Are we on the brink of an electric car revolution?

[BritDownUnder]

The Ford F150 ev have been a huge flop in the US. USians that buy pickups are just not prepared to make the compromises needed to live with an electric pickup, and it just does not make enough noise or pollution to show that they are real men. There are tens of thousands of the EVs sitting unsold on dealers forecourts

They could put the steering wheel on the right side and sell them in Australia. I think they would fly off the forecourts. I heard they are quite poor when it comes to towing range.

[Forever_Winter]

Battery maker Northvolt has gone bust.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... es-battery

[BritDownUnder]

Battery maker Northvolt has gone bust.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... es-battery

One would have thought that the Norwegian state wealth fund, flush with all the money from selling gas and now electricity to the UK, would have put in some money but clearly not a good investment.

EDIT:

Here we go. Here's the real reason. From MSN.

Why did this happen?

What precipitated Northvolt into this turmoil? First of all, there's a possible technological war. The main supplier of lithium-ion battery production machines, based in China, was (strangely?) unwilling to sell its machines to Northvolt! The Swedish company then had to fall back on another manufacturer, also Chinese. But with a lesser reputation. It didn't fail: their equipment didn't live up to expectations. The faulty equipment delayed the production process with too many defective batteries. Mass-producing such batteries is a complex business. In the beginning, there are always rejects, on the order of 30%. But it seems that at Northvolt, the level of failures was even higher.

Qu'elle surprise? China doesn't want to sell the machines that make electric batteries. Before the EU settled on the business strategy of screwing the UK there was actually some industrial development going on there. Maybe they should make the battery building machines themselves.

[Forever_Winter]

Interesting points there BDU. Makes you wonder how a strategy to just resell Chinese stuff was going to compete with state-backed competitors?

In other news, Vauxhall is closing their Luton plant due to stringent demands to produce EVs that no one is buying (except fleet buyers). We have a company car scheme that offers only EVs, and the cheapest one is still about £260 a month via salary sacrifice. You can easily part with £600 a month if you want a Tesla Model Y.

They're just too expensive, and the battery tech is still not quite there yet. Still ,I guess we can still hit Net Zero by a) not making anything so no emissions and b) importing our cars from abroad so moving our emissions abroad.

[BritDownUnder]

It's about this time that the EU is realizing that they have been 'played' by China just the same as the EU 'played' the UK for many years.

I still like my EV. Built in Korea with probably China made batteries. My Kona is not a smart car so no on the air updates and no fancy app to control
my EV so less to go wrong. I have two other cars, both diesels if this EV goes wrong and this EV can be charged entirely from my home produced solar output. A nice performance and no longer supporting terrorism or Ukraine invaders by driving. Of course, all the rest of the economy is still supporting terrorism and invaders with gay abandon but I can't stop that.

I bought mine for good old cash, or more accurately bank cheque. Never a lender nor a borrower be!

[mr brightside]

What are they planning to do with all the batteries when they are knackered? Can they be recycled? The guy at the bodyshop where i take retro cars for resto work reckons there are containers full of dead Teslas at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

[BritDownUnder]

What are they planning to do with all the batteries when they are knackered? Can they be recycled? The guy at the bodyshop where i take retro cars for resto work reckons there are containers full of dead Teslas at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

I believe there have been attempts to recycle the old batteries. Old Tesla batteries from crashed and write-offs have supposedly been used as household batteries as they go to <70% of rated charge capacity.

[Ralphw2]

My Nissan Leaf is now 4 years old, done nearly 50,000 miles, and reports a battery capacity of 91% (Using the leafspy app to interogate the computer). I think this is about right, as it now reports 220 miles range when full, and used to report 240 miles (both figures are very optimistic). Previous studies show that the capacity loss rate slows after the first coupe of years, so I should have about 80-85% capacity after 100,000 miles, which would still be a practical range for the car. More modern makes of EV with better battery management systems seem to lose battery capacity more slowly.

A few years ago, there was a thriving market in used EV batteries. There are companies that build large grid storage installations using second hand EV batteries where reduced energy density is not an issue. I am not sure if the market is still there because supply has sharply increased and new prices have crashed, which may mean the hassle of reusing old batteries may not be economic. It is often possible to rejuvinate old ev batteries by replacing one or more modules within the battery box with new(er) ones. However, the batteries are not normally built with this level of repair in mind, making the procedure skilled and labour intensive. It would certainly be easy to design ev batteries where this level of maintenance would be economic, but it is not currently a priority for the car manufacturers.

[Forever_Winter]

I used to work with someone who had a 1st generation Nissan Leaf (not sure if it was 2011 or 2013) and he reckoned that the battery had about 80% of the original capacity when he got rid of it a few years back. I'm not sure what mileage he ended up doing, but he reckons that if you don't let the battery get below 25% or charge it above 85% then the battery lasts a lot longer.

[BritDownUnder]

I have been told about the 80% level that you should not charge above this and then leave the battery in this state for any amount of time. In other words if you charge to 100% you need to use the car straight afterwards.

Not sure on the state of battery materials recycling but I expect this is still in development.

[mr brightside]

It would certainly be easy to design ev batteries where this level of maintenance would be economic, but it is not currently a priority for the car manufacturers.

There is an EU directive of some sort that mandates things to have a certain degree of servicability. If you've ever seen a torx head screw with a slot cut across it for a flat head driver, this is an example of this.

[Potemkin Villager]

https://scontent.fdub4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=675D3636