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What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

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Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#351

Post by jdietrich »

ams6110 wrote: post #297
sathackr wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comment! Currently utilities buy power during peak times from other utilities, or fire up expensive peaker generators to manage the load. A network of charging cars could be managed as another resource with a price attached to it that may be cheaper than the alternatives. I like the concept of varying the price of the charge based on your participation in the network. At least in Florida, USA, most residential…

This sounds great and sensible in a hand-wavy way, but getting the technology in place to effectively use plugged-in EVs for extra peak load capacity will take a long time. This sort of thing was never thought about in grid design engineering until very recently. Also think about when peak demand happens -- late afternoon on hot summer days. Right at the time when people are getting home, with their EVs discharged (o…

Vehicle-to-grid technology is already being piloted in the UK and will be available to consumers in Q2/Q3 2018. There is an industry-wide roadmap for the development of local electricity markets with real-time pricing. Any customer can choose to have a smart meter installed free of charge; the goal is to have full deployment of smart metering by 2020. These meters use Zigbee to provide real-time consumption data to a wireless display unit. With future firmware upgrades, they will be capable of providing real-time pricing information to smart appliances.

The grid is already perfectly capable of consumer feed-in, hence the huge deployment of photovoltaic solar systems. The metering is not particularly difficult. There is an emerging standard for smart grid communications (LTE on the 450MHz band) that is already in widespread use across the EU.

Completing this transition won't be cheap, but there are no significant roadblocks. We know what needs to be done and we have the technology to do it.

https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/driveelectric-launches-vehi...

http://www.energynetworks.org/assets/files/electricity/futur...

http://450alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WhitePaper...

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#352

Post by [deleted] »

mschuster91 wrote: post #213

Biggest problem I guess will be expanding the charger network, simply due to physics. On the country side, laying cables for 1MW peak load (4 superchargers @ 250 kW) will be expensive - the grid in rural areas is enough for some farms and small villages, that's it. In cities, electric-car chargers will have to deal with political obstacles (no one wants to sacrifice free-for-all parking spots!), in addition to the el…

[deleted]

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#353

Post by IndrekR »

enraged_camel wrote: post #289
jdietrich wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars have the potential to be a key part of the solution to load management on a fully renewable grid. The vast majority of people will usually charge overnight and don't need to regularly charge at peak times. Through intelligent charger management, you can distribute the load of charging across the entire off-peak period. The UX for this can be fairly straightforward - by default you charge at the cheapest…

I was talking to a professor of electrical engineering who performs research on the electric grid. She said that while in theory it is possible to configure cars to charge themselves when electricity is cheapest, currently residential utility plans don’t adjust pricing based on time of day. Your electricity bill’s tiers are based on your total consumption. Edit: lol, I get downvoted for relaying what a professor of E…

Here (in Estonia) the pricing changes every full hour. We get pricing for the next day (24h) a day before by 14 (2 pm). This is calculated from weather forecast, expected consumption and available generation resources. This is for residential use. For industrial applications you can buy electrical energy from the grid based on 15 minute pricing slots. Almost all the houses are equiped with online readable power meters.

I think this is the way things are moving in other jurisdictiins as well. In case of Germany and France one of the reasons why the systems have mot been upgraded lies in the privacy rules for the power consumption data according to one smart meter manufacturer.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#354

Post by _greim_ »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #237
wojt_eu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already feel nostalgic about gas-powered cars, their place is alongside steam locomotives as movie props and tourist attractions. Imagine people doing gas-punk cosplay in a couple of decades.

> Imagine people doing gas-punk cosplay in a couple of decades. The Mad Max look is already a thing. See also: Mad Max.

Wow, gaspunk is the perfect term for it. TIL.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#355

Post by mschuster91 »

IndrekR wrote: post #353
enraged_camel wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to a professor of electrical engineering who performs research on the electric grid. She said that while in theory it is possible to configure cars to charge themselves when electricity is cheapest, currently residential utility plans don’t adjust pricing based on time of day. Your electricity bill’s tiers are based on your total consumption. Edit: lol, I get downvoted for relaying what a professor of E…

Here (in Estonia) the pricing changes every full hour. We get pricing for the next day (24h) a day before by 14 (2 pm). This is calculated from weather forecast, expected consumption and available generation resources. This is for residential use. For industrial applications you can buy electrical energy from the grid based on 15 minute pricing slots. Almost all the houses are equiped with online readable power meter…

> In case of Germany and France one of the reasons why the systems have mot been upgraded lies in the privacy rules for the power consumption data according to one smart meter manufacturer.

