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I live in an apartment complex in Berlin. We have a parking garage that belongs to the complex. Unfortunately the housing company does not allow installation of

• hnarn 7y ago
  Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also don't actively decrease our dependency on fossil fuel. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Coal_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Coal_power
  • _ph_ 7y ago
    At 40% coal provided electricity, electric cars are already way less poluting than combustion engines. Actually even just being powered by an efficient diesel generator would put them on a roughly equal level. So only 40% coal is already a benefit. But of course, we should get rid of our coal plants as quickly as possible. That is the one rather low hanging fruit in reducing the carbon footprint. And I think the 2038 number won't stand, the ramp-down will be far quicker now that climate change has finally gotten more awareness. So, while not reaching the optimal numbers right now, any electric car bought today will still drive when the coal usage for the grid will be greatly reduced if not completely stopped. Any combustion engined car bought today isn't only worse in emissions already, it won't change, while the electric car gets "cleaner". Also, one should not underestimate the positive effect have on the rollout of reneweables as they can be charged at different times of the day, depending in the supply of reneweable energy.
    • _ph_ 7y ago
      For all the downvoters: powered by the average German grid, a Tesla emits about 75g CO2/100km. Please show me any combustion engined vehicle that comes even close to those numbers. Of course the "emissions" of the electric cars can only get better from there.
      • reitzensteinm 7y ago
        When you add load to a grid that's in the process of decarbonizing, you need to look at the marginal impact. Taking the average energy mix is bad math, because you're delaying the shutdown of the dirtiest sources. This can get more complicated if you have excess renewable energy generation at times, where the use is essentially free. Not to mention demand dispatch to smooth intermittent renewables. I'm a big EV fan, but it's important to get the math right, because overstating the impact does disservice to other options. Especially in Germany. When I lived in Berlin for two years, not in the loop, I just used public transport. Most of my friends rode to work.
        • _ph_ 7y ago
          The mix is the right math. After all, you cannot say, which electric device uses which power source. Or suddenly it might be your TV running on pure coal energy - this does not make much sense. The best approximation is, that you apply the average energy mix. Which might be even too pessimistic, as not only a lot of people do power their electric cars with their own solar energy but also it is easy to charge your electric cars especially in those times where the grid is on a relatively low carbon content and even surplus energy needs to be exported. Of course, there are plenty of better alternatives to cars in many places, especially city centers. But as long as there is a genuine need for cars, they better be electric than combustion engined.
          • reitzensteinm 7y ago
            The question that needs to be answered is, what is the marginal impact of taking an ICE off the road and replacing it with a BEV? Using the current mix of renewables is a form of double counting. No more renewable energy is being fed in to the grid, however more is coming from dirty sources. Reductio ad absurdum, what happens if all of Germany's cars were BEV overnight? I've seen estimates that the load on the grid would be increased by 20%. Surely you'd agree that using the current mix of renewables would no longer make sense calculating their environmental impact. So why does that change at the margins? The answer is that it doesn't. The math is the same. With the exceptions we've both pointed out.
  • ptaipale 7y ago
    In Germany - as well as in some other countries - the problem is not only generation of electricity, but the capacity to transfer it. There may be lots of renewables, but not way to transfer it to consumers because of not enough capacity in the grid. There is lots of public resistance to expanding the grid (mostly along the lines of "not in my backyard").
    • close04 7y ago
      Also bringing the necessary capacity for proper charging to the average underground parking of a building costs tens of thousands of Euros per parking spot (numbers I got from the electricity distribution company). That's an investment most people are simply not willing to make especially when renting. What would be the reason for people to oppose developing the grid, especially as NIMBY? Other than the obvious cost issue, is it the disruption caused by works?
      • atq2119 7y ago
        If they quoted you that much money, it sounds like there's a market there ready for disruption. 10k Euros is far too much, especially when you can do the job for many parking spots at once.
