I wonder what the next 20 years will bring, especially with the shift to electric vehicles.
engines directly? variable valve timing will be common place and variable compression has debuted. more forced air systems and better injection tuning all present themselves. there is even ongoing work on two strokes and some of them are delivering better performance and emissions than four strokes.
You can actually drive further using gasoline to turn a gas turbine > electricity > electric cars battery than using that same fuel to operate a normal IC car. But, nobody does that because wind/solar/coal/nuclear are all far cheaper than gas.
Hybrid was the last big improvement. Barring a radical new technology (and variable valve timing ain't radical), we might squeeze, what, 10% better thermal performance out? Get 40mpg rather than 37? Big deal.
And really, this is all driven by energy costs in the end. We're already hitting a point where commodity solar/wind electricity is cheaper than commodity coal, and much cheaper than commodity gasoline. This creates a tremendous market incentive for purely electric vehicles. And that tech has much more room for improvement than any gas engine - batteries will keep getting cheaper and more efficient for some time to come.
When my options are a $25,000 Ford or a $90,000 Tesla, an electric car seems like a dream. But when it turns into a $25,000 Ford or a $30,000 all-electric car (maybe from Ford!)... TCO starts becoming a very attractive argument, on top of the feel-good factor.
Can confirm. I bought a used Nissan Leaf two months ago from a dealer (being used it was a small fraction of the $25k Ford). A near-identical car (trim/mileage/colour) is now listed on their site for close to 30% more than I paid.
If we were living in normal times this would make no sense - but the TCO picture is changing that rapidly (owing to oil prices going up and used EVs being so scarce).
Something something cold dead hands, etc.
The only big win for combustion-based cars is the range potential, because the energy storage of liquid fuels is so much denser. I don't expect to see electric commercial aircraft in my lifetime. But biomass-based liquid fuel? Sure. It just won't be cost-competitive with solar/wind into a battery. It'll be limited to specialized applications where power/weight matters.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/249129/us-state-and-loca...
- regenerative braking reduces the efficiency penalty of city driving. While a normal car sees a 25-30% mileage drop in stop-and-go traffic, a hybrid sees about 5-8%.
- the actual engine is more efficient! The gasoline engine in hybrid vehicles usually replaces the Otto cycle with the Atkinson cycle. The latter is more efficient but has lower power, which in hybrids is compensated by an electric assist that turns on when accelerating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle
By taking these two effects together a non-plug-in hybrid can reduce fuel use in a city driving condition by more than 40%. I didn't make that number up: the 2019 standard Camry has 29 city mpg, while the 2019 hybrid Camry is rated for 51. The hybrid uses 56% as much fuel as the conventional engine! With a plug-in hybrid that can drop even lower.
Unfortunately the marketing around all of this was muddled and most consumers have never heard of the Atkinson cycle. The original hybrids (Prius, Insight) were molded for a Japanese market, where simple and cute is a winning proposition, but American gearheads thought it looked and drove like a toy, a perception which was compounded by the fact that early hybrids made self-maintenance nearly impossible. Just replacing the 12V battery on a Prius is a major pain (speaking from experience!). Atkinson hybrids quickly became associated with a certain type of person and, for a while, many/most car geeks thought the real efficiency breakthrough were the German companies' maintenance-friendly and appropriately-scented turbodiesels, and we all know how that turned out. Hybrids have never captured more than 3.2% of the US market, but even if no highway-viable electric cars appear, a switch to plug-in hybrids could erase more than half of car-related GHG emissions.
I know all of this mostly because of one very old and very stubborn former engineer who was impervious to every kind of advertisement and cultural stereotype, and who studied the technology in the Prius and bought one new in 2009. Everyone else in the family made fun of him, but Grandpa just didn't care, and raved about the Prius to anyone who would listen. Most of us, including me at the time, believed the meme that Atkinson hybrids were a marketing gimmick and only relevant if you drove in the city often enough to take advantage of the regenerative brakes, and anyway, turbodiesels were the future. Grandpa didn't live long enough to see himself get proven right, but I still drive his car.
Long term, I'm hopeful to replace the NiMH battery with lithium and a plug-in charger.
My guess is we'll see the price fall closer to the extraction price, but less than where these petrostates can sustain themselves. So we'll see a succession of petrostate collapses, each one taking supply offline and popping the price back up. Would be an interesting time to trade crude.
Consider examples of USSR/Russia, Venezuela, Iran ...
But the plugin hybrids won't be sold as "fuel efficient", but sold as "more powerful". However once people start doing most of their driving in all-electric mode, that will cause many gas stations to go out of business (since they run on razor thin margins). That will then be the push to make the leap to all electric in the following generation. In other words, I fully expect plug-in hybrids to be the bridge to all electric.
