That's a whole load of speculative guff & hot air to say I made an incorrect casual assumption but my big swinging ego forces me to double down.
🔋 Semi-Solid-State batteries revolution!
- Thread starter BikeBert
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sethimus
😠 Donald Duck 😠
in the future, every ev will have v2g technology. cars are mostly idle each day. the only thing we need to do is to electrify each company parking spot
...."the move to EVs is over decades"......so why does the uk have a mandate for 100% ev new car sales in 2030.? Mobile networks do not rely on wired interconnectivity so not comparable. I can trace ICE development back to late 1950s. There were only 2 cars on my estate of 350+ houses. I started driving in 1967......never experienced any shortage of garages selling fuel......because it was easy to build petrol stations and distribute fuel supplies to them with tankers. That same organic growth is not happening with electricity distribution.This is National Grids own assessment;
Can the UK grid cope with the extra demand from electric cars? | National Grid
www.nationalgrid.com
Will it require investment? Of course, but our grid needs updating anyway, and the move to EVs is a transition over decades anyway, not an overnight switch on.
The infrastructure didn’t exist for petrol cars back in the day either, but it grew. Same for mobile phone networks, where were they at 20 years ago?
Electricity demand had peaked quite a while ago, as NGs own assessment shows, although I expect there will be some local issues that require upgrades, one of the reasons all home charger installs need to be notified to DNOs so they can prioritise any work required.
sethimus
😠 Donald Duck 😠
because then you are still allowed to ride your gas guzzler, you just can’t buy a new one. the transition process still takes decades. is that so hard to understand?
It doesn’t, under current plans only 100% new ICE passenger cars will stop by 2030, with new hybrids on sale until 2035.
It’s decades because existing ICE cars will be around for 10-15 years after that at least, and it was first announced a decade ago and the infrastructure has already moved on in leaps and bounds as a visit to most service stations will attest.
There were no electric cars in my village 12 years ago, now there are dozens, things change.
It’s also easy to build electricity infrastructure, it already exists in the vast majority of cases, but I have already said it may need upgrading, but we need that anyway for many things besides EVs. The DNOs have done some good work getting Megawatt grid connections to major service areas as well getting that offshore wind energy ashore, and that work is ongoing.
The decarbonising of our electricity grid is one of the few things that the UK is doing very well at, and look to Norway to see what EV penetration looks like.
Norway is unique however in that their electricity is 98% renewable. Relatively easy to accomplish when you have low population density and many natural resources to generate electricity (i.e. geothermal, flowing water, etc.).
Furthermore, a third of Norway's revenue comes from, you guessed it, oil. Which is key to giving them the financial freedom to accomplish what they have done regarding EV adoption, the welfare state, etc.
It's a fool's errand to try and extrapolate the Norwegian's success in EV adoption to the entire planet. To Legislate the same for instance in India, would be absurd and require a serious reduction in limited resources to be available for education, healthcare, prenatal care, anti-trafficking programs and on and on and would ultimately result in more hardship and death for actual people, so that entitled rich white folks could feel good about 'saving the planet'.
EV's, while fun as hell to drive, are a feel-good solution. They don't save money, lives, or the planet in any meaningful way.
Furthermore, a third of Norway's revenue comes from, you guessed it, oil. Which is key to giving them the financial freedom to accomplish what they have done regarding EV adoption, the welfare state, etc.
It's a fool's errand to try and extrapolate the Norwegian's success in EV adoption to the entire planet. To Legislate the same for instance in India, would be absurd and require a serious reduction in limited resources to be available for education, healthcare, prenatal care, anti-trafficking programs and on and on and would ultimately result in more hardship and death for actual people, so that entitled rich white folks could feel good about 'saving the planet'.
EV's, while fun as hell to drive, are a feel-good solution. They don't save money, lives, or the planet in any meaningful way.
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Conversely, in the US just at the data center power requirements level (not counting EV) grid capacity and generation are under stress. Analysts like Gartner warn that by 2027, up to 40 % of AI data centers could be constrained by insufficient power availability because utilities can’t build capacity fast enough.
So speaking for the US, good luck finding computer memory and electricity at an affordable level, as a comsumer and not a data center company
Who is advocating that India does the same as Norway? Not me, not anybody as far as I can see, you just seem to be building a straw man to justify your position.
I have no problem with Norway using oil money to build renewable infrastructure, it’s a bloody good idea if you think about it given oil is finite.
Countries like here in the UK don’t need to go ‘full Norway’ but given the geography of the place going even half way would be of enormous benefit and well worth doing for all sorts of basic reasons.
