Posted on 11/25/2015 5:07:47 AM PST by thackney
In the next 60 months the automotive industry will see more change than in the last 60 years. European car manufacturers should commit to electric cars now or Europe will be in economic trouble
Once in a while a new technology comes along that profoundly changes the way humans relate to energy and transport. Wheels, steam engines and airplanes are all step changes that put humanity on a new trajectory. When I first drove the full electric Nissan Leaf back in 2011, I realized I was sitting in such a technological breakthrough.
An internal combustion engine peaks at ~30% efficiency. This is the result of a century of continuous improvement and trillions of dollars in research and development. The room for improvement that's left in combustion engines is minimal. Yet there I was, driving the first generation of a car that comfortably hit 85-90% efficiency! Immediately I understood the tremendous potential of the electric car: fast acceleration, no noxious emissions, three times as energy efficient -- and it could be driven on pure sunlight.
Since the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, more electric cars have hit the market. But this is just the beginning of a massive shift from fossil fuels and combustion engines to electric cars powered by renewable energy. At Fastned we call this the Autowende.
Here's why I think the European automotive industry has to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine and put all their effort and funds behind the electric revolution.
Combustion engines cannot compete with electric motors
As battery prices continue to fall and more people start to appreciate electric cars, the internal combustion engine and the traditional European car manufacturers are facing the perfect storm. They have to comply with ever stricter emission regulations and deal with a changing public attitude towards exhaust emissions.
There are three reasons why I believe electric motors are the future.
1. 100% Electric is the new normal for "Freude am fahren"
"We're a V-12 engine company. Project that into the future. Do I go the way of the rest of the industry and downsize the engine? Do I see Aston Martin with a three-cylinder engine? God forbid. You've got to do something radical. Electric power gives you that power. It gives you that torque."
-Andy Palmer, CEO of Aston Martin
The joy of driving -- "Freude am fahren" as BMW calls it -- is no longer possible with internal combustion engines. The internal combustion engine has reached the limits of physics. It may be able to meet stricter emission regulations for the time being, but this results in a dull driving experience.
In the coming decade emission regulation forces cars to become even cleaner, which will in turn make fossil fuel cars more expensive. In the EU for example, car companies will have to comply with an average CO2-emission throughout their fleet of 95 grams per km in 2021. This means that within six years the entire fleet sold by Daimler should have exhaust emissions similar to a Fiat Panda. So car companies can still build a growling flat six cylinder Porsche, but they have to offset this with a zero emission car. In other words, to comply with emission regulations car makers don't have many options left but to sell serious numbers of fully electric cars.
Electric cars have massive torque from the moment you hit the pedal, which makes them better than gasoline equivalents. And they can deliver hundreds of horsepowers without any emission scheme to worry about.
Soon you'll face the choice between a fun, quickly accelerating electric car, which can be charged on pure sunlight and which might earn some tax breaks -- and a dull, heavily taxed fossil car which is banned from city center and packed with expensive emission controls.
This may well be the reason Volkswagen resorted to cheating the emission tests. Building cars with an internal combustion engine that combines great performance and low emissions simply wasn't possible at low costs.
2. Electric cars are more affordable
"I would be disappointed if the price per kWh was not in the $100 dollar range by 2020."
-J.B. Straubel, CTO Tesla Motors
Digital cameras and solar panels were once expensive. Not anymore. These technologies followed a steep 'learning curve' and declining costs. A similar fate awaits the electric car.
In 2010 -- when the very first Nissan LEAF came to market -- lithium-ion battery prices were around $1000 per kWh. In 2013, at the time of Tesla introducing its Model S, analysts concluded that battery prices had dropped to around $400 per kWh. GM announced a price of $145 per kWh for its all electric Bolt which will be introduced in 2016. Tesla Motors expects to produce batteries in the range of $100 in 2020.
he trend is clear: the price of batteries is declining at an annual rate of around 20%, while the internal combustion engine is getting more expensive in order to comply with emission regulations.
It may be hard to imagine today, but we'll soon see the day that electric cars are cheaper to purchase than comparable gasoline cars. In markets with high taxes on polluting vehicles, electric cars will be competitive even sooner.
3. The 'cigarette moment' for the internal combustion engine
"Twenty years from now, the smell of exhaust will be as rare (in cities) as the smell of cigarette smoke is in a restaurant today."
-Sir Richard Branson
The vast majority of EV-drivers will tell you that they will never go back to petrol. Internal combustion engine technology feels old and obsolete once you've driven an electric car. These people realise that cars do not necessarily have to be polluting.
It is only a matter of time before society sees gasoline cars as an irresponsible technology, simply because they are hazardous to the health of others and imperil our climate.
Think about what happened to smoking. Just thirty years ago people used to accept smoking virtually everywhere -- smoking in airplanes, smoking in schools, smoking in hospitals. People smoked in the presence of babies and the elderly. Pregnant women smoked, doctors smoked, sick people smoked. With hindsight, it is crazy!
I would love to get an affordable electric for my local driving, it would suit me perfectly. On the other hand, I gotta keep my F-150 for real driving.
A Nissan Leaf takes about 16amps @ 220 volts for 8 hours. Less than 100 round trip. If you leave the lights off. Do the math for you local power company’s rate for amps.
Remember that as gas cars are pulled off the market the govt will pass new laws to place those lost taxes on the electric car owners. So electric car costs are going to skyrocket.
Yup. Scary.
Actually, I was surprised that it's comparable. I guess the plus side is that auto pollution can be moved away from cities.
On the downside, this calculation doesn't include the environmental damage caused by batteries.
The flow chart is from the Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy. They have one for total energy, electricity, coal, petroleum and Natural Gas.
They are updated every year but now they only make PDFs instead of pic files.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/total_energy.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/petroleum.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/natural_gas.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/coal.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/electricity.pdf
>> Yet there I was, driving the first generation of a car that comfortably hit 85-90% efficiency!
Misleading and dishonest. My guess it, that number is only for the efficiency of conversion of the battery’s stored energy to horsepower at the motor shaft. There’s a whole lot more to it than that.
Yes. Read on down the thread.
Right; I saw the graphic after I posted.
And as usual the entire thread is about private passenger cars.
I still maintain that the real electric potential is in local fleet use such as delivery vehicles or taxis.
What we need is a healthy dose of Free Market Capitalism.
Still too limited by range for a vehicle that needs to run for a full shift. 8 hours of driving is not yet reasonably economic in all electric. Hybrids fit that better with start and stop driving using regen braking.
Batteries work worse in cold weather plus you require more energy to push a vehicle through the snow
LWR nuclear runs cooler than coal fired, so 33% versus 38% for newer coal boiler with superheat steam. Gas turbine combined cycle currently score 59%.
Lose charging the battery, lose drawing from the battery, and have to carry battery weight with the car.
An on-board electrical generation device, a fuel cell as an example, would double to not quite triple fuel economy versus the gasoline power-train.
Ian Wright, a co-founder of Tesla, went his own way and builds hybrid heave truck systems.
http://nypost.com/2015/06/02/tesla-co-founder-wants-to-electrify-commercial-trucks/
It was just a matter of economics, we needed something newer we could afford and this fit the bill.
It's nicely equipped with power windows, power locks, power mirrors, air, heated seat etc.
It's on off lease with only 2,500 miles.
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