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An Australian Parliamentary committee has recommended that petrol and diesel cars be phased out in favour of electric vehicles in a report. This is not yet law but shows that the government is serious about reducing the dependency Australia has on oil and reducing greenhouse emissions.
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Australian Plan to Ban Petrol and Diesel Cars
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:08AM (10 children)
> There isn't exactly a glut of electric vehicles available in the used market right now.
I personally don't think there will ever be much of a used market for battery electric cars. The reason for this is as follows;
1. Batteries are consumable items.
An EV with a posted 200mile range (and real life usable range of 80 miles) per charge when new, may only get half that after 3 years. After 10 years it would not surprise me to find that you would need to charge it for a few hours every 10 miles, rendering it pretty much useless as a vehicle.
The first generation hybrids are already basically useless as an EV, and when bought second hand are used as pure ICE vehicles. The batteries themselves are expensive, so replacement is not worth it (you might as well buy a new EV instead).
Fuel tanks however, are not a consumable item. an ICE cars range will be within 95% of original range after 20 years. I have a 40 year old car that still gets the same range as it did when new. Barring physical damage, a fuel tank will hold the same amount of energy throughout its life, and a well cared for engine will keep (or exceed) its original fuel efficiency.
As such it makes sense to buy a second hand ICE vehicle, on the pretext that its range and drivability is pretty much as it was originally, giving you many more years of use. It would not make sense to buy a second hand EV, unless it is only 6 or so months old and has plenty of capacity left (in which case it would probably cost nearly as much as a new one).
Most second hand cars are 5 years old when placed on the second hand market, the 2nd owner may well use it for another 5-10 years then sell it on, etc... Cars in the second hand market can (and do) stay on the road for decades. I don't see any EV lasting as long as the old ICE cars. The BEV technology just isn't good enough.
2. Too much electrics
Anyone who buys and lives with second hand cars will tell you that the first thing that starts to go wrong is the electrics (assuming you haven't bought a lemon of course). The wiring corrodes, you get bit-rot in ECUs, sensors start failing or giving incorrect readings, shorts, failures, etc.... The body, mechanics and engine are the last to go.
Indeed every single second hand car I have owned, and others I know, have some sort of electrical problem. Thing is, because the core of the car is mechanical, it doesn't matter. The car still starts and drives and is still useful. At one point on my oldtimer the only electrics working were the head and tail lights, the rest had died, but it was still drivable (and usable) until such time as I got enough money to repair it.
However with EVs, your primary mover is electric, and heavily computer controlled, which means sooner or later it will go wrong, and you will be stranded until you go for an expensive repair.
3. Too damn complicated and expensive.
This applies to modern ICE vehicles as well to be fair. The complexity and computerisation has gotten so bad that the cars are horrendously complex. And as we know, with increases in complexity come increases in failure modes. This means more complex cars will have more problems, and correspondingly they will have higher maintenance costs.
Parts are also more expensive. Case in point my oldtimer (40 years old) and my newest car (14 years old) both had a electric window switch fail. On the oldtimer it was a 15 minute job to fix with a soldering iron and cost me nothing, because it is an actual switch with wires. On the new car, it required me to find another switch, because the "switch" is in fact a complete ECU connecting to a digital bus. Not only was it expensive to replace, it was hard to find spare parts for, and impossible to fix myself.
Modern cars are even worse, becoming almost impossible to repair yourself, and requiring expensive parts, expensive debugging tools, and high labour costs to do so. Likewise older cars are made with steel, which is easy to repair, restore and weld. EVs have to be obsessed with saving weight everywhere (due to the poor range), meaning they are made with exotic composites, aluminium, etc... and as Tesla owners are finding out, it is expensive to get specialists that can repair those cars.
Thing is, second hand cars, while cheaper to buy, will have exactly the same maintenance costs as if you bought them new, unless you can do it yourself (or you get a local indie garage to do it). However modern cars are proving too difficult for your shade tree mechanic, and even indie garages can't work on them (as they lack the manufacturer specific debugging computers, which are expensive as hell).
I can go on about privacy, logging of past history, and intrusiveness of modern cars (cameras everywhere), etc... making cars less desirable overall in the second hand market, but that is more tangential to the argument I think.
Personally, I think what will happen is that cheap second hand cars will cease to exist. It makes no sense to even buy EVs new. Rather I imagine you would lease them for 2-5 years, then when the range drops below being usable you switch it for a new model, and the old one goes off to be recycled, thereby never even entering the second hand market.
