EV Use in Cold Winter Conditions

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How much energy does it take to produce and get 1 gallon of gasoline into a gas tank - all factors included? And how much energy does it take to put the equivalent energy of 1 gallon of gasoline energy into an EV battery - all factors included?

It's good to recognize that very little energy is consumed getting gasoline to the filling station. While it does not directly answer the question, it's pretty much an insignificant number, and gas to the tank is roughly equal to getting energy to a power plant.

It really does not matter all that much. The energy consumed matters 32 times more.

Where the EV shines is the electric motor converts 90% of a batteries energy into rotational power. The best fuel powered engines are 44% efficient (diesel) and 41% efficient (Toyota hybrids). The best power plant is 54% efficient at the power plant's fence.
 
A 60% efficient gas power plant for the grid will have serious pumping losses upstream but production is most certainly not like production of diesel (without deducting wind and hydro, biomass and PV over the jump into the mix).
An ordinary diesel of 44% peak BTE to provide a transient idea will mean something coarse like calculating 0.58 x 0.40 x driveline efficiency (without counting the tanks and carriers, aerobics and ammo), because transport & production of six litres of diesel containing 58 kWh require another 42 kWh going into the overhead. Six litres of diesel not atypically propel a red car for a hundred kilometres or so. (200 km hypermiling, 300 km future hypermiling a future super diesel hybrid...)

Ordinary gas hybrids on the highway are about as efficient as normal diesel cars and hardly any of them can recuperate much when running down a mountain pass, that's not how they're built and operating. On the interstate they're basically Atkinson vs. Diesel. In addition of course that whole highway fixation is not reflecting general fleets between HEV, PHEV and BEV in general operation.

When learning from looking at a red car in a diesel field, the prime idea to respect will be to look for what ain't that easily seen in the green background of diesel field. More or less this little petitesse

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to the upper right at the end of the rubber line missing here

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The 42 kWh are meant to include drilling and such, so the future running gag allows for figuring in the neighbours' backyards' big concrete foundations and such.
 
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It's good to recognize that very little energy is consumed getting gasoline to the filling station. While it does not directly answer the question, it's pretty much an insignificant number, and gas to the tank is roughly equal to getting energy to a power plant.

It really does not matter all that much. The energy consumed matters 32 times more.

Where the EV shines is the electric motor converts 90% of a batteries energy into rotational power. The best fuel powered engines are 44% efficient (diesel) and 41% efficient (Toyota hybrids). The best power plant is 54% efficient at the power plant's fence.
There's one comparison where you can zero the difference in upstream costs of the fuel: natural gas.
VW has developed a 2L natural gas engine that is 45% efficient. Which is the the better use of the resource, using it in a 45% efficient engine or feeding a 54% efficient power plant to charge EVs?

Ed
 
A good video to watch. I think it’s common knowledge that batteries don’t perform as well in cold weather and he gave us a good example. Not everyone lives in a sunny warm climate year round.
I always remember hearing the opposite when listening to auto repair podcasts.
Summer heat is tougher on car batteries than winter's chill. It may seem counterintuitive, but higher temperatures have a greater impact on the power-generating chemistry inside. And it's not just about air temperature. Hot summer temps drive up the heat under the hood and accelerate the onset of battery failure.May 4, 2019.
 
There's one comparison where you can zero the difference in upstream costs of the fuel: natural gas.
VW has developed a 2L natural gas engine that is 45% efficient. Which is the the better use of the resource, using it in a 45% efficient engine or feeding a 54% efficient power plant to charge EVs?

Ed

Most plants currently operating are nowhere near 54% efficient and peakers aren't even close. Then you have transmission losses to contend with as well. At least in home heating use gas approaches 100% efficiency. If I had to heat with electric it would cost a fortune.
 
In home heating gas may have some efficiency but renewable heat pumping is here to stay, at home and on the way.

Diesel and gasoline are deemed efficient since they're awfully cheap but pricing CO2 even there helps seeing things the way they are – including overhead that ain't easily greenwashed and therefore certainly promotes modern autofocus on renewables.

