My latest EV project

Author	Message
galderdi Regular Member Joined: 12/08/2016 Location: Australia Posts: 99	Posted: 03:36am 24 Feb 2022         Davo99 said     galderdi said   Yes there is a lot of talk about increasing capacity. But I think the better direction is to make batteries easier to charge in a short timeframe. Charging more frequently (say every 500km or so) would generally be acceptable if it could be done in a few minutes. That is a good point. If the recharge time could be made similar to that of refueling and IC car, that would be a big hurdle overcome for a lot of buyers. I regularly go Visit my Dad. about 400Km/ 4 hours. I often have dinner with him and am back home by mid night. An extra hour for charging would not be viable for me to do that. If I could stop half way or so as I often do for a Pit stop and a coffee and recharged in 10 Min, that would be fine.  May take some significant cooling to allow the energy transfer that quick though. Some of the EVs (such as Tesla) are able to charge to 80% in about 20 minutes. The last 20% is much slower on any battery. So I would expect the 10 minute goal will be realistic soon. However there is still an added challenge. The faster you charge (or discharge) the shorter the life of your battery. Not such a concern for the usecase like the one you describe if it is only every few months. But its a different story for those doing consistently higher distances. So I think there will continue to be usecases for hybrid or hydrogen solutions for the foreseeable future. I think we will see EV Trucks for short to medium haul but I don't see it being viable just yet for long haul in a place like Australia. I have said this before and got a wave of abuse.  Specifically I was saying that I would not expect 100% EV uptake in Australia for the next 10 years. I would bet money we will not achieve 100% EV sales in Australia within 10 years if commercial vehicles are included in the statistic. This doesn't mean I am against it, I just don't think it is a realistic expectation. Another interesting thought. Think about the rise of Uber. Now think about why we own a specific vehicle... We choose a vehicle that has the best compromise across our range of requirements.....commute to work, towing, spirited driving through the hills, travel to family, 4x4 on the beach etc etc. Mostly we can't afford to buy a specialist vehicle for each usecase and vehicle wear and tear is a blocker for sharing vehicles. Who would want to share a combustion vehicle with an unknown person. There are so many components that can be significantly impacted by abuse which can't be superficially detected. Yes there is still risk wish sharing an EV but the components that could suffer from abuse are greatly reduced. The normal maintenance costs will also drop. So I predict rental services and services to emerge/expand/evolve offering vehicle sharing. For example I purchase a small EV for commuting to work 220 days per year plus the same EV for 50 trips to the shops per year. But then I take a share vehicle with greater range for a road trip 4 times a year. Plus for now I can still hire a combustion 4x4 to drive for long distances in areas where charges may not exist.