GV70 - honest discussion

[EdP]

. As others have mentioned the damage done by mining and ultimately recycling these batteries is staggering. Add the extra insurance costs due to the high cost to repaired the EV's and its a fools errand. I love ev because they are fast, but they do nothing but damage the environment and make the working class pay for electric toys for the well off. While I would take the tax credit, I dont think it should be offered. The money should be returned to the taxpayer.

This is true. What do we do? Stop making EVs or look for better methods? There are things in the works that can have major effects on batteries.

At some point, past my lifetime. oil will stop flowing so we should encourage evolution come up with a solution.

Agree on the tax credit, that should be dropped.

 

[hd222]

This is true. What do we do? Stop making EVs or look for better methods? There are things in the works that can have major effects on batteries.

At some point, past my lifetime. oil will stop flowing so we should encourage evolution come up with a solution.

Agree on the tax credit, that should be dropped.

The oil will continue to flow for many hundreds of years and we are always finding new methods of extracting the oil and new locations. We should simply focus on making ice more efficient and cleaner. The many trillions of dollars we are wasting on the EV nonsense could be put to much better use. If the marketplace demands electric vehicles on a fair playing field so be it.

 

[Chad86tsi]

while true his numbers were off significantly, only 20% of energy produced in the US is "Green" Energy (60% fossil fuels). that doesnt take into account the mining of lithium and other materials. to add to it, they are significantly less efficient and significantly more costly to get into the energy grid.

We are a long way off from being able to power a nation of EV with renewable energy. All this money that is being put into pushing renewable energy needs to be spent on making those processes more efficient and cost effective.

yes, it's more correct to say 100% of EV's are powered by 19% coal. It's also true to say 100% of EV's are powered by 60% carbon-based combustion. Add to this transmission and distribution losses and you are actually in some cases less efficient with that 60% than a 100% petrol/diesel ICE powertrain is.

People that say "I buy 100% green energy because I signed up with my power company for their special program" don't understand how the grid works. Yes, when you do that you are subsidizing green power. Every green watt you "buy" is delivered, it's just not delivered to you.

EV is the future, and the future is now. Lets just not fool ourselves, or others.

 

[Dunbar]

California is 40% of new EV registrations and produces less than 1% of energy from coal. Many EV’s will be charged with power produced by natural gas which emits 1/3 less CO2 per BTU compared to gasoline. There‘s less heat loss in the EV too so it’s getting the equivalent of 58mpg when the power used to charge it comes from natural gas. California actually gets 50-55% of its energy from renewables + nuclear which is not to shabby IMO. I think the future is going to be storing surplus green energy in electric vehicle batteries and using it to power homes during peak demand.

 

[mythdoc]

It depends on your state. My state, Tennessee, has two ginormous nuclear plants that produce the vast majority of the electricity. And the grid here is in great shape. I will eventually get an electric car, but the next one will be another ICE.

 

[PetevB]

At some point, past my lifetime. oil will stop flowing so we should encourage evolution come up with a solution.

Forrest through trees. All the political and efficiency arguments miss the simple fact: the evolution has already occurred.

The energy arms race is centuries old: coal replaced wood, oil replaced whale blubber. Each time a better, cheaper source of energy was discovered society switched and prosperity increased. The next switch?



Today new solar plants are able to sell energy to the grid at below the cost of existing fossil fuel power plants in most parts of the world. Not everywhere and obviously not at night, but when the sun shines? World average is $.04 per kwh. For perspective that would let current electric cars “fill the tank” for about $3.60 (300 miles of range at .3 kWh per mile). And that number is falling rapidly- every time the industry doubles installed capacity costs come down by 30%, which means these prices will be available more and more places:



The rest is noise. No amount of increased efficiency in ICE engines or complaints about “EV nonsense” is going to change the underlying facts. We’ve got a new, radically cheaper “fuel” and massive incentive to figure out how to use more of it effectively. Petroleum isn’t going the way of whale blubber until we figure out how to make jets work on something else, but ICE cars? There’s a reason nearly every manufacture has halted development on new ICE engines and is putting billions into EVs. And that reason goes far beyond regulations.

