7 ms·

Interesting article but the timelines seem way to conservative to me. For example if batteries continue to improve over the next four years as they have over t

Interesting article but the timelines seem way to conservative to me. For example if batteries continue to improve over the next four years as they have over the past four years, according to the article then in 2020 the batteries will weight 1500 lbs, travel 1142 miles on a charge and cost about $10k. (Or a 500 mile battery for $5k) And the cost of electricity will be, at today's rates, $1 per "e-gallon" Who wouldn't want that? Project this to 2040 and the numbers become just ridiculous but the article suggests just 35% market share by then. I don't think so. By 2025 the market will almost certainly be strongly in the favor of electrics.

kfk 10y ago
Fuel engine are improving too and oil price doesn't seem to want to go down any time soon. I'd say we have an interesting 10 years ahead. Electric is probably going to win, but time estimates are very hard to do. Don't forget that replacing a car fleet is expensive and takes years. A modern car can easily last 15-20 years, so even if we started replacing fuel with electric today (which we are not), replacing the whole car fleet would require 15-20 years. I don't see the 35% so far fetched in 2025...
- gambiting 10y ago
  And don't forget that there are millions of people who have a car right now, but who wouldn't have a place to charge an electric car. People living in apartments, terraced houses, especially in the UK it's very common to see rows upon rows of houses, none of them with their own driveway.
  - garrettheaver 10y ago
    I know what you're getting at but I don't think the above comparison is entirely fair. Those houses don't have petrol pumps outside them either
    - gambiting 10y ago
      Yes, but I go to a petrol station once a month, takes me 10 minutes to fill up and the whole tank lasts me for the whole month. With electric cars there are two ways out of this, either build enough electric charging points that you can charge while you are at work, or make every single car supercharger-compatible. I personally don't think the first option is likely, I don't see why my work(or any other) would have literally every single parking spot wired for charging(there's over 1000 parking spots at our office), and as for the second option, even 30 minute charging is excessive, it's fine o long journeys so you can go an have a coffee and stretch your legs, but if you want to quickly "fill up" after work 30 minutes is not acceptable. That's why I said that for majority of people charging at home is ideal - but a lot of people don't have private place to charge at home.
      - garrettheaver 10y ago
        Yeah I understand what you mean and I think you're right. 1000 charge points is unacceptable but do we really need that? Given the current generation Tesla can already self navigate pretty well what's stopping the cars navigate the car park in your absence and charge themselves at a few central charge points. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      I think it is entirely fair. You can fill gas or diesel up at a station quite quickly. To charge batteries so that you can use the car, you really need a charging station available every night or day.
      - garrettheaver 10y ago
        I don't really agree I'm sorry to say. It kinda makes assumptions about charge rates, charge locations (home, work, car parks) or even the means by which cars are "refilled". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
        10y ago
  - throwaway049 10y ago
    We would probably solve that by putting up more charging points at the roadside (there are quite a few of these around already in the UK), with a card reader for payment or perhaps a payment chip within the car's charging connector.
