⁠Is the Electric Vehicle Revolution Unstoppable? ep170: Ben Nelmes 

Thank you to Ben Nelmes from New AutoMotive for joining us on Cleaning Up. Subscribe to the podcast on your favourite podcasting platform and to our weekly newsletter at cleaninguppod.substack.com

Cadillac had a 16 cylinder engine in the 1930s and it made a huge 185 horsepower. A contemporary high dollar Duesenberg with a straight 8 made 88 HP. Almost 100 years later, due to improvements in metallurgy & weight savings you have face melting 300 HP THREE cylinder engines in a couple different Toyotas. You have Mercedes and others with OVER 100hp/cyl. 423 HP in a 4 cyl twin turbo!! I simply cant understand why people think after little more than 10 years of mainstream EVs, that there will never be a better battery or greater energy density. Iron -air. solid state. sodium. nickel cobalt and lithium free batteries! None of these type batteries may ever amount to anything, but research will not stop.

As a person that lives in a rural colder part of the USA and 70 miles from the nearest level three charger I know of no one with a range extender. We wake up each morning with 220 miles on our EV, can be more when we are going on a trip. Even then I have driven half-way across the country on vacation without a problem finding working chargers. Range extenders are not needed. There are lots of pick-up trucks on the road, but not everyone drives them. I see multiple Teslas around here too.

The potential energy storage available from EVs through V2X is actually humungous. Of course, as Elon Musk keeps quipping, the problem is that if you unplug your car, your house goes dark. But think again, that's not necessarily the end of the story. Some of your electrical uses are more intermittent, and you don't want to necessarily want to treat them all the same. So you could have some battery backup as part of your home, supplemented by the car, and all managed by an intelligent system that ensures that power is available to each load at times when it's really needed. It can work with a logic more complex than you would ever be able to manage on your own.

Very relaxed considered chat

Hi Bryony Thanks for helping Ben give us so much information within an hour. 🙏

What most followers of the EV transition are missing is the steady erosion of the BEV power train. The production costs of battery cells (without prices fluctuations because of politics and scarcity) are declining by 14% per year There is no reason to believe that this will stop in the next 10 years. This will not only bring price parity between BEV and ICEV in a few years, but it will make BEV structurally cheaper than ICEV. Especially when realizing the upward pressure on ICE prices caused by environmental regulations. The mentioned S-curve happens when a new technology offers a better price/performance ratio than the old technology. The change from horse and buggy to the T-ford was just that. The new technology that made it possible was just a distraction. A better example is the replacement of CRT TV by flat screen. In the USA the 720 lines flat screen were a huge success, but in Europe there was hardly any demand for them. The explanation for this is that the USA did have NTSC (never the same color) as the CRT standard while Europe did have the visually superior PAL/SECAM encoding. In the PAL/SECAM markets flat screens started to sell when they became 1080p. The S-curve appeared later because the price performance of flat screens appeared later. For BEV the same will happen. When the price/performance of a BEV for a buyer's use-case becomes better than the buyer will consider the BEV. Policies will have a smaller influence when the discrepancy between BEV and ICEV becomes bigger. The reason that many car OEMs expect to sell the last ICEV around 2030 in Europe is that they expect that their ICEV can not compete anymore at that time. The government mandates and regulations are irrelevant at that time. The only thing that can slow the transition is the absence of an adequate charging infrastructure. But that is a market for witch there is a market solution.

Great discussion, thank you to both Ben and Bryony! If we go a bit deeper we could shatter the delusion that science underlies the transport system (see "Killed by a Traffic Engineer" by Wes Marshall). From a systems viewpoint, the assumption that the transport sector can be allocated unlimited access to renewables would be as false as if the same claim for the manufacturing sector was made. Not all uses are equal. Aligning resources to meaningful outcomes will become increasing standard. This is backed up by Simon Michaux's work on the renewables materials problem. I feel convinced that in the future "ecological age" the economy will continue to grow and we will see unimaginable realization of human potential. However, the allocation of renewable forms of energy, be they bio-chemical, mechanical, electrical or simple food calories, will seek purposes with meaningful outcomes. They will not be for the energisation of a meaningless system and economy of production and consumption, where that system adds no value to nature (including of course, human goals).

It won't happen. First no one wants these secund hand car. Secund, there is not enough power, en the lack of grid. And most of alle, there are not enough materials, like copper en semi conductors. So cost will rise

Ben, aspires to be data driven. Perhaps he could explain to the private consumer how BIK and ZEV mandates help them buy small, light, cheap, reliable cars. Since these policies have forced car manufacturers to withdraw all their low margin small cars and replace them with SUVs with acceptable margins. No more Ford (Ka/Fiesta/Focus) the Puma was a small coupe now a SUV. Similar for other manufacturers.

Not sure why you describe companies like Toyota far right? 😂😂 I would put them firmly on the left and Tesla more on the right 😂😂 emissions don’t determine your political standing

I'm totally supportive of the transition to EVs, but the promotors of such really do have start acknowledging that most of us live in towns and cities which - in addition to emissions - are blighted by congestion caused by cars whatever their propulsive system; they simply take up too much space for everyday, mass usage. Talking about cleaning up surface transport without acknowledging the benefits and desirability of a reduction in urban car use and a transition to public transit, cycling and walking has absolutely no credibility in terms of practicality and sustainability. I can only conclude you are fearful of alienating the automotively addicted from your viewer base, but you must start talking about the elephant in the room!

Ugh more activism over analysis. It’s such a shame

In Utah they already are scared of EVs and passed a law making my EV registration go up in cost every year, while ICE vehicles go down in cost. I drive a fiat 500e and it can go like 50 miles a day (before you have to be back at home charging) and then 1 day of charging or 4 hours of quick charge and you can drive again, so you can only really drive it once a day. I drive 200 miles a month it is ridiculous. The ONLY reliable charger is the one in your house, the public ones tend to be like skanky pay phones of the past.

Utter nonsense

A joke, right?

Re: "Is the Electric Vehicle Revolution Unstoppable?" Lol! Anyone with a nodding acquaintance of physics & the Periodic Table knows EVs are a fantasy!

Can you imagine the 80% of the world population that lives in developing nations? They haven’t even got full sewerage, clean drinking water, education, healthcare, enough food OR a proper national power grid. Like they are going to prioritise EV uptake! They can barely afford any normal cars! Oh dear oh dear! Look outside the western bubble mate!

EV's will never replace the internal combustion engine. The people don't want them.