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Electric Vehicles

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xterra said:
After following this thread for several years, I got curious. How many people are there like me, who live in an apartment, with no possibility of plugging in an electric vehicle?

In the U.S., according to the Census Bureau, for the period 2017 to 2021, 64.6% of 142,153,000 "housing units" were owner-occupied. This means that about 50 million units are rentals. I haven't found any estimate of the conformation of these units, that it, how many are single-family, how man are two- or three- or four-family units, and how many are in larger apartment buildings, like the one where I live.

In my building, I don't have—and can't get—an outlet into which I could plug an EV. The building owner would have to spend considerable money to add electric capacity and metering in order to charge each EV the appropriate amount for electricity.
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Yeah, it's a huge problem that hasn't been addressed in any way as far as I can tell. EVs really aren't practical to people who can't charge overnight at their home.

There's a reason why so many of these EVs seem to be targeting the luxury car buyer market. I see tons of Teslas and over fancy EVs around here in the suburbs. People with single family homes with attached garages in the swankier suburbs of Boston that have ready access to power are ripe for buying these things, and that's very much the higher wealthy luxury car buyer. Apartments and condos with surface lots or street parking have no convenient means to charge an EV.

People with easy charging solutions at their home are the low hanging fruit, but if EV adoption is going to be more widespread there needs to be a solution for people with less ideal housing situations.
 
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Blue Mountain said:
That's currently my situation. I live i n a large 50 year old condominium complex that wasn't designed with the required infrastructure to charge electric vehicles. Fortunately we have good electricity here, an ability to upgrade, and the condo board is looking into setting up some charging stations.
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My situation is not as favorable as yours.
• This is not a condominium, it is a wholly-owned apartment complex.
• The parking lot faces the main street, and isn't covered or otherwise protected. Pittsburgh, like Winnipeg, has winter.
• There are some garages, but they cost extra, and they're not actually very convenient for many renters.
• The parking lot would have to be torn up to put in electric power and the charging stations would have to be somehow restricted to the person renting that station. I know this is feasible, but it is an expense that I am certain the complex owner would not be willing to entertain.
 
xterra said:
• The parking lot would have to be torn up to put in electric power and the charging stations would have to be somehow restricted to the person renting that station. I know this is feasible, but it is an expense that I am certain the complex owner would not be willing to entertain.
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At some point, and it doesn't seem to be now, we probably are just going to have to stop asking and instead just require landlords to build these things. If this is going to be how we decarbonize transit then building the infrastructure really shouldn't be optional.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Yeah, it's a huge problem that hasn't been addressed in any way as far as I can tell. EVs really aren't practical to people who can't charge overnight at their home.

There's a reason why so many of these EVs seem to be targeting the luxury car buyer market. I see tons of Teslas and over fancy EVs around here in the suburbs. People with single family homes with attached garages in the swankier suburbs of Boston that have ready access to power are ripe for buying these things, and that's very much the higher wealthy luxury car buyer. Apartments and condos with surface lots or street parking have no convenient means to charge an EV.

People with easy charging solutions at their home are the low hanging fruit, but if EV adoption is going to be more widespread there needs to be a solution for people with less ideal housing situations.
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The greens would rather those people used public transport or cycle/walk.
 
Lplus said:
The greens would rather those people used public transport or cycle/walk.
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I would prefer to use public transport or cycle too if it was a viable option. Owning a car has never been something I've enjoyed, it's a giant liability and budget suck.

Getting the US to invest in public transit infrastructure seems a much heavier lift than hoping EV infrastructure gets better.
 
Context - fairly early EV adopter with own driveway and home charging.

We've been around this all this several times in this thread

- sharing home charging via apps is here in the UK
- induction charging on the street is here in the UK
- kerbside charging is here in the UK, either actually in the kerb or in bollards

I know people have EV's and never charge at home, because I've spoken to them, they top up at public chargers. Until recently it was still cheaper than diesel or petrol (and maybe again)
 
I have the ability to charge at my place in the countryside but my house in the city doesn’t even have a parking space, let alone the opportunity to charge. But I get on perfectly well charging in car parks and at shopping centres and restaurants and hotels, while there are a couple of Tesla superchargers nearby. It’s just a question of organisation.

Later this week I’ll be driving from Geneva to London and I haven’t even looked at the map yet, so relaxed am I about the journey.
 
This has been mentioned before, but it appears to be a solved problem.

Parking spaces are fitted with electrical connectors that have to be activated by credit card.

In the UK (and other countries) there are experiments being done where this infrastructure is being fitted to street lights and parking meters.

Putting cabling into parking areas is not as expensive as you might imagine, you don't even need particularly wide trenches.

Within buildings, where individual parking spots are assigned to individual apartments, you could run cables from the apartments electricity meter to the individual spot, but this is probably the most expensive way to achieve the result, and the most prone to abuse.

