[HN Gopher] Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally p...
___________________________________________________________________
Smart spaces will fine petrol car owners illegally parking in
electric bays
Author : Biba89
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-01-02 17:21 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thetimes.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thetimes.co.uk)
| dawnerd wrote:
| So if a car stops charging for whatever reason (fault, someone
| unplugs, finished charging) they get fined too since they're not
| actively charging? Seems like a system with more potential
| problems than it solves.
|
| In general I'm against any system that automatically fines
| people.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| This is in Britain where they constantly foist such automation
| on the unsuspecting public.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Why do you think we're against it?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Most charge points charge extra if you are sitting in the bay
| but have completed charging anyway as I understand it.
|
| I also think that for safety reasons you cannot just unplug a
| charging EV car without stopping th charge first (i.e. a child
| cannot just walk up and knock the plug out etc).
|
| If there is a fault in the charger, then I expect a "smart"
| parking spot to deal with that.
|
| To be honest, the better approach in my mind is to put the
| electric charging bays further away from the entrance to the
| store or whatever. Quite often EV charging spaces are some of
| the "best" (i.e. closest) spaces available. Selfish pricks who
| want to park right by the door don't care if it is a disabled
| space, an EV space, or not even an official parking space at
| all - they'll just park where they want. Move the EV charging
| spaces further away from the store and you'll solve 99% of
| ICE'ings I reckon.
| ianai wrote:
| Agree. Particularly if they're going to be parked there for
| hours. This depends on the installer and person paying for
| the outlet though. I've seen both situations.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Selfish pricks who want to park right by the door don't
| care if it is a disabled space, an EV space, or not even an
| official parking space at all
|
| Seems like the right behaviour to discourage, just like
| littering, etc
| dawnerd wrote:
| Completely agree with the completed charging is a bad move
| but that problem is solved with idle fees.
|
| Also you absolutely can remove a charger while its going and
| I've had it happen multiple times on my M3 when charging at a
| L2. I do get a notification but like.
|
| But yes, spot on just put the chargers where no one wants to
| park. They keep installing them right at the front of stores
| and wondering why people ICE them.
| ultimoo wrote:
| Not sure what's so surprising/interesting about this (I don't
| have a subscription to read the full article). This nugget in the
| introduction seems to summarize the tech behind this --
|
| > Sensors installed in electric bays can be used to detect the
| presence of a vehicle and whether it is being used to recharge
| the car battery.
| hannob wrote:
| It's surprising because car drivers are used to the fact that
| rules are not or rarely enforced.
|
| Just think about it: Technically it would be no big problem to
| enforce speed limits widely. The technology for speeding
| cameras isn't exceptionally complex, you could mass-produce
| them and deploy them basically in every street. I'm not aware
| of any country doing that.
| orangeshark wrote:
| See red light cameras. You recieve a ticket through the mail
| and you get pictures and a video of the violation. There is a
| lot of people against it and some governments have
| legistation against the use of it.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| I thought that was mainly because red light cameras often
| lead to an _increase_ in collisions because a driver is
| more likely to stop unsafely if they are worried about the
| light changing
| 0xCMP wrote:
| IIRC there was also the argument that since an officer
| hadn't seen the crime committed it did not hold or
| something.
|
| I recall hearing about legal cases which made the city I
| was in disable and then remove them because they became
| useless after the rulings.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Which is, in turn, caused by the unsafe shortening of the
| yellow light commonly used in combination with red light
| cameras in order to maximize ticket revenue. Because with
| an adequately timed yellow light, few people actually run
| the red light and the cameras become an expensive money
| pit that can't pay for themselves.
| davchana wrote:
| In India, on some newer signals in last 5-6 years, I have
| seen that when Red is on, & is going to go to Green, the
| Red will start blinking in last 5 or so seconds. Then
| Green will be ON.
|
| When Green is ON, & is going to switch off, it will start
| blinking & then off, & then yellow will start blinking.
| Its ok to drive through blinking green or yellow if safe.
| But common training os drive through blinking Green, but
| if you see blinking Yellow, then stop.
|
| Plus, some of the lights have counter. It shows how many
| seconds are remaining for the lit color. An experiment
| led the Bombay Municipality to install Noise Sensors are
| one busy traffic light with counter. Every time there is
| a Red Light, & counter is less than 10, normally people
| start getting impatient & start honking to force the
| front ones to move. But on this light, if the noise is
| above certain decibel while Red, the counter resets.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| An interesting method that is widely used in Australia is
| "average speed cameras". They set up 2 sets of cameras on a
| long highway and then time how long it took you to get from
| one camera to the next. It's an excellent idea because you
| can't just slow down for the camera and then speed up again.
