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  #76  
Old 08-02-2017, 09:36 PM
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Location: Milford, DE
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sun tortise View Post
There is a website for solar energy by zip. Clicking on a random spot in Delaware 39.6 N, 75.8 E, showed 4.68 hours of sun per day (averaged over a year). An 8 Kw system would yield about 10,000 Kw Hrs per year. I think there are other solar calculators that will give a breakdown by month, but if you are grid tied and have net metering, the excess in June will balance out the deficiency in December. 10 K Kw hrs would charge a 60 Kw hr battery about 160 times. (probably a week or so in February is about right.) You might need more panels if you also want to run your house. A quick check of AltEstore.com showed panels as low as 59 cents a watt. So for about 5 grand, you could get enough panels to charge the car every two days. Most solar panels come with a 20 -25 year warranty but last indefinitely (some of the originals from the 60's and 70's are still producing). That would be about 6000 full charges over 20 years. If you drive 200 miles per charge, that is about 1.2 million miles of driving for an investment of $5000, maybe $10,000 if we throw in inverters, chargers, roof mounting systems, wires, meters, etc. If we assume a comparable vehicle gets 30 MPG, and petrol or diesel remain at $2.50 a gallon for the next 20 years (not likely), the fuel cost to drive 1.2 million miles would be about $100,000. This is not counting oil changes, exhaust systems, and a lot of other maintenance which is largely absent with electric vehicles. And you will likely still have a functional PV system at the end of the 20 years!
Since you asked, I'll respond. I'm not sure I'll convince you but you've made more than few errors and omissions in your response. Right off the bat I think its a little dangerous to assume a 20 year service life for the car, solar panels and the diesel vehicle. How many people actually drive (or want to drive) the same car for 20 years? How many people actually live in the same house for 20 years? Many do, but many don't and if you ever decided to move its unlikely you'd be taking your solar panels with you. Many people don't own a home and can't install complex solar generation systems on rentals or condos.

My 9.46kw solar array in Delaware generated 10,193 kw/hr's in calendar year 2016. 10,193 KW/Hrs could recharge a 60 KW/hr battery pack around 170 times per year if the panel was used for nothing else but charging a car. In the January/February time it would typically take 4-5 days to recharge, there are time periods when its cloudy when it wouldn't charge fully in 7 days. Of course you point out that we can use net metering to offset these bad production months and your right but as I recall you and Dr Seba are saying the future is in distributed solar systems with no grid connections right? I find it kind of strange that when its not convenient for your arguments you fall back onto the old grid? So are you a proponent of distributed solar of grid tied solar?

Assuming a 200 mile range and 170 charges per year you'd be capable of 34K miles a year of round-trips that were under 200 miles for your EV. How did you get to 6,000 charge cycles? Seems like 3,400 over the 20 year time period? Over a 20 year period that would be 680K miles of operation not 1.2 million. You are not correct that solar panels last forever and you've also made an error that Li-on battery packs last forever. As anyone that has ever owned a device powered by a Li-on battery pack knows time, vibration and charge cycles conspire to kill Li-ion battery packs. 600-800 charge cycles is pretty typical service life so over your 20 year period and 3,400 charge/discharge cycles you're going to need 3-4 battery replacements. Li-ion battery pack replacements on a 60 kw/hr battery pack are currently running $10-20K dollars. So if you went through 4 battery packs at $15k a pop that would be about 60K dollars for batteries alone over the 20 year period.

If you can deliver and install a 10 kw/hr Solar system for 10K dollars I'd advise you to quit your day job and become a solar dealer and installer. The 2016 national average for solar system installed is $3.26 per watt. A 10KW system would be about $32K, after tax rebates and incentives it would be about 25K but keep in mind you've got to come up with the $32k up front.

Like most EV people you've also forgotten about road tax, assuming a 30MPG vehicle equivalent and 40 cents a gallon state and fed taxes thats 9K dollars over the 20 year period. We want to be fair here right? Everybody has to pay their fair share.

So assuming no breakdowns or service in your EV for 680k miles your expenses would be 25K solar array, 60K for battery packs and $9K for road tax for a total of 94K dollars for 20years and 680,000 miles of EV bliss.

A modern CDI vehicle that was the same size/weight as your EV could easily get 35 MPG. If we assume 30 MPG as you suggested and $2.50 a gallon we'd get 56K dollars for fuel over the 680,000 mile 20 year time period. I've already paid my road tax so that seems to leave me with 38K for exhaust systems, oil changes, etc.

I want to be clear that if we ever get to the Dr Seba world where distributed solar systems are actually cheaper than grid systems fed with free fusion power I'm all-in. I'd love to see such a system and maybe if we had one I'd even buy an electric car. But I'm highly skeptical that Li-ion batteries and solar panels (as they currently exist) are going to get us there even if they fall in cost by several orders of magnitude.

We'll see.

