Electric land rover re-power

[TheRecklessEngineer]

1 hour ago, Cynic-al said:

 

Maybe the regenerative braking is partly why they don't allow a full charge on the tesla?

This is a battery lifetime thing. Li-ion chemistry degrades with age, temperature and state of charge. By limiting the state of charge between ~30%-80% you can significantly extend the lifetime of the pack. Tesla also use a liquid thermal management system to control the temperature of the pack.

Typically, 100% on the dash isn't actually 100% on the battery. There's always a little overhead - plenty for regenerative braking, although you might find the rate is limited at high battery levels.

[Daan]

23 hours ago, Snagger said:

I have been reading a lot of EV, battery and PV articles over the last year.  Current figures for real world PV are average of about 10%, with the newest tech, very expensive stuff around 20%.  More encouraging is the battery development, specifically solid state batteries and sodium ion batteries.  Most of both types under development have over double the capacity of Lithium ion batteries, with much greater cycle capacity, far better temperature resilience and fast charges.  The best bit is that sodium based batteries should also be very cheap as their resources mostly come from sea water.  More than range anxiety, the limiting factor for EVs is the cost of the batteries - if they can make batteries at 1/4 the cost with twice the energy capacity and longer life, then it’s a done deal.

I don't think we need much more in the way of development of batteries, if the Tesla achieves 300 mile on a charge, that is ok for most people.

What is the main thing now is how to generate electricity sustainably. The best batteries in the world are a waste of time and effort if the electricity is generated using fossil fuels. 

22 hours ago, Gazzar said:

Are motors going to change much? Musk was hinting at significant changes in his cars electrics for this year, but how much can you do with a copper wound motor, I wonder?

Permanent magnet motors are 98% efficient at the moment, at a certain RPM and load, so that won't get much better I'd say. It is more about achieving this kind of efficiency along a wider range of RPM's and loads.

[FridgeFreezer]

1 hour ago, Daan said:

I don't think we need much more in the way of development of batteries, if the Tesla achieves 300 mile on a charge, that is ok for most people.

It's not the range, it's the speed of recharge - for the huge number of folks who can't charge overnight in a garage, driveway or allocated parking space it's a backwards step to have to sit in a service station for ages while the thing charges. There's queues at petrol stations during busy times as it is, if everyone is taking 30 mins to fill up instead of 3 it's going to be hell. Bank holiday service stations will be like the purge.

Better energy density would be good too, given that 300 miles of battery takes about 10x the space of 500 miles of petrol or diesel in a little tank.

[Cynic-al]

Agree generation needs to be green, that's why I like the idea of removable packs. Someone with a special trolley swaps them out at the 'petrol station', sticks them in a charging rack and gives you a full one. The roof of the supermarket and carpark are covered with solar panels and wind turbines and they adjust the charge rate according to generation, only taking off the grid if they're running out of charged packs.  

Charge time needs to be improved and they're going high voltage to help achieve this, but I don't think many people realise how much energy you have to get into a car for a 300 mile trip. It's not just having enough charge points it's the generation and transmission which is going to be huge too. Especially as we are going for off shore electricity big time at the moment where typically there aren't that many power cables. If I'm travelling for work I do look at where the charge points are, if they're not at a hotel it's pretty impractical, and if you have to go out and move your car once it's charged it's cutting into your sleep too. There are a couple at the tunnel but the idea of sitting around kicking your heels then getting to your hotel late and getting even less sleep isn't appealing. I went to disney last year, each car park had about 4 charge points right at the front, I wished I had an EV to get the best spot, until I came out almost every day to see all 4 bays full and 3 or 4 cars with dad in sat waiting for a charger. So basically you drive to the theme park, sit in the car until someone else leaves after a full day of fun, then sit at the charging point until you have enough charge to get home. Great day out!

Really they should be refining the technology on all the delivery vans out there. The government have allowed the 3.5 tonne weight limit for light commercial to be exceeded by about a tonne I believe for an electric vehicle. They do a regular route, lots of miles and are charged at night in a fixed point. 

