Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Problem with Electric Vehicles

jacquesmattheij.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 205 posts

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#81

Post by _ph_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
phkahler wrote: post #2

I think this guy over estimates how much burden electric cars will put on the grid. For a round trip of 20 miles to work and an efficiency of 200 Watt-hours per mile, you get 8kWh which can be charged slowly at 1kW over 8 hours. Think of that in comparison to air conditioning or electric dryers.

It's a simple function of the total power required to get the current levels of transportation converted to electrical use. Whether that's 1 trip of 200 miles or 10 trips of 20 does not matter, in the end it is the total number of miles driven by everybody multiplied by the energy consumption per mile. That's a substantial amount of power, and I did what I could given the data that I could find to put a figure out th…

But in most cases it is very easy to arrange charging when you are not running your electrical dryer or air conditioning, mainly in the late evening or night. It would be trivial to control your charger such that the total electricity drawn by your house connection never exceeds a set value.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#83

Post by peter303 »

I am encouraged by the progress made so far. I point to the documentary "Who Killed [GMs] EV-1?". That movie had a laundry list of the technological and political obstacles to EVs in the 1990s. Many of those have been reduced in the 2010s.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#84

Post by maxerickson »

YesProcrast wrote: post #75
toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temporarily. You successfully tell me where oil prices are going to be in a year, and you'll be the richest person in the world. http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-char...

Between $1 and $1000. How do I collect?

Arbitrage the accuracy of your prediction against the oil futures market.

There's an implicit requirement for a useful prediction of the price in the GP comment.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#85

Post by mikeash »

rmoriz wrote: post #27

Short-range EV only works in cities however especially in central Europe there is such a good public (and green) transportation system in place, that there is no benefit in (co-)owning an expensive EV that also needs special charging ports installed on at least "one end". Even the number of Given that you need invest a couple of 1000$ to install a charger (per parking slot) and also limit yourself to one type of EV (…

You don't need to limit yourself to one type of EV. In the US, a J1772 charger can charge every EV on the road. In Europe, the Mennekes connector does the same.

Fast DC charging has a bit of a standards war going on. There's CCS, CHAdeMO, and Tesla Supercharger, which are all mutually incompatible. But for routine AC charging, you can install one charger and work with every car.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#86

Post by sremani »

This is a good debate, Purist vs Practitioner. The Purist point of view is Autos are horrible, Cities designed for autos are horrible etc. But for the Practitioner, the world we live is not our choice, we are given a shitty hand, so lets improve it 10% at a time, in that world PHEVs and EVs are a solution working towards improvement.

edit: I do not mean, Purist in any disparaging way, the actual cost of roads (and their maintenance) is enormous. Please read Purist as one who sees the Core or Central problem.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#87

Post by jacquesm »

epistasis wrote: post #20

This is not the type of in depth though that I expect from this author, whom I usually find to be brilliant. These are first-level concerns of somebody who just realized electric cars exist and is looking for the "problems", however in practice most of these are mitigated by tech curves, and the true problems are going to be far different.

Yes, tech curves will take care of some of these. But an all-electric future is something that I don't see happening any time soon. It's interesting that most of the comments here seem to focus on the situation in the developed world but the world is actually quite a large place with a lot of different levels of infrastructure development. Rich countries and countries with easy access to vast amounts of hydropower will take the lead here, poorer countries, countries with aging and strained infrastructure or countries that have less favorable conditions in terms of population density and such will have a far harder time converting and will quite possibly and up with an even larger gap they need to bridge to achieve parity.

It's not exactly as if I started looking at EVs only recently, I've spent quite a bit of time on keeping up with industry publications, owned one of the first hybrids when they first rolled off the line and try very hard not to spout nonsense. Tech curves definitely will play an important role in mitigating these issues but are in and of themselves probably not enough to allow for a complete electrification of our transport needs.

> the true problems are going to be far different.

Such as?

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#88

Post by mikeash »

sevensor wrote: post #48
merraksh wrote: post #18

One stop-gap hybrid solution for a number of these issues would be a gas station that has a small power generation station powered by diesel fuel. This would cancel out the ecological benefits of running an EV, even if the power station had more efficiency than a combustion engine.

You've got to burn something. Much of the electric power used by EVs in the States comes from burning coal. Diesel is the clean option.

The US grid is currently about one third coal, one third natural gas, and one third zero emissions (mostly nuclear). I doubt diesel is cleaner than an EV given that, even if you don't account for the fact that coal emissions happen far away from most people, while diesel happens in your face.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#89

Post by tclmeelmo »

mgr86 wrote: post #65
artimaeis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chevy Volt and BMW i3 are identical in the regard of the function of their petrol engine. The Volt is using Chevy's Voltec drivetrain, so there's no way for the engine to put power to the wheels except through charging the battery - the same as the i3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Voltec_powertrain

Yes, this was the explanation I saw when my Girlfriend purchased a used volt last summer. We explain it to most people that the gas engine is there to act as a generator and charge the battery and act as a generator. Not to directly power the car. She loves her car.

This is not correct, also from the Wikipedia link above, describing the Volt driving modes: "Dual motor extended – The electric motors are used again in dual configuration with increased efficiency at higher speeds. Additionally the gasoline engine contributes propulsion power via the planetary gear. While power is drained from the battery the amount is less than in mode 2 for the same propulsion power, thus extending the range."

Emphasis my own.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#90

Post by Grishnakh »

sickbeard wrote: post #24

These are relatively minor problems however. The gas station problem for example is solved by charging your car at home or work. Gas stations exist because we can't refuel our cars at home.

That doesn't work for longer trips however. So what's going to happen when EVs take over is that local gas stations will disappear, as people will just recharge at home or at work.

But for long trips, what we'll like see (well, it makes the most sense anyway) is highway rest areas where there's recharging stations and eating areas in one complex. Most people can't go more than a few hours in a car without stopping to go to the bathroom or get something to eat and walk around anyway; it's just screwed up now because we have these different functions separated instead of putting them all in one place together.

This isn't a new idea by any means. There's several of these rest areas on the New Jersey Turnpike now. They have a gas station plus a mini-mall with gift shops, fast-food eateries, bathrooms, etc. It's basically like the "quick-stop" gas station, like Wawa, where you get gas and then go inside and get drinks, sandwiches made-to-order, use the bathroom, etc., except at the Turnpike rest areas, you have the choice of several different shops to go to, all in the same building.

So in a future where many people are driving EVs that need 30 minutes to recharge, I predict we'll see more of these kinds of rest stops, catering specifically to people taking road trips that are beyond the range of a standard EV that gets charged at home.

Post reply on HN