The renewable energy changes and policy

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Sam says CATL who already dropped their prices by 30% last year, further CATL says, they will drop battery prices by a further 50% by the middle of 2024 and their batteries apparently work well in the cold, much better than Tesla's. 35 to 40% of the cost of an EV is the battery and it should make power storage cheaper too. The price should be $56/kWh by June and price parity with an ICE car is around $80/kWh for the battery cost! That is China and almost everywhere else though, but they might be building battery factories in Mexico or elsewhere too. Even America, the Chinese can't cut off domestically produced and sourced supplies in America and if they tried the factories would be nationalized.

If they are selling EV batteries for $56 kWh then it puts the heat on all the other battery manufactures to be competitive, unless protected by tariffs and tariffs should have time limits attached along with government support to bring them up to speed fast. We might not have those future super batteries yet, but we should have ones that are good enough and above all else cheap enough to beat ICE cars on price point and make grid and home power storage feasible. In 5 years, such batteries might be $20 kWh, but there is a bottom for prices somewhere, more power density with fewer materials is the only way to get it cheaper than that.


Tony Seba's 2027 battery prediction is about to happen 3 YEARS EARLY!
 

ooof-da

Well-Known Member
They are already selling small EVs in China for under $5K and by 2030 the batteries will be a lot better and cheaper. It will allow a bigger car for about the same cost and since the battery will be better and lighter it should have decent range and performance. A $5000 dollar car could be nearly bought on a whim and used for daily commuting into the city for work and plugged in to even 120 volts overnight to top up the battery. In 2030 the batteries will be cheaper and better, and the thing will be mostly built by robots in a renewables powered factory in Mexico and Eastern Europe. It seems possible and if there is a buck in it, likely.

North American and European automakers are worried and can't compete on price, prop them up screwing the consumer with tariffs until they catch up. What incentive would they have to improve while on the government dole at everybody else's expense, tariffs are taxes that Americans and others pay. Adapt or die is the rule of nature and capitalism and tariffs screw with economic evolution.

There is an old technical saying, don't get behind the power curve and America and Europe did.
so we bought a f150 lighting and installed a new 400A electrical service because this thing needs a 80A breaker…more than our hot tub. Worked great for awhile but then after it was serviced for a recall the fast charging (at home on the 220V) stopped working. The 110v works and the 3P commercial chargers work (the ones that have the AC>>DC converter/conditioner at the unit) but that doesn’t do any good cause 110 takes like 3 days to charge and I don’t have 3P/480v.

Ford is working on it but I’ll be honest; this technology is not fully baked.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
so we bought a f150 lighting and installed a new 400A electrical service because this thing needs a 80A breaker…more than our hot tub. Worked great for awhile but then after it was serviced for a recall the fast charging (at home on the 220V) stopped working. The 110v works and the 3P commercial chargers work (the ones that have the AC>>DC converter/conditioner at the unit) but that doesn’t do any good cause 110 takes like 3 days to charge and I don’t have 3P/480v.

Ford is working on it but I’ll be honest; this technology is not fully baked.
I agree and a North American half ton as they are made today is hard to electrify, you need to put a lot of charge in no matter how good the batteries get. For now, a second small commuting car for most, smaller and lighter is better for an EV and if I buy one it will be small, just got a new ICE car last year after an accident. Seems the charging on 220 issue is Ford's fault and have a look online, others have the same issue, and they will get a lawyer. The globe is rapidly going EV though according to the statistics and they and the batteries will improve, charging big ones will always be an issue though, good luck with yours.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I agree and a North American half ton as they are made today is hard to electrify, you need to put a lot of charge in no matter how good the batteries get. For now, a second small commuting car for most, smaller and lighter is better for an EV and if I buy one it will be small, just got a new ICE car last year after an accident. Seems the charging on 220 issue is Ford's fault and have a look online, others have the same issue, and they will get a lawyer. The globe is rapidly going EV though according to the statistics and they and the batteries will improve, charging big ones will always be an issue though, good luck with yours.
It’s worth remembering that half-ton to one-ton trucks and vans are not just today’s consumer luxe statement vehicles, they are the backbone of small business and local logistics. There’s an urgent market for good green ones, be they electric or hydrogen-hybrid.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
It’s worth remembering that half-ton to one-ton trucks and vans are not just today’s consumer luxe statement vehicles, they are the backbone of small business and local logistics. There’s an urgent market for good green ones, be they electric or hydrogen-hybrid.
They build them to imitate 18 wheelers here, in Asia and in the here in the past, they were far lighter, smaller and more pragmatic. Less mass, more efficiency, no matter how good the batteries get, those huge half tons will still suck juice and be hard to charge.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Can we do it with renewables? Some countries can for sure and it will get the rest 90% there as far as electricity and light transportation go. These guys don't fool around, they have big needs and are installing enough panels and wind turbines with this project to power several sizable, developed countries combined together.