| endymi0n wrote:
| I've seen them in the Netherlands as well. These are pretty
| great as they completely discourage any form of cheating
| that is dangerous (i.e. sudden braking), but incentivize
| smooth flowing traffic.
| davchana wrote:
| Absolutely correct about the technology. Qatar is doing that.
|
| I lived in Qatar for 7 years, drove a car. All speed cameras
| are not visible. Some are marked with sign boards, but many
| are hidden permanently on a lamp post, or in a palm tree, or
| in anything. There are even mobile cameras, which an operator
| puts on a heavy tripod, & goes away, & camera takes photos of
| offenders & send back to data centre. Cameras are on
| highways, on streets, on intersections. Every traffic signal
| has built in camera. Fines go up progressively with each
| offense & over the limit. Owner of car gets a mobile
| notification as soon as his car speeds in front of camera.
| All fines are payable fully at yearly registration. If paid
| in some x days, there is a discount.On Holy Month of Ramadan
| also sometimes there is a discount.
|
| The biggest is, there is no need of a man standing behind
| camera. Two photos taken apart a second or such are the
| proof. Owner can only contest it if he has gps recordings.
| Speed limit is speed limit. No +5 or +10.
|
| But then, fine amount stings only if they are enough. For an
| expat like me, a fine of $200 is a lot. For a local Qatari
| 20ish year boy, thats nothing. Some of my photography club
| members had fines in tunes of $2500 a year, & totally normal.
| telotortium wrote:
| Maybe not in the US, but in both France and China, to name
| two countries I've been to, speed cameras were obvious on the
| highways and actually sent out fines.
| hannob wrote:
| There's a difference between having a speeding camera every
| now and then on the highway or consistently enforcing
| speeding limits.
|
| I don't have a statistic on this, but my gut feeling would
| be most speeding happens in residential areas with low
| speed limit, and enforcement in many places is basically
| nonexistent.
| ianai wrote:
| In my experience, speeding is prolific and not tied to
| speed limit. I've read it's actually tied to visual or
| physical cues the driver perceives as making speeding
| riskier or safer. Narrower lanes or walls are associated
| with slower speeds.
| choeger wrote:
| The same holds for a lot of other rules, from public
| transportation tickets over legal fireworks and drinking age
| to softer drugs and taxes. Society as a whole seems to be
| generally fine with smaller infractions and I consider this a
| good thing, tbh. I would be perfectly fine with a similar
| scheme for traffic laws.
|
| The thing with speeding cameras is that they could easily be
| adjusted to allow for 20% (say at most 20kph) margin (which
| would be perfectly fine for me even on the German Autobahn),
| but drivers would learn that fact and adjust _perfectly_ to
| just 1kph below that limit. This would then enrage puritans
| that would DEMAND that these MURDERES be PUNISHED. Sadly for
| some reason traffic law is an area of zero tolerance for
| some.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| Unsafe driving is a real cause of a substantial amount of
| death, and unlike most causes of death it is not over
| represented in the elderly, giving it a massively outsized
| impact in terms of reduction in expected years of life.
| Motor vehicle collisions are reliably the leading cause of
| death of teenagers and young adults in many parts of the
| world. People are bad at appraising events that are rare
| with high negative impact, so most people, who have never
| experienced the consequences of unsafe (or drunk) driving
| consider it a minor issue.
| choeger wrote:
| Unsafe driving is not characterized by speeding a slight
| margin over the limit on good roads (see German Autobahn
| for statistics, these are among the safest roads on the
| planet). Similarly, I am pretty certain that driving 40
| in a 30 zone (when 30 is safely possible) is _not_ the
| cause of most, if any, deaths. Causes are varied, but
| generally the situations where one or two meters of road
| would make a difference are obviously rare.
|
| So to emphasize my point: Permanent and ubiquitous speed
| control is the wet dream of many people, but it's a
| proxy. These people have a problem with _cars_. And there
| are many places where that is absolutely justified (dense
| inner cities for example, or streets in front of
| schools).
| hannob wrote:
| I live in a city where 48 people were killed by cars last
| year. I am not fine with that.
| choeger wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't. But how many of these
| deaths would have been prevented by a 20% less speed?
| andor wrote:
| That's a rather distasteful argument to make and reminds
| me of Covid deniers blaming underlying medical conditions
| for deaths.
