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Electric Vehicles

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Here’s a thought.

Around here in E TN and N GA, there are lots of reminders of Roosevelt’s WPA, specifically the TVA hydroelectric dams and power grids still pumping out energy.

And I came of age as Eisenhower’s dream of an Interstate Highway System was just coming to fruition.

Wouldn’t it be great if Biden could be remembered for championing an Interstate Charging System. What a good way to get a lot of folks back to work building something that will last.

Like I said, just a thought.

Only vaguely related, near-to-us Melton Hill Dam does not date to the 1930’s, but is a TVA project. It’s also showcasing solar and wind and has 4 free charging stations. Nice to “top off” while walking the dogs, as we did today.

51011013507_5b8e1baf98.jpg


Another fellow was topping off his Model S nearby. Nice looking car!
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Here’s a thought.

Around here in E TN and N GA, there are lots of reminders of Roosevelt’s WPA, specifically the TVA hydroelectric dams and power grids still pumping out energy.

And I came of age as Eisenhower’s dream of an Interstate Highway System was just coming to fruition.

Wouldn’t it be great if Biden could be remembered for championing an Interstate Charging System. What a good way to get a lot of folks back to work building something that will last.

Like I said, just a thought.

Only vaguely related, near-to-us Melton Hill Dam does not date to the 1930’s, but is a TVA project. It’s also showcasing solar and wind and has 4 free charging stations. Nice to “top off” while walking the dogs, as we did today.

[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51011013507_5b8e1baf98.jpg[/qimg]

Another fellow was topping off his Model S nearby. Nice looking car!
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I like it. :thumbsup:

But I don't think this is the right approach for this moment. There already is the expectation of a half a million new charging points in the next 5 years. The demand for EVs and new charging stations should progress as much as possible at corresponding rates.
 
Volkswagen, BTW, is paying for a lot of new charging stations in the US as compensation for the emissions scandal.
 
Distracted1 said:
i can see where they would want the cost of a fill-up to be as murky as possible.
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The major charging networks have apps that allow to monitor the charge including the cost, total charge, and charging rate. The car will also display stats.
 
Widespread charging stations would coincidentally solve a different problem I've had on my mind lately.

Sometimes I imagine equipping a big van to live in full-time and not having an apartment or house anymore. Two of the main obstacles to that are winter heating & summer cooling. I wouldn't want to run the engine for hours just to power those, but running them on just the battery wouldn't last long, even with a solar roof. I've imagined the idea of places where people who want to live in their vehicles could park & plug in when necessary and pay significantly less rent than normal housing would cost (essentially just renting a garage instead of a whole home), but no such places seem to exist. There are places where motorhomes can plug in, but they're normally near tourist sites, not cities & suburbs where most people need to live because that's where the jobs are. So they only help people on vacation, not people who want to live that way. If there were charging places all around, I could plug in my live-in van anywhere.
 
jadebox said:
Free Level 2 options will probably be around for a while since they don't cost the businesses very much and there are advertising supported networks installing them.

I don't see any tax explicitly added to the cost in my area.

And before anyone brings it up, we pay exactly the same amount of gasoline taxes as anyone else. We just use less gas. :-)
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Yeah, but that's gonna change. The roads still need maintenance and all the other costs of motoring. As gas tax revenues decline, the loss has to be made up somewhere and the logical point is taxing Kwhs.
 
Delvo said:
Widespread charging stations would coincidentally solve a different problem I've had on my mind lately.

Sometimes I imagine equipping a big van to live in full-time and not having an apartment or house anymore. Two of the main obstacles to that are winter heating & summer cooling. I wouldn't want to run the engine for hours just to power those, but running them on just the battery wouldn't last long, even with a solar roof. I've imagined the idea of places where people who want to live in their vehicles could park & plug in when necessary and pay significantly less rent than normal housing would cost (essentially just renting a garage instead of a whole home), but no such places seem to exist. There are places where motorhomes can plug in, but they're normally near tourist sites, not cities & suburbs where most people need to live because that's where the jobs are. So they only help people on vacation, not people who want to live that way. If there were charging places all around, I could plug in my live-in van anywhere.
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ICEs aren't going anywhere soon. You could in theory have an EV and a diesel parking heater. They are very efficient. A small two gallon tank could heat van in winter for a week.
 
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SezMe said:
What's this "tailpipe" thingy you talk about? ;)
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That's a good point. I copy/pasted the words from the govt. website and they don't quite make sense, do they?

eta: Perhaps this allows for the possibility of liquid hydrogen fuel or somesuch? Maybe.
 
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Distracted1 said:
Are you even made aware of the charge for the fill up at the time of purchase?
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Just to clarify the responses to this a little, here's a live-action photo from my car at a Tesla supercharger.



You can set parameters such as maximum charge and it also shows you - bottom right - the cost in real-time, same as a petrol pump does.

One data point isn't evidence but on the one occasion that I used a payable non-Tesla charger, it showed me the current cost on the charger's screen.
 
Delvo said:
Sometimes I imagine equipping a big van to live in full-time and not having an apartment or house anymore. Two of the main obstacles to that are winter heating & summer cooling.
Click to expand...

Our travel trailer has two propane tanks to handle the heating*. It lets us heat while “boondocking”, i.e. camping without hookups. We also have a propane water heater and stove. Propane should be around for a long time. Air conditioning, for the most part, does need electricity, and many folks carry a generator to handle that, and bigger rigs have on board generators.

*the furnace does use 12v for the fan and electronics, but not a whole lot. With our batteries - switchable between two 6v golf cart batteries in series, and another 12v deep cycle, we’re good for several days off grid - more if we hook up our solar panel and have sunshine.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Here’s a thought.

Around here in E TN and N GA, there are lots of reminders of Roosevelt’s WPA, specifically the TVA hydroelectric dams and power grids still pumping out energy.

And I came of age as Eisenhower’s dream of an Interstate Highway System was just coming to fruition.

Wouldn’t it be great if Biden could be remembered for championing an Interstate Charging System. What a good way to get a lot of folks back to work building something that will last.

Like I said, just a thought.

Only vaguely related, near-to-us Melton Hill Dam does not date to the 1930’s, but is a TVA project. It’s also showcasing solar and wind and has 4 free charging stations. Nice to “top off” while walking the dogs, as we did today.

[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51011013507_5b8e1baf98.jpg[/qimg]

Another fellow was topping off his Model S nearby. Nice looking car!
Click to expand...
I like the sentiment, but can't help but wonder if that is the right approach.
EV cars and trucks are an improvement over the current fleet of ICE vehicles, agreed, but the entire "car culture" (sorry for the use of the C-word in this thread) that came out of those decades was harmful (arguably) in more ways than the CO2 it generates.

Perhaps it is enough to simply discourage CO2 emitting vehicles, without spending public money to switch to something that is only a little better.
How about Biden be remembered for making rail travel more practical and attractive for most Americans instead?
 
So what happens to Telsas (the cars) if Tesla (the company) goes under?

You still see Pontiacs and Saturns and Saabs and Izuzu's on the road. They didn't all automatically brick when their companies went under because they don't have servers to check in with for software updates or because some automotive equivalent to DRM prevents it.

Sure maybe Tesla is stable, but electric car startups are a dime a dozen, at least some of them are going to be using a "car as service, not product" model of some kind, and some of them are going to go under.
 
acbytesla said:
But still, a thousand watts is nothing compared with what an EV wants or needs to draw. A 50 Kwh battery pack to charge from empty to full in 2 hours uses 25 times that.
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What is the nominal battery voltage typically on EVs?
Amp draw when charging?
 
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