Electric Vehicles

[Ziggurat]

I'll try again

Unless something has changed in the last 4 and a bit years, most people aren't driving hundreds of miles at a time.

Everyone already knows that. You are being ignored because you aren't adding anything to the discussion.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

If you want to waste your time by making another stop. But I thought this whole thing was about not having to make extra stops that waste time.

But gas stops are quick.

Does every point made in the thread need to be repeated in every post in order to count?

 

[GlennB]

If you want to waste your time by making another stop. But I thought this whole thing was about not having to make extra stops that waste time.

Filling a tank with petrol is the work of a few minutes. A stop to recharge is much longer.

But why raise the point about the expense of a hotel installing petrol pumps? If there's a demand then the petrol stations will still be there and the hotel needs to do nothing. If there's no demand the hotel won't need pumps.

 

[Dr. Keith]

The comparison is irrelevant. No matter how hard gas processing and distribution is, it's already been done, it doesn't need to be done again. We have a gasoline distribution network already, and we NEED to keep it. We do not actually need our network of fast chargers, and we certainly don't need it to be large.

The question regarding electric generation and distribution isn't CAN we do it, but WILL we do it, and at what cost. There is considerable environmental opposition to expanding fossil fuel and nuclear use. Solar and wind power are... problematic. The history of California's electrical grid should tell you that regardless of the simplicity of the engineering aspects of the problem, we're still having problems with it.



Most people are not clamoring for EVs, regardless of range. It is still a niche market. And pure EVs have few advantages over plug in hybrids.



You are confused about what I'm saying.



Oh, I know people do.

But how many? Seriously, how many people specifically want an EV, and NOT a plug in hybrid, for long distance driving? How many people are willing to pay a premium to get it? I'm sure the number isn't zero, but I see no reason to think it's large.



This doesn't mean anything.



300 miles in 5 minutes, or 100 miles in 1 minute.

It’s weird. I have a property in the country and I was able to get 400 amp service in about two weeks by making a phone call. It cost me about $500 for an electrician to put the panel in. I suppose a charging station would run me another $35,000* if I wanted fast dc charging.

And yet here you are telling me that we can’t do that a few hundred thousand times spread out all over the country over the next decade. No wonder Elon Musk saw charging as the best opportunity to take hold of the us market.

I don’t need long distance fill ups to be as quick as gas because I’ll be saving time by never having to fill up between long distance trips. To me walking out to a charged car each morning makes up for having a ten minute stop once ever two months. But other people really like gas stations and I wouldn’t want to take that away from anyone.

Now, a plug in hybrid solves both problems but then you end up with a motor and an engine. Gas storage and batteries. Battery maintenance and ice maintenance. It’s a compromise I will likely make to be able to tow, but I don’t think it’s a necessary compromise for most drivers.

*I checked and corrected my pricing on the dc fast charger.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Filling a tank with petrol is the work of a few minutes. A stop to recharge is much longer.

But why raise the point about the expense of a hotel installing petrol pumps? If there's a demand then the petrol stations will still be there and the hotel needs to do nothing. If there's no demand the hotel won't need pumps.

Because a hotel with chargers saves you from having to make a gas stop.

You complain about having a long charge stop. I point out that you can charge at your hotel.

Hotel gas station was just pointing out that we are so used to extra stops that we don’t even consider them extra. It is almost like we are so trained on gas stops that we will only accept EVs when they require us to stop at gas stations.

 

[Ziggurat]

It’s weird. I have a property in the country and I was able to get 400 amp service in about two weeks by making a phone call. It cost me about $500 for an electrician to put the panel in. I suppose a charging station would run me another $35,000* if I wanted fast dc charging.

And yet here you are telling me that we can’t do that a few hundred thousand times spread out all over the country over the next decade. No wonder Elon Musk saw charging as the best opportunity to take hold of the us market.

You got 400 amp service in a few weeks, and you have no idea how much it cost because you didn't have to pay. But someone did.

How long do you think it would take you to get 4000 amp service? How much would it cost if you did have to pay for it?

And $35k for 100,000 units (which is still under one charger per gas station) is $3.5 billion. Can we do many multiples of that? Plus all the extra grid capacity? Yes.

Will we do that? No, I don't think we will. I think the network of charging stations will only have the capacity to handle a small fraction of the total long distance passenger traffic we have. It isn't that important to shift long distance passenger traffic to electric vehicles.

I don’t need long distance fill ups to be as quick as gas because I’ll be saving time by never having to fill up between long distance trips.

Your personal use habits aren't really relevant.

To me walking out to a charged car each morning makes up for having a ten minute stop once ever two months.

You still don't understand the problem I'm describing. It isn't the ten minutes of charging. It's the hour of waiting for all the cars ahead of you trying to get charged up as well.

 

[Dr. Keith]

You got 400 amp service in a few weeks, and you have no idea how much it cost because you didn't have to pay. But someone did.

How long do you think it would take you to get 4000 amp service? How much would it cost if you did have to pay for it?

And $35k for 100,000 units (which is still under one charger per gas station) is $3.5 billion. Can we do many multiples of that? Plus all the extra grid capacity? Yes.

