Electric Vehicles, Tools, & Other Once Fossil Fuel Things

[goldenvalley]

Despite what howling headlines (click bait) says, California is not banning all gas powered autos as of 2035.  It's only banning sale of new such vehicles as of 2035.  And auto companies aren't complaining.

Even before state regulators acted Thursday to ban sales of new internal-combustion vehicles by 2035, Detroit’s Big 3 and their international rivals were setting increasingly aggressive targets for exclusively electric product lines.

But while the goals of automakers and regulators are aligned, mass production of affordable electric cars — which requires reconceiving the supply chains and engineering developed for internal-combustion vehicles — will not be easy.

The automakers are hurrying to close deals with mining companies and other suppliers that can meet the escalating demand for battery materials. Some are teaming up with smaller companies to expedite the build-out of a nationwide charging network. And they are breaking up their own corporate structures and refashioning them to ensure that the electric vehicle transition is not held back by the conventions of making gasoline-powered products.

“To move everything to E.V.s in California doesn’t seem outlandish and unattainable right now,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds, an auto-market researcher. “But I’m sure each automaker will face challenges to achieve their targets, and a few may even struggle a bit.”

 American auto manufacturers are gearing up (Arr Arr). 

Early last year, General Motors said it aimed to sell only electric vehicles starting in 2035. California’s mandate “marries quite well with G.M.’s business plans,” Omar Vargas, head of global public policy at the company, said during an online discussion this week organized by The New York Times.

If you don't like GM, there is always Ford or Volkswagen.

Anticipating new regulations and determined to both create and meet consumer demand, big automakers have established their own timelines for a complete shift to E.V.s. Ford Motor has said it wants electric vehicles to make up 40 percent of its sales by 2030 and aims to make two million E.V.s a year by 2026. Volkswagen plans to stop selling gasoline vehicles in Europe between 2033 and 2035, and its Audi division intends to introduce only electric models starting in 2026.

[LFC]

Wireless charging. That's cool.

In our recent explainer on electric vehicle charging, you might have noticed that we didn't mention wireless EV charging. Now common on smartphones, wireless charging works the same way on cars, just at higher power levels and with much bigger batteries. But after some demos and news releases during the mid-teens, the technology seemed to fall off the radar.

Behind the scenes, though, engineers were hashing out an industry standard, aided by industry consolidation along the way. That's now final, and the first EVs with factory-fit wireless charging systems are starting to appear, albeit not here in the US just yet. But given its ease of use, even for drivers who can't imagine life beyond the gas pump, the potential for adoption seems good.

Ars got its first look at wireless car charging back in 2015. Back then, chip-maker Qualcomm was developing what it called Halo, which it was demonstrating at Formula E races by recharging the battery in a safety car, a BMW i8 plug-in hybrid. It wasn't the only outfit developing wireless charging, however. In Massachusetts, an MIT spinoff called WiTricity started playing around with wireless car charging in 2010 after an investment by Toyota.

Now there’s a standard

"We fully engaged in a new standards group that was set up at the SAE—the Society of Automotive Engineers—to set a global standard," explained Alex Gruzen, WiTricity's CEO.

"So the view was that cables had been such a mess—different automakers, different regions, different connectors, cables, and standards," he told Ars. "And they said, 'Look, if wireless is the next thing, let's just do it once. Let's do it as one global standards organization led by the SAE.' So all the automakers started engaging, and the primary technology providers in that standards effort were WiTricity and Qualcomm Halo. And I think in some ways, each company advanced the technology, but in a lot of ways, we had different architectures, and I think it showed some confusion and really slowed things down."

But in 2019, WiTricity acquired Halo and spent the next year integrating the best aspects of each system. "By October 2020, it was ratified and done," Gruzen said. "So once we did the acquisition, we came to the industry with one proposed architecture, and frankly one IP portfolio that anyone could license, and consolidated the IP from WiTricity and Qualcomm. Less than a year and a half later, [the standard] was ratified and done and automakers are off to the races to start producing vehicles."

[pnwguy]

After 2 missed years from Covid, I'll be at CES this January, and almost every vehicle manufacturer is now an exhibitor. I imagine some of this will be shown there in 2023.

[LFC]

Toyota just jumped into the home battery pack market.

