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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

#401

Post by Gibbon1 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #138
Gibbon1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true for a huge portion of the population. So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. Also Covid has shown us how much disruption we can actually tolerate, hint: a lot more than the powers that be want you to…

This is a textbook strawman. > So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. No it isn't. NYC has limited space. There simply isn't enough room for a charger for every car. That is a nontrivial problem with extreme cost. You can't just handwave it away.

I spent 25 years living in San Francisco. What I know is I put about 6000 miles a year on my car. Of which about 4000 was around the city. Assuming a city dweller with a car charged it every 200 miles, that's be once every two and half weeks.

That doesn't seem impossible, just merely inconvenient. On the same level of having to wash your clothes at a laundromat. It's thing, if you live in a real city, it's not the Suburbs.

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

#402

Post by bagacrap »

ddulaney wrote: post #213
cabaalis wrote: post #203

Can someone who knows more about the subject that I do comment on the statement "electric powered vehicles are coal powered vehicles?" I'm seeing that in conservative circles.

At least in the US, that statement was much more true 20 years ago than it is today [0]. Today, swapping “natural gas” out for coal is more accurate. There are three big points to consider: - Overall, the (US) electricity mix is lower-emitting than gasoline. - The US electricity mix is trending greener. (Gasoline cars are also getting more efficient, but many of those changes also apply to electric cars) - The electr…

4. whatever particulate matter is produced is emitted much farther from my lungs

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

#403

Post by ryandrake »

fastball wrote: post #397
ryandrake wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You don't think gas stations have an internet connection?

I don’t think they require one to function. Gas stations, including ones where you pay at the pump, functioned fine without Internet before the Internet.

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

#404

Post by newyankee »

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…

There is significant potential for installing solar on rooftops and small storage to reduce grid loads for EV charging

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

#405

Post by m463 »

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 are many companies in that space:

chargepoint, blink, evgo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_network

My (US-based) experience:

- chargepoint is a good service - people own the chargers, but they can be public or private.

- blink is a terrible service - people own the chargers but in my experience the fast public ones are always broken.

- evgo is a good service - they own the chargers but will install high-kw fast chargers and slow chargers at every location.

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

#406

Post by myself248 »

turtlebits wrote: post #163
fiftyfifty wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy, we have to get away from thinking of charging stations like gas pumps. Charging stations can be everywhere: grocery stores, retail stores, office buildings, malls, just about any parking lot or parking garage, hotels, airport parking and on and on. Gas pumps have to have huge underground tanks, and they have to be regularly refilled by large tanker trucks, by their very nature they will be…

Yes, they are several orders of magnitude worse than gas stations. For an 110V AC outlet to fully charge any vehicle will take days. Anything less than a fast charging station will not meaningfully charge a vehicle when you are outside. A L2 charger will not even make a dent in your range when you are out running errands (20-25 miles of range per hour of charging). They are generally only useful when they are at your…

Typical L1 charging adds 3 or 4 miles of range per hour on-plug. So if you're plugged in for 12 hours overnight, that's 40-ish miles, which is more than most people drive in a day. Or 8 hours at work, you get 30-ish miles, still significant.

If the parking lot at work has solar-shaded carparks that feed the chargers, the building might not even need a service upgrade. I don't know why this isn't more common.

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

#407

Post by m463 »

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).

That seems a little gas-centric.

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. Workplaces (if they come back) will get charging first. More chargers will be added to apartments, fast charging will improve.

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

#408

Post by riffraff »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #383
derekp7 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with that is that in many places (i.e. most European cities) you don't have a dedicated parking spot, so to park overnight you would need to put charging spots on every street every five meters.

The task is possible, but gargantuan.

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

#409

Post by adrianN »

brewdad wrote: post #332
resonantjacket5 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic, but your example of parking spots probably isn't the best. There's been some calls to lower the kinda ludicrous parking requirements mandated by local authorities

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.

In Tokyo you need to have proof that you have a private parking space before you can register a car.

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

#410

Post by djrogers »

Loughla wrote: post #28
djrogers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are often older. One might think this to be the case, but the breakdown of new car buyers shows about the same % of buyers make 100k (roughly 1/3rd in each cohort, but varies based on vehicle type). Sadly, many of those buyers will take out out a 72-84mo loan that they probably can't afford in order to pay for that new car.

We priced out pickup trucks recently for shits and giggles (because we live in rural america and really have a decently often use for one). They're so expensive. And the dealer pushes the 84+ month loan to bring the payment down. Like, I get that it's a $450/month payment, and that's supposed to sound reasonable (it isn't reasonable, at 3/4 the cost of our mortgage). But it's for 8 years! There's no way this truck is…

> There's no way this truck is going to last that long.

I agree with everything you said up til this point. Unless you crash into a brick wall, a modern pickup will last at least 20 years. Look on Craigslist or FB marketplace for 2005ish F-250s - they’re still fetching 5 figures...

Heck, I won’t even look at a truck less than 8 years old until my next stock option boat comes in...

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