Yeah but....you’re lugging around that extra weight and using more power to do that. Education is what’s needed...consumers surely can get the concept. It’s much less complex than understanding lockdown rules. Then there’s the revenue opportunity for Kwikfit et all to rent you batteries and fit them.
It's even worse for shale oil extraction. I've heard figures of 5 tonnes of fuel being burnt on site to generate 1 tonne (net)of finished fuel that actually leaves the premises.
A valid point, but there are some advantages to having excess capacity in terms of total battery life, partial charging and discharging can dramatically increase cycle life of cells. For every 5% reduction in charge level, relative to the total battery capacity, you double cycle life. Tesla, for example, only charge to 95% of cell capacity when you charge to '100%'.
Also, I think the weight aspect is a valid point so long as there's a carbon emissions element to the fuel used to move that weight. I run an Audi A2, which I chose deliberately because it's a Golf-sized car in terms of capacity, but weighs 70% of what the Golf weighs, and is still, c15 years on, one of the lightest cars on the road. I object to burning fuel to move a 1.5-2 tonne car to shift 80Kg of little old me.
There's a Google sheets doc online with lots of real world Tesla battery data. Some of the figures are astonishing, less than 10% capacity loss at figures getting towards 200k.
I'll definitely go full electric as I do (did) a daily commute that's easily within any electric vehicle range. Ironically despite being petrol, my car is pretty much zero emissions at the tailpipe currently as the spiders are getting more use out of it than me
At the moment the 5 minute exchange battery is a pipe dream. They are too big and heavy, the energy density is too low. That's always been the winner for combustion, be it coal, oil or gas. 40kg of oil takes a car 300-400 miles. No battery can rival that, for reasons of the laws of physics.
I wonder about a blend of battery and supercapacitor. So core reserves in a battery, topped up by a supercapacitor for a quick extra 50 miles or so from a 2-minute zap.
I'd heard half to f a third of the emissions are in making it. Obviously this depends on the use. A 300k mile taxi will be less, my mum's little hatch that rusted to death with less than 40k miles from new would be more.
Yes, the A2 is aluminium. And at 15 years old, it still looks pretty much like new. No corrosion, and I expect it could well keep on for another 10-15 years. So the energy embedded in the manufacture is still lower over the lifecycle of the car. Plus, aluminium is a more abundant element than iron.
Works for amplifiers, for sure. But in a car it's not momentary power that's limiting, it's capacity. Even a grotty old school lead acid cell can deliver 100A, it just can't do it for long. Look at fork lifts, they will lift anything and accelerate like hell, but even with a couple of tonnes of batteries on board they run out halfway through a shift.
I'd argue that compared to the cost of a new nuclear power station (and I'm not in any way anti nuclear in principle), I think it's a better solution and in all likelihood cheaper. The technology exists and could be mandated by govt on new build and assisted on older buildings. Hinckley Point C is going to produce the most expensive energy ever, if it ever gets completed, and the costs will keep rising and will not drop over it's lifetime. The EOL costs are ignored too.
My point about the battery exchange was for the fairly rare occasion people need to upgrade the car from local use to long distance holiday use and back again.
