9 ms·

I drive a EV with a range > 200 miles. Utility-customer funded chargers strike me as a solution tomorrow for a problem of yesterday -- limited EV range.

by ghouse 8y ago

Brakenshire 8y ago
Are they public chargers? Or at they at school bus depots, and so on?
- saas_co_de 8y ago
  "The utility will also spend $236.3 million on infrastructure and rebates to support electric trucks, buses and other medium or heavy-duty vehicles. Southern California Edison will spend up to $342.6 million on similar efforts." So, mostly corporate welfare. "place an emphasis on installing charging stations in disadvantaged communities or in facilities — such as ports — that tend to be located near low-income neighborhoods." But they are going to dispense the corporate welfare in the general vicinity of poor people, so the poor people can get some vicarious enjoyment out of watching people who are already rich eat a free lunch.
xyhopguy 8y ago
Maybe ten years ago I watched Bob Kennedy Jr or 3 or something talk about having battery swap stations instead of charging stations. Seemed interesting but I don't know much about batteries!
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  The problem with that is uneven wear. Unless the battery isn't owned by you, it won't work as well.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    For trucks one could easily see trucking companies just leasing batteries from Truck Stops. Where the truck driver stops, picks up a fully charged battery and then drops it off at another truck stop 300 miles later. Rinse lather repeat all the way from New Jersey to Utah. Compressed gas cylinders sort of work this way. When you 'refill' a cylinder you just swap the empty one for a full one. You can even swap different sizes as needed. Which might also be useful for trucks.
- scrooched_moose 8y ago
  Although great in theory, I can see two major obstacles to adopting that: 1) Essentially requires a standard battery form factor. Tesla alone already has between 8 and 13 batteries (not bothering to check if e.g. the Model S 60 is the same as the Model X 60). Throw in other manufactures and any future Tesla sizes and this becomes infeasible pretty quickly as your "gas station" begins to look like a warehouse. 2) Warranty. When you're swapping out the most expensive part of the car several times a week, what happens when you get a dud? Is it covered by Tesla's warranty, the swap service, or are you just screwed? Or, what if I trade in my 8 year old essentially depleted battery for a brand new one? Obviously I should pay some sort of "upgrade" fee, but tracking that will be a headache.
  - samatman 8y ago
    Only one of these matters, and it matters a lot. Gogoro is doing quite well with scooters, because the battery pod is small enough to swap by hand.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    If the charging station (or network) refuses to again swap a battery that they have recently swapped into your car, why would anyone use it? I get that switching in $10,000 of hardware is kind of a big thing, but the question is like asking about how can I be sure every station has real gasoline (which hey, with ethanol, they don't!).
- deejaybog 8y ago
  Tesla entertained this for a while. The investments in building relatively costly (initial+maintenance) swapping stations plus the capital tied in replacement batteries makes this option less attractive when you compare to their supercharger station.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  The battery swap thing I think is based on the idea that to be successful electric cars have to be an exact match of gasoline one. I think battery swap doesn't make sense for passenger cars because as the guy said once you hit 200 miles of range charging isn't an issue. And having to stop and charge for an hour and a half every three hours on a long distance trip isn't the end of the world. Especially since you could roll those into lunch and dinner stops. But likely makes some sense for large trucks.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    There's a drive I've been doing since I was a kid. Back then with fewer passing lanes and kids in the car, it always took about 6 hours. As passing lanes got added, it got so the trip was about 5 hours with careful stops. Recently speed limits got bumped up 5 MPH along the route and now it's an easy 5 hours. The hour sure matters to me, I hate being in the "travel" part of a trip like that.
- runako 8y ago
  Better Place was a startup that bet on this model. It didn't work out in their case, which is not to say it's necessarily a bad model. https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...
- camillomiller 8y ago
  That is what Gogoro does (successfully, I think) in Taiwan with its electric scooters.
- intrasight 8y ago
  I am a proponent of battery swaps. But I use the term MPU - Modular Power Unit. They have a standard interface and standard sizes. They follow the principle of encapsulation - I don't know what is the tech inside, but I now that it exposes a given voltage and amperage. Neither battery companies nor car companies would on their own pursue such a strategy even though all would benefit. Portable electronics ony took off because batteries were standardized and became cheap. The same must eventually happen with large batteries. And just like small 3V and 10V batteries, there will be perhaps a half dozen different standard sizes. Some will be small enough to lift by hand (if you have strong hands) while others will be on racks (but built up from smaller MPUs). You don't have to swap your battery - they could be recharged in place. Standards will foster competition and innovation.
