[HN Gopher] Electric vehicles close to 'tipping point' of mass a...
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Electric vehicles close to 'tipping point' of mass adoption
Author : xps
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-01-22 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| u678u wrote:
| Europe has a big advantage that distances are closer and cars are
| smaller and newer. USA still will be a long long time. My apt
| building has 500 cars and zero electrical outlets.
| paganel wrote:
| One of Europe's biggest disadvantages is that a larger
| proportion of people live in apartment blocks and the like
| (compared to the US, anyways), so no easy way for those people
| to charge their EVs over night (I'm an European living in such
| a building myself).
| strict9 wrote:
| I rarely drive, but can't wait to own one. Where I live (and for
| a lot of people who live in cities) there is only on-street
| parking.
|
| Will be interesting to see how increased electric vehicle
| ownership might happen for people without a garage or designated
| parking.
| r00fus wrote:
| Might be based on something like this:
| https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-po...
| rasz wrote:
| unguarded $100 worth of charging cable dangling from every
| street post? what could possibly go wrong?
| jeofken wrote:
| The cable locks to both your car and the charging pole, at
| least where I live
| throw0101a wrote:
| Reasonable concern, though:
|
| 1. If every car has one, they become a commodity, so how
| much value will they actually end up having?
|
| 2. There are locking cables available:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls
| jeofken wrote:
| In Copenhagen there are charging poles in a lot of places,
| also in the inner city. They're reserved for EVs. For this
| reason, it's very easy to find parking with a EV and leave
| with a full tank.
|
| You bring your own cable which costs $120 (+25% VAT), which
| is locked to the car and the charging pole, so it can't be
| stolen without being ruined.
| gregkerzhner wrote:
| This. Curios to hear about people's experiences owning an EV
| without access to a charger at home.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Obviously everyone's use case is different.
|
| The way I would frame it is this: 1. Your car has x range.
| Let's say 200 mi. or 321 km. And takes 1 hr. to charge. (Just
| for reference, my current car gets refilled with gas every
| 400 km. and takes 10ish minutes to do the task).
|
| 2. How long does it take you to travel that range in everyday
| life. For me, it would take about 2 weeks. But lets assume
| that its winter or I'm driving a lot and my time is cut in
| half, so I need a full charge every week.
|
| 3. Now I ask myself if there is anywhere in my driving
| schedule where I consistently spend about an hour in a place
| where there are chargers. The answer is, of course, I might
| go to Costco, the grocery store, home depot and the library
| In the course of a week. Of course partial charging is also
| an option, so two 30 min stays at any of the above also
| solves the issue.
|
| So I'm covered for my average use case if charging at home
| isn't an option.
|
| It is a smart question to ask, but it is actually pretty easy
| to answer if you think it through. Obviously there are a
| million and one use cases for a personal vehicle, but me and
| all my friends would be fine.
|
| Even thinking back over the past year, including lots of
| outdoor activities into the backcountry in Canada, I have a
| hard time thinking of more than one trip that would have been
| different with an electric car (towing on backroads in the
| mountains. A corner case if ever there was one).
|
| My theory is that charging infrastructure will all of a
| sudden become as necessary a commodity as parking. A
| restaurant that has a few chargers in the parking lot will
| attract more business, and I wouldn't be surprised if it also
| became a revenue stream as well.
| random5634 wrote:
| I looked into this very closely and opted against it.
| traveler01 wrote:
| Unless they get better charging times, a total nightmare.
| bfrog wrote:
| I can't wait for my ICE vehicle to be good for recycling only.
| One day, until then I barely drive anyways, so it'll probably
| last me another 15 years.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I'm really curious to see how the used electric car market shapes
| up.
|
| New cars (electric or not) are pretty expensive. The average
| price of a new car in the US just topped $40k, which is out of
| reach of many car buyers. The people who buy new obviously tend
| to be well-off, and are often older. Then at some point down the
| road, those cars end up in the hands of (on average) younger,
| less-wealthy folks.
|
| But younger folks might not want the same thing as older folks.
| One niche example is the manual transmission. Looking at a car
| like the Mazda Miata - something like a third of those are sold
| new with an automatic transmission. The buyers (again, maybe
| older) don't want to bother shifting their own gears, so they pay
| an extra $1k or so for an automatic. But when those cars are
| affordable used cars, and the market is younger car enthusiasts,
| Miatas with an automatic transmission are worth quite a bit less.
| The preferences of the new $30k convertible buyers aren't the
| same as the preferences of the used $5k convertible buyers, even
| though those $30k cars eventually become the $5k cars.
|
| With electric cars I wonder if we'll see a similar divide. I know
| a few people (software engineers who own their own single family
| homes) who have bought new electric cars. Folks I know from less
| wealthy walks of life (daycare providers, teachers, grad
| students, etc) have not bought used electric cars. Surely that's
| at least partially because used electric cars don't exist in
| great numbers, but I also wonder if those folks (people who rent,
| or move often, etc) might be less enamored with a car where they
| don't know they'll be able to charge it at home, or a depleted
| battery pack means less range or costly repair, etc.
|
| I'm hoping for an electric future and I want my next car to be
| electric ... I'm just really curious to see if/when middle- and
| lower-class Americans start adopting these in large numbers.
| maxerickson wrote:
| $10,000 buys a pretty good used ICE vehicle. How many decent
| electric vehicles are selling used for that price?
|
| The lower ongoing costs of electric can justify a higher
| upfront price, but then you are paying more up front.
| pkulak wrote:
| You can buy a 2011 Leaf for about 3 grand. Sure, the battery
| is probably toast, but replace it for 5 grand, you're still
| well under 10, and now you have 100 miles of range and a car
| with the only wearable item brand new.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Right, and that isn't a vehicle that (most) single car
| households want.
| nkingsy wrote:
| Sadly, Nissan has jacked up the price of battery
| replacement to I think 8k now, which turns my car into
| scrap in 5 years unless a third party steps in.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Which just means you have a longer financing period. Capital
| is so cheap today it shouldn't be a problem as long as BEV
| can actually show longevity.
| [deleted]
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| 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 :).
| fortran77 wrote:
| A Nissan LEAF is essentially a golf cart, though.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Battery pack depreciation is the one thing that worries me the
| most.
|
| But I wonder if it would be possible and cost effective to test
| cells and combine the cells that are still good into a newer
| battery pack. Maybe by the manufacturer.
|
| Or to just rate an existing one and give it a score so the
| consumer can have a clue.
| djrogers wrote:
| > The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are
| often older.
|
| One might think this to be the case, but the breakdown of new
| car buyers shows about the same % of buyers make <50k as those
| who make >100k (roughly 1/3rd in each cohort, but varies based
| on vehicle type). Sadly, many of those buyers will take out out
| a 72-84mo loan that they probably can't afford in order to pay
| for that new car.
| Loughla wrote:
| We priced out pickup trucks recently for shits and giggles
| (because we live in rural america and really have a decently
| often use for one).
|
| They're so expensive. And the dealer pushes the 84+ month
| loan to bring the payment down. Like, I get that it's a
| $450/month payment, and that's supposed to sound reasonable
| (it isn't reasonable, at 3/4 the cost of our mortgage). But
| it's for 8 years! There's no way this truck is going to last
| that long. Who does this? Why?
| argiopetech wrote:
| Don't forget full coverage insurance for the length of the
| loan. The insurance companies must love pickup buyers.
|
| I will say that most 3/4- and 1-ton pickups will last 10-20
| minimum under "farm life" conditions if maintained. This
| said, maintenance isn't cheap.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I'm a MT diehard (owned 9 cars in my life, 9 of which were
| MTs), and I'm trying to think what my must have feature is for
| an EV.
|
| Probably some sort of aggressive or responsive driving mode. I
| mean, the reason I go with MTs is because I love how responsive
| it is. I still giggle when I'm driving around at 4000 RPMs and
| punch the throttle to get that instant thrust. Even with manual
| shifting modes on automatics, it's not the same because the
| torque converters mute this responsiveness.
|
| I've never driven a Tesla or anything, but I expect that they
| aren't so hyper-responsive under normal driving conditions
| because it would be pretty fatiguing to drive. Adding that back
| I think is must have for me to go full EV and not keep around a
| Miata or WRX for fun driving.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The 2 motor Model 3 just about keeps up with a 500 HP
| Corvette in 50-70 times:
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a23685454/2018-tesla-
| mo...
