[carthick1000]

Who am I?
Indian living in the Netherlands for almost a decade. A team-bhp member for about 14 years and an automotive engineer turned software engineer working on autonomous vehicles. Btw, this is also my official introduction post. Bear with me,

What am I writing about?
My experiences with electric car ownership, the ecosystem in which they operate and the general mindset towards EVs.

Why I think my point of view is interesting for a fellow Tbhp-ian?
I have been owning and using an Electric car for few years now (Hyundai Ioniq, followed by a BMW i3, briefly, followed by Tesla model 3) in the Netherlands, which is one of the best EV friendly countries in the world. And I have worked as a research engineer on lithium ion batteries esp. focussed on using them for second life applications ie. in non-traction applications (eg. solar/wind energy storage). So I have a bit of experience with EVs personally and professionally.

Why this thread?
There was quite an interesting poll about what stops you from buying an EV. That was the spark for my thread. In my opinion, team-bhp is a forward thinking automotive community where thinking far into future is a norm rather than an exception, but still these polls exist for a reason. So much people want to adopt EVs, but something is stopping them and I would like to contribute my 2 cents, so that people on the other side of the fence will not only look over, but dare to cross.

How to navigate this thread?
It is simple. I would like to keep it 'The Hindu' Editorial style text only thread where I share my experiences under the three topics as Q&As : Electric cars, Ecosystem & Mindset. Sorry for people, who would like to see pictures, videos, links etc. in the post. There is none. I think providing links and pics might not be needed as I just want to share this like a personal blog article. Just like 2 friends talking with each other. Also every person is different and their needs for mobility is different. So I assume people can use this thread to make informed decisions about getting their hands on EVs. And of course, I have added some tips and search words here and there throughout the article, which might come in handy.


Electric cars

What is kW and kWh?
The first is power and the second one is energy. The amount of energy you can store in a battery is measured in kWh and the amount of energy it can deliver per unit time is kW. That is why battery capacity is specified in kWh and the power delivered by a motor in kW.

What is Wh/km and kWh/100km
These are 2 representations of an EV's efficiency, slightly comparable to km/L or L/100km. Wh/km is the amount of electrical energy utilised by an EV to drive one km. Say, if an EV 's efficiency is 200Wh/km and it has a battery capacity of 40kWh (or 40000Wh), then if you charge it to 100%, you should be able to drive 40000/200 = 200kms until the state of charge is 0%. But in real life, you probably don't want to charge it to 100% always and don't discharge to 0% every time.

Why is real world efficiency more interesting?
To answer this, I would like to let the cat out of the bag. When I saw the efficiency figures posted by ARAI, I think of one thing. Only an ARAI test driver in laboratory conditions will be able to achieve those figures, because in real world it is a completely different story. For eg. ARAI specified Hyundai kona to have an efficiency of about ~90Wh/km. It is possible when half of your trip is on flat roads and the rest downhill. The efficiency of an EV depends on various factors: Speed, Coefficient of Drag, outside temperature, airco heating or cooling, load in the car, tire pressure and some other minor things which might not be very interesting. I use a data logging tool for my Tesla, It is called teslamate (It's open source and free. Checkout adriankumpf/teslamate on github.) I have hosted teslamate on my private cloud ,which basically logs all the information about my car, driving, charging, vampire drain, visited places etc. etc. Based on the information from teslamate and my earlier logs from i3 and of course from experience, I can say the following about how each factor affects real world efficiency:

