Hydrogen and FCEVs discussion thread

[SageBrush]

Infrastructure prices have already come down considerably due to economies of scale, as have fuel prices. California has already subsidized 52 retail stations (4 temporarily non-operational due to upgrades or other issues), with another 148 to come, although we may not need to subsidize all of them, as 23 are currently being built without subsidies, which is exactly what's needed for infrastructure build rate to take off (Note, these sites didn't apply for grants, but will still benefit from LCFS credits).

To put that 52 in perspective, it would allow someone to travel end to end of both I-5 (12 and I-95 (15), along with I-80 (25), with stations at all primary instate junctions plus some U.S. highways out west, where the interstates are spread further apart. If a single state such as California can afford to do this plus subsidize building an extra million EV chargers by 2030, I think the country can afford it as well.

Come down considerably ... to what ?

And as the chief arbiter of convenience, you should note that there are some 150,000 petrol refueling stations in the USA. I don't know how many dispensers there are per location on average ... how does 10 sound ? So go ahead and calculate the national cost to install 1,500,000 hydrogen dispensers. I'll let you off the hook for now by not requiring you to correct for the way less than 1:1 utility between a hydrogen and petrol dispenser due to re-pressurization requirements.

 

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

That's not necessarily true. if the transmission final drive ratio has been chosen to provide acceleration rather than range, then you can in fact trade off range vs. acceleration. After all, that's what every overdrive gear ratio does. ICEs can make that trade-off, and so can BEVs. Porsche minimizes the issue by providing a two-gear transmission, just as Tesla did way back when (but couldn't get one to survive the Roadster's torque at the time. Obviously, that's no longer the case).

Yes, it IS true. Just compare a 2011 Leaf (24kwh battery) with a 2016 (30kwh) and a 2018 (40kwh). I assure you they didn't change the drive ratio (nor motor) between the years.

Your bias is clouding your comprehension abilities.

Edit: Save you the trouble of looking it up, the larger the batteries, the faster the 0-60 time and the higher the top speed. Absolutely nothing changed about the gearing.

Checking C&D for the 24 KWh 2011, I see 10.0 seconds 0-60. For the 30kW 2016, 10.4 seconds, even though the 2011 appears to be very slightly heavier. For the 40kWh 2018 it's 7.4 seconds, but it has a 149 vice 107hp motor. so, your claim fails to stand up. There can also be differences if the battery is skewed more towards the power than energy end of the spectrum, in order to supply a more powerful motor.

Something's not right about the 2011 numbers? If you look at the 2013 (same pack size as the 2011, with the same epa calculation as the 2016), you'll see that it's lighter than the 2016, which in turn was lighter than the 2018.

Found it! https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=31022

The 2011 had a different final drive ratio than the other years, so that's why it's 0-60 time was better than the 2016, despite everything else (except battery size) being the same.

So the lower mpge rating through the years can only be attributable to the difference in weight. EVEN IF you wanted to argue that the 2018 sacrificed efficiency for power, you're still looking at a 2mpge max improvement, which means you're EV design would only see a range improvement of only 4miles (I contend that the difference is even less than that).

Circling back to my first point, YOU can't change physics, there is no trade-off to be made between efficiency and performance (at least not one that's significant enough to matter) for a BEV. You're applying ICE reasoning to where it does NOT apply.

My driving 'pattern' is skewed towards one end of the spectrum, but while most drivers spend most of their time at the other end or the middle, most of them also want their car to be able to operate in the same situations I do routinely, no matter how rarely they might do so aka 'The Occasional Use Imperative'. Which is why they expect any car to provide 300+ miles of range with rapid, convenient refueling, and buy accordingly. As I've said many times, far more of those in a multi-car family with guaranteed, convenient charging could make use of a BEV (or PHEV) for at least one of those, but most of them also demand ICE road-trip range and convenience from every car, even if they almost never require that simultaneously. Single-car households, especially those without charging, are a different matter. Anyone who demands go anywhere, anytime flexibility with the minimum of inconvenience is still restricted to an ICE/HEV/PHEV.

A Bolt is a terrible road-trip car owing to its excruciatingly slow FC rate, made worse by its inadequate range. A Niro/Kona would be better from the charging perspective, an ID.4 better still, and the Ionic 5/EV6 would be approaching the level needed. Of course, most people coming from ICEs still want ICE-time recharging. From the Castrol survey: https://www.castrol.com/content/dam...adoption/accelerating_the_evolution_study.pdf Page 21.


FCEVs are limited primarily by infrastructure at the moment, and price of the cars and fuel. The latter two will be cured by economies of scale, the learning curve and the usual incremental technological improvements, leaving only the former. FCEVs already provide ICE level inherent capabilities.

That "lack of infrastructure" is a $1T hurdle. The price of the fuel is secondary issue to the source of that fuel - namely natural gas.

Infrastructure prices have already come down considerably due to economies of scale, as have fuel prices. California has already subsidized 52 retail stations (4 temporarily non-operational due to upgrades or other issues), with another 148 to come, although we may not need to subsidize all of them, as 23 are currently being built without subsidies, which is exactly what's needed for infrastructure build rate to take off (Note, these sites didn't apply for grants, but will still benefit from LCFS credits).

To put that 52 in perspective, it would allow someone to travel end to end of both I-5 (12 and I-95 (15), along with I-80 (25), with stations at all primary instate junctions plus some U.S. highways out west, where the interstates are spread further apart. If a single state such as California can afford to do this plus subsidize building an extra million EV chargers by 2030, I think the country can afford it as well.

You can't refuel H2 at home. Those 52 stations are a tiny fraction of what's needed to support enough FCEV's to make their numbers more significant than a rounding error. There are currently over 8,200 gasoline stations in california. At least 1000 stations is the type of coverage that H2 needs in order for there to be enough "convenience" for people to NOT have to drive more than 30 minutes out (1/4 kg of H2 consumed for the fueling trip) just to refuel.

If 23 of the new stations aren't subsidized, then great for them! But I would rather not subsidize the remaining 123 as well!

And with the largest stations being able to dispense a max of 1620kg/day (I'm sure most will be less), those 148 new stations can only support a MAX of 559,440 vehicles (assumes 3kg/car, with each car refueling weekly on a 12k annual miles). The reality (due to distance away from stations) is that far FEWER would be supported (since those who have a garage would rather own a BEV). This is a boondoggle in the making.

 

[GRA]

Infrastructure prices have already come down considerably due to economies of scale, as have fuel prices. California has already subsidized 52 retail stations (4 temporarily non-operational due to upgrades or other issues), with another 148 to come, although we may not need to subsidize all of them, as 23 are currently being built without subsidies, which is exactly what's needed for infrastructure build rate to take off (Note, these sites didn't apply for grants, but will still benefit from LCFS credits).

To put that 52 in perspective, it would allow someone to travel end to end of both I-5 (12 and I-95 (15), along with I-80 (25), with stations at all primary instate junctions plus some U.S. highways out west, where the interstates are spread further apart. If a single state such as California can afford to do this plus subsidize building an extra million EV chargers by 2030, I think the country can afford it as well.

Come down considerably ... to what ?

And as the chief arbiter of convenience, you should note that there are some 150,000 petrol refueling stations in the USA. I don't know how many dispensers there are per location on average ... how does 10 sound ? So go ahead and calculate the national cost to install 1,500,000 hydrogen dispensers. I'll let you off the hook for now by not requiring you to correct for the way less than 1:1 utility between a hydrogen and petrol dispenser due to re-pressurization requirements.

Who says we need 150k? After all, we're going to have lots of BEVs and maybe PHFCEVs as well, so we won't need anywhere near the number of gasoline stations or dispensers. Whether we only need 1/10th, 1/4th or what have you depends on the mix of vehicles, which in turn depends on customer preference.

BTW, 10 dispensers per station average is almost certainly too high; judging by the typical station around me the range is 4-12 with 6-8 being typical (note, I'm counting each double-sided dispenser twice), although there are of course the Costcos and other 16-20 dispenser stations. However, let's assume that each existing gas station gets converted eventually to pure H2, and that they each get a $1M subsidy to do it (I note that there are currently 23 H2 stations in California being converted with NO subsidy, and that the subsidies have been reduced for those stations still getting one [it's a competitive bid process] considerably, despite the stations now being built having 3-6 times the capacity and 2 to 4 times the number of dispensers as the older ones.Anyway, that's $150 billion, which is a lot, but not out of the range we're used to talkign about. The Build back better plan is currently proposing to spend $555B by $2030 on climate change measures, and any such transition to BEVs, FCEVs or what have you is going to take at least three decades or so to complete, barring an outright ban on fossil fuels.

 

[GRA]

Yes, it IS true. Just compare a 2011 Leaf (24kwh battery) with a 2016 (30kwh) and a 2018 (40kwh). I assure you they didn't change the drive ratio (nor motor) between the years.

Your bias is clouding your comprehension abilities.

Edit: Save you the trouble of looking it up, the larger the batteries, the faster the 0-60 time and the higher the top speed. Absolutely nothing changed about the gearing.

Checking C&D for the 24 KWh 2011, I see 10.0 seconds 0-60. For the 30kW 2016, 10.4 seconds, even though the 2011 appears to be very slightly heavier. For the 40kWh 2018 it's 7.4 seconds, but it has a 149 vice 107hp motor. so, your claim fails to stand up. There can also be differences if the battery is skewed more towards the power than energy end of the spectrum, in order to supply a more powerful motor.

Something's not right about the 2011 numbers? If you look at the 2013 (same pack size as the 2011, with the same epa calculation as the 2016), you'll see that it's lighter than the 2016, which in turn was lighter than the 2018.

Found it! https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=31022

The 2011 had a different final drive ratio than the other years, so that's why it's 0-60 time was better than the 2016, despite everything else (except battery size) being the same.

So the lower mpge rating through the years can only be attributable to the difference in weight. EVEN IF you wanted to argue that the 2018 sacrificed efficiency for power, you're still looking at a 2mpge max improvement, which means you're EV design would only see a range improvement of only 4miles (I contend that the difference is even less than that).

Circling back to my first point, YOU can't change physics, there is no trade-off to be made between efficiency and performance (at least not one that's significant enough to matter) for a BEV. You're applying ICE reasoning to where it does NOT apply.

The differences in weight between the various Gen 1 LEAFs were so small as to probably be insignificant, outweighed by the normal differences between individual cars, not to mention minor variations in standard options. Companies offering two-speed transmissions (for BEV trucks IIRR) have been claiming about a 6-8% range improvement due to that, and that includes the extra weight of the heavier transmission. That by itself isn't enough to get a Bolt from say 259 to 300 miles (which is still inadequate), but even the lower number would provide another 15 miles or so of range. We also need power (or RPM) vs. efficiency curves for the different electric motors; which is operating in its most efficient range, the more or less powerful one?

