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Talk:Electric car/Archive 1

< Talk:Electric car
Latest comment: 18 years ago by NathanHurst in topic Bias
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Accident and insurance cost advantage

Battery electric vehicles have a cost advantage when it tomes to automotive accidents. Unlike ICE components battery cells can often be partially or completely salvaged to be reused. Because they don't have combustible matterial, the batteries can usually be reused even in the most extreme accidents.

With batteries making up to 90 percent of materials cost, this spells a a significantly lower collision repair costs, as the batteries can usually still be reused. When it comes to cost, battery electric vehicles are actually beneficial as some supercars range in the hundereds of dollars per month in accidental insurance coverage.

In any case, batteries could in no way be as harmfull as a combustible fuel not as complicated to repair as delicate movable mechanical parts. These advantages are undisputable and they are to be documented.

Old electrics

This page needs a section on all the early electric cars. They were once more popular than gas cars! Rmhermen 15:18 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'd be more than willing to add that, but the history of the EV is so long that it deserves another page unto itself. I'm a bit busy right now, but I will get around to it, and eventually, I will move all the info in this article to a new topic entitled "Battery Electric Vehicle", or BEV so I can eventually go in-depth on BEVs without leaving out NEVs, FCEVs, NHEVs, ect. without making everything appear cluttered and what not. I will also get around to covering as many highway capable full-size electric vehicles as possible on these articles. I believe that they deserve a few looks given that the technology for them is here and we should be driving around in them right now. I want to above all, dispell the common EV myths with these articles, and I figured this site gets lots of visitors, so what better way to expose what these cars are capable of than getting the information into a comprehensive set of articles here, and for free at that? I eventually hope to add a lot to this site, as I have a lot of things to add, and the links/ documentation to back the info up. ~terrorist420x
Please add more. But at least a mention of the old cars needs to be here if you put them in another article. Rmhermen 16:34, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Lithium batteries

From page: Lithium ion cells approaching energy densities of 250 watt hours per kilogram, power densities approaching 3,000 watts per liter, and costs as low as $200 per kilowatt hour. These figures are expected to occur as the technology continues to mature. It is often said that under normal use, a lithium ion battery pack may last up to 200,000 miles due to their high level of maximum discharge cycles.

Where is this information from? Is any of it actually currently true or is it pie-in-the-sky predictions of a possible future. The history of electric cars is full of those. Are there any current electric cars using lithium batteries. What are their statistics? Rmhermen 17:56, Nov 5, 2003 (UTC)

I find the Ford eKA in the year 2000 using Li-ion batteries with a density of 100 Wh/kg and getting only 95-125 miles on a six hour charge. In 2002, Electrovaya which claims to have a car with a range of 230 miles, claims an energy density of 200 Wh/kg but only 525 Wh/l and no claims of battery life or price. Rmhermen 18:30, Nov 5, 2003 (UTC)

Removed from article:

"Rescent developments in Lithium_ion_battery technology has removed these and other limitations. Such batteries can deliver more than 300 miles of range, 20 thousand cycles or about 6 million miles, and reduce charge times to as little as 10 minutes for a full charge or 60 seconds for an 80% charge! "Rescent lithium ion advancements have resolved power density, cycle life, charge time, cold temp sensetivity, and safety issues.

More extraordinary Litium battery claims. Extraordinary claims require... Well at least let us have some evidence to support this. What vehicle has these capabilities? Rmhermen 14:18, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Please see:

D0li0

This claims a 300 mile range but requires "several hours" to recharge and uses commercial computers batteries with a life of a couple years. And it cost $220,000 US! Rmhermen 13:44, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

This IS a demonstration of 300 miles per charge, no? And the entire vehicle costs $220K, It's an hand built exotic level sports car with 0-60 in sub 4 seconds. The pack alone cost aproximately $25K, $500/kWh with 50kWh. I'll search for more references, but I don't see what the problem is? This vehicle demonstrates that it is possible for a BEV to travel a 0.16kWh per mile for 300 miles.

Why are you removing my high rate lithium updates? Are the Sony and Toshiba press releases not valid? Were my power/energy density figures incorrect? I fully expected the removal of the indented calculations, can we please put the specifications for these new batteries back?! D0li0

