22 ms·

Shortage of charging stations to become a bottleneck to mass adoption of EVs?

83 points by prostoalex 8y ago

drb91 8y ago
I'm pretty shocked at the low adoption of hybrid cars. Why don't people want them?
- sampleinajar 8y ago
  Good question. What is your expectation? I found a link that seems to suggest that people do want them (at about 2% of cars sold), maybe just not at the level you expect? They are typically more expensive to buy. People aren't good with long term cost benefit analysis. https://www.hybridcars.com/june-2018-hybrid-cars-sales-dashboard/ https://www.hybridcars.com/june-2018-hybrid-cars-sales-dashb...
  - drb91 8y ago
    It seems absurd in retrospect, but I was envisioning something like 20-30% of cars. Possibly this is due to commuting with rich people in SF where priuses are every other car. 2% makes it seem like we have no hope for addressing global warming--nobody seems to care.
    - briandear 8y ago
      When the market is ready for hybrids and electrics, hybrids and electrics will become more plentiful. People seem to forget that individuals have to look out for themselves first. Not everyone is willing to make the financial sacrifice to solve a nebulous problem. As long as China and India have little incentive to fix their pollution issues, the impact of even the entire state of California is literally a drop in the bucket. The thinking is “why should I suffer” when the developing world pretty much does whatever they want. A bunch of Bay Area techies driving electric has about as much impact on climate as a whale farting in the ocean. The sky might be falling, but it isn’t going to be stopped by Americans driving electric.
      - drb91 8y ago
        > People seem to forget that individuals have to look out for themselves first. Why do you say that? I can understand people need to look after themselves, but I can have my own hopes at the same time. Why would you want me to not hope to address this problem? The market certainly isn't going to provide any hope; that's why emissions are considered an externality, because people don't approach the problem rationally (as a society). Tragedy of the commons should be a descriptive trait, not a justification.
      - Animats 8y ago
        Shenzhen just went to 100% electric buses. 16,000 of them. China is going electric faster than the US is.
- gamechangr 8y ago
  good point....yeah you're right.
  - gburdell3 8y ago
    Sounds like you're talking about electric cars, not hybrids.
    - milesvp 8y ago
      Possibly parent post is confused, but apperently to jump start a modern prius, you need to open the fuse box, which is unusual. So maybe he didn't do enough research? As to the mountains statement, here's a piece of anecdata. My boss, who was a big fellow, said he had a really hard time driving through mountain passes with his first gen prius. It just didn't have enough power to drive up steep grades at freeway speeds carrying 300 lbs. He said he was constantly being passed by semi trucks hauling loads...
      - outworlder 8y ago
        That's a problem of the first generation Prius then. Even a Nissan Leaf has absolutely no problem climbing mountains (they will murder the battery charge though – ask me how do I know – although you'll get some of it back as you go back down). A Chevy Volt would do it even better, and that's an actual hybrid. Electric engines have outstanding power relative to their size. The Leaf actual engine is the size of a football.
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        The Prius has been redesigned three times since then, so I'm not sure what that tells you. Gasoline engines lose power at altitude, as it happens.
- gburdell3 8y ago
  My mom just bought a Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid, a few months ago, and it seems to solve all the problems of dealing with poor charging infrastructure in Texas. It can go around 25 miles on pure electric power, so that takes care of 90% of her driving (charging at home at night). For longer drives, it's a hybrid, so it still has a gas tank and can go just as far as a regular hybrid or gas car.
- jlv2 8y ago
  BEVs are mechanically simpler, requiring less maintenance and expense (and they eliminate all use of fossil fuels). Hybrids and PHEVs are mechanically more complex than ICEVs, often requiring more things that need maintenance and repair. PHEVs are the worst of all, in my opinion, because on top of everything else, they tend to clog up public charging stations. BEVs with decent range (the Chevy Bolt, Tesla, and some upcoming models) are the real solution. Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current) public charging for trips. Background: I've had a LEAF for 4.5 years as my daily commuter car; it's got (32K miles). For trips last year we got a Tesla Model S (24K miles).
  - drb91 8y ago
    > Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current) public charging for trips. As I essentially only use my car for weekend road trips, how is the long-distance experience hopping from charger to charger? How about country driving--is the density high enough you can check out some nature?
    - outworlder 8y ago
      Previous generation Leaf? Debatable. I have one. I plotted a trip from the East Bay to Yosemite and the range seemed enough on paper, even accounting for elevation. But in at least one stretch there was a single quick charge station (ChaDeMo) that I could rely on. If that was out of service I would have issues, as even L2 were not plentiful. On Yosemite itself I could find only one L2. So I did not attempt the trip. Current generation Leaf, Bolt, Tesla? The range would be pretty adequate and comfortable. Not sure about long desert stretches, you could have an idea here: https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/ https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/ Also of note is that a major drawback in the US is the high highway speeds. Drag increases to the speed squared, so going 60mph vs 80mph makes a huge difference. We don't notice as much in internal combustion engines, because a gas tank has so much energy – we may notice in our pockets though.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    You might want to spell out your acronyms on first use. I'm having to guess at what you're talking about.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  what makes you think adoption is low? Probably you do not realize how many models you see are hybrid, most don't look different.
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    A couple months back in Ireland Toyota was doing a free upgrade to PHEV on all models sold.
- briandear 8y ago
  They’re more expensive and the cost differential isn’t offset by the gas savings. Hybrids don’t solve any real problem in the market: gas is plentiful thus relatively cheap. You don’t generally save the cost difference in gas savings unless you keep the car longer than is typical. Even in Europe where gas is far more expensive and taxed, hybrids don’t make financial sense in most cases: hybrids are more expensive and a higher price car means higher sales taxes, offsetting gains from saving gas. A diesel Peugeot 5007 gets over 40 miles to the gallon, which is approaching hybrid levels for that size vehicle but a hybrid can cost €8000 or so more. No way during the normal lifespan would you save that much in gas. Also, if you are financing, you are paying interest on that higher price, thus making the lack of cost savings even more pronounced. Hybrid big rigs on the other hand, could be game changing. A Prius is a statement car more than an actual exercise in frugality. A Honda Civic is a nicer car, doesn’t look like a squashed bean and costs less with more features and plenty of fuel-efficiency. But then a Civic doesn’t give people the same sense of superiority as does a Prius. In the Bay Area replace Prius with Tesla and Civic with Audi and you can make similar arguments.
  - llampx 8y ago
    > Hybrid big rigs on the other hand, could be game changing. How? I believe most of the efficiency of the Prius and other hybrids is realized with city (stop and go) driving. In highway driving it is not any more efficient than any other car with a similar 1.3L engine and aerodynamics.
    - CarVac 8y ago
      The Prius is still more efficient on the highway than other cars because nobody (at least in the US) would buy a similar-sized car with a 1.3L engine and no hybrid system to boost power.
  - serpix 8y ago
    In Europe they are the best, especially PHEVs as they lower the cost of driving substantially in addition to getting less taxed. There is no competition cost wise.
- AcerbicZero 8y ago
