(Article courtesy: Gerry Delval)
A little over one year ago, I gave a presentation on battery electric vehicles (BEV), including a report on my experience with our Hyundai Kona Electric that we had purchased just over one year earlier. I believe that my presentation helped at least two members in their decisions to acquire a BEV. BEV technology and BEV adoption is moving so quickly that I thought an update would be of interest. In this document, there are a number of hyperlinks that will allow readers to get more information.
A RAPID BEV UPTAKE
Emulating the count of flowers in early spring, the Victoria Electric Vehicle Association (VicEVA), to which I belong, decided this year to count BEVs for one hour during the morning commute at 4 major interchanges. The count was 1023. We live in Brentwood Bay and when we were thinking of getting an EV in 2018, we would count BEVs every time we would drive into town. Most days we would see 4 to 6. They were mostly first generation Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S. We kept counting BEVs after we picked up our Kona and stopped counting when we got to 50 per trip. Today, there are 3 Konas in our neighbourhood and we’ll see at least 4 other Konas per outing, not to mention all of the other makes BEVs. While this type of survey is far from scientific, it is nevertheless a major indicator of the huge increase in less than 4 years.
BEV CAR LINEUP
When we were researching which BEV would suit us, the list of cars was pretty short. BMW had the i3; Nissan was replacing the original Leaf with a new one; Chevy was just coming out with the Bolt; Hyundai was introducing the Ioniq electric and the Kona electric; Kia offered the Soul EV; Tesla had the Model S and was taking orders for the new Model 3. Others were talking about electric cars to come but had nothing to offer.
What a difference three years makes. Today, the list of available cars is growing. Cars of all price ranges that are available now or coming before the end of the year include: Audi 4 e-tron; BMW i4; Chevrolet Bolt; Ford Mustang Mach E; Genesis G80; GMC Hummer Electric; Hyundai Kona electric, Ionic electric and Ionic 5; Jaguar I-Pace; Kia Soul EV and Niro EV; Mercedes Benz EQS; Mini Cooper SE; Nissan Leaf; Porsche Taycan; Tesla Models S, 3, X, Y and Cybertruck; Volvo XC40 and VW ID.4.
These BEVs are and/or will be available in BC before most other jurisdictions in Canada because of the province’s aggressive policy toward the electrification of private cars. When we bought our Kona, we received a $5,000 rebate from BC for purchasing a BEV. We also took advantage of the Scrap It Program that gave us another $6,000 for scrapping our legacy internal combustion engine (L-ICE) car. This was way more than we could get for our old car on a sale or trade-in and it was paid for by a progressive oil company that essentially bought the car and then claimed a carbon credit for removing a fossil fuel burner. The rebate and the Scrap It Program thus were funded by the tax on carbon – those who burn fossil fuels pay a fee that is then rebated to others who replace their fossil fuel source with renewable energy. Today, the BC BEV rebate has dropped to $3,000 because there is now a Federal BEV rebate of $5,000. So, new BEV buyers now enjoy a total of $8,000 in rebates, although the more expensive BEVs are denied the BC rebate – details are available on the CleanBC Web site. The Scrap It Program still exists with an annual limit, so new BEV buyers who buy earlier in the year have a much better chance to participate. This is a point of discussion and negotiation with a prospective dealer when buying a BEV.
If today’s list of available BEVs is not enough, here are some of the cars arriving in 2022 and shortly thereafter: Audi A6 e-tron; BMW iX; Bollinger (new start-up) B1; Cadillac Lyriq; Chevrolet Silverado Electric pickup; Ford F-150 Electric pickup; Jeep Wrangler Magneto; Kia EV 6; Lexus EV Lineup; Mazda MX30; Mercedes Benz EQA, EQB, EQE; Nissan Ariya; Porsche Macan EV; Rivian (new start-up) R1T and R1S; Subaru and Toyota joint venture electric SUV; Tesla Roadster; Toyota bZ4X; VW ID.Buzz and ID. Space Vizzion; Volvo C4 Recharge. Still not enough and you are ready to spend hundreds of thousands for an exotic electric super car? Check this out.
