Who Killed the Electric Car?

[CriticalThanking]

For rechargable vehicles, nightly plug-in would be a normal component of life. Workplaces, even public parking lots could provide chargers. But what about battery swap? If it takes time to recharge batteries, just swap them out. Pull into the "filling station" and "dock" with an automated battery exchanger? What are the hurdles? Leaping out into the blue, here is my short list. Feel free to add to it or shoot these down. <PULL>

• Cars would have to be redesigned so the batteries were easily accessible in a uniform location/manner.
  
• Batteries would have to be standardized and most cars from subcompact to land barge would have to take one or more standard battery sizes. Could you have economy (range), standard, and "performance" batteries similar to regular, mid-grade, and premium gas?
  
• How would you charge for the exchange? Perhaps based on battery type and %charge remaining in the battery you are giving up?
  
• If you run out of fuel you would no longer be able to lug a gallon of gasoline back in a container. You would have to lug a battery (perhaps a smaller "emergency" battery?).
  
• The exchange mechanisms would have to be invented and fairly idiot proof.
  
• Filling stations would have to stock a large number of batteries. Is there a way to quantify this? If the charging time on a battery is X and you have Y customers per hour, what number of batteries do you really need? Having more than one type of battery makes this a much larger issue.
  
• What would be the environmental impact of that many more batteries being put into service?

[your list or flame goes here]

CT

 

[Ziggurat]

They had the film's producers and other commentators on last week's Science Friday. Pretty interesting. Since the vast majority of driving is short-haul commuting, a plug-in electric makes a lot of sense.

But not enough sense. Consumers may spend MOST of their time on short hauls. But they drive longer distances often enough that electric cars cannot replace normal cars. So either you can't do those longer drives (not acceptable), or you buy two cars (not acceptable).

Electric-only cars haven't been killed. They've been around in one form or another for over a hundred years, and they'll keep on hanging around. But batteries simply do not store close to enough energy for them to compete with fuel vehicles. They will be nothing more than a niche product unless the battery problem gets solved. And we're simply not close to solving that yet (if we ever do).

 

[jimlintott]

For rechargable vehicles, nightly plug-in would be a normal component of life. Workplaces, even public parking lots could provide chargers. But what about battery swap? If it takes time to recharge batteries, just swap them out. Pull into the "filling station" and "dock" with an automated battery exchanger? What are the hurdles? Leaping out into the blue, here is my short list. Feel free to add to it or shoot these down. <PULL>

• Cars would have to be redesigned so the batteries were easily accessible in a uniform location/manner.

• Shouldn't be too hard.

• Batteries would have to be standardized and most cars from subcompact to land barge would have to take one or more standard battery sizes. Could you have economy (range), standard, and "performance" batteries similar to regular, mid-grade, and premium gas?

• Standardizing has difficulties and will likely involve patents and politics.

• How would you charge for the exchange? Perhaps based on battery type and %charge remaining in the battery you are giving up?

• Basically, yes. They will compare the actual cost to what people are currently happy with paying. If what people are happy with exceeds the actual cost then there it is. Driving will cost the same is my guess.

• If you run out of fuel you would no longer be able to lug a gallon of gasoline back in a container. You would have to lug a battery (perhaps a smaller "emergency" battery?).

• Roadside assistance. A truck will deliver a new pack. It will cost more unless you have a plan like AAA.

• The exchange mechanisms would have to be invented and fairly idiot proof.

• Again the patent and politics thing will show up again. Also the amount of power needed to power a car is potentailly lethal. It may be more dangerous than putting gas in your car. Liability problems?

• Filling stations would have to stock a large number of batteries. Is there a way to quantify this? If the charging time on a battery is X and you have Y customers per hour, what number of batteries do you really need? Having more than one type of battery makes this a much larger issue.

• Shouldn't be too hard to look at fuel sales and convert it to battery sales. Hopefully there will be a standard battery. What you do when something better than the standard comes along is one of the problems with standards.

• What would be the environmental impact of that many more batteries being put into service?

• I don't know but my guess is that we don't get something for nothing. The manufacture of the batteries might not be the real problem.

[your list or flame goes here]

CT

We would likely need to upgrade power grid infrastructure if everyone was driving rechargable cars. In California they have power problems when it gets hot and everyone turns on their AC. What if all those people plugged in their cars every night? What if it was also hot?