The claims needs to be moderated. Li-ion *is* promising, by all means. The main problem now afaik is the price and the number of charge cycles (which makes the price per km even worse). The tzero shows great promise, the performance and mileage is superb. But the batteries are very expensive, and they are specified for max 300 cycles. Purpose built Li-ion batteries for vehicles may very well improve this, but as of yet we've just seen promises... -- Egil 11:41, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't think we should give too much, if any, consideration to the press release for a company's new battery which they might release a year from now and which will likely not be considered a pure Li-Ion type. Rmhermen 14:16, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I beg to differ. Toshiba has demonstrated (For the electronics industry) that Li-ion cells can be manufactured with high power density and much higher cycle life. ACP used 6800 laptop cells to prove that current level lithium cells (for laptops) are up to the task. The single, no strike that, multiple aspects of Li which have made them "no ready" for electric vehicles are no more: Power Density which relates directly to Charge-time, 20,000 Cycle life, and resiliance to low temperatures! WHERE ARE OUR GOVERNMENT MANDATES? Off giving GM $80Mill, which they will match, to build 80 HFCEV's by 2010, so that's $2million per vehicle, and you're complaining about a private company producing a porche munching $0.22 Mill BEV?! The EV Battery of the Future HAS ARRIVED! Just imagine had the auto industry taken the initiative to develope this chemestry years ago, which was instead left to the much smaller electronics industry. I'm placing the new Power/Energy Density Specs back on the page if there are no objections, I don't see how they can be objected to? --D0li0 19:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not directly related, is the fact that ACP in the T-Zero has installed 6800 standard laptop 18650 cells and demonstrated that such a much lighter battery (compaired to Lead or NiMH) is already capable of providing 300 miles per charge. This new development in the chemestry simply means than 300 miles range is no longer the Minimum required to deliver 0-60 in 4 second levels of Performance. Such power levels can now be accomplished with a 30 mile battery 1/10th the size. And with 1% loss per 1000 cycles even such a small (30 mile) battery would last for 600,000 miles. Let's figure that cost, $2,500 for 5kWh pack is $0.004/mile, so a half cent per mile. Even in less exotic, more "Production" level vehicles at 3miles/kWh a $5,000/10kWh pack delivering the same 30 mile charges and 600,000 miles comes to $0.008/mile, still not a single cent per mile. --D0li0 19:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I object strongly. We are not an advertizing arm of Toshiba. If these batteries are ever sold and are independently verified as to there specs, than the are an appropriate addition to an encyclopedia. Until then they are just advertising claims. And since Toshiba doesn't even claim that it will sell any until 2006, they cannot therefore have had any impact on electric vehicle yet.Rmhermen 21:26, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
I was under the impression that Toshiba had simply demonstrated the reality of this new battery technology (http://www.batteriesdigest.com/HTMLobj-2641/Bd109d.pdf), it's not just theory. What about the impact such new battery technology may have on future EV's? Could I at least get a link from the Lithium_Battery page to the Electric_Vehcle page, per the ACP T-Zero and other ( http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/461.html http://www.proev.com/TLog/TLP0000.htm ) Li-ion powered EV's? --D0li0 01:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
yes, if these ground breaking batteries were on the market and ready all the laptop manufacturers would certainly be drooling over them. i've yet to see this kind of ground breaking battery spread through the market. at the very least theyd show up in ipods or their competitors. and yes press releases should never be a solid source of information. its an arm of marketing, and they are never accountable for not delivering on press releases. look to sony on their previous press release claims on such things as the ps2/ps3 where absurd claims were made and later forgotten or revised. press releases sometimes rely on the general publics short memory for a bit of temporary good press.

--Anonymous

There are a couple projects in europe, where EVs have been implemented at large scale in urban transportration, a short insight is provided in this article

La Rochelle city especially deserves some mention, for its implementations of pilots like ELCIDIS and LISELEC

ELCIDIS has 55 vehicles spread over a half dozen European cities while Liselec appears to have 165 vehicles only 19 of which are available to the public. Not really large-scale implementations. Rmhermen 21:18, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Well, London is quoted to have around 700 G-Wiz electric cars by now. Kathmandu once had ( still has ? ) countless Safa Tempos link titlerunning on their streets. I think the section should be there, sooner or later.

IC engine

from old page: Electric vehicles were among the earliest automobiles, and before the preeminence of internal combustion vehicles, electric automobiles held many vehicle land speed and distance records in the early 1900s.

from new page: Electric vehicles were among the earliest automobiles, and before the preeminence of light, powerful internal combustion engines, electric automobiles held many vehicle land speed and distance records in the early 1900s.

I think that a link to the IC engine page is more appropriate, plus made a point as to why IC engines were impractical for vehicles. ChrisJMoor

Variety and Comparison Rework

The majority of the Variety and Comparison sections appear to have serious issues stating points and counterpoints, far to much POV for non pro/con sections. I would prefer to focus on adding more technical discussion of the components which make up an EV at the head of the article instead of all this typical anti-ev disinformation which should be moved here for discussion or intigrated into the pro/con sections of the article. I'd like to rename the Variety section to Technology and expand at the point of the NPOV banner into Motors, Controllers, Chargers, etc. .oO(Perhaps tomorrow, must sleep soon) --D0li0 7 July 2005 09:36 (UTC)

