The Electric Vehicle Thread

[Chuckanut]

I just tried to get some quotes for Rav4 Prime.

Local dealers want $3500 markup.

Even regular cars, the dealers are insisting because of chip shortage they will have their dealer mark up and will ignore terms on the manufacturers' websites.

Its not just EV type cars. Dealers in my area have an 'additional dealer markup' on straight ICE automobiles.

 

[zinger1457]

I just tried to get some quotes for Rav4 Prime.

Local dealers want $3500 markup.

Even regular cars, the dealers are insisting because of chip shortage they will have their dealer mark up and will ignore terms on the manufacturers' websites.

Took my Avalon in last week for a recall service, the Toyota dealership lot only had a handful of new cars as far as I could tell, usually 60+, the showroom that usually has 6-8 vehicles on display was empty. They had signs all over the service area offering above market value for trade-ins, not the best time to be looking for a new vehicle.

 

[explanade]

Its not just EV type cars. Dealers in my area have an 'additional dealer markup' on straight ICE automobiles.

Took my Avalon in last week for a recall service, the Toyota dealership lot only had a handful of new cars as far as I could tell, usually 60+, the showroom that usually has 6-8 vehicles on display was empty. They had signs all over the service area offering above market value for trade-ins, not the best time to be looking for a new vehicle.

Yeah it looks that way.

I think once I return my lease, I will just try grocery delivery for awhile.

The kind of markups they're asking for, I can buy a lot of Uber rides.

 

[travelover]

..........I think once I return my lease, I will just try grocery delivery for awhile.....

Your lease car is probably worth more than the agreed upon purchase price. You might be able to leverage that to make a few bucks.

 

[explanade]

Hmm, you mean pay the residual and sell it used?

One reason I got the lease was to avoid having to sell.

 

[NW-Bound]

Can you expand on that temperature issue- the sources I looked at were all over the map and not clear regarding storage temps vs usage temps, and I know you are well informed on this with your solar/LiFePO4/AC set up.

-ERD50

It is generally recommended to keep lithium cells below 120F. I don't know what temperature would cause catastrophic failure of a cell, and perhaps that varies with the cell construction. I saw one paper that reported seeing a cell venting gas at a mere 60C, which is only 140F. That's very poor.

I have 3 Lithionics batteries that have an irreversible temperature logging strip on them. The max temperature shown is 160F. Perhaps above this temperature, the maker refuses to honor any warranty.

It is commonly accepted that at 120F and above, each degree of temperature will cause a larger and larger loss of capacity. A paper I read reported that the capacity loss is a function of temperature and the exposure time at that temperature, and not dependent on the number of charge/discharge cycles the cell is subjected to. Basically, they store many cells at different temperatures, then test their capacities after each month to see the capacity loss. I don't remember the exact number, but it was alarming.

Many full-timing RV'ers have reported severe loss of capacity after a few years of use, way sooner than the 2000-cycle specs of the cells. They blame it on the temperature.

In my own usage for the home storage system, the cells are stored on shelves standing up to a bit more than 48" high. There are 16 shelves, storing cells in roughly 3" high layers.

The small garden shed where the system is installed is plastic, and I have not figured out a way to mount a window AC for it. In the summer, on a hot day, while the bottom layer is at 120F, the top layer may be at 140F or higher. The temperature gradient is caused by heat generated by the solar chargers and the inverters.

I have seen noticeable difference in capacity between the bottom cells and the top cells, perhaps more than 5%. And this was after only 2 summers. In this summer of the 3rd year, I have mounted a fan to improve the circulation and exhaust the hot air.

I will wait till the end of the summer to take down the battery and measure the capacity of each of the 64 cell blocks. This is a laborious process. I expect to see a clear increasing loss of cell capacity going from the bottom to the top cells.

 

[NW-Bound]

Also, I will take another look at this for my sump pump battery backup. It's a 12V AGM, installed in 2019, so maybe good for another 3 years (rated 75 AH)? By then, the price of LiFePO4 should be competitive (not sure what the BMS would cost)?