Yes, that’s a good point re AI/Data Centres, a lot of people don’t appreciate how power hungry those places are and is another good application for renewable energy.
Burning oil and gas to generate electricity to get inane ‘give us your watch and we’ll tell you the time’ type AI responses on search engines is almost the height of insanity if you think about it.
If the UK wants to be a part of that market, and by all accounts it does, then powering them from cheap renewables seems like a no brainer and may offer a competitive advantage.
It’s all about ideology isn’t it, cheap electricity via more drilling versus cheaper electricity via a diverse mix of generation. Oil isn’t a forever fuel though unfortunately.
Brings us back to batteries really, if we’re going to store alternative energy generated via wind/solar/hydrogen or whatever, then we need a good battery solution.
I agree with a lot of the content although I do wish to chime in on the EV and sustainability equation. Where I live we pay 5 times the going rate for elec. My house had a 500 to 800 per month elec bill before I converted to solar, with about 21 panels that are inanimate objects with no moving parts sitting on the roof, and require no maintenance . They create more energy that our house consumes by about a positve 3 to 4 kw's per day and a current elec bill of 29.00 usd. basic charge. Some months are free with the net metering credits each year.
So back to the point, when I find value in an EV and buy one it will be powered by the sun and not fossil fuels or as a member put it "dino juice" . And the best parts are A / I will not need to line up at the gas station, and B / it will be free (gratis the solar system). I think that is a huge win in a "meaninful way"
With that being said, EV costs to operate here would be more expensive per mile that ICE vehicle because of our energy costs for electricty. And as a final thought, we have been paying 23.00 for a propane tank refill that we use for our stove (no natural gas here) When I went to refill yesterday it has gone up at least 50 % overnight to 34.00 so what we use for an energy reference point can be a moving target unfortunately for predicting budgets.
Not at all. I know a mess when I see one. Fleet/mot ability amounts to at least 65% of new car sales in the UK. They are not bought, they are rented. Very few private buyers are prepared to pay for new EVs given their initial cost and massive depreciation, especially when they offer no benefits over and above the ICE cars they already own. That spells big problems for the massive auto industry. They make little or not profit selling EVs and the private buyer of new cars are given so little choice of decent alternatives, they are mostly either holding on to their existing cars or buying second hand. The commercial market is even worse for the manufacturers. The evidence is clear to see if you examine the European auto industry profitability figures and plans for factory shutdowns and redundancies. That of course has a much wider impact given all the auto accessory suppliers dependant on the auto industry. The EU has already backtracked on EV targets.
Meanwhile if you examine the difference between the auto industry stated new EV sales and the uk Govt figures for new EV registrations......ie EVs actually registered for use on UK roads; or even more interesting how many are registered for use on uk roads 3 years later, you are left scratching your head. Something very weird going on!! Keeping a close watch on online sites like Autotrader paints a cleare picture of what is actually happening.
If the buying public was offered cars they actually wanted and found attractive, there would be no need for targets , incentives, discounts, or indeed the evangelism demonstrated even here.
I've lived in California several times (I assume that is where you are talking about?) and because of my business I have a lot of knowledge of the EV/ green agenda and the ins/ outs. For instance, I recently had to arrange the purchase of 3 emissions credits from Rivian, to get 3 new Commercial trucks registered in CA.
But just stepping back, CA heavily taxes oil to push people into green technologies (I'm not judging, just stating facts) but if everyone eventually has green technology, they will then have to find another way to collect that revenue, and they will. Electricity is high there because, well lots of programs and government intervention results in high prices for everything.
So funny enough I met a local on this very forum, and we now ride e-bikes together. When we met, he managed a solar panel company. Now I had checked every price over a period of years but the math just didn't work here in TX with 11 cents per kwh electricity prices. Anyways, he offered me some incredible deals, literally 1/3 of other quotes I had received. Guess what, it still didn't even break even. And that was if I managed to age out in the same house, not need a roof repair, etc. The problem with me, is I understand the value of time vs. money. I understand that putting $30K in the S&P instead of solar panels makes more money every single month and compounds, then I'd ever save in electricity cost. Like it's not even close. And by the time the panels break even in 20+ years and they began to 'cash flow' the panels were nearly worn out, the same investment in the stock market was literally well over a quarter of a million dollars. That was the true cost of solar panels. It would cost me a quarter of a million dollars in lost funds to 'save the environment'.
