Electric Vehicles
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@victor-meldrew said in Electric Vehicles:
Looking at a PHEV from Hyundai or it's sister company Kia this year. Seem to get real good reviews here in the UK.
Regularly travel more than 500km and want to wait until fast charging points are more prevalent before going full EV.
I had my eye on the Volvo XC40 in either PHEV or full battery but the price is a bit exy over here - upwards of $65k for PHEV and close to $90k for battery.
We don't get any incentives for EVs in New South Wales, though in the ACT there are some good moves being made as they head for 100+% renewable. Watching Fully Charged on Youtube it is clear that serious momentum happening in Europe and UK.
The rollout of charge points in the UK is quite good compared to a lot of places (outside Norway) but the problem as I understand it is the multiple vendors wanting to have their own app or card interface. Just put Tap n Go on all of them and that would be fixed.
EDIT: I also note the Kona EV has a range over 500km. If you're stopping to top up for 10-15 minutes at a rapid charger, you could easily cover a couple hundred more than that.
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@kruse said in Electric Vehicles:
@voodoo said in Electric Vehicles:
@nta I don't know why folk get so hung up on range per charge. We can get 500km! We can get 600kms!
Who the heck cares? I'm more than happy to stop after 4 hours and stretch the legs for 20mins.
Does it only take 20 minutes to charge nowadays?
The main reason I haven't seriously considered an electric bike, is my understanding was that a full charge took hours, like overnight, for a car, and would probably still be a couple of hours for a bike.In addition to what @voodoo says above: electric bikes are probably always going to cap out at a certain charging rate simply because the hardware for fast charging adds weight and complexity to the electrical systems - need more wires, more thermal management etc.
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@voodoo said in Electric Vehicles:
@nta I don't know why folk get so hung up on range per charge. We can get 500km! We can get 600kms!
Who the heck cares? I'm more than happy to stop after 4 hours and stretch the legs for 20mins.
Yeah, but you're a city slicker
I think in Australian conditions you need to be talking a vehicle that supports 100kW charging or more if the range is under 350km - and a lot of them are. Additionally we need more charging infrastructure. Otherwise you're not going to get sales volume simply because of FUD, and then you're not going to get the service and support because of low volume.
My wife could happily get away with a range under 300km (so, the Ioniq) because most of the charging minutes would be done in our "fuel station" at home. A lot of people could do it for their second car on that basis - BUT not many people can afford $50K for the privilege of saving $2000 in petrol every year.
There is still a lot of pushback easilly generated by "what about people in the country who drive 500km every day!" which of course ignores that these are the tiny minority and most volume is based on city sales anyway.
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Went to a traffic crash the other day involving a Tesla. The Firies rocked up to do their usual thing, (making the vehicles safe) noticed it was a Tesla and stood around scratching their heads. They did not know what to do. A couple of long phone calls later and all they could do was shrug their shoulders and hope nothing went to shit.
Also heard EVs are very expensive to repair when in a crash so insurance companies are writing them off more freely than they do with conventional vehicles. Not sure if that's true or not.
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
@kruse said in Electric Vehicles:
@voodoo said in Electric Vehicles:
@nta I don't know why folk get so hung up on range per charge. We can get 500km! We can get 600kms!
Who the heck cares? I'm more than happy to stop after 4 hours and stretch the legs for 20mins.
Does it only take 20 minutes to charge nowadays?
The main reason I haven't seriously considered an electric bike, is my understanding was that a full charge took hours, like overnight, for a car, and would probably still be a couple of hours for a bike.In addition to what @voodoo says above: electric bikes are probably always going to cap out at a certain charging rate simply because the hardware for fast charging adds weight and complexity to the electrical systems - need more wires, more thermal management etc.
Cheers - I hadn't realised that the fast-charging capability required more (and therefore heavier) hardware... but thinking about it, obviously it does - cause otherwise it wouldn't be "fast charging", it would just be "standard charging".
I see Energica is claiming they've got bikes which can do 400km, and a "quick charge" back to 80% in 42 minutes.
I could probably live with that, with a bit of extra thought around routes. -
@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
The rollout of charge points in the UK is quite good compared to a lot of places (outside Norway) but the problem as I understand it is the multiple vendors wanting to have their own app or card interface. Just put Tap n Go on all of them and that would be fixed.