|
| Kinetic energy is m*v^2, so yes 20% makes quite a
| difference.
|
| Also, what's the point of a speed limit of x if 1.2x (or
| x+19) is tolerated. There is no good reason for a margin.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> The technology for speeding cameras
|
| Speed cameras are not the go-to tech. Nearly every car on the
| road has a GPS, either organic to the vehicle or inside the
| driver's phone. If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits
| it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the
| relevant information.
|
| This was done by a few rental car companies many moons ago
| (circa 2001). Speeding laws don't know how to account for
| such data. Should someone speeding continuously over many
| miles be fined more or less than someone who speeds twice,
| each time only for a short distance? Traffic laws are
| premised on the systems by which people are caught (cops,
| traffic cameras etc). They are not adapted to the perfect
| knowledge that modern tech can provide.
|
| https://www.drivers.com/article/428/
|
| Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to limit
| all cars to a particular speed while on public roads.
| Japanese motorcycles are already limited by industry
| agreement, iirc 300kph (see the Hyabusa fiasco). Merc/BMW
| cars are limited to 250kph. Those limit could be lowered via
| a simple software patch.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > If we wanted to actually enforce speed limits it would be
| a trivial matter to have google forward the relevant
| information.
|
| So then you get a speeding fine for being a passenger?
|
| Wouldn't people just turn off their phones?
|
| > Of course, if we really care, it would be trivial to
| limit all cars to a particular mas speed while on public
| roads.
|
| This is useless because most "speeding" would be within the
| limit for the country, e.g. there are places in the US with
| a speed limit of 85 MPH, whereas most of the problem is
| really people driving 70 in a 45.
|
| And trying to enforce the actual speed limit on the
| specific road would be fragile and dangerous because if
| your vehicle detects the limit wrong it could force you to
| drive 30+MPH below the flow of traffic and cause an
| accident.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> if your vehicle detects the limit wrong
|
| Welcome to one of the most basic and most difficult
| problems for AI-driven vehicles: What is the speed limit?
| Temporary limits, work zones, school/park zones based on
| sunlight, weather, children/workers present or not,
| emergency vehicles beside road or not ... it is complex
| but also something every driver manages every time they
| get behind the wheel. While it is possible to drive
| dangerously slowly, far more people are being killed by
| driving too quickly than too slowly. The default is
| generally, if unsure, err on the side of slower.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| In the UK at least, it's relatively simple. If it's a red
| circle with a number in it, that's the speed limit -
| anything else is advisory. In my experience, cars with
| built in sign readers do an exceptional job of working
| out the current limit (more reliable than me,
| certainly!).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| So no temporary work zones in the uk? What is the rule if
| the sign isnt there/visible? Do you then get to race
| through an obvious construction zone?
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| If there's no sign to indicate that the speed limit is
| changed, how are you supposed to know what the speed
| limit is?
|
| I've had speeding tickets forgiven in Australia because
| the sign simply wasn't visible enough due to overgrown
| trees and a 2 lane off ramp separating the sign from the
| road it applied to, let alone the sign missing
| altogether.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If you are surrounded by people in orange vests, or
| traffic cones directing you to a detour, you are in a
| construction zone and better not be doing highway speeds.
| The fact that the sign wasnt visible, or even wasnt
| present, will not help. This comes up in AI cars all the
| time. The camera is blocked from seeing the sign beside
| the road, perhaps by a truck in the right lane. Or maybe
| the temporary folding sign is blown over. You still have
| to recognize a construction zone. A bad sign might get
| you out of a basic speeding ticket, maybe, but it wont
| protect you from a dangerous driving ticket, or going to
| jail after running over a construction worker. And a
| great many juridictions mandate vastly reduced speeds
| when cops/ambulances/firetrucks/towtrucks are beside the
| road, meaning you have to recognize such situations
| regardless of posted signs.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Well, sure. But in the context of enforcing a limit on a
| human - by either reporting a breach or actively
| preventing the car from exceeding the speed limit - and
| not the car driving itself, I don't see any of that being
| an issue.
| Symbiote wrote:
| They tie an opaque bag over any incorrect signs, and
| erect temporary signs (of the same standard,
| international design) with the new limit. If it's a
| motorway or similar road, the electronic emergency signs
| will also show the reduced speed limit [1]. On a
| motorway, they're often on a gantry, i.e. completely
| impossible to miss.
|
| I think I read somewhere that it's someone's job to make
| regular checks that the temporary signs (and covers) are
| still correct -- they are an important part of the worker
| safety requirement for the construction crew.
|
| When a speed limit changes, the rule is for the sign to
| be shown on _both_ sides of the road. There are then
| repeating signs for the current limit at some regular
| interval.
|
| The UK is dense enough that having expensive electronic
| signs on all motorways isn't an unreasonable cost; I
| understand that's not practical in the USA or Australia.
|
| [1a] https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-
| news/arti...
|
| [1b] https://www.ageas.co.uk/globalassets/solved/30072018
| _road-sa... (possibly this style is no longer used, I
| drive very rarely in the UK so I'm not sure.)
