Heavier & heavier EV batteries

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/22/23733215/ford-ev-battery-size-weight-safety-jim-farley

sample quote

I have no idea what’s going on in this industry right now,”
Ford CEO Jim Farley said during his company’s capital markets event Monday.
He referenced electric vehicles coming out with 450–500 miles of range, including “a three-row crossover” announced today that was likely the new electric Cadillac Escalade.

Higher ranges will necessitate bigger batteries, he noted, adding, “These batteries are huge.”

Farley is right. US automakers are relying on supersized batteries to power their equally supersized EVs — namely, all the electric trucks that will soon flood the US market. Car companies (perhaps rightly) assumed that the best way to sell America’s truck-loving population on plug-in power is to electrify a bunch of pickups. And big trucks need big batteries to justify big range to address anxiety any truck buyers may have about switching sides to electric.

The Rivian R1T truck and R1S SUV run on batteries as large as 135kWh.
The Hummer EV’s 212kWh battery is heavier than a Honda Civic.
Chevy just announced a higher range estimate for its forthcoming Silverado EV for a total of 450 miles on a single charge. That’s thanks to the 200kWh Ultium battery firing its electrons beneath the floorboards of this 8,000-pound behemoth.

The Ram 1500 REV includes an option for a 229kWh battery for a targeted range of 500 miles.

This is not sustainable. Bigger batteries, longer range, heavier trucks... these are not the hallmarks of the sea change the auto industry is trying to sell us on.

end quote

Not to mention the countries roads are in poor shape as they are. So now lets make every rig on the road a overweight pig.

I view this as just one of many unforeseen issues to come. These obviously aren't like the tried and true winches. This is a whole new use of the technology and I want no part of them probably ever but not at least for ten years. The internal combustion engine has been in it's same basic form for over 100 years. Talk about something being rushed to market!

I read an article on my R&T feed this morning: the battery in the new Hummer weighs 2800 lbs - that's a Miata.
The whole EV scenario is such a tail-chasing clusterf**k...

This is why Goodyear says tire life on an ev is 50% less than for a gas. Sounds like it will get even worse as batteries get heavier.

Also supports my thesis that the tech isn’t advancing like the industry and dreamers want us to believe. These aren’t improvements in efficiency, it’s merely making bigger versions of what we have already.

In addition, tire designs are going to get taller and wider to handle the added weight of the vehicles. We all know that means higher prices for us ICE vehicle drivers when more materials will be designated for EV product - leaving us with shortages due to higher demand for a limited product.

So another unspoken of detriment to the environment from EV's. More tires in the landfills.

No one has mentioned the impact on payload?

No more fatazz occupants.

My work truck is full of tools, parts and supplies. It's a 2500 4x4 crewcab longbed. I just drove 300 miles from the work site to home today. No chargers at the hotel I was staying at either. I think the gas station down the block had chargers, but who knows if they are the right kind?

So Ford is also saying they are losing about what 40k on every Lightning sold. The plan is to sell more and this volume hopefully makes them profitable. But, right now Ford has 1000's and 1000's of overpriced trucks sitting on the dealer lots. Why? Who the heck can afford 60-75k for a pickup truck. Someone is drinking Kool-Aid here. For sold 66k electric vehicles out of a total of 1.8m and lost money on every one of them. I'm sure Ford accountants have the figure, but what volume does this become profitable? I believe(memory may fail me) that margins are the F150 are 40% right now. But, people are not buying them. They are also not buy GMs or Rams overpriced pigs. So, Selling this truck for 60k isn't going to cut it. Even worse. Ford only makes and sells one car in the US so subtract the mustang sales from that 1.8m and you see the lightning sales are miniscule compared to all the other ICE truck variants. If I were Ford/GM/Stellantis I would be figuring out how to sue the crap out of the EPA for overstepping their boundries with CAFE. It doesn't really matter. Either sue the gov(remember the gov does not direct the US economy and this was just affirmed by the SC on coal plants) and waste the money in court or figure all US auto companies will be out of business in 10 years unless some huge and I mean huge tech bomb drops to change battery size and efficiency.
I have told folks, yep, I make good money and am doing okay and should be able to retire fairly well. But, one reason is I don't go around buying 50k cars. I'm sure there are folks that make more than me but I'm also sure most make less. If I can't see buying something this stupidly expensive, I don't see Joe Smith and his wife making 60k a year doing it for sure. ie. Ford/Ram/GM are literally pricing themselves out of business. Hybrids are a different animal but that isn't what we are talking about. We will see about solid state batteries but by the time they roll out this will all be over. Solid state at least could offer more dependable range, less weight, less use of very expensive materials, and smaller size. Even worse is Ford basically stated they see themselves as a tech company that makes vehicles and plan on selling subscriptions. I'm a technophobe. Last thing I want is to have to pay a huge price for a vehicle that may not operate unless I continue to pay the drug dealer.

I saw a magazine last year that had a story on a loop they drove around mi and oh and how 90% of the chargers weren’t working, and the ones that did in no way juiced the battery as fast as advertised. As in a low percentage charge after an hour, not a full charge in thirty minutes or whatever bs they are trying to claim.

Yeah - something is REALLY fishy about these being so rushed to market & basically government mandated. Hmmm.

