Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
I mean, your choices for “serious” EV trucks will soon be…two (Hummer and F-150). It’s early days. But to me, they’re offering a tantalizing glimpse into the near-term potential of EVs.
The range extender runs on fossil fuel? That seems to defeat the purpose. I like the idea but there is usually a 20% loss of energy converting fossil fuel into electricityEveryone complaining about range - check this out-
Ford F-150 Electric Pickup May Get Newly Patented Range Extender in Its Bed
It looks deceptively like a toolbox, but it could be used to increase the range of the upcoming electric F-150 pickup truck.www.caranddriver.com
I think you missed the part where Moparian touched on the power grid not being able to support tens of millions of cars being charged nightly, in addition to the normal load that is already present. And people are crying out for the government to stop using dams and coal for power generation. Not to mention the negativity towards nuclear power. Wind mills and solar panels will never be able to replace these forms of power generation. So where will we be getting the electric power to charge all of these EV's?
Electrical Engineer here - millions of vehicles charging overnight, even tens of millions isn't that big of an issue. Especially as more homes get smart meters, the slow and steady draw of overnight charging to recoup one day's driving is far less than kicking your Air Conditioning, electric water heater, etc. Even today, Tesla and GM vehicles can work with smart meters or have settings to charge in off-peak hours. Recharging 8 hours to top off your battery from a 30 mile commute is not the same as trying to recharge the entire capacity of the battery in a hurry.
Absolutely! It's a problem that's worth solving since it will drive innovation and jobs into loads of areas and sectors of the market that would otherwise be stagnant
I was likely being conservative when I said tens of millions. There were an estimated 280 million vehicles in use in the US last year. So the more realistic number is in the hundreds of millions if EV's ever fully replace ICE powered vehicles. I respect your EE background. I work in the electric power industry myself. I've had discussions with EE's about this very subject. We currently have brown-outs and black-outs in some areas of the country. Some are to shed load and some are in an attempt to avoid starting wildfires. I can't imagine adding a possible 280 million EV's plugged into an already stressed power system. Add to that the moves to remove dams in the West, stop burning coal for power generation, and people protesting about removing nuclear power plants. Lots of people mistakenly think that we can make up for that lost power generation with wind and solar power. A lot would need to be done to support all those EV's.
The thing is that our grid is not universally stressed all of the time. If you look here, you can see why the rolling blackouts are around 6pm - where everyone gets home and tries to cool their home. If EV's are charging during off-peak hours, that same grid that was stressed by 150MW of power at 6PM now has an extra 40-50MW of power available at midnight - almost 30% of the entire capacity. So yes, the grid is stressed, but we don't actually need to add 30% to support EV's, we just need to be more efficient about how we use our available capacity.
EV A/C works far better than combustion engine A/C because they're all using electrically driven variable speed compressors. Power draw is quite low since it's variable, and it works just as well at 80 MPH as it does idling in traffic, unlike an engine belt-driven A/C where the A/C performs noticeably better when you aren't idling.