Well I didn't write the variety section, but it and the comparison section are both fairly factually written. Even if they are POV, which I grant anything can be improved, adding section NPOV tags without discussing specifics of what you find POV is just cluttering up the article. No reader needs to see those tags, just discuss in talk. Especially when compared to the Fans section for example. Look at the POV there. And why would you bother adding a [Sic] instead of changing it? I'm not seeing the error at the moment anyway.
I obviously object to renaming the comparison section, because that is needed, not just a technology section. The section offers the very important, and often ignored lifecycle analysis. I don't think point, counterpoint is nearly as bad as having two polar opposite horribly POV pro and con sections. Especially if written factually which for the most part it is. What would be much better than slapping section NPOV tags on just because it doesn't fit your POV would be detailing what is not NPOV about them here. In other words the whole article is fairly poor, so removing certain sections that are better than the article average doesn't make sense. What is needed to fix some of the problems is greater research and citation of sources which I am prepared to do for what I've added, and you would need to be willing to do the same. - Taxman Talk July 7, 2005 12:44 (UTC)
Sorry about not mentioning specific POVs in the comparison section, here goes... Is there a link to a cradle-to-grave page so as not to have to explain how an overall lifecycle comparison as I see a fare dire result from not addressing the managability of BEV's as opposed to the total lack of control with traditional transportation and electricity.
I couldn't find any Wikipedia page covering the topic, but it is a fairly standard way to analyze the environmental impact of alternatives when it is done carefully.
It's the lack of the same scrutiny towards traditional (FF,Nuclear) finite fuels, and as such the injustice which is done when only the (Solar Nuclear, "Sustainable") infinite (reletively) are laid out fully. I'm all about a page chuck full of lifecycle analysis, perhaps some already exists. As such this is not the place for renewable energy depate, it's a page about Vehicles, Electric ones, the most effecient automobile types use Batteries. How about an Electric Vehicle (Lifecycle) page for this type of information.--D0li0 8 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)
No, in those pages we simply state the problems. FF we just say polution from emmissions is believed to cause X problems. The EV issue is more complicated as this comparison demonstrates. Leaving the lifecycle comparison off is POV as I have mentioned because it ignores important facts regarding the issue. Many people share your misunderstanding of wanting to push important topics off to subpages, but it is improper. A topic should cover all all important facets of the subject and not leave any out. Sub articles like Electric vehicle lifecycle analysis would only be used if so much detailed information was written on the subject that it shouldn't be in this article. As it is a comparison of the total environmental impact of EV's is central to the EV topic, because that's the whole issue anyway. And besides if the EV is actually the better overall environmental choice, why would you resist so much including the analysis that shows that? - Taxman Talk July 8, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
Let's go! I'm fully confident that I can convince anyone with an open mind that BEV's, even/especially when considering the entire lifecycle, are bettery than our current FF and ICE transportation implamentations.
The way I see it stating problems is not comparing technologies, and just saying that we believe emmissions do X,Y, and Z don't take into accound the solar nature and cyclic results of re-converting HC chains back into the CO2 they once were. This whole situation (FF energy) has grown quite out of hand yet opinions and facts on the matter vary widely depending on who you talk to (ie: Abiotic oil, Bush, Carbon Sequestering, etc) --D0li0 8 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)
Speaking to the lifecycle analysis, I found one for CO2 at least. [1] The study itself doesn't appear available on the web, so I don't know what assumptions for things fuel mileage or electric range were used, but it basically clearly shows for coal powered electricity, there is nearly no advantage, though for NG there is a significant one, and of course for hydro (and presumably wind) there is a major improvement. But taking the numbers for the gasoline ICE engine in the study and reducing them by the 78% lifecycle C02 reduction that biodiesel has makes that combination approximately equivalent to the electric car under the hydro scenario. - Taxman Talk 18:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
There does not appear to be a way that non polluting renewables can provide enough energy for all electricity needs, let alone enough for all transportation needs too.
I beg to differ. Wind power#Yield 2 Wind alone has 5 time current global consumption, excluding offshore which is even greater. 40 Time current electric consumption, So you see that we could in fact quite easily have a renewable grid. The wind figure is some 72TW, Electricity 1.8TW, all Energy Consumption of some 14.4TW. Passanger transportation energy requirements could be meet by doubling current grid capacity this additional 1.8TW would directly displace some 3.6TW to 7.2TW of gassoline, plus it's production and transportation. Freight transportation would idealy be meet by meglev, one of the most effecient modes of transportation which also happens to be electric, though no contriversial batteries.--D0li0 8 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)
I stand corrected. The MIT wind power paper looks pretty well done and does agree approximately with what I think you are saying. Now whether it is feasible to use 12.7% of the earth's land area for wind power or whether off shore wind generation is feasible are other issues entirely. I also didn't go look for any other papers analyzing the issue, so maybe the MIT paper is ignoring important issues, but lacking evidence of that, I'm satisfied. - Taxman Talk July 8, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
Great, don't get to confertable, I hope to do it a few more times.
Also noting that many locations with low solar irradiation are not suitable for solar and many do not have enough wind to make that effective, no rivers that can be dammed, etc.
The earth is influenced by some 174 petawatts, these are the renewable, available in the form of light/heat, wind, hydro. We've been over winds potential at our current level of technology, which tends to increase over time. These are dispersed reletively evenly accross the globe. A far cry from the nature of FF.--D0li0 8 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)
That's all well and good, but how much power the earth recieves does not necessarily have anything to do with whether that can be harnessed efficiently, though as mentioned above the wind argument is sufficient. - Taxman Talk July 8, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
