Really Great Farley interview on EVs

[Mach1E]

Absolutely need to be skeptical of "breakthroughs", but there is incredible R&D being done very broadly. I think that one (or more likely combinations of several) will keep the rate of advancement in EV-applicable batteries on the same curve that's been established for nearly 2 decades now. Batteries are getting "better" (whether you measure gravimetric energy density, volumetric energy density, cost/kWh, longevity, etc.) at 5-10% per year. Advancements like the one I linked to, which are manufacturing-based rather than chemistry-based, have, IMHO, some of the greatest potential to keep the curve going. I don't think "breakthrough" is necessarily accurate to describe the above, its just solid engineering advancement. I don't believe the future is all dependent on breakthroughs. They might happen, and I hope they do, but I'd much rather see many smaller advances happening continuously across the spectrum that put all my hopes on some mythical breakthrough.

I dunno, I’m skeptical we are going to have any large breakthroughs when it comes to batteries.

The problem is we are dealing with physical limitations.

You can only cram so much energy into so much space and can only charge and discharge it so quickly with however much heat and waste involved.

All those factors will likely get incrementally better, but not exponentially.

Kinda like how gasoline engines have improved over the last 150 or so years. Incrementally, but they’re still fairly inefficient in terms of converting heat to propulsion. Because physics.

Electric motors are the future, but batteries still suck. I think we need a better fuel source to drive the electric motors.

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[dbsb3233]

I dunno, I’m skeptical we are going to have any large breakthroughs when it comes to batteries.

The problem is we are dealing with physical limitations.

You can only cram so much energy into so much space and can only charge and discharge it so quickly with however much heat and waste involved.

All those factors will likely get incrementally better, but not exponentially.

Kinda like how gasoline engines have improved over the last 150 or so years. Incrementally, but they’re still fairly inefficient in terms of converting heat to propulsion. Because physics.

Electric motors are the future, but batteries still suck. I think we need a better fuel source to drive the electric motors.

Agree that battery tech is likely to improve slowly and incrementally, and the EV revolution along with it (slow and incremental).

But I'm doubtful on a different fuel source coming. Once drivers get used to home charging, they're not gonna wanna go back to fueling stations every week. Home charging is such a major convenience. And savings. It's arguably the #1 reason to buy an EV (home charging on cheap residential rates).

Personal car ownership as the overwhelming norm may be in it's twilight period anyway. By 2040, half the country may be getting around in driverless door-to-door shuttles instead of their own cars. Shrinking the personal car industry dramatically, killing investment into revolutionary new fuel sources.

 

[Mach1E]

Agree that battery tech is likely to improve slowly and incrementally, and the EV revolution along with it (slow and incremental).

But I'm doubtful on a different fuel source coming. Once drivers get used to home charging, they're not gonna wanna go back to fueling stations every week. Home charging is such a major convenience. And savings. It's arguably the #1 reason to buy an EV (home charging on cheap residential rates).

Personal car ownership as the overwhelming norm may be in it's twilight period anyway. By 2040, half the country may be getting around in driverless door-to-door shuttles instead of their own cars. Shrinking the personal car industry dramatically, killing investment into revolutionary new fuel sources.

I’m thinking more along the lines of nuclear power or something else. Maybe a small battery plus some form of range extender to solve pretty much every use case.

But huge expensive batteries are…… too heavy and expensive. Plus the bigger the battery, the longer the charge time.

I think batteries are a stop gap not end game solution.

Driverless cars may work for big cities, but for the rest of the world I don’t see that happening.

 

[dbsb3233]

I’m thinking more along the lines of nuclear power or something else. Maybe a small battery plus some form of range extender to solve pretty much every use case.

But huge expensive batteries are…… too heavy and expensive. Plus the bigger the battery, the longer the charge time.

I think batteries are a stop gap not end game solution.

Driverless cars may work for big cities, but for the rest of the world I don’t see that happening.

Who knows what's the future holds, but mini nuclear reactors in people's cars wouldn't be on my bingo card.

I get what you're saying - probably not that per se but some revolutionary new power source. I might measure that one in centuries rather than decades though. Until then, electricity storage seems far more likely.

However I still like the idea of series hydrids (EV powertrain with medium battery + a high power gas generator as range extender). Like the announced 2025 Ramcharger. Right now it takes a massive engine to generate the kW needed to run an EV at full power, but I'm hoping they can slim those down some. Seems like the torque requirements for direct-drive of a vehicle would be more taxing than simply turning an onboard electrical generator. I really don't know though.

Until then, EVs look like they may be coming full circle. They started as small cars, got somewhat bigger as batteries improved, but now they're shifting back to small cars because the batteries are still way too expensive to put the big packs in that are needed for a viable larger vehicle. ICE/hybrid is likely to continue to dominate the medium-large market for some time (which is most of the US market).

 

[Mach1E]

Who knows what's the future holds, but mini nuclear reactors in people's cars wouldn't be on my bingo card.

I get what you're saying - probably not that per se but some revolutionary new power source. I might measure that one in centuries rather than decades though. Until then, electricity storage seems far more likely.

However I still like the idea of series hydrids (EV powertrain with medium battery + a high power gas generator as range extender). Like the announced 2025 Ramcharger. Right now it takes a massive engine to generate the kW needed to run an EV at full power, but I'm hoping they can slim those down some. Seems like the torque requirements for direct-drive of a vehicle would be more taxing than simply turning an onboard electrical generator. I really don't know though.

Until then, EVs look like they may be coming full circle. They started as small cars, got somewhat bigger as batteries improved, but now they're shifting back to small cars because the batteries are still way too expensive to put the big packs in that are needed for a viable larger vehicle. ICE/hybrid is likely to continue to dominate the medium-large market for some time (which is most of the US market).

