🤔 With all the computers in modern cars, It makes it more difficult to work on. And then you have to dissemble parts of the motor just to get to and change spark plugs anymore. Pain in the butt....
@Jimmy2016 Why would that be? They are a more concentrated source of the raw materials than any ore. Anyway here in Norway where we have gone further in electrification than most other places we have strict regulations on recycling of batteries of all kinds not just traction batteries.
One of founders of Tesla left to create a battery recycling company:
Tesla Cofounder’s Recycling Startup Plans To Become EV Battery Material Powerhouse
Extending the life of a battery pack is a superior option to recycling for both environmental and business reasons. For those reasons, before decommissioning a consumer battery pack and sending it for recycling, Tesla does everything it can to extend the useful life of each battery pack. Any battery that is no longer meeting a customer’s needs can be serviced by Tesla at one of our service centers around the world. None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled.
@ninalanyon Well we will see in a couple of years when the first million electric cars on the road have the batteries replaced and see where the batteries end up. Yes, Tesla seams to have a good program in place for that. But what I have read about the recycling aspect of electric cars, there still a big question if and how the batteries will be recycled. And then there is the mining for metals used in making batteries. The city and environment around a mining company in Russia that produces the metals for most of Lithium-ion batteries manufactured as of today is the most polluted land on earth.
@Jimmy2016 We already have battery recycling facilities here:
What we do Batteriretur® collects and recycles all types of batteries from all over Norway. All the way from Lindesnes to the south to the northernmost point in Norway, Kinnarodden. Yes, we even collect batteries in Svalbard! Be it lead-acid batteries, alkaline small batteries, or large heavy industrial batteries from both vehicles and ships.
https://batteriretur.no/en/hva-vi-gjor/#
High-energy batteries World-leading methods with focus on safety and environment!
Our department in Sandefjord is our headquarters for what we call high-energy batteries. These batteries can come from electric vehicles and the marine sector, to name just a few. Over the span of several years, we have developed unique expertise and methods for safe transport and disassembling, which is crucial as high-energy batteries can be lethal in the event of improper handling. High- energy batteries require special expertise, and this is work we have done in collaboration with the automotive industry. Our expertise in this area means that we act as an adviser to everything from car repair shops and importers, to governments and fire departments.
https://batteriretur.no/en/hoyenergibatterier/
We are building Norway’s first electric car battery recycling plant in the town of Fredrikstad.
Once the first plant is up and running at the end of this year, Hydrovolt will be able to recycle the entire Norwegian volume, and we will also collect batteries from Sweden and other parts of Europe. We also plan to recycle other types of batteries, including from electric ferries, ships and ESS.
At the start, the plant will be able to handle more than 8,000 tonnes of battery modules – so about 23,000 EV batteries pr year. We start in Norway, but we are also aiming at European expansion.
@Jimmy2016 Yes, I think we are. The government took the introduction of electric vehicles seriously and arranged the tax system so as to make electric cars attractive financially. More than 60% of new cars sold in 2021 were electric, in November it was 75%
It was easier in Norway than many other countries because cars here are heavily taxed both on their price (VAT, a bit like purchase tax in the US)) and also their power, weight, and CO2 emissions. The trick was simply to exempt electric vehicles from all of those one time taxes. Doing it this way means that no new bureaucracy is needed to handle grants to buyers so it is cheap to administer.
Having a large number of electric vehicles and strict regulations regarding recycling generates business opportunities like those I mentioned previously.
But other countries could easily accelerate both the uptake of EVs and ensure that the batteries are recycled by enacting proper regulations and making the price to end users more palatable. Instead the UK has recently cut the grant to 1500 GBP which really is not enough.
The problems are principally political rather than technical.
@ninalanyon The UK Governemt is not there to help people rich enough to buy costly electric cars, to do so - and I write as one who will never be able to afford such a car even with a £1500 grant and their present Road Fund tax relief.
