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

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

#541

Post by oblio » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

ferongr wrote: post #527

username90 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically in such neighborhoods in Europe the grocery store is no further than 4 blocks away, so you just walk and don't use a car. It works since the store doesn't have parking minimums either so don't take a lot of space, even if it is a fairly large one.

Carrying 35kg of groceries sucks. Especially when it rains. Personally, I drive 2km to a larger store with underground parking instead of visiting the store two blocks away.

That's a very narrow minded approach :-)

People don't carry around 35kg of groceries each time they go to the local supermarket. They buy a tiny bit of what they need each day, walking back from home/school, since it takes so little time and often it's on the way, anyway.

Carrying 2-5-6-7-8-10kg is quite easy.

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

#542

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

manwithaplan wrote: post #538

theshrike79 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yea, as far as the battery is concerned, there is no "AC" charging. It's always DC.

The current is either provided by the built-in charger (AC-DC) or a HVDC charging point.

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

#543

Post by indeedmug » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #457

One side of this that doesn't seem to get looked at much is how many ICE cars are on the roads that could be converted. Doing conversions at high volume would be very labor intensive, but it would give dealerships and mechanics something to do, and it would generate less waste than replacing whole cars. Right now it's kind of on the edge of being practical, mostly because of the batteries. They're expensive and bulky…

Even the cost of conversion kits goes down, you are ignoring the most expensive part and that's labor. You can't install these things easily. You have to take the engine out with all is associated parts and then put all the EV parts with all the wiring associated. Someone had to do this. If you want conversations for everyone and I doubt that it's going to be either cheap or scalable.

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

#544

Post by zizee » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #380

rasz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you driven a Tesla or another fast electric car? They are the new digital cameras.

How? What do they do that cheaper combustion cars don't?

Cheaper fuel. Refill at home. Cleaner air. Cheaper to maintain (no oil changes, air filters, sparkplugs, less wear on breakpads). Quieter.

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

#545

Post by mjul » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:00 PM 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…

I think the market has already solved this with companies like E-on and the like solving all the complexity for both public and private charging stations. Perhaps there is still an open market opportunity for this in your local market for entrepreneurs to fill.

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

#546

Post by buran77 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #448

buran77 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just confirms what I said above, if you drive them all electric it's great, they're an EV with a small battery. But if you can't and just charge occasionally the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are nowhere close to the official numbers, as evidenced by the studies I linked above. I see this struck a nerve with some people but the reality is that those are only best case and the people who meet them are the lo…

>>This just confirms what I said above Well that was the point ;-) >>And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home. Well, that bit I don't really believe. I'd love to see some data about it. If you're buying a plug in hybrid and don't have the plug-in part.....then what are you even doing. Like I said I understand that in UK the tax structure is beneficial regardless of…

> Well, that bit I don't really believe. I'd love to see some data about it

As you said in a comment below:

> According to Volvo's own data 60% of PHEV buyers never plug them in

You confirm what I said in my unpopular comment above, on paper PHEVs reduce emissions by a lot but in reality, as a fleet, the numbers are far worse than suggested. Many are company cars because the company wanted the tax cuts and subsidies, others just test the waters with this electric stuff. They don't go full BEV because they can't reliably charge. The UK is a great place to have an EV, with the most people living in (semi)detached houses in Europe [0] and cheap electricity. Most of the rest of Europe doesn't do so well at either point.

I can't show you data but I personally know it from a very reliable source who has access to this kind of (unpublished) data from one large German manufacturer. While their EV owners charge every day, less than 1 in 6 of the drivers who ever plug in their PHEV (~40-50Km of range in ideal conditions) do so at least once every 2 days, and only about 25% of Km are driven in EV mode. This average is pulled up by those very few who charge regularly (every 1-2 days). Some more kilometers are "electrified", EM gives a boost from standstill or under hard acceleration. And a huge percentage of PHEVs were never connected to a charger. Real life fuel consumption of the fleet is 4 times higher than the official numbers.

> I drive a Volvo XC60 T8 and that's completely not what my stats are. My long term average over a year is 3L/100km.

Yes but you have to admit that you're close to the ideal case, you charge every night and drive almost exclusively electric, and you still get 50% higher consumption that the official numbers. Doesn't this tell you anything about the reality of the whole fleet, and not just your particular situation? All numbers I find online for real life fuel consumption for an XC60 T8 points to an average of over 7l/100Km. For every PHEV that's almost always charged, there are a few PHEVs that are almost never charged. This doesn't lead to great overall fuel numbers. Perhaps better than pure-ICE but certainly nowhere close to the official numbers. If I had your car after 2 days of driving I'd run out of juice, have nowhere to charge conveniently, and just fill the tank.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

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

#547

Post by bluGill » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #382

lmm wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in London where new buildings are required to be zero parking - the thinking is that the roads are already congested enough and so anything that encourages bringing more cars in is bad for the city. It's a pretty good approach IMO, though I guess you need to combine it with something like Tokyo's rule that you can't buy a car unless you can show you have a parking space to register it to.

Right, and this is typically in the form of a planning condition where residents waive their right to cheap on-street parking (ie: no resident’s parking permits). Smaller Central London buildings typically wouldn’t provide off-street parking anyway, there just isn’t space! Large, luxury developments often do still provide parking facilities, even in Central London. Transport for London sometimes makes attempts to get…

London transition should focus on running a good, reliable system at low cost. London isn't the worst in the world, but they seem to be trying to be the most expensive.

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

#548

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

athms wrote: post #524

theshrike79 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone already has a Tesla with a 100kW battery, I don't think the extra $3k for a solar panel will break the bank =)

I rent an apartment, where would you like me to put the solar panel?

Do you have a 100kW Tesla?

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

#549

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:29 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #519

theshrike79 wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't build for peak traffic, not in software nor in hardware.

Gas stations seem to be able to handle it. Why can't we expect the same for charging stations? Build for peak capacity. The chargers don't draw much when they aren't plugged in to cars. If we expect to succeed with charging infrastructure we need to make it convenient, even during holidays.

Building a gas station for peak capacity would mean building so many pumps that you never have to queue. Even when people leave their car by the pump while going to the bathroom or grab a slushie and some snacks.

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

#550

Post by todd8 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:30 PM 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…

I had to pay a large (too large) an amount to purchase an extra parking space when I bought my condo. I personally didn't need the space all the time, but guests to the condo didn't have to hunt for parking on the street in an area with busy nightlife. I figured that when I sold the condo the parking space would raise the value of the condo, maybe not enough to make up for the cost but enough to be worth having the parking spot and it's convenience.

It turned out that in the building there were owners of units with two cars but only one space that wanted to rent unused parking spots. I didn't do this but there were posting where condo owners could find people to pay for the right to use otherwise unused parking.

All this seems a bit off topic, but couldn't electric chargers be handled the same way. Pay for the cost of a charger to be installed in one's designated parking spot and "resell" the improvement to the next condo owner. One could even allow others to use the charger while being reimbursed for the electricity. Of course being the owner of a unit in a condo building isn't the same as leasing an apartment and dealing with a large company that owns the apartment building.