Battery Prices Have Fallen 88 Percent Over the Last Decade (arstechnica.com) 159
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The average cost of a lithium-ion battery pack fell to $137 per kWh in 2020, according to a new industry survey from BloombergNEF. That's an inflation-adjusted decline of 13 percent since 2019. The latest figures continue the astonishing progress in battery technology over the last decade, with pack prices declining 88 percent since 2010. Large, affordable batteries will be essential to weaning the global economy off fossil fuels. Lithium-ion batteries are the key enabling technology for electric vehicles. They're also needed to smooth out the intermittent power generated by windmills and solar panels.
But until recently, batteries were simply too expensive for these applications to make financial sense without mandates and subsidies. Now, that is becoming less and less true. BloombergNEF estimates that battery-pack prices will fall to $100 per kWh by 2024. Specifically, BloombergNEF projects that battery pack prices will fall to $58 per kWh in 2030 and to $44 per kWh in 2035. That's roughly the level necessary for BEVs to be price-competitive with conventional cars without subsidies. Given that electric vehicles are cheap to charge and will likely require less maintenance than a conventional car, they will be an increasingly compelling option over the next decade.
But until recently, batteries were simply too expensive for these applications to make financial sense without mandates and subsidies. Now, that is becoming less and less true. BloombergNEF estimates that battery-pack prices will fall to $100 per kWh by 2024. Specifically, BloombergNEF projects that battery pack prices will fall to $58 per kWh in 2030 and to $44 per kWh in 2035. That's roughly the level necessary for BEVs to be price-competitive with conventional cars without subsidies. Given that electric vehicles are cheap to charge and will likely require less maintenance than a conventional car, they will be an increasingly compelling option over the next decade.
The cheaper they get (Score:3)
The cheaper they get, the more attractive electric cars become. When they get cheap enough, E will be more attractive than ICE in every way.
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But when EVs take over more and more market, the demand for gasoline will start to drop and so will the price.
I remember riding with my granddad and he drove several blocks to pay $0.22 a gallon instead of $0.24. We might see those prices again in today's dollars.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
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Not later. If enough people start driving EVs that the price of gasoline drops, the gas stations will start closing too. As that happens more people will switch to electric because it's a hassle to find a place to fill a gas car.
Also, the price of gasoline is really set by the Saudis and Russians. Who knows what they'll do?
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But when EVs take over more and more market, the demand for gasoline will start to drop and so will the price.
The obvious solution is higher gasoline taxes. Once the majority is driving EVs, getting support for taxing the minority should be easy.
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The cheaper they get, the more attractive electric cars become. When they get cheap enough, E will be more attractive than ICE in every way.
Yes, the idea underlying the old Google RE<C Initiative [google.org] (2007) was that you don't need regulations, government prohibitions or subsidies to transition from coal to renewables. All you need is to make renewables cheaper than coal and then people will switch voluntarily. Kind of like the way most of us don't ride horses or use vacuum tube hi-fi systems today, because those things are more expensive forms of amplification and transportation than are modern alternatives. There is no government agency now
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Except for those recharge times...but then, we might have swappable battery packs.
Those recharge times are fine. Just enough time to grab a coffee and take a piss after a couple of hours driving.
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How long does it take you to piss?
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:5, Funny)
He must drink a LOT of coffee! (Score:2)
Because last time I looked even the fasting charging systems take 30 mins to an hour to get to 80% charge.
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Because last time I looked even the fasting charging systems take 30 mins to an hour to get to 80% charge.
You don't need an 80% charge, you only need enough charge to drive the next couple of hours before it's time for another pit, er, piss stop. That's maybe 160 miles of range. With a 250 kW Supercharger, and assuming, say, 300 wH/mile, you can add 13.8 miles of range for each minute of charging, which means you need to charge for 11.5 minutes. With a 350 kW CCS charger, you only need to charge for 8.2 minutes.
Of course, those numbers assume that the car can take the full output of the charger, which is onl
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My VW TDI goes 650 miles before it needs refueling.
