TonyWilliams
Well-known member
GregH said:But... As an engineer I have a hard time wrapping my head around the "last 1 percent" diminishing returns problem with BEVs. All of us Leaf drivers (or GEN1 EV1 for that matter) know that 60-80 miles of range can cover most of our needs. Now with ubiquitous 25-50kW quick charging (in California at least) it's even better. But there are still many days when we'd really like to have more like 100-120+ miles of range and even with quick charging, a 70 mile BEV ain't gonna cut it for long distance travel. So the issue comes down to this:
We have gotten the 70-80 mile EV's (and 35-50 plug-in hybrids) because all those studies said that's all we need. CARB issued credits based on those studies. The state encouraged metro area DC charging only, because that's all you're supposed to do with an EV... the studies told them that.
Even though the state of California has been a signatory to the West Coast Electric Highway since 2009, no action has been taken... because H2 has been sold as the answer... in the future.
With Tesla out of the mix, it's failrly rare to have an all-EV household. Most are homeowners (a very important distinction) and have more than one car (usually one EV plus another hybrid or other car burning a fossil fuel in some way).
And therein is the single biggest problem; people don't live averages. They live those data points that make the average, which means they also live in apartments without any overnight charging option, or work odd hours like I spent my life doing, or forget to plug in, or don't have a spare oil car sitting around, or want to drive 5 miles round trip weekly, and 200-600 miles for the monthly fishing trip. All the above can still make the average, but not make the car work in its present state.
Averages are great until they don't work.
What we have done is DELIBERATELY hampered the development of EV's to fit those studies. Tesla, of course, never got the memo, and thankfully they have plunged headfirst into the plan that DOES REPLACE PETEOLEUM PERSONAL TRANSPORT at the lowest cost and lowest CO2 footprint. Tesla also wasn't feathering their bed for H2 cars, either, or hampering EV's on purpose (like selling the RAV4 EV without CHAdeMO, even though Toyota is a signatory member). Also, the state's of Washington and Oregon must have failed their H2 test, because they have a very well developed CHAdeMO network that's still growing.
If you're going to make a ZEV capable of going 300 miles, is it cheaper to add batteries or a small FC and an H2 tank? A hydrogen station with two pumps can feed as many miles/hour of juice as a Tesla Supercharger with 8 connections... if not more.
Cost is the ugly and simple answer. The only thing H2 does well is allow the conversion of a HUGE amount of electricity be converted to another medium (H2), that then allows the fastest "green" refueling rate, that is then converted back into electricity to propel the car.
That's it... fast refueling, at a huge cost to electricity efficiency, plus whatever other product is required to be the host to be converted to H2. Water is really a non-starter in California. Virtually all the others release CO2 into the atmosphere. And all those H2 mediums cost a LOT of money to get that fast refueling.
The 8 stall Supercharger is many MULTIPLES less expensive than your two nozzle H2 generation / delivery plant. And it never emits CO2 and uses 1/5 to 1/3 the total electricity per mile delivered.
At the end of the day >I< would be perfectly happy with a 120mile BEV with quick charging.. but I'm not the demographic Toyota and Honda are shooting for.
I find that I'm pretty happy with a 120-140 mile range car with quick charge, too. Clearly, there will be people (myself included) who would welcome the 150-300 mile cars, with quick charge.
Do you know what the studies don't tell us we want? A 265 mile range car that can refuel in 5 minutes that COSTS a huge amount more and adds CO2 to the atmosphere compared to a car that can go 265 miles at no cost and takes 30-45 to refuel without adding CO2.