I feel it's is of critical importance, if you are truely interested in looking at the entire lifecycle, then you have to consider Sun's 10Billion year lifecycle, FF's ??? Million year cycle and solar origins, and you should also consider humans past transportation tech and our very short 100 years of "Modern" vehicles. So from one POV considering the original solar energy one may come to discover the ICEs are some 12,000 to 48,000 times less effecient than a vehicle using batteries powered by PV or the wind, but the 2x to 4x I use for the vehicle itself is far easier to explain and accept. --D0li0 8 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)
But again, the total energy reaching the earth does not matter if it cannot be utilized. That is completely separate from the long lifecycle of the sun. - Taxman Talk 18:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
I thought that was pretty well known that batteries are inneficient. The chargers lose electricity to heat, the battery loses power to heat when charging, the battery loses power over time with no draw on it, and they don't release all the power they store. All facts.
It's a widely held misconception. PFC chargers are better than 90% effecient. Most Batteries have better than 80% cyclic storage effeciency, many chemestries are up to 90%. Some Li have demonstrated 20,000 cycles, till 80% original capacity (The standard way to rate cycles), and at the end of their usefull life, be it another 40K, 60K, or 80K, they can be recycled. Effeciency, Power and Energy Density, cycle life, cost, environmental impacts all vary with battery chemestry. I can hardly simply sweepingly call them all and their chargers ineffecient based on "well known" "facts".--D0li0 8 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)
Ok, but these need some sources to back up your claims. Those numbers are easy to say, but from what I have read those do not come through for currently produced and available batteries. Experimental batteries are ok to discuss as such, but not as if they can be obtained today. Also cost cannot be ignored. If the 20000 cycle battery costs $100k, then it may not matter. - Taxman Talk July 8, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
Sorry about using prototype Li tech in my examples, I can make the same points using current off-the-shelf Li but the new tech simply wipes clear any question that this BEV's are or will become far superiour.--D0li0 8 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)
That's just a small example of the problem. You keep repeating these numbers like 20,000 cycles and 300 mile ranges, but you have yet to produce any reliable, verifiable information to back those claims up. Even worse, after I've pointed out that you are using non reliable numbers, you go and add a slew of them to the article. - Taxman Talk 18:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
I agree the Pro/Con section is pretty POVish, but it allows the very polarized sides of this debate to say their piece without stepping all over the other dance partners toes in the body of the article, which is what this comparison section has done. I would rather see something like this for a comparison Gas-Electric_Hybrid#Other_Considerations, looks like I need to add a battery paragraph, good thing they are highly recycled! --D0li0 7 July 2005 20:10 (UTC)
No offense to those that wrote it, since discussing the positives and negatives of a subject that has as much emotion and misinformation or lack of information tied up into it (for many people at least) is difficult, but separating into pro and con sections is a cop out to avoid the harder work of building balanced prose. Separating is done because it is easier, but it is bad style and can never produce a great article. So in summary, you're going to have to get a lot more specific about how those sections are POV to justify the section NPOV dispute tags. I wrote the comparison section because I'm honestly interested in finding the real facts, and I was hoping people could help me fill them in. I've started the framework, but of course it needs more. Yes, its going to take research, but any good article will. - Taxman Talk July 7, 2005 23:37 (UTC)
None taken, but it appears to me that you haven't done your homework. Pump-to-Pavement effeciency of BEV's is as low as 0.16kWh per nuke. From here many conversions achieve 0.2 to 0.5kWh per mile. A 70mpg Insight achieves 0.48kWh per mile, Pump-to-Pavement. This includes charging and battery effeciency. RAV4 EVs have demonstrated 150K miles with little loss in range, unfortunently most of the other production BEV's have been crushed, I mean Recycled well before we could know the lifespan of various components of these cars. A 20,000 cycle[2] 300 mile quick charging (80% in 60 seconds) equipt BEV might run of 2,000K miles or some 50 years till the batteries reach 80%. Current 1000 cycle 300 miles lithium runs about $500/kWh or $20K per pack [AC Propulsion TZero]. A pack might cost as little as $5K at higher production levels required for production automobiles. You may be seeing localized and systainable resources as ineffecient because we come from a spoiled system based on cheap but dirty energy, when in the end that energy is a result of solar energy input, the same I would like to see us utilize via somewhat more direct methods .oO( Solar Condencers, PV, Solar Stirling, Wind, Hydro, etc. )--D0li0 8 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)
Again, lots of claims that need evidence. A press release is about as far from reliable evidence as one can get. For example the tzero FAQ notes 50-100 miles per charge and a lifespan of 15-20,000 miles. That's a far cry from what you've quoted. And what unit is a "kWh per nuke" and how is that an efficiency rating? The insight is gasoline, so what meaning does the 0.48kWh per mile have? The insight is a hybrid, so basically it is only an efficient gasoline vehicle. - Taxman Talk July 8, 2005 13:31 (UTC)
Sorry about that, it's tough to find the updated ACP T-Zero Li-ion info as they haven't updated their main page to reflect this new revision of their car. It now utilized 6800 18650 cells configured into 68 parallel cell modules with 100 such modules in series. I believe they are 2.0 Ah cells, making each module 136Ah, at 3.7v (nominal) each 100 in series brings the total system voltage up to 370v for a total energy content of about 50kWh, which at 0.16kWh per mile delivers 300 miles per charge. The stats you got from the main page are from the old Lead-Acid version, the new Li-ion version is far lighter, quicker, and has better range, at a minimum of 500 cycles this battery will last 150K miles till 80% capacity (240 miles range). Dig arround their white papers and you should find some of this, guess I need to do that and update the ACP_TZero page here. The whole point of mentioning the 0.48kWh per mile for the 100% gassoline powered Insight, with the highest mileage of any production vehicle, is for you to notice that this figure is about the same as the worst case home build EV conversions, the Insight as an EV would achieve that of the T-Zero or better, ie: 0.16kWh per mile, 3 times less energy. --D0li0 8 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)
Well actually the VW Lupo is a pure ICE diesel engine and gets 78 miles per US gallon. And again you're claiming a lot of numbers with nothing to back them up. For example, what is needed is what range and what number of cycles to 80% of original capacity is available in batteries today for purchase, and at what cost. The 0.16kWh per mile number is also in desparate need of a reliable source. - Taxman Talk 18:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Variety, Comparison, Critics, and Fans Rework

