Combined with the investments in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan, this is "bet the company" levels of investment. I pray for Ford's sake they picked the right horse (vis-à-vis, e.g., hydrogen or ammonia).
Its a regulatory bet, not an engineering one. The West is making a civilizational bet on EVs so it's not Ford that loses the bet, its the entire West.
From a technical POV, I disagree with the bet. I think hybridization of ICE while transitioning to CNG+1%NH3 fuel (to have very high compression engines) makes a lot more sense.
Afterall, if you can make an ICE match an electrical power plant's carbon emissions, electric cars make very little sense in the short to mid term (until the marginal power is guaranteed to be sustainable).
EDIT:
A lot of comments so this would be my (preferred) solution. An hybrid ICE that:
- is like the Chevy Volt or Prius
- like the Mazda and Prius, runs on the miller cycle
- like a diesel has 20:1 compression. Knock and NOx considerations follow.
- like diesels has ureas/ammonia injection for NOx from high compression.
- like cars in the third world, runs on CNG (120 octane, high energy to carbon density)
- is sized for average power, not peak power, so when it runs, it runs at full open throttle.
All the bits Ive described exist already but no single car adopts them all.
Even if the carbon emissions match, the drivetrain in an ICE vehicle contains 2,000+ moving parts typically, whereas the drivetrain in an EV contains around 20. The benefits of TVs range beyond direct carbon emissions from the power unit.
Look, what follows is my opinion and why Im against EVs for the short to mid term future. Im not a domain expert, but I am a physicist and an engineer whose worked in energy and for the DOE on sustainable energy sources. Again, Im not a car engineer.
Carbon emissions is why we're transitioning. Its why EVs are made mandatory. Its the premise that the EV has to fulfill. Thousands of little ICE parts have little consequence since cars, typically, die for every other reason except engine failure. This has been the case since widespread adoption of automatic transmissions and fuel injection.
The math of EVs is pretty daunting too. Take an EV and ignore its greater sin of creation (ie resources to make one vs an ICE car). Now pretend it runs on pixie dust (ie actually zero emissions).
Now compare that to taking that EV's (electrically) massive battery and, instead hybridizing N number of vehicles. Ive run the numbers, and the EV has (much) greater CO2 emissions.
If you use regulatory power to funnel those batteries to preferentially hybridize contractors' vans and trucks (ie the F-250 and 350, not the wanna be cowboys' 150) the comparison sucks even more.
Note that this analysis uses efficiency numbers from current widespread ICE engines, not rather niche (for the West) CNG cars that can run at very high compression ratios (methane has an octane rating of about 120) and have much higher energy content per gram of CO2.
And you know what the funniest part of all of this is? We could slash transportation CO2 overnight by lowering and imposing lower speed limits.
But again, this is what Ive come to believe with car manufacturer and EPA data in excel. YMMV
Can you show the spreadsheet on this EV vs hybridizing N vehicles? Pretty tricky full lifecycle analysis to do. It would be a little bit strange intuitively since hybrids also take a lot of resources to build, as you must build a transmission, an engine, all the infrastructure around an engine, some kind of integration of that engine with the electric motor, AND the electric motor, AND a small battery pack.
Hybrids also have the highest fire risk of all types (EV vs ICE vs Hybrid)
This is the primary reason I wouldn't go back to combustion. The running costs of electric vehicles are absurdly low at times.
You can put 50k-100k miles on most EVs on sale today having only bought cabin air filters, tires and wiper blades in addition to the cost of the electricity - thats largely it!
A hybrid takes care of the brakes. What are the next big consumable in an ICE vs EV? Oil changes? Hardly a deal breaker. Air filters? $10 and often easier to instal than the cabin air filter.
With fuel injection, spark plugs can easily go 120k+ miles. I have never replaced them and no engine Ive owned ever seemed bothered by it.
Spark plug wiring? My uncle did that once on his civic... when it had 180k miles and was 25 years old. He was ready to junk the car, but he ended up driving it until he moved away and sold it.
If your ICE doesn't outlive your car (with regular oil changes) you drive like a maniac or buy cheap cars (you know the brands)
I get that on my ICE brakes too. My secret? Engine braking and taking my foot off the gas when the light ahead is red: something nobody seems to do sadly.
Are EV suspensions over-built enough to account for the extra weight they’re carrying? Imo that’s the big expense once vehicles start showing their age. Extremely dependent on road conditions though… not great in the salt belt.
No, all engineers working on EVs forgot to design suspension components strong enough for the mass of the car. At Tesla and Ford and GM they are all idiots.
I know you’re joking, but given consumer indifference to mpg but laser focus on range, I wouldn’t be surprised if weight-reduction-at-all-costs took a front row seat for EVs.
Auto engineers work first for the marketing department. And range sells.
Few buyers run a “10 year TCO and then residual value” calculation.
From new, you will get to 100k miles with the above on majority of decent EVs on sale.
Beyond 100k, there isn't much, but you will likely need to do things like brake disc replacement or some shock work, but the costs are still minimal vs ICE car maintenance at this stage in an ICE car's lifecycle. If you do pads and discs at 100k on an EV, you will generally be good to 200k again. The shock work is no different to what a gas car might need at this stage.
Thanks to regen braking, the lifespan of the braking system consumable components is increased enormously vs combustion.
The batteries are still generally giving useable performance/range up to 300k on a lot of used Teslas, but this will vary depending how the owner looked after the battery. Lots of DC supercharging generates a lot of heat and isnt great for long term range. A tesla mainly charged on AC at home will keep great battery range for a very long time though. I'm planning to keep my EV for a crazy long period of time, given the lack of operating costs. The range loss on an mainly AC charged EV can be surprisingly minimal.
