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“From a development perspective, everything that we're currently developing from now on will be EV-only,” said Christoph Starzynski, vice president of electric drive at Mercedes. “The next S-Class will be fully electric only, there will be no ICE or hybrid version anymore as of right now.” -- Autoweek 4.19.22
“From a development perspective, everything that we're currently developing from now on will be EV-only,” said Christoph Starzynski, vice president of electric drive at Mercedes. “The next S-Class will be fully electric only, there will be no ICE or hybrid version anymore as of right now.” -- Autoweek 4.19.22
Autoweek is a credible source.
With all the government mandates, it will be difficult for any manufacturer to put any development dollars towards anything other than electrification.
I would expect that they would lean on their existing ICE technology for several years into the future, though.
And I would hope that electrification would include hybrids with little gas engines putting out 300 horses, feeding electric motors of equal or greater power.
Maybe that's true of AMG but not Daimler. One can only hope
Edit- see this from BMW,
BMW CEO: "If You Are Not Selling Combustion Engines, Someone Else Will"
“From a development perspective, everything that we're currently developing from now on will be EV-only,” said Christoph Starzynski, vice president of electric drive at Mercedes. “The next S-Class will be fully electric only, there will be no ICE or hybrid version anymore as of right now.” -- Autoweek 4.19.22
The key words here are “development perspective” and “as of right now”. They announced last year that the E Performance was going to be the last of it’s kind and the EV focus. If they ever get an E.Perf. GLE I think that will be the one to get for those of us that aren’t ready for an EV.
Buying an EV today seems shortsighted with the Solid State batteries so close. My experience with a 48 volt failure and the fire hazard and lack of infrastructure are the other issues on my mind.
Give me a lighter SS with quick charge and decent performance and I’ll reconsider.
BMW CEO: "If You Are Not Selling Combustion Engines, Someone Else Will"
In an industry that has to plan years out to make sure new products arrive in a market suited for them, betting everything on one outcome is a risky strategy. A serious disruption in charging infrastructure rollout, manufacturing capacity, or raw material availability could tank a brand's whole EV portfolio sales. If that happens, Zipse says an automaker needs to offer an alternative or risk losing customers for good.
"If someone cannot buy an EV for some reason but needs a car, would you rather propose he continues to drive his old car forever? If you are not selling combustion engines anymore, someone else will," said Zipse.
That's especially salient right now. Not only are supply chains strained but Zipse points out that battery raw materials and energy prices for production are both at all-time highs. In his view, this is a peak, but he doesn't foresee things ever being as cheap as they once were. This squares with what Mercedes Chief Technology Officer Markus Schäfer told Road & Track, which is that, in the near future, EVs probably won't get any cheaper. -- Road & Track 4.19.22
The key words here are “development perspective” and “as of right now”. They announced last year that the E Performance was going to be the last of it’s kind and the EV focus. If they ever get an E.Perf. GLE I think that will be the one to get for those of us that aren’t ready for an EV.
Buying an EV today seems shortsighted with the Solid State batteries so close. My experience with a 48 volt failure and the fire hazard and lack of infrastructure are the other issues on my mind.
Give me a lighter SS with quick charge and decent performance and I’ll reconsider.
Would love to see a reliable SSB (solid state battery) with a high C rate, that will last, and I may change my mind about EVs. Until then, color me skeptical.
Public statements by car company execs are posturing, nothing more. It allows them to plant political flags on several hills until they determine which ones they should defend.
Germany, China and California, plus selected large cities like London are the aggressive EV markets. All else is wait and see.
In an industry that has to plan years out to make sure new products arrive in a market suited for them, betting everything on one outcome is a risky strategy. A serious disruption in charging infrastructure rollout, manufacturing capacity, or raw material availability could tank a brand's whole EV portfolio sales. If that happens, Zipse says an automaker needs to offer an alternative or risk losing customers for good.
"If someone cannot buy an EV for some reason but needs a car, would you rather propose he continues to drive his old car forever? If you are not selling combustion engines anymore, someone else will," said Zipse.