There's some apps becoming available which allow you to pre-book and pay but the car dealers tell me the big problem is the charging vendors aren't really co-operating. Think it's something the government could/should step in and set some rules to make it as seamless as poss.
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@kruse said in Electric Vehicles:
I see Energica is claiming they've got bikes which can do 400km, and a "quick charge" back to 80% in 42 minutes.
Not me. Imagine getting to the recharge spot moments after someone else and having to wait for them before you can start. 42 minutes becomes 84. Stuff that. They would need way more charging outlets than potential customers.
Someone mentioned prebooking. Stuff that too. I don't want to be constrained by a booking. My stress would go through the roof if I was running late.
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@crazy-horse said in Electric Vehicles:
@kruse said in Electric Vehicles:
I see Energica is claiming they've got bikes which can do 400km, and a "quick charge" back to 80% in 42 minutes.
Not me. Imagine getting to the recharge spot moments after someone else and having to wait for them before you can start. 42 minutes becomes 84. Stuff that. They would need way more charging outlets than potential customers.
Someone mentioned prebooking. Stuff that too. I don't want to be constrained by a booking. My stress would go through the roof if I was running late.
I really wonder how densely populated areas will get by in this regard. Not so bad where larger properties can put in their own charging capabilities but I’m picturing all the cars in London attached to extension cords out the window of the terraced house. One charging station per block won’t cut it.
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@crucial we might end up with charging stations on the footpath like the old parking metres? Or a charging point in the ground that you connect up to when you park up for the night? Which ever way it goes it's going to take a bit of work.
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@crazy-horse said in Electric Vehicles:
@crucial we might end up with charging stations on the footpath like the old parking metres? Or a charging point in the ground that you connect up to when you park up for the night? Which ever way it goes it's going to take a bit of work.
Have seen a few companies in Europe integrating with lighting infrastructure etc
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My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
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@dogmeat EV charging infrastructure is pretty cheap though. You can buy a 2-gun charger that will charge a bus in 40 minutes (if you ramp it right the fuck up) for less than $50k. When you consider the bus costs upwards of 12 times that per unit...
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
So if porn selects EV over hydrogen, that will be the key difference?
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
I think there is room for both in a petrol / diesel sort of manner. Electric is killing it at the moment & I've read / heard little of hydrogen technology of late honestly.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
Hydrogen will dominate the large transport sector.
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https://newatlas.com/automotive/scania-ditches-hydrogen/
Major manufacturer drops hydrogen trucks in favor of battery-electrics
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@mariner4life said in Electric Vehicles:
@dogmeat EV charging infrastructure is pretty cheap though. You can buy a 2-gun charger that will charge a bus in 40 minutes (if you ramp it right the fuck up) for less than $50k. When you consider the bus costs upwards of 12 times that per unit...
The other factor: electricity is already everywhere. Just need to put the right spout on it to feed your vehicle.
Hydrogen will have uses no doubt BUT they'll be highly specialised. Creating hydrogen for transport is easy enough, but they're well behind the game when it comes to a distribution network.
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@antipodean said in Electric Vehicles:
@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
Hydrogen will dominate the large transport sector.
the big advantages of electricity is it's simplicity (for the vehicle) and the ubiquity of the grid. Recharging will become a thing I reckon - with chargers just proliferating along with electric vehicles.
Don't underestimate the headaches with storing and transferring hydrogen either - and having to make the bloody stuff in the first place! It's a super important alternative fuel, but I can't see it displacing electrical for most vehicles.
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@crazy-horse said in Electric Vehicles:
@kruse said in Electric Vehicles:
I see Energica is claiming they've got bikes which can do 400km, and a "quick charge" back to 80% in 42 minutes.
Not me. Imagine getting to the recharge spot moments after someone else and having to wait for them before you can start. 42 minutes becomes 84. Stuff that. They would need way more charging outlets than potential customers.
Someone mentioned prebooking. Stuff that too. I don't want to be constrained by a booking. My stress would go through the roof if I was running late.
Yeah this is my concern too. How often would you be charging right up until you leave? So that makes the length you've got left even shorter, plus it's not like you're gonna go right up to the limit, so bring that 4 hours closer to 3....then you gotta wait your turn to charge 20 mins to take you SFA further...
