All-Electric Crate Power Train?

[XframeFX]

SBCs, BBCs, Nailheads forever? If any of our rides become daily drivers there's this. The wrong manufacturer I know. But maybe GM will follow with a crate Product?

 

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021/11/02/all-electric-f-100-eluminator-concept.html

I dare not post the website's image but here's the heading:

THE FUTURE OF CUSTOM VEHICLES: FORD UNVEILS ALL-ELECTRIC F-100 ELUMINATOR CONCEPT WITH NEW EV CRATE MOTOR CUSTOMERS CAN NOW BUY

Edited November 4, 2021 by XframeFX
. (see edit history)

[Stretch.]

I recall GM did similar with a K5 Blazer last year and their Bolt drivetrain, would be good to see some follow up.

 

Arstechnica article

[crowvet]

I have a Bolt, Funnest car I have owned in years. I am following this thread, at least until it goes south. It is amazing the amount of hate and misunderstanding of electric vehicles.

[Seafoam65]

Would someone who loves electric cars please tell me how when they become the majority of vehicles

on the road how the power grid is going to cope with all those cars plugged into the grid at the same time?

Last winter in Texas we lost power for seven days because it got colder than normal....please explain where all this power is going to come from......no new power plants are being allowed to be built, so where is all that electricity

going to come from?

[Stretch.]

Wasn't the issue in texas due to a lack of winterisation of the grid? Not familiar with the specifics mind, as I'm the other side of the pond, so going solely off news articles.

 

The forward planning answer would be modern nuclear power, hydro, solar/wind and grid batteries to smooth demand.

 

The actual answer will be somewhere along the lines of just running current power stations at a higher output as required.

[Matt Harwood]

New power plants are still being built with about 25% of them being powered by natural gas and the remainder using a combination of sources as Stretch explained. Even so, it's very unlikely that all the electric cars will always be connected at the same time--all the cars aren't at the gas station at the same time, are they? In addition, most will charge during off-peak hours when demand is down everywhere else. We charge our car between 1 AM and 6 AM when we get a slight discount.

 

That said, it will probably be decades before the electric cars are in the majority. There's no need to worry that the electric cars will crash the power grid anytime soon. As demand grows, the power supply will surely grow to support it. It's not like the number of gas stations that we had in 1925 were as many as we would ever have, right? This is a non-concern, albeit one that people always use to try to make it seem as though electric cars are a mistake.

 

Disclaimer: I own an electric car. I like it, but I'm not evangelistic about it. I think it's cool tech with a long way to go before it's mainstream, but if your lifestyle fits it, it can be a great solution (as it is for us).

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

In addition to the above comments:

 

There are solar panels installed on many homes here Down Under as I guess is the case in the USA too. More and more homes are adding batteries to the panels although that is in it’s early stage. That combination will lower any impact on the grid as the electric cars will draw power from the batteries and or the solar panels.

 

Our grids will in anyway have to be improved on to be able to handle the input from a more localized energy production with sources such as solar panels.

Edited November 5, 2021 by SwedeDownUnderR63 (see edit history)

[ply33]

14 minutes ago, SwedeDownUnderR63 said:

In addition to the above comments:

 

There are solar panels installed on many homes here Down Under as I guess is the case in the USA too. More and more homes are adding batteries to the panels although that is in it’s early stage. That combination will lower any impact on the grid as the electric cars will draw power from the batteries and or the solar panels.

 

Our grids will in anyway have to be improved on to be able to handle the input from a more localized energy production with sources such as solar panels.

