Electric car thread

[octave]

As a measure of how cheap solar panels have become, we built our own house in the bush in 1990. There was no power available in the area so solar was the best option.   We designed our own low voltage system around 3 x 60-watt panels. Today this would be considered a comically small power system.  Each of these panels cost $595 which back then was a lot of money. Now for a little over $300 you can get a 475 watt panel.   

[nomadpete]

For those who have modest needs, a solar can be arranged cheaply. As long as it is mostly low voltage.

I have seen old panels that have been removed from a home for upgrading, selling for upwards of $25 for a 200 watt panel. A couple of these, charging a couple of second hand old fashioned lead acid batteries, gives plenty of power for lighting and phone/laptop/power tool charging.

Maybe not luxury, but still affordable. Next step will be a small chest freezer to use as a fridge - run direct off another couple of panels via an old 240v inverter, it should chill down during the day and hold the cold overnight.

 

My friend had already accumulated most of the stuff but didn't know how to set it up. He is tickled pink just having electric lights for the first time in 4 years living in his shack.

[spacesailor]

 Electric car

small wellnown And cheap .

Messerschmitt E-5000.

https://www.motor1.com/news/505586/messerschmitt-kr-micro-car-reborn/

spacesailor

 

[pmccarthy]

I have seen villages in India and Burma where one entrepreneur puts up two panels and a battery. Then people pay to come and charge up their phones.

[Litespeed]

I am soon re powering my "ship" with solar panels and 300 amp/hrs of lithium Ferro batteries. Mates rate at $600.

 

Total cost with 400 watts of panels and the equivalent of 600amp/hrs of lead acid  plus charge controller will be $1000.

 

That will run power, lights and fridge/ freezer for almost a week if the sun ever leaves.

 

New style 12v fridges are very efficient and no losses from inverters which are expensive and inefficient.

 

For the usable amp/hrs per dollar the lithium Ferro batteries beat lead acid easily and have far greater life without the huge weight.

 

The panels are flexible and very light unlike the glass/ alloy ones.  6 kg for 400 watts. They go on the hardtop above my top deck steering station, at that height weight matters for the pendulum effect.

 

On a 10 ton vessel, weight Is not a huge problem but getting the lead buggers moved sure is. The 200 amp lead weigh 55 kg plus each, bloody hard to get on board from a tinny esp as I am only 65 kg.

 

I will recycle the old lead and hopefully that buys a case of real 🍺, red Peroni naturally.

 

3 years ago this would have cost $3000.

 

 

Happy days 

[spacesailor]

We're do you find a mate , to get three 100 ah LiFe batteries ,For $200 a pop .

Certainly not Battery World .

spacesailor

 

[Litespeed]

I did some work for him, hence the wholesale price.

 

Even so $350-$400 is about right price for budget brands like Kings.

[kgwilson]

I put in a 2kW system in 2013. Fully installed with all the subsidies deducted it cost me $4,500.00 In February I installed an additional 6.6kW system. I got 4 quotes from 7.5k to 4k.

 

When making the comparison I found the cheapest system had the best panels & a good quality 5kW inverter. Though the maximum out put of the panels is 440W each (there are 15 of them) this is rarely achieved so they always install a 5kW inverter. After checking everything out I took a punt & went with the cheapest quote ($3,990.00) They had excellent reviews, the best warranties and an on line documentation process plus they were the only one to advise I needed an export control device (also included) as the maximum feed in to the grid in NSW from single phase is 5kW. The inverter has a WiFi module and I can track the system from anywhere in the world from a phone app or from a PC.

 

I had no idea who the installer was till he rang me & I found he lives just around the corner & installed my original system in 2013. He has installed 4500 systems so far. Since the 14th of February the new system has produced 1.8 megawatts & I am charging my car solely from the solar energy I produce. My guess is I will pay the system off within 2 years just from free power for the car battery without considering that everything else used during the day is from solar energy plus the 7c/kWh feed in tariff I get for what I don't use. Peak energy production around mid-day is just under 7kW.

[octave]

We went out to a local brewery for lunch today (retirement is hell) and I noticed they have installed complementary EV charging.   