(checking price again....) Arghhh, for 75AH, still big $$$ - those $6 cells are just 2.5AH, so need 30 in parallel! Times 4 for the 12V is 120 cells, so $720! Though 75 AH is maybe overkill. The pump is ~ 15A, 5 hours continuous simple math (de-rate by quite a bit at that current though). But the pump should not need to run continuous, and a 10% duty cycle would provide over a day of back up. If I had that long of a black out, I would run my inverter from my car, power one of the other pumps, and charge the battery.

When the price drops in half, that could be worth it. The BMS would not need to handle the 20A fuse rating, only the charge current of 1.6A - the low voltage cut-off could just break the connection to the float, which is a low current sensor.

-ERD50

You can buy premade LFP batteries (with BMS) already configured for 12VDC applications.

The UPS/alarm backup sized ones (12VDC, ~7ah) are now cheap enough for me to consider...larger sizes, e.g., 100Ah are still too $$$ for me, though.

Amazon is selling many 100Ah 12V LFP batteries with a built-in BMS. They are built with large-format prismatic cells, instead of cylindrical cells in metal cans like the 26650 A123 cells. These batteries generally come with 4 large cells in series, with each cell of 100Ah.

I just looked, and prices vary from $370 to $700. Quality is of course a big unknown.

These batteries are usually spec'ed at 100A current, and that is more the limitation of the BMS, rather than the cells. However, these cells still cannot match the current capacity of the A123 2.5Ah cells. The latter would be capable of 4,800A, if you were to wire 40 cells in parallel to have 100Ah. There's no BMS to handle that current, nor any cable.

 

[travelover]

Hmm, you mean pay the residual and sell it used?

One reason I got the lease was to avoid having to sell.

Tell the dealer that they need to pay you $X upon completion of the lease or you'll buy the car at the residual and sell it to Carmax at a profit. Basically, beat the dealer at their own game. You know, like the dealers adding $X over MSRP to take advantage of the car scarcity.

 

[Sunset]

.....
In my own usage for the home storage system, the cells are stored on shelves standing up to a bit more than 48" high. There are 16 shelves, storing cells in roughly 3" high layers.

The small garden shed where the system is installed is plastic, and I have not figured out a way to mount a window AC for it. In the summer, on a hot day, while the bottom layer is at 120F, the top layer may be at 140F or higher. The temperature gradient is caused by heat generated by the solar chargers and the inverters.

I have seen noticeable difference in capacity between the bottom cells and the top cells, perhaps more than 5%. And this was after only 2 summers. In this summer of the 3rd year, I have mounted a fan to improve the circulation and exhaust the hot air.

I will wait till the end of the summer to take down the battery and measure the capacity of each of the 64 cell blocks. This is a laborious process. I expect to see a clear increasing loss of cell capacity going from the bottom to the top cells.

Maybe add an intake fan to suck air into the shed or just add a second exhaust fan ?

 

[DayDreaming]

Its not just EV type cars. Dealers in my area have an 'additional dealer markup' on straight ICE automobiles.

That's one thing I really liked about buying a Tesla - the buying experience. You might look at the car in a showroom, but you order the car on tesla.com, the price is exactly what's on the website, no dealer markups, no pressure to add other options,etc. There are the usual destination fees, title fee, etc, as with any car.

Also, I'm really pleased with the $$$ I could get on a trade in of my current 9 year old vehicle, it's a LOT more than I expected, probably due the demand for cars these days.

 

[Car-Guy]

I just tried to get some quotes for Rav4 Prime.

Local dealers want $3500 markup.

Even regular cars, the dealers are insisting because of chip shortage they will have their dealer mark up and will ignore terms on the manufacturers' websites.

Its not just EV type cars. Dealers in my area have an 'additional dealer markup' on straight ICE automobiles.