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/corvette
|
| Smaller displacement ICE don't keep up. The Corvette has a
| dual clutch automatic, so no torque converter.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| My "save the manuals" score isn't as high as yours (I've
| owned 6 cars, 5 of which were stick-shift), but I do vastly
| prefer changing my own gears to automatics or CVTs.
|
| That said, if you get a chance to drive a Tesla or similar,
| try it out! I did a test drive and liked it more than I
| thought I would. To me, the throttle response felt immediate
| and direct, reminiscent of driving a manual-shift car in the
| correct gear. You're just ALWAYS in the correct gear!
|
| That being said, I suspect I'll probably do the same as you
| and keep a fun, old-fashioned ICE roadster in the garage for
| the occasional spin.
| Loughla wrote:
| >a depleted battery pack means less range or costly repair,
| etc.
|
| This has actually stopped me from buying a used EV in the last
| year, twice. Dealers aren't up front about used cars history in
| general, and, again from just the two I looked at, they are
| 1000% hiding any information they can regarding the battery
| packs.
|
| This is the largest hurdle to the used car market (after the
| shortage of used EV's because of their novelty). People
| hesitate to buy used combustion cars, because of unknown
| mechanical issues that may pop up; but this can be alleviated
| by using a trusted mechanic to once-over the car. They
| ABSOLUTELY hesitate to buy used EV's because of the battery
| packs, and who can you go to in order to evaluate that? Nobody.
|
| >I'm just really curious to see if/when middle- and lower-class
| Americans start adopting these in large numbers.
|
| When they have no choice. I'm in this boat - I work in
| education and my spouse works in education. We are solidly
| middle- to lower-middle class. We can't afford most new cars.
| Used cars are pricey anymore as well. The only way we will
| upgrade to an EV is if we can find a trustworthy used model, or
| when we have no choice, because gas is $10/gallon.
| bittercynic wrote:
| In a way it is much easier to evaluate the condition of an EV
| battery than in internal combustion engine: start with a full
| charge and see how far you can drive. It may take some time,
| but there's really no way to fake a good battery for that
| kind of test.
| mikestew wrote:
| 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 on the clock. But the point is that checking the state
| of a singular point of most likely failure (battery) is many
| orders easier to check than the state of an ICE.
| argiopetech wrote:
| 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 are a lot more components (cells) in a battery pack
| than rotating components in an average engine. I'm unsure
| if they're generally individually addressable, but I know
| they're not designed to be serviced at the cell level. That
| has you replacing the battery pack any time there is a
| problem, a many thousands of dollars adventure just in
| parts. There's also no major differentiator from a software
| perspective between "the battery is old and has reduced
| capacity" and "the battery is swelling and has reduced
| capacity". The latter could lead without warning to a
| catastrophic failure that would make a ringland failure
| laughable.
|
| I do appreciate your view is held by many consumers who
| purchase a new or certified pre-owned car every N years.
| For those in lower income brackets (including most
| countries in the world) or who like to buy things that
| last, electric cars don't seem to carry a huge value
| proposition over a traditional ICE car.
| mikestew wrote:
| _who like to buy things that last, electric cars don 't
| seem to carry a huge value proposition over a traditional
| ICE car._
|
| Our Scion xB has over 100K miles on it, and our Leaf is
| one of the first to roll off the line. We tend to keep
| things. And I'm perfectly happy with the value
| proposition of even that early-adopter tech. There's a
| _lot_ more to EV ownership than just range and battery
| life. Ten years later, I can hardly wait for our next
| vehicle that we 'll drive the wheels off of...and it
| _will_ be electric.
|
| EDIT: and if you can get the oil pan off a modern car
| without removing the engine or at least undoing the
| mounts and $STUFF so it can be jacked up (thereby
| cancelling any "in an afternoon" of changing crank
| bearings), you're a better mechanic than I ever was (and
| I used to do it for a living).
| nkingsy wrote:
| It should be really easy to check the battery's level of
| degradation.
|
| When I was buying my leaf, every posting had a picture of the
| range readout fully charged.
| m-ee wrote:
| I think those average numbers get skewed by expensive SUVs and
| luxury cars. You don't need to spend $30k to get something
| decent and new, I think my Mazda 3 was like $17k in 2016. I
| think we'll need a combo of good used prices like you mention
| as well as new prices comparable to a Corolla to see mass
| adoption.
| pkulak wrote:
| I like your Miata example, mostly because I think it may
| illustrate that the problem won't exist for EVs. Range is king
| in EVs, new or used. I can't think of any EV feature quite like
| a stick shift in an ICE car.
|
| I actually am seeing lots of used EVs here in Portland. Mostly
| Nissan Leafs. They are dirt cheap to buy and nearly free to
| operate (especially given their terrible range). If you have a
| commute under 20 miles, you can't do better than an EV that's
| 5+ years old.
| bwanab wrote:
| That's kind of funny to me. I'm old and I've got a manual
| transmission Saab. Young people who get in the car with me
| (back before COVID) have literally asked what that thing (the
| shifter) is.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had a stick shift Honda del Sol until about a year ago. One
| of the last times I had it in at the dealer, the service rep
| had to get one of the techs to bring the car around to me
| after I settled up because she couldn't drive it.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Yeah, obviously the Miata buyers are not necessarily the
| average young person, but that market niche is definitely
| there. I think the issue of which features are desirable in
| new vs older cars holds though. Another example could be 4x4s
| - 4Runners, Land Rovers, etc - most of these are bought as
| family cars, and those first buyers are looking for niceties
| like high-end stereos, leather seats, etc. But once the
| trucks are older, people care less about an obsolete stereo
| or worn leather and more about which suspension or other off-
| road options it has, etc.
|
| Going down a bit of a rabbithole there, but I'm still curious
| to see what the perceived desirability of used electric cars
| turns out to be for "average" Americans.
| analyte123 wrote:
| Yeah, you basically need to own a home to have an electric car
| right now. Many blue-collar workers who have to drive around a
| lot in the middle of nowhere are also excluded at least for the
| next few years.
| llampx wrote:
| The recent increase in EV demand has come entirely from Europe.
| Really. China and the US were flat for the year, and pretty
| much all the gains came from Europe, where BEV and PHEVs are
| selling like hot cakes.
|
| There are also some electric cars being sold for the lower end
| of the market, mainly because auto manufacturers have to comply
| with CO2 legislation and they can't do that only by selling
| expensive PHEVs, much as they would prefer to. On top of that,
| with more and more charging stations being built in cities and
| on highways, range anxiety is not as much as it used to be.
| Pretty much all new BEVs can go 200km in a charge and charge
| reasonably fast.
|
| I believe 2021 this trend will only accelerate, especially in
| the US with Biden coming in.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| Electric cars are perfectly pleasant to own as a second car or if
| you very rarely take long road trips.
|
| If it's very cold or very hot, if you drive to the mountains or
| rural areas for pleasure, range anxiety is a serious problem.
| Waiting for a re-charge is ok if you have access to Tesla
| supercharger speeds. Forcing this lifestyle change on everyone is
| absolutely insane.
|
| The climate imperative is poor reasoning because this will be a
| significant increase in electricity generation demands.
