An EV and a Slurpee

[Malo83]

Yeah, if you are low and wanna full charge. A Tesla will route you based on supercharger location, open chargers, your state of charge, etc. You don't have to charge to full; you charge to destination. Are these cars as good for long range driving? Not as good as a Honda Civic for sure.

If I were driving to from home (Silicon Valley) to LA or San Diego, I would leave home fully charged and stop at the Kettleman 24H Tesla Customer Lounge, where there are 40 Superchargers, restaurants, bathrooms, etc. Charge up and then finish the trip.
I think there are 25,000 Supercharger Locations and growing every day.
Kettleman Supercharger.

Stop at Harris Ranch and have a steak dinner while waiting for a charge, new 100 stall Supercharger stations in the near future.

Tesla’s new giant Supercharger with 100 stalls confirmed for Harris Ranch

A Tesla Supercharger with 100 stalls has been confirmed for Harris Ranch, CA, one of the company’s most historic charging locations. With over 100 stalls on the site, the Harris Ranch Supercharger is on track to become the world’s largest Tesla charging station to date. The Harris Ranch...

www.teslarati.com

 

[JTK]

Yes and no.

If you are charging past 80% sure, but thats not how to get somewhere in an EV

The fastest way to travel in an EV is to charge from 10% or so to 80%, which takes 20-30 min in a variety of EV's.

A 20-30 min stop gets everyone a bathroom break a snack/drink and a few min to catch up on emails.

That sounds a lot more user friendly and I'm sure it varies, but how many miles will that 10 to 80% charge get you if you were on a road trip.

 

[UncleDave]

That sounds a lot more user friendly and I'm sure it varies, but how many miles will that 10 to 80% charge get you if you were on a road trip.

"About" 2 and a half hours worth of driving at 70 about 175 miles.

IF you have a trip you normally take I can plan out a route for you and show you how it would go stop and timing wise.

 

[PandaBear]

That sounds a lot more user friendly and I'm sure it varies, but how many miles will that 10 to 80% charge get you if you were on a road trip.

70% of range for 20-30 mins vs 90% of range for 2-3 hours? I'd do 70% of range every 20 mins of charge instead, every single time.

 

[JTK]

"About" 2 and a half hours worth of driving at 70 about 175 miles.

IF you have a trip you normally take I can plan out a route for you and show you how it would go stop and timing wise.

That's not horrible. You just have to readjust your attitude and expectations I suppose. At present, with an EV, you're not going to be able to hammer out 400-500 miles between fuel stops like you can with ICE. Also have to slow down and not do 80+ in a 70mph zone.

 

[Rmay635703]

Am I wrong in my assumption that a large % (not all) of the electric needed to charge EVs comes from fossil fuels?
Perhaps another look at nuclear powered electric generation is in order. Careful though. History shows us that we have yet to
perfect and protect against the perilous outcomes of flirting with radiation.

EVs in most of the US make less Pollution than a 60mpg gas car


Bill Gates is pushing for 100% MSR Baseload power,

so yeah our 30 years of complaints are heard, no idea when the pieces and benchmarks will stop

 

[UncleDave]

That's not horrible. You just have to readjust your attitude and expectations I suppose. At present, with an EV, you're not going to be able to hammer out 400-500 miles between fuel stops like you can with ICE. Also have to slow down and not do 80+ in a 70mph zone.

It works pretty well if you make a food stop at least once per day.

My standard Nor cal to So cal trip is about 463 miles- Its about the same as my time in my regular cars I make one more quick stop than I would otherwise, and if I skip the sit down lunch I can beat the ICE time with an EV.

Ive driven old school big block vehicles that require more fueling stops.

 

[Cujet]

"About" 2 and a half hours worth of driving at 70 about 175 miles.

IF you have a trip you normally take I can plan out a route for you and show you how it would go stop and timing wise.

JTK: but how many miles will that 10 to 80% charge get you if you were on a road trip?

I do a 1325 mile trip from Jupiter, FL to Milford, PA on a regular basis I95-I26-I77-I81-I84. I can sit for hours in any one of the 3 F150's I drive. The best one goes 650 miles before I need to look for a gas station, the worst one 465 miles. At which time I eat something quick and get back on the road. Only 2 stops for any of the trucks.

A Tesla adds 9 hours to the trip.

It's not just a matter of the multiple stops, it's the slower speeds the EV's travel. I typically go 90.

 

[Cujet]

EVs in most of the US make less Pollution than a 60mpg gas car

That may not be as true as we are led to believe. Nearly all publications use the car's KWH per mile display as an "energy consumed" number. This completely ignores grid losses, charger losses, battery charge losses, battery discharge losses and more.

A very efficient Honda EU7000 generator will provide 12 fast highway miles and 19 city miles per gallon of gasoline consumed while charging the Tesla. Improve that number by 50-60% to account for more efficient electrical power plants and you still have an energy hog.

 

[UncleDave]

JTK: but how many miles will that 10 to 80% charge get you if you were on a road trip?