Toyota has unveiled a new home battery pack to provide residential backup – a product that is going to compete with Tesla Powerwall.

After Tesla launched “Tesla Energy” with the Powerwall and Powerpack in 2015, several other automakers also got into the home energy market with battery packs.

Mercedes-Benz launched its home battery pack and Renault followed soon after.

Now Toyota also announced its own home battery pack called “the O-Uchi Kyuden System”:

[LFC]

2035 is shaping up to be a major landmark year in the shift to EVs. First it was California banning ICE vehicle sales starting then. Next New York joined in. (Those two states represent close to 18% of the current U.S. population. More important to people selling big items like cars they represent close to 23% of the nation's GDP.

Now the EU has also picked 2035 for new car sales to go all EV.

The days of the new internal combustion engine are definitely numbered—at least in the European Union. On Thursday the European Council and the European Parliament agreed on provisional rules to heavily reduce passenger vehicle carbon emissions in 2030 before enacting a complete ban on internal combustion engines for new passenger cars and vans in 2035.

[LFC]

Honda is trying to put together an EV policy. It seems part aspirational (solid state batteries) and part reactive / desperate (teaming with GM for now).

By all rights, Honda should be further along with its electrification strategy. The Honda Insight beat the Toyota Prius as the first mass-market hybrid to be introduced into the US market by seven months. Instead, other manufacturers seemed to have jumped on the EV train while Honda was still buying a ticket. After appearing to languish, the company announced that its first modern EV in the US would be the fruit of a team-up with GM. But under new leadership, it's working with partners and striking out on its own for its long-term EV strategy.

At its research and development facility in Tochigi, Japan, Honda is working on what it believes will be the breakthrough that brings solid-state batteries to the market. While Honda is happy to work with General Motors and Sony on electrification efforts, the automaker is working solo to bring the technology to the masses by the end of the decade.

"In the springtime of 2024, we will start a pilot line (for manufacturing). Then if we can be successful, we believe we can launch a vehicle with a solid-state battery in the latter part of the 2020s. 2029, 2028," Shinji Aoyama, Honda's global leader of electrification, told Ars Technica during a roundtable interview at Honda headquarters in Tokyo.

[LFC]

Tesla and SpaceX are going to need to jettison Musk. His buffoonery at Twitter is definitely hurting their brands and I think pieces like this are going to end up getting more and more coverage.

[LFC]

This looks like a promising technology for wind power.

Aeromine Technologies has developed a ground-breaking bladeless wind energy solution that can be linked with existing solar energy systems and building electrical systems, allowing commercial property owners to meet the growing demand for on-site renewable energy.

Aeromine stands out with its particularly considerate of the environment. It doesn't make any sound, hurt or kill birds with its "motionless turbines." The system captures and amplifies the wind from each building using aerodynamics akin to racing car airfoils.

The look like they can be make relatively small and take advantage of existing buildings.

[LFC]

Sometimes increasing efficiency doesn't have to be expensive.

It’s a common belief that a solar panel produces more energy on receiving more sunlight but that’s not always true. In fact, a report from the World Economic Forum state that photovoltaic cells on a solar panel (that trap sunlight and convert it into electricity) may start producing less energy if they get overheated.

A new study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Utah (UU), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Portland State University (PSU), sheds more light on this rarely discussed aspect of solar panels. It mentions that the efficiency of a solar plant goes down by 0.5 percent. If the temperature on the surface of its photovoltaic (PV) cells increases by just one-degree Celsius from their optimal temperature. 

Many solar panel manufacturers suggest that the ideal temperature for commercially used solar panels ranges between 15°C and 35°C, and the PV cells achieve the highest energy efficiency at 25°C. So, if a solar plant experiences a temperature around 50°C, it may suffer energy losses of up to 12 percent. 

“Since more than 50% of PV generation capacity within the U.S. is located in warmer climates (that have temperatures ranging between 42°C to 70°C) of California, Arizona, and Nevada, understanding and finding methods to mitigate panel heating becomes crucial to the success of low-cost solar energy,” the authors note in the paper. 

They suggest that if all the panels in a solar farm have a proper gap between them and they are facing in the right direction. They can automatically cool themselves through convection (the process of transfer of heat from a solid surface to air or a liquid, for example, the air surrounding a campfire gets heated due to the same phenomenon) using the wind that flows around them.

