"EVs suck because batteries are heavy and bulky, but don't bother asking about the weight and size of internal combustion engines vs. electric motors!"
There is a bit of a point to this one, in that the weight savings from getting away from a multiple hundred pound engine to a ~70 pound motor is outweighed by the weight gain to put in a battery powerful enough to utilize that motor over a reasonable difference.
The Model S is notably heavier than it's conventional peers, and the Roadster as well. They carry the weight well, but it's still there.
Otherwise I agree with you. The only thing holding EVs back in my mind is the cost of the battery.
Agreed. They're looking into running natural gas through my area. It's going to be at least a 10 year process.
under two weeks for running relatively high capacity power lines to the supercharger station and getting everything hooked up?
As an AC mentioned, I'm pretty sure that building a paved level parking lot takes longer. Building any sort of structure generally takes far, far longer.
Li-ion is 1/3rd the weight. 1/3rd, not 1/10th. It doesn't have to be any lighter.
Did you factor in that you need at least 50% more amp-hours to avoid deep discharging the lead-acid battery because, as walshy007 pointed out, ones designed for cranking over an engine don't like being deeply discharged?
I will admit to rounding and making a bit of a WAG though - 1/7th would have been closer. Oh, and the battery wouldn't actually be cheaper, but it'd last longer.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up that a liIon will stop working at around -25C instead of -40C. Though there are chemistries that work at colder temperatures.
Be sure you understand the difference between *power* and *energy*.
Be more condescending, why don't you? Power is energy over time.
I did read the article, though not before my comment. In it was really nothing new. We've known for ages that with the development of the lithium ion battery that the only thing stopping EVs from being the obvious choice 90% of the time was the cost of the energy storage. From my research, if the giga-factory does succeed at cutting the cost of LiIon in half it's going to be a real game changer, and not just for the EV world.
Why? Last time I checked LiIon was down to below double that of Lead-Acid. That means that if you cut the price in half again lithium Ion will actually be cheaper than Lead-Acid.
That $100 car battery? A lithium-ion equivalent that's 1/10th the weight for the same capacity and probably even more cold cranking amps might be $80.
We've already seen the start of a revolution with nearly all cordless tools becoming LiIon devices rather than NiCd and NiMH.
He was making the point that lithium is not heavy. Other than that, it's hard to know what else he was trying to say, because the article doesn't give much context.
I know it's not XKCD, but there's relevant SMBC and PHD comics.
Roughly speaking, outside of very dedicated science reporting channels by the time you go from the scientist's representative trying to dumb it down, to the reporter trying to dumb it down, to the editor doing it yet again, accuracy sucks.
Strange that europeans find those homes fiscaly efficient.
I've traveled the world a bit, you might not believe it but homes in the USA normally compare quite well insulation wise against the rest of the world. Yes, you hear about problems with poorly built homes, but that's because we like talking about them.
What I was talking about for an 'energy neutral home' is one that's been designed such that it needs little to no supplemental heating or cooling. Not even homes in most of Europe are built to this level because the costs are so high in order to do so. Many more homes are built to my more relaxed standard - highly insulated with enough mass inside that heating/cooling aren't necessary every hour of the day.
Except that there's points, especially with tornados that 'not destroyed completely' is not any better, such as when the repair costs exceed the cost of just building a new home of standard construction. For example, just consider the expense involved with a few broken windows letting in sleets of water.
I like the idea of energy efficient homes, I just know there are points where said homes are not fiscally efficient.
Given that I used Model S batteries, 'greater range vehicles' would account for it rather easily.
Recreating my work: 60 kwh (Smaller Model S battery) 29.7 kwh/day from 10,837 kwh/year
If you assume a 60 kwh battery will be retired to grid storage when it hits 70%, then recycled when it reaches ~40%, then assuming 50% average life remaining gives you ~30kwh to cover that ~29.7 kwh.
actual figures can vary wildly, of course. It might be 'worth it' to keep the pack even when it's only at 20% capacity. You might replace them when they reach 80%. But I figure that 30% degradation during EV use would be about the same time period as 30% degradation during fixed use, making battery durability not a significant factor so long as you're not losing batteries completely to failures too often.