That's weird. Most automakers don't bother with a fuel tank that provides more than about 300 miles. Pickups often have bigger tanks, but that's so they can still get about 300 miles when towing a trailer.
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Look at it another way, how much time do you waste pumping gas into your car that could be saved by plugging in at home or your destination? Does it add up to more than a few extra minutes charging on occasional long trips?
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:4, Informative)
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:4, Insightful)
the time spent on a single fill up of gas is negligable. You can't account for that time and add it up. It's something you do once a week on your way to doing something else.
But you can account for that time and add it up. It's not complicated math. You add the time you spend diverting from your route, the time you spend filling up, and the time you spend paying, and then you multiply by the number of fill-ups, and you come up with a whole bunch of wasted time. And while in practice that time isn't all lumped together, the truth is that there are lots of smaller tasks (or indulgences!) that could happen in those separate durations, if only you weren't wasting the time filling up.
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the time spent on a single fill up of gas is negligable. You can't account for that time and add it up. It's something you do once a week on your way to doing something else.
But you can account for that time and add it up. It's not complicated math. You add the time you spend diverting from your route, the time you spend filling up, and the time you spend paying, and then you multiply by the number of fill-ups, and you come up with a whole bunch of wasted time. And while in practice that time isn't all lumped together, the truth is that there are lots of smaller tasks (or indulgences!) that could happen in those separate durations, if only you weren't wasting the time filling up.
In fairness, there's also all of the time you spend plugging and unplugging your EV at home. You plug in every time you arrive and unplug every time you depart. These actions take only a couple of seconds for each plug/unplug, call it five seconds total per trip. You should also add up those times. I figure my car leaves and returns an average of about two times per day, so call it 10 seconds per day. That's an annual time cost of about one hour, five minutes per month. About the same time cost as one fill
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Oh... I should also note that I don't *have* to plug/unplug on every trip. I could do it only once per day, or even once per 2-3 days. But that would require thinking about it, which is a different sort of effort -- and one that ICEV owners must engage in, too.
On balance I prefer the tiny additional time expenditure of plugging and unplugging on every trip, and never thinking about my battery state.
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I agree with some of your statements in principle (small slices of aggregated time add up), but disagree with your conclusion. It takes approximately 1 minute of pumping for the average cap (13 gallon tank) to be filled by the average pump (13 gallons/minute). If rarely have to go further out of my way than turning off a road I'm already driving on (15 seconds.) Add another 15 seconds to insert the nozzle, select fuel and insert credit card, and 15 seconds each to undo pulling in and inserting the nozzle
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:3)
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:5, Informative)
Recharge times are not fine.
You can recharge to 80% in 20 minutes.
A 20-minute break after 6 hours of driving is not excessive.
A bathroom and gasoline break is going to take half that long. So a difference of 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, during around-town driving, the gas-car is going to need to be refueled every few weeks. My EV charges while I sleep.
EV owners waste less time charging than stinky-car owners do fueling.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
How long does it take to get to 100%?
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How long does it take to get to 100%?
It takes a lot longer. Charging slows as you get closer to full capacity. 80% is the sweet spot.
My EV takes about an hour to go from 20% to 100%. But it is an older car (from 2015). Newer cars charge faster.
I rarely charge to 100%. For routine driving, I charge to 80% overnight. I will boost to 100% an hour before leaving on a long trip and then charge to 80% during super-charger stops.
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A 20-minute break after 6 hours of driving is not excessive. A bathroom and gasoline break is going to take half that long.
I'm an old guy, and it still doesn't take me 10 minutes to go piss - or to fill up my car with gas, for that matter.
I think EV tech will eventually be great for 95% of use cases. I'm not convinced it'll be the ultimate solution for long-haul driving though.
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On average, it's better. If you travel across the country once a year (or shorter trips more often), you are basically trading off weekly visits to the gas station for somewhat longer charging on vacation.
Of course, the more you drive long-distance, the worse the tradeoff gets.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:5, Funny)
I see a business opportunity to solve this problem: In flight recharging.
