Lithium Batteries

[Wrightbe]

Tesla announced an electric truck to replace large diesel trucks. It looked like they'd include batteries that would be quickly replaced at truck stops.

[Mark D]

Freight trains technically run on electricity as well as many city bus. The diesel engine works like a generator but they have little storage for excess watts. For homes with solar there are now AC batteries which are compact and have a higher level of storage per pound that many other DC batteries.

That said you would need a massive amount of batteries to store enough watts to move a 25,000 to 45,000 pound motor home up a steep hill. But I would say that if a hybrid electric motorhome was built that had a 10 to 20% cost increase and final drive was electric I would be interested.

All in the technology, materials and engineering is in place today to do a hybrid but the cost would be tremendous. I think it could add 300 to 500k to the price.... but it would have great acceleration!

[CountryFit]

Originally Posted by radar

Neat setup. We tow a smart ED on a trailer behind the pusher. This is our EVSE setup in the front compartment.



This the rig.

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Here she is having a sip of juice at a supermarket somewhere in Palm Springs area.



Next year we may tow dolly our leaf as we have some longer day trips planned, probably to San Diego. Good fast charger coverage in the LA basin.



We would love to have one of these but I'm not sure the town house association would let us. Doesn't really matter right now. I don't have the 45000 to buy it. That and we only drive about 16000 km a year and It would take a while to pay for itself. Kinda cool though. Charges its batteries during the day and charges your car at night. Great for commuters though. Arrives on a truck and sets up in ten minutes. And no extra strain on the grid. Also no permits, planning or civil engineering.

radar, your setup looks great! i like your tow trailor that is perfect for your short car!

we have been dry camping since feburary. all our electricity needs were from solar, except a few rare cases of rainy days that we ran genny to charge up batteries for fridge and cooking. the electric mileage on our car shown in previous post were all from rooftop solar panels. currently we have 2160w, i may install one more to make it 2400w. so far it works for us. couldn't be happier with the free miles .

[CountryFit]

Originally Posted by Mark D

you would need a massive amount of batteries to store enough watts to move a 25,000 to 45,000 pound motor home up a steep hill.

per my research, the battery for the buses in china is not lifepo4, nor what tesla is using (li-ion); they are using a new "capacitor type" of batteries, allowing super fast charging and huge energy storage. overall, the battery size isn't a big issue like used to be.

[kentdavido]

I just don't get it. We have a generator on board for heavens sake to help recharge the batteries. The whole under carriage of a coach is huge. Let's go, bring it on. I'm ready for the future to be brought to the motor home future.

[msturtz]

Originally Posted by radar

I tend to lean this way as well although I think there are a lot of subsidies in the oil and gas industry as well. Are there public benefits to electric vehicles? Probably. Health care benefits etc. how clean the vehicles are depends on the source of power feeding the grid. Electric vehicles in Canada are cleaner than the US and Electric vehicles in Costa Rica are cleaner than they are in Canada. But the cool thing is every time the grid gets one percent cleaner the vehicles get one percent cleaner. Kinda cool.

I think the need for subsidies will go away anyway. The prices are getting cheaper and the benefits and features of EV's are starting to outstrip what a gas vehicle can provide. Although we in North America still need vehicles with longer range much of the world doesn't. The market will decide over time.

I hate to rain on your parade. One problem with EVs is energy density. That may change with advancements in technology. Liquid fuels are very energy dense. Another problem is recharging time. Recharging is a electrochemical reaction that takes time to complete. If you push the energy in too fast you waste energy as heat. If it is a hot day and I charge my Leaf battery with DC fast charge (400 VDC) it will heat the battery significantly. This also significantly shortens the life of the battery. The same thing occurs with rapid high current discharge. Energy is lost as heat. As a result of this the recharge time is limited by physics. Liquid fuels are very inefficient however because they are so energy dense it doesn't matter. With batteries we currently don't have the energy density to waste on rapid charging. A final but related issue is weight. Because batteries are not as dense we have to have a very heavy battery pack to get the range we need. Every pound of battery is a pound of useful cargo that can't be carried. In my local area the diesel electric hybrid buses are so heavy they exceed the GVWR for commercial trucks! Since it is government they just ignored the problem. Finally a note about "subsides" all companies get standard deductions for R&D, depreciation, cost of goods sold etc. They pay taxes on net profit. It is pure dishonesty to call this any sort of "subsidy". The entire EV industry has their hand out for actual cash from taxpayers! From low interest loans to offset deductions for income unrelated to the EV business to direct grants and subsidized purchasing (their customers don't have to pay full price for the product) and subsidized infrastructure to lower / no taxes in operation. I don't pay a red cent in over the road taxes (gas) for my Leaf! I still get to use the roads however! Governments are already figuring out that they are losing money and are inventing new ways to tax such as GPS, odometer tax etc. I like EVs for what they are good at short trips and commuting. That's why I have one. I don't like all the subsidies because I think it hurts real R&D and innovation. The airplane was not invented by the heavily subsidized government scientists it was invented by two bicycle manufacturers!

[ElvistheKing]

Originally Posted by msturtz

The airplane was not invented by the heavily subsidized government scientists it was invented by two bicycle manufacturers!

Neither was the EV, and the development of the airplane was massively subsidised by multiple governments due to 2 world wars......

