New electric Ram

[Evguy1]

It's an interesting concept really. If you aren't in an area with a lot of thru-traffic, including anything between commuting or just road travel, it's almost not necessary to have public chargers at all.

Yes and no. Its true if you have a home or condo with a charging station which can be as simple as a 120V standard outlet then you would not need a public charging station unless you go on a trip. This is the part that is hard for a lot of gas car people to think about. You fill at home at very little cost and the car is always full in the morning. The ONLY time you need a public station is if you go outside your cars range. Most cars now have a 200+ to 400 miles range so you really need to be heading out of town to use that sort of range. The only time we use public charging is on road trips and some local charging at the mall since its free and why not. If you live in an apartment where charging is not available then yes you need public charging. Here in BC and many other locations the electrical code states you must pre wire for EV charging in all new condos and the number of outlets is a percent of the number of units in the building.

 

[mcarey]

Battery swapping has been around for decades and tried a number of times. There is a cool video online of a new automated Tesla swap system and they have a timed comparison between filling a gas car and swapping a battery pack. They swap two Tesla packs before the gas car is finished filling. One of the big issues is who owns the battery packs and who maintains them. You pull in and get a pack that has 200,000 miles on it and trade for your brand new one? Fast charging tech is getting better every year, I read the other day where someone is charging to 90% in 5 minutes. You need a LOT of power to dump that quickly so they must do some sort of onsite storage?
Here is the video:

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www.youtube.com

That was pretty impressive. But to be "that guy", it's a lot easier to do something when your techs and your vehicle are both fully prepped and ready to do it for a demo, than to do it in real life as you'd see at a battery swap facility.

For the model 3:

To get the pack out, a series of bolts that anchor the side rocker panels to the car had to be removed. After pulling that cover, another series of bolts was revealed that actually hold the rails of the pack to the frame. On the inside of the car, they had to remove the seats, and after pulling up the carpet, there were another 15 bolts, including 4 heavy-duty bolts that anchor the rear of the pack directly to the chassis under the rear seats.

That's pretty invasive on it's own. Then you have to deal with moving around the damned thing, lol. No idea though how that changes vehicle to vehicle.

It will be interesting to see if this does become more of a streamlined process over time though. I can see the potential, necessary facility size aside.

And I've never considered the ownership aspect. That's an entire new fiasco of sorts.

Another cool thing I've read about recently is wireless car charging. The McLaren Speedtail has it now, though the battery is quite small and the charging is exceptionally lackluster. But again, baby-steps towards new tech. Would be super cool to just drive over a pad in your driveway every night!

If you live in an apartment where charging is not available then yes you need public charging. Here in BC and many other locations the electrical code states you must pre wire for EV charging in all new condos and the number of outlets is a percent of the number of units in the building.

Yeah, the apartment thing is definitely a reality. But, and I may be showing a bit of ignorance here, I can't imagine there are many apartment dwellers (in the sense of living in an honest apartment building) in many rural country towns. Or at least the rural areas I drive through out here in Utah. Though as adoption becomes more and more of a thing, that would obviously have to change to support those who do.

 

[Evguy1]

That was pretty impressive. But to be "that guy", it's a lot easier to do something when your techs and your vehicle are both fully prepped and ready to do it for a demo, than to do it in real life as you'd see at a battery swap facility.
Yeah, the apartment thing is definitely a reality. But, and I may be showing a bit of ignorance here, I can't imagine there are many apartment dwellers (in the sense of living in an honest apartment building) in many rural country towns.

That was obviously a publicity stunt and the reality of running those battey pack bolts in and out over hundreds of swaps is not very realistic, the threads would be gone in no time but other means of locking them in place are available and faster. I think fast charging is the way things are going and will continue to go.
Around here they are building tons of new apartment building as rent for houses and condos has sky rocketed the last few years but until the cost of EV's come down and the used EV market gets going, most of the apartment dwellers wont be buying an EV.

 

[HEMIMANN]

An article in today's NYT morning briefing says Ford has stopped taking orders for F150 Lightning EV @ 200,000 orders - 2 years worth of production @ 75,000 trucks a year, and plans to double capacity when they can get materials. Whenever that is.

Brings up the question again - where is all the new lithium, copper, and electricity going to come from? It's one thing to declare engine powered vehicles passe, quite another to think about and plan a complete industry changeover.

I'm not against changing over - I just question whether sufficient forethought has gone into it before we're all left stranded without any vehicles. That and all the engine powertrain supply shops going out of business, having to change over to an industry that requires none of their current skills. It's getting rough out there, members.

The newer EV facilities are being placed in the southern U.S. for lower labor costs also, leaving the northern states even rustier. Glad to get out when I did as I become obsolete from modern living. Hope our kids do ok. Back to Nikola Tesla's dream of EV's in reality.

True the sheet metal, tires, and electronics industries will still be active, but the rest is a huge part of a vehicle.

