Electric Vehicles (EV's)

[Geek]

Where's 'around here' @Geek ? You've got cheap diesel.
I'm interested how you convert litres of diesel to KWh, could you explain please? That's not a criticism, I am genuinely interested because you make a good economic point in favour of diesel. From what I have read on forums in the last couple of years, people generally have not much idea of the power in petrol / diesel versus the amount of electricity required to equal for example a 150HP ICE.

Either sides of the Pennines around Halifax/Manchester diesel is that sort of price on some Morrisons or at Costco.

The conversion is fairly straightforward: it's 11.83 KWh per Kg and 0.846 kg per litre. So that works out about 10 KWh per litre.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-higher-calorific-values-d_169.html is useful for this sort of thing

 

[marchie]

My dad worked the logistics back in the day converting the UK to natural gas. He worked on the various bases, organising the numerous sectors to be converted. William Press & Son.

My Dad and ex-father-in-law too, at the Kingswinford Depot. My first vehicle was an ex-William Press & Son Bedford 8cwt van [an administrative 'error' meant that it was fully serviced and 5 new tyres fitted before it was dscovered that the Van was due to be sold, for the prinncely sum of £45 ...

Steve

 

[tonybvi]

Where's 'around here' @Geek ? You've got cheap diesel.
I'm interested how you convert litres of diesel to KWh, could you explain please? That's not a criticism, I am genuinely interested because you make a good economic point in favour of diesel. From what I have read on forums in the last couple of years, people generally have not much idea of the power in petrol / diesel versus the amount of electricity required to equal for example a 150HP ICE

40p isn't such a bad price for charging. Generally, the price round here varies between 65p and 80p.

Diesel is about £1.32 per litre, so that's 13.5p per KWh. Of course with an EV you are buying the power after conversion. In an ICE you have to cover the conversion losses yourself.

Bear with me please as my maths isn’t too good! My Tesla MX does about 300 miles on a 100kwh battery if driven carefully. As a large SUV I reckon if it was diesel powered and driven carefully I could possibly get 40mpg. So 300 miles would use 7.5 gallons which equates to 33.75 litres. So 100kwh (Tesla MX) equals 33.75 litres. Therefore 1kwh is around 0.3375 of a litre - say 1/3 of a litre. Around here diesel today is £1.46/litre so 48p to equate with 1kwh. By this reckoning if you pay more than 48p per kWh for charging it costs more for a large EV to charge than diesel equivalent.
We also have a little Fiat 500 EV which is more efficient than the Tesla at 160 miles for a 40kwh battery so you can do the sums yourself!!!
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!

 

[Geek]

Bear with me please as my maths isn’t too good! My Tesla MX does about 300 miles on a 100kwh battery if driven carefully. As a large SUV I reckon if it was diesel powered and driven carefully I could possibly get 40mpg. So 300 miles would use 7.5 gallons which equates to 33.75 litres. So 100kwh (Tesla MX) equals 33.75 litres. Therefore 1kwh is around 0.3375 of a litre - say 1/3 of a litre. Around here diesel today is £1.46/litre so 48p to equate with 1kwh. By this reckoning if you pay more than 48p per kWh for charging it costs more for a large EV to charge than diesel equivalent.
We also have a little Fiat 500 EV which is more efficient than the Tesla at 160 miles for a 40kwh battery so you can do the sums yourself!!!
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!

Yes, you are indeed wrong. A single litre of diesel is 10KWh. The fact that a Tesla can travel 300 miles on the equivalent of 10 litres of diesel sounds phenomenal until you account for conversion losses.

In general, the generation and distribution losses are about 50% of the energy put in at the power station. The power you put in to fill a 100KWh battery is likely to be about 125 KWh (depending on the weather)

This means that your Tesla's 100KWh battery took 250KWh of generation to charge it (the equivalent of 25 litres of diesel). Still impressive, but only about 54mpg. Lots of cars can manage that nowadays.

 

[gasgas]

Ah but to get even more technical, if you are going to factor the generation and distribution costs of electricity, then you should also include the costs of drilling, extracting, refining and shipping half way round the world of crude oil / petrol / diesel. And the costs of mining, extracting lithium and other precious metals such as copper, shipping half way round the world (thinks: why does 'everything' we buy have to travel half way round the world?) There again, electricity is generated by various methods: wind generators (which consume energy and materials to manufacture and install), gas, (which has to be dug out of the ground and transported to the power station), coal (as per gas), oil (as per gas) and tidal (as per wind).
And all that doesn't include the cost of buying and maintaining a car, or motorhome, of any motive power type. I think the cost of buying and maintaining a vehicle of whatever description, far outweighs the cost of propelling it along the King's Highway. Unless it is a cheap 40 year old one that just happens by good fortune to require very little maintenance and escapes the LEZs attention.

