38% of cars sold in China are now electric, Sinopec says the ICE is doomed

[raylo32]

Yes, there is a base overall gasoline cost due to the current price of oil but there are still often substantial differences in gas prices from station to station, from state to state, or Interstate exit to the next exit.

No one is disputing the greatness of having an EV for local commuting and charging at home. The problem is that most of us have only one vehicle that also needs to make road trips. That is where the problem lies.

And the local EV use case for apartment and condo dwellers is another major obstacle. Many of these places will never be able to provide onsite charging so there needs to be ample local commercial charging options. But then the cost... oof.

Replace "charging" with "gas" and you could be describing the status quo with ICE cars. So what's the difference? If you have a gas car, you're totally locked in to an existing infrastructure and dependent on fluctuating gas prices. The only difference i see is that there's more gas stations, and that we've simply become accustomed to it.

If anything, you have more "fueling" options with an EV. You can charge at home. You can build a solar panel setup and charge off-grid. Can you do either of those effectively and cheaply, no, of course not. But the option is there, in a way that isn't there if your only transportation is a gas-powered car.

 

[scianiac]

No one is disputing the greatness of having an EV for local commuting and charging at home. The problem is that most of us have only one vehicle that also needs to make road trips. That is where the problem lies.

Do most people make road trips that often? I bet the median road trips per year is probably 1-3 in the US and far less in other places and those road trips are probably in the range of requiring 1 or 2 charge stops. Even if you took say 12 road trips a year, so basically every month your driving to some place hundreds of miles away, using an EV trip planner that is probably built into the car's navigation system doesn't seem that inconvenient. IDK I would happily take that slight inconvenience for a cheaper, quieter, and cleaner trip.

 

[raylo32]

I agree that ICE are more complex but to say EV's need none of that complexity is mistaken. They have multiple systems and sensors for monitoring, cooling, pre-conditioning, balancing, and charging the batteries, among other things, like cooling the controllers. So, you don't get rid of fluids or complexity after all. Less than ICE? Maybe. Different? Certainly. And some of that like pre-conditioning waste energy warming up the battery.

...and a pressurized oil system to keep all those hot, thrashing parts from welding themselves to each other (and keep that lubricant relatively cool and clean)...more weight and complication.

An EV needs none of those things.


Then we have the energy costs involved in growing the feed materials for bio-based fuels, and in processing them... but I think I've made my point.

 

[Zambam]

Do most people make road trips that often? I bet the median road trips per year is probably 1-3 in the US and far less in other places and those road trips are probably in the range of requiring 1 or 2 charge stops. Even if you took say 12 road trips a year, so basically every month your driving to some place hundreds of miles away, using an EV trip planner that is probably built into the car's navigation system doesn't seem that inconvenient. IDK I would happily take that slight inconvenience for a cheaper, quieter, and cleaner trip.

I've read that charging stations ream you real good on the road. You end up paying more than gasoline or diesel.

 

[raylo32]

I believe that is a bogus argument. How often one wants to suffer those inconveniences may vary from always to never depending on the individual. For now I am in the "never" camp, since there is zero economic advantage and major logistical pain, even if I do one road trip a year. I probably do 6-10, between 200 and 1100 miles.

Yes, I have worked those EV trip planners. The only way to get a reasonable 1000 mile road trip out of them is to drive a Lucid Grand Touring edition with 520 mile theoretical range. But those cost $120,000. LOL. Otherwise you are talking 5 or 6 stops, each of which will take about 30 minutes best case to add between 150 and 200 miles. Meanwhile I can do a 1000 mile trip in my Tundra on one fuel stop adding 650 miles of range in 5 minutes. And don't come back with that other lame argument that you need to stop longer and more often for other stuff anyway. Long range lets you do quick 3 minute splash and goes at roadside rest stops without getting off the highway.

Do most people make road trips that often? I bet the median road trips per year is probably 1-3 in the US and far less in other places and those road trips are probably in the range of requiring 1 or 2 charge stops. Even if you took say 12 road trips a year, so basically every month your driving to some place hundreds of miles away, using an EV trip planner that is probably built into the car's navigation system doesn't seem that inconvenient. IDK I would happily take that slight inconvenience for a cheaper, quieter, and cleaner trip.