| Renewables alone will not be able to keep up, so we will need to
| increase fuel based generation of electricity, which is less
| efficient as an overall usage of fuel for transportation versus
| an efficient hybrid vehicle.
| tyfon wrote:
| I recently drove over 800 km in my Hyundai Ioniq 28 kWh EV, it
| only took 1 hour more than when I drive my Tesla. Most of that
| time was spent eating or stretching legs anyway so it is fully
| possible to take longer trips :)
| fossuser wrote:
| It's wild to me that no other car manufacturers have taken
| Tesla up on their offer for supercharger access.
|
| EVs without supercharger access are strict city cars.
|
| The electrify america network sucks, non tesla range is mostly
| bad (with a small number of exceptions). Even with decent
| range, lack of supercharger access makes the car a non-starter.
|
| I think Tesla's advantage here remains huge, I think legacy car
| companies are in trouble (and this is even ignoring their
| inability to write or ship software). The dealership model of
| legacy car companies will also be a big problem for them and
| will continue to hold them back.
|
| That said, I think ultimately forcing the EV switch makes sense
| and with something like supercharging in place is viable.
| Battery capacity will continue to improve, charging rates will
| continue to improve. Pushing this shift makes sense.
|
| It just might be that legacy car companies are too dumb to do
| it properly and will cede a lot of the market to Tesla (and
| maybe Apple).
| drewg123 wrote:
| I've taken several long (2000mi) road trips in my Tesla. The
| only range anxiety I've had has been self induced. Eg, skipping
| the Tesla map planned supercharger and using the next one down
| the road for a variety of reasons [1] . The most anxious I've
| been is when I pulled into a supercharger with 2% remaining.
|
| [1] I often do this to arrive at a supercharger with a lower
| state of charge. This allows for charging lower on the curve,
| which allows for faster charging. I sometimes do this to avoid
| unpleasant chargers. My least favorite is the Savannah super
| charger, which is located several stoplights from the highway
| in an airport parking garage.
| cure wrote:
| > The climate imperative is poor reasoning because this will be
| a significant increase in electricity generation demands.
|
| Relatively centralized electricity generation can be converted
| to lower carbon generation. This is happening pretty rapidly in
| many places for economic reasons; renewable power generation is
| a lot cheaper than fossil fuel power generation.
|
| Doing the same for more than a billion ICE engines distributed
| all over the world is effectively impossible.
|
| > Renewables alone will not be able to keep up
|
| Source please?
| paganel wrote:
| > Doing the same for more than a billion ICE engines
| distributed all over the world is effectively impossible.
|
| Delivering said energy to over a billion cars all over the
| world is pretty impossible. As things stand right now that's
| an entire continent (Africa) which in many places doesn't
| have reliable power even for basic things like keeping the
| hospitals running (they have to use diesel generators and the
| like).
|
| But, then again, this EV-vehicle "revolution" is targeted at
| the Western middle-classes + China, they can afford to not
| care about the rest of the world as they've done until now.
| fuoqi wrote:
| I wonder if electrical grid is really prepared for mass adoption
| of EV. For example, UK is already quite reliant on the HVDC link
| [0] from France. In 2016 it got damaged resulting in a reduced
| capacity, which has caused serious concerns at the time. And it's
| not only about power generation, it's also quite probable that a
| lot of existing power lines would have to be updated to satisfy a
| higher demand for electrical power.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel
| tw04 wrote:
| I've been trying to wrap my head around this as well. You look
| at the repeated rolling brown-outs that seem to happen in
| places like California every few years, and I wonder how
| throwing 10s of millions of cars that all need to charge at
| extremely high rates is going to be absorbed.
|
| Sure, SOME of those people might also install things like solar
| panels and batteries, but I just don't see how the math works
| right now.
| bad_alloc wrote:
| I just got a Renault Zoe 2020 last December and it's been great.
| Commuting to work and going to the shops is just as comfortable
| as with a combustion engine. No gas station visits and even with
| the high cost of electricity in Germany (0,3EUR/kWh) it's still
| worth it. Only when driving longer distances (>250km) you need to
| plan ahead for charging and trips take longer (1-3 hours).
| zaroth wrote:
| That is _really_ expensive electricity. Does anyone and
| everyone with the ability to finance solar panels just install
| them pronto, or do you not have net metering?
| mrtnmcc wrote:
| Will be watching for the success of Rivian and Cybertruck to see
| if the rural market can accept electric.. but can't think of any
| good reason why not, other than pride and prejudice. (FD, I grew
| up in the country).
| pretendscholar wrote:
| Range anxiety?
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Tesla cybertruck claims over 500 miles if range, which is
| more than most gas vehicles...
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| Tesla claims a lot of things. Their cars don't even come
| close to their EPA estimated range, let alone their pre-
| release marketing.
|
| That variant is also expected to release in 2022 and cost
| $70,000.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Few people regularly drive more than 300 miles in a day. Most
| people drive less than 50 miles a day.
|
| The fact that you start every trip will a full charge means
| you only worry about range on the longest trips.
| mrtnmcc wrote:
| I do enjoy driving down country roads which won't have
| superchargers for some time, but these trips are usually
| <300-500miles and by it's nature the route is flexible
| enough to hit a supercharger near a highway if necessary.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Unless you forget to plug in, then the fix is not as simple
| as hopping to the gas station.
|
| Or you live in an apartment building with only public
| outdoor parking, then you can just forget about EV, unless
| you want to WFChargeStation.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Unless you forget to plug in, then the fix is not as
| simple as hopping to the gas station.
|
| Forgetting to plug in will rarely be a big issue unless
| you forget 3-4 days in a row. Flipwise, there have been
| many times where I've forgotten to fill up before coming
| home and had to make a side-trip to a gas station before
| heading out.
|
| As for apartment dwellers. The economics of EVs for
| people without access to home charging are pretty
| different you miss out on one of the biggest benefits ->
| rarely having to fill up.
| marvin wrote:
| Forgetting to plug in is like forgetting to bring your
| keys. It becomes second nature pretty fast. You always do
| it after you park, unless you do 20 errands a day or
| something. It takes five seconds.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| And the once in a blue moon they do have to drive more than
| 300 miles, they'll need to have a spare car to do it.
| They'll buy their new shiny _very expensive_ Telsa and
| still have to keep a gasoline-powered car around.
|
| This is a non-starter for a lot of people.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > And the once in a blue moon they do have to drive more
| than 300 miles, they'll need to have a spare car to do
| it. They'll buy their new shiny very expensive Telsa and
| still have to keep a gasoline-powered car around.
|
| I don't think this is the way EV owners deal with long
| trips.
|
| Most Tesla owners seem to just use the Supercharger
| network and deal with waiting 20 minutes instead of 5
| minutes. After 4 hours driving I usually take a lunch or
| dinner break regardless.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| That's the way I, an an EV owner, deal with long trips. I
| would never try to plot a course from charger to charger.
| That sounds annoying and dangerous.
|
| I also highly doubt that charger networks would scale.
| Right now there are already busy gas stations by every
| exit on the highway. Imagine how overloaded they would be
| if it took an hour to fill up the tank.
|
| A plug-in hybrid still makes more sense. They're far
| cheaper than any electric car, have all the advantages of
| an electric car for short trips, and have all the
| advantages of a gasoline car for long trips.
|
| Electric cars are usable. They are not yet practical.
|
| (By the way, as you may see from my other comments, I
| consider Tesla a criminal enterprise. It is possible I am
| dismissing the Supercharger network a little too easily.)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This is why Tesla has such a big emphasis on range. If a
| car has a 300 mile range, I think dealing with charging
| stations is tolerable. Few people drive more than 500
| miles a day so you just have 1 stop, not a bunch.
