Destination Freedom and Vehicles for the Physically Challenged

There are many wonderful people with some sort of physical disability that they’ve had since birth or from an incident later in life which caused the disability to come about.  All are inspirational people.

Being allowed to drive when you are physically challenged offers you so much more independence and heaps more confidence.  Driving offers a sense of freedom to do what you want whenever you can, so it gives you more opportunity to find a job and get to work, volunteer for others, and go to the other side of the continent solo, or with family and friends, when you want to just as you see fit.

Being physically challenged is on its own a significant hurdle to overcome on all fronts when it comes to being able to do life like a person with a fully functional body.  There are many difficulties for a physically challenged person to deal with, and one of those is simply getting from Place A to Place B on time.

If you were/are a person with a physical disability who wants to be able to drive to your own Destination Freedom, then finding and owning the right vehicle that’s just right for you will be the first box to tick.  Sometimes the vehicle may need to be modified to suit your own unique requirements.  My Uncle Frank, a 2^nd World War veteran who has since passed on, suffered a war injury from flying shrapnel.  This brief fateful moment caused Uncle Frank to become paralysed in his left arm as well as partially in his left leg.  He was still able to walk with a shuffle, drive a car (an always-shiny brown Toyota Corona) with an automatic gearbox, and give everyone a good laugh with his great sense of humour.  A small bracket with a fixed swivelling knob was attached to the steering wheel of the car so that he could turn the car with ease, using his good hand and arm to steer.

Many other people have had accidents that even left them a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair for mobility.  Any accident can be life changing, none more so than a spinal cord injury.  Yet still it is possible for these people to drive.  A former New Zealand equestrian champion, Catriona Williams, who is now a tetraplegic after falling from her horse in 2002, still enjoys an independent life filled with fun.  Enjoying adventurous road trips with family and friends is made possible with her modified Volkswagen Caravelle van, which has been set up for her to be able to drive securely from her wheelchair.

There are clever people who have the engineering skills enabling them to modify a vehicle for many people with physical challenges.

Some of the special equipment you can use to modify a vehicle include:

• Infrared remote control systems that enable easy access and operation of a vehicle from a wheelchair.
• Controllers for wheelchair movement (i.e. ‘Slip and Puff’ systems via sucking and blowing through a straw-like device.).
• Headrest indicators ­ the indicators are activated by head movement on the head rest.
• Mini steering wheels that enable people with limited upper body strength to steer the car with ease.
• Joystick or foot steering, which can be combined for steering, acceleration, and braking.
• An array of hoists and roof racks for various reasons.
• Seatbelt modifications, harnesses, and special seating.
• A left foot accelerator pedal instead of a right foot one.
• Various hand controls that can of themselves incorporate up to seven unique functions – i.e., steering, high beam lights, horn, wipers, indicators etc.

These are just some of the possibilities.  Pretty much any car can be modified, new or old.  MPVs and vans are ideal for a person who is looking to drive the vehicle from their wheelchair.  It’s awesome there are great opportunities out there for enhancing quality of life.

How Much is Too Much for EV Driving Range?

How long should an EV be able to travel on a full battery?  ‘Neue Klasse’, from BMW, suggests that 1000 kilometres is about right.  BMW’s New Class of vehicles are not far off the runway now, said to be arriving in 2025.  And they are going to be the first BMWs-ever that have been designed from the ground up to be specifically all-electric, EV through-and-through.

That does raise an interesting question: How far should we expect our brand spanking new EVs to go on a full charge (a full tank of electrons instead of a full tank of gas)?  Should we be able to drive from Sydney to Melbourne (877 km), Sydney to Adelaide (1374 km), Sydney to Cairns (2430 km), Sydney to Perth (3932 km), or just Sydney to Wollongong and back (about 175 km) on a full battery?

Most of us are probably sick of driving non-stop after 6–8 hours max in a day.  So, say most of that was done at 100 km/h, then 100 × 8 hours would get you to 800 kilometres before you’d be needing a proper cup of coffee in a proper coffee cup!  It would be then you’d want a rest and a sleep, right?

Perhaps Neue Klasse has got it bang on then.  1000 km would cover an all day blast up the coast from Sydney to Brisbane, which is approximately a total of 911 kilometres via the coastal route.  Get to the end of that journey, and you could pull up at a mate’s place for tea, or a motel, and plug in your EV overnight ready for the long drive back home.

According to Thomas Albrecht (BMW’s head of Efficient Dynamics), in 2025, New Class EV BMWs are set to have “thirty-percent or more” range than what’s currently available now.  That means that the brand-new BMW EV platform with lots of fresh pieces of technology, including 46 mm cylindrical battery cells, should push the Generation 6 batteries out to around 1000 km before they run out of electron juice.  Even though BMW could go further than this 1000 kilometre range, Albrecht suggested that this would be the maximum that BMW will offer because they don’t think that such a long range is necessary.

BMW will debut the new Generation 6 batteries in the 2025 BMW 3 Series EV.  How much do you think we should be able to get out of the battery packs in any new EV bought in 2025–2030?  I’d be interested to know – remembering that battery tech and recharging times will likely have vastly improved by then.

Understanding Current Hybrid Vehicle Technology

So, what is a hybrid car in 2022?  What is the current technology ?