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| It should be trivial to convert every sign to have
| wireless transponder. Optical guessing sounds awful for
| wrong angles, wind damage, snow coverage, lighting issue.
|
| Maybe correlate it with central database for sanity.
| Preferably daily updated git.
| gus_massa wrote:
| It's interesting to compare this with the subcomments in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25545467 with some
| interesting interpretations like
|
| > _It is unsafe to drive the speed limit if everyone is
| going 10-15mph over the posted limit._
| dwighttk wrote:
| >it would be a trivial matter to have google forward the
| relevant information.
|
| oof... Glad Google doesn't have that info about me.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Got bluetooth on your phone? Some cities are using
| bluetooth IDs to measure traffic flow, a phone or car's
| bluetooth ID as it passed sensors and calculating the
| speed based on the time taken to cover the distance. This
| isn't used for speed enforcement, they don't match the
| IDs to individuals/cars, but it certainly could be.
|
| https://www.econolite.com/products/software/bluetoad/
|
| "Advanced Traffic Management Systems Bluetooth Detection.
| TrafficCast proven algorithms for filtering and
| processing data inputs to compute real-time travel times
| and speeds."
| blackboxlogic wrote:
| Most Tire Pressure Monitoring systems also broadcast a
| unique ID that can be used to derive traffic patterns.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| So it will fine an electric car that parks in the bay if it
| isn't charging? These are not really parking spots anymore.
| They are "charging bays". That's cool. Just remember not to
| park your electric car there with a full battery. I guess if
| your battery is full, by the time you drive around a while
| looking for another spot it will be low enough that you will be
| allowed to use the bay.
|
| The few times I've tried to charge an EV at a public non-tesla
| charging point, it has been a real hassle. The multitude of
| protocols mean that sometimes it just doesn't work. I'd be very
| not happy if that meant I would then have to find another spot.
|
| Perhaps there is a market for a defeat device, a plug that
| simulates an electric car, like those HDMI/VGA simulators used
| to trick motherboards into thinking they are attached to a
| screen. It probably wouldn't need much of a resistor to
| simulate minimal charging rates.
| mft_ wrote:
| Maybe I've been lucky, but here in the EU, I've not yet found
| a non-Tesla charger that _won't_ charge my Tesla.
|
| And also, the mobility+ app (no affiliation) has dealt fine
| with multiple brands of charger.
| gambiting wrote:
| You were definitely lucky. I've driven through Germany last
| summer and I couldn't find a single charger that worked,
| every single one required an app, one wouldn't accept my
| non-german card, second one didn't have a menu in English
| so I didn't know how to set it up, third one gave me an
| "unspecified error" and told me to ring their helpline, but
| upon calling them discovered they are closed on Sunday. So
| in the end I didn't charge in Germany at all.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Germany seems to run an entirely independent and parallel
| cards and payments system to the rest of the world.
| Really frustrating.
| sofixa wrote:
| Really? I've had no problems with regular Visa and
| MasterCard debit cards, while at the same time the in the
| Netherlands non-Maestros are barely accepted outside of
| ATMs, even in huge stores ( that's gotten better in the
| last 2-3 years).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Last time I was at a German train station I didn't
| recognise _any_ of the accepted payment cards as a
| visitor from elsewhere in Europe.
|
| And I note you mention you were specifically ok using
| _debit_ cards - credit cards are even more problematic
| than debit cards in Germany. They really don 't like
| accepting them.
|
| And try to use an American Express for anything and you
| will just get a puzzled look!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > discovered they are closed on Sunday.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if their electric car charging
| infra was closed on Sunday because it doesn't fall under
| the exemptions that gas stations and (some) manual car
| washes have.
| paledot wrote:
| They're not parking spots.
