Battery electric vehicles predate gasoline powered versions when they started operating on roadways in 1880's. Slow with low range, the only sold in urban city areas where there was electrical power to recharge the relatively low energy density & fragile early flooded lead acid batteries PbA that amazingly are still present in nearly all vehicles today including our 2019 Nissan LEAF SV battery electric vehicle as the 12v SLI battery in what look like a 51 or 51R format from brief visual inspection of the terminals since I purchased the vehicle used in early 2023 with nearly 46,800 mi ODO on it before I bought it. It still at the dealer where they are repairing the front window & some cosmetic damage to the vehicles paint "arctic white" as part of the purchasing agreement for $20,710.55 all said out the door. Yes, that was only an OK deal but I really wanted a base model in that color & that was actually the cheapest one they had & used car prices are inflated locally.
Automakers standardized 6vdc electrical systems with 3 cell PbA flooded batteries back in the early 1900's when hand crank started low compression engines were upgraded with optional electrical starter motors, Cadillac offered electric starting motors first. Shortly thereafter 12vdc setups with 6 cell PbA batteries started appearing. Today 12vdc the de-facto standard DC voltage of cars, rising to 14.26v when the vehicle engine on & spinning a magneto in early designs or alternator generator in later designs. In the Hybrid vehicles from Toyota & most battery electric vehicles like the Nissan LEAF a DC:DC converter used to transfer 55amps at 14vdc with a SLI charge controller circuit to keep the 12v aux battery charged, since these vehicle do not have a starter motor or alternator & the main traction motor energized by AC power at 35-800vac between 10-450 hertz with a poly-frequency AC motor controller or variable frequency motor controller that takes 250-500vdc from the EV battery pack & converts it to higher voltage variable AC frequency to drive the traction motor with energy, thus energizing moving magnetic fields that either induce magnetic fields in other windings or laminations or conductors in the rotor or by pushed to oppose magnetic fields in IPM or internal permanent magnet motors that have better energy efficiency while magnet free induction motors can be made without rare earth metals but suffer from slightly lower magnetic flux transfer efficiency that reduces their net performance per unit mass & total power output, especially at higher RPM where the magnetic flux of the induced core rotor voltage produces magnetic drag with magnetic fields manipulated in the windings by the motor control unit that can also turn the induction or IPM motor into a motor generator for brake energy regeneration to recover battery charger while slowing the vehicle down, also known as regenerative braking, which can extend single charge range by 5-25% depending on ECO or E-pedal one pedal settings that can adjust the level of regeneration.
Nissan LEAF from 2009 onward was not a clean sheet EV design, its based on the exact same body shell sheet steel stamping design of the Nissan VERSA, but with a single electric motor & gear reducer the LEAF drivetrain has thousands of fewer parts than the VERSA & much more durable, far more reliable, far longer lasting, far more powerful, faster, and really only has one wear item other than basic suspension stuff like brake pads and tires & bushing, the lithium ion air cooled battery pack with a rating of 40kWh storage capacity which gives a real world range of 80-240 miles per charge depending on how many miles per kWh of Energy Economy your able to achieve while driving. Officially EPA rated at 151mi per charge new, the battery in our 19 LEAF has 92% of its original capacity & the dash range estimate still 158mi per charge in ECO when 100% charged, though I stay away from any charge rate over 85% to enhance the battery pack life, since 100% charging causes lithium ion batteries to lose their capacity faster, known as accelerated degradation, as does draining them to below 5% charge.
I love the Nissan LEAF because it was the first mass marketed battery electric EV available worldwide as of 2011 & I leased a 2013 w/24kWh battery for 24 mo & gave it back, then purchased a 2015 in 2017 and then traded that 30kWh version for Meg's Daily 2010 Toyota Prius III that we have road-tripped extensively, like 8,800 miles over 45 days all across America last summer break! I am a School Bus Driver so I get summer break, part of the reason I chose this job, winter, mid-winter & spring break too^^
My current one way commute 9.8 miles via a 30 MPH road that connects to i90 where I go west to 405N until NE4th st & then up to the transportation hub for BSD. Using hypermiling I am able to make it to work using only 4% battery & similar energy economy on the way home by only going 50 MPH on the freeway like a slow semi-truck in the right lane so people can easily pass me at higher speeds in the lanes to the left of my lane of travel. In stop & go traffic, think I405 during morning or evening traffic peaks, the speeds can very from stopped to 70 MPH and then back to 0 or vary from 3-8 MPH in standing wave pulsing made worse by drivers not looking ahead & creeping at low speeds, instead speeding up then coming to a stop over and over again, which increases their emissions, fuel consumption, vehicle wear, tire wear, brake wear & driver stress levels- basically stupid driving worse in all ways vs hypermiling smoother & steadier with predictive sharp focused anticipating techniques to optimize energy economy while preserving safety & road rule following integrity. For example it's illegal to use the freeway or highway at speeds lower than 40 MPH in light flowing traffic nearby as the posted speed 60 MPH.
