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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

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

#141

Post by gxqoz »

wffurr wrote: post #127

Yet another reason the real answer to the climate crisis isn't EVs - it's public transit, bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, e-scooters, walking, etc. All these other modes are much lower impact on the environment than purchasing and operating an EV, much less an ICE.

Interesting article from CityLab on why plugging public transit EVs into a city can be more challenging and expensive than originally planned: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/06/electric-bus-...

"That’s what Philadelphia discovered when it decided to expand its existing fleet of e-buses with newer models—ones that featured bigger batteries. The city failed to recognize in the early planning process that it would be prohibitively expensive to acquire land in its busy downtown area for charging stations along the bus routes. So they decided to install all the charging infrastructure in the bus depots."

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

#142

Post by robocat »

Reason077 wrote: post #89
calyth2018 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a garage, and the work charger charges by the hour. So if one has an EV, and it doesn't charge quickly, you'll be dinged through the nose. Had the charger been charging for the kwh + a margin, then sure. But as is, EVs are off the table for me.

Sounds like a pretty tight-fisted workplace. You would think they'd want to encourage employees to sustainable transport, not try to make a profit on charging.

They probably just want to discourage one person from hogging one charging station all day.

How else would you set up incentives so that many workers can share one charging station?

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

#143

Post by fdjlasdfjl »

ryanmercer wrote: post #130
oh_hello wrote: post #114

I always thought this was a big problem for EVs, but recently came to think nightly charging might not matter so much for these drivers. If an urban apartment dweller has an EV with 200+ miles of range, can't a public fast charger be used once or twice a week instead? I lived in an apartment with a ~200 mile range ICE car and filled it less than once a week.

>can't a public fast charger be used once or twice a week instead? It takes me less than 2 minutes to fill up my tank and pay, now you want me to sit 1-4 hours at a fast charger a week twiddling my thumbs? Never mind the fact a Tesla Model 3 starts at my annual salary.

Ah yes, the mandatory electric car. That's totally something that is in the article and is also going to happen.

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

#144

Post by AndrewGaspar »

slg wrote: post #72
llamataboot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, blocking the sidewalk with your car is pretty much the definition of a jerk move.

Why not just call that individual a jerk then? Names like "Teshole" are an attempt to create stereotypes of a broad swath of people. It is no different than using something like "libtard" and is only a step or two away from stereotyping people based on something like gender or race. If you encounter a jerk, you are fine labeling that person a jerk, but that doesn't mean that everyone who shares a random trait with th…

Found the Tesla owner.

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

#145

Post by neogodless »

ummonk wrote: post #136
ryanmercer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can't a public fast charger be used once or twice a week instead? It takes me less than 2 minutes to fill up my tank and pay, now you want me to sit 1-4 hours at a fast charger a week twiddling my thumbs? Never mind the fact a Tesla Model 3 starts at my annual salary.

I think it works if the fast charger is at e.g. a shopping center where you can grab dinner or shop while the car charges.

Any solution that requires a certain behavior is unnecessarily coupling that behavior to transferring energy into transportation.

In a world where a couple owns two EVs, and only one does the weekly grocery shopping, do they have to swap cars to get them both charged? Do they have to start eating out to charge their car? What if you use Amazon Fresh for food deliveries? Give that up; you need to charge your car.

In other words, there are lots of ideas that might work for some people, but they shouldn't be necessary for EV ownership.

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

#146

Post by jasoncartwright »

mattlondon wrote: post #129

It is certainly holding me back at the moment. I have allocated off-street parking under my apartment that is actually owned by us as part of the lease, but I doubt the building management will let me install a charger, and I don't think the law in the UK means I can force them to let me. In London there are a few public chargers dotted around, but they are fairly infrequent. I don't have any data but it feels like t…

Lampposts is exactly how I charge whilst not having off-street parking, in central London. The council converted all the street lights to LEDs, meaning there is excess electricity delivered. So they put plugs on the posts. Works brilliantly. https://imgur.com/a/I5AtwJk https://www.ubitricity.com/

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

#147

Post by rco8786 »

oh_hello wrote: post #114

I always thought this was a big problem for EVs, but recently came to think nightly charging might not matter so much for these drivers. If an urban apartment dweller has an EV with 200+ miles of range, can't a public fast charger be used once or twice a week instead? I lived in an apartment with a ~200 mile range ICE car and filled it less than once a week.

This is where my family is - we're considering an EV but do not have a charger at home. We live in a reasonably dense urban area w/ a dedicated spot in a garage and don't typically drive more than 200 miles a week, so we'll just use public chargers.

This will be a second car though - and I would be slightly wary of this sort of responsibility for a primary vehicle.

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

#148

Post by theandrewbailey »

goldcd wrote: post #101

I'd seen the idea of using street-furniture, such as lamp-posts - but can't help seeing visions of coils of cable looping all over the pavement/sidewalk (in the UK at least, lamp posts tend not to be on the road side of the pavement). Plus, if this isn't new-build, whatever's powering those lamps isn't going to charge your car. Well.. it might charge one or two, but once you've got 20 cars, all wanting to be charged…

Since you mentioned all the cabling everywhere, I'd be concerned about copper thieves stealing the cables.

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

#149

Post by jaclaz »

Besides garage orphans, also those with self standing homes and a garage will have (or become) a problem.

Say that in you street that are 50 single family homes connected to a same cabin/transformer.

The electric infrastructure powering them (lines, transformer, etc.) has been dimensioned to power them at their average current power consumption rate + something to take care of peaks + something more to take care of eceptions (like - say - a constructions site for the renovation of one of the homes).

Now the existing infrastructure will have no issue with your single electric car charging at night, and probably with that of your neighboor on the left and that of your neighbour on the right, but the moment a given number of families will have an electic car, each of them will try to use 5 kW of additional power more or less at the same time.

That is a lot of "juice" and it sums up quickly.

I believe (correct me if you have better data) that in the US the infrastructure is generally dimensioned for something like 6 or 7 kW per unit, so, adding to each house some "constant" 5 kW (even if only at night) is almost using all the capability of the infrastructure.

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

#150

Post by kennywinker »

dtwest wrote: post #138
wffurr wrote: post #127

Yet another reason the real answer to the climate crisis isn't EVs - it's public transit, bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, e-scooters, walking, etc. All these other modes are much lower impact on the environment than purchasing and operating an EV, much less an ICE.

That doesn't work in many low density areas (prime example is American suburbia). So your answer for those people is to make them move to a more dense area that can support such solutions. Which isn't a bad idea, but it's a much harder thing to accomplish.

Ebike/scoot to transit hub, trains to commercial areas. It’s not rocket science.
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