|
| > Right now there are already busy gas stations by every
| exit on the highway. Imagine how overloaded they would be
| if it took an hour to fill up the tank.
|
| How much of that traffic would be eliminated because EVs
| start the day full charged?
|
| It only takes 20 minutes for the supercharger stations
| (And most newer entrants are pushing for faster charging
| with mixed results). It will certainly be interesting to
| see how well these networks hold up to increasing traffic
| over time. I've heard the super charger network can get
| pretty bogged up already on holiday weekends.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| I doubt the Cybertruck will ever make it to production. Tesla
| enjoys building cars that kill people, what with the wheels
| falling off and the computer driving straight into walls, but I
| suspect the NHTSA will draw the line at a three-ton knife
| purpose-built for cutting pedestrians in half.
|
| Tesla isn't your champion. Literally every other manufacturer
| has a better chance. Mostly because they build cars that
| actually work, but also because Tesla reeks of Silicon Valley
| arrogance and irresponsibility.
| dzader wrote:
| lol
| dd_roger wrote:
| The major problems with EV that will keep me from buying one in
| the foreseeable future are:
|
| * Low range, combined with a lackluster charging infrastructure.
| I think from my list this is the closest issue to being resolved,
| if I could consistantly get 800km range (in real world usage, not
| "800km in the brochure but actually 400km in real life") it would
| be fine because (1) with such a long range the risk of having to
| recharge multiple time on a single journey is fairly small, thus
| reducing the inconvenience [assuming one can charge at home or
| work, otherwise recharging will always be a pain in the butt
| regardless of how you look at it] (2) it's enough to cross
| "charging station deserts", areas where inevitably there will be
| little to no charging infrastructure (see the charging stations
| on french highways for reference, recharging is just as expensive
| as refueling and the charging stations don't even work reliably).
|
| * A large segment of the EV market is made of cars that remind me
| more of technological gadgets than proper vehicules. I have very
| little patience to deal with technology and I certainly don't
| want my car to be basically a software platform. I shouldn't get
| angry before bed time but I'm still going to mention the privacy
| aspect of it. Having SIM cards embedded in every car is bad
| enough already but at least with the more traditional "analog"
| cars you can give the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt that
| the SIM card is only activated in case of accident. Most EV cars
| lift the doubt by collecting analytics and installing software
| updates remotely. One day there will be a data breach and
| everywhere you've ever been with your car will be free for the
| general public to see. Even worse, a malicious actor gets a hold
| of the manufacturer's private key and can push arbitrary updates
| to your car.
|
| * Most charging networks (I'm tempted to say "all" because I've
| never seen an instance where it wasn't the case, but again let's
| give the benefit of the doubt) are basically spying networks that
| require an account and a credit card to use. Someone (everybody
| once there's a data breach) knows everytime/everywhere you
| recharge your car, how much you used since your last charge, etc.
| Why can't we just pay cash for, say, $10 worth of electricity
| just as we do with ICE cars?
|
| I believe the first point will be solved in a relatively near
| future because it's mostly a matter of improving the technology a
| bit (or paying more for a bigger battery). For the two last
| points however I only see things getting worse since the current
| trend is to go further and further in this "everything as a
| digital service" direction.
| mint2 wrote:
| I recently got a plug in hybrid, due to road trips a full ev is
| not great for me.
|
| The all electric range is so nice to drive. But it makes me
| realize how loud the ICE is after that kicks in, which now annoys
| me. I'm excited for when electrics will get a 500 mi range. It
| will happen.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Maybe in the UK, but not where I am. It was -26 this morning.
| Batteries don't handle such temperatures well. And the nearest
| civilian airport is 400km away. I haven't seen a single all-
| electric car in my town since I moved here over a year ago.
| mint2 wrote:
| Well yes and solar isn't a great solution for arctic areas in
| the winter. There's rarely a single blanket solution that works
| everywhere.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Solar panels actually do rather well in the north, even in
| winter. They are more efficient at cold temperatures. When
| the sun is up, colder air tends to have fewer clouds and
| having the sun lower on the horizon means static panels can
| be pointed more efficiently. Shorter trees mean housed
| generally have a better view of the horizon/sky/sun. And snow
| on the ground acts as a reflector, increasing the light
| hitting the panels. So long as you are below the actual
| arctic circle, there is a place for panels even in winter.
| grecy wrote:
| Whitehorse in the Yukon has more sunny days than anywhere
| else in Canada.
|
| Sure, the sun is only above the horizon for four hours a day,
| but during that time you get a good amount of power from your
| chilly panels.
|
| When I lived up there I knew a ton of people living off-grid
| with solar and a battery setup. It's really common.
| argiopetech wrote:
| Current ICEs seem to be doing a good job of working
| everywhere. I won't downplay their disadvantages, but the
| slope down from the current local maximum is pretty steep,
| and it's not obvious that area electric cars currently (or
| can in the next 10 years) occupy constitutes an improvement.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| What percentage of the world's car owning population lives in a
| place with a restriction like that? Few enough that it would be
| fine to let you keep your ICE/hybrid vehicles with almost no
| impact on climate is my guess.
|
| If I had to guess, you live in Canada which is a country of
| extremes like what you mention.
|
| The solution for Canada probably isn't to prohibit ICE
| vehicles, but to disincentivize them heavily where they make
| less sense. So in the areas where extreme cold and long range
| is the use case, provide an exemption. Out here on Vancouver
| Island where the longest possible route is less than 500km and
| a cold day is one where there's frost on my car, there's really
| not a great reason for me to be buying a brand new ICE car 10
| years from now. Same thing for when I lived in Vancouver and
| drove 5,000 km per year.
|
| My point is that a huge majority of people live in
| circumstances where electric cars will be fine. We shouldn't
| let the corner cases (living in a place with extreme cold where
| driving 400km to the airport is routine) dictate what the rest
| of the world needs to do.
| packetlost wrote:
| EVs are pretty impractical to virtually impossible for use in
| the vast majority of the American Midwest. With temperatures
| that frequently get below 0F in the winter and the huge
| distance between cities, I will be very surprised if EVs have
| anywhere close to a majority within the next 10-20 years
| here. Some people own them as their 'commuter' vehicle and
| own ICE vehicles for longer distances, but most people can't
| afford or don't have space to store 2 vehicles.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I don't understand how this can happen. An equilibrium seems more
| likely to me.
|
| If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas prices
| will fall. This will make combustion vehicles more attractive.
|
| Also, government depends on all the taxes they put on combustion
| vehicles. As those revenues decline they may choose to get that
| money from electric vehicle drivers under the guise of
| 'congestion' taxes or such.
| DennisP wrote:
| Governments certainly have the power to screw things up, but
| also to accelerate things. If electrics take over so much of
| the market that gasoline gets super cheap, there won't be that
| much political resistance to a carbon price on gasoline, since
| most people are driving electrics anyway.
|
| Besides that, it's not all about fuel costs. Electric vehicles
| are fun, and generally low-maintenance.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >there won't be that much political resistance to a carbon
| price on gasoline, since most people are driving electrics
| anyway.
|
| So long as screwing people too poor to justify a new or new-
| ish car is politically unacceptable there will be _some_
| resistance.
|
| Cars from the early '00s are still on the road. It's gonna
| take another ~20yr for the fleet to turn over organically.
| jlj wrote:
| In the US there was a "cash for clunkers" program about
| 10-15 years ago that tried to clear out ineficient older
| model cars. It was fairly successful and stimulated
| purchases of newer cars. The downside was that some
| perfectly fine cars were scrapped.
|
| I suspect that gas stations will start swapping pumps for
| chargers, and that will motivate people to switch too.
|
| By the time this all happens though we will have more car
| sharing programs and maybe autonomous vehicles, so the
| ownership paradigm will be different in 2030 compared to
| now. Why buy a car that sits idle for 90% of the day?
