GigaFactory

The original Tesla S design was based around the concept of automated battery changes at fuel stations but the logistics of having spare fully charged packs about caused it to be abandoned. A total battery change on those cars took only a few minutes.
There are independent Tesla repairers in the USA (only a few) that indeed will repair an old battery pack where one or two dud cells causes a brick section to fail and stop the whole pack working. At the mo' they just remove the dud cell rather than replacing it - to do with the way the battery management system works? - presumably a brand-new cell would also confuse on cell resistances?
To keep manufacture costs down, the latest Tesla version will have the batteries built in as part of the structure of the vehicles, which will make access harder. Along with that they are starting to make the back and front frames out of single castings - yeah keeps their costs down but insurance rates will spike when such cars have to be scrapped from minor shunts and then shipped back for stripping and remanufacture.

There area number of rivals coming on the scene so competition will bring prices down as will the scale of battery factories.

On the recharging side that is improving well although prices to recharge on the road are leaping up stupidly to 70-80p per kWh unless signed up to some deal with overstay costs as high as £1 per min for folk who go off for coffee and leave the car when fully charged

All new chargers UK are supposed to be fitted with some instant pay system, but it invariably costs more than being signed up to a particular charger system with monthly costs - can get expensive. Home charging for most journeys is the only practical solution, but gov lost revenue means they are looking at road pricing instead - more taxes.

Personal view that anything that gets people off the road is a good thing so long as an effective public transport system is there. Getting lorries and vans off the road would be even better, but that's a tough nut to crack.

Whatever may happen - if gov's target for all new electric cars by 2030 is even met - there will still be ICE cars on the roads for 10-12 year after that. 20yrs is enough time to sort out the infrastructure if the will was there. Except everyone believes that robotic vehicles will solve it, and I doubt they'll work in only 20years at current progress.

pgk

Interesting comment heard on the radio last week about insuring electric cars. Insurers are concerned about their high performance. Quite ordinary electric family saloons can accelerate from standing like a Ferrari! Rather likely this will cause accidents unless the electric car is set to launch at an ordinary rate.

I suspect having lots of electric cars on the road may alter the desire to own high-performance IC cars. Takes an IC supercar up to a mile to overtake an electric car in race mode. Only over long-distances does the IC do better. Not sure how chaps sat in a souped-up Porsch will react to being consistently left behind at the traffic lights by ordinary road users! Junctions, speed limits and busy public roads put their suck, squeeze, bang, blow engines at a disadvantage compared with electric. Batteries deliver amps almost immediately, power is transferred by the wiring and controller at close to the speed of light, and electric motors deliver instant high-torque straight to the wheels - no heavy clutch, gearbox, diff, axle, and propshaft to spin up as well. Electric cars can also rather simply compensate for each wheel having different road grip; without bothering the driver, controllers are able to optimise the power applied to each wheel independently during cornering, acceleration, and changing road conditions. An ordinary electric car delivers high-performance without needing a skilled driver.

For the same reasons IC super-cars will be outperformed at short distance track events. Thus they're in danger of becoming venue specialists like Formula 1 or Nascar, rather than desirable road-cars.

Sadly change always causes someone to lose out. I don't think electric cars will be half as much fun as IC for enthusiasts, because driving IC cars needs more skill. Of course there will be electric super-cars, but I doubt amateurs will be able create or improve them. High accelerations might also be made illegal on public road, I'm not sure 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds is a good thing when other people often jump the lights.

There's a lot that can done to improve the power output of IC engines, and enjoyable too but I suspect amateurs won't have the wherewithal needed to fit bigger batteries, or reprogram controllers, or improve sophisticated electric motors. Barnes Wallace considered himself lucky to have started work when an individual could design a whole aircraft on his own. At the end of his career even the simplest aircraft were team efforts, involving many different specialisms. So it is with most technologies: increasing complexity makes doing the same at home ever more difficult. But more people enjoy watching TV than repairing them!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 16/06/2021 11:08:14

DC Electric motors produce maximum torque at zero RPM. The current flowing through the windings generates a turning force. This will be dependent on the current and the radius of the rotor. The greater the current, the greater the turning force. At zero RPM all the current produces torque; there is no back EMF to reduce its output. Steam engines also, at rest, produce maximum torque, dependent on the phase of the valve gear.

