Look no taxes !! Will electric cars really be tax free?

[tron]

Had a Caddy once that I could get down to 0 MPG. Weight penalty for the extra power pack 65 kg. Five per cent of an already lardy car to accelerate. The numbers are still some way off working. Better than they were in 1899, but still some way off.

 

[Stratman]

Demand is a wonderful driver.

How long ago were mobile phones literally the size of briefcases? Now look at them, and look at their capabilities compared to then too.

 

[renault12ts]

On the subject of a 10 minute recharge, perhaps a modular battery unit that can be swapped in and out, standardised fitting, drive into a garage, battery is removed from the underneath of the car and replaced with a charged unit, pay for the energy contained, drive off, the removed battery unit is then recharged and put back in the system fro the next vehicle.

Considerable investment would be required for this type of infrastructure, and then there is the question of battery unit life, ie drive up in a new motor, swap battery and get one from a xx year old banger vehicle, the cost of units would need to be incorporated in the cost for the energy it contained.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg

 

[BTB 500]

If your car has instantaneous fuel consumption readout, take a look when you pull away from the lights or when you open the throttle just a bit. The electric motor rather than the fuel pump makes up the shortfall. Regenerative braking keeps it topped up instead of producing waste heat and dispensing brake dust particles into the atmosphere.

Regenerative braking can only partially recharge it - the rest must come from the engine burning petrol, eventually. And as mentioned the car is heavier to start with, which carries a penalty (compared to a lightweight & fuel efficient IC only car) every time you pull away.

I can see the benefit in reducing urban pollution when you are in slow stop/start traffic. But unless you're an inner city commuter I'm pretty sure you'd be better off in a lightweight modern car with an efficient engine - plenty of these do 80-90 mpg now.

 

[SW18]

I can see the benefit in reducing urban pollution when you are in slow stop/start traffic. But unless you're an inner city commuter I'm pretty sure you'd be better off in a lightweight modern car with an efficient engine - plenty of these do 80-90 mpg now.

I think this is correct: the hybrids only really beat the efficient TDi engines in heavy traffic. In the past I've driven my central London commute in both, and a Prius had better economy in really heavy traffic, but a Golf Bluemotion TDi was better in lighter flowing traffic. I guess the hybrid gets better the move stop-start you do, as the electric motor is then helping avoid those thirsty standing starts. 5,000 Uber drivers must have a reason for driving their Priuses, but perhaps they're in the heaviest traffic much of the time. For the rest of us, it really does depend on the driving mix we do.

Having said that, I'm only talking here about mpg; NOx pollution is another matter. Efficient TDis may be producing many times more NOx then a hybrid. I read that in a Which magazine trial they couldn't even get some VW TDis to achieve Euro I standards for NOx, in real world driving. I don't understand the details, but is there a trade-off between diesel efficiency and NOx production? Did the government push to lower CO2 output and the consequent dieselisation result in a rise in typical NOx production and thus got us into the current mess?

 

[grober]

Reducing NOx is achieved by reducing excess oxygen levels and temperature in the combustion chamber ----chiefly by the increased use of EGR [ exhaust gas recirculation] this reduces the thermal efficiency of the engine hence its mpg consumption and CO2 figure goes up. That's as I understand it? So yes there is a trade off. Governments can't be blamed for this entirely because they were assured by manufacturers that certain NOx levels could be achieved at the same time as a reduction in CO2 emissions--- they cheated-- or at the very least designed their engines to pass what turns out to be a very atypical laboratory type test knowing full well their cars could never achieve this in the real world. There are immense economic and political pressures at work here of course, meaning that successive governments were perhaps reluctant to look more closely at their testing regime, since entire economies dependent on motor manufacturing might be at stake, hoping that somehow a solution would be found. It is now becoming apparent [perhaps easy in hindsight] that Europe's decision to go diesel rather than the Japanese and USA petrol hybrid route was the wrong one ---and even that may go back historically to General De Gaulle and his "Force de frappe" nuclear programme which encouraged the widespread adoption of diesel engines in passenger cars.

