Large electric motors, batteries and vehicles

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Funkworks

Low Earth Orbit, obstructing Earth's view of Venus
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I know there's a huge industry based on O&G and it employs and helps many people and many people have a history with ICE cars and it's part of their memory and nostalgia (mine too) and there are great big geopolitical issues with it and Putin and Saudis and China and plastics and fertilizers and pavement and concrete and yadda yadda yadda, and I get it and that's fine.

But electric motors and batteries are important too and they're getting bigger and here's a thread on them. I really ike this video.

 
It all comes down to energy density. The amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline which weighs approximately 8 1/3lbs is vastly greater than what can be stored in a battery weighing the same.
Now the efficiency of an electric motor vs an ICE helps offset that difference somewhat but at the end of it all 20 gallons of gasoline can get a modern mid-sized sedan between 400 to 500 miles down the road and all that fuel weighs about 165lbs when the tank is full and it goes down as the fuel is used.

A battery big enough to give that same sized vehicle that same range weighs in around 1,000lbs+ and it doesn't get any lighter as the energy is drained.
1,000lbs is more than my cars 6cyl engine and transaxle weigh combined and you can throw-in the 165lbs of gasoline on top of that.
Think of it this way; imagine if your cars gas tank weighed half a ton.
 
My point here is not to compare with ICEs, only to have an EV-only thread, free from detractors, and without 1 single argument.

The Rivian truck is coming soon!
 
Hertz explains why they're buying 100,000 Model 3's.
 
Our 2013 Nissan Leaf has about 50K miles on it and no loss of battery capacity. Looks good for it to be our in-town car for the foreseeable future.
 
Our 2013 Nissan Leaf has about 50K miles on it and no loss of battery capacity. Looks good for it to be our in-town car for the foreseeable future.

As for me, my 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-in is the best thing I could ever have hoped for. Literally my dream "realistic" car. Everything a Honda Civic has + very few visits to the gas station and a crazy long range in hybrid mode. Pure EV mode during the week and hybrid mode for longer distances on the week end. Full charge each morning. Fits my bike. I can talk to it ("Go Home" with the nav system), and being black, I almost feel like David Hasselhoff. 😆

18n32aeif9ykrjpg.jpg
(not my actual car)
 
I only learned a few months ago that electric passenger aircrafts are progressing quickly. This blows my mind as I never thought it could realistically be done.
 
Expensive, but entertaining!

I could definitely see this the next 007 movie.
 
I've posted this before but in case some people don't get it.
 
It's worth noting that these exist and are operational.
 
You won't know which idea is the best until you've tried all of them.
 
Building a night club under a factory can attract the right minds. Scanning a Berlin construction site can uncover WW2 bombs. How much fun can a person handle.
 
In case anyone is wondering who is manufacturing the batteries:
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-top-10-ev-battery-makers/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-top-10-ev-battery-makers
I understand Asia has a headstart because they powered Walkmans (and such) 40 years ago.
A lot of battery research was done at Argonne National Lab in Illinois starting way back in the Mid 60s.
They even had a prototype all electric vehicle assembled to test various battery systems.

Japan had scientists sharing the research with the US back then and in some cases when research dollars were cut by new US administrations the Japanese continued the research in accordance with their agreement to share the IP.
That also applied to some research on processing spent reactor core loads to reduce the quantity of highly-hazardous waste and reusing the good stuff for new core loads.

Just goes to show how politics gets in the way of US technology at times.
 
Honda, Porsche, Aston Martin, GM, Hyundai,Toyota (did I miss any?) all have an EVTOL design. Toyota has over 1000 patents on solid state batteries, which are denser than Li-ion, and don’t require cooling (but they gained a bad rep for lobbying against EVs, and not releasing any - hopefully they’ll redeem themselves)
 
Has anyone figured how the government will collect road use tax on EVs? Now they tax gasoline but as fewer people use gasoline, a different tax will have to be collected.
 
Has anyone figured how the government will collect road use tax on EVs? Now they tax gasoline but as fewer people use gasoline, a different tax will have to be collected.
Currently all American taxpayers are being taxed to subsidize electric vehicles. Taxes are seldom lowered so that may simply continue.
Otherwise I could see utility companies being required to meter the automobile charging circuit and collect a vehicle charging tax.
 
Currently all American taxpayers are being taxed to subsidize electric vehicles. Taxes are seldom lowered so that may simply continue.
Otherwise I could see utility companies being required to meter the automobile charging circuit and collect a vehicle charging tax.