During the gas crises in the 1970's in America, the FED reduced freeway & highway speeds to 55 MPH after the EPA produced evidence that doing so would save tens of billions of gallons of fuel annually since aerodynamic penalties increase with speeds such that driving 60 MPH uses 78% of the engines output to shove air around the vehicle where only 18% of the engines energy used to push the air at 50MPH, and 50MPH also known as the aerodynamic cross-over point velocity where air drag issues become far more important to energy economy & vehicle stability. In many racing vehicles the aero-surfaces used to produce downforce to improve traction do not even work at lower speeds because not enough air is flowing over these surfaces to engage the Bernoulli effect of differential pressure to generate downforce. An F1 car produces so much downforce at higher speeds that it could literally fly upside down on an inverted road surface.
In boxy passenger cars like the Nissan LEAF SV the automakers use cleaver underbody smoothing, streak contours, integrated rear diffusers, up tail wing spoiler at the top of the real window at the roof line & cleaver geometries like a lower lip spoiler on the front bumper to help smooth air around the frontal cross section or what the car looks like head on in terms of resistance to flowing air, with Aptera achieving the lowest coefficient of drag of 0.13 while a highly tuned Tesla Model 3 gets 0.26 & Nissan LEAF 0.28, the lower the better as a lower number indicates better aero-efficiency at cutting through the air as the vehicle moves forward, which becomes a energy efficiency issue for fuel consumption or battery range per charge at speeds greater than 50 MPH, though even at 40 MPH some aero-effects can be pronounced. If you have ever ridden a bicycle down a steep hill, you will notice the wind noise in your ears gets really loud at 26 MPH, so that's actually where the sound pressure levels or aero-effects start to pick up, since air drag increases as a 3rd order exponential of forward velocity. This means that going 70 MPH uses 4x more energy than going 50 MPH, and most vehicles will best their EPA fuel economy rating on highways if driven in the highest gear at 50-55 MPH, very gently going a little faster downhill & a tad slower while climbing, such they your always trying to keep your throttle minimal to reduce energy consumption.
The Aptera 3 wheel a clean sheet design with exceptional energy economy. The battery electric Aptera can go 3x further per kWh than any other boxy shaped EV, even the Tesla Model 3 which obtains an average of 260 watt hours per mile while the Aptera only 80 watt hour per mile. I am getting 3.7 mi/kWh in the 2020 loaner Nissan LEAF SV, and that's with many aggressive high speed acceleration bursts that I find absolutely enjoyable or fun. I even gave my coworker Quintin a test launch in the parking lot from 0-40MPH with full power by turning ECO off. If I disable traction control via the dash computer interface, the EM57+ motor will shove the full 280 ft/lb of torque & 149 hp of power into the front wheels so as to smoke the tires literally! I never turn off any of the electronic stability or traction controls & mostly drive with ECO button activated or the E-pedal switch activated to maximize regeneration & enable one pedal driving from a stop to any reasonable legal speeds with just modulation of the throttle & without ever touching the brake pedal with my foot.
Diesel engines are still widely utilized in large heavy vehicles like ships & busses because its a proven way to make radical amounts of energy & torque at a cost structure that was only recently eclipsed by Tesla with its 4680 Tabless battery tech at a cost of $57 per kWh, amazing given that when Sony commercialized Li-Ion batteries in 1990 they cost $3700 per kWh. That radical decrease in the cost of lithium ion batteries & solar PV modules helped to usher in the popularity of rooftop solar PV installations on single family homes with whole home battery energy storage systems like the Tesla Powerwall paired with their Model 3 BEV for charging at time of day. People with these setups make a lot more money than me. I charge our used LEAF & the loaner LEAF with the EVSE over 120vac standard power outlet at Level 1 trickle charge speeds overnight, for many hours at a time. In theory, using the EVSE to charge from 0-100% the 40kWh battery pack would take 40 hours to charge. In reality I never drain below 305 or charge above 85%.
