Why the mainstream automakers are lagging so badly on EVs

"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr) 03/06/2018 at 08:32 • Filed to: electric vehicles, electric, honda

4

12

This started out as a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but I felt it warranted a full post.

I’ll start out with the comment I was replying to:

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

As I said, there’s a few things going on here.

Investment models, economies of scale, outsourcing, compliance cars, and infrastructure

Most automakers have no specific desire to make an EV, and their shareholders are very conservative, not wanting their money to be spent on huge gambles on new technology. So, when they do make an EV, it’s usually to satisfy mandates, not demand. In fact, as their shareholders will punish them for making the gambles necessary to make a truly good EV, they don’t want demand . (Which also means that they fight the mandates tooth and nail.)

If something isn’t your core competency, you’ll outsource it, so that you can serve the market, without having to invest in developing it yourself. For example, many automakers have outsourced automatic transmissions to GM, ZF, or Aisin. Toyota’s outsourced diesel car engines to BMW. This is a perfectly reasonable action, but if it involves major components, you’re handing your profit over to your supplier, rather than keeping it for yourself (or being able to reduce prices).

For most automakers, EVs are not their core competency, and are extremely low volume. So, the manufacturers outsource these things to various suppliers. In many cases, the whole damn electric conversion (and it so often is a conversion) is outsourced. The e-Golf and Fiat 500e are basically a Bosch powertrain, with someone else’s batteries. The Chevy Bolt is basically all LG components.

Tesla, OTOH, has tried to insource all of the EV components they can, and at large scale. This means that their cost is significantly lower than what the suppliers are charging the other automakers. And, because they’re not a traditional automaker with traditional investors that want to see steady 5% profit growth or whatever year-on-year, they can afford to blow ridiculous amounts of money on innovation.a

And, infrastructure is another investment that no automaker except Tesla has seriously wanted to make, and it’s necessary to make EVs real replacements for ICE cars, too.

Development time

It takes about five years or so from conception to release to make a car, give or take a year or so. Note that that guideline applies to both conventional cars and to new technology cars.

As an example, the original NHW10 Prius only took four years, because Toyota basically diverted every resource they could to accelerating its production. That’s even with the Prius project having started as a packaging concept, and a hybrid system wasn’t decided on or even started on until two years in. However, the released cars were basically beta quality, and it took another three years for them to make an extensive mechanical refresh that could hold up to American and European driving conditions.

Another example is the US-market 2012 Honda Civic - it was panned quite heavily, but Honda couldn’t do anything except an emergency refresh, and then accelerate the next-generation Civic to 2016.

So, if an automaker genuinely wants to change course, it takes about five years from the moment they decide to turn the ship around, to the point that you can actually buy a good EV, if they want to make one.

There’s two important dates, here, to keep in mind.

September 18, 2015.

March 31, 2016.

The first date is when the German and French manufacturers started shitting themselves. Granted, I think Renault was already on the right track (the Renault-Nissan Alliance being a rare example of a traditional manufacturer that gets it, to the point of Nissan having a battery joint venture (that they backed out of because they picked the wrong partner, but the point is that they felt they needed one)), but everyone else was “diesel all the things”, and on September 18, 2015, diesel became a non-viable long term solution.

The second date is when everyone else started shitting themselves. The decades of traditional automakers saying that there’s no real demand for electric vehicles was proven to be a lie that day, with people lining up to put $1000 down on a car they hadn’t seen, and Tesla announced the hundreds of thousands of reservations.

Add a minimum of four years to those dates, and that tells you when you’ll see the first serious EVs from the major automakers.

The charging, generation, and hydrogen situation in Japan

Japan has some... unique issues that make EVs harder.

If you can plug in at home, often you only have a 100 volt, 8 amp circuit available to the car - if you draw the 6 amps that’s safe, that means 600 watt charging. Meanwhile in America, even a regular outlet can hold 1440 watts safely, and in Europe, a regular outlet can hold 3000 watts safely - all of these are kinda slow, and many people add higher current (and for the US and Japan, higher voltage) circuits, but the Japanese basic outlet is ridiculously slow. (That said, in Japan, it’s also common to add the higher voltage and current circuit for a so-called “plug-out” system, even for vehicles that wouldn’t otherwise plug in - in the wake of the March 2011 tsunami and the power outages that resulted, there was a huge demand for using BEVs, hybrids, and FCEVs as emergency generators.)

But, with Japanese density, many can’t plug in at home, meaning there’s more reliance on DC fast charging, which can beat up batteries, especially at higher power. (25 kW DC fast charging is everywhere , though.) This is why even plug-in hybrids have CHAdeMO there.

Then, you’ve got the problems of generation. Nuclear’s great, until it isn’t, as evidenced by the Fukushima disaster. Solar’s great (especially for workplace EV charging loads), but Japan doesn’t have much land area. Wind is great, but Japan’s mountainous, and putting wind turbines on your mountains destroys the view. (Offshore wind is actually promising, though.)

So, the official stance of the Japanese government is, import hydrogen generated from fossil fuels, and put that in cars. It solves the charging issue, because hydrogen tanks are fast to fill (but requiring incredibly expensive stations), it solves the NIMBY issues of nuclear, solar, and wind, and it eliminates domestic tailpipe emissions.

It’s incredibly stupid in the face of global warming, though, and it doesn’t actually help them achieve energy independence. In any case, Toyota and Honda have gone very, very far down that road - decades of hydrogen fuel cell being “just around the corner” as a viable technology - and it’s taking quite a long time to turn that ship around, as EVs are now beating up on their range, their cost, and even catching up on charge time.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 08:52

0

I think we will see a lot of focus on NIMBY emissions because in the end the biggest issue to human health is clogged up emissions in cities, not those emissions existing necessarily.