|
| Don't park next to a gas pump if you're not putting gas in
| the car, even if it has an internal combustion engine.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I did exactly that this morning. I put gas in my car, paid
| at the pump, then walked in to buy a drink. I certainly
| wouldn't do that if people were waiting for the pump, but
| the option is there and used by drivers regularly.
| ehvatum wrote:
| Quiet, the UK will start fining for this too if they
| think of it.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| And we should. This is obvious bad behaviour.
| macintux wrote:
| Depends on the context. Why waste the fuel to start and
| move a vehicle if there's not enough traffic to demand a
| free pump?
| Rygian wrote:
| Not sure if your implication is that you could do the
| same thing on any other spot (e.g. a spot for disabled, a
| load/unload spot, a spot reserved for police cars), as
| long as "people are not waiting for it".
|
| In any case, the rule I follow is to move the car where
| it doesn't block a scarce resource.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Not sure about these particular charging stations, but
| the big problem isn't people parking in a spot for 3-5
| minutes while they pop into for a side. The problem is
| people who park in a charging spot and go shopping at the
| mall or grocery shopping for 45 minutes.
|
| It's no difference from using the only or last pump at
| the gas station and go spend 15 minutes browsing
| magazines, you are being an ass.
| orev wrote:
| But you _were_ a customer of the gas pump during that
| visit /session, so that example doesn't apply. It would
| only apply if you used the pump area for parking, when
| other non-pump spaces were available, and you did not
| purchase fuel.
| im3w1l wrote:
| When he went in to buy a drink there was no need for his
| car to be buy the pump anymore. He had filled up and paid
| already. He remained only because it was more convinient
| than moving the car and then getting the drink. Depending
| on how many people were waiting and how long it took to
| get the drink, that was probably the right call.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| When I Supercharge, I get a push notification that idle
| fees start ($1/minute) 5 minutes after the charge
| completes.
|
| Econ 101: Incentives matter
| sandworm101 wrote:
| But think of the massive infrastructure that is required
| to facilitate that interaction. You have to own a phone.
| The phone has to connect to a network. You have to have a
| payment plan, presumably with a credit card/bank
| involved. Your car has to communicate with the charge
| point. The charge point has to have internet. There are
| just so many little things that need to be installed and
| maintained just _to deliver a few pennies worth of
| electricity_. An alternative is to install very small
| /free outlets on literally every spot (something common
| in cold climates already). That would cover much of daily
| commuting. The faster charging points could be relegated
| to highway stations outside of town centres. Then all
| that complexity, those points of failure, can be
| abandoned in favour of the simple century-old delivery of
| electricity over wires.
|
| I do wonder how much electricity is used by these complex
| charging systems when they are not in use. How much does
| that charging point draw from the grid just to keep all
| its wifi/cell/internet systems running 24/7?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| No, the vehicle auths with the EV charging station and my
| credit card is charged when the charge is complete. No
| phone, rfid tag, or app required.
|
| Yes, 20amp 120V outlets are great for long term parking,
| like airports. Those can be unmetered. Anything else
| would be a level 3 fast charger like a supercharger,
| where you have to pay to cover the demand charges of
| 120kw-250kw current delivery in a short period of time
| (15-30 minutes). Remember, most people will charge
| overnight at home.
|
| The electricity is the cheapest component, as you
| mention. You're really just paying for the delivery
| infra. Regarding the idle electrical costs of signaling
| systems for charging stations, it's minimal.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| People treat gas pumps as parking spots all the time. It's
| even more frustrating when you are driving a diesel and the
| only diesel pump at the station is blocked by a gas car and
| the owner has wandered off to get a coffee or use the
| restroom, all while multiple gas pumps sit empty.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Most petrol/gasoline stations make the majority of their
| money selling other products, particularly in non urban
| locations. Milk, newspapers, magazines etc. This business
| model makes refuelling stations a viable business since
| the margins on fuel costs are so slim.
|
| One of the challenges with the crude political attempts
| to force EV usage (carrot/subsidies, Stick/fines) is the
| lack of coherent planning behind it. What happens when/if
| there are huge numbers of EV's?
|
| It's a similar issue with public transport. My sister, a
| keen cyclist in London, now has two knee replacements and
| can't really cycle anymore. Public transport is a huge
| challenge (stairs etc) and driving in London is made ever
| harder with more and more bicycle lanes, concrete blocks
| dumped on roads and massive charges for attempting to use
| her car.
|
| None of this is thought through. I'd really like to see
| some sort of vision democratically presented for comment
| by citizens before these autocratic decrees and changes
| are introduced, we seem to have more and more ill
| considered plans that are not joined up imposed on us,
| making life harder and harder...