That "lack of infrastructure" is a $1T hurdle. The price of the fuel is secondary issue to the source of that fuel - namely natural gas.

Infrastructure prices have already come down considerably due to economies of scale, as have fuel prices. California has already subsidized 52 retail stations (4 temporarily non-operational due to upgrades or other issues), with another 148 to come, although we may not need to subsidize all of them, as 23 are currently being built without subsidies, which is exactly what's needed for infrastructure build rate to take off (Note, these sites didn't apply for grants, but will still benefit from LCFS credits).

To put that 52 in perspective, it would allow someone to travel end to end of both I-5 (12 and I-95 (15), along with I-80 (25), with stations at all primary instate junctions plus some U.S. highways out west, where the interstates are spread further apart. If a single state such as California can afford to do this plus subsidize building an extra million EV chargers by 2030, I think the country can afford it as well.

You can't refuel H2 at home. Those 52 stations are a tiny fraction of what's needed to support enough FCEV's to make their numbers more significant than a rounding error. There are currently over 8,200 gasoline stations in california. At least 1000 stations is the type of coverage that H2 needs in order for there to be enough "convenience" for people to NOT have to drive more than 30 minutes out (1/4 kg of H2 consumed for the fueling trip) just to refuel.

If 23 of the new stations aren't subsidized, then great for them! But I would rather not subsidize the remaining 123 as well!

And with the largest stations being able to dispense a max of 1620kg/day (I'm sure most will be less), those 148 new stations can only support a MAX of 559,440 vehicles (assumes 3kg/car, with each car refueling weekly on a 12k annual miles). The reality (due to distance away from stations) is that far FEWER would be supported (since those who have a garage would rather own a BEV). This is a boondoggle in the making.

Sure, we'll need a lot more stations eventually, and most of them will be clustered around the population centers which is where California is prioritizing building them, the intent being to have one within no more than 6 minutes drive; that's not the point. Station capacity will undoubtedly continue to increase, just as gas station capacities did (or DCFC stations FTM. What is the point is that we can afford to build them, just as we could afford to build the current gas station infrastructure, and owing to long range and fast refueling, we need far fewer of them than we'd need for DCFC stations and chargers to serve the same number of cars on the same routes. And, just as important is that as we're already able to build some without government money, which still isn't the case for most if not all DCFC stations, that process will continue as costs continue to fall. They're only going to get less expensive per car served. from page 4 of the Annual evaluation:

Energy Commission GFO-19-602 AwardsThe announcement of awards in the CEC’s GFO-19-602 has fundamentally changed the outlook of hydrogen fueling network development in California. The solicitation was the first in California specifically designed to encourage the development of economies of scale in California’s hydrogen fueling industry. The solicitation aimed to achieve this primarily through its structure that requested applicants submit multi-year and multi-station plans. As reported in the 2020 Joint Agency Staff Report on AB 8, the results of the solicitation appear to indicate that the solicitation was successful is advancing economies of scale [14]. Figure 2 demonstrates how stations in GFO-19-602 are not only larger than the previous solicitation (GFO-15-605), but the grant funding amount per station has also decreased. Average grant funding amounts per kilogram/day of fueling capacity have dropped 65 percent between the last two solicitations. Stations awarded in GFO-15-605 received an average grant award of $2,445 per kg/day fueling capacity; stations awarded in GFO-19-602 received an average grant award of $847 per kg/day fueling capacity19.

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021_AB-8_FINAL.pdf

 

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

Checking C&D for the 24 KWh 2011, I see 10.0 seconds 0-60. For the 30kW 2016, 10.4 seconds, even though the 2011 appears to be very slightly heavier. For the 40kWh 2018 it's 7.4 seconds, but it has a 149 vice 107hp motor. so, your claim fails to stand up. There can also be differences if the battery is skewed more towards the power than energy end of the spectrum, in order to supply a more powerful motor.

Something's not right about the 2011 numbers? If you look at the 2013 (same pack size as the 2011, with the same epa calculation as the 2016), you'll see that it's lighter than the 2016, which in turn was lighter than the 2018.

Found it! https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=31022

The 2011 had a different final drive ratio than the other years, so that's why it's 0-60 time was better than the 2016, despite everything else (except battery size) being the same.

So the lower mpge rating through the years can only be attributable to the difference in weight. EVEN IF you wanted to argue that the 2018 sacrificed efficiency for power, you're still looking at a 2mpge max improvement, which means you're EV design would only see a range improvement of only 4miles (I contend that the difference is even less than that).

Circling back to my first point, YOU can't change physics, there is no trade-off to be made between efficiency and performance (at least not one that's significant enough to matter) for a BEV. You're applying ICE reasoning to where it does NOT apply.

The differences in weight between the various Gen 1 LEAFs were so small as to probably be insignificant, outweighed by the normal differences between individual cars, not to mention minor variations in standard options. Companies offering two-speed transmissions (for BEV trucks IIRR) have been claiming about a 6-8% range improvement due to that, and that includes the extra weight of the heavier transmission. That by itself isn't enough to get a Bolt from say 259 to 300 miles (which is still inadequate), but even the lower number would provide another 15 miles or so of range. We also need power (or RPM) vs. efficiency curves for the different electric motors; which is operating in its most efficient range, the more or less powerful one?

You're using someone's unsubstantiated claims to counter my direct physical evidence? Companies making a 2-speed transmission will naturally be optimistic (overly?) In their _projections_. The reality is that they haven't achieved anywhere near those results. Other losses like tire friction and aero drag have a greater effect against range.

I have a funny feeling that they're abusing the data to make their claim. Maybe the 2-speed transmission reduces the powertrain frictional losses by 6-8%, but because that's a small component of ALL losses, the range gain is a more realistic 1%.

When looking at road trips, even 15 miles range difference isn't going to save much more than 2-3 minutes (maybe 1 mins quicker charging per stop) more over a 5-hr drive.

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

Infrastructure prices have already come down considerably due to economies of scale, as have fuel prices. California has already subsidized 52 retail stations (4 temporarily non-operational due to upgrades or other issues), with another 148 to come, although we may not need to subsidize all of them, as 23 are currently being built without subsidies, which is exactly what's needed for infrastructure build rate to take off (Note, these sites didn't apply for grants, but will still benefit from LCFS credits).

To put that 52 in perspective, it would allow someone to travel end to end of both I-5 (12 and I-95 (15), along with I-80 (25), with stations at all primary instate junctions plus some U.S. highways out west, where the interstates are spread further apart. If a single state such as California can afford to do this plus subsidize building an extra million EV chargers by 2030, I think the country can afford it as well.

You can't refuel H2 at home. Those 52 stations are a tiny fraction of what's needed to support enough FCEV's to make their numbers more significant than a rounding error. There are currently over 8,200 gasoline stations in california. At least 1000 stations is the type of coverage that H2 needs in order for there to be enough "convenience" for people to NOT have to drive more than 30 minutes out (1/4 kg of H2 consumed for the fueling trip) just to refuel.

If 23 of the new stations aren't subsidized, then great for them! But I would rather not subsidize the remaining 123 as well!

And with the largest stations being able to dispense a max of 1620kg/day (I'm sure most will be less), those 148 new stations can only support a MAX of 559,440 vehicles (assumes 3kg/car, with each car refueling weekly on a 12k annual miles). The reality (due to distance away from stations) is that far FEWER would be supported (since those who have a garage would rather own a BEV). This is a boondoggle in the making.

Sure, we'll need a lot more stations eventually, and most of them will be clustered around the population centers which is where California is prioritizing building them, the intent being to have one within no more than 6 minutes drive; that's not the point. Station capacity will undoubtedly continue to increase, just as gas station capacities did (or DCFC stations FTM. What is the point is that we can afford to build them, just as we could afford to build the current gas station infrastructure, and owing to long range and fast refueling, we need far fewer of them than we'd need for DCFC stations and chargers to serve the same number of cars on the same routes. And, just as important is that as we're already able to build some without government money, which still isn't the case for most if not all DCFC stations, that process will continue as costs continue to fall. They're only going to get less expensive per car served. from page 4 of the Annual evaluation:

Energy Commission GFO-19-602 AwardsThe announcement of awards in the CEC’s GFO-19-602 has fundamentally changed the outlook of hydrogen fueling network development in California. The solicitation was the first in California specifically designed to encourage the development of economies of scale in California’s hydrogen fueling industry. The solicitation aimed to achieve this primarily through its structure that requested applicants submit multi-year and multi-station plans. As reported in the 2020 Joint Agency Staff Report on AB 8, the results of the solicitation appear to indicate that the solicitation was successful is advancing economies of scale [14]. Figure 2 demonstrates how stations in GFO-19-602 are not only larger than the previous solicitation (GFO-15-605), but the grant funding amount per station has also decreased. Average grant funding amounts per kilogram/day of fueling capacity have dropped 65 percent between the last two solicitations. Stations awarded in GFO-15-605 received an average grant award of $2,445 per kg/day fueling capacity; stations awarded in GFO-19-602 received an average grant award of $847 per kg/day fueling capacity19.

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021_AB-8_FINAL.pdf

If you want "within 6-mins driving range of a fueling station" level convenience, then it will cost multiple $T!! You can't ask taxpayers to spend that kind of money on a supplemental infrastructure on top of the money for all those CCS stations. That's wasteful.

 

[SageBrush]

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

This says it all.

 

[GRA]

Something's not right about the 2011 numbers? If you look at the 2013 (same pack size as the 2011, with the same epa calculation as the 2016), you'll see that it's lighter than the 2016, which in turn was lighter than the 2018.

Found it! https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=31022

The 2011 had a different final drive ratio than the other years, so that's why it's 0-60 time was better than the 2016, despite everything else (except battery size) being the same.

So the lower mpge rating through the years can only be attributable to the difference in weight. EVEN IF you wanted to argue that the 2018 sacrificed efficiency for power, you're still looking at a 2mpge max improvement, which means you're EV design would only see a range improvement of only 4miles (I contend that the difference is even less than that).

Circling back to my first point, YOU can't change physics, there is no trade-off to be made between efficiency and performance (at least not one that's significant enough to matter) for a BEV. You're applying ICE reasoning to where it does NOT apply.

The differences in weight between the various Gen 1 LEAFs were so small as to probably be insignificant, outweighed by the normal differences between individual cars, not to mention minor variations in standard options. Companies offering two-speed transmissions (for BEV trucks IIRR) have been claiming about a 6-8% range improvement due to that, and that includes the extra weight of the heavier transmission. That by itself isn't enough to get a Bolt from say 259 to 300 miles (which is still inadequate), but even the lower number would provide another 15 miles or so of range. We also need power (or RPM) vs. efficiency curves for the different electric motors; which is operating in its most efficient range, the more or less powerful one?

