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Just have a think, ICE cars and power generation


Guest Sarel

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Aaand the Brits are stranded, no petrol or diesel. Its not a result of Brexit as many would want you to believe, it not being viable to invest in oil that is at the source of this shortage. The other part of it is profiteering, restrict the supply and prices rise. Price gauging anyone? Over the last decade or so, most investments in new oil was curtailed for various reasons.

A glimpse of the future maybe?

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Ironically, as part of the UK fuel shortages, is natural gas shortages and this now caused a shortage of, guess what?

CO2, carbon dioxide. The nemesis of climate change. This CO2 shortage has started to cause food shortages! Why you ask? CO2 is vital in slaughtering of animals, no CO2 and no meat. It is also used in vacuum packaging of foods, as the gas for dry ice and in a number of industrial processes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It is amazing how history (recent at that) proves that most people, even the best and most clever ones, get the future vision and predictions wrong.

The below graph represents in black, the actual add-on of Solar PV versus the coloured lines each yer for the predictions by the International Energy Agency..... And each and every year the best brains cannot see their piss poor linear prediction of last and previous years, so they keep on making the same mistake.

1572611114_Screenshot2021-09-18at15_12_33.thumb.png.9739b1cf0364850948e179bb7fa71d31.png

 

And the below is why they keep making such stupid and idiotic mistakes. Look at the time it took cars to disrupt horse drawn buggies. Or look at Air travel....

Tech-adoption-S.thumb.png.cffacfc7b456a3b0ae10b9c9d1aaec47.png

We are in for some astounding change in a few short years. Our energy situation in SA and the disruption of EVs are going to be bad for us. Not because its bad, but because we taking bad info and making bad choices about the future, today.

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When Tesla started, the Roadsters battery pack was costing about $1000 /kWh. Today the cost in the Tesla Model 3 is about $100 /kWh or 10x less. On issue on the horizon is the demand for battery cells. Today, as more and more car manufacturers are planning for more EVs, that will require many many more battery cells for battery packs. I can foresee that some price pressure will come to bear on prices for battery cells. Non EV demand may struggle for supply.

Look at the players in the market: Some of the majors operating in this market include Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) , BYD Co. Ltd, Duracell Inc., EnerSys, GS Yuasa Corporation, Clarios, LG Chem Ltd, Panasonic Corporation, Saft Groupe SA, Samsung SDI Co. Ltd, Sony Corporation, Tesla, Inc., and TianJin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co. Ltd.

A number of these OEMs either produce EVs or have very large percentages of their contracts with EV OEMs.  The stationary battery market for Utility grids, are  still in its infancy and very profitable and growing rapidly. This is another sector alongside EVs that will in future consume large amounts of cells. This will leave residential Solar with some difficulty and little choice for batteries.

1498131634_Screenshot2021-10-12at07_32_39.thumb.png.4ba974ac8f8df84c30a940e2ee0d3f50.png

Let’s look at Tesla Utility grid MegaPacks, they have orders for the next two years, so that demand already outstrips supply, and they and Panasonic are almost the biggest battery manufacturer and soon may be. With Tesla’s production of batteries and growth of EV sales, the other manufacturers will really struggle to get batteries for EVs.

 

This is more or less the current battery distribution across the sectors in the market.

1024418948_Screenshot2021-10-12at07_30_08.thumb.png.c1ebd9d7e4f69c48ed19f8802fcc8ef6.png

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ICE car OEMs going bankrupt.... The biggest of them VW group, are loosing sales, and their own internal predictions indicate a loss of 25% of staff by 2030. Wonder what may happen if this snowball hits lesser companies.... Well guess it's predictable, they will collapse under their debt and lack of sales. That will leave us here in SA, and likely the rest of Africa in a real predicament. All the local production for those going bankrupt will close, with a loss a f jobs, and no more exports. Not that any other country would want ICE cars, by then ICE will be banned from imports.

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On 2021/09/17 at 11:33 AM, Sarel said:

And about a month ago, Escam CEO said the following in front of the presidential climate comission:

The projects being considered consist of:

  • 1,566.2 megawatts of solar power
  • 600 megawatts of wind power
  • 4,000 megawatts of gas-fired power
  • 61 megawatts of battery storage
  • 1,400 megawatts from micro-grids
  • 390 megawatts from pumped storage, a type of hydro power

link here

 

I have seen some crazy numbers come out of the northern hemisphere with regards to gas, their prices are all over the place and mostly going up.
Now these "cleva okes" at eskom are talking about gas making up a large part of their plans.
Ons gaan "k@k en betaal", anyone who thinks electricity is gonna get cheaper or increase in price slower are living in a dream world.
Maybe I am missing something when reading theor BIG plans for our energy future in SA.

