PHEV.... winter EV range?

[ernieb]

10 hours ago, Cyker said:

Well, one optimistic side effect is these plants could be turned into charging hubs if the grid operators don't pull their collective fingers out - If they add parking spaces and some buffer batteries, they could directly power the charge units without going through the grid, and since a lot of these sites are in land not far off motorways it would just require some road works on top of the endless amount of road works we already have  

Or make hydrogen?

[Oscarmax]

12 hours ago, Cyker said:

It'll only do that if we can reduce gas use, as that's supposedly what's driving up electricity prices. If we'd got more nuclear plants up and running earlier, and not with the insane stipulations the only one we are building have, we'd be in a better place, but the only way we could bring down energy costs in the short term is more renewables, as traditional power plants take decades to build.

Unfortunately the grid operators have really dropped the ball on connecting up new sites - Supposedly there are loads of wind farms and solar plants that are built, but not feeding the grid, because the grid operators just can't keep up! Apparently because their procedures are based around connecting a few large sites, connecting lots of small-sites is seemingly beyond their ability...!

If you can stick solar panels on your roof and install a decent-sized battery, EV ownership can be extremely cheap per-mile.

We already have 4.4 kWh solar panels and 5.8 kWh Solax Triple Battery, we generate more than we import which includes charging up the PHEV, are electric bill are virtually zero.

[Nick72]

44 minutes ago, Oscarmax said:

We already have 4.4 kWh solar panels and 5.8 kWh Solax Triple battery, we generate more than we import which includes charging up the PHEV, are electric bill are virtually zero.

That's a good way of doing it. 

[GBgraham]

16 hours ago, Cyker said:

It'll only do that if we can reduce gas use, as that's supposedly what's driving up electricity prices. If we'd got more nuclear plants up and running earlier, and not with the insane stipulations the only one we are building have, we'd be in a better place, but the only way we could bring down energy costs in the short term is more renewables, as traditional power plants take decades to build.

Unfortunately the grid operators have really dropped the ball on connecting up new sites - Supposedly there are loads of wind farms and solar plants that are built, but not feeding the grid, because the grid operators just can't keep up! Apparently because their procedures are based around connecting a few large sites, connecting lots of small-sites is seemingly beyond their ability...!

If you can stick solar panels on your roof and install a decent-sized battery, EV ownership can be extremely cheap per-mile.

Your post can open a whole can of worms . . . .  The only way to go is Nuclear, Rolls Royce have been pushing for the government to build SMR's (small nuclear reactors) and I believe they are just about to approve a build at Teeside, and guess what . . . . an American firm is getting the contract.

Though I still think full EV is the wrong way to go!

[Cyker]

We'd need a LOT of SMRs tho - Their output is in the 10's to 100's megawatt range, but a car park full of e.g. 500kW fastchargers could easily soak up all that power.

I think *forcing* everyone to full EV is wrong - There will always be cases where EV isn't appropriate, but going EV with alternative energy sources will help break the grip oil companies and nations have on the world.

One of the good things to come out of Russia's idiotic war is they've exposed how vulnerable everyone is to their oil power which will hopefully make the people in charge think a bit more before they do stupid things like Germany did shutting down all their nuclear plants and being so dependant on Russian oil and gas. Russia had them by the short and curlys and they both knew it - I can only hopefully everyone will learn from that.

The thing is, if EVs were genuinely better - People would buy them without needing to be coerced and forced; By doing so it just shows how deficient they are compared to regular cars.

I like to compare it to diesel - Nobody forced anyone to buy diesel, the government just encouraged everyone to do so with some small tax incentives but modern turbo-diesels showed how they were better than petrol, with the low-range torque, lower CO2, higher fuel economy etc. and people bought them in droves.

Of course the government U-Turned hard on that and lots of people that jumped on that wagon have been punished hard for it (Me included), which is another reason I'm much more recalcitrant in going to EV - Who knows when the other shoe will drop and they U-turn on this too...!

[GBgraham]

I believe they are hoping to adopt 4 SMR's at Teesside. As for Germany, they produce a quarter of their power by solid fuel power stations fuelled by lignite which is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. "Do as we say, not as we do."      IMHO most of all the planets problems lie at the feet of the politicians, dictators and so called philanthropists. Strange how the oil prices are staying constantly low $78 a barrel +/- 5% even with the worlds problems?