Its freezing ice frost window cold outside early in the morning lately nearby, and I am getting 3.7mi/kWh with the heater HVAC on 90 full hot setting & AC on for moisture removal & seat heating & steering wheel heating and all lighting turned on worse case highest energy setting operation, but careful hypmiling means 30-85% charges or 55% of 38kWh remaining capacity gives me about 53% or 23kWh of shallow cycle long life battery mode operation. 23kWh at 3.7mi/kWh means a range of 85miles while driving to work, back, to work again & home again I only rack up 40 mi of driving daily while commuting. If I stay at work all day & never come home, I only drive 20 miles per day.
The Nissan LEAF an excellent car around town or for short commutes & not good at all for longer road trips. Using the CHAdeMO L3 Fast CD charger at 44kWh and warm weather temps means the air cooled battery pack will be damaged faster, if the user tries to road trip their Nissan LEAF SV. Get a longer range EV if you want to go on EV roadtrips, since they are available with up to 516 miles per charge now. The LEAF is an economy hatchback family commuter car for mostly in-city use where gasoline ICE vehicles get their worse economy in slower & stop & go traffic, the LEAF also has the lowest operating cost per mile.
Consider the cost of putting 23kWh into the LEAF pack using the EVSE extension cord charger into my apartment deck outlet at $0.16/kWh so $3.68 to go 85 miles or $0.0432 or less than 5 cents per mile, half the cost per mile of our Toyota Prius which has the lowest cost per mile of any gasoline fueled vehicle because it they get 40-60 MPH on regular unleaded gasoline and last a long time with legendary reliability to also net Toyota the distinction of Lowest Total Cost of Operation.
Given the cost of LEAF battery replacements, it really depends on if you buy a new pack from the dealer OEM for $8000 for the 40kWh battery or have a mechanic harvest a wrecked LEAF SV to get a slightly used but much better capacity 40kWH pack for $4000 all said, what you pay to replace your old faded EV pack will strongly affect your future operating costs, as will the price you pay for electrify to charge your EV. LEAF still wins the long term lowest cost per mile with models from 2011 going more than 300,000 miles ODO with the original battery packs and a single replacement pack of slightly higher capacity, 24kWh & 30kWh respectively, its also possible to install the 40kWh LEAF SV pack in older first generation LEAF's resulting in much greater range per charge.
Gasoline engine vehicles had more range per fuel tank fill-up and were able to travel at higher speeds so that made it easier to get around faster & then faster & cheaper than BEV's in the 1880-1920 era where battery electric cars based on PbA or flooded lead acid were losing popularity to earning ICE vehicles fueled by low octane crude gasoline in low compression early engines, while most EV's of that time maxed at at less than 18 MPH the early gasoline vehicles could reach 50 MPH, then 80 MPH & then faster as engine designs & gasoline were improved with engineering at automakers & oil refiners that turn crude oil into gasoline & diesel fuels and many other petrochemical products like sulfur as they have to remove sulfur from on-road diesel fuel since sulfur in the fuel would produce sulfur compounds in the exhaust that combine to make acid rain in the atmosphere, known as SOX or oxides of sulfur, similar to NOX or oxides of nitrogen another exhaust pollutant in diesel vehicles that required the used of DEF urea injection + PDF or diesel particular filters to make modern school buses compliant with EPA vehicle emissions rules.
When diesel burned in turbo-charged direct injection engines at high compression it results in 45% thermal efficiency, so a heavy diesel vehicle gets 30% better fuel economy that a similar vehicle powered by a gasoline engine, and the heavy duty construction of diesel engines means they last longer in terms of hours of operation. A typical gasoline ICE engine lasts around 3,000 hours before tear-down rebuild that cost more than the depreciated value of the older passenger car at that high mileage ODO setting old used state of operation. Who is going to pay a mechanic $3000 to rebuilt an old used car engine. Diesel engines can last 20,000 hours of operation by comparison, meaning they are 6x more durable. This is why industry uses turbocharged diesel engines in commercial vehicle operations. Aircraft turbine engines have a similar overhaul frequency for complete teardown rebuilt after 20,000 hours of operation.
