Are we in the Golden Age of electric cars

[Deleted member 9461]

I joke with people that in 20yrs we will all ask why EVs were a good idea. Right now, everything is heavily subsidized and governments haven't completely figured out how to extract taxes from every possible avenue, but they will. I think infrastructure is going to be a huge problem, which is part of the reason I'm getting a GT (more range).

So yes, I think we are absolutely in a golden age for EVs.

@SWO Fellow veteran I work with was giving me an earful about where do you think we are getting electricity it's not really green (we were both on submarines together.) dude, I don't care where there electricity comes from, for all I care, get a bunch of inmates on stationary bikes to pedal - this is going to force Electric companies to evolve, not sitting on the same power generation that we've had for 80 + years.

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[DR.J56]

I’m still waiting on the flying car. What ever happened to that? I thought that was the next “big thing”. Not EV’s. How boring.

 

[Tampamike]

I think we’re now the crest of the wave. It’s heading toward the shore but hasn’t broke yet - but it’s definitely getting bigger and it ain’t stopping. It’s gonna be an electric beach party.

 

[Billyk24]

4. (Time to refuel) Is a bit tricky and this is something I point out to people who ask about it.

With an ICE car, the ONLY way to refuel is to visit a service station and wait for it to refuel. You might be doing this by finding a station along the way without doing a detour -- but I don't know many people who own a gas pump in their own driveway. So it always involves some effort.

While you *can* (and on a road-trip you would) do this with an EV ... for everyday use, that's not what we do.

I arrive home. I plug in the car and walk inside to enjoy the rest of my day. I do not wait for the car. If it is raining outside, I do not stand in the rain while fueling. If it is 5°F outside, I do not stand in the cold while waiting for the car to "refuel".

I plug-in ... and ignore it.

I tell people who drive ICE cars that I spend less time refueling my car than they do --but my "time spent" is the time -> I <- have to invest. I don't count the time when I ignore the car and go enjoy doing whatever I want while the car takes care of itself. For ALL of my around-town needs, without a single exception, I NEVER stop to recharge ... ever. This is a claim that I can't make when driving my ICE car -- when the needle says I need fuel, I have to go find a station.

If we are road-tripping beyond the range of the battery ... then the tables are turned. But again ... not as badly as you might suspect. I *just* had this conversation with someone on Sunday. I have a friend who lives 285 miles away and just slightly over a 4 hour drive.

While the 285 miles is just barely beyond the range of the car ... it's not the range, but the time. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am not going to sit in a car for 4 hours without stopping for a break. At some point I'll want to use a bathroom and maybe get food or beverage along the way.

The last time I road-tripped with the car, I'd take advantage of the recharge stops to give myself a break and some food. And more than once the car was ready to go again *before* I was. By the time I ordered and got food ... and had time to eat it ... the car was ready to go again.

This was not always the case. On some stops I'd get back to the car -- having used a restroom and grabbed a drink or snack -- and the car still needed another 10 minutes before it was ready.

If the only thing you do is stop and wait with the car while it charges, then sure ... waiting 30-40 minutes for a charge takes longer than fueling. But since you don't have to wait with the car and can grab a break -- it's really not that long. I should point out that this is not true of an ICE vehicle. You are legally required to supervise the refueling process -- it is not legal to walk away while the car refuels (even though I fully know people do this.)

Your road tripping statements depend upon where you live. Michigan. The home of the Federal Transportation head has installed multiple 50 and 62.5 kWh chargers in tne past twoyears. No thirty minute fill up on these slow dcfc chargers. One can not drive across Michigan with a CCS BEV 5 months a year due to the 174 mile distance between chargers in Indian River and Estx. You will stand in the rain and step out in the 5f weather in Michigan at the charging stations which donot have roofs or heated enclosures. There still is snow on the ground here in shaded areas. Do we have sufficient acess and resources to obtain battery components for all the vehicles? Relying upon other countries to obtain these resources concerns msny of us. For this reason many believe solid state hydrogen fuel-a tech that already exists- is a better way forward.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Nah. Not the golden age by any means. We’re early adopters. People are trying to catch up. Things will get batter. The golden age is coming, but we’re not there yet.