Given the average of 2.28 vehicles per household..., you have enough for 1 day of homes if half of vehicles are electric, if 2 are(leaving ~12% of vehicles as something else) that should be enough to cover the commercial side as well, given that 37% of current electricity production is used by households, 34% commercial, 26% industrial. Some would be made up by batteries from pure commercial vehicles that don't belong to any household. Of course, if 88% of vehicles are electric that would significantly change electricity usage - my estimate was that the 2.28 vehicles would increase the average use of electricity by 50% going by averages for vehicles per household, miles driven per vehicle, miles per kwh, etc...
But I figure step 1 of any storage scheme would be to not charge EVs during a power shortage...
One note that I'm sure you'll love is that in a scenario where most of this electricity is generated with solar panels you'd logically want to charge all these EVs during the day as well. Would make for an interesting mechanic if it became a 'standard' benefit to provide charge for your employee's cars. I'm picturing solar car ports and shades...
Except that there are generally transaction fees unless you're willing to set up and maintain quite a bit of your own infrastructure.
As for the theft rate for credit cards, I'd note that it's mostly fraud, not theft. Only a slight distinction, but still there.
The thing to worry about is the rate of theft/fraud. As somebody who's aware of bitcoin but not invested in it, I have to point out that it's my impression that my money is more at risk if stored as bitcoins than as US Dollars invested in a bank. That's a real problem, real statistics aside.
I just don't agree with him. Bitcoins have some serious issues.
Indeed, I'd rate all the thefts of bitcoins to be killing it's credibility more than anything else. If it's seen as substantially less safe than traditional investments...
I might participate in the bitcoin market, but it'd be strictly transitional - buy bitcoins, use them to pay. I'd actually 'own' them for as short of a period as possible.
I'd argue that staggering appliances as described would be a form of storage anyways. For the most part we're talking about thermal storage here - hot water heaters, house temperature, etc...
It's quite possible to build a house that will remain comfortable with minimal power expenditure in most areas, but this is extremely expensive in terms of money and resources. A halfway point would be to use construction techniques involving having lots of mass inside the insulation to help maintain temperatures even while the HVAC system is offline. But at that point you're putting thermal storage systems into all the homes, even if it's dual purpose.
Heh, I laughed at this because one of my ideas is to use old but still viable EV batteries as grid storage devices, and the Model S, with the biggest batteries, uses the Lithium-Ion equivalent of a AA.
If you figure that the battery is retired from the car at 70% capacity and kept as a grid device until it's around 40% capacity this would give you massive storage capacity if only 10% of people drive a Tesla type car.
Of course, this would be a 30 year solution - 5-10 years for the batteries to degrade to the point they're no longer useful in a car, plus 20 years for EVs to actually penetrate the market enough to provide enough batteries.
Going by the state that I remember us operating them in, I'd guess that the thing was probably a non-functioning worn out POS by the time the military lets go of it.
Considering that any police department can purchase those firearms from almost any gun store, or off the internet using department letterhead if they want full-auto operation, I'm not too worried about those. I'm not going to say that an officer shouldn't have a patrol rifle or shotgun 'just in case'. $499 isn't much anyways. Looking it up, the NSN for the 7.62 rifle valued at $138 identifies it as an M-14. Most are probably shot to heck, but if you get one in good condition it can be a good pick for a designated marksman role.
The target designators might be weird but, they can also be used for spotting purposes - IE it can be used to point something out to a helicopter with the right equipment.
EOD bots? Again, not too worried, it's not like they're useful for oppressing civilian populations unless you're really creative, and it's something many departments should have if they're big enough to have a bomb unit. This ends up being most county and larger police departments due to the constant danger of idiot teens and pipe bombs. Same deal with a MRAP. It's not really useful for it's intended role, but if I was the police I'd use it as a rolling barricade if I have one or more people holed up in a building taking shots at my officers. It'd enable me to get people closer to the building, maybe even burst in if necessary.