 

What interests me is using an EV as the battery on a home solar system: It looks like the current crop of EVs have batteries rated at between 50 kWh and 100 kWh. In an emergency that causes a grid failure I think I can get by on about 500 watts continuous (refrigerator is rated at 200 watts continuous, my network setup including telephone is about 60 watts, add in a couple of lights and the TV and I should still be at or under 500 watts). Assume that I have at least 80% battery in the car when an earthquake hits (or 100% if something like a hurricane is predicted a day or more in advance). And assume I want to keep 100 miles of range in the car’s battery, call it 40%. So I have between 40 and 60% of around 75 kWh available or 37 kWh. At 0.5 kW that puts me at nearly 80 hours or over 3 full days. While I have read about people having longer power outages than that, the longest I have ever had personally was less than 2 full days so I think 3 days would do for me. This capability, called “vehicle to load” (V2L) exists in some EVs today.

 

For tomorrow, the coming “vehicle to grid” (V2G) standards would allow you do with your car what dedicated batteries on solar systems do today. Given the appropriate car and solar system you could run your house indefinitely without the grid up at all. Since I plan on having a car of some sort anyway using it as a whole house backup/load balancing device for free seems attractive to me so I am following this technology to see how it is being developed and when it will come to market.

 

In the meantime I charge my PHEV for the equivalent of about $0.90/gal during the time of day when the grid is least used so my “almost EV” doesn’t really require any grid upgrades like it might if I charged it during peak hours (where the utility would charge me far more that the equivalent of $0.90/gal).

 

3 hours ago, Seafoam65 said:

Would someone who loves electric cars please tell me how when they become the majority of vehicles

on the road how the power grid is going to cope with all those cars plugged into the grid at the same time?

 

 

Paraphrasing from sometime in the 1960s. . .

Quote

Would someone how loves air conditioning please tell me how when it becomes standard in the majority of houses how the power grid is going to cope with all the air conditioners turning on at the same time?

 

The grid is basically sized for the peak load. Loads like air conditioners are bad because they generally all come on at the same time based on temperature and building use there is not much to be done about it.

 

EVs are a different type of load for the grid. For home charging, they only need to be charged for the amount of mileage that occurred during the day. Typically that is somewhere between 30 and 60 miles. That maps into between 3 and 6 hours of being charged on a fairly typical home “Level 2” charger. And that 3 to 6 hours can occur anytime between when you get home, say 6:00 PM, and when you leave for work, say 7:00 AM. So you have 13 or more hours to select your time to charge. And all EVs have a way to schedule charging so you can just plug your car in when you get home and it will start charging when the utility has excess capacity. That is standard today. Your EV won’t immediately add to the air conditioner caused grid peak, it will wait until the load goes down. Result is the grid peak load should not change too much from what it is today.

 

For tomorrow, there are ways being developed for the utility to actually enable and disable charging on cars to spread the load out. Actually there are some places where this is already being done. It is likely that it will become more wide spread in the future. So your EV could actually help reduce the load on the grid.

 

As needed, the grid and the generating plants on the grid will be upgraded over a number of years. Even decades. If all new cars sold today were EVs it would take a while to have the majority of cars on the road be EVs and that means there is time to plan grid capacity and build out as needed.

 

4 hours ago, Seafoam65 said:

Last winter in Texas we lost power for seven days because it got colder than normal....please explain where all this power is going to come from......no new power plants are being allowed to be built, so where is all that electricity

going to come from?

 

Texas did not require and/or enforce winterization of their in state natural gas infrastructure so the pumps and pipelines froze. For the coal fired plants a similar situation occurred. That is not a failure of the electrical grid so much as a failure of the state government to assure that critical infrastructure was capable of dealing with a slightly unusual event. (Normally the feds would have been setting standards and trying to enforce them but Texas opted out of the regional grids a long time ago. That made things worse because Texas could not import electricity from elsewhere when its local pipelines and power plants failed.)

 

I can’t say about Texas but there are new power plants being built in my state. And new power transmission lines to move power from where it is being generated to areas where it is needed.

[Seafoam65]

Out of curiosity, what does charging an electric car cost in terms of added charges

on your monthly electric bill?

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

34 minutes ago, Seafoam65 said:

Out of curiosity, what does charging an electric car cost in terms of added charges

on your monthly electric bill?