 

 

 

[red750]

[robinsm]

On 15/12/2023 at 6:33 PM, kgwilson said:

A few comments as I've been away for a bit.

 

Weight is a non issue. My EV weight 1670kgs with a 64kWH battery. Most now weigh less than 2 tonnes other than the very large vehicles with correspondingly large batteries. All of the large ICE 4WD Utes and SUVs weigh over 2 tonnes & up to & beyond 3 tonnes.

 

My EV is built on a MSP (modular standard platform)  and its battery is easily swappable if it has a problem. The thing is it is likely to outlast the rest of the car. The battery management software looks after the batteries health & CATL say around 1 million km before reaching degradation to 80% of new.

 

There are battery repair companies popping up everywhere (except in Australia) as we are so behind in EV use with supporting infrastructure. They can fix crash damaged batteries with replacing cells and connections etc.

 

A totally smashed NMC or LFP lithium battery can easily be fully recycled as black mass. That is it is ground up and then all the minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese etc completely recoverable. Not only that the value of a stuffed EV battery is several thousand dollars.

 

EV batteries are not a fire risk compared to ICE vehicles but hybrids are 3000% more likely to have a fire. I posted the published stats a month or so ago with per 100,000 sales EV fires were about 25, ICE fires about 1500 & Hybrid fires about 3500.

 

The problem really is that there is so much anti EV crap on social media and also in the mainstream media, all supported and often aided and abetted by the Oil conglomerates.

 

Most of the big stories about EV fires destroying a ship, burning down car parks full of other cars etc have been totally debunked but the stories have a life of their own and a lot of Trump style believers.

 

The Fully Charged Shows offshoot "Stop Burning Stuff" debunks most of the myths and corrects many poorly researched so called scientific conclusions with verifiable facts.

 

And finally would I go back to a Petrol Car. This is a resounding NO. Range is a non issue. At 110kmh I get 400km. I can't drive that far without a comfort stop and bite & that takes an absolute minimum of 20 minutes, enough to get me another 200km of charge on a rapid charger & keep going. 95% of my driving is around town or to another place for lunch in the weekend, and I charge at off peak overnight. Parking the car in the garage & connecting the charger is a 1 minute exercise I do 1-3 times a week. Disconnect the next morning & hanging the charger up similarly less than a minute. A lot quicker than going in to a stinky petrol station & having to pay. I only pay once a quarter when I get the power bill. I don't have a big enough solar system as it is 12 years old now but many EV owners charge from their solar so their fuel cost is virtually zero. Whats not to like about that.

great for eastern seaboard but useless in the outback.   Drive one to broken hill...

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

That's the point. No one is saying everyone has to go electric. There are applications where electic makes sense; there are applications where diesel makes sense and there are applications where petrol makes sense. There are also applications where other forms of transport make sense, like, I dunno, horses in mustering certain areas where trail bikes don't get to. Of course, the latter could be in the movies...

 

 

Edited April 16 by Jerry_Atrick

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

No one is saying everyone has to go electric.

That "no one" consists of people with a lifetime experiencing emerging technology at the consumer level, including the practical and economic consequences of employing new technologies. It is the no ones who have that tincture of wisdom to adhere to caveat emptor and even festina lente, but who are not Luddites, always rejecting new technologies.

 

The "someones" seem to be the inexperienced and, in many countries, those infused with corporate-to-consumer, and political power grabbing, cynicism. I bet the workers at Tesla's Texas plant who have just been laid off because the no ones aren't buying their product, are staunch advocates for universal, electrically-powered ground transport vehicles.

 

Personally, I'm jack of the chanting of the "you must go electric" mantra. 

[spacesailor]

" dive one to Brokenhill " .

Drive one from Broken Hill toTibooburra  by way of the SiverCity hwy .

I did & had a puncture each way .

Then I drove via Wannaring.

https://www.visitbourke.com.au/discover/wanarring

Only half the distance . from Burke .

spacesailor

 

[kgwilson]

EVs have been driven across the Nullabor, and all around and across Australia. There are plenty of you tube clips and documented road trip data to show this. It is true that the public charging network is poor but it is improving. It doesn't bother me much as I've only done 2 long trips in 6 months. I charge the battery at home from solar power so my driving costs virtually nothing, though public chargers can be expensive. Then so is petrol & diesel & it gets dearer the further away from main centres you go.