The only fluids are some coolants generally, and those are easily/cheaply replaced usually on a ~10 year cycle. Most EVs are just scaled up electric toy RC cars in terms of their architecture - really! - the number of drivetrain components is incredibly small.
> ICE car maintenance at this stage in an ICE car's lifecycle.
What become the big ICE maintenance issues at this point? I know spark plugs can be a royal pain on some vehicles but at least iridium plugs last a very long time.
(I’ll admit, I’m starting to deal with more seal leaks at 15 years. Need to track it down to avoid adding ~2L oil between my 10k mile oil change. And I’ve been neglecting trans/diff flushes)
My biggest groan over the next few years will be suspension parts and not just the struts. All them “sealed” “forever” control arms and such without grease points, ugh.
I hope people realize that fuel cell cars are also EVs, and have only a handful more moving parts to deal with. People have mislead themselves into thinking the BEV is synonymous with all EVs. This type of thinking could easily lead people into making serious mistakes.
The history of fuel cell cars doesn't exactly paint a happy picture...
I think its critically important we have managed to profitably make EVs at scale - no one has ever turned a profit on fuel cell cars, and indeed often sold them at enormous losses. See any of the ones Toyota shipped - the Mirai is sold at an incredible loss.
This isn't to say these can't be fixed, but the best fuel cell cars simply haven't been as good as the best EVs to date accross a number of objective/subjective measures.
You do realize that BEVs predate internal combustion cars? You could've said the same thing about all EVs just a few years ago.
The problem with BEVs is that they have gigantic resource requirements. It is very much replacing one problematic resource base with another. Fuel cell cars lack this problem. It is not inconceivable that this fundamental problem will force our hand in the future.
Also, like I said, a fuel cell car is an EV. Your story about the Mirai losing money is not different than accusing Tesla of doing the same. Arguably even more absurd, since Mirai should cost less to make.
> You do realize that BEVs predate internal combustion cars? You could've said the same thing about all EVs just a few years ago.
Toyota and others have tried and failed for decades, yes. The order of events is irrelevant to the discussion.
BEV sales managed to reach profitability at scale in less than a decade.
BEVs also have benefit of sharing technologies with many other devices, in a way fuel cell does not - its not surprising to me at all BEV is winning, and by a huge margin.
Supplying and pumping compressed hydrogen at temperatures well below freezing (the typical solution) at the pump is also not all that simple compared to an EV plug or even good ole' gas, and the range offered by the compressed tank is not all that amazing either.
Fuel cell tech will find uses I'm sure, but its not going to be affordable personal transport.
That is all very selective reasoning. You literally ignored what I just said, in that batteries have huge resource issues and that could force our hand. In the end, there's no coherent reason why one (and only one) type of EV must win.
Not to mention that if you go back a handful of years, BEVs were in the same boat as FCEVs. Like I said, all of this is selective reasoning and doesn't prove anything. And you're still ignoring my point about the resource problem. We could be forced to suddenly change our minds by reality no matter what.
Worth noting that something similar undermined all of the biofuel strategies of the past. Once people realized that biofuels simply couldn't scale, they had to abandon the idea, even though they also got plenty of government support.
The world does not sell over a billion ICE cars annually, not even close.
BEVs are already over 10 percent of global annual sales by unit count, with recent studies putting last year at 1/7 sales being BEV. BEV sales grow enormously YoY at expense of ICE.
I mean in total, there are >1 billion. Annual is something like 80 million per year. The point is that BEVs do not have any kind of commanding lead. Not to mention that there's nothing stopping people from moving from BEV to FCEV. If the raw material problem rears its ugly head, existing BEV owners will simply stop buying BEVs and start buying the other kind of EV.
I was thinking more like solar panels charging high capacity batteries that allow people to live off grid reducing the need to implement expensive to maintain infrastructure to rural locations.
Sure, everything they did was, on paper, the correct move. The general prediction of the direction of computing was more or less correct. It just didn't happen on the timescale they envisioned, and simpler and cheaper short-term solutions turned out to be way better. Not to mention that simpler and cheaper solutions are way more flexible and faster moving, meaning nation-scale projects are often way too slow and cumbersome to even do the thing they were supposed to do.
Huge regulatory bets on transportation technology have the same problem. It wouldn't shock me if all of this ends in disappointment and bailouts.
The energy requirements for the kind of full and rapid electrification being pushed (cars, trucks, boats, ships, aircraft, homes) seems daunting to me. Yes, Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 lays it out, and yet the scale of the thing is like nothing the US has done, well, I think I can say, ever.
I mean, we have to build brand-new grid-scale clean energy generation at a scale of almost five times currently installed power generation capacity. That also means the grid capacity to carry it.
My fear is that the haste could create some really serious power problems as the infrastructure lags vehicle deployment.
On the other hand, if things get ugly people won't buy them. This is also a problem. I firmly believe electric cars are the future. We are simply putting fantasy before reality. Reality means that power generation expansion must come first and cars follow based on quotas established to maintain generation/grid integrity.
> We are simply putting fantasy before reality. Reality means that power generation expansion must come first and cars follow based on quotas established to maintain generation/grid integrity.
None of the players are willing to expand power generation for some future possibility, we have to scale up demand before they're willing to invest in that.
