The Cruel Realities of EV Range on Seeking Alpha

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Ready2plugin

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Has anyone read or commented on this (besides EVNow)? This man must have a large following based on the number of comments, even though half are from the author John Petersen. I would like to see if we can take him down a peg or two because I just can't get around his logic of the cost of EV vs. gas along with the main topic of the article, battery power loss. Please let me know if I'm missing something. Below is the link. Thanks!

http://seekingalpha.com/article/225208-the-cruel-realities-of-ev-range
 
Maybe Petersen is a plant for the petroleum industry. Based on his credentials, he isn't a scientist, never owned a hybrid, let alone an EV (cars he owned mentioned Mercedes, Porsche, NSX, etc.). I'll bet he hasn't ever ridden in an EV. His graphs looked like they were hand sketch out and not accurate.

Petersen needs to get some real world, first hand knowledge before commenting/bashing) on EVs.
 
I've had various run ins with Peterson. He is a lead acid guy - used to be a director is one of the lead acid battery makers.

Note that he has used studies about batteries with a different chemistry (cobalt oxide) - and also picked the worst curves.
 
John Petersen wrote on Seeking Alpha said:
I've only lived through the heart of one industrial revolution as an adult, but in that time [sic] there were no giant leaps. Progress was a series of incremental baby steps that covered immense ground over time. There were always "latest and greatest technologies" that promised to change the world, but were obsolete before they became profitable. My crystal ball can't look beyond 2015. I certainly can't get excited about promises that won't come true until after that date.
I'm not sure if that's the stupidest thing I've ever read, but it's way up there. Most ultra-conservatives clearly have trouble dealing with all the rapid progress going on all around them, but this may be the first denier I've read!
 
Sorry...it's pretty easy to go more than 200K miles on ICE these days. I've got 394,000 miles on my car - original engine and transmission. Yes - starter, alternator, diesel injection pump, and injector nozzles have been replaced, along with the normal body/suspension parts one would expect.

But after reading this gent's article and the comments, what I'm left with is the strong belief that it's better not to respond to his article(s) because it'll only make him dig in deeper. We're certainly not going to change his mind.

Here's something from what might appear as coming from 'left field' that I think we can apply to EVs. There's a small company in New Mexico that's been experimenting with highly efficient housing for more than 40 years. It took years of battling with the state and local government to get permission to continue development because what he was building was so far from what the government considers 'normal' that they couldn't wrap their minds around the project.

I think a barrier between us and having good direction for the future is that we...everywhere I have been, every group of people I have talked to from all over the country and all over the world, they sort of base what they are going to do in the future on the present and on the past, which I would call convention. Like the state of New Mexico said, "You can't use a catch water system in New Mexico, because there's not enough precipitation." They were basing their assessment of this idea for the future on conventional catch water systems and conventional use of water...we can no longer base the future on convention. We have to base the future on invention. We have to be able to take a few leaps if we're even going to have a future. We're still holding on to the past, but we're going to have to take a leap of faith for a future.
[Water from the Sky, Michael Reynolds, page 27]

The author of the 'alpha' piece claims to be an accountant and attorney that works with tech companies. He appears to me to be deep on the 'inside' of the machine built on ICE and cheap oil - he's inside the status-quo economy where anything different is a threat. He's strongly in the 'base tomorrow on yesterday and today' camp. Someone suggesting that there's a viable alternative to gasoline might as well be saying they're going to ration his oxygen from now on - now it's an ego and survival issue. From his perspective, his paper is correct. To those of us that know otherwise, he's a nutcase. And never the twain shall meet.

Back to water. I expect us EVers in a sea of ICE might feel a bit like Reynolds in a London Taxi with the driver complaining about a lack of drinking water:
Just imagine the feeling of being in a London black taxi cab, driving in the rain; the windshield wipers are going on their highest speed; it's just dumping. You're in traffic looking at row houses just getting pounded with water from the sky all around and the driver about a water shortage! I mean that is off the wall. So many incidents like that...what the hell is going on? And then here we are out in the desert and we've got banana trees growing from harvested water.