 

[raylo32]

They do, indeed. See my post above. Cost per mile is more than for me drving my Tundra. And you could drive an ICE or hybrid CRV, MX-5, RAV4, etc for waaaaayyy less.

I've read that charging stations ream you real good on the road. You end up paying more than gasoline or diesel.

 

[Zambam]

Here's an example

 

[raylo32]

No need for a video example. Just go to Electrify America or EVGo websites to see the KWh rates. Easily 4 or 5 times what we pay at home.

And this example is suspect. When was it made? These guys are getting a rate of .35/KWh, which has to be some special deal or discount... or maybe a couple years ago? These days the base rates are more like .65/KWh. Depends some on location but even the Tesla rates are like .55/KWh.

Here's an example

 

[Warren]

Actual EV owner here. We have always owned small, efficient foreign cars, keeping them for 10 years minimum. Being retired now, we have owned one car between us for the last seven and a half years. It is a 2017 Chevy Bolt LT. It is hands down the best car we have ever owned. It is full every morning.

Our electricity costs us 17.6 cents per kWh, including all fees, even the extra we subscribed for to support our electric coop's PV installations. At a lifetime, from-the-wall efficiency of 3.7 mi/kWh, if we were driving a Prius, and actually getting 50 mpg, we would need to get our gas for $2.385 per gallon to match our fuel cost. About 10% of our miles are long trip miles, where we use public charging. Some of that is free, like at overnight hotel stays, and some is pretty expensive...at least as expensive as premium gas, but not diesel. So our total annual fuel expense is still lower than we would spend on a 50 mpg ecomobile, but the Bolt performs like my old sports cars.

I have not needed my tools, except for rotating tires every 7,500 miles. I've added two gallons of windshield washer fluid, and replaced the cabin air filter once, and oiled the door hinges, and replaced the OEM tires at 46,170 miles. I always did my own oil changes, filters, plugs, etc. which is another savings over an ICE. I have washed this car more than any car I have ever owned, because there is nothing else to do, and I get bored.

It is the first non-stick car I have ever owned, but it turns out that one pedal driving a really torquey car is as much fun as stick. It is as much fun as the Sunbeam Tiger I had in the late 1960s.

We have had two problems with our Bolt. A little over two years ago, one of the 288 pouch cells failed, and GM replaced the entire battery pack under their battery fire recall, rather than just the section with the bad cell. The new battery has 10% more capacity than the earlier chemistry, and restarted the warranty clock, so we are covered to 2030.

The other was the cheap Chevy Cruze brake calipers they used on this car. Last year, we had three pistons seize up within a month of each other. I didn't flush and replace the brake fluid at 5 years as they suggest. In hindsight, I probably should have changed it at 3 years, given how little use they get.

 

[classicalgas]

I agree that ICE are more complex but to say EV's need none of that complexity is mistaken. They have multiple systems and sensors for monitoring, cooling, pre-conditioning, balancing, and charging the batteries, among other things, like cooling the controllers. So, you don't get rid of fluids or complexity after all. Less than ICE? Maybe. Different? Certainly. And some of that like pre-conditioning waste energy warming up the battery.

Ice cars are at least ten times as mechanically complex as EV, entire systems essential to a modern ICE don't even exist in an EV (exhaust system, multiple gear transmission, clutch(or auto trans) starter, fuel injection, alternator charging system, emission and fuel evaporation controls, pressurized lubrication ....) A modern V6 ICE has a hundred moving parts in the drive-train for each moving part the EV has, and a similar ratio of wear prone parts.

Ev's use a single system to heat, cool and precondition the battery, and it's so mechanically simple and low stress that the original factory coolant is considered good to 100,000 miles, and any pumps will last the life of the car.

Software (once you get it right, and adequately protect where it lives)) almost never fails. Any mechanical system is wearing out all the time you're using it. Modern ICE cars are as packed with electronic hardware and software as an EV is.