  I think its safe to say we're experiencing a true Renaissance of petrol powered cars right now, which makes the EV options fairly unappealing to "car" people such as myself (generally speaking). As for the commodity type of car buyer, the price seems to be the issue I hear most often. Why spend 40k on an EV with limited range and utility, when you could drop 30k on a mid-sized sedan that gets excellent gas mileage, has comical amounts of power, and has a level of luxury that would have required a 6 figure investment 10 years ago? Not to mention you can take it on a long drive without having to pre-plan the entire thing. In a few years, when gas prices are high again I'm sure we'll see the EVs start picking up, and at that point I suspect the charging station issue will solve itself.
  - outworlder 8y ago
    > Why spend 40k on an EV with limited range and utility, Parent said hybrid.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  Pure electric is sexy. Also, hybrids are mechanically more complicated (that's my excuse).
  - outworlder 8y ago
    Priuses are with the dual drive train. Chevy Volts are not, the generator is much simpler than a normal car engine. You are trading a normal ICE for an electric + generator combination, which is mechanically simpler (transmission is basically non-existent, for example). Not as simple as an EV, but can be simpler than a normal ICE.
    - davidgould 8y ago
      Chevy Volts are not serial hybrids as you describe. They have a complex transmission that merges the gasoline engine and electric motor power in several modes for optimal efficiency. Nice car but not simple. Perhaps you meant the Chevy Bolt which is fully electric with no transmission or gasoline engine?
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        Honda has multiple hybrids now that have essentially no transmission - either the engine charges the battery, or it is connected to the wheels as if in top gear. I haven't spent a lot of time driving one, but it seems elegant on paper. Perhaps not quite as smooth as the Toyota hybrid transmissions because it has the clutch engaging or disengaging the direct drive.
    - photojosh 8y ago
      It would seem to me that doing it this way is ideal, because you can run the ICE at one specific optimised RPM. Would the losses from from charging the battery would be less than those from running an ICE in inefficient ranges? Is the only downside that you can't get a combined peak power from ICE+electric that's higher than the electric on its own? Am electrical engineer, not mechanical, so I'd be interested in someone who knows about these things chiming in.
    - 8y ago
- megaman22 8y ago
  I think that gas going back down to two-something a gallon again after that period a few years ago where we started getting used to it pushing four bucks, combined with increased fuel efficiency of newer ICE vehicles, and the price premium of hybrids explains a lot of it away.
  - wcoenen 8y ago
    Howcome gasoline is so cheap in the US? Here in Belgium prices are between 1.5 and 1.6 euro/liter, which corresponds to 6.5 to 7 dollar/gallon.
    - ph0rque 8y ago
      Taxes (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Gas_and_Diesel_taxes.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Gas_and_...)
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      Taxes are low and there would be a mass revolt if they were jacked up to European levels.
    - aurelianito 8y ago
      Operation Irak Liberation. That's the kind of things the US do to have its gas cheap. Belgium does not do this.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      Fracking, and development of all that domestic shale oil that became economical to exploit when oil prices were through the roof previously, as I understand it.
      - shiftpgdn 8y ago
        Oil is sold on a global market. In fact the state of Texas is due to become a large producer/exporter than the nation of Iraq in the next year or two. Differences in price are due to regional taxes.
- mtgx 8y ago
  "Hybrids" of all kinds are usually a dead-end transitional technology. See the fate of "touch-optimized" Symbian and Blackberry OSs. The old timers dislike them for being "different" and the ones who want the new tech want 100% of it, not just 20% - they want the ideal solution in this new paradigm. As such, hybrid tech is doomed from the start.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    It seems to me that houses will always run on electricity, but that doesn't mean backup generators will ever become obsolete, because electricity isn't 100% reliable. For the same reason I think the end state of cars in the forseeable future will/should be PHEVs, not BEVs. People who disdain the former in favor of the later are responding to vague, illogical ideas of purity and simplicity, in my opinion.
    - tialaramex 8y ago
      Purity and simplicity applies to the vehicle's operating costs which are an entirely pragmatic matter. If you have a BEV the drive train is almost childishly simple, and that means fewer things that can go wrong and the things that do go wrong are mostly simple to replace, which in turn means your maintenance costs are low. All the time you're driving a PHEV you're hauling the ICE power system around, even if you don't use it for days, weeks, months, or indeed ever. That's an ongoing cost drag compared to the equivalent BEV. Anti air-pollution and anti climate-change rules will punish PHEVs. Not at first, because a PHEV is better than ICE, but gradually a PHEV is going to be paying surcharges and subject to access rules that don't apply to BEVs, rather than try to distinguish whether your specific PHEV would be a problem on this specific occasion it's simpler to just say "No, buy a BEV". I think you're exactly wrong about this, lots of people are going to dip their toes in the water with a PHEV, expecting to use ICE mode a lot, then when it comes time to replace it they'll think back to the few times the PHEV "paid for itself" by running in ICE mode, and all the times they were fine on battery, and they'll eye the latest BEV with more range, and they'll say to themselves hell with it, let's buy a BEV, we hate spending 8+ hours at a time in a car anyway so let's just make it impossible rather than unpleasant.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Speaking only for myself, I get irritated every time a new model comes out without a spare tire. I know it's possible to fit a spare into a hybrid, because some models of Prius have one. But many don't.
- closeparen 8y ago
  From the prevalence of SUVs where compacts would do, it’s clear that people are not particularly motivated by gas mileage. Even if you are, 50mpg vs 35mpg is just not that compelling when it costs so much in terms of money, mechanical complexity, and driving dynamics. (Unfortunately, automakers seem to be making hybrids less fun, rather than more, until you get to the very high end).
- psychometry 8y ago
  Because you can't get a decent one for less than 25 grand.
- jac_no_k 8y ago
  Here in Tokyo I ended up with a Nissan Leaf v.2 (2018 model) with the 40kw/h model with real world range of 150 km (93 miles). It sees about 10 to 20km for errands, ideal city car model. It's home is a stand alone house with a 200v outlet, rare for this area. Typical residences are dense apartments with over subscribed mechanical parking spots. I did consider the Toyota Prius and all it's variants; the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV; and Nissan's e-power series. Several negatives. Both the Prius and Outlander 10% to 20% more expensive then the Leaf. After government discounts; manufacturer discounts; and dealer incentives they ended up nearly 60% more expensive. All of these hybrids had the shortcomings of ICE (internal combustion engine) of dealing with fuel, oil changes, belts, plugs, and others. The PHEV (plug in hybrid electric vehicle) would have worked in my use case as the battery has 30km range. Just recharge daily at home but the price was a turn off. The perceived negative with the Leaf was range. But just the other day I've made a 300km round trip and the three 30 minute breaks to charge the battery was just fine. Japan is easy with such good density of chargers: https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/ We rarely use the charger at home. The Leaf gets charged at the local market whenever it's below 50%. Charge time is limited 30 minutes at the public spots and it's enough to get the charge to over 80%. This means that even for people without access to a charger at home easily use the public spots. The salesperson used the same pitch, saying that Leaf owners regularly drop in for a 30 minute charge and hang out at the lounge with free soft drinks. Anyways, this was my reason and experience on getting BEV instead of a hybrid.
  - yuhong 8y ago
    >Here in Tokyo I ended up with a Nissan Leaf v.2 (2018 model) with the 40kw/h model with real world range of 150 km (93 miles). 150 miles is the EPA range, not 150km.
    - jac_no_k 8y ago
