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Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

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Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#141

Post by amenghra »

azinman2 wrote: post #133
amenghra wrote: post #81

It's nicer to add plugs to lamp posts. If you can retrofit existing posts, there's less electrical/digging work involved. If not, you are adding lighting at the same time. E.g. https://ubitricity.com/en/charging-solutions/ac-lamppost/

Lamps use a specific voltage and amperage useful for lighting, not charging cars. You’d have to completely overhaul electricity to lamps, while also having a transformer for the lights, and at that point you might as well do something purpose built. Lamps are also not built next to each spot you’d park a car.

London has something like 1300 lampposts which can also be used to charge cars.

You can slow charge with very little amps (eg 5A/1.3kWh). Some charge is better than no charge and it’s not too much of an issue if you are street parking for an entire day or night.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#142

Post by yourusername »

ycombinete wrote: post #128
bad_alloc wrote: post #77

We don't need difficult to fix, hard to clean chargers in every curb. We need maintainable chargers which are gauranteed to work in some convenient location. Ideally 11kW to 22kW chargers at work and shopping places and proper fast chargers at every highway stop. This will cover most drivers needs, as daily charging is not needed. What is important is to have every location always have free charging spots, since arri…

What about a small hot-swappable battery compartment in EVs that give you enough kms to get home (like a jerry can of petrol). I'm not sure if the size of battery needed for a car would be prohibitive though. How big would a ~30km battery be? Then instead of charging points, you could have something more like a petrol/filling station. Pop in, swap your pack, and drive off. (You could even plug the car in for a fast c…

>How big would a ~30km battery be?

25-50kg depending on the efficiency of the vehicle. Not really something most people can comfortably handle or walk a few hundred meters with from the battery pickup point to their car.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#143

Post by amenghra »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56

I think this is cool, but as the owner of a (non-Tesla) EV, I'd just be glad for chargers that usually work . People ask me sometimes if I have "range anxiety" - I don't really have range anxiety so much as charger anxiety. When I'm not at home my options are pretty much Chargepoint chargers, and there is an Electrify America DC fast charging station about 20 mins away. I'd say about 50% of the time the Chargepoint s…

There should be a law requiring chargers to fallback to "free for all" when they have a data connectivity problem. Or implement some kind of offline payment protocol. Heck, your car or mobile phone could handle the payment and present a code to the charger. The charger doesn't need to be online at all, it just needs to prevent replays by remembering the last used code.

It's quite simple to imagine a better state of things for EV chargers. It's however impossible to convince all companies to adopt the same protocols, unless you have a quasi-monopoly (e.g. Tesla) or the government steps in.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#144

Post by prennert »

ycombinete wrote: post #127
kleiba wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cologne is a city with roots that reach back to the Roman empire. It has grown and developed over hundreds of years. Where would all these underground parking lots come from? Why not go a step further and demand that all roads should be put underground, too, so that pedestrians can enjoy an idle stroll on green meadors above ground without all the annoyances that come from car traffic?

Edinburgh literally has underground cycle lanes [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/jun/1...

Just for those who also thought all lines on this map are underground: most of them are not. It's just pathways with segregated traffic. I could not find out how many underground sections there are, but I assume it's just the linking sections (white with black outline)

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#145

Post by robben1234 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #84
newaccount74 wrote: post #55

On the one hand, I think that ICE cars should be banned from cities, the air would be much better, and these curbside chargers look like it could help with that. On the other hand, a city filled with parked EV cars is not very different from a city filled with ICE cars. Curbside parking should be abolished or at least significantly reduced. People should just park in underground garages and walk the remaining 200m, t…

Rather than abolish curbside parking...reserve more of it for specific uses. Every block should have at least one space dedicated to delivery, one for services like maintenance/repair workers, another for drop-off, another for municipal/emergency. Allow standing and active loading/unloading in all but the emergency spaces. Also, we should not subsidize parking for private individuals (ie none of the uses above) in an…

Delivery vehicles and drop offs double park, maintenance parks on the pedestrian path or in the no-parking alley. It's tolerated by all road users, including law enforcement. It already is this way, don't need to overengineer anything to achieve what is already there.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#146

Post by eliaspro »

lmm wrote: post #74
kleiba wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cologne is a city with roots that reach back to the Roman empire. It has grown and developed over hundreds of years. Where would all these underground parking lots come from? Why not go a step further and demand that all roads should be put underground, too, so that pedestrians can enjoy an idle stroll on green meadors above ground without all the annoyances that come from car traffic?

