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Electric and hybrid electric vehicles are in the fast lane to wider adoption, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.
The researchers analyzed the present status of electric vehicles in the U.S., their life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, and progress toward lifting barriers to broader acceptance. The study is a literature and technical review that synthesizes and analyzes recent findings from many sources.
"We feel that within the next decade, electric vehicles are positioned to be more suitable for most drivers to use on a daily basis," said Brandon Schoettle, project manager at the U-M Transportation Research Institute. "That's due to recent improvements such as longer driving ranges, faster recharging times and lower vehicle prices."
[...] Schoettle and colleague Michael Sivak, a research professor at UMTRI, found that sales of plug-in electric vehicles in the U.S. have increased by more than 700 percent since 2011.
[...] Other key findings include:
- Availability: The number of individual electric vehicle models that consumers can choose from has increased rapidly, nearly doubling from 13 in model year 2016 to 23 in 2017. Recent price trends make plug-in hybrid vehicles more affordable and more similar in price to the average internal combustion engine vehicle.
- Charging infrastructure: The number of public charging stations has grown rapidly since 2010, with approximately 16,000 now available across the U.S., supplying approximately 35,000 individual connections (for comparison, there are roughly 112,000 gas stations).
- Driving range: The driving distance between charges of battery electric vehicles continues to improve. The range of all electric vehicles has increased to an average of 110 miles. Several studies the researchers cite estimate that a range of 120 miles can cover 99 percent of household vehicle trips.
- Fuel prices Compared to gasoline, electricity prices have been low and stable over the past decade or more, and they're projected to remain that way over the next several decades.
Getting Americans to give up their cars for public transportation may be a tough sell, but if the study is right getting them to switch to electric cars won't be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Saturday June 24 2017, @11:12AM (20 children)
But getting people to stop thinking they will need to drive further than 120 miles in a trip, regularly, if not just one day, soon, is the real challenge.
Americans seem to believe they all drive coast to coast, or across several states, regularly. Juśt because researchers show they don't drive like that, doesn't make people believe it.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by choose another one on Saturday June 24 2017, @11:51AM (1 child)
I don't think people don't know how many miles they do. I regularly do over 120 miles in a day (sometimes several times a week), and I don't even live in America.
What the "researchers" don't seem to realize is that an EV that does even 99% of the trips an IC car can do is therefore not a replacement for an IC car.
I have a 7 seater, probably most trips it has one or two people in it, so why have it? Why not have a two seater? Because when it has 5 6 or 7 people in it, a two seater cannot do the job.
Maybe 10 times a year I fill that 7 seater up with the whole family and do 3,4,500 miles in a trip (and the same for the return), so maybe that is 1% of total trips (could be), but an EV cannot, currently, do that job. I could run an EV instead and rent a 7-seater for the long trips when I needed it - trouble is that would cost more per year in rental than the car does to own, not just the fuel costs, the whole cost - tax insurance repairs etc. An EV that does 99% of your trips is just not economic if the 1% of trips are long and expensive that to do any other way would cost as much as an IC car that could do 100% of the job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @12:33PM
You are correct, sir!
And if you live in the boondocks, the electric car is a non-starter: distances are too long and there are no charging stations.
I feel as if so many urban people just have no clue that so many people do not live like them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Saturday June 24 2017, @12:29PM (6 children)
My knowledge of American geography might be a bit hazy, but surely you don't need to drive coast-to-coast to top 120 miles? I live in little ol' Britain and even I often do >120, in fact over twice that in a day, going to sites in connection for work and visiting relatives.
This range thing would be easily solved if battery packs were made exchangeable in a few minutes at road-side stations en route, but the EV fans don't like that idea because it looks too much like stopping for fuel as now. They think it would not be cool if EVs did not do everything in a completely different way. It would also require standardisation of battery packs, but hipsters think that any form of standardisation is not cool either.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Unixnut on Saturday June 24 2017, @01:31PM (2 children)
I think the actual problem is that battery packs, unlike car fuel tanks, degrade with time and use.