Note, in many areas, theft of the cables (between car and socket) would be the biggest issue.
 
BTW.

If any of this is striking you as being impossible, remember that when gasoline vehicles first started to be used, you had to buy gasoline from chemist/pharmacy shops, and it was sold in one pint bottles.

Imagine all the people saying:

Ridiculous! I live in an apartment that has no chemist shop! Gasoline engines will never replace horses!!!
 
...My mate charges his EV from a domestic supply overnight because he couldn't have a box installed straight away.

I think everyone agrees about the price of EV's (see upthread). In the UK we're still awaiting the price of the BYD Dolphin which looks good on the reviews and is rumoured/hoped to be relatively cheap.
 
novaphile said:
This has been mentioned before, but it appears to be a solved problem.

Parking spaces are fitted with electrical connectors that have to be activated by credit card.

In the UK (and other countries) there are experiments being done where this infrastructure is being fitted to street lights and parking meters.

Putting cabling into parking areas is not as expensive as you might imagine, you don't even need particularly wide trenches.

Within buildings, where individual parking spots are assigned to individual apartments, you could run cables from the apartments electricity meter to the individual spot, but this is probably the most expensive way to achieve the result, and the most prone to abuse.
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We have the ability to charge at home (for free thanks to our solar panels) but our EV mileage isn't particularly high and as a result we would only need to charge (20%-80%) every 10 days or so.

Mrs Don has a ukulele lesson/club every Tuesday which lasts between 2 and 3 hours. Our local town isn't over-blessed with chargers the the ones in the local Tesco would provide plenty of charge for her week's motoring during that time.

Alternatively she could have a coffee at a local pub and use their fast(er) charger for around an hour.

Or I could leave it charging at the local leisure centre on one of my bike ride days.

https://www.connectedkerb.com/

novaphile said:
Note, in many areas, theft of the cables (between car and socket) would be the biggest issue.
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I'm not sure how you'd remove the cable without rendering it useless but doubtless some scrote knows how. :mad:
 
Filippo Lippi said:
...My mate charges his EV from a domestic supply overnight because he couldn't have a box installed straight away.
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Mrs Don happily used a "Granny Charger" for 8 months with no problems. The Zappi charger is much better because it can be set up only to use surplus solar power to charge the car but it's a luxury rather than a necessity.

Filippo Lippi said:
I think everyone agrees about the price of EV's (see upthread). In the UK we're still awaiting the price of the BYD Dolphin which looks good on the reviews and is rumoured/hoped to be relatively cheap.
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Then again the price of new cars is surprising, especially for someone like me who typically buys a car every 10 or 15 years and buys those cars 1 or 2 years old. Comparing the second hand price of a car 10 years ago against a brand new car now is liable to lead to a degree of surprise. :o
 
Cable theft isn't going to be that big a problem because they're either part of the unit or they're locked to your car during charging
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Context - fairly early EV adopter with own driveway and home charging.

We've been around this all this several times in this thread

- sharing home charging via apps is here in the UK
- induction charging on the street is here in the UK
- kerbside charging is here in the UK, either actually in the kerb or in bollards

I know people have EV's and never charge at home, because I've spoken to them, they top up at public chargers. Until recently it was still cheaper than diesel or petrol (and maybe again)
Click to expand...

This strikes me as the kind of thing that only works so long as its a niche practice. My local grocery store has like 2 or 3 charging ports. This is only helpful so long as EVs remain a tiny minority of cars.

My current ICE car probably has at least another 5-10 years on it, assuming no catastrophic wrecks. I'd like to be able to replace it then with an EV, but the lack of mass scale infrastructure to support it is the #1 reason against it.
 
i'm sure apartment complexes will start offering EV charging as an amenity until it becomes a pretty normal thing.
 
dirtywick said:
i'm sure apartment complexes will start offering EV charging as an amenity until it becomes a pretty normal thing.
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Why should we let it be optional? It's already common to make demands on property owners in the form of building code. Hell, often building code specifically makes demands about parking.

Assuming the adoption of some universal charging standard, I don't see why society shouldn't just make it mandatory.

Let's not pretend that the invisible hand of the free market is going to do away with ICEs. They are cheap, mature technology and the negatives are almost entirely external to the owners. Spewing pollution out my car has zero direct impact on my life, but paying through the nose for an EV does.

Carrots are fine, and rebates and whatever for EVs seem to be tilting decisions, but let's not be afraid to use the stick. Require home charging infrastructure by code seems entirely reasonable.
 
yes it wouldn't be unreasonable to require it at a certain point. i think they'll be offering them as an amenity, like many stores do now, long before it's required.
 
The Don said:
I'm not sure how you'd remove the cable without rendering it useless but doubtless some scrote knows how. :mad:
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In Europe, the charging stations don't have cables so each EV driver has to carry around their own with them in the car.
 
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