Back to EV's, a truck can fill it's tanks with diesel and probably has 1000 mile range with let's say 2 sleepovers, but the same load to be carried by an EV will take 8-10 recharges, each of at least an 8 hour duration to travel the same distance and add all this to the price of the goods it's moving and wow.   

The power supply infrastructure needed for the use of all EV's is just mind blowing and in my opinion just about beyond comprehension because of the apathy shown by past and present governments of all counties, they can all do the talk but not the walk.

For me a perfect combination for a RAV4 would be a 2.0 diesel PHEV and I heard somewhere that this or a similar combination is going on sale in Australia.

 

 

[Oscarmax]

On 12/1/2023 at 5:24 PM, Oscarmax said:

Over the last few weeks our EV range has averaged around 46 miles, today -6 degrees C EV range has now dropped to 37 miles heating, aircon and seats on, we are seeing about 2.1 miles @ kWh

5 degrees C today back up to 46 miles today

[Nick72]

4 hours ago, Oscarmax said:

5 degrees C today back up to 46 miles today

Yeh mine was showing 47 with air con on after charging. About 5C also.

[GBgraham]

Today with a full charge my engine ran straight away when the electric seats were switched and I was only going snail speed. On the trip it only did 43% on EV for a twenty mile trip.

[Nick72]

On 12/4/2023 at 3:35 PM, GBgraham said:

I believe they are hoping to adopt 4 SMR's at Teesside. As for Germany, they produce a quarter of their power by solid fuel power stations fuelled by lignite which is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. "Do as we say, not as we do."      IMHO most of all the planets problems lie at the feet of the politicians, dictators and so called philanthropists. Strange how the oil prices are staying constantly low $78 a barrel +/- 5% even with the worlds problems?

Back to EV's, a truck can fill it's tanks with diesel and probably has 1000 mile range with let's say 2 sleepovers, but the same load to be carried by an EV will take 8-10 recharges, each of at least an 8 hour duration to travel the same distance and add all this to the price of the goods it's moving and wow.   

The power supply infrastructure needed for the use of all EV's is just mind blowing and in my opinion just about beyond comprehension because of the apathy shown by past and present governments of all counties, they can all do the talk but not the walk.

For me a perfect combination for a RAV4 would be a 2.0 diesel PHEV and I heard somewhere that this or a similar combination is going on sale in Australia.

 

 

Agree on the double standards going on with respect to energy sources. Germany got its wake up call from Russia given all the gas they import. But they only fell in line with the rest of us in terms of stance against Russia after a lot of persuasion. They've tried to cover over the Russian energy relationship by providing more military aid to Ukraine in terms of financial value than anyone else except the USA. A small price to pay to be seen to be supportive.

For me the whole infrastructure problem goes away for probably 95% of UK users that have access to home charging once the real world range in the worst conditions of winter motorway driving hits about 350 to 400 miles. It's about 300 to 310 for me personally and we are getting closer. Polestar 2 LR SM can achiebe a clained 406mi. Which is probably say 270 in winter motorway conditions.

Within 5 years there will be options in the 300 to 400 real world range category. There's no chemistry or physics preventing Lithium ion based batteries from tripling their specific energy within the next 10 years and which has been the rolling trend for the past 10 years. So in principle a 1000 mile range 2 tonne SUV is going to be feasible and probably with 4 tiny electric motors on each wheel putting out over 600 plus hp total. Exciting times. Electric motor power density is tripling over a 10 year period.

Meanwhile I think the only sensible EV option if you've got regular long journeys to make is probably a long range model Tesla given the extensive and well maintained and bookable charging network. Though it will be interesting to see what Kia bring out with their EV5 and EV9. There are rumours they'll role out a new Battery with 50% more range of current EVs.

[Nick72]

2 minutes ago, GBgraham said:

Today with a full charge my engine ran straight away when the electric seats were switched and I was only going snail speed. On the trip it only did 43% on EV for a twenty mile trip.

Was the front screen demister also on?

[Oscarmax]

I have heated wipers at the bottom of the screen, not actually used the too date as we have a front screen cover.

[Cyker]

2 hours ago, Nick72 said:

Agree on the double standards going on with respect to energy sources. Germany got its wake up call from Russia given all the gas they import. But they only fell in line with the rest of us in terms of stance against Russia after a lot of persuasion. They've tried to cover over the Russian energy relationship by providing more military aid to Ukraine in terms of financial value than anyone else except the USA. A small price to pay to be seen to be supportive.