Jan 30, 2024
China’s MASSIVE Desert Project Is About To Change The World

China’s MASSIVE Desert Project Is About To Change The World. This is the biggest solar power plant in the United States, located in Kern, California. The Solar Star Plant is over 8 square miles and has a generation capacity of 579 megawatts, powering around 255,000 homes. This is impressive, but about 6,500 miles away, in this remote desert, there's a solar facility that could dwarf it … and just about every other solar power plant on earth. And it’s not alone.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
They build them to imitate 18 wheelers here, in Asia and in the here in the past, they were far lighter, smaller and more pragmatic. Less mass, more efficiency, no matter how good the batteries get, those huge half tons will still suck juice and be hard to charge.
can you point one out with the implied three axles?
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
can you point one out with the implied three axles?
Some people seem to have big trucker fantasies, the biggest and mightiest thing on the road! look at a pic of a half-ton from the 1960s and compare it to today for sheer bulk and mass.

Compare this to a modern RAM or F150, aside from the doubled frontal area.

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DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
There are hardware limitations to AI or so some experts say, which is why I think you will see semi-autonomous robots who share an AI brain via Wi-Fi located at some server farm. However, progress in the field is moving along at a fast pace and this might be a future math module in a much larger AI system. For some kinds of brain work you might not need many AIs to make a big difference.


Google's AI Makes Stunning Progress with Logical Reasoning

Google has unveiled a new artificially intelligent system, AlphaGeometry, that can solve problems of mathematical geometry. It’s the first computer program to surpass the average performance of participants at the International Mathematical Olympiad. That might sound like an incremental improvement, just one more thing that AI is really good at, but mathematics isn’t just one more thing, it’s everywhere. This makes Google’s recent development a significant step forward. Let’s have a look.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
can you point one out with the implied three axles?
If you look at a truck from the 60s and reimagine it a bit, since an EV can be much more aerodynamic. The hood can be sloped to a point and the windshield can be sloped more too, even the tailgate can be designed to fold down and slide in under the bed, when it is empty which is 99% of the time for many of them. Trying to make a modern F150 or RAM into an EV is a fool's errand, the concept of a half-ton needs to be rethought from the ground up, at least for pragmatic people who make money with their trucks.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member

Smaller EV Pickups Could Be Big Business Fairly Soon
Hyundai Santa Cruz goes EV for 2027, and GM may be planning compact EV pickups of its own.