Think of it this way: You go on a long trip and need to stop for gas somewhere along the trip. Instead, you just plug in at your destination. That saves you a stop.
That’s why your nearest supercharger is out in the suburbs: it’s for travelers, not locals.
For city dwellers, we really need on-street charging. That’s totally feasible, but there’s a huge chicken-and-egg problem to overcome.
So chargers can be at places that encourage longer stops and since there is no real environmental impact that means they can be placed about anywhere a parking space already is.
People used to complain about 200 miles not being enough then Tesla released 300 miles then they said that's not enough either.
People focus on the extra time spent charging on trips (which is real but not huge) and ignore the extra time spent filling up at the local gas station every week even when you’re not taking any trips.
But it’s also about about refueling (i.e. charging). Until a spot at a supercharger is as easy to come by as a gas station wherever you go, it won’t be the same. Not to mention having to wait 30+ minutes to charge, which can add up on a road trip.
You could do your own charging at home or at work otherwise.
It also hinders innovation. You can't produce batteries with innovative new form factors because nobody will be able to change them out at standard swap stations.
Finally, consumers would object to it. If I buy a brand new Model S I don't want to go to the swap station and give away my shiny new battery for someone's degraded high-mileage one that has an unknown probability of exploding or catching fire.
What I mean is, that problem is just one of thinking of it as purchasing a battery, which you wouldn't do if swapping them was common.
The battery is probably the most expensive component in the entire car, and is ultimately a consumable. People would forever be anxious about getting swapped out with a battery with more charge cycles on it than the one they had, ultimately affecting the potential lifespan/resale of the car.
Not an insurmountable problem, but a problem that adds a fair deal of complexity to managing the inventory at the charging stations. From what I’ve read, the software on the few Teslas that used this service didn’t understand the battery had been switched at all, and continued measuring battery health as if it was still the same original battery. I certainly wouldn’t have been keen on this idea at all unless the car correctly tracked these things.
For people who can get away with charging at home & work, it's fine. For people like me who do stuff like 170 mile trips to Tahoe often, I won't be able to have an electric car without "range anxiety" any time soon.
I don't have an electric car, so I was surprised when I recently discovered that one of the local gas station chains has an electric charging station in the rear of every one of its stations. That's probably 30-40 locations in this small city from just one outfit.
Another odd thing I see more and more of is mobile EV charging stations in strip mall parking lots. They're these long trailers topped with solar panels that show up at Target and supermarkets and stuff at the far end of the parking lot, where you can hook up your vehicle.
They seem to be itinerant, so I'm not really sure how that business model works.
I don't see why gas-electric hybrids, with say, 20-50 miles of electric-only range aren't more popular. That would eliminate the vast majority of fossil fuel usage [1], and avoid this problem entirely. It also seems a lot cheaper than loading a car with hundreds of miles worth of batteries.
So EV will see mass adoption as soon as people can top up at a "charge station" in under 3 minutes and get 200+ mile range - because that's what people expect from "a car". The public doesn't care about the evolution of implementation details like gas vs electric.
The beautiful part is that once home charging is no longer required, people will be happy to charge at home! We are an adorably irrational species.
Alternatively, there is a revolutionary path: autonomous vehicles. If AI-EV offered completely hands-off transportation, no driving or maintenance required, people would happily ignore any perceived transition costs. However, this path seems unlikely in the near future.
The problem isn't that people are unhappy to charge at home now, it's that if and when I need to travel more than 200 miles without stopping at home, I need supporting infrastructure (and planning to find it) or to use another vehicle.
There probably are sockets closer, but it's not as simple as "park and charge", but either "lobby the building management and get sockets installed" or "find a hacky solution with long cables".
As best as I can tell, Priuses are essentially an incremental evolution towards this. Check out Prius Prime vs the regular Prius. I imagine the main reason it's less popular is because of the higher price but they'll probably become more popular over time as Toyota works on bringing it down.
That's sort of where I'm ending up. Not w/ electric vehicles, but with bicycling. I bike commute year-round & use it for most of my travel, but for the rare case when I need to use my car for longer trips it's nice to have. However, paying the cost of upkeep & monthly insurance for something I use so infrequently is starting to make less sense.
As a cyclist, I wish more of these services (Enterprise included) would have cars with bike racks on them. Car2Go did with their Smart-car fleet, but that was phased out.
You can sort of get this through Turo, but you don't get the network benefits (one-way rentals, easy replacement, etc.).
Space - Rear seats have been unbolted/removed in my SUV and a roof rack added for the climbing/camping/canyoneering/safety gear I bring. Perhaps there are rental places with roof racks, I've yet to see one.