The amazing thing is that it's more cost effective to just upgrade windows, insulate better, use LED bulbs, click up the AC during the day, etc. Like a LOT more cost effective. It's literally more cost effective to replace the plasma TV with a new LED TV. It would literally save more electricity for less money and improve your life a bit. An example is that I have a 3000' home with 12' ceilings in the TX Sun and my electricity bill was only $97 last month. But most people don't due do these basics.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly! You are fortunate to have an excellent value with the cost of electricity. The last time I looked we were at .53 cents per Kw so at that rate the ~100 monthly bill would be ~500 and that is when I would do a double take when I opened my mail
But then we live on a rock in the Pacific ocean with a utility company unrestrained by the governmental commissions. I spend winters in Wyoming and the low costs for elec there are a breath of fresh air. With that being said, will the grid be affordable in the future considering the trend for corporate shareholder returns?
My experience with privatization has been a trend toward greedflation and I understand that Texas largely shifted from a regulated monopoly utility system to a deregulated, competitive electricity market, which many people describe as a form of privatization.
sethimus
😠 Donald Duck 😠
norway already did the switch over, i haven't heard of any grid problems there
Very few people buy new cars (or newish cars for that matter) with cash, most use some kind of finance, it’s where most manufacturers make money. If you do buy new or used cars with cash (‘bangers’ excepted) then you and me are outliers, or maybe just liars.
I’ve been running an EV of some sort alongside my diesel van for over a decade now, the later EVs in particular have brought some massive benefits for me, including financially, but then I have a driveway and home charging. I’d be the first to say think twice about buying one if you don’t have access to home or work charging as it’s less convenient and more costly. Another problem that can be solved though, with a bit of willingness and tech foresight.
The European auto industry has been in trouble for years now, it’s not happening just because of EVs, the Chinese and Korean manufacturers in particular have taken big chunks out of the big legacy manyfacturers, who are also trying to service huge debts. ZEV mandates are adding to that pressure, but I’m still struggling to get a violin out, the bigger long term picture is all of their own making.
The EU haven’t exactly ‘backtracked’ on EV targets either, they’ve merely reduced the target down from 100% to 90% needing to be EV by 2035, allowing the rest to be offset to allow some diesel and petrol sales to remain.
Actually, I’d be happy if the UK government did something similar, ie go to 90% EV of new car sales by 2035, if only due to our reliance on being in step with wider car industry manufacturing, given we don’t have much of our own. Nobody will be building ‘UK Specials’ as things stand.
The reality is though that it isn’t EVangelism that will bring about the end of the new ICE car, that will be oil running out or not being worth getting out of the ground anymore. It may seem a long way off, but then so did the EV transition mandates 10 years ago.
I’m not sure what point you’re making ref Autotrader, suffice to say it isn’t a record of EV registrations, that’s the DVLA, and they’re saying half a million more of them hit the road in the last year. Pre-registrations have been a thing since Mondeo and Vectra man, nothing new there if that’s the allusion.
Anyway, a long way away from bicycle solid state batteries, but I think Top Gear magazine did a piece on that just this week with an EV running them being able to recharge ‘in minutes’. Things are still developing and have a way to go, but meantime we can all still benefit where it works for you.
Norway has a population of 5.6 m with only about 1000 centres of population. .....London alone has a population of 9m. The UK probably now close to 70m. How many centres of population? Goodness know but given most of the land mass is rural, but very little is uninhabited, there must be a huge number of towns and villages. No comparison.
It doesn’t really matter how many people are in the UK versus Norway, the UKs grid is already sized for its population centres.
There are 9m people in London, but ‘only’ 2.5m cars, about 50% of households own one, but every household already gets electricity and they’re all parked somewhere in the capital overnight already which is where the power needs to be.
None of it is insurmountable, if there’s a will, and as said previously none of it is happening overnight either.
DirkWisely
Well-known member
And did Quantum-scape promise they'd figure it out, or promise that they have it literally right now and list a bunch of concrete spec claims?
Big difference. One is something you should have taken with a grain of salt, the other is outright fraud and definitely illegal.
Power being sourced from electricity, makes distributed power sources financially viable. Roof top solar and home batteries have exploded across Australia. '
Our peak demand days have be weather related. The hottest day in summer. The coldest in winter. But due to distributed power sources like home roof top solar and batteries, about 15% of the power didn't have to travel across the grid, making the demand on the grid less than previous highs.
So our grid infrastructure has less load on it now than 20 years ago.
My home has 2 Electric Cars and an Electric Motorbike. So I installed a 13kW solar system, and a 22kWh battery. Cost about AUD$20K. My electricity bills went from about AUD$4K a year to nearly nothing. This doesn't even count for the money now saved on never having to buy fuel for the cars and motorbike.