I think if we could train the drivers better, we could cut the size and power of the range extender in half.

Instead of using the range extender when your battery runs out, use it almost the whole time…… when on a longer trip.

But yeah, not necessarily nuclear power, but some sort of cleaner fuel source for the range extender. Maybe if we can get rid of the drawbacks of hydrogen for example.

 

[dbsb3233]

But yeah, not necessarily nuclear power, but some sort of cleaner fuel source for the range extender. Maybe if we can get rid of the drawbacks of hydrogen for example.

Any kind of new fuel means like 2 decades of fueling infrastructure build-out though. As we see now 12 years into DCFC networks, that's a huge slog. And electricity is relatively easy, since the "pipelines" already exist nearly everywhere. Contrast that to what a hydrogen network would take, or some other new fuel. That would be 10x harder. We're already struggling just to get dependable DCFC across the country and L2 into apartment lots.

The more plausible path, TBH, is just to stick with ICE/gasoline for the baseline while we gradually introduce more battery EVs. It won't satisfy some people's aggressive timelines but realistically it's what will surely happen.

 

[dbsb3233]

The true solution is to develop a pure series hybrid where the ICE supplies the electricity. There will be a small battery necessary for surge power requirements and regen capture, but not to act as the prime mover power source.

The ICE for this hybrid architecture can be rethought and designed strictly to generate electricity and not power the drive wheels via mechanical connection. That would allow a lighter engine made out of higher temperature tolerant materials, such as ceramics, to lower waste heat loss and increase energy conversion efficiency. The ICE can be tuned to make maximum power in a narrow powerband, which also increases combustion efficiency. The engine can use any number of fuels including synthetics or pure alcohol or a high blend of alcohol fuel, or recycled waste oil.

A pure series hybrid solves all the drawbacks of EV regarding refueling time, range limitations, and large batteries. More importantly such a drive architecture doesn't disrupt the petrochemical industry, doesn't require revamping the existing fuel dispensary system, and doesn't require massive investment in electrical generation systems and rapid upgrade of the electrical grid distribution system.

Best of all, the optimization of the efficiency of a pure series hybrid can be developed far quicker than the next gen EV battery that's been on the technology horizon for the past 25 years. Easily achieved within a decade or less.

That's what I said above too. The concept of a series hybrid is great. Also, drivers get the superior driving experience of full-time electric drive, which is addictive once you get used to it.

The problem is generating enough kW from the gas engine. Normally a 250 kW generator (roughly what it would take to directly power 2 motors at max power) is the size of a walk-in freezer. The smaller the generator output, the bigger the battery has to be. The upcoming Ramcharger, for instance, has a 130 kW generator (3.6L V6) and a 92 kWh battery. Can really only put that in a big pickup truck.

I'm hopeful they can figure out how to get more kW out of a smaller engine, which would allow them to use a smaller battery. They don't really need enough kW from the generator to max out the motors, since the point is range extending, which usually means highway cruising. I'm not sure what the power draw is for 70 MPH highway cruising (with load), but that's probably the reasonable target. Need enough battery to handle bursts of high power accelerating, climbing hills, etc. And to go at least 50-100 miles without the generator even needing to come on. It defeats the purpose if you have the gas engine running most of the time (just buy an ICE for that).

 

[jeffMachE]

Having owned an i3 with a range extender (series hybrid), I'm partial to the solution. My personal experience, however, was not great. The engine on the i3 was overly instrumented and would throw CEL's very regularly. It came to a point where I just wouldn't trust it to come on automatically if I needed it. Since I had 115 mile range in summer (85-ish in winter) and an 82 mile r/t commute with 3000 ft. climb at the end of the return home, I had a number of nervous return trips to my house, wondering if I'd be stranded 3 miles from home because the range extender would just refused to kick in.

Aside from that, what always really intrigued me as far as a gas-powered generator design (with zero requirements to produce rotational power) was a simple 2-cylinder opposed design where the piston simply went back and forth and generated power by moving a magnet back and forth through a field. There were a few companies toying with this back a few years ago (can't find the references) but nothing ever came to fruition that I saw. The advantages of this design are that you get a great power (kW) to weight ratio because you don't have cam shafts and rotating mass. In theory, a well-designed serial hybrid could give you enormous range - figure a 60-ish kWh battery plus the ability to generate an additional 40-60 kWh by running the generator on a long trip.

I fell out of interest in that solution, however, as I believe that the steady 5-10% improvement in battery tech year over year will win out in the end. 10% per year doubles capacity in 7 years. There is nothing, IMO, that can come to fruition and widespread adoption in the next 10 years that simple year over year improvement in battery tech won't match. And "improvement in battery tech" includes chemistry, physical packaging, manufacturing, innovative materials, charging speeds, etc. - so many, many avenues for advancement. Just 5 years ago, having a 300-mile EV was an $80K to $90K proposition. Now, in just 5 years, a 300-mile EV can be had for well under $40K with NO MAGICAL BATTERY breakthroughs. What are we going to see in the next 5 years? I'm quite hopeful with no need to wish for magical solutions.

 

[dbsb3233]

150 HP is adequate for most use cases. It makes the generator much smaller. And tied to a 15kWh battery for surge power.

Not sure if you meant kW. HP doesn't address the power requirement quite as well. 150 kW might be enough for a small commuter car but not for more common ones. The Mach-E motor is 210 kW (281 HP), for instance. And that's just for 1 motor (like the RWD trim).

The motors and battery have to be large enough to be the main powertrain without the generator IMO, and have some decent range, otherwise it's not really worth it (just stick with ICE/hybrid, or a full BEV). That's likely why we haven't seen lots of series hybrids already. And why the new one coming is a pickup. They presumably can't get a small enough engine to put out the high kW it takes to really do it right yet.

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