When will we see an affordable electric car ?

BC_chick · July 11, 2016

Quite an interesting car but who would have believed BMW could have built something that ugly

I think it's cute as a button!

You have to test drive one, it's amazing. You'll forget all its faults.

Bonam · July 11, 2016

Depends on what you mean by improving. The cost has been coming down and smarter control circuits help increase battery lifetime but the underlying chemistry has not changed at all (Lithium-Ion) in a decade or more. This means there is a theoretical upper limit on any improvements. New battery chemistries could be found but they would need to match LiIon on cost/reliability before they would be practical. The leap to new battery chemistries is not guaranteed and even if we did make the leap we are talking about 30-40% improvement (base on the currently known 'future' chemistries) which is something but not enough to suddenly make EVs the first choice for consumer vehicles.

On top of that we are living in a world awash with oil but filled with politicians determined to inflate the cost of electricity as much as possible which further undermines any business case for EVs.

You don't really need more energy density for EVs, though. Cost reduction in batteries to bring EV prices down to the same as gasoline-powered car prices, yes. Faster charging time to reduce the duration of refueling stops, yes. But the energy density is there already, so you don't really actually need any major breakthroughs in battery chemistry. Teslas have comparable range to gasoline cars proving it can be done. Get those batteries down to 1/2 the price they currently are and deploy the infrastructure to charge them 2x as fast and the technical challenge is solved.

Derek 2.0 · July 12, 2016

Derek, who doesn't like German cars??

A family/person with a multi generational loyalty to General Motors

The only thing about the BMW that's holding us back is it's not really a family vehicle. Tiny trunk, small cabin, suicide doors in the rear.

But does it ever drive nice... we just might have to deal with the rest.

Fair point, but once your kids get into their teens they won't want to drive around with Mom and Dad anyways :lol:

My wife had a Cadillac ESV and went down to the Tesla once our youngest got his N license......liked the car aside from a few quirks, but it wasn't practical once we left the lower mainland....the top end Model S isn't worth the six figure price tag (almost as much as we paid for our first townhouse!!!) for what you get though........she now drives a Camaro SS and is thinking about upgrading to a 2017 Stingray later this year or next Spring.

The BMW might be smallish, but IMHO, looks way better then one of those Fiat or smartcars.....

Wilber · July 12, 2016

I think it's cute as a button!

You have to test drive one, it's amazing. You'll forget all its faults.

Cute as a button eh.

I'm sure it drives very nicely.

?Impact · July 13, 2016

the underlying chemistry has not changed at all (Lithium-Ion) in a decade or more

Lithium-ion batteries are not all based on the same chemistry, there is lithium-cobalt-oxide, lithium-iron-phosphate, lithium-ion-magnese-oxide, and several others. There has been incremental improvement over the past 25 years or so that Lithium-ion batteries have been around commercially. There are lots of promising new technologies for batteries that may yield exponential improvement, like Lithium-Sulphur, Sodium-Sulphur, and even Lithium-O₂ (often called Lithium-Air). Yes they need to move out of the labs and into product, but how many years were we stuck with carbon-zinc and lead-acid?

Another battery technology I have heard about recently is bacteria based. It will be many years out, and probably never make it to automobiles, but it does have some interesting attributes. The benefits appears to be safety due to far less volatile compounds, significant cost savings per unit of energy stored, and far more recharge cycles. The drawback of the technology is slower charge/discharge cycles, measured in hours. While it may not be a good fit for automobiles, it appears to be an excellent fit for solar power storage.

ironstone · July 14, 2016

What is the fastest charge time for any electric car currently on the market?I read a lot about Tesla,but also that they have reliability issues too.

?Impact · July 14, 2016

What is the fastest charge time for any electric car currently on the market?

All the production companies are fairly slow. Generally higher voltage charge stations are faster, but there are not many of them around and even they have limits on how much they can draw from the power grid during a short interval. Generally it is the number of miles of range you can get per unit of time at the recharging station. That usually ranges from about 5-50 miles per hour for home based stations, and relatively few commercial stations (only Telsa that I am aware of now) get 200+ miles per hour of recharging.

There is much talk about building buffer batteries at commercial charging stations that would take a steady stream of current from the grid and be able to deliver it in rapid bursts, they may even be combined with solar recharging at the station; but that is all in the future.

Here is an interesting company to watch: StoreDot

Edited July 14, 2016 by ?Impact

TimG · July 14, 2016

There is much talk about...

Charging times are the Achilles heel of EVs. Even if range/price issues are resolved the basic physics means it takes time to charge. The time could be reduced if the private sector had an incentive to invest in infrastructure but they don't as long as ICE vehicles are the same price or cheaper. And even if the technical solutions make the charging time more manageable there is no plausible scenario where people don't have to make a 'lifestyle change' in order to live with a EV (i.e. people need to plan their lives around fueling their vehicle - something that no one needs to do with an ICE).

