An auto CEO came close to saying the right thing about heavy EV batteries
theverge.com
theverge.com
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/suvs/uk-car-parks-are-appar...
"An article in the Telegraph points to the added weight of batteries in EVs as the main risk factor, neatly sidestepping the fact that the average petrol-powered car is twice as heavy today as it was when these car parks were built. Which we’re positive is just an oversight."
[1] https://www.motorbiscuit.com/gmc-hummer-ev-weight-might-disq...
Although they do use different thresholds for EVs and ICEs, not to penalize EVs.
They mostly wanted to tackle the problem of lost space from larger cars, and would have taken car dimensions if the data was available, but apparently weight and size often correlate (previously they use car cylinders, but nowadays there are huge cars with tiny motors).
Just recently, my small town had their roads paved. It cost $35,000 to bring a miller in, and the county engineer made a mistake where only 1 of our roads were being milled. It took another $35,000 to bring it back to do the rest.
Adding taxes can’t fix government inefficiency, in fact they make it worse.
Given almost any degree of govt efficiency I’d prefer more of it, but we do in fact need to be able to walk and chew gum. It’s just not the case that letting roads deteriorate will increase discipline in whatever area of govt your particular hobby horse lives.
- Most of the EVs currently produced by ICE car manufacturers are either sold at a loss or with very thin margins at best. The reason is that they waited too long with ramping up investments and the market caught up with them. So, they are now playing catch up with manufacturers that are already profitable and producing at scale.
- Meanwhile Manufacturers that have never had any ICE vehicle business are not holding back with producing increasingly better and cheaper vehicles. And quite a few of these are actually profitable. While traditional manufacturers are scrambling to catch up, those new manufacturers are absorbing most of the growth in the market.
If it weren't for manufacturers like Tesla, BYD, NEO, and others taking over the market with very competitively priced products that can sell in large volumes and with very nice margins, they'd be milking their ICE car revenue for years to come and take it much slower. As it is, they are facing a reality of millions of cheap EVs entering the market. Growing to tens of millions world wide in the next few years. That's going to wipe out a lot of ICE car revenue.
Lighter, smaller cars are better for the roads, easier on tires, more convenient pound for pound, easier to park, and typically less expensive to maintain.
I mean, Lotus made a car frame that could be lifted by one not particularly strong person in the 80s and they're working on replicating that feat for EVs today:
https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/lotus-unveils-lightweight-cha...
And aside from all of that, giant pickups are probably the lamest vehicle in America. I'd rather drive a minivan. Maybe in middle America they make sense, but any time I see them in the city they are rarely being used for construction or heavy moving or anything that you would actually need a truck for.
They're basically mom car SUVs with a lift kit and a penis extension truck bed on the back.
So, MPC (Miles per Charge) is essentially the equivalent of the computer GHz race, the faster the processor the better...at least as far as marketing is concerned.
Couple that with range anxiety and you have the perfect way to incentivize people to buy heavier cars for longer range batteries.
In a few years, if/when battery technology improves for autos then we'll start seeing a gain in milage without a gain in battery size. Look at the battery in an Apple Watch. It wasn't so long ago that a device that does as much as the watch does lasting your waking hours seemed a fantasy.