 

[GeeJayW]

I think this is correct: the hybrids only really beat the efficient TDi engines in heavy traffic. In the past I've driven my central London commute in both, and a Prius had better economy in really heavy traffic, but a Golf Bluemotion TDi was better in lighter flowing traffic. I guess the hybrid gets better the move stop-start you do, as the electric motor is then helping avoid those thirsty standing starts. 5,000 Uber drivers must have a reason for driving their Priuses, but perhaps they're in the heaviest traffic much of the time. For the rest of us, it really does depend on the driving mix we do.

Having said that, I'm only talking here about mpg; NOx pollution is another matter. Efficient TDis may be producing many times more NOx then a hybrid. I read that in a Which magazine trial they couldn't even get some VW TDis to achieve Euro I standards for NOx, in real world driving. I don't understand the details, but is there a trade-off between diesel efficiency and NOx production? Did the government push to lower CO2 output and the consequent dieselisation result in a rise in typical NOx production and thus got us into the current mess?

Which!? and others keep banging on about cars not meeting emissions standards in real world driving.

What does that mean? There is no emissions standard for real world driving. As yet there is no agreed definition of what real world driving actually is or how the resulting emissions should be measured.

There are however emissions standards for vehicle emissions measured under internationally agreed controlled conditions in a laboratory. The vehicle manufacturers nominally produce vehicles that are able to pass these laboratory tests. At least one of them has done this in such a way as to effectively cheat by programming the car to recognise when it is being tested, whereupon it modifies the engine tuning and/or exhaust after treatment devices to be more effective for the duration of the test for a reduced emissions result. They do this because a) they think they can get away with it and b) it then appears that their vehicles can deliver low emissions AND give strong performance.

CO2 is recognised as a greenhouse gas, reducing the amount produced by road transport is an important policy. Diesel engines are more fuel efficient than gasoline engines (though the gap is closing), so emit less CO2.

Diesel and gasoline engines produce NOx.

Because gasoline engines operate with a near ideal (stoichiometric) air:fuel ratio most of the time, the exhaust gas chemistry allows the use of both oxidation and reduction catalyst technologies which are effective in breaking down HC, CO and NOx.

Diesel engines operate with excess air, otherwise they produce lots of particulate/smoke. This means that it has until recently only been possible to use an oxidation catalyst in a diesel which is of limited use as they don't make much HC and CO anyway. About ten years ago, the selective catalytic reduction method (AddBlue) was developed. It should IMHO have been made mandatory equipment on diesel then.

There is a trade off between engine efficiency and NOx. Making the engine more efficient tends to increase combustion temperature and pressure, which increases NOx (and reduces particulates in diesel). Higher fuel efficiency leads to lower CO2.

So yes, in my opinion the policy of steering manufacturers and motorists towards diesel technology as a means to reduce CO2 from road transport has resulted in increased NOx emissions.

However, there are also significantly more vehicles on the road today than there was twenty-years ago. Reducing the number of vehicles on city streets is a very effective tool for cutting road transport derived air pollution. Targeting/demonising diesel-engined vehicles is a simple way of getting about half the current fleet off the road. It also feeds the EV lobby.

Sorry for rambling on, this is a very complex issue with many contrasting interests and scientific/engineering, socio-economic conflicts.

 

[GeeJayW]

.... It is now becoming apparent [perhaps easy in hindsight] that Europe's decision to go diesel rather than the Japanese and USA petrol hybrid route was the wrong one ---and even that may go back historically to General De Gaulle and his "Force de frappe" nuclear programme which encouraged the widespread adoption of diesel engines in passenger cars.

The fuel supply and pricing structure in the US is rather different than it is in Europe. Ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) became widely available in Europe about twenty-years ago if I recall. This was not the case in the US. High quality ULSD or even ZSD is desirable/essential for modern diesel fuel injection systems, without which the relatively clean, strong performing diesel cars we see in Europe would not be possible. Also in the US, diesel is viewed as an industrial or commercial truck fuel. They also have very cheap gasoline, so are generally not interested in fuel economy initiatives.

IMHO, the Toyota Prius was produced by Toyota to show that it was possible to make a production hybrid car, which in turn opened up the market in California. They certainly helped to quieten down the nay sayers.

 

[grimree]

Just one question: I've heard that a long distance tesla battery will do 330 miles.
OK is that with the wipers going? or the aircon? or the heater? or the heated rear screen? - or ALL of them?