        • close04 7y ago
          To be clear I was referring to shared parking with multiple spots. Where I live one underground parking is spanning multiple houses (I go from the parking directly inside), and there are maybe 3 or 4 in total. The provider would do the work "once and for all", considering everything from replacing the transformers for the additional power, to digging up the trenches and installing the upgraded cabling everywhere, and to every parking spot 11KW charger. The assumption behind this is that all the vehicles in the parking might end up charging at the same time (over night) so everything has to be sized for that. The electricity provider normally sells the charger with installation for ~2500E. But that is assuming the end-to-end wiring already supports this. With dozens of chargers to install in the same parking the chances that the rest of the network was already so overspeced and up to the task are slim. The manpower to dig a trench, replace cables and transformers is more or less the same whether you do do it for 10 parking spots or 100. So there's probably a sweet spot between having enough demand to split this between more people but not that much that you need the next level in transformers.
  • kachnuv_ocasek 7y ago
    Closing coal plaints only helps in part, as long as Germany keeps importing coal-generated electricity (from Poland or Czechia, for instance).
    • _ph_ 7y ago
      Germany is a net electricity exporter. So there is no large scale import of electricity of any kind into Germany. Of course, based on supply and demand, it might temporarily import electricity from other countires. Most overlooked though is, that like with car traffic, Germany is rather central in Europe. So a lot of electricity crosses Germany. A lot of the French nuclear energy is exported to Germany at the same time Germany is exporting the same amount (or more) to Austria or Belgium.
  • thesumofall 7y ago
    However, it is up to you which utility to use. There are plenty which will not just do the basic green washing of buying certificates but also build their own green capacity in line with demand.
    • avar 7y ago
      The "green washing" is paying for building green capacity in the EEA. It's your you & your coal-burning local utility sending money to sustainable power stations elsewhere in the EEA.
  • ralusek 7y ago
    Isn't running an internal combustion engine in a car still substantially less efficient than the power plant necessary to charge it, regardless of the fuel?
    • hnarn 7y ago
      That may well be so, but my conviction is that we need to substantially reduce carbon emissions across the board, and if that's true I don't think replacing gasoline cars with coal powered electricity plants makes a lot of sense, unless maybe the CO2 is captured and stored, but at that point you might as well go nuclear (which I am a proponent of, as the only realistic alternative at this point).
      • _ph_ 7y ago
        Even with the current mix in the electric grid, electric cars produce quite a bit less CO2 than any combustion engined car and get cleaner as more coal power plants are decommissioned. It is happening perhaps to slow, but it is happening. In 2019 electricity generation from coal was quite a bit down compared to 2018 due to CO2 certificates finally having an effect.
      • afarrell 7y ago
        > unless So you’d agree with doing them in parallel? Do you think car manufacturers should wait to make electric cars until all power plants have a timeline to convert? Or that power plants should wait until all car manufacturers are switching? Or that they should both act without waiting for the other?
      • AnonymousPlanet 7y ago
        Internal combustion engines pollute the air where I'm living. Moving pollution away from residential areas is a worthwhile task in itself. That makes a lot of sense to me. I live in a densely populated country. Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Also my country does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Nuclear does not look like the sane option here.
  • tomp 7y ago
    I wouldn't trust Germany's management to make any rational decisions about energy. They've been shutting down nuclear power plants for the past few years... What are they going to do in 2038, spends the nights in cold and darkness when the sun isn't shining, or be Putin's puppets dependent on Russian gas?
    • AnonymousPlanet 7y ago
      Germany is a very densely populated country (go take a look at map). Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Germany also does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Currently, nuclear does not look like the sane option for Germany.
      • omnimus 7y ago
        They suddenly in few years closed all nuclear which imcreased all need for coal. Its dirty decision 2038 is not enough. If they closed all coal and wait with nuclear to 2038 that would make sense. Coal barons need to sell that stuff quicky before it looses value. I am sure they will somehow artificilially increase cost of coal energy in upcoming years.
        • _ph_ 7y ago
          Nuclear never was a very large part of the German grid and currently the nuclear capacity is like 10% of the daily peak load. So while shutting down the nuclear power plants does make a carbon-free grid a bit more difficult, it won't make a huge difference. Most nuclear power plants would have been scheduled for decommission in the late 20ies or early 30is at maximum anyway.
