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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

#411

Post by fakedang »

dheera wrote: post #330
mywittyname wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

Why are people so numbskulled to downvote this - A guy sharing his firsthand experience? Let me guess, everyone on HN in SV lives in a fancy multistorey condo overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge? /s

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

#413

Post by cptskippy »

turtlebits wrote: post #274
cptskippy wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles. Most modern EVs can do 24-25 miles/hour on L2. How is that not meaningful? The average trip to the grocery store is 41 minutes [1] so that's 15 miles of charge which would negate most or all of the range lost traveling to the store. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.htm... Stop assuming that anyone plugging their EV into charge is on empt…

You are assuming EV charging is everywhere, but right now infrastructure is extremely limited. I have yet to see a grocery store with a charging station in Seattle (QFC/Safeway/Whole Foods), and the one I have seen (at a Safeway far north), there were are only 2 spots and power was shared across ports. The reality for me is that L2 charging is currently useless as the places I go do not provide chargers.

You're moving the goal post. No the infrastructure isn't in place everywhere and your experience is evidence of that. But it works in other places, my experience is evidence of that. Everyone isn't going to have an EV overnight and there's time to build out reliable infrastructure everywhere.

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

#414

Post by dzhiurgis »

Laarlf wrote: post #236
zaroth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really expensive electricity. Does anyone and everyone with the ability to finance solar panels just install them pronto, or do you not have net metering?

Putting electricity into the grid is almost useless in Germany because you don’t get much back. Solar panels and the legal stuff behind them is expensive and it will take many years to break even. Might be better with an electric car, but you charge your car at night usually. When there isn’t a lot of sun available.

Half of people live in flats - solar is mostly not possible (unless they have system like some countries where you buy a share of solar farm somewhere outside city (arguably much smarter than wrecking roofs with expensive labor)).

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

#415

Post by dzhiurgis »

k__ wrote: post #4

Good to hear. I'm not driving much myself lately, but I'm really excited about the health impact of removing combustion engines from our cities.

Noise too. Wish they taxed cars by decibels too. Charge motorcycles, heavy machinery and sports cars like 100k a year.

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

#416

Post by xedeon »

core-questions wrote: post #313
xedeon wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What most don't realize here is that they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station. Whereas most EV owners just plug in when they get home and wake up to a full charge.

> they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station More often than not, this is on the way home / on the way to work, no? I don't just start the car and drive it down to a station to get gas and then come home (barring strange circumstances).

That totals to how many minutes at a gas station a month? Charging at home is zero.

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

#417

Post by dzhiurgis »

Laarlf wrote: post #243
rconti wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go with "more comfortable" when you're talking about a car that can heat the cabin almost instantly, rather than waiting for the combustion engine to heat the coolant enough to trip the bi-metallic thermostat, thereby routing tepid coolant into the heater core in the cabin, and then blowing a fan over it. :)

Takes literally 3 minutes on my car at -10C. If you have issues with cold climates maybe buy a car built in and for cold climates. Like Swedish cars.

Varies on engine size. I used to drive 1.8L with broken thermostat. I had to drive for an hour until it started to get warm.

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

#418

Post by [deleted] »

fakedang wrote: post #411
dheera wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wa…

Why are people so numbskulled to downvote this - A guy sharing his firsthand experience? Let me guess, everyone on HN in SV lives in a fancy multistorey condo overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge? /s

[deleted]

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

#419

Post by modeless »

ryandrake wrote: post #386
worik wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You just plug in, no card. The car identifies itself. It needs an internet connection to report the usage so it can be charged to the correct account. Gas stations obviously need a network connection of some kind too for card swipes to work. Otherwise you'd have to fall back to cash or manually writing down card numbers (is that even allowed anymore?) Almost all Superchargers are unmanned so no cash.

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

#420

Post by 99_00 »

username90 wrote: post #387
99_00 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are cheaper and faster combustion sports cars.
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