Gas Prices

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Did you read the story?

Evidently, not well enough. Thanks.

Though I forgot to include solid waste too. Tech recycling needs to be ramped up across the board.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by Jalapeño Chips

Love it. It'll buy one for sure if it makes it here.

The other day I saw an old 70's Civic Hatch and thinking how cool it looked and that they should bring it back, and electric. This is it.

That Honda is a sharp looking EV, I'd definitely drive it. My mom drove a 1977 red Civic until she got rear-ended in the mid 80's, it was a cool car.

Another thing that irks me when the mining for batteries is brought up, the mining and refining of oil products is incredibly environmentally damaging in all regards. End of life oil products are very difficult to dispose of just the same as any battery. However you can rebuild an EV battery with a home kit when it starts to wear out.

The environmental consequences of oil production from Alberta's tar sands are major, beginning with its effect on climate change. North America's transition to oil from the tar sands not only perpetuates, but actually worsens, emissions of greenhouse gas pollution from oil consumption.
The Harm the Tar Sands Will Do | The Tyee
https://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/09/20/TarSands/

Nissan begins offering rebuilt Leaf battery packs
May 14, 2018

Starting this month, Nissan has begun offering rebuilt battery packs for the older Leafs, filling a gap for drivers of older cars whose packs have begun to run down.

The company built a new facility in Japan to rebuild the packs, and will sell them for about $2,850 (based on the price in Japan), according to Inside EVs. A Nissan spokesman told Green Car Reports that the company is investigating offering the program in the United States, but has not yet made a decision.

Electric car repair trainer Craig Van Batenburg, of the Automotive Career Development Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the refurbished battery packs are new among electric carmakers. Previously, older battery packs had to be replaced with new ones, which cost more than $6,500 (minus a $1,000 trade-in, or core charge, on the old battery pack.)

The rebuilt battery packs should eventually lallow independent mechanics to replace batteries in Nissan Leafs, says Van Batenburg. That should save Leaf owners whose older batteries are losing range even more money compared with having a new battery installed at a dealership.

Following the 24-kwh batteries, Nissan also plans to begin recycling 30-kwh and 40-kwh batteries from later, longer-range Leafs.

Nissan Leaf battery
Nissan says that the new battery recycling plant in Naime, Japan is the first such factory recycling lithium-ion batteries. Naime is in northwestern Japan in the region devastated by the earthquake and tsunami that melted down nuclear reactors in Fukushima. The plant will also recycle batteries from forklifts and large-scale storage systems, Nissan says.

The company will also promote turning used electric-car batteries into stationary storage systems for power plants and other industrial uses.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1116722_nissan-begins-offering-rebuilt-leaf-battery-packs

Why would I want to recondition my hybrid battery pack?

Batteries in a Toyota Prius typically last a long time. As we mentioned on the previous page, the company guarantees them for the life of the car, and drivers have documented at least two 2001 Toyota Prius models, the earliest Prius model to hit North American roads, lasting for more than 200,000 miles (321,869 kilometers) without a battery pack replacement. That's more than twice the manufacturer's warranty period [source: HybridExperience.com].

In the rare case that a driver encounters a problem with the battery pack before the hybrid reaches 10 years or 100,000 miles (160,934 kilometers), Toyota will replace the pack with a brand-new one. Instead of scrapping the old pack, however, they hang on to it. This is because battery packs built for the Prius consist of 28 separate modules, and any problem in a battery pack is most likely due to one of those modules, not all of them.

Toyota also has a main recycling center that collects battery packs from scrap yards. In fact, there's a toll-free number on every Prius battery that informs callers that a $150 reward awaits them if they bring the pack to any Toyota or Lexus dealer. Instead of letting batteries degrade in a landfill, Toyota pays scavengers to reclaim them.

So, although Toyota can't replace the battery pack when the warranty has run out on a Prius, it can recommend reconditioning the battery pack as a cheaper alternative to outright replacement. If anything goes wrong in a unit after 100,000 miles (160,934 kilometers), Toyota can locate which one of the 28 modules is causing problems and replace that individual module. By harvesting from the older, recycled battery packs they've collected, technicians can find a matching module that has a similar chemistry and age as the other 27 modules and recondition the battery by replacing only the faulty module.

Reconditioning the battery in a Toyota Prius not only extends the life of the battery by adding another six years; it also reduces maintenance costs for the owner. At $750, battery reconditioning costs about one-fourth the price of replacing the battery pack entirely.

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-effi...ogy/recondition-hybrid-battery-pack1.htm

[Migrant_Coconut]

Huh, the more you know. Kudos to Nissan and Toyota.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

well, you know, other than the mining, shipping, and manufacturing of the heavy metal batteries of course.

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Life Cycle EV Emissions

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That's emissions made by the driver. Future's talking about mining and manufacturing the battery.

You appear to be suffering from a particularly acute case of confirmation bias in which you don't even bother to read articles that state facts contrary to what you believe. Facts do matter - and yes, the article does take battery and vehicle manufacturing emissions into account.

Yep, lithium and cobalt mining can be pretty egregious. But it's not as if the oil industry is blameless.