One incident I remember where an armored vehicle would have been handy was were they had a shot officer bleeding out, but they couldn't get anybody there to rescue him because there was an active shooter with a rifle trying to kill anybody who tried. With an armored vehicle you pull it between the shooter and the person you're trying to rescue.
For mule - it might not be a M274 truck, but a Kawasaki 'Mule', IE a sort of ATV mini-truck. They're handy for tooling around on military bases.
Have you never bought something that it turned out that you didn't need? Amplify that to the scale the DoD operates on and you get some serious amounts of 'surplus'.
Add in that the military has to operate on the principal of being prepared, and thus have stocks in case of danger, it makes sense for durable goods to still be useful when declared surplus.
For example, rather than having eight types of truck around, cut it down to 2 and surplus the rest. Individual departments with ONE armored vehicle can worry about the parts it needs, and if it breaks down it's not normally that big of a deal. Meanwhile the Army has to worry about hundreds of them, and if they break down too often due to age it's just not worth it.
Oil changes might only add up to ~$150/year. Figuring dealer pricing for the other fluids, break pads, and such add up quick even if they're not routine.
Note that I mentioned that it's rampant in Hawaii, but only starting elsewhere. Hawaii is indeed pretty unique by combining high electricity costs via traditional means with near-ideal weather for solar systems.
That's not a citation of utilities suing people over solar power, much less successfully. It's not even a citation of laws preventing utilities from suing people over installing solar power, more preventing HOAs and such.
I agree. It's far too political. Personally I've always favored a carbon tax as opposed to this 'cap and trade' stuff. Start at current and do a 'dutch auction' for carbon emissions. As such, those with the lowest economic gain from their emissions will exit the market first.
Allow some trading/credits for true sequestration initiatives, but I figure a tax would have the best effect. Implementation would still be complicated, especially in order to avoid the emissions from simply moving out of the area.
In the end, probably the only thing that will make huge differences is the reduced amount of Kw/Hrs of electricity used. Given the rise of electric cars, that seems speculative at best.
I once figured out that if you went with the averages for everything in the USA - miles driven, kwh per 100 miles, household electricity usage, number of vehicles per household, and everything else that if we went to 100% electric vehicle usage(getting a Tesla's mileage), each household would use 50% more electricity.
With the rampant spread of Solar in Hawaii and starting elsewhere I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an inversion in power rates where electricity at night becomes more expensive than during the day. Employment that allows you to charge your EV at work might be a big selling factor.
In Florida, the utilities have successfully sued people over installing solar power, but that is beginning to change as the laws were altered to stop them from doing this.
plenty of new plants built since 1970, amount of electricity from coal almost tripled, peaking in 2007 but now declining.
The problem was that the the grandfathering resulted in a situation where running the old dirty nasty power plant was more financially viable than building a new cleaner plant that wasn't quite up to EPA requirements. Another side benefit seen in multiple industries, for example the near death of steel production in the USA is that the older plants, even grandfathered, couldn't compete with newer plants outside of the USA that were, in many cases, operating cleaner than grandfathered US plants but dirtier than EPA requirements for a new plant.
As for the 39% of coal electricity? I'd go with a mix of natural gas, nuclear, and renewables. Eventually get rid of the natural gas. My 'ideal' non-carbon based electricity system is approximately 40% nuclear(up from 20%), 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other to include hydro-electric.
Slashdot Mirror
"EVs suck because batteries are heavy and bulky, but don't bother asking about the weight and size of internal combustion engines vs. electric motors!"
There is a bit of a point to this one, in that the weight savings from getting away from a multiple hundred pound engine to a ~70 pound motor is outweighed by the weight gain to put in a battery powerful enough to utilize that motor over a reasonable difference.
