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BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

electrek.co

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Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#111

Post by cogman10 »

bluGill wrote: post #97
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major problem is that dealers hate carrying and selling EVs. If you want to get these vehicles you either have to special order them or you have to buy used. I think a big portion of why Tesla is so prominent is because it's relatively easy to get a Tesla almost anywhere. *edit* I'm out of date. It looks like the dealers around me are all stocking EVs now.

I only know that the Chevy dealer near me has several EVs on the lot. I have no idea about elsewhere though.

You are right, looks like my local chevy dealers also have EVs on their lots. In fact, now that I'm searching this time it looks like most of the other dealers have EVs.

This wasn't the case when I searched around Dec last year.

I wonder if the shift in gas prices has caused all these dealers to start stocking EVs.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#112

Post by arjie »

gpm wrote: post #108
arjie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The soft power that people talk about yielded instantly when used. Trump’s foreign policy has been fairly scatter shot and foolish but it has only revealed that soft power is only soft. When you attempt to exercise it you find nothing there. The other world powers are exercising their will directly through power as power: no amount of Hollywood or America Is The Good Guy belief ever bought America a trade deal or san…

Yeah... that's just not the case. The US routinely successfully exercised its soft power prior to Trump 2.0. For example it's why this news article even exists - the US (under Biden) exercised its soft power to get Canada to effectively ban Chinese EVs - otherwise they would already be here.

The news article is the news article but the reality is Canada operated under the threat of tariffs and now they have unconditional tariffs. Threatening someone with something lets you extract concessions. Using the threat removes the ability and makes it just math. China’s tariffs are more damaging than the US’s and are releasable so Canada makes deals with them.

It’s more a story of hard power than soft power since economic damage ultimately led the way.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#113

Post by cogman10 »

pjc50 wrote: post #70
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major problem is that dealers hate carrying and selling EVs. If you want to get these vehicles you either have to special order them or you have to buy used. I think a big portion of why Tesla is so prominent is because it's relatively easy to get a Tesla almost anywhere. *edit* I'm out of date. It looks like the dealers around me are all stocking EVs now.

I wonder how US-specific this phenomenon is. UK dealerships don't seem to have a problem stocking them, and have been quick to pick up BYD franchises.

I'm actually out of date. The last time I searched (Dec last year) it was the case that it was quite hard to find any EV brand that wasn't Tesla. This appears to have changed as now I can find most EV brands in local stock.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#114

Post by no-name-here »

Zambyte wrote: post #99
gcanyon wrote: post #5

As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

Fellow American here, I hope we do. Not because electric cars are any worse than combustion cars - they are better. But they're still cars. Electrifying them is a bandaid on the gaping wound that is our transportation infrastructure. Ideally missing out on the electrification of cars dethrones the car as the only way most people get around.

I’m pro public transportation, but if EVs are held back in the U.S., does it seem more likely that will cause public transportation to sprout up, or that people will just continue relying on ICE?

The best thing for the environment seems to be to do everything to get off ICE, including both EVs and public transport.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#115

Post by harrall »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

Ford is probably going to do it.

They’re never the first but they consistently bring new major shifts in cars to the working class, without making some major compromises to the car (BYD) or being expensive (Tesla).

They:

- Brought affordable V8 engines to the working class

- Got rid of the V8 and brought much more fuel efficient turbocharged vehicles to the working class

- Made the first and a popular hybrid SUV, which is what Americans buy

- Brought the first affordable passenger aerodynamic cars to the working class

- Brought military grade aluminum bodies to a working class truck, massively increasing fuel economy

- They obviously invented the moving car assembly line and were the first to make cars affordable

Currently they’re working on an inexpensive electric car platform that borrows some of Tesla’s manufacturing ideas (but is way less complex because Tesla is actually unable to use it on their cars), switching to 48V, and trialing a new tree-based assembly line.

And it will be a fully repairable car unlike BYD’s which transfers all impacts to the battery frame, which is safe and saves a lot of money but makes the cars impossible to repair. (BYD started as a tech company so they tend to view things to be disposable, like smartphones.)

Ford watches all the other carmakers add new features and then figures out how to make it affordable and then they spend massive marketing campaigns to normalize it with regular people.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#116

Post by tonyarkles »

maximilianburke wrote: post #88
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is hiding a lot of geographic reality. You're using the word Canada pretty broadly here, when the reality is that the left-half of the country past Ontario (or arguably Quebec) is pretty shit in this regard. Quebec has that hydroelectric power production. And their power grid is cheap and pretty clean. And their government and populace is highly pro-EV and yeah, it's great. Ontario a bit second to that b…

But if you keep looking past the prairies you’ll find another province, one that also has invested heavily in hydroelectric power.

