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Old 07-22-2021, 09:22 PM   #1
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Pretty bold move….

Announcement from Mercedes today.

From 2025 new vehicle platforms will only be EVs.

"We really want to go for it ... and be dominantly, if not all electric, by the end of the decade," Chief Executive Ola Källenius told Reuters, adding that spending on traditional combustion-engine technology would be "close to zero" by 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...es-2021-07-22/

Electric sprinters and Large electric SUVs for towing are not far away.

Mercedes sell ~2.5M passenger vehicles per year.

Bold move.
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Old 07-22-2021, 09:34 PM   #2
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I am ready for an EV RV. I'm just not sure if they can have a sufficient range or significantly shortened recharge time in the next couple of years.

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Old 07-23-2021, 10:10 AM   #3
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Some rough numbers for thought -
Diesel fuel contains around 37 kWh/gal energy. Diesel engines are about 44% efficient. Diesel trucks get around 15 MPG towing. 300 miles is a reasonable range to tow. So, (300 miles) / (15 MPG) = 20 gal. 20 gal x 37 kWh/gal = 740 kWh of energy consumed. Only 44% of that energy went to moving the truck and the rest was waste, so that means it takes 325 kWh of energy for a truck to go 300 miles towing (if I didn’t make a mistake in the math and all my assumptions are correct).
If we assume electric motors are 90% efficient, that means you need 360 kWh of battery to feed the motors to propel a truck 300 miles while towing. Say 400 kWh to not pull into camp completely dead. The largest batteries used today that I’m aware of are 95kWh in the Audi e-tron and Tesla Model S long range, so reasonably you need a battery 4x that size. An e-tron battery weighs 1500 lbs. Electric vehicle batteries are currently running $137/kWh. Using those numbers, a truck would need a 6000 lb, $55,000 battery.
I don’t really have a point here. Just food for thought. (Disclaimer: I’ve made a lot of assumptions with only one cup of coffee and could have made math errors too, so I don’t warranty that my results are correct.)
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Old 07-23-2021, 10:43 AM   #4
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Hey Mercedes - Good luck with that.....
EV's are going to cause everyone's electric bill to go up whether you own one or not. All I hear about are power plants being shut down and the US power grid being strained. At some point more will have to be built and they will likely be natural gas or nuclear plants. In who's back yard will they be built without years of litigation? It is doubtful the feds will let another river be dammed up for a hydroelectric plant.
This EV craze being pushed upon us will have a lot of very high hidden costs.
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Old 07-23-2021, 11:31 AM   #5
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Don't jump the shark just yet. Daimler is separating the automobile business from their truck business. This announcement appears to be for the car business, where they are going to only build battery-powered electric cars.

Daimler is going all-in on electric trucks, but this is more likely to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells rather than batteries for lories and other heavy-duty trucks.

This puts the Sprinter in the middle ground. Since battery power will not be sufficient and fuel cell power will be too expensive, I expect internal combust power will still be available in the mid term.
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Old 07-23-2021, 11:32 AM   #6
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Hey Mercedes - Good luck with that.....
EV's are going to cause everyone's electric bill to go up whether you own one or not. All I hear about are power plants being shut down and the US power grid being strained. At some point more will have to be built and they will likely be natural gas or nuclear plants. In who's back yard will they be built without years of litigation? It is doubtful the feds will let another river be dammed up for a hydroelectric plant.
This EV craze being pushed upon us will have a lot of very high hidden costs.
My emphasis.

New power plants will be renewable energy, largely solar and wind. Some tidal. There is no reason to build a new natural gas power station.
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Old 07-23-2021, 11:35 AM   #7
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Hey Mercedes - Good luck with that.....
EV's are going to cause everyone's electric bill to go up whether you own one or not. All I hear about are power plants being shut down and the US power grid being strained. At some point more will have to be built and they will likely be natural gas or nuclear plants. In who's back yard will they be built without years of litigation? It is doubtful the feds will let another river be dammed up for a hydroelectric plant.
This EV craze being pushed upon us will have a lot of very high hidden costs.