Latest comment: 19 years ago3 comments1 person in discussion

I would like to see all of the valid points made in the first four topics better intigrated. Perhaps the most important aspect of BEV's is that by using electricity as fuel it allows such vehicles to use a wide variety of energy resources, which includes economical and effecient locally available systainables. While Bio-fuels and Hydrogen are potentially renewable they introduce more conversion losses over more direct solar resources. Fossil Fuels are obviousely entirely out of human controll, as in their creation/availability and major bi-product which try as we might are not managable. This coupled with the eventuality of requireing that our grid electricity be sustainable, brings me to the conclusion that in the near to long to very long term EV's are the best option for the most effecient implamentation of transportation technology, batteries required when leaving the relm of grid/rail/overhead lines. The last major issues involves batteries or more accurately the onboard storage of electricity. I would point out that batteries are currently the best way and I expect them to remain the best and become better in the future. All the while I would point out that their creation, utilization, and recycling are completely managable and well within our control.

So, I would like to see the reworking of this article instill a sense of potential and hope rather than it's current dizzing array of doubt and dispair. In making these point I think

This is the problem. That is not what wikipedia is for. You want to use Wikipedia for advocacy, and that is not allowed under the NPOV policy, which is considered non-negotiable. If you can't conform to the NPOV policy, please don't edit here. Your editing shows a near complete lack of willingness to find reliable sources to back up what you write. Please understand that everything added to Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. Many of the sites you use to back up your material are completely unnaceptable as they are press releases or pure advocacy pieces such as the 21stcenturysciencetech.com article that is linked in the efficiency section. Many other statements you've added to the article have no support whatsoever such as this: "The latter Li and Zinc have demonstrated energy densities high enough to deliver range and recharge times comparable to conventional vehicles." If this was so well known, it wouldn't be hard to find reliable, independant sources to back it up. There are so many specific examples of these problems that I am adding an NPOV dispute template to the whole article. Please do not remove it until we are both satisfied these issues are resolved. - Taxman Talk 13:29, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
My full advocate and total POV come through strong on this Talk page I will admit, but I have attempted to reamin NPOV in my edits of the article. Let's see if we can work our way through this as I felt the article was mostly useless before and you agreed the pro/con sections were a bad idea. I've modified some of the hidden comments within the article, replying to the Maglev reference and bad Li-Zn setence. I am searching for better references, please mark specific disputes within the articls, if you've left out any other problems, so we can work them out. Are you satisfied with the 100K RAV-4 references, probably not some of them, huh. Gotta run, more later, I was sure I wouldn't get it perfect the first time. <G>rin --D0li0 16:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
Point is, the POV is coming through loud and clear in the article. But recent work seems to be on the right track at least. The Rav-4 bit is a good start, but basically only one of those (The SCE paper) was acceptable. You've really got to reallize that things like forum posts, press releases and press articles that take press releases as gospel are not reliable. Also the comment that the Rav4's had little degradation after 100k is an exaggeration and it implies the car can keep going like that for a long time. The SCE paper showed what was about an 80% degradation in range for the vehicles, and noted that Toyota expected the vehicles would be able to be driven for 130-150k miles total. They also only looked at 5 cars, which brings small sample size problems, and this is the best of the references I've seen added so far. None of the ones for the tzero appeared to be reliable enough so far, but the one at least looked like it could point to a way to back up the 300 mile claim. That number was even reported with steady 60mph driving, so maybe a number with a more realistic driving profile would be better. And it's better to not put extended comments in html, the ones I did were just examples of the problem. I'll try to get through noting where the other places that need referencing, but it really is for just about everything there. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, and claims of 300 mile range and 20,000 cycles are certainly exceptional. - Taxman Talk 19:47, July 12, 2005 (UTC)


it's imparative to point out the errors and glutiny of our current use of ICE. An Insight hold 10Gallons, 336kWh worth of energy in it's fuel tank and can travel 700 miles with it. An equilly optimized BEV would travel some 6 (or more) miles per kWh or some 2016 miles! Most of us don't even require a 1/10'th of our current gas range, nor would we feel the need for fast refueling if we could refuel in the comfort of our own homes each evening. That's not to say that long range and fast recharging are not already technically possible with BEV's, it's just so unnessecary that it's rarely implamented. For those minority who do require long ranges and for those rare times when the majority needs them there are a vast array of more appropriate and responsible solutions.