• Higher the speed, lower the efficiency. My daily drive is about 75km one way, which consists of 60km of highways (100-120kmph), 12km of rural roads (80kmph) and 3 km of city limits (50kmph) with a bit of stop and go in the last part. On highways, my instantaneous range is about 180-190Wh/km (Mind you model 3 is a very efficient EV), 150-160Wh/km on rural roads and about 140-150Wh/km on city roads. When there is a lot of stop and go, I get the EV benefit or regen which translates to 130Wh/km. All these values are at ~25degC with airco set to 22.5degC and running on summer tyres. Keep in mind as you will see later what role ambient temperature plays. Since it is the Netherlands (literally translates to low lands), there is not much of elevation. According to Teslamate, I start at 8m from MSL and go to a whopping 30m above sea level and reach my work at -3m altitude. That's a maximum of 5-6 storey building difference in elevation over 75kms. So neglible.
• Higher Coefficient of drag, lower the efficiency. For the same daily drive above, when I look at the figures for a BMW i3, highway section is 210-230Wh/km, rural roads 180-200Wh/km and city limits about 150-160Wh/km. With my Hyundai Ioniq, I also got values similar to model 3. Combining this and the previous aspect, we can safely say a boxier EV is not the most efficient. And by the way, off-topic, Lucid air (another luxury electric sedan) achieved a very low coefficient of drag (0.21Cd) recently
• EVs, like human beings, need comfortable climate (approx. 20-30 degC) to be efficient: Colder the weather (colder i mean reducing in steps <20degC), lesser the range and hotter the weather (>30degC), you degrade the battery faster, but range is not as badly affected as cold weather. That is why most range values in EV specifications have a * - Performed at 25degC. Also note that, BMS algorithms are designed in such a way that when the batteries become too warm due to a combination of hot outside temperature and driving too fast (Read Autobahn), power might be limited until the battery is back to it safe temperature limit. We have to see how Nexon performs in very hot days and at high speeds. Fortunately (or Unfortunately) , we don't have Autobahn in India. Also in very colder weather, the amount of regeneration might be limited by BMS.
• In cold weather regions, using heating the cabin consumes a lot of energy from batteries. I have seen about 1500~2000Wh/km for heating on a very cold day (around O degC) at the very beginning of the drive for a few minutes. After the cabin reaches set temperature (22.5degC), then the consumption drops to a lower steady value, but still the above said happy day (25degC) scenarios are not applicable anymore. Then a model 3 behaves like an i3 and i3 like a model X in terms of energy efficiency . Since most of India does not have a very cold weather, I think it is not very interesting for most people, but still this might be interesting for some regions in India. So the ARAI value of ~90Wh/km for Kona on a cold day in J&K doesn't hold water. You can expect somewhere around 250Wh/km
• Load in the car and tire pressure affect the efficiency the same way just like any other ICE car. Only the combination of this aspect with above factors worsens efficiency badly.

Why EVs are better than ICE (Internal Combustion Engined) cars?

• EVs can be upto 85% efficient in using their energy, whereas even the most advanced passenger ICE cars tops at 40%. Exceptions are there like formula 1 cars, but not practical
• Less heat and noise production than ICE cars. This leads to a quiet and vibration free driving experience. This is not only comfortable but also has a positive impact on health and hearing esp.
• Less parts in total, which means less maintenance costs. You need to change only what is broken. If there is only 200 components (EVs), instead of 2000 components (ICE) to break, you have a much more reliable vehicle.
• 1 liter (70INR) of petrol or diesel in a modern ICE car takes you 18kms. For the same price, an EV having an efficiency of 200Wh/km (Yes that is how efficiency measurement is shown in most EVs and is more logical) would be taking you 70kms (I used 5INR /kWh as electricity price but it can be still cheaper.). Simply put, ~1INR/km for EV vs ~4INR/km for an ICE car.
• The only fluid you need to change often is windshield wiper fluid. The brake fluid change might not be needed as frequent as an ICE car, because you have regeneration, and the battery coolant fluid might not even be changed during the life of the car.
• You will not feel the lack of power anytime. Uphills and traffic light starts are peppy to encounter rather than their ICE counterparts, unless the ICE is few classes higher or tuned for performance.
• EVs generally tend to have better standard equipment on the lowest level trims than ICE cars. This is how OEMs try to justify the higher price of EVs in a quantitative way to the average buyer.
• Almost all EVs have automatic gearing as standard and no hassles of changing gears.
• EVs usually tend to have remote support via apps to monitor their battery state of charge, remotely open and close doors, turn on/off airco etc.
• EVs are exactly opposite to ICEs in terms of city vs highway driving in terms of energy efficiency. EVs love stop and go city traffic, as every braking (or releasing the accelerator pedal) action recuperates the energy and stores in the battery. This not only saves energy , but also is comfortable as you don't have to move your leg between accelerator and brake pedals, so often, like in an ICE car.
• EVs enjoy purchase subsidies and road tax waivers. This is depending on state and nationwide policies. I have less experience with how it works in India, but in the Netherlands EVs enjoy a wide array of fiscal benefits. Some examples are: In addition to VAT, ICE cars have to pay a tax based on how much CO2 emitted per km, whereas it is nil for EVs ((Difference of about 4000EUR between a ICE VW Golf and e-Golf),). Also EVs don't have to pay road tax until 2024 (Diifference of about 5500EUR for diesel vs e-Golf and 2500EUR for petrol vs e-Golf over 4 years). Business purchases can get tax returns for a certain percentage of the EV's price and Company EV users pay less benefit-in-kind taxes than their fellow ICE users; subsidies for new (4000EUR) and used (2000EUR) car purchases for personal buyers in 2020 etc.
• Electric powertrains have much less components/systems than ICE powertrains, which takes up less space in the overall vehicle design. This leaves room for more passenger and storage space.

Why ICE cars are better than EVs?

