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When there are articles about electric cars on HN, I often see people in the comments proclaim that the end of gas cars is near. Serious question: How do elect

by cj 7y ago

When there are articles about electric cars on HN, I often see people in the comments proclaim that the end of gas cars is near. Serious question: How do electric cars work for people who live in apartments without a dedicated parking spot (street parking only)? Or more common, someone without a garage without an outdoor outlet nearby? Is the assumption that charging stations need to become even more ubiquitous than gas stations (assuming the car needs to charge for longer than people are willing to wait at a charging station)?

ineedasername 7y ago
I've seen people near me add an outdoor outlet to their house, costs a few hundred dollars. I don't know about appartments though. In another few years maybe EV's will be ubiquitous enough for apartment complexes to devote, say, 20% if their spaces to overnight EV charging.
lumberjack 7y ago
Cities are already working on building street charging infrastructure. But also those people will very likely be late adopters, or just switch to other kinds of transport. Currently the prime target for EV adoption are better off households who live further out of the city, since they can already afford the switch and sinve they have the larger carbon footprint, anyway.
koyote 7y ago
It's not just apartments either: Many inner-city (where electric cars make the most sense) houses do not have a dedicated garage (I am talking outside the US here). You would need to have plugs on all residential on-street parking.
- fencepost 7y ago
  So powered parking meters? Seems viable at least for cities. You'd also have a substantial amount of parking without those because most drivers wouldn't need to charge daily.
linuxftw 7y ago
The wealthier locations will have tax payers put them in. The money will be diverted from other places to subsidize the urban property barons. Eventually, they'll probably charge a $20k special assessment, just like they do when they hook you up to municipal water or sewage.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
All that matters is the economics. We're at about the point of parity; BEVs cost more initially, but over the life of the vehicle, cost about the same as a comparable ICE. Whether you spend more or less comes down to how you use it. Petro and ICE has been getting more expensive. Batteries and renewables have been getting less expensive, with a clear path for continued progress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen. The infrastructure will come. Vehicle ownership costs, on average, 9 grand a year for Americans. So a BEV that can save even a modest fraction - say 20% - of that cost has a fairly large budget to work with for installing NEMA-50s where they're needed. On-street solutions are being developed, including some being deployed in the UK. I don't think there will ever be a significant number of people doing fast-charge only.
lukasm 7y ago
Some people would charge at home, some would charge at work, some would charge while shopping. People that can't do it will be a minority. By the time majority is electric, 350kw+ charging stations will become a norm, so it will be pretty much the same as gas station.
mikeash 7y ago
Charging stations are already far more ubiquitous than gas stations. Every garage with an outlet is a charging station. A solution is still needed for people who park on the street. Chargers on the street is the obvious way to handle that.
- termie 7y ago
  Someone has to make a business case to get the chargers on the street. There are questions like who owns the sidewalk, how to route sufficient power there, capital outlay for digging up the street and getting the charger there. All those costs and up and the revenue for a given charger is capped. People might pay a premium over the the cost of electricity, but how much? And they have to compete with free charging in many cases.
- bt848 7y ago
  It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. The “obvious way to handle this” is to build cities without cars at all, where people walk and bike and take the buses and trains.
  - dingo_bat 7y ago
    I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd pick my own car over any form of public transportation any day. The privacy, convenience, utility is incomparable. You can build a city with all the buses and trains and cycles but I'll still drive my own car. I don't care about congestion. I don't care about cost.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    > It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. This is very misleading. It takes several minutes to fill a gas tank (depending on tank size, pump speed, and how many times the damn thing gets gaslocked). Charging a modern BEV does not take several hundred minutes. Fast charging exists and functions similarly for BEVs as it does for cell phones - fast charge for the middle bulk of the cycle, charge rate slows to a trickle above 80%. Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end.
moltar 7y ago
Some cities, like Montreal, have curb side parking and charging spots, reserved for EVs. There’s enough coverage in central areas that I wouldn’t worry about being left without a charge.
hndamien 7y ago
I rarely charge in my garage because my power outlet is technically commons. It would be nice to have a fully charged car every day, but it is hardly a hinderance. Superchargers are fast, and shopping malls have them.
kalleboo 7y ago
> Is the assumption that charging stations need to become even more ubiquitous than gas stations Electricity is already ubiquitous, we just need to install the chargers. E.g. trials have started to install EV chargers in lamp posts https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-car-charging-points-arrive-london/ https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-ca...
- virgilp 7y ago
  I don't know... it also requires: - charging cables that can't easily be stolen, between my car & lamp post. - infrastructure that allows me to pay for consumed electricity, and doesn't allow random person to steal it (or are we assuming electricity will be free?) I mean, I'd love to see that, but it doesn't look likely in the near future, unfortunately. I still think it's more likely that we'll have fast-charging batteries that you can refill in a few minutes, rather than charger-at-every-parking-spot.
  - m-i-l 7y ago
    Most electric cars now have locks on the charging cable port so cables cannot be unplugged without unlocking, and these types of charging solutions are operated by dedicated app and/or NFC card and won't start charging if you haven't registered your payment details first so electricity can't be "stolen". I'm sure both can be hacked, but if you really want to steal cables and/or electricity there are probably easier/safer ways to do so.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    > infrastructure that allows me to pay for consumed electricity, and doesn't allow random person to steal it Smart meters have existed for quite a while now. An electricity meter with LTE and a card reader is not a difficult thing to make (not very different from a parking meter)
    - virgilp 7y ago
      Yes, but having one smart meter at each lighting pole? Neah, sorry, I don't see that happening in my city. (we don't have "smart parking meters" either. In fact, we have no parking meters at all....)
fyfy18 7y ago
At the moment they don't, but as fast chargers become more common and range increases, it will become feasible. In my country (post-Soviet country; rather poor by Western standards) a lot of supermarkets and shopping malls already have EV chargers. Imagine going once or twice a week, and plugging in to charge while you do the weekly shop. The limiting factors on EVs at the moment is the cost of the battery. Taking the Nissan LEAF for example, the difference between the 40kWh and 62kWh version is 34kg. If cost wasn't an issue, you could easily double the battery size without any problem.
agumonkey 7y ago
In my building people are discussing installing a few charging spots until maybe everything has a charging port. It's also discussed to be in the next building requirement code IIRC

