Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
I for one will NEVER buy a battery EV, especially while I live in a rural area. Range, recharging times, worse performance in cold weather (recharging and range), degradation of battery performance over time and the carbon footprint of battery manufacture all factor in to my thinking.
I will however be an early adopter of Hydrogen fuel cell cars when the technology matures and so long as the refuelling infrastructure is in place. Ask me again in 10 years.  |
Let's look at this idea of poor EV battery performance in cold weather. These are not lead acid batteries, and this is not northern Canada or Norway in January. A typical Li cell will lose about 1/3 of its current capacity at -10C, which would be the about the coldest it could encounter in Australia. This causes a reduction in range, but can be countered somewhat by battery heating. Common accessories in cold countries would include battery heaters, insulation blankets, etc. LI batteries suffer from minimal degraded output performance over time, the life span is expressed in terms of the number of charging cycles. Average lifespan is usually quoted as 7 years assuming daily use, or should I say the recommended change interval is seven years.
Changing of battery packs is fairly straight forward, and likely to be increasingly serviceable in years to come.
As Europe moves towards elimination of ICE production targets, more and more innovation in EV service, products, etc will drive efficiencies. Tesla is about to release its Semi Prime Mover.
Sure, right now, you would not invest in an EV to haul a road train across the country, but never say never.