So diesel engines are really durable, they just make really nasty exhaust pollutants, much worse than gasoline engines. In smaller lighter passenger vehicles like a VW Passat TDI fuel economies of 50 miles per gallon were easily achieved with conservative driving, but even going over a mountain pass or the midwest at 85 MPH they still net 45+ MPG. VW was convicted & fined for the TDI emissions scandal & discontinued diesel engine development & went double down on EV development & even bought back many older TDI vehicles from owners because of Dieselgate laws rules & orders. My diesel mechanic friend Mark told me to never buy a diesel passenger car to move me around, because only the big commercial diesels like the cummins bus engine in the school buses I drive are actually reliable & durable, but only in big heavy vehicles. My large school bus gets 5.9 miles per gallon, but holds 65 students, so fuel economy per person exceptional when its fully loaded with passengers :) 383 miles per gallon per person for example :) Even when I only transport 30 students, that's 177 miles per gallon per person.
Road trips are better in hybrid electric or conventional ICE vehicles. Early BEV's are not meant for long trips even using FAST DC charging. Consider how EV batteries will improve over then next 20 years. If you consider 2011 Nissan LEAF the start of the EV revolution in transportation energy decarbonization, it will take 30 years for EV market penetration to supplant ICE vehicles on roadways, which will always be around since billions of gasoline fueled vehicles will have been produced by then. Many government are moving to ban the sale of gasoline only vehicles by 2030, 2025 or 2035 respectively. So countries have announced going net zero carbon by 2050. Renewable + energy storage + EV's means a system or eco-system electrical that an enable broad decarbonization of energy & transportation.
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There are many things to consider when buying a car or automobile. Your vehicle choices will strongly affect your current & future financial outlook & budget. Choose wisely & think about it more before making a choice & remember you are never stuck with a vehicle, you can always sell your old one or trade it in on a new model. You're free to buy whatever you want & do as you will as long as you do not infringe on other peoples similar freedom & they do not infringe on yours. That's why I think prostitution and common drugs of abuse should be legalized, like magic mushrooms, LSD, MDMA & brothels respectively. No one should tell you how to think or what to do or how to choose with lifestyle choices. You have to decide what kind of person you want to be. I endeavor to be as much like Christ Jesus as I am able to be as a Christian, but often fail for a long litany of reasons. You can read my blog to understand why, but would be better served to read edifying content on Wikipedia or watch educational YouTube videos or "How To" videos online & teach yourself & learn new skills & abilities throughout your life. Be the best version of you & don't listen to other people. What they say about you does not matter anyway, they could never know enough to give you good advice anyway. You have to figure out what you like & enjoy & what kind of life you want to life while obeying moral precepts of respecting other peoples, not stealing, not harassing & not causing harm.
A car not even a good transportation solution for 10 billion people, noting that there are not 10 billion cars on roadways in the world today, perhaps less than 2 billion total production & most of those have rusted apart or fallen out of use for scrapping or recycling. Our 1992 Subaru Legacy was scrapped out in 2017 after 260,000 mi of use over its 25 year lifetime. I think it was a little over $20,000 back then, so we extracted all the useful life out of it. At the time of scrapping it needed thousands in repair & we already had 2 other much newer lower mileage better fuel economy vehicles, so scrapping it made sense. I had consulted more than 40 people about it before deciding to scrap it out & everyone said it was a good idea.
Those 1990's made in Japan vehicles are some of the longest lasting most durable & well made simple designs for automobiles of any ever made, some consider 1990's JDM vehicles a golden era with such superlatives as the Toyota 2JZ inline 6 engine :) I happen to favor the 1NZ-FXE 1.5 liter high thermal efficiency Atkinson long stroke engine of our Gen. 2 Prius that we are selling to Alan as a high mile commuter vehicle since he drives from Oregon to Idaho & Washington regularly, while even hypermiling his 2014 Ford F150 truck nets only 17 miles per gallon vs 44-48 mile per gallon in the Prius II by comparison. That will reduce his annual fuel spending by 2x or better, saving him more than the purchase price $2k that we are selling it to him for after using it for 17 years ^ 160,000 miles. I expect this Prius II to go more than 350,000 miles & will help Alan change out the 1.3kWh hybrid battery pack & 12v AGM SLI51 battery when such is required.
