Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Electric Cars

Whilst the range issue is clearly a major challenge for many of us, especially those who live out in the sticks, the PHEV alternative has to be pretty attractive for those of us who may need a car for very short trips on a daily basis - popping into town, running the kids to school, etc.

I was talking to a neighbour who has had a few Toyota Priuses (Prii?) and he said that although the first generation PHEV versions had an electric range of only 10 miles that was still plenty to get into town and back on a daily basis (5 mile round trip) and his latest Gen2 car is capable of getting to Cirencester and back (20 miles round trip) on electric only.

He charges from a 13A socket, just leaves it plugged in all the time he's at home, and reckons he gets the mileage equivalent of around 100mpg with his pattern of usage. He doesn't have solar panels though, and doesn't check how much it costs to charge the car, so the 100mpg figure is only based on how many miles he does vs how much petrol he puts in it. The huge advantage is of course no range anxiety as the petrol engine is always there if needed. The Mitsubishi Outlander also seems like an attractive option, as it has 4WD but can still give c.25miles electric range.

Genuine question: Apart from size, what's different about the Lithium-ion batteries used in EVs compared to those in laptops, 'phones and household devices.

In our household, we're lucky if we can get five years from a laptop battery, three years from an iPhone and two years from a vacuum cleaner (take a bow Dyson for being easily the worst of the whole miserable lot, with Bosch not far behind).

Why would a car be any different/better on battery life?


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I hope this helps answer your question.

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn...ies_do_not_last_as_long_as_an_ev_battery

Why indeed and wise choices by the sound of it. Maybe EV manufacturers should make their customers aware of the changes needed for realistic home charging and likely costs.
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Unfortunately they don’t. But there’s lots of enthusiasts on you tube doing so.
Rober Llewelyn of red dwarf and scrap heap challenge is a big advocate, see his website fully charged.
Many others exist and post as well, evopinion, evman, dr Ewan macturk and others.also another rood website is transport evolved.

Rood = good

Presumably they’re Mark 1 leafs which only had an expected range of 80 miles when new so if they’re getting 70 that’s not bad, maybe it could be their driving style.
My mark 2 leaf is good for 150-170 again depending on my driving style,

I thought I might share this blog written by one of my friends about his experiences of owning a Tesla model 3, and also a Bloomberg survey about what Model 3 owners think about their cars (which Richard says pretty much coincides with his views on the model).

https://medium.com/@RichardJYelland/nice-car-61e87d1114fb

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-tesla-model-3-survey/

That's an interesting article Rob in explaining why Li-ion batteries last so much longer in EV's compared to phones and laptops etc. What it doesn't touch on is charge rates though. In the common lead/acid battery still in use in our ICE cars, stress which impacts battery life is caused to some degree if the charge current exceeds as little as 10% of battery capacity in amp hours for any length of time (rate of C/10). That would be 5 amps for a typical Mog sized 50 amp hour battery, although it's longevity is also born by the fact it's never discharged more than 5% of its capacity for the first few years of its life. On my boat I choose C/3 rate as an acceptable reduction in charge time v service battery longevity.

Li-ion on the other hand can withstand much higher charge rates up to 10C being mentioned. That's a hundred times greater than ideal for lead/acid. Suggestions (from the same source) are that those batteries are also stressed above a certain charge rate though in the order of 0.8 to 1C and probably akin to typical home charging, the latter being equivalent to 100 amps for a 100 amp hour battery, as an illustration only. I wonder therefore how regular use of supercharger points (350kW! being mentioned) will impact EV battery life where charge rates will likely be higher still.

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn...ies_do_not_last_as_long_as_an_ev_battery[/quote]
That's an interesting article Rob in explaining why Li-ion batteries last so much longer in EV's compared to phones and laptops etc. What it doesn't touch on is charge rates though. In the common lead/acid battery still in use in our ICE cars, stress which impacts battery life is caused to some degree if the charge current exceeds as little as 10% of battery capacity in amp hours for any length of time (rate of C/10). That would be 5 amps for a typical Mog sized 50 amp hour battery, although it's longevity is also born by the fact it's never discharged more than 5% of its capacity for the first few years of its life. On my boat I choose C/3 rate as an acceptable reduction in charge time v service battery longevity.

Li-ion on the other hand can withstand much higher charge rates up to 10C being mentioned. That's a hundred times greater than ideal for lead/acid. Suggestions (from the same source) are that those batteries are also stressed above a certain charge rate though in the order of 0.8 to 1C and probably akin to typical home charging, the latter being equivalent to 100 amps for a 100 amp hour battery, as an illustration only. I wonder therefore how regular use of supercharger points (350kW! being mentioned) will impact EV battery life where charge rates will likely be higher still.
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I see your point Richard, however I can’t see a company like Porsche marketing a car with that charging capacity if they hadn’t done extensive research and testing, my leaf is only a 50kwh charge capacity, I think, it’s never worried me as I don’t use chademo chargers on it very often, the Hyundai Kona I have uses CCS and that can pull up to 100 kWh I’ve seen 70 odd when I’ve charged it on CCS when the battery is low but the battery management systems are very good at scaling the charge back as the battery fills, so I assume
/have learnt that these are safeguards the Auto makers build in to protect the batteries longevity.

Someone commented that 350 kWh was dangerous, I’d rather be stood next to a Porsche charging at that rate than a petrol car being fuelled by someone smoking,and yes I have seen it!

350kW is a huge amount of power but not anymore dangerous providing the infrastructure to handle it safely is there. As you suggest EV manufacturers wouldn't be considering these higher charge rate standards if safety wasn't maintained. Nevertheless I think it's naive to assume that higher charge rates won't impact on battery longevity. A battery even partially depleted is a power hungry device until it approaches its full capacity. You simply can't scale back charge rates and expect to re-charge batteries in super quick time.

I believe the current Tesla 150kW superchargers work at 480 volts DC which keeps the current down. Even then that represents over 300 amps max which requires welding cable size amounts of copper in the charge cable to handle such. The 350kW+ superchargers in the pipeline will require huge charge cables unless they are planned to service cars with even higher voltage battery packs.

I agree, lots of interesting information. A few points.

1, EV Batteries only charge to 80% and don't go below 30%. Does this mean firstly that the EV battery is only using 50% of the available storage and therefore twice as big as it could be if it used 100%, also as the battery degrades the battery management system firstly allows the top to be used until 80% is reached and then starts to allow the bottom 30% to be used meaning the user doesn't notice the battery has degraded as the range stays the same for longer. (although based on battery cost the life is very important so I would rather use 30 to 80 if that works). Secondly does it mean if I charged my phone once it got close to 30% and took it off at about 80% my phone battery would last a lot longer. Something I would be interested in doing with my electric battery power tools as the replacement batteries are more than the drills, saws etc. are. Also I wonder how much of the extra life is due to the battery really lasting longer and how much is just user experience based on only half the battery capacity used from the start.

2. Don't operate above 30 degrees is going to be hard when it reached 43 degrees in the shade yesterday. I guess people can go to work early in the morning and wait until after 9pm to come home once it cools down a bit and keep their bosses very happy.working over 12 hours a day. However is it OK to be above 30 degrees when not operating? Assuming I did drive the car below 30 degrees but then left it in a sunny car park all day what effect does that have on battery life, maybe parking in the much more expensive multistory car park in the shade would be worth the expense if the battery life is extended. No mention of extremely low temperatures being an issue so I assume that is OK?

3. I wish I could extract my body fat and run a car on that. Certainly looks like a winner if anyone could invent a car to run on body fat and a way for excess ft to be extracted.