Filippo Lippi
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I think vw have already demonstrated this with induction charging, so no cable to car required
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Electric Vehicles
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I think vw have already demonstrated this with induction charging, so no cable to car required
Filippo Lippi
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And I've seen other things where fleets of large vehicles will be managed automatically in the depot. Drivers will pull up at the end of their shift and automation will do the rest
Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
They're an ideal time, but making it work would require having chargers were the vehicle will be sitting, with the cables to connect them to a power source, and power sources capable of handling the increased load compared to present electricity usage.
I don't know how much of an increase this means for our consumption of electricity, but I do know the number of chargers your plan needs is many times the number of gas pumps we have out there now. Pretty much every single place where anybody works would need more of them than the number of pumps at any gas station, and even that's ignoring the ones that would be at people's homes.
acbytesla
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Maybe. But at some point you need to connect to the grid. So charge Robot would still be dragging around a high voltage cable behind it and that seems problematic.
But not so easy for a very significant %age of people in the 'old world', people with no off-road parking and, often, no chance of ever getting it.
The average person has one breasts and one testicle, but they don't design bras and jockstraps to accommodate that.
Designing for the "average" is how people get left behind.
And it's another thing custom gift wrapped to make life easier for people in dense urban cores and harder for people in rural eras, a phenomena which, in case you haven't been paying attention, has caused some problems in the last few years.
It's easy for Hipster John as he drives his Prius from his apartment to his job making gluten free vinyl records but not so much for Redneck John driving his truck from his house to a construction site.
Only if you have to charge at home. If you can charge the supermarket, or work, or the golf course or leisure centre and so on then it may not be an issue, especially if you can do it opportunistically.
I think the point is people who have ...
- Totally set in stone schedules where they drive the exact same amount at the exact same time using the exact same route every day
- Are not ever in situations where they have to go somewhere in their vehicle right now and "No I'm sorry boss I have to wait for my car to drink enough nectar from this flower to have enough energy to make it to the next flower. Give me a minute while I break out my phone app and run a traveling salesman problem on EV chargers between here and where you want me to go" is not a viable option.
... are nowhere near the "average car user" as people are presenting.
- Totally set in stone schedules where they drive the exact same amount at the exact same time using the exact same route every day
- Are not ever in situations where they have to go somewhere in their vehicle right now and "No I'm sorry boss I have to wait for my car to drink enough nectar from this flower to have enough energy to make it to the next flower. Give me a minute while I break out my phone app and run a traveling salesman problem on EV chargers between here and where you want me to go" is not a viable option.
... are nowhere near the "average car user" as people are presenting.
The thing is, the chargers are so freaking cheap. A video was linked upthread that showed what is inside those things and it is nothing. There are options out there for around $200 to hang in your garage. Most of the cost is estimated to be in the wire. The highest cost is having an electrician come out and put in another 30AMP plug in your garage. The DC fast chargers are obviously more expensive and that is where Tesla is blowing away the rest of the market.
Compare that to a gas dispenser and it is mind blowing. The hose with the breakaway joint and the handle cost more than that. Inside you have far more technology, especially now that they have to capture the fumes while you pump. It has been decades since I worked in that industry, but I would ball park the cost per two sided dispenser (uninstalled) at $10k-$20k. Once you include all the safety equipment, tanks, plumbing, wiring, etc, I imagine the cost to build a corner station with 4 two sided dispensers at close to $1M before you factor in land costs.
And, adding electrical capacity is typically cheaper per measure of power than trucking in refined fuel.
Most research on the topic shows that most people could get by with a relatively low range electric vehicle. That does not say everyone, and it clearly isn't you. In fact, it currently isn't me. I rarely drive and when I do I am driving long distances and often hauling or towing something. An electric bike with saddle bags would cover my in-town travel better than a Tesla.
That you have a hard time imaging that most people have set schedules and almost never drive more than 50 miles a day is not surprising, but I don't see what to do about it.
I think we're talking around each other a bit. (And I don't mean that snarkily, that just happens sometimes.)
My point is "Almost never" isn't the same thing as never and you can't just go shrug and write it off. I think people are being too easy to go from "uncommon occurrence" to "something that doesn't have to be factored in."
The example I keep coming back to is mass evacuations. If you live in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc at some point in.... let's 10 a year period odds are good you are going to find yourself along with millions of other people "Getting the hell out of Dodge" at some point.
When Hurricane Floyd was threatening the East Coast in 1999 3 million people had to evacuate from pretty much the entire Eastern Seaboard.
NOAA recommends you evacuate a minimum of 50 miles inland just to get away from the worst of it, and that's if the storm isn't making a hard b-line inland itself.
The math gets obvious here. And "Well this almost never happens" doesn't mean I can just not plan for it.
You can't pack up your family, pets, possessions in your Nissan Leaf and strike out with your 150 miles that is "good enough to get you to work and back with no problem" and hope for the best in that kind of situation.
My point is "Almost never" isn't the same thing as never and you can't just go shrug and write it off. I think people are being too easy to go from "uncommon occurrence" to "something that doesn't have to be factored in."
The example I keep coming back to is mass evacuations. If you live in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc at some point in.... let's 10 a year period odds are good you are going to find yourself along with millions of other people "Getting the hell out of Dodge" at some point.
