VW announces $84B investment in electric cars and batteries

Geely have bought Volvo and also make the new hybrid London Taxi, and are trying to make a delivery van platform from it.

I'd argue it's a harder engineering challenge to distribute weight in an ICE than an EV.

Putting the batteries underneath is a natural solution, giving you a nice low centre of gravity. Virtually all the stuff in the engine bay is unnecessary on an EV. If you have a motor for each wheel, you can distribute weight very evenly.

There are also advantages for cooling, possibly. A long, thin, cuboid gives you more surface area than a squat cuboid.

Synchronous as well as Asynchronous (no magnet) motors are both very durable. We're talking hundreds of thousands, if not a million hours of operation (according to Tesla that's 60,000,000 miles at 60mph). If we don't throw away the motors with every car purchase (which is a big if in today's world of yearly disposable smartphones). Then even a small efficiency advantage should be immensely useful over the life of the motor. IIRC we're talking about 10% more efficiency for synchronous. If you drive it for 1,000,000h and use about 20kW in average operation, that is 20,000,000kWh. 10% would be 2,000,000kWh. That's significant.

NYC has a peak demand of 14,500MW (see here: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2015/09/28/how-much-energy-does...). So you could power NYC for 8mins at it's peak usage with these lifetime efficiency savings(again it's unrealistic that the motors will actually run that long in cars, but at least the rare earths could be easily recouped when recycled properly).

So the motor is one of the places where an initial investment in rare earths, could be paid off easily over the lifetime of the motor. Assuming that motors aren't disposed of.

The batteries still require massive amounts of rare-earths though, and they don't have the same durability. I see much more of an environmental disaster coming here.

Total research and development costs 2016 : 13.672B, 2015 : 13.612B

Split over a ~12 years that's a little over 1/2 of total R&D spending. However, much of this is capital expenditures on new battery manufacturing not just pure R&D.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264930/global-cobalt-res...

The Congo appears to have as much reserves as the rest of the world combined! If demand goes up prospecting will go up.

Cunningham's Law states "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

I have a fridge that uses about 140kWh/year and I cook with electricity. I turn my electronics off when I'm not at home, so the fridge is the only electricity consumer when I'm at work. I use considerably less than 85kWh per day, the costs I quoted contain a rather large fixed component.

In Germany heating is most often and depending on where you live done with gas, oil or district heating plants (in cities). Electrical heating has pretty much been phased out (you'll find electrical "storage" heaters in very old apartments only).

> What do you do for heating / cool? [...] or a water heater?

ACs are not typical in Germany in private apartments, only in public and office buildings. My apartment is connected to district heating (which also supplies hot water), so this does not contribute to the electricity bill, either.

> Do you not have a fridge, or an always-on computer [...]?

I have a fridge (fairly energy-efficent and modestly-sized). I have an always-on homeserver, but it too is designed for small power draw.

The biggest chunk of these 1000 kWh per year (about half of it) is actually my terrarium, i.e. its heating and lighting, and the secondary fridge where the tortoises stay in the winter. I could have easily lived on 500 kWh per year if it weren't for that. (It should be noted that I don't have a large house, just a 50 sqm = 530 sqft apartment.)

During this time, my electricity bill was about 30 € per month, at 0.26 €/kWh. I currently pay 40€ per month since my desktop PC joined the consumers, at 0.27 €/kWh. I could pay slightly less (one or two cents per kWh), but I pay extra for a renewables-only power mix.

Ohh and BG is expensive for electricity. At least %30 more than Canada.

The only always-on computer was an Odroid, and our bulbs were LED. The fridge was pretty efficient.

Central heating in Europe usually works this way. You have a boiler in the ground/underground level of the building which turns water into steam which is pumped to radiators in the building through vertical pipes.

Most of boilers I have seen in central Europe use gas so it wouldn't be included in electricity bill. There are electric boilers as well but I haven't seen a lot of them out there, it seems like a rarity to me.

We have abundance of cheap gas so it makes sense most people would use gas boilers as you'll save money.

Another big factor is in central Europe doesn't need AC which is a massive electricity hog in places with warmer climate.

I think most of your crazy electricity bill in Australia is because of AC no? Do you have electric or gas boiler?

* Lights

* Various electronics (TV, router, speakers etc)

* Floor heating in the bathroom

* AC/heater for warming 2/3 of my house

* electric oven, stove, dish washer, washing machine, coffe machine, toaster etc..

All in all ~72€/month for 650kwH. Living in Europe, a bit colder climate than Germany.

I'd rather ask you, where you spend 900 kWh per month on :p

I suspect airconditioning is a big factor though, I've never had a fan in my home in my life and heating and warm water is done by gas. (although the country is shifting away from gas right now).