I have nothing against eletric cars but I think technology is the hold up. I don't buy the conspiracy about the auto makers because who do we think will be selling electric cars? They probably already know more about it than anyone else. It would be silly to think that Honda doesn't have several electric prototypes and a whole R&D team dedicated to their research.

 

[Ziggurat]

It would be silly to think that Honda doesn't have several electric prototypes and a whole R&D team dedicated to their research.

Why would they? We already know where the limitation is: it's the battery. No amount of engineering can make an electric car commercially feasible with current battery technology, and no battery technology on the horizon is going to change that soon. At this point, research into all-electric vehicles (as opposed to battery research, which is applicable for a lot more than just cars) is largely a waste of money. The big bet automakers are spending money on isn't all-electrics (GM got burned badly by wasting billions upon billions on EV1), but fuel cell vehicles, because there is a lot of car engineering that needs to be done which only they can do. For example, a fuel cell that can power a car produces less heat than an internal combustion engine, but it also needs to operate at a lower temperature, which means that the cooling actually needs to be more sophisticated and efficient than for an internal combustion engine (nobody will buy a car that won't work when the weather gets hot).

If a major battery breakthrough happens, car manufacturers can jump on it easily and quickly enough, but none of them are placing big bets on that happening.

 

[luchog]

There's a lot of talk about running diesel engines on vegetable oil. Here's a link about it: link that explains various systems, using different oils, biodiesel etc. From the link, it sounds like this has been tried in Germany.

The idea is you can go to the local greasy spoon, get the oil they use in the deep fat fryer (they throw it out regularly), filter it to remove impurities and there you go. I'm not sure how easy this is to do. Our mechanic is skeptical but willing to learn more, so we are in the early stages of educating ourselves about it.

The recycled cooking oil idea is feasible, but only for the dedicated home "self-sufficiency" nut, or a local business. As a large scale fuel source, it's not commercially viable. Commercial fuel oil would need to come from larger-scale sources, usually soy or rapeseed crops. The best oil crop is hemp; but the problems there should be obvious.

I have a number of aquaintances who currently drive diesels fueled primarily or exclusively with biodiesel; and the local transit system uses a biodiesel blend for their diesel-powered vehicles (ferries and some busses). The cost is still somewhat high, around $4 per gallon (conversion to local units is left as an exercise for the reader); but with the cost of petrol fuels as high as they are, and still rising, a small increase in the scale would render it very competitive.

 

[luchog]

Biodiesel is a different consideration than electric. As it happens, biodiesel has about the same greenhouse emissions as regular diesel. The major salespitch is that it liberates the country from foreign oil imports. (It doesn't, of course.)

That's not really true.

Petrol diesel emissions liberate large amounts of previously sinked CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing greenhouse gas levels. Biodiesel CO2 emissions are part of the existing CO2 cycle, and do not increase atmospheric levels of greenhouse gasses.

Petrol diesel contributes a higher level of (toxic) aromatic hydrocarbons as well; whereas biodiesel exhaust has higher levels of (non-toxic but unsightly) particulate carbon.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Who killed the electric car?

...don't nobody leave this room!

Nobody left, however anybody is still here.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This was addressed in the film. There are many ways we generate electrical power. Even with coal power plants, electric cars produce a net reduction in pollution. I think the time is right and the motivation is there to advance the electric car.

Not only that, I don't recall very many wars fought over power sources other than oil. Water rights wars, maybe, but they are local by default. We need to get out of the oil loop.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's a lot of talk about running diesel engines on vegetable oil. Here's a link about it: link that explains various systems, using different oils, biodiesel etc. From the link, it sounds like this has been tried in Germany.

The idea is you can go to the local greasy spoon, get the oil they use in the deep fat fryer (they throw it out regularly), filter it to remove impurities and there you go. I'm not sure how easy this is to do. Our mechanic is skeptical but willing to learn more, so we are in the early stages of educating ourselves about it.

We've heard tales of people that drive across the country on nothing but oil but we don't know if these are true or not. We don't know anyone personally. Perhaps these are on the order of urban legends. Anyway we feel it is worth investigating.

Once you get very many of these cars, even McD won't be frying enough to power them all. I think this is a nice recycling effort but there's no long term solution here.