Oh dear. We are doomed Mr Mannering. Doomed, I tell ye.
Actually those of us who are retired will stand back and just watch the world go to hell in a bucket. (I think that is a phrase). At least us up in the northern regions of the world won't be roasted alive like the central equatorial belt. There are just too many people, and those too many people are expecting to consume more and travel more than their predecessors did.

 

[tonybvi]

Yes, you are indeed wrong. A single litre of diesel is 10KWh. The fact that a Tesla can travel 300 miles on the equivalent of 10 litres of diesel sounds phenomenal until you account for conversion losses.

In general, the generation and distribution losses are about 50% of the energy put in at the power station. The power you put in to fill a 100KWh battery is likely to be about 125 KWh (depending on the weather)

This means that your Tesla's 100KWh battery took 250KWh of generation to charge it (the equivalent of 25 litres of diesel). Still impressive, but only about 54mpg. Lots of cars can manage that nowadays.

I bow to your greater wisdom and I am sure that your figures are more likely to be correct than mine. However I am looking at it from a purely financial equivalent point of view. If I fill my battery from 0% to 100% I pay for 100 kWh of metered electricity. Actually never done that but on occasions if I have a long trip planned I charge from say 20% to 100% before leaving home and that takes (for my 100kwh battery) 80 kWh (which is metered and confirmed by data from my Tesla app) and that is what I pay for. You state that to fill my 100kwh battery takes 250kwh of generation but I don’t care because I don‘t pay for that, I pay for 100kwh (which at home costs me £4.50, not bad for 300 miles),

 

[gasgas]

....... I pay for 100kwh (which at home costs me £4.50, not bad for 300 miles),

If you pay £4.50 for 100kwh, you are paying 4.5p per kwh. That is indeed soooooper cheap. Most of us are paying more like 45p / kwh. Unless we have solar panels and use that, in which case it is free. Unless we count the cost of supply and installation of course, but during the first 6 years of my panels they paid for themselves so now, ten years in, it's all money in the bank and averages £85 per month over the year. So that is not only free hot water, free washing machine electric and free dishwasher electric, but I get £85 a month as well. My gas boiler is turned off from April to September ish.

 

[tonybvi]

If you pay £4.50 for 100kwh, you are paying 4.5p per kwh. That is indeed soooooper cheap. Most of us are paying more like 45p / kwh. Unless we have solar panels and use that, in which case it is free. Unless we count the cost of supply and installation of course, but during the first 6 years of my panels they paid for themselves so now, ten years in, it's all money in the bank and averages £85 per month over the year. So that is not only free hot water, free washing machine electric and free dishwasher electric, but I get £85 a month as well. My gas boiler is turned off from April to September ish.

I am indeed paying 4.5p/kWh but that is my off peak rate on an EV tariff. Peak rate is significantly more at 37p but since my Powerwall storage batteries were installed 6 months ago and in combination with my domestic solar (installed 10 years back) I have not used any peak rate electricity to run the house or charging of 2 EV’s. It’ll take a long while to wipe the smug grin off my face. Most summer days I actually make a profit as I have a good FIT rate. My biggest expense on electricity is the daily standing charge at 50p. Even if I use no grid power at all which happens frequently I still pay that.

 

[Geek]

Ah but to get even more technical, if you are going to factor the generation and distribution costs of electricity, then you should also include the costs of drilling, extracting, refining and shipping half way round the world of crude oil / petrol / diesel. And the costs of mining, extracting lithium and other precious metals such as copper, shipping half way round the world (thinks: why does 'everything' we buy have to travel half way round the world?) There again, electricity is generated by various methods: wind generators (which consume energy and materials to manufacture and install), gas, (which has to be dug out of the ground and transported to the power station), coal (as per gas), oil (as per gas) and tidal (as per wind).

It really isn't as simple as the politicians would have us believe.

The same "fuel overhead" calculation has to be made for the energy cost of delivering fuel to power stations generating electricity. Or even the energy cost of building and later scrapping renewable generation resources.

The embedded carbon cost of building and also of decommissioning all "low carbon" generation sources has to be factored in.

The additional energy cost of an EV's battery manufacture means that for the first 55,000 miles it'd have been greener to have a diesel.

The carbon footprint of a nuclear power station is immense. And until we actually have a way to safely store the waste materials, there is no way to estimate its carbon footprint.

As I said earlier, the whole idea of private cars is a bit silly. They really are unsustainable.