It also ignores that the biggest problem currently isn't generation but is scheduling, if more utilities had the capability to help homeowners schedule charging based on system demand we'd barely need any increase in generation to begin with as we don't have much trouble generating the needed power over the scale of a night, but if everyone tries to pull an 11kwh charge at the same time (similar to California having issues in the evening as everyone turns up the AC when people arive home) we do have a problem. Even california with all it's problem has enough capacity if there was better scheduling available to help flatten the curve.
> Even california with all it's problem has enough capacity if there was better scheduling available to help flatten the curve.
I don't think so. Not enough power. I am in CA. Power problems are already serious enough.
Scheduling is one of those things that sounds great on paper. What do you think are the chances of people who do not own EV's having any interest in being regulated to help people buying $50K to $120K cars? Less than zero.
Also, power problems are guaranteed. This isn't theoretical and one can't wave it away with concepts such as scheduling. Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 explains that we have to go from 1,200 GW of power generation today to 5,338 GW for full electrification. That, again, cannot be waved-off with scheduling. Even half of that cannot be solved by shuffling cards. The problem is real and power generation has to come ahead of electrification.
I am not saying we need to double power generation five years before adding electric cars. No. What I am pointing out is that we are putting the cart before the horse.
CA says no more ICE vehicles after 2030 (I forget the year, I think that's right). That's 7 years from today. And yet, we did not simultaneously announce immediate projects to add power generation and delivery in support of the new vehicles to be sold starting in 2030.
How long does it take to add non-trivial power generation? Decades?
Somewhere around TWO MILLION new cars are sold in CA per year. The grid and power generation isn't ready for two million electric cars added every year starting in 2030. Those projects had to be launched three years ago, not five years from now.
> Scheduling is one of those things that sounds great on paper. What do you think are the chances of people who do not own EV's having any interest in being regulated to help people buying $50K to $120K cars? Less than zero.
With proper incentives a lot. The grid has more than enough capacity for the needed watt hours needed in any given day, so if we can get people to cool their homes down more during lulls in usage, and charge their cars during those periods too it would take a lot of slack, ACs are likely a much bigger hit to most grids in the southwest over the next several decades than EVs will be. With well regulated (see not Texas) demand pricing it shouldn't be hard to convince people to do a couple times a year changes to their thermostats & enable settings on their EVSEs or EV to lower usage during peak.
Your argument mostly boils down to "what if everyone stopped to fill up gas at the same time, there's not enough pumps, we can't support ICE vehicles".
Also sorry if I came off as dick-ish, I don't disagree that we should be expanding energy production as fast & cleanly as we can, but I think we as a society are much to unwilling to take the slightest inconvenience, and it feels like with scheduling too many people are at the position of "we've tried the absolute minimum and it didn't solve it, it's doing more isn't going to work."
> The grid has more than enough capacity for the needed watt hours needed in any given day
Just want to make sure I am clear on what you are saying:
Are you saying that's the case for the cars and loads we have today? Or, are you saying we have enough for a full transition to EV's?
> Also sorry if I came off as dick-ish, I don't disagree that we should be expanding energy production
No worries. Thanks for the gesture. It indicates a desire to have a conversation, rather than wanting to throw fecal matter at each other, which, sadly, can happen even on HN with some people.
I am simply trying to understand the reality of this energy transition, rather than the many fantasies out there. When politicians make claims nobody asks the hard questions. Well, OK, I understand that most reporters don't have a clue. Most politicians don't have a clue. Which means we end-up with uncontested statements that, if repeated enough time, tend to become reality in the minds of people who will ultimately vote for this stuff in one way or another. We have to be careful that we don't make massive bets on flawed "religious" assumptions.
> Are you saying that's the case for the cars and loads we have today? Or, are you saying we have enough for a full transition to EV's?
Pretty much yes to the second, or at least from reading several interviews with heads of utilities it's not EVs that they're worried about, it's the massively exploding amount of energy being used for AC as things have heated up and are expected to continue to as that can eat away at the capacity during otherwise lulls.
I think scheduling should also have a massive disclaimer on it that it's not about static schedules, it's about the grid being able to dynamically tell the chargers when to charge or not, and with enough of those EVs can actually help the grid because instead of spinning up powerplants and burning fuel (and money) in anticipation of peaks they can ramp them up and actually use the electricity and easily & safely shed load as peak picks up.
If utilities don't act on getting the ability to dynamically tell chargers when to charge and expand their programs to help get people to think of houses as thermal batteries to manage peak then no there isn't enough, but those are things that utilities have been pretty actively working on, it's just not as visible as new powerplants. It'd also help if dealer salespeople were more familiar with some of this stuff as mine didn't really know much and I ended up sending him a bunch of stuff about the local utilities programs so he can hopefully tell future buyers (it's mostly stuff like setting up charging schedules (they've only rolled out the dynamic charge scheduling for a small test group so far so currently only static) that they then give discounts for a few months)
Other random notes that came into my head as I was writing:
* Most smart chargers already support a standard that allows utilities to do this, so it isn't a case of once utilities get around to it everyone needs to upgrade their chargers, they should just be able to just authenticate.
* to make sure it's clear I'm not suggesting they should say "You can't charge during these periods", but should be offering discounts for not doing so and allowing simple overrides at the charger.
* I'm also super excited to see what happens with vehicle to load in the coming years as I think that could be a massive boon to grid stability (similar to tesla's virtual power plant program but I expect magnitude more EVs than home battery systems)
>> Are you saying that's the case for the cars and loads we have today?
>> Or, are you saying we have enough for a full transition to EV's?
> Pretty much yes to the second
We all wish that were true, sadly, it isn't the case at all. Our total power production capacity today is about 1,200 GW. A full transition to EV's requires (using clean energy) approximately three times that much power being built, and that's just for cars. You simply cannot schedule your way around that problem.