 

[Chad86tsi]

And when the sun doesn't shine and the wind isn't blowing, there is a problem. I watch the grid flow at work, it's a very real problem and the solution (that isn't carbon based) has yet to materialize. EV's are not the solution, and in reality they are part of the problem : added load as we remove carbon supply.

We can learn to live with that for sure, but life wont' be like it is now. It will mean not charging when it's either hot or cold, not charging when either the sun is down or the wind is low, not not charging in the middle of the day when business and industrial loads peak. It doesn't leave much time to charge. Nuclear is only good for base load, it's not something you can ramp up or taper off, and we won't be adding any hydro, and in many cases it is being removed.

EV's will augment ICE, but it will be long and hard to replace them.

 

[Dunbar]

The solution to EV charging is to have them charge off peak hours. The capacity is already there as long as people don’t plug their EV’s in and charge them at peak hours (usually around 4-10pm in the summer). A smart grid could do it or a simple timer function that many EV’s have accomplishes the same thing. As far as the wind not blowing and the sun not shining you have back up capacity for that. Usually that’s going to be from natural gas. Yes, it’s more expensive to do that but the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. California is already at 50% renewable power so to say it isn’t possible is a bit disingenuous. It does get harder the closer you get to the 100% renewable energy goal but I think even 70% renewables (California’s next goal) would be a big win.

 

[Chad86tsi]

The solution to EV charging is to have them charge off peak hours. The capacity is already there as long as people don’t plug their EV’s in and charge them at peak hours (usually around 4-10pm in the summer). A smart grid could do it or a simple timer function that many EV’s have accomplishes the same thing. As far as the wind not blowing and the sun not shining you have back up capacity for that. Usually that’s going to be from natural gas. Yes, it’s more expensive to do that but the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. California is already at 50% renewable power so to say it isn’t possible is a bit disingenuous. It does get harder the closer you get to the 100% renewable energy goal but I think even 70% renewables (California’s next goal) would be a big win.

If you are charging at off peak from (4-10 PM) when the natural gas comes on line to serve the load, where is the car parked and who is charging it? If you are at work, where do you plug it in? If you are at home, what time are you at home to charge your car when the sun is shining?

It's not just about where the power comes from, it's when it enters the grid, and whom is using it as it enters. If an EV is charging between 4 PM and 9 AM it's almost entirely natural gas that is going into that battery. What do we gain from that? From 9AM to 4PM, California's grid is fed by almost all green energy, but who has their car charging during those times? what % ?

to say it isn’t possible is a bit disingenuous.

but no one said that, who is being disingenuous?

 

[Chad86tsi]

California ISO - Supply, Today's Outlook

View real-time and historical data on generation resources, including renewables, currently on the system.

www.caiso.com

There is a link to the california ISO grid, it has some very useful real time and historical graphs.

This was load for yesterday:

______________________________

Help support this site so it can continue supporting you!

 

[Dunbar]

Peak demand is like 4-10pm in the summer. So you’d want to not charge your EV at those times. Most people who own EV’s charge them at home overnight while they sleep. They come home and plug them in if they need to charge them. The built in software in the vehicle can be programmed to charge after midnight. Some people have access to chargers at work but I’d say that‘s the minority right now.

I’m very familiar with that site and look at it frequently. Click on “demand“ and you can see the demand peaking around 6pm and then dropping by 30-40% by midnight. Demand bottoms around 3am a full 13GW lower than it was at the peak. There are times in the spring when demand is lower where California is getting 85-90% of its energy from renewables during the day.

 

[Chad86tsi]

Peak demand is like 4-10pm in the summer. So you’d want to not charge your EV at those times. Most people who own EV’s charge them at home overnight while they sleep. They come home and plug them in if they need to charge them. The built in software in the vehicle can be programmed to charge after midnight. Some people have access to chargers at work but I’d say that‘s the minority right now.

