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      05-04-2019, 11:26 PM   #1
brad850csi
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Drives: 16 F13 M6 Comp
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

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My thoughts on BEV, FCEV, and PHEV

BEV

I'm guessing that we won't see battery capacities for normal passenger vehicles get much above ~100kWh simply due to the weight of the battery based on current technology. Maybe ~125kWh will happen for larger SUVs such as the X7/GLS/Escalade, but I don't see battery capacities increasing too much more than they already are for smaller vehicles such as the Kona, i4, e-tron, etc. which have 60-95kWh batteries. The Model 3 75kWh battery apparently weighs 478kg, so a 125kWh battery will be around 800kg - quite a bit of weight for any normal sized car. In addition to that, VAG, Tesla, and others are pushing faster and faster charging so I think that outright capacity will become less of an issue for more and more people.

That said, I've done a few drives here in NZ that I couldn't have completed in an electric car due to the sparseness of the population in some areas. I understand this is also a concern for large parts of the USA and I'm sure many other countries around the world too. For the moment, in NZ, the infrastructure wouldn't be good enough for me to replace my M6 with any BEV for the types of drives I like to do every few months. I think plenty of people will have similar use cases which could limit the practicality of BEVs around the world, especially in more remote regions or in countries where electricity is more expensive and petrol/diesel is relatively cheap.

Another issue with BEVs is that many people don't have off street or garage parking. For everyone that does a normal commute that can plug their car in each night, they'll get 160km/100miles of charging overnight which will be ample. But if you can't charge easily at home then availability of rapid chargers becomes more important. At the moment I think we are in a bit of a chicken and egg situation. You need more BEV owners that require fast chargers for the infrastructure to be invested in, but those same people are reluctant to buy a BEV until they know they can rely on the infrastructure being available. At the moment, in areas with insufficient fast chargers available, you might need to wait in line for a charger to become available, before you then spend another 45-60 minutes for the actual charge. That might be acceptable if you're going to a shopping mall for a day, but not so much if you're going on a long trip and just wanted to stop for lunch charge up. However, over time, as BEVs are able to charge faster and faster and with (hopefully) the infrastructure keeping pace or ahead of the game, this should become less of a problem.

FCEV

While Hydrogen appeals to me much more than BEVs, I think that the energy cost to manufacture H2, storage issues both in the car and in a tank at a filling station, and so on are problems that have no easy solution. And there isn't enough interest in resolving those problems when BEVs will be good enough for almost all situations.

PHEV

I believe these will die soon. The added complexity of having both the electric motor plus batteries and the combustion engine plus its supporting hardware in the same vehicle will always penalize with weight and size. And these will become unnecessary with the increase in battery capacity and recharging speed. Having said that, my very niche dream would be to replace my M6 with an M8 that has a DCT gearbox sending power to the rear only with an i8 front axle . I do wonder if a niche will develop for AWD vehicles because it may be lighter/cheaper to install an electric motor and some batteries instead of an additional driveshaft and differential. This was the case with the NSX, 918 and I'm fairly sure I remember a Citroen or Peugeot SUV that was front wheel drive with a small electric motor at the back. But, once charging becomes more convenient and more accepted amongst consumers, these will go away except perhaps a few high end vehicles that use the AWD setup I describe.
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Last edited by brad850csi; 05-04-2019 at 11:34 PM..
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