EV 4wd - not here yet but coming soon I suspect .... Will they be a success outside of the 'soccer mum' sorority? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter sunrk
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Are soccer moms the only people excited about 800-1000 hp silent off-roaders that cost little $$ to run?
If so, sign me up for that sorority, lol.
The technical reasons I'm on-board with EVs (despite still working in Oil and Gas and having made most my money in that world):
1. Nearly silent and incredibly smooth. Cheap EVs will be less exciting here, but the "nice" ones are amazing. NVH on par with Mercedes S class, Bentley and Rolls Royce without all the massive price premium required to attempt to achieve it with ICE.
2. INSANE power/acceleration per dollar. My Model S is now worth around ~$60k. It does 0-60 in 2.3 seconds. 2.6 completely cold on worn out street tires on normal pavement. That's nuts. 1.1+ G's of acceleration at a moment's notice. The Rivian R1S does 0-60 in 3s. Again, insane. Super-car acceleration with everyday usability.
3. No stops to refuel. Ever. Charging at home takes 5 seconds per day for me. Saves me something like 45 minutes per week compared to driving the 100. That's 37.5 hours in the last year.
Setting the politics aside, it's hard to counter the accessible speed and luxury that EV can provide. Solid State batteries and inevitable infrastructure improvements will nullify the dwindling negatives for some drivers. I expect megawatt charging to be the norm in another 10-15 years. Even towing will cease to be a deterring factor. Just takes a little time to improve the battery and charging tech.
In 2030 I think we'll look back at this type of conversation the way people in the 1940's looked back at people advocating for horses and buggies in years past because those silly motor cars were too absurd and dangerous to actually work. Just needed Henry Ford and some infrastructure to make gasoline vehicles obviously awesome.
If so, sign me up for that sorority, lol.
The technical reasons I'm on-board with EVs (despite still working in Oil and Gas and having made most my money in that world):
1. Nearly silent and incredibly smooth. Cheap EVs will be less exciting here, but the "nice" ones are amazing. NVH on par with Mercedes S class, Bentley and Rolls Royce without all the massive price premium required to attempt to achieve it with ICE.
2. INSANE power/acceleration per dollar. My Model S is now worth around ~$60k. It does 0-60 in 2.3 seconds. 2.6 completely cold on worn out street tires on normal pavement. That's nuts. 1.1+ G's of acceleration at a moment's notice. The Rivian R1S does 0-60 in 3s. Again, insane. Super-car acceleration with everyday usability.
3. No stops to refuel. Ever. Charging at home takes 5 seconds per day for me. Saves me something like 45 minutes per week compared to driving the 100. That's 37.5 hours in the last year.
Setting the politics aside, it's hard to counter the accessible speed and luxury that EV can provide. Solid State batteries and inevitable infrastructure improvements will nullify the dwindling negatives for some drivers. I expect megawatt charging to be the norm in another 10-15 years. Even towing will cease to be a deterring factor. Just takes a little time to improve the battery and charging tech.
In 2030 I think we'll look back at this type of conversation the way people in the 1940's looked back at people advocating for horses and buggies in years past because those silly motor cars were too absurd and dangerous to actually work. Just needed Henry Ford and some infrastructure to make gasoline vehicles obviously awesome.
- Thread starter
- #23
Don't get me wrong - I'm a tech head and I like EV tech from a pure technical standpoint. But as an industrially experienced pragmatic person who operates and drives heavy machinery for a living (freight trains) I realise that the way EV's are being pushed and marketted is at the expense of safety.
There are already isolated cases of EV's connected and charging unattended at people's homes catching fire resulting in full-structure involvement and potential loss of life. This is going to be a much more common and regular occurence and in any multi-occupancy residential setting the risks are amplified significantly. You can't suppress an EV battery fire by dousing it with water from sprinkler systems as it simply is not enough. You can't shut off the airflow into the enclosed space of a car parking area to put it out as the fire self-sustains by breakdown of the lithium and cobalt battery substrate materials. The reaction has to be stopped by total immersion in water to reduce the temperature below about 200 C, or let it burn until all the materials are fully consumed and burnt out.