The Model S is notably heavier than it's conventional peers, and the Roadster as well. They carry the weight well, but it's still there.
Otherwise I agree with you. The only thing holding EVs back in my mind is the cost of the battery.
Agreed. They're looking into running natural gas through my area. It's going to be at least a 10 year process.
under two weeks for running relatively high capacity power lines to the supercharger station and getting everything hooked up?
As an AC mentioned, I'm pretty sure that building a paved level parking lot takes longer. Building any sort of structure generally takes far, far longer.
Li-ion is 1/3rd the weight. 1/3rd, not 1/10th. It doesn't have to be any lighter.
Did you factor in that you need at least 50% more amp-hours to avoid deep discharging the lead-acid battery because, as walshy007 pointed out, ones designed for cranking over an engine don't like being deeply discharged?
I will admit to rounding and making a bit of a WAG though - 1/7th would have been closer. Oh, and the battery wouldn't actually be cheaper, but it'd last longer.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up that a liIon will stop working at around -25C instead of -40C. Though there are chemistries that work at colder temperatures.
Be sure you understand the difference between *power* and *energy*.
Be more condescending, why don't you? Power is energy over time.
I did read the article, though not before my comment. In it was really nothing new. We've known for ages that with the development of the lithium ion battery that the only thing stopping EVs from being the obvious choice 90% of the time was the cost of the energy storage. From my research, if the giga-factory does succeed at cutting the cost of LiIon in half it's going to be a real game changer, and not just for the EV world.
Why? Last time I checked LiIon was down to below double that of Lead-Acid. That means that if you cut the price in half again lithium Ion will actually be cheaper than Lead-Acid.
That $100 car battery? A lithium-ion equivalent that's 1/10th the weight for the same capacity and probably even more cold cranking amps might be $80.
We've already seen the start of a revolution with nearly all cordless tools becoming LiIon devices rather than NiCd and NiMH.
He was making the point that lithium is not heavy. Other than that, it's hard to know what else he was trying to say, because the article doesn't give much context.
I know it's not XKCD, but there's relevant SMBC and PHD comics.
Roughly speaking, outside of very dedicated science reporting channels by the time you go from the scientist's representative trying to dumb it down, to the reporter trying to dumb it down, to the editor doing it yet again, accuracy sucks.
Maybe they're trying for a hydrogen battery?
Strange that europeans find those homes fiscaly efficient.
I've traveled the world a bit, you might not believe it but homes in the USA normally compare quite well insulation wise against the rest of the world. Yes, you hear about problems with poorly built homes, but that's because we like talking about them.
What I was talking about for an 'energy neutral home' is one that's been designed such that it needs little to no supplemental heating or cooling. Not even homes in most of Europe are built to this level because the costs are so high in order to do so. Many more homes are built to my more relaxed standard - highly insulated with enough mass inside that heating/cooling aren't necessary every hour of the day.
Except that there's points, especially with tornados that 'not destroyed completely' is not any better, such as when the repair costs exceed the cost of just building a new home of standard construction. For example, just consider the expense involved with a few broken windows letting in sleets of water.
I like the idea of energy efficient homes, I just know there are points where said homes are not fiscally efficient.
Given that I used Model S batteries, 'greater range vehicles' would account for it rather easily.
Recreating my work:
60 kwh (Smaller Model S battery)
29.7 kwh/day from 10,837 kwh/year
If you assume a 60 kwh battery will be retired to grid storage when it hits 70%, then recycled when it reaches ~40%, then assuming 50% average life remaining gives you ~30kwh to cover that ~29.7 kwh.
actual figures can vary wildly, of course. It might be 'worth it' to keep the pack even when it's only at 20% capacity. You might replace them when they reach 80%. But I figure that 30% degradation during EV use would be about the same time period as 30% degradation during fixed use, making battery durability not a significant factor so long as you're not losing batteries completely to failures too often.
