If we used plug in hybrids with 10 kWh batteries, this would be enough for four million vehicles.
There is a strong assumption that battery costs will come down, and raw material extraction will ramp up.
It is important to remember that we are currently extracting megatons of fossil fuels and just burning them to ash and carbon dioxide yearly.
There is also a strong assumption that batteries will be very recyclable in the future (recycling batteries will make economic sense)
Consider that a plug in hybrid needs two full propulsion systems. Both of those systems need to be engineered, tested, integrated, built, warrantee-ed, and serviced.
If battery prices do come down, the cost of the extra battery pack will soon be lower than the added cost of the ICE propulsion system.
It is my understanding that these factors led GM's leadership team to stop producing the Volt (plug in hybrid) system and transition to all EV.
If, however, battery prices stay high or go up for an extended period of time, this bet will look worse.
Fortunately for consumers, there is choice.
GM does have a >> “strategic investment and commercial collaboration” with Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) to procure lithium from Southern California’s Salton Sea
https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/gm-ctr-lithium-partnershi...
>If, however, battery prices stay high or go up for an extended period of time, this bet will look worse.
It's interesting to me that GM was really a pioneer in PHEVs with the Volt. They decided to transition their strategy at the same time as it seems like most other manufacturers debuted their first PHEVs. I have several friends that had Volts who went to other manufacturers because their use case still required a PHEV.
Was this purely to push buyers into the Bolt? This seems like an odd strategy since the Bolt, using LGs battery technology, is a transition technology itself for GM because it doesn't utilize the Ultium architecture.
How expensive would it have been to allow the Volt to solider on for a few more years with minor updates until an Ultium vehicle in a similar package with an extended range were available?
It’s just a Chevy car … but electric.
As opposed to, for instance, Mercedes or Volvo - e-initiative i-mobiles that are chaotic dumping grounds for futuristic design concepts that nobody asked for.
We don’t want your "electric car" … we just want your car, electric.
https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/vehicles/passenger-cars/eqc...
https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/vehicles/passenger-cars/eqe...
... here's the interior console:
https://media.mercedes-benz.com/article/4faab79f-5c1c-4bcd-b...
https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/vehicles/passenger-cars/s-c...
The bad news for you is that it's based on release date, not on ICE/EV.
Every car is slowly moving to just screens for controls/gauges.
As in, Houston / 927 / defcon / teeletons friend ?
Just as China will influence steel and aluminum prices through central planning, battery prices are unlikely to remain higher than current peak as long as the government continues its current stance on stable prices.
Regardless of whether the mines are outside of China, the refinement/separation step of mined raw materials is done mostly in China (>80% global capacity). In addition to the 3-5 year lead time of building the capacity through new refineries, there’s a significant process optimization learning curve (non-transferable learnings) to move down the cost curve for new refinery entrants.
On central planning, this is well known that China manages raw material prices according to the 5-year plan: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-commodities-idUSKCN...
Extracting oil doesn't leave the total devastation behind it as extracting cobalt does [1]. A several orders of magnitude increase in that sort of abomination that I linked to doesn't have anything to do with "saving the planet", it's all politics and money. There's also the whole "child labor" thing [2] but let's assume that countries like Congo will sort it out sometimes in the next 10-20 years, they most probably won't, but there's always hope.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2013-02...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/a...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline#Phase_4_(can...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/coalmining/@50.9809314,6.4...
On what bases? Typically bigger demand leads to price increase, do we have new sources of Lithium/Cobalt/Copper that would increase production significantly?
That definitively matter for some cars.
However, the relationship between humans and cars is not like it is between humans and most other products. The same car by features can easily be sold for twice the price, or even higher with minor added conveniences, improved quality, or brand. Add $5000 for a different color.
As long as an ICE is a feature people want to their car to have it won't matter that a battery is cheaper.
The EU has voted a complete ban of the sale of new ICE and hybrid cars by 2035. It doesn't matter if ICE is a feature people want or not: it's not going to be an option.
The EU isn't the whole world. Also, the EU bans new dinosaur-burning cars from 2035. Cars with ICEs running on something else (synthetic) will most likely remain legal.
For ICEs to fully vanish from the market it would take a complete ban or some disruptive technology that works better for all use cases, to make them completely non-desirable for everyone.
We have tax advantages for electric cars, very expensive fuels, very cheap electricity. Still the deal doesn't close yet.
The infrastructure is hopefully developing also, so they would get working chargers and working payment systems by the time the batteries have become cheap enough too. And charging systems that don't cost thousands per post for apartment building parking lots.
In a sense, the system is riddled with so many inefficiencies at every layer. The only way to do it properly is to have a vertically integrated company like Tesla. They have their own chargers and do a lot of their own components instead of using subcontractors. They don't use low quality charging services or apps or payment cards. The experience can be controlled only that way.
A light city car like a Nissan Leaf does pretty well with just 40kwh. The original one shipped with just 20kwh and that was a relatively heavy vehicle. Imagine the same vehicle with twice the energy density. It would have a lot more range. A few kwh go a long way on light vehicles. Electrical motor cycles have somewhere in the range of only 4-8kwh. A lot of electrical bicycles have less than 1 kwh. 10kwh is plenty for a light vehicle.