Cost - Most rental places I've checked charge > $0.50 per mile if you are out of state or over a couple hundred miles (if they allow it at all). On a 3000+ mile trip I'd have $1500 in mileage fees. Don't be fooled when they say unlimited mileage - its like unlimited data for cell phones. If anyone has experience to the contrary where it isn't prohibitively expensive for a trip this length I'd love to hear it (keeping in mind I go down rough dirt roads so SUV/truck, not passenger car).
Comfort - Custom stereo and other things that you can have in your own car but not a rental. Also my car is modified so passenger seat can lay flat allowing one person to sleep while another drives, greatly reducing travel time.
Safety - I'm very familiar with the capabilities of my vehicle when I go down some of the rougher roads, or have to get through sand. Also how far I can push when the gas tank gets low.
I'm not opposed to the idea, it's just a hard sell. I'd love to have an electric car for commuting to work and just rent a few times a year that I need something bigger.
so at my destination I need to account for distance back to the nearest super charger. Fortunately for me the nearest at one destination is fifty miles but another is little closer. That knocks off 100 usable miles right there. Since the recommendation is not to charge to full except on long legs of your trip that will leave me about 150 miles of local driving.
What I think is going to be fun is that we already look back at the beta generation of sub 100 mile range EVs as unacceptable and the crop of 100-150 mile range EVs will join them soon. Within 5 years or so I bet 200-250 mile range EVs will be seen as quaint at the upper price points but mainstream in the 20k price range.
However EV range increases face many hurdles. the first is range is weight. 310 mile range packs in the 3 are just shy of 1100 pounds. Charging them to full with current SC tech is still an hour. At home at 32amp it is 30 miles of range an hour and damn if that cord gets very warm. Homes can reasonably be expected to step up to 48amp but after that requires rethinking how we build homes. On the road it will require systems beyond the Tesla Supercharger system but that involves its own problems of heat.
For anyone who wants one car and does trips the require more than one charging cycle 250+ is a requirement. Also, part of range anxiety just is not the range but the time it takes to replenish that range
The main issue is one of cost, a secondary issue is style. Tesla's are expensive, but other automakers will fill the gap, with cheaper cars. Unfortunately today all electric cars except tesla are uniformly ugly.
I think people are ready for an electric car for daily commuting, but the cars need to be in the $20K range, 200 miles, and not look like crap.
Also keep in mind it doesnt make sense to sell an existing car to buy an electric car, so there is a 8-15 year lifecycle for people to ditch their old cars.
Fact. And the reason is that many people that buy electric/hybrid cars are like vegans -- they want everyone to know about it. The Prius is a horrible monstrosity of visual appeal but it sells because people like to be seen being "better" or "more woke" than their neighbors -- while a Honda Civic hybrid looks exactly like a Honda Civic. That's the only explanation for the almost universally ugly and "distinctive" profile of electrics and hybrids. Even with other hybrids with similar specs (and less "distinctive" designs,) they didn't see anywhere near the sales numbers as the Prius. A Ford Fusion Energi can only be discerned from a normal Ford Fusion by a badge on the door, even if it gets better mileage than a Prius. But the Energi only sold about 15,000 copies in 2015, vs the Prius’ 200,000 or so.
An all-electric Suburban without adequately noticeable badging would earn the condemnation from more "enlightened" parents waiting in the school pickup line.
Tesla doesn't have to be ugly because a Tesla already looks fairly unique (although borrowing heavily from Maserati..) https://www.mikewardmaserati.com/2018-maserati-ghibli-vs-201...
It isn't enough when I need to find an outlet I can use legally--which will likely be NEMA 14-50 240V, if you can find one--and then spend an hour waiting for the charge to finish for every 20 to 30 miles I drove off my range. That's 8 hours. Lengthy, but doable for overnight. But I can't wait 8 hours every time I drive 4. My modal road trip is 700 miles, with an overnight at 420 miles (or 280 on the return). The current state of electric charging stations is such that I couldn't drive that trip with just "level 2" AC outlet charging.
If it's just a 120V outlet, it'll take 2.5 days to recharge 250 miles of range. The electricity will still cost much less than gasoline, of course, but road trips in the US can easily total thousands of miles. It's a big country, with lots of highways, crappy passenger train service, and airline service with increasing numbers of drawbacks.
DC fast charger networks are an absolute requirement to combat range anxiety. It isn't just how far you can drive at once, but how long it takes to refill your range. Your range circle shrinks as you drive, and you need to recharge before it gets too small to have a charging station in it. So you can't just drive out your full range. You still have to plan your hops between charging stations, and if those are 180 miles apart, any extra range below 360 miles won't make a difference, because you couldn't skip a charging opportunity otherwise.