biggc 8y ago
According to: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/hpmslibrary/prd/prd2010.pdf http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/hpmslibrary/prd/prd2010.p... California has 172,138 miles of maintained roads, 63,856 if we don't include "Local" roads. There are certainly many stretches of road in the state that could use charging stations in order to be accessible by EV.
dmode 8y ago
I don't know what this means. I have an EV also and the biggest barrier to EV adoption is charging infrastructure. I have a charger at home, but realize that many more people live in apartments and condos that require that infrastructure. Further, there are days when I forget to charge, and would really benefit from a quick 40-50 mile charging at a public location. Charging infrastructure is definitely a necessity.
- hayksaakian 8y ago
  What the parent thread suggests is that if you EV range continues to increase, access to convenient charging becomes less relevant. I think the parallel here is to cell phones. If you cell phone battery sucks, you're probably carrying around a portable charger, and a usb+wall charger. However if your phone normally goes ~2 days without a charge then you can simply charge nightly at home without carrying a portable battery and/or cable + wall plug everywhere you go.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    the range can be as high as it wants, if you're living in an apartment without access to a personal charger you need public infrastructure because at some point you'll need to charge your car somewhere.
    - ghouse 8y ago
      And if your apartment doesn't have a washer and dryer, at some point you'll need clean clothes. My point is why should I subsidize your charger?
      - Barrin92 8y ago
        Because electric cars provide positive externalities for a city such as reduced pollution. Which is an especially big issue in densely populated cities. Vehicle emissions contributes to as much as 50k premature deaths each year, tax dollars have been spent on worse things. http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e...
outworlder 8y ago
It does not matter if your EV has 300 miles of range. Unless you want to be limited to a radius half of your max range. Otherwise, you need chargers wherever you need to go, as I assume you would like to do more than one way trips. There are far too few chargers, specially outside the bay area (and even in the Bay, considering the number of cars already in the streets). EV will be more convenient than ICEs when you have both high range + charger availability.
- gregable 8y ago
  I won't go somewhere with my EV unless I can get back without charging or there are 2 DC fast-chargers at different installation sites in the area I'm going. 2 chargers in the same parking lot are more likely to be 'down' for the same maintenance issue simultaneously. I still find DC fast-chargers are unreliable compared to gas pumps and there are far fewer of them. Though I will say the Evgo chargers at Whole-Foods/Amazon have been great. About 1/3 of the time I'm doing this, I end up waiting in line for 20-45 minutes behind someone else anyway before I can start charging. I imagine this will only worsen if more infrastructure isn't built. My wife and I have 2 vehicles, and only one is EV largely because of this issue. There are too many places I can't go with an EV without significant risk of being stranded. Stranded in this case may mean waiting 4 hours to charge up at the more common Level-2 chargers.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    And if you should receive a call that a member of your family was in an accident and at the hospital in critical condition... "Sure ok I'll be there this evening."
    - gregable 8y ago
      This is a false dichotomy. One's own vehicle is far from one's only mode of transportation.
      - cptskippy 8y ago
_up 8y ago
My solution would be self-driving battery extension packs that are placed on the side of the road and can follow/recharge (like Aerial refueling) an EV that needs an extension without any halting of the car needed.
- gregable 8y ago
  I think this is a bit far fetched, but I like the idea of something similar. Have rental stations with trailer hitch gas generators that I can pull along for longer rides. Turns every EV into a Chevy Volt.
  - syncsynchalt 8y ago
    Doesn't need to be a gas generator (a hard sell for an EV die-hard), what about trailer-pulled battery packs? The car would need a small tow hitch and a J-plug, chademo, CCS, or similar plug in the back. Pick up a fresh battery at a U-Haul, and drop it off in your destination town. Or would the weight be more than a (future model) Leaf could easily be designed to pull?
    - gregable 8y ago
      No clue. The value of stealing that trailer goes up a lot more though if it's a stack of high density batteries. The gas range extender though means that you can take your EV on a road trip and refuel in a matter of minutes. Overnight you charge, but during the day, you fill up along the way.
- ClassyHacker 8y ago
  That's an interesting idea. Someone could get a subscription of $30/month for unlimited access to portalable batteries. Along the route if the car runs low just pick one up at a convicent location, put it in the back and keep on driving. Once the car is charged simply return the portable battery at another drop off location.
- mikec3010 8y ago
  A better solution would be a modular battery that slides out on a rolling platform. Pull up to battery station, roll out old battery, roll in new battery. Drive.