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Well, consider this. The normal dinosaur juice based fuels (its called Fossil fuels for reasons) you have to pay for in perpetuity. Its consumption based, you pay to consume. With RE types you pay for the infrastructure, the energy is essentially a free byproduct ;) You pays, your choice when and for how long....

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17 hours ago, Sarel said:

ICE car OEMs going bankrupt.... The biggest of them VW group, are loosing sales, and their own internal predictions indicate a loss of 25% of staff by 2030. Wonder what may happen if this snowball hits lesser companies.... Well guess it's predictable, they will collapse under their debt and lack of sales. That will leave us here in SA, and likely the rest of Africa in a real predicament. All the local production for those going bankrupt will close, with a loss a f jobs, and no more exports. Not that any other country would want ICE cars, by then ICE will be banned from imports.

I know there is a current drive by the big boss at Volkswagen to start bidding on the international market for South Africa to start producing electric cars at the plant down in Uitenhage (Kariega). However the problem requires lots of $$$, as it is not a matter of converting the production line and off you go.

The whole eco-system needs to change and adapt to the current EV trends. The current Polo probably has over 2000 different component manufacturers that supply the VW plant on a daily basis, and it will be up to VW to decide if they partner with external companies or keep everything in house.

I guess the conundrum weighs heavy on how much money you want to push into the program, however as mentioned decisions have to be made soon as the consumption of our export vehicles is dropping off, and we cannot afford to loose this market we have. 

This doesn't just apply to VW, but also Ford in Silverton, BMW in Rosslyn, Toyota and Merc in Durban, Izuzu in PE; as well as the countless firms in South Africa that supply parts to these brands. The crystal ball is going to be very interesting to watch.  

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I still remember in 2017 I was at a roadshow with Audi South Africa when I was still with the brand, and they were teasing us with upcoming models to the SA market. 

 

Back then already they were talking about the Audi A3 e-tron and the Q7 e-tron, fully hybrid cars able to use both engine and EV. I thought to myself, what a clever idea seeing that Audi did not have any fully fledged car on the market apart from prototypes that they showed off at the Genève Motor show.  

However like with most things the idea fizzled out very quickly, who would be responsible for setting up a network of charging stations to fulfil this need, could they partner with others in the game such as BMW at the time, would there be a market for a R900 000 Audi A3 (at the time), and above all of this, how would electricity supply play into that fact that you own a partial electric car. 

Oh how it would be fun to turn back the time, imagine a flagship power utility, EV cars bountiful . . . . . Day dreaming again - snap out of it 🤣

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18 hours ago, Sarel said:

ICE car OEMs going bankrupt.... The biggest of them VW group, are loosing sales, and their own internal predictions indicate a loss of 25% of staff by 2030. Wonder what may happen if this snowball hits lesser companies.... Well guess it's predictable, they will collapse under their debt and lack of sales. That will leave us here in SA, and likely the rest of Africa in a real predicament. All the local production for those going bankrupt will close, with a loss a f jobs, and no more exports. Not that any other country would want ICE cars, by then ICE will be banned from imports.

Is this not at least in part because VW is a dirty word after "dieselgate"? Nobody says their cars are rubbish, but their reputation did take a big knock, and the bottom line with it

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On 2021/10/12 at 7:58 AM, Sarel said:

When Tesla started, the Roadsters battery pack was costing about $1000 /kWh. Today the cost in the Tesla Model 3 is about $100 /kWh or 10x less. On issue on the horizon is the demand for battery cells. Today, as more and more car manufacturers are planning for more EVs, that will require many many more battery cells for battery packs

But doesn't this also benefit those of us who have lithium batteries at home? If it's getting cheaper to make lithium battery packs for EVs then it's getting cheaper to manufacture lithium battery packs.

It's what always happens with new tech. One of the sensible things that came out of Clarkson era Top Gear was their rule that you watch very carefully for a new top range Merc, because it will always have features that make you say "wow" and it is always a predictor because in 10 years time all new cars will have those features as the number made increases and that drives the cost per unit down.

A good example I found recently is solid state disk drives. They are cheap now, and a quick way to speed up an old (7 years) lap top. But thinking about it, Huawei, Apple, Samsung et al have been packing more and more (and faster) memory into a phone that fits into a jeans pocket, so how far a jump is it from there to a SSD that replaces a hard drive you can hold in the palm of you hand?

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18 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

I have seen some crazy numbers come out of the northern hemisphere with regards to gas, their prices are all over the place and mostly going up.
Now these "cleva okes" at eskom are talking about gas making up a large part of their plans.

In many of those countries, energy provision is privatised and so what we are seeing is the good old invisible hand of the market in motion.

