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Posted on 10/18/2021 12:46:03 PM PDT by Red Badger
A pair of economists, one with the University of Calgary, the other, the University of California, along with a civil engineer from Carnegie Mellon University, is suggesting in a Comment piece in the journal Nature, that electric vehicles (EVs) need to be lighter if they are to replace gasoline-powered vehicles. In their paper, Blake Shaffer, Maximilian Auffhammer and Constantine Samaras suggest that the added weight of EVs makes them less safe and less efficient and therefore less economical.
In their paper, the authors note that climate change has put EVs on a path to replace cars powered by gasoline. But they also note that for the changeover to be successful EVs need to be made much lighter.
EVs are heavier than gasoline-powered vehicles because of their heavy battery packs. They are also heavier because engineers have to add strength to the vehicles to allow them to carry such heavy batteries. Therefore, the authors conclude, batteries need to be made lighter. They note that up until now, most of the engineering effort involved with batteries has been focused on making them hold more energy so that EVs can travel farther on a charge. But they suggest that focus now needs to include reducing weight. They point out that heavier EVs, in addition to being less efficient because of their weight, pose a danger in collisions with gasoline powered cars due to the weight differential. They note also that heavier vehicles produce more tread wear on tires, which means more roadside pollution.
The authors have several suggestions to help the EV industry reduce its weight problem. The first is to shrink the size of the batteries by using other materials that are more energy dense and removing those that are heavy, such as the liquid electrolytes. They also suggest it should be possible to lighten the frames of EVs that had been made heavier to hold the heavy batteries—again, by using other, lighter materials. They note also that adding technology to reduce crashes could help with acceptance of EVs. And they suggest that efforts could be made by communities to promote less driving. The pandemic, they point out, has shown that more people could be working at home.
Explore further
Why some electric car owners revert back to buying gasoline-powered vehicles
More information:
Blake Shaffer et al, Make electric vehicles lighter to maximize climate and safety benefits, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-02760-8
Journal information: Nature
That way they’ll be even more expensive and even less safe!
Genius!
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I don't think they need to be made lighter. They already fly pretty well.
Weightless or bust!
Man arrested after driving Tesla into Palm Harbor home at 116 mph, killing 2 people, FHP says
This was a 2 minute walk from where I grew up as a kid.
Just make them out of Kevlar and titanium.
They will very strong, very light and cost $2 million each.
They need to make electric cars out of titanium. Or better yet, unobtainium.
But with government subsidies, the will be free!
I was goin’ for carbon fiber and fiber glass so that they can explode into shards when hit.
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Will they fold up into a briefcase à la George Jetson’s car?
My father was an engineer at one of the big 3 American auto companies and he once told me, ‘sure, I can make you a car that gets 400mpg, but you wouldn’t want to be in it if you hit a wall at 20mph’...
They should make electric cars using lots of magnesium. It’s light weight.
It’s easy to make them lighter.
Just take out the batteries.
Talk to Mr. Battery.
He has all the answers.
5.56mm
Or fiberglass.
Guess nobody up there in Ivory-Towerland ever heard of adhesive weight.
Hmmm...new paradigm...make batteries lighter....sounds like a good idea...feel sorry for all the early adopters who thought they are at the bleeding edge of technology and would stay there forever....
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