Not just that, in addition the smart meters cost a bunch of money to install... people don't like paying anything very much.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#356

Post by Retric »

mikestew wrote: post #342
ajuc wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I meant do away with the batteries at the charging station, not the batteries in the car.

I was more pointing out that with current panels, putting panels on the car isn’t a good idea.

From a weight perspective they still add range so it's not a bad idea. Further, being able to run some fans or even AC while in full sun is a significant benefit.

Car companies are not adding panels because the benefit is not huge, they add complexity and cost, and panels negatively impact styling. Still, you see a lot of campers with solar panels on the roof because a few kwh/day of extra power really does add up over time.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#357

Post by sandworm101 »

mercutio2 wrote: post #298
sandworm101 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic mom-with-kids is on the road all day. EVs dont have the range/endurance to do the school runs, shopping, then haul the kids to sports. Ive also never seen one even attempt to haul the boat to the lake for a weekend, a very middle class thing in my area. (Rich people dont store thier boats at home.)

A Bolt can certainly do everything you mentioned, except possibly haul a boat. You can fully recharge at home overnight with an inexpensive Level 2 charger. And a new Bolt is definitely cheaper than most new SUVs.

As i sit here in the snow waiting for my car to warm up and my windows defog, as they close the road i need to drive today, im glad not to worry about charging stations. I have 130km of BC mountain driving ahead of me. I need heat+range, two things EVs dont do well.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#358

Post by Decade »

1_2__4 wrote: post #315
f_allwein wrote: post #113

How about: We need to shift from individual car ownership to more public transport? Sure it will be great if cars turn electric, but that does not solve issues like crowded streets etc. This would be partly addressed if cars were self driving and shared, i.e. would spend less time standing around unused. Nevertheless, I assume (=don't have data) that public transport would be much more efficient than electric cars in…

Whenever I run into an argument for something society-wide like this I do a little though experiment: Imagine the world as the argument suggests - in this case that public transportation is the norm. Now imagine I came to you and said, hey, what would you say to a personal conveyance device? Small and cheap enough to park at your residence, can carry you and all your friends/family/churchmembers/whatever as well as t…

I am not concerned with wishes, as much as inevitabilities.

Getting a car seems attractive because it gives you control over your movements. But with enough congestion, it becomes unattractive, because now your movements are constricted by the movements of other people on the same highway. Suddenly, taking a train becomes more attractive.

Or spread out, live and work in suburbs. Then you run into the Suburban Ponzi Scheme. The suburbs are becoming less safe, and physically declining, as the bills come due. http://www.businessinsider.com/strong-towns-growth-ponzi-sch...

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#359

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #197
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that as battery prices drop, just having a larger battery that only needs charged once a week becomes more and more possible. People in suburbs need to drive further for a daily commute, but have easier overnight charging. People in urban centers have more trouble charging but need to drive less distance (and often in the kind of start-stop traffic that EVs work so well for, which changes their range in comparis…

Larger batteries are prohibitively heavy though; electric cars are already pushing the weight up, compensating it with being more powerful, but at the same time they cost more energy to get in motion, which lowers battery life. Lighter and higher capacity batteries would be ideal, but I'm not sure how feasible that is with current battery tech. I gathered one manufacturer was working on solid state batteries for use…

Average commuting distance by car is 8.5 miles in London. The batteries are already big enough and are only going to get bigger/lighter/cheaper.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#360

Post by abecedarius »

farrisbris wrote: post #89
wojt_eu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already feel nostalgic about gas-powered cars, their place is alongside steam locomotives as movie props and tourist attractions. Imagine people doing gas-punk cosplay in a couple of decades.

I really really really do not share that nostalgia. I live in a city center and the only amount significant source of noise is from cars/buses. Sure you will have sirens or people shouting every now and again, but there is a constant buzzing sound from motors that goes on throughout the day and most of the night. I moved from a relatively quiet neighbourhood to where i am a few years ago, and the sound of motors ( an…

Amen. I’m hard of hearing, and traffic noise makes conversation impossible practically anywhere outside in any city. The idea that electric cars aren’t loud enough infuriates me.
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