Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[strad]

Since the average driver logs 13,476 miles each year, that means that in total, Americans drive more than 2.5 trillion miles annually.

[FW17]

and ...
FW17's figure of 160W-hr/km - up to what speed does that apply to electric cars ? (even with matching power capability)

Took the hyundai ioniq figure from a 1000km test

[Andres125sx]

Since the average driver logs 13,476 miles each year, that means that in total, Americans drive more than 2.5 trillion miles annually.

So an average of 37miles / 60km a day

That can be covered even with the small battery of many hybrids

So that maths some were calculating on previous page with 100kWh a day charges were much more than simply absurd, 15kWh will be more accurate, reducing those demands with a 6x-7x factor

[3jawchuck]

Since the average driver logs 13,476 miles each year, that means that in total, Americans drive more than 2.5 trillion miles annually.

Is that all drivers or just car drivers?

[strad]

So an average of 37miles / 60km a day

I'd say that number seems about right. But I think people wonder about those three or four times a year when they want to go to grandma's house 300 miles away. I believe people worry about the unforeseen and unknown.
IF somehow they got put in one for a few months most would be won over, IF it was easily and cheaply recharged.

[Andres125sx]

So an average of 37miles / 60km a day

I'd say that number seems about right. But I think people wonder about those three or four times a year when they want to go to grandma's house 300 miles away. I believe people worry about the unforeseen and unknown.
IF somehow they got put in one for a few months most would be won over, IF it was easily and cheaply recharged.

Agree, but at least in my case the main factor stopping me from going electric is purchase price, way too high

Hopefully Nikola announcement is true and we´ll see higher range and more affordable batteries and EVs soon

[djos]

I'd say that number seems about right. But I think people wonder about those three or four times a year when they want to go to grandma's house 300 miles away. I believe people worry about the unforeseen and unknown.
IF somehow they got put in one for a few months most would be won over, IF it was easily and cheaply recharged.

An EV would be perfect for my use case, I drive 40km's round trip to work and home each day and maybe a couple of 100-150km round trips on the weekend. The only thing that stopped me from buying one earlier this year was the price. I did the TCO numbers and they just didn't add up for me (which sucked as I'd love one). We have a 2 car garage so charging one at home each night would be a non-issue.

My wife drives our 7 seat SUV around with the kids and all their mates and this is also our family car for road trips. We do 2-3 Interstate drives (800-900km each way) a year and the infrastructure to support charging an EV in country Australia is currently non-existent.

If BEV's got within 10-15k AUD of their ICE-powered equivalents, and there was decent charging infra in country Australia, buying an EV for our main family car would also be a no-brainer and would save me a ton of money in Petrol. ATM my wife spends ~$90 a fortnight on Petrol and I spend around $70.

[theblackangus]

So that maths some were calculating on previous page with 100kWh a day charges were much more than simply absurd, 15kWh will be more accurate, reducing those demands with a 6x-7x factor

I just used the w/m number that was being used in the conversation previously, my bad for not fact checking that =)
Lets put down some items for this we can all agree on (preferable with some sources those numbers are from).

Things we need to know:
Watts per mile driven
I think we should find some numbers for this for the Tesla Model 3? Do we feel that would be a good starting point?

Average miles per day/year driven for the whole world population?
This should be world wide if possible to blend in all the different driving habits of different countries

Number of cars sold per year world wide
Cost per installed watt of solar renewable
Cost per installed watt of wind renewable
Cost per installed watt of nuclear

Then we can put together numbers like:
If all cars sold today were electric how much power would those use per year?
If all cars today were electric how much power would be needed?
Based on predicted cars sales for the next 20 years how much power would be needed?
For the above categories how much would it cost to cover that power need in renewable/nuclear?

How does this sound for a starting point?
Any other metrics people would like to see calculated?

[Brake Horse Power]

There are estimated to be around a billion cars in the world, if we take let's say 35mile a day average which is in line I think with US average that's 35 billion mile or 56billion km a day or 20.440 billion km per year. An average BEV consumes 20kWh / 100km, infrastructure efficiency 75% makes 0,266 kWh /km.