I though he answered that in the following, you might have missed it:

 

"In the meantime I charge my PHEV for the equivalent of about $0.90/gal "

 

It will of course depend on how much one drives. Then there are other costs too in regards to future replacements of batteries for the car but there are add-ons for non electrical cars too.

 

We will be driving Grandma Duck's car soon.

[ply33]

32 minutes ago, Seafoam65 said:

Out of curiosity, what does charging an electric car cost in terms of added charges

on your monthly electric bill?

Depends on how much you drive, assume the national average of 31 miles per day.

 

Depends on how efficient the EV is. I don’t have a good link but it seems from my reading that between 3 and 4 miles/kWh is pretty typical. Usually 4 mi/kWh or above for around town and 3 mi/kWh for freeway driving. Assume 3.5 mi/kWh.

 

Depends on the cost of electricity is for you. This varies widely based on location and if you are on a tiered plan or a time of use plan, etc.  Looks like 0.14 $/kWh is the national average but yours could be quite different.

 

Doing the multiplication and division: $0.056/mi and $1.74/day or about $54/mo.

 

But you will be saving money by not purchasing gasoline so let’s look at that. The average fuel economy of a car is 24.2 MPG. And the average price of gasoline today is $3.421/gal so your gasoline costs will be about $0.14/mi, two and a half times more expensive than an EV. Assuming the same miles/day you are spending about $4.34/day or $134.54/month on gas.

 

Making all the assumptions above, you will be saving about $80/month in fuel costs with an EV.

 

Of course all the above is unrealistic: Very few of us drive exactly the national average miles per day, we don’t pay the national average gasoline or electrical price, we don’t drive a car that is exactly average on fuel economy, etc. So do the arithmetic for your gas costs, your electrical costs, etc. and come up with your own results.

[maok]

1 minute ago, ply33 said:

Depends on how much you drive, assume the national average of 31 miles per day.

 

Depends on how efficient the EV is. I don’t have a good link but it seems from my reading that between 3 and 4 miles/kWh is pretty typical. Usually 4 mi/kWh or above for around town and 3 mi/kWh for freeway driving. Assume 3.5 mi/kWh.

 

Depends on the cost of electricity is for you. This varies widely based on location and if you are on a tiered plan or a time of use plan, etc.  Looks like 0.14 $/kWh is the national average but yours could be quite different.

 

Doing the multiplication and division: $0.056/mi and $1.74/day or about $54/mo.

 

But you will be saving money by not purchasing gasoline so let’s look at that. The average fuel economy of a car is 24.2 MPG. And the average price of gasoline today is $3.421/gal so your gasoline costs will be about $0.14/mi, two and a half times more expensive than an EV. Assuming the same miles/day you are spending about $4.34/day or $134.54/month on gas.

 

Making all the assumptions above, you will be saving about $80/month in fuel costs with an EV.

 

Of course all the above is unrealistic: Very few of us drive exactly the national average miles per day, we don’t pay the national average gasoline or electrical price, we don’t drive a car that is exactly average on fuel economy, etc. So do the arithmetic for your gas costs, your electrical costs, etc. and come up with your own results.

Did you say efficient ev, look up Aptera.

[maok]

Aptera Motors

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2021 by maok (see edit history)

[RivNut]

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

Welcome to the future.

[maok]

22 minutes ago, RivNut said:

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

Most likely they will charge taxes at EV charging station, at home, parking lots, etc

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

25 minutes ago, RivNut said:

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

Don’t you worry, I haven’t met a politician that couldn’t figure out a new way to tax us.

[ply33]

1 hour ago, maok said:

Did you say efficient ev, look up Aptera.

I am not sure how big the market is for Aptera but it is an interesting concept and they have just recently moved from producing alpha vehicles to making some beta vehicles. It is unclear to me if/when they will actually get to making production vehicles.