      EPA (US environmental protection agency) rates it as 241 km (150 miles) JC08 (Japan's rating agency) rates it at 400km (248 miles). Even the dealer says this is wildly optimistic. At 100% charge, my car reports 220 km. It's starting to "learn" my driving style. My lead foot, my preference for 25dC (77dF) cabin temperature when it's 40dC (104dF) at 90%+ humidity drags this down to real world 150km (93 miles). I'm sure if I drove more conservatively during more reasonable weather conditions, I could easily get over 220km. But with fast charge stations no more then 50km apart, no need to hypermile. It's good to take a break hour and half or so. (Speed limit in Japan is maximum 80kph (49mph) on highways.)
- gambiting 8y ago
  Oh we want them alright. But they are still far too expensive. I recently bought a brand new VW Polo for about £15k, you just can't buy a hybrid car for that much. And any price difference with a hybrid pays for years of petrol for the Polo - so why bother?
LeoPanthera 8y ago
Article like this always seem to ignore/forget that you can charge your EV at home, and that this is usually where you charge it the majority of the time. It's an understandable thing to forget, since you can't fill up your gas car at home. I own an EV and I only use public chargers extremely rarely.
- goatlover 8y ago
  Not everyone can charge at home. Everyone can gas up at filling stations almost everywhere they go. For mass adoption, chargers need to be as available for everyone.
  - elif 8y ago
    that is an absurd standard to hold. In most cities, the cost of time to park long enough to charge would exceed the cost of electricity. Alternatively i would suggest: when the paradigm has shifted, the ancillary processes shift accordingly rather than cling onto some cloned reliquary husk of gasoline culture.
  - rimliu 8y ago
    Gas pumps have much better throughput though. I can fill up the 45 litres tank (good for ~750km) in less than a minute. How long would charging for the equivalent range take?
- tjohns 8y ago
  Assuming you own your own home. If you live in an apartment complex or otherwise only have street parking, you likely don't have access to electricity. Or at the very least, would need to negotiate with the landlord to have a new outlet installed -- which is going to depend on how much you get along with said landlord.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    There are solutions for street parking (both standalone and equipment that can piggyback off street lamp installs). In this case, you do need municipal buy in for the installation and maintenance of this infrastructure.
aphextron 8y ago
Chargers have been getting noticeably more busy over the last year (bay area). It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies like Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure. The state really needs to get on top of this and start building out more level 3.
- lazerpants 8y ago
  >It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies like Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure. Most (maybe all?) gas stations are privately owned, how is this different?
  - chc 8y ago
    Probably because gas stations and EV chargers have very different logistics and modalities. For example, you could realistically put an electrical outlet by every parking space, but doing that with gas pumps would be completely untenable.
    - repsilat 8y ago
      I know this was just an example of how they're different, but this particular feature should make EV chargers easier for the market to supply relative to gas stations.
    - pastage 8y ago
      Each car in a city requires alot of parking spaces I've read 4-10 empty parking spaces per car. This would mean that every car owner would need to pay for that many charging stations.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      A gas pump by every parking spot is probably easier at scale. Manufacturing costs would scale down significantly, and a plastic gas pipe is cheaper than a copper wire. We don't do it because a gas car refuels fast enough that you don't need it.
endymi0n 8y ago
People still don‘t get just how radically synergistic electric driving, self-charging and self-driving technology will be. All the drawbacks of electric driving such as low range and slow and cumbersome charging will just instantly disappear as soon as cars will just drive away and charge themselves. It will mostly solve parking problems, availability of chargers and even help absorb the (basicall free) excess energy produced by photovoltaics in the middle of the day. Just one or two of these technologies won‘t do much, but I suspect we‘ll see a massive tipping point once all three hit. If you ask me, we‘ll see this completely altering cityscapes and car ownership between 2020 and 2030.
- Latteland 8y ago
  but that's not happening for a while. 10+ years maybe more. what are we doing for the next 10 years?
  - pxtail 8y ago
    > what are we doing for the next 10 years? pour gasoline into fuel tank (:
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Self-driving is expected to bring down ridesharing costs. As costs go down, ridership goes up. As ridership goes up, traffic goes up. Currently I can get around by bicycle, rideshare, bus, subway, trolley, and rail. With the exception of the subway, all of those are slowed down by increased vehicle traffic. The tipping point you're talking about may be city streets becoming gridlocked. Then there's the bit rot problem. Most of this self driving tech is software. Over time, software becomes old, eventually is abandoned, and has to be rewritten. Assuming the cityscape was changed by 2030 (this is impossible, but just for argument's sake) we could have broken legacy tech by 2050. But we will either be stuck with it, or middle-aged people will have to start driving 30+ year old cars as taxis, as no young people will have gotten a drivers license, and all the self driving cars won't have steering wheels.
  - WhompingWindows 8y ago
berbec 8y ago
Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc. You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-charged ones if available, and charge if not.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc. You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-charged ones if available, and charge if not. The problem with swapping is that switching out a battery is not at all the same as switching out a gas tank. Batteries degrade over time, and with various different usages (lots of fast charging, high heat) can degrade much more severely. You would have to have some kind of system that grades the battery being turned in and credits/debits the account based on its condition. On top of that it's just not necessary. A full charge from 20% is less than 30 mins at a 100kw charger.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    tesla already build and ran this for a while in cali. not much interest for those reasons, plus tesla superchargers are fast enough.
  - repsilat 8y ago
    I agree with the sibling comment that it won't be the eventual solution because charging will be good enough. That said, the battery thing just isn't a problem with the right market setup. Battery deterioration over a fleet is predictable enough. You could just buy a "never-ending battery subscription" when you buy a car or something.
    - jgibson 8y ago
      The Renault Zoe does something like this. You buy the car, but you lease the battery from Renault (at least, thats how it used to work) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe
TheRealPomax 8y ago
Oh hey, welcome to every news outlet that needs a quick "EV" article to get clicks over the last 10 years.
rconti 8y ago
It's a fair point, if overdone. My current employer has 16 EV chargers and they're all full by 8:45am. Even in just a few months here, I've noticed them becoming occupied more rapidly. People need to start rotating their cars off the charge mid-day to accommodate more cars. The 4 handicapped spots with chargers are often also poached with some regularity. (private garage, but still risky). At former employers, I saw chargers go from nonexistent, to installed, to saturated, in a matter of 6 or so months. In a given site, so far, construction isn't keeping pace. I own an EV and charge at home so it's not really an issue for me, but those with shorter range vehicles are more likely to have issues, and it is something that will have to be dealt with. It's not insurmountable, but it's an issue. The massive increase in electrical demand from EV charging when rates go off-peak but solar generation is nonexistent is definitely something that'll have to be dealt with. My house used to consume maybe 1500w at 9pm. Now, when the charger flips on, bam, 13kW. It's impressive how much more load a neighborhood with even just a few EVs can put on the grid.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  Same here, except it's the bike racks that fill up pretty early. Companies really should be doing more to encourage sustainable transportation.
