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Hybrid Electric Vehicles

So old fashioned - 1947 electric milk cart.

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Except now, it'll cost you $100,000 and be banned from 400 series highways.

I ran some specs on the Ford Lightning. With the heavy duty battery, towing my 21 foot cargo trailer, I'd get roughly 150 km per charge.

The only solution I could see, and I'm not even sure of that, would be to have a generator, running constantly in the bed of the truck and having it plugged in 100% of the time supplying constant voltage to the battery.
 
Except now, it'll cost you $100,000 and be banned from 400 series highways.

I ran some specs on the Ford Lightning. With the heavy duty battery, towing my 21 foot cargo trailer, I'd get roughly 150 km per charge.

The only solution I could see, and I'm not even sure of that, would be to have a generator, running constantly in the bed of the truck and having it plugged in 100% of the time supplying constant voltage to the battery.

Put the genny in the trailer and have it do dual duty.
 
Except now, it'll cost you $100,000 and be banned from 400 series highways.

I ran some specs on the Ford Lightning. With the heavy duty battery, towing my 21 foot cargo trailer, I'd get roughly 150 km per charge.

The only solution I could see, and I'm not even sure of that, would be to have a generator, running constantly in the bed of the truck and having it plugged in 100% of the time supplying constant voltage to the battery.
Ya the bottom really falls out of the Lightning when its towing. That and starting at $79K in Canada.
 
50% of the value of an electric car, no small amount, can apparently be in the batteries.
Batteries are fragile and easily damaged.
Positioning in the vehicle, to keep the centre of mass low and free up useable space, makes the damage susceptible to damage.
Damaged batteries create chemical, combustion and electrocution risks.
There is a shortage of qualified repair facilities.
How about junkyards willing to take on the risks?


Electric cars being written off after minor bumps​

Doubts grow over electric car revolution, with insurers reluctant to attempt repairs

ByTom Haynes3 April 2023 • 11:58am


Electric cars are being written off after minor damage to batteries, casting renewed doubt on their environmental credentials.
Roughly half of low-mileage EVs being salvaged have suffered minor battery damage – which can be caused by something as innocuous as mounting a kerb – according to Copart, an auction platform.
A senior source in the insurance industry said car manufacturers were not sharing diagnostic data because they were wary of third parties botching repairs. As a result, insurance companies are reluctant to attempt repairs and assume responsibility should anything go wrong.
“A lot of people are quite scared of what to do with them,” he said. “If a car is not powered down correctly you could get electrocuted.”
It comes as the Government unveiled plans to force car manufacturers to sell an increasing proportion of EVs in the run up to the ban on petrol car sales by 2035.
The source said EVs could be sent to the scrapheap for minor bumps, such as mounting a kerb.


“In rare instances, the damage could even lead to a volatile situation,” he said. “The battery could catch on fire.”
Batteries are the most expensive part of an electric car, accounting for around 50pc of its value, and there are “only a few qualified technicians in the UK able to remove a battery, let alone repair it”, said Chris Payne, head of engineering at motor insurer LV.

The placement of the battery within an EV can make it more likely that it will be damaged in a minor accident, according to experts.
This includes EVs with the common “skateboard design”, which places the battery underneath the car.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “On EVs the battery can, in effect, form part of the chassis, so if there is serious structural damage it might mean the car is written off.
“However, we know that Ford, GM and others are working on repairable battery packs.”
Electric cars are typically more expensive to insure than petrol cars because repairs are often more complex and time-consuming.
Supply chain issues with components and parts also mean drivers could be forced to wait up to a year for a replacement vehicle.
The most cost-effective solution for insurers, therefore, is to scrap the entire car.
Mr Payne said: “EVs are environmentally friendly, but if you write one off questions start to be raised on the environmental impact.”
He said salvage plants have “no way of disposing” of damaged batteries. “Loads of them have lines of batteries that just kind of sit there,” he added.
Adrian Watson, head of engineering at Thatcham Research, an insurers' research centre, said Britain’s car industry would need to address the issue of battery repair before 2035, when the sale of petrol cars will be banned outright.
“The reality is, with price flux there are vehicles where a replacement battery is more than the recommended retail price of the vehicle,” he said.
“We’re actually shredding batteries or exporting them to Europe because the facilities don’t exist in the UK yet.”