 

From an efficiency point of view their extremely aerodynamic shape (Cd about half of that of other efficient EVs) and low cross sectional area means they get a lot of miles/kWh. I think the rolling resistance is down too with the three wheel design. The shape also allows them to plaster a bunch of solar cells all over the vehicle. Since they are so efficient the solar cells actually mean real range extension rather than just marketing.

 

But I harbor the suspicion that the three wheel design is a dodge to avoid a bunch of safety requirements. And I just don’t see a two seat vehicle with limited cargo capacity as being a large volume seller.

[ply33]

12 minutes ago, SwedeDownUnderR63 said:

Welcome to the future.

I don’t see cables on those EVSEs. Does Australia have the same setup as Europe where the car owner has to use their own cable when using a public charge point?

[Matt Harwood]

2 hours ago, Seafoam65 said:

Out of curiosity, what does charging an electric car cost in terms of added charges

on your monthly electric bill?

 

Now that we've had our Audi E-Tron for enough months to compare this year vs. last year and have put some significant mileage on the car, so we are able to make some comparisons. We're spending about $35 a month on charging the car which allows us to drive about 700 miles. We are charging in off-peak hours, which helps, but with four full months of comparison that's been our average (roughly).

 

 

[SwedeDownUnderR63]

2 minutes ago, ply33 said:

I don’t see cables on those EVSEs. Does Australia have the same setup as Europe where the car owner has to use their own cable when using a public charge point?

Sorry, I haven’t gotten that far down the rabbit hole to be able to answer that question, this is a charging station for all kinds of electrical cars on top of a large mall so it might be a special case.

[ply33]

31 minutes ago, RivNut said:

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

Several states, including California, now have an additional fee on the annual registration for PHEVs and EVs to compensate for that. I have heard of a couple states that set the annual fee to be the gasoline road tax equivalent of driving 100,000 miles/year. Not sure if that is to discourage EVs (the states I heard about are fairly conservative) or simply to sock it to the rich people they perceive as the buyers of EVs.

 

I believe Oregon and some other states are trying out systems where you are charged based on mileage. The problem there is to come up with a fairly bullet proof way to do that without actually tracking cars (and thus their owners). I personally feel that for states that currently have required periodic safety or smog check that having the odometer checked once a year would be sufficient.

[Matt Harwood]

37 minutes ago, RivNut said:

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

 

I pay an extra $250 to register the electric car each year.

[crowvet]

On 11/5/2021 at 4:51 PM, RivNut said:

So it it going to be up to us fossils who’ll still be driving gasoline powered cars to pay additional taxes per gallon to cover the taxes on gas that go toward highway maintenance. Will electric cars use the highways at (pardon the pun) “no charge?”

As an EV owner I do feel this is unfair. I also know that EV owners pay more for registration for this reason. maybe taxes by miles driven would be more fair?

Edited November 15, 2021 by crowvet (see edit history)

[Chasander]

How many miles/years will a battery last?  What is battery replacement cost? 

[crowvet]

2 hours ago, Chasander said:

How many miles/years will a battery last?  What is battery replacement cost? 

Miles would depend on how many you drive a year. Lots of EV's out there with 250,000 and still going. Battery life is at least 8 to ten years maybe more. As far as replacement cost, the cost may exceed the market value of the car at that point. Same as a gas engine would in a 10 year old car. You could however take all the money you saved from not buying gas and replace the battery, or apply it to a new car.

[kegart]

Electric might make sense on a daily driver but I still want to hear that Buick V8. At a car show I don't think anyone would ask me to lift the hood to see my batteries. 

 

Kevin 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by kegart (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

6 hours ago, crowvet said:

Miles would depend on how many you drive a year. Lots of EV's out there with 250,000 and still going.

One of my nephews has been driving Prius cars for over 10 years now. He also has an F-550 Ford truck and quite a few variations in between. He still has the first Prius he bought and a new one he bought last Spring.