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  #77  
Old 08-02-2017, 09:51 PM
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The details being that Hybrid vehicles are not included here, so this isn't exactly a ban on passenger petrol cars, or even petrol itself. Still, this is way too far off into the future to know for sure if this will ACTUALLY happen. This is rubbish legislation that will most likely cost Britain billions of dollars. I say nonsense to all of it, but in 23 years, if by some miracle chance this actually occurs and Britain doesn't suffer immensely for it, I will indeed eat my hat.
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  #78  
Old 08-02-2017, 10:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TimFreeh View Post
Since you asked, I'll respond. I'm not sure I'll convince you but you've made more than few errors and omissions in your response. Right off the bat I think its a little dangerous to assume a 20 year service life for the car, solar panels and the diesel vehicle. How many people actually drive (or want to drive) the same car for 20 years? How many people actually live in the same house for 20 years? Many do, but many don't and if you ever decided to move its unlikely you'd be taking your solar panels with you. Many people don't own a home and can't install complex solar generation systems on rentals or condos.

My 9.46kw solar array in Delaware generated 10,193 kw/hr's in calendar year 2016. 10,193 KW/Hrs could recharge a 60 KW/hr battery pack around 170 times per year if the panel was used for nothing else but charging a car. In the January/February time it would typically take 4-5 days to recharge, there are time periods when its cloudy when it wouldn't charge fully in 7 days. Of course you point out that we can use net metering to offset these bad production months and your right but as I recall you and Dr Seba are saying the future is in distributed solar systems with no grid connections right? I find it kind of strange that when its not convenient for your arguments you fall back onto the old grid? So are you a proponent of distributed solar of grid tied solar?

Assuming a 200 mile range and 170 charges per year you'd be capable of 34K miles a year of round-trips that were under 200 miles for your EV. How did you get to 6,000 charge cycles? Seems like 3,400 over the 20 year time period? Over a 20 year period that would be 680K miles of operation not 1.2 million. You are not correct that solar panels last forever and you've also made an error that Li-on battery packs last forever. As anyone that has ever owned a device powered by a Li-on battery pack knows time, vibration and charge cycles conspire to kill Li-ion battery packs. 600-800 charge cycles is pretty typical service life so over your 20 year period and 3,400 charge/discharge cycles you're going to need 3-4 battery replacements. Li-ion battery pack replacements on a 60 kw/hr battery pack are currently running $10-20K dollars. So if you went through 4 battery packs at $15k a pop that would be about 60K dollars for batteries alone over the 20 year period.

If you can deliver and install a 10 kw/hr Solar system for 10K dollars I'd advise you to quit your day job and become a solar dealer and installer. The 2016 national average for solar system installed is $3.26 per watt. A 10KW system would be about $32K, after tax rebates and incentives it would be about 25K but keep in mind you've got to come up with the $32k up front.

Like most EV people you've also forgotten about road tax, assuming a 30MPG vehicle equivalent and 40 cents a gallon state and fed taxes thats 9K dollars over the 20 year period. We want to be fair here right? Everybody has to pay their fair share.

So assuming no breakdowns or service in your EV for 680k miles your expenses would be 25K solar array, 60K for battery packs and $9K for road tax for a total of 94K dollars for 20years and 680,000 miles of EV bliss.

A modern CDI vehicle that was the same size/weight as your EV could easily get 35 MPG. If we assume 30 MPG as you suggested and $2.50 a gallon we'd get 56K dollars for fuel over the 680,000 mile 20 year time period. I've already paid my road tax so that seems to leave me with 38K for exhaust systems, oil changes, etc.

I want to be clear that if we ever get to the Dr Seba world where distributed solar systems are actually cheaper than grid systems fed with free fusion power I'm all-in. I'd love to see such a system and maybe if we had one I'd even buy an electric car. But I'm highly skeptical that Li-ion batteries and solar panels (as they currently exist) are going to get us there even if they fall in cost by several orders of magnitude.

We'll see.
Hey Tim do you own your solar array or is it rented/leased? Few services around here that basically lend you the panels for a chunk of the electricity but the install is subsidized. You don't own the panels though, so if you sell your house you need to contract with the new owners, or have them take them back I guess. I've thought about it, especially in summer. I have a low slope roof on my house with no overhead shade so it would be a decent setup. In Philly so not too far from where you are. Putting some of that money into an EV would be fantastic for my wife's commute, but even just paying our current electric bill and being a bit environmentally aware wouldn't be bad. Don't want to derail this too much further but id be interested in your opinion.
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  #79  
Old 08-03-2017, 12:48 AM
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I stand corrected

I must avoid 3 a.m. posts, especially involving arithmetic. 160 charges per year would add up to 3200 over 20 years, not 6000.

I think you are saying road tax is embedded in the price of fossil fuels. This is something else i omitted. But i also assumed that fuel would remain at approximately $2.50. If we look at what fuel cost 20 years ago, this is extremely unlikely. I was just in NZ, and petrol there is at about $2NZ per litre, about $6 U.S. per gallon. This is likely where we are headed over time.

