LF: Winter and EVs

Winter – and cold weather – is just a few months away and that means more than just cold and probably snow.

It also means power outages.

Sometimes, these last for several days. Last year, for example, an ice storm in my area took down many trees and with them several power lines. The juice was off for almost a week.

How does one recharge an electric car in this scenario?

The answer, of course, is that one doesn’t. Not unless one has a whole-house back-up generator that produces the 200 amp service necessary to power the “fast” charger. Most people don’t have that kind of back-up power, because it’s expensive. The typical install is about $5,000 for the generator and supply/hook-up to natural gas, propane or diesel (which will produce “emissions” while charging up the “zero emissions” EV).

Fold this cost into the cost of your EV.

A smaller, more affordable portable generator – the kind most people who have to deal with power outages usually do have – costs less (about $600 for a 5,000 watt unit that will run a few 120v circuits and so keep the lights on and the fridge working) but doesn’t produce enough power to run an EV “fast” charger. If you need a charge, it’ll be slow.

Hours.

This could be inconvenient if you need to get someplace now. Or even soon.

Maybe tomorrow?

Just another example of the pending problems people will be experiencing once EVs are shucked-and-jived (and subsidized) into their garages.

Contrast this scenario of hassle and expense with the minor inconvenience of a power outage when your car is liquid-powered. Unless the tank is empty, you can go right now – no waiting, no hooking up to a gennie. And if it’s empty, all you need is a jug. Most gas stations have their own back-up power and the pumps will be on. Go get a gallon and you’re good to go.

It’s not just ice storms, either. There is a hurricane – the androgynous Dorian – bearing down on the east coast of the U.S. If it is strong enough and bad enough when it hits, the power will likely go off in many places. People will be wanting to flee those places, too – because in addition to the power going off, the water may be coming in. That means lots of people on the road all at once. Running out of power before you can get out of dodge is another problem EV People will be dealing with.

Which brings up a seemingly reasonable question:

Why bother?

Why accept all these hassles and expenses?

Isn’t it astonishing how eager people are to exchange something that works better (and for cheaper) for something that doesn’t and isn’t?

And they ask my why I drink . . .

Let's not forget that cold kills batteries,and once one has frozen it will never again hold a charge.

I did a search for info and the single best summary I saw was a single comment on a forum: "The data I've seen says to expect between a 10% and 40% degredation if you freeze a fully-charged lithium battery then bring it back to normal operating temps (room temp). However, the same articles say any permanent damage is slight (1-3%). Just make sure you charge it, and use it, when it's at room temperature!".

Source https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/effect-of-freezing-on-lithium-ion-batteries.345524/

For the more high-end lithium batteries, they can operate at -50C through -80C apparently, with little degradation. It does seem they need to be at least above 0C to be charged effectively.

There's less data on this than you would expect. Apparently, the manufacturers are not very forthcoming with that info.

In most of North America, you have a bigger problem with EVs when you start to include the energy cost of air conditioning a car in summer (bad) or heating a car in winter (extremely bad). So if you want to cruise around with a climate-controlled vehicle, the EV's range may be cut in half from its already paltry range numbers. So your Muskmobile may have a range of 300 miles in spring or fall on nice days. But only 200 miles in summer with A/C on. Or 150 miles in winter with heat on.

Of course, you could just be a sweaty hippy in the summer running around in shorts and tanktop and flipflops so you can keep your range up. Or you can bundle up like Nanook of the north country in winter, just so you can bear to use your Muskmobile when it's cold outside. You'd be surprised how many people discovered this harsh reality only after they actually bought one of the vehicles and found themselves to be very unhappy in very hot or very cold weather.

I don't see why they even produce EVs for North America. Their use just isn't very compatible with the climate in at least 40 states, probably more.

Hybrid vehicles do solve these problems but they are more mechanically complex. So do fuel cell vehicles which solve some of the complexity issues but require the change to hydrogen fuel and the infrastructure and distribution issues.