And I can't help wondering how short sighted turning food sources into fuel sources is. Instead of bombing the powerless poor in the world, we can turn the bread basket into a gas basket and starve the powerless poor instead.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I believe most new power plants (outside the midwest at least) are natural gas, not coal.

Even if we got rid of all gas burning cars we'd still need refineries to product the basics for all the plastics we consume. Not as many or as large, but there would still be an industry.

And a gazillion other petroleum based products as well.

Re the natural gas power plants, they've increased in numbers rapidly causing my home natural gas price to skyrocket.

 

[Ziggurat]

Nobody left, however anybody is still here.

Who's on first?

 

[kevin]

Not only that, I don't recall very many wars fought over power sources other than oil. Water rights wars, maybe, but they are local by default. We need to get out of the oil loop.

Ah, but we don't currently have a large demand for anything other than oil. Wars are typically fought over things that both sides want, when both sides want uranium for nuclear power rather than oil, will we fight over that instead?

Are uranium deposits evenly distributed throughout the world?

I'm assuming of course that other non-oil power sources won't be able to meet demand without nuclear.

 

[Ziggurat]

Range is a factor, but with better batteries a pure electric makes more sense to me - get rid of the gas completely and our dependence on oil.

I may sound a bit like a broken record, but it really is the key: we do not HAVE better batteries, and probably cannot develop them either. In terms of energy density, battery technology has been essentially stagnant for a long time now, and that's NOT for lack of effort. Batteries simply do not have the necessary energy density to make an electric vehicle work for more than niche markets, and likely will not for decades to come (if ever).

 

[kevin]

That's what I don't understand. Yes, we all know the oil and gas industry is very powerful, but so is the automotive industry. Even if the oil industry was giving them millions in incentives (Which I doubt they are), what would stop the automotive industry from saying 'Keep your millions, we'll take the billions from selling cheap electric cars'?

Lots of good information at Wikipedia about the EV1.

I think the reason arises from a couple of sources that are more political and people in nature rather than technological in nature. Large corporations are like large governments -- they're primarily bureaucracies. If there is one thing a bureaucracy hates it's new things.

Switching to an electric car would simply change too many things for the big car companies. New engines, new manufacturing processes, etc....

Now ideally capitalism would dictate that a new small player would come into take advantage of the niche area, but the other thing a bureaucracy hates is competition. If a large threat actually arose they would either buy them out and shut them down, or use their large size against them (i.e. under cutting prices anywhere the competitor tries to sell their car.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As I understand free markets, if a company does something that earns a profit and then stops doing it for non-financial reasons, another company will go after that profit. Did the EV-1 actually earn a profit, or was it something they only did for legal reasons? It would be very odd if there was money to be made selling electric cars, and no business wanted to make it.

--Scott

You are assuming no monopolies here. Also, the American public isn't the brightest when it comes to marketing techniques. If the companies who make billions in the oil industry want to campaign that electric cars are a flop, the public doesn't necessarily know they've been scammed. This was one of the issues Alan Alda recently noted in Scientific American Frontiers program on future cars. The program re-aired the other day. (It was a 2004 program).

The electric cars in question were all leased to people who apparently really liked the cars. Then the auto company called in all the leases and destroyed the cars. Why would they do that? The cars were already produced and being leased. Why give up that profit and take the cars back just to shred them? You think managing the leases was an issue? Why not sell the cars to the people leasing them or anyone else then? No one had been sued for the cars posing a hazard. Is there any reason you can think of for canceling these leases?

Take, for example, one side plot in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, based on real events.

Eddie assumes that the highway won’t be needed because the city already has an efficient and profitable trolley-car system: "Nobody’s gonna drive this lousy freeway when they can take the Red Car for a nickel." The "Red Car" was, in reality, a profitable public transit system in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, and would cease to exist in 1961 because of a corporate conspiracy led not by Judge Doom but by three major corporations, General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California, that had a vested interest in seeing the automobile proliferate. The conspiracy was proved in court in the 1950s, and the three companies paid nominal fines but were not compelled to resurrect the trolley system.