Will we do that? No, I don't think we will. I think the network of charging stations will only have the capacity to handle a small fraction of the total long distance passenger traffic we have. It isn't that important to shift long distance passenger traffic to electric vehicles.



Your personal use habits aren't really relevant.



You still don't understand the problem I'm describing. It isn't the ten minutes of charging. It's the hour of waiting for all the cars ahead of you trying to get charged up as well.

I pay for it every month. Do you think my electric provider is a charity? Your utopia is weird.

$3.5 billion is a drop in the bucket when it comes to transportation investments.

We are constantly adding to grid capacity already. While also trying to reduce consumption elsewhere.

If there is demand there is no way to stop it from happening. If there is not demand there is no way to force it to happen.

I think the demand will be there as more people try electric vehicles.

You think people would rather pay more to have a hybrid. But then you also say my position is unpossible.

You may be right that people are more willing to pay for hybrids. We’ll see.

I just don’t see the hill as that high to climb.

 

[Ziggurat]

I pay for it every month.

But you have no idea what it cost the electric company to install the line. Presumably they are capitalizing that cost under your rate, but you've got no idea what the timescale is. But it matters when you're footing the upfront costs. Rural electricity grids are also often government subsidized, so your electric company likely isn't paying the whole bill anyways.

Your utopia is weird.

Do you really need to keep doing this? Please stop, it's not helpful.

$3.5 billion is a drop in the bucket when it comes to transportation investments.

When you compare it to the whole sector, sure. But that's a bad comparison, because the benefits are marginal, so being small compared to the sector still isn't enough.

If there is demand there is no way to stop it from happening. If there is not demand there is no way to force it to happen.

There isn't much demand. I think there won't be much demand.

You think people would rather pay more to have a hybrid.

Hybrids aren't more expensive than all-electrics.

 

[ZirconBlue]

I live in a city of ~320k people. The Meijer near my house has 9 or 10 Tesla Superchargers in the parking lot. You can probably get a decent charge while you shop. It's also right off an Interstate exit, so would be useful for travelers, as well. Looking at a map, it appears there's quite a few charging stations around town and in the neighboring areas (including at my workplace). I'm thinking an EV would be a good fit for me when I next need to buy a vehicle.

 

[GlennB]

Because a hotel with chargers saves you from having to make a gas stop.

You complain about having a long charge stop. I point out that you can charge at your hotel.

Charging at a hotel (if you happen to be at one) saves 5 minutes vs. a gas stop. Meanwhile, there may be many times when a charge involves a lot of inconvenience compared to an overnight stay in a hotel. I couldn't recharge at home even if I wanted to, as there's no way to run a cable to the car, short of installing an outside socket or drilling a hole through a wall, with both methods requiring a cable protector for pedestrian safety (good luck with that, living in a litigious society).

The local council could install chargers along the road or modify street lights as charging points? Sure they could, but in practice our local FaceBook group has regular complaints about cheap+easy-to-fix potholes that the cash-strapped council doesn't fix, not to mention cuts in other badly needed services to the community.

In addition, the parking spot outside our house isn't 'reserved' in any way, it's a public road. Anybody can park there and leave their car there for a fortnight while they go on holiday if they choose. How do I charge my car then? Do regular 4-hour shopping trips to a supermarket that has adequate chargers? Spend loads of time having looong lunches at McD's?

Seriously, a lot of the debate about the march of EVs strikes me as an 'in a perfect world' kind of scene. Reality is harsher and involves a lot of money, money that's already hard to find.

 

[Dr. Keith]

The cost to develop a car model is around $6b. How many new models has BMW alone developed in the last five years, much less the industry as a whole? Cost is not an issue if people want it. We are not talking about breaking the laws of physics.

Cost of ownership is higher with hybrids. You pay for a charging station in your garage and oil changes every 3-6 months. It is a compromise that works for some, but everyone I’ve talked to says they wished they had bought a full EV or waited until full EV were better.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Charging at a hotel (if you happen to be at one) saves 5 minutes vs. a gas stop. Meanwhile, there may be many times when a charge involves a lot of inconvenience compared to an overnight stay in a hotel. I couldn't recharge at home even if I wanted to, as there's no way to run a cable to the car, short of installing an outside socket or drilling a hole through a wall, with both methods requiring a cable protector for pedestrian safety (good luck with that, living in a litigious society).

The local council could install chargers along the road or modify street lights as charging points? Sure they could, but in practice our local FaceBook group has regular complaints about cheap+easy-to-fix potholes that the cash-strapped council doesn't fix, not to mention cuts in other badly needed services to the community.

In addition, the parking spot outside our house isn't 'reserved' in any way, it's a public road. Anybody can park there and leave their car there for a fortnight while they go on holiday if they choose. How do I charge my car then? Do regular 4-hour shopping trips to a supermarket that has adequate chargers? Spend loads of time having looong lunches at McD's?

Seriously, a lot of the debate about the march of EVs strikes me as an 'in a perfect world' kind of scene. Reality is harsher and involves a lot of money, money that's already hard to find.