• Comparing the same body class of ICEs vs EVs (sedan vs sedan, crossover vs crossover), EVs have a larger inertia due to their weight and it feels different (until you get used to it) as all the weight is sitting low to ground. Though EVs have low COG, the corners feel like you are sliding than rolling in an ICE car
• Also changing cornering directions (say a roundabout) will feel lethargic in an EV than in an ICE
• Low initial purchase price
• Can fuel anywhere easily due to abundance of fuel pumps, unlike EVs which are predominantly dependent on Destination chargers
• EVs cannot produce neither the sounds of V8s and V12s nor the vibes associated driving an ICE car. You can't shift gears, heel-to-toe downshifts, however there is a lot of noiseless regeneration (engine braking in ICEs) at your disposal. Mankind, largely, is a creature of habit and it definitely is hard to break habits.

What are some of the gray areas between EVs and ICEs in terms of advantages and disadvantages over one another?
The 2 major gray areas as far I see coming up commonly are : Total vehicle emissions and child labour for extraction of Lithium for EV batteries. Talking about emissions, EVs have zero tailpipe emissions (Almost none have a fake tailpipe ) period. But, with the popularity of EVs, there is a lot of push back from oil companies and Automotive OEM lobbies to look at the emissions of the vehicle from cradle to grave instead of only tailpipe emissions, ie to look at emissions from production of a car, battery and the electricity generation Vs Oil production emissions until disposal/reuse of such battery packs/cars to its end of life. IMHO, no OEM or any independent organisation has verified it to a full extent if ICEs are better than EVs or vice versa. Hence I call this a gray area. Regarding child labour, I wonder if this happens only for Cobalt extraction. What about diamonds and all sorts of things which is available in abundance in some poorer under developed parts of the world? I am not sure and hence it is another gray area for me.

What are some commonalities between ICEs and EVs?

• In the past decade, EVs have become much more mainstream and are able to compete directly with ICE counterparts in certain regions of the world. This is a healthy competition and paves way for advancements in mobility solutions.
• Accelerating an EV too hard affects the range, just like in an ICE
• Lightweight ICE sports cars are fun in corners and High performance EVs are a blast in straight line accelerations. As an automotive enthusiast, IMHO, this is the best time to live and have fun with 2 completely different powertrains.

Do you have to worry about battery degradation?
Yes and No. Modern EVs use advanced lithium ion battery technologies and this is growing at a rapid pace. Some automotive OEMs make battery packs themselves, some OEMs buy whole packs from major battery suppliers and some buy individual modules/cells and build the pack themselves. So with a bit of online search, you can find who supplies battery packs/modules/cells for an EV. But this is not the whole story. Battery packs/modules/cells are all controlled by the battery management system (BMS). This is a piece of hardware running the software developed by the OEM (sometimes with the support of the pack/module/cell manufacturer). This BMS part is predominantly the intellectual property of the OEMs and not available easily in public domain. So we cannot run any simulations / accelerated testing to analyse if a new EV in the market is going to have batteries which last for a long time. Given the rate at which lithium ion technologies grow and historical data from EV forums available online (Search for Geotab battery degradation tool and Maarten steinbuch's blog on Tesla degradation data), we can see that EV batteries are generally very good and degrade quite slowly. Unless you are driving more than 2,00,000 kms or always fast charging, there is no need to worry. However, for new EVs in the market, we neither have historical data nor the OEMs divulge a lot of insider information. Just like when an OEM launches a new ICE car with a new type of Engine, only time will tell how fast or slow it degrades (I mean wears out). Most EVs provide a decent amount of time/km based warranty for the battery packs. I think this is more than enough for normal usage patterns, given you charge and discharge between 15% and 85% most of the times.

Ecosystem

What do I mean by Ecosystem?
I think of ecosystem as everything around the usage of Electric car, ie charging points, apps, EV communites and forums etc. which all combine to provide a unique experience.

Why don't you need a charging infrastructure to start with?
I will consider 2 practical scenarios from my experience ie Daily usage vs Trips or outings
Netherlands has the most number of EV charging points of any country in the world (Norway is second I think) and it is growing fast. I cannot complain. But when I look at teslamate for the past 1 year, I have charged more than 85% of the time from either a home 15A socket (Well sometimes I use a public charging point near my home as it is cheaper and faster 11kW btw) or a 15A socket at my office. A 15A, 220V socket provides atleast 3kW and that is all you need to get an EV with a 30kWh battery pack from 10-90% State of Charge in 8 hours. You don't really need fancy equipment. So the key is not charging infrastructure along the way, but destination charging. You only need chargers along the way, if you are a road warrior doing long journeys 90% of the time. Then probably EVs might not be interesting for you at the moment, as your primary drive, given the low (or almost no) charging infrastructure in India. For all other normal people doing normal commutes, who has the possibility to have a power socket (as powerful to plug in your electric Iron box) at your disposal is sufficient. When you are at home, sleeping at night, or at office working, your car can charge. If you have a business, make one or more in your premises or ask your company to provide just 15A waterproof sockets in the parking lot, that is more than sufficient. Not everyone is making 1000 km trips everyday. You don't have to worry about waiting at tank stations, fluctuating fuel prices, strikes of fuel pump owners etc. etc.