That's the thing about SK... we do actually have a pretty significant hydro investment. Problem is that the untapped hydro resources are quite remote. We can't really extract a whole lot more energy out of the South Saskatchewan River without causing upstream and downstream problems.

My own research and modelling basically showed... if we're going to remain energy independent (i.e. the ability for SaskPower to power the entire province without net imports), including riding out the worst scenario (cold, dark, and calm in the winter) for a week while moving towards minimum carbon, it's going to pretty much need to be a strong mix of nuclear, solar, wind, and natural gas peakers. We keep the existing hydro capacity because it's great, but there isn't much more to be had.

Where it gets really gnarly is looking at also eliminating SaskEnergy and transitioning residential and commercial heating and cooling to electric (e.g. heat pumps) is going to require at least 3x the nuclear buildout that we've got planned PLUS significant energy retrofits to every house. Trying to move to electric-only HVAC without energy retrotifts adds like another 33% nuclear capacity requirements (+ additional solar and wind of course) and it starts to get financially infeasible.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#117

Post by rsynnott »

Yizahi wrote: post #102
gcanyon wrote: post #5

As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a…

> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion.

This may be a country-specific thing. They seem to be pretty common in new-build apartment complexes in Ireland, say (I believe because there's a government grant for it).

> Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies?

That seems to be changing now, at least for small cars. Price of id.Polo including subsidies in Ireland: 20k. Price of (unsubsidised) normal non-electric Polo: 26k. Even if subsidies were removed, these would be about the same price. (Ireland may be an unusually extreme case, because cars are subject to an emissions-based tax (VRT), but the trend is clear).

> Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot,

This is getting fixed, though in typical EU fashion it'll take a while. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, brought in a couple of years ago, requires all public EV chargers to support standard contactless payments (ie they can't require a subscription or special app or whatever), but it only really applies to new equipment for now; the obligation for _existing_ equipment won't come in until the start of next year.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#118

Post by cmrdporcupine »

tonyarkles wrote: post #116
maximilianburke wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you keep looking past the prairies you’ll find another province, one that also has invested heavily in hydroelectric power.

That's the thing about SK... we do actually have a pretty significant hydro investment. Problem is that the untapped hydro resources are quite remote. We can't really extract a whole lot more energy out of the South Saskatchewan River without causing upstream and downstream problems. My own research and modelling basically showed... if we're going to remain energy independent (i.e. the ability for SaskPower to power…

It's strange to me that nuclear isn't a bigger mix in Sask with the Uranium industry so big there.

Related, it seems like the only pull that nuclear is getting in AB as an adjunct support for the fossil fuel industry, to help with oil sands extraction. Which just shows how distorted the political-economic system is at this point.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#119

Post by Zambyte »

no-name-here wrote: post #114
Zambyte wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow American here, I hope we do. Not because electric cars are any worse than combustion cars - they are better. But they're still cars. Electrifying them is a bandaid on the gaping wound that is our transportation infrastructure. Ideally missing out on the electrification of cars dethrones the car as the only way most people get around.

I’m pro public transportation, but if EVs are held back in the U.S., does it seem more likely that will cause public transportation to sprout up, or that people will just continue relying on ICE? The best thing for the environment seems to be to do everything to get off ICE, including both EVs and public transport.

Falling behind on electric cars will probably not cause other options to thrive, but ideally it is a symptom of other options thriving.

Also to be clear, I have been saying "electric cars" instead of EVs because I do see EVs as a large part of the solution. Lots of areas that would not be realistically covered by public transit could close the gaps with personal electric vehicles, like e-(cargo)bikes, e-trikes, and e-scooters (along with their acoustic counterparts for those who prefer, of course). The main problem with this being a solution right now is that for most of America, the infrastructure for these looks like a helmet and thoughts and prayers. Fixing America's transportation infrastructure includes trains, and roads to ride personal vehicles everywhere.

If the Netherlands can do it, the richest nation in the world can do it.

Re: BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

#120

Post by 8note »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #101
emptybits wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but nearly half the population of Canada west of Ontario is in BC (5.0M out of 11.8M west of Ontario), and 92% of BC's electric generation comes from hydro (89%) and wind (3%). I like these numbers. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... The bulk of the rest of the west's population is Alberta and they generate most of their electricity from natural gas. That province is Canada's sore s…

Right, I meant to call out BC as a relatively positive example but didn't. I agree they're doing the right moves for now. (I'm from Alberta originally, and fled during the Klein years. I have many ... sensitive ... spots about that place) That said... electricity generation aside... Massive LNG terminals on the BC coast aren't exactly a positive for the planet. In fact the approval of the first by the Trudeau gov't b…

the leaks can be improved, but I'd rather have europe and east asia burn Canadian fossil fuels than middle east and Russian ones
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