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

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

#371

Post by [deleted] »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #277
cgb223 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is simple. Make electricity cheaper when it's more available, and people will use it. You don't need any complex "AI" like people in this thread are saying, you just use natural market forces and the problem fixes itself. Too much energy being used at night - price increases. It's not complicated, and it's what we're doing already. People don't need a Stanford study to convince them to get their energy…

Texas electricity prices are capped at $9/kWh but are often reported in the wholesale $/MWh

[deleted]

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

#372

Post by SeanLuke »

meatmanek wrote: post #250
tacostakohashi wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about an industry that has failed to standardize on a single, interchangeable charging plug here. What do you think the chances of a single, interchangeable battery for such a "battery station" to remove, recharge, replace are? Or are you proposing such stations for each individual manufacturer, model, model year, etc?

The industry _has_ standardized, except for one hold-out (Tesla): https://youtu.be/sZOuz_laH9I?t=990 > CCS is the established industry standard DC fast-charging connector, and every automaker selling cars for the US market is already using it, or, in the case of Nissan, has pledged to use it going forward. Except, oh right, except for... them [Tesla]. The charger situation is quite analogous to Lightning vs. USB-C fo…

There is an important point to make here though. I love me some Technology Connections, and am hardly a Tesla fan (in fact just bought a non-Tesla EV). But Tesla's connectors are unquestionably superior to the hideousness that is CCS. Tesla settled early on an elegant connector, and true to form, the rest of the auto industry settled on garbage, literally tacking DC pins onto the outside of a J-1772, much like the monstrosity that is the USB Micro B SS plug design.

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

#373

Post by chipsa »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #316
chipsa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim it's 10% total loss, not 30%. And yes, it's got a cost, but depending on how things shake out, it might not be much more if any. Cables are the best way to move charge, assuming you don't have to worry about the cables. But once you factor in damage from vandalism or theft or just accidents, how hefty the cables actually are, etc, compared to having the cable buried nice and safe. As for the difference in…

I'll believe 10% when I see it. you can definitely get that in a lab, but once you bury it under asphalt, and the driver parks 6 inches off center, does the efficiency still hold up? also, most cars are largely metal. how much energy do you lose from inducing current through the rest of the car?

This includes have almost 10 inches between the plates, so including the asphalt. And probably will just not charge is you're really off center. Yes cars are mostly metal, but there's ways to focus the magnetic field so it doesn't go too far laterally.

https://witricity.com/newsroom/blogs/what-is-efficiency-how-...

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

#374

Post by theluketaylor »

_8j50 wrote: post #370
vinnymac wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The newer charging stations are so quick at a rest stop, that I don't even notice them anymore. Once it's down to 10 minutes, it won't even be a discussion topic imo.

I would say 5min. 10min is nothing on a road trip but a lot when you are running late for something. People who make less money tend to care more about this.

fast charging isn't need for day-to-day life. The vast majority of cars spend most of their time stationary and slow AC chargers are going to just become more and more common at all parking spots. Never having to stop during normal driving for gas since you start every day with a full 'tank' is a complete game changer.

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

#375

Post by bonzini »

vel0city wrote: post #369
bonzini wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I wonder if those are good places for humans to live in, at all.

There's only a narrow band of land then where we would be able to live without expending large amounts of energy to stay warm or cool. Colder places use just as much if not more energy in wintertime. They just don't often use it as kWh from their electricity provider so they don't normally compare it this way. Instead of electricity they burn natural gas or propane or fuel oil or even wood pellets to heat their homes…

My gas usage is 1400 m3/year, corresponding to roughly 15 MWh/year. A condensing boiler would lower it to at most 10 MWh, even less for a heat pump. Add in the electricity, and that would still be roughly 1 MWh/month or a third of what the user above mentions.

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

#376

Post by _8j50 »

theluketaylor wrote: post #374
_8j50 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say 5min. 10min is nothing on a road trip but a lot when you are running late for something. People who make less money tend to care more about this.

fast charging isn't need for day-to-day life. The vast majority of cars spend most of their time stationary and slow AC chargers are going to just become more and more common at all parking spots. Never having to stop during normal driving for gas since you start every day with a full 'tank' is a complete game changer.

It needs to be like 99% of parking lots. It's ok until it isn't. I have had ro refuel my car during a commute many times and barely made it, if electric cars keep contributing to my tardiness I will blame them instead of my lack of adequate planning, even if it worked fine for a whole year before that. It took one experience of being stranded because of bad battery life estimate to get me to dislike them with passion.

What I have learned from thid thread is people who advocate for electric cars are disconnected from the realities of most people. I think it is not possible to change enough people's minds about this, for reducing the impact of climate change, perhaps focusing on cruise ships and electric planes is better while promoting hybrid cars. Full electric cannot happen in the next 20 years at least if I had to guess.