Many EV owners charge their cars overnight, when the power grid usage is at a minimum, so the impact to the power grid may not be as bad as it seems at first glance. It will be significant though and I think your concerns are valid and not currently being addressed to the degree they need to be. There are also raw material issues that seem to be being largely ignored. The assumptions people are using seem to only focus on reduced costs from scale, but not increased costs from absolute demand. Efficiencies of scale won’t help you if there’s not enough copper, lithium, cobalt, rare earths, or whatever else to meet demand.
Right now I think we’re at a sweet spot where EVs and hybrids are selling at enough volume that there are good efficiencies of scale, but not too much raw material pressure. I think as the volume drastically increases from consumer demand, government mandates, and manufacturer goals, not a lot more savings can be had from scale, but a lot of price increases from material demand are likely. How fast the material markets respond and how much increasing material costs can be offset with scale and increases in design efficiency remains to be seen.
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Old 07-23-2021, 11:48 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by crispyboy View Post
Hey Mercedes - Good luck with that.....
EV's are going to cause everyone's electric bill to go up whether you own one or not. All I hear about are power plants being shut down and the US power grid being strained. At some point more will have to be built and they will likely be natural gas or nuclear plants. In who's back yard will they be built without years of litigation? It is doubtful the feds will let another river be dammed up for a hydroelectric plant.
This EV craze being pushed upon us will have a lot of very high hidden costs.
This. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen.

In fact, the exact opposite will happen. At some point, there will be critical mass of battery electric (and hybrid) automobiles and commercial vehicles on the road. Many residences and nearly all industrial sites now have smart electric meters. There are models (and some pilot studies) that show the impact of everyone keeping their electric vehicles plugged in to a smart grid whenever they are not being operated. When electricity is abundant and cheap (e.g. nighttime), the vehicle batteries will be charging. When there is heavy electrical demand (e.g. 4pm on a day in early August) the batteries will discharge and feed the grid.

This technology exists. The infrastructure is mostly complete. It's not a big leap. The best part is the impact: the models predict that this electric "flywheel" could enable future US energy growth without adding any new power plant production.


In this scenario, the only power plants that will get built will be cleaner & greener to replace coal and other fossil fuels. These are likely to be more expensive to build and operate than the incumbent power plants, so our energy costs will indeed go up. But not because more of us will be tooling around in electric cars.
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Old 07-23-2021, 11:59 AM   #9
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Some rough numbers for thought -
Diesel fuel contains around 37 kWh/gal energy. Diesel engines are about 44% efficient. Diesel trucks get around 15 MPG towing. 300 miles is a reasonable range to tow. So, (300 miles) / (15 MPG) = 20 gal. 20 gal x 37 kWh/gal = 740 kWh of energy consumed. Only 44% of that energy went to moving the truck and the rest was waste, so that means it takes 325 kWh of energy for a truck to go 300 miles towing (if I didn’t make a mistake in the math and all my assumptions are correct).
If we assume electric motors are 90% efficient, that means you need 360 kWh of battery to feed the motors to propel a truck 300 miles while towing. Say 400 kWh to not pull into camp completely dead. The largest batteries used today that I’m aware of are 95kWh in the Audi e-tron and Tesla Model S long range, so reasonably you need a battery 4x that size. An e-tron battery weighs 1500 lbs. Electric vehicle batteries are currently running $137/kWh. Using those numbers, a truck would need a 6000 lb, $55,000 battery.
I don’t really have a point here. Just food for thought. (Disclaimer: I’ve made a lot of assumptions with only one cup of coffee and could have made math errors too, so I don’t warranty that my results are correct.)
I wouldn’t focus on pickup trucks for BEV towing. BEV passenger vehicles will work for lighter trailers, particularly if they are made more aerodynamic, but the approx 50% consumption (and thus range) hit is a challenge.

If we focus on medium duty trucks, the planned ranges are inclusive of loading. Vehicles like the Freightliner EM2 and similar models from Volvo and Mercedes make much more sense for a 10,000 lb trailer IMO.

A Class 6 truck with a GVWR under 26,000 lbs would be a good match.

Tesla has larger batteries now in their Semi, which is under test and doing some commercial deliveries. Limited commercial availability late this year. More volume in 2022. That battery is around 500 kWh depending on the range required. That is for an 80,000 lb class 8 truck.

My vision would be for an (unannounced) single axle version of the Tesla Semi for the ultimate Airstream tow vehicle. The batteries are contained entirely within the wheelbase. The cab is available with a low profile, for other than 40’ trailers, which would match a travel trailer. It is the same width as a wide body Airstream. No sleeper required, so shorten the wheelbase and put a custom cargo box behind the cab. Use that for ebikes, and all the things one wants to take along. Rate it for 40,000 lbs GCWR, so a 20,000 lb truck with a 10,000 lb trailer. 300 or 600 mile range options, two wheel motors instead of four, due to the single axle. Smaller battery required than the class 8 version. That and the single rear axle will bring the price down.