The authors explained, “In this work, we propose an expanded interpretation of PV farm geometry to improve current convective cooling predictions, accounting for 3D module arrangements as canopy flow fields.” 

They suggest that rather than investing huge sums of money on traditional cooling resources, farm owners can try out different solar panel configurations in their farms and compare the energy efficiencies in each case to decide the best arrangement.  

[goldenvalley]

From my friend who has a hydrogen powered car:

Hydrogen Chronicles, Episode 15: 0:dark:30

It’s 6:15 am. I am in line for fuel in my Hyundai Nexo at the West Sac Hydrogen station. My car tells me I have 75 miles of range left… and the two other hydrogen fueling stations in the area are both down. The website that shows the fueling stations says the one at Watt and Fair Oaks (close to my house) wont be available till the end of December. No ETA for the one in Citrus Heights. So, I’m waiting behind three other intrepid early adopters. And as noted in one screen shot, the website advises (demands?) a 15 minute wait period between users.

I drove over here last night after a swim, only to find about 10 cars in line. I decided not to wait.

The car in front of me has a vanity plate reading “DIFM8KR.” The price of being a difference maker is waiting in line at 6:15…
as I have previously said here, if convenience is high on your priority list, hydrogen fueled transportation may not be for you… yet! But in almost nine months of driving this car, this is the longest I’ve had to wait. When all three stations are on line, it’s a piece of cake.

This technology is far more prevalent in Japan than here, and they must have figured this out. If they can, we can. Part of it is we just need more stations, so there’s not as much demand at any one station.

Oh…. Its my turn…

[LFC]

Dec 19, 2022 17:09:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

From my friend who has a hydrogen powered car:

This technology is far more prevalent in Japan than here, and they must have figured this out. If they can, we can. Part of it is we just need more stations, so there’s not as much demand at any one station.

Toyota in particular placed their bet on hydrogen and lost. I don't know what percentage of their sales come from the U.S. market but I don't think they took a very careful look at the reality of hydrogen powered cars here.Japan has about 125M people in 146K square miles, so 0.00116 people per square mile. The US has about 332M people in 3.8M square miles, so 0.0114 people per square mile which is an order of magnitude less dense. California alone is larger than Japan. So "we just need more stations" might work in densely populated areas but not likely for the nation as a whole.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 19, 2022 17:32:11 GMT LFC said:

Dec 19, 2022 17:09:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

From my friend who has a hydrogen powered car:

Toyota in particular placed their bet on hydrogen and lost. I don't know what percentage of their sales come from the U.S. market but I don't think they took a very careful look at the reality of hydrogen powered cars here.Japan has about 125M people in 146K square miles, so 0.00116 people per square mile. The US has about 332M people in 3.8M square miles, so 0.0114 people per square mile which is an order of magnitude less dense. California alone is larger than Japan. So "we just need more stations" might work in densely populated areas but not likely for the nation as a whole.

Agreed.  I don't think there is any one fuel that will be one size fits all in the future.  We did that with fossil fuel powered vehicles and it led us to this moment. 

[LFC]

Dec 19, 2022 18:10:39 GMT goldenvalley said:

Agreed.  I don't think there is any one fuel that will be one size fits all in the future.  We did that with fossil fuel powered vehicles and it led us to this moment. 

It feels like buses, local taxis, local delivery trucks, municipal vehicles, and maybe some private vehicle could go hydrogen around fairly dense urban areas. This could be helpful for people who don't have access to electric charging at home, something that may not be at all unusual in the cities. But I don't see the infrastructure being built to remotely cover states with large rural areas, not even Pennsylvania much less places like the Dakotas, Idaho, or Wyoming.

[pnwguy]

Dec 19, 2022 19:34:15 GMT LFC said:

Dec 19, 2022 18:10:39 GMT goldenvalley said:

Agreed.  I don't think there is any one fuel that will be one size fits all in the future.  We did that with fossil fuel powered vehicles and it led us to this moment. 