Here's a super-simple analogy to illustrate the problem:
You are the only waiter at a busy restaurant. It has only one cook. It has enough tables for both of you to be extremely busy pretty much all day. Sure, there are some periods of lower activity, yet, you never find yourselves sitting around doing nothing. you are busy.
The owner buys the building next door and expands the restaurant to now have 7 times more tables. He doesn't hire additional cooks, he doesn't install new order-taking stations or technology and you are still the only waiter.
The cook can't keep up. You can't keep up. The one-and-only cash register in the place can't keep up. The system worked well with 1/7th the patrons. It is now completely broken with seven times more. You need a lot more cooks (power generation) and a lot more waiters (grid, distribution) as well as all of the tools and technologies to support you (software, sensors, telemetry, maintenance, etc.)
You just can't schedule your way around a problem like that.
BTW, this is a super-simplified analogy to attempt to explain the most fundamental underlying problem. Don't try to slice and dice it, it isn't designed to be an accurate portrayal of all factors that go into the issue at hand.
In most areas of the US electrical systems were designed with assumptions made back in the 1950's. On average, it was thought, approximately 2 kW per home was needed. The wires, transformers, distribution, substations, etc. feeding neighborhoods, towns and cities evolved from these assumptions.
An electric car charging at home will demand six to seven times that much power. Which means that everything, from the home's electrical panel all the way to the electrical substation is now in peril.
If you want a really good explanation of this, I'd suggest you read chapter 3 of this book that was just released by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers:
If you go to page 14, you can get the real-life story that I used to attempt to create an analogy. The author describes precisely this issue in the city of Palo Alto, CA. Conclusion: Palo Alto needs to almost rip-up and upgrade its entire infrastructure to be able to service full electrification.
Electric stoves and other electrification only make this more difficult.
> should be offering discounts for not doing so and allowing simple overrides at the charger
My take on this is that people will do what they have to do given their circumstances. People have very random daily schedules. Some work at night, some have work and college, others might have a couple of jobs, after school activities, etc. There's a lot of variability built into behavior. It's like herding cats. In the end, I don't think behavior will make a significant impact.
> I'm also super excited to see what happens with vehicle to load in the coming years
While I understand the idea Vehicle to Grid (V2G) from an engineering perspective. I can't understand why anyone would ever do that.
First, the most fundamental problem: Home electrical systems and the distribution grid are not ready for this. You would have to replace millions of home electrical panels and power meters just to get started. I did just that when I built my solar array, it was not cheap. Imagine buying an electric car and having to spend $10K to $20K to redo your home system to support it. In addition to this, the transformers and other components are not ready to deal with V2G. The control systems, data and telemetry at most US power systems is in the stone age.
Even if all of this was magically resolved at zero cost, there are fundamental questions about V2G that, I propose, will lead people to say "no, thanks".
First: Battery packs have limited charge/discharge cycles. If you use your car for V2G, your battery will fail much earlier than if you just use it to drive. Why pays for that? The warranty will not cover it, I can assure you of that. Also, think of the waste and recycling load that would impose.
Second: I just spent money to fill-up my battery. And now I am going to let the grid drain it? Are they going to pay me? OK. They have to pay me enough for me to recoup my investment and more than justify having to spend tens of thousands of dollars when the battery fails. That power will be insanely expensive. Who is going to buy it? Energy rates are already ridiculously high. This makes no sense to me.
Third: Range anxiety with electrics is a thing today and will be a thing in the future. Why drain your battery to the grid? This makes no sense from that perspective. It's like saying to your neighbors "Hey, I just filled-up my gasoline tank. While my car is parked, feel free to siphon off up to 50% of my tank.". Nobody is going to do that.
Experts who have looked at this in great detail seem to agree with the idea that this isn't going to happen for a very long time, if ever. There are too many problems with the practical realization of the concept. This is common in engineering, an idea might sound great, until you actually go face the realities of having to build it.
Again, if you are interested in this, I urge you to have a look at that book from the IEEE. It's only 49 pages long. If you are reasonably technical it will be easy to understand. Lots of good references tood.
Grid issues abound. On page 33 of that book there's a map showing the status of the grid in CA. The legend below it reads:
Red lines indicate areas where the grid cannot
accommodate additional load without any thermal or
voltage violations. Grey hatched areas indicate regions
where gaps in utility grid data exist. Colored lines,
keyed in the legend, indicate the available circuit
capacity in megawatts
Thanks for the detailed response! Will definitely give that IEEE pdf a read.
> First, the most fundamental problem: Home electrical systems and the distribution grid are not ready for this.
I'm not as familiar with code for new buildings in CA, I know that they require solar on them do they not do solar to grid as part of that? That wasn't something I'd really thought of, I'd assumed most of the cost for that usually comes from retrofitting more so than if it's during the initial setup but haven't actually looked to verify that.
> First: Battery packs have limited charge/discharge cycles. If you use your car for V2G, your battery will fail much earlier than if you just use it to drive. Why pays for that? The warranty will not cover it, I can assure you of that. Also, think of the waste and recycling load that would impose.
It depends pretty heavily on the manufacturer, but newer batteries on higher end cars have pretty amazing cycle lifetimes, watching car enthusiests on youtube it's not uncommon for people to buy used tesla batteries from totaled cars for custom conversions or custom home battery systems.
> Second: I just spent money to fill-up my battery. And now I am going to let the grid drain it? Are they going to pay me? OK. They have to pay me enough for me to recoup my investment and more than justify having to spend tens of thousands of dollars when the battery fails. That power will be insanely expensive. Who is going to buy it? Energy rates are already ridiculously high. This makes no sense to me.