The article discusses the growing concern regarding the increasing size and weight of batteries in electric vehicles (EVs). Ford CEO Jim Farley expressed confusion over the industry's trend of producing EVs with ever-larger batteries to achieve longer ranges, with some models offering up to 500 miles of range. He pointed out that these batteries are very large
There is a growing trend among US automakers to use large batteries to power equally large EVs, particularly electric trucks. The rationale seems to be that electrifying popular pickup trucks would make it easier to sell EVs to the truck-loving American market. However, these big trucks require big batteries to provide the range that potential buyers might expect
The article provides examples of this trend: the Rivian R1T truck and R1S SUV use batteries as large as 135kWh, and the Hummer EV’s 212kWh battery is heavier than a Honda Civic. The forthcoming Silverado EV from Chevy, boasting a range of 450 miles, is powered by a 200kWh Ultium battery. The Ram 1500 REV offers an option for a 229kWh battery aiming for a range of 500 miles The author argues that this trend is not sustainable, citing several reasons. Firstly, the process of mining, refining, and manufacturing of EV batteries has significant environmental impacts. Secondly, EVs are generally heavier than their internal combustion engine counterparts, leading to increased non-exhaust emissions from sources like rubber tires, road dust, and brakes. Heavier vehicles also pose a higher safety risk when they collide with pedestrians or cyclists due to their larger size and mass
Farley's main concern with the size of batteries appears to be the cost, as larger batteries are more expensive to produce and can impact profit margins. He has suggested that the industry needs to focus on the efficiency of batteries relative to their size and range
Even though Ford has contributed to this trend with its F-150 Lightning extended range version, which uses a 1,800-pound, 131kWh battery, the author of the article expresses hope that Farley's realization might result in smaller, more efficient batteries in future Ford EVs
Hate it how article titles do not tell you what is inside
At this point higher manufacturing scale / cheaper to produce / less toxic is possibly much more impactful than extreme densities for energy storage tech. These can also be used for more stationary usage (domestic, grid).
Maybe also rethinking infrastructure to make shorter point-to-point travels sensible, so that we don't keep seeking higher and higher capacities?
As charging density and speed increases, a lot of users will get more comfortable with smaller batteries over time as well. This is really just a temporary state of affairs.
This smacks of revisionist history. American car companies mostly stopped selling cars when the EPA made emissions restrictions for cars and not for trucks (auto lobbyists helped). They based the regulation on something the auto industry gets to define for itself.
Since then, vehicles have been getting bigger. Lots of Americans aren't happy about it.
Many still buy these because there's an arms race for road visibility. You need a giant vehicle to see around the giant vehicles.
Others buy the popular thing because of deals and the increased possibility of getting parts to fix it in several years. It's harder to get parts for a vehicle that was only sold for two years twenty years ago.
US customers have been buying large vehicles, but that doesn't mean the customers have been the ones driving the trend.
which in turn means that markets are not really self-regulating or demand-driven
IIRC the EV industry is waiting for high-density solid state battreries, which could be a game changer if works.
Isn't kinetic energy, ie. 1/2 m v^2, more appropriate for measuring the danger of vehicles?
I do not find info on various measures of danger may scale with mass. There is a huge connection between fatality and vehicle size, at least up to the size of today's giant trucks and SUVs (I do not find buses nor semis included). Of course size is correlated with mass. Though, what I read, the danger of today's trucks and SUVs is due to the high front end impacting human bodies where they are more vulnerable (torso instead of legs) and then dragging them under instead of allowing them to go over.
OTOH, stopping distance and reaction distance is linear with velocity.
Work-Energy theorem:
Work = ΔKE
Force * distance = 1/2(mass)(velocity^2)
distance α v^2
Slow down everyone :)
And, I definitely agree with slowing down! Perhaps we can all start by actually obeying existing speed limits.
Mass of the vehicle only practically comes into play for stopping distance, and as a proxy for its frontal cross-section.
companies build EVs that consumers want, with good range and large capacity
"This is not sustainable. Bigger batteries, longer range, heavier trucks... these are not the hallmarks of the sea change the auto industry is trying to sell us on."
So its just the old "they should drive Lada instead of Mercedes"?
But what many people seem to forget is that heavier vehicles are inherently more polluting than lighter ones, regardless of whether they emit any tailpipe emissions. All vehicles produce non-exhaust emissions from a variety of sources, including rubber tires, road dust, and brakes. This is especially true for electric vehicles thanks to the added weight from their batteries.
This is never going to end, is it? First eliminate exhaust, still not good enough. EV brakes actually last a lot longer, because energy recuperation (electric braking) reduces wear on them, so what remains is... more rubber dust?
