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The Problem with Electric Vehicles

jacquesmattheij.com

181–190 of 205 posts

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#181
post #45

I have an electric car, a leaf. I also have solar power from Solar City. I live in sunny MA, where in the winter we average 15kWh generated to the summer we average 50kWh. My commute is 60 miles per day which is around 6-8kW depending in traffic and weather. Also, my local power is a mixture of nuclear and wind. So. Can we please stop rolling coal burning power plants into the electric car equation as if it is univer…

> So. Can we please stop rolling coal burning power plants into the electric car equation as if it is universally applicable.

Unfortunately most of US citizens power comes from non-renewable energy sources. So, I think rolling power plants into the electric car equation is more applicable than not.

"In 2015, renewable energy sources accounted for about 10% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 13% of electricity generation" [0]

[0] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=92&t=4

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#182
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly correct. Just wait though, I said the exact same thing above and the author told me to "fuck off", and the HN hivemind is heavily down-modding any comments critical of this guy.

Yeah wow, my comment had like +2 earlier today and now it's down to 0. Guess the dude called his friends in.

My karma took a huge beating today: some people have been going through a bunch of my older comments and down-modding them. No kidding about the dude calling his friends in. This place is the worst echo-chamber I've seen lately, except maybe for /r/HillaryClinton.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#183
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly correct. Just wait though, I said the exact same thing above and the author told me to "fuck off", and the HN hivemind is heavily down-modding any comments critical of this guy.

Yeah wow, my comment had like +2 earlier today and now it's down to 0. Guess the dude called his friends in.

> Guess the dude called his friends in.

Any more unsubstantiated and bull-shit accusations you'd care to make?

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#184
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah wow, my comment had like +2 earlier today and now it's down to 0. Guess the dude called his friends in.

My karma took a huge beating today: some people have been going through a bunch of my older comments and down-modding them. No kidding about the dude calling his friends in. This place is the worst echo-chamber I've seen lately, except maybe for /r/HillaryClinton.

You must have missed out on the HN policy against name-calling, you did that and then some and were - and are - completely off the mark, on top of that you refused to take it back and doubled down on it. If that caused your karma to nose-dive then that's the system working as intended, I did not bring in 'any of my friends'.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#185
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah wow, my comment had like +2 earlier today and now it's down to 0. Guess the dude called his friends in.

> Guess the dude called his friends in. Any more unsubstantiated and bull-shit accusations you'd care to make?

I said "guess". :)

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#186
Well thought out points but he's suffered from a common mistake when comparing a revolutionary technology with a current, well proliferated, technology. The rules of vehicle ownership have changed and will continue to change as we move to EVs.

As to points about the grid: The electric companies already manage unexpected peeks/valleys using several techniques. Interruptable power used to cut people's AC off in the summer when the grid is suffering by offering participants a steep discount in electric rates will likely see its first expansion into recharging ports. Off-peek/On-peek rates will change. Even surcharges for vehicle owners charging at certain times could be implemented -- all before the first changes to the grid take place.

Refueling: This fell victim to thinking of EVs as having the same limitations as ICEs. With the current crop of EVs, 99.95% of my travel would eliminate the need for a refueling station. I can charge at home and a look around my area, it's easier to find an EV charging parking space than it is to find someone driving an EV (Metro Detroit). More of these will appear -- the incentive to install these at retail locations is that you'll potentially increase your traffic and those who are there "just to refuel" will be there until they're sufficiently charged giving you ample time to make a few sales in the process. Cities are adding them as well and it's probable that this will become another revenue generator by having the car owner pay a rate above the electric rate/maintenance rate. For long-haul travel, these stations will now have something they never had before: a captive audience stuck there for the duration of the charge and their incentives will be similar to retail locations adding "EV parking spots"

The remaining problems fall under the category of "EVs are new and not as common as ICEs." Service stations will become more familiar with the products as more of them appear on the road. Add in self-driving, which seems to be growing just behind EVs, and you end up with a model where disabled passengers can be met with a new "rental" while their vehicle is towed to a location that can service them.

Because of a simple change to the fuel and engine, EVs don't suffer from some of the pain points of ICEs and require us to think about the similar problems that they share with ICE vehicles very differently.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My karma took a huge beating today: some people have been going through a bunch of my older comments and down-modding them. No kidding about the dude calling his friends in. This place is the worst echo-chamber I've seen lately, except maybe for /r/HillaryClinton.

You must have missed out on the HN policy against name-calling, you did that and then some and were - and are - completely off the mark, on top of that you refused to take it back and doubled down on it. If that caused your karma to nose-dive then that's the system working as intended, I did not bring in 'any of my friends'.

Policy against name-calling? Isn't that the one you broke first by telling me to fuck off? My remarks weren't off the mark at all. Your article was unresearched bullshit regurgitating the same old stupid anti-EV points we've heard for years.

And then you have the gall to downmod a crapload of my old, unrelated posts just to hurt my karma.

Fuck you. You're a real sack of shit.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#188
post #45

I have an electric car, a leaf. I also have solar power from Solar City. I live in sunny MA, where in the winter we average 15kWh generated to the summer we average 50kWh. My commute is 60 miles per day which is around 6-8kW depending in traffic and weather. Also, my local power is a mixture of nuclear and wind. So. Can we please stop rolling coal burning power plants into the electric car equation as if it is univer…

Electricity is fungible. If you weren't charging a car, you'd be pumping the electricity back into the grid and reducing the need to burn coal to supply the grid.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#189
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true. However, I think it would be better to put the strain on the grid than continue to do so with companies that squeeze oil out of rocks. The grid can utilize natural gas, coal, solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave power etc.. Electric cars are the future and will force us to invest heavily in renewable energy.

Electric cars are actually more or less a natural sink for wind energy and solar because they add storage capacity to the grid, something it currently does not have.

Trouble is they're not connected to the grid while you're driving them :-/ But excellent point nontheless

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#190
post #177
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Refueling with an ICE takes no time at all and can be done anywhere. So right. It is truly amazing that more people don't realize the disconnect here between current motor fuels and electricity. The average gallon of gasoline contains 33 kWh of energy. You can pump about 15-20 gallons in 5 minutes or so. That's equivalent to around 6 MWh or 21,000 MJ of energy, every hour. Less if you allow for the time between car…

An average car in Germany would require about 10kWh per day recharge, this can be done on a plain wall socket. Even if you drive twice that range every day, you would not need anywhere close to the powers you are talking about. The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as effective, so you would need only a third of the…

> The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as effective, so you would need only a third of the energy transfer speed.

I stated that in my original reply.

> With an electric vehicle, the common case should be overnight recharge, so charge speed does not matter much there.

I know here in the DC metro people have 100 mile per day commutes - and more. That is 1/3 to 1/2 (all in some cases) of the battery capacity of most EVs. A regular 20A wall charger has no chance of replenishing that overnight, and at 85% charging efficiency, a level 2 charger or whatever would struggle to supply 40+ kWh over night as well.

Slow charging EVs may work for some, maybe even most - but definitely not everyone. Especially in the rural United States.

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