Article on supposed Honda EV expectations

The cost and infrastructure required to maintain fossil fuels is unsustainable.

If the actual cost of fuel and it’s downstream impact were reflected in the pump price, everyone would suddenly be very interested in alternatives.

We need to do better, even if it means some will have to be inconvenienced. I personally think that alternative fuels should be in the back seat to a massive push to improve public transportation. However we appear to be ready to kick the can down the road again because the price of a fill up is at a low point.

Even if you don’t believe in climate change, you have to believe that we can do better than exploding long dead plant matter to get around.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/united-states-spend-ten-times-more-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-than-education/?fbclid=IwAR1hoczHUoFXr-YzuvvHuZLBJVqdggsnb5O8YNGzb5bytELGrW5qwLsI-po#244cbccf4473

 

I agree. The use of battery packs at Supercharger installations is good for smoothing out power draw and thus reducing demand charges for electricity, but on a larger scale it's the utility that needs to manage the fluctuations in demand, not the individual EV charging station.

I really wish the U.S. Federal government would fund a large-scale effort to develop cheap grid-scale electrical storage facilities. Balancing grid demand is a growing problem, with more and more use of intermittent power sources such as solar farms and wind farms. The growing use of EV fast chargers is going to create demand spikes, too.

I think lithium-ion cells are, and will remain, much too expensive for grid-scale energy storage. What I envision is more like the sort of "dirt batteries" seen in the "Search for the Super Battery" episode of PBS's "Nova" series. My guess is that those will never be sold commercially, because they are (literally) dirt cheap, probably can't be patented, and thus aren't profitable to mass-produce or to ship long distances. Perhaps, instead, they would be built in place, much like building a road or a reservoir dam. That is, they would be made as a large-scale infrastructure project, not mass produced in a factory.

Just my pie-in-the-sky speculation here. I haven't seen any feasibility studies for using "dirt batteries" for grid-scale energy storage.

​

 

Now Tesla owners just need to install a 100kWh battery ($$$$$) at their house to charge the 75-90kWH battery in their car.

Of course there will be inefficiencies charging the battery and more inefficiencies charging the car battery with the house battery. Ultimately, more energy will be consumed using this method than simply charging directly off the grid. But who cares about that? Now we’ve got nearly 200kWh of battery capacity just so mom can take the kids to school and go to yoga.

This is a more dreadful idea than boycotting a gas station on Wednesday to teach the oil companies a lesson so they’ll lower prices. The problem with that plan is that everyone will buy gas on Tuesday and Thursday.

 

Just like they did in the second part of the last decade, when Hummers went extinct as the Volts and C-Maxes just did, remember?

 

What are your ideas on improving public transportation?

I live in a rural area and was recently slapped with a not insignificant increase on my property taxes for public transit, yet a public transit vehicle does not travel within 4 miles of my house. I guess this is how other people get “free” stuff.

Do you believe greenhouse gases would be reduced more by improving public transportation or by a massive push to put a Clarity in every garage?

 

My comment was about Supercharger sites that have massive amounts of battery storage, not about home charging.

 

Same problem on a larger scale. Inefficiencies to charge batteries from the grid, more inefficiencies to charge batteries with batteries. And a boat load of lithium that could be put to better use.

 

What better use for lithium did you have in mind?
Lithium is not particularly rare, and production can be easily (and is being) scaled to meet demand.

 

I believe we would see a much greater reduction in vehicular emissions if manufacturers produced 5, Clarity or Volt type PHEV’s, rather than one Tesla, Mach-e, Rivian, F150 EV, etc.

A ~90kWh battery in a daily commuter leaves ~60-70kWh’s of unused capacity. Your ~23kWh battery has served you quite well. The same holds true for my 17kWh battery. I’m able to do 90% of my daily driving on batteries. If I bothered to charge on the rare occasion that my travels exceed the EV range, it would be closer to 100%.

A 15-30kWh battery in a PHEV would allow 90% of drivers to do 90% of their driving on battery power. At the same time, this single vehicle will allow them to dart across the country in a manner to which they are accustomed.

If the solution to the problem of rapidly charging ~90kWh batteries in the wild is a massive bank of lithium batteries that will need to be continuously recharged, it is simultaneously wasteful of both lithium and electricity.

BEV’s make great commuter cars and are ideal for urban areas. If I were King, I’d limit their battery capacity, focus on building charging infrastructure in urban areas and start cranking out PHEV’s with an EV range of 50-75 miles.

I’d consider that a better use of lithium.

 

I think gas price is a factor, but government subsidies are a bigger factor. If not for the $7,500 federal rebate, and the $1,500 CT rebate, I would not have a Clarity, or my Hyundai Ionic Electric. Connecticut has now cut their rebate program way back, I think that will hurt BEV sales here. I don't think there is much wrong with Honda not going all in on BEVs at this point. They are in business to make money. At this point and the near future they think they can make more money selling gas cars. Nobody has introduced a BEV they can make money on yet, so what's the rush? (Tesla has, sort of, but they had to lose BILLIONS to get there. Established carmakers simply can't do that.) Once batteries become cheaper or some battery technology jump happens, they can jump back in. And this is coming from someone with a BEV and a PHEV.