So, an ICE car is a ridiculously inefficient, failure prone and complex attempt to do what an electric drive system does inherently, without added support systems, and with a small fraction of the wasted energy (an EV is three to five times as efficient as an ICE, under real world conditions, most gasoline cars in daily driving duty run at around 20% efficiency )

I won't even get into the energy consumed in getting a gallon of gasoline to your local station, it's nearly equal to another gallon of gas.

 

[classicalgas]

No one is disputing the greatness of having an EV for local commuting and charging at home. The problem is that most of us have only one vehicle that also needs to make road trips. That is where the problem lies.

No. Two thirds of American households own two or more cars.

 

[classicalgas]

It's been less than a century since you routinely carried an extra 5-10 gallons of gas (on your running boards or rear rack) when crossing large parts of the US (a 1930's sedan had only 100 mile range on the factory tank ) since you couldn't count on finding a station ( and had no way to check ahead, reliably ) A little over a century ago, you bought gasoline in gallon jugs, and filtered it into your tank... through a stocking.... with a funnel.

Now, we have the option of essentially setting up an oil well and refinery on our roof...that needs little to no maintenance, and automatically fills our car while it's sitting in the drive. And sells any excess to the power company.

 

[amberwolf]

But, being the cynic I am I believe the charging network vendors will never leverage that advantage in favor of drivers, but instead will try to squeeze us dry

That will be true of any commercial venture of any kind; it's the nature of our economic method. :/

But as pointed out above, you can choose other charging options, including making your own electricity to do it with. (you can even choose to use gasoline/etc to run a generator carried onboard to charge it as you drive, or sit parked somewhere, etc).

With most ICE you're not going to go making your own fuel or getting it "free"*** from various sources (with very few exceptions).



***nothing is really ever free, but sometimes it's close enough after initial investments to use it.

No. Two thirds of American households own two or more cars.

In my area, most houses have mulitple vehicles (mostly big trucks and suv's) parked at them. There are several in my neighborhood with over a dozen parked all along the street.

The house directly east across the street from me has so many that they fill their driveway, both sides of the street, and their yard, and they have to move multiple other vehicles to get some of htem out...and they often completely block my driveway so I have to ride thru my own front yard to get to my yard's gate to get the SB Cruiser in and out coming home from / going to my work commute.

I'm struggling to think of any house in the area that only has one car, or none, other than mine...no, can't think of one.

Apartment complexes typically have full parking lots with people parking all along all the streets around them because there are far too many cars per apartment.

OTOH, only a handful of the people I work with have cars, most either ride with someone else, take public transport, walk, or have standup electric scooters; one has a regular pedal bike. Same for quite a few businesses in the complex I work at.

So, I don't know what's up with that disparity.

 

[jonescg]

I'm always surprised, and a little disappointed at the amount of dunking on electric cars that takes place on Endless-Sphere, of all places. I get that much of the forum is based in the USA and the auto industry has had a massive impact on the success or otherwise of EVs in that country, but the fact we have DIY e-bikers actively supporting ICE cars over electric ones really amazes me. The only way that seems remotely plausible is if you drive less than 3000 km a year. If that's you, then by all means drive that old oil-burner into the ground.

Now, I live in Australia where the distances between places are vast, but everybody who has an EV loves it and 92% would never go back to ICE. We have abundant sunshine and low cost (even when unsubsidised) solar PV systems are everywhere - 40% of all households in Australia has PV on the roof, so if you charge your EV by day, it's practically zero marginal cost motoring.

EVs used to be expensive, and when someone suggested you would save money by purchasing a $75,000 car you were right to laugh. But now brand-new, 8-year-warranty EVs are available for about $30k - that's less than the average new car price! the second hand EV market is getting competitive too. Anyone who says 'yeah but resale values!' doesn't understand basic economics. When new EVs are good and affordable, second-hand EVs must fall in price. Sucks to be the guy trying to flip their 3-year-old EV, but wins to be the one who buys it.