 

The batteries are modularized and can be individually diagnosed in replaceable $250 units. He bought one used car that had a no charge condition figuring worst case would be a couple of juice modules. It turned out to be poorly diagnosed with the wire unplugged from the diagnostic port. The old "loose wire" event in the history of ICE cars.

 

His experience has been good and I would consider an electric. My thing is that I am not and never have been a one car owner, eggs in many baskets. My wife quit driving last year for health reasons and we still have 5 cars licensed. And I sold her Tahoe.

 

As far as I am concerned fire up that diesel powered earth moving equipment in Argentina, push the trees away and mine me some copper to hook up the the grid. Ship it on a fast freighter. Give me a tax bonus for throwing away my 10 year old ICE car and pour me a new 'lectric from molten steel, aluminum, and rare earth materials. Scrap that existing car and make me a new efficient one. I'm ready.

 

But I am keeping my carbon neutral '60 Electra and '64 Riviera. All the airborne carbon emissions from those have been incinerated during nuclear surface tests in the '70's and '80's... right before they noticed the ozone was depleted.

Edited November 6, 2021 by 60FlatTop (see edit history)

[crowvet]

1 hour ago, 60FlatTop said:

One of my nephews has been driving Prius cars for over 10 years now. He also has an F-550 Ford truck and quite a few variations in between. He still has the first Prius he bought and a new one he bought last Spring.

 

The batteries are modularized and can be individually diagnosed in replaceable $250 units. He bought one used car that had a no charge condition figuring worst case would be a couple of juice modules. It turned out to be poorly diagnosed with the wire unplugged from the diagnostic port. The old "loose wire" event in the history of ICE cars.

 

His experience has been good and I would consider an electric. My thing is that I am not and never have been a one car owner, eggs in many baskets. My wife quit driving last year for health reasons and we still have 5 cars licensed. And I sold her Tahoe.

 

As far as I am concerned fire up that diesel powered earth moving equipment in Argentina, push the trees away and mine me some copper to hook up the the grid. Ship it on a fast freighter. Give me a tax bonus for throwing away my 10 year old ICE car and pour me a new 'lectric from molten steel, aluminum, and rare earth materials. Scrap that existing car and make me a new efficient one. I'm ready.

 

But I am keeping my carbon neutral '60 Electra and '64 Riviera. All the airborne carbon emissions from those have been incinerated during nuclear surface tests in the '70's and '80's... right before they noticed the ozone was depleted.

I kept my 65 Rivi, 67 Corvette, 70 Chevy. I will always be a car guy, but the EV for my daily driver is awesome as well as fun to drive. Saves the gas money for the classics.

[XframeFX]

Since daily drivers are exactly that, they usually grow on me with mileage and windshield time. Lots of miles on a 3.5L Ecoboost, doesn't get any better. This past May, I purchased a 2021 Jeep JL PHEV and appears to be awesome as well. Still new. Next year I should like it more. The 44 KM range is small but perfect for local errands and Monday to Friday commutes.. Here in the North, there are 15A NEMA receptacles everywhere for winter block heaters, good for Level-1 trickle chargers. When starting on a trip, forget the electric traction motor, just use "E-Save" and run the 4-banger, conventional cruising.

 

However the point of me starting this topic was to show a crate product is now available with more related components to come.

I see the link has changed. No more images on the crate Electric Motor. But this remains:

"Part No. M-9000-MACH-E, the e-crate motor is now available at authorized Ford parts warehouse dealers or online at Ford Performance Parts. Retailing at $3,900, it is targeted for builders looking for a transverse-oriented powertrain to electrify a range of vehicles from modern to vintage cars, trucks and SUVs. Each Eluminator e-crate motor produces 281 horsepower and 317 lb.-ft. of torque and is street-legal in all 50 states."

 

On first read, it appears fitting a vintage ride with this traction motor will require FWD/AWD. So, not sure how many applications where this would work. However, they did an F100 pickup concept. Hopefully, a longitudal crate offering will follow if not already out.

[Stretch.]

