Electric car thread

[Litespeed]

I must admit

 

, your Honour, 

 

Having observed the same 8ft tall giant ute, still in the casino carpark sun 1 hr later, I was instantly horrified,  as I walked past to hear a crying child.

 

I was overcome by the need to gain entry and minimise the amount of glass into the path of the child. After trying both rear doors  1/4 windows, I was forced to take another route in my  effort to open a door to gain entry. By this time the child appeared to be in great distress.

 

I smashed the front passenger window, hoping I could then gain access to the child seat behind. It would not open nor could I reach the rear door inner handle. The child was now screaming.

 

I ran around to the driver's side and broke the window to gain entry, even after climbing the sidestep, I found it hard to climb through the window. 

 

I was desperate to get the child so tried the rear drivers window, in the hope it's shape would allow me to get in. Alas I still could not get in .

 

It was then your Honour,  as I ran around the giant vehicle, I noticed at the back of this massive highrise ute, on the very tray I found the crowbar were sliding rear windows. 

 

I was able to slide the rear "shotgun" window across and unbelt the child.

I rescued her from the hot vehicle.

 

As the infant was clearly heat stressed, I bought icecreams and called 000. We were under shade at a cafe.

 

As the police car arrived, a electrical short , that must have happened in my desperate attempts to save the child, burst  the vehicle into flames.

 

When the vehicles tires burst, each time the child would laugh and cheer. I took this as a good sign of her recovery.

 

All of my efforts  were to save the child.

At no stage did I think about the special nature or cost of the vehicle nor its owner.

 

I had no idea it belonged to Scott Morrison.

 

 

[red750]

Don't beat me up over this, it came up on the MSN News feed.

 

Why nearly half of EV owners want to switch back to gas vehicles

 

Electric vehicles (EV) may benefit the environment, but thousands of owners have expressed their regret over their car purchase. 

 

A McKinsey Mobility Consumer Pulse presentation released in June 2024 by McKinsey & Company indicated that 46 percent of EV owners in the US are 'very' likely to switch back to gas-powered vehicles.

 

The data is based on responses from nearly 37,000 participants who own EVs, but the US results are what surprised the company that conducted the study.

 

'I didn't expect that, I thought, "Once an EV buyer, always an EV buyer,"' the head of McKinsey's Center for Future Mobility, Philipp Kampshoff, told Automotive News.

The US ranked second out of the nine countries in the study that had the most EV users looking to switch back, with the biggest reason being the low approval rating of EV cars' charging infrastructure.

 

 

A total of 35 percent of the study's global respondents said they would want to switch back to gas-powered vehicles because charging stations are 'not yet' good enough.

 

On top of that, 34 percent of participants voiced their concern about the high total ownership cost, while another 32 percent were worried about frequent charging stops during long-distance trips.

 

Other reasons why EV owners said they wanted to get rid of their cars were the inability to charge the vehicle at home, the stress behind needing to charge the car, the mobility change requirements and their overall lackluster experience driving an EV.

 

The other countries that respondents in the survey represented were Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Norway.

 

Australia was the only location with a higher percentage of EV owners looking to switch back to gas-powered cars than the U.S.

 

The percentages in other countries were all lower than 40 percent, with Japan having the most loyal EV owners; only 13 percent were dissatisfied enough to admit they'd switch back to gas.

 

Eleven percent of the EV owners who participated in the study had a problem with how far the nearest charging station was to their home, and even more glaring, a total of 38 percent claimed that a charging station was not close to their home at all.

 

And for long-distance traveling and road trips, 40 percent said that there were not enough charging stations along highways and main roads to warrant the car's purchase.

 

McKinsey & Company published its media presentation three months after the a new rule involving EVs was issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

 

According to the guideline, 56 percent of all new vehicle sales must be electric by 2032, along with at least 13 percent of them being plug-in hybrids or other partial EVs.

 

Companies have since begun investing billions of dollars in factories and battery technology in order to speed up the vehicle sale process, according to AP.

 

This rule is also meant to help cut pollution and fight climate change.

 

'The electric vehicle market is growing, but consumers have enough reservations about the current options and charging infrastructure challenges to limit more significant growth in the short term,' said analyst Jessica Caldwell.

[old man emu]

What those figures indicate is NOT that the EV is a bad idea, but that its needed support infrastructure cannot cope with its demands. 

 

One commentator compared EVs and ICEs with, "The ICE serves Mankind's transport need. The EV demands Mankind serve its needs." Bit like owning  being owned by a cat.

[spacesailor]

I checked my suburb for the nearest EV charge station. 

Just out of walking distance . So my neighbour had better not run his battery flat .

As I'm not nipping to the servo for a can of electricity. LoL

spacesailor

[onetrack]

I keep saying it, and few manufacturers at this point support it - but swappable batteries with a quick-change arrangement are going to be the only successful answer to all the EV gripes.

 

An EV with swappable batteries makes perfect sense, and I will not be going EV until I can purchase one. The benefits are enormous.

 

1. You will be able to buy the car with no battery - hence, much lower purchase cost.

2. You only rent the battery size you need for the job at hand. You only want to run around the city? - you rent a modest-sized battery. You want to do a long trip? - you rent the biggest battery available.

3. Removing the cost of battery ownership from the EV owner and spreading the cost over the entire system relieves EV owners of the dreaded day when their EV requires a complete new battery at horrendous cost. That day comes way too early for mine. An IC engine lasts for 25 years easily - no battery in any EV has met this lifespan yet.

4. Battery swappable EV's lend themselves to improved battery technology, as it becomes available. No longer will you be stuck with obsolete battery technology once new improved batteries appear.

