Will you buy electric car?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Saint, Oct 21, 2018.

  1. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

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    I thought the same.

    A friend tells me his electric car tows fine but it eats his range up, and it's not like he can "refill" as quickly as his truck. so he doesn't like it.
    of course, this is anecdotal and I don't have a source, and I would really prefer something more reliable that I can check, so there is that.

    I sure would love to see one, especially priced well enough for us po' folk!
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    It will come down to battery capacity, presumably. The price of batteries per kWh must be dropping, I should have thought. But Billvon will know.

    I myself need to replace a 10yr old VW Golf fairly soon and I'm thinking of a hybrid, as my trips to France (Brittany) would be a bit tricky with an all-electric. But I'm hoping that if I wait 2 yrs more the options will be clearer and perhaps there will be enough power points to consider all-electric.

    One thing that bothers me is a story I have heard that batteries need to be charged and discharged through regular use to maintain their capacity. Apart from trips to France 3-4 times/year I barely use the car more than once per week, and that is for a 45 minute drive, each way, every Friday to see my old dad in his nursing home. So I'm a bit worried that a hybrid might not get enough use for the battery to stay in shape.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    And a large number of urban people, especially young males who work in office towers and wear expensive suits, also want a long-range 4 wheel drive work truck that has the capacity to tow a minimum of 3 tons and can run accessories, because they imagine that it will make them look like the tough guys in the ads. Also, a large number of suburban middle-aged family men want a long-range 4 wheel drive work truck that has the capacity to tow a minimum of 3 tons and can run accessories, because the same ads encourage them to fantasize about the freedom to play in the mud, though they end up mixing mud in their garage at dead of night and splashing it on their truck to look as if they've been someplace exciting, instead of chauffeuring six-year-olds to soccer games and MacDonald's.
    Also, a large number of yahoos, both urban and rural, don't need a truck at all, but want a long-range 4 wheel drive work truck that has the capacity to tow a minimum of 3 tons and can run accessories, just because it pisses off the environment-freaks.

    In fact, there is no good reason a farmer can't do most of his on-site work with a tractor; no reason farmers and tradesmen can't keep a truck just for rough work, and keep a clean car for errands and leisure. In fact, most do have two vehicles, many have three or more.
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. The best thing you can do for a lithium ion battery is charge it to about 50% then leave it alone in a cool place. Cycling it wears it out faster.
     
  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    i think you are right
    i never been good with numbers
     
  9. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Well that is great news. Thanks for this. It means what I have heard about hybrids is a myth and that a hybrid that is only used occasionally should have a long battery life. That suggest that with my only weekly use of it, a hybrid battery should have a decent lifetime. Correct?
     
  10. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    I was envisioning trickle charging a charger (jump-starter type battery pack), over time, obviously. Then I realized EVs already have two batteries (one for starting, of course), and that would essentially be throwing in a third, so it would be bordering on ridiculous.
     
  11. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Possibly. You need to research the "non-use degradation" issues. Have the manufacturers left one on the shelf for five years and then used it for another five years? If so, what was the performance curve compared to one that didn't sit for that long and can they extrapolate from that data?
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. A few caveats:

    1) Modern hybrids are tending toward lithium ion batteries, so the above applies.
    2) Older hybrids use nickel metal hydride batteries. But they are even more stable over time. They prefer about 40% state of charge.
    3) There are two types of hybrids out there - PHEV's (pluggable) and HEV's (no plug.) With HEV's the car decides the state of charge, and keeps it around 50%. With PHEV's the driver has some control over the state of charge. Lesson there - don't charge it to 100% and leave it for a week. Charge it to, say, 70%, and if you need to take a longer trip, charge it the rest of the way.
    4) Balance. After a LONG storage, the cells can drift such that they are not balanced with respect to each other any more. When that happens, you can see problems when you first go to use the vehicle. Almost every EV of any sort out there today has a balancer in the battery pack, but this is only active when the car is on. So as long as the battery isn't so far out of balance that it won't start up (which would take 5-10 years) as long as it powers up, any balance problem will be corrected within a few hours.
     
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  13. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Is there any kind of "shelf maintenance/storage" system that is intended to keep the batteries at peak condition when they're not in use?
     
  14. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    So... suppose you drive your electric car to work and park it for 8 1/2 hours. It's -40C outside with a wind chill of -56C. Your co-workers go outside at coffee breaks and lunch breaks to start their gasoline cars. At quitting time, they run their cars for a few minutes until they're toasty warm for the drive home. How does your electric care fare?
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    OK, but range is much reduced. Most places that regularly see -40C have places to plug block heaters; if they have those, then you plug the EV in and the battery heater keeps it nice and toasty. Or just get a PHEV.
     
  16. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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  17. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    The people that I mentioned don't have them. They run their vehicles periodically during the day to keep them alive.
     
  18. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    eMMC chip ?
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    OK. So the car would run its battery heater during the day as well.
     
  20. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks, highly informative. I've had a look at the battery balancing and it seems to be when one cell is at a lower state of charge than the others and you try to connect them in series, so the whole thing suffers a voltage drop - or even stops working to prevent damage to the discharged cell? - when the first cell becomes fully discharged. Is that what it is about?
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    It's mainly that you never want a cell to go below a voltage limit (usually 3 volts) or above a limit (usually 4.2.) If the cells are all balanced they hit those voltages at about the same time. If they're not balanced cell 1 could hit 4.2 volts almost immediately - and charging would stop. Then during discharge cell 2 could hit 3 volts almost immediately - and discharge would stop. So even though many cells might have a perfectly good charge, the protection circuit would shut down the battery to protect the high (or low) cell. And it would look like your battery had almost no capacity.
     
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  22. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    It is clear there is a new world of automotive electrical knowledge we need to master, in place of all the internal combustion engine stuff we are so used to, in order to buy and use these things intelligently - and to avoid being ripped off by the garage mechanics of the future!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You stay inside and use your phone app to start the heater.
     

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