EV - buy or wait?

Good for him :sunglasses:

So minimum of £45-50,000 for the car and how much for the solar and power wall installation, maybe £7k for the powerwall alone, I can’t see many of us affording that any time soon :yum::laughing:

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He is a bit of a flash bugger, point was its doable and yes he hasnt told me what it cost but as an early adopter he would pay more just like the rich that bought the first motor cars. Costs for solar have come down a long way except maybe in France. Also France has stupid restrictions on how much solar and how much off the floor on the ground yawn, makes you think they are against micro generation.
Battery banks with lower costs are getting closer but not seen so many LFP versions yet still on the more expensive Li-ion but hopefully not long, dont forget he also heats his house and water with this lot.

Green shoots.
BBC News: Britishvolt: Electric car battery plant gets government funding.

Hope it’s not proposed to build it in a pork pie club rebel conservative constituency or the plan is scuppered.

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The Driven: First EVs with solid state batteries to be demonstrated in China.

The Independent: Battery breakthrough achieves energy density necessary for electric planes.

Yeah, about that.

The claim is 500Wh/kg

Aviation fuel has an energy density of ~ 45MJ/kg which is 12500Wh per kg

A 737-800 burns about 3200L/hr or about 2560 kg - total fuel capacity is 26020L. Range is quoted at 5765km or about 3600 miles (that this is less than flight time x cruse speed I assume is safety margin and achieving 100% of every rating impractical).

A typical short haul flight - say UK to Italy is about 2½ hours - so 5760 litres, 72MWh

You’d therefore need 144 tonnes of battery to hold that charge.

Fully laden a 737-800 is about 79 tonnes, of which 41 tonnes aircraft, 20 and a half tonnes payload and 26 tonnes fuel.

Nice try @Corona but I don’t think we’ll see even short haul commercial electric powered flights any time soon.

I guess that energy density might get something Cesna sized airborne for a long enough flight to be practical in some circumstances

Anyone care to run the numbers?

PS 500Wh/kg is entertaining if shorted - batteries like this turn into bombs at the slightest provocation, increasing the energy density 25 fold is a) unlikely to happen and b) if possible would have an even worse temperament if anything went wrong.

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Knowing the average timescale to develop and get an airworthiness certificate would be maybe 15-20 years, I doubt it will happen anytime soon.

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I have always considered how incredibly dangerous a shorted battery of significant size could be. Aviation fuel is very safe for the amount of energy it contains.

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Benz Patent Motor Car: The first automobile (1885–1886) | Daimler.

Just to remember how good the first car was.
Development is moving at a pace one step at a time, each step getting us nearer.

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Guy Martin did a show on channel 4 recently trying to break a electric car speed record, he drove an electric car on a road trip spent most of the time worrying about running out of power most of the places he stopped to recharge the chargers didn’t work and to recharge on one of the new fast chargers cost £70, no thanks i will stick with my diesel

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It was sadly very biased, incorrect and sensationalist.

I had a lot more respect for him before that film, now I know he’ll just do anything for money.

We covered that video earlir in this thread.
Do you really believe anyone would buy an ev if that was a true picture of ownership? If he made a totally un remarkable journey would that be in the slightes bit interesting, I wonder which petrochemical company sponsored it?

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For once I agree with Corona - Guy rightly came in for quite a bit of stick following that video.

I broadly agree with the above as well, but the state of the art re: EV batteries is not at the equivalent point - a lot of engineering, backed by materials science that Daimler could not even have dreamt of has gone into the problem.

Debate exists as to the maximum energy density of battery systems - Li/CuCl2 is about 1166Wh/kg, LiO2 could in principle match that of gasoline at about 40MJ/kg if an external oxygen source is used but these battery systems are not currently practical and whether they will ever reach a state where you could put them in a plane is debatable.

Not to say that a 500Wh/kg battery is worthless -it would be excellent in a car, for example.

And, of course, we actually do have practical electric planes - usually solar powered and used for research purposes (or maybe spying) but their payloads are measured in small numbers of kg.

Note that we only really differ in our estimates of pace of development - Corona is extremely optimistic, I think we’ll get there but not as quickly as he does.

I’m pretty convinced we won’t be seeing the 737-E any time soon :slight_smile:

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Agreed, I doubt a lot of us will see worldwide implementation of all the infastructure needed and currently replacement of current capacity passenger planes is a pipe dream at the moment.
While we desperately need to change for the planets sake, government’s while talking the talk are not and don’t seem willing to walk the walk putting up the money to put the infrastructure in place and without that, all their words are just total bollocks.

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Can you add your signature? :writing_hand:

Already did.

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The current 800v high speed charging ev’s seem to pretty much negate the need for a massive battery or massive charge density for most people.
The Kia, Hyundai, porche, Audi and probably others to charge v quickly subject to sufficient high power charges being available and those are increasing at a decent rate but we need more. That just covers the long runs which when we are honest are not that common. Approximately 35miles per day is the average journey in the UK so most only need to charge once per week in a huge number of cases.

35 miles won’t be the average distance in France though :wink:

Yep, when I go out shopping probably local supermarkets etc that would be it. When off the some others like pool shops, specialist brico’s double that but I dont do that very often. Its interesting to set the trip meter and take a note.

CleanTechnica: $200 Million Says Solid-State Batteries Will Soon Crack Gasmobile Death Grip.