I'd fully expect to be getting that cost back + some small amount for the inconvenience back as credits on my bill. (I would mostly be expecting this for handling particularly bad peaks and not so much an everyday thing)
> Third: Range anxiety with electrics is a thing today and will be a thing in the future. Why drain your battery to the grid? This makes no sense from that perspective. It's like saying to your neighbors "Hey, I just filled-up my gasoline tank. While my car is parked, feel free to siphon off up to 50% of my tank.". Nobody is going to do that.
I'm not sure if you have an EV but for me range anxiety went away pretty quickly after buying mine, it's pretty much only for long range road trips that I have to pay any attention to range at all, though convincing people of that before they own an EV is pretty tricky (and there are people who need to drive hundreds of miles a day that don't work great with current EVs)
> My take on this is that people will do what they have to do given their circumstances. People have very random daily schedules. Some work at night, some have work and college, others might have a couple of jobs, after school activities, etc. There's a lot of variability built into behavior. It's like herding cats. In the end, I don't think behavior will make a significant impact.
Those people that have different daily schedules probably actually help as they're less likely to be charging during those peak evening hours.
From what I've seen the systems are pretty automated and there's a lot less for people to manage than you might think, it's more like setting up a thermostat where there's some initial work to setup a schedule but then it's just plug your car in when you get home and leave it plugged in and they can schedule the load so it's ready when you plan to leave and then if you have need to leave earlier than usual it's not hard to override it (though I do wish more EVSEs had direct buttons on them to control that type of thing).
I think the IEEE document covers quite a bit of your questions/comments.
My neighborhood is barely 25 years old. Meaning, it was dirt when I bought my house and watched as they built it.
Still, the grid wasn't ready. The house was not ready.
When I put in our 13 kW solar array we had to rip out the original breaker panel and replace it with one of higher capacity. Not because of the size of the array (which is larger than pretty much all installations around me by at least a factor of 2). No, it was simply because, 25 years ago, when plans were drawn for this entire development, the Building Department did not have any requirements on the books for the future addition of solar. The meter had to be replaced as well.
Just to make sure it is clear. What this mean was tearing-up the stucco all around the existing panel, making a larger hole, rewiring the new panel and meter and redoing the stucco. Of course, stucco is basically concrete, which means that side of the house lost its color, which required repainting the entire exterior of the house because the faded stucco color was not going to be easy to match at all. I don't remember the cost of that part of the job. I was not allowed to do it myself (I did the rest of the solar installation). I think it was in the order of $20K, maybe more.
I don't know what code might look like today for new developments. I would hope they include planning for solar, which should include power distribution, transformers, meters, breaker panel and other requirements.
Regarding battery issues in V2G applications, well, the IEEE document covers them well. It boils down to faster degradation due to lots more cycling, warranty issues (the EV manufacturer covers miles driven, not V2G cycling), etc.
On the subject of paying for the power you contribute. Well, we'll have to wait and see. I have no clue how they might plan to manage this. If I am going to use an EV for V2G, the utility better pay me a lot more than what it will cost to replace the battery pack. Which means that the users of my power will likely have to pay quite a bit more per kWh than today.
I generate a lot of excess energy. The way they pay you back for excess solar today is absolutely laughable. In fact, the fear now is that homeowners will have no incentive to install solar because what is known as "NEM 3.0" metering, well, basically screws them even worse than those of us who already have solar.
> Afterall, if you can make an ICE match an electrical power plant's carbon emissions, electric cars make very little sense in the short to mid term (until the marginal power is guaranteed to be sustainable)
Doesn't the need for a car engine to be light enough and small enough to work in the car mean that power plants will almost always be able to be cleaner?
You can make the car engine more efficient by making it be a small generator that is working at optimal RPMs rather than the variable RPMs driving the car itself.
Consider some of the various hybrid approaches.
Honda has the IMA. The insight is an ICE car with an "underpowered" gas motor that has an electric motor to assist it. If it runs out of gas, it's out of gas and doesn't move.
Toyota's Prius is an electric car with a gas motor that switches on when optimal. If you run out of gas in the Prius, the car will go for some further distance until the battery goes dead.
> When the battery is depleted, the range extender engine kicks in to generate electricity for the motor, as GM noted in its press materials. But when the battery is depleted and the car is running at 70 mph or above, the planetary gearset transmits additional motive force directly from the engine to the wheels.
... however, this also should take into account the efficiency of the power grid too.
A hybrid car in part of the grid that is heavily coal can be efficient in terms of CO2 than an electric car because it is burning gas more cleanly than the grid is burning coal.
This is an excellent question but a massive one to answer. Probably the length of a scientific paper. It'd involve thermo, engineering economics, etc.
To keep it short, yes there is a return to scale, but it's a diminishing one. Gas turbines run at about 55% thermal efficiency. Large of small it matters little, that limit is set by the blade materials' melting temperature (which sets longevity).
Your car typically runs at about 30%, its efficiency partially offset by heat losses to the cylinder walls (ie the larger the better), but is mostly set by engineering decisions other than fuel efficiency (one big cylinder has less surface heat loss than four little guys but would be unbalanced)
But there are so many legacy design decisions in an ICE that no longer apply if we have hybrid drivetrains and ammonia/urea injection (to mitigate NOx from high compression).
The Prius challenged a lot (but not all) of these decisions and remains, in my opinion, the most revolutionary car of the past 50 years.