 

[Tell It Right]

Yes, we are in the golden age of electric cars.

This is because, at least for now, we haven't overloaded the power grids yet and are yet to pay extra for scarce electricity like we currently do for scarce gasoline.

When that day comes some of us will be glad we either have large solar systems on our homes (me) and/or kept at least one ICE car (also me).

 

[TheVirtualTim]

Your road tripping statements depend upon where you live. Michigan. The home of the Federal Transportation head has installed multiple 50 and 62.5 kWh chargers in tne past twoyears. No thirty minute fill up on these slow dcfc chargers. One can not drive across Michigan with a CCS BEV 5 months a year due to the 174 mile distance between chargers in Indian River and Estx. You will stand in the rain and step out in the 5f weather in Michigan at the charging stations which donot have roofs or heated enclosures. There still is snow on the ground here in shaded areas. Do we have sufficient acess and resources to obtain battery components for all the vehicles? Relying upon other countries to obtain these resources concerns msny of us. For this reason many believe solid state hydrogen fuel-a tech that already exists- is a better way forward.

Estx?? A typo perhaps. I know where Indian River is ... not sure what route you are trying to cover.

The lower peninsula of Michigan has a lot of DC Fast Chargers rated at 120kW or faster. This is what PlugShare shows me when I filter for CCS chargers capable of 120kW or faster (quite a few more show up if I drop the charging rate to include 50kW chargers). I disabled Tesla fast chargers for this ... but Elon Musk says the SuperCharger network will start to open up to non-Tesla EVs and, as that happens, it will result in a lot more charging locations. (We have to be careful here because I've noticed a lot of charing locations where there are some Tesla Superchargers ... and then very nearby -- sometimes just a different area of the same parking lot -- there will be some Electrify America chargers. What we probably want is more charging *locations* ... not just more chargers.)

The upper-peninsula, on the other hand, is a veritable charging desert -- which a whopping 3 locations -- Marquette, Escanaba, and Sault Ste Marie. Road tripping around the lower half of the state isn't much of a problem.

Solid state should be coming. The batteries exist already -- it's a matter of being able to streamline production to produce them at scale. They'll store more energy per Kg of battery mass allowing for a combination of lighter cars (don't need as much battery mass) and still have more range, while virtually eliminating risk of fire (the primary causes of lithium battery fires doesn't exist in solid state batteries). They're even a bit more planet-friendly -- they don't use cobalt.) I think this is just a matter of time.

Hydrogen fuel-cells, on the other hand, aren't such a great idea. You can't charge at home. Most of the country doesn't have ANY hydrogen fueling stations. The ability to produce hydrogen isn't efficient. It takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than the energy provided *by* the hydrogen -- and there are some fairy dirty ways to produce it -- which are also, unfortunately, the most popular ways to produce it because they are the cheapest methods -- and those methods don't do anything to reduce greenhouse gas. There have been some breakthroughs that may yet make hydrogen fuel cells more friendly. I sort of like Sandy Monroe's take on them ... they're probably a good idea for long-haul commercial transport ... trucking, aviations, etc. but a bad idea for personal cars and light trucks.

 

[Tell It Right]

@SWO ... this is going to force Electric companies to evolve, not sitting on the same power generation that we've had for 80 + years.

I respectfully disagree with part of that sentiment. I say this as someone with a large solar system that I'm in the process of doubling while looking for an EV.

Power generation has changed a lot in the past 80 years. Some of them are for the good. We have a fair number of nuclear power plants. Coal plants were shut down and replaced with natural gas plants. My state of Alabama is #2 in hydro power of all states east of the Rockies.

