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Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

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Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#281
post #132
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Household wiring will anyway not have enough current capacity to support charging citation needed

Sure here https://www.tesla.com/support/home-charging-installation#out... Most home electricity installations have circuit breakers @ 15 Amps where I live. Wiring typically rated to a max 20 Amps draw before overheating. At a below 15 Amps current draw levels, you'll required an inordinate number of hours of charging for getting mileage on the battery and it's just not practical.

How many km do you drive in a year? My 20k km is about 55 km per day which is easily supplied by 5A 230 V to my Tesla S in 12 hours, say from 18:00 to 06:00.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#282
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range more than charging times. With EVs (and if you have a charger) waking up with a 'full tank' is pretty amazing... something ICE auto can never experience.

And an electric car owner won't experience being low on charge and filling up in less than one minute, unless battery swapping schemes come to fruition. Dealbreaker to me being stuck charging for hours (or even overnight if I only have 110) if the batteries are low.

I'm not sure if I've ever filled up in a minute, including paying.

All this stuff takes is a change of schedule if you cannot charge at home. Instead of eating breakfast and reading the paper at home in the mornings, you go out and do it at the charging station. You aren't generally stuck for hours at these places. Or you do it on your way home. Workplaces here are offering power to folks and many parking garages/city parking spaces do as well. This takes care of being out in the world.

I don't see how overnight is an issue if you are at home. You aren't using the car when you sleep.

Long distance travel? Don't they recommend you stop and stretch every few hours anyway? This is built in. Or you can take public transport.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#284
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that is really different is that digital cameras didn’t required a huge network of infrastructure to succeed. That’s unfortunately where you’re analogy breaks down

The infrastructure for digital cameras to succeed was already in place.

That’s exactly my point

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#285
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I live in an apartment, I can't charge one, on the street" I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I still can't fathom how electric cars are going to make more than a dent in NYC where most cars are stored streetside.

In the UK, every new street light will double as an EV charger. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/08/every-new-ho...

I used these every week. It works great. https://www.ubitricity.com/en/

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#286
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that is really different is that digital cameras didn’t required a huge network of infrastructure to succeed. That’s unfortunately where you’re analogy breaks down

Lack of infrastructure didn't stop the adoption of internal combustion engine vehicles. The infrastructure was built as demand for it increased. Anyway we have most of the infrastructure we need for electric vehicles already, it's called the grid. All that is missing is the connection points. And for many people that is also not a problem because we can plug the car in at home. So electric vehicles have a massive adv…

There was a demand for the internal combustion engine because it was a massive step-change from horses. Electric vehicles represent a marginal gain for people who aren't primarily concerned about the environment.

To be clear, I would like an electric vehicle, but I lack off-road parking so I don't see myself getting one for a decade.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#287
post #252
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that is really different is that digital cameras didn’t required a huge network of infrastructure to succeed. That’s unfortunately where you’re analogy breaks down

It may be different but it doesn't mean that it's impossible to achieve. Building the EV infrastruture is relatively cheap (compared to say building a gas-powered or hydrogen infrastructure). Tesla has already built its own (not perfect, but "good enough"), and the other car makers have joined alliances to build their own. Also new companies have appeared whose sole reason to exist is to build such infrastructures. P…

> The EV infrastructure should be mostly complete by 2025.

All the people witgout off-road parking will have charging points outside their house?

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#288
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity is already everywhere, you just need to install lots of boxes with charge cables and billing mechanisms. Not that hard.

Although electricity is already everywhere, it’s still not going to be an easy transition. Globally, electricity production in 2012 was somewhere around 20 PWh/year, while transport used around 30 PWh/years. I’m optimistic about cheap solar — a one or two meter wide strip of PV next to every interstate, highway, motorway, Autobahn etc. should suffice — but it’s still not trivial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_e…

Electric vehicles use roughly a third of the energy so that 30 PWh only needs to be an extra 10 PWh for the grid. We need to increase overall capcity by 50%.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my local council doesn't even have the money to stay on top of fixing potholes and uneven streets , but will somehow find the money and will to put electric charging points everywhere? Yeah, I don't see that happening.

They have money. They just don't care about potholes and uneven streets.

They care about education, social services and care for the vulnerable more.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#290
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that is really different is that digital cameras didn’t required a huge network of infrastructure to succeed. That’s unfortunately where you’re analogy breaks down

Lack of infrastructure didn't stop the adoption of internal combustion engine vehicles. The infrastructure was built as demand for it increased. Anyway we have most of the infrastructure we need for electric vehicles already, it's called the grid. All that is missing is the connection points. And for many people that is also not a problem because we can plug the car in at home. So electric vehicles have a massive adv…

The original cars were electric and gas won out as a better solution because it was more portable and less dangerous in the event of an accident. Those things are still true today.

Edit: why the downvote? Sources cited below. HN, you judge too fast.

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