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Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

theguardian.com

41–50 of 519 posts

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#41

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

I have lived in SoCal for 22 adult years. I’ve lost power maybe 3 times, and for at most 6 hours. A Tesla should have enough range for a few days commute w/out recharge. I don’t think power reliability should be a concern... except for when the big one strikes. But in that case all the freeway overpasses will collapse, so an ICE car won’t help you anyway.

Wait really? I live in NorCal, I lost power twice last week. That was unusual, but PG&E's safety outages are a fact of life of living in California.

That said I also remember a hurricane (Harvey?) which shut down refineries, making gasoline scarce. So it's pick your poison.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#42

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc.

Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a week or more.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'backyard' Solar panels won't recharge an EV

We have a solar array on the roof. It’s great. But the dc->ac converter needs the grid to be active to do its conversion, so when the power goes out no solar. (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) If you include a battery backup in your system, you can run without grid power. When I worked at a power monitoring start up we had a demo house that was charging an electric rav4, so it’s possible.

(I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...)

Yeah, that's the actual reason. I've seen someone use a small Honda generator to generate the frequency required to trick the solar generator into going... it's a weird setup because you basically tie in your generator using a breaker, so both generator and solar can be enabled at the same time.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#44
post #37

Can i get an electric car that I can go fill it's battery as fast as I can go fill my gasoline tank? That's when I'm getting one!

This is unnecessary though. You just plug your car in every night like a cell phone and you have full charge every day. Tesla's supercharger network is plenty fast for long trips and adds a nominal amount of extra time.

> This is unnecessary though.

This is presuming you can charge at home. Many of us cannot. Many of us cannot charge at work. Many of us have to rely on gas station like infrastructure for getting any kind of range. (2-3 minute pit-stops to get full range back)

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#45

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

Can't you just... drive to a charging station? I mean, it's not like the whole continent lost power for three days. Just go fill up and come back and park it at home.

Note that with a gas car, you can't fill it up at home ever, for any reason (unless you have a well and refinery I guess).

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#46

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

I have an EV. After I drive it home, I plug it in. Except when I'm lazy, it's basically never below a couple hundred miles of range remaining.

Rolling blackouts wouldn't really cause an issue, and when I've experienced blackouts, it's never been a problem. When the power is on, the car would charge back to the limit I set (I usually keep it at 80% charged to preserve the battery, which is still nearly 250 miles of range). When the power is out, it's anyway very rare that I drive hundreds of miles in a day and actually need to charge — and as other posters have mentioned, you could hit up a charging station that isn't in a blackout at that point.

When I owned a gas car, getting below 50%, or even below 25%, was completely normal. So I can see how if you're used to gas cars, it would seem worrying that there might be a blackout: how do you "refill" if you're low? But the truth of electric car ownership, at least in my experience, is you basically never go below 50% charge in daily use. So the idea that you'd likely get stuck at some point because the power went out just isn't really a concern.

IMO assuming you have home charging (either a garage in a house, or if your apartment building offers chargers) — which to be fair is a reasonably big if — electric is much, much more convenient than gas. You never have to stop at a gas station equivalent in your day-to-day life, since you just plug the car in when you get home, like you'd charge a phone overnight. You barely need to do any maintenance, because the moving parts are so simple. And electricity is much cheaper than gas.

For people without access to home charging, I think EVs are currently more annoying than gas cars. But not because of blackouts: it's just because charging to full is considerably slower than filling a tank of gas. If you're not able to have it charge at home while you're asleep, regularly hitting up charging stations and waiting is annoying.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#47

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

I'm more worried about range of EVs and charging stations being absolutely swamped in times of crisis. Gas stations lines were bad enough during hurricane evacuations, imagine roadside charging stations.

I think I will always hold onto a reliable ICE car for the rest of my days.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to set up back yard solar panels than a back yard fuel refinery.

'backyard' Solar panels won't recharge an EV

They can, actually. I'm not sure where you're getting your info from, but you can buy home solar panels from Tesla that can easily recharge an EV.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#49

Can i get an electric car that I can go fill it's battery as fast as I can go fill my gasoline tank? That's when I'm getting one!

Not at this time. Charging in 2-5 minutes for 300 miles of range is still 5-10 years away, and is likely to cause accelerated wear on the battery pack. Also charging locations will be more difficult as you now need to supply 1 megawatt per station rather than the 120-250kW you need now. The charging station will likely need to charge your car from a bigger battery at the station as power companies are not fans of people suddenly[0] connecting and disconnecting several 1MW loads.

Day to day charging of batteries is likely to remain around 6-8hrs just to reduce wear on the battery pack.

[0]: Sudden for most power companies is anything measured in minutes. Also, they will likely flat out prohibit you from turning on your load when the grid is near capacity, unless you want to pay ruinous rates, like $10+/kW/hr.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#50
post #37

Can i get an electric car that I can go fill it's battery as fast as I can go fill my gasoline tank? That's when I'm getting one!

This is unnecessary though. You just plug your car in every night like a cell phone and you have full charge every day. Tesla's supercharger network is plenty fast for long trips and adds a nominal amount of extra time.

Do you not travel and or enjoy road trips fairly frequently where you must re-fuel? I personally do(southern PA to central/Northern New York)!

Also, can I charge a Nissan Leaf and or Chevy Volt using all the Telsa charging stations? IF I can great if not still these cars aren't for me or people who enjoy frequent road trips. Especially those who expect the same UX as a gas car. In time sure, but not there yet!

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