To be fair the Germans were screwed and pretty much backed into a corner - Because they decommissioned their nuclear plants, the majority of their power generation came from their gas plants, but they were almost totally reliant on russian gas and we know how that turned out, so they had to continue funding russia to keep the gas supplies while they re-activated the coal plants they were in the process of decommissioning and negotiate other gas sources to avoid blackouts.

2 hours ago, Nick72 said:

For me the whole infrastructure problem goes away for probably 95% of UK users that have access to home charging once the real world range in the worst conditions of winter motorway driving hits about 350 to 400 miles. It's about 300 to 310 for me personally and we are getting closer. Polestar 2 LR SM can achiebe a clained 406mi. Which is probably say 270 in winter motorway conditions.

Within 5 years there will be options in the 300 to 400 real world range category. There's no chemistry or physics preventing Lithium ion based batteries from tripling their specific energy within the next 10 years and which has been the rolling trend for the past 10 years. So in principle a 1000 mile range 2 tonne SUV is going to be feasible and probably with 4 tiny electric motors on each wheel putting out over 600 plus hp total. Exciting times. Electric motor power density is tripling over a 10 year period.

Meanwhile I think the only sensible EV option if you've got regular long journeys to make is probably a long range model Tesla given the extensive and well maintained and bookable charging network. Though it will be interesting to see what Kia bring out with their EV5 and EV9. There are rumours they'll role out a new battery with 50% more range of current EVs.

I don't know where this 95% of UK owners stat comes from - Maybe if you ignored all the cities where the population is much higher density and most people park on the street or in communal parking for e.g. flats, where it's highly unlikely the owners will stump up for charging given they were too tight to even fire-proof a block of flats.

The vast majority of people around here would definitely not be able to charge at home; It's highly unlikely I will ever be able to charge at home while I am here, and I suspect this is true of many more than the statistics EV people like to throw out there.

I'm hopeful there will be big leaps in Battery energy density, but I'm not holding my breath - I bought into the hype at the beginning and from what they said I should already have my 300+mile @70mph full heating etc. Yaris right now, but we're not even close to that - Remember I've been saving for an EV over 10 years, which is the only reason I could buy the Mk4 when KHAAAAAN got me. So I'm understandably very skeptical, and am now much more pessimistic and feel Toyota's original predictions are much more correct.

 

Two areas that I just don't know how we'll sort out are haulage and energy generation.

I really don't know how haulage will work - There is nothing out there that can match diesel. Pure EV just won't work; You could make the batteries 90% of the allowed mass and it still won't come close to the range and load hauling of a diesel truck.

Hydrogen is the only potential possibility, but you'd still need far more hydrogen which will require more mass and space and will also be far more expensive per mile.

With power infrastructure - I don't think anyone's considered how many gigawatt-equivalents petrol and diesel save the grid every day, and that will need to be taken up by the grid eventually... I don't understand where that power will come from given we're decommissioning more power plants than we're building and new plants take decades to complete. I don't know what the plan is if EV adoption suddenly ramps up quickly.

 

[Nick72]

20 minutes ago, Cyker said:

To be fair the Germans were screwed and pretty much backed into a corner - Because they decommissioned their nuclear plants, the majority of their power generation came from their gas plants, but they were almost totally reliant on russian gas and we know how that turned out, so they had to continue funding russia to keep the gas supplies while they re-activated the coal plants they were in the process of decommissioning and negotiate other gas sources to avoid blackouts.

I don't know where this 95% of UK owners stat comes from - Maybe if you ignored all the cities where the population is much higher density and most people park on the street or in communal parking for e.g. flats, where it's highly unlikely the owners will stump up for charging given they were too tight to even fire-proof a block of flats.

The vast majority of people around here would definitely not be able to charge at home; It's highly unlikely I will ever be able to charge at home while I am here, and I suspect this is true of many more than the statistics EV people like to throw out there.

I'm hopeful there will be big leaps in battery energy density, but I'm not holding my breath - I bought into the hype at the beginning and from what they said I should already have my 300+mile @70mph full heating etc. Yaris right now, but we're not even close to that - Remember I've been saving for an EV over 10 years, which is the only reason I could buy the Mk4 when KHAAAAAN got me. So I'm understandably very skeptical, and am now much more pessimistic and feel Toyota's original predictions are much more correct.