[Bowie69]

That and the weight is just mahoosive.... 

The new Porsche Taycan full electric is a small sports saloon yet it weights 2.4 tons................. 

I bet you could knock 1000kg off that with a petrol powered version. 

[Snagger]

3 hours ago, Daan said:

I don't think we need much more in the way of development of batteries, if the Tesla achieves 300 mile on a charge, that is ok for most people.

What is the main thing now is how to generate electricity sustainably. The best batteries in the world are a waste of time and effort if the electricity is generated using fossil fuels. 

I disagree entirely.  Bigger capacity kills the range argument.  Fast charging makes all sort of plain sense, long life because they are expensive and will be the limiting factor in the longevity of the car, and cheap materials to make new vehicles, conversions, domestic and commercial power storage affordable and less environmentally damaging.  Cheaper, more efficient batteries will not only cure all the problems with EVs but also most the dependability issues with “renewable” energy sources.

As for fossil fuel power generation, that’s certainly true of coal, but not gas, which burns cleaner for a start but power stations can also more practically install exhaust scrubbers than vehicles, so the claims (I don’t know how accurate they are) say that gas powered EVs are much cleaner than ICE.  The explanation makes sense, I just don’t know how true it is.

[FridgeFreezer]

This popped across my YouTube feed the other day, illustrates a few of the issues;

 

The relevant parts/facts are that petrol has 13x the energy density by volume, and 50x the energy density by mass - if you could make even a 50-mile battery the size and form-factor of (say) a jerry can, and as easy to swap, EV's would be awesome because you could easily slot a jerry can or two or three into almost any car design and swap batteries in seconds at the petrol station.

By comparison...

 

[TheRecklessEngineer]

Something that's often forgotten when comparing EVs to gas powered vehicles is that in an EV you always leave home with a full tank - even if that tank is smaller than a gas vehicle.

Every time I leave home in the morning I can drive 230km. I have needed to use a public charger three times in the last 6 months when taking longer road trips. Compare that to a gas vehicle when I'd have to stop at least once/week. Mileage is identical.

In the times I have used a public charger 20 minutes is plenty. Typically identical to what I need to recharge on a road trip - enough time for a bathroom break, coffee and a leg stretch.

It's hard to make the comparison when you haven't lived with an EV for a while. I feel that the quoted negatives of EVs are all perceived negatives and generally do not reflect the reality. Now I've lived with one for a bit I will never go back to gas powered.

[Vogler]

5 hours ago, TheRecklessEngineer said:

Something that's often forgotten when comparing EVs to gas powered vehicles is that in an EV you always leave home with a full tank - even if that tank is smaller than a gas vehicle.

First time I heard/read that argument. Good point!

Joris

[Cynic-al]

Gas power stations are twice as efficient as coal as the gas turbine runs a generator then the waste heat from the exhaust creates steam which also drives a turbine & generator. LPG vehicles are cleaner than petrol, you can run an LPG forklift inside a warehouse but you can't run a petrol or diesel inside for that reason. The big problem I see with gas is a lot of it comes from Russia, I have images of Putin with his shirt off laughing as he turns the big gas valve to shut us off. There are a couple of power stations around here that digest willow and pump the methane into the gas main but I don't know how efficient it is. All the fasttrac tractors bombing around can't be good for the CO2 of the project. I believe by a certain date 

Leaving home with a full tank in an EV is assuming you have a house with a drive. I've lived in terrace houses where you park somewhere on a street hopefully within 500 yard of your house. Unless they are going to put charging points in like parking meters you have to charge elsewhere. Public charging points or maybe your place of work. I've also spent a fair few nights in crummy motels where there currently aren't any charging options. A few hotels have maybe 4 charging points, but if I'm travelling I drive for as long as I can then crash, if I had to go out in the middle of the night to unplug to save the tesla charge after it's finished charging I'm going to be pretty grumpy. 

