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Aptera has released a marketing video of their beta-edtion of the 3-wheeled, super-aero vehicle racing 1/4 mile versus a Tesla Model 3 and an Audi R8 GT Spyder.
I gotta say, that even if the other vehicles were hamstrung a little bit and there is an asterisk on the result, I had no idea that the Aptera was going to offer the kind of strong acceleration to even be in the discussion with them.
It looks like (and has been marketed as) a vehicle that sacrifices everything else for efficiency and range, so I didn't expect it to be fast!
As a variant on vehicle to load and what I think might be a precursor to vehicle to vehicle so you can give your buddy a boost on the side of the road or AAA can give you one, here are some details on the Ford Lightning Intelligent Backup Power for home power backup
What's interesting to me is the hack that Ford uses currently to do home power backup since CCS is still working on specifying a standard. They're using the AC connector for charging as you normally would for level 2 charging, but are sending power to the home via the DC connectors. So here's a pretty good obvious case of building DC output from the battery which I think is ultimately what will be how giving other vehicle's a boost will go. These vehicle batteries usually can discharge at a far higher rate than they can charge, so it may be that your EV ends up being a good fast charging station for someone else's.
I like the Ford Lightening idea that you can use the Truck to power your house if the power goes out. You can use it for power while camping. They claim it can power an average house for three days or a campsite for up to two weeks and still be able to move the truck. I expect that will be featured on all EVs eventually.
I like the Ford Lightening idea that you can use the Truck to power your house if the power goes out. You can use it for power while camping. They claim it can power an average house for three days or a campsite for up to two weeks and still be able to move the truck. I expect that will be featured on all EVs eventually.
Yea, and it's just the start. Vehicle to load or home is on the docket for the next CCS version so it becomes more standardized. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 / Kia EV6 / Genesis GV60 triplets recently released also have a lesser version of it right now that still has pretty decent output and the VW ID.4 supposedly is also getting something similar this summer.
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Originally Posted by V8 Vega
Yeah but then when you need the truck the battery is dead and the electricity is off
It could be though it depends on how long and extensive the power outage is. Most, though not all, power outages aren't weeks long and are somewhat localized, so it's possible for the vehicle to tide people over for the duration of most power outages. If you have local storage (which is getting much cheaper) or a second EV as two car households aren't that uncommon among car-owning households, then it's possible that the outage is localized enough that the EV can unplug while the stationary storage or second EV takes over (or the house doesn't have power for a bit) while you go to a part of the area that still does have power and fast charge your vehicle. One thing that's becoming more common are charging stations that have both local energy storage (a big battery) as well as some modicum of generation via solar panels.
On top of that, there are also a variety of ways to generate power for backup. One thing that's interesting are the large utility scale stationary storage units that are often sized so that each module can fit for container shipping and semitruck hauling. I think something like that with fully charged stationary batteries and possibly a deployable solar panel set can end up being very useful for larger scale emergencies and would be somewhat flexible in transport and reusable. They also wouldn't necessarily be a waste while not in emergency situations as they can be used for electricity price arbitrage with time of use rates.
Freight rail operations would require an immense amount of battery capacity compared to your standard consumer EV and batteries were for a very long time very expensive per kWh so battery electric locomotives were generally relegated to very limited uses. Now that price per kWh has dropped nearly an order of magnitude over the last decade, we're seeing the first generation of modern electric freight locomotives come to market.
350 mile range? Suitable for short-line duty I suppose, but compared to the 1,000+ mile range of current diesel electrics it falls a well short of what's needed for Class I duty. Liquid fuels will continue to be the on-board energy source of choice for long-haul duty for the foreseeable future,
350 mile range? Suitable for short-line duty I suppose, but compared to the 1,000+ mile range of current diesel electrics it falls a well short of what's needed for Class I duty. Liquid fuels will continue to be the on-board energy source of choice for long-haul duty for the foreseeable future,
Yea! These are great for short-line duty! If there is electrification en route, they can also be good for longer hauls though then it's a cost-benefit analysis of the cost of that en rouute charging infrastructure compared to fuel, maintenance and time savings. This set is a pretty good step in the right direction and this 7 MWh unit is a massive improvement over the 2.4 MWh prototype from about two years ago. It's hard to foresee the future especially as you get further out in timespan, but the end of this decade looks possible for 1,000+ mile on battery reserve alone though it may make more sense instead to have more spots of electrification en route.