It may work in sunny California, but in the rainy UK in winter?

 

[grober]

When this was discussed before I linked to a Norwegian guy's YouTube blog who referenced changes in range driving in winter in Norway- wasn't that bad iirc.

HERE YOU GO

https://youtu.be/fsLMlozXjhk

[YOUTUBE HD]fsLMlozXjhk[/YOUTUBE HD]

 

[Tuercas viejas]

The fuel supply and pricing structure in the US is rather different than it is in Europe. Ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) became widely available in Europe about twenty-years ago if I recall. This was not the case in the US. High quality ULSD or even ZSD is desirable/essential for modern diesel fuel injection systems, without which the relatively clean, strong performing diesel cars we see in Europe would not be possible. Also in the US, diesel is viewed as an industrial or commercial truck fuel. They also have very cheap gasoline, so are generally not interested in fuel economy initiatives.

IMHO, the Toyota Prius was produced by Toyota to show that it was possible to make a production hybrid car, which in turn opened up the market in California. They certainly helped to quieten down the nay sayers.

This statement GeeJayW is a bit of a stretch.
There was an incentive to produce ULSD during the "Dubyah" Bush's Administration but it was shelved due to claims that the refining process would push up distilled diesel prices at the pumps. This was a political tactic by lobbyists representing the big oil refineries and the industry as a whole since they were unready to produce this level of refined product due to the cost of investments. The US trucking industry got on the shirt tails of the initiative to get the Republican Congress to act on a stall. This was reversed under the Obama Admin due to lobbying by the US diesel engine manufacturers who had to produce two types of diesel engines. By this time of course the oil industry had the breathing space to upgrade their refining plants .

As for the Prius!

This car emerged after the US Dept of Industry issued an edict in the 80's to produce a car that had a 50 mpg ICE target figure and electric power!
The auto industry as whole thumbed their noses at it with the exception of Toyota, who ran with the idea!
The car is a still a radical departure from the normal or conventional family car in its architecture. Using a unique design by Aisin for the transmission melding the ICE and two internal electric motors (MG1 & MG2) which by themselves are very advanced in industrial design when they emerged in 1997 as the Gen 1. .
Ford bought the rights to use this design in several of the their US based downsized SUV's and cars. They installed their own DC converter and transmission power control pack which you see as the suitcase sized box on top of a traditional Prius/Lexus Hybrid transmission.

As a side bar to compete Chevrolet /GMC/Chrysler in the 90's basically ripped out two speeds of their regular auto gearbox and installed an electric motor MG1.
The traction battery was again a Nickel Metal Hydride series wafer pack Panasonic, who were producing the Prius battery. It looked identical but is just larger delivering 300 v DC ,when the Gen1 was giving 287 v DC.
This is regarded these days as a bit old fashioned belt and braces way to quickly get a Hybrid power pack under the bonnet .
MB/ZF have continued to run with this architecture even today.

Chev' by the way is now producing the Volt and the Spark. This Spark is due out shortly. The latter model will be close to the 300 miles range anxiety barrier feared by many consumers using a LiI battery and two regular gel cell batteries under the bonnet for management purposes..
SOC of course is still a cause of concern since shut down or limp occurs when the traction batteries get depleted to these levels. The Volt of course has no direct connection the the driven wheels by the ICU. Its a engine generator design like more akin to a modern locomotive traction design
Tuercas Viejas
Toyota trained certified Hybrid tech (2010) and hybrid specialist .



,

 

[grober]

Interesting to hear about the Prius traction system a bit more. Hybrid technology has been largely ignored by motoring enthusiasts in Europe until recently, but now that the diesel engine is no longer seen as "the solution" by governments perhaps its time for us all to take a closer look at recent developments in hybrid and electric powertrains.

 

[GeeJayW]

Producing ULSD does increase the cost of refining as it typically requires a hydro-treating desulferisation plant to be included in the refinery train. There are additional issues about what to do with the sulfur, of which there are piles and piles. The hydro-treated diesel, then also needs lubricity additives to protect close tolerance fuel injection system components from damage. All of this adds to costs which have to recovered.