I accept 80% of my driving would be fine with the 300 mile range from home, but there is only the tesla that offer that at the moment. The golfs and nissans that offer 100 miles just don't cut it and if they're not being charged by renewables it's seems a bit of a wasted effort. Also, a tesla can't carry the kit I need. Then there is the cost, frankly I can't afford one yet. 

I accept it's coming and am not against it, but I will let everyone else be the test bed for the time being. 

[Snagger]

17 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

This popped across my YouTube feed the other day, illustrates a few of the issues;

 

The relevant parts/facts are that petrol has 13x the energy density by volume, and 50x the energy density by mass - if you could make even a 50-mile battery the size and form-factor of (say) a jerry can, and as easy to swap, EV's would be awesome because you could easily slot a jerry can or two or three into almost any car design and swap batteries in seconds at the petrol station.

By comparison...

 

That makes my point about the battery tech advances being so important - high capacity and quick charging would nullify concerns over lack of domestic charging ability for those without dedicated parking as it’d allow five minute charges at stations just like filling with fuel.
 

 Nobody complains about the hassle of fuel stops as it is our norm.  If you had vehicles that could be refuelled at home but now introduced a system where people had to go miles out of their way to stand outside in horrible weather holding a hose of foul smelling fluid into their car, often with a greasy handle that is going to get their clothes dirty and make their hand stink and slippery, then stand for another five to ten minutes to pay, all having likely had to queue to get onto the forecourt in the first place, there would be outrage.  A system where many can do thirty seconds of actions to have their car “refill” at home on the driveway at their convenience, with the knock on benefit of removing those vehicles from the forecourt queues so the refills for those without domestic charging is quicker, surely has to be better, as long as the charge capacity and speed are sorted?

[mad_pete]

Pollution has 2 issues to it - how much and where.

if you are charging your electric car with gas / coal power station that’s not ideal overall.

However you then drive  past a school with zero emissions so thats a good thing.

That exhaust pipe in front ? Straight into your heater vents and into your car.....

So electric vehicles help with not Nitrous Oxiding people to illness and death in the cities regardless of generation and renewable power is an easier problem to solve.

 

[FridgeFreezer]

You can only leave home with a "full tank" if you have a garage/driveway/allocated parking space and lots of people don't.

If batteries lasted only 50 miles but were the size & weight of a 20L jerry can you could bring the thing indoors every night to charge in the house - that'd be awesome, and it's why I'm saying they either need to get ~10x more dense or ~10x faster to charge (or ideally, both) to be truly practical for everyone.

[Snagger]

33 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

You can only leave home with a "full tank" if you have a garage/driveway/allocated parking space and lots of people don't.

If batteries lasted only 50 miles but were the size & weight of a 20L jerry can you could bring the thing indoors every night to charge in the house - that'd be awesome, and it's why I'm saying they either need to get ~10x more dense or ~10x faster to charge (or ideally, both) to be truly practical for everyone.

I refer you to my previous statement, as they say in Westminster. 😉

Quite a lot of people do have home charging ability, so if the batteries can be made to charge quickly and last 300 miles or so, for those who need to charge at a station, it’d be close to the existing act of refuelling, but with less cars needing to do so than at present and so less queues and no need for more hookups than there are fuel pumps now.  

[TheRecklessEngineer]

18 hours ago, Snagger said:

Nobody complains about the hassle of fuel stops as it is our norm.  If you had vehicles that could be refuelled at home but now introduced a system where people had to go miles out of their way to stand outside in horrible weather holding a hose of foul smelling fluid into their car, often with a greasy handle that is going to get their clothes dirty and make their hand stink and slippery, then stand for another five to ten minutes to pay, all having likely had to queue to get onto the forecourt in the first place, there would be outrage.  A system where many can do thirty seconds of actions to have their car “refill” at home on the driveway at their convenience, with the knock on benefit of removing those vehicles from the forecourt queues so the refills for those without domestic charging is quicker, surely has to be better, as long as the charge capacity and speed are sorted?

So much this!

Not sure what it looks like in the UK anymore, but here in NZ there are charging stations everywhere.

