Major Safety Alert: The ABC15 Investigators found dozens of drivers have filed complaints with federal auto safety regulators who are urging car owners to learn how to manually get out in an emergency.
Plantagenet wrote:It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that they will be able to actually fix the problem with EV batteries exploding into flames since they didn't fix it during the previous recall.
The_Toecutter wrote:Instead of efficient EVs that consume 120-150 Wh/mile and are repairable with basic tools and built to last forever, we get road hippos that need 300+ Wh/mile and can't be fixed outside of a dealership and are destined for the landfill in 15 years.
AdamB wrote:The_Toecutter wrote:Sure Toe, but then they can't withstand a frontal crash against a concrete wall while saving the the 4 passengers, no one wants to pedal their EV, and if you can't haul around at least a family of 5 at highway speeds in air conditioned comfort at 80mph on the belt way, so no one wants them. Except you of course, and you are already building your own, so enjoy! I'm thoroughly enjoying my road hippo and years of no maintenance and 25K miles of service it has rendered, and I imagine will keep on rendering for years to come. It isn't as though it has that many moving parts to break anyway.
The_Toecutter wrote:AdamB wrote:The_Toecutter wrote:Sure Toe, but then they can't withstand a frontal crash against a concrete wall while saving the the 4 passengers, no one wants to pedal their EV, and if you can't haul around at least a family of 5 at highway speeds in air conditioned comfort at 80mph on the belt way, so no one wants them. Except you of course, and you are already building your own, so enjoy! I'm thoroughly enjoying my road hippo and years of no maintenance and 25K miles of service it has rendered, and I imagine will keep on rendering for years to come. It isn't as though it has that many moving parts to break anyway.
I wasn't referring to an electric velomobile with that comment, but a midsized or full sized sedan with good aerodynamics. You know, a type of car that could be designed for its 5 occupants to survive a 120 mph crash on the Autobahn while fully able to stretch their legs(something they often can't do in a "compact SUV"), with at least basic features such as air conditioning or a way to interface your phone to the radio.
The_ToeCutter wrote:But the auto industry won't do that. Such a car, if available, would cannibalize the sales of more expensive vehicles.
The_Toecutter wrote:They make more money financing $60,000 road hippos, than they do selling them, they want you in as much debt as possible paying them interest each month, they want you buying the big feature-laden vehicles that are more than you need with as much profit margin as possible(and want no alternatives to that available on the new car market), and they will assure you buy another one if you have any money or credit to do so by making sure Bubba mechanic down the street will never be able to fix it without spending 5-figures on proprietary tools for that specific make, model, and year of vehicle.
The_Toecutter wrote:The vehicle I describe could have been built and sold with the technology we had in the late 1990s.
EV company Fisker lowered its production guidance for the second time this year on Friday morning, and reported a Q2 loss than beat the street's expectations while missing production targets...
Also alarming is the fact that Fisker did not update shareholders on the number of reservations it had for its Ocean vehicle. This number was disclosed as 65,000 in May when the company reported Q1. Generally, companies only remove reporting metrics from filings and announcements for one reason: the numbers may not have the shine people expect them to...
For now, Fisker is flush with cash. It has $521.8 million, down from $652.5 million last quarter, as a result of a recently completed $300 million financing round. But with EV competition now saturating the globe and names like Tesla and Rivian, joined by GM and Ford, all competing aggressively with one another (and slashing prices), it remains to be seen whether or not Fisker will ever truly ever get off the ground.
August 6, 2023
Electricity prices for the grid rose to more than $2,500 a megawatt-hour for Sunday evening, up from Saturday’s high of about $275, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator. The surplus of available power capacity on the grid versus power consumption will narrow to 1.6 gigawatts in the hour ending at 6 p.m. Sunday, a level that can trigger emergency responses, though Ercot has additional reserves it can tap to meet demand.
Part of the appeal of owning a Tesla is how affordable it typically is to charge it up and cover hundreds of miles. However, the rolling blackouts occurring right now across Texas are creating a unique challenge for Tesla owners. According to Muscle Cars and Trucks, electricity prices in Texas have skyrocketed in recent days. …
August 3, 2023
Beginning Sept. 1, owners of those vehicles will pay a $200 fee to the state at the time of registration or renewal. New electric vehicles issued two years of registration to match a two-year inspection will have to pay a $400 fee.
"For every 'fully electric' vehicle that is purchased and operated on a Texas roadway that is just that much less fuel tax that is not being paid being paid on the purchase of gasoline," Wichita County Tax Assessor-Collector Tommy Smyth said in an email...
theluckycountry wrote:Texas to hit all-electric vehicle owners with high feesAugust 3, 2023
Beginning Sept. 1, owners of those vehicles will pay a $200 fee to the state at the time of registration or renewal. New electric vehicles issued two years of registration to match a two-year inspection will have to pay a $400 fee.
