in, have its spent batteries replaced with a recharged set, and move on out. Brilliant, but like many a startup, it expanded too quickly, ran into unforeseen conflicts among investors and partners, and the whole taxi venture had collapsed by 1907.
EVC’s battery supplier (which was an investor and partner) became what we know today as Exide. Its manufacturing partner, Pope (also a gasoline-car pioneer), took the technology and applied a name from its thriving bicycle business, Columbia, to a run of cars for public sale. Columbia [bottom right] reached the 1000-units-built milestone well before those visionary mass-manufacturers in Detroit, Ransom Olds and Henry Ford, got up to speed.

Worth the Watt: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present

Henry Ford's wife Clara drove an EV from 1908 to 1914 because she found her husband’s product dirty and noisy!

Rich women also preferred electric cars because gassers of that time required hand-cranking, so there were charging stations in city centers, but electric cars were doomed once electric starters were invented.

GM built an electric Corvair in 1964 and then another in 1966 using exotic components. It had a top speed of 80 MPH and range of 40-80 miles, but the batteries could survive only 100 recharge cycles and the pack cost $160,000--in 1966 dollars.

The Citicar and Comuta-Car sold "4444 units, making it the largest electric-car producer in America since the end of World War II, a distinction it would maintain until 2013."

This car may have led to the creation of Tesla:

Alan Cocconi founded AC Propulsion in San Dimas, California, in 1992. He provided GM with much of the electric-related genius that made the Impact concept and subsequent EV1 work properly, including contributions to its inverter.

In 1997, AC Propulsion revealed the tzero seen here, with 150 kW (201 horsepower) and lead-acid batteries (Johnson Controls Optima Yellow Tops). The body and chassis were basically the pre-existing Piontek Sportech fiberglass kit car.

Eventual Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard commissioned a tzero using lithium-ion cells, which were just becoming available. It was supposed to have a 0-to-60-mph in 3.7 seconds, but cost $220,000.

The creators "resisted putting the car into production, Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning incorporated Tesla Motors in 2003."

They say the first Roadsters were basically tzeros with Lotus Elise bodies, which were one grade above kit cars.

Shai Agassi founded Better Place in 2009 and went through more than $850 million in investments before going bankrupt in 2013.

The business plan "relied on the notion of a standardized battery pack that could be swapped out rather than recharged onboard," but Agassi excelled in offending other automakers, who he needed to build the batteries.

Thirteen years since its incorporation and eight orbits of the sun since introducing its first production car, in those terms, Tesla has outlasted nearly every other new startup auto company since Porsche and Ferrari and Lamborghini were born after WWII.

Some day I may remember what I was trying to find.

By the way, I have tried repeatedly to find statistics on Prius batteries, but all that I get is opinion.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Xist

Shai Agassi founded Better Place in 2009 and went through more than $850 million in investments before going bankrupt in 2013.

The business plan "relied on the notion of a standardized battery pack that could be swapped out rather than recharged onboard," but Agassi excelled in offending other automakers, who he needed to build the batteries.Some day I may remember what I was trying to find.

Let's suppose a similar approach could be economically viable, and EV makers were not so focused on proving them to fare better performance-wise than an ICE-powered car. Also considering safety, chemical stability and recyclability to be priorities, leading to the usage of "outdated" lead-acid battery packs, most likely the best testbeds for such setup could be those Japanese forward-control vans, as they require some under-floor clearance for a transmission, driveshaft and suspension travel when fitted with a solid rear axle. There would be plenty of space to add enough batteries to provide a range suitable to the needs of an average Joe or Sally, and maybe even allowing some streamlining to improve efficiency.