I know nothing about future battery technology but I have to imagine battery range will improve to the point a national infrastructure becomes less of an industry concern? If there was a battery with 1000 mile range the EV world would look very different.
OT: Electric vehicles
- Thread starter BellyFullOfWhiteDogCrap
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If the linked article is accurate, "the vast majority of EV owners -- about 83% according to a J.D. Power study last March -- do most of their charging at home." Last March was a year ago, but I wonder if anything much has changed.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/19/ev-charging-industry-improvements.html
LFP (lithium , iron, phosphate) cells are the dominant battery chemistry right now and their popularity is expanding. Ford and Rivian just added LFP trims to their lineup. >50% of Tesla's use LFP, and just about every Chinese EV uses them.
LFPs use iron as the cathode material. No nickel, no cobalt. Cheaper, less prone to degradation, and higher cycle life vs nickel based cells. Downside is less energy density, so range is going to max out around 300mi (+/-).
Any hopes of a 500+ mi EV as the standard are many years away. The difficulty at manufacturing battery cells at scale and cost is underappreciated and underestimated. Solid state batteries have been around for decades, by no one has cracked the manufacturing + cost problem.
Am I right in thinking that LFPS involve less dependence on exotic sources of metals?
Yes, no lithium or cobalt. I am a ceramic/materials engineer by training. I crossed to the "dark side" later in life, but I can't play on the Rutgers defense (called the Dark Side).
Doesn't the "L" in LPF stand for lithium? Or does this kind of battery need less lithium?Yes, no lithium or cobalt. I am a ceramic/materials engineer by training. I crossed to the "dark side" later in life, but I can't play on the Rutgers defense (called the Dark Side).
That fact that the majority of new apartment complexes, even those billed as “luxury”, aren’t building in charging infrastructure is all you need to know about where this is headed. 65% of people in the US under 35 (demographic most likely to have a favorable opinion about EVs) rent. Before I bought my house in 2022 i had asked our supposedly luxury complex what their plans are for future charging infrastructure and they literally laughed.
It’s easy for my more affluezna-infested friends to scoff at EV pushback while they charge their Tesla in their 2800 sq foot home in Basking Ridge.
It’s easy for my more affluezna-infested friends to scoff at EV pushback while they charge their Tesla in their 2800 sq foot home in Basking Ridge.
I charged Friday in a parking garage under new apartments in LA. One side of the first floor in the garage was about 20 superchargers. I’d expect to see more of this
Charging stations are required in new dwellings in California. Will the same happen "back east," where the weather can be cold enough in the winter to deplete batteries and where there is less environmental consciousness? We'll see.
https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/11068
We'll see. But what is needed much more is a charging network on roads so that drivers can have confidence that they can re-charge as easily as the driver of a gasoline-fueled car can refill. We're a long way from that, unfortunately.
This is true. California already requires rooftop solar for new buildings, so adding a 220V outlet in the garage is logical. I realize these mandates end up costing homebuyers more money, but they do pay for themselves over time.
More on Ford's project on affordable EVs, including a $25K pickup truck:
@Knight Shift
Someone just put a for sale sign on an airstream basecamp 16ft trailer near me. Super temped. Should go perfect with the lighting. Just need to sell the wife as an office/mancave. Everything can run on 240V.
Someone just put a for sale sign on an airstream basecamp 16ft trailer near me. Super temped. Should go perfect with the lighting. Just need to sell the wife as an office/mancave. Everything can run on 240V.
That's cool, but you said "lighting", not "Lightning." Ha, ha. Also, did not respond to your driving experience post, and I am surprised by your experience, For me, the driving experience is very pleasant, airy feeling, like driving an old Lincoln Town Car. Never feel a bump, etc. Maybe we have different measurements in height, etc, but I think the seats are some of the most comfortable car seats I have sat in, except for our Volvo.
Skip the trailer, and go with this. A lot cheaper, and more range when "towing"!
Where's the blackwater tank on that thing?That's cool, but you said "lighting", not "Lightning." Ha, ha. Also, did not respond to your driving experience post, and I am surprised by your experience, For me, the driving experience is very pleasant, airy feeling, like driving an old Lincoln Town Car. Never feel a bump, etc. Maybe we have different measurements in height, etc, but I think the seats are some of the most comfortable car seats I have sat in, except for our Volvo.
Skip the trailer, and go with this. A lot cheaper, and more range when "towing"!
A low cost, potential ride-hailing vehicle in the skunk works as well.
"Farley has made it clear that, unlike Ford’s money-losing compacts of the past, the small EV must turn a profit within a year of hitting the market. That’s a big goal for a company projecting EV losses of as much as $5.5 billion this year."
Considering that Ford's compact ICE business was in the red, here's what I'm thinking. For Farley to make that statement, and in order to make that work, Farley has already reached out to Musk about licencing FSD. Elon mentioned in an earnings call last year, Tesla was in discussion with a "major OEM" about FSD licencing. The latest FSD version is a major step change. Farley has taken notice. Ford was 1st to switch to NACS, and want to be first on FSD. The new Ford platform can be designed from the ground up to meet the Tesla FSD hardware requirements (8 cameras in specific areas).