EV's are like any other battery-powered device - the biggest risk is when charging, and the penultimate part of this is *unattended* charging! How many people will be 'sold' down the EV route then just 'plug in' when they get home, and forget about it until they 'unplug' later on (next day generally for office worker, retail, and similar commuters). No devices should be connected to power charging in a residential setting when either unattended or the occupants are sleeping. EV's are no different. This very different to an electrical device like a TV or fridge or microwave or your internet router/modem as none of those devices have internal batteries being recharged from the grid or other electricity source.
Rapid uptake of EV's means rapid introduction of unregulated fire hazards specific to EV's into all residential and business environments. EV fire hazards are very different to those presented by petrol and diesel powered vehicles. The toxicity of EV fires is 10 fold greater. So yes EV's are technically good for suburban air quality, just burn enough of them and there won't be much difference to what we have now except the composition of the toxicity of the latent air mass will be different.
Now I'm not saying EV's are 'bad' - they're not. I think in pure medium to high density suburban residential areas they will be beneficial.
Getting back to specifically EV ute's and 4wd's, for Australia (and perhaps the USA too) they are not practical for any heavy duty commercial, off-road, and/or towing tasks. Not yet.
All mainstream 4wd and ute vehicles here bar a few are now marketed heavily around being able to tow a load up to 3.5 tonnes. This is aside from the fact that towing any load heavier than the vehicle doing the towing is inherently dangerous.
Lets say your typical EV ute and 4wd has a stated range of 500 km (currently none exist here coming anywhere close). Stick a typical towed load such as a loaded car trailer or a big off-road caravan or camper trailer weighing over 2 tonnes. Immediately you have reduced your range on a full charge by more than 50 pct, probably more like 75 percent or greater. That means more frequent and *longer* stops because each stop requires almost a full recharge and remember recharging is when the risk of EV battery fire is the highest. So you'll almost spend as much time stopped than driving. Recharging to less than 100 percent to get going sooner is also a zero-sum game as you don't win!
Tradies will see this too - a basic ute when loaded up with all the gear and equipment has a much higher mass, and more mass requires more energy to make it move.
Note I'm ignoring the technical aspect of regenerative braking, and I'm also ignoring the fact that almost be design an electric vehicle has no way to deal with what might happen if regen braking input exceeds the charging theshold of the battery module then how is the excess energy disposed of? On diesel locomotives, dynamic braking (regen braking but the energy isn't 'captured') disposes of the braking energy from using the traction motors in reverse as heat in resistor grids that are fan cooled - there is no technology in existence to convert electrical energy back into chemical energy in the form of diesel liquid fuel as once the fuel is burnt the energy is released and tranformed into mechanical energy in the big diesel motor (then into electrical energy then back into mechanical energy then lost as heat). Nobody disputes that all internal combustion engines are technically 'inefficient' machines.
Heavy rail transport (in Australia) has pretty much gone away from electric locomotives (except in QLD with it's 25 KV AC system) where regenerative braking fed power back into the traction power system and (theoretically) powered other trains, but that rarely works in reality. In motor vehicles there are a bunch of factors which mean it will almost never occur that regen braking inputs to recharge a vehicle's battery module will ever exceed the unfulfilled 'empty' charge capacity that's been used for 'energetic' driving (ie. using the traction system to positively propel the mass).
As you can see I'm not simply saying that because of the Cult of Electric Jesus Christ (Elon Musk via Tesla) evangelism that EV's are EVil (lol). They are technically excellent uses of technology, just very rushed and badly thought out in the domain of safety. It's the standard 'arms length' approach where all the risks are being hidden away from public view - until they're not. Plus all the talk of 'zero emissions' is a complete lie!
There are already isolated cases of EV's connected and charging unattended at people's homes catching fire resulting in full-structure involvement and potential loss of life. This is going to be a much more common and regular occurence and in any multi-occupancy residential setting the risks are amplified significantly. You can't suppress an EV battery fire by dousing it with water from sprinkler systems as it simply is not enough. You can't shut off the airflow into the enclosed space of a car parking area to put it out as the fire self-sustains by breakdown of the lithium and cobalt battery substrate materials. The reaction has to be stopped by total immersion in water to reduce the temperature below about 200 C, or let it burn until all the materials are fully consumed and burnt out.
