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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

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Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#91

Post by duskwuff »

NullPrefix wrote: post #81
duskwuff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. Nah. Solar on cars is a dead-end -- even with perfectly efficient solar panels, a clear sky, and the sun at the zenith, the most power you can possibly get is 1.3 kW/m² (cf. [1]). I don't know exactly how large of a solar panel you could put on a car, but even with a huge 5 m² panel, you'd still be looking at over 12 hours (i.e, m…

> over 12 hours (i.e, multiple days of charging) to charge a Tesla's 85 kWh battery. The tone is somewhat pessimistic. Full charge every two-to-three days for a range of ... what is it? 265 miles? Effectively untethered car if you only need 50 miles daily.

Again, keep in mind my numbers are assuming a large, perfectly efficient solar panel under ideal conditions. Realistic numbers will be much worse. For example, most commercially available solar panels are 20-25% efficient.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#92

Post by vinw »

NullPrefix wrote: post #81
duskwuff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. Nah. Solar on cars is a dead-end -- even with perfectly efficient solar panels, a clear sky, and the sun at the zenith, the most power you can possibly get is 1.3 kW/m² (cf. [1]). I don't know exactly how large of a solar panel you could put on a car, but even with a huge 5 m² panel, you'd still be looking at over 12 hours (i.e, m…

> over 12 hours (i.e, multiple days of charging) to charge a Tesla's 85 kWh battery. The tone is somewhat pessimistic. Full charge every two-to-three days for a range of ... what is it? 265 miles? Effectively untethered car if you only need 50 miles daily.

Seems not pessimistic enough to me. Realistically most people would capture on average, while the sun is up, about 100 watts if they covered their car in solar panels. A car needs at least 10 KW to cruise at 60 mph. This means you need to charge for 100 hours for 1 hour of driving. Actually 200 hours because you can't charge at night-time.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#93

Post by Excel_Wizard »

jfrankamp wrote: post #44
Excel_Wizard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inconvenience of charging away from home is much bigger than you make it out to be. Other posters here are mentioning ~40 miles of charging in an 18 hour period. That's pretty dang restrictive.

No one who charges an EV away from home is charging at that rate, that's for an at home 'trickle' charger. Look up any L2 charger and you're well above that rate, and rates are only going for public chargers.

I miscommunicated context. The 40 miles in 18 hours is the at-home charging. I wanted to emphasize how restrictive that charging window is.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#94

Post by microtherion »

Whatarethese wrote: post #27
microtherion wrote: post #18

Our neighborhood Teshole is solving the problem by parking across the sidewalk. They do have a garage, but that's for storing their other car.

Teshole? You sound reasonable

… to distinguish the subset of jerks from regular Tesla drivers, with whom I have no complaint.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#95

Post by odonnellryan »

duskwuff wrote: post #73
Finnucane wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a guy with a Tesla around the corner from me, who does this (cable out the 2nd floor window), and he does park on the street. Not sure what he does if he can't get a space close enough. (A neighborhood of row houses with little off-street parking) I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. You probably wouldn't get 100% of your charge that way, but you could get enou…

> I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. Nah. Solar on cars is a dead-end -- even with perfectly efficient solar panels, a clear sky, and the sun at the zenith, the most power you can possibly get is 1.3 kW/m² (cf. [1]). I don't know exactly how large of a solar panel you could put on a car, but even with a huge 5 m² panel, you'd still be looking at over 12 hours (i.e, m…

We can do what we do in the boating community - put a honda generator on top of it ;)

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#96

Post by odonnellryan »

NullPrefix wrote: post #81
duskwuff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. Nah. Solar on cars is a dead-end -- even with perfectly efficient solar panels, a clear sky, and the sun at the zenith, the most power you can possibly get is 1.3 kW/m² (cf. [1]). I don't know exactly how large of a solar panel you could put on a car, but even with a huge 5 m² panel, you'd still be looking at over 12 hours (i.e, m…

> over 12 hours (i.e, multiple days of charging) to charge a Tesla's 85 kWh battery. The tone is somewhat pessimistic. Full charge every two-to-three days for a range of ... what is it? 265 miles? Effectively untethered car if you only need 50 miles daily.

I have experience with solar and boats and it is generally the same problem.

No, you won't ever be able to power a boat or a car only on solar for long distances, unfortunately. Maybe if you are driving a few miles.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#97

Post by microtherion »

e40 wrote: post #67
microtherion wrote: post #18

Our neighborhood Teshole is solving the problem by parking across the sidewalk. They do have a garage, but that's for storing their other car.

Call the parking department of your local PD. They will gladly write a ticket to that Teshole. I've seen the same in my 'hood, and it's highly annoying.

Yeah, but I intend to keep living in my house for decades, and sic'ing the cops on a neighbor is a somewhat unpleasant way to introduce oneself, and sometimes a prelude to lengthy feuds.

Since I've never met them, I'm still pondering the best way to address the problem. Cops, anonymous note, signed note, each have their drawbacks. So for the time being, I content myself with passive aggressive whining to third parties.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#98

Post by kazinator »

> Right now, the bulk of public stations in Canada are Level 2 (there are nearly 3,500 of them), But to get a full charge, you’ll have to leave your car there for hours, and many of the country’s chargers are clustered in major urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Even if you live in a city where many chargers exist, there might not be one located conveniently close to where you live.

That's okay, Trudeau will invest in this area by running a few copper wires along the trans-mountain pipeline expansion.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#99

Post by NullPrefix »

duskwuff wrote: post #91
NullPrefix wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over 12 hours (i.e, multiple days of charging) to charge a Tesla's 85 kWh battery. The tone is somewhat pessimistic. Full charge every two-to-three days for a range of ... what is it? 265 miles? Effectively untethered car if you only need 50 miles daily.

Again, keep in mind my numbers are assuming a large, perfectly efficient solar panel under ideal conditions. Realistic numbers will be much worse. For example, most commercially available solar panels are 20-25% efficient.

1.3kW/m^2 * 20% efficiency = 260w/m^2

260w/m^2 * 5m^2 = 1.3kW

1.3kW * 4 hours daily sun = 5.2kW/day

265 miles range / 85kW full charge capacity = 3.1 miles/kW

5.2kW/day * 3.1 miles/kW = 16.12 miles / day

Still sounds too good, what did I miss?

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