The way I see it. the future world will be a mix of EVs and exotic/classic ICE vehicles owned by the rich, who can afford it. The middle classes might be able to get some short range generic EV on lease (good enough for the commute and going to the local shops and that's about it), and change it every 3-5 years, and the poor will walk, take public transport, or use a bicycle (including those "battery-electric" bicycles, which are like a hybrid).
I am already seeing it where I live. The urban poor can't afford cars, so they bike everywhere, including modifying bikes by adding trailers for their shopping, extra seats. I have even seen even baby cot trailers attached to their bikes, with an extra seat added for the older child for the school run.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:17AM (8 children)
Wrong. Li FePO4 - discharged at 60% at 1C will get you 19y of life [powertechsystems.eu] - where the life of a rechargeable is defined "still able to hold 80% from the initial capacity".
In an electric car, there'll be less vibration to shake all the cables out of place and erode the insulation.
E.g. I've seen electric motors [wikipedia.org] going as good as new after 25y - just occasional change of bearing necessary.
Complicated they may be, for feeble minds.
Competition and mass production will get the price down.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:59AM (6 children)
I have an electric car (older Leaf) and it's a great ride -- like you say there is so little vibration. If I've been driving just the Leaf for a week, then use my gas car, I feel like I'm sitting inside a vibrator even when it is sitting still idling (true with any ICE). As for complicated -- there's nothing but an RPM reducer between the motor and wheels -- way less complicated than a transmission with gears.
By the same token, it's only good as a commuter (it's awesome as a commuter). I can't imagine trying drive across vast stretches through the middle of nowhere unless I had some portable nuke like they put on spaceships to carry with me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:11PM (5 children)
I also have an old Leaf I got used. 2011, the oldest generally available Leaf. I can confirm it's a fantastic ride. Responsiveness is instantaneous. It's real smooth and quiet. True, the batteries' health is only 9 out of 12, and the range is a paltry 50 miles, depending. I have read, and can confirm, that driving slower makes a big, big difference in range. Even the difference between going 30 mph and 40 mph is very noticeable. If I drive no more than 30mph all the way, and not use the A/C or heat, I have a range of 80 miles. Not fun, but when you need just a little more range, good to know about it.
Yet, the Leaf could be better, and I don't mean the obvious complaints about the batteries. I'm talking about the aerodynamics. What our cars should become are basically pods with wheels, much like the Edison2 [edison2.com] X prize winner. It's frustrating that even with severely limited range, when every little thing matters so much more, manufacturers still ignore the low hanging fruit. No skirts on the rear wheels, like the first edition of the Honda Insight [wikipedia.org]. No drag reducing vortex generators on the trailing edges, like on the Corbin Sparrow and successors [sparrowcar.com]. Side mirrors are another drag. The Leaf has a camera for backing up, why not also for the sides? And, the underside. Still not as smooth as it ought to be. A hypermiler took a Honda Civic and nearly doubled its fuel economy with aerodynamic improvements [aerocivic.com]. He reports a couple of other benefits. The car is quieter, and stays cleaner. If the Leaf had better aero, 30 mph versus 40 mph would not produce nearly as pronounced a difference in the range.
Yet it's not done. Why? For one thing, people think it looks ugly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:38PM (1 child)
Except for those of us who are taller than average, or have a family that needs to fit comfortably in their vehicle, or that needs cargo room, or or or.
Consumers are fickle things. Aerodynamics and ergonomics and style and practicality need to be considered when designing a vehicle. The most fuel efficient vehicle may never sell more than a small number of units if it is ugly as sin and/or uncomfortable and/or doesn't meet consumer needs.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 08 2019, @08:29PM
But cars have shitty aerodynamics. Because they do not do much to the underside. Tried a BMW 330d with aerokit, eats up many more glorified cars in the Autobahn.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:41PM (2 children)
One thing I do in the winter is pre-heat the car. I tried the scheduling thing but as far as I can tell, it runs the heat off the battery and I would have lower range when leaving. I got a little 1200 watt portable heater like you might put under a desk and just ran it off an extension cord. I start it up about 30 minutes before leaving and when I come back out -- all the frost is gone from the windows (I even have to open the windows a bit to get the temperature down to a comfortable level). With the heated seat and steering wheel, it would make my 25 minute commute totally comfortable without having to use the climate controls. I've noticed that using the AC in the summer is much less of a power drain than using the heat in the winter, plus when the ambient temperature isn't below freezing, I get more juice out of the battery.