I do a 1325 mile trip from Jupiter, FL to Milford, PA on a regular basis I95-I26-I77-I81-I84. I can sit for hours in any one of the 3 F150's I drive. The best one goes 650 miles before I need to look for a gas station, the worst one 465 miles. At which time I eat something quick and get back on the road. Only 2 stops for any of the trucks.

A Tesla adds 9 hours to the trip.

It's not just a matter of the multiple stops, it's the slower speeds the EV's travel. I typically go 90.

My bladder is typically the gating factor on when I need to stop- not the tank.

In an ice car if Im going to stop I stop at a fuel stop vs a rest stop and fill up - so the stops are about the same frequency for me.

I totally get no sit down lunch no stopping driving though - I just dont do it as I dont need to.

I dont go 90 in Cali, but 75-80. Too many gendarmes and traffic on the route and too many trucks going 55-65.

Calis 55 towing limit creates a dangerous differential on a 2 lane highway with a huge delta that leads to lots of rear endings and cater pillaring does to sometimes a full stop.

Arizona nevada sure Ill sail along at 90.

 

[Rmay635703]

That may not be as true as we are led to believe. Nearly all publications use the car's KWH per mile display as an "energy consumed" number. This completely ignores grid losses, charger losses, battery charge losses, battery discharge losses and more.

A very efficient Honda EU7000 generator will provide 12 fast highway miles and 19 city miles per gallon of gasoline consumed while charging the Tesla. Improve that number by 50-60% to account for more efficient electrical power plants and you still have an energy hog.

The EU7000 is efficient compared to a 2 cycle lawnboy but even a simple diesel is over double the efficiency of the Honda at all load points let alone comparing to a actual power plant that is optimized.

Slow-Turning 5 kW Yanmar Diesel Generator

My father used the above genset on a hitch mount to motivate a miles zx40 with dead batteries to a tad north of 80mpg.
True he ran directly off the generator series style but the losses on a proper EV aren’t as bad

In the case of my Volt (a series hybrid) the results all summer long of my twice weekly long trip are below,
yes I do actually measure my power consumption from the wall which is usually dead nuts on 12kwhr during the summer

72 miles / 12 kwhr = 6 miles per kwhr off the wall, even with WisConSins piss poor infrastructure that is still better than atypical Prius (I actually had a dbag calculate it into pollution in grams per mile once and I was still better than expected)

 

[Cujet]

The EU7000 is efficient compared to a 2 cycle lawnboy but even a simple diesel is over double the efficiency of the Honda at all load points let alone comparing to a actual power plant that is optimized.

Not entirely true. Diesel generators are generally more thermally efficient. But diesel fuel contains far more BTU per gallon. Leading people to say things like "twice as efficient". That's just not so. When we look at BSFC numbers of various engines, today's hybrids (and the Camry) are 41 and 40% respectively. The BEST on road diesels are 44%. Large ship diesels can top 50%, but they have pistons the size of garbage cans, which leads to lower piston ring swept area and lower thermal losses.

The bottom line is that today, larger diesel engines achieve a peak BSFC of 193 grams of fuel per KWH and (our best Atkinson cycle) gasoline engines 205 (or even less)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Brake_specific_fuel_consumption.svg/435px-Brake_specific_fuel_consumption.svg.png

One cannot run an efficient engine, turn a generator, transform that power, transmit that power over a distance, transform that power again, convert that power to DC, put the charge in a battery, pull the charge out of the battery, convert that power back to AC, run a motor and drive wheels, and expect any form of superb efficiency. Period, end of story.

All this does not mean EV's suck, it means that one needs to take a very careful look at the agenda behind today's efficiency claims. I claim that today's often quoted studies have significant flaws.

Bottom line: A Tesla will travel 15-19 highway miles on 10 pounds of coal. Even less if they go 90.
A Nissan Altima will go 36 miles on one gallon on the highway, at 90.
Tell me again who pollutes more?

 

[NYEngineer]

I have a question because I have never had an electric car and don't know anyone who owns one. Do you pay for the electricity at these charging stations? I ask because I've seen some that are free and wonder how WE are being tricked into paying for other people's fuel.

 

[supton]

Bottom line: A Tesla will travel 15-19 highway miles on 10 pounds of coal. Even less if they go 90.
A Nissan Altima will go 36 miles on one gallon on the highway, at 90.
Tell me again who pollutes more?

Link to coal.

For example, coal with a carbon content of 78 percent and a heating value of 14,000 Btu per pound emits about 204.3 pounds of carbon dioxide per million Btu when completely burned.(5) Complete combustion of 1 short ton (2,000 pounds) of this coal will generate about 5,720 pounds (2.86 short tons) of carbon dioxide.

Working through the math, 1e6 Btu's of coal heat requires about 71.42lb of coal, which works out to 2.86lb CO2 per pound of coal, or 2,297gm CO2 per pound of coal. 10 pounds of coal would thus be 22,970 grams of CO2 versus the 8,788 grams CO2 for a gallon of gasoline.

As a check, this link indicates that a it takes 1.13 pounds of coal to make a kWhr. Ignoring transmission line and charging losses, it would appear that 10 pound of coal would make 8.85kWhrs. 15 to 19 miles divided into 8.85kWhrs is 0.59 to 0.47 kWhr/mile. Round up 10 to 20% if transmission line and charging losses are added in?