  - ComputerGuru 8y ago
    Except bike racks are pennies on the dollar compared to EV stations.
    - sundvor 8y ago
      Also: It's pretty remarkable how many bikes can fit in the size of say, 2 car park spaces.
      - tialaramex 8y ago
        However, some of your employees can't use bikes, so this isn't an entirely fair comparison. All the employees could arrive by car (not all of them might drive, but the nice thing about cars is that they take passengers). Thus it may make sense to have 10 parking spaces worth of bike racks, and 5 parking spaces, but it doesn't make sense to switch to 15 parking spaces worth of bike racks... and no parking.
madengr 8y ago
Here in flyover country, Kansas City has 1600 public charging plugs. I reckon that is much more per capital than Silicon Valley.
skywhopper 8y ago
We need to improve the batteries/charging technology to make it possible to fully charge an EV in five minutes or less. That will make them more practical for long-distance travel and will also reduce the need for charging stations in parking areas and in homes. Instead they can supplement/replace fuel pumps at gas stations, and benefit from the existing built infrastructure, easing the transition and keeping refueling patterns the same.
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  Easier said than done, though multiple car companies and charging companies are stepping up the kW their cars can handle. It'll be a mixture of faster charging, more battery storage overall, as well as more efficient use of electrons, all three helping with range/recharge issues.
irrational 8y ago
I've come to the conclusion that we need two cars. 1. an EV car for around town and 2. a gasoline powered car for when we are on a road trip to very rural places (which is quite frequent). I'm hoping that at some point even in the hinterlands of the US there will always be an available charging station, but we aren't there yet.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  I saw the same split, but went with a PHEV (Toyota Prius Prime). Most of my in-town driving is free (PV on my roof makes a lot of power, and my utility gives me credits which expire with the calendar year otherwise), but out of town it's just like any other hybrid.
- thebluehawk 8y ago
  I road trip regularly with my Tesla Model S. You would be surprised at where there are charging solutions. Any RV park can charge you up over night. If you use superchargers, it's hardly slower than a gas car. A 600 mile day that would take roughly 9 hours of driving and 1.5 hours of stopping (getting gas, eating, bathroom breaks) in a gas car takes about 9 hours of driving and 2 hours of stopping (charging, eating, bathroom breaks). To me that's totally worth the savings on fuel and the fact that the car does 90% of the driving for me. If you left at the same time, you'd beat me by 30 minutes, but I wouldn't feel like I'd been driving all day, and I would save $50+ on gas.
  - irrational 8y ago
    I'm not too familiar with how far an EV car can typically go on a charge. I looked at our typical trip on https://chargehub.com https://chargehub.com and there are three sections where there is a 200 mile gap between charge stations. Can a typical EV vehicle carrying say 7 people with all their gear, kayaks, roof top luggage shell, etc. go 200 miles between charging stations? Two of the sections would be through mountainous terrain with steep climbing if that makes any difference.
- s0rce 8y ago
  I've said this in similar threads and a reasonable counter-example is that in very rural places there aren't even enough gas stations (south eastern Oregon and north western nevada for example). However, for my truck I can easily bring a spare 5 gallons in a jerry can, I don't think doing that with an EV is possible yet (practically or economically). With an EV, however, you can charge at limited speed overnight from a regular outlet giving you some added flexibility.
tamaharbor 8y ago
Maybe they should start with a common-sized charging plug?
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  This has essentially happened. J1772 is the standard for "normal" charging, CHAdeMO is the standard for fast charging. Even Tesla, the only company to not follow these standards, supplies a J1772 adapter with every car.
  - jac_no_k 8y ago
    In Japan, Tesla supplies the adapters to use CHAdeMO.
zamalek 8y ago
The problem is the delivery mechanism. Charging is always going to be a bottleneck, unless we invent mass production supercapacitors on the order of what graphene promised (which is seems to be highly unlikely). Edit: even with supercapacitors, the amperage required seems unlikely. Assuming self-parking as a baseline (although it's not strictly required), cars would be able to position themselves over an automated battery pack replacement station. Replacing the discharged pack could take less time than a petroleum refuel, so EVs could be more convenient than petroleum vehicles (any replacement technology should offer more benefits than what it replaces). The station could then move the pack underground for recharging. This underground area would have much higher density compared to cars (where batteries are, what, 10% of the volume?). In addition, dead packs could be identified and scheduled for pickup and recycling. The first problem that most people would bring up is: replacing a worn pack with a new one. This problem actually turns out to be an advantage: disclose the mileage of the pack and allow the customer to pay less for it. I don't need a 300mi pack if I'm just going 5mi to work. This way, more useful lifetime can still be extracted from old packs while turning the recycling problem into a logistically simpler problem (no more complicated than delivering petroleum to fuel stations). The only real problem with this is the clamping mechanism between the car and the pack. It would need to be standardized. Reliability: mechanical systems fail - it's the undercarriage of the car, there's dust and other particulate getting in the way.
- geerlingguy 8y ago
  Tesla originally had a demo of this 'replace the pack under the car' method (called "Fast Pack Swap"; see: https://vimeo.com/68832891 https://vimeo.com/68832891). But they seem to have backed off that idea, probably for a variety of logistical reasons. I remember reading about an underground battery swap system in a 1980's electronics encyclopedia too, but it seems the barriers are too great for the size batteries needed for a good long-range EV.
  - zamalek 8y ago
    Wow. I was convinced it was a foolproof solution. I wish I could learn more about the problems that they were worried about. Thanks for the citation, it's nice to see the idea in action :)
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
What's the major impediment to installing new charging stations? My guess would be that tearing up and replacing pavement to run cables is the biggest expense, but maybe the charging electronics or the actual structural components are particularly expensive.
walrus01 8y ago
One point to consider if buying a condo, assuming you can get board permission, it can cost $8-10k for a licensed electrician to extend a 240V 50A circuit to a plug on the wall of your parking spot. It is definitely a consideration. Electrical loads in parking structures for 60+ cars are not usually designed to support electrical cars.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
What are the obstacles to designing a new EV with a solar panel on the roof or hood?
- layoric 8y ago
  Watts per square meter of solar radiation is ~1kW before taking into account solar panel efficiency (usually ~20% these days) so it just doesn’t generate that much power on the roof of a car to be useful.
- modeless 8y ago
  The major obstacle is that the sunlight falling on the entire surface of a car does not contain enough power to run the car for a typical amount of driving (even unrealistically assuming no shade, no clouds, world record solar efficiency, etc). So it doesn't solve the problem of needing charging stations.
- gambiting 8y ago
  The fact that on the equator, at noon, you get 1kW of power for every square meter of surface. It's much much less elsewhere in the world. Then the best solar panels are about 40% efficient. Then the surfaces that could actually be covered by solar panels on a car are not that large, and you begin to realize that you could never recharge any meaningful amount with solar panels - we're talking couple miles of range for a day of charging.
- marvin 8y ago
  Just saw this prototype in the newspaper today. It is covered with solar cells, and apparently, it recharges 18 miles of range if you leave it out in the sun all day. https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-soldrevet-bil-som-kan-lade-mens-den-kjorer https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-s...

