Renewable Revolution

PEV or a PHEV Compared With a non-electric powered vehicle:  PART 3 of 5 parts

Tesla claims      that you CAN use fast charging routinely WITHOUT shortening your battery pack life.   

Will slow charge extend battery life?

Quote

justineet | 20 Juin 2013

This is an interesting -- good -- question....in other words, does fast charging -- especially supercharging -- affect the life span of the battery pack negatively in any significant way??? Reports indicate, NO! That is primarily due to Tesla's innovation to run the battery cells through cool and hot cycles during the charging and operation stages so the battery cells are always at optimum temp range required to extend the life span. Tesla reportedly has proven this in the labs.
But one thing for sure will shorten the life span of your battery pack is leaving your battery in complete or near complete(deep) discharge state for long periods of time. So you should always try to never leave your car in deep discharge state for an extended period of time. Frequent deep discharging is not also recommended. Tesla probably has incorporated a safety circuit to avoid deep discharge state. Still frequent deep discharging is not recommended. Even with deep discharge safety circuit on board, the battery pack might still go below the "safe" discharge level since batteries continue to self discharge on their own at some rate.
http://www.teslamotors.com/fr_CA/forum/forums/will-slow-charge-extend-battery-life

My take is that unnecessary fast charging is a bad idea. A slow charge would slightly improve charge efficiency (ratio of Wh stored to Wh from the wall) since the HEAT dissipated by the power feeders is proportional to the SQUARE of current.


So, very roughly speaking, charging at 30A will result in approximately half the heat when compared to 40A. And 20A will result in a quarter of the heat when compared to 40A.
At 40A, the batteries (and the charging equipment) get hotter and the actual energy transfer is less efficient (i.e. less environmentally friendly) so don't do it unless you have to. 


ICE powered cars. PEVs and PHEVs: The Truth about their Impact (Damage) to the Biosphere:

As far as the environmental impact of vehicle carbon footprint, the giant, huge, polluting, biosphere poisoning ELEPHANT in the room is the internal combustion engine AND the LEAD ACID battery toxicity that THOSE ICE powered cars cause to the environment. I wrote about the lead acid pollution her over a year ago. It's somewhere in the DD Dustbin if you want to learn another way first world ****S trash the third world.   

Lead acid batteries are a HORROR to the environment, whereas the PEV and PHEV battery pack infrastructure is almost fully recyclable (as well as valuable and in demand in a secondary market).

In other words, the HUGE, but long lasting and fully recyclable battery pack has LESS environmental impact than the lead acid battery, relatively tiny battery on an ICE powered car!

Yes Monsta and Charles Hall (the creative number cruncher  for EROEI on behalf OF BIG OIL), a Lot of Lithium is being mined and it takes a lot more energy to do that than the industrial process that brings us lead acid batteries.

So? Once that battery pack is built, the emissions and environmental impact STOP. The ICE powered car with the lead acid battery has FUTURE negative impact(s) in lead acid battery pollution and fuel use pollution translating to tremendous damage to the environment.    

Because of the fuel and the lead acid battery, the ICE powered car has a much higher, and a toxic one at that, carbon footprint.

The PHEV does have an environmental impact with its ICE but it's is tiny in comparison because MUCH less energy is used to mine for the materials and build it. And the PHEV, if used properly, has negligible engine pollution and  maintenance (an ICE small engine rarely used NEVER needs an overhaul and rarely needs an oil change, period).

What about the car body along with the engine metal?

At present, about 75 to 80 percent of the steel that goes into a car of any type is recycled. So the issue is, HOW MUCH STEEL BY WEIGHT is used.  A PEV or a PHEV requires LESS of everything in weight and quantity. That's the bonus of engineering a car to have less weight in order to maximize pure EV range. Again, the PEV or PHEV is the better choice, environmentally speaking. Keeping the ICE in a PHEV from polluting is within the control of the PHEV owner. 

That choice is not open to the owner of a car that just runs on gasoline or diesel. The PEV and the PHEV are both easier on the environment, in regard to initial manufacturing AND recycling, than the ICE powered car. Remember the energy required to make a large ICE is multiples of that required to make the relatively small ICE for a PHEV. 

From a National Geographic article:

Production, recycling, and disposal costs to the environment are difficult to quantify and largely beyond the control of most consumers. They are also relatively minor.

Most of an automobiles’ environmental impact, perhaps 80 to 90 percent, will be due to fuel consumption and emissions of air pollution and greenhouse gases that climate scientists say are driving global warming. Fortunately, the level of that impact is very much under the control of the driver.