It is tax-payers' money, not "government money", and we don't have enough of it sloshing around to spare in the middle of a pandemic.
Grants and tax-relief are going to have be recouped somehow, perhaps by starting to tax the car's registrations and the electricity they use, pro-rate with petrol and diesel.
(I read in today's paper, part of a review of the new Ford Mustang fully-electric. It costs about £41 000 to £46 000, according to model, and that is typical and I think likely to remain so at best.)
@ArishMell There are much cheaper EVs than the electric Mustang. And I agree with you that people with enough cash to buy cars in that price range probably should not be subsidized. And in fact that is precisely what is planned here in Norway, cars above a certain price will cease to be eligible for the tax reduction.
But the UK government has declared that electrification is a goal that is to be achieved within a fairly short time, if they really mean it to happen they will need to make it financially practical for the millions of people who cannot afford the Mustang.
@ninalanyon "Much" cheaper? I've looked at many ads for electric cars anf they are all well >£30 000 new; but many cannot afford £10 000. They would be stuffed.
Even the second-hand sales would be a road to nowhere, except the scrapyard, because a fairly ne battery car is likely to be second-hand because its very expensive batteries have expired or are nearing that.
The Govt. wants everyone who can to drive battery cars. It does not mean everyone can. I think many thousands of people in future will just not be able to afford a car.
Besides, where would you charge it? It's estimated about half the motorists in the UK do not have parking space on their own property, but there will never be enough public charging-points. Can you imagine having to queue for hours in some God-awful supermarket car-park or motorway service-area on a cold Winter's night?
@ArishMell Even in the UK there are EVs at about 25 kGBP (https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/energywise/cheapest-electric-cars-to-buy). I do understand that that is too much for most people but it will get better as they trickle down to the second hand market.
Here you can by a new two seater Smart EV for 16 000 GBP. Dacia are already selling the Dacia Spring EV in Denmark at 129 kDKK, that's just under 15 kGBP (https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/dacia/109132/bargain-dacia-spring-ev-could-still-come-uk).
And as for batteries expiring, well that is a bit of an unknown so far. As far as I can tell my battery (Tesla Model S 70D, nearly seven years old) has not lost more than one or two percent of its capacity and it has done 170 thousand km. And one Model S owner has driven more than 1.2 million km, mind you the car is on its third battery (https://insideevs.com/news/449156/tesla-model-s-far-exceeds-one-million-miles/).
Every urban street has street lamps, if they can be fitted it should also be possible to fit a low power (say, 10 A at 230 V) charging post every five metres or so. This can be done incrementally, it just needs the political will to make it happen.
Or the government should stop telling people that the UK will be carbon neutral by 2030 (or 2050 or whatever Boris's current target is).
It's still a lot more than the cheaper petrol and diesel cars, but I do not think second-hand battery cars will be very feasible thanks to battery replacement cost.
People here have suggested fitting public charging-points to lamp standard but that ignores the lighting circuits having been designed for that, not adding power-circuits adding totals of hundreds or even thousands of amps to it.
The cost and practicality on converting the system to that dual purpose would be prohibitive for relatively low numbers of charging points. At only 10A maximum output (so maybe 15A input?) drivers would have to hog the point for many hours, probably overnight. In very many streets, including mine which has three or four lamp standards, it would make parking even more a gamble than it is, and probably cause a lot of arguments. It's notable that the ideas of chargers on street-lamps does not come from the automotive and electrical industries...
The 2030 cut-off is for sales of new i.c.-engines cars, of which new models are still being developed and sold. Originally the ban included hybrids but I think that's been deferred.
2050 is for the null carbon-dioxide ambition, but I cannot see it being at all feasible, only something to try to achieve.
It's notable that the ideas of chargers on street-lamps does not come from the automotive and electrical industries...
Most likely because they will make more money promoting fast chargers on motorways.
I wasn't suggesting that the actual lamp standards be used as charging posts merely that laying cables in the street and putting up such things is obviously feasible because it has already been done for lamp standards.