| notauser wrote:
| The cycle lane on Kensington High Street (a major London
| East-to-West route) actually sped up car journeys.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/01/removed-
| lond...
|
| When it was removed the study "calculated that average
| trip times eastbound increased from 5min 39sec to 8min
| 14sec, with those westbound rising from 5min 48sec to
| 6min 27sec."
| spiritplumber wrote:
| ... so why the heck did they not un-remove it after that
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Trip times, but how many trips were taken? Make the roads
| painful/expensive enough and the one car still using them
| will have a very quick journey. Conversely, filling up
| the bike lakes with lots of bikes will increase bike trip
| times. I prefer to measure the efficiency of a road by
| the number of people it carries across all types of
| vehicles. Bus lanes over bicycle lanes imho as buses can
| more more people per hour down a single lane than
| anything else.
| ulucs wrote:
| That makes no sense: second hand effects are always
| weaker than first hand effects. Why would the cars not
| use the road if the journey is quicker?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Don't EVs take longer to charge than a gas fill-up?
| Presumably that would be better for a model where you
| want people to stick around and buy things, not worse.
|
| At least in the Netherlands, there are basically mini
| golf carts that are legally bikes for disabled people.
| https://youtu.be/B9ly7JjqEb0
| owenmarshall wrote:
| > Presumably that would be better for a model where you
| want people to stick around and buy things, not worse.
|
| Gas stations occupy an interesting place in American
| life: some stations - often those in urban areas - are
| designed for "get in, grab a pack of peanuts, get out"
| transactions, but others in rural areas serve as a local
| gathering area. Pre-Covid (and, let's be honest, even
| post-Covid) the gas stations near me are full of people
| sitting at tables eating hot food and passing time.
|
| What is amusing is that the same gas stations that
| encourage to have people sit and stay a while tend to be
| located in areas where EVs are extremely uncommon.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The story here is an example of how electric vehicle
| charging happens. Dedicated charging spaces all over the
| place instead of service stations.
|
| As long as the percentage of spaces roughly corresponds
| to the percentage of electric vehicles, it shouldn't be
| real disruptive.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| The nearest charging station to me is 45 miles away. I
| don't have an EV because it doesn't make sense for us
| living where we live. But I do end up driving by that one
| from time to time and it is always full.
| olivermarks wrote:
| 'all over the place' - what do you mean by 'place'?
|
| If we fast forward to a world where the majority of
| vehicles are electric, this would mean vast parking areas
| with a smart grid underneath that meters charges to
| users. (Once ICE has been vanquished vast tax revenue
| will be gone, someone has to pay for the power, it will
| be you).
|
| In an urban environment presumably every lighting pole
| will have a charging point since they are on the last
| century grid.
|
| Typically there are approximately 10- 15 cars between
| posts. For lucky people with a driveway they can install
| a charger, for everyone else this is a very intractable
| problem.
|
| In rural areas 'all over the place' could mean anything.
| Some people drive 200 miles a day just to get to their
| place of work and back in a heavy duty vehicle, where
| would they find these 'places'...
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure it will be very difficult.
|
| The majority of charging will be at residences. People in
| rural areas will be able to install them no problem.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> presumably every lighting pole will have a charging
| point since they are on the last century grid.
|
| The new light poles in my area all have solar panels. The
| solar+battery kit is cheaper than the cost to run the
| underground wires. The real jokes is that with the days
| so short, and the nights so cold, some poles are running
| out of power just before dawn. There have been
| experiments with running intersections (traffic lights
| etc) on solar as that can really reduce installation
| costs at remote locations.
| TheBill wrote:
| Roundabouts. If it's that rural, why put in traffic
| lights?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Because is it rural. Farmers don't like having corners of
| their fields clipped to facilitate round intersections.
| And roundabouts have to be made large enough to
| facilitate multi-trailer trucks, not to mention farm
| equipment. Plowing them in the winter is also a real
| hassle/cost as opposed to strait-through square
| intersections.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> What happens when/if there are huge numbers of EV's?
|
| The strange thing is that there is a model for this
| already. I live in a rather cold part of Canada. My
| apartment block has AC outlets for each parking spot. So
| too does my work, and all local hotels. These are meant
| to power block heaters, something that doesn't really
| exist in the UK, but in recent years some people have
| been using them to charge their EV/hybrids. The charging
| rates are very low but the ubiquity of the outlets make
| them relevant. Having very small/cheap charging points on
| literally every parking spot might be the better approach
| than a few dedicated high capacity "charge bays". These
| outlets are dirt cheap to install. No IP issues, no
| electronics, no networks. Just an outlet and a circuit
| breaker.
