Large electric motors, batteries and vehicles

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boatgeek said:
To take another example, there's absolutely no reason why BBQ propane tanks are 20 lbs instead of 15 or 25, except that someone led the market with that size and it became a de facto standard. Same thing could reasonably happen in batteries.
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I agree and I don't see who could possibly lead the car battery market into a swappable standard. NIO is only 7 years old, and none of the familiar brands are into swapping. Structural battery packs are just beginning and have the benefit of making a car very tough (safe) and easy (cheap) to assemble.

Good news from Toyota:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-jobs-and-bev-battery-capacity-301615196.html
 
and we've progressed :questions:
FaN66kN.jpg
 
jderimig said:
Volvo/Geely/Polestar has some really nice EV and hybrid tech. I am a fan of Volvo. Hope they can offer some value, mine is ready to be replaced.
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The Polestar also has an advantage in that it doesn't look like the South facing side of a camel looking North. Quite like the look. Still not a practical car for me though.
 
Cape Byron said:
Ha! That's true too, I guess.

I don't know why they have to look so fugly. This EV looks beautiful, but still not practical for me:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterl...g-v8-for-electric-powertrain/?sh=5945531a7087
Click to expand...
I think what you're looking for (for the Australian outback, far from charging networks) is still too expensive. If I remember correctly, you're looking for a range and towing capacity requiring the equivalent of of 2-3 average car batteries, but most manufacturers would rather sell 2-3 cars than 1 big truck. They'll go after more profitable markets first. However! Maybe some carmaker out there will come up with the funky idea of fitting a hydrogen fuel cell in a pickup or SUV. Have we seen that yet? Something to look into.

As for the front end, I agree making a grill look good has become an art, but a grill is first and foremost a functional piece of equipment. There should only be one if it's needed! Fitting a grill in front of an EV is like fitting a grill on the leading edge of an airplane wing. All that matters in an EV is headlights and aerodynamics. Anything else is techncally pointless.

unnamed.jpg

Rivian options inlcude batteries with more than 400 miles of range. I don't know how that compares with current pickups. I also don't know how the range of any pickup changes when towing something (has that ever been a spec?).

https://rivian.com/r1t
 
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Greg Furtman said:
I ran across this a few moments ago. It seems like the US & Canada can provide enough lithium to make batteries for a very large number if EVs. I have not seen anything in the US news about this.

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I understand there is lithium everywhere, but the mining companies have only started extracting and refining it in the quantities required for EVs. Compared to 10 years ago, worldwide production has to double and more, which can't be done overnight. The bottleneck is not the supply as much as the time it takes to build the infrastructure.

https://lithium-news.com
And here's a guy who knows a thing or two.

 
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Redwood materials is accepting (old) household lithium batteries shipped directly to them:

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recyclewithus
Redwood materials is the firm run by JB Straubel who was CTO at Tesla in its early days for 15 years.

⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

The question of when V2G will be more widely available is something I've been wondering about so this sounds like great news:

“all LEAFs since model year 2013 have been delivered with bidirectional charging capability, also known as “vehicle-to-grid” or V2G. Until now, they have lacked a charging unit capable of leveraging that capability in the US, but today Nissan announced availability of that very thing.”

https://electrek.co/2022/09/07/the-nissan-leaf-getting-first-ever-v2g-charger/

"With Nissan's approval, along with its UL 9741 certification for bi-directional charging systems, the Fermata Energy FE-15 charger has passed key requirements from Nissan, and has been verified to be compatible with the Nissan LEAF. Usage of the approved charger will also not impact the LEAF's battery warranty."

https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/re...l-charger-for-use-with-nissan-leaf-in-the-us#

"Our FE-15 bidirectional charger is available now and works with Nissan LEAFs."

https://www.fermataenergy.com/fe15-sales
 
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Funkworks said:
Redwood materials is accepting (old) household lithium batteries shipped directly to them:

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recyclewithus
Redwood materials is the firm run by JB Straubel who was CTO at Tesla in its early days for 15 years.

⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

The question of when V2G will be more widely available is something I've been wondering about so this sounds like great news:

“all LEAFs since model year 2013 have been delivered with bidirectional charging capability, also known as “vehicle-to-grid” or V2G. Until now, they have lacked a charging unit capable of leveraging that capability in the US, but today Nissan announced availability of that very thing.”

https://electrek.co/2022/09/07/the-nissan-leaf-getting-first-ever-v2g-charger/

"With Nissan's approval, along with its UL 9741 certification for bi-directional charging systems, the Fermata Energy FE-15 charger has passed key requirements from Nissan, and has been verified to be compatible with the Nissan LEAF. Usage of the approved charger will also not impact the LEAF's battery warranty."

https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/re...l-charger-for-use-with-nissan-leaf-in-the-us#

"Our FE-15 bidirectional charger is available now and works with Nissan LEAFs."

https://www.fermataenergy.com/fe15-sales
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the CHAdeMO standard has always been bi-directional. This means, in theory, that our Soul EV could also feed power back to the grid via this EVSE. Of course, it's not that simple, but still.....
 
Greg Furtman said:
Interesting vehicle but $136,600 is a lot of money. It also says that in some states you won't be able to drive it on highways. :(
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I guess it's not for everyone or for every purpose. I actually don't remember seeing an off-road van before of any kind. It seems to be made to camp deep in the wilderness. If they do sell their "limited volume", then that's what they're worth.

For EVs, the battery duration matters a lot. The longer it lasts, the less the yearly cost. $136k would be pretty normal if the battery lasted 25 years ($6k/year), but we don't really have direct data on that yet. It's something I'd like to look into in more details: the rate of battery capacity decrease over time, for different cars, at least over the 10 years we've had real EVs on the road.
 
I just watched this. The Chevy Equinox EV is coming out in 7 different levels with the base unit around $30K. The Electric Viking talks about the differences between them. At the end he mentions that they will be assembled in Mexico so he wonders how that will affect the new tax credit.

 

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