 

[mcarey]

An article in today's NYT morning briefing says Ford has stopped taking orders for F150 Lightning EV @ 200,000 orders - 2 years worth of production @ 75,000 trucks a year, and plans to double capacity when they can get materials. Whenever that is.

Brings up the question again - where is all the new lithium, copper, and electricity going to come from? It's one thing to declare engine powered vehicles passe, quite another to think about and plan a complete industry changeover.

I'm not against changing over - I just question whether sufficient forethought has gone into it before we're all left stranded without any vehicles. That and all the engine powertrain supply shops going out of business, having to change over to an industry that requires none of their current skills. It's getting rough out there, members.

The newer EV facilities are being placed in the southern U.S. for lower labor costs also, leaving the northern states even rustier. Glad to get out when I did as I become obsolete from modern living. Hope our kids do ok. Back to Nikola Tesla's dream of EV's in reality.

True the sheet metal, tires, and electronics industries will still be active, but the rest is a huge part of a vehicle.

A large portion of this thread has been around the reality that this change from ICE to EV is going to quite literally take decades upon decades to get to the point where ICE vehicles and their related jobs are completely gone. And looking at the numbers you're pointing out, even if Ford does produce every Lightning it hopes to, it'll be a very minor blip of new vehicles into the current marketshare of ~17 million new vehicles sold every year. I'm pretty sure I said it earlier, but even if they were to 100% stop making ICEs today, it'd take an incredible amount of time to get to the point that ICE vehicles were no longer a majority.

But you're definitely right. EVs are a potential industry disrupter. And on an auto forum, I can sorta see the stronger connection to the ICE workforce. But, I'd also suggest how everyone felt when cellphones were on their way to becoming a mainstay. I'd imagine very few people cried out "think about the land-line workers!" That said, I also do value the empathy here, as that's becoming a bit rarer these days. However, industry impacts are just an unfortunate reality of major shifts. And, in somewhat good news, it's largely dependent on the demand. If EVs really take off, there will be countless new jobs available for positions that don't even exist now. Will that be a 1:1? No idea. Could be 10:1 or 1:10. We'll have to see.

As far as materials? I have no hard info on the wheres of those things. But, if there is increased demand for resources, there will be an increased effort to get them. I've been buying lithium company stocks for a good while now, and it's working well. Those companies are going to get bigger if more people want the crap they are ripping out of the earth.

 

[392DevilDog]

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[392DevilDog]

Video: The 2024 Ram 1500 Revolution EV Truck Is Confirmed - Take a Look at the Chassis - The Fast Lane Truck

tfltruck.com

 

[GTyankee]

Those EV battery swapping stations could form a club
Each club member buy into the club for say $25,000

You would have to do it that way, because as batteries age, they will need to be replaced

The club as a whole would own charging stations, so the non club members could use the regular charging stations, but not the battery swapping stations

 

[HEMIMANN]

Those EV battery swapping stations could form a club
Each club member buy into the club for say $25,000

You would have to do it that way, because as batteries age, they will need to be replaced

The club as a whole would own charging stations, so the non club members could use the regular charging stations, but not the battery swapping stations

I wonder what becomes of the old lithium batteries? I don't know how they work or why they no longer hold a sufficient charge. One would hope at least the lithium could be recovered like lead is from a lead-acid battery.

 

[mcarey]

Those EV battery swapping stations could form a club
Each club member buy into the club for say $25,000

You would have to do it that way, because as batteries age, they will need to be replaced

The club as a whole would own charging stations, so the non club members could use the regular charging stations, but not the battery swapping stations

Hey, now you're thinking!

I wonder what becomes of the old lithium batteries? I don't know how they work or why they no longer hold a sufficient charge. One would hope at least the lithium could be recovered like lead is from a lead-acid battery.

They can be recycled and or reused. The current issue, as far as I know, is doing so efficiently enough to make the juice worth the squeeze.

 

[seabrook]

long live the v8 lol

 

[seabrook]

Hey, now you're thinking!

They can be recycled and or reused. The current issue, as far as I know, is doing so efficiently enough to make the juice worth the squeeze.

actually they can’t because each producer has a different chemical cocktail

 

[mcarey]

long live the v8 lol

That twin turbo inline 6 RAM is talking about is surely going to grind your gears lol.

actually they can’t because each producer has a different chemical cocktail

But it's actively being done, right now? I've been following a company, Li-Cycle, for a while now and they are recycling tens of thousands of tons of li-ion every year. And, they are actively expanding (Rochester, NY) to create a massive facility to increase that number right now.

Scientific American also had an article this month about researchers who have made pretty strong leaps in the future of li-ion recycling as well. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...n-batteries-can-perform-better-than-new-ones/

Recycling lithium ion batteries is absolutely a thing that not only can be done, but is being done today.

 

[Mister Luck]

I've often thought about this idea. It'd be pretty rad to pull into a jiffy-lube like location, and a pit crew just swaps your battery and you go. But there are a few pretty massive problems with the concept at large.

The biggest one being that these batteries are quite simple pretty damn large. They typically weigh ~1000lbs plus/minus depending on the capacity. Just moving those around is no easy feat. They are also not really just an easy plug and play installation since they have to be protected and whatnot. And I'd imagine they are fragile to some degree.