You're using someone's unsubstantiated claims to counter my direct physical evidence? Companies making a 2-speed transmission will naturally be optimistic (overly?) In their _projections_. The reality is that they haven't achieved anywhere near those results. Other losses like tire friction and aero drag have a greater effect against range.

I have a funny feeling that they're abusing the data to make their claim. Maybe the 2-speed transmission reduces the powertrain frictional losses by 6-8%, but because that's a small component of ALL losses, the range gain is a more realistic 1%.

The Taycan, which uses a two-speed transmission, is the only BEV I've seen EPA results for that gets better EPA HWY than Combined mileage. Why would that be? Car and Driver hazards a guess:

. . .This result makes the base Taycan the EV that broke its EPA-estimated range by the highest margin in our testing, at an additional 55 miles or 24 percent. We suspect that part of the Taycan's standout range is due to its two-speed transmission on the rear axle that allows the motor to spin at a lower and more efficient speed while cruising at interstate speeds. There's only one other EV that's ever beat its EPA rating in our 75-mph test, and that's the 2020 Audi e-tron Sportback. It traveled 220 miles, beating its EPA range by only two miles. For comparison, the EV we've tested with the longest range was the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus. It traveled 320 miles at 75 mph, which also makes it the first EV that broke the 300-mile barrier in our testing. But it fell well short of its 402-mile EPA figure.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37607755/2021-porsche-taycan-range-tested/

It's also one of just two cars IEVS tested that exceeds both its EPA combined and HWY ranges: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

Now, you can claim that the cause of that gain is unsubstantiated, but the range boost isn't. Correlation may not prove causation, but in this case it's highly suggestive, as the Taycan is unique among all current BEVs in two ways: the two speed transmission; greater HWY than Combined range, and the HWY range increase is exactly the result you'd expect from a lower ratio top gear.

When looking at road trips, even 15 miles range difference isn't going to save much more than 2-3 minutes (maybe 1 mins quicker charging per stop) more over a 5-hr drive.

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

I rented a Bolt and took it up to the mountains on a typical trip last October and reported the results in that topic, so I'm speaking from real-life experience. I have no interest in the Model Y for a number of reasons, although I could buy one for cash if I wanted to. I'd hoped that an ID.4, Ionic 5 or EV6 would appear on Turo this year, but only one ID.4 showed up and it wasn't convenient to get to, plus the fires had ruled trips out in any case; the Ionic 5/EV6 were delayed, so no luck there, and the one guy renting a Kona (Niro's a better match for me, but there aren't any) wanted twice as much per day compared to what I rented the Bolt for last year, so my next rental will probably have to wait until next year. Once the Ionic 5/EV6 are available I'll definitely try them out - while both are too inadequate for road trips for me to consider buying, depending on price and how well they match up to their specs in the real world I might consider leasing one, as they'd work okay for weekend use (now that there are finally FCs on my most common route (after only a decade of waiting). Probably the Ionic rather than the EV6, as the former's design is a bit more practical and utilitarian IMO, at least from photos and reviews. I'll hopefully also be able to look at the Toyota/Subaru twins by then - I'd definitely consider a solar roof, and the Toyota at least will offer one.

I agree that 15 miles isn't enough by itself, as for me 300 miles (a real world 210 or so only when new) is marginal, but it's a useful step in the right direction, and does provide a small but useful improvement in flexibility and convenience, especially as the Bolt charges so slowly above 80% and particularly 90%.

You can't refuel H2 at home. Those 52 stations are a tiny fraction of what's needed to support enough FCEV's to make their numbers more significant than a rounding error. There are currently over 8,200 gasoline stations in california. At least 1000 stations is the type of coverage that H2 needs in order for there to be enough "convenience" for people to NOT have to drive more than 30 minutes out (1/4 kg of H2 consumed for the fueling trip) just to refuel.

No need to argue with me for what's needed, just read the "2021 Annual Evaluation of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Deployment and Hydrogen Fuel Station Network Development", which lays out the number, location and how many cars they can support in great detail along with the timeline. You can just read the Executive Summary, or if you want to do a deep dive start with page 41, "Trends of Station Deployment Rates" and then go on to page 44, "Evaluation of Current and Projected Hydrogen Fueling Capacity".

If 23 of the new stations aren't subsidized, then great for them! But I would rather not subsidize the remaining 123 as well!

And with the largest stations being able to dispense a max of 1620kg/day (I'm sure most will be less), those 148 new stations can only support a MAX of 559,440 vehicles (assumes 3kg/car, with each car refueling weekly on a 12k annual miles). The reality (due to distance away from stations) is that far FEWER would be supported (since those who have a garage would rather own a BEV). This is a boondoggle in the making.

Sure, we'll need a lot more stations eventually, and most of them will be clustered around the population centers which is where California is prioritizing building them, the intent being to have one within no more than 6 minutes drive; that's not the point. Station capacity will undoubtedly continue to increase, just as gas station capacities did (or DCFC stations FTM. What is the point is that we can afford to build them, just as we could afford to build the current gas station infrastructure, and owing to long range and fast refueling, we need far fewer of them than we'd need for DCFC stations and chargers to serve the same number of cars on the same routes. And, just as important is that as we're already able to build some without government money, which still isn't the case for most if not all DCFC stations, that process will continue as costs continue to fall. They're only going to get less expensive per car served. from page 4 of the Annual evaluation:

Energy Commission GFO-19-602 AwardsThe announcement of awards in the CEC’s GFO-19-602 has fundamentally changed the outlook of hydrogen fueling network development in California. The solicitation was the first in California specifically designed to encourage the development of economies of scale in California’s hydrogen fueling industry. The solicitation aimed to achieve this primarily through its structure that requested applicants submit multi-year and multi-station plans. As reported in the 2020 Joint Agency Staff Report on AB 8, the results of the solicitation appear to indicate that the solicitation was successful is advancing economies of scale [14]. Figure 2 demonstrates how stations in GFO-19-602 are not only larger than the previous solicitation (GFO-15-605), but the grant funding amount per station has also decreased. Average grant funding amounts per kilogram/day of fueling capacity have dropped 65 percent between the last two solicitations. Stations awarded in GFO-15-605 received an average grant award of $2,445 per kg/day fueling capacity; stations awarded in GFO-19-602 received an average grant award of $847 per kg/day fueling capacity19.

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021_AB-8_FINAL.pdf

If you want "within 6-mins driving range of a fueling station" level convenience, then it will cost multiple $T!! You can't ask taxpayers to spend that kind of money on a supplemental infrastructure on top of the money for all those CCS stations. That's wasteful.

See above. Once you've read the report (or any of the earlier ones; I've listed links to all in the first post of my "EV Bibliography" topic), get back to me.

 

[cwerdna]

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

Leasing a Bolt is a no can do right now. AFAIK, the stop sale on Bolts hasn't been lifted yet due to https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/aug/0820-bolt.html.

GM needs to balance LG Chem Bolt battery production and allocation between repairing multiple parties/interests such as: recalled customer cars out in the field (esp. ones they deem riskiest), new production, unsold cars (e.g. at GM and their dealers) and even loaner cars (https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/10/26/chevy-bolt-ev-euv-recall-gm-production-loaner-cars/8549367002/).

Getting a Leaf now can be challenging due to lack of supply. Actually, new and used cars are both in short supply have overpriced or have inflated prices.

That said, I've mostly given up on figuring out GRA. He's been here 10 years and still has never owned nor leased any pure BEV or AFAIK, even a PHEV. This is despite massive improvements in BEVs, their range, charging speeds, infrastructure, price for a given range, etc. It blows my mind that someone would be still interested in participating on MNL and following charging infrastructure given his car can't even use any of it.

Frankly, it's become quite apparent that hydrogen FCEVs in the US for consumer automobiles seems like a complete waste of time, $ and engineering resources, hobbled by many factors such as fueling infrastructure and supply. Their installed base and sales/leases are tiny. They automaker can't sell or lease too many either (at least in CA) due to H2 supply.

For kicks, I checked https://m.cafcp.org/ again and it looks like station status is still pretty bad.

If he's really that interested in H2 FCEVs, maybe he should lease one of those instead.

 

[GRA]

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

Leasing a Bolt is a no can do right now. AFAIK, the stop sale on Bolts hasn't been lifted yet due to https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/aug/0820-bolt.html.

GM needs to balance LG Chem Bolt battery production and allocation between repairing multiple parties/interests such as: recalled customer cars out in the field (esp. ones they deem riskiest), new production, unsold cars (e.g. at GM and their dealers) and even loaner cars (https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/10/26/chevy-bolt-ev-euv-recall-gm-production-loaner-cars/8549367002/).

Getting a Leaf now can be challenging due to lack of supply. Actually, new and used cars are both in short supply have overpriced or have inflated prices.

That said, I've mostly given up on figuring out GRA. He's been here 10 years and still has never owned nor leased any pure BEV or AFAIK, even a PHEV. This is despite massive improvements in BEVs, their range, charging speeds, infrastructure, price for a given range, etc. It blows my mind that someone would be still interested in participating on MNL and following charging infrastructure given his car can't even use any of it.

You seem to have forgotten my reply to you the last time you made such a statement, in which I laid out my reasons:
https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744&p=586494&hilit=given+up+gra#p586516

Frankly, it's become quite apparent that hydrogen FCEVs in the US for consumer automobiles seems like a complete waste of time, $ and engineering resources, hobbled by many factors such as fueling infrastructure and supply. Their installed base and sales/leases are tiny. They automaker can't sell or lease too many either (at least in CA) due to H2 supply.

For kicks, I checked https://m.cafcp.org/ again and it looks like station status is still pretty bad.

If he's really that interested in H2 FCEVs, maybe he should lease one of those instead.

Aside from them currently being too expensive, there still aren't any AWD CUV FCEVs available, plus they suffer from the same lack of infrastructure along my most common travel route that also applied to BEVs until earlier this year. Unfortunately, despite repeated emails to CEC & CAFCP pointing out the need to provide fueling infrastructure for road trips so as to showcase one of the major advantages of FCEVs over BEVs, they have no plans to do so for several years yet, concentrating instead on building up infrastructure for local use in major urban areas (the 6-minute density I mentioned). I can understand their reasoning, as any such road trip stations primarily used on weekends would need operating subsidies for some time, and people first need to be able to fuel conveniently near home for FCEV sales to increase.

What it means, though, is that for the next several years at least, unless you want to drive from LA to the Bay Area or from the Bay/Sacramento up to Tahoe, you're limited to your unrefueled radius from stations in the San Diego, greater LA, SF and Sacramento metro areas.