I bought a new high dollar truck a few weeks ago and was shocked when the dealer told me it would be 10k over window sticker... I told him, "in so many words" that he was crazy if he thought I'd pay that.... I checked on line on the "appropriate" car forum and found that indeed most dealers were charging anywhere from 10 to 15k over window sticker, for these trucks, and they were getting it. Canada dealers were even higher... One dealer had marked up one of his by 40k. (Not a typo - But I'm not sure he sold it for that)


Anyway, after few days of on line dealing, I was able to get it for an "even trade" for my current vehicle, which was my going in position... On the actual sales invoice they showed the sales price of new truck to be 10k over window sticker but they also showed my traded-in as 10k more than I was asking ? I'm not sure why the inflated paper numbers (I'm sure there is a reason) but the bottom line is all I cared about...

I've bought lots of new cars in my life, and this is the first time I ever paid (well traded) for full window sticker on a new vehicle.

 

[ncbill]

It is generally recommended to keep lithium cells below 120F. I don't know what temperature would cause catastrophic failure of a cell, and perhaps that varies with the cell construction. I saw one paper that reported seeing a cell venting gas at a mere 60C, which is only 140F. That's very poor.

I have 3 Lithionics batteries that have an irreversible temperature logging strip on them. The max temperature shown is 160F. Perhaps above this temperature, the maker refuses to honor any warranty.

It is commonly accepted that at 120F and above, each degree of temperature will cause a larger and larger loss of capacity. A paper I read reported that the capacity loss is a function of temperature and the exposure time at that temperature, and not dependent on the number of charge/discharge cycles the cell is subjected to. Basically, they store many cells at different temperatures, then test their capacities after each month to see the capacity loss. I don't remember the exact number, but it was alarming.

Many full-timing RV'ers have reported severe loss of capacity after a few years of use, way sooner than the 2000-cycle specs of the cells. They blame it on the temperature.

In my own usage for the home storage system, the cells are stored on shelves standing up to a bit more than 48" high. There are 16 shelves, storing cells in roughly 3" high layers.

The small garden shed where the system is installed is plastic, and I have not figured out a way to mount a window AC for it. In the summer, on a hot day, while the bottom layer is at 120F, the top layer may be at 140F or higher. The temperature gradient is caused by heat generated by the solar chargers and the inverters.

I have seen noticeable difference in capacity between the bottom cells and the top cells, perhaps more than 5%. And this was after only 2 summers. In this summer of the 3rd year, I have mounted a fan to improve the circulation and exhaust the hot air.

I will wait till the end of the summer to take down the battery and measure the capacity of each of the 64 cell blocks. This is a laborious process. I expect to see a clear increasing loss of cell capacity going from the bottom to the top cells.

Mount a PTAC unit at the bottom?

https://learn.allergyandair.com/buying-ptac-units/

Refurbished units:

https://ptac4less.com/refurbished-ptac-units

 

[ncbill]

And here's a YouTube channel on solar where many different 12VDC pre-made LFP batteries are tested & reviewed

(see the "Battery Tear Down's" [sic] playlist):

DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse

 

[Koolau]

My old chemistry professor told me , he used to take old batteries, open them up, clean out the crap at the bottom put them back together and refill with fresh acid.
The stuff that accumulates at the bottom will eventually touch and short out the plates.
He would then sell the batteries.

Back in the day, it was probably fairly easy to do such a thing. With sealed battery technology used these days, I'm not so sure. In any case, Hiring someone to clean out old batteries and refill them would probably increase the cost well beyond the $30 currently being charged. Reusing dryer sheets and cleaning out dead batteries are things we FIRE'd folks do. Businesses - probably not though YMMV.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

That's one thing I really liked about buying a Tesla - the buying experience. You might look at the car in a showroom, but you order the car on tesla.com, the price is exactly what's on the website, no dealer markups, no pressure to add other options,etc. There are the usual destination fees, title fee, etc, as with any car.

Also, I'm really pleased with the $$$ I could get on a trade in of my current 9 year old vehicle, it's a LOT more than I expected, probably due the demand for cars these days.

Zero haggling, zero pressure to buy add-ons, no waiting around the showrooms to take your offer to their boss. All the dirty tricks to remove money from your wallet are eliminated.