Get big rigs filled with topped-off batteries, and dangle a charging cable on a pole from the back. Drivers can then tailgate the trucks, plug in, and recharge without any down time at all. They'd even get an efficiency boost from the draft.
The trucks could also use a pulley system to vend other long-haul essentials during the hookup, like Mountain Dew, beef jerky, and adult diapers.
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I see a business opportunity to solve this problem: In flight recharging.
Get big rigs filled with topped-off batteries, and dangle a charging cable on a pole from the back. Drivers can then tailgate the trucks, plug in, and recharge without any down time at all. They'd even get an efficiency boost from the draft.
The trucks could also use a pulley system to vend other long-haul essentials during the hookup, like Mountain Dew, beef jerky, and adult diapers.
Yow, just trying to imagine this makes me laugh and shudder at the same time. The very best airplane pilots are able to do in-flight refueling. Even supposing your truck driver is well-trained, the car driver won't be. Add to that traffic much denser than safe separation distance for airplanes and you have a recipe for disaster. Now add on top of that returning dirty adult diapers to the truck.
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Those long haul drivers who go for six hours then stop for the minimum possible time are going to find that it's more time efficient to get an EV and chill for an extra ten minutes when all the normal people switch to electric and most of the gas stations close.
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A 20-minute break after 6 hours of driving is not excessive.
It is, but in the wrong way. A 15min break is the minimum recommended after just 2hours. Driver fatigue is a real problem, worst among idiots who think they are better than their own biology.
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With all the self-driving systems in use, what's driver fatigue based on? Just sitting in the car seat and suffering through your companion's choice of music/books/talk radio?
Your point is mostly well taken, but it's kind of ironic that defending more frequent and somewhat longer pit stops for battery charging uses driver fatigue as a supporting reason for stopping when the same electric vehicles are also touted for their driver assist features, like distance sensing cruise, lane center, and "self driving"
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With all the self-driving systems in use, what's driver fatigue based on? Just sitting in the car seat and suffering through your companion's choice of music/books/talk radio?
Yes. All of the above. Lack of body movement and stimulus variance is a huge contributor to fatigue. You get fatigued sitting in the drivers seat controlling the car. You get fatigued sitting in the passenger seat doing anything other than sleeping. You get fatigued sitting at your desk staring into a computer screen for hours on end.
Your brain and body need variation.
but it's kind of ironic
No it's not ironic. The advent of automatic breaking and lane assist doesn't mean you can get behind the wheel of the car drunk either. There
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You can recharge to 80% in 20 minutes.
Maybe... The Model 3 has been getting slower over time. They initially cranked it up really high but it seems like they have been having problems because more recent models are limited to slower charge rates.
Of course it's still only 30 minutes, just be careful about the hype and out-of-date information.
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You can buy a Model-S with a 400-mile range.
As batteries get cheaper (see TFA) and more compact, even longer ranges will be available.
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You can recharge to 80% in 20 minutes.
Tesla says it takes 30 minutes to recharge to 80% [tesla.com] using a supercharger.
I guess your 2015 battery charges quite a bit faster than the newer Tesla batteries.
If his EV is from 2015 it probably has significantly less battery capacity than the latest Tesla models.
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A bathroom and gasoline break is more like five minutes if there are two people. One heads to the restroom immediately while the other starts pumping gas. When the first person is done with the restroom and returns, they assume gas filling duties while the other person uses the restroom.
I usually can drive for eight hours without needing to use the restroom anyway (via fluid management planning) so I can do that stop even if I'm solo in five minutes.
So, that's a 15 minute difference.
I don't really care. Given how much less it costs to charge an EV per Km driven than a gas guzzler, and given my day to day driving pattern, I'm prepared to wait a few extra minutes on longer trips. The electric car is around 30% cheaper to charge than it is to keep a gas guzzler fuelled over the same distance (in Germany). Depending on the country that cost gap can be bigger. Where I live electricity prices are considerably lower than gas prices and they don't shoot up every time some dork in the Persian g
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How long would a semi truck take to recharge?
