Electric Vehicles

[Martinjlm]

So this happened today. I’ll keep this thread informed on how awesome or horrible it turns out to be. About to head into the dead of winter so we’ll get firsthand knowledge of how the range does in cold. Today it sits at 90% charge, 295 miles available.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

So this happened today. I’ll keep this thread informed on how awesome or horrible it turns out to be. About to head into the dead of winter so we’ll get firsthand knowledge of how the range does in cold. Today it sits at 90% charge, 295 miles available.

Oh boy... look at what we have here...

My son has one the same color and I drove it once. You'll enjoy it for sure.

[docwra]

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

It's great that we are finding things that work in areas, but in the USA particualrly, it's not.

I fixed that for you. Whether its because of cheap gas, big distances or a more vocal anti-EV lobby (see this thread for evidence) is anyones guess but you cant escape they are growing in sales and popularity nearly everywhere else.

And its not really reasonable to state in one post "literally ZERO" thats cleaner or cheaper about EVs and then claim you werent taking fuel production or cost of fuelling into consideration.

Im with you on the solar though, seems an absolute no brainer

[Martinjlm]

I just came across this this morning and thought I’d add it to the discussion. There’s been a lot of commentary on “EV sales are slowing down” and “EVs are piling up on lots” and “Now that all the early adopters have their EV, expect interest to slow”. Here’s data from a third party source, not just me or my company. And, for the record, I am not suggesting everybody should ditch their ICE and go buy an EV. Hell, I’m certainly not ditching two of the three ICEs I have. What I am pointing out and will continue to point out…more and more people are figuring out that all the doomsday scenarios of being trapped in the wilderness with low or no charge just isn’t a thing anymore. And people who actually sit down and do the math (granted, not a lot) can quickly see that EVs with comparatively higher sticker price can still be economically better than a similar ICE.

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/11...ts-in-q3-2023/

For those not interested in reading the whole article, here are a few snips…

EV sales in the third quarter of 2023 achieved record-setting levels in the USA, surpassing the 300,000 quarterly sales level for the first time with a total of 313,086 all-electric vehicles sold according to Cox Automotive and Kelley Blue Book research, a 48.9 percent surge year-over-year.

Despite a recent poll suggesting the majority of Americans aren’t interested in acquiring an electric vehicle as their next automotive purchase, EV sales climbed to 7.9 percent of all vehicle purchases during Q3 2023 compared to 6.1 percent in Q3 2022, Cox revealed.

Another upcoming “first” for electric vehicles in the U.S. is the likelihood of sales surpassing one million units sometime in November. Consumers purchased slightly more than 873,000 EVs during the year’s first nine months. These figures indicate electric vehicle sales have quadrupled in just three years, with 2020 being the first year when sales passed 250,000 units.

Americans are buying more EVs for several reasons. The number of models available and the variety of body styles have both increased sharply, with 14 more electric nameplates currently on offer than in Q3 2022. Supply has also grown, while average prices are on a downtrend, making the vehicles more attractive. Tesla has led the way in this regard by dropping prices about 25 percent.

Cox concludes that the same pattern should hold over the next several years, with the number of available EV models growing exponentially while consumer purchases increase in linear fashion.

[el ess A]

Solar panels...a great example of the haves getting the bennies and have nots getting the shaft.

But we can sell back extra power to the power company! They have to buy it back from us!...no. You can't. You can get CREDITS from the power company to use on your future bills, which certainly helps reduce your financial burden on taking power from the grid, but you will see no cash in hand.

They give us 1 for 1 for kwh sold back to them!....Not so fast. That's only in some places. Others, you get a FRACTION of the amount. And more and more places are rethinking that 1 for 1 deal and the power companies are getting the rules changed as to how much they have to pay (less) for power sold back to them. So, that sucks. They want to treat electricity YOU make and sell back as an inferior product not worth as much as the stuff they sell you. In some cases they "buy back" at 25-35% of what it cost you to buy it from them. To me, that's a bunch of BS right there. Electricity is electricity, no matter how it's generated.

But we got subsidies for installing solar panels!!!...good for you; shingles doesn't care. The power companies are crying poor mouth about even $3,000 subsidies for $15K panel investments on people's homes. Saying it's not fair to non-solar customers and lower-income people. But I know there are "lease" options in certain places that allow you to rent the panels for like, $60/month or so, where the savings usually are enough to reduce electric bills quickly and pay for the lease payment to boot. So that's sorta BS statements from the power companies, but that's what power companies do. So the people who spends 15K on panels now only has to pay 12K. What a deal. How much credit and dollar savings will it take to get to the break-even point? If it's your last home probably fine. But if you're only planning on a 6-7 year stay? Not so much.

So I suspect the main reason you don't see solar power panels everywhere is the power companies are NOT giving up on supplying power only one way, and at full rates 24/7/365. They don't want a zillion solar customers. Because having to buy back extra electricity is no fun for them. But there is NO regulations that I'm aware of of how much they're required to pay for that extra electricity. Plus, the subsidies aren't all that great for people to make that sort of investment upfront. I'm certainly no solar expert, but I do wonder how long the batteries last and how much a battery bank replacement is? That is another cost factor to deal with as well.

