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Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

estonianworld.com

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Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#31

Post by brotheri »

anonymousDan wrote: post #29

The construction of the fast-charging network was financed by using the funds received pursuant to a CO2 emission quota sales agreement entered into between the Republic of Estonia and Mitsubishi Corporation. Anyone understand what this sentence from the article means?

Apparently Mitsubishi (as well as Sumitomo) bought some of the allowance of emissions - see here - http://www.ee.emb-japan.go.jp/economicrel.html

Apparently that's part of the game with capping the emissions... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading#Emission_mark...

As far as I see - way to go :-)

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#32

Post by brotheri »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #22
relix wrote: post #3

On the highways, every 60km a ChaDeMo quickcharger. €18.000 credit if your car is 100% EV. I just wish Tesla sold some here.

I spoke to Tesla about this, they were not interested. Said I'd have to sell a few Roadsters to demonstrate interest. Mind you I was talking to their sales team in London, who probably needed to offload unsold Roadsters.

Duh! Contact the source :-)

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#33

Post by TheAntipodean »

anonymousDan wrote: post #29

The construction of the fast-charging network was financed by using the funds received pursuant to a CO2 emission quota sales agreement entered into between the Republic of Estonia and Mitsubishi Corporation. Anyone understand what this sentence from the article means?

I believe it refers to Estonia selling off excess carbon credits to Mitsubishi under a mid-long term agreement.

Mitsubishi needs to purchase these credits to stay within regulatory requirements pertaining to emittance of CO2 probably in the EU. Given that Mitsubishi is a large manufacturer they probably produce above their alloted quota of CO2 and therefore must purchase credits from someone/some organization (in this case Estonia) that does not use their full quota.

Estonia is using the income from this agreement to fund the fast-charging network.

This is all educated speculation as to its meaning. Apologies for no links to references to back up my understanding. I am sure a quick search will provide more information.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#34

Post by brotheri »

newbie12 wrote: post #6

Unfortunately, because Estonia derives almost all of their electrical power from coal, this is a wasteful setback for the environment. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/electricity-producti...

Other comments aside - just glancing at the graph in your link - seems like the % is on a steady decline... LGTM.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#35

Post by adventured »

bjhoops1 wrote: post #23

And they already beat the US in Internet speed. http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

Know what the top countries on that list have in common?

I could beat the US in Internet speed if I setup a neighborhood network.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#36

Post by vacri »

prostoalex wrote: post #27
vacri wrote: post #14

I do have to note that Estonia with its 165 chargers is curiously only as wide as the distance between the 'superchargers' in the recent Tesla debacle...

Surprised Vatican hasn't beaten them to a punch with a nationwide charging network, but with their upper management exodus I guess that slipped on the priority list.

Interesting point - I didn't even think the Vatican had roads. Looking at google maps now, it does seem to have some, but I'm not sure if they're public (not that you couldn't have a charger because of that)

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#37

Post by walshemj »

saym wrote: post #2

Estonia has impressed me with their forward thinking policies. Everything about their execution of this plan has me impressed. They have executed well in financing the building of this network and in creating a sustainable business model for the future. Related note: 5 Months ago I remember hearing about their plan to introduce programming into elementary curriculum. http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/2136…

Estonia is a former Soviet republic and now a fairly poor European country one does have to ask is there not better things to spend this on?

Support for start ups that create long term jobs and values might be a better use of the carbon credits they sold to Mitsubishi.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#38

Post by henrikschroder »

pm90 wrote: post #30
henrikschroder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burning hydrogen is but one step in the whole "well to wheels" chain that's needed to get your car moving. That single step appears very appealing - it turns into water! - but all the other steps along the way are extremely difficult. How much energy can a car have with a "full tank of hydrogen", and what would that tank look like? Remember, a bucket of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid hydrogen…

> Remember, a bucket of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid hydrogen I don't know what you mean by "contains more hydrogen", but if we look at the calorific value (energy per unit weight) then hydrogen has almost 3 times that of gasoline [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion#Heat_of_comb...

I meant it in the most literal sense possible. The density of liquid hydrogen is around 70kg/m^3, but the density of gasoline is around 700kg/m^3. This means the despite all the carbon atoms, there are still more hydrogen atoms in a bucket of gas than in a bucket of liquid hydrogen.

You are correct in that liquid hydrogen has more energy per weight than gas, but gas is ten times denser, so it has around three times more energy per volume, and both are important when it comes to designing a safe fuel container that fits in a car.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#39

Post by martinhenk »

jkaljundi wrote: post #18
mtgx wrote: post #17

Wouldn't it be great if governments everywhere created solar-based chargers like those of Tesla, with some back-up to electricity for night charging or for when all the power is used at a charger for the day, and then the whole population could buy electric cars much faster?

Not in Estonia. We don't have any sun, except for few days in the summer. Wish we could produce electricity from cold, rain and darkness.

LOL! It is actually a great idea! If anyone in the world should come up with a system like that it will definitely be an Estonian for sure.

Re: Estonia becomes the first to open a nationwide electric vehicle charging network

#40

Post by martinced »

saym wrote: post #2

Estonia has impressed me with their forward thinking policies. Everything about their execution of this plan has me impressed. They have executed well in financing the building of this network and in creating a sustainable business model for the future. Related note: 5 Months ago I remember hearing about their plan to introduce programming into elementary curriculum. http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/2136…

"They have executed well in financing the building of this network..."

They have executed well in the building. Financing is kinda easy for a country of only 1.3 million people heavily subsidized by the European Union (which Estonia is a part of).

During the 2008-2009 crisis (which is not done yet but I digress), the Estonian GDP took a gigantic hit: -20% of the GDP. That's what you get when you're taxing the private sector like crazy: the private sector, in usual circumstances, can barely survive. If any crisis happens, then the private sector dies and the economy crumbles (thank you socialism for the crazy high confiscatory tax rates on the private sector).

It's like Poland, for example: I love this country and it feels incredibly more "new" and even sometimes more "hi-tech" (e.g. in big cities malls) than western europe... But Poland is receiving crazy funding from the EU to get up to speed.

As an EU taxpayer, that said, it's good that at least some of money is used to invest in technologies that are bound to become very important in the future...

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