The EV thread

[kruddler]

Here is a bloke trying to understand what is going on in the UK / EU market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZysvgm2_Aw
The interesting thing in this video was the discussion about battery degradation, I notice that degradation is worse in hot environments and by hot they mean regions that can have more than 5 consecutive days above 27°C! :o

I realise this guy is often talking a lot about high end cars, but cheaper models won't be generally be better. However, his figures would be ultra-relevant to 4WD EV.

Ultimately, he seems to mirror my thoughts on the matter.

What we've got is not good enough. We are rushing into things without any real direction or understanding of it other than the effect of 'green washing'.

Costs plummetting once you drive it off the lot.
Efficiency falling off a cliff simply by the location you are driving and the charging style you use.

So turning what he is saying into how Australia uses these things.....
1. We are a big country, so any long trip would require plenty of charging. Unless you wanna stay in a spot for hours, you will use the fast charge option....which will ruin your battery the more you use it. If you wanna go to sydney, an 8 hour drive could turn into a weekend drive so you can protect your battery.....which is not feasible.
2. We are a hell of a lot hotter here than UK or scandanavia (wherever Bjorn was from i cannot recall) so we automatically get more degredation even if we slow charge our vehicles.
3. Even if we somehow manage to avoid parts 1 and 2 above, we are throwing money away simply by the depreciation these vehicles have and the almost non-existent 2nd hand market and overall life these vehicles have.

.......and all for a 7% reduction in CO2 emmissions, IF everyone has one and IF all the power consumed is renewable to begin with......which it really isn't even close.

So maybe its time to stop, take stock and focus on something else (hello hydrogen) which eliminates every one of the above problems and is better for the environment than these cars to begin with.


One thing i thought about which i don't think has been mentioned anywhere in this debate is Lithium......and the flow on effects of that.
Ultimately, Lithium is a finite resource. It will run out. Supply and demand ensures the price will skyrocket.
The more lithium we use in cars, the less we have for other batteries. Anything rechargable these days basically has lithium in it. Phones, AA/AAA batteries, cordless power tools and cordless outdoor power equipment, battery walls.
The cost of all of that will go up the rarer lithium becomes.

Maybe that won't happen for 200 years, or 20 years, maybe it happens in 2 years time.....don't know, but it will happen.
Why not ditch the excessive amount of batteries in these poor perfoming EVs for things that we don't have a better alternative for?

What happens when we run out of lithium. We have to redesign half our electronic equipment to alternatives.....that may be worse off and less efficient?