One can dream.

https://electrek.co/2021/02/12/elon-...lectric-truck/
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Old 07-23-2021, 12:37 PM   #10
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Daimler/Mercedes has a new BEV truck. I haven’t seen any dates for future diesel production changes.

420 kWh battery

https://www.daimler.com/products/tru...z/eactros.html
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Old 07-23-2021, 12:55 PM   #11
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Hi

So reading the fine print:

No new money goes into gas / diesel designs after 2025. All designs will be "dominantly" electric by "end of the decade.

That would suggest that things like the Sprinter might get one more spin as diesels and still be available as such through 2030, even if this *does* apply to them.

I do not look forward to trying to find a fast charge setup out in the boonies where even finding "normal" fuel can be difficult.

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Old 07-23-2021, 01:07 PM   #12
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I guess, just an old "Luddite" here, not saying there not a place for EV's, wind, solar, etc.. and please understand, I'm no fan of Michael Moore, but if just 50% of the stuff in this movie is correct, we may not want to be so quick jumping on the whole EV, solar, wind powered world.



Just Saying,
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Old 07-23-2021, 01:22 PM   #13
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Hi

So reading the fine print:

No new money goes into gas / diesel designs after 2025. All designs will be "dominantly" electric by "end of the decade.

That would suggest that things like the Sprinter might get one more spin as diesels and still be available as such through 2030, even if this *does* apply to them.

I do not look forward to trying to find a fast charge setup out in the boonies where even finding "normal" fuel can be difficult.

Bob
Yes.

Also:

One of the new BEV platforms is for light commercial vans, eg Sprinter.

Euro 7 emissions regulations will likely come into play for 2025. They are far stricter than Euro 6 for diesels. And note that Mercedes is reducing development budgets by 80% for ICE vehicles. So we have reduced spending, and a set date. The other variable in the classic cost/speed/quality project management triangle is quality.

Many Euro countries are working to have no ICE new vehicle sales by 2035, so that is likely the date for the last diesel Sprinter, if that.
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Old 07-23-2021, 01:52 PM   #14
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300 miles is a reasonable range to tow.

Last month, multi-stop trip, the last leg was a 624mi day to get back home. Yesterday, left the campsite and came home, was a 548mi day (a piece of that was via ferry, though).

300 miles is lunch-time for us. We've got places to go, things to see. Average pit-stop: refuel, hit the head and grab a drink, back on the road in about 10 minutes for us.

I don't mind the idea of an EV, but recharge rates have to come WAY down before it'd be viable for us to consider.
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Old 07-23-2021, 02:02 PM   #15
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Hi

There are a lot of studies saying that the "typical" customer (whatever that might mean....) is looking for a real world range of > 375 miles on a single charge. Translated, I'd bet that is around a 450 to 500 mile range spec on a bare / unloaded van chassis ( that then gets loaded to near max load ).

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Old 07-23-2021, 02:04 PM   #16
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Hey Mercedes - Good luck with that.....
EV's are going to cause everyone's electric bill to go up whether you own one or not. All I hear about are power plants being shut down and the US power grid being strained. At some point more will have to be built and they will likely be natural gas or nuclear plants. In who's back yard will they be built without years of litigation? It is doubtful the feds will let another river be dammed up for a hydroelectric plant.
This EV craze being pushed upon us will have a lot of very high hidden costs.
My agency is reforming itself. I work for the state, the Dept of Mines, Minerals, and Energy. We're becoming the Department of Energy. We'll still regulate mining, but, we're now going to focus on grid modernization, offshore wind, solar on reclamation sites, geothermal cooling for server farms, etc. etc.

I concur: no new hydro will be done. Wind and solar, we'll play with a lot more. Reason why natural gas had a boom was fracking: w/ fracking getting shot down, NG won't be as economic anymore. Coal, no new plants anymore, will be closing a third of what's left in the short term, and another third over the next X number of years. (Coal will still be important for non-fuel uses, ie, steelmaking, chemical-stocks, etc.)