I loved this Prius & did not want to get rid of it, but Meg really wanted me to sell it to Alan to help him out with his fuel cost predicament since I do not drive much locally for commuting & because we have a 2010 Prius III that Meg daily for her ultra short commute and driving for her work as a nanny around 10-70 miles per day, 3-4 days per week. I think this Prius III can go 350,000 mi & am curious to see how long we keep it. Our 2001 Audi A4 only has 91,000 mi ODO so we decided to keep it as a vehicular nostalgia reminder of its owner the late Connie who kept it garaged for its entire operating life, something we will continue to do. I do not care if my 19 Nissan LEAF SV commuter parked outside & am installing a cheap 40w driver seat cushion heater to help on cold rainy early morning days so I can use the HVAC less to preserve driving range on the smaller 40kWh battery pack that has about 38 kWh of useable capacity now after around 4 years and 500 ish cycles of use by the previous owner. I had to pray to God for many days to fully let go of the Prius II in order to sell it without remorse to Alan, and Meg then said I could buy a used Nissan LEAF for no more than 20k, so that's exactly what I did. Some new waterproof rubber floor matts, warm yellow LED H11 DRL headlight upgrade, ROVE R2-4K dash cam & 40w Seat Heater cushion + aux-power splitter y cable outlet - round out my updates, $121 + $31 + $176 + $49 so a total of $377 in aftermarket parts + $20,710.55 total out the door with repairs from dealer of front windows & pain including taxes & registration all said, so $21087.55 absolute total :) Now I just have to energize it with electricity & spent about $24 on mobile app's for Charge Point & Semi-connect // 1 pay L3 DC Fast Charge + mostly charging free at Bellevue Nissan L3, using an extension cord at home & at work over L1 EVSE cable // nearly free or super ultra cheap electrical charging. It's about $4 to go 85 miles, so it's similar to $4/ gallon fuel in a car that gets 85 miles per gallon or around $5 cents per mile electrical cost.
You might be able to tell that I spend a lot of mental time doing analytics on financial business planning concepts & energy efficiency cost of operation vs premium efficiency models to understand operating costs & energy costs & compute the cost per mile or total cost of ownership, operating costs, energy costs, or related battery technologies & their market history like the radical decrease in cost per kWh of lithium ion batteries after Sony first commercialized Li-ion in 1990 for their walkman during a time when Japanese battery makers were only interested in selling Sony NiMH and NiCD or nickel metal hydride & nickel cadmium batteries respectively, which forced Sony Research & Development to work on actual supply chain & production manufacturing during the vertical internal commercialization of Lithium Ion battery making for Sony's first laser welded in a clean room Li-Ion batteries available for global consumption in the iconic Walkman personal audio players starting in 1991. At this time Li-Ion cost Sony $3700 per kWh to make, decreasing to $57 per kWh with Tesla Battery Day 4680 tab-less cells cost optimized to lower the price floor of EV batteries for the upcoming Tesla Model 2 for under $24,000 with 250mi range per charge making it then best value per dollar of automotive tech of any automaker, something that Sandy Monro and associated will tear down analysis for cost of making understanding & to see the tech on the inside as they have done with every popular EV released so far :) Noting that SMA noted the Model 3 so over-built that some well cared for Model 3's will last for 3 million miles and 50+ years of daily operation.
You want an EV or TDI or Gasoline Direct Injection Turbocharged Toyota Corolla GR 4WD rally racing monster or similar Honda Civic Type R with 350HP hot hatch cooker or a slick EV Polestar or Model Y or whatever GM Hummer EV // not all EV's are energy efficient like a 120mpg-e Chevy Bolt EUV my personal current best value pick because of its range & liquid cooled battery pack longer lasting & wider temperature range operation + less damage when L3 charging a 55kW respectively. I went with a used Nissan LEAF SV because of their availability & cost & because I have an iconoclastic association with LEAF since 2011 when Meg & I started "LEAF Spotting" while out & about. There are tons of electric vehicles on the roads where we live east of Seattle in the overpriced gentrified suburbs where apartments cost $2500-5000 per month, where single family homes that sold for $60K or less in the early 1980s now sell for over $1 million, those prices have slipped $100k downward now as the real estate bubble popping along with the USD being ditched as a reserve currency by many nations worldwide as more nations keep choosing to ditch the quantum easy inflated USD fiat currency in favor of crypto currencies, leading the charge is the CCP in China & Russia, under the deranged leadership of Vladimir Putin- as China & Russia want to destroy the US economy ^ have said so openly publicly without any ambiguity.
Energy efficiency a major topic in the compute space because of cloud computing services & software as a service & streaming platforms & e-commerce & many other IT based infrastructure business trending & emerging SAS platforms, online education, online banking, online investing, online research, online companies without a physical space, virtual stores & video & audio streaming like Pandora or Spotify or Amazon Prime TV or Hulu or Netflix over high speed wifi networks via Comcast Xfinity Blast Speed network access, or even connected vehicles that can upgrade over-the-air like all Tesla BEV's & even my EV connect network Nissan LEAF SV.