It's all ok - there's room for both groups. I'm certainly not going to change the author's mind - but I'm also not going to change my direction because the author - or thousands of misguided authors - think they should define 'normal' for me.
 
Probably a lot of truth to that article.

IMO the satisfied owners will be the ones who aren't counting on more than about 40 miles a day, maybe 50. EVangelists who are amped up on the technology won't mind being inconvenienced hunting around for places to plug in if they push the range, some may have connections lined up, others see it as a challenge. But for those who aren't approaching EV ownership as a "cause"... if their routines take them much further than that there's a good chance they will regret choosing the Leaf.

That said, 40 miles a day is well beyond the national average. But some people are more average than others :)
 
I think anyone worried about range becoming an issue in a few years, should lease now and get an EV with larger range in a few years.
 
evnow said:
I think anyone worried about range becoming an issue in a few years, should lease now and get an EV with larger range in a few years.
I thought about that, but decided to go ahead and purchase for a few reasons. If I purchase, they can't remove it from the road and crush it. Second, I figure I will be able to get the new battery technology later anyway. Third, often the first generation of a product is actually more rugged than later versions. This is because over time they tend to cost down and sacrifice some of the durability.
 
indyflick said:
evnow said:
I think anyone worried about range becoming an issue in a few years, should lease now and get an EV with larger range in a few years.
I thought about that, but decided to go ahead and purchase for a few reasons. If I purchase, they can't remove it from the road and crush it. Second, I figure I will be able to get the new battery technology later anyway. Third, often the first generation of a product is actually more rugged than later versions. This is because over time they tend to cost down and sacrifice some of the durability.

Not likely to get crushed. Yes- The leaf seems overbuilt based on what I have seen which explains the high weight.
 
indyflick said:
Second, I figure I will be able to get the new battery technology later anyway. Third, often the first generation of a product is actually more rugged than later versions. This is because over time they tend to cost down and sacrifice some of the durability.

As for as you are fine with a newer battery down the road it should be fine. You will definitely get a more robust V1 product - but usually with smaller number of features.

This will be the only decade where we will have range issues and such. By 2020 I think things would have worked out ...
 
evnow said:
This will be the only decade where we will have range issues and such. By 2020 I think things would have worked out ...
I agree. I read once that when America was being electrified, in the early 20th century, a lot of folks would put caps over their outlets. The FUD was that the electricity could leap out and kill you. Nothing kills FUD faster than empirical experience.
 
indyflick said:
If I purchase, they can't remove it from the road and crush it.
The only reason it made "sense" (to GM) to crush the EV-1 was because they could get all of them back and never have to worry about servicing or battery replacement. There's no way Nissan could ever get all the LEAFs back, so leasing doesn't bother me a bit.
 
planet4ever said:
indyflick said:
If I purchase, they can't remove it from the road and crush it.
The only reason it made "sense" (to GM) to crush the EV-1 was because they could get all of them back and never have to worry about servicing or battery replacement. There's no way Nissan could ever get all the LEAFs back, so leasing doesn't bother me a bit.
Leasing really doesn't bother me either, but it gives me a chance to remind folks GM crushed the EV1 :D
 
Peterson does well to point out some legitimate weaknesses of current battery tech, but then he goes off the deep end by citing the most extreme examples using a battery degradation chart that may not even be comparable to the Leaf's batteries (I couldn't find anywhere in the report what type of "li-ion" batteries were being benchmarked). I'm all for postulating realistic expectations for battery tech, after all I think the EV transition will be much helped if the tech isn't over-promised, but the key word here is "realistic". Total FUD.

