Electric cars, hybrids, and related vehicles

Hardware and technical stuff
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Alternately, you can go with a plug-in hybrid or extended range electric vehicle. In both cases, they’re intended to run primarily on electricity, but can use gas to generate more electricity when the battery runs out. The main difference being that the plug-in hybrids tend to have relatively short ranges on electric power, maybe 20 miles or so. Which sounds very short, but most places 20 miles is more than enough for normal use.

The Chevy Volt is an example of an extended-range EV. So is the BMW i3, or rather, the i3 is a pure EV with an optional small gas tank and generator.

As Stusser pointed out, the problem with exceeding a pure electric vehicle’s range is the charge time, which is absurdly long even with level-2 chargers. A level-2 public charger is fine if you’re dropping the car off at a park-and-ride, but if you’re on a 450 mile road trip like our annual Christmas trip, you’d need ~17 hours charging with a RAV4 (100 miles initial range, 350 miles / 20 miles per hour of charge), and almost all EVs have shorter ranges. The Tesla supercharger network is the only practical answer to long trips at this time, and that only works with Teslas.

My point being that for most people, almost all use falls into one of those two categories: lots and lots of days under 20 miles, and rare trips of 200 miles or more which makes anything but a Tesla impractical. Which is why I think plug-in hybrids and extended range EVs are a good answer, covering both cases well.

The only other case that comes to mind are California commuters. When I lived in the Los Angeles area, I had often had 50-60 mile commutes, and 20 mile trips to stores were common. Since it’s earthquake country, everything is built out rather than up. If I were still living there, the short ranges of non-Teslas would make even everyday use impractical.

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This is a topic worthy of its own thread.

I’m not a very Green person. However, I’m very aware that fossil fuels are a limited resource, and Peak Oil is likely not far off. I purchased the solar array primarily as a financial investment, but since then I’ve similarly been thinking about how I can practically move to other energy sources without screwing with my lifestyle. That’s why I started thinking about electric vehicles.

I’ve gone further since then - we’re selling our cars, and one of the replacement cars is a plug-in hybrid. I’ve loved driving the Supra, but I’ve calculated the MPG with every gas purchase, and I’m very aware that my typical usage is 14-15 MPG, and 20 MPG on that annual road trip. Granted, I don’t drive much, and according to my records I’ve spend $400 on gas on the last 12 months, which is ~115 gallons, but the numbers still bother me. This is not about money, since $400 fuel cost annually is a trivial expense to me. It’s about feeling uncomfortable with using up a finite resource.

The other big factor is heat. I did some calculations there as well, and that’s more energy than my electricity or transport costs, even though the natural gas cost was less. I want to post numbers, but Keyspan’s web site is down right now, so I don’t have figures for my real gas usage. I don’t know what the alternatives here are, since I know electric heat is rather expensive compared to natural gas. Since electricity -> heat has no obvious inefficiencies, I’m guessing the high cost is about the high efficiency of gas -> heat conversion rather than gas -> electricity -> heat.

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Fuel is of course limited, but peak oil is much further off than anyone predicted a couple of years ago. Certainly not in the lifetime of anyone reading this post. The US is actually exporting fuel now, and many other countries are mining off-shore much deeper than ever before. The reason to wean off fossil fuels is that they’re destroying the environment, not that we’re running out.

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I hadn’t heard that. Last time I looked, there were projections that it would be Any Day Now - i.e. 2010 in some graphs, though obviously that’s out of date. I thought the US was still a significant importer - when did that change?

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Fracking.

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I had no idea. Sure, I knew fracking existed, but I thought it was pretty small scale still. Sure enough, as search quickly showed that fracking has significantly boosted oil production.

That’s a big deal.

Pump prices are still pretty high, though. For the US, I mean. I know they’re ridiculously low by European standards.

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And after fracking we have deep sea oil drilling. The amount of oil under the ocean is staggering. The difficulties extracting the oil are also staggering, but it’s a technical problem which given the rewards involved will probably be solved in an economic fashion.

Of course if we burned all that oil we would be living in a hothouse with out polar caps.

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But, all these other sources of oil (Fracking/deep ocean/Ice free Artic) lead to a serious dead end for humanity. This is not the thread for that discussion, but it is a serious consideration for all of us right now.

As Gus said the whole move away from fossil fuel as primary source of energy probably deserves it’s own separate thread (i guess in a different sub-forum), but as i’m a good few years away from taking that big step this thread is serving a nice piece-meal catch all in that whole debate.

In relation to the hybrid/full EV choice, i was very much ‘flip a coin’ about it. Hybrids make most sense for most people in most cases, and would in mine case also. However i plan to keep the merc as my main fossil fuel car (it’s a decent car) and as it gets older will look into a bio-diesel option for it (maybe distilling it myself, experiments can be fun). So a hybrid, that only has incredibly short EV range, is less interesting in that particular scenario.