Electricity from PV's will not go up, it will remain free once they are installed.

PV panels are very stable over time and will likely lose about 10 % in 20 years. I recently gave a friend a set of small panels from the 1970's, and they were producing near rated output. Nothing is forever, i did not use that term.

The possibility that you may move, or get tired of the car, or the lifespan of either the CDI or the Li ion batteries is more or less a wash and largely irrelevant. The battery pack may depreciate somewhat more quickly than a CDI, but the rest of the EV may well outlast it. You will probably do an overhaul or 3 on your CDI over 600K + miles. If Dr Seba and Elon Musk and observed trends are correct, the replacement battery pack will likely be quite a bit cheaper when replacement time comes, whereas the cost of an overhaul will likely increase. Your new dwelling may just as likely have a PV system as your current one. You could easily buy a new EV.

Here in NY State, Community solar is becoming more common, where folks who do not have a sunny roof buy into a larger array elsewhere in the community, such as over an old landfill.

Given the current state of battery technology, most solar systems today are grid tied, as is mine. I did not advocate for or against the grid. All i did was reference Dr. Seba's belief that solar and battery storage will become so cheap that even a free source would cost more to send long distances over the grid than rooftop solar. Community microgrids may be part of a solar future. There is no contradiction between distributed and grid tied. The dichotomy is between rooftop (distributed) vs. the humongous solar farms the utilities favor.

You're right about what the installers get per watt to install a PV system. They get paid more than doctors for the time it takes. Anyone who is handy with a ladder and basic house wiring could do their own. Various solar outlets sell kits complete with diagrams, forms to file with your building department, and phone consultation for way less.

Good luck whether you go EV or CDI . I'm still with my ancient veggie burners. I just filtered another 55 gallons today.
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  #80  
Old 08-03-2017, 05:04 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2016
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Can I blame Siri ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dieselfanatic View Post
Britain will ban ALL diesels? If true, I find that pretty preposterous. Considering that their transportation and shipping industries are all built on the backs of the diesel engine. What of the diesel trains, trucks, buses, delivery vans, tractors, construction equipment etc....the list goes on....One does not simply "ban" the diesel mordor.....ehh? anyone?

Sometimes I think she's using me to dictate someone else. My bad. I should have clarified the legislation was regarding cars and light trucks.
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  #81  
Old 08-06-2017, 09:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TimFreeh View Post
I never said the Tesla game is total nonsense. I've driven a Model S and it's an amazing ride. The things you can do with traction and ESP when you can change the torque on any drive wheel in the millisecond range is certainly unique and it's borderline disruptive technology for people that are interested in racing and fast driving. The Tesla driving experience is potentially disruptive for multimillionaires that are looking for a novel 4th or 5th car and Tesla has absolutely created and flourished in that market.

What I said was the "ZERO EMISSION" license plate tags you see on Tesla's at the dealership is total nonsense. Unless of course you charge the Tesla entirely via solar panels. By the way I've got a 9.4 Kw/hr solar array at my house, its been installed since 2011 and my current electric bill is -$933 dollars. I've lived the solar experience for the last 6 years and I think I've got a pretty good idea about how much power you can generate from a solar array (using todays technology) and I've done it long-term. I've got 6 years of daily solar generation data for my location.

Ever done the math on how long it would take to fully charge the batteries on a Model S using purely solar power from my 9.46 KH/hr solar array in Delaware in January or February? I'll be happy to provide the answer but as a guy that is convinced the solar and EV's are the future I'd kind of like to know if you've got a ballpark grasp on how many hours, assuming average winter weather, it would take for me to recharge an electric car with a 60 KW/HR battery pack if I totally dedicated the output of my array to the task.
Hi,

It's really neat that you have solar panels, and are actively living that way. Do you mean it generates 9.4kW, or 9.4kWh per day, or ? 10 kW is what, like 40 panels or so?

It appears on my statement that I took yours out of context--I assure you I meant it with respect to Tesla's statement on zero emissions, and I could have phrased it better.

What about the Tesla 3 that was just unveiled last week, with a starting price of $35K? May be disruptive to more than just 1%ers.

I was referring to charging the Volt (and potentially a Tesla) entirely via solar panels - my relatives they are in California, get good sunlight to their roof, and it works for them with extra power to sell. You might not be able to consistently fill a Tesla from your solar panels entirely in Delaware depending on your daily mileage -- but I'd like to think solar and EV still are the future. With more financial incentives, power companies could build more solar arrays and produce the power you purchase from solar. Thus, even people like you could potentially have a zero-emission car, fitting the essence of Tesla's advertising... minus costs to the environment from manufacturing and battery recycling, which is another animal.

Maybe optimistic, but I do try hard to think optimistically, or at least put on an outward facade of it.

Warmth,
H

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