That's especially salient right now. Not only are supply chains strained but Zipse points out that battery raw materials and energy prices for production are both at all-time highs. In his view, this is a peak, but he doesn't foresee things ever being as cheap as they once were. This squares with what Mercedes Chief Technology Officer Markus Schäfer told Road & Track, which is that, in the near future, EVs probably won't get any cheaper. -- Road & Track 4.19.22
I predict that there will be a lot of posturing and chest-beating by industry execs and politicians, but it will be only theater until somebody figures out the infrastructure that needed to retrofit our aging cities, and then builds it out.
Just think of all the people living in larger, older US cities. Many live in rented apartments with no dedicated parking spaces. They park wherever they can find a space, maybe blocks from home. How/where can they charge their EV's? Can't just go to a "juice" station unless charge time can be reduced to that of a gas fill-up. Then there are all the existing high-rise condo's and apartment buildings. Who is going to be willing to underwrite the cost of retro-fitting all the electric infrastructure to charge hundreds of EV's per building every night? And. . . let's say someone does figure out those issues, then how will our current, over-taxed power grid manage to power all these chargers every night? Then what about the minority who really do need more than a couple of hundred miles' range? Don't forget the detrimental effect very high and very low temperatures have on EV's, given the climates of many populated areas.
Figure out and solve these issues and you might have a workable solution. . . if it wasn't so environmentally disastrous to make the darned things. And if fire departments could put them out when they burn.
A LOT of work to be done. It remains possible that by the time large-scale EV implementation is possible there will be yet another "best" solution.
For now, I'll just make some more popcorn. I am NOT anti-EV. I just think it too early to declare a winner with so many major open issues. Governments will not be able to just "make it law" to "make it so."
I agree with the above. I am not anti EV but I love ICE and don't want to lose them. The reality is we have so much failing infrastructure (who needs bridges right?!) that there is no way the US would be with ICE's anytime soon.
Interesting comment on bimmerpost - what about high rise apartment residents and people who generally park on the street in whichever parking spot they can find? There’s only a few tens of millions of those people in the US.
The group referred to would need charging infrastructure everywhere, like a parking meter. Are the cities and states preparing bond issuances to finance this?
Put the financing plan for this out in the open.
Put the total lifecycle carbon comparison for EV vs ICE out in the open.
Yeah, the general issue with the EV push is lack of transparency and lots of problems to solve. The latest being the acute shortages of raw materials to produce today's batteries. I'm also not anti EV, but except for a few specific use cases such as city driving and commuting with at home charging, EVs are just worse at being a car unless you are willing to treat your car more like public transportation and accommodate the charging schedule and routes it dictates.
In terms of transparency, Volvo just did a study on the carbon footprint based on the C40/XC40. It's the only one of its kind as far as I know that is comparing apples to apples, because they sell the C/XC 40 with all of today's powertrains. ICE, Hybrid and BEV and they are all made at the same factory for a direct comparison. They are assuming a car gets driven 200,000 km before it's junked. You be the judge of how realistic that is. Over such driven distance I think we all know that EVs have a lower carbon footprint, but the part that is often not talked about is the break even. At which point does an EV actually have a smaller carbon footprint and the break even points are currently higher than many think. Below is the diagram. It's as high as 110,000 km, depending on the electricity mix.
How many cars are actually making it to 110,000 km? How many get totaled in an accident before that or are simply not driven much and take years to reach that mileage. In the meantime more and more cars are being produced. Those who typically lease cars for 3 years will be way less environmentally friendly if they buy a new EV every three years. The reduced carbon footprint will only be realized by maybe the 3rd or 4th owner. As is often the case, the unintended consequences tend to backfire. On top of that is the sheer insanity of the type of vehicles that are being built, because people still want their big wasteful SUVs with the aerodynamics of a shipping container. The EV Hummer with a curb weight of almost 10,000 lbs and a 200 kWh battery is just the latest insanity.
The Bureau of Transportation (United States) indicates that the average age across the board for vehicles still on the road is just over 11 years according to Autotrader, and the average may be approaching 12 years. Standard cars in this day and age are expected to keep running up to 200,000 miles (321868.8 km) while cars with electric engines are expected to last for up to 300,000 mile (482803.2 km).
The Bureau of Transportation (United States) indicates that the average age across the board for vehicles still on the road is just over 11 years according to Autotrader, and the average may be approaching 12 years. Standard cars in this day and age are expected to keep running up to 200,000 miles (321868.8 km) while cars with electric engines are expected to last for up to 300,000 mile (482803.2 km).