I was doing some research about the Model T vs. horses to see if similar issues existed because the first cars were NOT user friendly and required considerable time investment on the part of owner. As far as I can tell the first cars were faster and stronger (more capacity) than horses and this gave people an incentive to put up with the hassles. But EVs are not a functionally better vehicle than an ICE so the question is why would anyone put up with any hassle to own an EV?

?Impact · July 14, 2016

why would anyone put up with any hassle to own an EV?

EVs do fit a niche quite well, local commuting. The problem is they don't do well in long distance travel. Many people/families own multiple vehicles, and if you match the vehicle to the type of driving you do then it will work out well. Many urban residents don't even own a single vehicle because they commute to work using public transit, bicycles, or walking. They rent a vehicle when they need one. If you do mostly local commuting, then you might want to consider an EV for that purpose. You could rent something else when you take the odd inter-city trip.

I think the best combination is having both a small EV for local, and a larger diesel vehicle for any distance driving or if you have to carry more people or cargo. Even rural residents could use an EV to get to the neighbours, church, school, and the local town. Renting however is seldom a practical option for rural residents so they would almost certainly have to have the second vehicle a well, more than likely a pickup.

TimG · July 14, 2016

EVs do fit a niche quite well, local commuting.

How are EVs a functionally better vehicle for commuting? An ICE works just as well without the hassles. I think you are really saying is commuting is the use case where the disadvantages of an EV are the least significant. That is quite different from saying that an EV is a functionally better vehicle for commuting.

I think the best combination is having both a small EV for local, and a larger diesel vehicle for any distance driving.

I think the best solution is a plug-in hybrid. No need for two vehicles. If you want to adopt the lifestyle required to be 100% electric you can but you are not forced to do that every day. Edited July 14, 2016 by TimG

kimmy · July 15, 2016

How are EVs a functionally better vehicle for commuting? An ICE works just as well without the hassles. I think you are really saying is commuting is the use case where the disadvantages of an EV are the least significant. That is quite different from saying that an EV is a functionally better vehicle for commuting.

I think the best solution is a plug-in hybrid. No need for two vehicles. If you want to adopt the lifestyle required to be 100% electric you can but you are not forced to do that every day.

Charging time and range are non-issues for commuter usage. What other issues do you see that you think makes ICE vehicles better for daily commuter use?

I keep getting the idea that many conservatives-- yourself, Shady, Mitt Romney... -- are emotionally invested in the idea that fossil fuel vehicles will never be supplanted.

-k

Bonam · July 15, 2016

Charging time and range are non-issues for commuter usage. What other issues do you see that you think makes ICE vehicles better for daily commuter use?

I think TimG's point is not that ICE vehicles are necessarily "better" for daily commuter use, but rather that EVs are not clearly better for such use. People need a clear impetus to switch if they are going to go embrace a new technology.

There are certainly advantages to EVs for commuting... for example, they are cleaner and the pedestrians around you will breath cleaner air (not talking CO2 here but the other pollutants that come out of ICE cars). Also, they are quiet and could reduce the noise pollution in cities. Also, the cost of driving them is lower but this if offset by their higher capital cost. But none of these advantages are great enough to make an EV an obviously better choice for commuting for someone who is buying a new car and is primarily considering their own benefit (rather than benefits to those around them). In fact, the downside that it is suboptimal for road trips and therefore means you have to have a 2nd car could rule them out for many people (until the charging speed issue is addressed).

I think the reality is that EVs will have to compete based on price and reduced hassle compared to ICEs to see mass adoption. Price will come down further as battery production is scaled up and improved, and the perception of hassle will go down as ICE charging stations proliferate and the word about how much less maintenance EVs are compared to ICEs spreads throughout the cultural awareness.

TimG · July 15, 2016

Charging time and range are non-issues for commuter usage.

Charging time means people must adapt their lifestyle to the EV even for commuter use (e.g. remembering to plug a vehicle in every night is work, as everyone who carries a cell phone knows). This is obviously an option but it requires change and not everyone is willing to make that change.

What other issues do you see that you think makes ICE vehicles better for daily commuter use?

All ICE vehicles have to be is equal to EVs for them to continue to dominate. The SUV market has already shown that the saving money on fuel is not a big motivator for people but convenience is.

are emotionally invested in the idea that fossil fuel vehicles will never be supplanted.

I would say you are emotionally vested in EVs and cannot look at them objectively as tools rather than as icons.

EVs will succeed when their price point is significantly *lower* than an equivalent ICE - enough to make people willing to put up with the need for lifestyle change. As long as EVs are more expensive or equal to ICE vehicles, people will go with an ICE (or a Hybrid).

