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The policies of the world's leading countries are forcing the transition of the car fleet to electric vehicles. But this transition does not call our lifestyles into question, quite the contrary.
If you work in car design like I do, you see a lot of vehicles going through so-called 'anti-pollution' tests and now range and electric consumption tests. This gives us an idea of the electricity consumption of vehicles in real life and on test benches, as well as charging times. In normal life, very few people live near a fast-charging station, or are wealthy enough to have one at home, or to pay for regular charging away from home. So we get recharging by what are commonly called 'Wallboxes' with a maximum power of 22kW, but more often we get 7 or 11kW. To give you an idea of what this represents, EDF (France's main electricity supplier) recommends a 9 to 12 kVA offer to be able to ensure recharging at the same time as the rest for a 3 to 7kW terminal. And of course, if you want to go up to 11kW, you need 15kVA, and even 30kVA for a very rare 22kW. This increases, for example in France, the price of the annual subscription compared with the 3kVA at 110 euros that many households have:
EDF also recommends a peak/off-peak offer to minimise the impact, because you obviously have to add all the kWh consumed to the bill.
To better understand the problem, we need to look at the size of electric vehicle batteries 3 years ago, the average size of today's best batteries and the size of tomorrow's batteries. Energy density (battery capacity per unit of weight or volume in Wh/kg or Wh/m³) is increasing year on year. We've gone from 45 kWh to 75 kWh today, and we'll probably be aiming for 100 to 120 kWh tomorrow. This is because we're also seeing an increase in energy consumption of ever bigger and heavier vehicles, even if we disregard the battery. Where we used to get 14 kWh/100 km at best, we're now getting more like 17 to 18 kWh/100 km, and even 22 or 25 kWh/100 km for the biggest SUVs (even if the Tesla Model 3 goes in the direction of optimisation). This means that charging times are changing :
Don't panic just yet. Because you never fully charge the battery (except during official tests), and beyond 80% capacity, recharging is slower, and you never fully discharge the battery until you reach what is known in the automotive industry as 'Turtle mode'. But unless you're a heavy sleeper, it's unlikely that the night will last more than 9 hours, so the 100kWh is the limit of what you can do at home at a price that's still affordable. Today, a premium sedan like Tesla S already has 100 kWh, as do the big German electric SUVs. Trucks in the United States already have more than that, or
even twice as much, because for them, the solution lies in superchargers with a capacity of more than 150 kW (it's not recomended to always use it). Can we have a look at the results?
In Europe, for example, we have Ionity network of German manufacturers, which charges €11.99 a month for access, giving a rate of 0.39 euros/kWh in France (it's more in Germany) for 350kW … in theory (in reality is that the charging points are in poor condition). That's €0.59/kWh without the subscription. At home, the blue tariff of EDF is €0.23/kWh and €0.17/kWh
for off-peak hours. Tesla's tariff is €0.61/kWh. If we take a rather low average of 750 km/month with a consumption of 18 kWh/100 km, we get 135 kWh/month :
The economic argument for electric cars is starting to fade (especially if you drive on the motorway, where the cost of a charging point is prohibitive because fuel consumption increases by 40 to 50%), and that's a real shame. What remains is the reality of your life, i.e. that unless there are major changes to land-use planning, we will continue to need electric cars. And that's why we're heading for disaster, because consumption isn't decreasing and charging time is going to become a problem without any change in tariffs. In an age of energy inflation, there's little chance of that changing. Once again, it's capitalism that kills the idea. Let's imagine a truly optimised and well-distributed supply to suit different lifestyles, and it could already work. However, there are some reassuring signs, such as the recent presentation of very realistic prototypes by Mercedes and BMW, aimed at lower fuel consumption without increasing the size of the battery. Tesla also seems to be moving in this direction after its 'dragster' years. But that's not the only problem.
Imagine someone living in a suburban area, in a flat in a council flat. They won't be able to get a charging point in their car park, so they'll have to use charging points that will significantly increase their cost of living, or take advantage of special offers and low-cost charging points far from home... The average household in a house will also see its electricity bill rise by €80 to €120 or more. The trend is towards a split in the market between heavy, premium electric vehicles with huge batteries for access to luxury fast-charging stations, and low-cost electric vehicles limited to suburban areas because of the capacity of the battery and the charger. Chemistry itself is taking battery components in several directions. There is talk of weight reduction for solid batteries, short times for batteries with lower density and lower cost, and vice versa. On the contrary, we need to work on the most complex issues: weight, efficiency of electrical components, bearings, aerodynamics, etc., in other words everything that costs money to design, and adaptability to different lifestyles, because we clearly don't need the 2-tonne monsters that are being sold to us today. The first adaptability would be to do without cars, which means I might not have a job any more. But if we also have to make bicycles, scooters and other scooters whose batteries and motors are not designed to last very long (from 2 to 5 years on a bicycle), that's not a good solution either.
If I wanted to sum up these figures, I could say that if we continue on our current path, the car will become an anachronistic tool reserved for an elite. We are moving towards vehicles that cannot be recharged at home in ou spare time, even if we consider that a good charge is only partial. We are moving towards charging points that are difficult to maintain at full capacity at all the stations in the country. Above all, we're going to have to cope with power demands on the grid that are incompatible with the problems experienced this winter by the French power plants. Today's market is still in its infancy, therefor that demand for MW on the grid has fallen this winter. But what about tomorrow, when 60% of the fleet has been renewed?
RTE (which manages the power grid in France) predicts 7.3 million vehicles in 2030, and today's fleet is made up of 40 million vehicles
from a pro-nuclear lobby). The lobby's study then estimates the need at 20 TWh in 2030 and eventually (2050) at 80 TWh more than today, which needs to be converted into generating capacity. This would make it by far the country's biggest electricity consumer in terms of transport, well ahead of rail (10 to 15 TWh). If we take into account network losses and the fact that the entire fleet does not require energy at the same time, this study estimates that between 3 and 4 EPR reactors (new generation nuclear plants in France...20 years in the making in Finland, China, UK ha ha ) will be needed... the operation of which is constantly being postponed, and the construction of the next ones not even begun. It's a race against time, and I'm betting that the need, even if it's delayed, will be higher because of the change in the fleet since this study (which assumes an average consumption of 20 kWh/100km, compared with 18.6 according to RTE). It does not take into account an increased need for superchargers, but rather a fairly low-powered domestic recharging system. Coming from a pro-nuclear, pro-science lobby, the aim is obviously not to encourage people to reduce their consumption, even though they talk about reasoned ecology. I'm not the only one to say so, as seen in this article :
But unfortunately, other aspects of our electricity consumption are not moving in the right direction either. The replacement of oil- and gas-fired heating systems can affect the network, as can the increase in air-conditioning, which is barely offset by the reduction in the number of heat leakages in the housing stock and the replacement of old electric convectors. The digital and network industries also play their part. So it's not just 3 or 4 reactors that are
needed in France, and the 6 planned, plus the increase in solar and wind power, will not be enough to satisfy our energy appetites. Imagine that in other european countries like Poland with coal energy plants....Yet this potential reduction in CO2 emissions is urgent. It's a safe bet, then, that the increase in the number of electric vehicles will sometimes be curbed by cuts in subsidies if things go too quickly, or increases if things go too slowly for the car industry and political imperatives. This should make us, the consumers, think about using our means of transport sensibly and choosing
them carefully. However, the market continues to focus on SUVs, which are highly profitable for manufacturers, but with impact on electricity consumption (+15 to 30% even if a Tesla Model Y can do a better job than some Sedans).
The ball is no longer just in the political court, but also in the hands of industry and the general public.
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