BC LEADERSHIP IN BEV ADOPTION
BC passed legislation to reduce green house gasses (GHGs) of road vehicles by mandating the sale of zero emission vehicles. The act calls for zero emission vehicles sales to be no less than 10% of all new light duty vehicle (cars, pickups and small trucks) sales by 2025, climbing to 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2040. BEV sales in BC have already exceeded the 10% level, 4 years ahead of plan. At this rate, BC should easily achieve the goal by 2035 and so VicEVA is advocating that the act be amended to reflect this. The Association is also suggesting that this timing include medium and heavy duty vehicle.
Most people will now concede that BEVs are the future, but the skeptics complain about two things: the range being too short and the charge time being too long. Both have improved and about to improve even more. Let’s look at what this means.
The range of almost all of the new BEV models exceeds 300 km, with the larger vehicles offering around 500 km. These cars are not like the older cars with 100 km range that needed to be plugged in at home and at work or one risked getting stranded. With our Kona’s 500 km range, we never plug in except at home and then only when the remaining range drops below 150 km. And, we also set the charging software to stop charging at 80% (400 km). This puts less wear on the battery and it will extend its life significantly. Of course, when we are on a road trip, then we don’t hesitate to charge above 80% to get more range.
About road trips, few people drive non-stop for hours on end. Most will drive several hours, stop for a bite and drive several more hours before calling it a day. BC’s commitment to BEVs extends to installing DC fast chargers (DCFC) along all BC highways. These are located in towns, near restaurants, in rest stops and some are even in gas stations. So, driving in BC is fairly straightforward and it is always possible to find a good place to stop for lunch and charge at the same time. Not all DCFCs are the same. The older ones have a capacity of 50 kw but the newer ones can be as high as 350 kw. Newer cars on average will need between 30 and 60 minutes to charge from 5% to 80% which is more than ample time to have a restful lunch before continuing the trip. Currently, it does require a bit of planning ahead, but with 500 km of range between charges, it is no big deal. New DCFCs are being added in BC all the time. The whole stretch of the US west coast is also almost fully electrified with DCFCs. There are gaps in the Canadian corridors, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan. However, for the newer cars, the Trans Canada Highway is reasonably well serviced thanks to Petro Canada and Canadian Tire with their own DCFCs and some hotels with 240 volt chargers that will recharge a car overnight. Until May 1 this year, most DCFCs in BC were free to use but as of May 1, they all require payment. DCFC locations are shown on the PlugShare Web site directly or through the CleanBC Web site.
BATTERIES
Lithium ion cells are great because unlike their predecessors, they don’t mind being partially discharged or recharged. They can go through many cycles and they don’t develop a memory that limits their useful life. That is why they drive everything battery-powered that we own.
Just to be clear, we tend to use the words cell and battery interchangeably. But in reality, a cell is a single unit while a battery is a group of cells that are interconnected and that function as an entity. Car batteries consist of hundreds or even thousands of individual lithium ion cells that are grouped in cell packs, placed alongside one another in the floor of the car and interconnected to form the battery.
Lithium is the third lightest element in the universe and while lithium ion cells are lighter than their predecessors, the cathode requires cobalt to give the cell its great discharge and recharge performance. However, cobalt is much heavier than lithium, so car batteries are still relatively heavy making the total weight of a BEV greater than that of an equivalent L-ICE. Getting rid of the cobalt is a strategic goal and several research teams have come up with alternatives that would reduce the amount of cobalt, even eliminate it. Some have come up with configurations that are promising and I think that we could see new lighter lithium ion cells in the next 2 to 3 years. This will allow car batteries to have higher energy density and capacity and just about double the range. So it is conceivable that new BEVs 3 to 5 years from now could have a range of as high as 800 to 1,000 km between charges.