It feels like buses, local taxis, local delivery trucks, municipal vehicles, and maybe some private vehicle could go hydrogen around fairly dense urban areas. This could be helpful for people who don't have access to electric charging at home, something that may not be at all unusual in the cities. But I don't see the infrastructure being built to remotely cover states with large rural areas, not even Pennsylvania much less places like the Dakotas, Idaho, or Wyoming.

Where I could see a market is for over-the-road trucking, where fueling is mostly at large truck stops.  Those operators have the capital for building the infrastructure, and refueling with Hydrogen is quicker to turnaround than the charging time it would take for an EV 18 wheeler.  

[LFC]

Dec 19, 2022 20:29:13 GMT pnwguy said:

Where I could see a market is for over-the-road trucking, where fueling is mostly at large truck stops.  Those operators have the capital for building the infrastructure, and refueling with Hydrogen is quicker to turnaround than the charging time it would take for an EV 18 wheeler.  

It sounds like at least one truck manufacturer is considering a hybrid solution.

For British start-up Tevva, the solution could be somewhere in the middle.

It has just launched a new 7.5-tonne battery-electric truck whose normal range can be doubled or tripled to around 500 km using hydrogen as a backup energy source.

That means truck drivers don’t need to stop to charge and can spend a full day driving.

“Most of the time, we're using the batteries and the grid. But we're removing any concern about the range by the hydrogen system,” Tevva CEO Asher Bennett told Euronews Next.

“So we really want you mostly to use grid electricity which is abundant and cheap, but when you need to, the hydrogen is always there,” he said.

The dual-energy system ensures that electric trucks aren’t relegated to short inner-city routes, Tevva argues, but can take on longer urban and extra-urban routes.

Having a reserve of hydrogen as a backup also removes the risk of the trucks ending up stranded because their battery ran out faster than expected.

“Our goal is a truck that just gets the job done. Repatriating a truck in the middle of the workday is not fun,” Bennett said.

Tevva is launching the truck as a 7.5-tonne, to be followed by 12-tonne and 19-tonne models.

The company is aiming to capture the medium-duty truck market, where vehicles are typically going back to the same depot every evening, and where they could plug into standard medium power chargers to top up more cheaply than on the go.

For the hydrogen reserves, Tevva says the goal would be to top up once or twice a week. It says mobile refuelling stations could go to the depots of trucking companies every week to make up for the current dearth of refuelling points across Europe.

[LFC]

EVs should apparently have different tires.

Even in the relatively short time frame that EVs have been on the market, some owners have noted a short lifespan on their tires compared to those on ICE vehicles—sometimes drastically so. And that's important because EV customers face a pretty hefty bill to replace their tires, sometimes more than once. A friend of this author just replaced the tires on his Tesla Model S after a mere 4,000 miles due to wear. This balance between long life and traction is even more delicate with tires fitted to EVs than those on ICE vehicles.

[LFC]

Here's a gasoline replacement that they hope eventually won't add carbon to the atmosphere. 

As you might expect, the project has been in the works for some time now. "In 2017, two engineers from Porsche on the one side and from AME—this was the predecessor company of HIF—came into contact with the idea [of] establishing an e-fuel pilot plant here down in [the] southern part of Chile, in Magellanes, where there is a high wind load," explained Michael Steiner, Porsche's board member for research and development.

"And from this, we started to find partners who would like to join this compelling idea, and we started with Exxon Mobil, who had a process developed—methanol to gas—and also with Siemens who is famous for electrolyzers. So getting electric energy into hydrogen and with these two partners, we started to plan the pilot plant we will open today," he said.

As Steiner explained, the e-fuel plant will use wind power to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then combined with carbon captured from the air or industrial sources to synthesize methanol, which in turn can then be converted into longer hydrocarbons to be used as fuel. The synthetic e-fuel is a direct drop-in for pump gasoline, and initially Porsche will take all the site's production and use it to run its one-make Porsche Supercup race series as well as using it to fuel vehicles at its Porsche Experience Centers around the world. (These are locations where one can go and test different Porsches.)

HIF has long-term plans to build out 12 synthetic fuel plants worldwide, including locations in the US and Australia, with a goal of each site capturing 2 million metric tons of CO2 per year. "Without any doubt, there are a lot of regions all around the world where you have potential of really high-efficient windmills or photovoltaic or even hydropower to get green energy," Steiner said.