I drive a EV with a range > 200 miles. Utility-customer funded chargers strike me as a solution tomorrow for a problem of yesterday -- limited EV range.

by ghouse 8y ago

I drive a EV with a range > 200 miles. Utility-customer funded chargers strike me as a solution tomorrow for a problem of yesterday -- limited EV range.

Brakenshire 8y ago

Are they public chargers? Or at they at school bus depots, and so on?

saas_co_de 8y ago
"The utility will also spend $236.3 million on infrastructure and rebates to support electric trucks, buses and other medium or heavy-duty vehicles. Southern California Edison will spend up to $342.6 million on similar efforts." So, mostly corporate welfare. "place an emphasis on installing charging stations in disadvantaged communities or in facilities — such as ports — that tend to be located near low-income neighborhoods." But they are going to dispense the corporate welfare in the general vicinity of poor people, so the poor people can get some vicarious enjoyment out of watching people who are already rich eat a free lunch.

xyhopguy 8y ago

Maybe ten years ago I watched Bob Kennedy Jr or 3 or something talk about having battery swap stations instead of charging stations. Seemed interesting but I don't know much about batteries!

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
The problem with that is uneven wear. Unless the battery isn't owned by you, it won't work as well.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  For trucks one could easily see trucking companies just leasing batteries from Truck Stops. Where the truck driver stops, picks up a fully charged battery and then drops it off at another truck stop 300 miles later. Rinse lather repeat all the way from New Jersey to Utah. Compressed gas cylinders sort of work this way. When you 'refill' a cylinder you just swap the empty one for a full one. You can even swap different sizes as needed. Which might also be useful for trucks.
scrooched_moose 8y ago
Although great in theory, I can see two major obstacles to adopting that: 1) Essentially requires a standard battery form factor. Tesla alone already has between 8 and 13 batteries (not bothering to check if e.g. the Model S 60 is the same as the Model X 60). Throw in other manufactures and any future Tesla sizes and this becomes infeasible pretty quickly as your "gas station" begins to look like a warehouse. 2) Warranty. When you're swapping out the most expensive part of the car several times a week, what happens when you get a dud? Is it covered by Tesla's warranty, the swap service, or are you just screwed? Or, what if I trade in my 8 year old essentially depleted battery for a brand new one? Obviously I should pay some sort of "upgrade" fee, but tracking that will be a headache.
- samatman 8y ago
  Only one of these matters, and it matters a lot. Gogoro is doing quite well with scooters, because the battery pod is small enough to swap by hand.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  If the charging station (or network) refuses to again swap a battery that they have recently swapped into your car, why would anyone use it? I get that switching in $10,000 of hardware is kind of a big thing, but the question is like asking about how can I be sure every station has real gasoline (which hey, with ethanol, they don't!).
deejaybog 8y ago
Tesla entertained this for a while. The investments in building relatively costly (initial+maintenance) swapping stations plus the capital tied in replacement batteries makes this option less attractive when you compare to their supercharger station.
Gibbon1 8y ago
The battery swap thing I think is based on the idea that to be successful electric cars have to be an exact match of gasoline one. I think battery swap doesn't make sense for passenger cars because as the guy said once you hit 200 miles of range charging isn't an issue. And having to stop and charge for an hour and a half every three hours on a long distance trip isn't the end of the world. Especially since you could roll those into lunch and dinner stops. But likely makes some sense for large trucks.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  There's a drive I've been doing since I was a kid. Back then with fewer passing lanes and kids in the car, it always took about 6 hours. As passing lanes got added, it got so the trip was about 5 hours with careful stops. Recently speed limits got bumped up 5 MPH along the route and now it's an easy 5 hours. The hour sure matters to me, I hate being in the "travel" part of a trip like that.
runako 8y ago
Better Place was a startup that bet on this model. It didn't work out in their case, which is not to say it's necessarily a bad model. https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...
camillomiller 8y ago
That is what Gogoro does (successfully, I think) in Taiwan with its electric scooters.
intrasight 8y ago
I am a proponent of battery swaps. But I use the term MPU - Modular Power Unit. They have a standard interface and standard sizes. They follow the principle of encapsulation - I don't know what is the tech inside, but I now that it exposes a given voltage and amperage. Neither battery companies nor car companies would on their own pursue such a strategy even though all would benefit. Portable electronics ony took off because batteries were standardized and became cheap. The same must eventually happen with large batteries. And just like small 3V and 10V batteries, there will be perhaps a half dozen different standard sizes. Some will be small enough to lift by hand (if you have strong hands) while others will be on racks (but built up from smaller MPUs). You don't have to swap your battery - they could be recharged in place. Standards will foster competition and innovation.

