Gigafactory

Quote: AZDuffman

And that is a reason a smart pol may say no. If this collapses it will be a SITYS moment.

It may not collapse if politicians in California pressure the electricity generators to institute Time of Use plans. There is a pilot program in Pennsylvania where NRG is offering Free Nights where you don't pay for electricity from 10:00 pm through 5:59 am the next day. Of course, they charge you 11.99 cents /kWh to generate electricity (not to distribute) the rest of the time. The Tesla Powerwalls will be popular for people who have this plan.

In my calculation the Free Nights plan is unlikely to save you money as you must move 29.94% of your daily use to the night (given 8.4 cents is the default rate)

It does not justify the cost of the battery. You still have to pay to distribute the electricity to your home at night, and you have to make up the higher price charged during the day. Given the limited number of duty cycles that the battery will survive, the total cost will increase (not decrease).

But emotionally, I can still see people flocking to this plan, convinced they are helping build a better world.

Quote: Pacomartin

But emotionally, I can still see people flocking to this plan, convinced they are helping build a better world.

Probably. Americans are math-challenged and will see "free nights" and think it is a great deal, just like people who paid thousands in ADM for a Prius when gas hit $4/gal. Folks like me will be shouted down when we point out the payback period and told we hate the planet, yadda yadda yaddda. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer.

What do you mean about paying to distribute it a night? A fee to the power company?

Quote: AZDuffman

What do you mean about paying to distribute it a night? A fee to the power company?

In Pennsylvania they divided up the price per kWh into two parts. The generation fee and the distribution fee. If I use a 1000 kwH per month (average for nation) then I might pay $84 for generation, $35 for distribution plus a $14 customer account. I am permitted to purchase the electric generation portion (i.e. supplier) from an out of state company, or a virtual company, or a solar company, or a company with a time of use plan. The distribution and customer charge is non negotiable as it goes to the local utility that delivers the electricity. (Met-Ed, Penelec, penn power, PP&L) are distribution companies.

If NPR charges me nothing for 8 hours a day and $119.9 per megawatt for the other 16 hours a day, and I was using exactly one megawatt hour in a month in a completely uniform manner 24 hours per day, my generation fee would be 16/24*$119.9=$79.93 . So right there I would save $4.07 per month. But my distribution fee would be unchanged since they are still distributing the same amount of electricity to my house.

But normal households do not use 1/3 of their electricity for the 1/3 of the 24 hour day at night. Checking my meter, I use 27% of the daily use at night. Now you can wash clothes at night, or can fill up the battery at night and discharge it during the day.

Depending on the life expectancy of the battery, it may easily cost me $12-$20 per mWh just to fill up and discharge the Tesla Powerwall battery.

Or another way to look at it is a $3000 battery that lasts for 10 years is $25 a month (ignoring finance costs). Even if the supplier would give me the power for 8.4 cents per kWh during the day and free at night (i.e. government subsidy), I doubt that I could reduce the bill by $25 a month using the battery.

I was and have been one of the skeptics on the Tesla Battery Swap station. "Autoline Daily" is not exactly "60 Minutes" being an online news magazine, but perhaps their lead will be followed here and more news outfits will question this whole thing. The swap-station is all about just "credits." And they had a diesel generator to help with the charging? How "green" is that?

Convinces me even more that Tesla is not viable and is about crony capitalism gone wild.

In Pennsylvania they sell green electricity for about an Extra $25-$30 per megawatt hour. On average most people purchase 1 megawatt hour per month, although most single family homes use more. Of course, it would be like concerned citizen charity, and your neighbors would only see an economy gasoline powered car in your driveway.

Quote: AZDuffman

Range and charging have always been the main issues. I predict in 20 years they will still be major issues.

So long as an EV can go 200 miles, range isn't particularly limiting for me. I almost never drive beyond 200 miles a day. But you're right, charging time is still very very important. Tesla's Superchargers can fill-up in about 40 minutes, but that's just not practical for a real roadtrip.

Which brings us to the Israelis. Tel Aviv-based StoreDot has a battery for cell phones that can fully charge (from empty) in less than a minute. Their current prototype is too bulky for a modern phone, but supposedly a slimmer version will be ready for the market in 2016. They plan to scale up this battery technology for electric cars. They claim that a 5 minute electric car fill-up with their technology is completely realistic, and they expect to have it on the market in 3 years. (I'm doubtful of this optimistic timeline.)

The company's Nonodots are atomic-scale and filled with organic peptide molecules (yes, amino acids) that can hold information and connect to form a much larger structure. Thanks to their small size, they can increase the capacity of the electrode and performance of the electrolyte that operates as an electric conductor. Nonodots can be sourced from a variety of low-cost, organic materials (read: cotton), which means that StoreDot batteries not only recharge faster, but are also much cheaper than standard lithium-ion batteries as well. A multifunction electrode uses a conductive polymer and metal oxide to trickle charge the cells, which are designed to produce very little heat. Because of this lack of heat, the electrodes don’t degrade as quickly over time, resulting in an extended lifespan. According to the company, it has developed a battery pack utilizing 7,000 individual cells, each capable of being charged in a matter of seconds.