11 hours ago, XframeFX said:

On first read, it appears fitting a vintage ride with this traction motor will require FWD/AWD. So, not sure how many applications where this would work. However, they did an F100 pickup concept. Hopefully, a longitudal crate offering will follow if not already out.

 

Easier for IRS setups, just replace rear diff with the motor.

[95Cardinal]

The Ford Eluminator Mach-E motor is already sold out.

If you click "Buy Now" on the Ford Performance site, you get a message asking if you want to be notified when the product is available.

 

After driving a Tesla Model 3 (Dual motor), I can certainly understand why people love electric cars.

They are incredibly quick and fun to drive.

 

As long as there are enough charging options to avoid charge anxiety, I think almost everyone will want to be driving electric in the next 10 years.

[XframeFX]

2 hours ago, 95Cardinal said:

After driving a Tesla Model 3 (Dual motor), I can certainly understand why people love electric cars.

They are incredibly quick and fun to drive.

That's just it. The latest on this is that once you experience a test drive, you're hooked. Then all that apprehensiveness lessens somewhat. Finally, the transition is now being embraced. ("Who Killed The Electric Car" from 2 decades back on GM's EV1)

 

However, in the Jeep Wrangler purchase, I did not wean myself off a conventional engine. Sure it's a complex Unit under the hood. But aren't they all? FCA claims the sealed Samsung 17KW/hr battery under the seat is designed to last the life of the 4XE model.

My Jeep Wrangler 4XE has a traction motor between the 4-banger and 8P75PH hybrid transmission. EV vehicles such as Tesla use hi tech IPM-SynRM  motors.

 

What's nice about a crate motor, piecing out every component with experimentation in-between is greatly reduced.

[95Cardinal]

With credit to Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof):

 

On the other hand....

 

Here's a 22 minute comparison review of the Cadillac CT5 Blackwing, Tesla Model S Plaid (what the hell kind of name is that for a CAR?) and the BMW M5 CS that explains the difference between the three. I'll take the Caddy, please!:

 

https://www.hagerty.com/media/videos/cadilac-blackwing-jason-cammisa-icons/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MED_UN_NA_EML_UN_Watchlist_Nov8&hashed_email=10d9fd8adee74b98c70423f736b77222aeb6d28b79cfb2ee1ff6112d5c2e0c99

[Matt Harwood]

On 11/8/2021 at 6:06 PM, 95Cardinal said:

Tesla Model S Plaid (what the hell kind of name is that for a CAR?)

 

 

[edinmass]

On 11/5/2021 at 8:29 PM, Matt Harwood said:

 

I pay an extra $250 to register the electric car each year.

250 bucks? Shocking! 😜

[EmTee]

🤮

[ply33]

On 11/5/2021 at 5:29 PM, Matt Harwood said:

 

I pay an extra $250 to register the electric car each year.

 

29 minutes ago, edinmass said:

250 bucks? Shocking! 😜

Current gasoline tax in Ohio is $0.385/gal so that $250 electric vehicle extra registration fee would be the same as buying 649 gallons of gasoline per year. At the national average of 24.2 MPG that is the equivalent of driving a “regular car” 15714 miles/year or 43 miles/day. Given that the typical car is driven 31 miles/day is seems Matt is likely subsidizing the drivers of internal combustion engined cars in his state.

[ol' yeller]

[Zimm63]

The debate as to how to fund road construction and maintenance will continue.  I'm an advocate of a mileage/weight based tax in lieu of gasoline taxes.  It irks the heck out of me when a Model S Tesla sails by me in the HOV lane knowing he is paying exactly nothing towards the road he is using.  This is in MD.

 

On the other hand, there are those of certian political persuasions who cannot even have an adult discussion as to how best to fund government services.  That is regrettable, as logic and sense should be part of how things are funded.  There are a couple of friends of mine whose hair is absolutely on fire every time mileage based funding is brought up.  

 

Shame we can't figure this out.  Strikes me as pretty easy.