|
| (These are also all free to use. Administering a payment
| system for each outlet would cost more than the power.)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Are your outlets continuous?
|
| I've heard of ones that cycle through different chunks of
| the lot, so half (or a third or 2/3) are powered at a
| time.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Some cycle on and off but the ones on my building don't.
| A 50/50 on/off cycle is still going to keep the engine
| warm enough.
|
| The truth is that modern engines/oils/batteries do very
| well in the cold. A battery heater is probably of more
| use than a block heater. But I like having the
| conventional outlets whenever I have to work on my car. A
| Tesla fast charging point cannot power my vacuum cleaner.
| yarcob wrote:
| This is the solution. Power doesn't have to be free, but
| it should be everywhere.
|
| It's like all the EV charging networks try to replicate
| gas stations. It's stupid. Nobody wants to take their car
| to a charging station, pay by the minute, and park their
| car somewhere else when it's full.
|
| People just want to park their cars wherever, and plug
| them in when they know they'll stay there for some time,
| and just pay per kWh, and they definitely don't want to
| go park their car somewhere else when it's full.
|
| The nice thing about electric is that you could
| theoretically charge cars pretty much anywhere, outlets
| would be cheap to install almost anywhere! And cars are
| parked somewhere 90% of the day anyway. So you don't need
| fast charging.
|
| I feel like the guys trying to build infrastructure for
| EVs in most cities are fucking stupid.
|
| You don't need to build 20 fast charging stations. For
| the same money you could probably install 2000 standard
| outlets, controlled with a relay and a phone app for
| payment.
|
| That's something that would actually drive EV adoption.
|
| Right now the only people who buy EVs are people who have
| a house where they can install an outlet for charging.
| People who live in appartments are stuck with ICE cars...
| elihu wrote:
| I suppose a long-term solution is just to have more
| charge ports. Or to have charge stations with longer
| cords so they can service more parking spots.
|
| I mean, charge stations are basically just 110 or 220
| volt AC electrical outlets with a fancy plug. There isn't
| any fundamental reason they have to be an expensive,
| scarce resource. The more difficult scarce resource is
| the underlying electrical infrastructure. But if a
| commercial site only has so much power available, it
| seems better to just have a cap on the number of chargers
| that can be active at once to stay within the amperage
| limits of the site rather than to artificially constrain
| the number of charge stations. Then if someone is using a
| "charging spot" but isn't actually charging, it's not a
| problem; they aren't blocking anyone else from charging.
|
| That's a long-term solution, though. For now we just
| don't have enough charging stations in most places to be
| able to not care if someone is using one when they
| shouldn't be.
| labawi wrote:
| > It probably wouldn't need much of a resistor to simulate
| minimal charging rates.
|
| Resistor wouldn't be a huge problem. A heat sink might be -
| the chargers typically support 5-50kW1 charging rates. I'm
| not sure they would consider 100W or so "charging", so you
| might end up with something bulky.
|
| 1 a guesstimate
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Perhaps there is a market for a defeat device, a plug that
| simulates an electric car, like those HDMI/VGA simulators
| used to trick motherboards into thinking they are attached to
| a screen. It probably wouldn't need much of a resistor to
| simulate minimal charging rates.
|
| EV parking isn't that premium or common where this would be
| valuable. Also, this kind of anti-social behavior is a good
| way to get your car keyed when someone rolls up and needs 10
| miles of power to get home and sees a jerk in a non EV in the
| only charging spot.
| tillinghast wrote:
| Not if we park there hard enough.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Would be better to spend the money that this will cost on fitting
| a simple domestic socket in every parking bay. That we even my
| Tesla will gain 13 km per hour of charging.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Running power -- even just 13A power -- to every parking bay,
| not to mention ensuring those "simple domestic sockets" are
| safe to use in all weather conditions, will probably make this
| quite a bit more expensive than you think.
| gambiting wrote:
| I'm still eagerly awaiting explanation on how this is going to
| work with terraced houses where there's about 40 houses on each
| side and people park how and where they want, and most
| importantly where the local council barely has enough money to
| fix the worst potholes. But suddenly they are going to dig up a
| 300 year old street to put down enough cabling and charging
| points for every car. My question is "with what money".