The battery cells can be charged in parallel. So if it takes 20 minutes to charge a car, it would also take 20 minutes to charge a semi, assuming you have enough amps available.
It's not ideal either, but better than liquid hydrogen, and refuel times could be 5 min.
I have never heard anyone who actually owns an EV say that charging times are a problem. For most people, hydrogen makes charging times WORSE because they can't do it at home.
Hydrogen makes little sense. It is not generated efficiently. It requires an infrastructure that doesn't exist.
The only country making a serious effort with
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
You really wouldnâ(TM)t - you need to stop and eat. That half hour of having a piss break, eating, stoping your body folding itself into a ball of muscle pain⦠thatâ(TM)s enough to get another 6 hours of driving time. 7 hours in the morning, and 6 in the afternoon, before sleeping and repeating the whole thing again the next day? Sorry - but the whole âoeomg, charging timesâ thing is utter nonsense.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
The devil we know...
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...for the way I drive cross country.
There's dozens of you! Dozens!
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:4, Insightful)
Recharge times are not fine. I would need a swappable battery for the way I drive cross country.
I would like you to be forced to take a requisite 15min break every 2hours so you stop being a danger to yourself and others on the road as you drive across country.
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but then, we might have swappable battery packs.
The problem with battery packs is that they solve an imaginary problem that people who don't own EVs think that EVs have.
Actual EV owners quickly realize that recharge times are a non-issue. They certainly aren't going to swap their brand new $10k battery pack for one with 200,000 miles on it.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
While we are at it, what is the distance these packs are capable of if someone is traveling at, say 80 mph, with the radio and AC blasting?
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While we are at it, what is the distance these packs are capable of if someone is traveling at, say 80 mph, with the radio and AC blasting?
The radio uses a negligible amount of power.
My EV has a wimpy AC, so I don't think it uses much power either. This doesn't matter to me because I live in San Jose where the weather is perfect 95% of the time.
According to Tesla's Q&A, a Model-S with a 320-mile range will go about 250 miles at 80 mph with the AC on full blast.
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If BEVs have "wimpy" A/C, that's a deal killer right there.
Mine has a wimpy AC. You shouldn't generalize.
I was an early adopter (2015). The situation may be different today.
BTW, San Jose weather is NOT perfect 95% of the time (I live there).
Perhaps I exaggerated. But at least 90% of the time.
Re: The cheaper they get (Score:2)
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They certainly aren't going to swap their brand new $10k battery pack for one with 200,000 miles on it.
Keep in mind that the article and GP are about battery packs becoming cheaper. Of course you're not going to want to swap your brand new $10k battery, but what if it is instead a $1k component? $100? What if they do like what Tesla proposed - YOUR battery goes into a charger bank to be nicely slow-charged, and you RENT a replacement for your long trip? Or they give you a swap differential? Batteries are also lasting longer and longer, 200k miles was a pipe dream just a decade or two ago, today it's loo
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I expect eventually battery charging will be faster, too.
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Actual EV owners quickly realize that recharge times are a non-issue.
Of course "actual EV owners" are people who have self-selected to own an EV. It's not like we have done a randomized trial where we take random car owners, swap their current car for an EV and see how they get on with it.
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Better to have pollution in a pile on the ground somewhere than in the air where people breathe it.
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Re: The cheaper they get (Score:3)
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>"Which pollution are you referring to?"
Pretty sure he is probably meaning the pollution from the electricity generation, which is way less than zero for the super-majority of people who will be charging, in most areas. Plus, there is the manufacturing and destruction pollution for the batteries, themselves. Which is also way less than zero. But these are improving.
Meanwhile, ICE efficiency continues to improve, too. Which is good. More MPG = less carbon. And non-carbon pollution in modern cars has
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No need to answer to an obvious troll.
It is very easy to find facts about the environmental impact of li-ion battery manufacturing, and it is quite straightforward to extrapolate the effects of "cheap" battery manufacturing, which is cheap because the pollution is just dumped into the environments of the countries that produce the main ingredients and components, mostly places not known for governments with strong stance on environmental protection.