Addressing the remaining 15% of time (the dreaded part ), ie when you want to go on a road trip, this is where people find it hard to manage with an EV. It is always interesting to see people make decisions on thinking about the 15% usage scenario than the 85% scenario.Even in some of the western European countries it is still the case. Back to the point, If I want to drive mainly on highways within European countries, I am very well covered by Tesla superchargers and other 3rd party providers like FastNed, Ionity, Fortum etc.. But if I want to take off to rural European roads, then comes the questions

• Is there a charging point along the way or in the next village where I would like to have a cup of coffee?
• If there is a charging point, is any one of my 8 different RFID chips or the 5 various apps on my phone from various chargepoint operators going to start the charging session in that charging point?

So, rest assured. No one can escape the brunt of adopting to new technologies, without having some compromises esp. in early phase of adoption. Thankfully, the EVs now-a-days are having more and more range and that makes these worries a bit less, but still these luxury problems exist even in the so called developed Western European countries. So IMHO, instead of seeing the negatives, I always try to find ways to overcome these shortcomings.These following 2 ways works for me. And waiting for the government to build infrastructure is not one among the 2 ways.

1. If you have an EV with a range of 250-300kms, plan a trip to cover the range in a single day and reach at a destination charger. Personally, I am okay with driving 600-700kms in a day in Europe, but for our Indian roads I am already fatigued after about 300kms. Again all you need here is a 15A socket at the end of a day to plug in. I would always carry a 15m extension cable in my car, just in case as I find it handy and it has helped me in several scenarios. Yes, now-a-days you can filter airbnbs and booking sites for EV charging points (atleast in Europe AFAIK)
2. The another way is to plan detours in such a way that I can visit some of the interesting rural areas and then go to my next destination via a charging point. This causes minor inconvenience, but hey I am travelling and anything new or not explored by me is interesting. In fact, I have come across a lot of gems while doing these detours in Sweden, Norway, Germany and France. With an ICE car, I might have missed them. This second option might not be interesting with the current level of charging infrastructure in India, but time will tell. I saw an old video (Late 90's) of how Dutch people reacted when mobile phone was launched and almost everyone said, they don't need one. The video is on YouTube (in Dutch), but probably there is one with english subtitles if you can find it.

What are the types of charging one need to know?
AC and DC. All the cables, connectors, fast, slow, super fast are all details which you can find information elsewhere. EVs have Batteries which supply and receive DC. If you have AC power availlable (the classic 15A socket), then you use the charging cable provided with the EV to plug into the vehicle. The vehicle has an onboard charger which converts AC to DC. Usually AC charging is considered slow, because it is not very efficient to have a very big onboard charger on the car and energy losses associated with it. AC charging peaks at 22kW (atleast in the Dutch charging points). DC charging is directly connecting your EV to DC power source (also called a fast / super charger). These have a bit bigger cables and usually have cables (that are sometimes liquid cooled) and connectors already attached to it. They supply DC directly to the EV batteries and they start from 20kW onwards (I have seen upto 350kW in Europe) and some EVs can charge in excess of 250kW (Porsche Taycan Turbo 270kW, Tesla model 3 250kW). This is only for a few minutes during a charging session and with certain ambient temperature conditions. Say if you have a MG ZS EV, it has a 44.5kWh battery pack, comes with a 7kW onboard charger and supports maximum 50kW DC charging. This means even if you plug into an 22kW AC charging point, it can only charge at 7kW and nothing more. So 44,5/7 = ~6,5 hours to fully charge it. Note that I have not calculated any losses, because that is a separate subject in itself. If you plug in to a 200kW DC charger it can only charge at 50kW and that too for a brief moment of time. That is what the EV is designed for. With DC charging, it is not as simple as 44,5/50 = ~53mins to charge fully but the charging curve looks completely different than AC charging. Also it is not very interesting to plug in an EV in a DC charger after reaching 80% (some EVs 70%) as the charging power starts to drop considerably after 50% state of charge. If you want to look at DC fast charging curves, the website of FastNed has them for various EVs, among which some EVs are also available in Indian market.


Mindset

What do I mean by mindset?
Driving an electric car makes us aware of a lot of things which until now we took for granted, while driving an ICE car. Because as an EV user, you are not only a car user, but a fuel pump owner (I mean the charging point at your home or work) and a Power station/ Grid (If you have solar panels on your home roof storing energy at night and feeding your cars at night). You form the whole value chain of energy production to consumption. It is a holistic approach to mobility. The feeling of not wasting energy (just like closing the tap of water or turning the lights off when not using) as noise, heat or exhaust gases and enjoying a silent powertrain with a decent tap of torque at your disposal is interesting.