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > My question is "with what money".
|
| If people want to charge their electric cars and live in a
| place where it's difficult to do so, that is their problem.
|
| Most places with super dense housing like you describe are
| probably in fairly dense urban areas where other forms of
| transportation are probably better regardless.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Can lampposts be adapted?
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure, but there's 4-6 of them on the street and probably
| 40-50 cars. That will work in short term, but not in 10+
| years.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "My question is "with what money"."
|
| This is a good question, we know that total cost of ownership
| of the charging network for cars is massively lower than that
| of petroleum infrastructure. So the problem is not shortage
| of money, but alighning incentives and investment. I believe
| this needs to be done through a large-scale national program,
| where central govermnet provides granta for modernising
| cities for efficiench: that includes charge points,
| insulation and enegy efficiency, etc. All those measures
| result in long-term savings, and we have record low interest
| rates
| 88 wrote:
| So charge your vehicle at your workplace, or at the shops, or
| at a dedicated charging station?
|
| In the medium term, if this becomes a real problem,
| properties will be devalued and owners can decide whether
| it's worth contributing to the cost of installing the
| infrastructure.
|
| In the long term, most people won't have private vehicles, so
| there won't be any need to store and charge them on public
| roads.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>In the long term, most people won't have private vehicles
|
| You see, I don't believe this point at all, and I'm yet to
| see a convincing argument why it would be true. It would
| already be cheaper for me to take an Uber to work rather
| than own my car yet the convenience of having your own
| personal space that is mine far outweighs the savings. Also
| anyone who has children and knows the insane amount of
| stuff that babies require would laugh at the mere idea.
| Autonomous vehicles can be fanciest robo taxies(and they
| won't be, if normal taxies are anything to go by) but the
| hassle of moving stuff from and out of each for a baby each
| time one arrives(car, not a baby) would drive you mad.
| 88 wrote:
| I don't imagine private vehicle ownership will disappear
| entirely. It will just become even more of a luxury than
| it already is.
|
| When autonomous vehicles halve the cost of an Uber/Lyft
| journey, many more people will weigh up the
| costs/benefits of private vehicle ownership and decide
| it's not for them.
|
| Different services will compete based in part on the
| luxuriousness of the interiors and the frequency at which
| they are cleaned.
|
| As private vehicle ownership becomes rarer, so to will
| parking, particularly on-street parking. People will look
| back and think it odd that we dedicated vast public
| spaces to the storage of private property.
|
| Finally, as private vehicle owners become a minority
| group, they will become an easy target for even more
| punitive taxation and regulations which will see the
| group shrink even further still.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>When autonomous vehicles halve the cost of an Uber/Lyft
| journey, many more people will weigh up the
| costs/benefits of private vehicle ownership and decide
| it's not for them.
|
| That's kind of my point - this won't happen, because Uber
| is already at rock bottom prices. For me to take it to
| work is about PS10. That can't cover anything about the
| journey and is clearly heavily subsidised by Uber. That
| cost isn't going down to PS5, it's just not going to
| happen. Just like when people predict that since flash
| memory prices keep falling down, you will be able to buy
| a 1TB pendrive for 5 cents. That's not going to happen
| because you do have the minimum costs of production and
| transport that aren't going anywhere even if the chips
| themselves are free.
|
| And if people aren't taking Uber instead of their own
| cars for these frankly ridiculous prices then I don't see
| why they would simply because the cars drive themselves.
|
| >>Different services will compete based in part on the
| luxuriousness of the interiors and the frequency at which
| they are cleaned.
|
| The same principle should apply to taxis and it just
| doesn't. I live in a medium size UK city and every
| company, every brand, has crappy cars. Only price
| matters, nothing else and Uber Lux is not an option
| because you're waiting 40-50 minutes for one, that's just
| not acceptable.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > That's kind of my point - this won't happen, because
| Uber is already at rock bottom prices.
|
| Not really. There are a lot of places to optimize the
| cost of an Uber competitor. If you have electric self
| driving cars that pick people up, maintenance and fuel
| are much less expensive and you aren't paying for a
| driver. Most of these would only need a 50-100 mile range
| and could fuel up between passengers.
|
| Full self driving cars is a few years out, but having a
| service that has defined roads it can travel on is likely
| possible in the fairly near term. Waymo is already doing
| this to some extent.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Full self driving cars is a few years out
|
| More like 50+ years for something that is actually
| allowed on most roads commercially, but sure. I just
| don't think the margins are there. Uber already
| subsidizes the human cost.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-01-02 23:02 UTC)