Fuel Costs

Petroleum products raise environmental red flags even before they are burned. Extracting them from the earth is an energy-intensive process that can damage local ecosystems. Shipping fuels can also consume a lot of energy, and creates an occasional environmental disaster such as an oil spill. As world demand rises, and unconventional fuel sources, such as oil sands, become more economically viable, the ecological impacts of petroleum extraction might also increase dramatically. That’s one more reason why fuel efficiency is so important.

Air Quality

Vehicles are America’s biggest air quality compromisers, producing about one-third of all U.S. air pollution. The smog, carbon monoxide, and other toxins emitted by vehicles are especially troubling because they leave tailpipes at street level, where humans breathe the polluted air directly into their lungs. That can make auto emissions an even more immediate health concern than toxins emitted high in the sky by industrial smokestacks.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/green-guide/buying-guides/car/environmental-impact/

The bottom line is that the ICE powered car is far more environmentally UNFRIENDLY than the PEV or PHEV. However, I agree that a bicycle (with solar charged electric boost) is better if you can handle that. Monsta might suggest a bare bicycle is the only truly environmentally friendly option, howevah.  He is such a purist!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53rsISWpsMU&feature=player_embedded
Happy peddling! The above green transportation is recommended if you have bike paths to keep cars from running you down and NOT recommended if your daily destination work place is more than 10 miles away without shower facilities.  

ANECDOTE ALERT: Back in 1979-81 in Syracuse, New York, I had a "hybrid" powered bike. I bought a tiny two cycle ICE that fitted with a roller on to the front wheel when I applied it with a lever. I would bike 8 miles to the Control Tower (during the summer only) using renewable energy (me) as the main power source. I got lazy after a while and just applied the roller most of the time. That didn't work too well when it rained; wet rubber on wet rubber is the embodiment of slippin' and slidin'. At any rate, I saved a ton of gasoline.
Below please find a reasonable fascimile of what I called my "Arab Buster".
[embed=640,380]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7vaqTeP6X4#[/embed]


Here's another excellent article from the MIT Technology Review that directly answers Surly's carbon footprint question:
July 12, 2013
Are Electric Vehicles Better for the Environment than Gas-Powered Ones?

Comparing electric and gas-powered versions of the same car show the environmental benefits of electric vehicles.

This week I met an owner of an Tesla Model S electric sedan who raised the question of whether electric vehicles are really better for the environment when you include the resources that go into making the battery and the impact of disposing of it. He was feeling uneasy about his environmental bona fides.

Renault recently made public a report that provides a fair assessment by comparing an electric version of its Fluence sedan with gas and diesel-powered versions of the same car. And it makes clear that electric cars are, indeed, better for the environment. The report is a life-cycle assessment, a “cradle to grave” analysis, including not only the emissions involved in using the car, but also the emissions from making it, the resources consumed in manufacturing, and a range of environmental impacts. It looked at not only greenhouse-gas emissions, but impacts on acid rain, ozone pollution, algae blooms, consumption of water and materials such as steel and copper, and total energy demand. 

The study found that while the environmental impact of making electric vehicles is greater* than for making gas and diesel vehicles, this is more than made up for by the greater impact of gas and diesel vehicles while they’re being used. This is true in terms of total energy consumption, use of resources, greenhouse gases, and ozone pollution. *The electric vehicles were assumed    to be charged from a grid that includes significant amounts of fossil fuels.

Other studies show that electric vehicles beat gas-powered ones in terms of greenhouse gas emissions even if they’re charged in regions that depend heavily on coal.  Here’s one such study. (see link below) In some areas, hybrids are a better choice than electric cars.

Electric vehicles come out behind in two areas.    They contribute slightly more to acid rain. And they’re slightly worse in terms of causing algae blooms than gasoline cars (but better than diesel).
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/517146/are-electric-vehicles-better-for-the-environment-than-gas-powered-ones/

So, IF you are getting your electricity to power your battery pack from RENEWABLE ENERGY, you can tell the fossil fuelers that disingenuously claim you are just shifting the pollution for your "fuel" to a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant that, uh, well, see the detector reading below every time they make this claim.





Meanwhile, in one of those 1% la la land Profit over Planet Havens (Dubai), they are buying bug out vehicles that are, well... Never mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RdmEinhhI&feature=player_embedded

The world's most expensive motorhome has gone on sale in Dubai - covered in gold and worth a cool £2 million.
The space-age eleMMent Palazzo comes complete with a colossal master bedroom, 40-inch TV, on-board bar, fireplace and even its own rooftop terrace.
But the most impressive piece of luxury is the 'Sky Lounge' - at the press of a button the 40ft home transforms into a personal retreat with pop up ****tail bar, underfloor heating and extravagant marble lighting.

 


 
End of PEV or a PHEV Compared With a non-electric powered vehicle:  PART 3 of  5 parts

PEV or a PHEV Compared With a non-electric powered vehicle:  PART 4 of  5 parts