I’m very familiar with that site and look at it frequently. Click on “demand“ and you can see the demand peaking around 6pm and then dropping by 30-40% by midnight. Demand bottoms around 3am a full 13GW lower than it was at the peak. There are times in the spring when demand is lower where California is getting 85-90% of its energy from renewables during the day.

If you program the charger to fill up the EV at 12 AM, it's almost all carbon electricity at that time of day. If most people do this as you have said, then most EV's are not very green at all. This is my point.

If you program it to charge when supply is max renewable : 9AM to 4 PM, what will you do when your car is stuck at work during those hours? This is my other point.

If a car takes 8-10 hours to charge, from near empty to near full on a mid range level 2 charger (what most have), they can't take advantage of this green tech and still use the car when they need it. They can top it off every night, but it's never mostly green supply during non-work hours. This leaves only their days off to charge with green power. Imagine an ICE that needed such a complex set of rules to be efficient and inexpensive. Imagine Pulling up to a pump that charges them $2 a gallon when they are stuck at work and can't get gas, or $8 a gallon that is extra dirty on their way to or from work, or they can only get cheap clean gas between 9 and 4 on Saturday and Sunday, and no topping off unless they want dirty expensive gas.

What you end up with is people that either charge when it's cheap and dirty and stressful on the grid, or they spend their lives working around the power grid models, or they do whatever suits them and it's not ideal for the grid of for being especially green.

There are times in the spring when demand is lower where California is getting 85-90% of its energy from renewables during the day.

There are also times in the fall where renewables are only able to supply 1/3 of the load during the day. We'll either have to shed 300% of the system load, not charge our EV cars for months at a time, or live with lots of carbon long term.

Green energy is great when it's available, it's just not always available. Time of day, time of year, weather. Things no one can control or change.

 

[Quad]

Until the EV version of the GV70 is released this discussion is meaningless and very off topic.

 

[Chad86tsi]

Until the EV version of the GV70 is released this discussion is meaningless and very off topic.

And when it is released, people will have had time to take in the facts, hear some varying opinions, and ponder their understanding of reality, rather than having to learn it all on the spot. I had hopes of an EV G80 by now, but I'm still waiting. It's been in test mode for years.

 

[PetevB]

And when the sun doesn't shine and the wind isn't blowing, there is a problem. I watch the grid flow at work, it's a very real problem and the solution (that isn't carbon based) has yet to materialize. EV's are not the solution, and in reality they are part of the problem : added load as we remove carbon supply.

We can learn to live with that for sure, but life wont' be like it is now. It will mean not charging when it's either hot or cold, not charging when either the sun is down or the wind is low, not not charging in the middle of the day when business and industrial loads peak. It doesn't leave much time to charge. Nuclear is only good for base load, it's not something you can ramp up or taper off, and we won't be adding any hydro, and in many cases it is being removed.

EV's will augment ICE, but it will be long and hard to replace them.

So many trees. Easy to get distracted…

At the beginning of the petroleum revolution gasoline was a waste byproduct, but there was powerful incentive to figure out how to use it usefully. It’s only been a few years since solar and renewables became radically cheaper than the alternatives, hence we’re still figuring out how to use them with maximal efficiency, but rest assured it’s happening fast. Grid capacity, the duck curve, negative spot prices, outdated regulations that divorce supply and demand, world lithium availability: all trees. Real issues to be sure, but in the grand scheme not hard to solve when compared to the incentives there will be to do so: don’t let them block out the forrest.