Except for consumer alkalines. (Score:2)
AA's and such seem just as expensive as ever.
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That's how they pay for animating the energizer bunny for TV commercials.
Trends can be reversed... (Score:2)
I think I read that someone is trying to bring back Radio Shack, give them time.
Break even is at 90 $/kWh not 44 $/kWh (Score:5, Informative)
The confusingly worded summary suggests it might be 58 $ or 44 $ to achieve price parity. That is not the case.
Re: Break even is at 90 $/kWh not 44 $/kWh (Score:2)
I can buy a brand new crate engine for $5000 and a transmission for $3000. That means I would need to be able to buy the major components of an electric drive train (battery and motor) for $8000 to be price competitive. Tesla motors go for around $2500 (second hand), so a 100kWh battery pack for $5000 sounds about right to be the break even point - aka $50 per kWh.
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You aren't considering the lower cost of electricity vs gasoline.
If you are financing your car, your savings on powering your EV can make up for a somewhat higher monthly payment.
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Price parity is not going to come all of a sudden to all segments. In the super expensive F segment, BEVs are already cheaper than ICEV, but usually these are marked up way beyond cost of manufacturing and have lots of hype and emotion attached to them. Ferrari is a ferrari. Even you show a Model X towing an Alfa Romeo accelerating faster then that Alfa Romeo itself, it is not going to change anyone's mind.
In E segment Tesl
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Dual motor BEVs are not all that more expensive. But they will just make t
They can fight back as much as they like (Score:2)
But in 10-15 years ICE car will be banned in europe and the rest of the world will probably follow, even the USA, though I suspect they'll be the last to do it.
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May be its is too optimistic and may be ICEV makers will try to reduce cost/profit/quality to fight back.
Most of the ICE makers are starting to make EVs.
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These days a lot of sales are on lease, so the maths are a bit different. A lot of people look at the monthly cost rather than the retail price of the car, and BEV is already very competitive with ICE, especially when you factor in fuel savings.
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Not just cars, other, smaller devices too. (Score:4, Interesting)
In particular, over the last 5 years they have developed flashlights that can fit in your dress shirt pocket that can act as an emergency phone charger. Bring it from dead upto 60%.
20st century was redefined by the computer chip - we went from radio to the internet. 21st may be energy storage.
Flashlight chargers (Score:2)
That's probably because most of those flashlights have a 18650 cell or similar in them, which is actually a pretty hefty battery, comparable in volume to some cell phones in their entirety. So you just need a DC-DC transformer and a bit of regulation equipment to turn that into a 5V line for the USB(will be getting more complicated with the newest standards allowing higher voltages). The equipment tends to be tiny and thus not particularly efficient, which is why it doesn't provide a full charge.
As such,
Reasons other than cost - time+pollution+joy (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, less pollution is nice. There's a lot of toxic carcinogens spewing out from your tailpipe. Many people of means wouldn't mind paying a little more if it means they'recontributing to improving the air quality.
Finally, I think EVs have a bright future in new form factors. For example, a VW minibus...terrible fuel economy with ICE, but for EV, who cares? I want one. I think there will be many creative designs in the near future that take advantage of the fact you don't need a giant ICE engine in front and save on space. I can imagine many people buying into EVs for new and creative form factors that are impossible or impractical with an ICE engine.
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For example, a VW minibus...terrible fuel economy with ICE, but for EV, who cares? I want one.
Bad aerodynamics will ruin your range.
Range is secondary once electricity is not scarce (Score:2)
For example, a VW minibus...terrible fuel economy with ICE, but for EV, who cares? I want one.
Bad aerodynamics will ruin your range.
That's the point. When everyone is vaccinated, I want to take a bunch of family and friends 20 miles to the beach. I don't care if the range is 100 miles. I think many of means with extra parking slots in their driveway would feel the same way. You feel bad for guzzling a ton of gas, so you buy a minivan or SUV that tries to do everything. With EVs, I could see people of means with an extra parking space buying a vehicle that sits idle for most of the week and then does one task really well, but is ine
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few drive 300 miles before going home.