[nothermark]

If you look into diesel electric propulsion plants they are used because the conversion loss is an acceptable trade off for the mechanical losses of trying to do a geared transmission setup. They are also very heavy. That is why they are used on steel rails and on water where weight is not so much of an issue.

1 HP electric is ~750 W. 10 HP ~ 7500 W. Compare that to your on board generator and the HP rating of the drive motor in your RV.

There is no such thing as an AC battery. All batteries are DC. There are power banks that have conversion hardware to accept or put out AC power but that is part of the package, not the storage. Each conversion has a significant loss.

[radar]

Originally Posted by msturtz

I hate to rain on your parade. One problem with EVs is energy density. That may change with advancements in technology. Liquid fuels are very energy dense. Another problem is recharging time. Recharging is a electrochemical reaction that takes time to complete. If you push the energy in too fast you waste energy as heat. If it is a hot day and I charge my Leaf battery with DC fast charge (400 VDC) it will heat the battery significantly. This also significantly shortens the life of the battery. The same thing occurs with rapid high current discharge. Energy is lost as heat. As a result of this the recharge time is limited by physics. Liquid fuels are very inefficient however because they are so energy dense it doesn't matter. With batteries we currently don't have the energy density to waste on rapid charging. A final but related issue is weight. Because batteries are not as dense we have to have a very heavy battery pack to get the range we need. Every pound of battery is a pound of useful cargo that can't be carried. In my local area the diesel electric hybrid buses are so heavy they exceed the GVWR for commercial trucks! Since it is government they just ignored the problem. Finally a note about "subsides" all companies get standard deductions for R&D, depreciation, cost of goods sold etc. They pay taxes on net profit. It is pure dishonesty to call this any sort of "subsidy". The entire EV industry has their hand out for actual cash from taxpayers! From low interest loans to offset deductions for income unrelated to the EV business to direct grants and subsidized purchasing (their customers don't have to pay full price for the product) and subsidized infrastructure to lower / no taxes in operation. I don't pay a red cent in over the road taxes (gas) for my Leaf! I still get to use the roads however! Governments are already figuring out that they are losing money and are inventing new ways to tax such as GPS, odometer tax etc. I like EVs for what they are good at short trips and commuting. That's why I have one. I don't like all the subsidies because I think it hurts real R&D and innovation. The airplane was not invented by the heavily subsidized government scientists it was invented by two bicycle manufacturers!

Not sure why you think this would "rain on my parade". You made a number of observations that seem reasonable to me. We also have a Leaf (30 KW) and a smart ED. Did you quote the wrong poster?

[hohenwald48]

Wouldn't the national electric grid need some significant upgrades if everybody owned an electric vehicle. Seems like charging would draw massive amounts of current in a lot of locations. Most of those have a hard time supplying air conditioner power in the summer right now. I can't imagine what additional vehicle charge requirements would add to that load if there were 2-3 EVs in every driveway.

I wonder what an electric vehicle would actually cost to buy and operate if taxpayers weren't forced to help pay for them.

[CountryFit]

here is an article right on the topic, published on nyt last night -

When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think

[MRUSA14]

Originally Posted by hohenwald48

I wonder what an electric vehicle would actually cost to buy and operate if taxpayers weren't forced to help pay for them.

Exactly. I pay the full cost of running my diesel motorcoach, including road taxes in the price of my fuel. I resent being taxed extra so that somebody else can operate their vehicle cheaper than me and pay no road tax. If you want to build or buy an electric vehicle, be fair about it and have the full cost paid by the owner who benefits from the lower fuel costs. Only then will your arguments about how great EV's are make sense.

In addition, there is a huge difference between powering a 3000 pound aerodynamic Leaf and powering a 20,000 - 40,000 pound non-aerodynamic motorhome from batteries. Just because the former may be viable does not mean that the latter is practical.

[radar]

Originally Posted by hohenwald48

Wouldn't the national electric grid need some significant upgrades if everybody owned an electric vehicle. Seems like charging would draw massive amounts of current in a lot of locations. Most of those have a hard time supplying air conditioner power in the summer right now. I can't imagine what additional vehicle charge requirements would add to that load if there were 2-3 EVs in every driveway.

I wonder what an electric vehicle would actually cost to buy and operate if taxpayers weren't forced to help pay for them.

Good morning. BC hydro has a lot of information on their website for this. For example (and going from memory here so google it if you must) The average North American EV uses the equivalent of a house water heater on an annualized basis. They go on to state if every vehicle in BC were to miraculously be electric tomorrow morning the additional strain on the grid would be additional 19 percent. Interesting reading though.

[msturtz]

Originally Posted by Mark D

Freight trains technically run on electricity as well as many city bus. The diesel engine works like a generator but they have little storage for excess watts. For homes with solar there are now AC batteries which are compact and have a higher level of storage per pound that many other DC batteries.

That said you would need a massive amount of batteries to store enough watts to move a 25,000 to 45,000 pound motor home up a steep hill. But I would say that if a hybrid electric motorhome was built that had a 10 to 20% cost increase and final drive was electric I would be interested.

All in the technology, materials and engineering is in place today to do a hybrid but the cost would be tremendous. I think it could add 300 to 500k to the price.... but it would have great acceleration!

You mentioned an AC battery? Can you please provide a link? That would be an amazing breakthrough in physics. Since I work for a class 8 truck manufacturer that would be very interesting to me.