The price graphs I showed include curtailment- any energy dumped because there isn’t enough demand. Even with that dumping LA’s already buying PV electricity at under $.02 per kWh. Spot prices during the day already fall well below that in many parts of the country for those with access to wholesale pricing. What do you do with power that cheap? Take loads that can be variable (like EVs) and figure out run them when power is cheapest? Convert otherwise virtually worthless coal fired power plants to run off thermal energy you stored during the day maybe? Sure you’ll only get 45% of the energy back out, but that still puts you at below $.05 per kWh base-load electricity, and that’s with today’s PV prices. Cut those prices in half well before the end of the decade. That’s 80 cents to fill up a 300 mile tank if you can match demand with supply or more like $2.00 if you can’t. And it’s only going to get cheaper.

If you’re able to see past the trees you’ll realize we’re in the midst of an energy revolution.

A couple other points on your trees. 1. Renewables penetration is actually much higher than it looks on your Cal ISO graph above- rooftop solar is nearly as big as the other renewables and doesn’t show up there at all, it’s simply counted as demand reduction. 2. When you’re counting EV vs ICE efficiency make sure you count “well to wheels” energy consumption and efficiency if you’re going to count grid losses for EVs. When you do you’ll find no practical ICE cars getting higher energy in vs miles driven than passenger EVs, especially when starting from something like California crude.

 

[EdP]

And when it is released, people will have had time to take in the facts, hear some varying opinions, and ponder their understanding of reality, rather than having to learn it all on the spot. I had hopes of an EV G80 by now, but I'm still waiting. It's been in test mode for years.

Yes, and if interested we will keep abreast of the inevitable changes that will happen. You have to wade through the hysteria and get down to the real facts and they will be different a year or two from now.

Some you you may have heard Sy Syms years ago:
The slogan “an educated consumer is our best customer” stood out when Sy Syms, CEO of the Syms Corporation, used it in television ads in the 1980s.

 

[Chad86tsi]

So many trees. Easy to get distracted…

At the beginning of the petroleum revolution gasoline was a waste byproduct, but there was powerful incentive to figure out how to use it usefully. It’s only been a few years since solar and renewables became radically cheaper than the alternatives, hence we’re still figuring out how to use them with maximal efficiency, but rest assured it’s happening fast. Grid capacity, the duck curve, negative spot prices, outdated regulations that divorce supply and demand, world lithium availability: all trees. Real issues to be sure, but in the grand scheme not hard to solve when compared to the incentives there will be to do so: don’t let them block out the forrest.

The price graphs I showed include curtailment- any energy dumped because there isn’t enough demand. Even with that dumping LA’s already buying PV electricity at under $.02 per kWh. Spot prices during the day already fall well below that in many parts of the country for those with access to wholesale pricing. What do you do with power that cheap? Take loads that can be variable (like EVs) and figure out run them when power is cheapest? Convert otherwise virtually worthless coal fired power plants to run off thermal energy you stored during the day maybe? Sure you’ll only get 45% of the energy back out, but that still puts you at below $.05 per kWh base-load electricity, and that’s with today’s PV prices. Cut those prices in half well before the end of the decade. That’s 80 cents to fill up a 300 mile tank if you can match demand with supply or more like $2.00 if you can’t. And it’s only going to get cheaper.

If you’re able to see past the trees you’ll realize we’re in the midst of an energy revolution.

A couple other points on your trees. 1. Renewables penetration is actually much higher than it looks on your Cal ISO graph above- rooftop solar is nearly as big as the other renewables and doesn’t show up there at all, it’s simply counted as demand reduction. 2. When you’re counting EV vs ICE efficiency make sure you count “well to wheels” energy consumption and efficiency if you’re going to count grid losses for EVs. When you do you’ll find no practical ICE cars getting higher energy in vs miles driven than passenger EVs, especially when starting from something like California crude.

rooftop solar isn't viable in most of the country, not enough sun. Even subsidized, it's not viable. And when there is no sun? carbon.

Yes there is a revolution, and the first shot was fired long ago, but we are far from the end of the carbon struggle.

Users are incentivized by pricing to buy their power when demand is lowest, not when it's cheapest to create. this is done to protect the grid, spread the load out, reduce peaks. If we don't do that, the grid would need to be re-engineered on a national scale, which will take decades and trillions to design and complete. In the mean time? carbon.