| djrogers wrote:
| > I suspect that gas stations will start swapping pumps
| for chargers, and that will motivate people to switch
| too.
|
| This may happen some places, but I expect the charging
| infrastructure to ultimately look very different from the
| refueling one we have today. Today's fueling
| infrastructure is the way it is largely due to the
| difficulties of storing and pumping fuel safely
| (physically and environmentally speaking). There's no
| reason that an electric car shouldn't be able to 'refuel'
| at a restaurant, grocery store, or at work (ie, where we
| see most charging places pop up).
|
| Having four-corners real estate and employees dedicated
| for electric charging all over even city is just
| inefficient.
| ghaff wrote:
| Assuming charging will take at least 15 minutes or so,
| you really would like to be able to charge somewhere that
| doesn't involve hanging around a crappy convenience store
| while your car charges. A deadish mall near me has some
| Tela chargers right next to a popular grocery store. I
| expect that sort of thing will be fairly common.
| ghaff wrote:
| Because you want to customize it, leave stuff in it, hop
| in it _right now_ , etc. Most of the cost associated with
| owning a car--especially outside of the snow belt--is in
| the mileage so having a car that spends a lot of time
| idle isn't really all that economically inefficient.
| djrogers wrote:
| > So long as screwing people too poor to justify a new or
| new-ish car is politically unacceptable there will be some
| resistance.
|
| Sadly, that (admittedly sound and good) argument will run
| headlong into the resounding cry of 'for the environment'.
| Since both sides of that fight vote for the same party (in
| the US) the option that brings more revenue into the
| government coffers is likely to win. See every fuel tax
| increase in the last 40 years in blue states as examples.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > So long as screwing people too poor to justify a new or
| new-ish car is politically unacceptable there will be
| _some_ resistance.
|
| The obvious solution to this is to use the money from the
| carbon tax to fund a dividend that goes to everybody. Then
| the net result is progressive because everybody receives
| the same amount back but people with less money tend to buy
| higher fuel economy vehicles or take mass transit.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas
| prices will fall. This will make combustion vehicles more
| attractive.
|
| If gas prices fall any lower due to demand, then production
| capacity will probably disappear permanently, leading to
| shortages and a huge, long-term rise in price. Oil pumps aren't
| like taps that can be shut off and powered back on demand. They
| basically need to be operated continuously because restarting
| them is pretty expensive. And storing excess oil is also pretty
| expensive.
|
| We also have to consider that low gas prices are due to volume.
| Refinement is still costly, and if the volume of gas falls by a
| large amount, that refinement costs gets distributed among the
| remaining volume. Refinement capacity is even more expensive to
| bring back online than pumps.
|
| I predict gasoline production will death-spiral at some point.
| Gas stations will be culled as prices spike and volumes drop. I
| would expect this to happen in a relatively short timespan,
| over maybe 1-2 years for the bulk of it, then a long tail of
| persistent decline.
| davidhbolton wrote:
| I think the petrochemical industry might disagree with you
| there. Sure petrol/diesel for transport will decline but
| pharmaceuticals, plastics and many more items are made that
| way and they are not going away. This site has a big list.
| https://www.ranken-energy.com/index.php/products-made-
| from-p...
| rasz wrote:
| Remember that time photo film got cheaper as more and more
| people switched to digital cameras? Combustion engine powered
| cars will be relegated to hipsters, museums, hardcore
| enthusiasts and specialist/niche applications.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I'm not aware of a strong functional benefit of electric
| versus combustion. But digital cameras had strong benefits
| over digital, so I don't think it's a good analogy.
|
| In general, I don't think analogies are for making arguments,
| because people focus on the difference between the analogy
| and what it's being applied to, like I just did. In
| education, to teach a new principle, I think they are great.
| jlj wrote:
| Gas taxes set a floor for how low prices can go. They'll
| probably increase as gas motor cars are phased out before the
| process ever sink too low.
|
| In Washington, US, they increased the registration fee for
| electrics to make up for the shortfall in gas taxes that pay
| for road wear, congestion, etc. So that's already happening.
| 99_00 wrote:
| >They'll probably increase as gas motor cars are phased out
| before the process ever sink too low.
|
| Why?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas
| prices will fall.
|
| This isn't entirely true. The cost of gas has a hard floor due
| to the cost of extracting oil from the ground. Nobody is
| spending $40 a barrel to extract oil that's selling for $25 a
| barrel. So if oil demand falls and prices fall, many of the
| current sellers pull out of the market entirely.
|
| On top of that, as the number of cars going to gas stations
| starts to drop, gas stations will get less profitable. As
| profits drop, stations start closing down. Eventually, enough
| stations close down and it becomes inconvenient to own and
| operate an ICE vehicle regardless of the cost of fuel.
| 99_00 wrote:
| >This isn't entirely true. The cost of gas has a hard floor
| due to the cost of extracting oil from the ground. Nobody is
| spending $40 a barrel to extract oil that's selling for $25 a
| barrel. So if oil demand falls and prices fall, many of the
| current sellers pull out of the market entirely.
|
| Not all producers have the same cost. Saudi Arabia is the
| cheapest I know of at $2.80 per barrel. Others can be 10
| times higher or more.
|
| Is $2.80 the floor? Maybe not, since SA is a monopoly and can
| manipulate the price.
|
| I think the point is that we can both agree on is that it's a
| complex dynamic system, with lots of variables and
| interconnections, and it reacts to changes.
|
| >Saudi Aramco, the monopoly oil producer in Saudi Arabia,
| boasts an extraction cost of about $2.80 a barrel
|
| >A geographical comparison from the annual reports of four
| major international oil companies shows that production costs
| in Russia were about $22 a barrel
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/by-pumping-
| at...
| [deleted]
| jeofken wrote:
| Exactly what is happening in Norway
| adventured wrote:
| Gas prices might temporarily fall as there is a very brief
| over-supply. Then the exact opposite will happen, gasoline will
| become more expensive as the economies of scale vanishes,
| refineries shut down permanently (never to be restarted, and no
| new refineries will be built), the market demand continues to
| dwindle, and on the cycle goes. Gasoline ends up as a largely
| niche fuel many decades out.
|
| And that's before we get to the obviously anti-fossil fuel era
| we're entering, where they will increasingly hammer fuels like
| gasoline with taxes, driving the cost up around the globe. Even
| if somehow the market didn't drive the prices up from the
| economic efficiency change I described, the taxes will
| regardless and that's guaranteed to occur.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Gasoline is (something like) 20% of refinery outputs. I think
| a lot of that is coming out of upgraders, so there can be
| quite a decline in output before there's not enough gasoline
| refiners for there to be price competition.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm
|
| (the upgrading part matters because they can shift their
| production around a lot more than if they are just
| fractioning the crude)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Also, the cost to extract oil is higher in some regions and
| production will drop off as prices drop. Canadian sands oil
| and shale oil both cost about $40/ barrel to extract so there
| isn't a ton of room for prices to go down from here before
| big chunks of supply vanish.
| dm319 wrote:
| The UK plan for no ICE vehicles to be sold by 2030 is fairly
| ambitious. I'm seeing more and more electric vehicles on the
| roads, but I think some regular customers will be disappointed by
| how poor the infrastructure is. Not only that electric chargers
| aren't as prevalent as they need to be, but the number of high-
| speed chargers are tiny (think a couple of locations per large
| city), but an even bigger problem is the heterogeneity and
| complexity of coming across a charger and being able to use it on
| your car. The requirement for registration, fobs/cards etc is
| crazy.
|
| This is a good opportunity for government to step in and mandate
| that all electric charging points also have the option to pay by
| contactless/android/apple pay, for example. I don't mind if I pay
| a few pence more, but I do mind having to find a website on my
| phone and sign up then wait for a fob to be posted to me.
| knoebber wrote:
| California is banning sales of new internal combustion engines
| in 2035 as well. That should help incentivize the
| tech/infrastructure a bit.
