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EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

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Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking specifically about my house. I live off grid and wouldn't be able to produce enough power in the winter to charge a car and my house.

This entire thread is a collection of niche cases. I just bought a gas guzzler because in my part of Wyoming the dealership model is broken for EVs I’d want, and Tesla’s are optically problematic for me to own. But if the unaddressed market are rural Americans and those off grid, market forces making gas distribution expensive will nudge it into equilibrium.

> optically problematic

Damn, this sounds weird coming from a first world country.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#272

As someone that is currently in the market for a new car, I would love to get an EV, but I also don't have a good way to charge. Seems like most EV owners just charge at their house, but what about people that don't have access to a good power tap? (apartment dwellers, renters, etc.) Sometimes it feels like there is a group of EV elites out there that are predicting the complete demise of ICEs while conveniently down…

Thanks for raising this issue—as you point out, it's often ignored—but I'd posit it's even worse than you (and others on this thread) indicate.

When the issue is framed at all, it's usually boiled down to "landlords won't want to install chargers in the apartment garages" with the possible counterpoint of "demand will force them to" or there will be subsidies or etc etc.

But there are vast, vast numbers of people whose permanent parking situation is literally "on the street in front of my building"... or down the block... or around the corner... or wherever there's a spot free. This poses two tremendous difficulties for EV adoption. First, now we're talking not just about upgrading an electrical supply and mounting a new outlet; to bring overnight charging to street parking we'd need to dig up and re-lay concrete and asphalt. Second, people already grumble about "someone took my spot" and get a lot louder about it when there's something dedicated about the spot (google "Chicago dibs" for some serious rage on this topic) and if some-but-not-all of the street spots have charging stations, you better believe the fights over them will be epic, neighbourhood-destroying affairs.

Street parking is a central problem for anyone pushing widespread EV adoption. It can't be driven purely from consumer demand.

ETA: Can someone who spends a lot of time in California tell me if there's a lot of overnight street parking there? Because I've suspected that there isn't and that that's why this gets overlooked, but there might be some other reason.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slower is safer for pedestrians. It's safer alternative for (?) elders than a full featured car.

Changing lanes will be pretty difficult if the golf cart is much slower than general traffic.

Yeah it's pain as a car driver. There's no ideal solution.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? I'm generally anti-carbon tax because it's the solution to the problem that is obvious, simple, and wrong. But when there are no other solutions, charging for cleanup is the way to go. Farmers and miners pay for their costs. They can continue to do so and pass their costs on. Some farmers, at least in the US, we massively subsidize to a ridiculous extent in a make-work program for massive amounts of soy and…

Why is a carbon tax wrong? It seems very similar in principle to your proposal?

I think a tax on certain sectors can work fine. Especially those sectors with no other options, and that must simply pay to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere that they put into it. However, an economy-wide tax ignores the differing amounts of technological development difficulty, access to capital, and political influence that varies so widely between sectors.

So a carbon tax on electricity generation sources works ok to incentivize a switch and internalize the externalities, but it's pretty equivalent to the general ITC/PTC subsidies that have recently been passed, with the exception that they are sector specific.

An economy wide carbon tax does almost nothing to incentivize decarbonization of steel or concrete, as the tech isn't there, nobody has spare money to invest in a solution, and the tax wouldn't necessarily increase the price of end products much. They need very specific industrial policy in these sectors to develop alternatives and put them into production.

Finally a carbon tax creates an entirely unified political coalition, across many sectors of the economy, to oppose the tax. So setting the tax at a level that is right to incentivize change is guaranteed to be nearly impossible, because od the breadth and political strength of the opposition to it. Specific carrots and sticks for each sector are what can drive real change in each sector.

If it was 1980, I'd be supporting a carbon tax. But we need to move far more quickly now to change our economic production systems than a carbon tax could ever conceivably achieve.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#276

Loading our power infrastructure with the needs of tens of millions of cars which now rely on gasoline/diesel but which, in the future, will need electric power in order to function is downright criminal in this current geo-political climate. First, we don't even have the resources to provide electric power at decent prices as things are right now, that's why your nice 70-year lady living with her 2 cats in a house i…

Sounds like you're in the UK.

It does feel like we're going to have at least 5 years of pain during this transition.

It also feels like the market isn't truly fair on price making the pain hurt more. Sure it's legal to rake in record profit but it's not ethical.

But I'm in the U.S. and finally have some slight optimism on climate future for first time in my adult life.

The climate bill provides incentives, credits, straight up money for all sides of this chain.

From raw materials -> clean energy capacity/manufacturing -> EV, charger, & battery production -> and finally the consumer EVs but also energy savings in upgrades & new construction.

~400b depending how you add it up.

Not enough. But not nothing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/climate/biden-climate-dea...

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#277

I love EVs. That being said I wish someone would make an enclosed bicycle/motorcycle that costs less than $2000. Something like that which can go 30mph and had space for 2 days of groceries would be enough for me to eliminate my car all together. I'm cobbling something similar now with a Class 3 cargo ebike, but rain sucks =/ The idealist in me says that electric ebikes could eliminate most of Americas problems in on…

What is an enclosed bicycle?? Maybe you could use a golf cart. You could get pretty close to 30 MPH and 60 Miles travel time for under $2k.

Velomobiles exist. The rotovelo is probably the closest to being designed for massproductio , but it's still about 3x that target.

But 30mph is too much for dedicated bike infrastructure and is just turning them into roads (although I support LEVs and LEV only zones, they're still not bicycles). 15-20mph is a human scaled speed limit where interactions are far less likely to cause accidents and impact energy is low enough to rarely cause major injury. It also makes enough battery for range trivial and makes the vehicles that become status quo far lighter and less dangerous.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rain isn't really a problem with the appropriate clothing. (Speaking as someone that rides year round for transportation in Wisconsin.) The only problem I've had is downpours can soak your shoes but I just have an extra pair of shoes at work and at home.

Rain is definitely a problem for a vehicle which depends on lateral tilt to turn and which depends on inertia to stay upright. Speaking as someone who has ridden many years round in Seattle, where the roads lean along with the hills even where the hills aren’t that steep. Those turns are a mistake or an unexpected cross vehicle away from a crash on our driest days, but the rain really amplifies that danger.

Dedicated infrastructure and sane speeds solve this problem neatly.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it. That's why I specifically said "dedicated infrastructure", painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastr…

> painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either To be clear, where I live there are recently installed “dedicated” bike routes which are separated from car traffic by concrete barriers and curbs, and also separated from pedestrian traffic by curbs and intermittent heavy ceramic planters. The problem is that the separations are interrupted to allow turns and deliveries. All of the separation is…

I'm pretty sure you're considering "bad" dedicated infra. In the Netherlands cars don't cut into the bike lane for turns.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-needs-follow-dutch...

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As both a cyclist and pedestrian, I definitely prefer bikes off the sidewalk. Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. Even if they get both of those right, they’ve frequently terrified my pup by just being faster and louder and larger than anything on foot she’s ever met. I’ve had to return hom…

> Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. You are absolutely right. As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. Even if you do the even more conscientious thing and you slow all the way down to match speed with them, and then “wa…

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment.

A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.

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