Electricity in Australia is pretty middle of the road when it comes to price (standard tariff is 30c/kWh, but as low as 8c/kWh, and as high as 55c/kWh at the worst possible time. But variable tariffs reflect our solar advantage, and discourage overloading the network at peak times. An EV will cost about one quarter to one third of the cost of an ICE vehicle, and still cheaper than a hybrid with none of the service schedule.

I have a 2020 Ioniq (38 kWh) which cost me $50,000 brand new. It's an awesome car and I'm sad they stopped making them in favour of big fat (and therefore profitable) SUVs, but considering the 90 km round trip daily commute I have, it's saving me $4000 a year in fuel and maintenance. I don't care that it's now worth $25k - it's transport in an otherwise public transit desert, and I can charge it for free at work (solar) or at home for free (solar+battery). I get that many people on this forum aren't exactly rolling in it, but if you are car-dependent, an EV is a no-brainer - especially a cheap second hand one.

I've never had any trouble with long trips either - I typically take one long drive a year Perth to Esperance - 700 km away. I stop three times to charge along the way and I've never had trouble with any of them (although I appreciate that's not everyone's experience). I don't care if it costs $1/kWh, I'm paying for convenience and I only do it once a year.

 

[Comrade]

38% of cars sold in China are now electric, Sinopec says the ICE is doomed

That 38% didn't happen naturally.

For example in Shanghai you can't just get a license plate for a gasoline vehicle. You have to buy one at an auction. And there is a limited amount of those plates, and they sell for about $15K. License plates for EVs are free.

In Beijing you can only drive your gasoline car 1 day out of 5 during the work week, depending on the digit your license plate ends with. You can drive an EV any day.

 

[amberwolf]

Too bad they don't do any of those things here.

Though I might wish for it to be only driving *any* car on the day your plate ends with that matches it. The roads might be a little safer around here. (but there would probably be a lot of shootings over people stealing other people's plates to put on their car for that day instead, so they could drive every day...and more than a few poeple that would just ignore the whole th ing and do whatever they felt like, just like they always do).

 

[JackFlorey]

Yeah.. barring some unprecendented, large increase in the efficiency of ICEs.. i really think the ~90% efficient electric motor is gonna win, no matter the wonder fuel you cook up to fuel the ICE.

Yes and no. No one really cares about efficiency; keep in mind that the steam engines that "tamed the wild west" were about 6% efficient. What they DID care about was cost. And when engines ran on water (free) and wood (almost free) then that 6% sounded great.

Once all the forests had been cut near the fuel stops, and it started to cost more and more to get first wood, then coal there, then people started caring about efficiency - but only because fuel costs were going up.

As EVs replace gas cars, at some point the cost of gas will plummet. This will be because demand starts dropping, and with the same supply but decreasing demand, a price war will result that will make gas dirt cheap. And that is going to keep gas cars hanging on a while longer.

 

[gromike]

The electrification of auto transport in the US has been an abject failure. As far as government intervention it was tax breaks for wealthy consumers buying vanity electric vehicles. That's not going to change the needle of the crisis at hand.

 

[Logic11]

Doomed..?
More like Baked Nutter or Clever Clickbaiter IMHO

IMHO the ideal is a serial hybrid with a direct drive for top gear or constant speed/rpm cruising.
(That's most efficient. (See BYD Shark))
BUT
DIY repairable!!!
Right to Repair and How to Repair = Repairable, or stick it up your hucking farse!! IMHO

For simple, repairable and DONE already, see:
Edison Motors
Edison Motors YouTube
Thats large trucks atm, but they are also working on small trucks. (Retrofits)

NB that their very recent crowdfunding campaign for 1.5 million dollars was done in 2 hours flat!
That's cheering in that it means there are more technically intelligent people on the planet than I thought!

 

[raylo32]

And that makes it even more difficult to adopt EVs. It is usually a challenge enough to install and find a place for a single level 2 EVSE... adequate 240v circuit, physical access, etc... let alone several... unless maybe you live in a McMansion with a 3 or 4 car garage. And, again, for families with multiple vehicles in multi-family living situations like condos and apartments it won't just be difficult, it will be impossible. These people would be at the mercy of commercial charging facilities that simply don't exist in near enough numbers. Maybe we need to get past the time when families have a car for every member. But that is a whole 'nother issue.

