Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Maybe a nice toy for whacking around country lanes, and for the local
commute. Beyond that and it is simply not practicable.

Not today, no.

But consider...IF the cars were not sold, but leased, and the overall
operational cost and fuel cost was less than - say - a small commuter
car, and you need a second car to commute with..

But that's not what's on offer. It's a car to compete with the likes of
Porsche in both price and performance. As if...

It's one of the oldest tricks in the book. We are offering X now at a high
price, but Y will be along shortly which will wipe out the lower priced
competition. Which suggests this tiny firm has a breakthrough the major
makers haven't found after spending billions on research.

Not at all. I think the answer is there in plain sight.

The tiny firm can afford to make a premium product that will appeal to a
tiny minority. And sell in tens or hundreds at best.

The big firms are NEVER first to market with ANYTHING. They wait until
the technology is mature, and then they production engineer it and churn
the kit out for pence.

Looks at te history ofg the personal computer.

- first you could buy an 8080 chip and a board, and program it yourself
in assembler or with switches.

- then you could buy a bloody expensive machine with disks and BASIC in ROM.

- Then you could buy a CP/M machine with disks, and quite a bit of
software like word processors and spreadsheets.

- THEN IBM decided to make one - still not mass market, but a BIGGER
specialised market.

- and so on.

Now we have windows and everyone has one.

What made all this possible?

A market need, and the microprocessor IC.

Not sure what an 8080 chop cost when it first came out..not cheap at
all. But now we have huge processing power and you can pick up an 8080
type chip for about $3. With what amounts to a 8251 PIO all in the pack.

IF a suitable 100-200KWh battery and associated
control/charge/protection electronics cost about £3000, it would be a
total no brainer. Sadly is more like £60k or more..at the moment..but it
doesn't need to be.

Raw lithium is about $89 a kilogram ..but expected to fall a fair amount..
(
http://doc.tms.org/ezMerchant/prodtms.nsf/ProductLookupItemID/JOM-9805-24/$FILE/JOM-9805-24F.pdf?OpenElement
)
and its energy density is up to 0.72 Mj/kilo, so $123 per megajoule is
the raw material cost at PRESENT.

So a 50KWh battery - enough for a small car - represents 180MJ, or about
$22,500. At todays exchange rates that represents about £13,000//the
weight of lithium in it would be 250kg. I would expect 500kg for a
complete pack. Very comparable with - say - a 1 liter turbodiesel power
train.

Amortised over an expected 100,000 miles, that is 13p per mile.

So whilst it's close its not yet cost effective for a SMALL car. where
£13,000 will buy you the whole car (maybe tow really cheap ones) and it
is effectively worn out over 100,000 miles..

However..consider.

1/. Service costs. There is virtually nothing to wear out on an electric
car - brake pads/discs/tyres are it, really. No fuel/air/oil filters.
spark plugs or engine oil..almost no transmission..just 4 electric
motors in the hubs, and a huge battery, and a bloody great amount of
electronics.

2/. Fuel costs. Unless the government changes things tax wise, the fuel
costs would be something like 3-4p a mile. So overall costs with the
battery depreciation at 13p a mile comes up to say 17p a mile. Contrast
around 11p a mile for a 40mpg diesel RIGHT NOW...and ..

3/. ..The scrap value of the lithium in the battery would NOT be zero.

So my conclusions are that IF the battery manufacturers tooled up for
volume, AND the current tariff on road fuel versus electricity was not
changed, the whole shebang is economically viable.

It is likely that lithium prices will come down as demand increases..the
energy of extraction ultimately controls the price..

Of course none of this makes any sense if we are still relying on fossil
fuels for electricity generation..the overall efficiency of the whole
energy train from fuel to electricity to grid to charger to battery to
wheel - is no better. All that does is move the CO2 pollution up the
chain to the power station, where although its possible to extract it
and sequester it more easily, its not exactly a hugely better solution.

But if a program of renewable sources - and nuclear - power generation
is envisaged, with a heavy *carbon* tax, the balance shifts in favour
massively.


Note as an aside that hydrogen takes 50Kwh to produce just one kilogram
by electrolysis.

and that contains 33KWh ..a bloody awful 66% efficiency from electricity
to fuel..and with a fuel cell at 70%, you are down to 46%.

The a decent switching charger should be around 95%, the battery
conversion efficiency is around 90% or better..go figure where the
'hydrogen' economy is going..











Basically, the sort of BS we've all read before many many times.

Toyota are at the forefront of electric cars - albeit hybrid ones. My
money is on them producing the first all electric practical family car.
That they haven't yet means the technology isn't ready.