EV's are like any other battery-powered device - the biggest risk is when charging, and the penultimate part of this is *unattended* charging! How many people will be 'sold' down the EV route then just 'plug in' when they get home, and forget about it until they 'unplug' later on (next day generally for office worker, retail, and similar commuters). No devices should be connected to power charging in a residential setting when either unattended or the occupants are sleeping. EV's are no different. This very different to an electrical device like a TV or fridge or microwave or your internet router/modem as none of those devices have internal batteries being recharged from the grid or other electricity source.
Rapid uptake of EV's means rapid introduction of unregulated fire hazards specific to EV's into all residential and business environments. EV fire hazards are very different to those presented by petrol and diesel powered vehicles. The toxicity of EV fires is 10 fold greater. So yes EV's are technically good for suburban air quality, just burn enough of them and there won't be much difference to what we have now except the composition of the toxicity of the latent air mass will be different.
Now I'm not saying EV's are 'bad' - they're not. I think in pure medium to high density suburban residential areas they will be beneficial.
Getting back to specifically EV ute's and 4wd's, for Australia (and perhaps the USA too) they are not practical for any heavy duty commercial, off-road, and/or towing tasks. Not yet.
All mainstream 4wd and ute vehicles here bar a few are now marketed heavily around being able to tow a load up to 3.5 tonnes. This is aside from the fact that towing any load heavier than the vehicle doing the towing is inherently dangerous.
Lets say your typical EV ute and 4wd has a stated range of 500 km (currently none exist here coming anywhere close). Stick a typical towed load such as a loaded car trailer or a big off-road caravan or camper trailer weighing over 2 tonnes. Immediately you have reduced your range on a full charge by more than 50 pct, probably more like 75 percent or greater. That means more frequent and *longer* stops because each stop requires almost a full recharge and remember recharging is when the risk of EV battery fire is the highest. So you'll almost spend as much time stopped than driving. Recharging to less than 100 percent to get going sooner is also a zero-sum game as you don't win!
Tradies will see this too - a basic ute when loaded up with all the gear and equipment has a much higher mass, and more mass requires more energy to make it move.
Note I'm ignoring the technical aspect of regenerative braking, and I'm also ignoring the fact that almost be design an electric vehicle has no way to deal with what might happen if regen braking input exceeds the charging theshold of the battery module then how is the excess energy disposed of? On diesel locomotives, dynamic braking (regen braking but the energy isn't 'captured') disposes of the braking energy from using the traction motors in reverse as heat in resistor grids that are fan cooled - there is no technology in existence to convert electrical energy back into chemical energy in the form of diesel liquid fuel as once the fuel is burnt the energy is released and tranformed into mechanical energy in the big diesel motor (then into electrical energy then back into mechanical energy then lost as heat). Nobody disputes that all internal combustion engines are technically 'inefficient' machines.
Heavy rail transport (in Australia) has pretty much gone away from electric locomotives (except in QLD with it's 25 KV AC system) where regenerative braking fed power back into the traction power system and (theoretically) powered other trains, but that rarely works in reality. In motor vehicles there are a bunch of factors which mean it will almost never occur that regen braking inputs to recharge a vehicle's battery module will ever exceed the unfulfilled 'empty' charge capacity that's been used for 'energetic' driving (ie. using the traction system to positively propel the mass).
As you can see I'm not simply saying that because of the Cult of Electric Jesus Christ (Elon Musk via Tesla) evangelism that EV's are EVil (lol). They are technically excellent uses of technology, just very rushed and badly thought out in the domain of safety. It's the standard 'arms length' approach where all the risks are being hidden away from public view - until they're not. Plus all the talk of 'zero emissions' is a complete lie!
It's somewhat disingenuous to just magic hand wave the materials issue. Rare earths are exactly that; rare. They were all created in the Big Bang and no more will be created. And currently, they are produced by ethically questionable means.
You also can't magic hand wave the disposal of batteries, or the fact that once the battery degrades, its replacement exceeds the value of the vehicle. I know it's no big deal for the wage slaves to be in eternal bondage to a car payment, but those of us who keep cars for decades, it IS a Big Deal.