Not only that. I serviced my Tesla 2 weeks ago for the first time in 4 years. It cost AUD$100 for cabin filters and the car was reported in perfect order, including the original tyres which have 60,000km on them. Tesla said, "See you again in 4 years ?" I said, "That should give me enough time to save the next $100.
"
So I'm saving so much money, and I have dramatically reduced my demand on the Grid. I see it as a Win - Win. Not sure how you couldn't. Though I do admit, we get great sun in Australia.
Our peak demand days have be weather related. The hottest day in summer. The coldest in winter. But due to distributed power sources like home roof top solar and batteries, about 15% of the power didn't have to travel across the grid, making the demand on the grid less than previous highs.
So our grid infrastructure has less load on it now than 20 years ago.
My home has 2 Electric Cars and an Electric Motorbike. So I installed a 13kW solar system, and a 22kWh battery. Cost about AUD$20K. My electricity bills went from about AUD$4K a year to nearly nothing. This doesn't even count for the money now saved on never having to buy fuel for the cars and motorbike.
Not only that. I serviced my Tesla 2 weeks ago for the first time in 4 years. It cost AUD$100 for cabin filters and the car was reported in perfect order, including the original tyres which have 60,000km on them. Tesla said, "See you again in 4 years ?" I said, "That should give me enough time to save the next $100.
"So I'm saving so much money, and I have dramatically reduced my demand on the Grid. I see it as a Win - Win. Not sure how you couldn't. Though I do admit, we get great sun in Australia.
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MountainBoy
Active member
Why do you need saving? Or do you have no opinion on that?
MountainBoy
Active member
You are grossly misinformed because over 90% of the time our existing grid has plenty of excess capacity going unused, and EVs are not particular about when they are charged.
I've been charging multiple Tesla at home in my small town for 8 years and it's rare that any of them need to charge for more than an hour or two. They can charge in the middle of the night when the grid is only utilized 15%. If every car in America was magically converted to a pure electric car overnight, America's total electrical consumption would only increase by 25% (and our gas consumption would drop close to zero).
This is one of many false anti-EV narratives being used to give gullible people one more reason to buy one more gas car.
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MountainBoy
Active member
Huh? Virtually no power grid can deliver the voltages required by EVs? The electrical grid in the US has no issue providing the voltages needed for electric cars, trucks and semi trucks (120V to 1000V). The onboard charger can only take a maximum of 240V. This is child's play considering some transmission lines carry up to 1 million+ volts:
- High Voltage (HV): 100,000 volts to 230,000 volts.
- Extra-High Voltage (EHV): 230,000 volts to 765,000 volts (e.g., 345 kV, 500 kV, 765 kV).
- Ultra-High Voltage (UHV): Above 765,000 volts (e.g., 1,100 kV or 1.1 million volts).
I charge at home with 240V, the same voltage supplied to 99.9% of homes in America. I plug it in in the evening and it's always ready to go when I wake up. In fact, it's generally ready to go an hour or two after I plug in! And it's cheap!
As far as DCFC (Supercharging), that is also supplied by the same transmission lines that end up feeding your home and it's always under 1000 volts. That's child's play! I've charged at hundreds of Superchargers, it generally only takes 15-20 minutes, and the grid has always supplied them just fine. Your beliefs are good for a laugh though. Some Supercharger Stations have over 100 individual stalls, all of them can be used simultaneously. They are very convenient when on a road trip, but most months I do 100% of my charging at home. And my e-bike takes longer to charge than any of my electric cars!
On the other hand, I live within 30 miles of five major oil refineries making gasoline. Each one requires it's own power substation, sometimes two or three power substations for one refinery! Refineries regularly use voltages higher than that required to charge electric cars quickly.
If you would like to learn more about how voltage is simply not a problem, this may help:
From Transmission to Your Home
- Generation: Electricity starts at 11,000-25,000 volts.
- Transmission: Stepped up to 110,000-765,000+ volts for long distances (the large towers).
- Sub-Transmission: Stepped down to 33,000-69,000 volts for areas near cities.
- Primary Distribution: Stepped down to 4,000-25,000 volts (the poles along streets).