At the time Europe and the U.K. decided to adopt diesel technology as tool to manage road transport CO2 emissions, there was insufficient appetite in the USA for ULSD to produce and distribute it in a viable manner. You can say it was political lobbying by the oil companies, but the facts are that diesel passenger cars at that time made up a tiny proportion of the US car parc. If the oil companies could have made money out of ULSD, they would have been all over it! I don't know what the proportion of diesel to petrol in the US is at present, but I'd be surprised if it were anywhere near the 50/50 that it is over here. Perhaps you know?

One of the significant pushes for hybridisation was in order to move consumers away from vehicles with large capacity V8 petrol engines into smaller capacity V6 or I4 hybrids with equivalent performance. A subsequent trend has been towards down-sized boosted gasoline engines, that provide performance when required, low emissions under light load and lower overall vehicle weight. Hybrid technology really needs much better battery technology to match the advances that have been made in the ICe.

To be clear, I think Toyota have been torch bearers for hybrid technology, i.e. they have been leading the way by showing that hybridisation could be done. Their inclusion of an Atkinson cycle engine being only one of the innovations they effectively introduced

In my experience, drivers on the US still have a preference for gasoline engines and gasoline is still pretty cheap in the US compared to other countries. Your experience/knowledge may be different of course. Please continue to share your views, I enjoy the discussion.

You may consider my opinion(s) to be a stretch if you wish, after all it's a free world for the moment.

 

[tron]

How very pleasant to read an informed and considered debate on a subject with many facets and complications that has both remained on topic and not degenerated into a slanging match.

I do not see the future hybrid using a gas turbine. Noise and fuel consumption work against it, as does unit cost. I forsee the generator being a three cylinder diesel, displacing around 900CC.
(A similar Kubota, installed by the factory in three quarters of a British production car twenty years ago gave 140MPG and an unsafe 95 MPH.) Using today's engines, that MPG figure could be doubled and if we were not wedded to two tonne bloatships with the aerodynamic qualities of Stonehenge there would be very much greater economy both on the road and in the amount of materials that need to be dug up and processed with it's attendant pollution.
Fossil fuels win every time on the power to weight and volume criteria so the best generator driver will be the most frugal hydrocarbon fuelled engine. Ethanol is not the answer. When you work out how many Honda fifties you can feed per acre, you find it is a non starter. Hydrogen can be made of electricity or by dropping metal into acid.
Fuel cells have been around for ages but are not yet practical and the dustbin sized nuclear power plant, although eminently sensible frightens people like witchcraft.
So fossil fuel it must be, even if the power is transmitted electrically. Certainly the losses within the electronics ought to be fewer than those encountered in a gearbox and differential gear. I don't see motors in hubs, though. They would be vulnerable to damage and would adversely affect unsprung weight so they will be at the inboard ends of conventional driveshafts. That means two wheel drive in all probability. A monocoque vacuum moulded in a Kevlar reinforced vegetable based plastic with 3d printed wiring is eminently possible. For weight and economy of materials, particularly steel, one could look again at Hydrolastic to provide suspension. Pneumatic seats are another old idea that could save a lot of weight. If a viable alternative could be found to windscreen wipers, further weight could be saved as there are lighter materials than glass.

 

[GeeJayW]

SCR equipped diesel hybrid does indeed offer a really strong option for low carbon, low NOx personal transport. Unfortunately with the current focus on getting rid of diesels which in turn will impact on diesel demand and therefore a significant scaling back in production, I'm not sure anyone will go the diesel hybrid route. I agree on the gas turbine point too.

Moving the motors inboard would reduce the unsprung weight of the vehicle. This is always a good idea for ride and handling. Not so good for severe braking due to torsional forces in the driveshafts, so conventional brake discs at the hubs will probably prevail IMHO.

Good points on the use of vegetable based plastics. For sure as we reduce demand for fossil fuels, which will affect the way the oil industry functions (if it can continue at all), alternative sources for what are presently oil derived products will need to be developed. A significant difficulty will be finding quality lubricants. Prior to the oil industry, whaling was the principle source for lubricants. Don't want to go there again.

As for the debate, I agree it is good to be able to have a discussion without it all going handbags!

