Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[stevebrooks]

If an EV has a big enough battery to tow heavy things for long distances, it will be much more expensive. Suck it up boomers*. It will also have to lug around that battery when it's NOT towing, so you'll be paying again for the inefficiency. I while ago I saw an article about a caravan which had its own battery and motor. That could be one solution, but it was not cheap.

I look at the battery situation as both an advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is you always know the exact mass of the vehicle and can do calculations of distance and towing based on a fixed mass, whereas ICE vehicles actually change mass, and importantly towing behavior, based on the amount of fuel they have used. The other thing is the efficiency factor, because electric motors are inherently more efficient than ICE motors that probably more than offsets the loss of efficiency of the weight

I have also seen the caravan with the battery and drive motors, keeping in mind even they said it was expensive mainly because they were being released for high prices and spec to start with, but prices should drop when aimed at cheaper markets. But in my opinion they have missed the mark here with the caravan pushing itself, that's silly and, as already mentioned, inefficient and adds cost, complexity and weight, here's how I would do it.

The caravan has an underfloor battery, solar panels on the roof, all good so far, but then instead of running motors to drive the caravan you have a feed from the caravan battery to the towing vehicle, there are a number of advantages to this. Firstly, it doesn't matter how much the caravan can push itself, once the towing vehicle is out of charge you stop, so you are inherently limited by the towing vehicle range no matter how much power the caravan holds and can generate, so having the caravan hooked up to the towing vehicle provides lets say essentially double the battery power and doubles the towing range. Second, with solar panels the caravan will be charging the batteries as you travel, increasing the towing distance. Third, you've traveled 800kms and park up for a few days, caravan solar panels charge the tow vehicle battery while its plugged in instead of having to plug it into a charger and pay to charge the tow vehicle.

Anyway that's my thoughts, there are advantages and disadvantages to the fact that a EV has a fixed mass and the inherent efficiency of electric motors over ICE motors more than makes up for that inefficiency.

[stevebrooks]

Another one from BYD, this one offering longer EV range but similar power Train to the Shark 6, the frequency of car releases from the likes of Chinese EV car manufacturers threatens traditional manufacturers, they simply can't keep up, remains to be seen whether this one will differ in any remarkable way from the Shark 6, it's called the Leopard 5, the naming convention from Chinese EV manufacturers doesn't seem to follow any pattern at all!

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/g ... very-other

[stylofone]

Another one from BYD, this one offering longer EV range but similar power Train to the Shark 6, the frequency of car releases from the likes of Chinese EV car manufacturers threatens traditional manufacturers, they simply can't keep up, remains to be seen whether this one will differ in any remarkable way from the Shark 6, it's called the Leopard 5, the naming convention from Chinese EV manufacturers doesn't seem to follow any pattern at all!

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/g ... very-other

It looks like for larger vehicles, PHEVs like these undercut the legacy makers' models by $10K+. The next move, I assume, is that battery prices and capability will improve and the ICE part of the engine will be unnecessary. Then pure EV models will be cheaper still.

The death of ICE is still on target for 2030. The scarce numbers of new models by Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. is ominous.

[stevebrooks]

The death of ICE is still on target for 2030. The scarce numbers of new models by Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. is ominous.

Been big talk of a number of traditional car makers amalgamating, they don't start that sort of discussion unless they are really under pressure. Honda and Nissan talking of merger, Mitsubishi talking about some sort of cooperative pact or even becoming part of that merger, the writing is on the wall for sure:

Honda and Nissan are plotting a marriage that could create the world’s third-biggest automaker after Toyota and the Volkswagen Group.

The move is widely reported to be a response by the two old legacy brands to both the rapid growth of Tesla and the imminent threat of Chinese dominance in every key market the two brands are present in.

The arrangement, rumoured to potentially include Mitsubishi as well, would create a $US54 billion ($A86b) entity with annual sales that would top 7.4 million vehicles.

Surely bigger car maker just means bigger losses unless they can actually start competing with Chinese brands.

https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/d ... hi-148298/

[Loki]

None of these are even remotely approaching being able to replace any sort of half competent 4wd.

For a number of tasks conducted by an awful lot of people.

By a very very long way.

2030? Don't hold your breath

[stylofone]

None of these are even remotely approaching being able to replace any sort of half competent 4wd.

For a number of tasks conducted by an awful lot of people.

By a very very long way.