  • “Legacy” automakers are planning a plethora of small and midsize battery-electric pickup trucks through the end of the decade, according to a couple of well-placed sources.
  • Chevrolet and GMC are said to be working on a Ford Maverick-size EV pickup while a new generation of the Maverick compact pickup is scheduled for early 2027, possibly as a ‘28 model.
  • The next-generation Santa Cruz compact pickup is expected to move to the IMA EV platform in model-year 2027 or ‘28. (Current Santa Cruz pictured above.)
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Car makers are going to platforms, basically a standard skateboard with batteries, motors and the electronics, that various bodies are popped onto, from a large sedan to an SUV, a van or a 1/2 ton. The platform will be the same across models and some car makers might make large and small ones, but they will be the same across several models and years, until the next generation platform comes long. Eventually it might be better batteries and a variety of pack sizes with air cooled motors in the wheel hubs and no battery thermal management system required for the pack. Pop the body on and robots plug in the wiring connectors and bolt everything up, the entire line can contain various models, custom jobs, trim options and colors all going on one line with AI calling the shots. The batteries would cost less than $40 kWh and be good enough to do the job while working in cold weather too.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
If you look at a truck from the 60s and reimagine it a bit, since an EV can be much more aerodynamic. The hood can be sloped to a point and the windshield can be sloped more too, even the tailgate can be designed to fold down and slide in under the bed, when it is empty which is 99% of the time for many of them. Trying to make a modern F150 or RAM into an EV is a fool's errand, the concept of a half-ton needs to be rethought from the ground up, at least for pragmatic people who make money with their trucks.
Got it. You dodged once your claim was challenged.

A baseline-useful truck will carry a stack of drywall laid flat across construction-site terrain from a hundred miles away, and have charge for the return trip with a load of trash.

Cyberyuck is a massive, useless statement vehicle.

I don’t see how you could keep that basic F150 functionality and shed a ton of weight (before adding two tons of fussy heavy Li-ion batteries).

Propose specific engineering differences in the truck you imagine. Keep the bed dimensions , loaded range and mass capacity.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Here is one from out of left field that could be the answer to heavy trucks, aircraft and other such things. If it can power an army tank or truck it can do other things too. Recharge the fuel, not the battery, change out the fuel like refilling with gasoline, except you remove the exhausted nanoparticles for recycling too and they get recharged at the refill station.


“Influit is now developing a battery with an energy density rated at 550 to 850 watt-hours per kilogram or higher, as compared to 200 to 350 Wh/kg for a standard EV lithium-ion battery,” IEEE Spectrum stated.

The design is fireproof and allows for the quick replacement of used nanofluid — an incredible 400 liters (106 gallons) in five minutes, IEEE Spectrum reported. Those factors are driving the military’s involvement, which in turn is coming from deadlines of 2030 and 2050 to use electric supply vehicles and electric tactical vehicles.

The technology and its safety could be especially conducive to manufacturing electric aircraft.

“You don’t [need] high-powered cables, you don’t have electromagnetic interference problems,” Starr Ginn, NASA advanced air mobility lead strategist, told IEEE Spectrum. “[Nanoelectrofuel] just keeps checking these boxes off of all the things that are making it hard to build electric airplanes.”

It will, however, have to overcome developments with lithium-ion and other batteries.

As the magazine noted, there has been news of a 711 Wh/kg lithium-ion battery and a lithium manganese iron phosphate battery that can power an EV for 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and last 130 years. Sodium-ion, graphene, and solid-state batteries are on the move as well.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Got it. You dodged once your claim was challenged.

A baseline-useful truck will carry a stack of drywall laid flat across construction-site terrain from a hundred miles away, and have charge for the return trip with a load of trash.

Cyberyuck is a massive, useless statement vehicle.

I don’t see how you could keep that basic F150 functionality and shed a ton of weight (before adding two tons of fussy heavy Li-ion batteries).

Propose specific engineering differences in the truck you imagine. Keep the bed dimensions , loaded range and mass capacity.
I dunno, but I think the cyber truck sucks and half tons can be designed smaller and more aerodynamic, especially when running around empty. Better batteries or nano fuel like above, perhaps hydrogen stored in hydrates and zapped by lasers to let it go. If they can't find a substitute for ICE powered light trucks that working people use, then there will be trouble.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
More on that CATL 50% price drop for batteries.


According to a recent report from CnEVPost, Chinese battery storage maker CATL – the world’s biggest – is set to reduce the cost per kWh of its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells by a stunning 50 per cent by mid 2024, paving the way for lower cost electric cars.

The 173-Ah VDA-spec square cells (148 mm x 26.5 mm x 91 mm) can be fully charged in less than 30 mins and will be sold to several EV manufacturers for an average of RMB 400/kWh (or $US56.47/kWh), according to the report.

 
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