Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by borcean » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

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…

It is so incredibly varied as well. Some municipalities, like Burnaby, are leading the charge (pun intended) requiring all new buildings to have stalls wired for EVSEs.

But this is far from the norm, unfortunately.

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

#322

Post by abeppu » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

fuoqi wrote: post #192

abeppu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see several problems with this idea: - EV battery recharge resource is not infinite. Spending it on grid stabilization could be quite costly if you'll factor in cost of battery replacement. In the long run it could be cheaper to build mines for hydroelectric/compressed air storage. - It will require huge capital investments. You have to equip every parking spot with inverters which can both charge EV and supply pow…

I would hope if we started selling power from EVs back to the grid, that owners would be able to set a reserve amount of charge, and only sell excess above that level. And presumably it would only make sense for owners who could charge when demand is less, and opportunistically sell back a portion if demand is unusual high.

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

#323

Post by ip26 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

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…

Tesla is still selling every car it can make and used Tesla command nearly new prices. I think the new end of the market isn’t saturated yet, and used prices won’t start coming down to affordable levels for the bulk of the used market until the demand of the new end is met.

It isn’t a problem; clean, efficient ICE vehicles are being sold by EV buyers and replacing older, dirtier cars in a cascade which is exactly what you want. Trickle-down, basically.

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

#324

Post by twblalock » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #262

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…

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. There is legislation on your side in California now. It's even called "right to charge!"

Despite that law, it can still be difficult to get a charger installed if the property owner or HOA is against it. In some cases the electrical work requires trenching across a parking lot to a carport, or upgrading the electrical system in a parking garage. Those costs need to be borne by the tenants if they are exercising their rights under this law.

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

#325

Post by GloriousKoji » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

core-questions wrote: post #295

modeless wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has said they are willing to license the Supercharger network. That said, superchargers are not immune to being broken either. I find that many if not most have at least one broken stall. I got free supercharging for ordering an early Model 3 and didn't expect to use it, but it has been a lifesaver during covid when I suddenly lost access to work charging.

As a petrolhead who has never even seen a Supercharger station: what exactly is broken? What is there to break? Physical damage to the cable / connector?

Many things can break: the internet connection, the internal computer, the main power wire to the car connector, something inside the connector, something with the charger circuity like a bad contactor.

Then there's the obvious stuff like physical damage from vandalization or someone driving into it.

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

#326

Post by resonantjacket5 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

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…

There is Nio where they swap the battery instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrgH07lwfVM

There are some large drawbacks with the large structure needed to swap the batteries though. Not sure if it'll be that successful in places where people mostly have single family homes.

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

#327

Post by twblalock » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

It's one thing to install a charger in a two-car garage. Installing charging capacity for 20, or 50, or 100 cars is something else. I'm not sure how most existing apartment buildings could handle all of their tenants charging their cars at night at the same time. I'm not even clear on how much strain that would put on the electrical grid.

How much more power would we need to produce to handle the demand if everyone had electric cars instead of gas cars? That power consumption would be added on top of all the power consumption we currently have.

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

#328

Post by bradlys » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #310

pacaro wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that this is obvious low hanging fruit, there are plenty of housing in areas with relatively sparse street lamps

Assuming you mean rural areas, they have their own parking.

Even where I live, the streets are full of cars but there are maybe 2-3 lamp posts on the street. You’d need lamp posts every 50 feet on both sides of the street. Which we definitely don’t have.

I live in the peninsula in the Bay Area in a rich neighborhood. If there is that many cars on the street here in a place with $2mil+ homes then there’s no way it’s gonna work in other areas as well.

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

#329

Post by twblalock » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

turtlebits wrote: post #178

Mass adoption won't happen until charging infrastructure improves dramatically. As a non-Tesla owner, I have had the worst experiences at fast charging stations - I'd say 70% of the time at Electrify America stations (they have the most fast charging coverage), I run into a charger that doesn't work and waste time moving my car and retrying another bay. (I've even experienced a station with 5 bays where none of them…

I remember in Thanksgiving 2019 that Tesla owners were sometimes waiting in line for hours at Supercharger stations in California -- and California has a lot of those! Even Tesla doesn't have it figured out during peak travel times.

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

#330

Post by dheera » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

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…

> A staggering amount of buildings are built to code

A staggering amount of buildings are also NOT built to code. My smoke detector failed and isn't getting replaced for a whole week. My heater makes scraping noises every time it starts and maintainence thinks it's normal. Smack in the middle of Silicon Valley.

But this is the best of what I could afford. It's decent. It's clean. Everything else I saw at my budget was worse. One apartment I saw was $2400 for a 1-bedroom and had the toilet paper holder was bolted to the wall right above a red hot heating element recessed in the wall with a grill. Needless to say I didn't rent there.

Want an apartment that is built to code? It'll cost you $3000 or more.