Given the average of 2.28 vehicles per household..., you have enough for 1 day of homes if half of vehicles are electric, if 2 are(leaving ~12% of vehicles as something else) that should be enough to cover the commercial side as well, given that 37% of current electricity production is used by households, 34% commercial, 26% industrial. Some would be made up by batteries from pure commercial vehicles that don't belong to any household. Of course, if 88% of vehicles are electric that would significantly change electricity usage - my estimate was that the 2.28 vehicles would increase the average use of electricity by 50% going by averages for vehicles per household, miles driven per vehicle, miles per kwh, etc...
But I figure step 1 of any storage scheme would be to not charge EVs during a power shortage...
One note that I'm sure you'll love is that in a scenario where most of this electricity is generated with solar panels you'd logically want to charge all these EVs during the day as well. Would make for an interesting mechanic if it became a 'standard' benefit to provide charge for your employee's cars. I'm picturing solar car ports and shades...
a currency with zero transaction fees.
Except that there are generally transaction fees unless you're willing to set up and maintain quite a bit of your own infrastructure.
As for the theft rate for credit cards, I'd note that it's mostly fraud, not theft. Only a slight distinction, but still there.
The thing to worry about is the rate of theft/fraud. As somebody who's aware of bitcoin but not invested in it, I have to point out that it's my impression that my money is more at risk if stored as bitcoins than as US Dollars invested in a bank. That's a real problem, real statistics aside.
The problem I see is that the wacko isn't likely to be calmed down by a robot, even with a person talking on a screen with it.
A tossed cell phone probably does as well as a really expensive robot. You just have the wacko exit the building/shelter without the weapon.
I just don't agree with him. Bitcoins have some serious issues.
Indeed, I'd rate all the thefts of bitcoins to be killing it's credibility more than anything else. If it's seen as substantially less safe than traditional investments...
I might participate in the bitcoin market, but it'd be strictly transitional - buy bitcoins, use them to pay. I'd actually 'own' them for as short of a period as possible.
When I figured it out I came up with a day, but I don't remember all my estimates/assumptions. That's approaching 100% penetration though.
I'd argue that staggering appliances as described would be a form of storage anyways. For the most part we're talking about thermal storage here - hot water heaters, house temperature, etc...
It's quite possible to build a house that will remain comfortable with minimal power expenditure in most areas, but this is extremely expensive in terms of money and resources. A halfway point would be to use construction techniques involving having lots of mass inside the insulation to help maintain temperatures even while the HVAC system is offline. But at that point you're putting thermal storage systems into all the homes, even if it's dual purpose.
Keep saving those AA's. Your gonna need them.
Heh, I laughed at this because one of my ideas is to use old but still viable EV batteries as grid storage devices, and the Model S, with the biggest batteries, uses the Lithium-Ion equivalent of a AA.
If you figure that the battery is retired from the car at 70% capacity and kept as a grid device until it's around 40% capacity this would give you massive storage capacity if only 10% of people drive a Tesla type car.
Of course, this would be a 30 year solution - 5-10 years for the batteries to degrade to the point they're no longer useful in a car, plus 20 years for EVs to actually penetrate the market enough to provide enough batteries.
Except that I checked the NSN number and found that I was correct.
Okay, had a brain fart - I look up the rifle by NSN, and forget to check the mule, merely guessing.
Well, it's a Kawasaki mule model KAF400A per the NSN*
Going by the state that I remember us operating them in, I'd guess that the thing was probably a non-functioning worn out POS by the time the military lets go of it.
*National Stock Number.
Considering that any police department can purchase those firearms from almost any gun store, or off the internet using department letterhead if they want full-auto operation, I'm not too worried about those. I'm not going to say that an officer shouldn't have a patrol rifle or shotgun 'just in case'. $499 isn't much anyways. Looking it up, the NSN for the 7.62 rifle valued at $138 identifies it as an M-14. Most are probably shot to heck, but if you get one in good condition it can be a good pick for a designated marksman role.
The target designators might be weird but, they can also be used for spotting purposes - IE it can be used to point something out to a helicopter with the right equipment.