If they can figure out how to fix electronic problems that develop from the thousands of components and systems. Cameras, sensors, massage seats, heated seats and steering wheels, auto sensing cruise and braking, back wheels that turn, etc, etc . I cannot imaging these cars being around as long. Just me?
The Bureau of Transportation (United States) indicates that the average age across the board for vehicles still on the road is just over 11 years according to Autotrader, and the average may be approaching 12 years. Standard cars in this day and age are expected to keep running up to 200,000 miles (321868.8 km) while cars with electric engines are expected to last for up to 300,000 mile (482803.2 km). https://www.caranddriver.com/researc...es-a-car-last/
The cost of maintenance will result in economic obsolescence of many EV’s long before the useful life, IMO. Consider the rapid changes of battery packs-different brands, size & technology. It seems that each new model has a different battery size designed to fit just that body and electric motor. 48 volt today but there is already a move to higher voltage.
I wonder if 5-10 years out there will even be a replacement battery for a lot of EV’s. Someone will come up with some generic battery’s and adapters but they won’t be cheap. It’s possible that many of todays EV’s will be junked long before the 300,000 miles but it fits the narrative to give them a long life.
Long term I'm not necessarily concerned as the direction EVs are going is one of a modular future with commodity parts. Already if you look at the EQ models they are all virtually the same with just a different body on top. The underlying platform can be shortened or stretched to accommodate more or less battery modules. The battery in the EQ models is not a single battery. They can also stack the modules if even more capacity is required, which they haven't done yet. I think we will be heading to a future where the underlying drivetrain platform is a commodity and then car makers just put their bodies on top, and the interior, tech etc. is essentially the same across all the models. We are largely back to different sizes of the same sausage with EVs. Less and less differentiation between the models. Just how many rows of seats do you want and do you want an SUV or limousine body.
Most manufacturers have yet to demonstrate, though their commitment to keeping the rest of the car fresh via software updates over the entire useful life and even hardware updates if new software requires more powerful hardware. Only Tesla so far has demonstrated that they are committed to upgrading hardware in existing cars. But to the point above, none of that comes for free. We are used to getting free software updates for our devices to keep them fresh. Are car manufacturers gonna do that, too? It doesn't look like it. Even Tesla now charges a subscription fee for their online services. Then remember the generations to come are getting new phones and gadgets every year, because the current ones they own are no longer the latest and greatest. How will that go with their cars? Are they really gonna hang on to a car for 12 years and/or drive it for 300,000 miles?
Last edited by superswiss; 04-20-2022 at 03:57 PM.
I don’t think it’s that simple today. My GLE 450 battery and the GLE 53 were slightly different. When my 53 failed they couldn’t just drop the new battery in the car but had to program for the new battery. As I recall it was more than an hour charged on the work order for programming. Mercedes batteries are modular to some extent but they have different built in controllers to manage them. Mercedes batteries are temperature controlled. With patents it’s not clear how each brand will intermingle with each other. Battery tech is changing rapidly and how long will they support or inventory old batteries? I’m guessing there will be issues….
Long term I'm not necessarily concerned as the direction EVs are going is one of a modular future with commodity parts. Already if you look at the EQ models they are all virtually the same with just a different body on top. The underlying platform can be shortened or stretched to accommodate more or less battery modules. The battery in the EQ models is not a single battery. They can also stack the modules if even more capacity is required, which they haven't done yet. I think we will be heading to a future where the underlying drivetrain platform is a commodity and then car makers just put their bodies on top, and the interior, tech etc. is essentially the same across all the models. We are largely back to different sizes of the same sausage with EVs. Less and less differentiation between the models. Just how many rows of seats do you want and do you want an SUV or limousine body.
Most manufacturers have yet to demonstrate, though their commitment to keeping the rest of the car fresh via software updates over the entire useful life and even hardware updates if new software requires more powerful hardware. Only Tesla so far has demonstrated that they are committed to upgrading hardware in existing cars. But to the point above, none of that comes for free. We are used to getting free software updates for our devices to keep them fresh. Are car manufacturers gonna do that, too? It doesn't look like it. Even Tesla now charges a subscription fee for their online services. Then remember the generations to come are getting new phones and gadgets every year, because the current ones they own are no longer the latest and greatest. How will that go with their cars? Are they really gonna hang on to a car for 12 years and/or drive it for 300,000 miles?