If you want to order your vehicle at the Tesla showroom, a Tesla adviser will answer any questions during the process. That's how I ordered my first Tesla, the 2nd I ordered from home.

 

[NW-Bound]

My old chemistry professor told me , he used to take old batteries, open them up, clean out the crap at the bottom put them back together and refill with fresh acid.
The stuff that accumulates at the bottom will eventually touch and short out the plates.
He would then sell the batteries.

I believe it, based on personal experiences. As a teenager, I once revived a motorcycle battery the same way, by separating the black top of the battery from its translucent bottom. However, there was no way to reseal along the cut lines against acid leak, and the battery could only be used for my bench experiments.

Back in the day, it was probably fairly easy to do such a thing. With sealed battery technology used these days, I'm not so sure. In any case, Hiring someone to clean out old batteries and refill them would probably increase the cost well beyond the $30 currently being charged. Reusing dryer sheets and cleaning out dead batteries are things we FIRE'd folks do. Businesses - probably not though YMMV.

When I installed Lithionics LFP batteries in my motorhome, I took the 2 deep-cycle batteries out and put them on a battery maintainer in my garage. Last summer, I took them out to my solar shed for some experiments and to aid in the rebalancing task of the big LFP battery.

One day, a battery just failed. From its voltage, I was sure that one of its 6 cells had shorted out. By applying a charge current, and lifting up the battery about 1" of the ground and slapping it down, I was able to vibrate loose the crud at the bottom of the battery that shorted out the plates of that failed cell. The battery voltage then proceeded to climb up to its charged voltage of 13.8V over time.

But then, the darn thing failed again. I repeated the experiment, and the same thing happened. Short of disassembling the battery and pouring out the sediment, there's no way to permanently revived the battery.

The crud is caused by the battery lead plates shedding. Starting batteries are worse than marine batteries, which are worse than golf-cart batteries. Still, there's no way to prevent this aging effect. All batteries eventually die, lithium batteries too, same as people. Sad but that's life.

By the way, a battery can be revived by cleaning out the sediment, but its capacity is of course reduced. In poor countries, this still results in a serviceable battery at a fraction of the cost of a new one.

There are quite a few YouTube videos showing Indian or Pakistani craftsmen rebuilding large truck batteries. They have got it down to an art, using only rudimentary tools. One cringes at the sight of them working with lead all day, with no protection against lead poisoning. It would make one grateful for having the easy life most of us do. Nice new batteries, with no concern or care about how they are made. This frees us to spend the time to ponder the healthiness of Wagyu beef, the comparison of grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef, which EV has the best 0-60mph acceleration.

 

[oneill225]

EV Market Timelines

You will hear widely varying predictions concerning when EVs will dominate car and truck sales. One of the more absurd predictions is highlighted in the following video. You would think Bloomberg could do better:

 

[ERD50]

....
One day, a battery just failed. From its voltage, I was sure that one of its 6 cells had shorted out. By applying a charge current, and lifting up the battery about 1" of the ground and slapping it down, I was able to vibrate loose the crud at the bottom of the battery that shorted out the plates of that failed cell. The battery voltage then proceeded to climb up to its charged voltage of 13.8V over time.

But then, the darn thing failed again. I repeated the experiment, and the same thing happened. Short of disassembling the battery and pouring out the sediment, there's no way to permanently revived the battery.

The crud is caused by the battery lead plates shedding. ...

Thanks, I guess I'll never stop learning.

Kinda funny, I feel like since my teens, I had a sense that when a car/motorcycle/tractor battery reads ~ 10.X volts rather than 12.X volts, that one cell was bad (12 V batteries have 6 cells @ ~ 2 V each), but I don't think I ever went beyond that.

Now obviously (well, obvious to anyone with a bit of electrical knowledge), that cell must be shorted - if it failed open, you'd get zero volts. I'm thinking that I might have figured that the plates shorted, like dendrite growth or something. I never realized it was 'crud' laying at the bottom of the battery.

So a battery that was extra deep, with a 'well' to hold the crud that accumulates, might last much longer? Yes, auto makers don't want to give up even more space for the battery, so the motivation isn't there.

