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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 24 2017, @10:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the shocking dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:08PM (8 children)

    by Whoever (4524) on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:08PM (#530600) Journal

    How about two trips, say if you forget to charge the vehicle one day? Gas-powered vehicles are very forgiving of forgetful drivers.

    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?

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:42PM (3 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:42PM (#530609)
    The main problem EV adoption has is that a lot of people make occassional trips that an EV can't currently support, and those cases - even if only 1% of their total trips for some drivers - may be enough to make EVs a non-starter on cost, time, and convenience grounds. That's the situation I'm currently in (I'd love to dump my ICE for an EV), but am currently stymied by three things:
    • More confidence that re-charging will be readily available. The UK's proposed legislation to require garages include EV charging points is a step in the right direction here, but it also needs to ensure that there are enough available charging points to avoid having to wait for free charging points, and that includes in the more remote rural locations that are often where I'm driving to (hence why I also have to drive instead of using public transport).
    • Longer range. Even in the EU, where things are generally closer together than in the US, 500 miles round trips and beyond are not uncommon - I fairly regularly drive 200 miles or more without stopping in a car on total trip lengths of thousand miles or more, and until an EV handle that kind of trip there's no way I can even consider one - 120 miles between charges is going to mean a *lot* more stops, and a lot more lost time (and time is money).
    • Faster charging. On longer drives trips most people will stop for a drink and a comfort break (on business trips breaks are required by many employers, and also backed by legislation in some countries); you need to be able to go from nearly empty batteries to full batteries in less time than that to minimise the perceived disruption and the notion that you'll be spending time sitting around watching the charge indicator.

    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)

      by Whoever (4524) on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:48PM (#530628) Journal

      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

        by Nuke (3162) on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:14PM (#530637)

        the only inconvenience [of EVs] is stopping for 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes [for ICs]

        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

        by zocalo (302) on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:14PM (#530660)
        As a percentage, probably not that UK drivers many go to Europe from the UK (or vice versa) except for those who are into camping or relocating for work - but there quite a few mainland European cars on UK roads if you look for them, not so many UK cars in Europe and most of those seem to be in adjacent countries with shorter ferry connections like Eire, France and the Benelux. It's still possible to rack up a lot of miles within the UK though, e.g. if you are not going from A to B then straight back to A and/or you are going from one end of the country to the other (both of which I do). Within Europe as a whole, especially within the Schengen Zone, longer distance drives are also much more common for traditional long distance car users like salespeople.

        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)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:47PM (#530627) Journal

    It means 30 minutes at a DC charger instead of 10 minutes at a gas station.

    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.

    Should you let the exceptions dominate your buying decisions? When those exceptions impose only a small time penalty?

    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)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday June 25 2017, @06:07AM (#530805) Journal

      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

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:24PM (#530854) Journal

        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.

        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.

        "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? "

        "the only inconvenience is stopping for 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes"

        "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 think about where you are going and how far away it is"

        What is wrong with a little inconvenience? Well, I'll get to that.

        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.

        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

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:00AM (#530727)

    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.