Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays • Hacker News Board

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#31

Post by olivermarks » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #17

olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

The story here is an example of how electric vehicle charging happens. Dedicated charging spaces all over the place instead of service stations. As long as the percentage of spaces roughly corresponds to the percentage of electric vehicles, it shouldn't be real disruptive.

'all over the place' - what do you mean by 'place'?

If we fast forward to a world where the majority of vehicles are electric, this would mean vast parking areas with a smart grid underneath that meters charges to users. (Once ICE has been vanquished vast tax revenue will be gone, someone has to pay for the power, it will be you).

In an urban environment presumably every lighting pole will have a charging point since they are on the last century grid.

Typically there are approximately 10- 15 cars between posts. For lucky people with a driveway they can install a charger, for everyone else this is a very intractable problem.

In rural areas 'all over the place' could mean anything. Some people drive 200 miles a day just to get to their place of work and back in a heavy duty vehicle, where would they find these 'places'...

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#32

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #19

olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

>> What happens when/if there are huge numbers of EV's? The strange thing is that there is a model for this already. I live in a rather cold part of Canada. My apartment block has AC outlets for each parking spot. So too does my work, and all local hotels. These are meant to power block heaters, something that doesn't really exist in the UK, but in recent years some people have been using them to charge their EV/hybr…

Are your outlets continuous?

I’ve heard of ones that cycle through different chunks of the lot, so half (or a third or 2/3) are powered at a time.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#33

Post by 88 » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #15

kwhitefoot wrote: post #8

Would be better to spend the money that this will cost on fitting a simple domestic socket in every parking bay. That we even my Tesla will gain 13 km per hour of charging.

I'm still eagerly awaiting explanation on how this is going to work with terraced houses where there's about 40 houses on each side and people park how and where they want, and most importantly where the local council barely has enough money to fix the worst potholes. But suddenly they are going to dig up a 300 year old street to put down enough cabling and charging points for every car. My question is "with what mon…

So charge your vehicle at your workplace, or at the shops, or at a dedicated charging station?

In the medium term, if this becomes a real problem, properties will be devalued and owners can decide whether it’s worth contributing to the cost of installing the infrastructure.

In the long term, most people won’t have private vehicles, so there won’t be any need to store and charge them on public roads.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#34

Post by choeger » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

hannob wrote: post #26

ultimoo wrote: post #2

Not sure what's so surprising/interesting about this (I don't have a subscription to read the full article). This nugget in the introduction seems to summarize the tech behind this -- > Sensors installed in electric bays can be used to detect the presence of a vehicle and whether it is being used to recharge the car battery.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

The same holds for a lot of other rules, from public transportation tickets over legal fireworks and drinking age to softer drugs and taxes. Society as a whole seems to be generally fine with smaller infractions and I consider this a good thing, tbh. I would be perfectly fine with a similar scheme for traffic laws.

The thing with speeding cameras is that they could easily be adjusted to allow for 20% (say at most 20kph) margin (which would be perfectly fine for me even on the German Autobahn), but drivers would learn that fact and adjust perfectly to just 1kph below that limit. This would then enrage puritans that would DEMAND that these MURDERES be PUNISHED. Sadly for some reason traffic law is an area of zero tolerance for some.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#35

Post by yarcob » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #19

olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

>> What happens when/if there are huge numbers of EV's? The strange thing is that there is a model for this already. I live in a rather cold part of Canada. My apartment block has AC outlets for each parking spot. So too does my work, and all local hotels. These are meant to power block heaters, something that doesn't really exist in the UK, but in recent years some people have been using them to charge their EV/hybr…

This is the solution. Power doesn't have to be free, but it should be everywhere.

It's like all the EV charging networks try to replicate gas stations. It's stupid. Nobody wants to take their car to a charging station, pay by the minute, and park their car somewhere else when it's full.

People just want to park their cars wherever, and plug them in when they know they'll stay there for some time, and just pay per kWh, and they definitely don't want to go park their car somewhere else when it's full.