I disagree. I think hybrids are a dead-end. They don't help electric car adoption, rather they hinder it because they validate every criticism about electric cars. Part of the reason why Tesla got as big as it did is because it didn't feel the need to argue for electric cars on gasoline-car terms.
[1] https://electrek.co/2018/09/12/tesla-releasing-more-battery-...
I've never heard of an evacuation order 100 miles inland.
Family in South Carolina are going to Atlanta to ensure there isn't an issue getting a hotel room.
That could be a problem once electric vehicles are much more popular, but then again, fast charging stations should be more popular by then too.
My sister lives in the hillbilly sticks of the Virginia/North Carolina border, about 100 miles inland. She has to drive 45 minutes to get to a doctor. That area isn't going to take thousands of refugees for a week or two. Can't feed them or provide sufficient sanitation. That's how you get cholera.
They might want to consider buying something else. Or society might have to add more rapid charging stations and buses if shorter range electric cars become the norm.
Big coastal cities are already nearly impossible to evacuate by car on short notice, and they already have tens of thousands of people without cars.
If you're gonna leave the North Carolina coast for the hurricane and you can afford to leave at all, there's little financial difference to whether it's winding up in inland rural areas, or simply heading to a major city anywhere else in the country. Drive to Nashville, or fly to Chicago.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here?
I do not see a viable electric vehicle for me. Tesla looks awesome, and I cannot find an affordable one near me. Hell, there are TWO (count 'em, 2) used Model-3's within 20 miles of me, and they're selling for $50,000.
LOL and Model 3 was claimed as the "affordable" one. I make 6 figures, and look at my car-buying habits. * Model-3 is just not in my wheelhouse, and probably won't be for many, many years.
I'd love to buy a quality electric, and I don't see it happening any time soon. Anyway, this is just one more data-point ...
... * and to anyone who suggests I change my habits, I'll reply: 401k is important to me, saving for my first house is important to me, saving for kids' college is important to me, and staying debt-free tops everything (aside from a mortgage someday).
Tesla has its nay-sayers and financial enemies shorting it, yes, but there is decent reason to wonder if they'll be around 10, 20 years from now. If I buy a Model 3 in 10 years and plan to drive it 10 years, that's a very important consideration.
Good point.
In fuel and tax savings it'll have paid for itself within those 3 years (versus a petrol or diesel car), after which it's effectively a free, zero-tax, zero-fuel-cost car.
My point being that an EV is already an absurdly good deal if you can make it fit your lifestyle. Also, I realize I'm biased, but I don't really get the range anxiety argument. If I run out of gas in a car I need to get towed to a gas station. If I run out of electricity I need to get to literally any wall outlet.
(this is what a tow service will do if you've only run out of gas)
You're right of course, although I still maintain plugging the car into a wall socket for an hour is easy to do almost anywhere - realistically this would get enough charge for most people to get to a charger (in my case it would get me to a rapid which would top up the rest of the battery in another 25 minutes).
A 1kWh battery is not big; e-bicycles carry ~500Wh.
Would be literally the electric equivalent of a gas can.
This adds to my thought that EVs will be a massive boon to the working poor. No more scraping the couch cushions for enough change to put in your tank to get to work, just go sit at a free charger somewhere. No more random breakdowns of a transmission, radiator, exhaust, etc. which can cascade into a lost job from missing work since you cant fix it. Once you can get an old used 20kwh+ EV for ~$1000 in decent shape, it’s going to be amazing for these people.
I think this year is a watershed along those lines. My guess is you will start seeing used hybrids shortly (within 3 years) at reasonable prices.
Quite a few "hybrid" cars in California are losing their ability to use the carpool lanes because there are so many of them. You now have to be able to do something like 40-50 miles on battery or you don't qualify anymore.
In addition, I think GM has moved out of the first tier of federal rebates on their electric/hybrid cars because they've sold so many of them.
You probably won't find used Teslas, but I bet you will start finding used Volts/Bolts.
From my point of view, the biggest issue I have is that while my internal combustion engine car is 25 years old, I haven't been able to keep a hybrid for more than 5 years because the technology is still evolving so quickly.
It helps to be married. That way one spouse can have an electric vehicle for daily commuting or banging around town, and there's still the other spouse's gas-fueled car for longer trips.
The expectation of a shift to electric vehicles is highly exaggerated. In 20 years, most of the cars will run on gas with a small market share of electric/hybrids/hydrogen cars. It's pretty much a certainty at this point. Even if electric vehicles are economical today, everyone isn't going to switch their current cars. Moving the car market towards electric will take many decades, if it ever goes electric at all.
The projections for oil is the projections for every energy source but coal. Up.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32912
This is the same conclusion reached by pretty much every institution. Oil will be the dominant source of energy in 2040 just as it is today.