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

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

#381

Post by qndreoi » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

athms wrote: post #261

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: most people charge at night. Sure, fast charging will add some day-time demand, but it's not much. Cheap night-time pricing keeps the charging demand off-peak. More even demand curves make generation more economical. It becomes trivial to upgrade distribution where needed.

>Simple: most people charge at night. Except the people that don't have a charging station in their garage or folks that have a power outage. Just this week, we had a heat wave (70-80F) and winds up to 90MPH across California that resulted in power outages throughout the state as well as several fires.

It seems that gas stations would not work during a power outage. Santa Ana winds cause lots of edge case problems.

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

#382

Post by Reason077 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #342

brewdad wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the efforts to reduce parking requirements succeed, you can be sure that more units will be built with no parking lots at all (Profit$). We are seeing this in Portland where 20 unit apartment buildings are getting built with zero parking (or maybe 10 spaces available for additional rent). The end result, for now at least, is 30-40 more cars parked in the surrounding streets.

I lived in London where new buildings are required to be zero parking - the thinking is that the roads are already congested enough and so anything that encourages bringing more cars in is bad for the city. It's a pretty good approach IMO, though I guess you need to combine it with something like Tokyo's rule that you can't buy a car unless you can show you have a parking space to register it to.

Right, and this is typically in the form of a planning condition where residents waive their right to cheap on-street parking (ie: no resident’s parking permits). Smaller Central London buildings typically wouldn’t provide off-street parking anyway, there just isn’t space!

Large, luxury developments often do still provide parking facilities, even in Central London. Transport for London sometimes makes attempts to get these reduced in size or eliminated, but hasn’t always succeeded.

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

#383

Post by PurpleFoxy » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #338

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…

How do people with gas cars handle living in apartments without gasoline lines? They go to a gas station. So the tipping point is when you can take a 300-mile range car and quick-charge it in 5 - 10 minutes. Or when it is profitable enough to have charging ports at destinations (parking garages in the cities, credit-card swipe charging outlets at the mall, chargers at the office, etc).

Quick charging is a just in case solution and probably shouldn’t be relied on. It’s more efficient and likely much easier on the battery to slow charge it overnight.

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

#384

Post by joejerryronnie » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

At what point are battery swaps going to become more feasible than charging a battery (or at least an additional option). I’d much rather role into a gas/battery station and have my depleted battery swapped out with a fully charged one in 2 minutes and be on my way than sit at a Tesla supercharger for an hour.

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

#385

Post by whatever1 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

jeromegv wrote: post #278

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we break off the assumption of what most consumers want, sure. But then what would be the point?

Over 80-90% of trips are very short in distance. Long distance trips are more of an anomaly for huge majority of people.

Over 99% of the time I have 2 people in my car. Yet, I got a car with 4 seats.

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

#386

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

worik wrote: post #353

GloriousKoji wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

WHat a story for the twenty-first century! It is energy transfer: "Many things can break: the internet connection..." what does the Internet connevction have to do with it? (To be clear, that is a rhetorical question. I know why and how those systems are fundamentally broken - almost by design!)

Having never used or even seen a super charger, I have no idea why one would need a friggen internet connection. Don’t you just plug them in and swipe your card like a gas station?

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

#387

Post by username90 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:17 AM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #380

rasz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you driven a Tesla or another fast electric car? They are the new digital cameras.

How? What do they do that cheaper combustion cars don't?

Accelerate faster than a combustion sports car, no expensive engine maintenance etc. And since the only major cost of electric cars is the battery they will go down in price as we get better batteries and very likely get cheaper than combustion cars pretty soon. Electric engines are super simple, only reason combustion cars are even competitive today is that we have invested so much research into building combustion engines.

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

#388

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:18 AM UTC

athms wrote: post #212

BurningFrog wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, every parking spot could be a simple charging station. All you need is a power cable. Reusing the land of all gas stations for other things will be a good benefit of all this. Except for San Francisco, where they all will be preserved as historical landmarks.

There will be gas stations for generations to come. If California can meet its sales ban for new ICE cars in 2035, which is a tall order, ICE cars will still be on the road. Contributing to this trend will be people keeping their cars for years; used cars which represent two thirds of car sales; and cars driven into California from other states. As an example, I have a 2007 Honda and it will be on the road until it f…

California successfully forced me to sell my 80’s sports car out of state by constantly tightening smog requirements to the point where they were far above what the car ever had to meet and banning non-CARB stamped aftermarket parts. I have no doubt that they would be able to squeeze perfectly working ICE cars out of the state with draconian rules.

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

#389

Post by username90 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #298

> The tipping point has already been passed in Norway, where tax breaks mean electric cars are cheaper. It's like Norway is actively trying to devalue its copious natural resources.

Electricity is one of Norway's copious natural resources, all of their grid runs on hydro power.

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

#390

Post by olivermarks » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #382

lmm wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in London where new buildings are required to be zero parking - the thinking is that the roads are already congested enough and so anything that encourages bringing more cars in is bad for the city. It's a pretty good approach IMO, though I guess you need to combine it with something like Tokyo's rule that you can't buy a car unless you can show you have a parking space to register it to.

Right, and this is typically in the form of a planning condition where residents waive their right to cheap on-street parking (ie: no resident’s parking permits). Smaller Central London buildings typically wouldn’t provide off-street parking anyway, there just isn’t space! Large, luxury developments often do still provide parking facilities, even in Central London. Transport for London sometimes makes attempts to get…

The planning goal seems to be focused on a future where remote vehicles are summoned to convey the inhabitant 'on demand' from what I've heard. Permissions based travel with costs associated for emissions etc...