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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

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

#291

Post by philjohn »

dabinat wrote: post #259

Why is this a problem? Gas-powered cars don’t fill up when they’re parked. Just solve the problem the same way - let people go to a specific place to charge their car like they do to fill up with gas. I have a Tesla and live in an apartment and it’s really not a big problem. The Superchargers are pretty convenient. And once Tesla rolls out L3 chargers more widely it will be even easier.

The problem is filling a gas powered car takes minutes so you can easily fit it into your day - charging a Tesla is probably closer to 30 for a decent range top up.

The former can be done on the way to work, as can the latter, but the latter requires a bigger shift in behaviour to achieve.

Yes, it's not the end of the world, but to pretend there's zero problem ignores reality somewhat.

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

#292

Post by notJim »

ummonk wrote: post #133
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.

Plenty of travel (both commutes and long distance travel) which is too lengthy for bicycles / scooters, but doesn't have public transit servicing it.

A lot of the reason for those long commutes is that housing in dense, urban areas served by public transit is too expensive. Affordable housing is a climate change issue.

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

#293

Post by kennywinker »

chc wrote: post #177
kennywinker wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sitting twidding your thumbs. If they are near somewhere you want to be recreationally, you’re set. The gym, the grocery store, the movies, a hiking trail, spending 1-4 hours at one of these once a week would likely enhance your life not take away from it.

If your solution to the difficulty of finding an EV charger is "put EV chargers literally everywhere," that would hypothetically solve the problem, but how do you propose to make that happen? That's what the question here is.

If I, as a business owner, can get 1-4 hours of your time and spending money - it’s probably going to be well worth it to front the cost of land and charging equipment for a park-n-charge spot

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

#294

Post by lutorm »

secabeen wrote: post #254
pjc50 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal contribution to the environment?

That's a big one for me. It's the largest thing you can probably do to reduce global warming, personally. EVs are also faster to accelerate, and more fun to drive.

I think it's the second largest. If you do pretty much any amount of flying, your carbon footprint will be dominated by that unless you drive an absurd amount.

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

#295

Post by notJim »

whatshisface wrote: post #134
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.

You have to add "redesigned cities" to that list. Electric vehicles are almost as much a patch for ICE cities as they are a replacement for internal combustion.

"Simple" things like good bike lanes and traffic calming enable cities to redesign gradually, and of course this is largely already happening (perhaps too slowly) in many cities.

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

#296

Post by Eric_WVGG »

MadWombat wrote: post #285
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I was thinking something similar but from a completely different direction — the problem, IMO, isn’t that people in cities can't afford to buy garages, but that they want cars at all. The problem that these “garage orphans” don’t get is that society doesn’t owe anyone a free parking space. When one can’t afford car payments, or insurance, or gasoline, they aren’t allowed to simply go out and take it; but for s…

> The problem that these “garage orphans” don’t get is that society doesn’t owe anyone a free parking space Nobody owes anyone anything. But a lot of things in the society exist because "We would rather live in the world where X rather than in the world where X isn't". Car ownership is a societal norm in US, so most people are going to buy and own cars, at least for a while longer. And people are going to park these…

Unregulated free-for-all is kind of what we have, though, in NYC at least. People double-park with impunity, drivers leave cars on sidewalks, and the worst offenders are the NYPD, the very people who are supposed to enforce these regulations.

We could trade subsidized parking for…

- bus and bike lanes

- garbage bins (the trash situation here is just humiliating)

- inducement for the city and state to fix the subways

- cleaner air

- loading zones for shops and deliveries (Fedex and UPS have a crazy deal with the city for near-immunity from traffic fines)

Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming, but I just don't see how the status quo is sustainable. Electric cars won't solve most of these problems.

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

bduerst wrote: post #260

I saw an interesting pitch from Sparkcharge [1] at an incubator event, which is deliverable super charger batteries. If it scales, it would essentially allow people to order charging on the fly, get it delivered/hooked up by an Uber driver, and then just leave it for pickup in the lot they parked in. This is obviously only an urban or suburban solution, but could help with some of the issues. [1] https://sparkcharge.…

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by notJim »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #43
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 wonder what pedestrians et al. think about the cable running across the sidewalk. I don't think this solution scales well, also from an insurance perspective.

Someone in my old neighborhood did this too. It generally seemed like a pretty bad idea, but it didn't actually bother me.

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

#299

Post by chc »

kennywinker wrote: post #293
chc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your solution to the difficulty of finding an EV charger is "put EV chargers literally everywhere," that would hypothetically solve the problem, but how do you propose to make that happen? That's what the question here is.

If I, as a business owner, can get 1-4 hours of your time and spending money - it’s probably going to be well worth it to front the cost of land and charging equipment for a park-n-charge spot

And yet business owners aren't rushing to install chargers, even in places where I'll regularly see a bunch of EVs on my way through the parking lot. So that theory doesn't seem to pan out.

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

#300

Post by chc »

zip1234 wrote: post #246
chc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your solution to the difficulty of finding an EV charger is "put EV chargers literally everywhere," that would hypothetically solve the problem, but how do you propose to make that happen? That's what the question here is.

Somehow people figured out how to make gasoline fueling infrastructure, which is amazing in itself. Extracting fuel out of the ground, transporting to refinery, transporting to destination holes scattered nearly everywhere around the world and pumping refined fuel back in, and then pumping back out of the ground into little fuel tanks in cars for it to be burned. If someone described that to me as a plan for internal…

I know, it's amazing how it seems like it should be a relatively simple problem to solve, and yet it remains unsolved in real life. Hence my question: How do you propose to make that happen?
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