 

[Cujet]

I have a question because I have never had an electric car and don't know anyone who owns one. Do you pay for the electricity at these charging stations? I ask because I've seen some that are free and wonder how WE are being tricked into paying for other people's fuel.

Charging is not free (except for early Tesla owners). Tesla charges around 30 cents per KWH, +/- a few cents. Electrify America costs 43 cents for guests and 31 cents for members.

Pricing and Plans for EV Charging | Electrify America

Electrify America aims to keep prices low while providing more electric vehicle chargers, with faster speeds, in better locations across the U.S. Learn about our pricing.

www.electrifyamerica.com

Also, keep in mind my point from my post above. The dashboard display with regard to "watt hours per mile" is NOT how much power is purchased. It ignores a stack of losses.

Bottom line, a Tesla highway trip will cost the same as a 30mpg car at $3 per gallon, as long as the Tesla driver stays at 70-75 mph (impossible around here). When speeds climb, the EV costs climb faster than efficient gas vehicles.

Put another way, a Nissan Altima returns 36mpg at 90. At $3 per gallon, the Altima is 20% cheaper per mile at 90mph than a Tesla is at 75.

 

[CKN]

I'm slow on the draw with E-car knowledge, but a quick google suggests that even at 440VAC, most electric vehicles take well over an hour to charge. The time gets exponentially longer at 240v and 120v. How would these electric 'gas pumps' even work with those lengths of time?

Most e-vehicle owners "top-off" instead of waiting to be empty. So many time it's 30 minutes, still longer than filing up a vehicle with gas.

 

[CKN]

Link to coal.

Working through the math, 1e6 Btu's of coal heat requires about 71.42lb of coal, which works out to 2.86lb CO2 per pound of coal, or 2,297gm CO2 per pound of coal. 10 pounds of coal would thus be 22,970 grams of CO2 versus the 8,788 grams CO2 for a gallon of gasoline.

As a check, this link indicates that a it takes 1.13 pounds of coal to make a kWhr. Ignoring transmission line and charging losses, it would appear that 10 pound of coal would make 8.85kWhrs. 15 to 19 miles divided into 8.85kWhrs is 0.59 to 0.47 kWhr/mile. Round up 10 to 20% if transmission line and charging losses are added in?

That shipped has sailed. I'm not going to debate your info-which may or may not be accurate. The fact of the matter is that the "powers that be" have mandated a mostly electrical fleet in the next 20 years or so. That's the bottom line. The "good news" is with the average age of a forum member on here, many will not have to deal with the switch.

 

[supton]

That shipped has sailed. I'm not going to debate your info-which may or may not be accurate. The fact of the matter is that the "powers that be" have mandated a mostly electrical fleet in the next 20 years or so.

I wasn't arguing either way, I was merely checking the math to see if what was said was true.

I believe the EV fleet is being mandated by the CO2 generation. If it can be shown that the net reduction isn't there, it would stand to reason that (eventually) the powers that be might also notice that discrepancy. The more we discuss it, review it, fact check it, the more likely others will notice too (if there is a problem that is).

 

[PandaBear]

That may not be as true as we are led to believe. Nearly all publications use the car's KWH per mile display as an "energy consumed" number. This completely ignores grid losses, charger losses, battery charge losses, battery discharge losses and more.

A very efficient Honda EU7000 generator will provide 12 fast highway miles and 19 city miles per gallon of gasoline consumed while charging the Tesla. Improve that number by 50-60% to account for more efficient electrical power plants and you still have an energy hog.

You are doing it wrong if you use a 12-19 mpg generator to assume how efficient the grid is. Typical gasoline theoretical maximum efficiency is 35-40% but typically 20%, and that 35% gave us a Prius with about 55mpg. When you bump your combine cycle gas turbine plant's 50-60% efficiency (real life) and then the grid lost of 20% and you get somewhat 40-50%. The charging efficiency lost should already be factored into the car's calculation, and gives you that figure advertised (of course depends on speed), I'd say 60mpg for EV is very realistic and conservative, but if you drive it like a race car even Prius won't give you 55mpg so you need to compare that realistically.

Do you seriously believe your Honda generator can compare to the gas turbine in power plant? Do you seriously compare Nissan Altima hybrid to Tesla? That's like comparing an SUV to a Chevy Volt which is not really the same thing. You should have compare a non-performance-non-luxury family sedan EV to Altima or some Lexus/BMW/Mercedes to Tesla.

Why are you using coal as a comparison when coal plants are driven out of businesses because they cannot compete with natural gas?

 

[PandaBear]

I have a question because I have never had an electric car and don't know anyone who owns one. Do you pay for the electricity at these charging stations? I ask because I've seen some that are free and wonder how WE are being tricked into paying for other people's fuel.

The individual station or chargers owners set their own rules. Some charges by hours some charges by kwh, some give you free charging to attract customers (just a little not a lot), some workplaces used to give out 3 hours free a day a few years ago when EV was new.