Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by sli » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

slovette wrote: post #331

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…

I disagree with this. Retro installs maybe, yes. But new construction, which I consult heavily on, most of the developers I work with are motivated to install them. They’re revenue sources and attract the kind of tenants they want occupying their new building. The answer to retro installs (which is always about money anyway) is to not force the hand of property owners, but make the install cost a no brainer with tax…

My city is building tons of new apartments clearly meant for commuters to the nearby big cities and exactly zero of them have EV chargers despite being the most expensive apartments in town. I'm not holding my breath that new construction will do this all that soon, either.

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

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Post by marvin » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:18 AM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #210

marvin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem is peak power. The naïve approach is to try to pull 500kW from the grid during the 20 minutes that you have five cars charging, then zero once they leave. This will at best be very expensive, but most likely impossible as the local grid won't support it. So a battery buffer needs to be built into the charging station in order to operate them cheaply, with a smoother load profile that the power com…

That will be less of a problem than you think. Power demand is already inconsistent throughout the day. Depending on the time of year it will peak around noon or in the evening but overnight the demand is low. When people start charging overnight at home the overnight loads will increase. This will intern allow power companies to increase capacity.

I’m pretty confident that this will work itself out, but you see the problem very clearly in Norway already. Non-Tesla charging stations are much more expensive per kWh due to this, reducing the cost-of-ownership advantage of EVs vs. fossil cars. It doesn’t put the cost in no-go territory, but it’s enough that users feel cheated and complain.

So if the established manufacturers or third-party charging providers want to be competitive, they will eventually have to think about this.

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

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Post by marvin » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:23 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #285

marvin wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning is incorrect. Unlike fossil refuelling, the vast majority of EV charging happens at home. This charging does not load public charging stations at all. Unless your needs are esoteric, you might only charge at a public charging station one out of twenty times. Of course some homes don't have private charging easily available, but that's a different argument.

Not what i was talking about. I was speaking about replacing gas stations with charging stations, how the problem is not going to be solved by swapping one for another. I made no mention of other non-station charging options.

Well, my point was that public charging demand per EV will be much lower than fuelling demand per fossil car, which obviously affects the number of minutes per week each vehicle has to spend at the gas station/recharging station, and hence the feasibility of gas station owners to install charging infrastructure.

I’m sure there will be exceptions, e.g. in sparsely populated areas. And I don’t think market forces will make drop-in replacement the primary solution, but it will probably be part of the solution.

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

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Post by kjjw » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:27 AM UTC

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.

I only quick charge my car. And have no problems. What does it matter if battery longevity is slightly affected?

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

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Post by i_am_proteus » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

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.

An electrobike is a substantially lower electrical load than an electrocar. Many existing residential buildings can't handle adding a EV charging spot per unit (probably needs a 100A breaker each).

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

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Post by iso1631 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:37 AM UTC

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…

> This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries

In the UK planning guidelines say that charging stations have to be provided, have done for a while

110. Within this context, applications for development should: ... (e) be designed to enable charging of plug-in and other ultra-low emission vehicles in safe, accessible and convenient locations.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framewo...

Locally planning permissions in my area (I'm a local councillor and have to view them all) for new houses have come with power for some years

The larger problem we'll see as we move away from petrol based cars is people in old terraces that park on narrow streets. The options are

1) Remove parking space to put in chargers 2) Remove footpath to put in chargers (won't pass muster in my council area at the moment, fortunatly) 3) Not do anything until after new petrol cars are banned and hope that something magically comes along

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

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Post by jgalt212 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #389

jgalt212 wrote: post #298

> The tipping point has already been passed in Norway, where tax breaks mean electric cars are cheaper. It's like Norway is actively trying to devalue its copious natural resources.

Electricity is one of Norway's copious natural resources, all of their grid runs on hydro power.

Norway is one of the world's most prosperous countries, and oil and gas production account for 20 percent of its economy. Other important sectors include hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals. State revenues from petroleum are deposited in the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.

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

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Post by manwithaplan » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #470

kylecordes wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great mystery of electric vehicle charging: why is it so hard for anyone but Tesla to keep most of the chargers working most of the time?

Multiple vendors in one system. You've got the provider for the actual charger (a handful of different providers), which needs to negotiate with the car via CCS. This can fail in umpteen different ways, as car manufacturers differ on how they implement CCS (Dunno how, but it happens). Then you've got the software in the charging point, which needs to be customised for the brand you're selling under (another moving pa…

> For 22kW "slow" chargers this is a bit simpler as the actual charger is a lot less complex, it doesn't need to negotiate, it just needs to switch one relay.

To be more explicit, the actual AC "slow" charger is built into the car, so it's guaranteed to work (and indeed, it just needs to signal a contactor to close the circuit).

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

#539

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:45 AM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #535

TheSmiddy wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An electrobike is a substantially lower electrical load than an electrocar. Many existing residential buildings can't handle adding a EV charging spot per unit (probably needs a 100A breaker each).

A Tesla gets about 3 miles from 1kWh. Average car in the UK does 140 miles a week, or 50kWh, or about 1kW of constant draw for 8 hours a night, or 4 amps. That's not an excessive amount compared with peak morning usage when everyones showers and dishwashers are starting.

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

#540

Post by blablabla123 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:46 AM UTC

jlos wrote: post #287

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…

>> Do people... not plan ahead? Construction companies (on average) don't look further than the point of sale. It doesn't matter if a poorly chosen element of design in an apartment building will potentially affect thousands of people over the course of decades, the incentive/risk structure just doesn't exist to make forward thinking decisions. Its basically got to be in the building code or (almost) no one will do i…

I can relate to that kind of frustration but at the end of the day nobody plans ahead further. For various reasons, to be fair not even EV consumers and producers look much further speaking of ecological risks from the supply chain. It's a gamble anyway, hoping that EVs will not only look great on the surface. But that depends also on scientific progress, production and engineering capabilities.

On the other hand if EVs gets serious mass adoption outside of Scandinavia, I bet upgradeability of building infrastructure will become a topic and companies will make money by selling some sort of upgrade solution for properties.