by cj 7y ago

ineedasername 7y ago

I've seen people near me add an outdoor outlet to their house, costs a few hundred dollars. I don't know about appartments though. In another few years maybe EV's will be ubiquitous enough for apartment complexes to devote, say, 20% if their spaces to overnight EV charging.

lumberjack 7y ago

Cities are already working on building street charging infrastructure. But also those people will very likely be late adopters, or just switch to other kinds of transport. Currently the prime target for EV adoption are better off households who live further out of the city, since they can already afford the switch and sinve they have the larger carbon footprint, anyway.

koyote 7y ago

It's not just apartments either: Many inner-city (where electric cars make the most sense) houses do not have a dedicated garage (I am talking outside the US here). You would need to have plugs on all residential on-street parking.

fencepost 7y ago
So powered parking meters? Seems viable at least for cities. You'd also have a substantial amount of parking without those because most drivers wouldn't need to charge daily.

linuxftw 7y ago

The wealthier locations will have tax payers put them in. The money will be diverted from other places to subsidize the urban property barons. Eventually, they'll probably charge a $20k special assessment, just like they do when they hook you up to municipal water or sewage.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago

All that matters is the economics. We're at about the point of parity; BEVs cost more initially, but over the life of the vehicle, cost about the same as a comparable ICE. Whether you spend more or less comes down to how you use it. Petro and ICE has been getting more expensive. Batteries and renewables have been getting less expensive, with a clear path for continued progress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen. The infrastructure will come. Vehicle ownership costs, on average, 9 grand a year for Americans. So a BEV that can save even a modest fraction - say 20% - of that cost has a fairly large budget to work with for installing NEMA-50s where they're needed. On-street solutions are being developed, including some being deployed in the UK. I don't think there will ever be a significant number of people doing fast-charge only.