In this country new houses and blocks of flats will soon have to provide infrastructure for charging points (https://www.nrk.no/norge/snart-ma-alle-nye-hus-og-hytter-bygges-ladeklare-1.15318304).
@ArishMell It should be perfectly possible to put a 13 A 230V charging point at every parking space. Most of the necessary cable ducting is already there for street lighting and domestic supplies so even if the capacity of the system needed to be increased it should only be a case of drawing new cables through existing ducts.
13 A at 230 V is enough to charge my Tesla S enough for nearly 150 km between the hours of 18:00 and 06:00. The UK average daily distance driven per car is only about 30 km
@ninalanyon Your domestic installation is all very well, but I don't think you can extend it to street use like that.
The mechanical engineering might be feasible if the existing ducts are suitable; but you are looking at high current draws for a full street of chargers; and every point would need be capable of supplying at least two types of charger.
The practical problems are that is it still limited to the relatively few proper parking spaces, not streets with ad-hoc parking if you are lucky enough to find a space, built before cars were invented or at least common. Also where do you put the big, bulky chargers themselves? No room in streets like that; they would enforce losing many spaces in public car-parks; and might be impracticable in many multi-storey and private car-parks.
Or would you use something like a small sub-station in each group of roads, but then needing cables capable of carrying some thousands of amperes at busy times to the connectors? Currents likely to induce all sorts of interference in adjacent street-lighting and domestic electricity cables, or any other buried services containing insulated metal.
The economic and planning problems would cost an absolute fortune worsened by vast disruption to instigate at very large-scale in residential in a relatively short time; and even if the capital cost is paid by the tax-payers generally (a huge burden on motorists and non-motorists alike) it would have to recouped in the electricity bills. How though?
I have examined the public chargers now in use. They do not display the cost and they enforce unknown hidden extras by paying by a 'phone you might not own or want to own (even it has any coverage there). They do not even show the price during use. Strange that this business model is exempt from the law that in the UK anything sold "by way of trade", including petrol and diesel fuel, has to have the price clearly displayed or easily obtainable.
How do you know what the Watts will cost in a public car-park in town will then 60 or so miles away at only one next available, on a motorway, then again 60 miles from there? While you sit reading 'War and Peace' in the queue.
Even at the modest rates you use, and even if the supposedly "average" mileage means anything in real life, for every public car-park space in the UK to have its own charger would be a gigantic scheme; and lining most street with chargers is really just not feasible. I doubt the country even has enough electrons available anyway.
And it would still leave huge numbers of drivers, (including me if I could ever own a battery-powered), risking having to queuing for unknown lengths of times at public chargers, assuming we find one that works and we can use, anyway.
every point would need be capable of supplying at least two types of charger.
No, they just need an ordinary BS1363 13 A socket or a Type-2, don't need both. Using Type 2 also allows for communication between the charging post and the vehicle which would allow for the current to be reduced so that the total circuit can be dimensioned for nearer average demand than the peak possible.
Also where do you put the big, bulky chargers themselves?
AC charging doesn't need a charger at all. The charger is built in to the car. A typical charging post is just big enough for a pair of Type-2 connectors, a little bigger than an old fashioned parking meter. Here's a picture of one similar to those installed near where I live. These also contain the necessary hardware and software for billing and for telling the car how much current it can draw:
@ninalanyon It is still two separate types of system per charger to suit the two different types of car electrics. Even though the car has just one cable and the charger itself has two separate sockets. Both would be fed from the same 3ph supply, but that must have to be of considerable power capacity. We are not going to want public chargers that take all night for one car, and of course they do not.
I have not seen charging-posts like that in the UK. The few I have seen anywhere, in town car-parks and in the motorway service-stations, are all bulky cabinets about 2m tall and perhaps 800 X 500 mm in plan.
I have examined them with and without cars plugged into them. and they have no displays of current, power, cost or anything. So presumably that is displayed within the car or on the portable telephone you are are forced to buy.