Totals
5.449.304.000.000 kWh
5.449.304.000 MWh
5.449.304 GWh
5.449 TWh

Coal powered electricity generation topped 10.100 TWh last year. It will probably decline 300 TWh this year

[Xwang]

Does any electric car use (or is going to use) lithium-iron-phosphate batteries? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_i ... te_battery)

[Brake Horse Power]

Not that I am aware of, a lot of conversion shops for heavy machinery use Iron Phosfate because of the higher thermal runaway temperature. I know the Nissan leaf uses NMC Nickle Manganese Cobalt batteries, the Tesla chemistry can also be found online.

[subcritical71]

There are estimated to be around a billion cars in the world, if we take let's say 35mile a day average which is in line I think with US average that's 35 billion mile or 56billion km a day or 20.440 billion km per year. An average BEV consumes 20kWh / 100km, infrastructure efficiency 75% makes 0,266 kWh /km.

Totals
5.449.304.000.000 kWh
5.449.304.000 MWh
5.449.304 GWh
5.449 TWh

Coal powered electricity generation topped 10.100 TWh last year. It will probably decline 300 TWh this year

I think looking at only the increase in electricity demands without looking at the decrease in the demand due to elimating the ICE engines doesn't show the whole picture. Its been estimated that 1 US Gal of petrol takes 8.4kWh to manufacture and transport ("well to tank"). Of course there are going to be lots of opinions on what the actual value is. I used 22 MPG based on a 2017 study of average fuel economy of 264million US cars.

So you will need to subtract these demands to get the overall picture.

So 35 Billion miles, 8.4 kWh, 22 MPG;

Removed energy demands;
4.877.727.272.727 kWh
4.877.727.272 MWh
4.877.727 GWh
4.877 TWh

New totals;
571,576,727,272 kWh
571,576,727 MWh
571,576 GWh
571 TWh

So then it becomes over how many years does this 571 TWh capacity need to increase. The world adds more then this every year so I don't see this being an issue.

The EIA (https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf) has also already taken the conversion to EV into account in their long term forecasts and says this;

Energy use per passenger-mile of travel in light-duty vehicles declines nearly 40% between 2018 and
2050 as newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles enter the market, including both more efficient conventional
gasoline vehicles and highly efficient alternatives such as battery electric vehicles. Light-duty vehicle
energy efficiencies are affected by current federal fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards.

So that also throws the 'energy cost', both the demands and removals, into muddy waters. They are also a bit more pessimistic in their outlook... ICE engines still making up 75% of the automobile mix in 2050.

[nzjrs]

The EIA (https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf) has also already taken the conversion to EV into account in their long term forecasts and says this ...

Great document thanks a lot

[Greg Locock]

Somebody worked out that if Victoria, Australia, went fully EV we'd need an additional 10 GW 24h a day to charge them. That's several large power stations, or if you prefer, 60 kW of solar panels per household, ie 12 times the typical installation. +storage+it won't work in winter.

[djos]

Somebody worked out that if Victoria, Australia, went fully EV we'd need an additional 10 GW 24h a day to charge them. That's several large power stations, or if you prefer, 60 kW of solar panels per household, ie 12 times the typical installation. +storage+it won't work in winter.

Do you have a link to that analysis?

EDIT: Based on a rational estimate of 5 kWh per vehicle per day (BEV's owners will top up overnight, not refill weekly like Petrol cars). This is using the well-established stat that the average vehicle travels less than 40 kilometers per day and most electric vehicles can cover between 80-100 kilometers on 10 kWh’s.

So Multiply 5 kWh by 4.5 Million and you get 22.5 MWh's of additional power or an extra 1 MW of continuous supply over each 24hr period - that's very different from an extra 10GW of continuous supply!

Frankly, some ppl need to go back to school and learn how to perform analysis in a rational manner!