lukasm 7y ago

Some people would charge at home, some would charge at work, some would charge while shopping. People that can't do it will be a minority. By the time majority is electric, 350kw+ charging stations will become a norm, so it will be pretty much the same as gas station.

mikeash 7y ago

Charging stations are already far more ubiquitous than gas stations. Every garage with an outlet is a charging station. A solution is still needed for people who park on the street. Chargers on the street is the obvious way to handle that.

termie 7y ago
Someone has to make a business case to get the chargers on the street. There are questions like who owns the sidewalk, how to route sufficient power there, capital outlay for digging up the street and getting the charger there. All those costs and up and the revenue for a given charger is capped. People might pay a premium over the the cost of electricity, but how much? And they have to compete with free charging in many cases.
bt848 7y ago
It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. The “obvious way to handle this” is to build cities without cars at all, where people walk and bike and take the buses and trains.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd pick my own car over any form of public transportation any day. The privacy, convenience, utility is incomparable. You can build a city with all the buses and trains and cycles but I'll still drive my own car. I don't care about congestion. I don't care about cost.
- SECProto 7y ago
  > It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. This is very misleading. It takes several minutes to fill a gas tank (depending on tank size, pump speed, and how many times the damn thing gets gaslocked). Charging a modern BEV does not take several hundred minutes. Fast charging exists and functions similarly for BEVs as it does for cell phones - fast charge for the middle bulk of the cycle, charge rate slows to a trickle above 80%. Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end.

moltar 7y ago

Some cities, like Montreal, have curb side parking and charging spots, reserved for EVs. There’s enough coverage in central areas that I wouldn’t worry about being left without a charge.

hndamien 7y ago

I rarely charge in my garage because my power outlet is technically commons. It would be nice to have a fully charged car every day, but it is hardly a hinderance. Superchargers are fast, and shopping malls have them.

kalleboo 7y ago

> Is the assumption that charging stations need to become even more ubiquitous than gas stations Electricity is already ubiquitous, we just need to install the chargers. E.g. trials have started to install EV chargers in lamp posts https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-car-charging-points-arrive-london/ https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-ca...

virgilp 7y ago
I don't know... it also requires: - charging cables that can't easily be stolen, between my car & lamp post. - infrastructure that allows me to pay for consumed electricity, and doesn't allow random person to steal it (or are we assuming electricity will be free?) I mean, I'd love to see that, but it doesn't look likely in the near future, unfortunately. I still think it's more likely that we'll have fast-charging batteries that you can refill in a few minutes, rather than charger-at-every-parking-spot.
- m-i-l 7y ago
  Most electric cars now have locks on the charging cable port so cables cannot be unplugged without unlocking, and these types of charging solutions are operated by dedicated app and/or NFC card and won't start charging if you haven't registered your payment details first so electricity can't be "stolen". I'm sure both can be hacked, but if you really want to steal cables and/or electricity there are probably easier/safer ways to do so.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  > infrastructure that allows me to pay for consumed electricity, and doesn't allow random person to steal it Smart meters have existed for quite a while now. An electricity meter with LTE and a card reader is not a difficult thing to make (not very different from a parking meter)
  - virgilp 7y ago
    Yes, but having one smart meter at each lighting pole? Neah, sorry, I don't see that happening in my city. (we don't have "smart parking meters" either. In fact, we have no parking meters at all....)

fyfy18 7y ago

At the moment they don't, but as fast chargers become more common and range increases, it will become feasible. In my country (post-Soviet country; rather poor by Western standards) a lot of supermarkets and shopping malls already have EV chargers. Imagine going once or twice a week, and plugging in to charge while you do the weekly shop. The limiting factors on EVs at the moment is the cost of the battery. Taking the Nissan LEAF for example, the difference between the 40kWh and 62kWh version is 34kg. If cost wasn't an issue, you could easily double the battery size without any problem.

agumonkey 7y ago

In my building people are discussing installing a few charging spots until maybe everything has a charging port. It's also discussed to be in the next building requirement code IIRC