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Transportation

Number of Electric Vehicles on Roads Reaches Three Million: IEA (reuters.com) 228

The number of electric vehicles on roads worldwide rose to a record high of 3.1 million in 2017, but more research, policies and incentives are needed to drive further uptake, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. From a report: The number of electric cars, including battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric passenger light-duty vehicles, increased by 57 percent compared with 2016, the IEA said in a report. China accounted for 40 percent of the global total last year. Research and development, policy support, charging infrastructure investment and production improvements are resulting in lower battery costs and higher electric vehicle (EV) uptake.
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Number of Electric Vehicles on Roads Reaches Three Million: IEA

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:29AM (#56698960)

    ...sold are still on the road? The other 10% made it home.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:40AM (#56699046)

    A vehicle where the fuel is nearly free, goes the same distance, and has 5x the horsepower along with a nearly immortal lifetime due to nearly no moving parts.

    What boggles my mind is that this is only happening because of elon musk, they spent decades and millions of dollars holding back electric vehicles for stupid reasons. This revolution should have happened a long time ago.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:44AM (#56699064)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • EV Batteries cost just around $200/kWh right now, so a 30kWh pack costs about $6000. $6000 will buy you approximately 2000 gallons of gasoline (local fuel prices are just a hair under $3/gal right now, plus it makes the math easier). The average fuel economy for vehicles in the US is about 25 mpg. That works out to 50,000 miles of driving.

        Meanwhile the same 50,000 miles of driving, at an average of 3.5 mi/kWh and $0.18 per kWh (again, local costs) works out to about $2,650.

        So, with no other considerations a

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @10:03AM (#56699220) Homepage Journal

      To be fair Nissan was pushing affordable EVs 8 years ago, and Tesla still hasn't got theirs out. And the Chinese are pushing it really hard too, with 90% of new busses already being EVs with batteries several times the size of the biggest ones that Tesla sells.

    • A vehicle where the fuel is nearly free, goes the same distance, and has 5x the horsepower along with a nearly immortal lifetime due to nearly no moving parts.

      What boggles my mind is that this is only happening because of elon musk, they spent decades and millions of dollars holding back electric vehicles for stupid reasons. This revolution should have happened a long time ago.

      To be fair, batteries have improved tremendously over the last few decades partly fueled by needs from other industries. 20 years ago the battery technology wasn't anywhere near enough to have an EV revolution. Some people tried, like Sinclair, but the EVs weren't for the most part proper car equivalents because they were too heavy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Fuel is nearly free. Immortal lifetime. So delusional.
      • Do tell. I've been driving electric for 5 years. The "fuel" is very inexpensive compared to gas. I have yet to go to a mechanic or dealership to have maintenance done. Your turn.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      A vehicle where the fuel is nearly free, goes the same distance, and has 5x the horsepower along with a nearly immortal lifetime due to nearly no moving parts.

      What boggles my mind is that this is only happening because of elon musk, they spent decades and millions of dollars holding back electric vehicles for stupid reasons. This revolution should have happened a long time ago.

      Huh? Electriv vehicles were around over 100 years ago. In fact, they were the preferred source of powering a vehicle back then - gas

    • What boggles my mind is that this is only happening because of elon musk

      No, it's only happening in the USA because of Elon Musk. EVs in Europe have been quite popular and Tesla is a small player there. EVs in China dwarf the pittance that the USA is putting out, and one of it's biggest companies BYD actually bought a vehicle platform a year before Tesla was founded.

      I'm happy that Elon gave American car manufacturers a kick in the balls. He has done some amazing work for the world, but please don't pretend that this wouldn't have happened without him.

    • It's not happening because of Tesla. Tesla is actually the beneficiary, not the driver. It's happening because CARB (California Air Resources Board - they mandate emissions standards in California) has implemented a zero emissions vehicle mandate [ucsusa.org] The math is a bit complex, but basically every car manufacturer needs to sell a certain percentage of zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) each year. In theory that's electric or hydrogen fuel cell, but right now there's only one hydrogen fuel cell vehicle on the marke
  • by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:50AM (#56699118)

    Interesting article here with USA vehicle statistics: https://www.nanalyze.com/2017/... [nanalyze.com]

    Right now EV's are 0.22% of all cars on the road in the US. I couldn't find a chart that included hybrids.

