OT: Electric Vehicles--anyone driving them or seriously looked at them?

[AngryScientist]

Hydrogen is almost certainly where heavy truck and shipping are going to wind up. I can't see battery power ever being viable in those spaces, but I certainly could be wrong there.

[NHAero]

Back to the original post - we have a 2021 Bolt EV which I have previously mentioned, cost about $20K new last year even w/o Fed tax credit ($2.5K MA rebate), and it zeroes out the surplus solar produced electricity off of our 4.8kW roof-mounted PV array. I'm currently learning about how to use the 66 kWh battery in the car as a back-up power source (equal to 5 Tesla Powerwalls) and it's pretty interesting. Off the shelf kit with connection to the car, two sealed AGM batteries in the house hooked to a 6 kW split phase inverter with 18kW surge capacity and a transfer switch, is about $3,500. A small charger off of the car's 12V battery trickle charges the system in the house. Can likely do it for less $ if I put together the components and don't buy the pre-packaged kit.

Originally Posted by paredown

I listened to a very interesting public presentation last night at a local college. The speaker was Eban Goodstein--who is faculty at Bard College's MBA program on sustainability. The takeaway?

Yes, climate change/disruption is at least as bad as we can imagine.

Second--there is a path forward--and some of the changes are going to happen anyway, because the market is already moving us there--like the take up of solar generated power, where it is now more cost-effective that fossil fuel generation, because of price drops/efficiency improvements.

Third, there is going to be an electric vehicle in your near future. Mercedes announced this year that they have designed their last internal combustion engine--this is where the market is going.

Fourth--we have a future before us of self-driving electric cars and battery storage--and it is far, far closer than you think.

Now the question part--has anyone shopped for or purchased an EV recently--or come close and decided against it?

Has anyone taken the steps to add fast charging and/or battery storage at home?

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Hydrogen is almost certainly where heavy truck and shipping are going to wind up. I can't see battery power ever being viable in those spaces, but I certainly could be wrong there.

Joe Romm, one of the best thinkers on energy and climate, once said that two of every 100 18 wheelers on the road carried gasoline or diesel. And if we switched to hydrogen, that would need to jump to twenty out of 100. Maybe if they solve the on-vehicle energy storage issue an 18 wheeler can be fueled at designated depots with giant electrolyzers, but I don't see the corner store pumps fueling hydrogen.

[CAAD]

Originally Posted by NHAero

I'm waiting to see how hydrogen can possibly play out. The barrier I see is transport of the fuel to hundreds of thousands of end user fueling stations. It's not a candidate either for pipelines or trucking as far as I can see, because of its extremely low energy density. Storage of the fuel in the vehicle is the least of the challenges. But Honda, who are typically pretty innovative, seem to have placed significant bets on fuel cell vehicles, so we'll see!

If they ever get production dialed in gas stations will be self sufficient and producing hydrogen on site.

[dmitrik4]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Dude, these are utilities. I know that a lot of it has been privatized lately, (to it's detrement, of course, but, profitable for a few), but we all should be informed constantly about what's going on, right? Because, we all pay for it, both in taxes and bills. And it's really really important to modern life, especially when politicians start mandating stuff for my good. Why the secrecy? Why the defense of secrecy? How can you defend that?

I’m not “defending” anything. They’re heavily regulated private companies, and aren’t obligated to let you and me in on their business plans. Personally I think all energy infrastructure and delivery should be a public good, which would solve the secrecy aspect you are worried about—because then yes, we would have a right to know. I’m not defending it; I’m simply pointing it out as a consequence of the choices we’ve made as a society to privatize certain things that the public relies on.

[Tickdoc]

Got a buddy in the Hydrogen sector and he is very excited for the product and its implications, but very realistic about its challenges.

I remember him telling me of the pressures used to condense the gas being a staggering number. When you fill up at a hydrogen station, you apparently have the choice of 5,000 psi or 10,000 psi at the pump.

That is just a little scary to me.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

Says the guy with a saab handle.

The Saab name has literally nothing to do with cars.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by CAAD

If they ever get production dialed in gas stations will be self sufficient and producing hydrogen on site.

We'd need some math to vet this. How many gallons/day do we think a gas station pumps? Let's say 300 cars at 20 gallons per, so 6,000 gallons. At 25 mpg fleet average, that's 150,000 miles of travel. Let's say the fuel cell vehicle averages 3.5 miles/kWh (similar to EV year round.) That station would need to deliver about 43,000 kWh/day. Guess electrolyzer and compressor system efficiency at 75%, which means the station needs to generate 57,000 kWh/day. Call a decent solar day 5.7 hours of full sun equivalent - need 10 MW of solar. Rough scoping number 250 kW/acre of ground mounted PV, that is 40 acres.

