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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

#311

Post by exhilaration »

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…

It's going to be very hard to apply that mandate to existing construction. I feel like the best way to move forward is for charging companies like EVgo or Chargepoint (or a new HN company!) to approach building owners, install pay per use chargers for free, and offer the building owners a 10% cut of the charging revenue.

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

#312

Post by ip26 »

abeppu wrote: post #166
fuoqi wrote: post #140

I wonder if electrical grids are really prepared for mass adoption of EV. For example, UK is already quite reliant on the HVDC link [0] from France. In 2016 it got damaged resulting in a reduced capacity, which has caused serious concerns at the time. And it's not only about power generation, it's also quite probable that a lot of existing power lines would have to be updated to satisfy a higher demand for electrical…

I think the other side of the coin is also interesting: If we're smart, could we use EVs to make the grid more resilient? Could we be thinking of EVs both as transportation and as flexible and hyperlocal power storage. E.g. parked EVs could reverse-meter if there's very high power demand, and absorb cheap (or negative cost) power when it's really windy in Texas, etc.

They’re most suited to be huge on demand power sinks. Build out your monster wind farm; no more curtailment losses eating profits, the electric fleet can soak it all up. That’s almost as good as bidirectional storage.

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

#313

Post by core-questions »

xedeon wrote: post #307
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue is charge times. Gas fillups take a few minutes at most - meaning no long lines. Once charges are close to that speed I think EVs will really take off.

What most don't realize here is that they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station. Whereas most EV owners just plug in when they get home and wake up to a full charge.

> they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station

More often than not, this is on the way home / on the way to work, no? I don't just start the car and drive it down to a station to get gas and then come home (barring strange circumstances).

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

#314

Post by cblconfederate »

We have remote working here to stay. It will be a massive change in transportation needs and habits. Which means cars will be mainly used for non-city trips, i.e. nature / recreation / roadtrips. Sounds like the worst use case for a battery car. Short inner city transportation may be covered by an electric bike / scooter / tiny car, there is not even need for a huge battery, a 30km battery would do and would be more eco-friendly. I think banning non- electric is overkill

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

#315

Post by reddog »

I've worked on ICE vehicles my whole life and I'd be happy to say good riddance. But this article has a heavy urban bias. The author has obviously never driven through West Texas or taken a road trip from Brisbane to Alice Springs. You'll need to show me how I can drive an $80K Tesla from Austin to Big Bend NP before I start to believe.

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

#316

Post by lazyasciiart »

sandworm101 wrote: post #102
ajross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the number of high-speed chargers are tiny (think a couple of locations per large city) That's not so far off. Even large cities in North America have no more than a few dozen gas stations (and the UK likely fewer still due to things like London's congestion pricing reducing vehicle count). Once-a-week-or-so fueling doesn't really require a huge amount of infrastructure. That's one of the reasons we're all addicted…

>> 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…

Cost to build a gas station includes cost to build a giant storage tank for hazardous material and piping to deliver that to outlets at ground level. Running it may be simple but building it is absolutely not.

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

#317

Post by ip26 »

fuoqi wrote: post #140

I wonder if electrical grids are really prepared for mass adoption of EV. For example, UK is already quite reliant on the HVDC link [0] from France. In 2016 it got damaged resulting in a reduced capacity, which has caused serious concerns at the time. And it's not only about power generation, it's also quite probable that a lot of existing power lines would have to be updated to satisfy a higher demand for electrical…

If the distribution grid can power every AC unit in the city (5.5kW apiece) running at the same time at 3pm, I don’t really see why it would fundamentally struggle with 6kW car chargers spread out overnight. It might not be quite up to task yet, and AC cycles while cars don’t, but it seems within spitting distance.

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

#319

Post by adrusi »

reddog wrote: post #315

I've worked on ICE vehicles my whole life and I'd be happy to say good riddance. But this article has a heavy urban bias. The author has obviously never driven through West Texas or taken a road trip from Brisbane to Alice Springs. You'll need to show me how I can drive an $80K Tesla from Austin to Big Bend NP before I start to believe.

I think widespread EV ownership in urban areas would constitute "mass adoption," no?

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

#320

Post by hughes »

reddog wrote: post #315

I've worked on ICE vehicles my whole life and I'd be happy to say good riddance. But this article has a heavy urban bias. The author has obviously never driven through West Texas or taken a road trip from Brisbane to Alice Springs. You'll need to show me how I can drive an $80K Tesla from Austin to Big Bend NP before I start to believe.

How to drive from Austin to Big Bend NP in a $48k car:

https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MY_2020_LongRange&o=Austin,%...

There's a route planner that can do this built in to every Tesla.

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