 

No-one in their right mind buys their own BBQ gas bottles today. It's easier, simpler and cheaper, to swap them. Batteries for EV's will go down exactly the same path.

The people pushing electric prime mover trucks (Janus) are using swappable batteries, and there is no way any electric truck could be competitive, unless it uses swappable batteries.

 

Nio in China has reached a milestone of over 3000 battery-swap stations installed in the country and Nio is still rolling out the battery-swap stations at a staggering rate.

They will eventually make the fixed-battery EV look like a Model T Ford.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 10:22 AM by onetrack

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

An EV with swappable batteries makes perfect sense,

Didn't the European Union bring in a rule that the battery in all battery powered equipment, like phones and iPads, had to be replaceable by the consumer, or qualified person? That was suppose to stop people having to buy new Apple devices when the battery packed it in. I wonder if they will make that rule apply to EVs.

 

In Spain in the 1940s, taxis were running electric with lead-acid batteries and they could be swapped in and out in about 5 minutes at a battery"service station". The service station had a stockpile of charged batteries for immediate fitting, and the flat battery was recharged at the servo.

 

Having the ability to swap batteries in a similar time it takes to refuel and ICE would really push the adoption of EVs. It does require that the installation fittings of an EV battery was standardise throughout the industry. And the service would create jobs for the people who do the swapping.

 

It would also partially solve the electricity supply infrastructure problem since high draw power would only have to be provided at the servos, not to a large number of charging points what can only use low draw power.

[Marty_d]

It depends if the fast charge batteries become widespread.

The ability to swap out the battery becomes less important if you have a battery that can be charged in 5 minutes and the infrastructure to do so.

[octave]

Electric car battery charges in under five minutes in track test

[facthunter]

A "Universal" battery may be a restriction of the basic design.  Nev

[spacesailor]

And now there is a big fear of the EV ( large ) batteries causing major fires at ' landfill  ' tips ,

If or when they get discarded. 

spacesailor

 

[old man emu]

1 minute ago, spacesailor said:

And now there is a big fear of the EV ( large ) batteries causing major fires at ' landfill  ' tips 

 

As numbers go, fires from EV batteries in waste disposal sites are not the problem that fires from batteries used in all those other application such as phones, watches, cordless tools, in fact anything that has a rechargeable battery. You don't need a 1500 kg Ev battery to start a fire. I read recently that there are 12000 reported fires  per year in Australian recycling plants. I'm sure that these are little fires started by a single discarded battery. We all know that it only takes one match to burn out thousands of acres of pasture and  forest. Have you ever simply thrown a button battery into the garbage?

I confess.

 

Recycling those consumer goods batteries might not be economical, but the first step to fire safety is isolating the ignition source. That means public education programmes to get people to dispose of dead batteries at safe collection places. It also requires the setting up of those sites. 

[octave]

8 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

And now there is a big fear of the EV ( large ) batteries causing major fires at ' landfill  ' tips ,

If or when they get discarded. 

EV batteries can and are being recycled.  It is early days and there aren't too many depleted battery packs. They are simply too valuable to ditch.  Apart from that, second life batteries for stationary uses are in high demand.

 

1. Global Top 10 Lithium-ion Battery Recycling Companies [2023]

1.1. American Battery Technology Company

1.2. American Manganese Inc. (RecycLiCo Battery Materials Inc.)

1.3. Ecobat

1.4. Ganfeng Lithium Group Co., Ltd.

1.5. LG Energy Solution Ltd.

1.6. Li-Cycle Holdings Corp.

1.7. Lithion Recycling Inc. (Lithion Technologies)

1.8. Redwood Materials, Inc.

1.9. Retriev Technologies, Inc. (Cirba Solutions)

1.10. Umicore N.V.

[octave]

This is an interesting interview with Jim Farley CEO of Ford discussing EVs.   I realize this is quite long but even the first 5 minutes is enlightening.

 

  

 

[old man emu]

3 minutes ago, octave said:

second life batteries for stationary uses are in high demand.

Question: How well would a 2nd hand EV battery suit a domestic electricity storage situation? Not looking for a fight, just want to add to mu knowledge.

 

I have a Green mate who suggested that a battery from an electric powered forklift would be useful in a domestic solar generation system.

[octave]

1 minute ago, old man emu said:

I have a Green mate who suggested that a battery from an electric powered forklift would be useful in a domestic solar generation system.

Pretty good I would think think. Certainly, they are used for commercial purposes. One example is this sports stadium.

 

 Europe’s largest energy storage system now live at the Johan Cruijff Arena

[spacesailor]

A fork lift " lead-acid battery " can be modified the 12 v / 24 / 36 48 volts ,

if one or two " cells " are dead the cost to replace them is expensive. 

I have been offered those batteries in the past , but are very heavy to lug around .

spacesailor

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by spacesailor
A I changed my words

[old man emu]

14 minutes ago, octave said:

retty good I would think think

No. Not the forklift batter, one out of a TESLA or similar. We already know how to recycle lead/acid batteries.

 

[octave]

 

[spacesailor]

Now I know why my big 200 ah battery was short lived .

An eye opener of what goes on behind your back .

spacesailor

 

 

 

[octave]

 

[red750]

An item on tonight's news about new trucks for collecting supermarket trolleys have been introduced in Sydney - powered by electricity. Manufactured here, but assembled overseas.

 

https://ace-ev.com.au/in-partnership-with-ace-ev-group-were-ready-to-deploy-nine-brand-new-electric-trolley-collection-vehicles-to-stores-across-western-sydney-and-the-northern-beaches-of-sydney/

 

I also came across this video...