 

[tron]

Car companies have so much recent R&D spend tied up in diesels that they will be rehabilitated over the next ten years. The interest in electric cars will be largely confined to wealthier buyers for some time and there will be those who prefer what they know so I wouldn't write off the Diesel just yet.

 

[Tuercas viejas]

Interesting to hear about the Prius traction system a bit more. Hybrid technology has been largely ignored by motoring enthusiasts in Europe until recently, but now that the diesel engine is no longer seen as "the solution" by governments perhaps its time for us all to take a closer look at recent developments in hybrid and electric powertrains.

Graeme/Grober/Guys without getting too in depth, and believe me wading through the three Prius weekend courses I went on with Toyota that were very grueling to get the certification you can get too in depth on the system. For interest sake alone the course was held at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton Colorado. USA
https://www.arapahoe.edu/

I am sure most of you know what an epicyclic pack is?
Sun, Planets, Carrier and Annulus .

You might know that you can get 7 (seven) gear permutations from the simple single gear pack by holding one or more elements (gear pack) .
Since the ICE is directly connected to the transmission input via a flex plate it passes through the drive train supplanted by MG1. (motor generator #1)

MG1 is responsible for starting the engine instantly when commanded but moreover variably turning the single epicyclic train through the carrier. This gives infinitely variable gear ratios.
With the input of the ICE and the battery driven traction motor MG2 the engine and electrical power is combined to be delivered out through the transaxle arr' to the wheels .

So you might ask how does the unit meld all these inputs to give smooth power to the wheels.
Simplified, the engine and MG1 speed sensor gives off signal waves translated to speed /revolutions.
In the case of MG1 its a sine wave.
The traction motor output speed shaft gives off a cosine wave and both of these signals re- interpreted through what is known as a resolver circuit translator. These are sent to the transmission computer for interpretation and transmission (power unit control.)
To sum up basically very simple in theory but devilishly complicated to achieve in practice.
Basically bloody marvelous!!
Dennis
aka Tuercas Viejas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExdRL4pukZY

 

[Tuercas viejas]

Producing ULSD does increase the cost of refining as it typically requires a hydro-treating desulferisation plant to be included in the refinery train. There are additional issues about what to do with the sulfur, of which there are piles and piles. The hydro-treated diesel, then also needs lubricity additives to protect close tolerance fuel injection system components from damage. All of this adds to costs which have to recovered.

At the time Europe and the U.K. decided to adopt diesel technology as tool to manage road transport CO2 emissions, there was insufficient appetite in the USA for ULSD to produce and distribute it in a viable manner. You can say it was political lobbying by the oil companies, but the facts are that diesel passenger cars at that time made up a tiny proportion of the US car parc. If the oil companies could have made money out of ULSD, they would have been all over it! I don't know what the proportion of diesel to petrol in the US is at present, but I'd be surprised if it were anywhere near the 50/50 that it is over here. Perhaps you know?

One of the significant pushes for hybridisation was in order to move consumers away from vehicles with large capacity V8 petrol engines into smaller capacity V6 or I4 hybrids with equivalent performance. A subsequent trend has been towards down-sized boosted gasoline engines, that provide performance when required, low emissions under light load and lower overall vehicle weight. Hybrid technology really needs much better battery technology to match the advances that have been made in the ICe.

To be clear, I think Toyota have been torch bearers for hybrid technology, i.e. they have been leading the way by showing that hybridisation could be done. Their inclusion of an Atkinson cycle engine being only one of the innovations they effectively introduced

In my experience, drivers on the US still have a preference for gasoline engines and gasoline is still pretty cheap in the US compared to other countries. Your experience/knowledge may be different of course. Please continue to share your views, I enjoy the discussion.

You may consider my opinion(s) to be a stretch if you wish, after all it's a free world for the moment.

Yes gasoline ( petrol ) is much preferred for family cars. Its only in the higher light duty pickup truck and to some extent the van market, where there is some market penetration for diesel engines.

With all this stated, currently electric and hybrid cars are not selling well due to low gas pump prices. Car dealers are enjoying record sales of bigger cars and SUV's at the moment.
This is not to state that American consumers are not fuel consumption conscious, because on the contrary they are! Buying newer big SUV's with improved fuel consumption figures. (Ex 2017 Chev Suburban 15 city and 22 on a run. ) Believe it or not this rig was traditionally a gas hog with a 5.7 litre or 7.3 engine!