The good thing is that there are a lot of tried and true electric power delivery standards for rail. There are even standards for coupling sets for power transfer so battery rolling stock with more capacity, possibly fully charged, can be swapped in and out. It can even be compatible with diesel-electric though for some of these you'd want to rework a bit so the regenerative braking component of the motors go to a battery whether onboard or to a coupled battery car instead of the fairly common practice of converting it into waste heat. For electrification en route, the best places for electrification are anywhere that have both easy grid access and where railcars will frequently have stopped or slowed for a significant amount of time anyways as that'd maximize the use of the charging infrastructure installed. It's also good for powering a trainset to its cruising speed as after that then the only thing the battery power needs to do is work against rolling resistance losses (which are very low for steel on steel) and wind resistance which is also generally pretty low given trains in a set are close to each other and speeds aren't generally all that high. With well-placed infrastructure and with electric power delivery at stopping points at places up to accelerating to operating speed, then the effective power reserve from that electrification is actually two components. There's the battery itself which the train has been charging up and how much electrochemical energy potential there is in that which is pretty direct and understandable. The additional bonus though is the conversion of that grid electricity into kinetic energy from bringing the trainset up to operating speed. Even when there are spots where the train will need to stop or slow down and there is no electrification, that kinetic energy with regenerative braking can have a significant amount of it brought into the battery for later use so the net effective total energy gain from electric power delivery from the grid is actually more than just what the battery takes in during those charging segments but also that kinetic energy which on a fully loaded freight train consist at tens of thousands of tonnes and at a brisk operating speed of dozens of mph can itself be on the MWh scale. As a tangent, that energy conversion itself, and the low rolling resistance of steel on steel, is interesting enough to actually have some startups pursuing parts of that mechanism for utility scale energy storage: https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/115249...y-storage-rail
In terms of the initial purchase price cost competitiveness, my guess is that the expiration of key patents for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery chemistries this April will lead to their greater usage over the next two years. LFP's already very popular in China due to a consortium of battery makers there having negotiated with the patent holders to waive per unit fees, but they've yet to make it here. It does seem like it's gearing up though as Tesla has commenced on a massive likely LFP battery production facility in Lathrop, CA that will be up and running shortly after April and I doubt they'll be the only company investing in such for the US. LFPs are great in terms of life cycle, the ability to charge up to full, and most importantly, cost per kWh. The main drawback to LFP is that they are of lower energy density than the chemistry used in many of the leading EVs in the US (though better than those types of batteries from a decade ago), but that matters a lot less for rail because there is a far, far lower rolling resistance penalty for steel on steel versus rubber on asphalt.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-25-2022 at 12:21 PM..
350 mile range? Suitable for short-line duty I suppose, but compared to the 1,000+ mile range of current diesel electrics it falls a well short of what's needed for Class I duty. Liquid fuels will continue to be the on-board energy source of choice for long-haul duty for the foreseeable future,
Re-reading this and it occurred to me that there may have been a misreading of the article. 350 mile range is indeed great for short-line duty and that's the range of the 2.4MWh prototype from about two years ago. The article I posted was about orders for a new version of these vehicles with 7MWh of capacity. This is unlikely to be a perfectly straight proportional increase where (7 MWh / 2.4 MWh) * 350 miles = 1020 miles of range, but I also don't think it will be incredibly off from there for a number of reasons.
While the 7 MWh version will almost certainly be heavier than the 2.4 MWh prototype, I don't think it'll necessarily be around 3 times heavier, and even if it were, that shouldn't result in a massive penalty because of various properties specific to freight trains. For one, a 3X increase in battery weight will almost certainly not mean a 3X heavier haul for the locomotive as the trainset likely has it that the locomotive/battery is a fairly small proportion of the overall weight as the majority of the weight will be the freight and the trailers so a 3X increase in battery weight (which I'm not sure is what will happen) is going to be a comparative drop in the bucket compared to the total weight of the trainset. This similarly also applies to the potential losses for the rolling resistance where that rolling resistance loss is going to be mostly via the rest of the set, and also, it should be clear that unlike with a rubber on asphalt road vehicle, having 3X the rolling resistance even if it were just the locomotive, does not have nearly as strong of an effect because the rolling resistance is very low to begin with.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-25-2022 at 01:57 PM..
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