GCC: Nearly 60% of all vehicle trips in US in 2017 were less than six miles

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GRA

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
14,018
Location
East side of San Francisco Bay
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/08/20180814-fotw.html

Trips are one-way. There's a bar graph, showing % <6 miles (59.4%) , 6-10 (17.3%), 11-15, 16-20, 21-30, >30 (4.9%). As a commenter noted at GCC, PHEVs are the clear way to go for now. Given battery prices, I believe smallish batteries (20-35 mile AER) that can seriously reduce emissions (especially in urban areas) in the short-term are the best value. My personal opinion is that walking is the best option for 0.0-0.5 miles, regular or e-bikes (or folding electric scooters for the shorter distances) are the best option barring inclement weather for trips of 0.5-3.0 up to maybe 5 miles, and only beyond that should cars be considered, assuming only a single person is onboard. Linked trips shift the calculus towards longer-ranged/faster vehicles. Related, see:
GCC: Study concludes cycling is the urban transport mode associated with the greatest health benefits
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=26351&p=534454#p534454
 
GRA said:
As a commenter noted at GCC, PHEVs are the clear way to go for now. Given battery prices, I believe smallish batteries (20-35 mile AER) that can seriously reduce emissions (especially in urban areas) in the short-term are the best value.
:roll:

Day after day, GRA comes to this BEV-specific forum to tell us that EVERY OTHER vehicle type is preferable to BEVs as the replacement for ICEVs.

He knows this, even though he has no personal experience with any vehicles except for ICEVs and pedal-powered vehicles.

And, no, it does not follow that PHEVs with smallish batteries are the way to go because of the statistic that he quoted. In other words, that is a non sequitur argument that does not consider the more important issues involved:

- Many of those 12-to-24-mile round-trip outings are done in cold weather when battery capacity is reduced and heat is needed, so the ICEV in a PHEV would run to provide the needed range and heat.
- Building a PHEV means continuing to manufacture ICEVs when they often are not needed at all. It means burning fossil fuel instead of foregoing fossil fuels.
- Building a BEV which has the same energy and material content as GRA's recommended PHEVs will meet virtually all of most family's needs without the need for burning fossil fuels.
- Larger batteries in BEVs enable a vast array of benefits including eliminating the need for most public charging stations.
- Larger batteries can benefit the utility grid in myriad ways, not the least of which is allowing for charging to be held off as needed to benefit the grid. Eventually they can directly augment the grid as needed.

No, building more ICEVs is a bad idea. It is not as bad an idea as building H2 FCVs, but it is still a bad idea.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
As a commenter noted at GCC, PHEVs are the clear way to go for now. Given battery prices, I believe smallish batteries (20-35 mile AER) that can seriously reduce emissions (especially in urban areas) in the short-term are the best value.
:roll:

Day after day, GRA comes to this BEV-specific forum to tell us that EVERY OTHER vehicle type is preferable to BEVs as the replacement for ICEVs.

He knows this, even though he has no personal experience with any vehicles except for ICEVs and pedal-powered vehicles.
Reg, I'm in favor of all ZEVs, and PHEVs during the transition. I've also test driven quite a few BEVs and spent a week living with one, as you should know as I've told you all this before (and my sig alludes to it), so I have no idea why you blatantly choose to misrepresent my experience.

RegGuheert said:
And, no, it does not follow that PHEVs with smallish batteries are the way to go because of the statistic that he quoted. In other words, that is a non sequitur argument that does not consider the more important issues involved:

- Many of those 12-to-24-mile round-trip outings are done in cold weather when battery capacity is reduced and heat is needed, so the ICEV in a PHEV would run to provide the needed range and heat.
In which case, you get a slightly larger battery, or else don't worry about it and just burn some dino juice, if your choice is between being able to afford that less expensive PHEV or not being able to afford a more expensive one or a BEV. There are currently two PEVs with base MSRPs below $25k available in the U.S.: the 5 seat Ionic PHEV (29 mile AER, 650 mile total range) or the 2 seat Smart ED BEV (58 mile range). Which do you think has a larger potential market? And when you are burning fossil fuels, you are at least doing so in an efficient HEV.

RegGuheert said:
- Building a PHEV means continuing to manufacture ICEVs when they often are not needed at all. It means burning fossil fuel instead of foregoing fossil fuels.
We'll be building ICEs for at least a couple of decades yet, anywhere they aren't banned.