Some grid changes are experiencing pains that I think we'll grow out of. Like the recent Texas blackout during a snowstorm, or the frequent brownouts in California. Yeah, us solar lovers have to admit that those two were situations in which we probably forced too quick a change at the utility level (one-size-fits-all turned out to be one-sits-fit-few-while-hurting-many).

I personally see the main solutions are:
1) Decentralized solar (my solar system is very efficient because my system was catered to meet a specific target: mine and my wife's power consumption habits while we have few changes as we enjoy the rest of our retirement). That's way different from trying to implement solar at the utility level where electrical engineers have to try to anticipate which areas will have new suburbs built, will people's work habits shift during office hours like more jobs opening up in a nearby town, people moving in and having babies vs people moving out or town and/or kids growing up and moving out lowering power consumption, etc.

2) Scalable natural gas plants. If natural gas plants can be built to casually increase and decrease the amount of gas consumed (and power generated) based on need it'd allow decentralized solar users to generate as much power as they can when they can, with a fossil fuel backup during stormy weather. This is the part that failed in Texas and IMHO can be remedied. Existing natural gas plants don't do this well and are expensive to transition. Newly designed gas plants that allow for scalability would be more expensive than relatively un-scalable gas plants, but not as expensive if building that feature in the design from the ground up (if you're building a new gas plant anyway as more and more coal plants are being shut down and replaced with gas plants).

 

[Deleted member 9461]

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[Mach1E]

It won’t.

Solar has the same issue as every other alternative energy for cars right now:

Energy density.

Solve that problem and there is your solution. Good luck!

 

[Astro19]

Haha good point. But I meant as far as the charging portion of it. I dont think we will be plugging in as much if at all eventually. This means that charging stations and the entire infrastructure will be short lived. I think the investment of these infrastructures might slow if there ends up being a solar car on the horizon.

Then again, there may still be a need for them to a point. Also, batteries will become larger and more efficient, reducing the need for charging stations.

Using the sun is free. It is the future, just a matter of when.

 

[Larry Paul]

Pilots,
Wanted to see everyone facts and opinions.
Are we in the time of EV's are becoming adopted, and you are glad to be part of the front line Mid 90's to now...early 2000's to now...or just NOW. Were the first few tries with the EV-1, the GEM, the Roadster a pre-trial that didn't stick...were you a possible early adopter of the LEAF/i-MiEV/Smart car...yet no where to charge...did you get a Tesla and then go, crap I'm 3000 miles from Graceland?

My feeling - we around the time when people were first taking cross country trips...on a horse, where's the road house??? The first part of the 1900' when the car started to come more prevalent, where do I get gas....

We have some luxury of the internet/apps/some maps even have chargers...and like a road house, the camp ground, the truck stop, neighbors house gave us a safe haven.
lets see the inputs.... besides rather your here than looking at the news and us being more (fill in feelings) at each other

We are clearly past the "innovators" era, (GM EV1, Toyota Rav4EV, Honda EV Plus, Ford Range EV, Chevy S10 Electric, Nissan Altra, Chrysler Epic Mini Van etc.) but we are actually just at the very beginning of the early adopter era. I would say we are at what Malcom Gladwell called "the tipping point" on EV's in the market place. The Golden Age will come I think in about 5-10 years when things mature a bit more.

We are original owners of our 2002 Rav4EV that is still driven several days per week. It is also powered by batteries built in 2002 and designed in 1994 (NiMh formula). My wife and I have driven over 330K miles in 5 different plug in vehicles in the past 23 years on all battery power. She has not put gas in a car (and I don't mean using full service) in more than 20 years.

This is where I think we are:

EV's are still a small fraction of the cars sold in the USA and the world. Everyone who is even on this forum, either with an EV or thinking about an EV is still an early adopter. There are many excellent choices of EVs in the marketplace today...and things are only getting better from here with more choices.

While we have come a long way...there is still a significant amount of innovation yet to come.

Please update the poll with a 3rd option: We are not in the Golden age yet. This will be my vote.