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| tyho wrote:
| The 2030 date will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So long as
| "everybody" truly believes the Governments threat to
| effectively ban ICE sales after 2030, then clear economic
| opportunities to service the future demand for electric cars
| and charging infrastructure become apparent.
|
| This sidesteps the issues with network effects. You don't have
| to worry about building a charging network before electric cars
| become widespread, because the Government is sending a clear
| signal of when that transition will happen.
| rasz wrote:
| Just like Brexit.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| >So long as "everybody" truly believes the Governments threat
| to effectively ban ICE sales after 2030
|
| _Will_ anyone believe that though? Given the propensity of
| virtually all governments worldwide to do less than promised
| and the overwhelming amount of infrastructure still needed, I
| don 't take this date seriously at all.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The EU legislation regarding CO2 emissions has teeth, and
| no respite has been given. This is the reason so many PHEVs
| are being introduced lately, they are about the only way to
| comply except pure BEVs. Sure, UK is not EU anymore but the
| legislation is felt worldwide.
|
| Before 2020: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/
| vehicles/cars_...
|
| From 2020 onwards: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/tran
| sport/vehicles/regul...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Given that the entire length of Britain is 600 miles, going
| ICE-free seems almost... easy, compared to the US.
|
| You really don't have the concerns about long-haul trips
| impacting range. Obviously there are point-charging concerns
| etc, but that's something you can throw small money at to fix.
| You don't really need to convince consumers they won't be
| stranded in the mountains and freeze to death.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are areas of the US where electric will probably be a
| tough sell as someone's only vehicle for certain types of
| trips and driving. Is it a large percentage? Probably not.
| (And before someone says just rent a car for those times. For
| a lot of driving away from pavement, you can't rent vehicles
| even if you wanted to.)
| mywittyname wrote:
| Long haul trips were never the biggest concern for EV
| adoption, that's something that can largely be worked around
| through planning.
|
| The biggest concern has always been charging infrastructure.
| EVs are great for people with garages, but not so much for
| the people in cities with no dedicated parking spot.
|
| Banning ICEs is probably the best mechanism to get society to
| solve this problem. Otherwise, most city-dwellers will just
| sit back and continue to drive ICE cars waiting for someone
| else to solve the charging issue.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > EVs are great for people with garages, but not so much
| for the people in cities with no dedicated parking spot.
|
| That's one of the reasons I'm hopeful for self-driving
| taxis. Unless cities magically start allowing garages to be
| built.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I don't know why you assert this. It is the concern for
| literally every person I know who would otherwise have
| bought an EV, including myself.
|
| People like the freedom to take longer road trips without
| meticulous planning, and without sticking to certain
| interstate routes which skip the interesting parts of the
| country.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I never said it wasn't _a_ concern, I said it wasn 't the
| _biggest_ concern.
|
| If all the gas stations around your house disappeared,
| would your first concern be how you are going to get to
| Indianapolis? No. It's going to be how are you going to
| get work/school/etc everyday (assuming you don't work in
| Indianapolis).
|
| EVs have an issue where most drivers have to own their
| own gas-station equivalent. And people without the space
| to put a personal "gas station" can't really own one. At
| that point, they don't give a damn whether they can drive
| to Indianapolis.
|
| Solving the day-to-day charging problem for people
| without the space for personal charges will, as a side-
| effect, also solve the issue for driving long distances.
| Because the issue with going long distances in an EV
| comes down to availability of charging.
| ghaff wrote:
| Both things are concerns, at least when you get to longer
| trips on secondary roads in rural areas.
| mywittyname wrote:
| But again, concerns over range are really just a type of
| concern over public charging capacity.
|
| If the people who drive those roads regularly can charge
| on public chargers, then people driving through on long
| trips also have the ability to charge there. Thus range
| isn't a concern.
| argiopetech wrote:
| In the early days of ICE vehicles, range would have been
| a concern. After all, horses can eat almost anywhere and
| there was plenty of infrastructure (hay barns) available.
|
| The solution to range for an ICE is "carry more fuel". I
| can load my truck bed with 500 gallons of fuel and tow
| 1000 more without taking a significant mileage penalty
| and drive 2/3 of the way around the world. An exaggerated
| scenario, to be sure, but the concept holds on smaller
| scales and is a valuable ability for many.
|
| What does an electric vehicle offer for someone in the
| USA's mid-west, Canada's far north, or the Australian
| outback where a vehicle may need to travel for days off
| road without seeing civilization, possibly while
| maintaining heat for survival or running equipment via
| e.g. a PTO?
|
| Edit to add a reply to your earlier comment: The majority
| of consumer uses of ICEs at the moment is commuting,
| agreed. Governments aren't talking about banning the
| majority of ICE sales. What fills the hole?
| beerandt wrote:
| Except these are basically the same overlapping issues,
| and you're describing the more difficult way to solve it.
|
| If vehicles have twice the range, you only need about
| half the charging infrastructure.
|
| If I don't have a personal charger at home, 1-2 charges a
| week while I'm shopping is doable. But that's not
| something most people will be willing to do daily, away
| from home, unless it's super convenient.
|
| >Solving the day-to-day charging problem .... comes down
| to availability of charging.
|
| This might work in idealized theory, but not in practice.
| From a market-systems perspective, it'll be the opposite,
| because range is the more flexible, independent variable.
| More required charges means more constraints, which
| requires a much more complex (and therefore inefficient)
| system to solve.
|
| And this is even more applicable when factoring in grid
| supply/demand/capacity.
|
| Separately: the market isn't always rational. If people
| say they want the range to drive to Indianapolis, believe
| them, no matter how irrational that demand is to you.
| Especially if meeting that requirement (range) also
| satisfies their others (daily charging).
| seanalltogether wrote:
| The number of people in the UK and Ireland that have to park
| overnight on the street is way too high to start banning ICE
| vehicles within the next decade. Electric infrastructure isn't
| enough, they will have to completely revamp entire
| neighborhoods to provide space for permanent and predictable
| overnight parking for residents.
| rini17 wrote:
| After street lighting was upgraded to more energy-effective
| LEDs there's surplus capacity. Making every pole available
| for slow overnight charging does not mean to "completely
| revamp entire neighborhoods". The possibility to sell the
| electricity might even become attractive for municipality or
| utility.
|
| Also, parking is going to be overhauled anyway, after decades
| of cars occupying every nook and cranny, there's a strong
| push to free the streets.
| davidhbolton wrote:
| I lived in London until 2015 and took a recent look on
| Street View where I lived (Search for E10 6QB if you want
| to see) . It was a typical London street where everyone
| parks nose to nose. There's about 20 cars for every lamp
| post.
|
| No way could you charge every car that way. With the
| typical 50-70% street occupancy. You'd be lucky to find a
| spare lamp post.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > There's about 20 cars for every lamp post.
|
| Maybe the real problem is we have _too many cars_ in the
| first place? Maybe we should limits cars to one per
| couple or something like that?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The number of people in the UK and Ireland that have to
| park overnight on the street is way too high to start banning
| ICE vehicles within the next decade._
|
| You're not wrong (and I too am a "garage orphan"--neither a
| garage or even a driveway), but there are some options being
| developed. The YT channel _Fully Charged_ featured two a
| while back:
|
| * Street lamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls
|
| * Pop-up charger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frkw6aurVUY
|
| I'm a bit skeptical.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Own a TM3, my issue isn't traveling from city to city but its
| instead trips where the round trip is over two hundred but I am
| not traveling by any major route. There are lot of what I call
| "country drives" where the quick route may not involve highways
| and with an ICE car those country bumpkin gas stations are all
| you see.