A second area of development of lithium ion cells is replacing the viscous electrolyte, by which the lithium ions migrate between the electrodes, with a solid state medium. This can make the cells even more compact and more chemically stable. A solid state electrolyte allows the ions to migrate much faster and much more safely and thus making it possible to speed up the charge cycle. With solid state lithium cells, car batteries could be recharged from 5% to 80% in about 10 minutes – not very different than filling up a tank of gasoline. Toyota which participates in a Japanese research consortium on lithium ion cells is claiming to be poised to introduce solid state lithium ions batteries in some cars as early as 2022.
These two lithium ion cell developments will quickly remove any skepticism about range and charge time of BEVs. While current new BEVs are great, I believe that BEVs 3 to 5 years from now will be even greater. By then, DCFCs will be as common along highways as are fueling stations. There will be no more need for people to hang on to their L-ICE vehicles. Nevertheless, it will take several decades to see no more L-ICE on our roads. I, for one, must admit some guilt. I have a 31 year old convertible sports car that I intend to keep forever. However, realistically, it visited a gas station 3 times in 2020 and only once so far this year.
TRUCKS AND BUSES
Trucks and buses are also going BEV. Tesla will start delivering its Class 8 BEV truck by the end of the year. The first iteration of the Tesla Semi will have a range of 800 km. Quebec manufacturer Lion Electric, has a line of BEV semis as well as a line of BEV buses, for school and public transit. NovaBus in Ontario manufactures BEV transit buses. Ford will be introducing the E-Transit delivery vans in 2022. GM will be manufacturing its new delivery van, the BrightDrop EV600, in Canada in 2023. Vancouver Island’s own CanEV which has been manufacturing small BEV trucks for non-public road applications, such as airports, just received a grant from the BC government to get its products certified for public roads, opening its doors to greater business.
Vancouver’s TransLink has a number of BEV buses in operation and is ordering more. Closer to home, BC school districts have ordered BEV school buses, Sooke being the first to take delivery in May. Also on the Island, two progressive companies, Quality Foods and Mosaic Forest Management, have ordered Tesla Semi trucks to replace diesel trucks in their fleets as their contributions to reducing green house gases and saving money at the same time. VicEVA has been in contact with a number of municipalities in the CRD to assist them in adopting BEVs as they replace their fleets. Among the most compelling candidate vehicles are police cars. Keep an eye open for stealthy silent police cruisers in the near future. The Swiss canton of St Galen has already standardized on using the Hyundai Kona as the preferred BEV patrol car.
HYBRIDS AND HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
Some of you will have noticed that throughout this document, I refer to electric vehicles as BEVs. This is very deliberate because it is important to differentiate the true electric vehicles, that is, the BEVs, from other vehicles whose wheels are also driven by electric motors. I am referring here to hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs), neither of which are really EVs but both of which are accepted by well meaning but ill-informed political legislators as EVs. Don’t feel bad if this is confusing because it is. So let me explain.
Hybrids are cars that have an electric motor that drives one axle fed by a small battery plus they also have a conventional internal combustion engine that drives the other axle. They come in two flavours: hybrid and plug-in hybrid. The hybrid has a very small battery and it is used to off-load the ICE during acceleration when it would work harder. It can operate entirely electric for a very short cruising distance. It also allows for regenerative breaking. It relies on regeneration and on the ICE to recharge on the go. The plug-in hybrid has a larger battery, but much smaller than that of a BEV, that can provide up to about 40 km of pure electric range before the ICE needs to kick in. It can be charged like a BEV and so in theory, it acts as a BEV for modest trips and as a hybrid-assist for anything longer. Our daughter, who lives in Switzerland, is interested in a career change as a consultant to help companies to manage their carbon footprint. She did some homework on cars and sent me a link of an interesting study conducted by the Touring Club of Switzerland (TCS) comparing the carbon footprint (that is, from start of manufacture to end of life) of L-ICE, hybrid and BEV cars. The TCS is somewhat akin to our BCAA. As expected, BEVs start with the highest carbon footprint at time of manufacture but add no carbon or next to none during the life of operation. Overall, they end up with the lowest carbon footprint. L-ICE start with the lowest carbon footprint at time of manufacture but it keeps on increasing during their life as they burn fossil fuel. Overall, they end up with a substantial carbon footprint. Hybrids start off with a carbon footprint that is lower than that of BEVs but higher than that of L-ICE. Because they consume fossil fuel during their life, their carbon footprint keeps growing too and interestingly, they could never catch up and beat the L-ICE. The exception is for hybrids that have a decent electric range and a very small daily commute that can consistently be done on pure electric mode and with no or substantially no road trips on fossil fuels. Not an endorsement for hybrids.
