Let’s talk cars. There’s a bunch of news recently on several fronts. Two states are passing legislation requiring all sales of new cars to be electric by 2035. (That’s only five years after I bet on 2030 quite a few years ago. The world is finally catching up to me!)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: N.J. calls for 100% EVs by 2035, a first …www.eenews.net › stories
California Bans Sale of New Gasoline Vehicles in 2035 …https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34129129/california-ban-internal-combustion-vehicles-2035/
House Democrats release net zero plan, including 100% EV sales by 2035
Legislating it don’t make it so but it’s symbolic of the growing awareness of what needs to be done if we are going to have half a chance to have a future climate in which our society can exist in some semblance of what we experience now.
Presumably, if, or when, legislation passes on this, incentives will follow. A carbon tax would also help and is also gaining some traction in DC as well. EV’s are going to be pervasive faster than most believe.
Meanwhile, battery technology is advancing faster and faster as also.
“Researchers have developed a lithium-ion EV battery that takes less than 10 minutes to achieve a maximum charge lasting for more than 300 miles”
“An electric vehicle that charges nearly as fast as it takes to fill a conventional car with gasoline may be closer to reality”
Read the attached article for the details.
New and continuing market research is discovering what is driving (pun intended) a person’s inclination to purchase and EV. Turns out,
“Battery charge time and range anxiety are not what’s deterring the average American from buying a battery electric vehicle.”
I’ll tell you what else ISN’T the top predictor of what is driving EV sales:
“respondents’ degree of concern about EV battery fires was the second-most important factor influencing electric car consideration”
Turns out this is a misconception:
“According to a 2017 study from the Department of Transportation, compared with cars that run on gasoline, lithium-ion batteries are projected to be “somewhat comparable to or perhaps slightly less” prone to fires or explosions.”
“Concerns — or lack thereof — about the costs of maintaining EVs came third, and perceptions of how quickly the cars could accelerate were the fourth-most significant factor”
Slow acceleration is a misperception as well which anyone who’s driven a current EV can attest. And with a small fraction of moving parts in EVs, maintenance is substantially less too.
“Whether or not respondents knew someone with an EV or had driven one before did not significantly influence their inclination to buy one, according to the survey. Neither did perceptions about charging time, charging station availability or the prevalence of mechanics experienced in EV repair.”
By now I hope I’ve got you thinking and guessing what actually IS, according to this study, the primary item that can predict why someone does, or doesn’t, consider buy-ing an EV. Turns out that someone’s likelihood to buy an EV is like their attitude towards wearing a face mask these days. Basically I look at it as how a person believes in science since
“What matters most, according to a new analysis, is how much the person cares about climate change.”
“Race, income, gender and marital status also had little effect on EV interest, but political affiliation did — those who identified as liberal were the least resistant to buying an EV.”
What do you think? Kinda makes sense doesn’t it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
‘Breakthrough in Performance’: Battery Charges in 10 minutes
Miranda Wilson, E&E Reporter
October 14, 2020
Researchers in China have developed an electrode material that they say could greatly extend the cycle life of electric vehicle batteries. General Motors Co.
An electric vehicle that charges nearly as fast as it takes to fill a conventional car with gasoline may be closer to reality, according to a new study.
Researchers have developed a lithium-ion EV battery that takes less than 10 minutes to achieve a maximum charge lasting for more than 300 miles, according to the research published last week in Science. Most EVs on the market today take about one hour or more to fully recharge.
To develop the battery, researchers used black phosphorous combined with graphite and a polymer gel. Black phosphorous is capable of conducting electrons and ions quickly, facilitating a quicker charge than other materials, said Hengxing Ji, professor of energy chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China and the paper’s corresponding author.
“Black phosphorous has a layered structure, and lithium ions can be quickly conducted between black phosphorous sheets,” he said in a video presentation about the study.
To prevent the black phosphorous from deforming, as has been an issue in previous research, Ji and his team added graphite. They also used a polymer coating to further stabilize the battery.
The combination resulted in a battery that charges rapidly, lasts a long time on a single charge and has a long battery life cycle, according to the study. The material’s energy density is about 25% greater than the energy density of high-end commercial batteries, meaning it could store more energy at a time in a smaller battery.
“With these improvements, black phosphorus composite material has achieved a breakthrough in performance,” Ji said.
The researchers are now considering commercialization pathways for their battery, he said. They will need to find a way to produce black phosphorous and graphite at affordable prices, as well as optimize the battery to be compatible with industry standards, among other additional steps.
While black phosphorous has been tested before for use in lithium-ion batteries, the researchers here used a combination of materials that “appears to be novel,” said Haresh Kamath, senior program manager of energy storage at the Electric Power Research Institute. Most other investigations of black phosphorous in batteries have involved the use of silicon or lithium instead of graphite, said Kamath, who was not involved in the study.