Anyway, hybrids have all the downsides of owning an ICE car (lots of moving parts, pollution, expensive fuel, maintenance cost, etc.) with only some of the upsides of owning an EV (torque, fuel economy, etc.). Basically, in terms of cost and complexity, they don't make a lot of sense. The cheaper batteries get, the less sense they make. Right now EVs are just really expensive which means not everybody can afford one. However, cheaper, smaller EVs are perfectly feasible and a lot cheaper to make. Once the high end market saturates, smaller, lighter and cheaper EVs are the next obvious growth market. From next to nothing to many millions in volume is going to happen relatively quickly. In such a market, hybrids don't really stand a chance.
Those hundreds of millions of vehicles will be replaced over the course of 2-3 decades. Annual production volume of cars will be mostly EVs by mid next decade; in about 15 years. From then on, another 15 years or so later, most ICE vehicles will have been decommissioned. The value proposition at 2022 cost levels is already pretty great for EVs (with incentives and if you can afford them). Another 3 decades of technical improvements, economies of scale, etc. is going to only improve the economics.
I investigated myself plugin hybrid vs full electric, and full electric won for the simple fact that a plugin needs to be charged every day I will drive somewhere. For the electric, I can recharge it once a week or twice a month and it will cover my needs. I don't have an in-house charger so this is a massive difference.
From my perspective, this is a regulatory issue.
Auto-manufacturers have been pushing products and platforms that streamline, simplify, and reduce cost. That means if their premier work truck, consumer truck, and SUV all share the same underlying platform it's a win. This doesn't incentivize the development of multiple platforms that are right fit but rather marketing manipulation to make the consumer think something is the right fit.
[1] https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2020-full-year-glob...
I suppose the investment goes not just to civil engineering and land.
It depends on your driving profile. For most of the year, I do small trips, below 50 km per day. Then I do maybe 10 200-400 km trips a year.
I could get maybe 80% electric kilometers with a modest plugin hybrid.
Does anyone have numbers for this?
This explains where the data and scores come from: http://www.dashboard-light.com/click-here-first/
No matter where you are in the car market, plug-in hybrids are a weird compromise, delivering all the slowness of a hybrid and the requirement to have access to charging like an EV, for more money than a normal hybrid car.
They do. I have owned an XC60 PHEV for over 2 years now, after 20kk miles the brake pads were 5% worn. And it's a 2.2 tonne, 400bhp SUV. Without regenerative braking the pads would be almost gone now.
Which is what on a modern car?it’s an oil change every 25k km on any new bmw.
Is this North America spec btw? (there's difference in maintenance intervals usually).
I've driven ICE for many many many years and I never want to go back. I don't want to smell gasoline in the gas station... The model 3's maintenance is basically cabin air filter and brake fluid which honestly you can just not touch for 5 years with no problem if you live somewhere with clean air ;) it's essentially zero maintenance.
In hybrids, the battery is very tiny, so lasts for a day or two instead of a week or more. This means having a home charger is an absolute necessity. Small batteries don't support rapid charging, so you won't be able to use many public chargers, even if you were patient enough to wait hours instead of minutes.
Horesepower of hybrid cars is advertised as a sum of EV+ICE engines together, but that's a rare scenario. You'll be mostly using underpowered EV-only half when you can, and then the underpowered ICE-only half when you run out of juice.
When you're on electricity, you're lugging an ICE engine, and when you're road tripping, you have worse fuel economy due to lugging a useless battery and an EV motor (regen doesn't do much even when it works, and highway cruising is the worst-case scenario for it).
In many hybrids transmission/clutch adds a lag, so you don't get the sweet instant torque BEVs are known for.
You have worst-case maintenance costs. On top of all the moving parts of an ICE engine and a complex gearbox, your battery will wear out sooner. A small battery will tend to be cycled 100% to 0%, instead of kept in the 80%-50% range that is much gentler for lithium batteries.
I’m an automotive EE, I’ve had almost all types of vehicles to drive. I really like the Wrangler plug in hybrid. My week to week saw almost zero gas being used, it was like having a full electric and I could still drive wherever I wanted. With 4Low and diff lockers. Loved it!
I drive ~12mi a day, works great for me, but I know it’s not for people with commutes.
Personally I'd just ride my bike for that and if I was unwilling or unfit to cycle 12 miles a day[1] I'd go with an electric bike.
(That would actually save me time I would otherwise spend training but I realise I am an odd outlier).
1. Not judging here, everyone has their own fitness levels and goals.
Some can blend power from electric and gas motors and give you the combined power output for modest durations almost any time--and then will use excess ICE capacity or regenerative breaking to recharge the battery.
Yes, of course you plug in any time you're home. Not an issue if you have off-street parking, any outlet works.
Transmission/clutch lag--which car have you driven? Does not exist at all in mine (GM Volt), have not heard anyone mention it in reviews of RAV4 Prime or other recent PHEVs.
It is in fact the best-case scenario for some driving profiles.