 

Two areas that I just don't know how we'll sort out are haulage and energy generation.

I really don't know how haulage will work - There is nothing out there that can match diesel. Pure EV just won't work; You could make the batteries 90% of the allowed mass and it still won't come close to the range and load hauling of a diesel truck.

Hydrogen is the only potential possibility, but you'd still need far more hydrogen which will require more mass and space and will also be far more expensive per mile.

With power infrastructure - I don't think anyone's considered how many gigawatt-equivalents petrol and diesel save the grid every day, and that will need to be taken up by the grid eventually... I don't understand where that power will come from given we're decommissioning more power plants than we're building and new plants take decades to complete. I don't know what the plan is if EV adoption suddenly ramps up quickly.

 

Re. don't know where this 95% of UK owners stat comes from - Maybe if you ignored all the cities where the population is much higher density and most people park on the street or in communal parking for e.g. flats, where it's highly unlikely the owners will stump up for charging given they were too tight to even fire-proof a block of flats.

Guesstimate only with the caveat regarding your point. I said for folks with access to home charging... "For me the whole infrastructure problem goes away for probably 95% of UK users that have access to home charging once the real world range in the worst conditions of winter motorway driving hits about 350 to 400 miles.". We could easily prove it to be in the 90s from looking at the trip mileage distribution of motorists in the subset of folks that have off street parking. For folks in flats then I completely agree. EVs are probably a bum deal at present and possibly for a long while yet.

Not clear on what the basis is of the diesel vs EV assertion is in the haulage context. How are you factoring the overall or holistic mass in the comparison? The energy loss mechanisms thus compound inefficiency. The design freedoms? The projections for Battery specific energy and electric motor power density? It really isn't a case of just saying the specific energy of diesel is say 45MJ per kg but Li batteries are only 0.8MJ per kg so diesel is always best. The former results in a small fraction of this energy translating to useful mechanical energy whereas the latter is very efficient and tripling over the next decade just for Lithium.  Then you don't need a big ICE and only tiny electric motors. Now mass has been saved to offset the mass of the Battery. The point being there are many design factors. If there weren't then nobody would be doing electric logistics vehicles including elrctric long haul trucks, drone taxi development, cargo UAV EVs, etc. Its because when all things are considered there are crossover points. 

Hydrogen looks wonderful on paper but actually doesn't work for land vehicles. Infrastructure is the big problem.  Hydrogen is particularly troublesome in terms of generation at rate and volume (the texaco process is really the only one thevworks at large scale currently and thatbinvolves frsctuting hydrocarbons which defeats the green objectives), storage (x4 more volume than petrol, Hydrogen embrittlement breaks stuff, it leaks a lot), transport (same as previous issues) and more. Note Toyota has just abandoned their Hydrogen project for reasons I've just mentioned and others.

 

Just opinion of course. But, all traceable and evidenced if I could be bothered.

[Cyker]

re. the diesel vs EV thing, the problem with batteries is they are heavy and the more you add the less range you get because of diminishing returns - I'm not sure where the 'sweet spot' for haulage would be, but I suspect it would still give significantly less range than a diesel and cut into the maximum mass allowed for HGVs which would mean it can't carry as much, so more trips would be needed.

The thing about electric motors being lighter than an ICE is technically true, but this is one of the misleading claims that I still feel quite annoyed by - EV drive trains are not just the motors - If you factor in all the power electronics; The inverters, the speed controllers and all that stuff, the amount of stuff you need quickly adds up to be around the size and mass of a small petrol engine, and then there's the Battery on top of that.

No matter how compact batteries get, they will never be lighter than a diesel engine (Or any ICE) and a fuel tank for any useful range - Unless they come up with a truly revolutionary alternative, physics will always impose a significant mass penalty.

 

re. hydrogen, one reason it can work with haulage is they tend to go from point to point so having hydrogen infrastructure at their base and at distributions hubs would make it easier to deploy than for us.

But I agree it's overall a fairly terrible path - The production process is either highly polluting or highly wasteful or even both, and extremely expensive on top of that. But this is what they will be forced to do if this obsession with lip-service zero emissions at the tail pipe at the expense of everything else continues, because what alternative is there? The only others I'm aware of use really horrible toxic fuels which break down into nitrogen compounds are so are technically zero carbon, but I hope to smeg nobody in charge is stupid enough to greenlight those or it'll be like leaded fuel all over again but worse.

