What Really is Holding Back Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles

[joe1347]

The more that I read about plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV's), the more I wonder what is the real reason holding back their introduction by the mainstream auto manufacturers. Or more simply, why can't I buy an 80mpg car today? My initial (and incorrect) preconception was that existing batteries were way 'too heavy' plus dangerous (exploding lithium-ion) and that major advances (in battery technology) were still required. However, after reading about Lithium-Iron-Phosphate Li-Fe-PO4 batteries (A123 Systems, among others), it became apparent that 10 mile range plug-in's will only require about a 100 pound battery pack and even better, Li-Fe-PO4 batteries are safe (don't explode). For reference, I'm assuming a 10 mile range requires a 5Kw-hr battery and a Lithium-Iron-Phosphate battery with 0.1 Kw-Hr/Kg capacity. Hence, surprisingly, weight isn't that big of a problem. So I'm assuming that cost is the major factor holding back a 10 mile plug-in (PHEV10). After some digging, it looks like Li-Fe-PO4 batteries may run about $750 per KW-Hr, while conventional lithium batteries (the ones that explode) seem to be closer to $500 per Kw-Hr.

Hence, a 5Kw-Hr Li-Fe-PO4 battery pack (10 mile range) would cost around $4000. While $4000 doesn't seem that ridiculous - I suspect that asking a $4000 premium (for only 10 miles) over the current cost of a Prius will be a tough sell unless gas lines become the norm. Ok, so if the current high cost of Li-Fe-PO4 batteries is the only thing keeping us from having 80mpg cars, what is the technical reason why Li-Fe-PO4 batteries are expensive to manufacture? I don't think that it's a raw material cost issue - since the lithium metal cost would be less than a few hundred dollars. So I suspect that the high price is somehow related to manufacturing the electrodes or electrolyte solution. Is the issue then simply one of 'economy of scale' and if Li-Fe-PO4 batteries were given a financial 'jump start' and the US Government spent say $10 Billion US Dollars on a massive Li-Fe-PO4 battery manufacturing plant(s), would that solve the problem and affordable 80mpg cars would be possible in the very near future?

 

[drkitten]

However, after reading about Lithium-Iron-Phosphate Li-Fe-PO4 batteries (A123 Systems, among others), it became apparent that 10 mile range plug-in's will only require about a 100 pound battery pack and even better,

I think the implicit 10 mile limitation here is what kils this technology. Average commute distance in the USA is over ten miles. What good is a car that gets me 90% of the way to my job before it needs refueling/recharging?

Even if I had a short enough commute to make such a car practical, I would still need alternative transportation for any other activities I wanted to undertake. So such a car would only be useful in a situation where I already had a gasoline-powered vehicle that I could use for trips to neighboring towns and to visit Grandma. But if I'm already buying a gas-powered vehicle, why not just buy a Prius and be done with it?

 

[dementedcactus]

Another problem limiting Electric cars is the Patents are being bought and then not used. Electric car technology has been around since the early 90's. Why is it only now that there starting to make a comeback?

And i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but, i will. There's alot to lose off of electric cars if you own oil companies. God dammit I said it.

 

[uruk]

What DrKitten said.
It's the battery technology that holding the electric car back. If you could developed a power cell that is capable of delivering the same range and speed of a gas engine and that doesn't cost the GNP of a small country, you'd be Bill Gates rich.
People might even accept a 6 to 8 hour recharge time if you had the range

dementedcactus:
And i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but, i will. There's alot to lose off of electric cars if you own oil companies. God dammit I said it.

That's not far off the mark. Remember what the three big auto companies did to Tucker.

 

[joe1347]

I think the implicit 10 mile limitation here is what kils this technology. Average commute distance in the USA is over ten miles. What good is a car that gets me 90% of the way to my job before it needs refueling/recharging?

Even if I had a short enough commute to make such a car practical, I would still need alternative transportation for any other activities I wanted to undertake. So such a car would only be useful in a situation where I already had a gasoline-powered vehicle that I could use for trips to neighboring towns and to visit Grandma. But if I'm already buying a gas-powered vehicle, why not just buy a Prius and be done with it?

I believe that the average commute distance is around 20 miles daily (round trip). So a 10 mile plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV10) implies that half of your daily trip would be under battery power and the return trip would require an internal combustion engine (ICE). The assumption is that the PHEV would only be re-charged overnight when electricity is cheaper and the electric grid is plenty of spare capacity. As for what good is a PHEV10. How about 80mpg or gas that costs the equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html

 

[drkitten]

I believe that the average commute distance is around 20 miles daily (round trip).