In your forest, who charges during the day when the sun is out making that cheap energy? Solar is good for daytime base load for business owners and industry, on sunny days, in places that are sunny. In the rest of the world the rest of the time? Carbon.

 

[PetevB]

And when there is no sun? carbon.

Yes there is a revolution, and the first shot was fired long ago, but we are far from the end of the carbon struggle.

In your forest, who charges during the day when the sun is out making that cheap energy? Solar is good for daytime base load, on sunny days, in places that are sunny. In the rest of the world the rest of the time? Carbon.

I’ll refer you to the graph I posted earlier. Note the cost by location from ultra-low cost regions (Chile, middle east) to high cost locations. The world is passing 1000 GW cumulative installed this year, giving us $.01 to $.02 per kwh installed in the best locations. When the sun is half that costs roughly double. That’s everywhere from the yellow region up below.

3x more expensive is in the greens, which would be in the ~$.06 per kWh range today— filling up your 300 mile tank for $5.40. Now add wind, which is in the $3.60 per “tank” range and also falling, and happens to often do well in places and at times solar doesn’t:



Currently there are few incentive systems in the US for people to use power when it’s cheapest. That’s changing, and with it demand will begin to follow generation rather than vice versa. There are limited technologies to facilitate this so far, but that’s also changing. The new F150 lightening for example not only lets you charge with cheaper power but it actually lets you discharge to power your entire house when power is expensive. Industrial heat (~25% of world energy use) will flip to electric and be a swing batter, powering from electric when it’s cheap and gas when it’s not, largely eliminating seasonality as a major obstacle to high renewable fractions in the process. All enabled and indeed triggered by energy far cheaper than what’s come before.

No one said the revolution is over- we’re still in the early stages. Just that the technology that we’re evolving to already exists and the writing’s on the wall. Ice will remain in some long haul applications into the 2030s, but economics dictate that the vast majority of passenger cars will be EV and soon. Currently EVs are more expensive to buy than ICE cars but cheaper to run. That’s expected to change by 2025- EVs will be both cheaper buy and much cheaper to run, radically so with a little flexibility on when you charge. From there it’s over, though obviously the fleet and lineups will take time to turn.

I love ICE cars and you’ll pry my GT3 engine from my cold dead hands. Unfortunately there’s simply no way they’re surviving this energy revolution in substantial numbers. I just hope the specialty cars (especially the few actually more enjoyable to drive than EVs) will be around for a while.

 

[TBickell]

We won't be seeing any electric F-150's in Montana or other parts of the wide open west where 200 mile daily drives are common. Its's just not going to happen and there's no reason it should. The USA could reduce it's "carbon footprint" by 50% but China, India, Mexico and others could care less. Kind of like washing one side of you face.

 

[Dunbar]

If you program the charger to fill up the EV at 12 AM, it's almost all carbon electricity at that time of day. If most people do this as you have said, then most EV's are not very green at all. This is my point.

There are also times in the fall where renewables are only able to supply 1/3 of the load during the day. We'll either have to shed 300% of the system load, not charge our EV cars for months at a time, or live with lots of carbon long term. Green energy is great when it's available, it's just not always available. Time of day, time of year, weather. Things no one can control or change.

The studies show that charging an EV with electricity powered by natural gas is the equivalent of 58mpg. Still a lot greener than the average ICE car. I’m all for adding chargers at people’s work and charging them with green energy.

California already gets 50% of its annual electricity usage from renewables. Add in nuclear and it’s closer to 55%. Clearly it is possible and it’s already being done. I don’t get the black or white view of renewables. The goal here is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time and that’s exactly what California is doing. The only reason fossil fuels are still competitive is because we say that the CO2 emissions (externality) costs users zero. If we actually put a price on carbon emissions fossil fuels would have a much harder time competing.