 

A company in Darwin is building modular charging stations that can be delivered on the back of a truck anywhere in Australia with 2 to 4 charging stations and a mini solar farm to keep the batteries full. The cost is miniscule compared to establishing a petrol station and the fuel does not have to be continually transported there.

 

The anti EV lobby is a bit like the anti horseless carriage lobby of the late 19th century. There were no petrol stations when the first cars hit the road. Fuel had to be bought from a pharmacy. ICE car production won't disappear till the mid 30s & then ICE cars will continue to operate for 10 or so years after that. Things will change as they always have though some will have to be brought in to the future kicking and screaming. The writing is on the wall. In the last 300 years humanity has used up most of the fuel it took 4.5 billion years to amass. Now there are over 8 billion of us. Changing how we inhabit this planet is not an option if we are to survive at all. It won't bother anyone reading this as we will all be dead. People being born now are the ones who will have to fix what we have created. I hope they can.

[octave]

 

 

[Marty_d]

That's insane.  450,000 before they did the brake pads, and even then they only did them because they were looking at something else.  200,000 before the first service.

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, kgwilson said:

The anti EV lobby is a bit like the anti horseless carriage lobby of the late 19th century. 

That's true and I was thinking about electric aircraft the other night. 

Even now there's a swag of detractors over in Rec Flying with all the reasons electric aircraft will never work - based on what we know today.  

Future generations will probably laugh at us the same way as we laugh at those people who said "that'll never work" about all the things we use today.

[old man emu]

Let's face it. We know how to design a safe, comfortable and attractive vehicle. in which to install something to generate mechanical power. I suspect  that the electric motor has reached its zenith, in other words, we've got it sorted. That only leaves for further development a means to carry energy from which mechanical power can be generated that gives the vehicle the range that we have become accustomed to with ICE vehicles.

 

It will be done, eventually.

[spacesailor]

AND THEN ! .

When we are all electric. With no power fuel .

The price "will " sky-rocket. 

spacesailor

[octave]

15 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

AND THEN ! .

When we are all electric. With no power fuel .

The price "will " sky-rocket. 

spacesailor

Do you mean the price of electricity?

Edited April 18 by octave

[kgwilson]

They haven't managed to tax the sun yet. They will tell me though that in the not too distant future I can't use the sun to move me down the road without clipping the ticket.

[nomadpete]

I think Spacey is referring to the reduced demand for diesel/petrol/ fuel oils, will   result in rising prices there,  and consequently will flow on to any industry that still uses these legacy fuels.

The transition period will result in financial stresses whilst industries rearrange their businesses. Yes, somd prices will fluctuate, some businesses will go to the wall. Eventually it will settle down.

[old man emu]

Realistically, if we want to retain oil as a source of a combustible fuel, there should be a world-wide ban on the use of oil for packaging purposes. Either that, or there should be massive incentives for the establishment of recycling plants to deal with used packaging. Those incentives should also be used to encourage manufacturers to use the recycled plastic. The problem might be the location of the major producers of plastic packaging. It might be that you could identify them by their disinterest in air pollution minimisation.

 

Of course an initial step to preventing oceanic pollution would be a worldwide ban on using the oceans as dumping grounds. Australians might think that we produce masses of plastic waste, but it is only a bucketful in comparison with what is produces by Europeans and Americans.

 

At least when treated sewage is discharged into oceans it is biodegradable.

[spacesailor]

The future of one product,  and no alternative. 

Is always,  pay through the nose .

Until

That alternative comes back to cut the profit of the router.  Then the price drops to keep any profits it can .

Cats-eyes in the European road centre line , were sold for " one halfpenny each " .

Road makers complained of ' excessive profits' ,  

And took the cats-eye maker to court . 

The judge agreed the maker couldn't lower the price as it was the ' lowest coin ' available. 

Now we have a cheaper alternative, 

Has anyone seen a " cats-eye " road marker  lately. 

spacesailor