The nice thing about electric is that you could theoretically charge cars pretty much anywhere, outlets would be cheap to install almost anywhere! And cars are parked somewhere 90% of the day anyway. So you don't need fast charging.

I feel like the guys trying to build infrastructure for EVs in most cities are fucking stupid.

You don't need to build 20 fast charging stations. For the same money you could probably install 2000 standard outlets, controlled with a relay and a phone app for payment.

That's something that would actually drive EV adoption.

Right now the only people who buy EVs are people who have a house where they can install an outlet for charging. People who live in appartments are stuck with ICE cars...

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#36

Post by hannob » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

telotortium wrote: post #28

hannob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

Maybe not in the US, but in both France and China, to name two countries I've been to, speed cameras were obvious on the highways and actually sent out fines.

There's a difference between having a speeding camera every now and then on the highway or consistently enforcing speeding limits.

I don't have a statistic on this, but my gut feeling would be most speeding happens in residential areas with low speed limit, and enforcement in many places is basically nonexistent.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#37

Post by orangeshark » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

hannob wrote: post #26

ultimoo wrote: post #2

Not sure what's so surprising/interesting about this (I don't have a subscription to read the full article). This nugget in the introduction seems to summarize the tech behind this -- > Sensors installed in electric bays can be used to detect the presence of a vehicle and whether it is being used to recharge the car battery.

It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that rules are not or rarely enforced. Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware of any country doing that.

See red light cameras. You recieve a ticket through the mail and you get pictures and a video of the violation. There is a lot of people against it and some governments have legistation against the use of it.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#38

Post by owenmarshall » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #14

olivermarks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their money selling other products, particularly in non urban locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business model makes refuelling stations a viable business since the margins on fuel costs are so slim. One of the challenges with the crude political attempts to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the lack of coherent planning behind it. What…

Don’t EVs take longer to charge than a gas fill-up? Presumably that would be better for a model where you want people to stick around and buy things, not worse. At least in the Netherlands, there are basically mini golf carts that are legally bikes for disabled people. https://youtu.be/B9ly7JjqEb0

> Presumably that would be better for a model where you want people to stick around and buy things, not worse.

Gas stations occupy an interesting place in American life: some stations - often those in urban areas - are designed for “get in, grab a pack of peanuts, get out” transactions, but others in rural areas serve as a local gathering area. Pre-Covid (and, let’s be honest, even post-Covid) the gas stations near me are full of people sitting at tables eating hot food and passing time.

What is amusing is that the same gas stations that encourage to have people sit and stay a while tend to be located in areas where EVs are extremely uncommon.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#39

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #31

maxerickson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story here is an example of how electric vehicle charging happens. Dedicated charging spaces all over the place instead of service stations. As long as the percentage of spaces roughly corresponds to the percentage of electric vehicles, it shouldn't be real disruptive.

'all over the place' - what do you mean by 'place'? If we fast forward to a world where the majority of vehicles are electric, this would mean vast parking areas with a smart grid underneath that meters charges to users. (Once ICE has been vanquished vast tax revenue will be gone, someone has to pay for the power, it will be you). In an urban environment presumably every lighting pole will have a charging point since…

Yes, I'm sure it will be very difficult.

The majority of charging will be at residences. People in rural areas will be able to install them no problem.

Re: Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in electric bays

#40

Post by sofixa » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #22

gambiting wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were definitely lucky. I've driven through Germany last summer and I couldn't find a single charger that worked, every single one required an app, one wouldn't accept my non-german card, second one didn't have a menu in English so I didn't know how to set it up, third one gave me an "unspecified error" and told me to ring their helpline, but upon calling them discovered they are closed on Sunday. So in the end I…

Germany seems to run an entirely independent and parallel cards and payments system to the rest of the world. Really frustrating.

Really? I've had no problems with regular Visa and MasterCard debit cards, while at the same time the in the Netherlands non-Maestros are barely accepted outside of ATMs, even in huge stores ( that's gotten better in the last 2-3 years).