Autonomous ride-hailing has trillion(s) dollar potential. Farley seems like the kind of guy willing to take a shot.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...9.oe-xBcgzwEx8THpZJwptXq_iRDIIN0LEdU35Mo-jkL8
Do you have FSD? I dowloaded it Friday for a trial run. Tech is amazing but I’m having trouble getting used to it.
IMO, and it's a long shot, something else will come along to supplant (or perhaps supplement) batteries that have greater range or add to their range, if that makes sense. Just a guess. But who knows, a killer discovery could come along that provides smaller, lighter weight batteries that deliver great mi/kWh. That's the great thing about evolving technology, it continually improves until the next best thing comes along.
I did a subscription for 2 months late last year . Had 11.4.4 and 11.4.9. Did somethings very well, but definitely not a robotaxi. Most interventions were because the system was being overly cautious and I didn't want to inconvenience other drivers. Are you on V12?
LFP cells contain lithium.Yes, no lithium or cobalt. I am a ceramic/materials engineer by training. I crossed to the "dark side" later in life, but I can't play on the Rutgers defense (called the Dark Side).
(lithium ferrophosphate)
Need to fix infrastructure.
Anyone who lives in a densely populated, storm area knows how crap it is.
They also have a gov telling them the power/comms infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable.
Who buys home pools in a water restricted drought?
America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable
I’m not, on 11.1. It’s great on highways but I mentally can’t let it take over on other roads. Going to keep trying it out here and there
I stand corrected, but I was imprecise. I should have said, not lithium ion.
I think most people would consider the Democratic Republic of Congo exotic (it's not a usual tourist destination) and I understand it is the world's largest source of cobalt, a metal not needed in LFP cells.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2020/mcs2020-cobalt.pdf
That's a pretty old build. U sure you don't have an update waiting? I agree with your assessment. Highways are great, city streets still a work in progress, at least on V11.
However, V12 seems to be a huge improvement. I don't know how closely you follow the software development, but V12 is the first iteration of end to end neural networks. No more human coding. For example, the system isn't taught by humans how to make a U-turn, or read a stop sign. Rather, the neural networks are fed thousands, probably millions of video clips of Teslas making U-turns or stopping at stop signs and the system figures out how to do it by itself. Many of the persistent problems of V11 have disappeared overnight. The most recent build is 12.3, and there's a ton of YouTube content on it. Check it out. It's not a robotaxi yet, but it's getting eerily humanlike
Edit ...just looked up your build, and it's over a year old. That doesn't seem right. Maybe reach out through the service app.
Cobalt is not essential for an EV battery pack. And for the EV batteries that do contain cobalt, it is never the primary cathode metal. NCMA cells for example, contain nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum in a 8:1:1:1 ratio.
There's some misplaced outrage when it comes to cobalt and EVs especially considering the cathode in our cell phone battery is 100% cobalt oxide.
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In my amateur study over the last few years, I've learned there are always trade-offs in the battery game. Want higher energy density? There's a trade-off. Higher cycle life? Trade-off. Same is true for cell weight, increased safety, and charging speed.
A great example comes from the anode side of the battery cell. Currently, all Li-ion cells use 100% graphite as the anode. Silicon can hold 10X the amount of lithium ions compared to graphite. Sounds great, right? Greater range and faster charging time guaranteed with a silicon anode. But, if you guessed there's a trade-off, you're correct. Silicon expands and contracts during the charge/discharge cycle leading to accelerated battery degradation. You'd be very unhappy with your EV after a few thousand miles.
So, there's not going to be a "Eureka!" moment in batteries. Batteries are a complex conundrum of chemistry, engineering, and manufacturing. These things take many years to get to significant volume production.
The next time you see an article about the next, great battery breakthrough, remember...
Prototypes are easy.
Volume production is hard.
Volume production + cash flow positive is excruciating.
Yes. Having done patent work for a various aspects in the ICE, emissions control and battery spaces, can say that lab results can be a cause for celebration, but scale up is often the biggest challenge. We no longer handle battery work, so perhaps we are missing out on the next great thing, but I doubt it. Emissions control is an area where we did a lot of work.
An interesting aspect of ICE vehicles (at least to me) is that diesel engines had several advantages over gasoline vehicles in terms of power and torque, but with those advantages, the NOx emissions from diesel engines are horrific and much more difficult to remediate than the hydrocarbons and CO emitted by gasoline engines. An expensive SCR system with a urea source is needed to remediate NOX. So like battery technology, one technology moves the lever in one direction, but backward in another direction.
