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On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that utility-grade solar panels have hit cost targets set for 2020, three years ahead of schedule. Those targets reflect around $1 per watt and 6¢ per kilowatt-hour in Kansas City, the department's mid-range yardstick for solar panel cost per unit of energy produced (New York is considered the high-cost end, and Phoenix, Arizona, which has much more sunlight than most other major cities in the country, reflects the low-cost end).
Those prices don't include an Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which makes solar panels even cheaper. The Energy Department said that the cost per watt was assessed in terms of total installed system costs for developers. That means the number is based on "the sales price paid to the installer; therefore, it includes profit in the cost of the hardware," according to a department presentation (PDF).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a DOE-funded lab that assesses solar panel cost, wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs. Despite the plummeting costs for utility-scale solar, costs for commercial and residential solar panels have not fallen quite as quickly—just 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
It seems there are still big gains to be made in the installed costs of residential panels.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)
> A car transmission is an amazingly complex thing with very many moving parts. A Tesla Model S has a single-speed gearbox, a much simpler thing. Also, everything I have seen says there is one gearbox on a rear-drive Model S. For example: about 1:36 in this video [vimeo.com]. Could you please provide a link showing the four gearboxes you describe?
Car transmissions are not that complex. You have maybe 5 gears, some shafts, and a lever to re arrange the cogs. I mean, it is technology that is more than a century old now. You can pick up books from the 30s and the gearbox will be instantly recognisable.
Sorry I can't find the link. Again, this was many years ago now (and dealt with the roadster, not the model S). The reason being to do it that way is that they would not have all the added weight of drive shafts, half shafts, etc... (not to mention the transmission losses thereof) vs just having gearbox in each hub.
The roadster also had a motor on each wheel, so to have 4 motors, driving shafts to one gearbox, then out to 4 wheels is just stupid. I cannot believe they did it that way. Plus you would lose the per motor traction control, and efficiency. In lieu of a single gearbox, how about just assuming that Tesla used some common sense when they designed the cars.
Looking at the video, it looks like Tesla went for a more conventional setup for the S. Front is a standard car setup. Rear is a single AC motor with gearbox, driving transmission via half shafts. So it will have transmission losses, and gearbox will need maintenance, like a normal car.
> EVs are simpler. I don't see why they need "more" infrastructure, I'd say they need less, but after over a century the infrastructure for ICEs is pretty thoroughly built-out and that is not the case for EVs. (It's fair to say that EVs tie up a charging station longer than ICEs tie up a gas station, but on the other hand most of the time the EV can charge at home and not go to a charging station, and ICEs don't have that option.)
- They need more infrastructure than EVs because of their worse range. If an EV has half the range of an ICE, then you need twice as many charging stations as petrol stations for a given distance. Instant doubling of infrastructure
- Charging stations need pretty potent copper going to them for charging. Compared to just "shipping energy in" like you do with liquid fuels, where you can get a truck to deliver to gas stations out in the middle of nowhere. If you needed twice as many charging stations along that stretch of road, you are going to need to invest in some serious grid expansion.
- Electric cars take ages to charge. Even the superchargers are nowhere near the 1-5min refuel time of a liquid fueled vehicle (and those damage the battery, so should not be used normally). Whereas a normal gas station can have maybe 4 bays, with a 5min turnaround time per car, a charging station will be looking at a turnaround time of 30min to a few hours per car, so you will need far more charging bays. and probably facilities and amenities to keep the people occupied while their cars charge. That will require a hell of a lot more space.
- if there is a mass switch to BEV's, a lot more power generation capacity will be needed. That will require a huge investment in power generation and distribution.
- They are more complicated. An ICE car has more moving parts (engine specifically), but the tech is well known, and easy to replicate. Give me a modest machine shop and some metal and I can build a car, engine and all, and I could make the fuel to run it to boot. I can't make a Li-ion battery, and the sheer amount of firmware programming going into each and every one of those computers, inverters, VFD drives, etc... makes it a far harder job to build an EV from scratch. A Tesla is a lot more complex than a normal car. It is simpler mechanically, but more complex in electrics and software, and that is the two places where you have the most problems in cars (especially second hand ones).
- Worse range: yes. Worse convenience: how is it inconvenient to leave home every day with a "full tank of gas"?
What makes you think that would happen? Perhaps if you are rich enough to have a garage or a forecourt where you can plug in for the night. Round where I live only the filthy rich have that luxury. My cars are not even parked within my visible range (always fun when you hear an alarm go off in the middle of the night). I can't run a very long extension cable to my car every night, and neither can anyone else. Not to mention you would have no way of preventing people stealing your electricity, or the cables themselves, or just unplugging them and you wake up in the morning to find a dead battery (in the few places we have overnight stations, this happened so often people now have to lock the charging plug to their car).
It is just another headache and hassle to remember to do before I go to bed at night, every night. With an ICE I just drive until the fuel light turns on, then I pull over when convenient, and fill up in 5 min. It is so much less hassle.
And for the density of cars round here. Having charging stations would be very expensive (land here costs a lot). If you wanted to put a charging spot on every single parking on the public roads, you will have rip out all the pavements, all the roads, and lay loads of copper. This is yet another massive infrastructure cost.
Basically, the infra costs will be huge for a mass switch to battery EVs, for a less convenient, slower and more complex/error prone alternative.
And if I really had the desire, I could make fuel at home. It has been done since the first IC Engines (they were created before gasoline/diesel was refined, after all). If I had a garden, or some space, I would have a go at it. Just for fun if nothing else :)
> For use in town, EVs are more convenient than ICE. For trips of up to 6 or 8 hours, a Tesla is almost as convenient as an ICE (you have to stop at a Supercharger station, but you can eat a meal during the stop so it's barely worse). For trips much longer than that, ICE wins, hands down, but I don't think that optimizing for 10+ hour trips is the best way to plan infrastructure.
So, as I noted above. EVs are pretty much useless in town (unless you are rich enough to charge it overnight at your house), in which case they make a lot of sense for the urban "stop and go at 3mph" environment). ICE sucks at idling efficiently and just wastes fuel.
It would require rewiring the entire city and zoning requirements for a mass switch to BEV's in urban environments. The infrastructure cost would be huge.
That makes urban EVs pretty much a rich mans toy, which is what I see them used as around here if I am honest. The other big use case is 10+ hour trips, and BEVs are useless there too.
So the only place they are not better, but "almost as good as ICE" is the 6-8 hour bracket, which seems like a pretty poor showing by the BEV as a mode of transportation. Especially if you don't really want to stop for a meal on the way to wherever you are going. Essentially you got the choice of making a 8 hour trip into a 2 day one if you charge the car slowly, or a 9-10 hour trip if you charge quick and damage the battery (so not something you want to do often). And this is assuming you start off with a full charge, don't end up draining power faster than expected, or something else coming along to prevent you from reaching your destination.
Note my argument isn't against Electric vehicles, but against battery powered ones specifically. I find batteries pretty crap as an energy storage device. They have gotten better, but they still suck compared to liquid fuel energy density.
I tolerate my phone and laptop batteries because I don't have an alternative, and I have the ability to have them being plugged overnight, but I am not going to have anything else powered by batteries if I can help it, let alone something as big, expensive and important as a car.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:25PM
And sorry for the long posts. I try to trim them down, but I do tend to write a lot, and soylent really isn't the best place for mini treatse's like this (this i the only thread where I get "comment too long" errors) :-)