I really believe that an fossil fuel car engine can get an efficiency within the transmission losses of the best gas power plant. But even if ICE development were frozen, hybrids still make more sense, from a CO2 POV, than EVs
Whats the co2 and environmental impact of building out CNG infrastructure for refueling? That seems vastly more costly in terms of resources than running wires to charge EVs. Especially when the electricity needed to charge an EV is the same as the electricity/energy needed to refine a tank of gasoline.
How much electricity will be needed to compress and refine the natural gas into fuel tanks? How big and heavy are those tanks?
Electric cars have something that previous "green" vehicles never had: rapid acceleration.
EVs are downright fun to drive. Sure they don't have the handling of a lightweight Porsche, but being able to walk a Mustang GT with an F-150 lightning on the highway drag race is something all the "truck guys" can brag about. That's a very important selling factor, especially from a test-drive perspective.
The biggest hurdle is fast-charging infrastructure in cities, but for the majority of Americans that live in suburban/rural areas with a garage, it won't be hard to install a charging system.
>Sure they don't have the handling of a lightweight Porsche, but
Be careful with those old concepts. Lighter weight is no longer always better for handling. Drivers state the Taycan has better turn in and a more neutral balance due to the low center of gravity when directly compared to the 911.
>Electric cars have something that previous "green" vehicles never had: rapid acceleration.
If people really cared about acceleration, why would they buy standard versions of the Model 3/Y (which outsell performance versions)? It's quick, but there are cheaper vehicles that outperform it 0-60.
You sure? The standard Tesla models are quite fast for price point. the standard hyundai, kia, ford, vw crossover EVs are slower, but faster than their ICE counterparts
I drove a Tesla for the first time thinking I was going to like the driver assist and tech the most. The only thing my friends and I could talk about afterwards was how fucking fast the thing was.
VW is putting $200B into the transition, so they're not alone in betting the company. I think it's the right move, but since there are companies who aren't putting the same level of resources in as VW & Ford, we will see who the winners are in a few years.
Never going to happen. That will require an Act of Congress, and Congress cant agree on what color the sky is.
Even if it did, it will be marred with all kinds of overreach ripe for judical review and delay,
even if it got past the court challenges, it would be subject to reversal when the power inevitably shifts again...
If Ford is "bet the company" based on some kind of need for Federal Action (which would be very out of character for Ford anyway) they are placing a losing bet. GM would be more likely to look to the Federal Government to enforce their sales model, they are subbed Government Motors after all... ;)
EV rebates got bundled into the Inflation Reduction Act and passed last year. The Act of Congress has already happened.
Further encouragements to go electric will happen through the EPA who already have the congressional authority to regulate tailpipes. Anything they do will be challenged in court, but if they can get it through the courts they can do a lot without an Act of Congress.
I did not realize a Tax Credit, that also has a TON of strings attached that as it phases into more protectionism fewer and fewer EV's will be able to quality for, and it at odds with other Environmental / Climate protections (like the requirement that Lithium some from approved NA vendors, but then disallowing new Lithium manufacturing in the US) is now a Mandate the produce EV's
The claim I responded to was that Congress was going to Mandate the production of EV's, not that congress was going to pass a terrible protectionist law that provide weak credits for EV's....
There is zero chance the manufacturing environment can move that fast. I know I work in it.
The government can place all the magic words on the page they want, there are structural limits to how fast mines, plants, and other things can be built, even if Ford, GM, VW etc can switch their factories to EV's there is an entire supply chain that can not spin up that fast. Copper and Lithium production alone would need to increase by like 900%, that is not happening in just a few years time.
How the hell did the US (or Germany for that matter) accomplish what they did in WW2?
If we treated the coming climate catastrophe as an actual crisis and waged war on carbon emissions, I'm sure as hell we could outdo what was done 80+ years ago.
The problem is that now we have to coddle the corporate elite who need to make guaranteed profits. And that takes time. Hope we have enough left.
>How the hell did the US (or Germany for that matter) accomplish what they did in WW2?
By repurposing the vast majority of manifacturing cpacity to the war effrot
>>If we treated the coming climate catastrophe as an actual crisis and waged war on carbon emissions,
because one even if the US Dropped emissions to Zero it would have little impact, and two you are talking about a generational problem not a problem today. Most people disagree over the urgency of the problem, in part because have have had decades and decades of people saying we will all die in 10 years if we do not act now... 10 years later we are all still here
That’s ok, the US is only the biggest economy in the world. Of course we can’t do it on our own but we can lead the way - or we can get lapped by China who has already begun and made significant progress in all the areas we should also be doing: solar installments, EVs, fast mass transit.
It’s no surprise the rest of the world is starting to look to China for leadership instead of us.
So you're saying that production capacity of electric cars is going to slow down their growth? EV production capacity increased by ~5 million per annum last year (4 million of that in China).
Current rate of production growth means 60% EV's in 2027.
> The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) amended the Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit (IRC 30D), now known as the Clean Vehicle Credit, and added a new requirement for final assembly in North America that took effect on August 17, 2022. For new electric, fuel cell electric, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles acquired, delivered, and placed in service after August 16, 2022, this final assembly requirement applies. For vehicles placed in service on or after January 1, 2023, the Clean Vehicle Credit provisions are subject to updated guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. [1]
The IRA was a bipartisan law passed by Congress. Part of it renewed a credit of up to $7500 per purchase of an EV that underwent final assembly in North America.
Additionally, California (which by all accounts sets national car standards) has passed updated regulations to phase-out the sale of ICE cars within the next 10 years. This is also a very important piece of legislation that will help the Ford decision.