There is also the issue of having a facility capable of storing all of these. Beyond the size and weight, they are all different shapes too. So you'd need a place that would have a pretty expansive inventory of these batteries, because you'd ideally want to cover all the manufacturers and subsequent models that may show up. It'd have to be a rather big warehouse just for the storage half of the equation. I think you'd struggle to have these facilities conveniently placed everywhere, if it was even possible to quickly drop and swap them in the first place.

And then as great as it sounds, I'd still imagine that by the time you got into a bay, some fancy mechanism went and picked your battery, brought it to you, you got it swapped, etc. it'd really not be nearly as fast as one would expect. I mean, think about how long a generic oil change typically takes, and we have had purpose built facilities doing this for decades now. At best, I think it'd be sixes compared to the quick charging tech we currently have - without all the added complexity mentioned above - but likely longer.

I'm sure there are even more issues with the concept if you think about it more too. Maybe one day there will be a set of battery standards across all vehicles that makes this slightly more feasible, but I've got to imagine that increasing charging rates will almost always win out in time and ease.

Like I said an engineer

Many things that are thought of as proprietary,
control the design process, beyond what is practical in application.

Practicality at this time is not advancing technology ahead of human existence .

You can try to pull everything together with an argument in order to feel as if you’re won something but in reality the only thing worth saving is human existence

Reality is something you devise and develop I use the word devise because it can be used selfishly or constructively.

An engineer is not going to rehash failures they are something you learn from and design the technology from it — but ,
as a international community of corporations we can do better and need to do better stop the insanity or leave the technology alone until it is reasonable, and keep the bureaucracy out of it .

There are still a few modern examples left in the corporate world where co-operation benefits the whole instead of the individual one of them helps propel your vehicle. I’ll give you a hint with two letters.
( ZF )

 

[mcarey]

Like I said an engineer

Many things that are thought of as proprietary,
control the design process, beyond what is practical in application.

Practicality at this time is not advancing technology ahead of human existence .

You can try to pull everything together with an argument in order to feel as if you’re won something but in reality the only thing worth saving is human existence

Reality is something you devise and develop I use the word devise because it can be used selfishly or constructively.

An engineer is not going to rehash failures they are something you learn from and design the technology from it — but ,
as a international community of corporations we can do better and need to do better stop the insanity or leave the technology alone until it is reasonable, and keep the bureaucracy out of it .

There are still a few modern examples left in the corporate world where co-operation benefits the whole instead of the individual one of them helps propel your vehicle. I’ll give you a hint with two letters.
( ZF )

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here, to be honest. Are you suggesting that the adoption of EVs is somehow hindering (or risking) human existence?

 

[GTyankee]

I don't know if any of you have actually watched a regular car battery being rebuilt

I have been to a few places that rebuild them, believe me, they smell bad

They heat up the rubber or plastic lid to break the seal, so they can remove it.
Once the lid is removed, they pour the solution out into a container
At that point they remove the lead plates out of the case.

If it is the old style rubber case, it is discarded

The lead cells are put in a chemical solution that breaks up & cleans the plates of the formation of lead sulfate crystals.
Once those lead sulfate crystals are removed, they dunk the plates in another solution & then they are rinsed off.

Then they place the plates in a clean plastic case & place a lid on it & seal it
At that point they set it on the shelf.

When someone wants to buy a rebuilt battery, they pour in the electrolyte to the top of the plates & top off the battery with distilled water & then but it on a charger for a period of time.

Believe it or not, a battery from an EV is just a bit more complicated, but it can be done

 

[seabrook]

That twin turbo inline 6 RAM is talking about is surely going to grind your gears lol.


But it's actively being done, right now? I've been following a company, Li-Cycle, for a while now and they are recycling tens of thousands of tons of li-ion every year. And, they are actively expanding (Rochester, NY) to create a massive facility to increase that number right now.

Scientific American also had an article this month about researchers who have made pretty strong leaps in the future of li-ion recycling as well. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...n-batteries-can-perform-better-than-new-ones/

Recycling lithium ion batteries is absolutely a thing that not only can be done, but is being done today.

they just recover the precious materials from a Li battery- a Li battery is ruined after use and you have to destroy it. Also the Li chemistry is not the same from mfr to mfr

 

[mcarey]

they just recover the precious materials from a Li battery- a Li battery is ruined after use and you have to destroy it. Also the Li chemistry is not the same from mfr to mfr

You're going to have to explain this more...

If they recover the materials, and then can use said materials to make another battery, that is precisely what recycling is.

I'm not understanding at all.

 

[seabrook]

You're going to have to explain this more...

If they recover the materials, and then can use said materials to make another battery, that is precisely what recycling is.

I'm not understanding at all.

no that's a scrapyard

 

[mcarey]

no that's a scrapyard

Lol, oh, okay.

I'd genuinely love to know what classifies as recycling in your eyes. A thrift store?