83 points by prostoalex 8y ago

drb91 8y ago

I'm pretty shocked at the low adoption of hybrid cars. Why don't people want them?

sampleinajar 8y ago
Good question. What is your expectation? I found a link that seems to suggest that people do want them (at about 2% of cars sold), maybe just not at the level you expect? They are typically more expensive to buy. People aren't good with long term cost benefit analysis. https://www.hybridcars.com/june-2018-hybrid-cars-sales-dashboard/ https://www.hybridcars.com/june-2018-hybrid-cars-sales-dashb...
- drb91 8y ago
  It seems absurd in retrospect, but I was envisioning something like 20-30% of cars. Possibly this is due to commuting with rich people in SF where priuses are every other car. 2% makes it seem like we have no hope for addressing global warming--nobody seems to care.
  - briandear 8y ago
    When the market is ready for hybrids and electrics, hybrids and electrics will become more plentiful. People seem to forget that individuals have to look out for themselves first. Not everyone is willing to make the financial sacrifice to solve a nebulous problem. As long as China and India have little incentive to fix their pollution issues, the impact of even the entire state of California is literally a drop in the bucket. The thinking is “why should I suffer” when the developing world pretty much does whatever they want. A bunch of Bay Area techies driving electric has about as much impact on climate as a whale farting in the ocean. The sky might be falling, but it isn’t going to be stopped by Americans driving electric.
    - drb91 8y ago
      > People seem to forget that individuals have to look out for themselves first. Why do you say that? I can understand people need to look after themselves, but I can have my own hopes at the same time. Why would you want me to not hope to address this problem? The market certainly isn't going to provide any hope; that's why emissions are considered an externality, because people don't approach the problem rationally (as a society). Tragedy of the commons should be a descriptive trait, not a justification.
    - Animats 8y ago
      Shenzhen just went to 100% electric buses. 16,000 of them. China is going electric faster than the US is.
gamechangr 8y ago
good point....yeah you're right.
- gburdell3 8y ago
  Sounds like you're talking about electric cars, not hybrids.
  - milesvp 8y ago
    Possibly parent post is confused, but apperently to jump start a modern prius, you need to open the fuse box, which is unusual. So maybe he didn't do enough research? As to the mountains statement, here's a piece of anecdata. My boss, who was a big fellow, said he had a really hard time driving through mountain passes with his first gen prius. It just didn't have enough power to drive up steep grades at freeway speeds carrying 300 lbs. He said he was constantly being passed by semi trucks hauling loads...
    - outworlder 8y ago
      That's a problem of the first generation Prius then. Even a Nissan Leaf has absolutely no problem climbing mountains (they will murder the battery charge though – ask me how do I know – although you'll get some of it back as you go back down). A Chevy Volt would do it even better, and that's an actual hybrid. Electric engines have outstanding power relative to their size. The Leaf actual engine is the size of a football.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      The Prius has been redesigned three times since then, so I'm not sure what that tells you. Gasoline engines lose power at altitude, as it happens.
gburdell3 8y ago
My mom just bought a Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid, a few months ago, and it seems to solve all the problems of dealing with poor charging infrastructure in Texas. It can go around 25 miles on pure electric power, so that takes care of 90% of her driving (charging at home at night). For longer drives, it's a hybrid, so it still has a gas tank and can go just as far as a regular hybrid or gas car.
jlv2 8y ago
BEVs are mechanically simpler, requiring less maintenance and expense (and they eliminate all use of fossil fuels). Hybrids and PHEVs are mechanically more complex than ICEVs, often requiring more things that need maintenance and repair. PHEVs are the worst of all, in my opinion, because on top of everything else, they tend to clog up public charging stations. BEVs with decent range (the Chevy Bolt, Tesla, and some upcoming models) are the real solution. Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current) public charging for trips. Background: I've had a LEAF for 4.5 years as my daily commuter car; it's got (32K miles). For trips last year we got a Tesla Model S (24K miles).
- drb91 8y ago
  > Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current) public charging for trips. As I essentially only use my car for weekend road trips, how is the long-distance experience hopping from charger to charger? How about country driving--is the density high enough you can check out some nature?
  - outworlder 8y ago
    Previous generation Leaf? Debatable. I have one. I plotted a trip from the East Bay to Yosemite and the range seemed enough on paper, even accounting for elevation. But in at least one stretch there was a single quick charge station (ChaDeMo) that I could rely on. If that was out of service I would have issues, as even L2 were not plentiful. On Yosemite itself I could find only one L2. So I did not attempt the trip. Current generation Leaf, Bolt, Tesla? The range would be pretty adequate and comfortable. Not sure about long desert stretches, you could have an idea here: https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/ https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/ Also of note is that a major drawback in the US is the high highway speeds. Drag increases to the speed squared, so going 60mph vs 80mph makes a huge difference. We don't notice as much in internal combustion engines, because a gas tank has so much energy – we may notice in our pockets though.
- ams6110 8y ago
  You might want to spell out your acronyms on first use. I'm having to guess at what you're talking about.
gameswithgo 8y ago
what makes you think adoption is low? Probably you do not realize how many models you see are hybrid, most don't look different.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  A couple months back in Ireland Toyota was doing a free upgrade to PHEV on all models sold.
briandear 8y ago
They’re more expensive and the cost differential isn’t offset by the gas savings. Hybrids don’t solve any real problem in the market: gas is plentiful thus relatively cheap. You don’t generally save the cost difference in gas savings unless you keep the car longer than is typical. Even in Europe where gas is far more expensive and taxed, hybrids don’t make financial sense in most cases: hybrids are more expensive and a higher price car means higher sales taxes, offsetting gains from saving gas. A diesel Peugeot 5007 gets over 40 miles to the gallon, which is approaching hybrid levels for that size vehicle but a hybrid can cost €8000 or so more. No way during the normal lifespan would you save that much in gas. Also, if you are financing, you are paying interest on that higher price, thus making the lack of cost savings even more pronounced. Hybrid big rigs on the other hand, could be game changing. A Prius is a statement car more than an actual exercise in frugality. A Honda Civic is a nicer car, doesn’t look like a squashed bean and costs less with more features and plenty of fuel-efficiency. But then a Civic doesn’t give people the same sense of superiority as does a Prius. In the Bay Area replace Prius with Tesla and Civic with Audi and you can make similar arguments.
- llampx 8y ago
  > Hybrid big rigs on the other hand, could be game changing. How? I believe most of the efficiency of the Prius and other hybrids is realized with city (stop and go) driving. In highway driving it is not any more efficient than any other car with a similar 1.3L engine and aerodynamics.
  - CarVac 8y ago
    The Prius is still more efficient on the highway than other cars because nobody (at least in the US) would buy a similar-sized car with a 1.3L engine and no hybrid system to boost power.
- serpix 8y ago
  In Europe they are the best, especially PHEVs as they lower the cost of driving substantially in addition to getting less taxed. There is no competition cost wise.
AcerbicZero 8y ago
I think its safe to say we're experiencing a true Renaissance of petrol powered cars right now, which makes the EV options fairly unappealing to "car" people such as myself (generally speaking). As for the commodity type of car buyer, the price seems to be the issue I hear most often. Why spend 40k on an EV with limited range and utility, when you could drop 30k on a mid-sized sedan that gets excellent gas mileage, has comical amounts of power, and has a level of luxury that would have required a 6 figure investment 10 years ago? Not to mention you can take it on a long drive without having to pre-plan the entire thing. In a few years, when gas prices are high again I'm sure we'll see the EVs start picking up, and at that point I suspect the charging station issue will solve itself.
