No need, because it is simply untrue: Electric vehicles can charge on anything from 1-ph 8A 240V, to 3-ph 32A 400V, all of which can easily be provided by common urban household wiring.
where are you located that household 3 phase is available? Lots of hobby machinists would kill for that but it just isn’t available most places.
Annecdata: all the houses I personally know of in the south bay (North California, USA) area have three phase power, and the oldest was built in the 1940es.
Charging a Model S from a 110V 20A outlet is very slow and probably not a very useful option (but I have done it on a visit to LA).
My big issue is that in the places that electric cars make the most sense (cities) it’s hardest to own them. What am I going to do, run a really long extension cord from my condo to the random parking spot I found around the block?
This situation is when employers providing chargers in company parking will become a notable work benefit.
At my previous job, my boss was an EV enthusiast and installed four chargers (at a time where only one person had an EV). I charged for free for six years and when I left there were ~ 8 EVs competing for the spots. I know for a fact that our chargers was a factor in purchase of some of those.
Try to sell a 5 year old vehicle of let’s say 35k original price when it needs an $10k repair to get a new battery and dump the half tone of environmentally friendly junk. More importantly, convince the truck drivers with 150k miles per year that they will have to dispose their truck ever 2-3 years (1000 charges). Electric vehicles will take over when a battery breakthrough occurs, one that affects recharge time, wei…
The first model Ss that have hit 10 years and 200k miles have shown an average of 3% battery capacity decrease. Car batteries aren't phone batteries :)
AND, that used battery is highly valuable still (useful for power walls). That line of argument is pure unconcealed FUD.
That day will only come if they produce a cheaper car, just like Android ecosystem with Samsung makes cheap phones. TESLA cant do it, because their per unit car profits are too high. We need a new car manufacturer that keeps its per car sale margins low and rely of volume.
We need more battery manufacturing capacity before that can happen.
I think that electric car adoption is going to have similar characteristics to digital cameras. I remember playing with an early digital camera and seeing a poor replacement for film, but with obvious benefits. Back then it was common to hear "serious" photographers pooh-poohing digital, and how it's many drawbacks would mean it would remain niche, and never replace film. It didn't take long and digial cameras improv…
Serious question: what are the "obvious benefits" (from the consumer perspective)? I can just think of insane acceleration (which is irrelevant for actual use).
They are much more comfortable to drive. Electric cars kind og just floats where fossil fuel cars struggles at first. If you have charging at home or at work you never need to go to a gas station, you always simply get in to the car (not turning on the enginge) and go where you want. I think those are the biggest two, but I guess it is one of those things you need to try to understand. There are tons more benefits though, like they are less noisy, the lack of a big engine makes the interior of the car more flexible design wise, the acceleration increases the fun factor even at low speeds, easier repairs, they just feel more modern.
Conveniently cities have already done a huge amount of the legwork for enabling charging at street parking thanks to street lights. It will be expensive no doubt, but so was converting gas street lights to light bulbs.
Cars draw a lot of power vs electric lamps.
So? It's about the voltage lines. They aren't running low voltage lines to power the street lights.
The first model Ss that have hit 10 years and 200k miles have shown an average of 3% battery capacity decrease. Car batteries aren't phone batteries :)
AND, that used battery is highly valuable still (useful for power walls). That line of argument is pure unconcealed FUD.
Why then the manufacturers don’t just buy them back and give you the new one for peanuts ?
In the case of digital cameras, the driving forces were varied, from governments wanting better means to spy and drop bombs, the film industry looking for a replacement tech, dedicated hobbyists seeing the benefits and getting on board. I can think of two parallels in electric vehicles, namely high performance applications which love the insane torque, low center of gravity, and diminished complexity compared to some…
Another driving force, perhaps the biggest driving force, is ecological. A very significant fraction of people today would, all else equal, choose electric cars over gasoline for the benefit to the environment. And all else is gradually becoming more equal. As you implied, the biggest remaining hurdle is the battery size. But for many people, it’s already good enough, and for many of the rest it will probably be shor…
i would consider buying an electric car if it were as fast as my hot hatch, had comparable range, and weighed less than 3000 lbs. i doubt that will happen for quite some time.
> you should park in your building's parking garage, not in the street Let them eat cake, in other words?
They're currently eating free cake. Those parking spots cost the city a lot of money directly and indirectly (some estimates say $100 a month).
100$ a month is probably on the low end. A parking spot is at least eight square meters, probably more like nine. Rent here in Berlin is about 10€/m^2/month (so pretty cheap as far as big cities go). Typical houses have three to four stories, so that parking spot could be 24-36m^2 of housing.
I'm on my third EV (Leaf, S, M3). Never going back. Since the Model 3 is so well built (after some startup hickups), I can recommend it on that alone. Tesla is very vertically integrated now (they make their own seats) and so the Model 3 is profitable for Tesla although the capital investment was quite high. Also, it's fun to drive next to a Viper and throw shade.
>>> I'm on my third EV (Leaf, S, M3). Never going back. In how many years? Tossing cars on the junk pile every few years is an environmental nightmare. Who is taking these cars off your hands? I buy cars to keep. I demand that any car last at least 10 years, preferable 15+ without major work. My current Honda is nine years old. My last car ('92 BMW 325is) lasted twenty years. So I am very skeptical about advice regar…
I held my previous car for ~ ten years (Subaru WRX) and intended to hold the Model S that replaced it for 15. Alas, when the option of all-wheel (dual motor) became available I did sell it to a friend and upgraded. Based on the data from the Tesla Roadsters, they hold up fairly well after years (mechanically impeccable due to few moving parts). Early data from the now ~ 7 year old Model S suggests that it's even better. I known nothing about non-Teslas, but IMhO, Tesla sets the standard that all EVs should aspire to.