Should I consider buying an EV?
Yes is a very simple answer, but I want to bring a bit more scenarios and see if it is interesting for everyone or some people are good with just ICE cars. I like scenario analysis (Also part of my job too, so I can try). There can be a lot of combinations of below scenarios. But, I would like to keep it extremely simple. I mentioned in the scenarios the possibility to charge. This is something that you already have or can arrange it with a little effort like having an extension cable in your apartment or running a cable (safely) over your compound wall, asking your employer to arrange etc. etc. I leave that to your imagination.

• 1 vehicle - Possibility to charge at home but not at work - Long trips occasionally - Yes
• 1 vehicle - Possibility to charge at work but not at home - Long trips occasionally - Maybe
• 1 or more vehicles - No possibility to charge at home or work - Not yet
• 1 vehicle - Possibility to charge at home or work - Long trips excessively - Not yet
• 2 or more vehicles - Possibility to charge at home but not at work - Long trips occasionally - Yes
• 2 or more vehicles - Possibility to charge at work but not at home - Long trips occasionally - Yes
• 2 or more vehicles - Possibility to charge at home or work - Long trips excessively - 1 Maybe electric

Why EV ownership can be a steep learning curve?
Anyone who has an EV and made a long trip for the very first time can tell that the experience is different from a normal ICE car trip. Though, we all know how to use a car and how to drive and all sorts of things associated with making a long trip, using an EV demands a bit more planning that with a normal car (Talking about planning, checkout abetterrouteplanner.com, useful if you travel with an EV in Europe or USA. May be soon for India). This can be a bit frustrating for a new EV user. The frustration comes not from the technology itself, but from new ways of doing things that we already think we know. Once we grow past this phase, then it becomes second nature and people will start to enjoy the EV experience. I think this is a hurdle which one needs to cross and it is part of every learning experience. I bring this forward, because most people, when they think of an EV, they think about how big is the range, instead of what range do i need? It is as simple as you want eat light or a sumptuous meal. Only you know best, what you want

What is TCO and why it is interesting for EVs?
Total Cost of Ownership, which means not only the cost of the car, but the whole cost of ownership from purchase of a car, fuellling/charging, maintenance, taxes/subsidies until the end of its useful life to you. This is completely a personal finance thing and there are a lot of online tools you can use to calculate the TCO of a car. The reason you have to see TCO is, though EVs are initially high on price, depending on your usage, the TCO will be cheaper than ICE cars. If you buy a Nexon Diesel automatic and a friend of yours buys a similarly spec'ed Nexon EV, after 1 Lakh km, you would have spent 4 Lakh INR on fuel and he/she would have spent a bit less than 1 Lakh on Electricity. Not mentioning the advantages of less maintenance costs, subsidies, less taxes that EVs enjoy. If you see the whole picture, EVs seem to have a better value proposition.

What to see when something is not existing?
Opportunity to create it ourselves. Say if the charging infrastructure is not there, why not install a charging point at home and some solar panels, so that you don't depend on the grid or the local fuel pump forever. The same applies to businesses, that they can build business cases for DC fast chargers on busy intercity corridors and you will be surprised how this is going to turn up in a few years from now. See FastNed or Ionity in Europe, for example.

I wanted to write a nice conclusion, but I don't know if it adds more value. So I hope you find the article useful. Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Karthik

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the EV Section. Thanks for sharing!

Linking to my thread on understanding Electric Cars too (Electric Cars...through the eyes of a diehard petrol-head).

Will go to homepage today

[Jeroen]

Thanks for sharing your experience. A question about wintertime, i.e. low ambient temperatures. I understand the heater would draw a lot of power, but can you be more specific about the effects of a lower ambient temperature on range? How much range would you get at say 0oC and -10oC compared to 20-25oC.

So a comparison on temperature effect on range with everything else equal, no AC, no heating.

What are your thoughts on how long these current batteries will last. You say not to worry, but can you quantify the sort of degradation one can expect?. Overtime capacity will degrade of course, but to what extend? It is an important factor to the general acceptance of EVs in the Netherlands. Average age of cars is well over 11-12 years, many folks drive second hand. I dont have data at hand, but I think that EVs is still largely company car territory? Certainly the Tesla and most likely anything over Euro 35000. It's those cars that, to a large extend feed the second hand market.