 

[Mach1E]

Haha good point. But I meant as far as the charging portion of it. I dont think we will be plugging in as much if at all eventually. This means that charging stations and the entire infrastructure will be short lived. I think the investment of these infrastructures might slow if there ends up being a solar car on the horizon.

Then again, there may still be a need for them to a point. Also, batteries will become larger and more efficient, reducing the need for charging stations.

Using the sun is free. It is the future, just a matter of when.

Other BEVs have tried or currently have solar panels.

Adds about 1 mile per day of range. And modern solar panels are extremely efficient.

There just isn’t enough energy to power a car with solar panels…….. unless your car weighs as little as a bicycle with giant panels on it.

It’s not a technology issue, it’s a physics issue that isn’t solvable.

Gotta find another power source.

 

[Tell It Right]

Hydrogen fuel-cells, on the other hand, aren't such a great idea. You can't charge at home. Most of the country doesn't have ANY hydrogen fueling stations. The ability to produce hydrogen isn't efficient. It takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than the energy provided *by* the hydrogen -- and there are some fairy dirty ways to produce it -- which are also, unfortunately, the most popular ways to produce it because they are the cheapest methods -- and those methods don't do anything to reduce greenhouse gas. There have been some breakthroughs that may yet make hydrogen fuel cells more friendly. I sort of like Sandy Monroe's take on them ... they're probably a good idea for long-haul commercial transport ... trucking, aviations, etc. but a bad idea for personal cars and light trucks.

I like the idea of a hybrid BEV/HEV. As you say, hydrogen is more expensive to produce, particularly if you produce "green" hydrogen (i.e. from a solar system). That forbids using hydrogen as the sole power source. However, the fact that a fuel cell is extremely light compared to a battery gives it a place for consideration in a hybrid EV. And a hybrid BEV/HEV should be simpler to design than a hybrid BEV/ICE because a hybrid BEV/HEV would still be an electric car with nothing but electric motor(s), while a hybrid BEV/ICE has the complexity of both an electric car and gas engine car.

For example, when I had my solar system installed a year ago I looked hard for a hydrogen electrolyzer as a long-term battery storage for my home because a fuel cell holds a "charge" better long term than a battery. The idea being that the plenty of sun I get from mid spring to late fall, particularly in the south, is more than enough power I need to power my house for an entire year if I can somehow retain that power to use during the winter. Batteries are expensive (though they seem to get cheaper) and need to be replaced in time (my 19-year warranty batteries will still operate at 50% during the last year). However, an electrolyzer is more expensive, particularly since I'd get only a 50% throughput from the amount of power used to generate hydrogen, store it, then retrieve it when I need power. So, fine. I bought 30kWh of batteries and ditched the idea of having home hydrogen generation and gave up on the idea of using green hydrogen for long term use.

If, however, I had a hybrid BEV/HEV car too (I don't have a EV yet but I'm in the market for a BEV like a MME and I'm preparing for it by upgrading my solar system), a home electrolyzer might be worth the cost because it'd save me on both my home power bill (in the winter) and charge cost on trips. Basically, any day that both my home batteries and EV are fully charged I could run the electrolyzer and let it generate hydrogen for both home power use and HEV miles use. Yeah, right now a power electrolyzer still has only 50% efficiency. But in days I excess solar power anyway with nowhere else useful for it to go, I might as well power the electrolyzer and generate hydrogen for a fuel cell to use later.

Another convenience: Imagine being 200 miles into a long trip, needing a restroom/meal break, and thinking ahead for chargers. If only slow chargers are nearby your meal stop might give you some charge for your battery, but you don't want to wait around for a full charge. You wouldn't have to wait around in a hybrid with a fuel cell could easily get you more hundreds of miles anyway where you might can use a fast charger at the next stop. Sure you couldn't casually refill your fuel cell on the road. But a home electrolyzer slowly generating hydrogen over time between trips would give you the luxury of choosing when to use that hydrogen (if you had a hybrid BEV/HEV).

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