RegGuheert said:
- Building a BEV which has the same energy and material content as GRA's recommended PHEVs will meet virtually all of most family's needs without the need for burning fossil fuels.
Just as soon as most of those families can afford such a car, I will agree that it's time to switch. Until then, a PHEV they can afford and use freely will eliminate a very large fraction of their fossil fuel use, including during almost all of their local travel in the worst-polluted areas.

RegGuheert said:
- Larger batteries in BEVs enable a vast array of benefits including eliminating the need for most public charging stations.
For people who can charge at home, sure.

RegGuheert said:
- Larger batteries can benefit the utility grid in myriad ways, not the least of which is allowing for charging to be held off as needed to benefit the grid. Eventually they can directly augment the grid as needed.
Sure can, once they are affordable for the average person, and the costs work out to offset the extra degradation.

RegGuheert said:
No, building more ICEVs is a bad idea. It is not as bad an idea as building H2 FCVs, but it is still a bad idea.
When the choice is building more conventional ICEs, or building PHEVs instead while we wait for the price of long-range BEV batteries to come down to mass market level, I know which one is a better idea to me, but YMMV and apparently does.
 
GRA said:
In which case, you get a slightly larger battery,...
A "slightly larger battery"? Really? Please join us in the real world.

What does that ICE power plant, emission controls, transmission, exhaust, fuel tank, etc. in your preferred PHEV vehicle cost? Let's put it at $10,000 for the Chevy Volt.

How much battery does that $10,000 buy today? $10,000 / $200/kWh = 50 kWh

Add that to the 18 kWh already in the Chevy Volt and you get a BEV with approximately 70 kWh.

No one here except perhaps you considers a 70 kWh battery to be only "slightly larger" than an 18 kWh battery.

And this analysis is continuously moving in favor of the BEV since batteries are dropping in price while ICE drivetrains are getting more-and-more expensive.

I repeat: Building more ICEVs is a bad idea. It is not as bad an idea as building H2 FCVs, but it is still a bad idea.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
In which case, you get a slightly larger battery,...
A "slightly larger battery"? Really? Please join us in the real world.

What does that ICE power plant, emission controls, transmission, exhaust, fuel tank, etc. in your preferred PHEV vehicle cost? Let's put it at $10,000 for the Chevy Volt.

How much battery does that $10,000 buy today? $10,000 / $200/kWh = 50 kWh
Are you comparing retail to retail costs ?

I have to say, these studies are a waste of time and money because they rely on a homogenized average and very, very few households are average. The much more efficient (not to mention tolerated by Americans) thing to do is to allow people to match a car to their circumstances. If fossil fuels included what are now externalized costs the transition to clean cars would follow.
 
RegGuheert said:
SageBrush said:
Are you comparing retail to retail costs?
No. That would be comparing prices.
Cost/Price -- whatever.

$10k manufacturing cost for an ICE drivetrain is way off for run of the mill, mainstream cars.
E.g., https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overview_of_Costs_for_Vehicle_Components_Fuels_and_Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions
 
SageBrush said:
$10k manufacturing cost for an ICE drivetrain is way off for run of the mill, mainstream cars.
E.g., https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260339436_An_Overview_of_Costs_for_Vehicle_Components_Fuels_and_Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions
Interesting. Who said anything about the ICE drivetrain for "run of the mill [sic], mainstream cars"? I'm talking about the drivetrain for PHEVs, which do not use off-the-shelf, run-of-the-mill transaxle, but rather use custom-designed low-volume transmission systems which vary from vehicle to vehicle, meaning they costs are much higher. If the cost of the ICE-portion of the Chevy Volt drivetrain, emissions control, exhaust, fuel, and primary electrical systems is certainly higher than run-of-the-mill, mainstream cars is below $10,000, it's not below by much.

And even if my costs are a bit high for the ICE drivetrain, that doesn't change the conclusion since the costs for batteries is certainly lower than what I quoted.