"For every 'fully electric' vehicle that is purchased and operated on a Texas roadway that is just that much less fuel tax that is not being paid being paid on the purchase of gasoline," Wichita County Tax Assessor-Collector Tommy Smyth said in an email...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-hit-el ... 24808.html
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
theluckycountry wrote:Texas Power Prices to Surge 800% on Sunday Amid Searing Heat
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... aring-heat
doesn't Adam live down there?
theluckycager wrote:Imagine having to charge up your EV for a Sunday drive
The_Toecutter wrote:Plantagenet wrote:It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that they will be able to actually fix the problem with EV batteries exploding into flames since they didn't fix it during the previous recall.
Actually, there is a simple and easy solution to this.
Use a single string of large AH LiFePO4 chemistry batteries, with an initial bottom balancing, dumb charger, and no BMS.
This is a setup that entails minimal electronics, using a chemistry that instead of catching fire will instead simply melt and produce toxic smoke should it go into thermal runaway, and which is so simple that your average high school dropout could locate and swap out a bad cell should one develop and have the pack working again for about $50-100 per bad cell(there might only be 100-250 of them in the entire car in this sort of setup, and a problem will arise if just one cell goes bad, and it will usually be one at a time in this configuration). It's also a very reliable way to build a battery system.....
Then the industry uses a battery type that is more sexy for marketing purposes than it is practical, and thus more prone to catching fire while also requiring expensive/complicated electronics to work properly, and the designers also need the increased energy density offered by other more-volatile lithium chemistries to get decent range because the vehicles are designed to be oversized road hippos with the corporate styling zeitgeist dujour and an emphasis placed on brand identity in the vehicle's design both prioritized over aerodynamic drag reduction.
Instead of efficient EVs that consume 120-150 Wh/mile and are repairable with basic tools and built to last forever, we get road hippos that need 300+ Wh/mile and can't be fixed outside of a dealership and are destined for the landfill in 15 years. Guess what this does to the size/cost of the battery pack for a given amount of range? Guess what this does to purchase price AND operating cost?
And then everyone wonders why the working class can't afford to buy cars anymore...
Tanada wrote:
On the other hand if you are in Texas and your utility pays you a feed in tariff you can earn some serious profit right now pumping your home generated power into the grid. With the right kind of HEV or home generator system you can even do it burning fossil fuels.
The_Toecutter wrote:Actually, there is a simple and easy solution to this.
Use a single string of large AH LiFePO4 chemistry batteries, with an initial bottom balancing, dumb charger, and no BMS.
This is a setup that entails minimal electronics, using a chemistry that instead of catching fire will instead simply melt and produce toxic smoke should it go into thermal runaway, and which is so simple that your average high school dropout could locate and swap out a bad cell should one develop and have the pack working again for about $50-100 per bad cell(there might only be 100-250 of them in the entire car in this sort of setup, and a problem will arise if just one cell goes bad, and it will usually be one at a time in this configuration). It's also a very reliable way to build a battery system. Jack Rickard of evtv.me used them in the conversions he built, and 10 years after installation, the batteries were all within 0.001V of each other, with five-figure and six-figure mileages on the packs and never a BMS used. In fact, a BMS can destroy these batteries prematurely if you let the car sit long enough unused. The CALB CA100FI in my Triumph GT6 conversion are also all within 0.001V of each other, initially installed in 2014, also with no BMS.
You can only get away without a BMS if it is a single series string, so this does require large prismatic cells. If you have two or more parallel strings of batteries, they will go out of balance over time and will need a BMS. Do not do this with any other LiIon chemistry, only LiFePO4.
EnergyUnlimited wrote:Do you have any more information/references on this issue?
In particular how many cells you can connect in series without BMS?
The_Toecutter wrote:EnergyUnlimited wrote:Do you have any more information/references on this issue?
Yes, but I'll have to do some digging to find them again. Jack Rickard of evtv.me is the first person I was aware of to discover this. He passed away in 2020. He had hundreds of videos on his site, but only two of them I am aware of addressed this issue. His custom LiFePO4 powered vehicles did not use BMS and none of them went out of balance when kept as a single series string, even a decade later. The ones in my Triumph GT6 are within 0.001V of each other, and they were installed in 2013.In particular how many cells you can connect in series without BMS?
As many as will work for the voltage requirements of your components. If you need more capacity, you will need larger AH batteries. Most DC to AC solar inverters operate with anywhere from 12V to 48V nominal packs and have an appropriate input range. With 3.2V nominal per LiFePO4 battery, a 48V inverter would use 15 of them in series. I've seen large cells up to 800AH for sale.
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