biggc 8y ago

According to: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/hpmslibrary/prd/prd2010.pdf http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/hpmslibrary/prd/prd2010.p... California has 172,138 miles of maintained roads, 63,856 if we don't include "Local" roads. There are certainly many stretches of road in the state that could use charging stations in order to be accessible by EV.

dmode 8y ago

I don't know what this means. I have an EV also and the biggest barrier to EV adoption is charging infrastructure. I have a charger at home, but realize that many more people live in apartments and condos that require that infrastructure. Further, there are days when I forget to charge, and would really benefit from a quick 40-50 mile charging at a public location. Charging infrastructure is definitely a necessity.

hayksaakian 8y ago
What the parent thread suggests is that if you EV range continues to increase, access to convenient charging becomes less relevant. I think the parallel here is to cell phones. If you cell phone battery sucks, you're probably carrying around a portable charger, and a usb+wall charger. However if your phone normally goes ~2 days without a charge then you can simply charge nightly at home without carrying a portable battery and/or cable + wall plug everywhere you go.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  the range can be as high as it wants, if you're living in an apartment without access to a personal charger you need public infrastructure because at some point you'll need to charge your car somewhere.
  - ghouse 8y ago
    And if your apartment doesn't have a washer and dryer, at some point you'll need clean clothes. My point is why should I subsidize your charger?
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      Because electric cars provide positive externalities for a city such as reduced pollution. Which is an especially big issue in densely populated cities. Vehicle emissions contributes to as much as 50k premature deaths each year, tax dollars have been spent on worse things. http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e...

outworlder 8y ago

It does not matter if your EV has 300 miles of range. Unless you want to be limited to a radius half of your max range. Otherwise, you need chargers wherever you need to go, as I assume you would like to do more than one way trips. There are far too few chargers, specially outside the bay area (and even in the Bay, considering the number of cars already in the streets). EV will be more convenient than ICEs when you have both high range + charger availability.

gregable 8y ago
I won't go somewhere with my EV unless I can get back without charging or there are 2 DC fast-chargers at different installation sites in the area I'm going. 2 chargers in the same parking lot are more likely to be 'down' for the same maintenance issue simultaneously. I still find DC fast-chargers are unreliable compared to gas pumps and there are far fewer of them. Though I will say the Evgo chargers at Whole-Foods/Amazon have been great. About 1/3 of the time I'm doing this, I end up waiting in line for 20-45 minutes behind someone else anyway before I can start charging. I imagine this will only worsen if more infrastructure isn't built. My wife and I have 2 vehicles, and only one is EV largely because of this issue. There are too many places I can't go with an EV without significant risk of being stranded. Stranded in this case may mean waiting 4 hours to charge up at the more common Level-2 chargers.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  And if you should receive a call that a member of your family was in an accident and at the hospital in critical condition... "Sure ok I'll be there this evening."
  - gregable 8y ago
    This is a false dichotomy. One's own vehicle is far from one's only mode of transportation.
    - cptskippy 8y ago

_up 8y ago

My solution would be self-driving battery extension packs that are placed on the side of the road and can follow/recharge (like Aerial refueling) an EV that needs an extension without any halting of the car needed.

gregable 8y ago
I think this is a bit far fetched, but I like the idea of something similar. Have rental stations with trailer hitch gas generators that I can pull along for longer rides. Turns every EV into a Chevy Volt.
- syncsynchalt 8y ago
  Doesn't need to be a gas generator (a hard sell for an EV die-hard), what about trailer-pulled battery packs? The car would need a small tow hitch and a J-plug, chademo, CCS, or similar plug in the back. Pick up a fresh battery at a U-Haul, and drop it off in your destination town. Or would the weight be more than a (future model) Leaf could easily be designed to pull?
  - gregable 8y ago
    No clue. The value of stealing that trailer goes up a lot more though if it's a stack of high density batteries. The gas range extender though means that you can take your EV on a road trip and refuel in a matter of minutes. Overnight you charge, but during the day, you fill up along the way.
ClassyHacker 8y ago
That's an interesting idea. Someone could get a subscription of $30/month for unlimited access to portalable batteries. Along the route if the car runs low just pick one up at a convicent location, put it in the back and keep on driving. Once the car is charged simply return the portable battery at another drop off location.
mikec3010 8y ago
A better solution would be a modular battery that slides out on a rolling platform. Pull up to battery station, roll out old battery, roll in new battery. Drive.