The moral of the story? This may just be the solution we are looking for, especially in light of rescent battery development and systainable resource availability surveys. I don't see any better way to make the world a safe place for everyone than to ensure everyone has the ability to tap and utilize their own locally available systainable resources. Rather than our current attempts to stabilize things with force and conflict.--D0li0 21:09, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll be gone for a week, didn't want anyone to think I had given up. L8r --D0li0 06:46, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Split into two articles

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

I've moved the old content from Electric vehicles in Battery Electric Vehicles as there was far too much detail and not enough general picture. Electric vehicles has been rewriten mostly from scratch and needs references. njh 13:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Can we remove the disputed tag now? I think I've made a reasonable effort to moderate the claims and remove much of the confusion. I'm tempted to remove a lot more text if we can't find some decent references. To really clean this article up I think we need to split out some more of the detail, perhaps separating into an overview and specific details such as history, efficiency (probably could be efficiency of transport in general, if it doesn't already exist) and controversy. I think we need bigger and more pictures, especially of things like people plugging in chargers and battery pack designs. Someone needs to go through the links and check for relevance. I personally would like a link or two to someone's experiences owning a BEV as I get the feeling that this article was written mostly by people who want such a vehicle *wink*.

I think it is important to keep in mind the distinction between battery electric cars and say nuclear submarines. Which issues can we move to other articles? Electric boat has some common ground, as do Electric_bikes(Moped), the various hybrid articles and Diesel-electric. I've heavily pruned the 'fans' section as I don't feel that that kind of material belongs in wikipedia. It would be better to present facts rather that your feelings of what BEV owners might feel.

I think the controversy section could do with some work, especially finding any evidence of the claims made in reliable press (speculation on usenet is not evidence ;). It would be good to list the major failings of existing designs - being upfront about problems is usually a better approach than pretending that it's all a big coverup.

njh 03:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I would be very interested in more information about the controversy over electric cars. The movie seems interesting, but I think the controversy section could use some hard facts as well. Why don't foreign companies make these cars? If it's simply the United States auto makers' faults, why are they not extremely pervasive in other countries? There are many details that could be addressed. Nicholasink 01:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


YES please remove the fan section - the article is to long and to tendentious... What I really miss is the economic aspect. Toyota has pushed the voltage beyond thinkable limits up to 500V - they have 10 Mio. USD or € to develop a new engine - that makes the difference to SME's developping BEVs. Also the battery management including continous cell conditioning and avoiding to high currents via supercaps should be described better. --Gerfriedc 19:21, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


I think it's unfortunate that when people search for "Electric Cars" or even "Electric Vehicles" they get a page with just general fluff. This page is the "real" page, but I think most people miss it since it's not obvious to go here, yet this is what most people want. *sigh. 11 February 2006 18:40 . . 70.136.198.121

I agree about electric car, and I've changed the redirect to come here. I disagree that EVs should point here. There are lots of electric vehicles that are not battery electric vehicles, many of which are far more common, and make much more economic sense (such as hybrid cars, diesel electric locomotives, nuclear submarines, electric trams). Is there a way to indicate this page better on the EV page? njh 08:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Um I think there are several BEV's using Lithium Ion, including the Tesla, and several in China.rxdxt 00:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Bias

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

I think that the entire first paragraph in the "Fans' Arguments" sections is really POV; It says things like "Owners of electric cars usually leave their ICEs in the driveway", etc... Either they have a souce for this, or they've interviewd every single owner of an EV themselves, or it should be removed.

Whoa

"*When combined with household photovoltaics, electric vehicle users point out that they are not assisting through (their fuel purchaces) despotic governments in oil-rich countries, nor the politically powerful companies that prepare and distribute their products, nor the politically powerful coal interests, nor the domestic politicians that serve and protect these companies and countries. Many electric vehicle owners and operators express great satisfaction in this aspect of electric vehicle use, even while realizing that this use can have little effect on these matters at the present time."

I mean, the point is valid, but may be going a bit overboard with the bias, eh? Krupo 19:00, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

In response, please note that this is specifically stated to be a bias of EV fans, and is not couched as a bias in the article itself. (I will rephrase for even greater NPOV) Leonard G. 19:30, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Now reads:

  • Some EV fans with a left of center political bias or of an extreme "green" inclination claim that when combined with household photovoltaics, electric vehicle users are not assisting through (their fuel purchases) despotic governments in oil-rich countries, nor the politically powerful companies that prepare and distribute their products, nor the politically powerful coal interests, nor the domestic politicians that serve and protect these companies and countries. Many electric vehicle owners and operators express great satisfaction in this aspect of electric vehicle use, even while realizing that this use can have little effect on these matters at the present time.