The UK, for example, import some electricity. They are very marginal in terms of being able to meet all their own needs, and sometimes it is just cheaper elsewhere. One of the countries they bought from was France, who have lots of nuclear power and, apparently, more power than they currently need. But the undersea cables that carry the feed from France to the UK are damaged, repair is months away, and now the UK has to take a chance that they will be able to meet demand at Christmas (traditionally their time of highest demand) or have to buy in more than usual. Of course there are other routes for them to buy in energy, but with one source removed, the others are either deciding to see exactly how much blood can be drawn from a stone, or deciding to sell to somebody who will pay the asking price. So energy prices are going up in the UK.

There's been a lot of talk about having a similar model here in SA, where Eskom will basically be a grid operator and various generators will provide power and various companies will provide it to us at whatever cost. But the downside for us is that then the invisible hand of the market starts moving and we don't get a single, regulated price adjustment each calendar year.

Edited by Bobster
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On 2021/10/02 at 12:24 PM, Sarel said:

Aaand the Brits are stranded, no petrol or diesel. Its not a result of Brexit as many would want you to believe, it not being viable to invest in oil that is at the source of this shortage.

Well Johnson (who of course is incapable of even the whitest of lies) is saying that they actually have plenty of oil, the problem is getting it to forecourts because they don't have enough HGV drivers. There is anecdotal evidence to show that it's not just that foreign drivers aren't coming to the UK anymore, but that British drivers who can get the necessary paperwork are opting to work in the EU where they get paid and treated better.

Are you saying that Johnson is uninformed or being economical with the truth? 

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20 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

I have seen some crazy numbers come out of the northern hemisphere with regards to gas, their prices are all over the place and mostly going up.
Now these "cleva okes" at eskom are talking about gas making up a large part of their plans.

Is this gas to power turbines instead of coal? If so then the price they can charge for electricity is still controlled by NERSA.

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3 hours ago, Bobster said:

Well Johnson (who of course is incapable of even the whitest of lies) is saying that they actually have plenty of oil, the problem is getting it to forecourts because they don't have enough HGV drivers. There is anecdotal evidence to show that it's not just that foreign drivers aren't coming to the UK anymore, but that British drivers who can get the necessary paperwork are opting to work in the EU where they get paid and treated better.

Are you saying that Johnson is uninformed or being economical with the truth? 

I would not know a thing about Johnson or his truth. I was referring to the Oil and Gas industry, and specifically about their lack of investments.

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3 hours ago, Bobster said:

But doesn't this also benefit those of us who have lithium batteries at home? If it's getting cheaper to make lithium battery packs for EVs then it's getting cheaper to manufacture lithium battery packs.

Yes it does indeed. The problem however is production priorities. All OEM Car manufacturers have multi year contracts with Battery OEMs and will get production priority according their contracts. Whatever production capacity is left over, will go to stationary use for Grid scale deployments, and what's left after that, if any, will be for residential.

3 hours ago, Bobster said:

There's been a lot of talk about having a similar model here in SA, where Eskom will basically be a grid operator and various generators will provide power

Politically, with the centralised command and control of our beloved CancEr government, nope. And I have worked at the Utility for many years as a consultant, so have some insights here. Just look at the state of management of the generators, the mess with the IPPs and residential Solar.....

4 hours ago, Blowdart18 said:

I know there is a current drive by the big boss at Volkswagen to start bidding on the international market for South Africa to start producing electric cars

If you were in Herbert's shoes, he is German, would you want to do that? They have the Unions and Government to deal with in Deutchland. They already have the Zwickau plant for EV production and next will be the rebuild at Wolfsburg. A direct quote, and no mention of Aus, ZA etc.... "By investing in its German sites, Volkswagen, as one of the country’s largest industrial players, is contributing to a strong German economy,while continuing to push the country’s transformation into a more sustainable and more digital future with long-term job security. After Saxony, Lower Saxony will become Germany’s second center of electric mobility."

Now peruse this chart, especially considering that to date, we have ever sold 1500 EV's in SA. The quality of journalism is mind-blowing.... Never mind finding Africa let alone SA mentioned anywhere. We not even a blip when it comes to global manufacturing or sales.

712781688_Screenshot2021-10-19at15_13_53.thumb.png.f2a2ea7d768aab8bc5a21b0ebdf603e0.png

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55 minutes ago, Sarel said:

If you were in Herbert's shoes, he is German, would you want to do that? They have the Unions and Government to deal with in Deutchland. They already have the Zwickau plant for EV production and next will be the rebuild at Wolfsburg. A direct quote, and no mention of Aus, ZA etc.... "By investing in its German sites, Volkswagen, as one of the country’s largest industrial players, is contributing to a strong German economy,while continuing to push the country’s transformation into a more sustainable and more digital future with long-term job security. After Saxony, Lower Saxony will become Germany’s second center of electric mobility."