- Secondary Distribution: Stepped down to 120/240 volts for homes and businesses.
sethimus
😠 Donald Duck 😠
and? you claim the need of power increases because of evs and therefore the grid load. the need of power per capita must be same, and they already are at nearly 100% new ev cars, therefore their grid must have been overloaded but it hasn’t. your argument is invalid. plus they must have more power lines per capita as their have so much less people per area but they have lots of terrain that you need to build around (think of all these fjords they have)
Yes — Norway also had to improve its grid because of EVs, but for very similar reasons and in very similar ways to the UK, with a few Norway-specific twists.
What happened in Norway
1. EV uptake was
earlier and faster
- Norway reached very high EV penetration much earlier than the UK
- This made Norway a real-world stress test for EV–grid interaction
Problems showed up locally first, not nationally.
What
did
need improvement
Local distribution grids (same as the UK)
- Neighborhood transformers
- Low-voltage feeders
- Rural and suburban areas with many home chargers
Typical issue:
Too many cars charging in the evening on the same transformer
Cold climate effect (Norway-specific)
- EV charging coincides with:
- Electric heating
- Dark winter evenings
- Winter peaks are sharper than in the UK
How Norway solved it (important)
Smart charging first, upgrades second
Norway largely avoided massive rebuilding by:
- Mandatory or strongly encouraged smart chargers
- Load-based tariffs (higher cost during peak hours)
- Utility-controlled charging limits in some areas
Physical upgrades happened only where unavoidable.
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Rando_12345
E*POWAH Master
Trying to stay back on topic, and avoiding random insults at the end of each of my questions/points...
Does anyone know how much bike companies or motor system providers (Bosch/Shimano/DJI...) pay to build their batteries? It's been pretty widely reported now that a 1kWh of cells costs under $100 at least at car manufacturer scale.
So for the past few years we have mostly had 800Wh batteries, margins must have been: ~$100 in cells + packaging + BMS + certification? Surely it costs them around €200 to make one and they sell them for $800-1200!
From that point of view I'm surprised we havn't seen something a bit like the donut lab situation above where some presumably much more expensive cells at a much lower volume get purchased for ebike applications while selling batteries at a premium. If for e.g. Specialised said they would maintain the battery connectivity standard across the next 8 years of updates, I could be convinced to pay considerably more for a 2kg big battery.
Back to the off topic, fair play to the commenter who maintained his tesla tyres for 4 years, when I got my first EV (a not particularly powerful peugeot 208), I smoked my tyres in a year, but had a lot of fun doing so (in a safe and responsible manner)
Does anyone know how much bike companies or motor system providers (Bosch/Shimano/DJI...) pay to build their batteries? It's been pretty widely reported now that a 1kWh of cells costs under $100 at least at car manufacturer scale.
So for the past few years we have mostly had 800Wh batteries, margins must have been: ~$100 in cells + packaging + BMS + certification? Surely it costs them around €200 to make one and they sell them for $800-1200!
From that point of view I'm surprised we havn't seen something a bit like the donut lab situation above where some presumably much more expensive cells at a much lower volume get purchased for ebike applications while selling batteries at a premium. If for e.g. Specialised said they would maintain the battery connectivity standard across the next 8 years of updates, I could be convinced to pay considerably more for a 2kg big battery.
Back to the off topic, fair play to the commenter who maintained his tesla tyres for 4 years, when I got my first EV (a not particularly powerful peugeot 208), I smoked my tyres in a year, but had a lot of fun doing so (in a safe and responsible manner)
I make up for it by going through my rear EMTB tyre in about 4 weeks ........
The power of the Amflow ........ On topic. I do not see solid state batteries going mainstream in the near future. There may be some niche uses. But there are too many scaleable issues to solve yet.
pagheca
Active member
I’m afraid I don’t fully share your enthusiasm, but over the past few years I’ve been flooded almost daily with announcements of extraordinary technologies that are supposedly about to revolutionize the battery sector.
To be fair, real progress has indeed taken place, just look at the remarkable increase in energy density and the dramatic reduction in cost per kWh (see, for example, here) in the last decades. Still, this strikes me much more as a steady, incremental process rather than a series of disruptive leaps.
To be fair, real progress has indeed taken place, just look at the remarkable increase in energy density and the dramatic reduction in cost per kWh (see, for example, here) in the last decades. Still, this strikes me much more as a steady, incremental process rather than a series of disruptive leaps.
Tend to agree with this, unless there was a significant reduction in weight of an e-bike battery pack, or a leap in energy density for the same pack, the juice hardly seems worth the squeeze for most use cases.
Price, warranty, dealers?
The donut labs ss "tech" smells to high heaven of a pump and dump.
People were trying to do the same thing with graphene back in the day. Graphene to this day has never been implemented in a consumer battery.