Samsung was an early investor in StoreDot.

Sounds too good to be true, I'm a bit skeptical we'll see this on the market before 2020. Hopefully, StoreDot can prove me wrong.

Quote: reno

Which brings us to the Israelis. Tel Aviv-based StoreDot has a battery for cell phones that can fully charge (from empty) in less than a minute. Their current prototype is too bulky for a modern phone, but supposedly a slimmer version will be ready for the market in 2016. They plan to scale up this battery technology for electric cars. They claim that a 5 minute electric car fill-up with their technology is completely realistic, and they expect to have it on the market in 3 years. (I'm doubtful of this optimistic timeline.)

Sounds too good to be true, I'm a bit skeptical we'll see this on the market before 2020. Hopefully, StoreDot can prove me wrong.

Count me among the wait and sees. If they get it good for them, though.

Quote: AZDuffman

I will maintain my point that the EV market is now mature and more growth will be a slow slog.

BMW didn't get your memo. Those crazy Germans are preparing to place a huge bet on electric. Starting in 2022, virtually every BMW model will be powered by electric motors, (all-wheel drive). These vehicles would drive 90 percent of their miles on electricity from the grid, and 10 percent on power from a range-extending internal combustion (diesel or gasoline) engine. The range extender would only kick in when the battery gets low. Every BMW in their 3-series, 4-series, and 5-series lineup will be electric.

BMW's motive is to comply with the EU's new emissions rules which take effect in 2025. Surely these same rules would apply to their competitors, so I'm confused as to why Mercedes, VW, Audi, etc. haven't announced similar plans that mimic BMW's.

Love it or hate it? This plan is risky.

Quote: reno

BMW didn't get your memo. Those crazy Germans are preparing to place a huge bet on electric. Starting in 2022, virtually every BMW model will be powered by electric motors, (all-wheel drive). These vehicles would drive 90 percent of their miles on electricity from the grid, and 10 percent on power from a range-extending internal combustion (diesel or gasoline) engine. The range extender would only kick in when the battery gets low. Every BMW in their 3-series, 4-series, and 5-series lineup will be electric.

BMW's motive is to comply with the EU's new emissions rules which take effect in 2025. Surely these same rules would apply to their competitors, so I'm confused as to why Mercedes, VW, Audi, etc. haven't announced similar plans that mimic BMW's.

Love it or hate it? This plan is risky.

The "extended range" thing makes sense on one level. Trains have used this model for decades, electric motors absolutely are better at making power than an internal combustion engine. But the question is, can this be scaled-down to a car in a cost efficient way? The jury is still out.

A second question comes in how many BMW owners will bother to plug the thing in all the time? Most BMW owners probably have a garage, in the USA anyways. In Europe I am not as sure. But even when they do, is a Yuppie driver going to want to go thru this every night when he gets home and every morning when he leaves? In winter when the car is covered in snow and muck? When the garage is cluttered? Some will, but some will not be bothered, the cost of gas not that big of a deal for them.

Then there is the engineering challenge. This is a huge conversion from what BMW knows to something new. I look at history, In 1978, GM ruled the world. Their cars were basically all RWD. In 1980, they began a major shift to FWD that would be done over just 5 years. By 1986, their line was all FWD except for some RWD vehicles they kept on because the public refused to stop buying them.

Anyone alive then knows most of those FWD cars were total junk. All kinds of problems. Lots of those problems were because the new tech brought out new problems not foreseen. And other problems happened because Joe Consumer did not know that this new tech required new behaviors on his part, which added to the problem. It took almost 15 years to really get it all figured out. Had they done 1-2 lines at a time they would have had an easier learning curve. But they switched the entire fleet, as BMW plans.

Risky? Si!

Quote: AZDuffman

A second question comes in how many BMW owners will bother to plug the thing in all the time? Most BMW owners probably have a garage, in the USA anyways. In Europe I am not as sure. But even when they do, is a Yuppie driver going to want to go thru this every night when he gets home and every morning when he leaves?

I concede your point about owning a garage. Without a garage, EVs are inconvenient. This is a strong argument about why EVs aren't for everyone, and I'm not sure how this problem will be solved for urban apartment dwellers in Europe.

But I completely disagree about BMW owners (with a home garage) not bothering to plug in. Yuppies are in a hurry. A weekly trip to the gas station is a needless waste of time if your BMW can be charged at home. It takes all of 10 seconds to plug it in at night, and 10 seconds to unplug it in the morning. (If anything, I'm exagerating-- it probably takes less than 10 seconds.) A stop at the gas station probably takes 5 or 6 minutes, sometimes more if the station is crowded and you have to wait for a pump.

For Yuppies in a hurry with no time to spare, the EV is much more convenient.