Between 20 and 25 miles, depending upon the city and study.

So a 10 mile plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV10) implies that half of your daily trip would be under battery power and the return trip would require an internal combustion engine (ICE).

... assuming you did no driving other than your daily commute. No food shopping, no picking up the kids after school and delivering them to soccer practice, no trips out to see a movie, and so forth.

In practical terms, this is near-enough to useless as to be, well, useless. To put things in perspective, just assume that my first ten miles per day -- my ten electrically-powered miles --are free (but then I pay gas prices after that). The rest of my miles cost me what a "normal" hybrid costs. Since a typical hybrid-sized car gets at least thirty miles to the gallon, the free miles saves me about a third of a gallon of gas.

Gas prices are currently around $3/gallon, so I save $1/day by spending $4,000 extra dollars. Why, in just over twelve years, the car will have paid for itself. Of course, if gas prices double, the car would pay for itself in "only" six years, instead. I'm much better off with a hybrid Prius.

The assumption is that the PHEV would only be re-charged overnight when electricity is cheaper and the electric grid is plenty of spare capacity. As for what good is a PHEV10. How about 80mpg or gas that costs the equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

Not a realistic assumption, and it doesn't have the capacities to be useful in modern American society. Basically, what you get doesn't justify what you are spending.

Build me an electric battery with 50 miles capacity, and perhaps we can talk.

 

[ysabella]

In case it's of interest, there was a story in my local paper about a woman who commutes ~25 miles in her "NmG" electric car.

I don't think the URL will work forever, though, so sorry in advance if the link breaks.

 

[joe1347]

Between 20 and 25 miles, depending upon the city and study.



... assuming you did no driving other than your daily commute. No food shopping, no picking up the kids after school and delivering them to soccer practice, no trips out to see a movie, and so forth.

In practical terms, this is near-enough to useless as to be, well, useless. To put things in perspective, just assume that my first ten miles per day -- my ten electrically-powered miles --are free (but then I pay gas prices after that). The rest of my miles cost me what a "normal" hybrid costs. Since a typical hybrid-sized car gets at least thirty miles to the gallon, the free miles saves me about a third of a gallon of gas.

Gas prices are currently around $3/gallon, so I save $1/day by spending $4,000 extra dollars. Why, in just over twelve years, the car will have paid for itself. Of course, if gas prices double, the car would pay for itself in "only" six years, instead. I'm much better off with a hybrid Prius.



Not a realistic assumption, and it doesn't have the capacities to be useful in modern American society. Basically, what you get doesn't justify what you are spending.

Build me an electric battery with 50 miles capacity, and perhaps we can talk.

Sorry, but I think that you missed the point of the original post. I assumed that a rational car buyer would not want to spend a $4000 premium for an 80mpg car in todays economy. Of course I'm ignoring the likehood that car owners may become very irrational if gas starts to become in short supply and gas lines become the norm. In that case, the ability to only need to fill up once a month will likely be worth an extra $4000 (or more).

But back to my original question, I'm curious why 100 pounds of a lithium, iron, and phosphate 'mixture' costs $4000 (today). With an understanding as to why the current cost of a lithium-iron-phosphate battery is so high, then perhaps others may be able to suggest solutions. Since I suspect that you would agree that consumers would be much more receptive to a $1000 price premium (instead of $4000) for a Prius that would raise it's fuel efficiency from ~50mpg to ~80mpg.

 

[drkitten]

Since I suspect that you would agree that consumers would be much more receptive to a $1000 price premium (instead of $4000) for a Prius that would raise it's fuel efficiency from ~50mpg to ~80mpg.

car owners may become very irrational if gas starts to become in short supply and gas lines become the norm. In that case, the ability to only need to fill up once a month will likely be worth an extra $4000 (or more).

Yeah, but, um.... plug-in technology won't do that. In order to make the numbers come out that way, you have to cheat and make unrealistic assumptions about how much and how people drive.

And as to why the batteries are that expensive -- well, because the cars are so impractical, there is no market for them. Because there is no market for the cars, there is no demand for the batteries that the cars use. They're high enough tech (you do NOT want to be working with elemental lithium if you can avoid it) that manufacture is a major (and initialy expensive) operations and few of the major players are willing to invest in the plant space to make them in quantity.