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

#377

Post by theluketaylor »

_8j50 wrote: post #376
theluketaylor wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fast charging isn't need for day-to-day life. The vast majority of cars spend most of their time stationary and slow AC chargers are going to just become more and more common at all parking spots. Never having to stop during normal driving for gas since you start every day with a full 'tank' is a complete game changer.

It needs to be like 99% of parking lots. It's ok until it isn't. I have had ro refuel my car during a commute many times and barely made it, if electric cars keep contributing to my tardiness I will blame them instead of my lack of adequate planning, even if it worked fine for a whole year before that. It took one experience of being stranded because of bad battery life estimate to get me to dislike them with passion…

Hardly 99%. With a 260 mile-range car I only need to plug in about once a week. People who drive more obviously need to plug in more often, but it's a pretty rare person who would absolutely need to charge every single day. EVs are not for every single use case yet (like long distance towing) and that's okay. They will handle more use cases with each passing year. We certainly don't have nearly enough slow charging points yet, but it doesn't need to be anywhere near 100% coverage before many people who don't have dedicated parking can use an EV with minimal to no disruption.

Battery swapping isn't more efficient or cheaper. You still have to build out massive charging infrastructure all over the place to charge all the swapped batteries, plus you need staff, locations, and equipment to do the swapping, and storage space for the batteries while they wait to be placed back in a car. Plus every manufacturer has to use the exact same battery physical and electrical specs, eliminating all possible innovation in packaging. No one is saying it isn't possible, it just doesn't actually make sense at scale.

I recognize having a private driveway and garage is a luxury, which is why I'm highly supportive of laws requiring multi-unit dwellings to add charging and offering tax breaks for both landlords and tenants to get them installed. Also highly in favour of tax breaks for employers to offer charging in their lots. I also think municipalities should be upgrading the existing streetlight wiring to offer charging alongside street parking.

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

#378

Post by parker_mountain »

tsimionescu wrote: post #356
parker_mountain wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting data about peak hour usage is much harder That is the entire point of this exercise. My point is that OP fails to address that with data (as do you).

Do you have some data? Or some reason to believe that iPhones are a much larger part of peak hour consumption than they are of overall electricity consumption? Based on the data we do have, there doesn't seem to be any reason to care about iPhone charging - so, if you don't come up with some data or rationale for why we should, then I still feel it's justified to say that this change has little chance of helping the…

> Do you have some data?

You are the one making claims with poor data and assumptions, not me.

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

#379

Post by vel0city »

bonzini wrote: post #375
vel0city wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only a narrow band of land then where we would be able to live without expending large amounts of energy to stay warm or cool. Colder places use just as much if not more energy in wintertime. They just don't often use it as kWh from their electricity provider so they don't normally compare it this way. Instead of electricity they burn natural gas or propane or fuel oil or even wood pellets to heat their homes…

My gas usage is 1400 m3/year, corresponding to roughly 15 MWh/year. A condensing boiler would lower it to at most 10 MWh, even less for a heat pump. Add in the electricity, and that would still be roughly 1 MWh/month or a third of what the user above mentions.

It's rather hard to compare unless we know the spaces involved. My energy usage was significantly less when I was on the ground floor of a large apartment complex, using maybe 500kWh/mo at the highest. But I had less than half the space I do now, no private yard, no private garage. I couldn't install amateur radio antennas however I wish. I couldn't make changes to the unit however I wish. My family has grown and I now work from home significantly more than before.

I don't need to use as much energy as I do, I could go back to living in a much smaller space and not have all the private spaces and rights I have now. But I'd rather not raise a family in Sure, we could get everyone to use <500kWh/mo, even if we don't have to ask everyone to move to the narrow space that's close to room temperature year round. But that would mean massive changes in a lot of lifestyles, limiting a lot of people to far less space and property rights than they've been used to.

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

#380

Post by pas »

Scoundreller wrote: post #252
pas wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they can afford not to care. this doesn't mean it's not a good solution. it's no surprise the general population in one of the richest regions on Earth doesn't immediately change their consumption habits when a small fraction of their monthly bill gets variable

It’s not a good solution when you spend a ton of money to force people to pay the averaged out market prices per time segment and they still don’t care. It’s like making me spend $$$ to measure and charge me for how much co2 I exhale. It’s technically correct: that co2 does contribute to global warming. But it’s going to cost more to meter it than I could possibly save in conservation through this newfound incentive.

it depends on the capacity premium

for example bandwidth used to be 95th percentile priced, but Netflix quickly run into problems because its peers did not want to upgrade linecards, switches, etc. (and as some of those peers were also in the media disturbution business they explicitly wanted to keep those ports maxed out)

the point is that if the network provides a close to constant capacity, then of course it makes no sense to try to price on that.

but with more and more variable supply it seems prudent to prepare the demand side too.

in Norway currently electricity prices fluctuate like crazy, and the supplier sends an email each day about the prices for the next day (though I'm not sure how guaranteed those are, of course the current price is also online)

and it varies regionally too

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