EOD bots? Again, not too worried, it's not like they're useful for oppressing civilian populations unless you're really creative, and it's something many departments should have if they're big enough to have a bomb unit. This ends up being most county and larger police departments due to the constant danger of idiot teens and pipe bombs. Same deal with a MRAP. It's not really useful for it's intended role, but if I was the police I'd use it as a rolling barricade if I have one or more people holed up in a building taking shots at my officers. It'd enable me to get people closer to the building, maybe even burst in if necessary.
One incident I remember where an armored vehicle would have been handy was were they had a shot officer bleeding out, but they couldn't get anybody there to rescue him because there was an active shooter with a rifle trying to kill anybody who tried. With an armored vehicle you pull it between the shooter and the person you're trying to rescue.
For mule - it might not be a M274 truck, but a Kawasaki 'Mule', IE a sort of ATV mini-truck. They're handy for tooling around on military bases.
Have you never bought something that it turned out that you didn't need? Amplify that to the scale the DoD operates on and you get some serious amounts of 'surplus'.
Add in that the military has to operate on the principal of being prepared, and thus have stocks in case of danger, it makes sense for durable goods to still be useful when declared surplus.
For example, rather than having eight types of truck around, cut it down to 2 and surplus the rest. Individual departments with ONE armored vehicle can worry about the parts it needs, and if it breaks down it's not normally that big of a deal. Meanwhile the Army has to worry about hundreds of them, and if they break down too often due to age it's just not worth it.
Oil changes might only add up to ~$150/year. Figuring dealer pricing for the other fluids, break pads, and such add up quick even if they're not routine.
Hawaii is pretty unique situation
Note that I mentioned that it's rampant in Hawaii, but only starting elsewhere. Hawaii is indeed pretty unique by combining high electricity costs via traditional means with near-ideal weather for solar systems.
That's not a citation of utilities suing people over solar power, much less successfully. It's not even a citation of laws preventing utilities from suing people over installing solar power, more preventing HOAs and such.
I agree. It's far too political. Personally I've always favored a carbon tax as opposed to this 'cap and trade' stuff. Start at current and do a 'dutch auction' for carbon emissions. As such, those with the lowest economic gain from their emissions will exit the market first.
Allow some trading/credits for true sequestration initiatives, but I figure a tax would have the best effect. Implementation would still be complicated, especially in order to avoid the emissions from simply moving out of the area.
In the end, probably the only thing that will make huge differences is the reduced amount of Kw/Hrs of electricity used. Given the rise of electric cars, that seems speculative at best.
I once figured out that if you went with the averages for everything in the USA - miles driven, kwh per 100 miles, household electricity usage, number of vehicles per household, and everything else that if we went to 100% electric vehicle usage(getting a Tesla's mileage), each household would use 50% more electricity.
With the rampant spread of Solar in Hawaii and starting elsewhere I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an inversion in power rates where electricity at night becomes more expensive than during the day. Employment that allows you to charge your EV at work might be a big selling factor.
In Florida, the utilities have successfully sued people over installing solar power, but that is beginning to change as the laws were altered to stop them from doing this.
Citation on this?
plenty of new plants built since 1970, amount of electricity from coal almost tripled, peaking in 2007 but now declining.
The problem was that the the grandfathering resulted in a situation where running the old dirty nasty power plant was more financially viable than building a new cleaner plant that wasn't quite up to EPA requirements. Another side benefit seen in multiple industries, for example the near death of steel production in the USA is that the older plants, even grandfathered, couldn't compete with newer plants outside of the USA that were, in many cases, operating cleaner than grandfathered US plants but dirtier than EPA requirements for a new plant.
As for the 39% of coal electricity? I'd go with a mix of natural gas, nuclear, and renewables. Eventually get rid of the natural gas. My 'ideal' non-carbon based electricity system is approximately 40% nuclear(up from 20%), 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other to include hydro-electric.