Adding any additional weight to a vehicle (ICE or EV) reduces the available range from a fuel tank or battery - That is basic physics.
Is it feasible to tow a caravan? Yes - but wit a diminished range. Will it be a 75% reduction of range? that depends on the car and the caravan, the speed and the terrane over which its towed.
I'm sorry but there are several new battery technologies being pursued not only to increase power density, but also to remove reliance on rare or contentious materials, and to increase battery longevity (number of discharge/ recharge cycles).
Your original question did not include a reference to cost, but the development stage of almost every single new development is high, Look at the cost of ICE vehicles when they were first introduced, The cost of sending men into space and beyond, but as time passes manufacturing costs invariably come down, and the same will be true for battery technologies. From yesterday - we now have space tourists (Jeff Bezos )
That is very interesting thought. Please can you explain how you came to the conclusion? The very very best ICE engines are almost reaching 50% thermal efficiencies, but most consumer products can still barely reach 30% at best. EV's whole life efficencies outstip whole ICE vehicles, and EV;s will improve further as we develop the technologies.
Running ICE engines are hopelessly inefficient and pollution generators when the vehicle isn't moving, which in cities is a lot of the time.
As far as I know there is no rational person who believes EV's are 100% efficient, or100% green. There is an environmental cost to every thing we do - including breathing, so to make such claims is entirely erroneous. And before accusing EV's of not being green, just think of how much green damage has been caused by the use of ICE vehicles over the last 100 years or so.
What has been said and is technically true, EV's have no tail pipe emissions, but there c ould be emissions at the power generation stages depending on what processes are used.
There are several sources of electric power, Those with zero generation emissions are wind, solar, wave, tidal, and nuclear. Both gas and coal produce generation emissions, but gas is considerably cleaner than coal. Different countries have different mixtures of these sources so the amount of emissions per kWh varies country to country. Here in the UK over the last 5 years, we have seen renewables ( zero emission) rise 20% to 40% of our average power production, and on occasions has touched 50%. The remaining load has been gas, nuclear and a continuing downward trend in coal generation.
Or reliance on importing electric power at the moment is being diminished as the UK installs more renewables, and nuclear , but also storage facilities that can be charged at low demand periods and feed back into the grid when demand is high. Not only are there dedicated storage facilities like this being developed, but many of the new EV cars will also allow for car to grid support. This could dramatically reduce our peak generation demands.
Solar PV is still quite force to be reckoned with. I do not know where you got your 2kWh per day figure from but that is not necessarily a typical figure. It is also wrong to assume that 2kWhs is insignificant, You can do quite a lot with that amount of energy used wisely. It is of course dependant on the size of the PV array and the hours of day light to generate power. You do not need bright sunlight.
Your suggestion that motorway services will not be able to cope - based on the present deployment of charging facilities, and the numbers of EV's that do take nearly an hour to go from 10 to 80% does look damming at the moment, however you have made four poor assumptions:-
- Firstly newer EV's are can charge at higher rates thus reducing charging times.
- Secondly Just becasue a can is claimed to be able to accept 250kW does not mean the car can accept that rate consistently between 10 and 80%. Most charging profiles tail off the charging rate as the battery fills up.
- Thirdly, harping back to point I made earlier about local storage of power, most large car charging sites, will have their own on site storage which will charge up during low demand periods, and not place an instantaneous high demand on the grid.
- Fourthly not everyone will need to stop at the services, becasue with home charging they will be starting with a full charge.
The power delivery systems are being steadily improved, and we will have a much wider distribution of charge points than we presently do, which should counter the range anxiety that is presently rife in the industry.