Edited July 15, 2016 by TimG

BC_chick · July 20, 2016

But none of these advantages are great enough to make an EV an obviously better choice for commuting for someone who is buying a new car and is primarily considering their own benefit (rather than benefits to those around them). In fact, the downside that it is suboptimal for road trips and therefore means you have to have a 2nd car could rule them out for many people (until the charging speed issue is addressed).

Level 3 charging is already on the Leaf and several low-end 2017 EV's are going to have it as well (Hyndai Ioniq will have it standard and and Bolt as will have it as an option). I looked up the level 3 chargers around me and it's easy to get to the Okanagan and Seattle as well as eastern coast of the island (Nanaimo to Victoria with several on the way). For whatever reason, the west coast of the island (Tofino for example) doesn't seem to have any so that would be the only place EV would be an issue.

I'd say by 2018 or 2019 there will be enough Level 3 and EV's with fast-chargers that road trips won't be too much of an issue. Plus the longer range. Bolt is apparently going to have 300Km next year.

Edited July 20, 2016 by BC_chick

Derek 2.0 · July 20, 2016

For whatever reason, the west coast of the island (Tofino for example) doesn't seem to have any so that would be the only place EV would be an issue.

I don't remember if it was a supercharger station, but a resort we have stayed in Long Beach had car chargers....

?Impact · July 20, 2016

willing to put up with the need for lifestyle change.

Yes, I dread the day when I no longer have to pull into the gas station lineup to fill the tank. Gone will be those enjoyable moments spent sniffing the gas, and having my hands reek of gasoline for hours from holding the pump handle. I will miss standing there in minus 20 winds waiting for that lethargic pump to dispense the fuel. I will miss making the mad dash across the open tarmac trying not to get too wet under the torrential downpour to run into the kiosk to pay. I will miss that lineup while I stand there with exact change waiting for the 2 ladies in front of me to check their last 3 months worth of lottery tickets. Yes, the lifestyle changes will be unbearable.

Big Guy · July 20, 2016

Yes, I dread the day when I no longer have to pull into the gas station lineup to fill the tank. Gone will be those enjoyable moments spent sniffing the gas, and having my hands reek of gasoline for hours from holding the pump handle. I will miss standing there in minus 20 winds waiting for that lethargic pump to dispense the fuel. I will miss making the mad dash across the open tarmac trying not to get too wet under the torrential downpour to run into the kiosk to pay. I will miss that lineup while I stand there with exact change waiting for the 2 ladies in front of me to check their last 3 months worth of lottery tickets. Yes, the lifestyle changes will be unbearable.

The 6 feet of hose and an empty gas can in my trunk will no longer guarantee some free gas when needed. Having those little puddles of petrol on the garage floor to warn of problems will no longer be available. That "wake up" smell in the garage when you enter it after warming up the car in the winter will disappear. There will no longer be a place to pour your left over petrol from your lawn mower after you shut it down for the winter. What will you use to destroy wasp and bee nests?

"Oh, the humanity !!!!"

Moonlight Graham · July 21, 2016

For now, hybrids seem fine.

EV's, include a solar panel roof option, save on some charging. There's a bunch of problems with that, so keep it an option.

Argus · May 16, 2017

For those interested in electric vehicles, a Stanford University professor has just announced the end of the internal combustion engine.

No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.

This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/fossil-fuel-vehicles-will-vanish-in-8-years-in-twin-death-spiral-for-big-oil-and-big-autos-says-study-that-shocking-the-industry

GostHacked · May 16, 2017

GM had done the EV1 back in the day, it was not a hybrid and it was not that expensive.

cannuck · May 19, 2017

The EV thing IS practical for commuting - and with more and more people moving to asshole factories (er...I'm sorry, CITIES) I suppose they will have a place. BUT: for the kind of dispatch flexibility that people who actually do the work the creates the wealth that pays for the commuters to go back and fourth producing nothing but smog, they are not likely ever to be practical.

The biggest problem is that we spend endless amounts of effort to find a better way to do things that we really shouldn't do in the first place. Living in Peterborough and working in Hogtown is one. Doing jobs that don't have to be done is another.

IF we insist on the nonsense of building more of these pointless commuters and commuting, we need to come face to face with reality. To facilitate fast charging, we are talking about high voltage to keep the amperage down (thus conductor size manageable). Problem is, using something as common as 4160V, 250A pin and sleeve connectors (easy) means you are needing power transformers at the charging site to know down the 25KV local distribution voltage to the charging voltage. SOMEWHERE in the system you need to drop the charging voltage down to battery voltage (lets say 480, as IIRC that is used in some EVs). Well, you need ANOTHER transformer, and as well a rectifier to make it into DC. As we have already established, the conductor to do so at 500V is far too large to be practical, so that means having all of this extremely heavy garbage ON BOARD the car. It is fine to have a sub station on board of a railroad locomotive to do this, but bloody foolish to incorporate into a personal transport vehicle. The list of this kind of crap just goes on and on. The problem here is that you have tree hugging morons wanting this kind of stuff with so little understanding of the world outside of naval gazing and internet surfing that they don't realize what they are saying.