    - skrause 10y ago
      Where I live (in a dense German city) there wouldn't even be space at the roadside to install charging points; even the street lights are attachted to the houses because there was no space left. I have the same situation at work, so personally have a difficult time imagining to own an electric car anytime soon.
      - dooptroop 10y ago
        Where do the normal cars park?
        mantas 10y ago
        By the side of the street. In between the street and pedestrians passage. Or between street and bicycle path. Sometimes diagonally. The only possible charging would be some stuff that's underground and comes out of the ground right next to the car. Hopefully attaches to the bottom of the car, so there're no hoses/wires flinging around. And some cars are parked at grey-legal spots blocking other cars. People just leave their phone numbers if someone needs to get out earlier. That is super common when you know people around and can expect to drive away sooner than your neighbour.
        Tempest1981 10y ago
        Or overhead?
        skrause 10y ago
        Here is an example of such a street: https://www.google.de/maps/@51.2310008,7.0720156,3a,75y,127.29h,87.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skRl1Fm1VvqV_1uDpmlYDIQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@51.2310008,7.0720156,3a,75y,127.... You bascially park your car somewhere half on the street, half on the curb. The sidewalk is just wide enough for people to walk there.
Animats 10y ago
There are inherent limits on battery energy density.[1] Lithium-ion is nearing the limits of that chemistry. Magnesium-ion could potentially have about 30% more energy density, but so far, nobody can get it to work. Lithium-sulfur may be the next big step. Those actually exist.[2] However, they present a major hazardous waste problem, much worse than lithium-ion batteries.[3] The ultimate limits on energy density are probably 2x or 3x above the best current products. Basic problem: higher energy density comes from elements that are highly reactive. Cost can be brought down through manufacturing economies. We'll have to see if Tesla meets their price point with their Nevada factory. [1] http://www.tedsanders.com/graphs/batteries-over-time http://www.tedsanders.com/graphs/batteries-over-time [2] http://www.sionpower.com/ http://www.sionpower.com/ [3] https://yosemite.epa.gov/OSW/rcra.nsf/Documents/CC7D81DF307086C085256611005AC8EC https://yosemite.epa.gov/OSW/rcra.nsf/Documents/CC7D81DF3070...
lhl 10y ago
Ramez Naam has done lots of research/writing about "learning rates" for power technology. Here's a writeup from late last year on lithium ion batteries: http://rameznaam.com/2015/10/14/how-cheap-can-energy-storage-get/ http://rameznaam.com/2015/10/14/how-cheap-can-energy-storage... There are two different studies, one which shows a 15% and one which shows a 21% learning rate (decreased price due to volume). One thing that's worth noting is that lithium ion energy density (Wh/kg) has not increased appreciably in the past few years (~200 Wh/kg) - we're probably maxed out w/o switching chemistries. Oxis and Sony are targeting 500 Wh/kg Li-S batteries for 2019/2020, but I'll believe it when I see it - most of the Li-S research is super gee-whiz (lots of coated nanotubes, nanocomposites, etc) but that stuff never tends to make it outside of the labs, and if it does, will be quite expensive.
amelius 10y ago
> if batteries continue to improve over the next four years as they have over the past four years If CPUs had improved similarly, we would now have machines running at 100GHz. Just saying that extrapolating technology is a tricky business.