          • omnimus 7y ago
            So was the nuclear getting too expensive? Even temporary 10% seems like a good win. I am not sure where they want to get that coal 40%. Or actually i suspect it will be imported from mostly Czechia which has suspiciously started to reopen coal mines and plants.
  • juskrey 7y ago
    Electric plant's pollution is localized, gas cars pollution is spread all over the living space.
  • jillesvangurp 7y ago
    Germany is not building new coal plants so they are not going to burn more coal because of EVs. EVs indeed create more demand for electricity, which is met by deploying more clean energy. Coal plants stopped being a good option economically decades ago and we are now getting to the point where keeping the existing plants going is also no longer economical. Gas plants are following pretty soon as well.
    • mxschumacher 7y ago
      why do you think gas plants will be turned off, especially given the low gas prices?
      • jillesvangurp 7y ago
        Because despite the low gas prices, solar and wind prices are trending down as efficiencies increase and as economies of scale improve the economics. Prices are already dipping below those prices for new bids. So, if you are planning a gas plant that needs to be operational for decades, the economic outlook is pretty grim. That's why lots of plans for new gas plans are getting shelved. Existing plants run quite economically. But when cheaper clean energy becomes available at scale, it becomes more expensive to operate them. Selling expensive energy during low demand is not going to be an option because cheaper energy will be preferred. Spinning plants up during peak demand takes time and battery + solar is already cheaper and faster for that as well. A gas plant that isn't running part of the time is going to be more expensive. That's why a lot of them will be taken out long before their planned end of life. Currently people are shutting down the most expensive plants first (nuclear & coal) but once that is gone, gas will be next.
        • antepodius 7y ago
          None of this adresses the storage problem. Unless/until storage gets a lot cheapet, there are going to be baseline/peaker fossil/nuclear plants. (No peaker nuclear, ofc.)
          • 7y ago
  • ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    It actually does make sense to burn coal (or oil) in power stations to power electric vehicles. You'd have to have a very dirty grid and keep it dirty for decades for it to be a bad idea, and in that case you have bigger problems and it's not the EVs at fault. https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles > Even when the electricity comes from the dirtiest coal-dominated grid, electric vehicles (EVs) still produce less global warming pollution than their conventional counterparts, and with fewer tailpipe emissions (or none at all). That quote is based on US grids but the general point holds worldwide.
    • dreamcompiler 7y ago
      A dirty grid just means the electric car needs to be kept in service a little longer to be greener than an ICE car, but it's still well within the lifetime of the vehicle. It's [roughly, from memory] service life of 12-18 months for a clean grid, and around 5 years for a dirty grid. The above is about how quickly the lower CO2 per mile of an EV offsets the CO2 required to build the car (which mostly means building the battery). Even with a dirty grid, EVs produce much less CO2 per mile than ICE.
  • seldonnn 7y ago
    They will then import the coal power from Poland :)
    • atq2119 7y ago
      Funny how that keeps being said about most of Germany's neighbouring countries... usually the claim is they'd import nuclear energy from France. Also funny how, in net terms, this never happens, and Germany has pretty consistently been a net exporter of electricity.
    • Twixes 7y ago
      Not gonna happen, Poland barely has enough power to sustain itself, with so little energy investment that we are going to experience serious deficits in the next decade during electricity consumption peaks (mainly hot summer days with AC systems at full capacity). There are some plans to build new coal units, but these obviously meet with a lot of justified protest. There are also plans to build nuclear units, but only in some undefined distant future and they could meet with protest too. And renewables are gaining ground too slowly to replace coal (which will be shutting down over time due to brown coal depletion, environmental impact and aging technology). Not that wind and solar can completely replace fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro – the variance in output is too great and beyond our control at the moment. Personally, I think major investment in nuclear would be best. It would cost a lot though, there's no way around that. But environmental impact would be greatly limited and a Europe–wide effort could significantly reduce costs. Unfortunately it seems that it's not gonna happen, with Germany for example irrationally shutting down plants after Fukushima was hit with a tsunami (as if there was any risk of a natural disaster in Germany).