I have many modest-distance trips around town, and ~30 long drives a year, at least 10 of which would require a midway additional hour of charging in a BEV, with half the drive through an area that has no fast chargers and will not get any in the next 3 years.
It was about half the price of a comparable used all electric car.
But it was still too expensive, so I ended up buying a used diesel, less than half the price of the hybrid.
Charging at home will probably be possible in a few years so then it's even more desirable to get a fully or partially electric car.
Electric cars can become mainstream but it requires still some problem solving, both technical and nontechnical.
I have an XC60 T8 PHEV, it's the best car I have ever owned, hands down.
>>a crappy low-end EV experience with worst-case charging, and a poor ICE car with even less cabin/cargo space than a pure ICE (and much less than a pure BEV).
Don't see it at all. It charges in 3 hours - what's the problem? That I can't rapid charge it on the motorway? Ok, fair. The space inside it is the same as in a petrol XC60. There is no compromise.
>>You'll be mostly using underpowered EV-only half when you can, and then the underpowered ICE-only half when you run out of juice.
The EV motor isn't super powerful, but it's absolutely sufficient for driving around. And the ICE is 320bhp in this model, it's far far far far from "underpowered". It's a rocketship, and I owned an actual Mercedes-AMG before. In the mode where both ICE and EV motors work together this car will outaccelerate anything due to the instant torque.
>>you have worse fuel economy due to lugging a useless battery and an EV motor (regen doesn't do much even when it works, and highway cruising is the worst-case scenario for it).
Maybe, but this car averages 50mpg(imperial) on long journeys anyway, so I really don't see a downside here. Regular Petrol XC60 struggles to keep 40. Diesel XC60 would beat it, but who wants a diesel. And my long term(2 years+) average overal is 120mpg, so really......whatever?
>>In many hybrids transmission/clutch adds a lag, so you don't get the sweet instant torque BEVs are known for.
Many, but not all - in the XC60 the EV motor is mounted directly on the rear axle so it doesn't go through the transmission at all. It accelerates instantly like any EV.
>>You have worst-case maintenance costs. On top of all the moving parts of an ICE engine and a complex gearbox
I'm seeing the opposite after couple years of ownership - the ICE almost never runs, so it doesn't suffer any wear. At every oil change the oil is completely clear - the motor is practically brand new. After 20kk miles the brake pads are 5% worn, because you do most breaking by regenerative breaking. So far this car is saving me a fortune in running costs and maintenance, and I don't see why this shouldn't continue. If anything, this car and its drivetrain will far outlast any regular ICE car out there.
>>your battery will wear out sooner.
If this was an actual concern, the manufacturer wouldn't give it 8 years warranty. It's longer warranty than on my actual real proper BEV that I also have.
PHEVs can be charged at home and should have enough battery range for those short daily errands across town, while having the range of a normal ICE car for long trips where the lack of fast chargers is most critical. Plus they'll break down more due to higher complexity and the repair shops will love and lobby for them so win-win-win.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129728_plug-in-hybrids...
You're maintaining both an EV and an ICE at the same time in one car with both needing to interface with each other in complex ways. There's bound to be in the range of 4x as much that can go wrong compared to just one or the other. You'll have the mechanical issues of the ICE coupled with the software problems of an EV.
It's an absolutely stupid idea to even consider doing these sort of overcomplicated hybrids, but unfortunately it's also the only way to get around the abysmal battery capacity we currently have.
Having driven a PHEV for over 2 years now, I can easily believe them - the main ICE runs so rarely, it's practically brand new. I cover like 90% of my journeys in EV mode alone. I've just done my second service and the brake pads are like 5% worn - after 20kk miles, in a 2.2 tonne SUV. All because of regenerative breaking - it's absolutely remarkable. So yes, I imagine repairs of this car will be cheaper long term, not more expensive - the ICE drive train is going to have fewer problem if you just don't use it half as much.
The interface does not need to be complex. Hooking them directly together is simple enough. Some designs replace parts of the gearbox with the motors, making the combination simpler than the sum of its parts. And if you have a fully electric drivetrain then you can vastly simplify the ICE.
(Also I don't know how you could possibly reach 4x even if it was as complex as you're saying!)
So would the folks I know who only have street parking.
For many of us, electric or plugin just strait-up aren't an option. We get forgotten about all the time, but lots of us exist!
Or build densely and pedestrian-friendly enough you don't need any car.
Do old school parking meters (one per parking space) still exist, and if so, why?
One ticket machine can sell paper parking tickets for 10s or 100s of parking spaces.
Some modern machines even avoid the printed ticket entirely and allocate the payment to the number plate of your vehicle.
Sure downtown there is parking meters, but not in the suburbs where free parking is the norm and most parking spaces go weeks between seeing anyone park in them.
They probably won't be all replaced. A minority of people (I'd put it at around 15-20% max) will afford to own an EV (price + place to charge it), while the great majority of us will be left with old combustion-engine cars, Cuba style (or until the law will prohibit them entirely, most probably).
It definitely does not say that BEVs have higher emissions over the course of a car's life. It pretty clearly shows that BEVs have the largest decrease in CO2 emissions, as you would expect.