hydrogen conversion?

[TonyS9]

Originally Posted by derek vivian

Has anyone calculated what it costs running an electric vehicle (including Volvo cars) when for cabin comfort an electric heater, electric aircon and electric blower for anti mist on windows would be required for use all year round? That surely reduces the miles a car for example would get out of a full charge!

It does yes, typically an older Tesla will lose about 40% range due to heater use at -7C and some battery chemistry, but they are designed in California so not optimised. Newer cars have heat pumps and 3 layers side windows. Of course more can be done on insulation.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by TonyS9

To be honest I am fairly annoyed at the misinformation presented on EVs and batteries. CO2e is just one element of that. Perhaps I should be more reasonable but I'm getting older and less tolerant. I also feel there is a deliberate attempt to discredit batteries.

No matter what the subject Tony, you'll always get misinformation, There's no deliberate attempt to discredit batteries/EVs, they're doing it all by themselves!

A recent article in The Times apparently told the tale of a couple with a Porsche Taycan 4S (hereinafter referred to as a Tincan) who lived in Kent and went to Bournemouth, 130 miles away.
Presumably they charged it fully before they went as they'd be stupid not to and the fact they can afford a brand new Tincan suggests they earn good wages so it would be fair to assume they are fairly intelligent and have a good education.

With this in mind, you'd expect the range to be 120 miles after arriving at Bournemouth, based on the information they had that the range was ~250 miles.
The cars computer advised them the range was only 45 miles when they left which suggests a range of only 175 miles. Research on Porsches own website revealed the range to be ~180 miles in optimum conditions. I would guess that means no use of heaters, lights etc but given the curernt weather conditions, i suspect they did use them.
In that case they probably did well to arrive with 45 miles range left.

However, it doesn't end there!

None of the local charging points were working so by doing various diversions they eventually managed to find enough charging stations to get enough charge to get home some 9 hours later.

As i said a long time ago, one of the big things against EVs at the moment is the lack of infrastructure and this has proved it. Also something i haven't said yet is that when new, the battereies actually perform as they are intended and give the range quoted. HOwever in a very short time, that drops off to about 90% and gradually drops throughout the life of the battery until fairly suddenly, it starts dropping rapidly to about 30-40% of the original capacity.
This holds tru for almost all batteries, even single-use batteries and is down to the chemistry involved. Yes of course some are better than others but the principle holds true.

There never will be a perfect battery and peoples misuse and abuse of the batteries will no doubt kill them in short order - just tlook at mobile phones as an example and the people who consistently charge them when they are still half full. Even batteries advertised as having no memory effect develop one when abused like this.

[Jimsiss]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

That's worrying - didn't the Germans go mad on diseasel and create Diseaselgate?

They don’t have a great history with using hydrogen either haha

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Jimsiss

They don’t have a great history with using hydrogen either haha

Prezactly!

[TonyS9]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

No matter what the subject Tony, you'll always get misinformation, There's no deliberate attempt to discredit batteries/EVs, they're doing it all by themselves!

A recent article in The Times apparently told the tale of a couple with a Porsche Taycan 4S (hereinafter referred to as a Tincan) who lived in Kent and went to Bournemouth, 130 miles away.
Presumably they charged it fully before they went as they'd be stupid not to and the fact they can afford a brand new Tincan suggests they earn good wages so it would be fair to assume they are fairly intelligent and have a good education.

With this in mind, you'd expect the range to be 120 miles after arriving at Bournemouth, based on the information they had that the range was ~250 miles.
The cars computer advised them the range was only 45 miles when they left which suggests a range of only 175 miles. Research on Porsches own website revealed the range to be ~180 miles in optimum conditions. I would guess that means no use of heaters, lights etc but given the curernt weather conditions, i suspect they did use them.
In that case they probably did well to arrive with 45 miles range left.

However, it doesn't end there!

None of the local charging points were working so by doing various diversions they eventually managed to find enough charging stations to get enough charge to get home some 9 hours later.

As i said a long time ago, one of the big things against EVs at the moment is the lack of infrastructure and this has proved it. Also something i haven't said yet is that when new, the batteries actually perform as they are intended and give the range quoted. HOwever in a very short time, that drops off to about 90% and gradually drops throughout the life of the battery until fairly suddenly, it starts dropping rapidly to about 30-40% of the original capacity.
This holds tru for almost all batteries, even single-use batteries and is down to the chemistry involved. Yes of course some are better than others but the principle holds true.