So you could easily be $20K into a solar panel system and power charger system for your $55K EV. Nothing like spending 75K to save a few grand per year. Which you'll probably spend some of that for the insurance hike on the EV.

[Capricio]

Originally Posted by el ess A

I'm certainly no solar expert, but I do wonder how long the batteries last and how much a battery bank replacement is? That is another cost factor to deal with as well.

So you could easily be $20K into a solar panel system and power charger system for your $55K EV. Nothing like spending 75K to save a few grand per year. Which you'll probably spend some of that for the insurance hike on the EV.

Don't forget the degradation of the solar cells themselves, not just the batteries, with a compounding loss effect.



https://ratedpower.com/blog/solar-panels-degradation/


"Solar panel efficiency is higher than ever, but the amount of electricity that panels can generate still declines gradually over time. High-quality solar panels degrade at a rate of around 0.5% every year, generating around 12-15% less power at the end of their 25-30 lifespan."


Not to mention the hassle of cleaning off bird crap, condensation soaked dust, etc, on your rooftop. And, the inherent inefficiencies of converting/inverting low DC to stepped up AC in a nice power conditioned sinusoidal waveform, without the natural benefit of a mechanically rotating generator. Typically:

• Nominal Efficiency: >88% (Peak)
• Line Mode Efficiency: >95%

Now multiply all this compounded degradation together, as it increases year over year....
Not saying don't buy solar, but go into it with all facts about the ROI, subsidies, and diminishing returns.

[bsn]

Anyone who thinks the power companies should pay you 1 for 1 for excess solar energy doesn't realize how much solar and wind cost the power company to be able use it. During a sunny day when solar is generating there is an excess so either the power company pots some kind of load to waste excess energy or they need a storage solution such a pumped storage (very green but very expensive to build) or battery (no good solutions yet. The bottom line is most of what the power company credits back never can be used. Large solar farms also have a huge impact on reliability to the grid. On traditional generation if a fault happens on the grid the heavy rotation mass of the generators allows them to keep spinning as the voltage dips and the breaker recloses to pick up load. With solar in the same situation it locks out-if you have enough solar generation on your grid it can have a cascading effect and possibly cause a shut down of the grid. If that ever happens the ONLY way to ever restore the grid is through blackstart generating systems all of which are traditional generation. This could take a couple of days. Look up the East Coast black out of 2003 transmission line contact with a tree in Ohio cascaded into the northeast and Canada and almost took out much of the east coast. A transmission operator in Virginia saw what was going on and made the slit second decision to isolate feeds from the affected transmission line and thus they were able to get the other utilities back running within hours. With to much solar its instant drop and you will lose all your interconnected generation at once.

[el ess A]

Originally Posted by bsn

Anyone who thinks the power companies should pay you 1 for 1 for excess solar energy doesn't realize how much solar and wind cost the power company to be able use it.

And we should cry for the power companies why? Wasn't my rules. They don't have much of a problem raising rates and getting their money from the consumer. It really depends on where you live. Some states don't care, other states do actually regulate buy back rates.

An electron that makes it to the grid has no duty to be used, stored or discarded. Power companies don't know where that electron is or who generated it anyway. Too much being wasted? Then shut down gas turbine #4. But power companies don't work like that most of the time. On-line time is important.

So yeah, if current regs say they have to pay 1 for 1, they can just STFU and pay it, either through net billing or net metering credits or whatever. If there's nothing to regulate the rate, then it's a win for them. I think California and a handful of other states are even discussing actual payments to customers vs. net billing, at reduced rates, of course.

Unfortunately for the consumer, net metering is being phased out or cut in many places now. So the power companies are winning in their quest to squash the consumer's ability to reduce their power bill. I know Kentucky's rural power companies had net metering, which essentially gave them a 1 for 1 credit (except for TVA users) but now that's even getting cut. Michigan did it, too. I think most of these got phased out for other programs. Indiana should have already phased theirs out by now.

The best consumer scenario would be the ability to cut off the power company lines to your house completely, but solar isn't that efficient to power everything in an average home by itself on the average solar installation budget. Plus, with many subsidies getting cut or downright eliminated, not many want to enter into that bog of doom by footing the entire bill themselves. Although it's got a bit cheaper, solar isn't all that and a bag of chips of an investment today.

There may be hope in the future, maybe. The EV push has been making progress on battery storage/charging capabilities as well as reduced costs. The battery bank situation itself could be boosted if they could make longer lasting battery charges with faster charging.
*
Just like any operational change in your daily life, you need to get all the cost information stem to stern and see if it makes sense financially to do so. And make sure you know how solar would "pay for itself" down the road with the ever changing rebates, rules and regs.

[ChevyRules]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeROC

This video pretty much says what some of us have been saying, but with more finesse and it seems like they really don't want to ruffle some feathers here.

On the Mach E in particular, I've always said it's just an electric Honda CRV clone and trying to get these old women away from their Honda CRVs and Toyota RAV4s is a tough ask (they seem really brand and model loyal in these parts) and slapping the Mustang name on it makes zero sense in the real world. It's cardboard, corporate boardroom mentality and bad takes on bad data driven nonsense.