Jonathan Fong, senior policy adviser at the Association of British Insurers, a trade body, said the Government would need to invest heavily in retraining technicians in EV repair to meet its 2035 targets for zero emission vehicles.
“There also needs to be more investment and collaboration with relevant groups to ensure the development of commercially viable and environmentally sound battery repair, recycling, and end of life processes,” he added.
Industry experts believe the infrastructure to support electric cars will expand as uptake increases. Batteries no longer suited for cars could also be repurposed for use in homes or solar farms, Mr Watson said.
He added: “All of these challenges are solvable. There’s no reason why we can’t design repairable batteries, and when that can’t be done we can repurpose them.
“But the reality at the moment is that’s not that case – there’s no strategy. The problem is we can’t diagnose batteries that are probably fine because we just don’t know.
“There’s an immaturity about the way it’s been done. Thinking about battery health after an accident is not the first thing people consider.”
The The Department for Business and Trade has been approached for comment.

Has your electric car been scrapped for battery damage? We want to hear from you. Email tom.haynes@telegraph.co.uk


 
Plus EV's will not favour 3rd hand buyers or buyers of older cars. No one knows what the real value of used EV's will be. If insurance companies detect a trend of EV related fires in cars more than 12 years old, insurance rates will skyrocket or they just refuse to insure them, meaning residual value of EV's older than 8 years will plummet. This will effect the resale value throughout the life of an EV.
 
Plus EV's will not favour 3rd hand buyers or buyers of older cars. No one knows what the real value of used EV's will be. If insurance companies detect a trend of EV related fires in cars more than 12 years old, insurance rates will skyrocket or they just refuse to insure them, meaning residual value of EV's older than 8 years will plummet. This will effect the resale value throughout the life of an EV.
the converse is that used IC vehicles will retain their value or even escalate as long as there is a supply of parts and perhaps even after. Consider the fleet in Cuba. Duct tape is at a premium there.
 
That's not exactly what I got out of that article. It seems to me that if you read between the lines the people in the survey said EVs are great as long as it is a 2nd vehicle that never leaves the city and the other vehicle (the ICE one) is available for trips outside the city limits, hauling things, towing things and going places when you have to be on time and don't have an hour or 2 to spare to charge the battery.

One of my coworkers has a 1 year old Tesla, not sure what model. He freely admits that the only reason he can use it in Edmonton's winters is it is parked in a heated garage over night, it uses 15-20% of the charge to drive roughly 20 minutes to work(-20C) and then the company has plug ins where he can leave it plugged in for his 12 hr shift. He told me he wouldn't drive it to work in the winter if plug ins weren't available and he wouldn't leave the city limits with it in the winter under any circumstances. In the summer months it only uses 2-3% of the charge to drive the same distance. Otherwise he says it is great.
 
That's not exactly what I got out of that article. It seems to me that if you read between the lines the people in the survey said EVs are great as long as it is a 2nd vehicle that never leaves the city and the other vehicle (the ICE one) is available for trips outside the city limits, hauling things, towing things and going places when you have to be on time and don't have an hour or 2 to spare to charge the battery.

One of my coworkers has a 1 year old Tesla, not sure what model. He freely admits that the only reason he can use it in Edmonton's winters is it is parked in a heated garage over night, it uses 15-20% of the charge to drive roughly 20 minutes to work(-20C) and then the company has plug ins where he can leave it plugged in for his 12 hr shift. He told me he wouldn't drive it to work in the winter if plug ins weren't available and he wouldn't leave the city limits with it in the winter under any circumstances. In the summer months it only uses 2-3% of the charge to drive the same distance. Otherwise he says it is great.
A friend of mine related a story about an EV. The owner of the EV took a trip from Lethbridge to Winnipeg that took two days. He left Brandon and made it to Portage La Prairie and and had to recharge. That is about 150 km.
EVs are not what the government and the manufacturers and the "green zealots" make them out to be. If people are not cautious in the winter people will be stranded - and quite possibly perish.
 