FCEVs operate on hydrogen. The hydrogen is introduced in a fuel cell (an electrochemical converter) where it interacts with atmospheric oxygen. The two gases combine to create water vapour and this reaction releases excess electrons that are used to drive an electric motor. This sounds reasonable right? No GHG emissions. And if that is all that one looks at, a FCEV looks like a true zero emission vehicle. The problem however, is the hydrogen. It is not a natural resource as too many people are led to believe. Rather, it is a material that must be produced. Even though hydrogen is the most abundant element on our planet and in the universe, it does not exist as a gas on earth. Any free hydrogen gas quickly rises into the stratosphere and reacts with oxygen to create water vapour. On earth, hydrogen is bonded to carbon in the form of hydrocarbons (eg: methane, octane and all the way up to coal) or to oxygen as water. To produce hydrogen, it must be stripped away from a hydrocarbon or from water. So, at the outset, energy is required to strip away the hydrogen. That is not a good start. Next, the least costly process to produce hydrogen is steam methane reforming (SMR) and 95% of the hydrogen produced in the world is by this process. An SMR facility is a big petrochemical type of plant where steam and methane are forced to react under heat and the output is hydrogen plus carbon dioxide, the GHG that we must stop creating. In fact, for every 1 kg of hydrogen produced, 9 kg of carbon dioxide are also produced. The carbon dioxide is generally released into the atmosphere. However, it can be captured and stored (CCS) but at a huge cost, so there is no commercial incentive to capture and store. There are 4 CCS facilities in Canada with a price tag of about C$1 billion and which required government assistance. And, more energy is needed to transport and store the gas. The greenest but most expensive way to produce hydrogen is by electrolysis, that is, by running a DC current through water to release hydrogen and oxygen that are collected separately. This process, while green, is not energy efficient though. In order to produce 1 kg of hydrogen, 55 kwh of electricity are required.
Hydrogen is used in industrial processes where there is no alternative but for the transportation sector, there is a clear alternative, BEVs. To put this in context, the two car manufacturers that make FCEVs for sale in Canada are Toyota and Hyundai and their spec sheets indicate that they both have a 5 kg hydrogen tank on board and a range of 500 km. This means an energy consumption of 1 kg/100 km, or converting to the electricity needed to make the hydrogen, the electric consumption is 55 kwh/100 km. In contrast, the majority of BEVs have an average electric consumption of 15 kwh/100 km – our Kona’s is 13 kwh/100 km. For transportation, making hydrogen by the SMR process produces just about the same amount of carbon dioxide as making gasoline; capturing and storing carbon dioxide is overly expensive and would require government subsidies; making hydrogen by electrolysis to convert it back into electricity is totally inefficient. Again, not an endorsement for FCEVs.
I hope that this new information will be useful to you if you are in the market for a new car whether it is now or in the future. Go BEV. It is the only way to go. Feel free to drop me an email at gerry.delval@gmail.com if you want to have a conversation or to get more in-depth information. If I can’t help, I can always find someone in VicEVA who will have the answer.
– Gerry Delval