At what point is driving a car actually ok?
A lifestyle where everyone is supposed to own a car is not sustainable. Cities need to adjust to such an environment. You can see this slowly happening in Europe.
Furthermore you can check the infrastructure spend in Netherlands over time as they stopped prioritizing the needs for car drivers.
Can you elaborate on why that is?
(parking) space in cities is a premium commodity that other humans would like to use instead.
edit:
and then there is that thing with cars adding a weight overhead factor of 10-30x which correlates very tightly to energy use per person/distance
This can be said about every aspect of our civilisation. Everything you see around you, the houses, gardens, trees, roads, shops etc is there because people are working hard to maintain them. Without it, they would quickly fall into disrepair. I think people should decide for themselves if something, eg a car, is worth their money or not - who am I (or you) to decide?
> (parking) space in cities is a premium commodity that other humans would like to use instead.
The city often already charges money for this. Many houses have underground garages. You can argue that very large cars have no place in a city, but thats a nuanced discussion, not doing away with all cars altogether.
> and then there is that thing with cars adding a weight overhead factor of 10-30x which correlates very tightly to energy use per person/distance
The great thing about civilisation, industry and technology is that we are no longer limited to what our bodies can provide, which is just a few hundred watts. People were worked to exhaustion and death in the fields and then the mines, because we had no other surplus energy other than animals and maybe windmills. You can argue about the costs and downsides of specific energy production methods, but we worked hard to escape the abject monetary and energetic poverty of most of our existence, and I don't see a good reason to go back to those times.
i am telling you that owning a car is not a sustainable option for all of humanity.
you are arguing for "c'mon, just a little bit longer"
Right now, the costs (in vehicle deaths, emissions, direct CO2 emissions, sprawl, noise pollution, CO2 from asphalt and concrete, animal deaths, habitat destruction...) are not reflected in the car's price. Instead, they are paid by all of us, our children, our grandchildren, and the living environment.
If you actually had to pay the true price of remediating these externalities, a toll on every road would cost $10, a toll on the interstate highway would cost $100, a tank of gas would cost $1000, and the car itself would cost $100,000. Would you still drive?
Just get a smaller Mercedes. :P
> At what point is driving a car actually ok?
When bike or public transport is not an option.
Maybe it's not?
The missing piece is a standardized form factor - I hope the EU parliament or California legislature are working on something to nudge things in that direction.
The best way would be some rentable range extender battery (one-way, so that you can swap them like horses). With that available, affordable short range cars would suddenly become an attractive reality.
I guess the most universal interface for this would be some kind of trailer. Or perhaps even some semi-autonomous companion battery that follows in the slipstream under it's own power but on a non-tensioned reverse umbilical? Just brainstorming about ways in which modern technology could help making the add-on battery painless.
A) Battery weight is constant even when there is no power, compared to liquid fuel which gets consumed and the weight decreases. B) Because batteries are heavy (optimal location is low in the vehicle for centre of gravity) which is a mechanical and logistical problem for battery swaps C) Batteries are big and heavy. Swapping 1,800 pounds of battery is hard. Pumping gas is easy, fast, compact, and light.
Engineering around physics is hard.
gasoline is very hazardous. getting rid of this in exchange for some weight seems a good trade.
Battery fires aren't?
i mean, yes batteries can catch fire if mistreated. gasoline constantly evaporates toxic substances and will catch fire if you look at it too hard.
For example the BYD Dolphin is 1285-1450 kg depending on options, where the comparable Honda Fit is 1070-1280 kg.
Likewise the Tesla Model 3 is 1611-1847 kg, compared to a Toyota Camry weighing 1470-1660 kg.
The weight penalty for EVs could well go down over time as energy density of batteries increases and weight of electric drivetrains decreases. There is also more of an incentive to keep weight down on an EV as it means you can use a smaller (cheaper) battery for the same range.
Average adult American of 80kgs.