On the other hand people around the world where considering air-conditioned lives just start to enable their grids including storage etc. in accord with future standards. The US obviously are more than ten years ahead already of most anybody else, how could they really get into trouble now trying to keep up with worldwide decentralization & gridification? They'll just invent their own expressions if they don't like mine but cieling and core, eastern and western winds are all the same. A Musée Vous, A Musée Moi, comme la télé dit en EU.
 
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Nobody ever considers the power generation needed to charge an electric car or the line losses in power from the power station or the transformer losses in adapting the incoming high level power to typical home voltages. When all that is considered then they aren't very green at all.
Yes, they do. This has been discussed on BITOG quite a bit, and people have made excellent points about how to compare overall energy consumption fairly.
 
On a related note, just read something about a fiat e500 california. Display says 13.9kwh/100 km but the charger draws 18 kwh/100 km out of his wall.

If that's correct, the charging is not as efficient as filling a tank with fuel and that skews all numbers. I'm trying to find out if he was using preheat while the car was plugged in now.
 
On a related note, just read something about a fiat e500 california. Display says 13.9kwh/100 km but the charger draws 18 kwh/100 km out of his wall.

If that's correct, the charging is not as efficient as filling a tank with fuel and that skews all numbers. I'm trying to find out if he was using preheat while the car was plugged in now.
On the Volt it was about 10% loss through it’s onboard charger. In the manual it states 120 v charging is less efficient than 240v. Mostly I used free Chargepoint stations as the display tells exactly how many kWh was delivered. Pretty close to 10% loss. In the Volt the battery is cooled and heated. It actually has a separate cooling system for the battery, so there are three radiators and coolant pumps and all associated plumbing and electronics in a Volt. They were an expensive car to produce.
Each car maker has it’s own type of on board charger. Pretty sure each is different efficiency. As are the motors and all the other components it’s not one size fits all.
 
We already have the solution in most homes!
The best thing is that it can be left plugged into the car while driving. ;)

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VW has developed a 2L natural gas engine that is 45% efficient. Which is the the better use of the resource, using it in a 45% efficient engine or feeding a 54% efficient power plant to charge EVs?

Ed
That's been my point all along. The stack of losses with EV's is important. Outrageous claims of efficiency are just that.

Hybrid cars can recapture energy just like EV's. A properly sized (still small) battery can recapture the long downhills in the mountains. And hybrid cars don't have the same stack of losses that EV's do. Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason a hybrid must be a poor performer.

Only slightly off topic, but during cold weather, a plugged in Tesla with a heat pump initially consumes 5000 watts (older ones 10,000W) just heating the battery and conditioning the car for use, yes this drops off to 3000 watts when the car is ready (20 minutes to 1 hour) but it's energy use, it's not free and it's not powering the car down the road. You could think of combustion engines as "combined heat and power" :)
 
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I always remember hearing the opposite when listening to auto repair podcasts.
Summer heat is tougher on car batteries than winter's chill. It may seem counterintuitive, but higher temperatures have a greater impact on the power-generating chemistry inside. And it's not just about air temperature. Hot summer temps drive up the heat under the hood and accelerate the onset of battery failure.May 4, 2019.
Cold slows down chemistry.

Batteries self-degrade, and self-degrade slower in cold weather. So a starting battery might last 7 years in Maine but 3 in Florida. Self-degredation is a chemical reaction. My parents used to store C-cell flashlight batteries in the fridge so they'd stay "fresh" before use. (Not sure if this is proven.)

However, the cold also slows down the chemistry that makes electricity, so the battery is less effective at making power. In a fringe scenario where someone is daily using most of a cold battery's capacity vs some of a warm one, I could see that being deleterious.
 
A stack of losses amounting to superior efficiency not just heating the landscape all around the year but more on demand in winter to the required degrees compared against the competing stack of losses. Extendable stacks thanks to diesel and gas pre-heaters e.g. helping to look at things with less funny distortion....
These Nyland types should start attaching IR signature capturing over so much thermal framing essay and stacking thrill.