Currently gas at the pumps is about $2,17 per gallon (or about 4 litres)
ULSD is around $2.33 per gallon .
For info here is a list of taxes per state on fuel.
http://www.coloradogasprices.com/tax_info.aspx./

By the way on the introduction of ULSD I read a few days ago that Pemex was slated to start distributing ULSD as of mid 2015 which of course never happened. Now it would seem that Mexican diesel will not go ULSD before 2018.
Their excuse just like their northern neighbours the 1990's, citing the cost to upgrade the refineries to produce the fuel that would be reflected in the price at the pump.
As they say in Venezuela--es la misma vina! (Same crap different day !)
Tuercas viejas

 

[GeeJayW]

In the U.K. fuel at the pump costs about $1.5/litre or $6/US gallon, i.e. triple the cost of fuel in the US. This actually a fair bit cheaper than it was a few years ago when oil was pushing $150/barrel and pump prices here would have been pushing $8/US gallon. About 75% of the pump cost is made up of fuel duty, and value added tax. The U.K. Government also levy tax on every barrel of crude that comes ashore.

So in the US, due to the size of the country, the sensitivity on fuel consumption is I think typically more aligned to range than cost. In the U.K., being a small country, the sensitivity is the other way round.

Margins on fuel are tiny, so in order to make any kind of significant monies from fuel, there must be enough consumer demand to scale up supply. In the US, there was and still is not sufficient demand for ULSD to make it a viable product. Most people have no idea about the scale of the problem. To be viable, a decent sized crude distiller needs to process about 20,000 tonnes of crude per day, something that it does 7-days a week, every week between maintenance shutdowns. This works out to be about 20,000,000 litres of fuel per day, every day. Multiply this up by the number of refineries and the numbers are staggering. There has to be a reliable outlet for this volume of product. I don't know how much of the product stream is gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and I'm pretty sure it changes to suit demand, refinery configuration and source crude. Even if the ULSD stream was only 20%, that still a lot of fuel that needs to go somewhere.

The cost and energy efficiency of the crude production, transportation, various refinery and distribution processes rely on this scale of operation.

ULSD won't be made available where there aren't enough vehicles that need ULSD. Vehicles that need ULSD will not achieve market penetration where there is poor ULSD supply.

Classic circular problem, that is actually the same for EVs.:
Nobody will provide EV infrastructure where there aren't enough EVs. Nobody will buy an EV when there is insufficient infrastructure.

 

[whitenemesis]

Graeme/Grober/Guys without getting too in depth, and believe me wading through the three Prius weekend courses I went on with Toyota that were very grueling to get the certification you can get too in depth on the system. For interest sake alone the course was held at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton Colorado. USA
https://www.arapahoe.edu/

I am sure most of you know what an epicyclic pack is?
Sun, Planets, Carrier and Annulus .

You might know that you can get 7 (seven) gear permutations from the simple single gear pack by holding one or more elements (gear pack) .
Since the ICE is directly connected to the transmission input via a flex plate it passes through the drive train supplanted by MG1. (motor generator #1)

MG1 is responsible for starting the engine instantly when commanded but moreover variably turning the single epicyclic train through the carrier. This gives infinitely variable gear ratios.
With the input of the ICE and the battery driven traction motor MG2 the engine and electrical power is combined to be delivered out through the transaxle arr' to the wheels .

So you might ask how does the unit meld all these inputs to give smooth power to the wheels.
Simplified, the engine and MG1 speed sensor gives off signal waves translated to speed /revolutions.
In the case of MG1 its a sine wave.
The traction motor output speed shaft gives off a cosine wave and both of these signals re- interpreted through what is known as a resolver circuit translator. These are sent to the transmission computer for interpretation and transmission (power unit control.)
To sum up basically very simple in theory but devilishly complicated to achieve in practice.
Basically bloody marvelous!!
Dennis
aka Tuercas Viejas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExdRL4pukZY

For me, the stand out feature of my RC, putting aside it's stunning good looks, is the e-CVT transmission. As said, simple but devilishly clever in operation.