Modern EV’s are really already on the lowest kind of range to be practical, but they can at least provide the range you need for most of your day-to-day driving. And they are DIRT CHEAP to run, like £2-3 for a full charge (80 odd miles worth). So even if you don’t go the whole ‘green’ mile, don’t fit your own solar system etc, even just using ‘dirty’ electricity from the wall will give you large savings on fuel bills down the years compared to your regular car.

The main issue for EV’s (and hybrids) is the cost of entry for most people. Luckily for many of the current EV’s (but not Hybrids) you can get money off as governments offer subsidies, which can bring them down into the price range of regular people. So selling your old family second car can make it a feasible option for most people now, which keeping in mind the opening sentence in this post, could make a difference longer term.

But also think of the running costs of a car, the EV (as second car) option makes huge economic sense. Many manufacturers give options to ensure your battery is covered (either generous long term warranties or options to ‘rent’ the battery), and this is probably people biggest concern with an EV as second car etc.

So for myself it is just feeling ‘right’ to seriously consider the EV (over a hybrid) as i want to make that statement in terms of my impact on the worlds environmental issues, to the car manufacturers etc, and as a secondary concern i’m seriously liking what i’m reading in terms of the economic savings it will give me as well. Saving money is always a good thing.

If i just had one car choice, then maybe a hybrid would work for me, but i’m kind of excited about this new world of EV cars, that form of transport certainly looks more viable now than the Sinclair C5 ever did!

52

The charging time thing is interesting. It mostly depends on the type of system built into the car, as that sets the maximum charge rate, so a higher rated system in the car = faster overall charge times, but also most seem to have it so that on a fast charge system (22kwh-43kwh) charge point you can reach 80% charge level in about 30mins. It is the last part of the charge (from 80-100%), that does stuff like balance the battery cells, that takes the longest, and in the case of a total 6-8 hour charging session (so you are filling an empty battery to full) half of that time is this last 20%, which i why they suggest you do that at home in evening (also when electricity is cheapest).

So having read/watched a number blogs from EV owners, and having read various manufacturers remarks, it would seem for those longer trips, where you will need to find somewhere to top up, you just do it to that 80% full status, as this is quick (the time for a short break) and then do the important 100% charge at home/overnight?

The USA is a big place (especially compared to the uk), but so is France, Spain and Germany, so it might be a good idea to keep an eye on that side of the pond in terms of how EV’s might work in bigger geographical places?

Are you talking about heat as in for heating the house? If so then yes solar panels making electricity to use as heating is not efficient. The best stuff for heating is Solar Heating:

They take up much less space than Solar Panels as well. I will be getting one of these systems installed alongside the solar panels, to provide the hot water for showers/baths and the heating. The solar panels will just be for electricity usage from the wall plugs (and maybe the EV in the garage, might need a separate solar panel array on top of the garage for that).

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I’m not debating your personal choice, but there are government incentive programs for plug-in hybrids as well. In the US, pure EVs and plug-in hybrids are lumped together, and the federal income tax credit is based on the size of the battery, from $2500 to $7500. “Regular” hybrids, which have small batteries and generally aren’t capable of meaningful all-electric drive like the plug-ins, aren’t covered.

In the UK, plug-in hybrids with a minimum range of 10 miles which meet ultra-low emissions standards get the 25% government subsidy (maximum £5000). This includes the Chevrolet Volt, Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV, Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid, Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid, and Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid.

As for EV + conventional car vs. plug-in hybrid, that depends on how many cars you have and the nature of the second car. If you only own one car, the pair isn’t an option. You also have to consider than when you do need a longer-range vehicle, plug-in hybrids are more fuel efficient those most fossil fuel vehicles, even when you’re not operating the in pure electric mode. 50 mpg is pretty common for hybrids, and of conventional vehicles, only diesels reach that high.

Plug-in hybrids in all-electric mode tend to be roughly as efficient as pure EVs. They’re carrying the extra weight of a conventional engine, but you still see MPGe in the 100+ range.

Running costs of either depends on your local electricity costs. One reason the solar array was made financial sense for me is that local electricity prices are quite high, $0.191 per kWh, which translates to a gas price of $7 per gallon. Since pump prices are $3.50-$3.70, I have to cut the MPGe in half to compare to gas vehicles. Which means that 100 MPGe is kinda-sorta like 50 MPG, which is still very good compared to a typical car.

The US government has a standard called the “eGallon,” which I think is considerably less useful than MPGe, since it makes lots of assumptions about the EV you drive, and the car you would drive if you didn’t have an EV. Currently it assumes 105 MPGe, since that’s the average of the top 5 selling EV / PHEVs. For gas is assumes 28 MPG, and of course we know real cars have MPG ratings is all over the map, from 15 to 50.