The fact is, no vehicle will be truly zero emission or even net zero emission - Instead, it should be considered whether the benefit vs the emissions is worth it. If real zero emission is the ultimate goal we may as well start a global nuclear war and make the planet as barren as mercury - That's the only way we'd truly have zero emissions, but that would be idiotic because there'd be no benefit to anyone.

I think the people that obsess about that have forgotten the original point of all of this in the first place, which is really boils down to reducing the green house effect before it boils us! None of the stuff we're doing at the moment is making any significant impact to that.

[GBgraham]

16 hours ago, Nick72 said:

Was the front screen demister also on?

Yes it has the front screen demist 

[ernieb]

21 hours ago, GBgraham said:

Yes it has the front screen demist 

If that is switched on it will automatically start the ICE.

[Nick72]

17 hours ago, Cyker said:

re. the diesel vs EV thing, the problem with batteries is they are heavy and the more you add the less range you get because of diminishing returns - I'm not sure where the 'sweet spot' for haulage would be, but I suspect it would still give significantly less range than a diesel and cut into the maximum mass allowed for HGVs which would mean it can't carry as much, so more trips would be needed.

The thing about electric motors being lighter than an ICE is technically true, but this is one of the misleading claims that I still feel quite annoyed by - EV drive trains are not just the motors - If you factor in all the power electronics; The inverters, the speed controllers and all that stuff, the amount of stuff you need quickly adds up to be around the size and mass of a small petrol engine, and then there's the battery on top of that.

No matter how compact batteries get, they will never be lighter than a diesel engine (Or any ICE) and a fuel tank for any useful range - Unless they come up with a truly revolutionary alternative, physics will always impose a significant mass penalty.

 

re. hydrogen, one reason it can work with haulage is they tend to go from point to point so having hydrogen infrastructure at their base and at distributions hubs would make it easier to deploy than for us.

But I agree it's overall a fairly terrible path - The production process is either highly polluting or highly wasteful or even both, and extremely expensive on top of that. But this is what they will be forced to do if this obsession with lip-service zero emissions at the tail pipe at the expense of everything else continues, because what alternative is there? The only others I'm aware of use really horrible toxic fuels which break down into nitrogen compounds are so are technically zero carbon, but I hope to smeg nobody in charge is stupid enough to greenlight those or it'll be like leaded fuel all over again but worse.

The fact is, no vehicle will be truly zero emission or even net zero emission - Instead, it should be considered whether the benefit vs the emissions is worth it. If real zero emission is the ultimate goal we may as well start a global nuclear war and make the planet as barren as mercury - That's the only way we'd truly have zero emissions, but that would be idiotic because there'd be no benefit to anyone.

I think the people that obsess about that have forgotten the original point of all of this in the first place, which is really boils down to reducing the green house effect before it boils us! None of the stuff we're doing at the moment is making any significant impact to that.

Great points. It's definitely a mine field and there will be sweet spots in there fir different solutions. Like you say, in haulage one could afford to put the H2 infrastructure in at large depots. 

I think the whole zero emissions thing is a fallacy. The manufacturers just claim whatvis convenient and sweep asidevall that isn't. Lithium mines, child labour, harmful production techniques etc. See no evil, hear no evil stuff.

Don't get me wrong we try our best at home to minimise our effects on the environment and I've planted probably 6 trees in the last 3 years. We recycle well. I drive a PHEV and most personal miles are electric short trips so I'm not making anyone's asthma worse.  But it's rare that anyone looks at the big picture and holistically. 

[Nick72]

4 hours ago, ernieb said:

If that is switch on it will automatically start the ICE.

That's where i was going too.

[GBgraham]

3 hours ago, Nick72 said:

That's where i was going too.

Oh for a handbook in english

[Mike2222]

On 12/6/2023 at 7:41 PM, GBgraham said:

Oh for a handbook in english

Rav4 owners manual OM42E34E.pdf

Not sure this'll upload properly as is ~160mb, but try this. Few years old (and oddly the front cover image appears to be from the previous generation Rav4) but has been accurate for the PHEV for me so far 

[GBgraham]

1 hour ago, Mike2222 said:

Rav4 owners manual OM42E34E.pdf 163.06 MB · 3 downloads

Not sure this'll upload properly as is ~160mb, but try this. Few years old (and oddly the front cover image appears to be from the previous generation Rav4) but has been accurate for the PHEV for me so far 

Thanks