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I’ve always thought battery change was the way forward, not charge.
For trucks / hauling the torque of electricity makes huge sense, but surely the battery weight / size is a hinderance?
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@nzzp said in Electric Vehicles:
@antipodean said in Electric Vehicles:
@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
My concern is that rolling out charging infrastructure becomes a closed cycle i.e. because we have built the infrastructure we commit long term to EV. Whereas I think hydrogen is the way forward, much cleaner and needs no costly infrastructure.
For those old enough a bit like VHS V Betamax. The inferior system won out because it became ubiquitous. Car manufacturers now have a vested industry in the EV industry despite it being relatively inefficient and environmentally suspect.
Hydrogen will dominate the large transport sector.
the big advantages of electricity is it's simplicity (for the vehicle) and the ubiquity of the grid. Recharging will become a thing I reckon - with chargers just proliferating along with electric vehicles.
Don't underestimate the headaches with storing and transferring hydrogen either - and having to make the bloody stuff in the first place! It's a super important alternative fuel, but I can't see it displacing electrical for most vehicles.
Batteries simply don't work for interstate b-doubles, ships and planes. They're too heavy. That's not to diminish the challenges of storage which are orders of magnitude more difficult than LPG.
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
In addition to what @voodoo says above: electric bikes are probably always going to cap out at a certain charging rate simply because the hardware for fast charging adds weight and complexity to the electrical systems - need more wires, more thermal management etc.
Fascinated by that. You would have thought the thermal management components would be quite light and the thicker conductors would only add a few pounds. Is it the battery construction itself which adds all the weight?
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@victor-meldrew said in Electric Vehicles:
@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
In addition to what @voodoo says above: electric bikes are probably always going to cap out at a certain charging rate simply because the hardware for fast charging adds weight and complexity to the electrical systems - need more wires, more thermal management etc.
Fascinated by that. You would have thought the thermal management components would be quite light and the thicker conductors would only add a few pounds. Is it the battery construction itself which adds all the weight?
Should have clarified: the thermal management of the battery itself. Having liquid cooling is the only way to guarantee you can get the battery to the optimum fast-charge temperatures in any condition.
You can do that on a motorcycle but the scales of construction don't work as well, because you simply have mass restrictions - also centre of gravity issues on a bike versus a car.
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@majorrage said in Electric Vehicles:
I’ve always thought battery change was the way forward, not charge.
For trucks / hauling the torque of electricity makes huge sense, but surely the battery weight / size is a hinderance?
Energy density remains a critical factor - always improving of course, but there is a reason a lot of the big boys (Daimler, Volvo, Scania) are looking at this in addition to Tesla; they see a future.
Need to ensure a truck is going to be able to do the legal hours specified to the driver's satisfaction, and more importantly that the charging infrastructure is up to smashing a load of kWh into a battery in the shortest time possible - often in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Battery change could be an avenue there, but downtime is the issue on any given journey. Overall downtime on an electric truck for maintenance is quite small compared to a diesel due to simplicity by contrast.
I think we'll probably see a lot of electric in short haul/light commercial and public transport - you don't need more than 400km a day which is a single charge for a lot of the proposed vehicles. BYD in China has looked to move solely into that market and make Big Rigs tomorrow's problem.
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@nta I went to BYD's factory in China about 10 years ago. Was hosted by a Spanish solar developer as their financial advisor , along with a group of international banks they were trying to get comfortable with BYD's PV technology.
Got to drive their EV around the facility, and the PV manufacturing was 1st rate.
But by far the more impressive setup was their battery manufacturing facility. Looking back now, you can see they'd identified it as the main game.
If only I'd been smart enough to take notice
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
Energy density remains a critical factor - always improving of course, but there is a reason a lot of the big boys (Daimler, Volvo, Scania) are looking at this in addition to Tesla; they see a future.
Hybrid long haul trucks make perfect sense. Large torque to enable them to easily accelerate from rest, diesel for economy, range and charging while in transit.
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
Should have clarified: the thermal management of the battery itself. Having liquid cooling is the only way to guarantee you can get the battery to the optimum fast-charge temperatures in any condition.