As far as safety, EV has issues no other vehicles have. Last time I checked, you can extinguish propane and gasoline fires. And they don't suddenly start burning again 10 months after the initial fire events like some EVs have done.
I agree with the prior poster; EVs are not ready for prime time, and treating them as if they inevitably will be The Answer is not only foolish, but also disincentivizes other alternates. It would be nice if EV development were treated deliberately and holistically.
Zjohnsonua
SILVER Star
Wasn't magic hand waving. I was keeping the clear tech in tech, and leaving the conversational debating of the systems to the chit-chat threads as the mods requested.
My Vo-Tech class in high school converted a Chevy Luv pickup into an EV using a compound wound electric motor from an industrial grain auger, a controller from a washing machine and lead acid batteries. It wasn't terrific, but it pointed to what could be done.
To be sure, EVs have improved since then but there are still technical issues to solve.
Didn't even notice this wasn't in Chit-Chat. Based on the thread's title, I don't know how you could keep it completely in Tech, as you can't intelligently discuss the topic without including Political considerations.
BTW, solving the rare earths issue is simple, yet difficult. Capture one of those asteroids, and you'll have enough rare earths to build EVs until the heat death of the Universe.
To be sure, EVs have improved since then but there are still technical issues to solve.
Didn't even notice this wasn't in Chit-Chat. Based on the thread's title, I don't know how you could keep it completely in Tech, as you can't intelligently discuss the topic without including Political considerations.
BTW, solving the rare earths issue is simple, yet difficult. Capture one of those asteroids, and you'll have enough rare earths to build EVs until the heat death of the Universe.
I think learning more about the inner workings of Tesla, Porsche Taycan/Audi etron, and many of the other top end dedicated EV platforms would put a lot of your concern at ease.
The fire thing is making a mountain out of a mole hill, IMO. Have you done a PFMEA analysis in a work setting? You find the risks of a project and then weight them based on liklihood. Yes, EV fires are a serious thing, but if the occurrence rate is extraordinarily low then it's not a gating concern. We have data and I think it suggests that EV fires are indeed very rare - despite what news articles might come across your feed. Gasoline and hybrid vehicles catch fire somewhere between 3 and 10 times more often. Those are also very serious and can take out apartment buildings and garages. Which is why shared garages like that typical have fire suppression systems and means of mitigating the risk of a car fire (of any variety) from taking out the building.
The facts seem to point to EV fires being far, far less common than gasoline so far. Maybe Tesla has done an unusually good job at designing around that problem and we'll see EV fires with other manufacturers way more often, but I doubt it. I think the risk is just inherently low with rudimentary precautions taken during design.
Regen braking: science has your answer.
Permanent Magnet motors: Current allowed to flow through the motor dictates regen braking force. No current = no force. You may have high voltage in the windings, but if the insulation is designed properly that's not a problem. The motor controller can also apply a small amount of current to the motor to offset the regen braking force and simulate a freewheel situation.
Induction motor: Don't apply power to the motor and you get no regen. Easy Peasey.
You can watch the gauge on regen in a Tesla and see how it's being controlled based on battery charge and temperature. It's generally limited to 50 kW in the Tesla's I've seen but the Porsche Taycan I recall being able to do something incredible like 350kW.
Personally, the one-pedal driving with regen in a Tesla is the best "not a stick-shift manual" driving experience I've had. The complete lack of delay between pedal movement and vehicle movement is fantastic. Gives a very nice feeling of connection between your foot and the motion the car. I think you'll see all vehicles move towards that one-pedal driving style over time. Other OEM's as of now seem to be scared of it because it's a different sensation and your typical "don't move my cheese" human has a tough time with change.
Zero emissions: I think you can take any environmental concern and throw it out the window and still get excited about the smoothness and far superior speed per $ factor of EVs. I certainly didn't buy mine for any environmental concern. I still own the 100 and an old turbo sports car, after all.
Electric vehicle technology to me is too all over the place right now. Companies are trying all kinds of technology out. Fine for prototype development. I'm not so sure as far as consumer use is concerned.