2030? Don't hold your breath

I think the market initially is for posers who want to pretend they need a half competent 4WD. This could include a lot of professionals too. The vehicles of my farming childhood were a Datsun Homer and a Holden ute or equivalent. We had two tractors, one small and one medium, typically with a carryall attached. A light blue Ford Fairlane was the 1977 rural car for projecting image, along with moleskin pants, blue chambre shirt and nice brown elastic-sided boots. Nowadays it would be unthinkable not to have a 4WD of some sort, but on our little farm with its gentle hills and river flat it wasn't needed.

When I was in Japan I noticed the preponderance of "kei trucks" on building sites. For equivalent urban operations in Australia, a chunky 4WD would be the standard vehicle. It's more manly. I suspect a lot of the work could be done by a much less competent vehicle. Maybe there is a "hipster tradie" market just waiting to snatch up every BYD Shark that rolls off the docks. I'm not looking forward to the TV ads.

As for 2030, the prediction is that 1000km or even 2000km range batteries will become a reality, allowing electric utes/4WDs to match or surpass the abilities of ICE equivalents, and beat them on price.

I sometimes read comments from old people saying they find it easier to get into and out of a higher vehicle. But I've also seen them struggle to climb into them. I even saw an old couple who had a little folding step ladder they kept in the back seat, so their big competent ute was accessible to the Mrs on the passenger side. An electric equivalent will easily be able to replace that sort of inconvenience, well before 2030.

[stevebrooks]

None of these are even remotely approaching being able to replace any sort of half competent 4wd.

For a number of tasks conducted by an awful lot of people.

By a very very long way.

2030? Don't hold your breath

The thing is, it doesn't matter, you see the deciding factor for 90% of people isn't what it can do, because 90% of people will never push it to that extreme, the deciding factor is price. Maybe indeed there are a small number of areas where ICE 4WD will be superior for a quite a few years, but economics of production will simply drive the manufacturers out of business regardless of whether they are superior 4WD's or not. I have no doubt for many years ICE 4WD's will be running in the outback and for a lot of people whose purposes make EV a bit more difficult to use, but at some point there will be no new ones being made, at all.

My old beach 4WD is close to 30 years old, you could expect to see 4WD's manufactured today still running well past 2030 by that measure, the point with the 2030 date isn't that all cars in the country will be replaced by EV's, that won't happen for a long time, but you will have trouble going out and buying any sort of new purely ICE vehicle by that date, maybe still some hybrids, hard to say on that front, would they deem it profitable to run factories to make ICE engines if they sell so few? Second hand sure, new, probably not. The price of fossil fuel will likely also be prohibitive, so probably ICE 4WD's will be only used by professionals/companies that deem them essential and can claim fuel costs as tax deductions.

I actually agree with you that the current crop are, at best light, recreational 4WD's, and that's what most people use them for, but it 's that caveat, "most people" that's the death knell for traditional ICE 4WD's. These will probably do for light recreational use.

On that note, a video of electric semi demo from New Zealand.

[stylofone]

economics of production will simply drive the manufacturers out of business regardless of whether they are superior 4WD's or not.

Yes, when I say "the death of ICE by 2030" I am referring to Tony Seba's comment that by 2030 ICE cars will no longer be financially viable for manufacturers. I guess there might be some stragglers or holdouts trying to squeeze a bit of life out of existing production lines. There could be some specialty vehicles. But for the mass market, it will be all over.

[stevebrooks]

In other news, something that should terrify Dutton, China is currently installing and commissioning renewable and battery power capability equivalent to 5 nuclear power plants.....every single week! That's each second week Chinese renewable power installations exceed the total of all of Dutton's nuclear power stations, that, just to point out the absurdity of it, won't come fully online until 2040! How many fortnights until 2040? Let's do the math, 390 roughly. So to match the Chinese power output increase by 2040 Dutton would have to build 3,120 nuclear power stations, and that's only if renewable power systems are installed at a linear rate.

The push for nuclear by the coalition is so silly it has become absurd, I can only assume it's like a mad hatters tea party in the policy room, throwing out absurd suggestion after absurd suggestion in the hope one might stick in the public's head and get them elected. Let's be clear, there will be no nuclear power plants in Australia by 2040, this is not an opinion. By 2040 installing enough renewable energy to match a Nuclear power plant will be so cheap people would laugh at the idea of nuclear.

[stevebrooks]

And on that note!

https://imgur.com/gallery/sea-shanty-br ... on-mSxjKIg