|
| So until charging becomes as ubiquitous to where the country
| store has "two pumps" or such people are going to find
| situations where it does not work or only works on a good day.
|
| hence the reason I am an advocate of range, range, and more
| range. Range that lets you make big round trips without
| charging are the goal. I know many say "they don't need range"
| or whatnot and can use a short range city car, well that same
| rule applies to ICE but you will see the market for those small
| lower end lower range ICE cars was never great so why would an
| EV market of the same be different?
|
| Soon even low 200 mile range BEVs will be looked at similar to
| how many look at the sub 150 crowd today; Mini should have been
| ashamed to release their car; and 250-350 will be the norm
| (numbers in miles, so KM is 400 to 560)
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes, with very few exceptions, late night driving, very rural
| locations (where you at least want to top off sooner than you
| normally might), etc. you basically don't need to plan
| driving an ICE. There will be _some_ sort of gas station
| along your route. You 're almost certainly not going to have
| to alter your route for sake of hitting a gas station in
| time. (And even if you have to wait for an available pump
| somewhere, the car in front is only going to take a few
| minutes to fill up.)
| ajross wrote:
| > the number of high-speed chargers are tiny (think a couple of
| locations per large city)
|
| That's not so far off. Even large cities in North America have
| no more than a few dozen gas stations (and the UK likely fewer
| still due to things like London's congestion pricing reducing
| vehicle count). Once-a-week-or-so fueling doesn't really
| require a huge amount of infrastructure. That's one of the
| reasons we're all addicted to driving in the first place, after
| all.
|
| And charging stations are, of course, absolutely dirt cheap to
| build relative to fuel stations. They'll keep up with demand
| easily as the driving stock expands. The limit, if there is
| one, is going to be the electrical distribution infrastructure.
| High voltage lines into cities aren't as cheap as we'd want.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| The real issue is charge times.
|
| Gas fillups take a few minutes at most - meaning no long
| lines.
|
| Once charges are close to that speed I think EVs will really
| take off.
| imglorp wrote:
| On the road for long trips, yes absolutely. But the EV
| usecase also includes low and medium speed charging at home
| overnight, and while at your destination (say a retailer)
| which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but
| not identical comparison.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| You're making many assumptions here.
|
| 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming
| they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true
| for a huge portion of the population.
|
| > and while at your destination (say a retailer) which
| you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not
| identical comparison.
|
| This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to
| pay for this? Really?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home -
| assuming they have a garage and access to power. This
| isn't true for a huge portion of the population.
|
| So what, figuring out how people without a designated
| parking space can change their car is trivial compared to
| trying to undo global warming. Also Covid has shown us
| how much disruption we can actually tolerate, hint: a lot
| more than the powers that be want you to believe.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| 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.
| smileysteve wrote:
| NYC and San Francisco are about as strawman as it gets,
| because the cars AND trips per capita are some of the
| lowest in the U.S.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Because of the infrastructure surrounding it - e.g.
| fleets of cars taxis, public transit, etc. In other
| words, better options than having an owning an EV, which,
| if you pay attention, is what we're talking about here.
| natch wrote:
| I don't think they claimed that everyone has access at
| home. They said "the use case includes" which doesn't
| exclude other possibilities.
|
| There are many great options for charging if you choose
| your car wisely.
|
| Our apartment building with six parking spaces has three
| Teslas and no charging on site. We do just fine.
|
| Charging takes about 15 seconds of my day on work days.
| And on the occasion when I need more, it's quick and I
| can grab a few minutes (like, 10 or 15) of a youtube
| video or Netflix while charging. Or step into a store and
| do an errand while charging.
|
| In 10 minutes I can get about 100 miles of charge. I
| often go to our nearby Target (a store in the US) which
| has a supercharger right in the parking lot, and I don't
| charge, even though I'm already there shopping right
| where the charger is. Why? No need. Already charged. It's
| not that difficult.
|
| Notice I never said this will work for everyone. But it
| works for some, with no assumption about having chargers
| at home.
|
| >Who's going to pay?
|
| Sometimes you pay per kilowatt. Other times you're
| charged per minute, like 3 cents a minute or so which
| includes parking. Other places it's free and advertising
| on nearby signs subsidies for it. Or employers pay for it
| as a work benefit. One network (Chargepoint) covers most
| of this stuff.
| bogdanu wrote:
| > 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.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| 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.
| tzs wrote:
| To put some numbers on this, you can measure charge
| rates/fueling rates as number of miles worth of charge/fuel
| provided per hour of charging/fueling.
|
| A Tesla V3 Supercharger can charge at a rate of about 1000
| mph or 1600 kph.
|
| A 240 volt 48 amp home charger home charger can charge a
| Model 3 at a rate of 44 mph or 71 kph.
|
| A US gas pump can pump a maximum of 10 gallons per minute.
| If you refill at a station with such a pump, and your car
| gets 25 mpg (about average for the current US fleet),
| that's 15000 mph or 24000 kph.
|
| Perhaps we should be pushing for plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs)
| as a transition between ICE and EV. PHEVs have ranges
| between about 20 and 60 miles on electricity, which for
| many people is enough to cover all of their normal day to
| day driving except possibly their commute entirely on
| electric if they have a place for overnight charging at
| home, and when they need more range it has the ICE engine.
| technofiend wrote:
| Tangentially gas cars are convenient because you just don't
| have to think about the length of your next trip: there
| will be gas available wherever you go. Long trips with an
| EV require planning due to missing infrastructure, longer
| "fueling" times, and shorter ranges.
|
| But if we break out off the assumption that you can go
| anywhere any time in your electric car because there's
| another option available (rental? ride sharing? public
| transportation?) and EVs are at least for now meant for
| shorter trips then it becomes less of an issue.
|
| But you're right - the freedom to just hop in an EV and go
| isn't here yet. I look forward to when it is. Can't come
| soon enough for me.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| If we break off the assumption of what most consumers
| want, sure. But then what would be the point?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> And charging stations are, of course, absolutely dirt
| cheap to build relative to fuel stations.
|
| Really? A normal gas station can handle around 100 cars per
| hour using a handful of pumps and is refueled by daily
| deliveries from a big truck. Simple. An electric charge point
| capable of that will require a massive amount of electricity,
| electricity delivered over wires. Look into how much it costs
| to run such a service to a random location in a city. Look at
| the costs of putting up even a handful of towers capable of
| delivering a thousand amps peak load. Then look the
| additional real estate costs need to facilitate 100 cars/hour
| worth of charging points. Electric 'stations' are very much
| not drop-in replacements. We need a very different physical
| infrastructure (ie smaller charge points at every parking
| spot rather than central stations).