Jeroen

[GT Racer]

Very much informative, loved your writing style as that of Hindu editorials.
Only mass market EVs in India currently are Kona, MG ZS & Tata Nexon Ev. Out of these three only Nexon is what I call affordable for the mass market but it has lesser realistic range of about 200 odd kms.
Nexon & MG ZS are at a different level most people don't wanna spend 30 bigger lacs for an EV you know range anxiety is a stark reality. Most of us guys travel under 150 kms daily from home to work & back. So, a 400 km range is a sufficient buffer for us & only the traffic in big metros is worsening day by day EV seems the best city cars to curb increasing pollution & Noise pollution too is bad in Delhi-NCR region.

There have been several recent incidents of Hyundai kona EV catching fire in Canada have not heard anything why it occured till yet?

hopefully in the upcoming years EV will pick up the pace & we all could enjoy city driving more also cleaner air.

In my dream garage I want a reliable 400+ km range EV, a diesel sedan for long distance trips and all.

Govt. has passed the EV framework for an ecosystem of charging station on all NH's & in major metros which we might have started seeing from december this year itself but the pandemic has changed the pace of it.

Hope to see more here about the ecosystem in Netherlands!

[SKC-auto]

Thanks for writing a detailed know how on EVs.

One thing I disagree though.

Regarding child labour, I wonder if this happens only for Lithium extraction. What about diamonds and all sorts of things which is available in abundance in some poorer under developed parts of the world?

I think you are talking about cobalt from Congo( never read about child labour in Lithium extraction). Battery manufacturers are trying to extract cobalt in an ethical way(though some gaps may exist), also some companies are using block chain to trace back on the cobalt extraction.

Also cobalt is used as a catalyst for oil refining, and we were refining oil for decades and no one talked about child labour or never felt guilt when driving ICE cars. Suddenly everyone are concerned about child labour to attack EVs.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

How much range would you get at say 0oC and -10oC compared to 20-25oC.

So a comparison on temperature effect on range with everything else equal, no AC, no heating.

What are your thoughts on how long these current batteries will last. You say not to worry, but can you quantify the sort of degradation one can expect?. Overtime capacity will degrade of course, but to what extend? It is an important factor to the general acceptance of EVs in the Netherlands.

Jeroen

From what I read and EV owner videos the decrease in range would be anywhere between 25% to 40% in extreme cold.

Batteries do not degrade linearly, the first year will be 3-5%, 2nd year 2-3%, after which it stabilizes to 1% every year lot depends on the usage of the owner. Many initial Tesla model S (which just completed 8 years of sales ) still have 90% battery left. We can actually see degradation in Tesla's because they do not hide any buffer capacity. Many EVs start with 5-10% buffers. Like Porsche Taycan which has 95kwh battery but uses only 83.5kwh battery, remaining 11.5kwh is in buffer.

[reihem]

I've owned an EV for less than a year; agree with a lot of what you say. I think as an Indian EV owner there are few points of divergence.

1. Apart from the brave BHPians who have pulled off long trips, the average Indian EV owner is likely to behave like me for the foreseeable future - EV for city, ICE for highways. I am patiently waiting for the long promised charging infra to be deployed.

2. The energy value chain thought process is different here - I have no illusions about the source of my energy ( more of it isn't clean ), hence that holistic approach sticks a little else.


I rented a leaf when I was in the Netherlands last year, and a model X in California towards the end of 2018. What a pleasure to drive an EV in a country with dedicated EV infra.

[123.rishabh]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

What is TCO and why it is interesting for EVs?
Total Cost of Ownership, which means not only the cost of the car, but the whole cost of ownership from purchase of a car, fuellling/charging, maintenance, taxes/subsidies until the end of its useful life to you. This is completely a personal finance thing and there are a lot of online tools you can use to calculate the TCO of a car. The reason you have to see TCO is, though EVs are initially high on price, depending on your usage, the TCO will be cheaper than ICE cars. If you buy a Nexon Diesel automatic and a friend of yours buys a similarly spec'ed Nexon EV, after 1 Lakh km, you would have spent 4 Lakh INR on fuel and he/she would have spent a bit less than 1 Lakh on Electricity. Not mentioning the advantages of less maintenance costs, subsidies, less taxes that EVs enjoy. If you see the whole picture, EVs seem to have a better value proposition.

Thanks for sharing, your thread was really informative. Its always better to understand about a new technology from another user.
I agree with the range part, that most people consider the range anxiety as a problem without even understanding how much will they be using in their daily commute.

I personally find two major issues in the TCO part
1. None of the EV dealers in India (Tata, Mahindra, MG, Hyundai) know about the battery replacement cost after the warranty expires (Have heard rumours that it is almost half the cost of the vehicle)

2. What will be the resale of the vehicle after a few years from now ? (I think only time will tell this)

I also had a doubt about the working of cabin heaters in EVs. As you said it consumes a lot of electricity when using the heater, so i assume it doesn't use the hot coolant from the battery for heating the inside the car ? (Just like Hot coolant from the engine is used in the heater core in ICE Cars)

[GT Racer]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks for sharing your experience. A question about wintertime, i.e. low ambient temperatures. I understand the heater would draw a lot of power, but can you be more specific about the effects of a lower ambient temperature on range? How much range would you get at say 0oC and -10oC compared to 20-25oC.