For me, that means I could with care and driving @ the lesser of 55 or the speed limit, make it from home up to Tuolumne Meadows (187 miles, 8,500' of net elevation gain) and back in a 402 mile (EPA Combined, less HWY) Mirai 2 or maybe a 380 mile Nexo Blue, but I couldn't go over Tioga Pass and down the east side. In winter the 173 miles/7,100' net gain to the Glacier Pt. Rd. trailhead at Badger Pass in Yosemite would also be problematic, as despite the often slower speeds I need to make allowances for chains and strong winds.

Since those are the most common weekend trips I take, current FCEVs are of no practical use to me, just as was the case with current BEVs before the CCS stations in Groveland and Buck Meadows opened earlier this year.

All it would take would be a single station in the right place, at least as far east as Manteca but preferably further, in Oakdale or better yet one of the two towns above; put a station in Lee Vining instead and I'd be good for all of 395 south of Tahoe, as it's 125 miles from Lee Vining south to Lone Pine plus another 12 miles or so up 3,700' or so to Whitney Portal. From Groveland I'd be limited to no further south than the trailheads west of Mammoth, or pushing it Rock Creek or maybe Bishop (156 miles from Groveland, plus another 12-15 miles/5-6,000' of climb).

 

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

The differences in weight between the various Gen 1 LEAFs were so small as to probably be insignificant, outweighed by the normal differences between individual cars, not to mention minor variations in standard options. Companies offering two-speed transmissions (for BEV trucks IIRR) have been claiming about a 6-8% range improvement due to that, and that includes the extra weight of the heavier transmission. That by itself isn't enough to get a Bolt from say 259 to 300 miles (which is still inadequate), but even the lower number would provide another 15 miles or so of range. We also need power (or RPM) vs. efficiency curves for the different electric motors; which is operating in its most efficient range, the more or less powerful one?

You're using someone's unsubstantiated claims to counter my direct physical evidence? Companies making a 2-speed transmission will naturally be optimistic (overly?) In their _projections_. The reality is that they haven't achieved anywhere near those results. Other losses like tire friction and aero drag have a greater effect against range.

I have a funny feeling that they're abusing the data to make their claim. Maybe the 2-speed transmission reduces the powertrain frictional losses by 6-8%, but because that's a small component of ALL losses, the range gain is a more realistic 1%.

The Taycan, which uses a two-speed transmission, is the only BEV I've seen EPA results for that gets better EPA HWY than Combined mileage. Why would that be? Car and Driver hazards a guess:

. . .This result makes the base Taycan the EV that broke its EPA-estimated range by the highest margin in our testing, at an additional 55 miles or 24 percent. We suspect that part of the Taycan's standout range is due to its two-speed transmission on the rear axle that allows the motor to spin at a lower and more efficient speed while cruising at interstate speeds. There's only one other EV that's ever beat its EPA rating in our 75-mph test, and that's the 2020 Audi e-tron Sportback. It traveled 220 miles, beating its EPA range by only two miles. For comparison, the EV we've tested with the longest range was the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus. It traveled 320 miles at 75 mph, which also makes it the first EV that broke the 300-mile barrier in our testing. But it fell well short of its 402-mile EPA figure.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37607755/2021-porsche-taycan-range-tested/

It's also one of just two cars IEVS tested that exceeds both its EPA combined and HWY ranges: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

Now, you can claim that the cause of that gain is unsubstantiated, but the range boost isn't. Correlation may not prove causation, but in this case it's highly suggestive, as the Taycan is unique among all current BEVs in two ways: the two speed transmission; greater HWY than Combined range, and the HWY range increase is exactly the result you'd expect from a lower ratio top gear.

Getting a higher hwy rating than city "might" be explained by the 2-speed transmission, but that could also be explained by how inefficient the Taycan's powertrain is (much like ICE powertrains). Afterall, noted at the bottom of your caranddriver article, the Taycan 4S actually achieved a worse than hwy range result, despite having a bigger battery AND the same 2-speed transmission!

And note that a model S, with the same aero dynamic drag (but worse CdA), and similiar weight, achieves higher range results. The Taycan's numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt for a number of potential "conditions".

When looking at road trips, even 15 miles range difference isn't going to save much more than 2-3 minutes (maybe 1 mins quicker charging per stop) more over a 5-hr drive.

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

I rented a Bolt and took it up to the mountains on a typical trip last October and reported the results in that topic, so I'm speaking from real-life experience. I have no interest in the Model Y for a number of reasons, although I could buy one for cash if I wanted to. I'd hoped that an ID.4, Ionic 5 or EV6 would appear on Turo this year, but only one ID.4 showed up and it wasn't convenient to get to, plus the fires had ruled trips out in any case; the Ionic 5/EV6 were delayed, so no luck there, and the one guy renting a Kona (Niro's a better match for me, but there aren't any) wanted twice as much per day compared to what I rented the Bolt for last year, so my next rental will probably have to wait until next year. Once the Ionic 5/EV6 are available I'll definitely try them out - while both are too inadequate for road trips for me to consider buying, depending on price and how well they match up to their specs in the real world I might consider leasing one, as they'd work okay for weekend use (now that there are finally FCs on my most common route (after only a decade of waiting). Probably the Ionic rather than the EV6, as the former's design is a bit more practical and utilitarian IMO, at least from photos and reviews. I'll hopefully also be able to look at the Toyota/Subaru twins by then - I'd definitely consider a solar roof, and the Toyota at least will offer one.

I agree that 15 miles isn't enough by itself, as for me 300 miles (a real world 210 or so only when new) is marginal, but it's a useful step in the right direction, and does provide a small but useful improvement in flexibility and convenience, especially as the Bolt charges so slowly above 80% and particularly 90%.

Yes, I know you rented one, and it failed to meet your needs for that one trip due to your "expectations", despite there being better EV choices. And now you're going to hold out for an EV from a company that's been notorious for saying BEV's aren't ready?! Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy! Whatever, that's your choice.

No need to argue with me for what's needed, just read the "2021 Annual Evaluation of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Deployment and Hydrogen Fuel Station Network Development", which lays out the number, location and how many cars they can support in great detail along with the timeline. You can just read the Executive Summary, or if you want to do a deep dive start with page 41, "Trends of Station Deployment Rates" and then go on to page 44, "Evaluation of Current and Projected Hydrogen Fueling Capacity".

Sure, we'll need a lot more stations eventually, and most of them will be clustered around the population centers which is where California is prioritizing building them, the intent being to have one within no more than 6 minutes drive; that's not the point. Station capacity will undoubtedly continue to increase, just as gas station capacities did (or DCFC stations FTM. What is the point is that we can afford to build them, just as we could afford to build the current gas station infrastructure, and owing to long range and fast refueling, we need far fewer of them than we'd need for DCFC stations and chargers to serve the same number of cars on the same routes. And, just as important is that as we're already able to build some without government money, which still isn't the case for most if not all DCFC stations, that process will continue as costs continue to fall. They're only going to get less expensive per car served. from page 4 of the Annual evaluation: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021_AB-8_FINAL.pdf

If you want "within 6-mins driving range of a fueling station" level convenience, then it will cost multiple $T!! You can't ask taxpayers to spend that kind of money on a supplemental infrastructure on top of the money for all those CCS stations. That's wasteful.

See above. Once you've read the report (or any of the earlier ones; I've listed links to all in the first post of my "EV Bibliography" topic), get back to me.

It's great that the H2 being dispensed is at least 40% renewable, but that's just putting lipstick on a pig. The report said the entire network won't be financially sustainable until 2030 (assuming economy of scale reduces station and fuel costs according to projections)! And they're projecting to barely serve 64,000+ customers by 2026! At $115.7million to build those 94 approved stations, the taxpayers are essentially paying for EVERY SINGLE one of those stations, which would only serve a tiny fraction of the commuters (max projected was only half of my numbers - only 250,000 FCEV's)!

And the targeting of those stations to be near DAC (disadvantaged communities) is so idiotic that it boggles the mind. People who live in those areas, might indeed have trouble charging a BEV, but they'd have a much more difficult time paying for expensive H2! You'll never reach economies of scale under these conditions.

As I said, a boondoggle in the making.

 

[WetEV]

I've never at any time claimed that BEVs don't work for anyone, in fact I've said that they could work for far more people than currently use them. What I've said, and this is supported by both surveys and sales, is that they don't currently provide enough value for most people to be willing to switch from ICEs. 2.5% have bought BEVs (or maybe that's PEVs, I forget) in 1H 2021 in the U.S., 97.5% haven't. Which is to say, 97.5% don't consider them superior to what they have now, even though for many they would be. Surveys tell us what it will take for those people to be convinced that BEVs are superior for them, so that they can seriously consider buying one.

Again, wanting "most people" to switch Today.

Time is why everything doesn't happen at once.

Current technology will suit the needs and wants of far more people than the currently are buying BEVs. Near future (ie in prototype production) technology even more people. When does it stop? In a little more than a decade, at best, with the majority buying the then cheaper BEVs. It will not finish until the stock of cars comes to an equilibrium, perhaps a century from now.

The people surveyed on average said they hoped/expected to buy a BEV that met their requirements as early as 2022 (India) or as late as 2025 (U.S., Germany, U.K. and Norway, so the latter is doing better than expected thanks to big subsidies and perks) or 2026 (Japan), so this is quite near-term.

Please notice that the requirements of "the majority" isn't the issue.

The issue is the requirements of the next doubling of market share. That's how exponential growth works.

The next 2.5%

 

[GRA]

Both GCC:

bp and Daimler Truck partner to accelerate the deployment of hydrogen infrastructure and trucks in UK

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/11/20211101-bpdaimler.html

bp and Daimler Truck AG . . . intend to pilot both the development of hydrogen infrastructure and the introduction of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell trucks in the UK.

Under their memorandum of understanding (MoU), bp will assess the feasibility of designing, constructing, operating and supplying a network of up to 25 hydrogen refueling stations across the UK by 2030. These stations would be supplied by bp with green hydrogen generated from water using renewable power. Complementing this, Daimler Truck expects to deliver hydrogen-powered fuel-cell trucks to its UK customers from 2025.

Daimler Truck has the ambition to offer only new vehicles that are CO2-neutral in driving operation (from tank to wheel) in Europe, North America and Japan by 2039. The company is focused on both CO2-neutral technologies: battery power and hydrogen-based fuel-cells. Currently, the truck manufacturer is testing a new enhanced prototype of its Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck on public roads in Germany. The first series-produced GenH2 Truck are expected to be handed over to customers starting in 2027.

Daimler Truck has a clear preference for liquid hydrogen. In this state, the energy carrier has a far higher energy density in relation to volume than gaseous hydrogen. As a result, the tanks of a fuel-cell truck using liquid hydrogen are much smaller and, due to the lower pressure, significantly lighter. This gives the trucks more cargo space and a higher payload. At the same time, more hydrogen can be carried, which significantly increases the trucks’ range. This will make the series version of the GenH2 Truck, like conventional diesel trucks, suitable for multi-day, difficult-to-plan long-haul transport and where the daily energy output is high. . . .