While I'm ranting, I suppose another thing that annoys me about most skeptics is the cost-of-ownership deal. I'm getting rather sick of all the pundits who make the case that since EVs (or hybrids, as was their first target) can't generate enough savings to pay for themselves that they are a worthless technology. When was the last time that a $50,000 Dodge Challenger generated enough savings to pay for itself?? By this argument, we should all be driving manual-shift Honda Civics as they are relatively cheap, reliable, fuel efficient, safe, etc. Better yet, let's not drive at all!
 
And another thing...
Assuming 100% coal-fired electricity generation: 25 kg CO(2) equivalent to cover 100 miles based on 0.963kg/kWh produced (wikipedia) and ~26kWh full system recharge
Assuming 33mpg ICE-based car: 26.4 kg CO(2) equivalent to cover 100 miles based on 8.8kg/gallon consumed (EPA)

Yes, a hybrid or similarly efficient ICE will produce less CO(2) emissions if the alternative is purely coal-fired electricity, but consider that the national average is 50% coal (USA Today) and that there are areas where the number is much lower (90+% hydro here in Seattle; go Seattle City Light!!) and it doesn't take a stretch to realize that even a 50+mpg car would be hard-pressed to match up to an EV on emissions.
 
TLeaf said:
While I'm ranting, I suppose another thing that annoys me about most skeptics is the cost-of-ownership deal. I'm getting rather sick of all the pundits who make the case that since EVs (or hybrids, as was their first target) can't generate enough savings to pay for themselves that they are a worthless technology. When was the last time that a $50,000 Dodge Challenger generated enough savings to pay for itself?? By this argument, we should all be driving manual-shift Honda Civics as they are relatively cheap, reliable, fuel efficient, safe, etc. Better yet, let's not drive at all!

x2 on that. No car pays for itself. And a person can spend plenty more to just drive the costs up.
 
smkettner said:
TLeaf said:
While I'm ranting, I suppose another thing that annoys me about most skeptics is the cost-of-ownership deal. I'm getting rather sick of all the pundits who make the case that since EVs (or hybrids, as was their first target) can't generate enough savings to pay for themselves that they are a worthless technology. When was the last time that a $50,000 Dodge Challenger generated enough savings to pay for itself?? By this argument, we should all be driving manual-shift Honda Civics as they are relatively cheap, reliable, fuel efficient, safe, etc. Better yet, let's not drive at all!

x2 on that. No car pays for itself. And a person can spend plenty more to just drive the costs up.


It's going to get worse before it gets better. Did you know EVs cause cancer from EMF as well? Give it some time and someone will say this, just watch.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Probably a lot of truth to that article.

The problem is that there really isn't. I'm nearing the end of my 2nd year on the road with a lithium iron phosphate pack. I import LiFePo4 cells from Taiwan and have test reports that show both 'in use' cycling and 'storage' capacity loss - and none of my experiences or data from the battery manufacturers show the amount of degradation this gent suggests is certain.

It's FUD, plain and simple, from someone that's so far on the 'inside' of a paradigm that he can't see the outside world. We might as well be trying to get someone with no depth perception to tell us which object is farther away - they just can't and there's nothing we can do to change that.
 
EVDRIVER said:
smkettner said:
TLeaf said:
While I'm ranting, I suppose another thing that annoys me about most skeptics is the cost-of-ownership deal. I'm getting rather sick of all the pundits who make the case that since EVs (or hybrids, as was their first target) can't generate enough savings to pay for themselves that they are a worthless technology. When was the last time that a $50,000 Dodge Challenger generated enough savings to pay for itself?? By this argument, we should all be driving manual-shift Honda Civics as they are relatively cheap, reliable, fuel efficient, safe, etc. Better yet, let's not drive at all!

x2 on that. No car pays for itself. And a person can spend plenty more to just drive the costs up.


It's going to get worse before it gets better. Did you know EVs cause cancer from EMF as well? Give it some time and someone will say this, just watch.

No problem, just tell them that Nissan has a built-in shield for the occupants. ;)
 
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