 

Well that is the crunch of the matter, I work for VW so always interesting seeing what is coming out in terms of news but a snippet from VW Group shows the sentiment of VW rather ploughing resources into other African countries. 

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/10/the-next-few-years-will-be-exciting-in-africa.html

 

 

E-Cars and the switch to electromobility are currently on everyone’s lips in Germany and Europe. How is the situation on the African continent?

The South African government has so far been rather reluctant to do so. Unfortunately, the electricity supply is unstable. And the long distances between cities, make the population and the government doubt that the issue of e-mobility will be treated as a priority. Through the Automobile Association, however, we are engaged in an intensive dialogue with the government in order to bring more movement on the issue. After all, as a production location that is heavily dependent on exports, we cannot lag behind technologically. There is already more movement in other African countries: At the end of October, for example, we will launch our e-mobility initiative in Rwanda, with 50 e-Golfs1 as part of our mobility services – driven by the strong focus of some African countries on environmental protection and the high cost of fossil fuels, which have to be imported from the Middle East at high prices. They must not forget: Africa has many sustainable energy sources such as wind, gas and certainly sun.

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1 hour ago, Blowdart18 said:

Through the Automobile Association, however, we are engaged in an intensive dialogue with the government in order to bring more movement on the issue.

Hahahaha as if the CancER ever listened to anybody, this ain't the EU folks. Talk is cheap, look at the Taxes on EVs: Price — EVs attract 45% in import taxes and duties. Administratively, with the stroke of a pen, EVs kept out.... This is a deliberate act, not an oversight, not an incentive....

 This was in 2019. for perspective: "The minister of transport, Blade Nzimande, updated that information in March 2019 and said that there are a total of 867 EVs registered in the country." 

In 2018: New data from analytics group Lightstone shows that 375 electric vehicles have been sold in South Africa since the inception of electrically powered vehicles (EV) in the country.

And in 2020: A total of 92 electric vehicles were sold in South Africa in 2020, representing just 0.02% of sales in the domestic automotive market.

There Mr Diess....

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2021/09/17 at 1:52 PM, Bobster said:

So I was fascinated recently to see one of the big Japanese manufacturers, Nissan IIRC, saying on some TV business show that they were NOT committing to go full EV by a certain date because they believed that governments had miscalculated or given into sentiment, and so they expected regulations to change, and because they still sell a lot of cars in markets where the government is not thinking in terms of mandating EVs.

Necro post!

There was an interesting article on BBC recently. 2021 was a record year for EV sales in the UK (still tiny, but a record is a record). But suddenly somebody has realised that there's a big problem: A lot of people in the UK don't have a garage. They have to park their cars on the street. Now how do you charge your EV? At work? Right... you can just see your employers bearing that cost.

The article dealt with a start up who have a bright idea. They sell a lithium power bank with control electronics. And with wheels because it's weight is not insignificant. Now the idea is you charge that inside your house during the day then either stick it onto the pavement next to your EV at night (anybody see a problem?), or charge the pack at night, put it in the boot in the morning, drive to work and then recharge in the company parking. It has a limited useful life of course. If you buy it outright then you're on your own. If you lease from them they will give you a new one at regular intervals, the batteries they discard will then be used for residential applications.

And this is a big problem. A lot of houses in the UK don't have garages. In newer suburbs yes. But I have a cousin who lives in Hove and is a GP. She has a good income, lives in a good suburb, and not one house in her street (or for blocks around) has it's own garage. They all have to park on the street (indeed they have a permit they have to display which says which street they may park in). London? Most folks living there don't have a garage, and whilst they don't all own cars, a lot of them do. Same problem (more aggressive policing of who may park where). 

I've been to Madrid, Barcelona, Glasgow, Alicante, Amstedam, Edinburgh. It's the same in all of those as regards parking in residential areas. A lot of folks have to park on the street. Ironically, in the areas where EVs would have the biggest impact, there are real obstacles to owning them. (I've been to Beverley in East Yorkshire, which is hardly a a teeming metropolis - I had to park my hire car in the pay parking at the public hospital).

So maybe the hybrid comes into play again? Or hydrogen? Something with a tank that can you fill fairly quickly.

FYI... there is an EV charging point in Petrus Steyn. Just thought I'd mention that.

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On 2021/11/20 at 1:44 PM, Bobster said:

So maybe the hybrid comes into play again? Or hydrogen? Something with a tank that can you fill fairly quickly.

Two points here:

1. Hybrid cars are an abomination, twice as many powertrains for more money and more complexity. Still need to service the car ala normally, unlike BEVs that need almost no service. Far more things to go wrong. Added weight and reduced space.

2. For Hydrogen, the Physics don't add up. More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use, because physics. Less than 25% of energy input is available as output. BEVs are closer to 70%

HydrogenChart.jpg.490fdf811f36074d58840dfdbc5d85a0.jpg

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