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Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

theguardian.com

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Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#271

Post by warkdarrior »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #156
smileysteve wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC and San Francisco are about as strawman as it gets, because the cars AND trips per capita are some of the lowest in the U.S.

Because of the infrastructure surrounding it - e.g. fleets of cars taxis, public transit, etc. In other words, better options than having an owning an EV, which, if you pay attention, is what we're talking about here.

> fleets of cars taxis, public transit

Surely in those settings the best option is for the taxi companies and the public transit providers to shift to EVs.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#272

Post by Taniwha »

abeppu wrote: post #202

I'm curious how many EV purchasers live in single family homes, or other places where they can provide their own ability to charge at home. I wonder if a new scale of adoption will require a change where most (or a lot) of street parking is by cheap charging. https://youtu.be/RMxB7zA-e4Y?t=1245

We recently bought a new house, didn't bother looking at any place that didn't have off-street parking and the ability to install a charger (overnight charging for a Leaf just needs 6A from a normal 240V 10A circuit)

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#273

Post by cptskippy »

tyfon wrote: post #141
julienb_sea wrote: post #115

Electric cars are perfectly pleasant to own as a second car or if you very rarely take long road trips. If it's very cold or very hot, if you drive to the mountains or rural areas for pleasure, range anxiety is a serious problem. Waiting for a re-charge is ok if you have access to Tesla supercharger speeds. Forcing this lifestyle change on everyone is absolutely insane. The climate imperative is poor reasoning becaus…

I recently drove over 800 km in my Hyundai Ioniq 28 kWh EV, it only took 1 hour more than when I drive my Tesla. Most of that time was spent eating or stretching legs anyway so it is fully possible to take longer trips :)

People always bring up long road trips as an excuse against EVs but honestly I don't get it. On road trips the stop for gas was always an excuse to stretch your legs, use the restroom, grab snacks at the convenience store, and just GTFO of the car. A gas stop is never just 5 minutes to fill up.

I moved from GA to CA last summer. I drove a moving truck towing our Leaf and my partner in our Model 3, we made it a point to take the same route but not stick together. When ended up staying together for most of the trip and would arrive at our hotels within half an hour of one another, usually the Model 3 arrived first. Often we would pass them charging at a Supercharger only to be overtaken when we stopped or just due to speed.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#274

Post by turtlebits »

cptskippy wrote: post #235
turtlebits wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot get any meaningful charge at at retailer (assuming L2) unless you're there for over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles.

> over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles. Most modern EVs can do 24-25 miles/hour on L2. How is that not meaningful? The average trip to the grocery store is 41 minutes [1] so that's 15 miles of charge which would negate most or all of the range lost traveling to the store. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.htm... Stop assuming that anyone plugging their EV into charge is on empt…

You are assuming EV charging is everywhere, but right now infrastructure is extremely limited.

I have yet to see a grocery store with a charging station in Seattle (QFC/Safeway/Whole Foods), and the one I have seen (at a Safeway far north), there were are only 2 spots and power was shared across ports.

The reality for me is that L2 charging is currently useless as the places I go do not provide chargers.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#275

Post by viraptor »

turtlebits wrote: post #161
ajross wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to see numbers for that argument, because I don't think I'm willing to buy it on assertion. A single, routine, boring 100A building drop is enough to charge 4-5 cars (i.e. "one station worth"), and those wires and infrastructure are already there, and have been for decades.

The problem is that your 100A charging station will take 8+ hours to charge all 4 cars to max (as that is ~L2 charging speed..

Unless you regularly drain all 4 cars to 0% in 8 hours, this is not really a problem. And if you do, you're likely running some kind of transport company and can afford planning for better charging.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#276

Post by blandflakes »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #27
strict9 wrote: post #7

I rarely drive, but can't wait to own one. Where I live (and for a lot of people who live in cities) there is only on-street parking. Will be interesting to see how increased electric vehicle ownership might happen for people without a garage or designated parking.

This. Curios to hear about people's experiences owning an EV without access to a charger at home.

I have a plug-in hybrid in the US (which assuages my range concerns). It's pretty great to putter around the city on electric power, almost never swapping to gas unless I head over to the highway.

But if I want to keep puttering on EV, I need to charge, and I rent. Thankfully, my city (Boston) has a decent number of chargers. My most convenient one is a couple blocks down the street, in front of a parking meter. The meter is only enforced from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, so I can get a charge for free if I park outside those hours. Sometimes my desire to not give off emissions even when I haven't had a chance to do it for free will encourage me to pay $1 or so for the 19ish mile range of a full charge... so it's not even a bad rate compared to the price of gasoline.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#278

Post by jeromegv »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #139
technofiend wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially gas cars are convenient because you just don't have to think about the length of your next trip: there will be gas available wherever you go. Long trips with an EV require planning due to missing infrastructure, longer "fueling" times, and shorter ranges. But if we break out off the assumption that you can go anywhere any time in your electric car because there's another option available (rental? ride sh…

If we break off the assumption of what most consumers want, sure. But then what would be the point?

Over 80-90% of trips are very short in distance. Long distance trips are more of an anomaly for huge majority of people.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#279

Post by yongjik »

tw04 wrote: post #247
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: most people charge at night. Sure, fast charging will add some day-time demand, but it's not much. Cheap night-time pricing keeps the charging demand off-peak. More even demand curves make generation more economical. It becomes trivial to upgrade distribution where needed.

I still don't see how that works when you're talking EVERYONE charging. Here's a quick example from New England in 2010: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=830 During "peak" hours they're using roughly 17Gw total, and during off-peak, it's at 15Gw so we've only got 2Gw total to buffer electric cars charging. Feel free to tell me how my math is wrong, but let's assume worst case scenario: a tesla charger…

2021 Tesla Model S has a 100kW battery and 402-mi range. I searched for "average driving miles per year" and Google says 13,500 miles - assuming this, we have about 37 miles per day, which would mean our Tesla S only needs to charge 9.2kW every day. If they're sitting on a charger 10 hours per day, they can take a leisurely 920W per vehicle (less than a good hair dryer), not 11.5kW.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#280

Post by cptskippy »

viraptor wrote: post #270
cptskippy wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be less of a problem than you think. Power demand is already inconsistent throughout the day. Depending on the time of year it will peak around noon or in the evening but overnight the demand is low. When people start charging overnight at home the overnight loads will increase. This will intern allow power companies to increase capacity.

I suspect new payment plans will get more popular soon. I'm not familiar with the US providers, but in Australia there are already at least two companies allowing you to buy energy at a current, hourly adjusted price. I expect that in a couple of decades "energy cost arbitrage via car charging" will be a normal thing.

You're probably right. In the US there's generally two systems, flat-rate or time-of-use.

A lot of people on time-of-use plans are installing battery backups and/or solar to avoid the peak charges. I have a Tesla solar/powerwall setup that's configured for cost savings and it decided that today 100% of solar was going to be back fed to the grid and we've been running 100% off the batteries. Usually the system just switches to batteries during peak.

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