So a comparison on temperature effect on range with everything else equal, no AC, no heating.

What are your thoughts on how long these current batteries will last. You say not to worry, but can you quantify the sort of degradation one can expect?. Overtime capacity will degrade of course, but to what extend? It is an important factor to the general acceptance of EVs in the Netherlands. Average age of cars is well over 11-12 years, many folks drive second hand. I dont have data at hand, but I think that EVs is still largely company car territory? Certainly the Tesla and most likely anything over Euro 35000. It's those cars that, to a large extend feed the second hand market.

Jeroen

Hi, Here is a youtuber I follow, this guy collects a lot of data & show different real world test he performs.
here is the battery drain test he did on a Porsche Taycan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtbwqvcVd_k&t=562s

And for the efficency of Heat pump of Tesla Model 3
Note: Tesla Model 3 was the first tesla car to have a heat pump installed
Heat pumps for HVAC in EV's is perfected by Hyundai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0C6YzJDgrQ

Hope this was somewhat helpful.

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks for sharing your experience. A question about wintertime, i.e. low ambient temperatures. I understand the heater would draw a lot of power, but can you be more specific about the effects of a lower ambient temperature on range? How much range would you get at say 0oC and -10oC compared to 20-25oC.

So a comparison on temperature effect on range with everything else equal, no AC, no heating.

Glad that your asked. Here the real world efficiency of my driving in the past 9 months, which has varying ambient temperatures.



Note: I don't have data without Airco or heating, however I always keep the temperature setting at 22.5degC which I think is more realistic and constant cabin temperature.The first row is an outlier, as I was driving around our neighborhood after a software update and a lot of idle with airco ON. With this efficiency figure, I can calculate for my model 3 Standard range plus (50kWh pack) how much range I got. So at 0degC I can drive ~232km (50kWh / 21.46kWh/100km) and at 20degC, ~359km (50kWh / 13.91kWh/100km)

Originally Posted by Jeroen

What are your thoughts on how long these current batteries will last. You say not to worry, but can you quantify the sort of degradation one can expect?. Overtime capacity will degrade of course, but to what extend? It is an important factor to the general acceptance of EVs in the Netherlands.
Jeroen

As I mentioned in the post, Geotab has a historical data of 6000EVs and based on that I have picked some cars from their fleet here:



Even more interesting is the public document maintained my Tesla model S (and some model X and model 3) users over a very long period now. I think this is the most extensive degradation data collected in any public EV forum(source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=826479810) But the battery pack design of Tesla is completely different than most other mainstream EVs on the market. Here the chart:



Except for few outliers, most of them have a degradation of about 10% of original capacity after 1,50,000 miles (2,40,000kms)

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Average age of cars is well over 11-12 years, many folks drive second hand. I dont have data at hand, but I think that EVs is still largely company car territory?

Yes, I think so too a lot of them are on company fleet, but with the prices of EVs dropping, this trend might change. I tried to find some statistics on opendata.rdw.nl (Dutch open source data platform) about private / company cars, but couldn't find it.

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

I think you are talking about cobalt from Congo

Thanks for correcting. It was a (technical) lexical selection error ie was thinking of cobalt and writing Lithium

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by 123.rishabh

2. What will be the resale of the vehicle after a few years from now ? (I think only time will tell this)

On resale value, here in The Netherlands the newer generation EVs (not the old Nissan Leaf , Citroen C zero etc.) say after 2014, retain their resale value quite good. Also this is indirectly seen in how leasing companies calculate (lesser) depreciation for pricing their lease costs compared to ICE cars. Also EVs have lesser maintenance, which might also drive the lease prices down.

Originally Posted by 123.rishabh

I also had a doubt about the working of cabin heaters in EVs. As you said it consumes a lot of electricity when using the heater, so i assume it doesn't use the hot coolant from the battery for heating the inside the car ? (Just like Hot coolant from the engine is used in the heater core in ICE Cars)

The reason model 3 uses resistance heaters to heat the cabin and most other EVs too use resistance heating. A relatively more efficient way of heating is using the heatpump, which is used by some EVs. eg.: new nissan leaf, BMW i3 (optional) and Tesla model Y. Tesla model Y particularly uses a combination of heatpump to use ambient heat and heat from battery coolant, AFAIK.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

I wanted to write a nice conclusion, but I don't know if it adds more value. So I hope you find the article useful.

Most useful. Thank you.

Originally Posted by carthick1000

I have been owning and using an Electric car for few years now in the Netherlands, which is one of the best EV friendly countries in the world.

