Friday May 25, 2012

JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Can electric cars win over the mass market?

Commentary Sep. 03, 2011 - 06:06AM JST ( 12 )

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12 Comments

1

Christina O'NeillSep. 03, 2011 - 10:12AM JST

The Nissan Leaf I hope is only the first of a series of electric cars they will produce. I am hoping in the near future that a more affordable model will be on the market. At the moment I drive a Nissan March Automatic, Japanese import. It is reliable and fairly economical to run. If I were to replace it my first choice would be an all electric vehicle, except the price is prohibitive. There are other questions also,169km maximum range on a fully charged battery,I wonder what the maximum would be in mountainous arears such as where my home is located? Ireland has hopes of encouraging drivers to purchase electric cars in the future by offering a financial incentive and cheaper car tax,but the infastructure to recharge them is practicly zero.The only option to recharge for most prospective purchasers would be at their own domestic terminal, a very slow procedure. Another question would be the duration of the batteries lifetime and if it can be recycled, how expensive would it be to replace?
0

presto345Sep. 03, 2011 - 12:55PM JST

Nissan ought to work out a deal with local governments to finance charging stations that would be set up in parking areas, The number of charging stations being in proportion to the number of cars sold. Illinois could become a trend setter by buying the vehicles to replace gasoline powered ones.
1

OracleSep. 03, 2011 - 07:59PM JST

The only option to recharge for most prospective purchasers would be at their own domestic terminal, a very slow procedure.

Perhaps they could make available, for use at homes, gasoline powered generators to charge them up with faster? LOL!

If the electricty you use was created by fossil fuels, electric cars would about the most inefficient way imaginable to use those fossil fuels, and possibly more polluting, unless the plant has got a top notch filtration system on the smokestacks.

If its nuclear, well then you are supporting nuclear power, and creating a reason to make new plants. I could give that the okay if everyone went to thorium, despite the extra cost. But they won't.
0

John BeckerSep. 03, 2011 - 09:16PM JST

@Oracle: good point about the inefficiency of the power distribution system - I'd never considered that.

For myself, I'm concerned about range and cost. I usually drive far less than 160 km in a day, but a couple of times a year I go home to visit, and that's a 2,000 km round trip. If I had to stop and do a full charge every 160 km, my 21 hour total drive would turn into a (minimum) 6 day drive. I can't afford to own a city car and a long-range car; I need one car that can handle both tasks.

In cities, charging stations in parking lots seem like the most sensible solution. But for road trips, charging a car isn't the way to go. The cars and batteries should be designed to make it easy to remove a flat battery and replace it with a charged one. My thought is that the government could mandate that all manufacturers of electric vehicles meet and standardize a battery design, along with a method for swapping the battery. This would mean that instead of having to stop for 8 hours to charge, I could pull into a service station, spend 5 minutes getting the battery swapped out, and be on my way again. It's a model people are already familiar with and would make the transition to electric much easier.
0

Tomasz StasinskiSep. 04, 2011 - 07:59AM JST

I don't think it was mentioned in the article, but Nissan Leaf can win over potential buyers not because it's supposedly green, but because the running costs are much lower compared to petrol engine cars. With the cost of going one mile less than one pence, lower taxes and free vehicle inspection a Leaf owner in Japan can expect to break even in about 5 years and in the UK in 3 years from what I heard and read. And that's at the present price of oil, which is bound to rise.
1

paulinusaSep. 04, 2011 - 01:53PM JST

The economics of a power plant supplying electricity to electric cars is superior to refining and burning gasoline. It's a much more efficient model.
1

John BeckerSep. 04, 2011 - 10:22PM JST

Paul - got a link?
-1

OracleSep. 05, 2011 - 12:14PM JST

The economics of a power plant supplying electricity to electric cars is superior to refining and burning gasoline. It's a much more efficient model.

Economics? Are you talking about cost? Efficient in what terms?

Lots of electricity is wasted in transmission alone, something like 20 percent of the top of my head. Then you have further loss charging batteries. And batteries are not all that efficient either. About the only way I can imagine to match that sort of inefficiency is to drive a Humvee. Or maybe it would take a tank?
1

JapanGalSep. 05, 2011 - 01:37PM JST

I would need a very long extension cord to charge my car from the fourth floor to the basement of the mansion.

Or maybe I can park outside a 7-11 and use their electric for free.
0

gonemadSep. 05, 2011 - 09:05PM JST

Modern gasoline car engines have a an energy conversion efficiency in the range of 35%, diesel engines in the range of 45%. Power plants fired by fossil fuel reach about 50% efficiency. Taking into account transmission losses from the power plant to the end user etc, electrical cars are less environment-friendly than traditional combustion engines. But still, they can help reducing emissions inside the large cities. Filtering exhaust gases at power plants is also much more effective than filtering at each individual car.

The comparison will change when more alternative energy sources are used. Probably in 10~20 years time frame electrical vehicles will be overall more environment-friendly (not considering manufacturing of the cars and batteries). For car makers, who count in product cycles of several years, this is not a distant future any more.

Until then, electrical cars will primarily serve in large cities. For that purpose, a maximum range of 160km is already enough. I suppose that a large part of the still very high cost of the Leaf is not just due to expensive batteries, but simply owed to low production volumes. Then the cost will quickly come down when electric vehicles gain a certain market share.
1

SquidBertSep. 06, 2011 - 10:33AM JST

@Gonemad Modern gasoline car engines have a an energy conversion efficiency in the range of 35%, diesel engines in the range of 45%.

I do not have the reference to back this up right now. But I do believe those numbers represent max efficiency, which your cars engine rarely reach. I do remember seeing the number 18-25% (gasoline) efficiency for normal driving.

Losses Power Plant to user is somewhere in the range 10% in most modern countries. Not sure this applies to Japans fairly outdated distribution system. Also not sure what loses there are in charging, and the efficiency of the electrical engine.
0

presto345Sep. 06, 2011 - 08:40PM JST

You know the capabilities of the electric vehicle and you know what you need, which makes the choice between an EV, a diesel or a different IC vehicle easy. For the time being stick to fuel efficient IC vehicles if you need to drive long distances daily. Invest in an EV if you mostly drive less than the range of it in urban areas and you care about the environment and the world you leave for the children you created. Continuing to harp on the EVs and what according to you they can or cannot do is meaningless in the light of how technology has advanced since the birth of the first powered vehicle.