No. Two thirds of American households own two or more cars.

 

[raylo32]

Exactly. Without govt mandates, regulations, and subsidies for vehicle requirements and infrastructure... which are dirty words these days... this is not going to happen anytime soon. Especially as noted above that electrification in other countries and whatever electrification we get here will reduce petroleum usage and probably make gas even cheaper here... and too cheap for us to break our addiction. IMO, it already is too cheap. Not that I am complaining when I pay to fill up.

The electrification of auto transport in the US has been an abject failure. As far as government intervention it was tax breaks for wealthy consumers buying vanity electric vehicles. That's not going to change the needle of the crisis at hand.

 

[classicalgas]

Exactly. Without govt mandates, regulations, and subsidies for vehicle requirements and infrastructure... which are dirty words these days... this is not going to happen anytime soon. Especially as noted above that electrification in other countries and whatever electrification we get here will reduce petroleum usage and probably make gas even cheaper here... and too cheap for us to break our addiction. IMO, it already is too cheap. Not that I am complaining when I pay to fill up.

Gasoline is never going to be dirt cheap, big oil likes their profit margins too much for that. They'll just shut down wells and refineries like they did mid covid, keep supply less than demand...and EVs will be the obvious win for most people. The best use for fossil fuels is as feedstock for plastic and fertilizer...burning it to run cars and heat houses is insane.

 

[classicalgas]

And that makes it even more difficult to adopt EVs. It is usually a challenge enough to install and find a place for a single level 2 EVSE... adequate 240v circuit, physical access, etc... let alone several... unless maybe you live in a McMansion with a 3 or 4 car garage. And, again, for families with multiple vehicles in multi-family living situations like condos and apartments it won't just be difficult, it will be impossible. These people would be at the mercy of commercial charging facilities that simply don't exist in near enough numbers. Maybe we need to get past the time when families have a car for every member. But that is a whole 'nother issue.

Again...if you don't drive over fifty miles every single day, a level one charger will keep your car fully charged.You don't need a 240v circuit.

Locally, we have a couple new housing developments that use "solar homes", and "EV charge ready" as marketing hooks. Most have two car garages plus curb parking.

Setting up (or retrofitting an older home) with underground fed curbside charge plugs is not much harder than yard lighting or irrigation. Unlike those, it would pay for itself pretty quickly. Idiot/vandal proofing the outlet would be the hardest part.

 

[classicalgas]

What they DID care about was cost. And when engines ran on water (free) and wood (almost free) then that 6% sounded great.

That's not accurate.

Over much of the transcontinental railroad system, it was a significant technical challenge to get water to railroad "watering stations" . Often it took a windmill operated deep bore well pump, feeding a big water tank on stilts higher than the locomotive water tank. Same with coal, or wood, both had to be sourced and shipped in, neither was even remotely free. So, steam engineers were always working to improve boiler and steam engine efficiency, and marketing those improvement to the railroads. Before the end of the steam era, streamlining the engine and cars was becoming a thing.

Steam engine went from .5% efficiency (pre Watt) to 10% (or 20%, depending on who's numbers you believe) by the end of US steam locomotives. Going from 3% to 4% obviously has a much bigger influence on running cost than going from
10% to 11%

Maximum efficiencies of engines and turbines, 1700-2000

Throughout human history, the development of new machines to replace and enhance human and animal labor has played a major role in the energy sector. Key advancements include combustion engines and turbines, which convert fuels like gasoline and natural gas into useful work.

visualizingenergy.org

One fairly radical approach, as an example of the efforts put into improving steam locomotive efficiency...

What is Modern Steam? — Kaw Valley Rail Heritage Conservancy

What is Modern Steam?

csrail.org

 

[Hillhater]

Dont forget by far the largest proportion of the World supply of electricity is produced using steam turbines !