Very good video.

Mach E was evident it was a rush job ever since I saw Sandy Munro tear it down and it (faked) gave him a heart attack at the poor job of the engineering.

Hearing the issues of the GT, the charging curves, etc further reinforced the fact this and likely the Lightning were rush jobs to get to market first to compete with Tesla. Ford isn't the only one guilty of this. See the Kona and trying to make an EV using a platform designed for ICE.

GM isn't much better seeing the issues surrounding the Hummer EV and Lyriq( at least in production).

EV's need to be built from the ground up, not rushed, etc. Legacy automakers are learning this. It amazes me how the Lyriq lacks a frunk. It amazes me Ultium tops out at around 150 kw at fast chargers when the competition they are chasing top out at 250 kw's or more.

[Martinjlm]

I’m attaching this clip because I think it does the best job that I’ve seen so far of describing how EVs take in charge. In this case, the RWD Lyriq charges from 20 - 80% in I think 36 minutes. Longer than it should take, but probably not nearly as long as the doom and gloom perspectives I’ve seen in this thread (hours to charge). Looking at this video gives me a little more insight into why everybody is switching over to Tesla’s NACS system in place of the CCS system. But then, if I’m understanding the video correctly, part of the issue with Lyriq is it may have gotten hot during charging and slowed charging as a means of cooling things down. So that would be a function of the on car system, not the charger. It might also explain why GM is so slow in trickling out Lyriq to market. Anyway, here’s the video…draw your own conclusions.

https://youtu.be/ruVYsEM6OLg?si=STG8nRgp-RbkXYVw

[Martinjlm]

Same guy as last video doing a range test on a Model 3 with 100k miles on it to see how much the battery degrades after 4 years, 100,000 miles.

https://youtu.be/EnpKtyrPPKw?si=12coEQnHzXiu55Mv

[docwra]

Originally Posted by el ess A

Solar panels...a great example of the haves getting the bennies and have nots getting the shaft.

I know a few people who only pay a few bucks for electricity for a few months of the year by using a powerwall and solar, but they invariably live in relatively new houses and have enough money to invest in the tech to start with.
Id imagine more people will go down this route as tech improves and cost decreases.

The lack of solar on commercial/industrial buildings has to be down to Big Oil trying to extract every last $ IMO, when the technology is there and cost isnt an issue its weird it isnt being taken advantage of.

[el ess A]

Originally Posted by docwra

I know a few people who only pay a few bucks for electricity for a few months of the year by using a powerwall and solar, but they invariably live in relatively new houses and have enough money to invest in the tech to start with.
Id imagine more people will go down this route as tech improves and cost decreases.

The lack of solar on commercial/industrial buildings has to be down to Big Oil trying to extract every last $ IMO, when the technology is there and cost isnt an issue its weird it isnt being taken advantage of.

That's exactly the rub. Those flush with disposable income can afford such technology and can invest upfront and wait it out several years until they actually start getting a positive ROI. Those without the disposable income find it increasingly difficult to pay the bills, let alone pay a lot of money upfront for a promise of better savings in their power bill down the road. It all really depends on your local situation. We thought about solar, but we're also are likely downsizing and moving in a few years. When we do, maybe the new house would get the solar as it wouldn't make much financial sense to do it now.

In the U.S., I think solar makes up only about 5% of energy production. With falling panel prices, better storage, bloated "green energy" incentive legislation that someone else's grandkids will be paying for, it may make sense for more to go this route, just as you said.

But even with the average installed price of a solar panel system being about 1/2 of what it was 10 years ago (25K now vs 50K), it's still more expensive upfront than some people generally are apt to spend. Not even including that $12K powerwall. Those increased federal incentives may help, but that family of 4 on the lower rungs of the middle class or below certainly does not have solar on their radar at the moment. Current economic conditions see to that. At least for now, I still think of the solar industry as part of an all-of-the-above type of solution, as would be reliable, hybrid vehicles.

One thing I think that CAN help solar industry sell more is the ever increasing cost of electricity from the power companies. Increased demand for EV could easily make the cost of solar more attractive to more people. ROI is king. The faster you can show a positive ROI, the more acceptance it will gain.

[6spdhyperblue]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

I’m attaching this clip because I think it does the best job that I’ve seen so far of describing how EVs take in charge. In this case, the RWD Lyriq charges from 20 - 80% in I think 36 minutes. Longer than it should take, but probably not nearly as long as the doom and gloom perspectives I’ve seen in this thread (hours to charge). Looking at this video gives me a little more insight into why everybody is switching over to Tesla’s NACS system in place of the CCS system. But then, if I’m understanding the video correctly, part of the issue with Lyriq is it may have gotten hot during charging and slowed charging as a means of cooling things down. So that would be a function of the on car system, not the charger. It might also explain why GM is so slow in trickling out Lyriq to market. Anyway, here’s the video…draw your own conclusions.

https://youtu.be/ruVYsEM6OLg?si=STG8nRgp-RbkXYVw

Care to explain your thought on the nacs?