A hybrid vehicle combines at least one electric motor with an internal combustion engine (ICE) to move the car.  This system is set up to recapture any energy from regenerative braking.  There will be times when the electric motor can do all the all the work of moving the car, and then sometimes the ICE will do 100% of all the work.  And then there will be times when the electric motor and the ICE work together to move the vehicle along.

The  hybrid system ultimately has the end result of less fuel being burned and, therefore, offering its driver better fuel economy.  In some circumstances, like in a short quick passing manoeuvre, adding electric power to the ICE power will can even boost the vehicle’s performance for performing the task.

All hybrid systems are set up for the electric motor to use electricity coming from a high-voltage battery pack.  This battery pack is separate from the car’s conventional 12-volt battery system that runs the auxiliary car systems (e.g., air conditioning, headlights, coolant fan, etc.).  The high voltage battery pack is replenished by capturing energy from deceleration (typically this energy is lost to heat that is generated by the brakes in a conventional ICE-only vehicle).  So, the regenerative braking system captures this deceleration energy and sends it back to the high voltage battery pack which runs the vehicle’s electric motor.  Hybrid vehicles are also designed to use the ICE to charge and maintain the high voltage battery pack.

The main Hybrid Designs are:

Parallel Hybrid

The electric motor(s) and ICE are connected in a common transmission (automatic, manual, or a CVT) that will blend the two sources of power for moving the vehicle.

Series Hybrid

A Series Hybrid is where the electric motor(s) provide all the thrust, and there is never a physical or mechanical connection between the ICE and the wheels.  The ICE is purely onboard for recharging the high voltage battery pack.

Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV)

The plug-in hybrid system enhances the conventional hybrid concept with a much larger high voltage battery pack.  As this is similar to a conventional electric vehicle (EV), it must be fully recharged using an external electricity source (i.e., charged from your home power supply, your office, or a public charging station).  Because the energy storage is much greater, it allows for extended all-electric driving, thus significantly reducing your fuel consumption.  In fact, short commutes and a recharge nightly means that you’ll be running on electricity most of the time (great for city driving).  Should you deplete the large battery pack, the car simply reverts to being a conventional parallel hybrid, using the assistance of an ICE.  Plug-in hybrids can be either a series or a parallel hybrid system.

Mild Hybrids

When you hear the term Mild Hybrid, don’t start thinking it is anything like the Parallel Hybrid, Series Hybrid, or Plug-In Hybrid (these 3 are considered “full hybrids”) mentioned above.  In a Mild Hybrid vehicle, the electric motor is there to only assist the ICE for the purposes of improving fuel economy, increasing performance, or both.  It won’t ever fully move the vehicle on its own.

The Lithium Rush

Lithium is in very hot demand at present.  Like a new frenetic modern-day gold rush, it seems that big companies wanting lithium are frantically looking for this new sort of gold.

Obviously, lithium is required in the production of lithium-ion battery cells that are used for powering EVs.  In order to make sure that they don’t run short of lithium anytime soon, China, which has the largest EV market in the world, produces 80% of the world’s usable lithium product all on their own.  In a statement recently, Sung Choi, a metals analyst, stated that “The cost of lithium has risen because virtually all automakers have jumped onto producing EVs.”

Currently, over half of the world’s lithium resources are in South America and Australia.  As prices for lithium are surging – and some metal analysts at BloombergNEF (BNEF) have witnessed an almost 500% increase in the past year – China seems to be leading the charge in the hunt for new lithium mining reserves.

China is searching around the world for new lithium deposits that can supply their big need for the metal used in EV production.  China has even looked at the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau as a source for the metal, as well as in Africa.  Sung Choi also said that “Africa has recently been in the spotlight with its ample resources in metals.”

Some of the African lithium mining fields being looked at by China include the reserves found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Zijin, a Chinese mining giant, is battling with Australia’s AVZ minerals over controlling the DRC’s Manono mine.  Quite possibly, the Manono mine has the world’s biggest lithium deposit.

Last year, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi said that people living in areas with mines were “still languishing in misery,” while it was the foreign multinationals running the mines who prospered.  The mines do provide locals with jobs, but many would say that the locals don’t see enough trickle-down reward from the massive multimillion-dollar projects.

Also, in Zimbabwe there are large untapped deposits of lithium, and China is rapidly buying up these resources.  Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese-based company, has recently purchased Arcadia Lithium mine outside Harare.  The money (some $300 million) will be used to construct a mining plant with a processing capacity of 400,000 metric tons of lithium concentrate per year.  The Zimbabwean government has welcomed this recent investment, looking forward to helping fill China’s and the EV’s need for lithium-based batteries.

The current and potential growth of the EV industry, and therefore the rush for new lithium resources, has had companies like Tesla seriously considering getting into lithium mining and refining directly for themselves.  Maybe it is Toyota who is taking the more manageable approach to the mass production of EVs.  Their pace toward an EV transfer seems to take a better-calculated methodology when compared with some other big automotive manufacturers who seem driven on producing a fleet of their own EVs as fast as possible.  Toyota sees the value in hybrid technology building a bridge to solving any issues around climate change and the EV mindset.

Lithium isn’t just used in the production of EV battery packs.  Lithium is also used in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras, and in warfare equipment. It is also used in some non-rechargeable batteries for things like heart pacemakers, clocks, and toys.  The future and the course of EV production and EV uptake does seem to depend on the amount of lithium being available and the costs involved for mining it.  These costs will affect how much a new climate change-solving EV might eventually sell for.