Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#291

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #235

spoonjim wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many virtue signalers are earnest and think that Tweeting #BLM or other useless actions are actually useful.

If someone is doing something because they think it makes a real difference, then it's not virtue signaling by definition.

Those are orthogonal. You can either think something helps or it doesn’t and virtue signal in either case.

It’s right in the name. When you “virtue signal”, you are signaling morals to a wider audience. It’s “virtue signaling” regardless of conviction.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#292

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

jerlam wrote: post #249

dybber wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all iPhones do this it will matter. Charging when energy is plentiful also means that electricity is more likely to come from renewables.

Phones are rarely plugged in unless the battery is dead. This strategy actually works with laptops though. I know that one company set up all their laptops to stop drawing power from mains and run from the battery at peak hours, even though it was still plugged in. This was for cost savings and not for environmental ones, but the same strategy would work.

> Phones are rarely plugged in unless the battery is dead.

???

Most people I can think of charge there phone as part of their nightly routine.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#293

Post by elihu » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

theli0nheart wrote: post #283

mabbo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that you are thinking of things purely in terms of how gas stations and gas powered cars work. You need to step back and re-think. For almost all EV owners, a level 2 (240V 20amp) charger at home is all that's needed[0]. It charges slowly, but given the car sits for 12+ hours every night, it's more than enough. You get home, you plug in, you go eat dinner and go to bed. When it's time to go in…

This is a bit of a nitpick, but L2s don’t charge slowly. Ours gets us about 30 miles per hour, so we get fully charged after a normal day’s worth of driving in about 30 minutes.

It depends on your definition of "slow" and your use case. If you were on a road trip and had to stop for an hour per 30 miles at a charging station, it'd probably seem really slow. If you're plugging in after you get home from a short commute (the most common use case), then it's perfectly fine.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#294

Post by landemva » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #177

alexb_ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So I bought solar panels and batteries ...Mission accomplished?

Sortof? The chumps left behind have fewer people to help amortize fixed costs.

Hawaiian islands have struggled with this for a decade. Rich people put up solar cells with usage offsets and get grid scale reliability on the backs of those who can't put up solar cells due to being poor or living in an apartment.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#295

Post by theli0nheart » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #293

theli0nheart wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a nitpick, but L2s don’t charge slowly. Ours gets us about 30 miles per hour, so we get fully charged after a normal day’s worth of driving in about 30 minutes.

It depends on your definition of "slow" and your use case. If you were on a road trip and had to stop for an hour per 30 miles at a charging station, it'd probably seem really slow. If you're plugging in after you get home from a short commute (the most common use case), then it's perfectly fine.

For sure, but we’re talking in the context of a home charger here.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#296

Post by butwhywhyoh » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:29 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #228

I need ELI5: electric cars have very large and heavy batteries right? Why is it prohibitively difficult to replace them on demand? What if there were 2-3 batteries charging at home or hundreds at a "battery station", where you would park at a spot/drive-thru garage and have a hydraulic machine drop your old battery and lift in a new battery and the whole swap can take no longer than the time it takes to fill up a has…

> I just don't get it. Governments around the world and spending trillions on this stuff so why is there no clear answer on this?

Why would there need to be a "clear answer" on something that quite obviously wouldn't work?

Everyone here has done a great job of explaining to you the complexity of your "simple" solution, but you don't seem to want to accept any of the explanations. You seem to think that your back-of-the-napkin calculation can just be magically turned into a major part of our transportation infrastructure.

Cars aren't television remotes. The batteries in the cars aren't your standard AA battery. The situation is far more complicated than you're making it out to be.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#297

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

upsidesinclude wrote: post #66

This article does a poor job of explaining why there is going to be a problem and relaying the point of the study. To model the grid and power infrastructure into the future, assumptions must be made about where the power is derived. The article fails to provide the basic factors contributing to the problem, even though the study itself does a fine job. So California wants to legislate electric cars. That means highe…

> Charge your car at work in the sun and use it to power your home at night.

Completely infeasible in cold climates if your house is heated by electrically-powered air source heat pumps, as it probably should be.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#298

Post by samizdette » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

kodah wrote: post #238

saidajigumi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely what the linked article says. From the section "Charging Incentives": “And it’s not just California and Western states. All states may need to rethink electricity pricing structures as their EV charging needs increase and their grid changes,” added Powell, who recently took a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich. The article also includes other interesting and more nuanced policy details tha…

> This can disincentivize employers from installing chargers, especially once half or more of their employees have EVs. > So yes, there are weird red herrings in this thread from people who want a technology first and a solution second (or never) and/or who don't understand design of incentive structures. Speaking of incentive structures, one of my former employers installed EV chargers in all of the bottom floors of…

Did you look at plug-in hybrids? They can use the chargers.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#299

Post by CalChris » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

This all depends on the local energy mix at night. If the local mix has a lot of nuclear or hydro then charging at night is a good idea. If instead it has a lot of gas or coal then it is a bad idea. It depends on whether there is cleanish energy available at night. There is no single answer.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#300

Post by theluketaylor » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #297

upsidesinclude wrote: post #66

This article does a poor job of explaining why there is going to be a problem and relaying the point of the study. To model the grid and power infrastructure into the future, assumptions must be made about where the power is derived. The article fails to provide the basic factors contributing to the problem, even though the study itself does a fine job. So California wants to legislate electric cars. That means highe…

> Charge your car at work in the sun and use it to power your home at night. Completely infeasible in cold climates if your house is heated by electrically-powered air source heat pumps, as it probably should be.

I live in a cold climate and it would take only take more than 50% of charge to keep the house warm overnight with an air source heat pump. Since I rarely use more then 10% of range per day driving this would easily work for me. With an LFP battery car the cycle usage wouldn’t even be a big deal.

It’s not impossible.