When Hurricane Floyd was threatening the East Coast in 1999 3 million people had to evacuate from pretty much the entire Eastern Seaboard.
NOAA recommends you evacuate a minimum of 50 miles inland just to get away from the worst of it, and that's if the storm isn't making a hard b-line inland itself.
The math gets obvious here. And "Well this almost never happens" doesn't mean I can just not plan for it.
You can't pack up your family, pets, possessions in your Nissan Leaf and strike out with your 150 miles that is "good enough to get you to work and back with no problem" and hope for the best in that kind of situation.
Filippo Lippi
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Distracted1
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Irrational, I know, but something about that process makes me feel like moving as far away from it as possible while covering my testicles with both hands.
Shalamar
Dark Lord of the JREF
I drive anywhere from 0 to 200 miles in a day, with varied destinations and routes. So far, I've only needed to supercharge twice while working. The first was before I had level 2 charging at home, and I had an hour long drive out and back. I spent 30 minutes out of my day at a supercharger, no problems.
The second I was running low on juice due to multiple long trips. One of my destinations had a supercharge nearby, so I parked there, plugged in, and grabbed lunch while charging.
In a nutshell, I charge to 90% every night. with a 300 mile range, this is more than enough for my daily appointments about 95% of the time. My car is 'full' every morning. I just go. Where I go throughout the day can change at a moments notice.
If I were driving more than 300 miles in a day, then I would need to stop and charge up, potentially taking 20-30 minutes while I do so. If I were driving much more than that on a daily basis, then yes, I'd likely be using an ICE vehicle, but then most of my work day would be driving, and not working.
Of course, this really only works for Teslas. More superchargers go up every day (2 coming online near me within the year). If the automakers want to handle range anxiety, they'll either have to pay to access Teslas network, or build their own.
However, your claim of hummingbird from flower to flower if one drives more than 40 miles in a day is overblown. Simple: If you can charge your car while out somewhere. Do so. If you can't, don't worry. I've come home after a long day at 20% without problems.
I get what you are saying. It is similar to the argument for getting a truck with 4WD: you almost never need it, but when you do need it, you really need it. I've never bought a truck without 4WD.
But what you just posted is perfect: NOAA says 50 miles inland. Therefore 150 miles of range should be pretty useful, if not great. Especially since the Leaf mileage is not reduced while crawling in bumper to bumper traffic the way an ice vehicle's range is.
For now, I'd not own only EVs. I'd keep a hybrid or gas vehicle on hand. But I've never even owned an EV. An all EV future is not hard to see for most people not named Joe Morgue.
Yes a Tesla is well, well, well outside of the viable price range for a lot of people right now.
//Slight hijack//
Also can we (as in the media mostly) stop it with the B.S. where they go "Oh the New EV from So&So is only going to cost 30,000, that's on par with other cars!" when it really costs 45,000 "before tax incentives"
You still have to find/finance 45,000 to buy the damn car, that's what it costs.
acbytesla
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True. It's not a big deal adding another 240 service to most people's homes. I could do it easily to many people's homes in an hour or two. The issue is the location of the panel and running the cable. The cable isn't cheap. 50 feet of 6-3 runs about $150.
I'm concerned about the grid. We're not set up for everyone owning EVs and charging at home. But this doesn't have to happen overnight.
Agree completely.
I'm the dental assistant running out of the room before the Xray starts up.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
I think the cost issue is not as relevant as you'd like, owing to the length of time the facility is used.
While it's true that a gas station is expensive to build, the time to fill up a car is probably ten or more times less than that of charging. This affects not only the economy of scale for the pump cost, but also the ability to serve many customers in a limited space. Even if you can compete on cost with, say, ten times as many chargers as you would gas pumps, you'd need a vastly larger plot of land on which to do it. The corner gas station is not suited to become the corner charging station.
Of course if charging stations start appearing elsewhere, as is happening in some places, this problem disappears. Charging stations are so inexpensive and easy to install that we're starting to see them in parking lots, and even in on-street parking spaces. When that happens in larger scale, the corner gas station will dwindle in importance. Most such places these days are convenience stores, in which gas sale is a loss leader or nearly so anyway.
But that hasn't happened quite yet.
And just for the record, while I've been naysaying a lot I am very, very pro-EV.
There's about a 90% chance my next car is going to be a Chevy Volt. They low-mid mileage ones are getting pretty cheap and the ~50 mile all electric range would handle all of my routine day to day commuting/errands so I could remove my dependence on fossil fuels for daily driving which I agree is very important, but the range extending gasoline engine (420 mile range, refuellable as any normal gasoline car) would offset my evacuations concerns and make the scenarios I mentioned where I'm at one job site and have to handle an emergency trouble call at another one and can't futz around with range or charging a non-issue.
There's about a 90% chance my next car is going to be a Chevy Volt. They low-mid mileage ones are getting pretty cheap and the ~50 mile all electric range would handle all of my routine day to day commuting/errands so I could remove my dependence on fossil fuels for daily driving which I agree is very important, but the range extending gasoline engine (420 mile range, refuellable as any normal gasoline car) would offset my evacuations concerns and make the scenarios I mentioned where I'm at one job site and have to handle an emergency trouble call at another one and can't futz around with range or charging a non-issue.
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