Fair enough? Leonard G. 19:36, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

P.S. As a left of center liberal bias greenie (and proud of it), household PV owner (4800WDC on-grid) and ex lessor of a Ford Ranger EV (four years, 25K miles), I feel somewhat qualified to express this (decidedly non-neutral) POV, and welcome comments on couching for Wikipedia NPOV. Leonard G. 19:49, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's quite fair, well done. :) Krupo 02:03, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)
I liked the first one. --71.141.107.127 09:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The whole article is very biased: very Pro-BEV. There's plenty of mention of the benefits of BEVs, and scarce mention of the countless drawbacks and limitations. BEVs may be practical in 10 years, but they won't be a replacement to ICE vehicles at least until then. If they were comparable, companies would be making them, and people would be buying them. The whole "everyone who owns one loves it and throws away their old car" tone needs to be changed, and the comments like that deleted.


The reason they're not selling is because pf the $100 billion dollar profit left in fossil fuels. they're far better, but the reason they're not being sold is because of greedy corparate biggots, not your logic of them not being comparable. I suggest you see the movie Who killed the electric car? Pure inuyasha 01:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe that is what the comment you replied to is saying - compared to the '$100 billion dollar' (sic) reserves of crude, batteries are not economical. If they were, people would buy them. I suggest you ride your bike. --njh 02:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

No, what i'm saying is that companies are too greedy to care about people heath. it costs $6000 canadian to get a BEV around here. they can go 200KM per charge and are as fast as a ferrari Pure inuyasha 02:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah tragedy of the commons eh? I think you must be smoking something if you believe $6000 will buy a BEV that will go 200km per charge and as fast as a ferrari (whatever that means). $6000 might buy the materials for the chassis. I'd believe any two of those features, but not all three at once. Please give credible sources for your extraordinary claims. --njh 05:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Cripes. Having just read this article for the first time, this just reeks of bias. My general impression was that the writer are all very much in favor of battery-electric vehicles, and uniformly damn the circumstances that tend to favor gasoline-combustion vehicles. Also, I feel as if I am being told that auto manufacturers are nefarious and evil in regard to their EV pilot projects. I expected something a bit more geared towards explanation of the technology, and less of an environmental propaganda piece. For instance, a single-motor EV would have significantly different design than a 4-motor EV.

The current interest in the article is motivated by a certain film that has, or is about to, come out. The only way to oppose bias is to actively contribute and seek consensus. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, when I first looked at this article some years back it was suitably tempered with intelligent commentary on the practicalities and economics. Now everything is slanted to imply that the lack of commercial BEVs is purely a conspiracy. I don't have the time or energy to fight this one, but I agree with your feelings (whoever you are..) --njh 23:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
yes, if these ground breaking batteries were on the market and ready all the laptop manufacturers would certainly be drooling over them. i've yet to see this kind of ground breaking battery spread through the market. at the very least theyd show up in ipods or their competitors. and yes press releases should never be a solid source of information. its an arm of marketing, and they are never accountable for not delivering on press releases. look to sony on their previous press release claims on such things as the ps2/ps3 where absurd claims were made and later forgotten or revised. press releases sometimes rely on the general publics short memory for a bit of temporary good press.

Charge efficiency

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

The EV1 is considered one of the most efficient, the vehicle gets .179kwh/mi when charged, but counting the charge cycle, the total is .373.

That doubles It's energy consumption, and it implies that all BEVs charging cycles consumes as much energy as is required to drive it down the freeway! The EV1 charge cycle is considered one of the least effecient due to the magnachargers poor PF and probably more importantly it's poor battery cooling and ventilation design, especially in the NiMH version which actually ran the air conditioner durring charge for battery cooling, how insane is that. Surely had they gone into production with a third generation this rather major flaw would have been addressed. What was the RAV4's charge effeciency? It has similar NiMH batteries, but a conductive Avcon (unsure of PF) and had proper passive cooling, I believe. PF Chargers and proper passive cooling are of utmost importance in a BEV with such large energy transfers taking place, especially the closer you get to high rate quick charging! It's not so important on your cell phone and laptop so their power supplies can go ahead and run hot wasting energy due to poor PF. --D0li0 17:30, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