"What might be a little bit more difficult is, could you get green CO2 in the same amount? So starting, you could always gain green CO2 from biomass or other processes, point sources, but long term, we have also to find better ways to directly capture CO2 from ambient air. So this is still a technology that needs some more research and development," Steiner said.

[LFC]

This one is especially for andydp.

It’s been 70 years since the first Corvette made its debut at GM’s Motorama in New York City, and to celebrate, Chevy is giving its flagship sports car a unique makeover: its very first hybrid gas-electric motor. 

The 2024 Corvette E-Ray — heavily teased and accidentally leaked over the past year — was revealed today in Manhattan, just a stone’s throw from where the first model, then known as the EX-122, made its first public appearance while dressed in polo white with a red bucket seat interior trim.

In contrast, the E-Ray presents more as an undersea submersible than a weekend cruiser, with a metallic blue exterior and a body shape reminiscent of its aquatic namesake, the Stingray. You could hunt sharks in this thing.

This is by design, of course. The E-Ray is meant to usher in a new era for Corvette, including an all-electric version sometime later this year. GM is barreling toward its goal of electric-only sales by 2040, and Chevy is leading the charge, with electric versions of the Silverado, Blazer, and Equinox coming soon — and now the Corvette. 

When the E-Ray goes on sale later this year, it’ll start at $104,2954 for the 1LZ coupe and $111,2954 for the 1LZ convertible model. Both prices include delivery charges. And production will take place at GM’s Bowling Green Assembly facility in Kentucky.

We’ve already gotten the broad strokes about what makes the E-Ray unique. In addition to the first hybrid engine, the E-Ray is also the first Corvette to get all-wheel drive. Coupled with a set of all-season tires, a brand-new wheel design, and Brembo carbon ceramic brakes, Chevy hopes that the E-Ray will be the first Corvette to avoid going into storage during the winter months. 

You’re going to need those brakes when putting the E-Ray to the test. The front-axle electric motor will put out 160 horsepower, while the 6.2-liter small block V-8 engine will produce 495 horsepower, giving the sports car a total of 655 hp and 585 pound-feet of torque — enough to propel the E-Ray from 0–60 mph in a little more than two seconds. That front-axle motor gets its electrons from a 1.9 kWh battery pack which is located in the structural tunnel between the seats. 

[andydp]

Jan 18, 2023 21:57:13 GMT LFC said:

This one is especially for andydp .

It’s been 70 years since the first Corvette made its debut at GM’s Motorama in New York City, and to celebrate, Chevy is giving its flagship sports car a unique makeover: its very first hybrid gas-electric motor. 

When the E-Ray goes on sale later this year, it’ll start at $104,2954 for the 1LZ coupe and $111,2954 for the 1LZ convertible model. Both prices include delivery charges. And production will take place at GM’s Bowling Green Assembly facility in Kentucky.

Thanks for thinking of me.  The 1LZ is the "bare bones" model.  If you want the "bells and whistles" add about $30-$40K to that.
There is a segment who are "ticked" about the price.  Corvette was always the "working stiff's" sports car this price takes it out of that category.  If this hype gets to the people on our waiting list, maybe I'll get my ZO6 a bit sooner.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 18, 2023 22:41:27 GMT andydp said:

Jan 18, 2023 21:57:13 GMT LFC said:

This one is especially for andydp .

Thanks for thinking of me.  The 1LZ is the "bare bones" model.  If you want the "bells and whistles" add about $30-$40K to that.
There is a segment who are "ticked" about the price.  Corvette was always the "working stiff's" sports car this price takes it out of that category.  If this hype gets to the people on our waiting list, maybe I'll get my ZO6 a bit sooner.

You always have your eye on the prize!  

[andydp]

Jan 19, 2023 1:44:51 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jan 18, 2023 22:41:27 GMT andydp said:

Thanks for thinking of me.  The 1LZ is the "bare bones" model.  If you want the "bells and whistles" add about $30-$40K to that.
There is a segment who are "ticked" about the price.  Corvette was always the "working stiff's" sports car this price takes it out of that category.  If this hype gets to the people on our waiting list, maybe I'll get my ZO6 a bit sooner.

You always have your eye on the prize!  

