Live data from Hacker News

Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

news.stanford.edu

71–80 of 394 posts

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#71

EV’s are only a solution as far as renewable energy can keep up with electricity demands. And that doesn’t appear to be the case right now. Coupled with the mining of minerals, violent venting of batteries, and non-recyclable/non disposable nature of the batteries it’s not obvious that EV’s are more environmentally friendly.

EVs become carbon neutral after around 6 months of existing, taking into account emissions to manufacture them. Solar panels are between 6 months and 3 years. And batteries are highly recyclable, and only getting better.

The US doubled its solar capacity in 2021, and adoption is only speeding up.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#72

> Current time-of-use rates encourage consumers to switch electricity use to nighttime whenever possible, like running the dishwasher and charging EVs. This rate structure reflects the time before significant solar and wind power supplies when demand threatened to exceed supply during the day, especially late afternoons in the summer. So, if you have a grid that doesn't heavily rely on solar then charging at night ma…

Most people wouldn't be commuting then, but this could be an argument for employers to supply infrastructure to facilitate charging during the day while at work.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#73
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! It surprises me that the reliability issues in charging an EV are not discussed more. This bears more discussion and subject to regulations. It is not ok for companies to push EVs to general consumers without creating a good safety record.

How many EVs spontaneously combust while charging?

Less than ICE anyway. Who wants to talk about gas cars burning? It's so frequent journalists won't report them. But Teslas? Oh, my.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#74
post #54
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very small amount of people really care about "grid impact" enough to change their behavior. They do care about "I can make my electricity cheaper" or "My electricity bill went up".

They don't care until their whole neighbourhood goes dark at 6PM everyday

People already charge at night because that is currently when power is cheaper. They'd switch if they can and it becomes cheaper.

We already see this to some extent, as people with free workplace charging often choose that over home charging when possible.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#75
post #17

>We're doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study Wrong according to what metric? Cost? Raw efficiency? A lot of people are more than willing to give up efficiency so that they don't have to actually worry about finding a station during the day. To say that something is just outright "wrong" based on their personal preference of priorities comes off as unhelpful to me. The solution is simple. Make electricity…

>> you just use natural market forces and the problem fixes itself We're talking about electric vehicles here. There has already been massive interference in the market forces through both push and pull mechanisms - push would be things like outlawing internal combustion engines going forward, pull would be huge subsidies for electric vehicles. It's pretty late in the game to say, "Hey! let's just use natural market…

For all the hype, that is less true than it appears. A lot of EV owners pay annual fees and also sales taxes on power. On top of that, the most popular EVs in the US aren't subsidized in every state.

My comment is US-centric, but in the US the adoption isn't really regulatory driven. The regulations are following reality while the politicians try to position themselves as "leaders".

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#76
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

time-of-use is also cognitive load that can cause anxiety

Yeah it is. I hate having to have a process in my brain thinking about optimizing everything. So I bought solar panels and batteries. Now I no longer care. The grid can keep getting more expensive and less reliable without causing me grief.

>So I bought solar panels and batteries

...Mission accomplished?

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#77

I personally think Govt should ban home charging if they are going to ban non-EV vehicles. How is that rich people with homes charge at home while everyone else has to queue up and waste their time at charging stations. Doesn't seem fair at all. Its a extra time tax on the poor.

Wouldn't that increase charging queue times for the poor?

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#78

This article does a poor job of explaining why there is going to be a problem and relaying the point of the study. To model the grid and power infrastructure into the future, assumptions must be made about where the power is derived. The article fails to provide the basic factors contributing to the problem, even though the study itself does a fine job. So California wants to legislate electric cars. That means highe…

If you're regularly committing a certain percentage of your car's battery capacity to powering your house, wouldn't it make more sense to just have a stationary battery at home? Otherwise you can't rely on that extra range in your car if you need it to power your home anyway, and you're just spending extra energy carrying around extra battery weight in your car every day.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#79
post #14

This is a very California problem caused by very California policies

It's not a problem, it's an opportunity to optimize energy use to match how it's now generated.

Shouldn't it be an opportunity to match energy generation to how it's consumed? No industry survives long by offering a worse product to consumers than what they had before

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#80

> Current time-of-use rates encourage consumers to switch electricity use to nighttime whenever possible, like running the dishwasher and charging EVs. This rate structure reflects the time before significant solar and wind power supplies when demand threatened to exceed supply during the day, especially late afternoons in the summer. So, if you have a grid that doesn't heavily rely on solar then charging at night ma…

I appreciate that you acknowledge Californians show up late and leave early
Post reply on HN