Oh, and BTW, thanks for the link since it points out something that I failed to account for in the analysis in my previous post:
Some of these sources [BES09, IEA11] also mention particular prices for battery packs for PHEVs, which are usually higher than the battery pack price for BEVs in terms of costs per kWh. The reason can be explained partly by the fact that the total capacity of battery packs for PHEVs is lower than for BEVs, while auxiliary components like the battery management system (BMS) or battery housing are still required at a similar size and price, which leads to higher costs per kWh
[IEA11].
What that means is clear: In the cost analysis comparing a PHEV and a BEV with a MUCH larger battery, as we are discussing here, the two costs per kWh are not the same. As a result, my analysis paid for the BMS, TMS, safety systems, etc., twice. The result is that my analysis was conservative as written.

And, again, BEV battery costs are steadily and rapidly dropping while ICE drivetrain costs are steadily rising. So the additional 50ish-kWh of battery capacity that the ICE drivetrain and support equipment buys you today translates into an even larger additional battery tomorrow.

And we have not even begun to talk about the cost (money, resources, environment, global stability, etc.) of the gasoline burned by the PHEV. Just in case some here do not understand it, that is the REAL reason to omit the ICE drivetrain and forego PHEVs altogether.

Simply put, the use of the word "slightly" in GRA's post was simply an untruth.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
In which case, you get a slightly larger battery,...
A "slightly larger battery"? Really? Please join us in the real world.

What does that ICE power plant, emission controls, transmission, exhaust, fuel tank, etc. in your preferred PHEV vehicle cost? Let's put it at $10,000 for the Chevy Volt.

How much battery does that $10,000 buy today? $10,000 / $200/kWh = 50 kWh

Add that to the 18 kWh already in the Chevy Volt and you get a BEV with approximately 70 kWh.

No one here except perhaps you considers a 70 kWh battery to be only "slightly larger" than an 18 kWh battery.

And this analysis is continuously moving in favor of the BEV since batteries are dropping in price while ICE drivetrains are getting more-and-more expensive.

I repeat: Building more ICEVs is a bad idea. It is not as bad an idea as building H2 FCVs, but it is still a bad idea.
Well, let's see. The Volt has an 18.4 kWh battery, the Bolt has a 57kWh battery, and the Volt has a base MSRP of $33,220, the Bolt $36,620, or $3,400 more. As the median sales price of U.S. LD vehicles is now just over $36k, and almost no one buys the strippo model without options, clearly far more people can afford a Volt than a Bolt, especially if it needs to be their only car. You can build 3+ Volt batteries with the material for 1 Bolt battery. And 3 Volts in routine driving within their AER will reduce emissions far more than 1 Bolt, as most of its battery is excess to (most people's) routine needs. Batteries of approximately 1/2 the Volt's capacity reduce prices even more, and of course every lb. of weight saved also increases efficiency in both CS and CD modes, while such a battery is also completely rechargeable in 8 hours or so off-peak using the lowest common denominator charging circuit, a 15A L1 feeding a NEMA 5-15R receptacle, reducing the cost (and hassle) of moving to a PEV even more.

Here's another fact: 50% of all car trips in L.A. (same def. as in previous post) are 3 miles or less, and given L.A.'s relatively moderate density, that will probably apply to most U.S. cities. So a PHEV with 25 to 35 miles could make 3-6 such round trips between charges, depending on conditions. So, we're talking about being able to eliminate any tailpipe emissions from 50% or more of all urban car trips (when the Bolt was introduced, GM said that census data showed 35 miles AER would cover the routine daily driving needs of 75% of all U.S. drivers, and 20 miles would cover 50%; Toyota said 22 miles would cover 51% when they introduced the Prime several years after the GM data).

The potential market for any product increases as the price decreases. Do you think Chevy will be able to maintain the Bolt's current sales rate (which has been lower than the Volt's in the U.S. this year, 9,028 to 9,289 despite the Volt being introduced a year earlier) without lowering the MSRP, once they hit the 200k mark and the credits start to reduce? Oh, that reminds me: the Prime, with a 25 mile AER and a base MSRP of $27,300, $5,920 less than the Volt, is outselling it 16,239 to 9,289 through July.

PHEVs are a transitional tech, and as batteries reduce in price and improve in energy density there will be less and less need for them, but in the intervening 3-7 years we can have far greater effect on emissions and energy use at the earliest possible date at a lower price by adopting PHEVs with the smallest, least expensive battery that meets people's routine driving needs. This also avoids much of the worry expressed by WetEV and others over resource and production constraints limiting the number of BEV batteries that can be produced in any case, in the short term. AFAIA, no one's worried about the possibility of running out of steel (although with the new U.S. tariffs, running out of cheap steel could be a problem).
 
