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It's not expensive to install electric chargers in existing building. "Planning" for Uber involves what? Having a drive in in front of the building? How do you

It's not expensive to install electric chargers in existing building. "Planning" for Uber involves what? Having a drive in in front of the building? How do you plan for non-existent self driving cars? Any practical advice you can share with the architects here?

mcculley 8y ago
It is certainly more expensive to install electric chargers into an existing inert concrete structure than it is to design them in from the beginning. The building I am in is working this out right now, as are many others. Planning for Uber and autonomous cars includes architecting porticos and pickup/dropoff points in favor of garages. Many buildings are hostile to use of Uber in my daily experience.
- chii 8y ago
  > Many buildings are hostile to use of Uber in my daily experience. if there's already a taxi rank, then uber should be using that space to pick-up/drop-off. If there isn't, then the current building is _already_ unfriendly to taxis.
  - michaelcampbell 8y ago
    Except taxi ranks are a queue of fungible vehicles; uber/lyft's are "bespoke" so the exact same structure won't work quite as well. But it wouldn't be hard to make a pickup/dropoff area. I suspect there already is one at most places, it's just a pissy, petty policy that doesn't allow ridesharing (etc) to use it.
    - mcculley 8y ago
      It’s more than policy. It is architecture. As I described above, I live in a new building. I step out into traffic to get into an Uber. This was an obvious thing to consider during this building’s design.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      In SF planning meetings, I have seen buildings explicitly discouraged from accommodating pickup/dropoff on the theory that it would make traffic impacts worse (this is backwards) and undermine the “transit oriented” argument (harder to argue).
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      There's no reason why rideshare queues and car-rider assignments couldn't be fungible up to the point the passenger steps into the vehicle, special needs excepted.
      - manigandham 8y ago
        Those are called taxis. Even then they only line up at major locations, not residential buildings.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        No. Rideshare still behaes ona requ basis. But the vehicle at the head of the queue serves the passenger first requesting a ride, special needs excepted. Out-of-order arrival of rides is addressed that way.
        manigandham 8y ago
        That means the rider wouldn't know what vehicle is coming and when, which goes against the whole experience. Also it's unlikely for there to be that many rides queued up at a single residential location which is why they aren't queued up there in the first place.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        it's unlikely for there to be that many rides queued up at a single residential location The premise of this thread was that there were.
        manigandham 8y ago
        I think it's about having a pickup/dropoff area, not necessarily a queuing system, especially because ridesharing does not use traditional waiting queues.
        8y ago
  - mcculley 8y ago
    Yes, they are already unfriendly to taxis. In Orlando and many other places we didn’t use taxis as much as we use Uber now. When we get to fully autonomous vehicles this will be an even greater problem as it will not make sense to park the car. Real estate investors should be planning for that now in the buildings they are designing that will still be standing in 30 years.
sbierwagen 8y ago
You can't install more than a handful of chargers without needing to run new circuits back to the main panel. Installing a hundred (not unreasonable for future needs!) would probably double the power consumption of the entire building, and require upgrading the utility connection, maybe even running new lines to the closest substation.
- mcculley 8y ago
  Not to mention that with such an increase in overall electricity consumption in the garage, one might want to charge the residents for use of it. Doing so might require changes to architecture (e.g., putting electric cars on a different floor or section). There are lots of things to consider and real estate investors/developers are not thinking of any of them.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> "Planning" for Uber involves what? In Central Florida, this means having a safe place for people to stand and wait. That area gets frequent and often nasty thunderstorms.
maxsilver 8y ago
> Any practical advice you can share with the architects here? Could they at least run one regular (120v/15a) circuit + wall outlet to each parking spot? Is that too much to ask? That's enough electricity to give every EV car an extra 60 miles of EV range overnight. And would be plenty for any other use (ebikes and the like)

mcculley 8y ago

It is certainly more expensive to install electric chargers into an existing inert concrete structure than it is to design them in from the beginning. The building I am in is working this out right now, as are many others. Planning for Uber and autonomous cars includes architecting porticos and pickup/dropoff points in favor of garages. Many buildings are hostile to use of Uber in my daily experience.

chii 8y ago
> Many buildings are hostile to use of Uber in my daily experience. if there's already a taxi rank, then uber should be using that space to pick-up/drop-off. If there isn't, then the current building is _already_ unfriendly to taxis.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago
  Except taxi ranks are a queue of fungible vehicles; uber/lyft's are "bespoke" so the exact same structure won't work quite as well. But it wouldn't be hard to make a pickup/dropoff area. I suspect there already is one at most places, it's just a pissy, petty policy that doesn't allow ridesharing (etc) to use it.
  - mcculley 8y ago
    It’s more than policy. It is architecture. As I described above, I live in a new building. I step out into traffic to get into an Uber. This was an obvious thing to consider during this building’s design.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    In SF planning meetings, I have seen buildings explicitly discouraged from accommodating pickup/dropoff on the theory that it would make traffic impacts worse (this is backwards) and undermine the “transit oriented” argument (harder to argue).
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    There's no reason why rideshare queues and car-rider assignments couldn't be fungible up to the point the passenger steps into the vehicle, special needs excepted.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      Those are called taxis. Even then they only line up at major locations, not residential buildings.
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        No. Rideshare still behaes ona requ basis. But the vehicle at the head of the queue serves the passenger first requesting a ride, special needs excepted. Out-of-order arrival of rides is addressed that way.
        manigandham 8y ago
        That means the rider wouldn't know what vehicle is coming and when, which goes against the whole experience. Also it's unlikely for there to be that many rides queued up at a single residential location which is why they aren't queued up there in the first place.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        it's unlikely for there to be that many rides queued up at a single residential location The premise of this thread was that there were.
        manigandham 8y ago
        I think it's about having a pickup/dropoff area, not necessarily a queuing system, especially because ridesharing does not use traditional waiting queues.
        8y ago
- mcculley 8y ago
  Yes, they are already unfriendly to taxis. In Orlando and many other places we didn’t use taxis as much as we use Uber now. When we get to fully autonomous vehicles this will be an even greater problem as it will not make sense to park the car. Real estate investors should be planning for that now in the buildings they are designing that will still be standing in 30 years.

sbierwagen 8y ago

You can't install more than a handful of chargers without needing to run new circuits back to the main panel. Installing a hundred (not unreasonable for future needs!) would probably double the power consumption of the entire building, and require upgrading the utility connection, maybe even running new lines to the closest substation.

mcculley 8y ago
Not to mention that with such an increase in overall electricity consumption in the garage, one might want to charge the residents for use of it. Doing so might require changes to architecture (e.g., putting electric cars on a different floor or section). There are lots of things to consider and real estate investors/developers are not thinking of any of them.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> "Planning" for Uber involves what? In Central Florida, this means having a safe place for people to stand and wait. That area gets frequent and often nasty thunderstorms.

maxsilver 8y ago

> Any practical advice you can share with the architects here? Could they at least run one regular (120v/15a) circuit + wall outlet to each parking spot? Is that too much to ask? That's enough electricity to give every EV car an extra 60 miles of EV range overnight. And would be plenty for any other use (ebikes and the like)