“It remains to be seen whether phosphorous can be used as a basis for practical batteries in the field, but the research is nevertheless valuable in exploring techniques that will ultimately result in batteries with longer duration, faster charge capabilities and longer product life,” he said in an email.
Although charging time is generally not the most important factor for EV consumers, a vehicle that charges rapidly could be a nice added bonus, said Gil Tal, director of the Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis. To truly shake up the EV market, however, researchers will need to develop a battery that charges quickly, retains its charge for many miles, lasts for years, and supports a safe and affordable vehicle.
“So they put in three of the five big factors,” Tal said of the research.
Study Reveals Why Buyers Shun EVs
Miranda Wilson, E&E Reporter
October 23, 2020
Battery charge time and range anxiety are not what’s deterring the average American from buying a battery electric vehicle.
What matters most, according to a new analysis, is how much the person cares about climate change.
Researchers at Stanford University, Resources for the Future and the research company ReconMR surveyed a representative sample of 502 American adults this summer to identify barriers to personal EV adoption. They asked participants how they felt about different attributes of EVs and why they might be interested in — or hesitant about — buying one.
As the survey was part of a broader research undertaking on Americans’ views on climate change, they also gauged their levels of concern about climate change.
Overall, 57% of respondents said they would consider buying an electric model in the future, with people’s perceptions about climate change threats being the strongest predictor of EV interest, according to the research.
“The more serious people believe global warming will be in the future, the more likely they are to consider buying EVs,” the analysis said.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans see climate change as a “very serious” threat to the United States, while 25% believe unchecked global warming will not be a major problem in the country, the research noted.
“[If] perceptions of the threat posed by global warming increase in the coming years, openness to purchasing EVs seems likely to increase,” the report said.
Following climate change opinions, respondents’ degree of concern about EV battery fires was the second-most important factor influencing electric car consideration, said Jon Krosnick, a professor of communications and political science at Stanford and the survey’s lead researcher. Concerns — or lack thereof — about the costs of maintaining EVs came third, and perceptions of how quickly the cars could accelerate were the fourth-most significant factor, Krosnick said.
“So we have these four factors that seem to be the big considerations … and plenty of others that don’t factor in at all,” he said.
Race, gender and proximity
Whether or not respondents knew someone with an EV or had driven one before did not significantly influence their inclination to buy one, according to the survey. Neither did perceptions about charging time, charging station availability or the prevalence of mechanics experienced in EV repair.
While people who lived in the Northeast were slightly less inclined than others to buy an EV, interest levels were generally uniform across the country, the survey found. Race, income, gender and marital status also had little effect on EV interest, but political affiliation did — those who identified as liberal were the least resistant to buying an EV.
The results of the survey could provide useful marketing insights for electric car makers in order to effectively advertise their vehicles, Krosnick said.
“There’s a lot of potential for marketing efforts trying to promote the use of EVs that could waste a lot of time by talking about messages people don’t care about,” he said.
Some EV industry watchers, however, said there may be limitations to the survey and its findings.
Since the survey’s sample size was relatively small, there could be wide margins of error, particularly when trying to draw conclusions about regional differences, said Ken Kurani, an associate researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.
Other analyses about people’s interest in EVs have also reached different conclusions about why people do or don’t buy EVs. Surveys conducted by Kurani about people’s reasons for having bought EVs, for example, have found that knowing someone who owns one already improves people’s assessments of the cars.
Kurani’s research has also shown that climate change does not factor significantly into people’s decisions to buy an EV, he said.
“We find that air quality matters more — people’s beliefs about how big of a problem air quality is in [their] region,” he said.
Although the earliest EV enthusiasts may have been motivated primarily by climate change concerns, a growing number of people are now interested in electric models for other reasons, said Marc Geller, spokesperson for the Electric Auto Association. Legacy automakers have increasingly started to acknowledge those benefits, which include the fact that EVs require less maintenance and are cheaper to fuel than internal-combustion cars (Energywire, Oct. 6).
“I don’t suspect the chief reason people are not considering one is because they don’t consider climate change a threat,” Geller said.
Even so, the Stanford survey highlights the pervasiveness of EV misconceptions, Geller said.
There is incomplete evidence about whether battery-powered cars are more prone to catching fire than internal-combustion engines. According to a 2017 study from the Department of Transportation, compared with cars that run on gasoline, lithium-ion batteries are projected to be “somewhat comparable to or perhaps slightly less” prone to fires or explosions.
EV maintenance costs are also generally lower — not higher — than those for internal-combustion vehicles, since battery electric cars don’t require oil changes or smog checks. And EVs can accelerate more rapidly than traditional cars, Geller said.
“These are people’s perceptions. The fact that they aren’t true is something that will be very useful to organizations like mine in trying to figure out how to dispel what are continuing myths about EVs,” he said.
