Electric cars for Fossil cars

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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby South_Aussie_Hiker » Fri 15 Jun, 2018 10:41 pm

I’m all for the vast majority owning and driving electric cars.

But the post above seems to ignore the fact that batteries are consumables. The large price difference between a petrol and a plug in electric is the batteries.

Batteries are expensive to make. The servicing cost of replacing your car batteries could potentially run into the tens of thousands.

I’m all for it - but any device with a battery, the replacement cost and environmental impact of producing the batteries must be factored in.

It’s like electric lawn mowers (of which I own one) - it’s all well and good to have zero maintenance and enjoy saving $20/year in fuel... until your four year old battery dies and costs $300 (and a bunch of carbon to manufacture).
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby GPSGuided » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 6:28 am

Valid and important points there.

Tesla has a high entry price tag and then much of the maintenance costs are rolled by the company during the warranty period. As some owners are starting to find out, the costs skyrocketed once they are out of covered period for parts and services, let alone the cost of battery pack replacement.

Warning signs for the future in EV. Sensing it as if the EVs are going to become a disposable single use gadget, potentially erasing its projected environmental benefits. Time will tell.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby photohiker » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 9:24 am

Time will tell, but I'm not a fan of burning fossil fuels.

Battery life is different than normal batteries. The Lithium in the car will run to around 70% capacity after 300 to 500 cycles at 100 percent depth of discharge. The battery is still running, not stopped, just reducing the vehicle full range. Most EV owners plug the vehicle in well before the battery is empty and that will maintain the battery health for a very long time. The Toyota Prius since 1997 had a small NiMH battery expected to be replaced in a few years, but almost of them have continued for years and not required to be replaced, and lithium batteries would probably have been even better.

A cheap electric battery lawn mower is rarely maintained like an electric car used and maintained nearly every day.

Over long time, yes the battery might need to be replaced when the vehicle has enough range for the owner's distance. By then, the battery systems will have improved, will probably be cheaper to replace than when new, and will run even longer.

Our EV has shown zero change of battery capacity since new in 2014. Our house including the EV charging is neutral for power from solar. Compared to burning fossil fuels is way better. Of course, our EV isn't useful for long trips into the outback etc, but our daily travels are well in the range around the suburban area just like +90% of the population.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby photohiker » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 9:54 am

GPSGuided wrote:Valid and important points there.

Tesla has a high entry price tag and then much of the maintenance costs are rolled by the company during the warranty period. As some owners are starting to find out, the costs skyrocketed once they are out of covered period for parts and services, let alone the cost of battery pack replacement.

Warning signs for the future in EV. Sensing it as if the EVs are going to become a disposable single use gadget, potentially erasing its projected environmental benefits. Time will tell.


Teslas are currently an expensive version of electric cars. If you look around, there are several smaller and cheaper than the Tesla.

The electric cars only need minimal maintenance. Brake fluid every two years, tyres when they wear out. No oil, No belts, spark plugs, filters etc, etc.

Since 2014, that is it. No regular items required other than the brake fluid. Last year, the air filter for the ventilation was replaced, and this year we replaced two tyres and the others will probably be replaced in a few months.

Warning signs. Lol. Fossil fuel engines are regularly replacing items of rubber, aluminium, steel, filters, etc and wouldn't last as long as an EV:

The average age of Australia's vehicle fleet is 10.1 years, although more than 30 per cent of vehicles on the road are fewer than five years old.

https://www.caradvice.com.au/574207/aus ... 0-1-years/
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby ChrisJHC » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 11:30 am

Given that most Australian households have two cars, there is a very good argument for one electric vehicle for “round town” use and a petrol vehicle for other use.

The current high cost of entry for electric vehicles is a big issue.


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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby South_Aussie_Hiker » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 12:19 pm

It’s not just the purchase price of the batteries.

It’s also the carbon cost to manufacture. Mining for materials and manufacturing lithium batteries is a very heavy process. A replacement electric car battery costs a fortune because it is so costly (financially and environmentally) to produce.

I think the future will appear in the ability to recycle and remanufacture batteries with very little waste.

And batteries are only one method of storing energy. If we move away from cars to the electrical grid, batteries are not a good option because they are consumable and will require maintenance and replacement.

A better energy storage system for base load is to use solar and wind to pump water up to reservoirs, and then retrieve the energy through hydro generation.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby photohiker » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 12:54 pm

South_Aussie_Hiker wrote:It’s not just the purchase price of the batteries.

It’s also the carbon cost to manufacture. Mining for materials and manufacturing lithium batteries is a very heavy process. A replacement electric car battery costs a fortune because it is so costly (financially and environmentally) to produce.

I think the future will appear in the ability to recycle and remanufacture batteries with very little waste.

And batteries are only one method of storing energy. If we move away from cars to the electrical grid, batteries are not a good option because they are consumable and will require maintenance and replacement.

A better energy storage system for base load is to use solar and wind to pump water up to reservoirs, and then retrieve the energy through hydro generation.


Lol. So aren't we talking about Electric Cars and Fossil fuel cars? Maybe without a battery you can drag an electical cable.