I'll chime in...

PHEV's are just an extrapolation of ICE vehicles...and should be on their way out in a world of 200+ mile range BEVs.
I waited another 10 or so years to get my Leaf because the Prius was the "worst of both worlds" (and didn't do either one particularly well).
 
Stanton said:
I'll chime in...

PHEV's are just an extrapolation of ICE vehicles...and should be on their way out in a world of 200+ mile range BEVs.
I waited another 10 or so years to get my Leaf because the Prius was the "worst of both worlds" (and didn't do either one particularly well).
PHEVs will be on their way out once 200 (and especially 3 and 400) mile BEV prices improve. And the Prius was good at one thing, mpg, and mediocre to lousy at everything else (well, the 2nd+ gen have good utility).
 
The biggest problem with PHEV like the Toyota Prime is that consumers (at least in the US) do not like them.
They pencil out pretty well on paper but end up being bought for things like HOV access in the US or to avoid congestion charges in cities like London.

I owned a series of Prius and the Prime and think they are outstanding vehicles. Few people share my opinion.
 
GRA said:
Well, let's see. The Volt has an 18.4 kWh battery, the Bolt has a 57kWh battery, and the Volt has a base MSRP of $33,220, the Bolt $36,620, or $3,400 more.
Only a very shallow view would allow one to think this is a reasonable comparison because both vehicles have "Chevy" badges on them. The fact is that Chevrolet makes the ICE drivetrain for the Volt in-house while it purchases the ENTIRE drivetrain for the Bolt from LG. You only have to look at the battery in the Tesla Model 3 to see where battery costs and material efficiency actually are today.

That's why I did the analysis using actual costs and did not compare costs to prices (what you did).
SageBrush said:
I owned a series of Prius and the Prime and think they are outstanding vehicles. Few people share my opinion.
In fact, the Prius Prime is likely the one shining exception to my comparison because Toyota's Prius platform is so refined that the costs and efficiency of the Prime make it a very decent compromise between costs and all-electric driving range in a PHEV.
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Well, let's see. The Volt has an 18.4 kWh battery, the Bolt has a 57kWh battery, and the Volt has a base MSRP of $33,220, the Bolt $36,620, or $3,400 more.
Only a very shallow view would allow one to think this is a reasonable comparison because both vehicles have "Chevy" badges on them. The fact is that Chevrolet makes the ICE drivetrain for the Volt in-house while it purchases the ENTIRE drivetrain for the Bolt from LG. You only have to look at the battery in the Tesla Model 3 to see where battery costs and material efficiency actually are today.

That's why I did the analysis using actual costs and did not compare costs to prices (what you did).
The customers only care about price; how the costs are distributed isn't of any concern to them. You were the one who mentioned the Volt, so I just followed your lead; I couldn't care less that the Volt and Bolt both have Chevy badges, I was comparing the relative prices and benefits of the PHEV you mentioned to the only currently available, reasonably able to perform as sole car, semi-affordable BEV.

RegGuheert said:
SageBrush said:
I owned a series of Prius and the Prime and think they are outstanding vehicles. Few people share my opinion.
In fact, the Prius Prime is likely the one shining exception to my comparison because Toyota's Prius platform is so refined that the costs and efficiency of the Prime make it a very decent compromise between costs and all-electric driving range in a PHEV.
Then the Ioniq with 29 miles AER @ a base MSRP of $24,950 ($11,670 under a base Bolt LT) is an even better compromise; the Ioniq BEV has a base MSRP of $29,500 with a 124 mile range, so the PHEV is $4,550 cheaper and able to be the sole car. Although Hyundai still needs to learn how to do handling, and the Prime does a better job of running on the battery only owing to its higher motor power.

Advertising is also necessary - I don't think I've ever seen a TV ad for the Ioniq PHEV, unlike say Honda's heavy ad campaign when the Clarity PHEV debuted, and even Toyota's ad campaign for the Mirai was more extensive than Hyundai's for the Ioniq. As for the Prime, Toyota already had a large legion of loyal Prius customers who'd be interested, and they still advertised it heavily.
 
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