kfk 10y ago

Fuel engine are improving too and oil price doesn't seem to want to go down any time soon. I'd say we have an interesting 10 years ahead. Electric is probably going to win, but time estimates are very hard to do. Don't forget that replacing a car fleet is expensive and takes years. A modern car can easily last 15-20 years, so even if we started replacing fuel with electric today (which we are not), replacing the whole car fleet would require 15-20 years. I don't see the 35% so far fetched in 2025...

gambiting 10y ago
And don't forget that there are millions of people who have a car right now, but who wouldn't have a place to charge an electric car. People living in apartments, terraced houses, especially in the UK it's very common to see rows upon rows of houses, none of them with their own driveway.
- garrettheaver 10y ago
  I know what you're getting at but I don't think the above comparison is entirely fair. Those houses don't have petrol pumps outside them either
  - gambiting 10y ago
    Yes, but I go to a petrol station once a month, takes me 10 minutes to fill up and the whole tank lasts me for the whole month. With electric cars there are two ways out of this, either build enough electric charging points that you can charge while you are at work, or make every single car supercharger-compatible. I personally don't think the first option is likely, I don't see why my work(or any other) would have literally every single parking spot wired for charging(there's over 1000 parking spots at our office), and as for the second option, even 30 minute charging is excessive, it's fine o long journeys so you can go an have a coffee and stretch your legs, but if you want to quickly "fill up" after work 30 minutes is not acceptable. That's why I said that for majority of people charging at home is ideal - but a lot of people don't have private place to charge at home.
    - garrettheaver 10y ago
      Yeah I understand what you mean and I think you're right. 1000 charge points is unacceptable but do we really need that? Given the current generation Tesla can already self navigate pretty well what's stopping the cars navigate the car park in your absence and charge themselves at a few central charge points. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    I think it is entirely fair. You can fill gas or diesel up at a station quite quickly. To charge batteries so that you can use the car, you really need a charging station available every night or day.
    - garrettheaver 10y ago
      I don't really agree I'm sorry to say. It kinda makes assumptions about charge rates, charge locations (home, work, car parks) or even the means by which cars are "refilled". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
      - 10y ago
- throwaway049 10y ago
  We would probably solve that by putting up more charging points at the roadside (there are quite a few of these around already in the UK), with a card reader for payment or perhaps a payment chip within the car's charging connector.
  - skrause 10y ago
    Where I live (in a dense German city) there wouldn't even be space at the roadside to install charging points; even the street lights are attachted to the houses because there was no space left. I have the same situation at work, so personally have a difficult time imagining to own an electric car anytime soon.
    - dooptroop 10y ago
      Where do the normal cars park?
      - mantas 10y ago
        By the side of the street. In between the street and pedestrians passage. Or between street and bicycle path. Sometimes diagonally. The only possible charging would be some stuff that's underground and comes out of the ground right next to the car. Hopefully attaches to the bottom of the car, so there're no hoses/wires flinging around. And some cars are parked at grey-legal spots blocking other cars. People just leave their phone numbers if someone needs to get out earlier. That is super common when you know people around and can expect to drive away sooner than your neighbour.
        Tempest1981 10y ago
        Or overhead?
      - skrause 10y ago
        Here is an example of such a street: https://www.google.de/maps/@51.2310008,7.0720156,3a,75y,127.29h,87.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skRl1Fm1VvqV_1uDpmlYDIQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@51.2310008,7.0720156,3a,75y,127.... You bascially park your car somewhere half on the street, half on the curb. The sidewalk is just wide enough for people to walk there.

Animats 10y ago

There are inherent limits on battery energy density.[1] Lithium-ion is nearing the limits of that chemistry. Magnesium-ion could potentially have about 30% more energy density, but so far, nobody can get it to work. Lithium-sulfur may be the next big step. Those actually exist.[2] However, they present a major hazardous waste problem, much worse than lithium-ion batteries.[3] The ultimate limits on energy density are probably 2x or 3x above the best current products. Basic problem: higher energy density comes from elements that are highly reactive. Cost can be brought down through manufacturing economies. We'll have to see if Tesla meets their price point with their Nevada factory. [1] http://www.tedsanders.com/graphs/batteries-over-time http://www.tedsanders.com/graphs/batteries-over-time [2] http://www.sionpower.com/ http://www.sionpower.com/ [3] https://yosemite.epa.gov/OSW/rcra.nsf/Documents/CC7D81DF307086C085256611005AC8EC https://yosemite.epa.gov/OSW/rcra.nsf/Documents/CC7D81DF3070...

lhl 10y ago

Ramez Naam has done lots of research/writing about "learning rates" for power technology. Here's a writeup from late last year on lithium ion batteries: http://rameznaam.com/2015/10/14/how-cheap-can-energy-storage-get/ http://rameznaam.com/2015/10/14/how-cheap-can-energy-storage... There are two different studies, one which shows a 15% and one which shows a 21% learning rate (decreased price due to volume). One thing that's worth noting is that lithium ion energy density (Wh/kg) has not increased appreciably in the past few years (~200 Wh/kg) - we're probably maxed out w/o switching chemistries. Oxis and Sony are targeting 500 Wh/kg Li-S batteries for 2019/2020, but I'll believe it when I see it - most of the Li-S research is super gee-whiz (lots of coated nanotubes, nanocomposites, etc) but that stuff never tends to make it outside of the labs, and if it does, will be quite expensive.

amelius 10y ago

> if batteries continue to improve over the next four years as they have over the past four years If CPUs had improved similarly, we would now have machines running at 100GHz. Just saying that extrapolating technology is a tricky business.