Still, it’s handy for a typical comparison, and easier for newcomers to understand. They have a map of eGallon prices for 2012.

54

Charge systems are rated by power, in kilowatts; kilowatt-hour is a measure of energy, power x time.

Cars have internal chargers, and can use external chargers. If you’re operating on the on-board charger, all the cable does is plug into a power source. Almost all EVs have 6.6 kw internal chargers, which is why I quoted ~20 miles per hour of charge. 6.6 kw is about the limit of what you can expect to draw from a household grid, since that’s 240v @ 30 amps. Most house circuits top out at 1.8 kw - that’s a 15 amp circuit breaker at 120 volts.

External chargers are much more complicated; the problem is connector standards. The SAE J1772-2009 connector only supports 19 kw at most, a new standard that supports 90 kw is in the works. Tesla’s 120 kw chargers use a proprietary plug, as does the Leaf’s 62 kw external charger. You’re not going to find either one at a normal public charging station.

I’m talking about heating the house, not just hot water heating. There are a host of limitations with trying to implement something like that for winter heating - no energy storage, and needing the heat most in the dead of winter when the system can’t provide much energy.

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It’s a HUGE deal. Not to god forbid get into P&R discussion here, but have you noticed that the US is far less interventionist abroad these days? Some of that is change in leadership, but a great deal is because we don’t need the oil. Think about US military actions over the past 20+ years; with the exception of Afganistan they were all about oil.

Off-shore drilling is a HUGE deal too for asiaPAC and the EU. Enormous oceans of oil under the water, more than we could ever use before destroying the environment.

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@ Gus, good info, i didn’t know about the hybrid incentives in the uk (in that they are not mentioned much on the vehicle websites, whereas they tend to be front and center on the EV pages).

For heating in temperate climes, using solar heating systems can be an issue, you normally need a reasonably complex system of pumps and controls it seems (but that link goes into the details more). I would think a combination of good insulation would also go a long way as so much heat is lost through poor insulation in most peoples homes.

And here is a decent site that has a bunch of info on hybrid and EV cars:

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There are also State programs as well - Pennsylvania will give you $2,000 towards a qualifying plug in hybrid (like the Volt). Many states have these, and the amount varies from state to state.

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@ arrendek, please tell me that is just Texas? This (probably) gives me a democratizing opportunity to show it is not just Americans that are poor at global geography :)

Ok so america is HUGE, like nothing else alive on earth. Still, having proven that beyond doubt, it is still a cold hard fact that most Americans commute is within the range of the current range of EV vehicles, and besides you all fly if you got to go out state don’t you? So maybe, just maybe, it could all work perfectly in the land of the huge gas guzzling monster truck you are encouraged to use to drive 50km per day?

Maybe it is a penis thing? But that old chestnut is actually really easy to get over, just man up and move on (chewing tobacco if you like).

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Yep, that’s Texas.

Sure, most people, even those living in suburbs and not in the city, could get along with an EV just fine. I was just referring to you talking about driving in Germany, France, or Spain as being akin to driving in America. In fact it’s more like driving in Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Italy, and all connecting and surrounding areas. America will start buying EVs in large numbers as soon as they are priced the same as mid-range sedans (Camry or even Corolla pricing), and charging stations are more common. Monster trucks aren’t near as common as they used to be anymore, by the way. Fuel efficiency is creeping up, as always. I don’t think we’ll ever drive European cars in large numbers though, those things look so tiny. Well, maybe if they were cheap, but the little European cars that find their way over here end up being more expensive than our “small” cars, which have more room anyways.

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Despite the US being larger, I don’t think our road trips are automatically longer. A lot of people never leave the state where they were born. I’ve traveled a lot, both in the US and in Europe, but I don’t think I’m typical.

Eurasia is much larger than the US. The main thing about the US being large is that it’s a single political entity speaking one language. My parents vacationed in Glacier most summers from Michigan, which was 1800 miles away. You can make a similar drive in Eurasia easily, but you’re less likely to do it because it means driving to foreign countries.

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It’s pretty cheap to rent a car for a few days or even weeks if you want to do a rare long road trip.

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£3($5) for 100 miles (EV fuel cost).

I’ve been doing my digging and probably it looks like i’ll be going for a Renault Zoe. It’s super cheap (£13,000 with the subsidy), so a relative low risk investment, and i like the lines - sort of normal, but has a certain futuristic aesthetic.

This may change, as there are a few models just around the corner, and maybe other EV’s will start to fall to the cheap new car levels of cost over the next year or two? Anyway i have the next six months or so to be sure if that is the EV for me and the family. A bunch of test drives are in order for as many EV’s as i can get my hands on.