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Nick, because you seem to be the go to guy and I'm too lazy to research, how are things going with battery pollutants?
The are obviously quite intricate pieces of machinery made from some rather unpleasant materials. One of the biggest things about the Prius which was often mentioned (and therefore I assume true) was that it used more pollutants to make, than a basic petrol/diesel car would produce in a lifetime.
How has that moved forwards do you know? What is going to happen in 10 years time when we, as a planet, have 100 million used car batteries lying around?
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@antipodean said in Electric Vehicles:
@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
Energy density remains a critical factor - always improving of course, but there is a reason a lot of the big boys (Daimler, Volvo, Scania) are looking at this in addition to Tesla; they see a future.
Hybrid long haul trucks make perfect sense. Large torque to enable them to easily accelerate from rest, diesel for economy, range and charging while in transit.
Might be the ideal transition. Especially if you're putting in the regeneration to the right degree - less engine braking through towns, less wear on the anchors, free energy.
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@majorrage said in Electric Vehicles:
Nick, because you seem to be the go to guy and I'm too lazy to research, how are things going with battery pollutants?
The are obviously quite intricate pieces of machinery made from some rather unpleasant materials. One of the biggest things about the Prius which was often mentioned (and therefore I assume true) was that it used more pollutants to make, than a basic petrol/diesel car would produce in a lifetime.
Fucking Prius. Yeah it was a good idea 20 years ago but Toyota really should have moved on by now... They're laggards in this whole EV thing and Clarkson was right about Toyota's hybrid progam: building the battery in this country then shipping it to that country then taking the car over there is a big issue from a carbon pov.
Companies in Korea and Chinas are addressing this in the first instance through vertical integration: the raw materials are sourced as close as possible to the place of manufacture, to minimise fiscal and carbon costs in production. Refining the materials for batteries, putting them in the cells, wrapping those cells in the case, then installing them right next to where the car is assembled, painted, and rolled off the production line is smart.
How has that moved forwards do you know? What is going to happen in 10 years time when we, as a planet, have 100 million used car batteries lying around?
It is a good question; I am reminded about all the e-waste made by phones, laptops, and circuitry in general, and how places in China that process it are polluting rivers and lakes etc.
A lot of the battery manufacturers are putting warranties on the battery of 7+ years for cars and 10 for "static" storage, so they're fairly confident the risk analysis on chemistry testing is good. Of course, the battery will probably go longer than the warranty in a high percentage of cases.
Battery component recycling as a first step is going to be a big business. Manufacturers are producing batteries they know have a high percentage of reclaimable elements. I'm not sure on the exact toxicities that the cleaning processes will make, and how they're stored if deemed unusable. But it is better quality than the laptop batteries we throw away every day as a society.
Re-purposing is another element. While the chemistries between car and static storage are different, once a car battery drops below a certain level it can be transferred to domestic or industrial use as cheap storage before going to recycling. I've even seen a few companies that buy intact battery modules from written-off Teslas to do up old Land Rovers or other classic vehicles.
It is important to note that the chemistry of a car battery versus domestic battery is different, because they have different goals:
Car battery is designed to deliver power as a priority, with total number of cycles (full-to-empty) over 10 years to be around 1200 or every ~3 days.
Static storage is targeting energy availability with a high number of cycles over a 10-year warranty, at a daily cycle we're talking 3650 in total for that warranty period.Looking at it from another angle: will the "toxic footprint" of a battery's life cycle be any better or worse than emitting carbon over the life of a petrol vehicle? I guess that would be worth some research
The supply side is an issue: a lot of cobalt comes from places like the DRC where labour practices are shoddy at best (child labour) so they're working on taking out as they move forward. There are also efforts to reduce the ethical issues by establishing local companies rather than exploitative foreign interests to get everyone the money they deserve.
On a related topic: our warehouses use electric forklifts for pallet work, and what I found interesting is a lot of MHE (Materials Handling Equipment) runs on lead-acid. While the depth of discharge isn't as good and the battery life isn't as long as a result, Lead-acid physical elements used in those units is 100% recyclable. Also big business - keeps the cost of replacement low, and the market is large.
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@MajorRage before I forget: there are a range of other initiatives to make better, cleaner batteries. The issue is making them cost-effective or being able to produce them at scale.