I’m finally at the point in my life I can pretty much get what I want. Going to Scottsdale AZ for the Barret Jackson auto auction.
Despite the cold weather we had, and the probability “You Know Where” froze over, Karen has killed any idea of a Lambo.

[LFC]

This is an interesting take on carbon capture, taking it from natural gas fire boiler / heater exhaust rather than the atmosphere. NYC has a law to reduce carbon output from within the city.

So while dense urban housing has lower per-capita emissions, individual sources in New York remain considerable and difficult to decarbonize quickly. While the long-term goal would be to switch everything to electric so emissions will go down with grid improvements, it will take many decades for some of this equipment to reach its end of life. And those are decades that New York City's climate goals will not allow.

As a result, the city passed Local Law 97, which sets emissions-based fines starting next year and ramping up over time. The fines are agnostic about how emissions were reduced, however, allowing for the continued use of recent hardware as long as enough of its carbon is kept from reaching the atmosphere. CarbonQuest's business is based on performing that service.

"While we're waiting on this journey for 100 percent renewables, the conversion of electrification, we can take buildings and make a significant impact in their carbon footprint right away," Shane Johnson, the company's CEO, told Ars.

This company is trying to step in with an affordable, compact solution.

The CarbonQuest's system is designed to work with any hardware that burns natural gas, which can include boilers and combined heat and power systems. It diverts exhaust gases from these systems to a cooler and dehumidifier that pulls out the water. The remaining gas is then pressurized and exposed to a solid material that selectively retains the CO2. Once the remaining gases (mostly nitrogen and oxygen) are removed, the carbon dioxide comes back out. It's then re-pressurized and stored as a liquid until a truck removes it.

The process is powered by electricity and doesn't require any consumable materials. "These are smaller plants; they need to operate lights out 24/7, low maintenance, can't have toxic chemicals," Johnson said. "You know, they can't have a guy in a white suit."

The system is modular, allowing it to be constructed from a series of pallets that can fit in a typical freight elevator. This also allows the system to be scaled up to handle higher-volume facilities.

[goldenvalley]

Ok you car afficiondos and experts out in TRS land...help me pick my next vehicle.  I'm thinking electric is the way to go.  While I mostly drive around town there are trips to the coast 300 miles round trip.  (Will have to install charging station at our place on the coast too.)  What do you like?  I don't want a Leaf, I need the car to have some guts so it can accelerate on the freeways. 

[LFC]

Not a car for GV but this is pretty sweet. More electric mowers mean less weekend noise!

John Deere is a company of many firsts, but the brand’s latest product, the Z370R Electric ZTrak Residential Zero Turn mower, may actually have you wanting to cut the grass.

The fully electric zero-turn mower, an industry-first, upgrades the mowing experience while freeing you from gasoline.

In 1837, John Deere himself is credited with developing the first commercially successful steel plow, which blew the other plows available at the time out of the water. There was no comparison.

The company hopes to do the same as it enters a new era of technology. John Deere launched its first fully electric residential zero-turn lawn mower on Tuesday, the Z370R Electric ZTrak calling for an “electric tomorrow.”

The electric mower features a 3.2 kWh (3.56 kWh maximum) sealed lithium-ion battery capable of mowing up to two acres per charge.

With a 42-inch Accel Deep Deck and two adjustable mowers, the zero-emission EV delivers the same productivity and cut quality as its gas-powered counterparts, with added benefits. The electric transaxle has a seven mph maximum forward speed, three different modes which can be controlled from a large LCD screen, and zero turn capabilities for the perfect lines each time.

One of the best features is that since it doesn’t include a gasoline engine, the mower is nearly silent. No more vibration as you ride or annoying high-pitched wine. Perhaps, more importantly, an electric lawn mower can free you from gas and oil changes, filters, belts, maintenance, and all the fun stuff that comes with owning a traditional lawnmower.

John Deere’s Z370R Electricle mower is available for preorder now with a list price of $6,399, according to its website.

[pnwguy]

Feb 8, 2023 21:24:55 GMT LFC said:

Not a car for GV but this is pretty sweet. More electric mowers mean less weekend noise!

Having been at CES last month, I think the breakthrough is in lawn mowing robots that work like outdoor versions of Roomba's. One I saw has a base transit platform but with interchangeable units for mowing or snow blowing.