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Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

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Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#41

Post by audunw »

coldcode wrote: post #34

Plug in ignores one very large population: people who live in apartments. Unless the apartment builders start to consider charging stations sufficient to the population, plug-ins are pointless. A hybrid works since I don't need a plug.

What? Plug-in hybrids don't need to plug in. It's just an option. It makes sense wether you have access to nightly charging or not. It's much better if you can charge, but the battery still helps you with efficiency by storing breaking energy, and the plug can also be used other places. Once plugins become more ubiquitous you'll probably start to see supermarkets and such offer charging in their parking lots.

And it's really not that hard to add charging infrastructure to apartment parking. It's just a matter of will. The technology is simple and relatively cheap.

You'll start to see companies offer owner of apartment complexes a pretty good deal: they'll install the chargers for free in exchange for them charging the tenants for the electricity (+ margins)

This is a problem that be market is pretty good at solving if the government just gives its kick-start. Once plugins hits 20-30% market share (sales) it'll practically solve itself.

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#42

Post by willvarfar »

BoorishBears wrote: post #31
willvarfar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All modern electric cars can trivially have enough 'parking assistance' AI to line them up exactly with a charging port (which could be, for example, beside or even under the car). The car can then trigger the charger to connect, and when you get in the car and start it it can trigger the charger to disconnect. All that is needed is standardization effort, and an up-front security review e.g. cars 'sign on' with a pr…

The other day I tried parking assistance on my Volt, 3/5 times it was flawless. 1 time it happily parked in the middle of two spaces, and another time it couldn't detect a low curb and a hollow tube sticking out and would have happily ran them over if it didn't require manual acceleration and braking... I don't think manually plugging in a charger is a big deal

Crikey, that is so far away from the park-assist tight parallel-parking I've witnessed from Asian cars.. you tell it to park, and it drives slowly along the road until it spots a just-big-enough gap between two cars, and then it parks in the space for you. A couple of friends avoid parallel parking if they have to park themselves.

One anecdote was a friend had parked and another car parked too close in front of them, and they were basically stuck. And then they remembered the new parking-assist, and they flipped the switch and the car inched backwards and forwards and basically extricated itself by moving sideways like a crab!

Does the Volt get updates over-the-air etc?

My comment was assuming parking-assist was a solved problem! ;)

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#43

Post by agumonkey »

coldcode wrote: post #34

Plug in ignores one very large population: people who live in apartments. Unless the apartment builders start to consider charging stations sufficient to the population, plug-ins are pointless. A hybrid works since I don't need a plug.

It's true, but with social momentum, it's probably not to hard to install.

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#44

Post by icebraining »

Ygg2 wrote: post #30
jlebrech wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they had battery swapping stations, it would mean a "charge" in under a minute. but it needs a much greater infrastructure.

Storing that many batteries in one place... Seems dangerous.

Now imagine they'd store thousands of gallons of a liquid that produces flammable vapor :)

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#46

Post by yardie »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6

Can we please standardize charging stations to not require a person to manually establish a connection? It seems that it would pose such an awkward and unnecessary hurdle. Especially in the coming age of self driving cars. Every time you arrive or leave you have to remember to (dis-)connect the charger. Why not just have some kind of inductive energy transfer or I dunno... something. Edit1: Heh, this could work I gue…

Have you felt how much heat your average 10W Qi charger puts out. While that energy loss is acceptable for a smartphone or tablet with a 10Wh battery your average BEV stores kWh of charge.

2 slabs of metal can move way more electrons than an electromagnet.

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#47

Post by BoorishBears »

willvarfar wrote: post #42
BoorishBears wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I tried parking assistance on my Volt, 3/5 times it was flawless. 1 time it happily parked in the middle of two spaces, and another time it couldn't detect a low curb and a hollow tube sticking out and would have happily ran them over if it didn't require manual acceleration and braking... I don't think manually plugging in a charger is a big deal

Crikey, that is so far away from the park-assist tight parallel-parking I've witnessed from Asian cars.. you tell it to park, and it drives slowly along the road until it spots a just-big-enough gap between two cars, and then it parks in the space for you. A couple of friends avoid parallel parking if they have to park themselves. One anecdote was a friend had parked and another car parked too close in front of them,…

Parallel parking might be better, this was for reversing into a space

I noticed it did fine when two cars were present for it to use as a guide, maybe being able to use the cars as markers helps?

And as far as I know the car is "connected" via 4G (ODB data and remote controls are available in an online portal) but I don't think it's used for OTA updates (The last update I saw was for Android Auto integration and that was done by visiting a dealer)

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#48

Post by lmm »

coldcode wrote: post #34

Plug in ignores one very large population: people who live in apartments. Unless the apartment builders start to consider charging stations sufficient to the population, plug-ins are pointless. A hybrid works since I don't need a plug.

Apartment builders won't start putting in charging stations until they see residents wanting to plug in. For cars intended to last for years it makes sense to put the plug in now - installing charging stations in existing parking lots is more practical than adding plugs to existing cars.

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#49

Post by jdietrich »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6

Can we please standardize charging stations to not require a person to manually establish a connection? It seems that it would pose such an awkward and unnecessary hurdle. Especially in the coming age of self driving cars. Every time you arrive or leave you have to remember to (dis-)connect the charger. Why not just have some kind of inductive energy transfer or I dunno... something. Edit1: Heh, this could work I gue…

>Can we please standardize charging stations to not require a person to manually establish a connection? It seems that it would pose such an awkward and unnecessary hurdle.

It's a total non-issue in practice. Inductive charging has barely made an impact for mobile phones, because plugging in a cable just isn't a big chore. It very quickly becomes an automatic habit that requires no conscious effort.

Re: Volvo signals 'end of the solely combustion engine-powered car'

#50

Post by lmm »

agumonkey wrote: post #45

Shouldn't it be mandatory for ICE car manufacturers to make hybrids only ? It would push the market up, simplify through less options and help ecology and health in the process.

Hybrid is the means rather than the end. Better to require CO2 emissions to conform to a certain limit (or better still a gradual tax scale - that's already how it works in my country) and let the manufacturers achieve that by whatever way seems best.

The bigger problem in the US is that "commercial" vehicles are exempt from many of the regulations, and so manufacturers get a lot of their cars legally defined as "light trucks". Start treating businesses the same way as individuals.

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