Blog - Easy Electric Cars

13Jun 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

The Quest for a Million Mile Battery

Currently, the Million Mile Battery is one of the most sought after technologies in the EV world. Driving for 1 million miles without needing to replace a battery pack is currently unheard of. In fact, batteries are usually replaced once they have lost around 20-30% of their capacity, something that usually happens after around 500,000 miles. Last year, a research team led by John Dahn that is partnered with Tesla produced a research paper in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. The paper was titled ‘A Wide Range of Testing Results on an Excellent Lithium-Ion Cell Chemistry to be used as Benchmarks for New Battery Technologies'. One of the statements from the introduction of this paper includes the following snippet: "We conclude that cells of this type should be able…

09May 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

Here’s a Look Inside the Motors Driving the EV Revolution.

Electric Cars, Tesla

What Are Electric Motors? In their simplest form, electric motors are devices which convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. They can run off DC or AC electricity, something that we will compare later in the article. Electrical current is used to drive a rotor. This rotor can be connected to a multitude of things, including shafts and even refrigerators through a mechanism. More recently, electric motors have been used for a variety of purposes. For example, a small vibration motor in some smartphones creates feedback based on the users input. As a result, the phone may vibrate when ringing. In order to create a vibration, the motor has an off centre weight attached to its output shaft, creating an asymmetric motion which goes on to cause a vibration. On a…

07Apr 2021 by Josh Pine No Comments

Dogger Bank: The Incredible Engineering Behind the World’s Largest Wind Farm

Sustainable Energy

The Demand for Wind Power in the UK Of all the renewable energy sectors in the United Kingdom, wind is by far the largest. Approximately 23% of the UK's energy production is made up of wind power, compared to the next closest renewable, solar, at 5%. Generally, this comes down to the favourable geography of the UK. It's an island. Being surrounded by ocean means there's a huge amount of area to place offshore wind, without disrupting the appearance of the landscape a great deal. The surge in wind power has been fueled by ambitious production targets set by the UK government. In 2011, a roadmap was set out which laid guidance for 18GW of wind power to be deployed by 2020. As of the 18th February 2021, there is…

27Dec 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

Sustainable Homes of the Future: Heating

Sustainable Energy

Current Heating Consumption of the United Kingdom Historical Heating Demands of the UK (how we used to heat our homes) Using data from the UK governments ECUK, we can see that the net domestic space and water heating consumption has only increased by less than 7% since 1970. Note that this is despite an estimated population increase of almost 20%. Further to that, it's actually decreased since its peak in the early 2000s. Breaking this down further, space heating consumption has increased, though it has almost been counterbalanced by the consistent and steady decrease in energy going to water heating. However, it's not just the raw amount of energy that we use to heat our homes that has changed, the methods have changed too. Note: kWh is 1 kW of…

22Oct 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

New video shows off the capability of Tesla FSD.

Electric Cars, Tesla

On the 20th October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted out the following: FSD beta rollout happening tonight. Will be extremely slow & cautious, as it should. The Tesla community has been anticipating this roll out for a long time now, and Musk has repeatedly teased it's release, before delaying it again. This time, however, is different. A beta version of Tesla's full self-driving software is being released to members of the public. Not just any members of the public though, they are hand-picked by Tesla as being careful and experienced drivers. What do we know so far? Since the FSD beta has only just been release, information on how it performs is limited. However, a few Twitter users and Tesla fans have been given the update, along with permission to…

29Aug 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

Here’s the Top 8 Features of the Upcoming Lucid Air

Uncategorized

For many of us, the first time we were introduced to the Lucid Air was when it was featured on tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee’s YouTube channel back in 2017. The concept that we saw then was elegant, luxury, and high tech. After a period of financial struggles, Lucid is finally ready to bring the car to market, with its official unveiling on the 9th of September. During the announcement, Lucid is set to unveil a vehicle that they believe will take on the Model S, in almost all categories, including price. Given that Lucid is a relatively new company, and this is their very first production vehicle, this would be an impressive feat to pull off, but Lucid think they've done it. Here are the top eight most exciting features…

17Aug 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

Will Cybertruck Really Start at $39,000?

Electric Cars, Tesla

The controversy around the Cybertruck doesn't end at the styling. Assuming Tesla follows through with the pricing Elon Musk announced in November, the Cybertruck will be one of Tesla's cheapest vehicles yet. Currently, the cheapest vehicle that Tesla offers is the Model 3, which is priced at $37,990. Meanwhile, Musk announced that the single motor Cybertruck would start at $39,900. That's just $2,000 more than the Model 3, and a whopping $10,000 cheaper than the Model Y, which is currently priced at $49,990. Sure, the Cybertruck will have less range than the Model Y, but it still has a fairly reasonable 250 miles, which is more than the industry average. However, the Cybertruck has many extra features that are absent on the Model 3 such as: Bulletproof bodyAdaptive air suspensionDigital…

30Jun 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

How Does Tesla’s Autopilot Actually Work?

Tesla

There are many automakers that have driver assistance features built into many of the vehicles of their fleet. A few examples of this are Volvo's Pilot Assist, VWs Autopilot, and BMWs driver assistance features. Tesla's offering is called Autopilot and is well known as being one of the most well developed systems in any mass production vehicle. After being announced in 2013, it was integrated into the Model S fleet in 2014. Shortly after release, Musk said the following: “Autopilot is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.” At first, the feature was developed with the Israeli company Mobileye, and it offered basic lane-keeping assistance on freeways or in stop and start traffic. This crude version of the software was developed over the…

25May 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

How Will Tesla Achieve sub 1.9 seconds 0-60 times in the New Roadster?

Electric Cars, Tesla

What is the Tesla Roadster? From as early as 2015, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been hinting at a new Tesla Roadster to replace the company's first-ever vehicle. The original roadster was a Lotus Elise retrofit with batteries and motors rather than an engine. It was Tesla's first car, and they learned a lot from it. For example, the battery management system that was developed for the Roadster back in 2008 to prevent it from overheating and catching fire is not too dissimilar to the BMS found in modern day Tesla vehicles. Given that the Roadster is now quite outdated, Musk decided it was time for a new one. Tesla has been working on the original roadster occasionally, for example giving it an aero kit in 2014 which reduced its…

04May 2020 by Josh Pine No Comments

Is Elon Musk Really Planning to Build a Terafactory and more Tesla Announcements

Electric Cars, Tesla

A few days ago, Tesla completed its first earnings call of the year. Impressively, whilst many other companies were losing out, Tesla was still profitable. However, not only do Tesla's earnings reports give investors an insight into the financial health of the company, they also give us some details on what Musk is planning for the future of the California based Automaker. One subtle note here is the inclusion of a Terafactory. This earnings call was riddled with no shortage of surprises, so I'll break them down here. Much of what is being reported is still just speculation, not just concrete facts, so here's the information we know, and what the implications of it could be. Terafactory The Facts:: During the conference call, Musk hinted that the next Tesla factories…