I am a big proponent of hydrogen. I think it’s better than electric drive because it doesn’t require a very large battery whose components will become more scarce by the day. Sure, making hydrogen today is very inefficient, but like many things it’s an issue of actually focusing on the technology and economies of scale.

Plus, very stubborn people could keep ICE engines and noise with hydrogen.

bhtooefr > Spanfeller is a twat 03/06/2018 at 08:56

1

Keep in mind that it’s not just making it, but also pressurizing it to 10,000 PSI to get a reasonable mass of hydrogen in the car. That’s going to take a lot of energy no matter what.

And, hydrogen fuel cells aren’t exactly using common elements, either, and batteries can adjust chemistry to deal with poor availability of certain elements more easily than hydrogen fuel cells can.

Also, by far the most cost effective way to make hydrogen is from fossil fuels, rather than electrolysis of water. Even if you get perfect conversion of the hydrocarbons, such that CO2 and H2 are the only byproducts... CO2 is a global pollutant. Criteria pollutants, it matters where you emit them, and the long tailpipe is a factor. But CO2, emitting it anywhere screws everyone over equally.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:05

0

The biggest issue I find is that it’s unacceptable that electric cars take so long to charge, that drives consumers away. Also, I’m not very sure about it, but I think hydrogen fuel cells don’t degrade as quickly as batteries do. however, I can’t say I’m well versed enough in either technology to go beyond liking one or the other... I’m as clueless as the people that bought teslas to save the enviroment but left behind a perfectly OK E class... in the end what messes with resources and the environment is consumerism..

I know it’s not a very practical solution, but compared to sticking boom boom liquid into a tank so that it goes bam bam in a piston, EVs hardly are the answer either to the average consumer which in the end will decide which tech shall be the best one.

Right now many consumers are doing compromises and EVs seem to be the best solution by now given the infrastructure it has compared to hydrogen or other methods.

bhtooefr > Spanfeller is a twat 03/06/2018 at 09:09

0

The payoff period of replacing a E-class with a Tesla is well within the Tesla’s lifetime.

Also, there’s plenty of EV fast charging tech available today, to the point that you rarely have to wait to charge. Now, do you want to charge every 150 miles or so for 20 minutes with a big battery Tesla, rather than go the full range every charge? Yes, because that last 50% takes a lot longer. But, you probably want to get out, stretch, use the restroom, etc., anyway after that long. And, if you’re having a longer meal stop, you can charge higher, and then go longer to the next charge stop.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:10

0

Yeah, in the end all emissions matter, but all the emissions that will matter to politicians are NIMBY because they’re short sighted, and that will shape the future panorama of the vehicle industry.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:13

0

All the literature I’ve read about it points to it being the worst choice. But if you can show it’s true, then I’ll happily agree.... as someone that lives in a bowl like city, i’d rather see teslas than mercs....


Fast chargers do exist, but arguing they give the same practicality as a pump is simply imposible... many people wont be able to charge at home, as you pointed out on the post, and the prospect of having to wait 30-40 minutes for your car to be filled with electricity is too much for the consumer...

bhtooefr > Spanfeller is a twat 03/06/2018 at 09:18

0

To be fair, as time goes on, apartment buildings and parking garages will increasingly have to offer charging. (I’m against on-street parking existing at all, tbh.)

That said, for most people, in their daily driving, waiting 30 or 40 minutes to fill up isn’t a problem. Put fast chargers at grocery stores, you can fill up while shopping. Put them at restaurants, you can fill up while eating.

Or, put charging at workplaces, and take advantage of the high availability of solar power. This doesn’t even have to be fast charging.

Also consider that most people won’t be going through the full 300+ miles range on a modern long-range EV every day, so they’ll only need a little bit here and there.

As far as the sustainability of Teslas... here’s the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report: https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions

fintail > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:27

0

Stretch out every 150 miles? The point of driving an E-Class is to not need to do so. I drive a Bluetec E with a theoretical 800+ mile cruising range, and I have taken it on trips that would require several stops in an EV - if there was charging infrastructure out in the boonies to begin with (there isn’t). No range, no deal - not to mention in my eyes anyway, the ICE car is more attractive inside and out. Get back to me when these things can do 400-500 miles on the highway.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:34

1

Public transport is probably the best solution.

bhtooefr > Spanfeller is a twat 03/06/2018 at 09:37

0

Absolutely, or walking, or cycling. But, getting people to do that in the US is... I think that even though Americans hate driving, they’d rather be waterboarded than use public transport, walk, or cycle places.

Spanfeller is a twat > bhtooefr 03/06/2018 at 09:43

0

It’s just how their cities developed, they created urban sprawl rather than verticalization. Mexico City and LA are about the same size in km^2 at around 500km^2, yet here in Mexico City 9,000,000 people live, wheras in LA it’s closer to 4,000,000... that takes a toll on people who, if all things are equal, would have a commute that is twice as long as the one of the average chilango, nevermind that Mexico City isn’t that dense either.

Plus, realistically, cities shouldn’t really get any bigger than 1,000,000 people considering how hard it is to make those resources reach us in the first place.

bhtooefr > Spanfeller is a twat 03/06/2018 at 10:01

0

Well, a lot of that development pattern was a combination of the federal government intentionally encouraging it as the Cold War started, as an attempt to harden cities against nuclear attack... and racism.

And racism is what made it really take off, once federal policies made it possible.