BEV with a bad background regarding their grids' / contracts' mixes are in a league with good hybrids and have all the possibilities from there while fleets of PHEV become notorious primarily for remaining unplugged. They will have their niches, yes. Real niches not made up between toy brick stacking and greenwashing as if all gas and diesel were made by companies running fax machines exclusively powered by solar roofs.
 
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Apples to oranges a bit, but recently I’ve been using the heat more in my accord hybrid.

The car in normal weather gets me high 50s around town, low-mid 40s on highway.

Recently with use of more heat than I ever have before, I’m getting 38-39 pretty consistently.

So you could argue that the use of heat in stone cold operations results in a 5-35% efficiency decrease... on a vehicle that has an engine and associated waste heat to scavenge.

I can easily see how without that waste heat, it would be on the high end.

Another way to think about it, is if an EV consumes 300Wh/mi for traction and ancillaries,and is driving 60MPH...

If the cabin heater consumes 1kW, the car will increase to 316Wh/mi. (1000Wh/60, and 5.3% loss of economy)

If the cabin heater consumes 6kW, the car will consume 400Wh/mi. (6000Wh/60, and 33% loss of economy)
 
I’ve been using the heat more in my accord hybrid.

The car in normal weather gets me high 50s around town, low-mid 40s on highway.

Recently with use of more heat than I ever have before, I’m getting 38-39 pretty consistently.
I'd guess it's mostly winter fuel issues. The heater fan consumes very little. The heater in your car is conventional in nature. Yes, it will run the engine to warm the car up, but with such limited battery power, the engine runs nearly all the time anyway.
 
A stack of losses amounting to superior efficiency not just heating the landscape all around the year but more on demand in winter to the required degrees compared against the competing stack of losses. Extendable stacks thanks to diesel and gas pre-heaters e.g. helping to look at things with less funny distortion....
These Nyland types should start attaching IR signature capturing over so much thermal framing essay and stacking thrill.

BEV with a bad background regarding their grids' / contracts' mixes are in a league with good hybrids and have all the possibilities from there while fleets of PHEV become notorious primarily for remaining unplugged. They will have their niches, yes. Real niches not made up between toy brick stacking and greenwashing as if all gas and diesel were made by companies running fax machines exclusively powered by solar roofs.
Blingo,

We clearly don't speak the same language and I'm having a tough time understanding you.
 
I'm speaking of stacks of losses on both sides, that's about all. Diesel and gasoline are neither grown on gas station roofs nor pressed at muscle factories or pasteurized in just those black rubber lines lying around all over the green diesel fields you like to depict. It's a good thing when Infineum is looking into lower engine oil viscosities for tankers – but we already need to scroll down much of the page to even see that much future in it
https://www.infineuminsight.com/en-gb/articles/marine-engines/imo-approves-emissions-cuts/

Then that's about it regarding OTA improvements in consumption and efficiency for a conventional or hybrid car one may decide on. Not much wind and sun can be expected to make their way into vehicle tanks, there'd already be more butanol, ethanol and else, more PV or hydro driven refineries, more sailing tankers if markets were all that's needed.
The competing BEV will start out at the same level or better when powered from a rather bad electricity mix right now. It's fine to emphasize the necessity of improving grids and all else to make them better and better from there, albeit not OTA. Wires et al. mean losses and still they are okay. Stacking things means: Not much sense in leaving things out.
 
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I'd guess it's mostly winter fuel issues. The heater fan consumes very little. The heater in your car is conventional in nature. Yes, it will run the engine to warm the car up, but with such limited battery power, the engine runs nearly all the time anyway.

Nope, it’s a pronounced amount of additional engine operation in order to make heat.

Turn on the heat to force the engine to turn on and idle warm. That’s a common technique used.

Going down the highway it’s easy to watch the temperatures change via the scan tool. From 190-194 when on, down to about 170 as the heating system is pulling heat out. So then it puts the engine back on to keep making heat, need it or not. So the hybrid is a little less hybrid, and the economy starts to move towards that of a 2.0L sedan.
 
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