The Problem with Electric Vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#201

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #197

Grishnakh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach (called a "serial hybrid powertrain") is that it's much less efficient than a parallel hybrid like the Prius. You can see it in the fuel economy figures: the Volt gets much lower highway fuel economy when it's running on gas than the Prius does, and only makes up for it on shorter trips where it takes advantage of its relatively large all-electric range. If you're doing a lot of highway…

Yes, it's less effecient if you're actually using the engine but the aim would be to not use the engine, and purely use battery storage as much as possible. There's graphs of average driving distance, the idea would be to get 90+% of those miles (daily commutes etc.) done with grid-supplied electricity, and the gas engine to be a once in a while thing (assuming you even need one, it is after all an optional extra tha…

>Yes, it's less effecient if you're actually using the engine but the aim would be to not use the engine, and purely use battery storage as much as possible.

Yes, but a parallel hybrid powertrain like Toyota's shouldn't be any worse here. The Prius also has a plug-in version which can run on battery alone for a certain distance, and it only spins up the engine when needed for more power or because the battery is too low. Of course, the Prius doesn't have the Volt's all-electric range, but it also has a much smaller battery (and lower price).

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#202

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #187

jacquesm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#203

Post by Reason077 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:33 PM UTC

rplst8 wrote: post #164

zodPod wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control & remotely adjusting by power company My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER". "Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I ha…

> 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…

Audi have been talking about 800V, 300kW charging - or 250km of range in 10 minutes. That's less than the time it takes for a bathroom break and a coffee. The difference between filling an ICE vehicle and fast-charging an EV becomes pretty negligible at that point.

(The CCS plug standard has been future-proofed to support these kinds of speeds)

All of this is only a concern, of course, for long-distance road trips. Which for most drivers are relatively rare events.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#204

Post by Reason077 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:40 PM UTC

Kastaka wrote: post #198

rplst8 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This looks like a Europe vs US comparison problem? In Europe you're unlikely to be travelling vast distances on a regular basis, whereas it's much more common in the US, so the range problems become much more important in the US than they are in Europe.

In Europe we also have 230V power as standard, so the standard 32A EV wall chargers provide 7kW - more than enough to charge any EV overnight. Even a standard UK wall socket can provide about 3kW.

In Germany they have 3-phase wiring right into homes, so even faster home charging is possible there.

Re: The Problem with Electric Vehicles

#205

Post by chadgeidel » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #178

coldcode wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an apartment there is no way to plug in a car or build a solar panel. Basically without a means of owning an outlet no plugin hybrid is possible.

While this is a problem for you, it's not a problem for the market at large. As electric cars become more popular, landlords will offer outlets.

Anecdotal, of course. And I'm bitter because I wanted to get an EV. :-D

I live in a "green" (LEED certified at some level) high-end apartment complex built in 2014 just south of downtown Denver, CO. There are zero electric car charging stations in the gated, enclosed garage. If my apartment complex didn't have the foresight to build at least a few charging stations I can't imagine the hope of retrofitting on some 10, 20, or 30 year old building. Nevermind the vast number of apartment complexes that simply don't have the garage space.