Few do it every day, but a lot of people do it from time to time. Holidays, visiting relatives, outdoor/wilderness activites and so-on.
Which brings up the electric car conundrum, do you buy a battery that will cover all your journeys, and have an expensive battery sit idle most of the time? or do you have a small battery and try to find some other soloution for the occasional long trips?
I'd expect PHEVs to become a common choice in the coming years, get a battery with a big enough range to cover your daily
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Which brings up the electric car conundrum, do you buy a battery that will cover all your journeys, and have an expensive battery sit idle most of the time? or do you have a small battery and try to find some other soloution for the occasional long trips?
Option 2 mostly, sometimes 1, depends on the trip length and route. Most people are in families with more than one car, we have one EV and one ICE. If you want to use ICE for a long trip you can. Otherwise you rent a car. We typically rent when we take one of our few, pre-planned (3-4) road trips a year. We like to keep the miles off our cars. I did this even when I had my last gas car (Audi RS5). Other than that I drive, pre-pandemic, maybe 50 miles a week. I usually charge every 1-2 weeks, at nigh
Need $20/kWh to really smooth out renewables (Score:4, Informative)
David Roberts at Vox ran the numbers: https://www.vox.com/energy-and... [vox.com]
To get to industry standards for 7x24 reliability, wind TURBINES (not "windmills", TFA, sheesh) and solar...need storage to go all the way down to $20/kWh, that is, to keep electricity prices anywhere near their levels now.
However, Roberts stresses that you can have a close approach to 100% covered with anything below $100 - and we're nearly there, which is I guess why so many gigawatt-hours of plants are being put in already.
Myself, I think that you need to see most households having EVs and charging...and the mandated design should allow the EV to power the house when the mains brownout, and even feed power back to the neighbourhood. Presto, almost free storage, because the storage has been purchased for another reason.
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Does he take into account cost minimization like Zerrahn, Schill, and Kemfert do, or is this one of those fictional "we need to store 100% of overgeneration no matter the cost" scenarios that we hear about from people like Hans-Werner Sinn?
I *think* I know what you mean by "cost minimization", but I'm not completely certain. Would you mind expanding a bit?
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I should properly have credited the work to MIT, Vox was just reporting on their paper.
It wasn't about storing overgeneration, but matching the reliability we have on 7x24 sources, now, like coal and gas.
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Myself, I think that you need to see most households having EVs and charging...and the mandated design should allow the EV to power the house when the mains brownout, and even feed power back to the neighbourhood.
I don't know about feeding power back, for one thing that requires an expensive grid-tie inverter. But absolutely you should be able to power your house from your vehicle battery for a period of time. OTOH... as time goes on we're going to have a lot of old vehicle battery packs whose storage capacity is reduced enough that it doesn't make sense to use them in vehicles any more. Recycling those batteries as home storage or grid-scale storage could pretty quickly provide an enormous buffer for dips in renewa
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You could also just disconnect from the grid when it gets squirrely and power your house off the car for a bit. Lots of people who have generators already have that capability, not to mention boats and RVs.
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You could also just disconnect from the grid when it gets squirrely and power your house off the car for a bit. Lots of people who have generators already have that capability, not to mention boats and RVs.
Sure. That's what I was suggesting. Even if you want to automate it, you need only a transfer switch, not a grid-tie inverter. Much cheaper.
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Sorry, somehow I read that part of your post completely backwards.
According to Sandy Munroe, Tesla is already at $43 (Score:2)
Sandy Munroe has in multiple videos stated he is "very confident" that Tesla can manufacture a battery at $43 per kWh, today, in 2020. So the future is already here but it will take some time for that effect to trickle down to other brands.
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The actual problem is that we (non-pop culture environmentalists) understand that li-ion is a transitional tech. Its theoretical maximums are insufficient for large scale deployment. We're already seeing it plateauing in capacity and cost (look at the chart, there's a reason they started from 10 years ago and not 3).
