Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

Post by adrianN » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #374

Decade wrote: post #326

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There are not enough taxpaying residents to make roads work, either. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-ma...

You NEED roads though. Even if you can reach 100% of the city through walking and public transportation, what do you do when you move? Take a train trip for your sofa, and another for your dining room table, and so on? How do local stores and restaurants get their goods delivered? How do you get packages larger than an envelope delivered to your home? How do emergency services and fire rescue reach your home? Do town…

Post by adrianN » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

quicklyfrozen wrote: post #336

stevesimmons wrote: post #318

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I cycled to work for years in the Netherlands (down to -5C in winter) and Australia (frequenctly 35C+ in summer). The secret in both cases is: (i) keep appropriate clothes at the office; (ii) wear suitable cycling gear (as the Dutch say, there's no such thing as unsuitable weather, only unsuitable clothing); (iii) find a way to shower at work; (iv) be good humored when weather or other mishaps occur...

-5C isn't particularly cold. Would you have been out in -20C with gusty winds and drifting snow? How do I get those appropriate clothes to the office, and where do I store them? Can't be all wrinkled -- and these days you may not even have an assigned desk. And I can be good humored, but will my boss be? Really, though, if we consider bikes safe enough for transportation, why can't we have ultralight enclosed EVs?

Post by notatoad » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #435

lukifer wrote: post #380

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Much is made of the "self-driving" part of autonomous vehicles, but I think "self-parking" could end up being just as significant. Imagine if there was no longer any reason to mandate parking capacity for planning and zoning purposes; you drive to your destination, and your car goes and parks itself (paying/negotiating automatically if needed), and returns when summoned via phone.

This sounds like high amounts of traffic: a bunch of people being dropped off and being picked up at arbitrary locations with the cars then having to go to and come back from various other bottlenecked hotspots.

Post by benj111 » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #365

benj111 wrote: post #76

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Why would you need to do it every day? EV ranges are rising above 200 miles, that's an order of magnitude higher than most peoples commutes, so for most people once a week would be enough. Shops would do it because money and footfall.

> Why would you need to do it every day? Because people are talking about how it only takes a short time to recharge enough to offset one day's commute. That only works, though, if you charge every day . If you only charge weekly then you're stuck waiting to recover 200 miles' worth of charge at a time in preparation for the next week. If you're using a fast-charger near somewhere you need to be anyway for an hour or…

Post by rconti » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

pi-rat wrote: post #362

jgust wrote: post #324

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I imagine a world where the electricity grid is intelligent enough to have a "conversation" with appliances to efficiently spread load across the day, more accurately plan capacity, and do it at a lower cost to consumers and the environment.

That's happening here, my power company has a GraphQL API[1] where I can read my current consumption (5 second resolution), they also offer up the current price, including an indicator of the price level compared to how they see the rest of the day (CHEAP, NORMAL, EXPENSIVE). All houses/apartments in Norway got new smart power meters the last couple of years. They standardized on a data interface (a bus you can conne…