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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

#481

Post by lostlogin »

cbozeman wrote: post #432
brewdad wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I could imagine an opportunity here too. Some places have a bulk buy or business rate for electricity that is cheaper. If a car park has 8k spaces and a meaningful number were electric, it may even justify battery storage to get off peak rates (this may be a stretch), with the employer splitting the saving with staff or pocketing the lot.

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

#482

Post by theshrike79 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #110
maxerickson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applebee's can add charge points without any increase in real estate (as an example). The ongoing logistics of having chargers in the parking lot is pretty different than running a gas station. Which is to say, quickly fueling up at a convenience store probably won't be the only way people charge their vehicles going forward.

Exactly. I wasn't saying that charging was impossible, rather that drop-in replacements for gas stations are impracticable and certainly would not be "cheap". The widespread use of EVs will require a very different physical infrastructure.

No-one will ever be doing "drop-in" EV replacements for gas stations, why would they?

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

#483

Post by lostlogin »

xbmcuser wrote: post #479
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…

I disagree charging points should be introduced at work place parking rather than home. In the day time we have a lot of excess electricity available from solar where as at night gas and coal plants are used. If everyone starts charging at home more coal and gas plants will be needed to be built which will result in higher electricity prices for everyone as capacity payment parts of the electricity bills increase. Ma…

> In the day time we have a lot of excess electricity available from solar where as at night gas and coal plants are used

This doesn’t seem right - why is power usage on my bill cheaper at night and usually marked as ‘off peak’ usage or similar?

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

#484

Post by theshrike79 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #136
bogdanu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really? In Europe some retailers have this, sure, for 2 or 3 parking spots. If the demand is there, I'm pretty sure they'll expand it, even as a paid/loyality bonus. I don't expect them to offer superchaging but 50-60 km/h charge would be more than enough.

2 or 3 parking spots. It's a token gesture, not meaningful infrastructure. Electrifying an entire parking lot is a lot more expensive than 2 or 3 spots.

You don't need to electrify the entire parking lot.

Even if you do, not every parking spot needs to have a 350kW HPC charger. 11-22kW is more than enough. Add load balancing and maybe a battery in the future and you're good.

The handful of spots is part greenwashing part gauging the demand. They do track the usage of those spots and increase the amount if they see that they're in use and driving business.

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

#485

Post by theshrike79 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #401
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Su…

The laundromat analogy is pretty good. Basically you'd plug in your car to a charger, go do your weekly groceries and go grab your car.

Two weeks of charge right there. You might not need to charge during next week's grocery run if you don't want to.

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

#486

Post by theshrike79 »

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).

It's a good 15 minutes from my house to the nearest gas station. 30+ minutes of time wasted just to fill up the tank.

Compare that to the 60 seconds I use to plug in my car when I park it at home, I start every day with a charged car.

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

#487

Post by siscia »

lostlogin wrote: post #483
xbmcuser wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree charging points should be introduced at work place parking rather than home. In the day time we have a lot of excess electricity available from solar where as at night gas and coal plants are used. If everyone starts charging at home more coal and gas plants will be needed to be built which will result in higher electricity prices for everyone as capacity payment parts of the electricity bills increase. Ma…

> In the day time we have a lot of excess electricity available from solar where as at night gas and coal plants are used This doesn’t seem right - why is power usage on my bill cheaper at night and usually marked as ‘off peak’ usage or similar?

Both can be true.

We don't have anywhere enough solar capacity for this. And at night it is still off peak for the consumption.

Parent is making a projection in the future, when solar will be plenty available during the day.

Today it is not the case yet.

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

#488

Post by dm319 »

duxup wrote: post #25
knoebber wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is banning sales of new internal combustion engines in 2035 as well. That should help incentivize the tech/infrastructure a bit.

I wonder what the yin and yang / success rate of such mandates are / how the response really goes. I remember the light bulb rules at a national level had to be rolled back when there just wasn't enough capacity to replace them all with non incandescent options.

The light bulb rules in the UK were frequently snorted at, but everyone has moved over now, and whether it is associated with it or not, we're using less electricity these days too.

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

#489

Post by theshrike79 »

argiopetech wrote: post #83
mikestew wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The computer on an EV will tell me the state of the battery. You can ship an ICE over to the best mechanic in the world, and that mechanic won't be able to reliably tell you state of, for example, the bottom end bearings. Not without cracking the engine open, anyway. A compression test will reveal a lot, but it could still break a piston ring tomorrow. That said, I'd not hesitate to buy a Honda with over 100K miles o…

Leak down test, oil pressure, opening the filler cap for blow by, sound... Plenty of accessible options there that will diagnose a bad bottom-end or piston rings. Further, your average Joe can replace crank bearings in an afternoon and many could re-ring an engine with some help from youtube. Your average Honda will need this once every 200-400k miles (14-25 average 14k driving years) with proper oil changes. There a…

Having an expert analyse your car by sight and sound is decidedly different than you popping open the OBD2 port in an EV, opening an app on your phone and checking directly what condition the battery is in.

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

#490

Post by theshrike79 »

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.

If your standard for a normal-sized vehicle is a Ford F150, then yes.
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