At some point though, the battery is going to weaken to the point where I'll have to think about replacement or more interestingly, a DIY piggy back battery pack.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 07 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
Yes, on cold, damp mornings, I've had a minor issue with the windshield fogging up. Fortunately, it takes only about 15 seconds of heat to clear it. Don't have to keep the heat on, and lose 20% of your range.
The piggy back battery idea sounds very interesting. I fear the upcoming summer heat may finish off the aged batteries, and I shall have to do something. And, I very much would like 100 miles of range. Would let me make a number of round trips I can't quite do now.
I thought public charging stations would be the answer to the limited range, but I find them of little use, in part because they are not reliable. They're occupied, or ICEd, or not working, or behind a locked gate, or turned off after business hours. You can't swipe a credit card to pay, like you can at almost every gas pump in existence, no you have to have an account with each different company in the recharging biz, and there are half a dozen of them. Need a smartphone with their apps installed so you can access your accounts and use the charging stations. And they're a long walk from my destination even when some are in the vicinity. Takes me about 20 minutes to walk 1.5 miles. As for ordinary outlets, there are frustratingly few of them on building exteriors. The place I visit has just one outlet, on a lamp post. But, there is a sidewalk between the post and the parking lot, so to use it, I have to create a tripping hazard. Further, all the nearby parking spots are handicapped. Much better to have the range to do a round trip, and avoid all those problems.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 08 2019, @12:46AM
Yeah -- I've never used a public charging station except at a Nissan dealer (level 2, free) once when I forgot to do a recharge (a full battery will get me home to town to home to town ... it just won't get me back home on the 4th leg).
This is interesting if it comes to the US: a refurb battery pack for $2850: https://electrek.co/2018/03/26/nissan-leaf-battery-pack-replacement-program/ [electrek.co]
Here's a guy with a DIY piggyback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSqGBPBxfUE [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 07 2019, @12:01PM
The EV is conceptually a hybrid between an ICE car and a smartphone.
Therefore, the tactics used to sell it will resemble both cars and smartphones.
So, as a citizen I would be more concerned about making sure cars are repairable and components are standardized, so to let the market open to small producers and tinkerers. This in turn would yield enormous benefits for the environments.
ICE based vehicles are too deep into the rabbit hole unfortunately.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 07 2019, @03:30PM
I agree that they're too damned complicated and expensive.
Thing is - there's nothing about an electric car that requires that. Most of the first cars were electric, precisely because it's so simple - batteries, motor, and throttle control. The first was built in 1828, 80 years before the far more complicated Model T. Today we have many similarly simple electric vehicles for sale in the form of bicycles, scooters, skateboards, etc. Battery, motor, and a lump of control circuitry the size of a golf ball. The components need to be bigger to handle the power demands of a car, but they don't actually need to be any more complicated.
The complication seems to come in because everyone is trying to market electric cars as the fancy high-tech sequel to gas cars, probably to justify the still-high cost of the batteries and recover the cost of radically retooling the production line. And of course, being able to charge outrageous prices for parts and repairs. But they're not a sequel, they're a return to automobiles' roots.
The consumability of batteries is an issue, but not nearly as bad as you make out (as others have detailed). The cost - well, that's a mix of immature (but rapidly advancing) battery technology, and trying to shoehorn it in to meeting the same expectations as gas cars.
Personally, for the forseable future I'm in favor of series hybrids - provide enough battery capacity for a 30 mile range instead of 300, and you cut the battery price by 90%, while still providing fully electric operation for 90% of the typical use cases. Then throw in a tiny, efficient generator and small gas tank for range extension. A reasonably efficient EV consumes about 15kW (20hp) cruising down the highway - a 30hp generator tuned to operate efficiently at constant load to recharge the batteries while driving could be far smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than the 100+hp engine in a typical gas car, which has to deliver power across a wide range of speeds, and is least effective at low RPMs, where high power is most important. There are various options for that, though personally I have my eye on Liquid Piston, who are developing a beautifully simple flex-fuel generator for the military, 30kW from a 12" cube you can lift with one hand, with higher efficiency than most fossil-fuel power plants, and only two primary moving parts.