    • There are hybrids listed below in the chart EV Sales by Brand so its looks like the used EV to cover full EV and hybrids
    • But anyone with some math skills will tell you that with a 50% annual growth rate it doesn't matter much what the current percentage is, it can become a significant fraction of the total within a few years. Lack of infrastructure doesn't need to be solved overnight either. It took years for gas stations to appear when ICE cars first appeared. If there is a demand, chargers will appear at restaurants, stores, parking lots, etc. either to attract customers or for profit. It wouldn't be unreasonable to locat
  • by b0bby ( 201198 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:51AM (#56699122)

    It seems like in the next 2-5 years many major manufacturers are going to be launching fairly reasonably price EVs with decent range. The fast charging networks are expanding right now. As long as the battery prices continue to decline as they have been, I can't see that it would make sense for anyone with access to overnight charging to buy an ICE vehicle after the early 2020s. I hope Ford is using their SUV profits to do the R & D for a competitive EV over the next few years.

  • Thoughts? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So I don't really know if there is any science on this. If you have some more knowledge please correct me.

    The way I see it, we have a pretty serious energy density problem with our current battery tech. (L-Ion tech was invented in the 70's)
    The current EV sales climate seems to be focused on changing driver/consumer behavior, and adapting infrastructure around current battery technology.

    My proposition is this.
    I think we jumped the gun on EVs. I don't think we have the service life, or energy density we need

    • It is unlikely that there will be a jump in battery storage density in the near future. What we hope to see is a continued reduction in cost.

      How much battery do you really need? Is 200 miles per charge not enough? You can charge at home, daily. This would meet well over 90% of my driving needs.

      Long trips are going to be an issue. Even charging rates of 200 miles per hour are going to add significant time to a long trips (1 hour of charging per 3 hours of driving). It is unlikely these rates will improve muc

    • by unimacs ( 597299 )
      I don't know if we're going to see a major breakthrough in battery technology in the near future, but it looks to me that things are improving enough with the current technology both in terms of capacity and cost that EVs will become practical, -especially when more economies of scale kick in.

      I'm not sure what metric of sustainability EVs don't compete on currently but realize that coal fired power generation is on the way out and it has been for awhile. Even non-renewable sources like natural gas are mu
    • "And those things are NOT easy to get rid of safely." if you are talking about batteries then you'll find they are being recycled as they are about 96% recyclable. Nissan/Renault are recycling them into home storage batteries.
    • by atrex ( 4811433 )
      The government pays out a lot of subsidies, not just those for renewable energy infrastructure. Fossil fuels are subsidized, nuclear energy programs are subsidized, farms are subsidized, and on and on. I don't think that what is spent on renewables and renewable infrastructure is significantly disproportionate from other expenditures made both past and present.

      There is new battery tech being developed, mostly in response to the demand and adoption of EVs that wouldn't happen if we didn't have them. Wit
    • Yep I got thoughts:

      L-Ion tech was invented in the 70's

      The 70s era tech has nothing in common with the current Lithium Ion batteries, arguably not even the name if you actually call them by their correct chemistry, and sure as hell not the energy density. So that part of your post is completely irrelevant. Heck Tesla is a manufacturer of several different Lithium Ion chemistries for different purposes.

      I'm just a little worried about all of the infrastructure decisions being made

      Like what infrastructure decisions? I can see precisely zero infrastructure based decisions to date that have any impact on the choice of batte

  • That would have put the electric vs ICE vehicle debate to bed for good. Although then my car would be investigated by both IEA and IAEA, but that's a minor inconvenience.
  • I've said it before: produce an affordable plug-in electric that recharges overnight (or alternately hydrogen fuel cell) light pickup truck with at least a 300 mile range, and I'll be all over it. Until then I'm not interested in any tiny subcompact unibody two-door sedans with no cargo carrying capability, short range, takes all day to recharge, costs in excess of $50000, and you can't even purchase it outright, you have to lease it.
    • Based on your responses below, I know I'm pissing into the wind, but... just be patient. It will happen. For a pick-up, you will need more battery capacity than a car due to its additional weight and aerodynamic losses. Expect, for 300 miles range (how often do you need that much range? daily? occasionally?), to need around 120-150kWh of battery. Even with today's battery prices, that might be doable. The truck will push your $50K boundary pretty hard, but it is feasible. The battery itself, conservatively,
  • 50% of new cars in Norway are plug-in hybrids or EV

    https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/04/50-new-car-registrations-norway-2017-plug-vehicles-hybrids/

  • I technically have a plug-in hybrid which behaves like a EV in the summertime. When it runs out of battery power, it switches seamlessly over to gas. It's a little small on the interior but let's you enjoy having an EV without and of the range limitations. It's a bit less efficient than a pure EV and the gas engine takes a little care but it's more than a reasonable trade-off. No regrets here despite it being 2x the cost of my first car which was a 05 Corolla.

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