Or simply require the vehicle to submit to an annual download of OBD port data that gets reported to the IRS.....and gradually phase out anything that's non-compliant.
 
Has anyone figured how the government will collect road use tax on EVs? Now they tax gasoline but as fewer people use gasoline, a different tax will have to be collected.
There's a couple of different routes. Right now, WA levies a $150 fee for EVs (and I think $75 for hybrids) at registration time to make up for lost gas tax revenue. You could also tax based on mileage with an annual odometer check that would stand in for an emissions check for gas-powered vehicles.
 
Or simply require the vehicle to submit to an annual download of OBD port data that gets reported to the IRS.....and gradually phase out anything that's non-compliant.
That’s possible but most people would probably prefer to pay as they go rather than get a single tax bill each year. A simple search for Ev metering shows that lots of meter companies are already working on meters:
https://www.ekmmetering.com/pages/ev
 
GM and Ford say they plan to invest $35 billion in electrification between now and 2025.
https://evannex.com/blogs/news/automakers-bulk-up-on-batteries-in-a-race-to-electrify
As for paying for roads, I never saw that as an issue. As more EVs use the roads, all governments have to do is tax electricity where EVs are charged. Seems pretty simple to me. EV numbers are simply not great enough yet to cause gvmts to move on this.
 
As of July 1, 2017 Tennessee started charging electric vehicle drivers a $100.00 fee, on top of their annual registration fee, to compensate for the loss of gas tax revenues.
 
As for paying for roads, I never saw that as an issue. As more EVs use the roads, all governments have to do is tax electricity where EVs are charged. Seems pretty simple to me. EV numbers are simply not great enough yet to cause gvmts to move on this.

I think that might be harder than it first appears. At public charging stations, sure no problem. But what about all of the people (like me) who almost exclusively charge at home? How do you disentangle the electricity used by the EV from the normal lights etc.? It gets even weirder for people (again like me) who have rooftop solar, so I'm drawing less than half of my total power usage from the grid.

Unless you have the charger itself on a meter, it's going to be hard to measure. And for lower-capacity electric cars that charge off a 110V outlet, flat out impossible.
 
Currently all American taxpayers are being taxed to subsidize electric vehicles. Taxes are seldom lowered so that may simply continue.
Otherwise I could see utility companies being required to meter the automobile charging circuit and collect a vehicle charging tax.
There is already a "standard" out there with water companies using multiple meters for different applications. I previously owned a house where there was one meter for domestic use and the other for lawn use. Not only did they charge differently, they also limited the amount useable on the sprinkler systems. I'm pretty sure this is common around the US.
 
A month ago, a friend of mine purchased a new Prius "Prime", which is a "plug in" hybrid that's supposed to run most of the time on its battery. The manual states that a full charge requires 5 hours from a standard 120 volt outlet, or 2 hours from a special 240 Volt outlet (the type used by an electric clothes dryer). Her round-trip commute is 125 miles at highway speeds; when she works from home she generally drives 30 to 40 miles locally, and she frequently makes daily trips of 220 to 330 miles on work assignments, visiting her friends or on weekend get-aways.

Unfortunately she's had a few issues:
First, the car's on-board charging cable is not long enough to reach a suitable outlet in her house, and it's specifically stated in the manual that it not be used with an extension cord. Therefore she cannot charge at home or when visiting friends or get-aways. There are suitable charging stations at work, but they're sometimes occupied. She's used a public charging station once, but was dissatisfied with the multi-hour wait while charging.
Second, the car's battery apparently has a range of only 20 to 25 miles when fully charged (the dealer said that's typical). Since the majority of her trips are much longer than that and she can't charge at home, her car's battery is nearly always discharged. Fortunately the car is a hybrid, so the engine runs constantly unless she's braking, moving slowly or stopped in traffic.
Thirdly, her mileage is nowhere near the 50+ MPG that was claimed; it's actually not much more than her previous conventional Toyota RAV-4.

So how practical could a pure-electric car be for her? I'm feeling that for the charging time to be reduced to 5 or 10 minutes for full charge at public charging stations (such as at gas stations), charging systems and/or batteries will have to evolve to a much higher level than is currently attainable.

I don't see that rapid charging at home/work/friends will ever be economically feasible: It's my understanding that all existing and proposed rapid-charging stations require industrial-grade 3-phase power far in excess of that available in residential areas. Even when a medium-power 240 Volt dryer-grade connection (generally installed in a garage, which my friend doesn't have room for) is used, full-charge time for a modern long-range electric car exceeds 10 hours.
 
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