[retro_orange]

This is a good albeit funny explanation of a Prius battery rebuild on a high mileage Prius, starting at 2:40 mark (though the whole thing is worth watching) The guy is a writer for Autotrader.com and has a hilarious youtube channel


• Video Link

[SFUVancouver]

I find the hysteria about EV battery life to be a bit rich. There seems to be disbelief and grave hesitation that an old, high-mileage EV will not be able to perform as well as a newer, low-mileage EV. Well, yes. Indeed, there will be a substantial cost to replacing an EV's battery pack when the performance trade off becomes too great. This really isn't different than owning an old, high mileage ICE vehicle. Any number of mechanical problems are going to arise with age and wear (burning oil, worn belts and gaskets, transmission rebuilds, failing engine mounts, fuel pump replacements, etc.) and carry a significant price tag.

At a certain point, a replacement vehicle makes more financial sense than maintaining an old one, regardless of whether it is an EV or ICE vehicle. There's a whole lot less to break and wear out on an EV, and there's far less maintenance throughout its usable life, so maybe on balance we'll find that even if one plans to drop a major chunk of change on a new battery pack, the long term cost of owning an EV is still a bargain? I suspect so. The range drop off curve as a battery pack ages will be the key factor in motivating a battery pack replacement and even that will be a fairly personal decision. If the EV is an exclusively city car, hypothetically losing 30% of range a decade into ownership might not be an issue at all since one can charge up as required. If the EV needs reliable long distance service, such as long-haul trucking or a serious daily commute, then maybe such a hypothetical loss in range would be a deal-breaker? There will likely be a robust secondary market among exclusively urban drivers for used EVs that are still fine for city driving.

Anyway, exciting times. Looking forward to seeing the electrification of transportation accelerate, if you'll forgive the pun.

[Trainguy]

Metro Vancouver's gas prices are on the rise again, climbing to over $1.40/litre in some places.

The region saw a record-breaking 11-cent-per-litre increase between Saturday and Sunday.

McTeague blames this year's increase on refineries in the Pacific Northwest that are down for maintenance, creating a supply and demand issue.

The price of imported fuel appears to be on the rise as well.

McTeague expects the rate will remain consistent at least until Wednesday or Thursday, so hold off on filling up until then if you can.

By the summer, McTeague says gas could be going for about $1.60/litre in Metro Vancouver.

Talk about getting screwed again and again...

[WarrenC12]

Gas is right up there with cell phone contracts, as a complete racket. Yet somehow we correctly assign blame in the case of cell phone, and blame the government (lack of pipelines, taxes) in the case of gasoline.

[misher]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Gas is right up there with cell phone contracts, as a complete racket. Yet somehow we correctly assign blame in the case of cell phone, and blame the government (lack of pipelines, taxes) in the case of gasoline.

Do we blame the government when it comes to gas prices? I think most people don't even realize that we charge more taxes on gas than most places in Canada. Also, much of the tax is % based so we get hit by both sides when gas prices go up.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

Do we blame the government when it comes to gas prices? I think most people don't even realize that we charge more taxes on gas than most places in Canada. Also, much of the tax is % based so we get hit by both sides when gas prices go up.

You just answered your own question.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by misher

Do we blame the government when it comes to gas prices? I think most people don't even realize that we charge more taxes on gas than most places in Canada. Also, much of the tax is % based so we get hit by both sides when gas prices go up.

It should be expensive though. A fair price for carbon is probably 4-5X what the current carbon tax is. Driving a guzzler has a huge external cost that's borne by society, even if you exclude the costs of the infrastructure.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

It should be expensive though. A fair price for carbon is probably 4-5X what the current carbon tax is. Driving a guzzler has a huge external cost that's borne by society, even if you exclude the costs of the infrastructure.

A fair price for carbon should be just above whatever value is commercially viable to recapture it. I'm thinking that's at least $200/ton, which as you say is 4-5x our current tax $40 on April 1st, set to hit $50 in 2021. Sweden's is something like $140US right now.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

A fair price for carbon should be just above whatever value is commercially viable to recapture it. I'm thinking that's at least $200/ton, which as you say is 4-5x our current tax $40 on April 1st, set to hit $50 in 2021. Sweden's is something like $140US right now.

Have you been reading Marc Jaccard as well?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Have you been reading Marc Jaccard as well?

Never heard of him, but it's just common sense. If we want to really make a dent in carbon concentration, it needs to be a commercial enterprise and we can let capitalism do its thing.

[Trainguy]

$1.46 this morning.. insane

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Trainguy

$1.46 this morning.. insane

Still well short of the highest prices we've seen. It was 161.9 less than a year ago...

[casper]

Originally Posted by misher

Do we blame the government when it comes to gas prices? I think most people don't even realize that we charge more taxes on gas than most places in Canada. Also, much of the tax is % based so we get hit by both sides when gas prices go up.

Yes, it is the governments fault. The pipeline that supplies the region with refined product is at capacity. The local refinery in down. If only we have more pipeline capability. The government needs to get on with resolving that problem.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Still well short of the highest prices we've seen. It was 161.9 less than a year ago...

Just wait for the summer!

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by casper

Yes, it is the governments fault. The pipeline that supplies the region with refined product is at capacity. The local refinery in down. If only we have more pipeline capability. The government needs to get on with resolving that problem.

How would another pipeline help the lack of refining capacity?

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

How would another pipeline help the lack of refining capacity?

Because we generally don't refine enough product in BC to begin with, and thus need to import it in from other jurisdictions.

A expanded Trans Mountain pipeline will better serve Albertan refineries in supplying BC with fuel, including the fairly new Sturgeon refinery.