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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

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

#411

Post by Johnny555 »

I own a condo with a garage, yet I can't put in a charge station. I need to convince most of my neighbors to have the HOA do it.

The garage is a separate shared structure and is only wired for lighting and the electric garage door. The only way they could put in EV chargers would be to trench though 30 feet of asphalt from the electrical vault (assuming that vault has sufficient capacity), then wire up the garage. I'm not sure how metering would work in that case, I assume that'd have to put in meter boxes for each resident.

Several people have tried, but couldn't get interest from more than a handful of residents, and the cost to do the initial work is too much for one person to bear.

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

#412

Post by RandallBrown »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #319
stetrain wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that scenario stopping at a charger every day would be silly. Stop once a week at a charger that's near a grocery store, movie theater, restaurant, etc. Both of my local Tesla chargers are near grocery stores. Electrify America is installing chargers at Wal-Mart. Charging an EV is less like going to a gas station and more like picking a place to go that happens to have EV chargers while you do other things.

> Both of my local Tesla chargers are near grocery stores. How close? Can you push your cart back to them? > Electrify America is installing chargers at Wal-Mart. How many? If we want this whole "electric car" thing to take off, you're looking at, what, 50% of the whole parking lot? Not a half dozen stalls right beside the store.

Not the post you responded to, but I've seen 20-30 Tesla chargers in the parking lots of several grocery stores. You could very easily push your cart to them.

I imagine Electrify America is installing a number that they believe will meet the current demand of electric vehicles. They don't need to fill the parking lot for the hypothetical future where everyone has an EV. That will still take some time and they can easily scale up as they need to.

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

#413

Post by baggy_trough »

zanny wrote: post #409
ColanR wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been entertaining to read the discussions (below) about how to make this practical. So far, it looks like the only way to make this work is to a) live in a city, or rebuild your suburbia into a city, and b) construct your entire life around riding that bike - choose a job with a tolerant boss, spend extra hours every day showering and changing clothes after biking, etc. I'd rather drive an air-conditioned car, s…

Instead of constructing your life around a bike you construct it around a car. You can't commute to work any other way, if it breaks down you are bound to mostly Uber as a backup strategy to get anywhere. Except those car-centric environments you live and work in are a more effective gate to keep the poor out than the grandest gated community. Almost no where else on the planet is the idea of a city being a tiny urba…

It's more accurate to say that life has been optimized for convenience and net happiness, and that ain't a bike.

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

#414

Post by RandallBrown »

cestith wrote: post #174
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about how people can't charge while they are at sleep. There's going to be a huge portion of people who can't charge at work. I guess you have to charge at groceries, which you'll need to go to every day. Though the grocery store will need to be dramatically refitted to support that, and will need to justify having a power grid the size of their parking lot increasing their power bill just because it's…

Some city dwellers live near only dodegas, convenience stores, and fast food shops. The corner pantry isn't going to install a parking lot in some cases, let alone car chargers.

But those city dwellers likely drive considerably less than people with a garage and don't really need to constantly find a charger.

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

#415

Post by Johnny555 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #373
dylan604 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lifts are the disruptive technology. They make energetically efficient cities possible and cheap. Are lifts really as efficient as escalators? An escalator is constantly moving (unless it's malfunctioning), so there is no wait to continue moving. An elevator on the other hand is not. Maybe it depends on the number of floors? I can see an elevator being faster going from ground to floor 40 rather than zig zagging flo…

> Are lifts really as efficient as escalators? I wouldn't be surprised. > An escalator is constantly moving (unless it's malfunctioning), so there is no wait to continue moving. That wastes energy but makes it time efficient for users (in terms of latency). OTOH, escalators are slow compared to most lifts/elevators, which means total trip time efficiency isn't good unless you are only going a floor or two or are comp…

I used to work in an office building with escalators that are powered off at night -- there was some sort of motion sensor about 10 feet before the escalator that would power it on when someone approached, you'd have to be running to reach the escalator before it reached normal speed.

So on-demand escalators are possible, just rare.

In the daytime either they kept them on all the time, or maybe there was enough constant demand to keep them running as I never saw one powered off during the day.

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

#416

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #403
Reason077 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest generation of cars and chargers don't need an hour to charge. A Tesla Model 3 can already charge at 250 kW, which is over 1000 miles per hour. Practically speaking, that means a decent charge in less than 20 minutes. On a long trip, most stops for gas take around that long anyway by the time you use the restroom, buy supplies, eat, etc. The newest chargers being installed today go up to 350 kW, so the char…

> A Tesla Model 3 can already charge at 250 kW Can it really? I saw something more like 130 kW when it started charging, because it was pretty low. It tapered off steadily. Still only took about 45 minutes overall, but I doubt the hardware could actually sustain 1000 miles/hour charging levels for more than a few minutes.

[deleted]

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

#417

Post by wang_li »

dylan604 wrote: post #366
nextos wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some cities in mainland Europe are like this already. They make cars unnecessary. Even bikes, as you can walk everywhere. I'm talking about midsized cities (100-300k inhabitants) that are really compact thanks to 4-8 levels in every apartment block and ubiquitous use of lifts. Lifts are the disruptive technology. They make energetically efficient cities possible and cheap. I also find these cities much more nice to l…

>Lifts are the disruptive technology. They make energetically efficient cities possible and cheap. Are lifts really as efficient as escalators? An escalator is constantly moving (unless it's malfunctioning), so there is no wait to continue moving. An elevator on the other hand is not. Maybe it depends on the number of floors? I can see an elevator being faster going from ground to floor 40 rather than zig zagging flo…

Escalators in Incheon airport start when you approach and stop when you exit.

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

#418

Post by sparkzilla »

pjc50 wrote: post #180
gist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to run an extension cord out of my 2nd floor window > More recently, I had been parking an electric car in my apartment's lot, and running an extension cord from the exercise room, out to the car. Then the apartment decided to close off those outlets. Won't even get to what I am sure others have raised about safety issues. My question is why do you go to this effort? What in you makes you want to go to this…

Personal contribution to the environment?

You are aware that much of your electricity is generated from carbon-emitting power stations?

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

#419

Post by [deleted] »

ColanR wrote: post #404
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.

It's been entertaining to read the discussions (below) about how to make this practical. So far, it looks like the only way to make this work is to a) live in a city, or rebuild your suburbia into a city, and b) construct your entire life around riding that bike - choose a job with a tolerant boss, spend extra hours every day showering and changing clothes after biking, etc. I'd rather drive an air-conditioned car, s…

[deleted]

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

#420

Post by [deleted] »

ColanR wrote: post #404
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.

It's been entertaining to read the discussions (below) about how to make this practical. So far, it looks like the only way to make this work is to a) live in a city, or rebuild your suburbia into a city, and b) construct your entire life around riding that bike - choose a job with a tolerant boss, spend extra hours every day showering and changing clothes after biking, etc. I'd rather drive an air-conditioned car, s…

[deleted]
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