Sub 2 secs was launched last week. I agree - stupid in the hands of nutters although i have to admit that the acceleration on my S ( a mere 4 seconds) is superb for getting past tractors. I hardly ever hoof it full chat - something you get over in the first few weeks and is just bragging rights and the latest incarnation of a production car speed limited to 200mph is also nonsense - going to be a serious mess on an autobahn soon.

Bet you guys can't guess the autobahn speed record and when it was made..

Fastest autobahn speeds

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/5-fastest-speeds-on-autobahn.htm

pgk

Do you ever park your car at a supermarket, DIY store, leisure centre etc etc that will in time all have dozens if not hundreds of charging points. Or does everything have to be done now, all at once. It took 25 Years for the first Petrol station to open in the UK.
If you’re driving 300 miles there are several EV’s that can do that. One of the Tesla’s does 400. The Highway Code though says you should be taking a break of 15 minutes every two hours - plenty of time for an EV top up whilst you’re having a coffee.

EV’s are expensive at the moment but the cost is coming down. Second hand models will trickle down as petrol models do. Only the super rich could afford petrol cars in the early days. ICE cars aren’t expected to be banned from our roads until 2050 so there’s plenty of time develop the EV concept.

EV Myths

I don’t yet have an EV but I’m hoping to get one when the price comes down a bit as they are much cheaper to run and absolutely lovely to drive I’m told.

I don’t yet have an EV but I’m hoping to get one when the price comes down a bit as they are much cheaper to run and absolutely lovely to drive I’m told

I doubt they will stay cheap for long, motorists are a gigantic dripping roast for the exchequer

5G will create variable road pricing, time,location, distance etc, electricty will keep going up in price

If I was going to get anything electric I would look at its "range" and divide by two then decide if it met my needs

A brave new world and we're the guinea pigs

Yet another example of :

"Its not about what they tell you. Its about what they DON'T tell you"

There is no mention whatsoever in this article that Sweden is almost a cashless society and that makes them highly vulnerable

**LINK**

I have been following this, and other, threads out of interest to try and understand what this brave new world may eventually look like. The one thing that seems to stand out is the almost universal theme that Mr & Mrs Average simply will not be able to afford personal transport, and that this means that we are headed back to a time when only the most affluent will be able to afford cars. In one instance this was mentioned as being 1960!

Now, I am in my late 70's. I remember 1960, and before, very well indeed. For example, my parents bought the first (second hand) car in 1954. I bought my first car, a van actually, in 1965.

So what was life like back then? Especially considering that we didn't know any better!

Well, TV was limited to two, or maybe three channels. Does today's "hundreds" of channels really represent an improvement? I suggest not.

An evening out was either the pub, about which I say no more, or a visit to the cinema, of which there were about 10 with 5 miles of where we lived. Transport was diesel bus, or electric (trolley) bus, both of which ran until 11.30pm.

Work, something which a lot of people seem to forget about, was 40 to 48 hours per week, including Sat am, and by the time one added in travelling time to & from work, resulted in something like 11 hours away from home which in reality meant that opportunities for leisure were somewhat restricted. Do we want to go back to those hours? Probably not, but I do think that as a nation we are today frightened of hard work.

Holidays. I well remember queuing in Halifax for a coach to take us to the likes of Butlin's at Filey. Or having to travel by train (steam at that) to Pwtheli in North Wales.

Now, why have I brought this up. To show that there are a number of people who have lived their lives, and who managed quite well without personal transport. And, it has to be said, didn't know anything different. I was going to say "better", but are we really better off today rushing hither & thither? (I may have got my saying wrong there.) And also to show that this age of readily available personal transport is really quite short, 60 or so years at most. Perhaps we should consider making our own entertainment at home, rather than expecting it all to be laid on for us. Perhaps we should consider that all this rushing about seeking new experiences is actually bad for us. In this respect, I have recently come back from a place what we have vistited many times, a place which has an almost magical calming and soothing effect on me. Which suggests that I for one, need to escape from our increasingly frenetic lives. Perhaps, restrictions on our personal freedom to travel might not be a bad thing after all.

Lunch calls, so I'll leave it there.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

So , compared to what's coming , Billingham is like the Austrian Tyrol.