You mentioned nuclear: it's still being held off on for now, but, truthfully, nuclear will have to be the eventual future. We can't go Chernobyl/Fukushima with it of course, but US type of reactors are safe (when correctly located!). Solving waste disposal is still the rub for nuclear: but, if we want EVs to work, we need to ramp up power production, nuclear can do that part... it's the recharge-time-requirements that need to be solved, how to quickly let folks pop off the road, charge, and get back on the road, that is the hurdle.
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Old 07-23-2021, 04:10 PM   #17
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Yet another Luddite here. I'm still waiting for the "world of tomorrow" from the last century. No sign of it yet.

Of course, we were supposed to be wiped out by overpopulation and nuclear winter by now. Guess I'll continue with my "wait and see" strategy.
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Old 07-23-2021, 07:08 PM   #18
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My emphasis.

New power plants will be renewable energy, largely solar and wind. Some tidal. There is no reason to build a new natural gas power station.
Solar panels destroy the land underneath. Environmentalists are already putting up a fuss. Wind? Look at Texas. Personally I wouldn’t want an ugly windmill in my backyard killing all the birds for miles.

Finally, only 3% of cars sold last year were EVs. We have a long long long way to go for general public acceptance; especially in the middle of the country with the long distances between places. I sure as heck wouldn’t want to drive across Nebraska with an EV in the winter. No way. No how.

I still do not understand the EV push. One could make a hybrid to drive on electric for 80% of trips, but then have the option of gas for longer trips. At least for now.

One article puts it like this:
Choosing a hybrid is a great way to improve efficiency and burn less gas, which means your vehicle will emit fewer pollutants into the air. Hybrids don’t require any changes to existing driving habits, either. And they typically don’t cost much more than a traditional ICE.

Choosing an EV eliminates trips to the gas station, eradicates oil changes, and provides a big boost in terms of performance combined with zero emissions from the use of the vehicle. But if you’re not ready to install a Level 2 home charging station, you’re not comfortable with finding sources of electricity away from home, and you’re not willing to pay a big premium in order to get an EV, this might not be the right vehicle for you.

Choosing a PHEV represents the best of both worlds. When driving in a predictable way, you can use electricity. When life throws you for an unpredictable loop, or you just want to take a road trip, the gasoline engine handles the job without any need to find a way to recharge the battery. And the price of a PHEV falls between hybrid and EV models.
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Old 07-23-2021, 07:41 PM   #19
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Solar panels destroy the land underneath. Environmentalists are already putting up a fuss. Wind? Look at Texas. Personally I wouldn’t want an ugly windmill in my backyard killing all the birds for miles.

Finally, only 3% of cars sold last year were EVs. We have a long long long way to go for general public acceptance; especially in the middle of the country with the long distances between places. I sure as heck wouldn’t want to drive across Nebraska with an EV in the winter. No way. No how.

I still do not understand the EV push. One could make a hybrid to drive on electric for 80% of trips, but then have the option of gas for longer trips. At least for now.

One article puts it like this:
Choosing a hybrid is a great way to improve efficiency and burn less gas, which means your vehicle will emit fewer pollutants into the air. Hybrids don’t require any changes to existing driving habits, either. And they typically don’t cost much more than a traditional ICE.

Choosing an EV eliminates trips to the gas station, eradicates oil changes, and provides a big boost in terms of performance combined with zero emissions from the use of the vehicle. But if you’re not ready to install a Level 2 home charging station, you’re not comfortable with finding sources of electricity away from home, and you’re not willing to pay a big premium in order to get an EV, this might not be the right vehicle for you.

Choosing a PHEV represents the best of both worlds. When driving in a predictable way, you can use electricity. When life throws you for an unpredictable loop, or you just want to take a road trip, the gasoline engine handles the job without any need to find a way to recharge the battery. And the price of a PHEV falls between hybrid and EV models.
This why I live my Chevy volt. I say upscale that tech in a Silverado platform.
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Old 07-23-2021, 07:44 PM   #20
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This why I live my Chevy volt. I say upscale that tech in a Silverado platform.
So at 100,000 miles the VOLT EV needs a new battery because it is degraded from 10 to 30%. What’s that going to cost? About $9,000 from what I’ve read. Yikes. That will buy a lot of gas.. just saying.

Whoops misunderstood you. Sorry. Do you have a PHEV?

But the point is that EVs and battery replacement is expensive.

And I agree with the PHEV in the Silverado or even F150. Chrysler does this in the Pacifica.
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