More history of the Red Car Line.

in the 20th Century, “there was really no work in Orange County except in the orange groves or in retail stores. The work was in LA. The main reason some of these cities—Cypress, Garden Grove and Santa Ana—grew was because they were on the Red Car line.” The Pacific Electric’s 900 cars and 1,150 miles of track weren’t the result of altruism or civic action; they happened because, for a time, greed coincided with the public interest. The rail line was never particularly profitable for owner Henry Huntington, at least not directly. He also owned the electric companies that powered them and the cities he created by buying and developing large tracts of land on the cheap so he could run rail lines there. He wasn’t shy about this, which is why towns wound up with names like Huntington Beach. As automobiles became more popular, the Red Car lines lost riders and lost even more when the trains were slowed by traffic right-of-ways. Eventually, the Pacific Electric was sold to a consortium that included General Motors and Firestone Tires, whose interest lay in doing away with the trains, which they did with a biblical finality, tearing up the rails and dumping the train cars in the ocean or shipping them to South America. By 1961, the Pacific Electric was no more. “We’ve created a sort of hell here, I think, compared to 35 years ago,” Crump mused in 1992. “I liked it when we could see the mountains. It’s been a nice deal for the oil companies, but for individual people, we are only faced with a tremendous and complete traffic jam that doesn’t give us anything.”

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For rechargable vehicles,... what about battery swap? If it takes time to recharge batteries, just swap them out. ...

• Cars would have to be redesigned so the batteries were easily accessible in a uniform location/manner.
  
• Batteries would have to be standardized and most cars from subcompact to land barge would have to take one or more standard battery sizes. Could you have economy (range), standard, and "performance" batteries similar to regular, mid-grade, and premium gas?
  
• How would you charge for the exchange? Perhaps based on battery type and %charge remaining in the battery you are giving up?
  
• If you run out of fuel you would no longer be able to lug a gallon of gasoline back in a container. You would have to lug a battery (perhaps a smaller "emergency" battery?).
  
• The exchange mechanisms would have to be invented and fairly idiot proof.
  
• Filling stations would have to stock a large number of batteries. Is there a way to quantify this? If the charging time on a battery is X and you have Y customers per hour, what number of batteries do you really need? Having more than one type of battery makes this a much larger issue.
  
• What would be the environmental impact of that many more batteries being put into service?

[your list or flame goes here]

CT

Add an anti-fraud device and some mechanism to avoid playing old maid or hot potato with the batteries that were wearing out.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But not enough sense. Consumers may spend MOST of their time on short hauls. But they drive longer distances often enough that electric cars cannot replace normal cars. So either you can't do those longer drives (not acceptable), or you buy two cars (not acceptable).

Electric-only cars haven't been killed. They've been around in one form or another for over a hundred years, and they'll keep on hanging around. But batteries simply do not store close to enough energy for them to compete with fuel vehicles. They will be nothing more than a niche product unless the battery problem gets solved. And we're simply not close to solving that yet (if we ever do).

You may be one of those consumers who have been sold the "electric cars are bad" message.

The piece on the electric cars from the SAF program I noted above is worth seeing.

 

[kevin]

Batteries simply do not have the necessary energy density to make an electric vehicle work for more than niche markets, and likely will not for decades to come (if ever).

According to the Wikipedia page on the EV-1 the range of the NiMH version was 75-150 miles with a full recharge time of 8 hours.

According to this page:
http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/gasprices.aspx

in 2005 the average US worker drove 46 miles a day, the highest average being in Birmingham AL at 65 miles a day. Assuming most people are home 8 hours a day (midnight to 8am?) then the EV-1 already covered most driving in the US. That is quite a large niche.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... In California they have power problems when it gets hot and everyone turns on their AC. What if all those people plugged in their cars every night? What if it was also hot?....

Especially if the Enron mentality and corruption continues to prevail, controlling supply to fake a shortage to manipulate the prices.

I agree there is an issue, don't get me wrong. But the Enron employees were caught on tape taking power stations offline to manipulate energy prices. They faked the need for those rolling blackouts. The tapes came out in court when the states sued Enron.

Enron Tapes Anger Lawmakers

During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.....

California's attempt to deregulate energy markets became a disaster for consumers when companies like Enron manipulated the West Cost power market and even shut down plants so they could drive up prices......

"People were talking about market manipulation. People were talking about schemes, people were making jokes," said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash......

Two Enron traders, from the office where the tapes were made, have admitted manipulating energy prices and pled guilty in court. Another goes on trial in October.......

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Who's on first?

Somebody.