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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

#281

Post by rconti »

bosie wrote: post #256
rconti wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, card payments in Germany, for non-Germans, is generally a nightmare anyway. It's a bummer that it's not a solved problem for EV charging, because in many ways, I think the EU is ahead of the US in (non-Tesla) charging infra.

What's the problem with card payments in germany for non-germans?

Credit cards are not widely accepted in Germany. Germans generally use cash or EC/Maesto debit cards, and you can't get an EC card if you're not an EU resident with an EU bank account (which can be hard for Americans, and, to a lesser extent, any foreigner, I'm sure).

I used to have a Maestro-branded debit card (in the US) when I was younger. I have no idea if it's the same system and/or if they're compatible. I checked my wallet and my current debit card has no Maestro branding.

I've more than once found myself halfway through a meal before realizing that I might not have a way to pay for it.

https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt...

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

#282

Post by xsmasher »

Loughla wrote: post #20
lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I'm really curious to see how the used electric car market shapes up. New cars (electric or not) are pretty expensive. The average price of a new car in the US just topped $40k, which is out of reach of many car buyers. The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are often older. Then at some point down the road, those cars end up in the hands of (on average) younger, less-wealthy folks. But younger fol…

>a depleted battery pack means less range or costly repair, etc. This has actually stopped me from buying a used EV in the last year, twice. Dealers aren't up front about used cars history in general, and, again from just the two I looked at, they are 1000% hiding any information they can regarding the battery packs. This is the largest hurdle to the used car market (after the shortage of used EV's because of their n…

I don't know about other EVs, but the Leaf shows the battery capacity on the dashboard at all times - if you know how to read it. I had to google it because the salesman had no idea.

The first leaf we looked at was already down to 80%, but the second was in perfect condition at two years old, and is still in perfect condition at age six.

https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/Ke7gb/s3/leaf-state-of-cha...

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

#283

Post by neltnerb »

mywittyname wrote: post #264
jiggawatts wrote: post #246

My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you're speaking Klingon. This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past three Teslas in my building's car park, one of which is new and wasn't there last week! Do people... not plan ahead…

A staggering amount of buildings are built to code, and nothing more. If code says that there needs to be 1.5 parking spaces per bedroom for the complex, and the complex has 80 bedrooms, you can bet there will be 120 parking spots. Apartment managers will be dragged kicking and screaming into offering chargers for cars. The best way to get chargers into apartment buildings is going to be a local mandate that they hav…

With the rare exception for when the expected marketing value of having those spots or tax subsidies make installing them appear to have a positive value.

The exception that definitely proves the rule. Until it's mandatory in new construction it won't even start to become normal.

I'm curious how street parking is supposed to work, that photo is hilarious but I imagine that on the streets of Boston where you'll get hit with a bat over trying to save a parking spot (or trying to use a saved parking spot, it's Boston in the winter).

I have the feeling you're going to see better adoption in suburbs and lower density urban areas first because the range doesn't need to be so high but it's also not impossible to have a consistent parking space (or garage or driveway) that you can invest in improving. I'd probably have to get a special variance from the city to install an outlet in the sidewalk...

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

#284

Post by sgnelson »

jiggawatts wrote: post #246

My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you're speaking Klingon. This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past three Teslas in my building's car park, one of which is new and wasn't there last week! Do people... not plan ahead…

One part of it is that in many urban areas, the intent is to reduce the number of cars, not necessarily provide accommodation for them (gas or electric.)

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

#285

Post by sandworm101 »

marvin wrote: post #114
sandworm101 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla superchargers take about 40 minutes to deliver an 80% charge. Call that a "full" tank. A gas pump can do the same in about 5 minutes (probably less). So to charge/fill the same number of cars per hour as one gas pump you need 8 superchargers. That's a significant increase in real estate area needed. Another approach: A top-end Tesla supercharger delivers around 250kW. So eight of those would be 2000kW or 2 Mega…

This line of reasoning is incorrect. Unlike fossil refuelling, the vast majority of EV charging happens at home. This charging does not load public charging stations at all. Unless your needs are esoteric, you might only charge at a public charging station one out of twenty times. Of course some homes don't have private charging easily available, but that's a different argument.

Not what i was talking about. I was speaking about replacing gas stations with charging stations, how the problem is not going to be solved by swapping one for another. I made no mention of other non-station charging options.

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

#286

Post by sandworm101 »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #129
sandworm101 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And charging stations are, of course, absolutely dirt cheap to build relative to fuel stations. Really? A normal gas station can handle around 100 cars per hour using a handful of pumps and is refueled by daily deliveries from a big truck. Simple. An electric charge point capable of that will require a massive amount of electricity, electricity delivered over wires. Look into how much it costs to run such a servic…

This is a false dichotomy, we have to get away from thinking of charging stations like gas pumps. Charging stations can be everywhere: grocery stores, retail stores, office buildings, malls, just about any parking lot or parking garage, hotels, airport parking and on and on. Gas pumps have to have huge underground tanks, and they have to be regularly refilled by large tanker trucks, by their very nature they will be…

Tell that to the person i was replying too. My point was that the problem will not be solved simply by swapping gas pumps for charge stations. The two are not interchangeable nor would doing so be cheap/easy.

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

#287

Post by jlos »

jiggawatts wrote: post #246

My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you're speaking Klingon. This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past three Teslas in my building's car park, one of which is new and wasn't there last week! Do people... not plan ahead…

>> Do people... not plan ahead?

Construction companies (on average) don't look further than the point of sale. It doesn't matter if a poorly chosen element of design in an apartment building will potentially affect thousands of people over the course of decades, the incentive/risk structure just doesn't exist to make forward thinking decisions.

Its basically got to be in the building code or (almost) no one will do it.

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

#288

Post by smileysteve »

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.

> In other words, better options than having an owning an EV is what we're talking about here.

Nope. The topic is about mass adoption. Not mass adoption by people who take trains or taxi in a certain city.

Even within this sub thread, it's comparing the "ease" of getting fuel and parking in nyc (neither of which are actually easy) to which charging is a mass hurdle.

Are there people who don't have access to power and security at a parking spot who drive more than 100 miles a day (and drivers that use bottles and get blood clots instead of stopping for 1hr every 250 miles), sure, but that's not the mass, it's somewhere <5%. And roughly a smaller population to whom don't need a car on a regular basis at all.

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

#289

Post by TheSmiddy »

jiggawatts wrote: post #246

My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you're speaking Klingon. This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past three Teslas in my building's car park, one of which is new and wasn't there last week! Do people... not plan ahead…

I'm in China where everybody rides ebikes and my building has a free for all parking space where 2/3rds of the parks have no chargers and the spots with charge ports all have qr codes you scan and pay with wechat to turn the port on.

This is an easy problem to solve.

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

#290

Post by rasz »

99_00 wrote: post #134
rasz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that time photo film got cheaper as more and more people switched to digital cameras? Combustion engine powered cars will be relegated to hipsters, museums, hardcore enthusiasts and specialist/niche applications.

I'm not aware of a strong functional benefit of electric versus combustion. But digital cameras had strong benefits over digital, so I don't think it's a good analogy. In general, I don't think analogies are for making arguments, because people focus on the difference between the analogy and what it's being applied to, like I just did. In education, to teach a new principle, I think they are great.

Have you driven a Tesla or another fast electric car? They are the new digital cameras.
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