- outworlder 8y ago
  > Why spend 40k on an EV with limited range and utility, Parent said hybrid.
rbanffy 8y ago
Pure electric is sexy. Also, hybrids are mechanically more complicated (that's my excuse).
- outworlder 8y ago
  Priuses are with the dual drive train. Chevy Volts are not, the generator is much simpler than a normal car engine. You are trading a normal ICE for an electric + generator combination, which is mechanically simpler (transmission is basically non-existent, for example). Not as simple as an EV, but can be simpler than a normal ICE.
  - davidgould 8y ago
    Chevy Volts are not serial hybrids as you describe. They have a complex transmission that merges the gasoline engine and electric motor power in several modes for optimal efficiency. Nice car but not simple. Perhaps you meant the Chevy Bolt which is fully electric with no transmission or gasoline engine?
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      Honda has multiple hybrids now that have essentially no transmission - either the engine charges the battery, or it is connected to the wheels as if in top gear. I haven't spent a lot of time driving one, but it seems elegant on paper. Perhaps not quite as smooth as the Toyota hybrid transmissions because it has the clutch engaging or disengaging the direct drive.
  - photojosh 8y ago
    It would seem to me that doing it this way is ideal, because you can run the ICE at one specific optimised RPM. Would the losses from from charging the battery would be less than those from running an ICE in inefficient ranges? Is the only downside that you can't get a combined peak power from ICE+electric that's higher than the electric on its own? Am electrical engineer, not mechanical, so I'd be interested in someone who knows about these things chiming in.
  - 8y ago
megaman22 8y ago
I think that gas going back down to two-something a gallon again after that period a few years ago where we started getting used to it pushing four bucks, combined with increased fuel efficiency of newer ICE vehicles, and the price premium of hybrids explains a lot of it away.
- wcoenen 8y ago
  Howcome gasoline is so cheap in the US? Here in Belgium prices are between 1.5 and 1.6 euro/liter, which corresponds to 6.5 to 7 dollar/gallon.
  - ph0rque 8y ago
    Taxes (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Gas_and_Diesel_taxes.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Gas_and_...)
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    Taxes are low and there would be a mass revolt if they were jacked up to European levels.
  - aurelianito 8y ago
    Operation Irak Liberation. That's the kind of things the US do to have its gas cheap. Belgium does not do this.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    Fracking, and development of all that domestic shale oil that became economical to exploit when oil prices were through the roof previously, as I understand it.
    - shiftpgdn 8y ago
      Oil is sold on a global market. In fact the state of Texas is due to become a large producer/exporter than the nation of Iraq in the next year or two. Differences in price are due to regional taxes.
mtgx 8y ago
"Hybrids" of all kinds are usually a dead-end transitional technology. See the fate of "touch-optimized" Symbian and Blackberry OSs. The old timers dislike them for being "different" and the ones who want the new tech want 100% of it, not just 20% - they want the ideal solution in this new paradigm. As such, hybrid tech is doomed from the start.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  It seems to me that houses will always run on electricity, but that doesn't mean backup generators will ever become obsolete, because electricity isn't 100% reliable. For the same reason I think the end state of cars in the forseeable future will/should be PHEVs, not BEVs. People who disdain the former in favor of the later are responding to vague, illogical ideas of purity and simplicity, in my opinion.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    Purity and simplicity applies to the vehicle's operating costs which are an entirely pragmatic matter. If you have a BEV the drive train is almost childishly simple, and that means fewer things that can go wrong and the things that do go wrong are mostly simple to replace, which in turn means your maintenance costs are low. All the time you're driving a PHEV you're hauling the ICE power system around, even if you don't use it for days, weeks, months, or indeed ever. That's an ongoing cost drag compared to the equivalent BEV. Anti air-pollution and anti climate-change rules will punish PHEVs. Not at first, because a PHEV is better than ICE, but gradually a PHEV is going to be paying surcharges and subject to access rules that don't apply to BEVs, rather than try to distinguish whether your specific PHEV would be a problem on this specific occasion it's simpler to just say "No, buy a BEV". I think you're exactly wrong about this, lots of people are going to dip their toes in the water with a PHEV, expecting to use ICE mode a lot, then when it comes time to replace it they'll think back to the few times the PHEV "paid for itself" by running in ICE mode, and all the times they were fine on battery, and they'll eye the latest BEV with more range, and they'll say to themselves hell with it, let's buy a BEV, we hate spending 8+ hours at a time in a car anyway so let's just make it impossible rather than unpleasant.
perl4ever 8y ago
Speaking only for myself, I get irritated every time a new model comes out without a spare tire. I know it's possible to fit a spare into a hybrid, because some models of Prius have one. But many don't.
closeparen 8y ago
From the prevalence of SUVs where compacts would do, it’s clear that people are not particularly motivated by gas mileage. Even if you are, 50mpg vs 35mpg is just not that compelling when it costs so much in terms of money, mechanical complexity, and driving dynamics. (Unfortunately, automakers seem to be making hybrids less fun, rather than more, until you get to the very high end).
psychometry 8y ago
Because you can't get a decent one for less than 25 grand.
jac_no_k 8y ago
Here in Tokyo I ended up with a Nissan Leaf v.2 (2018 model) with the 40kw/h model with real world range of 150 km (93 miles). It sees about 10 to 20km for errands, ideal city car model. It's home is a stand alone house with a 200v outlet, rare for this area. Typical residences are dense apartments with over subscribed mechanical parking spots. I did consider the Toyota Prius and all it's variants; the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV; and Nissan's e-power series. Several negatives. Both the Prius and Outlander 10% to 20% more expensive then the Leaf. After government discounts; manufacturer discounts; and dealer incentives they ended up nearly 60% more expensive. All of these hybrids had the shortcomings of ICE (internal combustion engine) of dealing with fuel, oil changes, belts, plugs, and others. The PHEV (plug in hybrid electric vehicle) would have worked in my use case as the battery has 30km range. Just recharge daily at home but the price was a turn off. The perceived negative with the Leaf was range. But just the other day I've made a 300km round trip and the three 30 minute breaks to charge the battery was just fine. Japan is easy with such good density of chargers: https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/ We rarely use the charger at home. The Leaf gets charged at the local market whenever it's below 50%. Charge time is limited 30 minutes at the public spots and it's enough to get the charge to over 80%. This means that even for people without access to a charger at home easily use the public spots. The salesperson used the same pitch, saying that Leaf owners regularly drop in for a 30 minute charge and hang out at the lounge with free soft drinks. Anyways, this was my reason and experience on getting BEV instead of a hybrid.
- yuhong 8y ago
  >Here in Tokyo I ended up with a Nissan Leaf v.2 (2018 model) with the 40kw/h model with real world range of 150 km (93 miles). 150 miles is the EPA range, not 150km.
  - jac_no_k 8y ago
    EPA (US environmental protection agency) rates it as 241 km (150 miles) JC08 (Japan's rating agency) rates it at 400km (248 miles). Even the dealer says this is wildly optimistic. At 100% charge, my car reports 220 km. It's starting to "learn" my driving style. My lead foot, my preference for 25dC (77dF) cabin temperature when it's 40dC (104dF) at 90%+ humidity drags this down to real world 150km (93 miles). I'm sure if I drove more conservatively during more reasonable weather conditions, I could easily get over 220km. But with fast charge stations no more then 50km apart, no need to hypermile. It's good to take a break hour and half or so. (Speed limit in Japan is maximum 80kph (49mph) on highways.)
gambiting 8y ago
Oh we want them alright. But they are still far too expensive. I recently bought a brand new VW Polo for about £15k, you just can't buy a hybrid car for that much. And any price difference with a hybrid pays for years of petrol for the Polo - so why bother?