Take a look at what the charging infrastructure looks like near you: https://www.plugshare.com/

[cackshifter]

Yes well, NZ has a surfeit of hydro-electricity, much, much fewer people, and the properties usually have much more land so driveway charging is less of a problem. It's much more able to quickly  adapt to electric cars.

[Cynic-al]

We also need to make sure we don't do a 'diesel' and just concentrate on one issue. The government pushed us down the diesel route to reduce co2 whilst overlooking the nox. The weight of electric cars means a lot more heavy metals are being released from the tyres which ends up in the water course. I guess less travel would be the ideal. 

Charging in a few minutes is ideal, but who is going to upgrade the infrastructure to cope? Transferring 100kw worth of electricity in 5 minutes instead of 5 hours in a fair leap! Will we have to increase domestic voltage to cope, have a high voltage supply for the car then step it down for the sockets etc? Or just have the high speed chargers out and about and accept the overnight charge at home? If you had say 3 cars plugged in overnight how long would my 100 amp supply take to charge them and run the tv, oven, fridge, lights, phones etc etc?

[FridgeFreezer]

Al - I think some of the fast chargers will have banks of batteries / supercaps in them to smooth out the load on the grid, but you're right that the grid really isn't prepared for millions of EV's arriving any time soon.

I think pollution from tyres is a relatively small thing compared to internal combustion, hardly worth holding up as a case against EV's - if we worried about the amount of unnecessary weight in any given car almost everything on the market would be in the firing line, compare a modern VW golf with a Mk1... but which one would you rather have a crash in?

 

[Bowie69]

 

4 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

Charging in a few minutes is ideal, but who is going to upgrade the infrastructure to cope? Transferring 100kw worth of electricity in 5 minutes instead of 5 hours in a fair leap! Will we have to increase domestic voltage to cope, have a high voltage supply for the car then step it down for the sockets etc? Or just have the high speed chargers out and about and accept the overnight charge at home? If you had say 3 cars plugged in overnight how long would my 100 amp supply take to charge them and run the tv, oven, fridge, lights, phones etc etc?

Tesla are creating battery storage at their fastest chargers, which means that the pull on the mains is never at peak. 

Otherwise 250KW is tricky to achieve!

 

[Bowie69]

Oh, and Tesla's home chargers are 80A, for a Model 3 that is 44 miles of range per hour.

[Arjan]

Something I miss in this retro power conversion into Electric is the problems getting the vehicle on the road legally after the conversion.

Many countries on the Continent frown upon fuel type changes, not to mention insurance etc.

France, for one, will give you mega problems and I fear it will not be possible to convert my '62 Series into electric.....

[Mo Murphy]

I like the idea of jerry can sized batteries removable for charging. I suspect too practical to become mainstream.

Mo

[Cynic-al]

So you charge a battery to charge a battery. Makes sense I guess but as they get old what will the efficiency be like? Maybe the charger would be a good use for batteries which are too old for the cars. 

80A is quite a lot, I couldn't have 2 cars charging at full rate without blowing my fuse. I wonder if they can talk to each other or limit the demand somehow?

Agree the tyre wear increase is a smaller problem but someone smarter than me needs to look into the effects on the water course etc. 

Although I sound it I'm not anti EV, I'm just not prepared to be the guinea pig. That's why I think they should be pushing it in delivery vans to learn from and develop rather than domestic cars. Maybe that doesn't give them enough scale for the battery factories?

[Bowie69]

20 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

80A is quite a lot, I couldn't have 2 cars charging at full rate without blowing my fuse. I wonder if they can talk to each other or limit the demand somehow?

You can program the cars via wifi as to when to accept charge, what charge level you would like (80% charge helps the life of the batteries), and all sorts of things you won't find useful, but there's huge amounts of technology involved in these Teslas

[Gazzar]

Plus the huge factor of surplus electric at night costs virtually nothing. This, alone, overcomes the inefficiencies of charging a battery to charge a battery. When renewables dominate the supply having batteries will really help moderate the grid.