Lithium ion has a huge headstart because of Sony, basically. They needed a reliable battery to run portable devices that were getting lighter all the time, and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and nickel cadmium (NiCd) wasn't cutting it any more on weight.
Interestingly, NiMH are still used in some of Toyota's hybrids. I find this mind-blowing.
EDIT: And to answer another question related to this - the carbon footprint of manufacture for an EV generally gets to net zero around the 40,000km mark in the average European grid mix. Here in Australia, depending what state you're in, it might be higher, but estimates are somewhere around 70,000km at the top end of Victoria's dirty brown coal stations. With renewables now generating around 20% across the biggest network in the southeast states, it'll only get better.
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@nta thanks for the info, great stuff and can see your passion for it.
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I still come back to there's a lot of hypocrisy based on EV's being the bright shiny thing.
NZ (any country) could massively reduce carbon emissions almost overnight with no need to create neew infrastructure or a new fleet.
https://www.neste.com/about-neste/innovation/nexbtl-technology
All it would require is the govt to offset the increased fuel charge by a reduction in petrol taxes.
I'm not saying this is the ultimate answer but it's an easily adopted, short to medium term stop gap solution
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
I still come back to there's a lot of hypocrisy based on EV's being the bright shiny thing.
NZ (any country) could massively reduce carbon emissions almost overnight with no need to create neew infrastructure or a new fleet.
https://www.neste.com/about-neste/innovation/nexbtl-technology
All it would require is the govt to offset the increased fuel charge by a reduction in petrol taxes.
I'm not saying this is the ultimate answer but it's an easily adopted, short to medium term stop gap solution
We have looked at a stack of (and lent to some) ethanol and renewable diesel projects over the last 15yrs, and while I don't discount their value at some level, it's not that easy to scale country wide.
Production requires securing feedstock and a reasonably complex distillation/refining process , and getting the output spec right is as much an art as a science. Many car companies also only rate their vehicles for 10% blends still, which is probably super conservative, but whaddya gonna do?
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@voodoo different product. Neste is the only company producing this. All it requires is a tank at any petrol station you front up and fill your tank and away you go. It is a 100% like for like substitute for oil based fuels.
It's not your traditional ethanol based product. Not commonly known because it is usually sold in scale to large fleets but there are relatively big retail networks in Scandinavia and California.
Renewables is the sole reason Neste is now valued higher than BP (despite most people think they make chocolate)
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@dogmeat @dogmeat I know it's not ethanol, we've looked at renewable diesel from discarded fats also here in Oz. Still not super simple - the Neste website even says "developing our unique refinery platform" which are words you hate to hear as a financier! And still really hard to get to scale if you're talking about massive productio scale (collection alone takes heaps of effort). Maybe Neste have their own supply of fats which would make a huge different.
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@voodoo Neste buy up almost all the fats and tallow in Australasia along with other sources I believe.
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The batteries in our vehicles are warranted to 10 years. This means they are guaranteed to reach a minimum level of charge for that time (i think it's 70% but it might actually be higher, that's for the tech guys). That level of charge is still far and away enough to have domestic use for a long time after that. The initial thoughts (and we are still a fair way off the first battery pack change-over) is that batteries will be repurposed for domestic storage.
This stuff is a big consideration, and while all the answers aren't available now, there is time to work out the details.
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@mariner4life said in Electric Vehicles:
This stuff is a big consideration, and while all the answers aren't available now, there is time to work out the details.
more importantly, batteries allow the focus to be on generating power, not so much on timing.
Separately, was chatting to someone about new construction sites. They had been working on a site where powered tools were banned - all the tools had to be battery. This eliminated the subcontractor power cord tangles ... seemed overkill to me, but the front end of this sort of change.
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@nzzp said in Electric Vehicles:
Separately, was chatting to someone about new construction sites. They had been working on a site where powered tools were banned - all the tools had to be battery. This eliminated the subcontractor power cord tangles ... seemed overkill to me, but the front end of this sort of change.
Will be interesting if they want to do core drilling etc.
There are a few electric vehicles coming out in construction e.g. https://www.bobcat.com/eu/company-info/news-media/e10-electric
Important for enclosed spaces, but also loaders that can work longer hours because they don't breach noise provisions.