This makes all the difference in deciding whether to adopt or not.

What is the peak measured power draw at the wall socket when you charge at home? I am sure this figure varies depending on the state of the battery.

Having lived most of my life in India and now in New Zealand, I speak from two very different parts of the world.

The biggest hurdle with adopting EV is the cost of the vehicle itself. You've got a couple in India but most are way out of reach for most folks. It is not too different in NZ too. The cheapest car you can buy is a used Nissan Leaf and this works out great only if you are a two car garage (EV + IC). Even if you head into Tesla territory, it ain't built to the same luxury levels of a German or a Lexus. The interior appointments are average. For someone who can afford a car at the price point of a Tesla, it ends up less about the EV side, its more about what I get for my money in terms of interior appointments. To the high end buyer, this really matters.

EV challenges in India start with the charging infrastructure itself. We don't have any and I don't see a major push by our Government to adopt EV. Our concept for subsidies for renewable energy is hogwash. Many of us rent and that adds another hurdle. Is your landlord going to install a EV charging port at your designated car slot? Let us assume that mind set does change, that would mean at least 2000 charging points needed at a minimum, in a large apartment block that houses twice that figure. Then you've got to deal with unreliable power. My folks still deal with load shedding, abrupt power cuts and unreliable power and I am sure this is more the norm in many parts of India. Until we get around this and getting an EV car down the price of an Hyundai i10, I don't see a lot of us picking up these cars, as much as it sounds great when you look into the costs of running one. There is a universal question around longevity of EV. In our searing hot and humid conditions, what is my real world range going to be and how long will that battery last. We are also price sensitive. Will I just shift my expense on petrol towards paying for power to charge my car as power isn't cheap either.

With over 70% of power being generated from renewable sources (Mostly wind), EV's are great for New Zealand. Again; the up take for them is slow. Same scenario as India, it is down to initial cost and options. I can get a used Toyota Corolla for about $5000, spend about half that to run it every year (insurance, gas and a regular service included) and it is probably going to tick along just fine for a good 100,000 km before it needs major attention by which time, I would have saved enough to junk this car and get another $5000 car. That said, I have realized that EV's are what people need here as most people don't bother to service their cars till they blow something under the hood. The annual service is generally ignored. Access to cheap used car imports is aplenty so why bother spending twice that amount on a used Nissan Leaf (Most popular and available used EV import) which will give me a range of just ~120km. Most of New Zealand is rural. While there is heaps of power, I don't see many places to charge an EV. A road trip to those beautiful remote locations is impossible in New Zealand with an EV. I have not seen Motel's with a charging station.

Until infrastructures improves and range anxiety is no longer a problem, I don't see the gas engine going anywhere anytime soon.

I will definitely pick up an EV someday. For now, I will make do we with Toyota or Subaru Hybrid that combines small perks of EV efficiency mated to an internal combustion engine.

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

What is the peak measured power draw at the wall socket when you charge at home? I am sure this figure varies depending on the state of the battery.

While charging at home, I use the mobile connector that comes with the car, rated at 3kW. At wall socket it draws about 2.9~3kW and charges the car at 2.8kW. Note that, there is a cable length of 6-7m between wall socket and the car itself. Low power AC charging does not depend on the battery state of charge. So it is more or less contant 2.8kW from 0% to 100%. Here an example charging session at home:

[mohanphadnis]

I may be one of the few people in India, who has a 2 EV garage. For both city and outside use.
I cannot fault any of your points.

Of course even better way to travel is the most popular mode of transport in netherlands... cycling. EVs are great, cycles are better(though 75kms is a bit too long a distance )

Anyway... the ICE gang really irks me, they talk about mine to scrap emissions for EV, but then compare it to only tailpipe emissions of ICE. They talk about subsidies for EV, but discount the subsidy given to oil and coal companies. They talk about some subsidy given to solar producers, but forget about the monetary infusion into NTPC and OIL. They talk about cobalt in EVs by typing on a computer running on same batteries.

Till date I have done multiple pune-mumbai-nashik trips in my kona, it does it easily without problems. Reach home, plug in the car and it is good to go in the morning, plus your father in law pays for the fuel(beat that).

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

At wall socket it draws about 2.9~3kW and charges the car at 2.8kW.

Okay. So that is as much as the power draw of a heat pump or Aircon.

Originally Posted by mohanphadnis

I may be one of the few people in India, who has a 2 EV garage.

Nice.

In my view, EV adoption in India will start from two wheeler's (Guess it has already started). This is pretty much the base line customer, one that is most price sensitive. This will eventually feed, encourage more to get on the EV bandwagon. Small businesses will spring up that do EV conversions. That 20 year old Hero Honda CD100 will be back on the road with an electric motor.