Vic -

I wish I could share your optimism but the whole concept just does not stack up as the green types and politicians imagine.

However many charging points they install there will always be queues at busy times; and what happens if the connector is incompatible with your car, or the chargers are out of action and you may be a long way from the nearest alternative assuming you know where it is? A parallel argument applies to availability of petrol or diesel of course, but their ranges are more reliably longer.

The ranges seem suspect, as if calculated or test-track conditions, not real driving in a hilly country in busy traffic in bad Winter weather.

The cost of the electricity in future is a huge unknown; even more so if /when subject to tax and/or the payments are via enforced "smart"-phones with their contracts and hidden middle-men fees. And variable signal coverage.

The new costs are not likely to fall to "affordable" levels; and if second-hand ones are cheap it's because their very costly batteries are dying.

'

Peter -

Well, I reckon motoring will go back to the 1910s when it was the preserve of those who could afford the proliferating battery-powered cars of the time.

If you can't join that exclusive car-owning club, how are you going to take your latest creation to the major model-enegineering show or rally? Assuming they exist of course thanks to it being no bad thing that most of us have to stay local apart from the annual trip Pwllheli or Fylde, so the attendances and exhibit lists at major events are uneconomically too small.

Indeed I foresee a time when huge swathes of the country's culture and leisure will die off , and what's left will be severely limited in choice and heavily constrained, as people become unable to go anywhere in large numbers, or to take anything anywhere, any significant distance from home. Replacing frenetic dashing to social and cultural events, clubs etc, with the more stressful isolation, sense of loss and monotony. Nothing man-made in this world comes for nowt, and electric cars come with a lot of owt.

Folk are determined and greedy enough that they will find a way of attending mass events even if private car ownership did become problematic. History shows us that in pastoral times they used to walk turkeys and geese from Norfolk to London - 100 miles in leather turkey boots. My old school boatman used to tell me stories of his pre-war 3-day trip to get the boats to Henley regatta using a horse and cart. As a young teen, I happily rode 60 mile round trips on a bicycle. It’s just that we are in that cultural period of wanting everything NOW.

There was a time when car ownership was the province of the wealthy, Before that horse ownership was the province of the wealthy and presumably at some point shoes were a luxury. I feel cheated by not owning my personal jet that rich people have.

pgk

The highlands could be a problem for a while

I only spent serious time up there in the 80s and 90s in summertime but power cuts were common, 2 a week was just-another-day up there

It's why they have gas tanks in their gardens, its more reliable for getting through the long winters

Is there any other country in the world going into this headlong conversion to EV's , as us ?

.

Germany for one !

MichaelG.

Wonder if that ls cos they told lies about their car emissions????

Regards Ian.

Link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Countries

Countries with proposed bans or implementing 100% sales of zero-emissions vehicles include China, Japan, the UK, South Korea, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Canada, the 12 U.S. states that adhered to California's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program, Sri Lanka, Cabo Verde, and Costa Rica.^[1]

pgk

From today’s News:

Something that might be of interest, about the battery management chips used in lithium batteries. They use security pass codes to stop you replacing dead cells.

So it would appear that if you want to repair these battery packs, then only the manufacturer or agent can do it. Otherwise it looks like the battery won't talk to the car, or computer, and both are useless.

All because of safety?

Never really worked out why lead acid batteries aren't used. Yes, heavier, but most cars only have one person in them so the additional weight isn't really important. They are an established technology, can be easily recycled, and can get one cell to match the ampere hours demand of the car, not hundreds of cells in series and parallel.

A string of articles re Giga Berlin...including that they are already testing the paint shop..
Link
https://insideevs.com/tag/tesla-gigafactory-4/

He's ploughed ahead without awaiting approvals but it's hard to see them being refused with the job creation and economic value, albeit there may be political delays to show appeasement to those against.
The only reason I see for ultimate refusal would be if the German Auto Manufacturers got a political edge. Tesla sales are going so well the German’s want a slice of a manufacturer that can sell all he can make.

pgk

Average time for a re-fuel for internal combustion engines 10 mins

Average time for a re-fuel electric 90 mins

So fuel stations will have to be 10 times bigger ? Imagine being stuck on the motorway service station, they will have to cater for 10 times the number of people. Are they planning ahead now ???