The example I give is phone batteries, because everyone is familiar with them. You buy a new phone, and the battery may last 2-3 days on a charge, maybe even 4 if you don't use it much. However in a year or two of charging and discharging the battery would be lucky to last a day. My phone had reached the point where it needed to plugged in every 3-4 hours otherwise it dies.
EV batteries are no different. Yes, they have vastly more intricate and complicated charging systems, and temperature control systems (heaters/coolers) etc... to make sure the batteries are always at optimum environment conditions for use and charging, but batteries still wear out, and with them the EV cars range decreases.
You buy an IC car and an EV car with equal range of 120 miles when new, if you give both of them top of the range maintenance throughout their life, in 10 years the IC car will still do around 120 miles, but you would be lucky if the EV can do half that.
So when it comes to battery swapping, how do you know the quality of battery you are trading for? you have a battery with a good 90 miles of range, you charge overnight at home, top up at work, etc.. works fine for your daily commute. then one day you need to make a sudden detour for an errand or whatever, you don't have enough range and can't wait 6-14 hours to recharge your car, so you stop at the battery swap station and get a fully charged battery. All great, but this battery ends up more degraded then the one you swapped with, maybe you can only do 60 miles on it.
So now you have a battery of lower capacity then the one you swapped it for. Can you go back to the station and request your old battery back? What if they had charged it up over the period and gave it to someone else? You can try swapping batteries again, but you might end up with an even worse battery. Now you are worse off then before, and might not even be able to do your original full day commute with the new battery. Who then would pay for a replacement battery? Seeing as batteries are one of the largest costs in an EV, the state of the battery would very much dictate the cars second hand value.
Liquid fuels don't work like that, they pretty much all have the same energy per litre, and are consumed. So it doesn't matter at which pump you fill up at, your cars range is not affected.
Personally, I think EV's would work a lot better if they didn't use batteries at all. If they could get a decent ethanol fuel cell for example. then this entire problem is side stepped. The EV's fill up on E100 at the station (as most of the EU already has E85 on tap, not a stretch to provide E100 as well). They can be filled up as fast as an IC car. They extract more energy out of the cycle due to the increased efficiency of energy conversion, they keep the same range as long as they are well maintained, you don't have to worry about capacity and range anxiety, you don't have to build out charging stations and all that extra power infrastructure, just use what is already there.
Not to mention you can run on closed carbon cycle fuels, side-stepping the issue of adding CO2 dug out from the ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @02:58PM
Use your imagination. You wouldn't buy the batteries, just the power in them. Swap battery pack. If your car's diagnostics say the battery is less than you paid for, have the battery tested and swapped out the at the next "Electigo" station that you pass. The Electigo company has a reputation for good batteries, same as Texico company has for liquid dinosaurs.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:06PM
In addition, battery technology is one of the main areas where new electric cars improve over their predicessors. Will the swap station throw away and replace all the batteries each year with the latest version? If so, it would be way too expensive. If not, I'm keeping my own new high tech battery pack thank you very much.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Whoever on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:05PM (1 child)
Perhaps it says something about the viability of battery swapping if actual EV owners don't think that battery swapping is a good idea.
Battery technology is improving at a fairly rapid rate. More improvements are needed. Battery swapping would slow down that progress, while providing little benefit. Most EV drivers mostly charge their car overnight at home. What could be more convenient than this?
If an EV can travel for 4 hours on the highway, how inconvenient is it to stop for a meal or a coffee while the car charges?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:07PM
Very. Especially if I am trying to get between work meetings at two sites. I do need to take time for meals, but at my convenience, not my car's.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:29PM
Thing is, here in the UK you ought to be able to make Land's End to John O'Groats (the proverbial "length of Great Britain" journey) in daylight at this time of year. Hardly comfortable, but that's close to the upper limit for a road trip here.