I guess this is getting a bit too far off-topic, this is Lead-Acid specific, which no large market EV is using today.

But battery technology in general is interesting.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

I don't live in Europe to know the mood there now, but I suspect EVs vs ICE cars are the least of what they think about now.

They are too busy worrying about the coming winter, when they will not have enough natural gas to burn to keep warm. Their natural gas storage stockpile is running low.

The UK just fired up an old coal burning power plant, because the wind has not been blowing as it usually does, and nat gas is too expensive.

Why don't they just heat with electricity?

From BBC Web site:

Wholesale electricity prices rose during the summer months and have continued to climb, with reports of a record high of €172.8 per megawatt hour for Wednesday, 12.6% up on Tuesday...

European benchmark natural gas prices have soared 287% year to date, driven by a shortage of supplies from Russia, which is using more of its own natural gas...

The wind literally stopped blowing this summer, with hydro generation in Southern Europe hit by climate change-induced droughts, which required thermal power generation to step up....

Italian minister Robert Cingolani warned on Monday that electricity bills were likely to go up by 40% in the coming quarter, after a 9.9% increase in the last one.

 

[ERD50]

I don't live in Europe to know the mood there now, but I suspect EVs vs ICE cars are the least of what they think about now.

They are too busy worrying about the coming winter, when they will not have enough natural gas to burn to keep warm. Their natural gas storage stockpile is running low.

The UK just fired up an old coal burning power plant, because the wind has not been blowing as it usually does, and nat gas is too expensive.

Oh boy. And here in Illinois, they just passed a bill to close natural gas and coal plants by 2045 (*).

And at the same time, they increased subsidies for EVs - where is this electricity going to come from?

https://www.wbez.org/stories/whats-...rgy-bill/84a3d48d-e82c-45f9-add3-200923f1fab2

(*) - I guess I'd have to try to read the bill - they say "carbon free". So maybe that means they can buy carbon credits to 'offset' their carbon emissions (a shell game as far as I can see)?

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh boy. And here in Illinois, they just passed a bill to close natural gas and coal plants by 2045 (*).

And at the same time, they increased subsidies for EVs - where is this electricity going to come from?

https://www.wbez.org/stories/whats-...rgy-bill/84a3d48d-e82c-45f9-add3-200923f1fab2

(*) - I guess I'd have to try to read the bill - they say "carbon free". So maybe that means they can buy carbon credits to 'offset' their carbon emissions (a shell game as far as I can see)?

-ERD50

It's not that hard to generate electricity from wind and the sun. People may not understand that stockpiling that electricity is the much harder part.

I can see a time in the future when electricity is rationed when it is overcast and the wind does not blow. At that point, a lot of people will have to plug their AC and fridge into their EV. Either that, or one can sleep in his air-conditioned car.

 

[aja8888]

So a battery that was extra deep, with a 'well' to hold the crud that accumulates, might last much longer? Yes, auto makers don't want to give up even more space for the battery, so the motivation isn't there.

-ERD50

Actually, the battery makers really want the batteries to fail right after the warranty period runs out. I mean, they are in the business of selling batteries.

 

[aja8888]

I can see a time in the future when electricity is rationed when it is overcast and the wind does not blow. At that point, a lot of people will have to plug their AC and fridge into their EV. Either that, or one can sleep in his air-conditioned car.

Ahh, but they will have to charge the EV sooner or later, yes?

 

[NW-Bound]

Ahh, but they will have to charge the EV sooner or later, yes?

But of course.

Whether they charge their EV using the grid or their own green energy source, my point is that people will have to supply their own means of energy storage.

If you are poor, tough luck. It's easier to be green if you have the dough.

It's the same way as rich people not having to worry about bread shortage, because they eat cake.

 

[aja8888]

If you are poor, tough luck. It's easier to be green if you have the dough.

Interesting statement when you think about it.

Those in positions of power (money, status, etc) want everyone to be "green", but the poor people, they just want to be able to eat and live. And there are a way lot more poor people than the ones with dough.