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| This why a lot of stations are now moving to adding
| batteries to meet peak demand.
|
| Also if you have lots of stalls of cars charing to 100%,
| you can steal some of their charge and route to someone who
| needs to get to 80% ASAP.
|
| Also, fast charge is very slowed down in cold climates
| and/or when you are reaching 80%.
| ajross wrote:
| I'd want to see numbers for that argument, because I don't
| think I'm willing to buy it on assertion. A single,
| routine, boring 100A building drop is enough to charge 4-5
| cars (i.e. "one station worth"), and those wires and
| infrastructure are already there, and have been for
| decades.
| p1mrx wrote:
| 100A at 240V can charge 4-5 cars... in about 12 hours.
| That would be useful at a hotel or workplace, but it
| won't replace a gas station.
| smileysteve wrote:
| > That would be useful at a hotel or workplace, but it
| won't replace a gas station.
|
| Also useful at any sit down restaurant (even fast food).
| (which although self driving makes driving while eating
| safer, was a horrible practice to begin with)
|
| Addon; Tracked long trips we took in the SE last year
| against the Tesla charger map; There was always a super
| charger within 1 mile of where we stopped for food, were
| stopped for about an hour, etc. And some in our group
| also needed bio breaks every hour and a half; aka < 150
| miles.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > but it won't replace a gas station.
|
| It will replace the majority of them.
|
| The concept non-EV owners struggle with is that with an
| EV you don't normally go out of your way to charge it the
| way you do with an ICE. If you can charge at home, at
| work, at the grocery store, and at restaurants then why
| do you need a filling station? If you start your day at
| 100% because you charge at home then you don't need any
| of the other infrastructure unless you go on a road-trip.
|
| The amount of charging infrastructure need is also based
| on both demand and use case. A grocery store or
| restaurant might opt for DC fast chargers because they
| know customers won't be around for more than 30 minutes,
| but an office park can use 3-6kw chargers because users
| are there for 8 hours a day. The EVSEs are smart too so
| you can balance output based on demand. Have two EVs
| plugged in, they both get 3kw. Just one can pull 6kw.
| glial wrote:
| OK, maybe the goal should be to relax our assumption that
| recharging happens at the gas stations, and just spread
| the load to all the parking lots we can find. Then gas
| stations could just have the quick-charge versions for
| more $$.
| turtlebits wrote:
| The problem is that your 100A charging station will take
| 8+ hours to charge all 4 cars to max (as that is ~L2
| charging speed..
| marvin wrote:
| The biggest problem is peak power. The naive 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 company and grid operator
| will service without exorbitant costs.
|
| Thankfully, at least one EV company has already realized
| this :-) Let's see if more than one of them eventually
| starts producing enough batteries to support the
| strategy.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Tesla superchargers take about 40 minutes to deliver an
| 80% charge. Call that a "full" tank. A gas pump can do
| the same in about 5 minutes (probably less). So to
| charge/fill the same number of cars _per hour_ as one gas
| pump you need 8 superchargers. That 's a significant
| increase in real estate area needed.
|
| Another approach: A top-end Tesla supercharger delivers
| around 250kW. So eight of those would be 2000kW or 2
| Megawatt, or around 20,000 amps, to give the equivalent
| number of fills/charges per hour as ONE gas pump.
|
| I filled my tank at a medium-sized station this morning
| that had 8 pumps (4 islands, double-sided). So the drop-
| in electric replacement would be 8x the numbers above.
| maxerickson wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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.
| marvin wrote:
| 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.
| uncledave wrote:
| Very few homes have anywhere to charge anything in London
| as an example. I don't think the model works without
| knocking cities down and starting again.
|
| The two people I know with Teslas have to charge at the
| local supercharger or park it a quarter of a mile away at
| the nearest slow charger which becomes a chore.
| ghaff wrote:
| More to the point, I'm not sitting around for 40 minutes
| at a charging station even once a week to get recharged
| (and it will be more frequent than that for many).
| Especially given that offices may be a less regular
| thing, people need ways to charge when their cars are
| parked wherever they're parked when they're at home. Even
| if they eat out a bit that's not a substitute.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| This is a false dichotomy, we have to get away from
| thinking of charging stations like gas pumps. Charging
| stations can be everywhere: grocery stores, retail stores,
| office buildings, malls, just about any parking lot or
| parking garage, hotels, airport parking and on and on. Gas
| pumps have to have huge underground tanks, and they have to
| be regularly refilled by large tanker trucks, by their very
| nature they will be less common and so they'd better be
| able to service more cars per hour. Charging stations are
| much smaller and can tie into the grid just about anywhere,
| there should be a lot more of them and thus they won't need
| to handle as many cars as a gas station does.
| jussij wrote:
| I also think from the driver's perspective the usage will
| be totally different.
|
| Today's driver generally goes to the gas station only
| when the tank is empty.
|
| That leads to a 'big bang' event in that the tank will be
| close to empty at the start of the visit and full by the
| end of the visit.
|
| By comparison the driver of the electric car will be
| using a 'top up' approach, charging the car at home over
| night, at work when parked, at the shopping center, etc.
| etc.
|
| Those 'big bang' events, where a full recharge is
| required will be fewer and far between.
| zizee wrote:
| Excellent points. Also people seem to be forgetting a
| large percentage of people will be charging at home
| overnight, and will largely never need to charge their
| cars at places other than home.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Yeah, every parking spot could be a simple charging
| station. All you need is a power cable.
|
| Reusing the land of all gas stations for other things
| will be a good benefit of all this. Except for San
| Francisco, where they all will be preserved as historical
| landmarks.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I've been mapping Michigan gas stations on OpenStreetMap so I
| have some data ready at hand here. Wayne County, which is
| essentially all part of the Detroit metro area, has more than
| 800 retail fuel establishments licensed by the state of
| Michigan.
|
| (I don't think my point particularly rests on how the Detroit
| metro is defined; Detroit itself has 349 gas stations)
| ajross wrote:
| Well, OK, but I'm not sure that really reflects the subject
| under discussion (a recognized place with a sign or
| whatever where you know you can drive in and fill up).
|
| I mean, to be glib: I have no Detroit-area GIS experience
| whatsoever, but I can type "gas station" into a Google Maps
| search for the area and count how many flags I see. And
| it's absolutely not 800. Indeed, it looks like 40 or so.
|
| Surely there are technicalities that make other places
| "technically" gas stations too. But then, there are
| technicalities that make any AC outlet a charging station
| -- virtually every large retail facility near me has one or
| two car chargers, for example.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Based on having reviewed a bit more than 1/2 of the ~4000
| in the state, they are almost all gas stations with a
| canopy and convenience store.
|
| There's some older places with no canopy and some boat
| and rec fuel sales, but a few dozen.
|
| Michigan likely has "lots" of gas stations, as regulation
| has historically been friendly to personal vehicles, but
| I wouldn't take Google as gospel.
|
| later: the Google results appear to be paginated to ~20
| results at a time.
| k__ wrote:
| Good to hear.
|
| I'm not driving much myself lately, but I'm really excited about
| the health impact of removing combustion engines from our cities.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Same here; but living in a big city I can't wait for diesel
| fumes to not be a thing when I'm riding my bike across town.
| It's not just annoying, this stuff is actually killing people.
| But because it's a slow killer nobody seems to care much. EVs
| are changing that as well; people are getting more critical of
| pollution like this because they know it is not necessary. The
| recent lock downs were kind of a preview of what might be in
| our near future when transport is cleaned up.
|
| In terms of tipping point, the other thing that is happening
| (besides battery cost dropping) is the massive ramp-up in
| production volume. Just a few years ago, Tesla producing more
| than 50K cars was news worthy. Last year they did half a
| million and they have a few more factories coming online this
| year. Also VW, GM, and other manufacturers are producing cars
| by the hundreds of thousands per year as well. Soon it will be
| millions. By mid this decade, the second hand EV market will
| also start ramping up. Right now a lot of people are still on
| their first EVs.
|
| It's basically a supply constrained market: people are buying
| these things as soon as they get produced. Most of the popular
| EVs have waiting lists for getting them and would be selling
| more if they could produce more of them. These manufacturers
| are still learning how to produce and design efficiently. A lot
| of the cars on the market right now are still designed to come
| in both ICE, hybrid, and EV configurations. That makes them
| less efficient and more costly to make. It's just not optimal.
| A few years from now, that will stop being a thing. There will
| just be too many purposely designed EVs on the market that will
| be a better deal overall.
|
| It's going to take a while for manufacturers to switch to
| producing EVs only. Production volume overall is something like
| 90M cars per year and only a few percent is EVs currently.
| Probably by the end of the decade it will be the other way
| around. There are billions of vehicles (cars, trucks, etc.) it
| will take a while for those to disappear. That being said, it
| will be similar to horses disappearing from the streets early
| last century. Once it makes sense economically, people will
| switch as fast as they can (function of price and production
| volume).
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