LeoPanthera 8y ago

Article like this always seem to ignore/forget that you can charge your EV at home, and that this is usually where you charge it the majority of the time. It's an understandable thing to forget, since you can't fill up your gas car at home. I own an EV and I only use public chargers extremely rarely.

goatlover 8y ago
Not everyone can charge at home. Everyone can gas up at filling stations almost everywhere they go. For mass adoption, chargers need to be as available for everyone.
- elif 8y ago
  that is an absurd standard to hold. In most cities, the cost of time to park long enough to charge would exceed the cost of electricity. Alternatively i would suggest: when the paradigm has shifted, the ancillary processes shift accordingly rather than cling onto some cloned reliquary husk of gasoline culture.
- rimliu 8y ago
  Gas pumps have much better throughput though. I can fill up the 45 litres tank (good for ~750km) in less than a minute. How long would charging for the equivalent range take?
tjohns 8y ago
Assuming you own your own home. If you live in an apartment complex or otherwise only have street parking, you likely don't have access to electricity. Or at the very least, would need to negotiate with the landlord to have a new outlet installed -- which is going to depend on how much you get along with said landlord.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  There are solutions for street parking (both standalone and equipment that can piggyback off street lamp installs). In this case, you do need municipal buy in for the installation and maintenance of this infrastructure.

aphextron 8y ago

Chargers have been getting noticeably more busy over the last year (bay area). It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies like Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure. The state really needs to get on top of this and start building out more level 3.

lazerpants 8y ago
>It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies like Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure. Most (maybe all?) gas stations are privately owned, how is this different?
- chc 8y ago
  Probably because gas stations and EV chargers have very different logistics and modalities. For example, you could realistically put an electrical outlet by every parking space, but doing that with gas pumps would be completely untenable.
  - repsilat 8y ago
    I know this was just an example of how they're different, but this particular feature should make EV chargers easier for the market to supply relative to gas stations.
  - pastage 8y ago
    Each car in a city requires alot of parking spaces I've read 4-10 empty parking spaces per car. This would mean that every car owner would need to pay for that many charging stations.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    A gas pump by every parking spot is probably easier at scale. Manufacturing costs would scale down significantly, and a plastic gas pipe is cheaper than a copper wire. We don't do it because a gas car refuels fast enough that you don't need it.

endymi0n 8y ago

People still don‘t get just how radically synergistic electric driving, self-charging and self-driving technology will be. All the drawbacks of electric driving such as low range and slow and cumbersome charging will just instantly disappear as soon as cars will just drive away and charge themselves. It will mostly solve parking problems, availability of chargers and even help absorb the (basicall free) excess energy produced by photovoltaics in the middle of the day. Just one or two of these technologies won‘t do much, but I suspect we‘ll see a massive tipping point once all three hit. If you ask me, we‘ll see this completely altering cityscapes and car ownership between 2020 and 2030.

Latteland 8y ago
but that's not happening for a while. 10+ years maybe more. what are we doing for the next 10 years?
- pxtail 8y ago
  > what are we doing for the next 10 years? pour gasoline into fuel tank (:
peterwwillis 8y ago
Self-driving is expected to bring down ridesharing costs. As costs go down, ridership goes up. As ridership goes up, traffic goes up. Currently I can get around by bicycle, rideshare, bus, subway, trolley, and rail. With the exception of the subway, all of those are slowed down by increased vehicle traffic. The tipping point you're talking about may be city streets becoming gridlocked. Then there's the bit rot problem. Most of this self driving tech is software. Over time, software becomes old, eventually is abandoned, and has to be rewritten. Assuming the cityscape was changed by 2030 (this is impossible, but just for argument's sake) we could have broken legacy tech by 2050. But we will either be stuck with it, or middle-aged people will have to start driving 30+ year old cars as taxis, as no young people will have gotten a drivers license, and all the self driving cars won't have steering wheels.
- WhompingWindows 8y ago

berbec 8y ago

Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc. You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-charged ones if available, and charge if not.

aphextron 8y ago
>Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc. You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-charged ones if available, and charge if not. The problem with swapping is that switching out a battery is not at all the same as switching out a gas tank. Batteries degrade over time, and with various different usages (lots of fast charging, high heat) can degrade much more severely. You would have to have some kind of system that grades the battery being turned in and credits/debits the account based on its condition. On top of that it's just not necessary. A full charge from 20% is less than 30 mins at a 100kw charger.
- Latteland 8y ago
  tesla already build and ran this for a while in cali. not much interest for those reasons, plus tesla superchargers are fast enough.
- repsilat 8y ago
  I agree with the sibling comment that it won't be the eventual solution because charging will be good enough. That said, the battery thing just isn't a problem with the right market setup. Battery deterioration over a fleet is predictable enough. You could just buy a "never-ending battery subscription" when you buy a car or something.
  - jgibson 8y ago
    The Renault Zoe does something like this. You buy the car, but you lease the battery from Renault (at least, thats how it used to work) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe

TheRealPomax 8y ago

Oh hey, welcome to every news outlet that needs a quick "EV" article to get clicks over the last 10 years.

rconti 8y ago

It's a fair point, if overdone. My current employer has 16 EV chargers and they're all full by 8:45am. Even in just a few months here, I've noticed them becoming occupied more rapidly. People need to start rotating their cars off the charge mid-day to accommodate more cars. The 4 handicapped spots with chargers are often also poached with some regularity. (private garage, but still risky). At former employers, I saw chargers go from nonexistent, to installed, to saturated, in a matter of 6 or so months. In a given site, so far, construction isn't keeping pace. I own an EV and charge at home so it's not really an issue for me, but those with shorter range vehicles are more likely to have issues, and it is something that will have to be dealt with. It's not insurmountable, but it's an issue. The massive increase in electrical demand from EV charging when rates go off-peak but solar generation is nonexistent is definitely something that'll have to be dealt with. My house used to consume maybe 1500w at 9pm. Now, when the charger flips on, bam, 13kW. It's impressive how much more load a neighborhood with even just a few EVs can put on the grid.

jdavis703 8y ago
Same here, except it's the bike racks that fill up pretty early. Companies really should be doing more to encourage sustainable transportation.
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  Except bike racks are pennies on the dollar compared to EV stations.
  - sundvor 8y ago
    Also: It's pretty remarkable how many bikes can fit in the size of say, 2 car park spaces.
    - tialaramex 8y ago
      However, some of your employees can't use bikes, so this isn't an entirely fair comparison. All the employees could arrive by car (not all of them might drive, but the nice thing about cars is that they take passengers). Thus it may make sense to have 10 parking spaces worth of bike racks, and 5 parking spaces, but it doesn't make sense to switch to 15 parking spaces worth of bike racks... and no parking.

madengr 8y ago

Here in flyover country, Kansas City has 1600 public charging plugs. I reckon that is much more per capital than Silicon Valley.

skywhopper 8y ago

We need to improve the batteries/charging technology to make it possible to fully charge an EV in five minutes or less. That will make them more practical for long-distance travel and will also reduce the need for charging stations in parking areas and in homes. Instead they can supplement/replace fuel pumps at gas stations, and benefit from the existing built infrastructure, easing the transition and keeping refueling patterns the same.