> Cologne is a city with roots that reach back to the Roman empire. It has grown and developed over hundreds of years. Where would all these underground parking lots come from? If car parking is a worthwhile use of space, the market will provide it (and whether below or above ground is beside the point). If it's not, it won't. > Why not go a step further and demand that all streets should be put underground, too, so…

If parking would be left to "the market", no one would do it within city limits. Parking spaces are heavily subsidized.

In Germany, until recently the costs for a residential parking spot were capped at strong 35€/year or so.

The actual "market value" of the equivalent space in cities is often around 4000-6000€/year.

Getting cars out of cities and using the space more efficiently for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport is not only a way to drastically improve safety and quality of life in cities, but also a smart economical choice (and no, building tunnels like Musk dreams of it, isn't the solution to this problem).

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#147

Post by Roark66 »

I think if the goal is large scale electrification we're designing our electric cars wrong.

Personally I'd love to have an electric car for the 99% of the driving I do. It could even have a small battery. ~25KWh would do, but on the other hand 1% of the time I do need to go few hundred km and back within a day without spending hours on charging. It seems silly to lug a huge ~100KWh+ battery just for this 1% of uses, then there is the issue of extra car cost and weight.

What would be really cool is some sort of standardisation in removable battery tech. Imagine electric cars had only ~10-25KWh built in batteries and an ability to slot in "something" that could be another 75KWh of battery, a hybrid power unit, or anything else we might develop in future. Motorway services could have companies that lease out those batteries.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#148

Post by newaccount74 »

kleiba wrote: post #69
newaccount74 wrote: post #55

On the one hand, I think that ICE cars should be banned from cities, the air would be much better, and these curbside chargers look like it could help with that. On the other hand, a city filled with parked EV cars is not very different from a city filled with ICE cars. Curbside parking should be abolished or at least significantly reduced. People should just park in underground garages and walk the remaining 200m, t…

Cologne is a city with roots that reach back to the Roman empire. It has grown and developed over hundreds of years. Where would all these underground parking lots come from? Why not go a step further and demand that all roads should be put underground, too, so that pedestrians can enjoy an idle stroll on green meadors above ground without all the annoyances that come from car traffic?

> It has grown and developed over hundreds of years.

... and 95% of that time there were no cars parked in the street

> pedestrians can enjoy an idle stroll on green meadows ...

Pedestrians like walking on paved streets as well.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that cars should be banned.

Cars are super useful! Cars are useful when you need to pick someone up who is ill, if you need to transport heavy stuff, when the city workers need to collect trash, etc. In all these scenarios it would be nice if the streets weren't crowded with parked cars.

So my suggestion is to remove street parking, turn the streets into shared zones where you can stop your car anywhere for 15 minutes (enough time for picking people up and dropping them off, or for delivering stuff, or for transporting heavy stuff), and where pedestrians, bikes, and cars can travel at reasonable speeds to get wherever they need.

It would actually be nicer for most drivers -- if you park long term, you drive into a garage, if it's just a quick stop, you stop right in front of the house that you need to get to.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#149

Post by newaccount74 »

robben1234 wrote: post #145
KennyBlanken wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than abolish curbside parking...reserve more of it for specific uses. Every block should have at least one space dedicated to delivery, one for services like maintenance/repair workers, another for drop-off, another for municipal/emergency. Allow standing and active loading/unloading in all but the emergency spaces. Also, we should not subsidize parking for private individuals (ie none of the uses above) in an…

Delivery vehicles and drop offs double park, maintenance parks on the pedestrian path or in the no-parking alley. It's tolerated by all road users, including law enforcement. It already is this way, don't need to overengineer anything to achieve what is already there.

Many European cities (at least mine) don't have roads wide enough to double park.

Re: Rheinmetall pilot project for curb stone chargers for EVs

#150

Post by ycombinete »

yourusername wrote: post #142
ycombinete wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a small hot-swappable battery compartment in EVs that give you enough kms to get home (like a jerry can of petrol). I'm not sure if the size of battery needed for a car would be prohibitive though. How big would a ~30km battery be? Then instead of charging points, you could have something more like a petrol/filling station. Pop in, swap your pack, and drive off. (You could even plug the car in for a fast c…

>How big would a ~30km battery be? 25-50kg depending on the efficiency of the vehicle. Not really something most people can comfortably handle or walk a few hundred meters with from the battery pickup point to their car.

That's not too bad. That's something the could conceivably be automated at a station.
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