There's still significant hope in moving to 8:1:1, but after that, we're getting pretty close to having squeezed out low and mid hanging fruit, and most of the high hanging fruit. Which is why w
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Tesla itself is projecting 60 $/kWh or so but that includes structural battery, cells directly glued to car body, and other such innovations.
Electricity is not always cheap (Score:2)
Electric vehicles are not always cheap to charge.
In some countries like Denmark, Germany, and Belgium the cost (per kWh) of electrical energy is such that the cost of powering your electric car (e.g. Tesla) is similar to that of powering a (modern, efficient) ICE car when you compare the energy cost of driving the same distance.
That doesn't mean electric cars are not a good idea. It only means they are not much cheaper to operate.
Re:Electricity is not always cheap (Score:5, Informative)
In some countries like Denmark, Germany, and Belgium the cost (per kWh) of electrical energy is such that the cost of powering your electric car (e.g. Tesla) is similar to that of powering a (modern, efficient) ICE car when you compare the energy cost of driving the same distance.
I live in a country like that, but it's not even close. You forget that we already have an extremely stiff tax on petrol; we pay €1,55/l (around $7.10/gallon)
How much to drive 100km? Comparing a Hyundai Kona EV against a Kona ICE; other than the drive train, the cars are the same
- ICE: using 6l/100km, costing €9,30
- EV: using 16kWh/100km, costing €3,04(I pay €0,19/kWh)
EVs are significantly cheaper to fill up, and a lot cheaper to maintain too.
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That is the price of electricity, not the cost.
In Germany, residential customers pay 0.30 euros/kwh. But much of that is taxes and fees.
Industrial customers can buy wholesale power at about 0.05 euros/kwh. That is much closer to the real cost.
If Germany wants to promote EVs, they can give a tax break to EV owners.
Many other jurisdictions already do that. I live in California, and I get special nighttime rates because I have an EV.
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Even within a country the price of electricty for EV usage can vary hugely.
For example here in the UK if you charge at home, overnight, on a specialist EV tarriff you can get prices as low as 5p/kWh. Some public chargers are apparently has high as 40p/kWh.
Charging isn't cheap for many people (Score:3)
In the SF Bay Area - a place with one of the greatest densities of EVs in the country - it is definitely not a given that they're cheap to charge. PG&Es tiered residential rate, into which most people will fall, is around $0.28/kWh - roughly the same cost/mile as a gas car with decent mileage. While it's possible to take advantage of their EV rate, it's not going to be a significant win for most people unless they drive well above average mileage/day, since it shoves daytime rates sky-high. Also, charging a pure BEV solely at night effectively requires installing a Level 2 charger and associated infrastructure, which can run into thousands of dollars depending on the circumstances.
Commercial charging is even more expensive. DC Fast Charge runs around $0.42/kWh, when you can find it. Not sure about Tesla Superchargers.
I own a PHEV and am considering a Bolt, but not because the cost/mile is low. It isn't, and won't be under PG&E's tender mercies.
Re: (Score:2)
What fraction of SF residents even have a garage to park in to charge?
Re: Charging isn't cheap for many people (Score:2)
At $.28 per kwh at 250 wh/mi (grabbed from a model 3 forum) that's roughly the same as $2.00 per gallon at 30 mpg
But SF Bay Area gas prices are $3.00-$4.00 ... 50%-100% higher, so .28 $/kwh ain't bad at all.
This even says SF area has the highest gas prices in the nation. And even the national average is over $2 right now.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/ar... [sfgate.com]
Texas, with $0.10 per kwh and $2.00 a gallon, electric looks even better. I wouldn't bet on gas production outracing power production, not when power cost
Re: Charging isn't cheap for many people (Score:2)
Oops, I hit the wrong reply, that was for Oddhack.
Still too expensive (Score:2)
Maybe the cost to manufacture has gone down but the complexity of using lithium batteries hasn't. You can buy an SLA battery for less than a third the price of a lithium battery that has the same capacity and you don't need special (read: expensive) battery management circuitry to keep the thing healthy.
Re: Battery vs solar (Score:4, Informative)