Lithium is mined in several methods, once made into a battery it will be used for it's usable time and will then be recycled into newer batteries. Would be 10-20 years for each of them. They won't be dumped, they will be recycled.

lithium is usually extracted from lithium minerals that can be found in igneous rocks (chiefly spodumene) and from lithium chloride salts that can be found in brine pools. [4] The largest producer of lithium in the world is Chile, which extracts it from brine at the Atacama Salt Flat.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/

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https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/ele ... ent-kelly/
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby Nuts » Sat 16 Jun, 2018 5:13 pm

photohiker wrote:
Lithium is mined in several methods, once made into a battery it will be used for it's usable time and will then be recycled into newer batteries. Would be 10-20 years for each of them. They won't be dumped, they will be recycled.



Comprising of so many individual 'cells' (traditional looking tubes/pouches/'leaves' etc.) lots of consumer lithium batteries (eg power tool batteries) fail while many of the cells are still fine, with the battery in fail mode from the battery management system, triggered from a dodgy one or a group of the many cells (000's in a car) There's a big demand for wrecked e-cars to salvage the cells for other use. I read recently of an AU recycling technology to reuse car batteries intact in home solar application and adding possibly another decade of domestic use after the car-power life is done (even before recycling the cells themselves is necessary). The final stage, component recycling, is at around 95% return of materials as I understand.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby north-north-west » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 8:42 am

So are the small 'disposable' lithium batteries recycleable? I'm moving to rechargeables for the GPS and similar toys, but I like to have a few lithiums on hand for backup.

Apologies for the digression.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby photohiker » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 9:34 am

north-north-west wrote:So are the small 'disposable' lithium batteries recycleable? I'm moving to rechargeables for the GPS and similar toys, but I like to have a few lithiums on hand for backup.

Apologies for the digression.


No worries.

Yes, the lithium batteries are recyclable. Just need to find where to drop them off in Tasmania. We have found recycle places around Adelaide so there should be somewhere in your area.

We have dropped any batteries like Alkaline and Lithium to the recycle place AA AAA 9V etc and they have accepted all of them. Better than dumping them in the rubbish tip.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby north-north-west » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 9:47 am

Thanks. There seem to be a number of places around Hobart that say they accept them. Will have to stop off at the nearest next time I'm going past and check. Much better than them going to landfill.

This is another thing that should be publicised more widely. Maybe signs in stores above the battery racks so people know there is a better option than just chucking them in the bin?
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby South_Aussie_Hiker » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 9:54 am

Battery world (the purple shop) accept all batteries for recycling. Not sure if you have them in Tas?
They do accept lithium primaries (disposable, single use lithium).
Now we finally have a recycling plant in Australia capable of recycling lithium, it should reduce the carbon having to ship all our spent batteries all over the world.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby Nuts » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 1:37 pm

You can now get rechargable Lithium AA (for the weight watchers)

Disposing of waste is a concern, maybe charge a deposit, dollars a piece.

Re-use
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-07/w ... es/9398100
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby GPSGuided » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 7:58 pm

photohiker wrote:Yes, the lithium batteries are recyclable. Just need to find where to drop them off in Tasmania. We have found recycle places around Adelaide so there should be somewhere in your area.

In light of recent revelations, these days I’m a tad sceptical of recycling claims unless by very specific companies. No confidence in council and retailers’ ‘recycling’ collections. Some of them have turned out to be just PR exercises. We need to see and understand their full process to believe.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby South_Aussie_Hiker » Sun 17 Jun, 2018 8:47 pm

Completely agree. And we need to more recycling here and less overseas.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby photohiker » Mon 18 Jun, 2018 9:12 am

Denying the facts doesn’t change the reality.

Previously, any lithium batteries dropped off at a recycling business, were collected and either stored or transported overseas. Now, there is a local Australian lithium recycling plant and most of the lithiums would be transported to that recycling plant.

How do I know this info? Because I regularly visit a recycling place to pick up one of our sons who works there. Have watched how the recycling place separates and stores each item and transports them to the correct place to continue the remanufacture for each item. If they don’t send the items correct, they simply don’t get payment.

If you don’t understand how the recycling places work, then hopefully this info will help you understand.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby GPSGuided » Mon 18 Jun, 2018 10:35 am

Yes, we need more direct info of the processes to build confidence. Similar with all the 'organic' and 'free range' labels, so many are just marketing game. I'm glad the recent kick in the butt and potentially pushing for more domestic recycling programs here in Australia. It's ridiculous to dispose so much our wastage and pollution to other regions of the world whilst not changing our wasteful lifestyle.
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby Nuts » Tue 19 Jun, 2018 11:45 am

Recycling, generally, needs a much larger and more immediate response.
This isn't the situation for EV batteries yet. Far too valuable and a long way from a saturated market.
Doesn't appear to be an issue at our relative pace.

I understand Tassie councils are supposed to take all consumer batteries, the small household batteries in a receptacle at the council offices.
This was part of the 'Re-Think Waste' initiative. I wonder how many people know? or have used the service? (I haven't needed it yet/ assume it's still in place/ just drop them there anyway..)
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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby Franco » Tue 19 Jun, 2018 12:16 pm

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Re: Electric cars for Fossil cars

Postby Nuts » Tue 19 Jun, 2018 4:00 pm

So no real value other than for devices needing the lithium constant output..? and a meager few grams saved in comparable capacity
hmm ..maybe in zebralight Li batteries would stop the annoying flash warning.
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