WhompingWindows 8y ago
Easier said than done, though multiple car companies and charging companies are stepping up the kW their cars can handle. It'll be a mixture of faster charging, more battery storage overall, as well as more efficient use of electrons, all three helping with range/recharge issues.

irrational 8y ago

I've come to the conclusion that we need two cars. 1. an EV car for around town and 2. a gasoline powered car for when we are on a road trip to very rural places (which is quite frequent). I'm hoping that at some point even in the hinterlands of the US there will always be an available charging station, but we aren't there yet.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
I saw the same split, but went with a PHEV (Toyota Prius Prime). Most of my in-town driving is free (PV on my roof makes a lot of power, and my utility gives me credits which expire with the calendar year otherwise), but out of town it's just like any other hybrid.
thebluehawk 8y ago
I road trip regularly with my Tesla Model S. You would be surprised at where there are charging solutions. Any RV park can charge you up over night. If you use superchargers, it's hardly slower than a gas car. A 600 mile day that would take roughly 9 hours of driving and 1.5 hours of stopping (getting gas, eating, bathroom breaks) in a gas car takes about 9 hours of driving and 2 hours of stopping (charging, eating, bathroom breaks). To me that's totally worth the savings on fuel and the fact that the car does 90% of the driving for me. If you left at the same time, you'd beat me by 30 minutes, but I wouldn't feel like I'd been driving all day, and I would save $50+ on gas.
- irrational 8y ago
  I'm not too familiar with how far an EV car can typically go on a charge. I looked at our typical trip on https://chargehub.com https://chargehub.com and there are three sections where there is a 200 mile gap between charge stations. Can a typical EV vehicle carrying say 7 people with all their gear, kayaks, roof top luggage shell, etc. go 200 miles between charging stations? Two of the sections would be through mountainous terrain with steep climbing if that makes any difference.
s0rce 8y ago
I've said this in similar threads and a reasonable counter-example is that in very rural places there aren't even enough gas stations (south eastern Oregon and north western nevada for example). However, for my truck I can easily bring a spare 5 gallons in a jerry can, I don't think doing that with an EV is possible yet (practically or economically). With an EV, however, you can charge at limited speed overnight from a regular outlet giving you some added flexibility.

tamaharbor 8y ago

Maybe they should start with a common-sized charging plug?

LeoPanthera 8y ago
This has essentially happened. J1772 is the standard for "normal" charging, CHAdeMO is the standard for fast charging. Even Tesla, the only company to not follow these standards, supplies a J1772 adapter with every car.
- jac_no_k 8y ago
  In Japan, Tesla supplies the adapters to use CHAdeMO.

zamalek 8y ago

The problem is the delivery mechanism. Charging is always going to be a bottleneck, unless we invent mass production supercapacitors on the order of what graphene promised (which is seems to be highly unlikely). Edit: even with supercapacitors, the amperage required seems unlikely. Assuming self-parking as a baseline (although it's not strictly required), cars would be able to position themselves over an automated battery pack replacement station. Replacing the discharged pack could take less time than a petroleum refuel, so EVs could be more convenient than petroleum vehicles (any replacement technology should offer more benefits than what it replaces). The station could then move the pack underground for recharging. This underground area would have much higher density compared to cars (where batteries are, what, 10% of the volume?). In addition, dead packs could be identified and scheduled for pickup and recycling. The first problem that most people would bring up is: replacing a worn pack with a new one. This problem actually turns out to be an advantage: disclose the mileage of the pack and allow the customer to pay less for it. I don't need a 300mi pack if I'm just going 5mi to work. This way, more useful lifetime can still be extracted from old packs while turning the recycling problem into a logistically simpler problem (no more complicated than delivering petroleum to fuel stations). The only real problem with this is the clamping mechanism between the car and the pack. It would need to be standardized. Reliability: mechanical systems fail - it's the undercarriage of the car, there's dust and other particulate getting in the way.

geerlingguy 8y ago
Tesla originally had a demo of this 'replace the pack under the car' method (called "Fast Pack Swap"; see: https://vimeo.com/68832891 https://vimeo.com/68832891). But they seem to have backed off that idea, probably for a variety of logistical reasons. I remember reading about an underground battery swap system in a 1980's electronics encyclopedia too, but it seems the barriers are too great for the size batteries needed for a good long-range EV.
- zamalek 8y ago
  Wow. I was convinced it was a foolproof solution. I wish I could learn more about the problems that they were worried about. Thanks for the citation, it's nice to see the idea in action :)

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

What's the major impediment to installing new charging stations? My guess would be that tearing up and replacing pavement to run cables is the biggest expense, but maybe the charging electronics or the actual structural components are particularly expensive.

walrus01 8y ago

One point to consider if buying a condo, assuming you can get board permission, it can cost $8-10k for a licensed electrician to extend a 240V 50A circuit to a plug on the wall of your parking spot. It is definitely a consideration. Electrical loads in parking structures for 60+ cars are not usually designed to support electrical cars.

emiliobumachar 8y ago

What are the obstacles to designing a new EV with a solar panel on the roof or hood?

layoric 8y ago
Watts per square meter of solar radiation is ~1kW before taking into account solar panel efficiency (usually ~20% these days) so it just doesn’t generate that much power on the roof of a car to be useful.
modeless 8y ago
The major obstacle is that the sunlight falling on the entire surface of a car does not contain enough power to run the car for a typical amount of driving (even unrealistically assuming no shade, no clouds, world record solar efficiency, etc). So it doesn't solve the problem of needing charging stations.
gambiting 8y ago
The fact that on the equator, at noon, you get 1kW of power for every square meter of surface. It's much much less elsewhere in the world. Then the best solar panels are about 40% efficient. Then the surfaces that could actually be covered by solar panels on a car are not that large, and you begin to realize that you could never recharge any meaningful amount with solar panels - we're talking couple miles of range for a day of charging.
marvin 8y ago
Just saw this prototype in the newspaper today. It is covered with solar cells, and apparently, it recharges 18 miles of range if you leave it out in the sun all day. https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-soldrevet-bil-som-kan-lade-mens-den-kjorer https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-s...