Even if the Fed did "jump-start" the program with a massive infusion of cash, that still wouldn't solve the problem that it's a useless product. If we could cut the price by 90% (only a $400 markup), we've still got the issue of a car that takes 8+ hours to recharge at night (if you remember to recharge it) that saves you about a buck a day, and so would take over a year to pay for itself.

 

[NobbyNobbs]

Actually, the real thing that's holding back plug-in electric cars is the lack of extremely long extension cords.

 

[balrog666]

Since I suspect that you would agree that consumers would be much more receptive to a $1000 price premium (instead of $4000) for a Prius that would raise it's fuel efficiency from ~50mpg to ~80mpg.

You are misusing the word "efficiency" here. No change in efficiency is involved here, only the source of the vehicle's fuel, from more gas and less electricity to less gas and more electricity (both of which must be paid for) under minimalist-need, low-range conditions.

 

[joe1347]

The link below provides some estimates on reported fuel efficiency using a 5Kw-Hr supplemental battery pack (to a Prius).

Commuting Distance City mpg Highway mpg
-----------------------------------------------
20 miles 174 mpg 117 mpg
40 miles 153 mpg 103 mpg
60 miles 124 mpg 90 mpg

http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/applications/phev/pchart5/

It looks like suggesting 80mpg with a 5 Kw-Hr battery pack was much too conservative and real world results will be significantly (amazingly) better.

 

[drkitten]

The link below provides some estimates on reported fuel efficiency using a 5Kw-Hr supplemental battery pack (to a Prius).

[snipp]

It looks like suggesting 80mpg with a 5 Kw-Hr battery pack was much too conservative and real world results will be significantly (amazingly) better.

It looks to me like that chart was constructed on the assumption that all the driving you ever do is commuting. That's a sufficiently unrealistic assumption that I have no problem classifying that chart as a deliberate lie.

 

[joe1347]

It looks to me like that chart was constructed on the assumption that all the driving you ever do is commuting. That's a sufficiently unrealistic assumption that I have no problem classifying that chart as a deliberate lie.

I believe that Daily driving distance between a nightly recharge is all matters. You seem to be implying that most people drive much more than 20 (or 40) miles per day. The link below indicates that 70% of Americans drive less than 40 miles per day. Of course, a short range plug-in offers little advantage if you drive much more than 40 miles per day.

http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/applications/phev/pchart6/

 

[casebro]

Distance, scmistance. In California we are already having rolling black outs. What we need is gasoline powered air conditioners, not electric powered cars.

It is the shortage of electricity that is holding back electric cars.

 

[rudar]

Plus, if the point of looking for alternatives is to protect the environment, you need to factor in the source of electricity and its impacts. So you're not looking at an 80 miles per gallon car, you're looking at an 80 miles per (gallon of gas + pound of coal) or 80 miles per (gallon of gas + ounce of plutonium) car, or whatever the numbers turn out to be. Wheras if you're just looking to save money, you have to pay for the electricity, as well. So add to Dr. Kittens the 40 cents it'll cost you to recharge your 5kw-h battery at 8c/kw-h, and you're only saving 60 cents a day.

 

[TjW]

Distance, scmistance. In California we are already having rolling black outs. What we need is gasoline powered air conditioners, not electric powered cars.

It is the shortage of electricity that is holding back electric cars.

It does give a possible selling point for a plug in hybrid vehicle, though. The electronics to control an AC motor isn't very far away from a solid-state inverter. Install a cutoff switch at the breaker box, and use your slightly-modified plug-in hybrid to supply power to your house when the grid goes down.
Backup generators are much cheaper, of course, but you should run them on a regular schedule to be sure they're going to work when you need them.

 

[Cuddles]

Why exactly do you need to add anything to a hybrid in order to charge it at home? For example, when I have had a lift in my parent's Prius, the engine was on for about 5 minutes out of a 20 minute journey. While the engine adds some power when accelerating hard, the main purpose is to recharge the battery. What exactly is the problem with simply plugging the battery in at home and then not having the engine come on at all? Obviously long journeys and hard acceleration will still need the engine, but for short trips the electricity used would be from power stations, produced much more efficiently and cheaply.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Another problem limiting Electric cars is the Patents are being bought and then not used. Electric car technology has been around since the early 90's. Why is it only now that there starting to make a comeback?

And i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but, i will. There's alot to lose off of electric cars if you own oil companies. God dammit I said it.

Nope. Electric cars where researched and developed because of a california law. When it was realized that people generaly do not want an electric car and they repealed the law there was no incentive any more to make them.

 

[patnray]

What Really is Holding Back Plug-In Hybrid Electric?

Physics...