Quibble with any assumptions above, they're just scoping calcs, but I don't see it.

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Hydrogen is almost certainly where heavy truck and shipping are going to wind up. I can't see battery power ever being viable in those spaces, but I certainly could be wrong there.

We'll have to first get to the point where making the hydrogen results in more energy available for use than it consumes in its production.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

We'll have to first get to the point where making the hydrogen results in more energy available for use than it consumes in its production.

The current, cheapest way of making hydrogen is by steam reforming of natural gas. I don't see where that is helping solve the air pollution/global warming problem much.

[Tickdoc]

https://jalopnik.com/driving-100-mil...n-i-1850031874

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

https://jalopnik.com/driving-100-mil...n-i-1850031874

BUT, the EV fans will just says it's junk science or just ignore it...

[robt57]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

BUT, the EV fans will just says it's junk science or just ignore it...

"EV drivers who charge up at home spend about $11.60 per 100 miles."

Not junk science, I doubt there is any science to that frankly, but rather/likely lobiest propaganda.

Our bolt is approx 3.20 per 100 miles mostly and approx a dollar more winter. Wife uses every heating feature and remote starts daily when cold.

All in cost per kWh here is 0.145 per FWIW

[paredown]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

https://jalopnik.com/driving-100-mil...n-i-1850031874

That's an older article (2021), and was debunked several places. Here's the Car and Driver version that notes a number of the questionable assumptions:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...ost-questions/
Clean Technica--ironically, Jalopnik's sister publication has their debunking here:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/26...uel-study-not/

In addition to the cost debunking above for costs to install charging at home, we now have a Federal tax credit to cover a significant portion of installing your home charger. That said, I think the calculation about an electric car may well be different by locale and cost of electricity--and of course by the available incentives.

I happened to be banging around on the NY State incentives page this morning--and looking at what is actually available between State and Federal incentives.

• The New York State Sales Tax incentive on EVs is up to $2000/vehicle--but can only be acquired/used at a New York state dealership.(!)
• The full amount also is only applied for cars with a range over 200 miles. So no older models/small capacity, which puts you in mid-tier and up.
• For fun, I was looking at available cars -- (I could search, find and confirm--within reason that the vehicle was in stock at a local NY dealership).
• I was also interested in getting the full Federal tax rebate of $7500, which excluded some more economical vehicles.

The best deal I was able to find:

• Nissan Leaf (2023 Nissan Leaf SV PLUS) @ $37,020. MSRP, no markup;
• The $2000 State tax credit knocks out 2/3 of the total NYS sales tax (8.375% total; we have State, Local and MTA components--Yay NY!)
• The only incentive we would qualify for would be the 2.9% financing.
• We would then get the $7500 Federal credit (it looks like our income will be high enough so this will be used),
• Assuming a roughly $1500 cost for installing a charger, we would get a $450 direct credit for purchasing said charger from our local utility, Orange and Rockland, and the rest would be partially covered by the Federal tax credit for installs. For us, the install would be trivial--we have a driveway/garage, main panel is conveniently located etc.

On the numbers side, we would cover the remainder of the Title/Dealer Prep and balance of Sales tax at closing, plus a $2500 down payment so the monthly payment (5 years) would be $640/mo.

Cost to run said car--this is where it gets complicated. A rough calculation--it would cost us less around 1/2 of what we are currently spending on Premium gas for the mileage we are currently driving--and then there are maintenance charges on the gasser that would no longer apply. On the other side, O&R discounts for charging off-peak so charging costs could well be less etc, so the picture gets more granular pretty quickly.

The second choice that I looked at was a VW ID.4--which would add about $5000 to the costs and a correspondingly higher monthly payment.

Aside from our reluctance to purchase ANY car new (I'm in C40s camp on this, having never purchased a new car), to me it pencils--but it to get the incentives in New York, my choices are being restricted to location-specific dealers so no national shopping for bargains, and to particular models with higher range which (being the anarchist I am) find annoying...

[NHAero]

Of course cost to run depends on relative fuel and electric costs where you (as do comparative carbon emissions.)

I live in a very expensive place. Not sure exactly what gasoline is here today, but it's been over $5. Call it $5. My Fit gets about 40 mpg, so gas is $0.125/mile. Bolt gets about 3.6 miles/kWh and electricity has had a big jump here, last bill was $0.36/kWh. So Bolt is $0.10/mile.

Of course, I'm driving that car off of the solar PVs on my roof, which have already paid for themselves over the past 11 years, so fuel for the Bolt is free.