In electrification, bp already has 11,000 electric vehicle charging points globally and is aiming to expand its network to 70,000 by 2030. Complementing this, the agreement with Daimler represents bp’s first steps towards deploying hydrogen for transport. bp also intends to develop hydrogen refueling stations in Europe and already has plans for hydrogen refueling stations in Germany.

bp aims to develop a leading market position producing and supplying low carbon hydrogen. In the UK, bp has plans to build a hydrogen-producing facility in Teesside, UK, which could produce 1GW of blue hydrogen, produced from natural gas integrated with carbon capture and storage. bp is also exploring the potential for green hydrogen in the region, including supporting the development of Teesside as the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub. These activities support the UK government’s target of developing 5GW of hydrogen production by 2030.

Fortescue Future Industries signs agreement with JCB and Ryze Hydrogen to become UK’s largest supplier of green hydrogen; Xergy acquisition

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/11/20211101-ffi.html

Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) will become the largest supplier of green hydrogen (GH2) to the United Kingdom after signing a multi-billion-pound deal with construction giant J C Bamford Excavators (JCB) and Ryze Hydrogen (Ryze).

Under a memorandum of understanding signed today prior to the COP26 climate conference, JCB and Ryze will purchase 10% of FFI’s global green hydrogen production. FFI’s green hydrogen production is anticipated to grow to 15 million tonnes of GH2 per year by 2030, accelerating to 50 million tonnes per year in the next decade thereafter.

Under the partnership, FFI will lead the green hydrogen production and logistics to the UK market, and JCB and Ryze will manage green hydrogen distribution and development of customer demand in the UK. . . .

Jo Bamford, widely regarded as the UK’s green hydrogen champion, is the founder of Ryze and owner of Wrightbus. Ryze is building the UK’s first network of green hydrogen production plants, while Wrightbus built the world’s first hydrogen double decker.

An extended offtake agreement will also be evaluated to provide green hydrogen to the European market, and the parties have agreed to evaluate collaboration opportunities to accelerate green hydrogen demand and establish green hydrogen and green industry manufacturing centres. . . .

 

[GRA]

You're using someone's unsubstantiated claims to counter my direct physical evidence? Companies making a 2-speed transmission will naturally be optimistic (overly?) In their _projections_. The reality is that they haven't achieved anywhere near those results. Other losses like tire friction and aero drag have a greater effect against range.

I have a funny feeling that they're abusing the data to make their claim. Maybe the 2-speed transmission reduces the powertrain frictional losses by 6-8%, but because that's a small component of ALL losses, the range gain is a more realistic 1%.

The Taycan, which uses a two-speed transmission, is the only BEV I've seen EPA results for that gets better EPA HWY than Combined mileage. Why would that be? Car and Driver hazards a guess:

. . .This result makes the base Taycan the EV that broke its EPA-estimated range by the highest margin in our testing, at an additional 55 miles or 24 percent. We suspect that part of the Taycan's standout range is due to its two-speed transmission on the rear axle that allows the motor to spin at a lower and more efficient speed while cruising at interstate speeds. There's only one other EV that's ever beat its EPA rating in our 75-mph test, and that's the 2020 Audi e-tron Sportback. It traveled 220 miles, beating its EPA range by only two miles. For comparison, the EV we've tested with the longest range was the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus. It traveled 320 miles at 75 mph, which also makes it the first EV that broke the 300-mile barrier in our testing. But it fell well short of its 402-mile EPA figure.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37607755/2021-porsche-taycan-range-tested/

It's also one of just two cars IEVS tested that exceeds both its EPA combined and HWY ranges: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

Now, you can claim that the cause of that gain is unsubstantiated, but the range boost isn't. Correlation may not prove causation, but in this case it's highly suggestive, as the Taycan is unique among all current BEVs in two ways: the two speed transmission; greater HWY than Combined range, and the HWY range increase is exactly the result you'd expect from a lower ratio top gear.

Getting a higher hwy rating than city "might" be explained by the 2-speed transmission, but that could also be explained by how inefficient the Taycan's powertrain is (much like ICE powertrains). Afterall, noted at the bottom of your caranddriver article, the Taycan 4S actually achieved a worse than hwy range result, despite having a bigger battery AND the same 2-speed transmission!

And note that a model S, with the same aero dynamic drag (but worse CdA), and similiar weight, achieves higher range results. The Taycan's numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt for a number of potential "conditions".

You know, at some point when you're digging yourself into a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. Car & Driver:

Why the Porsche Taycan EV's Two-Speed Transmission Is a Big Deal

Most electric cars have a single-speed direct-drive gearbox, but the Taycan's rear axle uses a two-speed setup for improved acceleration and range.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28903274/porsche-taycan-transmission/

Having a multispeed transmission in an EV provides the same benefits that it does in a gasoline-powered car: improved low-speed acceleration and increased efficiency at high velocity by lowering the rotating speed of the power source. In other words, the ratio spread of the two-speed transmission will help the Taycan's highway driving range while also making it quicker. . . .

The Porsche's gearbox has a single planetary gearset and two clutches that handle the ratio swap or decouple the rear motor altogether, allowing for efficient running using only front-axle power. The gearing step is large, with the second-gear ratio roughly half of the first and the shift point happening around 50 mph. In most driving, the Taycan runs in top gear. First-gear starts happen in Sport or Sport Plus mode; to do it in Normal, you'll need a large accelerator input.

Porsche claims that the highest-power Taycan, the 750-hp Turbo S, can pop off 10 consecutive 2.6-second slingshots to 60 mph with no degradation in performance. It says that even when the battery has less than a 50 percent charge, the car’s performance will remain consistent, with a measurable but imperceptible slowdown. Porsche credits the use of the two-speed transmission on the rear axle, the permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors, and the car’s higher operating voltage that creates less heat than lower-voltage setups.

At highway cruising speeds, which is usually EV kryptonite, the tall top gear should boost the Taycan's range, although Porsche has yet to announce EPA range ratings.

Note, this article was written in September 2019. Or maybe you'd prefer Road and Track:

. . . Recently, Top Gear pitted the Tesla Model S Performance against the new Porsche Taycan Turbo S in a drag race. Despite the Tesla's weight and power advantage, it was the Taycan that came out on top in the 0-60 sprint. Weird, right? Well, straight-line performance is more than just power and weight, as Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained lays out in his latest video.

In the Top Gear test, The Taycan achieved a 2.61-second 0-60 time, while the Model S came in at 2.68 seconds. So, right on point for Porsche's factory-claimed time of 2.6 seconds, but a couple of tenths off Tesla's claim of 2.4 seconds. The Porsche's quarter-mile was done in 10.69 seconds versus the Tesla's 11.08.

The real reason why the Porsche won? It all comes down to gearing, according to Fenske. Instead of using a one-speed transmission, as most electric cars do, the Taycan uses a two-speed unit in the rear, and a one-speed unit in the front. That first gear stays in place up to 62 mph, meaning it can multiply the torque factor coming from the electric motor and going to the ground before shifting into the more economical second gear.

Using a bunch of equations, Fenske points out that despite the quoted power figures and higher weight, the Porsche is able to produce more wheel torque and thus more g forces in that first gear. Once the car reaches the 62-mph mark, the torque figures for either gear level out, so the car shifts to second, allowing the rear electric motor to spin at a lower speed.

The Model S, on the other hand, has just one, fixed ratio to work with. That means it has to use its single ratio at both low and high speeds. It can't multiply its wheel torque on demand like the Taycan can, which means less real-world performance. That's just a simple explanation, though. Check out Fenske's video above for the full rundown.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-ca...sche-taycan-two-speed-transmission-explained/

A single-speed transmission is inevitably a compromise. It may be a good compromise or a bad one. In the case of most BEVs, I'm willing to compromise at the low end, as I don't care at all about winning stoplight drag races, but do care a lot about passing speeds and range. OTOH, I'm happy to not have to compromise, depending on the extra cost and maintenance burden. Still not ready to admit that a lower ratio boosts the range? Maybe you'd prefer Wired's take:

Why the Porsche Taycan's Two-Speed Gearbox Is Such a Big Deal
Want to improve an EV’s range by 5 percent, or pump up its top speed? Trying shifting gears.

https://www.wired.com/story/electric-car-two-speed-transmission-gearbox/

. . . Apart from the Taycan, every production EV uses a single-speed transmission, and gets along just fine. Internal combustion engines need a bunch of gears because they have a narrow RPM window within which they can operate efficiently. For electric motors, that window is much wider, so a single-speed works for both low-end acceleration and highway driving. It does require some compromise, and so EV makers favor low-end acceleration over Autobahn-worthy top speeds. Where most electrics top out around 125 mph (Tesla limits its cars to 163), the Taycan will touch 161 mph.

As the automakers crowding into this market look to differentiate the dozens of models they’re preparing to roll out, and as electric driving tech continues to evolve, Porsche is unlikely to be the only one making this move. The Taycan’s transmission is an in-house solution, and you can’t just grab a Formula E race car’s multispeed transmission and plop it in your daily driver. But auto industry supplier ZF is working on its own version of the two-speeder, which it’s looking to sell to any automaker that doesn’t want to choose between low-end torque and top speed glory.

“With a two-speed transmission, we can do both,” says Stephan Demmerer, who runs ZF’s E-Mobility engineering division. For automakers willing to take on a bit more complexity, he says, the two-speed setup can either improve an EV’s range by 5 percent, or push its top speed beyond the typical cap.

It does that by improving the conversion rate of battery power to actual wheel power. Every one percentage point in energy conversion efficiency translates into 2 percent more range, ZF says. Its two-stage shifter is modular, so it can fit into a range of vehicles, and comes mated to a motor with a maximum power rating of 140 kW. It’s programmed to shift between its two speeds at 43 mph, though the computer can be programmed to make the change at different points based on the route, topography, or the distance the driver hopes to cover before plugging in. Carmakers can use the system to squeeze more range out of a smaller battery—thereby reducing vehicle weight—or pair it with larger batteries to pursue performance, whether it’s racing around a track or towing the family boat.

“There is a real race to compete on the energy efficiency of EVs,” says Venkat Viswanathan, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. “Tesla has remained well ahead in energy efficiency even with their single-speed transmissions, and I think ZF’s approach could give other automakers a chance to eat into some of that advantage.”

The two-speed transmission is only arriving now partly because it’s complicated. Multispeed transmissions must be robust to deal with the massive amounts of torque that electric motors can generate in a very short period of time, says Shashank Sripad, a mechanical engineer also from Carnegie Mellon. Tesla tried it with its proof of concept Roadster more than a decade ago, but ran into reliability challenges and has stuck with single-speeds ever since. And because they require more maintenance, these gearboxes risk undercutting the EV selling point of minimal upkeep costs.