All well and good, but again, we need verifiable facts, and solid references to back them up. The EV1 stuff I just put in comments because that is what the government fact sheet showed. If you can find one of them that has an efficiency (including the charge cycle) of better than .3 then we can support a different range for the efficiency. But we must include the charging in the efficiency. Ignoring that would be the equivalent of buying 10 gallons of gas but only 8 making it in the tank, ignoring the lost 2 gallons when figuring the efficiency. It is only the fact that 2 gallons are not lost every fillup that makes the mpg number the useful one. The efficiency for each vehicle also depends on the driving cycle. For the Rav4 the "driving cycle" range lists an efficiency of .245 and a charging efficiency of .432. Ok, here is their charging efficiency specification. It is made over the whole testing procedure, including different driving tests. You can debate the numbers all day long, but certainly the more important thing to refer to is: how much power does the charger draw per mile driven. And the fact is these are verifiable numbers we have, from controlled government testing. Unless you have numbers of similar quality to use, the DOE numbers are the ones we have to go with. The EV1 is the most efficient vehicle in their tests. Here's a comparison chart, the last page shows the charging efficiency comparison. - Taxman Talk 21:04, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
Finally found it 2003 Michelin Challenge Bibendum, [3]. This is the Li-ion version of the T-Zero which they rate at 280 to 300 miles of range (280 "Rated" and 300 In real life trips). 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, 5.41 recorded at the event. 153.2 mpg (33.8kWh/gal) for 0.2206 kWh/mile @ 50mph. Well-to-wheel 0=min, 23.09=max.
Here's some more ACP gems [4]. It's the PbA version, 28 12v Optima YT with 44Ah new drive cycle capacity, ACP peaks them to 600A. NEDRA drag racers way they "Pop" at arround 2000A! 20kW to 40kW charge rates, 60% charge in 30 minutes. Page19, 160, 200, 145Wh/mile, 171Wh/mile at 64mph so that's in the same neighborhood of the EV1 I guess. Page20, BTU/mile figures including NG electricity production makes them come out equal to the Insight, a similarly "Best Case" vehicle.
Here's the 2004 Bib, [5], Volvo 3CC anyone? How about this quote "As a complete car, the Li-ion tzero has higher specific energy, in Wh/kg, than the RAV4 EV battery pack alone."
Finally, [6] [7] [8], Charge effeciency! Looks like >93% at 240v line voltage and 10kW rate.
Here [9] is a line of >90% eff PFC chargers which is popular in many conversions.
So what does that come out to? 0.18 kWh/mile and 90% charging for about 0.2 kWh/mile from the wall?
I'll have to look for references to the poor EV1 charging effeciency and overall poor implamentation, I'de rather point out better methods and technologies. --D0li0 08:08, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Again, all of that is from press releases. We need reliable references for material, and those don't cut it. Even from the press release they don't claim the .2206 kwh/mi is counting from what energy the charger drew, and their well to wheel efficiency, they only refer to "over 50mpg equivalent". And I'm not sure where you go the .18 kwh/m number from, but just multiplying that by a claimed charging efficiency is useless. The only useful number is what power the charger draws over a given distance traveled, and preferreably for a real life driving, not a steady 50mph. - Taxman Talk 20:56, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
The how about considering this in the fuel cycle for FF transportation. How about this? http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfueltype.htm It compairs the lifecycle CO2 emissions, so would include the grid-mix CO2 emissions from power production, charging, and drive effeciency. Unfortunently the EV1, Ranger, EVPlus, and others are missing from this site.
EVs
2000 Nissan Altra EV  3.5 tons CO2
2000 Toyota RAV4-EV   4.1 tons CO2 (104 mpg)
2000 Toyota RAV4 2wd  7.2 tons CO2 (26  mpg)
2000 Nissan Altra EV  3.5 tons CO2
2002 Toyota RAV4-EV   3.8 tons CO2
2002 Ford Explorer    7.8 tons CO2 (USPS)
Hybrids
2000 Honda Insight    3.0 tons CO2
2001 Honda Insight    3.1 tons CO2
2005 Toyota Prius     3.5 tons CO2
2005 Ford Escape H 2x 5.8 tons CO2
2005 Ford Escape H 4x 6.2 tons CO2
Standard
2005 Ford Escape 4x   8.0 tons CO2
2005 GMC Envoy XUV 4x 11.7 tons CO2
2005 Dodge Neon 2.0L  6.0 tons CO2
Keep in mind this is the worst case for BEV's which will get cleaner as our grid power becomes cleaner, by whatever means that may be. It's also cleaner if you have Hydro resources like me, or if a wind farm goes up in your area, or you install your own wind or PV resources. So, if your electricity is very cheap, or free then charge effeciency is meaningless, simply invest more in systainables to increase your net-zero impact range.
Sorry, couldn't find this online anymore (http://www.eren.doe.gov/)...
File:Fcvgc.gif
And this is what it might look like at current gas prices...
 
So it appears that we're already past the break point at which BEVs are more economical. But it's not so much about "Price" but rather energy and resources. And here I sit, watching the news about energy bills, energy dependency, Fool Cells, Hydrogen, More Coal, and Nuclear, and 100% gassoline fueled Hybrids! (Blah blah blah) No Wind, No EVs? --D0li0 09:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Batteries cost example: 1 kWh capacity 1000x charged (then lifetime runs soon to end) that are 1000 kWh (1MWh) runned through. Cost is about $100 per 1 kWh (85Ah 12V). That means battery is around 10ct/km or 16ct/mile. To this you have to add the cost of electric power for charging. Then batteries tend to discharge. In one month 30% are not uncommon. Some parameters will increase with developpment. 68.37.133.158 03:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC) Dieter

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