One of my neighbors has a new Tesla
It’s a third or fourth vehicle for them (he’s a bit of a car nut, and has a bunch of collectors that he doesn’t drive, so I’m always confused as to what their actual drivers are.
His wife (a radiologist) takes in into Fairfax as a daily driver, around 27miles each way most highway on I-66.
He’s got solar at the house and the hospital has free Tesla chargers at work for staff.

Seems practical in that application.
 
You need the 220V charger setup and it better be done right as it draws a lot of current. A 110v one is also a fire risk because the car will draw as much as the system is designed for, all the time till charged. Plus 110v will not keep up with the battery thermal management draw of a car parked out side in the winter, leading to a slow but steady reduction in range.
 
One of my coworkers has a 1 year old Tesla, not sure what model. He freely admits that the only reason he can use it in Edmonton's winters is it is parked in a heated garage over night, it uses 15-20% of the charge to drive roughly 20 minutes to work(-20C) and then the company has plug ins where he can leave it plugged in for his 12 hr shift. He told me he wouldn't drive it to work in the winter if plug ins weren't available and he wouldn't leave the city limits with it in the winter under any circumstances. In the summer months it only uses 2-3% of the charge to drive the same distance. Otherwise he says it is great.

“But other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?”
 
The maximum amount of current an EV charger draws depends on the vehicle. Most are in the 30ampr range (I don't know about Tesla - they tend to be unique in a lot of ways). The charger is in the vehicle, not the thing mounted to the wall; that's an EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment) which provide the electrical connection, communications between the grid and vehicle and ground fault protection. Newer EVSEs can be linked to a smartphone, can meter current load/charge rate to cheaper hours or even to accommodate other circuit loads. Some of the things they can do are actually limited by electrical codes, which is not unusual since regulation typically lags technology. I believe that, in some vehicles, you can also regulate/manage charge rates and; therefore, current draw.

I haven't heard of Level I charging (120v) being a fire risk. The charger and communicating connection should recognize that it can only draw a certain amount of amperage (12amp de-rated from 15amp on a typical 120v circuit. The charge rate will be very slow and I can believe that, for a vehicle parked outside in the depths of a Canadian winter, might be fairly pointless.
 
Building my house I had a 240V 50A cct added to the garage for a welder…but could easily swap out for a Level 2 charger…if ever I need a 3rd car for groceries…but you’ll have to pry my 35mpg, 2.5 ton, 7300lb tow-rated 1200km range ecodiesel SUV 1st car out of my cold dead hands… 😆
 
Unfortunately if you are trying to charge say a Lighting pickup with the larger battery pack on a 110V outlet it will take a week literally to fully charge it. There are a couple of people on Youtube showing this exact situation.

If you want a Level 2 charger but you have say an electric range, A/C in your house and an electric dryer there is no way you can run all these things on a 100 amp service. Last year Saskatoon released a study they did on the feasibility of installing Level 2 chargers in most city houses and found it would be impossible. The transformers and power cables were sized such that only 3 houses per block or 2 blocks( I can't remember which) could have 200A services installed before the infrastructure would be maxed out. I can't find a link to the study right now but I would think that this would be the case in most cities. In the older neighborhood I live in the wires are still overhead so they could be changed at very high cost but the newer areas where everything is underground I don't think it would possible.
 
So in classic Canadian foresight we are mandating all cars to be electric by 2035 but we have done nothing (or next to nothing) to upgrade the electric service and bring more power sources (nuclear, hydroelectric) on line.

We are soooo fubard.
 
Building my house I had a 240V 50A cct added to the garage for a welder…but could easily swap out for a Level 2 charger…if ever I need a 3rd car for groceries…but you’ll have to pry my 35mpg, 2.5 ton, 7300lb tow-rated 1200km range ecodiesel SUV 1st car out of my cold dead hands… 😆
My drive to Ottawa from Regina in my Silverado Crew Cab Duramax 3.0 turbo diesel I got 8.4 litres per 100km or 30 mpg. I travelled at between 90-110 kph.
 
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