When looking at road trips, even 15 miles range difference isn't going to save much more than 2-3 minutes (maybe 1 mins quicker charging per stop) more over a 5-hr drive.

Get out of your Subaru and lease a Leaf or Bolt (or buy a model Y if you can swing it) and actually get real life experience to counter your prejudices.

I rented a Bolt and took it up to the mountains on a typical trip last October and reported the results in that topic, so I'm speaking from real-life experience. I have no interest in the Model Y for a number of reasons, although I could buy one for cash if I wanted to. I'd hoped that an ID.4, Ionic 5 or EV6 would appear on Turo this year, but only one ID.4 showed up and it wasn't convenient to get to, plus the fires had ruled trips out in any case; the Ionic 5/EV6 were delayed, so no luck there, and the one guy renting a Kona (Niro's a better match for me, but there aren't any) wanted twice as much per day compared to what I rented the Bolt for last year, so my next rental will probably have to wait until next year. Once the Ionic 5/EV6 are available I'll definitely try them out - while both are too inadequate for road trips for me to consider buying, depending on price and how well they match up to their specs in the real world I might consider leasing one, as they'd work okay for weekend use (now that there are finally FCs on my most common route (after only a decade of waiting). Probably the Ionic rather than the EV6, as the former's design is a bit more practical and utilitarian IMO, at least from photos and reviews. I'll hopefully also be able to look at the Toyota/Subaru twins by then - I'd definitely consider a solar roof, and the Toyota at least will offer one.

I agree that 15 miles isn't enough by itself, as for me 300 miles (a real world 210 or so only when new) is marginal, but it's a useful step in the right direction, and does provide a small but useful improvement in flexibility and convenience, especially as the Bolt charges so slowly above 80% and particularly 90%.

Yes, I know you rented one, and it failed to meet your needs for that one trip due to your "expectations", despite there being better EV choices. And now you're going to hold out for an EV from a company that's been notorious for saying BEV's aren't ready?! Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy! Whatever, that's your choice.

There were no 'better' EV choices for my needs at that time (and still aren't although that should change next year), and that one trip is typical of the kinds of terrain I deal with, so why would I need any more info on the Bolt's range or charging speed than that, in order to determine whether any BEV with similar range, charging speed and other attributes will also fall short of my requirements? My 'expectations' are that any car I drive will meet my transportation requirements, however it happens to be powered. I'm not trying to use a car as a technology demonstrator, I just want to use it as a car, and I judge how well it works on that basis. Maybe you're different. As to what company/car I'm 'holding out' for, whichever one best meets my needs.

No need to argue with me for what's needed, just read the "2021 Annual Evaluation of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Deployment and Hydrogen Fuel Station Network Development", which lays out the number, location and how many cars they can support in great detail along with the timeline. You can just read the Executive Summary, or if you want to do a deep dive start with page 41, "Trends of Station Deployment Rates" and then go on to page 44, "Evaluation of Current and Projected Hydrogen Fueling Capacity".

If you want "within 6-mins driving range of a fueling station" level convenience, then it will cost multiple $T!! You can't ask taxpayers to spend that kind of money on a supplemental infrastructure on top of the money for all those CCS stations. That's wasteful.

See above. Once you've read the report (or any of the earlier ones; I've listed links to all in the first post of my "EV Bibliography" topic), get back to me.

It's great that the H2 being dispensed is at least 40% renewable, but that's just putting lipstick on a pig. The report said the entire network won't be financially sustainable until 2030 (assuming economy of scale reduces station and fuel costs according to projections)! And they're projecting to barely serve 64,000+ customers by 2026! At $115.7million to build those 94 approved stations, the taxpayers are essentially paying for EVERY SINGLE one of those stations, which would only serve a tiny fraction of the commuters (max projected was only half of my numbers - only 250,000 FCEV's)!

And the targeting of those stations to be near DAC (disadvantaged communities) is so idiotic that it boggles the mind. People who live in those areas, might indeed have trouble charging a BEV, but they'd have a much more difficult time paying for expensive H2! You'll never reach economies of scale under these conditions.

As I said, a boondoggle in the making.

Oh dear, not financially sustainable until 2030. That's terrible. Just when do you think DCFCs will be financially sustainable, 'cause they sure aren't now (at prices that are cheaper than gas) and California's spending a bundle building them as well. From the CEC website, https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-...portation-program/california-electric-vehicle:

• 
  Number of Chargers Installed: 293
  CEC Rebates Issued: $18,752,901
  Total Project Costs: $30,153,868

Good heavens, $30M+ to install just 293 DCFCs? A boondoggle already made, unless you think the end goal is important enough to work through the high initial costs.

As to projections of customers served, that changes more or less annually. A couple of years ago the projections were that there would be insufficient capacity to serve the growing fleet a few years out, but that was before the Air Products explosion and then the pandemic stopped station expansion and the manufacturers scaled back production plans accordingly (no point in trying to make and sell more cars if you can't fuel them). Now that the pace of station expansion is picking up again, the manufacturers are once again revising their production plans upward, and next year''s report will undoubtedly show different projections for how many cars will be sold, and so on.

As for DACs, obviously until H2 prices come down H2 fuel won't be competitive in cost, which is why all the current FCEV manufacturers provide something like $15k of fuel over 3 years (lease, or 6 years buy), much the same as most BEV manufacturers now provide some amount of free DC'ing via EA or what have you (and let's not forget "Free Supercharging for Life"). I think anyone who'd buy rather than lease an FCEV now is nuts given the uncertainty of when H2 costs will come down to be competitive with gasoline, and in fact the vast majority are leased. While I'm not a fan of consumer subsidies to buy cars, the state also provides extra ones to people who live in such communities (and is also doing its best to move trucks and buses in those areas to ZEV first), because they face the worst air pollution.

 

[GRA]

Again, wanting "most people" to switch Today.

Time is why everything doesn't happen at once.

Current technology will suit the needs and wants of far more people than the currently are buying BEVs. Near future (ie in prototype production) technology even more people. When does it stop? In a little more than a decade, at best, with the majority buying the then cheaper BEVs. It will not finish until the stock of cars comes to an equilibrium, perhaps a century from now.

The people surveyed on average said they hoped/expected to buy a BEV that met their requirements as early as 2022 (India) or as late as 2025 (U.S., Germany, U.K. and Norway, so the latter is doing better than expected thanks to big subsidies and perks) or 2026 (Japan), so this is quite near-term.

Please notice that the requirements of "the majority" isn't the issue.

The issue is the requirements of the next doubling of market share. That's how exponential growth works.

The next 2.5%

Since people won't buy until the cars meet their requirements, that will extend the period of doubling that much further down the road, no pun intended.

 

[WetEV]

The people surveyed on average said they hoped/expected to buy a BEV that met their requirements as early as 2022 (India) or as late as 2025 (U.S., Germany, U.K. and Norway, so the latter is doing better than expected thanks to big subsidies and perks) or 2026 (Japan), so this is quite near-term.

Please notice that the requirements of "the majority" isn't the issue.

The issue is the requirements of the next doubling of market share. That's how exponential growth works.

The next 2.5%

Since people won't buy until the cars meet their requirements, that will extend the period of doubling that much further down the road, no pun intended.

The requirements of "the majority" don't figure into the doubling until nearing 50% market share.

Notice again the Norway has past 50%, and it seems just some subsidies were all that was really needed.

EVs are going to be cheaper than ICEs. Sales price, already lower in TCO.

 

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

The Taycan, which uses a two-speed transmission, is the only BEV I've seen EPA results for that gets better EPA HWY than Combined mileage. Why would that be? Car and Driver hazards a guess: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37607755/2021-porsche-taycan-range-tested/

It's also one of just two cars IEVS tested that exceeds both its EPA combined and HWY ranges: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

Now, you can claim that the cause of that gain is unsubstantiated, but the range boost isn't. Correlation may not prove causation, but in this case it's highly suggestive, as the Taycan is unique among all current BEVs in two ways: the two speed transmission; greater HWY than Combined range, and the HWY range increase is exactly the result you'd expect from a lower ratio top gear.

Getting a higher hwy rating than city "might" be explained by the 2-speed transmission, but that could also be explained by how inefficient the Taycan's powertrain is (much like ICE powertrains). Afterall, noted at the bottom of your caranddriver article, the Taycan 4S actually achieved a worse than hwy range result, despite having a bigger battery AND the same 2-speed transmission!

And note that a model S, with the same aero dynamic drag (but worse CdA), and similiar weight, achieves higher range results. The Taycan's numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt for a number of potential "conditions".

You know, at some point when you're digging yourself into a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. Car & Driver:

No wonder I can't get through to you. You actually thought your point was made with that C&D article, despite them reporting the Taycan 4S NOT achieving their EPA results using the exact same 2-speed transmission?

I never said there wouldn't be any improvement with a taller gearing (I did mention the lower frictional losses earlier in this thread chain due to a different final drive ratio). I said that whatever gains wouldn't amount to anything significant (I kept referencing 1%). I think you were hoping for 10%? I deleted all your references, because they pointed to a line of reasoning-by-analogy that completely ignores the data. "oh hey, the Taycan has better hwy range than city range, unlike other EV's ... it must be because of the 2-speed transmission!" - although that might be true, the 2-speed transmission would be compensating for inefficiencies ELSEWHERE (just like in an ICE powertrain). Inefficiencies that probably comes from the transmission itself (each rotating gear/mass introduces frictional losses)! In other words, it's not that the hwy rating was so good, it's that the city rating was so bad!

We started this thread with you "advising" automakers to reduce the power output of their motors to extend the range that an EV could drive on a fixed charge to 300+ miles. And I told you that you were trying to change physics, because more power comes free with a larger battery, and that simply reducing the power of the motor wasn't going to buy you any significant additional range. You can only get 300+ miles of range with a battery bigger than the 60kwh that's currently being deployed.

Final example to try to get you to understand. The Hyundai Ioniq EV vs. the Tesla Model 3 SR+. The Ioniq's city mpge is 150miles vs. the model 3's rating of only 140miles. Does this prove your point, since the Ioniq has a less powerful motor and doesn't accelerate as quickly as the 3? NO, because the Ioniq is actually 7% lighter than the 3, and city driving range is highly dependent on regen efficiency and vehicle weight! You're barking up the wrong tree with your range vs. power crusade.

No need to argue with me for what's needed, just read the "2021 Annual Evaluation of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Deployment and Hydrogen Fuel Station Network Development", which lays out the number, location and how many cars they can support in great detail along with the timeline. You can just read the Executive Summary, or if you want to do a deep dive start with page 41, "Trends of Station Deployment Rates" and then go on to page 44, "Evaluation of Current and Projected Hydrogen Fueling Capacity".


See above. Once you've read the report (or any of the earlier ones; I've listed links to all in the first post of my "EV Bibliography" topic), get back to me.