Pick two British cities at random and more often than not it'll be a day trip.
Pick two US cities at random, and it's likely to be a multi-day road trip that you'd only contemplate if you wanted to make a holiday of it or had a pickup full of gear to transport.
So I have a theory that because we can drive almost anywhere in GB (certainly England) in a day, we're more likely to want to. Its certainly why internal air travel isn't a big thing in GB. In the US context, if its further than 120 miles, it's quite likely to be 1200 miles. 120 miles will get you to an airport - and since you can't take your car on the plane, you hire another one at your destination.
One problem is that the current state of the art is "battery pack" == "the entire floor area of the car" - and making batteries quickly removable wastes valuable battery space. Tesla did demo a system for doing it, but I think it was quite complicated...
I think its more the case that "EV fans" are currently the people for whom the logistics of the EV already works well: charge at home, and that gets them to work and back, or to the airport and back. They're well-off, so they have driveways and garages so they might have a second vehicle for long road trips, and if not their business trips have left them with a wallet full of car rental loyalty cards and airmiles if they want to rent for the occasional long trip. These are not the people that want roadside recharging stations.
Its important to realise that in the shiny new EV world, 90% of charging will happen at home, at the workplace or at the destination. The "gas stations for EVs" will be needed, but they won't have the same business model, or volume of demand, as actual gas stations.
Of course, what the gas stations would like is for everybody to use hydrogen because (despite being difficult to handle and transport) it would mean the survival of the good 'ol gas station business model (special offer: 2-for-one on hydrogen atoms! Plus, free buggy whip with every 10 cubic yards!)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @02:22PM (10 children)
How about two trips, say if you forget to charge the vehicle one day? Gas-powered vehicles are very forgiving of forgetful drivers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:08PM (8 children)
It means 30 minutes at a DC charger instead of 10 minutes at a gas station. Or perhaps it means just plugging in when you get to the office instead of when you get home that evening.
Should you let the exceptions dominate your buying decisions? When those exceptions impose only a small time penalty?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:42PM (3 children)
I don't doubt that EVs are going to get there, and maybe even within the 10 years quoted, but for me - and I suspect quite a few others in similar situations - they're going to have to improve a *lot* more than the study indicates before that option becomes viable.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)
What percentage of the UK population actually ever take their car across to continental Europe? I doubt that it is very high.
There are EVs that will do more than 200 miles already. So, as long as you don't stray too far from where the charging stations are located, the only inconvenience is stopping for 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes (although if you are stopping for only 10 minutes every 200 miles in a thousand mile journey, you are driving dangerously).
A current generation Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe won't cut it, but a Tesla or a Bolt/Ampera-e will cut it for a lot of drivers.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:14PM
Ten minutes to refuel? WTF? Do your gas stations still use a hand pump from a barrel?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:14PM
Sure, there are longer range EVs out there which in many cases those might be sufficient right now if with a little pre-planning on recharging and actually taking appropriate length breaks to recharge yourself as well as the car, but those are also the more expensive EVs. As you say, a Leaf or Zoe's range isn't going to cut it for far more people than a Tesla's would, especially once the batteries have aged a bit, which is the main problem for mass adoption. If manufacturers can bring the Tesla's range (and ideally better) down to the budgets of EVs like the Leaf/Zoe and garages etc. can remove the re-charge anxiety, then I think you'll start to see a much wider rate of EV adoption. I can easily see that happening within the 10 years of the article for more typical drivers; it's only going to be those who do the really long trips that are going to need to stick with ICs until the situation improves - and if one of the many promising battery techs we keep hearing about actually delivers, maybe that won't be all that long either.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:47PM (2 children)
Or an hour on the side of the road waiting for an $80 tow. Here's my take on this. I've driven for 30 years and am a very forgetful person. But I have never forgotten to fill up my car. Not once. A huge part of the reason is that my cars have typically reported an "empty tank" about 30-60 miles before the tank actually is fully empty, giving me plenty of time to recognize my gas tank is low and to fill it up. You can afford to have that sort of cushion with a tank that handles 300+ miles between fill ups. You can't with a "tank" that has 120 miles. I also have to remember to fill the tank more than 2.5 times as often.