Bonam · May 20, 2017

8 hours ago, cannuck said:

IF we insist on the nonsense of building more of these pointless commuters and commuting, we need to come face to face with reality. To facilitate fast charging, we are talking about high voltage to keep the amperage down (thus conductor size manageable). Problem is, using something as common as 4160V, 250A pin and sleeve connectors (easy) means you are needing power transformers at the charging site to know down the 25KV local distribution voltage to the charging voltage. SOMEWHERE in the system you need to drop the charging voltage down to battery voltage (lets say 480, as IIRC that is used in some EVs). Well, you need ANOTHER transformer, and as well a rectifier to make it into DC. As we have already established, the conductor to do so at 500V is far too large to be practical, so that means having all of this extremely heavy garbage ON BOARD the car. It is fine to have a sub station on board of a railroad locomotive to do this, but bloody foolish to incorporate into a personal transport vehicle. The list of this kind of crap just goes on and on. The problem here is that you have tree hugging morons wanting this kind of stuff with so little understanding of the world outside of naval gazing and internet surfing that they don't realize what they are saying.

A 1 MW charger (to charge a 100 kWh Tesla battery in 6 minutes) at 500 V means 2 kA of current. 2 kA of current can safely be carried by 8 parallel 0000 AWG conductors. That's a 1.5 inch diameter (+insulation) charging cable, which is certainly on the big side but not totally unreasonable (a 2 m long cable with this much copper would weigh ~20 kg which is a bit unwieldy, so you might up the diameter a bit and use aluminum conductors instead of copper, which would drop the weight to probably 10kg for a 2m long cable). Upping the voltage a bit would drop the current and make the charging cable more reasonable, and car batteries could be stacked with more cells in series to work at higher voltage, probably up to 1 kV or so.

Regardless, a solution can be developed where no megawatt-scale DC-DC converter is needed onboard the car.

Realistically, I would predict that these charging systems will work off of rectified 480 VAC 3-phase power, so car batteries will have to work at that voltage (rectifying 3 phase 480V gives ~600 V I believe?). Using rectified 480 VAC power saves you having to have a big honking transformer at every gas/charging station and instead just a diode rectifier, which is much smaller and cheaper.

OftenWrong · May 20, 2017

5 minutes ago, Bonam said:

A 1 MW charger (to charge a 100 kWh Tesla battery in 6 minutes) at 500 V means 2 kA of current. 2 kA of current can safely be carried by 8 parallel 0000 AWG conductors. That's a 1.5 inch diameter (+insulation) charging cable, which is certainly on the big side but not totally unreasonable (a 2 m long cable with this much copper would weigh ~20 kg which is a bit unwieldy, so you might up the diameter a bit and use aluminum conductors instead of copper, which would drop the weight to probably 10kg for a 2m long cable). Upping the voltage a bit would drop the current and make the charging cable more reasonable, and car batteries could be stacked with more cells in series to work at higher voltage, probably up to 1 kV or so.

Regardless, a solution can be developed where no megawatt-scale DC-DC converter is needed onboard the car.

Realistically, I would predict that these charging systems will work off of rectified 480 VAC 3-phase power, so car batteries will have to work at that voltage (rectifying 3 phase 480V gives ~600 V I believe?). Using rectified 480 VAC power saves you having to have a big honking transformer at every gas/charging station and instead just a diode rectifier, which is much smaller and cheaper.

Heat's not a problem...

Bonam · May 20, 2017

1 minute ago, OftenWrong said:

Heat's not a problem...

For now, the real problem (from a technical standpoint, not an infrastructure standpoint) is that battery chemistry doesn't really allow charging at 1 MW, even if you can deliver the needed current. Heat is always a consideration in engineering designs but the cable diameter listed above is large enough that it shouldn't overheat. The cable could always be actively cooled if needed.

OftenWrong · May 20, 2017

3 minutes ago, Bonam said:

For now, the real problem (from a technical standpoint, not an infrastructure standpoint) is that battery chemistry doesn't really allow charging at 1 MW, even if you can deliver the needed current. Heat is always a consideration in engineering designs but the cable diameter listed above is large enough that it shouldn't overheat. The cable could always be actively cooled if needed.

The major heat would not be in the cable which has a fairly low voltage drop, but in the battery itself. That and a mongo sized transformer. A megawatt is approaching the power of a small nuclear reactor.

A better way imo would be to have pre-charged batteries ready to go. You pull into the battery station and swap out the battery. They they put it on a trickle charger for like two years...

Edited May 20, 2017 by OftenWrong