There never will be a perfect battery and peoples misuse and abuse of the batteries will no doubt kill them in short order - just tlook at mobile phones as an example and the people who consistently charge them when they are still half full. Even batteries advertised as having no memory effect develop one when abused like this.

Certainly range predictions can be off or reduced if you have been thrashing the car recently or have the heater set to 30C. The Taycan gets an EPA range of 201miles and WLTP of 253miles (Without heater or AC). EPA tends to be more realistic, but I'd really like to see simple kw at 70+50mph figures.

There are certain areas that are a bit shy on charge points, but they are litterally available all over the country, there are more charge points than petrol stations. Faulty units are certainly going to be annoying. This is a very temporary issue and one that is not widely reported. Ultimately its an easy problem to solve with connectors being added at about 700/month. Its not an underlying problem with the technology, but if you want to make up a senario of hardship its not difficult and many headline seeking jornos have. 160,000 users in the UK barely mention lack of infrastructure (in my experience such comments come non-BEV owners), but then maybe they know what routes to take to unsure charging point redundancy, or they love their EVs and are enjoy the challenge. Plenty seem to take their BEVs on long trips.

I do think you are being unfair about the capacity loss. 8yr - 100,000mile warranties apply to >75% capacity. So if you drop below 75% during 8yrs or 100,000miles (which ever comes first) you can expect a new battery free. Teslas are down to about 90% after 300,000 miles on their high density batteries, the lower density LFP battery are expected to be about 2x longer lived than that. There is also no cliff edge, the batteries can be moved onto stationary applications. Vehicle batteries are nothing like phone batteries, and the market requirements are extremely different (I would like to see a battery life extender features on phones but these seem to be against the business model for OS providers to sell your data). Most bad battery press comes from the 24kWh Nissan Leaf and affected 2000 cars.
I do agree that your figures of capacity loss would be unacceptable, and up until 2018 even Tesla didn't give a decent battery warranty despite a good history. Many Tesla owners before that actually thought they were covered for capacity loss when they were not.

One of the problems with the Porsche is that they derate the battery capacity and do not allow the user the full capacity, which would give another 10%. Tesla allow it but recommend using the 80-90% filling as much as possible. The main issue being leaving the battery 100% charged and unused. Using it straight away does little damage.

Car mfrs are also not yet familiar enough with battery vehicles to properly conserve energy. Its suprising but it seems to be the case. They have just rushed out a vehicle that is great fun, but not as practical as it could be. We have Tesla (the most experienced) coming from a very hot region, and their cars have problems in the rain and cold, then we have legacy mfrs who should know better but don't consider heating as a major drain (projects probably run by mechanical engineers). Better insulation of batteries, motor and interior with managed cooling and moving around of heating would resolve this range issue.

As far as I am concerned BEVs are a good technology with no underlying problems other than a culture change. There are many benefits and a few disadvantages, which are fairly minimal and with a little planning, pain can be avoided. The disadvantages are well worth the advantages for the majority. In particular they are worth the perceived inconvenience for the environmental benefit.

The oil industry has most definately engaged in misinformation and even technology supression resulting in the current climate emergency.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by TonyS9

I would like to see a battery life extender features on phones.

My phone has that feature, it works intelligently to minimise power used by inactive apps, reduces power to a "stand-by" level on active apps, only increasing to an active level when that app needs to be used. No need for any data to be sold to anyone!
That said it has something like a 5-day standby, even when used for 30-40 minutes each night to watch rubbish on YT.

When i checked the Porsche USA site the other day, the EPA (environmental Protection Agency for those not familiar with that USA dept) had not yet assigned a rating for the power consumption of the Tincan. The UK site specified the range as 180 miles on the standard battery and even on the Performance battery, was only ~200 (203 rings a bell) miles.
It seems the range was advertised elsewhere at ~260 miles - maybe in laboaratory controlled conditions with minimal wind, no use of lights, heater etc, none of it is "real world".

To quote something i said on another forum, the wise EV owner will take the advertised range of their new toy, halve it then take off 20% and start looking for recharge points then.
Had the owners of that Tincan done exactly that, the advertised range is ~260 miles so half is 130 miles (coincidentally the distance they travelled) so take 20% off and that's after 104 miles they should have looked for a charging point.
Had they done that they would have been ok but as someone else pointed out, there is a website (Zapmap i think it was but might be wrong) that lists all charging points and while there are a lot in and around London, the rest of the country is somewhat sparse.

I've not seen one round here for example. Thinking about it, i don't think i've ever seen one in the flesh so they can't be that common.