Hybrids are the answer if you want less pollution. Even the puny hybrid battery systems put in the modern Toyota RAV4 and similar vehicles. The 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, for instance, has a battery only large enough to power the car in EV mode for 0.6 miles, like tooling around a mall parking lot. Then the engine has to engage. However, the RAV4 hybrid is 38mpg or better, city or highway, a decent improvement for a vehicle of its class over a standard gas engine. And the hybrid is considered a better driving experience overall by car mag experts than the gas RAV4s. Driving dynamics are just better for the hybrids and they uniformly recommend the hybrid models. In the most popular trim packages, the hybrid version costs only about $800 more than the gas version.

People wonder how a hybrid with such limited battery capacity can save that much fuel: it's the start-and-stop driving and the hills. The most energy is required by your vehicle is just to push the mass of air aside for your vehicle to slide through it. The next most intense use is the energy your vehicle uses to propel itself. And generally in third place, you have start-stop driving in traffic and the impact of hills and the impact of heating/AC on economy.

It is the start-stop driving and the hills where a hybrid or EV can recover some of its mojo because they can generate power from braking to recharge their battery so that, after the stop sign or stoplight or after that sharp curve in the road, you can apply the energy you recovered from braking and use it to accelerate back to your desired speed. The gas engine vehicles have no energy recovery at all.

When it comes to hybrid vs. EV, hybrid does win easily. If you get a hybrid with a large enough battery pack, it may not have quite the mpg but you can drive it like gasoline vehicle. It may be peppier in many measures, like using a hybrid RAV4 hybrid to accelerate against an identical gas-powered RAV4 at a stoplight and the hybrid RAV4 leaves the gas RAV4 in the dust (despite the hybrid RAV4 weighing a little more).

Vic is probably smarter than the rest of us. He's our only hybrid driver here and I think his Prius has saved him a lot of money, money he'll use to pay for a daughter's sports and college and for Vic's retirement. And he's determined to drive that Prius into the ground before he gets another. Classic male thinking and you can't argue with it in terms of economics. Vic isn't keeping up with the Jones's, he's keeping up with the costs of college and retirement.

And Willie loves the efficiency of those trains but I don't think he even has a hybrid or an EV.

I have been shopping for a gently used hybrid, garaged and driven only by a fundamentalist Christian lady once a week to teach Sunday school or play the piano for worship services and one or two trips a month to shop for groceries and dry goods. I just haven't found a hybrid like that yet. Vic would tell me, I'm sure, to just buy it new and get the full warranty and drive it into the ground. And that is probably the best advice if you're going to drive a hybrid.

I've also shopped for diesel vehicles but they just don't offer enough choices and I can't find ones that I like. Detroit seems determined to make diesel vehicles far more unappealing to consumers than they should be. In diesel, you can buy some honker engine with serious horsepower in the big pickups (very pricey but you'll get 300,000 miles from them) or you can buy an SUV with a diesel engine that is the size of a lawn mower engine that feels quite underpowered but that can get good MPGs on fairly flat highways but it isn't fun to drive in stop-and-go traffic. You're a loser at every stoplight you encounter as even the rice rockets leave you in the dust. With some of these micro-diesels, turbocharged as they might be, even Vic in his hybrid Prius could kick sand in their faces accelerating away from a stoplight, especially if Vic has a nearly-full charge on his battery pack.

The North American consumer is fucking broke and no longer commands what the market will build... Production economies of scale dictate that northern drivers drive the same cheap crap that they use in the Third World tropics...

We're not there yet, of course... but headed in that direction... The same climate change (whatever the cause) that's melting the polar ice caps and Greenland's glaciers will make EVs more viable in northern latititudes. Millenials aren't buying (can't afford) cars and are more likely to use 5G driverless Uber/Lyfts or the eScooters that are popping up in our cities...

The Dodge RAM V-8 pickup will still be around a few more decades for the rednecks who can afford 'em... but Trump ain't gonna save them, the handwriting is on the wall...

I was just shopping for good deals on the 2014-2015 RAMs. Not a big Dodge fan but these were low mileage and had good maintenance records and the prices were pretty damned good compared to most of the rest of the newer SUVs and other pickups. Just a Ford emblem on a vehicle seems to add about $5K to the price. And it just is not that much better than the Dodge.

I like the navy blue version but prefer the pearl blue, a very bold color for me to choose.

I know, mpg is 17/23 which means some pain at the pump. But a lot of SUVs do no better. That truck is prettier than almost any SUV and it will have a higher resale value in 5 years and will be a little cheaper to insure than an SUV.