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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

#431

Post by ascorbic »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #156
smileysteve wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC and San Francisco are about as strawman as it gets, because the cars AND trips per capita are some of the lowest in the U.S.

Because of the infrastructure surrounding it - e.g. fleets of cars taxis, public transit, etc. In other words, better options than having an owning an EV, which, if you pay attention, is what we're talking about here.

I don't think anyone is suggesting you buy an EV if you don't need a car at all. It's about replacing an ICE car. If you have one of those, you must be parking it somewhere already.

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

#432

Post by cbozeman »

brewdad wrote: post #336
safog wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no one has said this yet, but a lot of people charge their cars at work. I don't know if you're in the US but in my experience this seems like a east coast phenomenon. Lots of electric chargers in bay area, seattle and generally urban areas on the west coast.

"Lots" is still relative though. A large employer near me has something like 50 chargers available in their lot. Of course, on a normal workday, 8,000 cars are being parked there. If 4,000 of those employees start driving electrics, I'm not sure it would be possible to accommodate them.

Do you really need 4,000 chargers though? I don't think so.

Between charging at home and charging at work, it shouldn't be necessary to occupy the charger every single time you pull in. Maybe once or twice a week, depending on your commute. A long range Model 3 has as much range as your average gasoline vehicle... how often do most people fill that up?

Seems to me if 4000 employees go electric and you can slow charge anywhere from 5-30 miles' worth of power per hour at a worst case scenario and up to 44 at the best, then it stands to reason not everyone has to plug in every single day. In fact, I'd argue most folks would only need to charge up once a week, and for those with very short commutes, once every 2-3 weeks.

I think 250-500 chargers for 4000 vehicles would likely be sufficient to keep everyone charged up and moving around.

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

#433

Post by blt »

modeless wrote: post #419
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 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.

They could store the transactions in local memory until the connection is restored.

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

#434

Post by bartvk »

TheSmiddy wrote: post #289
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…

I'm in China where everybody rides ebikes and my building has a free for all parking space where 2/3rds of the parks have no chargers and the spots with charge ports all have qr codes you scan and pay with wechat to turn the port on. This is an easy problem to solve.

Just curious, what's the kWh price for this?

Here in The Netherlands, we get charged about 0.33 euro per kWh (= 0.40 US$), and that's for overnight charging of cars, where you typically draw no more than 11 kW.

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

#435

Post by ascorbic »

fortran77 wrote: post #158
lastofthemojito wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the ~20k used electric cars listed on cars.com, ~3k are $10k or less. Mostly Nissan Leafs and Chevy Sparks, so it depends on your definition of decent :).

A Nissan LEAF is essentially a golf cart, though.

I used to drive a Leaf and it was more enjoyable to drive than the Mercedes E Class that I drove when my Tesla was being repaired. EV torque is fun, and you miss it when you go back to an ICE.

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

#436

Post by georgeplusplus »

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…

Glad I stumbled upon your post. The problem is you have all the best ideas and there is only one of you in the world to go around. I will point people to your posts from now on when they have menial solutions to modern problems and hopefully they are self aware enough to get a swift jolt of what the best way to move forward in life looks like.

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

#437

Post by kortilla »

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?

What do you think happens when you swipe your card at a gas pump. That authorization is going out over the Internet or a phone line.

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

#438

Post by [deleted] »

whatever1 wrote: post #427

EVs currently have high enough utility in the wealthy suburbia where you own your garage and have the capability to charge overnight. If you are a euro-peasant living in a third floor apartment, street parking and commuting to work, then an EV has very little utility to offer. You cannot expect that people will go on a regular basis to charge stations and spend an hour to charge their car. You cannot also have a reas…

[deleted]

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

#439

Post by ascorbic »

mywittyname wrote: post #54
lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I'm really curious to see how the used electric car market shapes up. New cars (electric or not) are pretty expensive. The average price of a new car in the US just topped $40k, which is out of reach of many car buyers. The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are often older. Then at some point down the road, those cars end up in the hands of (on average) younger, less-wealthy folks. But younger fol…

I'm a MT diehard (owned 9 cars in my life, 9 of which were MTs), and I'm trying to think what my must have feature is for an EV. Probably some sort of aggressive or responsive driving mode. I mean, the reason I go with MTs is because I love how responsive it is. I still giggle when I'm driving around at 4000 RPMs and punch the throttle to get that instant thrust. Even with manual shifting modes on automatics, it's no…

I'm in the UK, so have only owned manual cars before I switched to EVs. I hate the lack of responsiveness on automatic transmission ICEs, but EVs are great, even cheaper ones. The power is instant. A Tesla has more torque than pretty much any ICE car.

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

#440

Post by bartvk »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #105
imglorp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the road for long trips, yes absolutely. But the EV usecase also includes low and medium speed charging at home overnight, and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison.

You're making many assumptions here. 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. > and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison. This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really?

You're also making assumptions, though.

Here in The Netherlands, most big cities really appreciate electric cars. Thus, in streets where the demand is big, they add additional charging stations.

It's not like charging needs a garage and access to power. Sometimes, the local government is competent enough. So it really depends.

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