I see very little evidence that hydrogen or ammonia powered cars have anywhere near the probability of success that battery electric cars do, for a number of reasons.
If anything, companies like Ford are taking the pragmatic approach, while Toyota has wasted years with their idiotic stubbornness towards pushing hydrogen fuel cells.
I know they were dumping a ton of cash into software to try and catch Tesla in FSD, but it remains to be seen whether any of that is a good investment at the moment.
This is technically true but they sort won in a prisoners dilemma type situation. Had no auto makers been bailed out, the shared suppliers may have all folded causing Ford to go under. So while they didn't take any direct money, the bailouts kept their upstream suppliers afloat. Ford also benefits from high import tariffs on foreign built trucks, a tariff basically designed to protect the F-150. If you check subsidy tracker[1], you're see that Ford is an enormous recipient of corporate welfare. They've received $5 billion from Michigan alone since just 2010.
Rivian didn't exist, and Toyota didn't enter the US market until a year after the tariff and didn't build trucks for the US market then. Sure GM builds trucks too and benefits, but it was basically designed as a giveaway to Ford while keeping VW light trucks out of the US market in retaliation for Germany tariffs on chicken.
> No American truck buyer wants a Mitsubishi or Hyundai truck. Full stop.
Then why maintain a tariff from 1964 designed by the Johnson administration?
Money is fungible and government handouts are government handouts. Moreover, many of those subsidies are in the form of bonds, low interest loans, and so on not just tax credits.
If you think even about the etymology of "hand-out", it is not in fact the government handing out money — the company is handing less money to the government.
When the federal government gives a tax credit for installing residential solar panels, it is not a "consumer bailout" or "welfare".
We have a perfectly good term for this, which is "tax credit", because that is what it is.
Again they're receiving more than just tax credits and rebates. They're also receiving loans, a recent $101 million Critical Industry Program grant, tariff protections, and on and on.
However, if you just want to talk taxes we can. A tax exemption or rebate is an asset given to you by the state. It operates not unlike loan forgiveness. You owed something and now they(the state) are waiving that liability.
> When the federal government gives a tax credit for installing residential solar panels
This is absolutely a handout to the solar industry.
A tax credit is still a handout, and double so when they're given to favored industries and companies.
Oakville employs 3,000 people, and though salaried, skilled-trade and "some" production workers will continue work through the six-month transformation that begins in the second quarter of 2024, temporarily laid-off employees will be back before the end of next year, said Tony Savoni, plant manager.
So 6 months of unemployment for presumably most of the 3000 employees.
Lots of EVs can support V2H/V2G already - VW ID4, Ford F150 Lightning, Nissan Leaf, etc.
2023 is a big year as companies like Enphase will roll out bidirectional charging support for solar installations [1]. Got a powerwall? How about an additional 5 from your Leaf (or 10 from your Lighting)? Pretty exciting.
I'd bet that Ford is the only legacy American brand that will make it to 2033. And it's because of their heavy investment to manufacture more and not just assemble - great to see it happen
>Ford, along with its rivals, are scrambling to upgrade existing facilities and build new ones as they shift from internal combustion engine vehicles to EVs. Ford has said it wants the production capacity to sell 2 million EVs a year globally by the end of 2026.
Tesla is expected to exceed Ford's 2026 milestone this year. It's safe to assume Ford is 3 years behind Tesla, and won't be able to catch them before the 2035 EV mandates.
> According to Ford’s press release, the American automaker sold a total of 10,866 electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2023, up 41% year over year (YOY).
> Sales of new Tesla electric vehicles rose for the first quarter of 2023, according to sales and production figures released by the EV maker on Sunday. For the three months between the start of the year and the end of March, Tesla delivered 422,875 EVs
Pace of growth is what's important now. I'll look for the numbers but I would guess that Ford is reaching early milestones quicker than Tesla. Not a knock on Tesla, just that it's a different market now.
Their own target for 2026 production capacity is 2 million EVs, actual production at that capacity will then be 2027. Tesla's current 2023 capacity is about 2 million EVs per year.
Dumb. Ford's sales are mostly their F-150. Very few people want a lightning and very few can afford them. Imagine dumping $60-$100k+ on something that's worse than it's cheaper ICE version in every way.
Also, the used EV market is going to be trash. These are throw away vehicles. The only way they keep selling is government force mandates and rebates.
There are lot of F-150 buyers that want a good Electric Truck...
The F-150 Lightening has a strong launch, and reservation order book... then the actual truck came out and they burned alot of good will with the Community by rushing it to market with poor performance, poor battery tech, etc.
The F-150 Lightening was a BAD first showing for Ford, and it will be hard for them to recover from it with F150 owners.
The F-series isn't the most popular vehicle in America because there are only two types of buyers. Roughly, the answer to "who is a truck person?" is "everyone."
You unintentionally make my point. If "everyone" is a truck person then no one is a truck person.
Majority of people who own trucks do not use it as a truck... rather it's used like a glorified car or SUV. That clearly makes for two types of truck buyers, with two types of needs and wants.
An electric truck is not for professionals - it's for your office commuter who likes the idea of a truck. The Lightning fits that person perfectly, even if it's not a "good truck" by truck standards.
The problem was Ford billed it as a worksite truck for professionals.
Could you elaborate? It sounds like you're trying to suggest that towing an RV is the only use for a truck? But then you mentioned worksite, and the Lightning is very well suited for that (says my next-door neighbor, who operates a small construction company, and is quite happy to be electrified and not spending $1500/month fueling a gas-powered half ton).
I am specifically talking about your urban/suburbanites that commute daily in their trucks, and use the bed once or twice a year for small home projects.
