Quote:
Originally Posted by Efthreeoh
Not flaming, really. Love following your Z4M rebuild thread.
But I really think batteries have a limit of energy density and recovery rate, that with the low price of gasoline dictated by the market (rather than Government over taxation), EV is never going to be less expensive to own when looked at lifecycle cost. Once the critical mass of batteries starts to show the recycling cost (to minimize environmental impacts) is realized, the end-user fee to recycle the giant EV battery is going to severely impact the lifecycle cost of EV. The problem then falls on the 2nd or 3rd tier owner (i.e. off-lease used car buyer) who will realize he will be the one who pays for the recycling of the battery. That will make the EV used car market non-existent, which then falls back on the original owner to pay a built-in up front recycling cost in the MSRP.
It's easily shown that when comparing a Honda Accord against a Tesla Model 3, the $12K to $15K price difference buys about 100,000 miles of free travel in the Honda. Add in the Tesla's fuel savings of $5K and the (temporary) Federal and State EV tax incentives and subtract $1,500 for maintenance of the Honda's EV ICE drivetrain over the 100,000 miles, the payback is still about 50,000 miles in the Honda's favor. The math simply doesn't work, which is why states and governments are mandating EV use by banning ICE in the next decade.
EV battery cost is critical to this equation. The mystical future EV battery that solves range and recharge recovery time is not going to be less expensive than the current lithium designs now in use.
If society really wants to reduce carbon emissions, then the logical path is to decrease ICE's heat loss, thus vastly improving its combustion efficiency. That can be easily and achieved in the very near term by introducing vehicles that scale down the ICE-Electric hybrid drive systems used in trains and ships. Taking the ICE out of the direct (mechanical) path of the vehicle's drive system allows for a complete redesign of the internal combustion engine so it's heat loss can be drastically reduced. Such a path forward curtails the impact of EV charging on a nation's electrical infrastructure, stops the impact on the petrochemical industry to completely redesign and and reinvest in its infratructure, and reduces the environmental impact of producing and recycling EV batteries.
By California banning ICE in 2035 and the rest of the world following that mind set locks us into set answer that is the wrong answer.
My 2 cents.
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Absolutely, some excellent points.
As I said, I'm not a big EV proponent, but the alternative is what, continue to dump endless amounts of carbon into the atmosphere?
I'm just looking around at what alternatives there might be.
Somewhere along the line we're going to reach a tipping point and then you'll see everyone desperately back peddling as fast as they can but I'm afraid it will be too late by then.
I don't have the answers that's for sure, just looking for them.