It's great that the H2 being dispensed is at least 40% renewable, but that's just putting lipstick on a pig. The report said the entire network won't be financially sustainable until 2030 (assuming economy of scale reduces station and fuel costs according to projections)! And they're projecting to barely serve 64,000+ customers by 2026! At $115.7million to build those 94 approved stations, the taxpayers are essentially paying for EVERY SINGLE one of those stations, which would only serve a tiny fraction of the commuters (max projected was only half of my numbers - only 250,000 FCEV's)!

And the targeting of those stations to be near DAC (disadvantaged communities) is so idiotic that it boggles the mind. People who live in those areas, might indeed have trouble charging a BEV, but they'd have a much more difficult time paying for expensive H2! You'll never reach economies of scale under these conditions.

As I said, a boondoggle in the making.

Oh dear, not financially sustainable until 2030. That's terrible. Just when do you think DCFCs will be financially sustainable, 'cause they sure aren't now (at prices that are cheaper than gas) and California's spending a bundle building them as well. From the CEC website, https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-...portation-program/california-electric-vehicle:

• 
  Number of Chargers Installed: 293
  CEC Rebates Issued: $18,752,901
  Total Project Costs: $30,153,868

Good heavens, $30M+ to install just 293 DCFCs? A boondoggle already made, unless you think the end goal is important enough to work through the high initial costs.

As to projections of customers served, that changes more or less annually. A couple of years ago the projections were that there would be insufficient capacity to serve the growing fleet a few years out, but that was before the Air Products explosion and then the pandemic stopped station expansion and the manufacturers scaled back production plans accordingly (no point in trying to make and sell more cars if you can't fuel them). Now that the pace of station expansion is picking up again, the manufacturers are once again revising their production plans upward, and next year''s report will undoubtedly show different projections for how many cars will be sold, and so on.

As for DACs, obviously until H2 prices come down H2 fuel won't be competitive in cost, which is why all the current FCEV manufacturers provide something like $15k of fuel over 3 years (lease, or 6 years buy), much the same as most BEV manufacturers now provide some amount of free DC'ing via EA or what have you (and let's not forget "Free Supercharging for Life"). I think anyone who'd buy rather than lease an FCEV now is nuts given the uncertainty of when H2 costs will come down to be competitive with gasoline, and in fact the vast majority are leased. While I'm not a fan of consumer subsidies to buy cars, the state also provides extra ones to people who live in such communities (and is also doing its best to move trucks and buses in those areas to ZEV first), because they face the worst air pollution.

Ha! $500/yr in free electricity is equivalent to $5,000/yr of free H2?!?!

As for the DCFC costs, I think they were over-charged (no pun intended), but that $19M was spent from 2017 til 2020, and is a tiny fraction of the 4,300 fast chargers that were deployed in california. This means MOST of the charging infrastructure was provided by private industry.

No where near equivalent. Hydrogen will not get the economies of scale needed to become viable, because it literally costs too much and thus is too dependent on subsidies.

 

[GRA]

Both GCC:

Mitsubishi Power and DT Midstream partner to advance hydrogen infrastructure across the US

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/11/20211102-mitsubishi.html

DT Midstream, Inc., a premier natural gas pipeline and storage provider, and Mitsubishi Power Americas, Inc., a provider of power generation and energy storage solutions, have entered into a strategic joint development agreement (JDA) to advance clean hydrogen energy development projects across the United States.

The partners will identify, develop and deploy projects that integrate Mitsubishi Power’s power generation and hydrogen technologies with DT Midstream’s energy infrastructure development and operational expertise to decarbonize utility, transportation and industrial sectors.

The JDA focuses on production, storage, transportation and use of hydrogen and other commodities. Opportunities include offering hydrogen in liquefied or compressed form for multiple applications such as power generation and transport, as well as steelmaking, refining and fertilizer manufacturing.

The collaboration will employ Mitsubishi Power’s Hydaptive hydrogen package, which integrates renewable power, gas turbines, hydrogen and other energy storage technologies. DT Midstream will provide gas delivery experience and will leverage assets such as interstate and intrastate pipelines, gathering systems and storage systems. DT Midstream has approximately 1,200 miles of transportation pipelines and more than 1,000 miles of gathering lines linking supply to major demand markets. . . .

Mitsubishi Power has previously announced clean energy hubs under development in Utah and North Dakota.

KazMunayGas and Linde sign MOU for blue/green hydrogen and ammonia projects in Kazakhstan

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/11/20211102-kazmunaygas.html

. . . The first stage of cooperation will focus on exploring the opportunity of producing hydrogen and ammonia using natural gas as feedstock (blue hydrogen and blue ammonia) and/or water electrolysis (green or blue hydrogen and green or blue ammonia).

Once a feasibility study is complete and a successful agreement is reached, a green hydrogen and green ammonia production project is to be implemented in Kazakhstan.

 

[GRA]

Please notice that the requirements of "the majority" isn't the issue.

The issue is the requirements of the next doubling of market share. That's how exponential growth works.

The next 2.5%

Since people won't buy until the cars meet their requirements, that will extend the period of doubling that much further down the road, no pun intended.

The requirements of "the majority" don't figure into the doubling until nearing 50% market share.

Notice again the Norway has past 50%, and it seems just some subsidies were all that was really needed.

EVs are going to be cheaper than ICEs. Sales price, already lower in TCO.

BEVs may eventually be cheaper in sales price (for comparable capability); that's the hope. But almost no one buys a car based on TCO; if they can't afford the upfront price, it doesn't matter if it will be cheaper in the long-term, even if most people did such calcs. As to Norway only needing "just some subsidies", I've previously listed all the subsidies and perks that Norway gives, which is a lot more than "just some". As I've said before, given their scale you've got to wonder why BEVs or at least PEVs don't make up 99% of sales already.

 

[GRA]

Getting a higher hwy rating than city "might" be explained by the 2-speed transmission, but that could also be explained by how inefficient the Taycan's powertrain is (much like ICE powertrains). Afterall, noted at the bottom of your caranddriver article, the Taycan 4S actually achieved a worse than hwy range result, despite having a bigger battery AND the same 2-speed transmission!

And note that a model S, with the same aero dynamic drag (but worse CdA), and similiar weight, achieves higher range results. The Taycan's numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt for a number of potential "conditions".

You know, at some point when you're digging yourself into a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. Car & Driver:

No wonder I can't get through to you. You actually thought your point was made with that C&D article, despite them reporting the Taycan 4S NOT achieving their EPA results using the exact same 2-speed transmission?

I never said there wouldn't be any improvement with a taller gearing (I did mention the lower frictional losses earlier in this thread chain due to a different final drive ratio). I said that whatever gains wouldn't amount to anything significant (I kept referencing 1%). I think you were hoping for 10%? I deleted all your references, because they pointed to a line of reasoning-by-analogy that completely ignores the data. "oh hey, the Taycan has better hwy range than city range, unlike other EV's ... it must be because of the 2-speed transmission!" - although that might be true, the 2-speed transmission would be compensating for inefficiencies ELSEWHERE (just like in an ICE powertrain). Inefficiencies that probably comes from the transmission itself (each rotating gear/mass introduces frictional losses)! In other words, it's not that the hwy rating was so good, it's that the city rating was so bad!

Since you choose to ignore the data, here's a simple question for you. If the Taycan, like all other current BEVs, had a single speed transmission that used one of the two ratios in its two-speed tranny, which would provide better 0-60 times, the low or high gear? Which would provide better efficiency at say 70 mph cruise? A 5% gain, which is what ZF is claiming, would be useful if that translated directly into range. 259 miles combined (2020+ Bolt) becomes 272 miles. Still inadequate for me, but far more useful. For the sake of argument, let's say that the Taycan with a high gear ratio was half as fast 0-60, 5.2 vs. 2.6 sec. Do I care? No, but I do care about the cruising range.

I held off renting a Bolt until the 2020 arrived, because it offered 259 vice 238 miles EPA combined range for the pre-2020s, and given the lack of charging opportunities along my route (along with what I half-expected and what proved to be the unreliability of my being able to initiate a charge) I wanted every bit of range I could get. Another 10-15 miles is better yet, but I want and need at least 300 (preferably a lot more) to be comfortable.

We started this thread with you "advising" automakers to reduce the power output of their motors to extend the range that an EV could drive on a fixed charge to 300+ miles. And I told you that you were trying to change physics, because more power comes free with a larger battery, and that simply reducing the power of the motor wasn't going to buy you any significant additional range. You can only get 300+ miles of range with a battery bigger than the 60kwh that's currently being deployed.

Final example to try to get you to understand. The Hyundai Ioniq EV vs. the Tesla Model 3 SR+. The Ioniq's city mpge is 150miles vs. the model 3's rating of only 140miles. Does this prove your point, since the Ioniq has a less powerful motor and doesn't accelerate as quickly as the 3? NO, because the Ioniq is actually 7% lighter than the 3, and city driving range is highly dependent on regen efficiency and vehicle weight! You're barking up the wrong tree with your range vs. power crusade.

Actually, we started this thread by me saying that I valued range over 0-60 times, and that one way to achieve that might be a less powerful motor that was more efficient at cruising speeds, possibly combined with a battery chemistry that was more tilted towards energy than power (for the same volume/weight).

Another way to do that was with a different transmission ratio. But if you don't need power for acceleration, you can use a less powerful and less expensive motor (thus allowing more to be spent on battery capacity for the same price), which is aside from any efficiency advantages that may apply.

It's great that the H2 being dispensed is at least 40% renewable, but that's just putting lipstick on a pig. The report said the entire network won't be financially sustainable until 2030 (assuming economy of scale reduces station and fuel costs according to projections)! And they're projecting to barely serve 64,000+ customers by 2026! At $115.7million to build those 94 approved stations, the taxpayers are essentially paying for EVERY SINGLE one of those stations, which would only serve a tiny fraction of the commuters (max projected was only half of my numbers - only 250,000 FCEV's)!

And the targeting of those stations to be near DAC (disadvantaged communities) is so idiotic that it boggles the mind. People who live in those areas, might indeed have trouble charging a BEV, but they'd have a much more difficult time paying for expensive H2! You'll never reach economies of scale under these conditions.

As I said, a boondoggle in the making.

Oh dear, not financially sustainable until 2030. That's terrible. Just when do you think DCFCs will be financially sustainable, 'cause they sure aren't now (at prices that are cheaper than gas) and California's spending a bundle building them as well. From the CEC website, https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-...portation-program/california-electric-vehicle:

• 
  Number of Chargers Installed: 293
  CEC Rebates Issued: $18,752,901
  Total Project Costs: $30,153,868

Good heavens, $30M+ to install just 293 DCFCs? A boondoggle already made, unless you think the end goal is important enough to work through the high initial costs.