If the exceptions should dominate your buying decisions, then yes. Seat belts are a classic example. The exception of accidents dominate the decision making of whether to have and wear them.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday June 25 2017, @06:07AM (1 child)
I've run out of gas lots of times when I was younger (personally broke, gas gauge also broke).
Your EV thinking is being dominated by your ICE experience. With an ICE, you drive till you need gas and go get it. With an EV, you just plug it in when you get home and you never - ever - even think about needing fuel. You have a full tank every time you leave the house.
What is different with an EV, is that you think about where you are going and how far away it is. With a short range car like my Leaf, if I have to go to some place 100 miles away, I know I'm going to be using an ICE vehicle. And I hate it -- the noise, the vibration, and then my wife always leaves me an empty tank it seems, and so in addition to having to make a long drive, I'm forced to suffer the stench and expense of gas stations.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:24PM
Sorry, I don't buy it. This is all wallpapering over a serious flaw. I can't help but notice how much discussion there is over complex charging issues.
What is wrong with a little inconvenience? Well, I'll get to that.
And you ended up owning an ICE anyway.
One thing that is missed with all this discussion is that the point of being able to just hop into your waiting ICE vehicle and do several hundred to several thousand miles of travel, cheap, is a post-scarcity characteristic. Gas (and for that matter the ICE vehicle itself) is cheap enough that the cost of travel is limited solely by how much time and effort you're willing to devote to such travel rather than the physical costs of transportation. Electric vehicles make this situation worse. They make what is already a cheap part of travel even cheaper at the cost of making the expensive parts which actually limit how much you can travel even more expensive.
Personally, I think ICE will always beat electric when it comes to energy storage. It has higher energy density (keep in mind that the vehicle never has to carry the oxidizer, which is more by mass than the fuel, and never has to carry the resulting reaction products), never degrades over time, and the gas tank is a simple technology to implement. The only thing holding ICE back is its relative inefficiency. But the thing is, we can greatly improve on that, using the same technologies that electric cars use. For example, a very efficient diesel or turbine engine which strictly generates electricity for electric motors at the wheels. You could then remove a good portion of the mass of a normal ICE vehicle (its transmission system) as well as the similar overhead of an electric vehicle (the battery pack).
I think why this hasn't been attempted yet is that high efficiency burning and variable power are to large part mutually incompatible. We see that with normal ICE vehicles which can generate power well beyond the levels that are most efficient for the engine, resulting in the expected ICE trade-off between power and efficiency. Another is that gas burning has been deemed evil by many of the parties most interested in energy efficiency of travel (including some regulators) which when combined with the newness of electric vehicle technology has resulted in a strong disincentive to put such a vehicle together.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:00AM
If we take your ratio of "30 minutes at a DC charger instead of 10 minutes at a gas station" then there will need to be 3x as many charging points, which includes the parking spaces. That is starting to use up a lot of land area.
More realistically, I would say 5 minutes at the gas pump, around here most gas purchases are with credit card, no waiting for change from a person. That means for the same number of cars needing a "fill-up", you need 6x as many charging points and the accompanying parking spots to meet peak demand. This isn't going to happen in most US cities, the land area just isn't there.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:35PM
On weekends I sometimes do two trips in my Leaf. I have a level 2 charger at home (220 v) and it takes about 2.5 hours to charge it up on that. So in the morning I can go to Home Depot and pick up a bunch of stuff and in the afternoon, go back in to get the correct item or the thing I forgot. It usually takes me more than 2.5 hours to figure out what purchase error I made anyway, so I don't notice.