I would think on that site in your photo they would take most of the width of the cobbled strip, but anyway both types would be a serious obstructions on many British urban pavements. A car-park yes, if the double-row spaces are removed; but not for street-side use except where the pavement is over 2m wide. Many are not!
We are not going to want public chargers that take all night for one car, and of course they do not.
Why not? I often charge at a 7 kW charger (230 V, 32 A) similar to the charging post I showed. It can charge my car from flat to full in ten hours. Most smaller cars have batteries that would be charged in half that time. I'm not using the car at night so what difference does it make if it takes all night? Here are a couple of the posts I mentioned in a car park not far from where I live:
Each post has two Type-2 sockets so it can charge two cars simultaneously. As you can see they take up very little space
@ninalanyon Why not? No engineering reason. Simply availability!
If the car-park is a private residents' one for a block of flats, and everyone has their own charger, fair enough. That would be like having your own charger at home in a single house.
Not for public car-parks, filling-stations and the like except for occasional "topping up" on ,long journeys. There would never be enough, not if owning a battery-driven car ever becomes as widespread as the Government and green types seem to imagine it will, because vast numbers of British motorists do not have anywhere to park their cars at home!
@ArishMell They don't have anywhere to park at home but the car is nonetheless regularly parked for ten or twelve hours at a time so why not place a simple charging post at that parking space?
Here's another illustration of how small and simple a charging point can be in a shopping centre car park somewhere in Norway
And some more street level ones similar to those in my previous comment:
The chargers are activated by a RFID key that I keep on my key ring.
@ninalanyon I can see that might work but I doubt they will ever install enough of them!
Even the motorway service areas I have used, have maybe only three or four but they might be fast-charge units. I have seen one, Fleet I think, on the M3 not far from London, with a row of about 10 chargers being installed but I've not counted as many as that on the main M5 / M6 route.
it's not just the units either but the vast mileage of cables that would be needed; and the vast amount of electricity to feed them all. I just don't see it happening. The UK and Norway are too radically different for the latter's model to be very practicable in the former.
UK and Norway are too radically different for the latter's model to be very practicable in the former.
How so? At least the UK could put chargers in public car parks. In fact here are some in the UK already. I parked overnight in the multi-storey next to the Premier Inn in the centre of Southampton in late 2019 and they had eight charging points; they were free too. Not very quick but much more than fast enough to fully charge overnight. And there is a post with two 13 A sockets in front of Marks and Spencer at the Castlepoint shopping centre in Christchurch which was very handy when driving from Southampton to Exeter because Tesla had no chargers along the route last time I did it so the extra 15 km I got while spending an hour and a half doing some shopping and having a snack in the M&S café was quite welcome.
So far only Tesla seem to be taking charging seriously in the UK but of course they are concentrating on high speed charging. I can drive almost anywhere in the UK while using only Tesla chargers:
At Gordano services there are eight Tesla chargers but only four non-Tesla. At Hopwood Park (M42 south of Birmingham) there are 16 Tesla and I think only four others.
Tesla are opening their network to other cars but their drivers will have to use an app while Teslas just plug in.
the vast amount of electricity to feed them all
The National Grid has published papers on this and say that they do not foresee any problem supplying the electricity that cars will need. Already planned upgrades to the generating system will be more than enough to cope.
@ninalanyon That highlights two problems I have seen discussed elsewhere, as well as the paucity of chargers and possibility of doubling your journey time:
- no standard charging system, as liquid-fuel pumps are standard,
- no ready means to pay at the charger, by a bank-card reader as is fitted to many self-service petrol-pumps. (They should also display the cost. Why is the battery-car trade so frightened to display the cost per kW/hr on the charger as the price of everything else has to be displayed at the point of sale?)
The government needs get a grip on the industry and order it implement these before it goes too far, especially as vast numbers of motorists can not recharge an electric car at home and/or work.
The chargers are activated by a RFID key that I keep on my key ring.