I know EVs don’t work for everyone. I’m merely saying that among the reasons EVs may not work for someone, long distance travel is an entirely solvable issue. It does not require a massive upheaval of our transportation or energy system to add long distance travel chargers capacity over time.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I live in a city of ~320k people. The Meijer near my house has 9 or 10 Tesla Superchargers in the parking lot. You can probably get a decent charge while you shop. It's also right off an Interstate exit, so would be useful for travelers, as well. Looking at a map, it appears there's quite a few charging stations around town and in the neighboring areas (including at my workplace). I'm thinking an EV would be a good fit for me when I next need to buy a vehicle.

Sounds like it. I wouldn’t buy one unless I could charge at home. Maybe work would be enough, if I went every day.

 

[novaphile]

Understood.

Right. But most people filling up with gas on any given day aren’t driving long range. Charging stations only have to serve long range drivers or end users, such as workplaces or shopping centers. They have fewer customers. Far fewer.

And the rollout can be gradual because the adoption rate will be gradual. It doesn’t have to happen today because EVs don’t work for everyone today. But as the use grows and the charging networks grow they will be useful for more people.

“According to Porsche, charging from 5 to 80% should take just about 22.5 min, and you can add some 100 km (62 miles) of range in 5 minutes (at low SOC)” in the Taycan, which is a few years old.

Of course, not everyone can afford a Porsche. They may have to settle for a Hyundai.

“When you employ a 350-kW charger, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 will charge its battery from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes. Drivers that are in a hurry and do not need a full charge can gain 68 miles of range in 5 minutes with a 350-kW fast charger.”

So we haven’t gotten to 100 miles in 5 minutes, but I’d say it’s not really unattainable. I’d say it’s more attainable than moving the US to the metric system.

As the proud owner of a plug-in hybrid, I'd like to point out that these charging times do not take into account the length of the queue waiting for the charger.

At a petrol station, it's not big deal if you're tenth in line for the gas pump. Even if there was only one pump, you'd be waiting for less than an hour.

However, if you're waiting for a charger, you're waiting approximately 20 minutes per person in the queue in front of you.

The electric car forums are full of people that complain about drivers that plug their car in and then leave. (i.e. I'll get a cup of coffee or a meal while my car is charging).

This is so bad that I see complaints from electric car users because someone with a plug-in hybrid dared to charge ever!!!

So the infrastructure will have to increase a lot.

Every parking spot at the charging station/restaurant/etc. needs to have a charging point.

 

[lomiller]

300 miles in 5 minutes, or 100 miles in 1 minute.

That seems unreasonable. The majority of people taking long distance trips stop more frequently than that and each stop is longer than that. A 15 min stop every 2-3 hours is generally viewed as a positive thing for long distance travelers.

There are also quite a few IC powered vehicles that would struggle with that range and as someone who's done a lot of long distance traveling stopping to refuel always takes longer than 5 min even when you are alone. When you have 4 people who all need to go to the bathroom, buy a drink, etc your lucky if you can keep the stops under 15 min.

 

[novaphile]

I'm pretty lucky that my PHEV perfectly suits my needs.

There's no need for me to own multiple vehicles, all my city driving is fully electric, and I can haul my trailer with bikes, boats etc. anywhere, anytime.

It looks identical to the same car in the diesel or petrol version, but uses a tiny amount of petrol by comparison.

I'm active on the forum for that car, and very rare to see anyone say "I wish I'd bought an all electric car".

For longer trips, I don't ever bother to recharge at a charger, but do use the engine to charge the drive battery if I'm expecting to need more power somewhere ahead.

(For example climbing hills while towing a heavy load, engine + drive battery is better)

I have recharged overnight at camp sites though.

Note that mine drives the front wheels directly from the engine if the speed is high enough, as well as being able to drive all wheels by the two electric motors.

One really surprising side effect is how close you get to nature as you silently glide by the wildlife, electric car owners would be familiar with that feeling.

 

[lomiller]

How long do you think it would take you to get 4000 amp service? How much would it cost if you did have to pay for it?

A 4000A service? That doesn't even make sense, not only is a 4000A service not available you'd never need one in the first place.

 

[Ziggurat]

A 4000A service? That doesn't even make sense, not only is a 4000A service not available you'd never need one in the first place.

Not at my house. But if you want to run, say, 20 quick chargers…

 

[Ziggurat]

That seems unreasonable. The majority of people taking long distance trips stop more frequently than that and each stop is longer than that.

But the fill up isn’t. And while it’s fine to do the other stuff you might do while waiting for your car to charge, that only works if you are actually plugged in while doing that other stuff, which is only going to be the case if you don’t have to wait for someone ahead of you to finish charging.

But if there are a lot of electric vehicles that need to get charged, you will end up having to wait for the person ahead of you. And suddenly the time required gets a lot longer.

 

[Ziggurat]

As the proud owner of a plug-in hybrid, I'd like to point out that these charging times do not take into account the length of the queue waiting for the charger.

That is exactly the point I have been trying to make.