I've done a lot of clean air stuff -- I remember when diesels were thought to be *the* answer because of their inherently low hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. Congress in fact weakened the auto emissions target for nitrogen oxides in 1977 to try to make room for the diesel. In those days, it was thought that nitrogen oxides weren't a problem -- that they weren't an air quality problem in and of themselves, and that they actually scavenged ozone air pollution from the atmosphere. And in those days research on the health effects of diesel particulates was in its infancy. Everything we thought we knew then turned out to be wrong.
It remains to be seen whether EVs are an environmental solution -- or whether they are environmentally counterproductive or whether the technology is workable at all. One can never know what the future will bring.
It's funny that you say: "Everything we thought we knew turned out to be wrong."
I'm open-minded on the final verdict on whether EVs are an environmental solution. Energy needs to be produced from a source to supply the grid. A good portion of the grid is still supplied by fossil fuel energy. I don't know if we have seen an objective determination on the amount of pollutants produced in the mining, beneficiation, shipment, and disposal of the extremely large batteries as compared to pollution from ICE vehicles. While Belly disagrees with me on this, I think plug-in hybrids are a great solution for people who don't drive long distances most of the time and mainly drive around town. A plug in hybrid will run on the much smaller battery than a pure EV and will charge up quicker.
I am also not sold on this hard push by the progressives to set aggressive EV adoption targets It has caused backlash and political infighting.
Agree it’s a great ride but not fun to drive. It’s great for long distance but not for winding roads. This is the reason why I need the 240v outlet. I can power stuff like this mobile. Can’t work out of a tent. I would literally use the trailer as my home office.That's cool, but you said "lighting", not "Lightning." Ha, ha. Also, did not respond to your driving experience post, and I am surprised by your experience, For me, the driving experience is very pleasant, airy feeling, like driving an old Lincoln Town Car. Never feel a bump, etc. Maybe we have different measurements in height, etc, but I think the seats are some of the most comfortable car seats I have sat in, except for our Volvo.
Skip the trailer, and go with this. A lot cheaper, and more range when "towing"!
Have you used the "work table" that forms when you fold apart the front armrest? I have not.
We have been debating taking the Lightning to the Va Tech game and trying camping. I'm a little leery of the lack of charging around Blacksburg, VA, plus we are not sure we want to drive the 8 hours plus charging time.
Every new apartment complex is billed as luxury. Even ones that are low and moderate income housing. It's marketing. Makes folks feel better about themselves and where they choose to live.
I have. It’s ok. It’s more space to layout your stuff but it’s not a table because it’s to you side. More useful when I eat in the car.
eta I wouldn’t take it to va tech.
Motortrend: Cybertruck, Rivian R1T and F150 Lightning compared.
Verdict:
1. R1T- "A just-right blend of distinctive design and accessible innovation that encourages outdoor exploration."
2. CT- "The electric truck for digital natives who crave attention more than they do adventure."
3. Lighting- Boo!- "The safest choice for folks who frequently curse at their phones, computers, ATMs, or smart TVs."
Found this interesting about CT:
"Tesla presents a curve that’s so steep we worry about Turo renters who may not get much familiarization. A new driver venturing into a big puddle will learn that with the wheels and windshield so far forward, visibility can be completely obscured by the splash of potentially muddy water—a terrible time to learn the two-step process for activating the giga-wiper: Thumb the tiny button on the steering wheel with the windshield-washer icon, then look down and choose your wiper setting from a pop-up menu on the screen.
Given the sheer size and surface area of the Tesla’s glazing, the truck is remarkably hard to see out of. The A- and A-plus pillars obscure a lot of what you want to see when turning, the B-pillars are very thick, and even for those who choose to take the 10 percent aero penalty by opening the tonneau cover only get a gun-slit view of what’s immediately behind. There is a laughably small inside rearview mirror, but anyone over 5 feet tall will only see the tires and bumper of a following vehicle."
Verdict:
1. R1T- "A just-right blend of distinctive design and accessible innovation that encourages outdoor exploration."
2. CT- "The electric truck for digital natives who crave attention more than they do adventure."
3. Lighting- Boo!- "The safest choice for folks who frequently curse at their phones, computers, ATMs, or smart TVs."
Found this interesting about CT:
"Tesla presents a curve that’s so steep we worry about Turo renters who may not get much familiarization. A new driver venturing into a big puddle will learn that with the wheels and windshield so far forward, visibility can be completely obscured by the splash of potentially muddy water—a terrible time to learn the two-step process for activating the giga-wiper: Thumb the tiny button on the steering wheel with the windshield-washer icon, then look down and choose your wiper setting from a pop-up menu on the screen.
Given the sheer size and surface area of the Tesla’s glazing, the truck is remarkably hard to see out of. The A- and A-plus pillars obscure a lot of what you want to see when turning, the B-pillars are very thick, and even for those who choose to take the 10 percent aero penalty by opening the tonneau cover only get a gun-slit view of what’s immediately behind. There is a laughably small inside rearview mirror, but anyone over 5 feet tall will only see the tires and bumper of a following vehicle."