 

[Geek]

I am indeed paying 4.5p/kWh but that is my off peak rate on an EV tariff. Peak rate is significantly more at 37p but since my Powerwall storage batteries were installed 6 months ago and in combination with my domestic solar (installed 10 years back)

The cost of the solar panels and batteries may have proved a good investment for you, but that's mostly because of the artificial FIT deal that used to be offered. Without this government handout, the numbers don't really add up well.

After 10 years, how are your inverters doing? I really don't know why they tend to die at about that point.

 

[Geek]

It may be possible to move hydrogen using the mains gas network, but this does raise some problems. https://energypost.eu/blending-hydrogen-into-the-gas-network-the-challenges-of-pipeline-fractures-faster-flow-rate-more/#:~:text=To reduce the emissions from,users where electrification is uneconomic.

That's on the US where the gas network is very different. Until the 1970s the UK gas mains was 50% hydrogen. When we switched to natural gas leaks became a problem and the replacement pipes put in are hydrogen safe as far as I know.

The issues facing hydrogen in the gas mains are less challenging in the UK than the US. In any case it is already about 5% hydrogen in the UK, I think.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

I remember the time when mains gas was 50% hydrogen.

Do tell us more as Google doesn't seem to know about it.

 

[Geek]

That's the thing about Google. You need to search for the right thing to get useful results. Try googling for what town gas was made of.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Wow!!

My dad worked at a coal yard making gas & coke for years and I never heard that.

I always wondered about putting your head in the oven to kill yourself and how it would work, as you'd expect it to make you violently ill long before it killed you.

Coal gas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Geek]

Around here diesel today is £1.46/litre so 48p to equate with 1kwh. By this reckoning if you pay more than 48p per kWh for charging it costs more for a large EV to charge than diesel equivalent.

There's another factor to consider here. If you start comparing the cost of refuelling an EV with the cost of refuelling an ICE vehicle, don't forget that the majority of what we pay for petrol and diesel is tax. The government gets a lot of income from that.

This tax isn't levied on power for EVs in an attempt to make them more financially viable.

If EVs do become more than a small minority of vehicles (and more than an even smaller proportion of power used) either the government will have to tax EV power or find another income stream (road pricing?) At present EVs get an unsustainable tax break.

 

[gasgas]

........

The additional energy cost of an EV's battery manufacture means that for the first 55,000 miles it'd have been greener to have a diesel.

.....

I read recently that all buyers of Volvo electric cars have to sign an affidavit (if that's the right term) accepting that they realise that the electric car they are buying will not be environmantally neutral until it is 7 years old. . . . ..
by which time it will have needed a new battery . . . . which in turn extends the time required

 

[PopesOnTour]

I read recently that all buyers of Volvo electric cars have to sign an affidavit (if that's the right term) accepting that they realise that the electric car they are buying will not be environmantally neutral until it is 7 years old. . . . ..
by which time it will have needed a new battery . . . . which in turn extends the time required

And how many years does it take for a ICE Volvo to be carbon neutral?

EV batteries are warrantied for 8 years, EVM recently bought a 7 year old Renault Zoe for less than £5K which still has full range.

 

[gasgas]

Perhaps I used the wrong term. I think the actual wording means that it will not achieve the same environmental damage as an ICE car until it is 7 years old. In other words the pollution and energy used in manufacturing and using the car will take 7 years to come down to the level of manufacturing and using an ICE car. I think the Volvo agreement is to prevent any "You didn't tell me about all the environmental damage caused in manufacturing the car" law suits that might occur in the future when all the diesel gate people have spent their thousands of pounds compensation and bought an electric car.
As for the 8 year warranty my Nissan leaf had a 5 year warranty.. After 2 years and 8000 miles the range was 35 miles so I returned it. The next owner phoned me and said it needs a new battery so he took it into his Nissan dealer who plugged it into their computer and said that as I had plugged it in to recharge it when it was already 80% full, that voids the warranty. £5,000 please sir.
They didn't tell me that when I took delivery of it. And it is so full of computers that it should be able to tell when the battery will be degraded if it takes any more charge.
Anyway you won't get me buying another one.

 

[Geek]

Perhaps I used the wrong term.

I think the best term might be "carbon even". No car wil ever be carbon neutral.

 

[trevskoda]

And how many years does it take for a ICE Volvo to be carbon neutral?

EV batteries are warrantied for 8 years, EVM recently bought a 7 year old Renault Zoe for less than £5K which still has full range.

5 grand for a 7 year old car, must be bonkers, my last car was 7 years old and bought for £10.