The rest of the year, a car or SUV would be more than sufficient. The point isn't that these people should not have a truck, the point is they do not need a truck and therefore the factors that influence their purchase are different than professionals that use the truck and bed often.
It's the same with anything - take kitchen knives for example. A professional is going to be looking for something very different than an amateur home cook.
The F-150 Lightning was billed as a jobsite, professional's truck. However, it's much better suited for the other type of truck buyer in the US.
> says my next-door neighbor, who operates a small construction company
He's probably not driving 2+ hours to a worksite out in the middle of no where, hoping there's a charging station in the next-door field.
The Lightning only gets a claimed 230 miles range after all... 320 with the extended battery with an unloaded bed. Your average F-150 boasts 700+ miles range, for comparison.
Glad it works for him - but the Lightning really isn't suited for that type of work.
> I am specifically talking about your urban/suburbanites that commute daily in their trucks, and use the bed once or twice a year for small home projects.
The very definition of truthy. Sounds good, even without a shred of evidence to back it up.
> A professional is going to be looking for something very different than an amateur home cook.
I guess. The home cook might be inclined to buy an absurdly priced knife. The pro and competent home cooks both will reach for a basic Victorinox knife for everyday use.
> He's probably not driving 2+ hours to a worksite out in the middle of no where,
Most work trucks are driven around town. There's a niche for people who travel hundreds of miles in a day, but it's not the most common use case at all. The Lightning works great for >90% of all the usual things trucks get used for.
> The very definition of truthy. Sounds good, even without a shred of evidence to back it up.
This is comical. It's not even a real dispute to assert most truck owners don't use any of the truck functions. Owning a truck in the US is more of a status symbol than anything.
> I guess. The home cook might be inclined to buy an absurdly priced knife. The pro and competent home cooks both will reach for a basic Victorinox knife for everyday use.
You unintentionally make my point again.
> Most work trucks are driven around town. There's a niche for people who travel hundreds of miles in a day, but it's not the most common use case at all.
For a work truck, loaded with gear and whatever in the back, the Lightning is objectively a poor choice. It's range is awful, and no working truck is going to acceptably sit at the local Walmart for 3 hours charging mid-day either.
The Lightning is for a very particular type of truck buyer - the ones that don't actually need a truck but want a truck.
There's nothing wrong with that... but recognizing there's different types of buyers and products in the market should not be controversial.
Buy this truck that's more expensive and arguably less good because I told you to.
It's not your money. When you have to resort to telling people they don't need a specific product with no valid reasons other than your own subjective take, you've lost. This is why the lightning will die.
I want a good reason why I would pay more for this. And no, the slight gain in being "eco-friendly" doesn't do it for me. If I cared about that I wouldn't buy a truck whether it was EV or ICE because they're both far worse for the planet than a smaller vehicle or public transport.
The majority of truck owners do is it as a truck, they just don't use it all the time as a truck. Since vehicles are ridiculously expensive most people aren't going to purchase a separate vehicle to do none truck things.
If you buy something as useless as the f-150 lightning and try to pull your RV/boat/etc. somewhere thinking it can go any decent distance hauling stuff, you're gonna have a lot of regret.
This is so weird from a non-American perspective. Almost all of these luxury truck-shaped vehicles never see a speck of dirt, and are used to carry one person and maybe a grocery bag.
People drive every day in oversized vehicles with dangerously poor visibility just because they might need to carry a larger item once in a while, even though their crew cab models have barely more cargo space than hatchback. Not to mention that large items can be ordered with delivery, and trucks/vans can be rented for occasional use.
Even for work purposes pickup trucks seem niche. The pickup form factor offers less carrying capacity than a same-length van, less flexibility in using the same space for carrying both people and cargo, and has worse options for secure storage.
Your argument for having a massively oversized EV is that people won't actually use it for what it's supposedly intended for?
What's weird is trying to market something to someone spending $60k+ on a vehicle by saying you won't really use it for its intended purposes (which it can't do well) anyway so shutup and buy it.
"Buy this lesser truck that's more expensive than its ICE version."
But, I want to spend MY hard earned money on a vehicle that can do actual truck things.
"NO, you do not need an actual truck so spend $90k on this EV truck that can't go very far while towing."
Wouldn't it be better to just buy a car if I don't actually need a truck?
"No, buy this overpriced EV truck."
Solid marketing strategy. The ONLY thing ev's have an advantage at right now is the idea that they're better for the environment. By almost every other measure they're a worse product. Until they fix the issues with range they're not competing with cheaper, better ICE vehicles.
The only people driving F-150s around job sites are management with a stipend. Half ton trucks are a lot less capable then most people think, and are primarily targeted to the former of the two groups you mention
Hauling equipment. Hauling water. Hauling any sort of aggregate. The payload of an f150 is ~2500 lbs. you’ll exceed that with four 230lb iron workers and a toolbox or two in the back.
The plain white worksite trucks you see are F-250's and bigger, mostly.
The point was, majority of the F-150's you see cruising around are used maybe once a year to pickup potted garden plants. People like the idea of having a truck, but do not actually need a truck.
That's who the Lightning is for, despite it's marketing for professionals, jobsites and the like.
The thing city denizens seem to not understand is that this fair-weather truck user is exactly who the F-150 was designed for. It was designed to be unladen 95% of the time. All the werk-truck wonk is just marketing to make sales. Ford knows who buys their products
It gets reported rather oddly. The headlines all say F150, but when you open the article it will say the F series pickup. The F series trucks include every model of pickup truck Ford makes F[1-6]50.