As to projections of customers served, that changes more or less annually. A couple of years ago the projections were that there would be insufficient capacity to serve the growing fleet a few years out, but that was before the Air Products explosion and then the pandemic stopped station expansion and the manufacturers scaled back production plans accordingly (no point in trying to make and sell more cars if you can't fuel them). Now that the pace of station expansion is picking up again, the manufacturers are once again revising their production plans upward, and next year''s report will undoubtedly show different projections for how many cars will be sold, and so on.

As for DACs, obviously until H2 prices come down H2 fuel won't be competitive in cost, which is why all the current FCEV manufacturers provide something like $15k of fuel over 3 years (lease, or 6 years buy), much the same as most BEV manufacturers now provide some amount of free DC'ing via EA or what have you (and let's not forget "Free Supercharging for Life"). I think anyone who'd buy rather than lease an FCEV now is nuts given the uncertainty of when H2 costs will come down to be competitive with gasoline, and in fact the vast majority are leased. While I'm not a fan of consumer subsidies to buy cars, the state also provides extra ones to people who live in such communities (and is also doing its best to move trucks and buses in those areas to ZEV first), because they face the worst air pollution.

Ha! $500/yr in free electricity is equivalent to $5,000/yr of free H2?!?!

As for the DCFC costs, I think they were over-charged (no pun intended), but that $19M was spent from 2017 til 2020, and is a tiny fraction of the 4,300 fast chargers that were deployed in california. This means MOST of the charging infrastructure was provided by private industry.

No where near equivalent. Hydrogen will not get the economies of scale needed to become viable, because it literally costs too much and thus is too dependent on subsidies.

The largest number of DCFCs deployed in California are probably EA, which is hardly private industry, and many of the rest were subsidized as well; the CHAdeMO Blinks built long before 2017 certainly were. As to future H2 costs, you're entitled to your opinion; companies who are spending billions of their own money to build that infrastructure and the H2 production facilities disagree with you.

 

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

You know, at some point when you're digging yourself into a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. Car & Driver:

No wonder I can't get through to you. You actually thought your point was made with that C&D article, despite them reporting the Taycan 4S NOT achieving their EPA results using the exact same 2-speed transmission?

I never said there wouldn't be any improvement with a taller gearing (I did mention the lower frictional losses earlier in this thread chain due to a different final drive ratio). I said that whatever gains wouldn't amount to anything significant (I kept referencing 1%). I think you were hoping for 10%? I deleted all your references, because they pointed to a line of reasoning-by-analogy that completely ignores the data. "oh hey, the Taycan has better hwy range than city range, unlike other EV's ... it must be because of the 2-speed transmission!" - although that might be true, the 2-speed transmission would be compensating for inefficiencies ELSEWHERE (just like in an ICE powertrain). Inefficiencies that probably comes from the transmission itself (each rotating gear/mass introduces frictional losses)! In other words, it's not that the hwy rating was so good, it's that the city rating was so bad!

Since you choose to ignore the data, here's a simple question for you. If the Taycan, like all other current BEVs, had a single speed transmission that used one of the two ratios in its two-speed tranny, which would provide better 0-60 times, the low or high gear? Which would provide better efficiency at say 70 mph cruise? A 5% gain, which is what ZF is claiming, would be useful if that translated directly into range. 259 miles combined (2020+ Bolt) becomes 272 miles. Still inadequate for me, but far more useful. For the sake of argument, let's say that the Taycan with a high gear ratio was half as fast 0-60, 5.2 vs. 2.6 sec. Do I care? No, but I do care about the cruising range.

I held off renting a Bolt until the 2020 arrived, because it offered 259 vice 238 miles EPA combined range for the pre-2020s, and given the lack of charging opportunities along my route (along with what I half-expected and what proved to be the unreliability of my being able to initiate a charge) I wanted every bit of range I could get. Another 10-15 miles is better yet, but I want and need at least 300 (preferably a lot more) to be comfortable.

There's no point playing what-ifs with you, because you don't have a fundamental understanding of mechanics. But just for the sake of entertainment:
1) Porsche did the right call in using a 2-speed, because they DID NOT KNOW HOW else to achieve good acceleration and efficient high speed cruising on the autobahn (where speeds of 155+mph are expected from a porsche). The 2-speed was HORRIBLY INEFFICIENT as evidenced by the fact that their city range was LESS than their highway range. You just have to look at how much more energy is needed to push away air at 75mph versus 30mph to realize that city range for an efficient EV should ALWAYS be longer than the hway range. The fact that porsche had a worse city range shows how incredibly inefficient their power-train was! But they had to use it, because their home market has a use case that demanded it.

2) However, the optimum solution is to drop the 2-speed tranmission (because the extra weight also reduces range) and get an electric motor that had a higher operating range, like the carbon-wrapped motor that Tesla uses. And/or use different gear ratios between the front-motor and rear-motor, because even a 1% improvement is better than none, since you'll have a reduction gear with the extra motor anyway. This is what the former model S uses (back in 2014, the 85d gained 1.5% additional range from this split-reduction-gear arrangement AND stronger regen braking from the additional front motor).

You have no business judging other people's solutions, because you're misapplying conventional wisdom into non-conventional systems. Wanting 300+ miles of range is fine, but thinking that you know how to achieve that by asking people to reduce the motor power and changing the battery chemistry shows a complete lack of comprehension of the mechanics and factors involved.

Case in point, Tesla's selection of LiFePO4 (a well known LESS energy-dense chemistry) for their new model 3 SR's getting a HIGHER range (not sure about efficiency yet due to additional weight) than their NCA variant shows how you can't just pick things off a macdonalds menu and get a happy meal. Stop judging the work of the engineers, and let their results speak for themselves. You want the longest range EV? That's a Tesla Model S. You want the most efficient EV? That's a Model 3 SR Plus. You want the cheapest, 300+ mile yet efficient EV? That's a Model 3 LR.

The only one ignoring data is you.

We started this thread with you "advising" automakers to reduce the power output of their motors to extend the range that an EV could drive on a fixed charge to 300+ miles. And I told you that you were trying to change physics, because more power comes free with a larger battery, and that simply reducing the power of the motor wasn't going to buy you any significant additional range. You can only get 300+ miles of range with a battery bigger than the 60kwh that's currently being deployed.

Final example to try to get you to understand. The Hyundai Ioniq EV vs. the Tesla Model 3 SR+. The Ioniq's city mpge is 150miles vs. the model 3's rating of only 140miles. Does this prove your point, since the Ioniq has a less powerful motor and doesn't accelerate as quickly as the 3? NO, because the Ioniq is actually 7% lighter than the 3, and city driving range is highly dependent on regen efficiency and vehicle weight! You're barking up the wrong tree with your range vs. power crusade.

Actually, we started this thread by me saying that I valued range over 0-60 times, and that one way to achieve that might be a less powerful motor that was more efficient at cruising speeds, possibly combined with a battery chemistry that was more tilted towards energy than power (for the same volume/weight).

Another way to do that was with a different transmission ratio. But if you don't need power for acceleration, you can use a less powerful and less expensive motor (thus allowing more to be spent on battery capacity for the same price), which is aside from any efficiency advantages that may apply.

Thanks for ignoring the Ioniq (final drive ratio of 7.4:1 for fewer revs) vs. model 3 (final drive ratio of 9:1) example which directly shows a smaller motor AND a taller gear ratio does NOT translate to better efficiency. Sorry, let me correct/clarify this. IF all else were equal, then YES, a taller gear would improve efficiency (however slight that might be), but as evidenced by the Ioniq, there are more gains to be made in other trade-offs. See the above about your qualifications to judge what are "better" trade-offs.

Oh dear, not financially sustainable until 2030. That's terrible. Just when do you think DCFCs will be financially sustainable, 'cause they sure aren't now (at prices that are cheaper than gas) and California's spending a bundle building them as well. From the CEC website, https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-...portation-program/california-electric-vehicle:


Good heavens, $30M+ to install just 293 DCFCs? A boondoggle already made, unless you think the end goal is important enough to work through the high initial costs.

As to projections of customers served, that changes more or less annually. A couple of years ago the projections were that there would be insufficient capacity to serve the growing fleet a few years out, but that was before the Air Products explosion and then the pandemic stopped station expansion and the manufacturers scaled back production plans accordingly (no point in trying to make and sell more cars if you can't fuel them). Now that the pace of station expansion is picking up again, the manufacturers are once again revising their production plans upward, and next year''s report will undoubtedly show different projections for how many cars will be sold, and so on.

As for DACs, obviously until H2 prices come down H2 fuel won't be competitive in cost, which is why all the current FCEV manufacturers provide something like $15k of fuel over 3 years (lease, or 6 years buy), much the same as most BEV manufacturers now provide some amount of free DC'ing via EA or what have you (and let's not forget "Free Supercharging for Life"). I think anyone who'd buy rather than lease an FCEV now is nuts given the uncertainty of when H2 costs will come down to be competitive with gasoline, and in fact the vast majority are leased. While I'm not a fan of consumer subsidies to buy cars, the state also provides extra ones to people who live in such communities (and is also doing its best to move trucks and buses in those areas to ZEV first), because they face the worst air pollution.

Ha! $500/yr in free electricity is equivalent to $5,000/yr of free H2?!?!

As for the DCFC costs, I think they were over-charged (no pun intended), but that $19M was spent from 2017 til 2020, and is a tiny fraction of the 4,300 fast chargers that were deployed in california. This means MOST of the charging infrastructure was provided by private industry.

No where near equivalent. Hydrogen will not get the economies of scale needed to become viable, because it literally costs too much and thus is too dependent on subsidies.

The largest number of DCFCs deployed in California are probably EA, which is hardly private industry, and many of the rest were subsidized as well; the CHAdeMO Blinks built long before 2017 certainly were. As to future H2 costs, you're entitled to your opinion; companies who are spending billions of their own money to build that infrastructure and the H2 production facilities disagree with you.

Incorrect. Tesla's are the largest number. Although neither are independent entities (as in separate from an automanufacturer), neither are funded by public subsidies. Excluding EA and Tesla, EVgo has 300 DCFC sites, and Greenlots has 130 DCFC sites. I don't have the totals for Chargepoint, but it's more than Greenlots. Just from those 3 providers alone (assuming the 293 public subsidies went to them), there's already more privately-funded stations than not. Don't get me wrong, the cost of those fast chargers can not be supported by charging fees alone. The stations needs to be paid for by the manufacturers/shareholders who benefit from the stations and written off as a marketing expense, NOT subsidized with public dollars.

As for the companies who are spending "billions of their own money" to build infrastructure ... baloney. There's fewer than 50 operating H2 stations now, and another 100 coming soon (most of them relying on public subsidies that amounted to over $300M), I can only see less than $500 million (both private and public) being spent on this paltry infrastructure, and most of that coming from the taxpayers, NOT industry.