I'll also add that ALL of the EV-related stocks (except Tesla) are ALL tanking - BIGTIME. And when I say EV-related, I mean charging companies, battery-producing companies, mining companies for the minerals, electric bike companies, etc. Show me ONE publicly traded company besides Tesla where their stocks are doing well. Something is VERY fishy about all of this. And it is unsustainable.

This may be a bit off topic but a friend of mine who works for Continental Oil told me that due to Chevrolet going all EV with pickups, for the first time in the history of Continental they are going to buy Ram's.

Tesla is way down over the past year.

The overwhelming majority can't, and they couldn't before either. They buy on credit and only pay attention to the monthly payment. Near zero interest rates for a decade enabled this. The spike in rates is going to kill this golden goose for Ford and the rest. Going to do the same thing with homes too.

Exxon returns to its1970 lithium pioneering

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/exxonmobil-xom-acquires-drilling-rights-in-arkansas-land

Saturday Wall Street Journal says that on Thursday Ford made a deal with Tesla to allow Ford EVs to recharge at Tesla charging stations.

And roads needing a lot more work because of damage done by everyone having much heavier vehicles, higher demand for road repair will make the per mile cost of road repair go up... we can barely find workers to fix the roads at current labor prices what are we gonna do when they need 50% more repairs?

Increasing sales volume will drive up demand for lithium, copper, rare earth and give us even higher prices! This is not a scenario where higher volume will drive down prices. Platinum went from about $100 an ounce before cats to $650ish within 10 years when the last automakers finnaly embraced cats.... higher production volume of catalyst sales made the price go up not down.

If they really wanted to further push their agenda they would standardize all charging ports like they did with OBDII diagnostic ports. Additionally standardize batteries and make em all a 5 minute job to swap em so the "gas" station can have em charged and ready to drop in to make super fast fill up times like my ICE car. The manufactures need to get over themselves and work together to fix the real big problems that battery electrics have (range anxiety, speed of "re-fueling" where can I charge up?...)

Tesla is short of cash,
I wonder how much Ford paid “up front” to make this happen.

Right now existing Ford EV plug is quite different from Tesla plug.

Ding Ding, we have a winner!! Now imagine that they say sales are about 5-6% right now and companies have been having issues getting materials for batteries. What would it look like at 100% 12 years from now(2035) if some tech breakthrough doesn't happen? I can tell you. The price of a vehicle will be unobtainium for the average Joe or even the above average Joe. Just this weekend some organization has warned about blackouts lasting days this summer. The current agenda being pushed will take all of us back to 1870. I always wondered back in 2008 why the Smart grid didn't basically include folks getting solar on every house. Think about it. Even if you were connected to the grid, a point of origin power system means less stress on the grid. A lot less stress if we all did this. But, then again, that would be the government "directing" the economy. Just food for thought.

I watched a John Soloman one hour show about small modular nuclear reactors.
There is more going on there than I was aware of.
USA Military and USA Space program wants small nuclear reactors and is funding designs.

Mr. Fusion? We were supposed to have that 8 years ago.

I would be worried about the general population having useable amounts of nuclear material, remember the kid that gathered up Americium from smoke detectors, enough to build a dirty bomb.

VERY simple solution to all of this: embrace petroleum. There are NO good reasons that we need to move away from the tried & true. The only good reason would be that we were running out of oil.

Visiting the Way Back Machine, I had to take a half-semester course in college called World Energy Resources. It was mandated by New York State for all SUNY/CUNY colleges. Professor Doom was adamant that we would be bone-dry out of oil by 1990, and as we were entering a new 'climate ice age' we would all starve/freeze to death. Kind of made my C in Language class seem comparatively irrelevant.

Yup, I heard all that doom and gloom in the 80s as a kid.

Problem is, the most recent gens are complete da's that don't seem to realize the world didn't start the moment they were born. For years my youngest(19 now) called everything before he was born, "The before Times". You tell someone about the gloom and doom Ice age predictions of the 70's and they are stunned. Most of us are older so have seen this crap before and see it coming a mile away. The young folks, they just believe it. It doesn't help that the media is banging on this garbage 24/7 like it is real. Would the world be better if we didn't have ICE vehicles ever? Maybe, but we do. It isn't like they still get 8mpg. Heck my Corolla can get 40+ if driven a certain way. What more do you want? So I'll run the math for a youngster, 60k for an EV and replace battery every 100k for 15k cost. Drive car 300k and it costs 90k not including electricity. By Corolla for 24k and drive for 300k because darn thing never breaks. 90k vs 24k and that is simple math. Now, where are those 2 used batteries going to end up??????????? Since when are we not paying a disposal fee for anything???? Then tell them the US uses about 18m barrels a day. Industry uses 12m of that. Hey, we are still using oil so when someone tells you something, stop, think, pull head out of rear.

The book “unsettled” by Steven Koonin is a good read about these issues.

Steven Koonin also did a good “quick facts” talk on C-Span TV that is now on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvBdwmxT2c

Koonin used to teach physics and was a pioneer in computer models at Cal Tech
and seems to follow the Richard Feynman model of stating the scientific facts even if it upsets one or the other current “narrative.”

Friday WSJ reporting that GM has now signed a deal to allow its future EVs to recharge at Tesla stations.

Rivian signs deal with Tesla Supercharger Charging Stations to use and mentions an adapter.

They way I read it was that existing owners would get a Tesla adapter and new owners would have Tesla plugs but get CCA adapters. But who knows...