I believe the current 200k mile expected life for an ICE car, and 300k mile life of an EV is based on when they can be expected to be crushed or sold to a junk yard for parts. Most will have exchanged owners several times, and I doubt that will change…but who knows. It’s all speculation at this point. The real unknown is how long will the batteries last, and how much to replace them. How much will a used 10 year old EV cost with a new or reconditioned battery? Will it last another 10 years? Perhaps there will be a lot of local cottage businesses that crop up that will specialize in battery replacements for used EV car dealers. I’m still skeptical at this point. EVs have there place, but I’m not ready to claim they solve all our problems.
@superswiss did the Volvo study account for carbon production to recycle end of life batteries to an equivalently inert or harmless level as ICE recycling?
The standard battery configuration is a “pack” made of “cells”. Cells are generally extra large AA batteries, made by Panasonic and others. Cells are built into packs which are the large flat blocks mounted under the floor of a vehicle. The pack includes not only the cells but also structural attachments, liquid cooling features, heat transfer media and more. Cells are the bottleneck in the industry and where investment is focused. In principle anyone can build a pack but cell manufacturing is capital and hazardous material intensive.
@superswiss did the Volvo study account for carbon production to recycle end of life batteries to an equivalently inert or harmless level as ICE recycling?.
No, they did not. Neither for ICE. They consider the actual recycling outside of the life cycle and only include transportation to the recycling facilities and pre-treatment. The end of life assumptions are all documented in Appendix 3. Recycling of the materials is a whole separate topic. I forgot the actual number, but I think only around 10% of all lithium batteries are actually recycled currently. We neither have the processes nor the capacity to recycle these large batteries currently. It's a can that's being kicked down the road with the assumption that by the time it's needed we'll have a way to do it...or not ;-).
EDIT: Should also add, though, that once a battery has served its useful life in a car at 80% of its original capacity, it's long from needing to be recycled. Such batteries can still be used for energy storage elsewhere where they never get charged to a 100% anyway, or they can be disassembled and spent cells can be replaced and the battery replenished. The individual cells do not degrade evenly. Some may still have a capacity well over 80% while others are below 80%.
A3.5 Material recycling This is the fate of the flows of metals from the shredding, as well as for the materials in the pre- treated components. Based on the choice of cut-off approach for end-of-life modelling, this stage is outside the boundaries of the life cycle and is not included in the inventory, except for the transportation to the material recycling, as mentioned above.
Last edited by superswiss; 04-20-2022 at 08:29 PM.
No, they did not. Neither for ICE. They consider the actual recycling outside of the life cycle and only include transportation to the recycling facilities and pre-treatment. The end of life assumptions are all documented in Appendix 3. Recycling of the materials is a whole separate topic. I forgot the actual number, but I think only around 10% of all lithium batteries are actually recycled currently. We neither have the processes nor the capacity to recycle these large batteries currently. It's a can that's being kicked down the road with the assumption that by the time it's needed we'll have a way to do it...or not ;-).
EDIT: Should also add, though, that once a battery has served its useful life in a car at 80% of its original capacity, it's long from needing to be recycled. Such batteries can still be used for energy storage elsewhere where they never get charged to a 100% anyway, or they can be disassembled and spent cells can be replaced and the battery replenished. The individual cells do not degrade evenly. Some may still have a capacity well over 80% while others are below 80%.
Agree with the above. Ecobat is the largest global lead acid battery recycler and they are starting up their lithium business for EV battery recycling.
What about the carbon footprint to dig lithium out of the ground and process it into something useful? In fairness also need to include drilling and extracting crude and turning it into gasoline, which I admit is a highly polluting part of the process.
I am also not anti EV, but I don’t buy the narrative that they clean the world. I agree that EVs satisfy a few use cases well, but satisfy many not at all.
What about the carbon footprint to dig lithium out of the ground and process it into something useful? In fairness also need to include drilling and extracting crude and turning it into gasoline, which I admit is a highly polluting part of the process.
They do factor that in. The Volvo study is well-to-wheel for both as opposed to many previous studies that didn't factor that in.
04-19-2022, 12:00 PM