  • melling 7y ago
    In the short term, it does absolutely make sense to use electric vehicles. The critical goal is to further develop electric cars so they become the obvious choice for consumers. As we go from a few million EVs to tens of millions, it is of course important to move towards cleaner electricity.
    • jgalt212 7y ago
      > The critical goal is to further develop electric cars so they become the obvious choice for consumers. should be The critical goal is to further reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
      • socialdemocrat 7y ago
        You can reduce CO2 emissions from an internal combustion by making it more efficient, but there is not way you can ever bring it down to zero. Thus if you want to ever get to zero, you need to electrify the transport. We can produce synthetic fuel, but it will be very hard to reach the kind of volumes we have for fossil fuels, hence synthetic fuels should only be used for long range trucks, airplanes etc. All transport that can be electric should be electric. Transportation make up the bulk of CO2 emissions, so if you don't turn most of it electric, there is no way to get down to zero CO2 emissions.
        • jgalt212 7y ago
          > Thus if you want to ever get to zero, you need to electrify the transport. necessary, but not sufficient.
        • dragonwriter 7y ago
          > You can reduce CO2 emissions from an internal combustion by making it more efficient, but there is not way you can ever bring it down to zero. You can bring the net environmental impact of CO2 to zero by using a fuel with a carbon neutral cycle, such as biofuels; if you are regrowing as much source material as you are consuming, there is no net emission. > Thus if you want to ever get to zero, you need to electrify the transport. Individually, no, but practically, for most transport in use, probably.
  • losvedir 7y ago
    > Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also don't actively decrease our dependency on fossil fuel. Of course, but it's kind of a chicken and egg problem. The sooner we switch to electric cars, the earlier the right incentives and levels of demand are in place to upgrade our electricity generation and grid.
• _ph_ 7y ago
  Yes, but that is not a fundamental problem of electric cars, but of politics and regulations. These regulations can be changed quickly. One way would be to apply pressure to the local politics to change regulations. Of course, it could end anyway when the first judge rules that an electric outlet is reasonable to be expected at a rented parking lot.
• samueljackl 7y ago
  why do you like to own a car in berlin? is there a use case for having a car?
• WilliamEdward 7y ago
  This is a nice anecdotal example, i have one too! I went to a pit stop in the middle of nowhere in a third world country, on my way to another province. In between miles and miles of dry land, there it was, an entire electric car charging station. There's more of these things than you think.
• onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>Unfortunately the housing company does not allow installation of a wallbox in the garage...Large-scale adoption of electric cars is unrealistic when the majority of people have nowhere to charge it." This can be solved with a law in a heartbeat. Installations etc take their time but the state itself subsidizes them--if they want to drive adoption rate up. So like they have parking meters they can put charging stations everywhere in the streets.
  • abraae 7y ago
    There are many rules and regulations that need to be cut through. Staying with friends in Hawaii, I asked where we could drop our towels. They said they had to go into the drier, it was against the rules to have clothes drying on the balcony. So to satisfy some idiotic idea of aesthetics, we're going to burn electricity instead of just using the sun?
    • masklinn 7y ago
      That sounds like rules (condo / HOA) rather than regs. > So to satisfy some idiotic idea of aesthetics, we're going to burn electricity instead of just using the sun? Yep, common condo / HOA issue.
    • javagram 7y ago
      Yeah. Some states have passed laws preventing this nonsense. People are so worried about looking “poor” that they waste electricity on the dryer rather than using the sun to dry their clothes. I mentioned using a clothesline once to someone else in the USA, who was shocked and responded they weren’t poor and wouldn’t want their neighbors to be scandalized by drying clothes in the sun. There at least are 19 states in the USA that have passed laws outlawing solar drying bans, unfortunately I think most of these laws only apply to homeowners and not to rented apartments.
• masklinn 7y ago
  And that's having a parking garage at all. Electrified street parking is nigh on non-existent.
  • tyfon 7y ago
    Oh I wouldn't say it's non-existent [1]. There is also plenty of street charging stations in Oslo, I have many friends there without a garage that has electric cars. It's just a matter of putting up the infrastructure. It's a policy issue not a practical one. [1] https://www.electrive.com/2019/08/18/on-street-chargers-to-pop-up-on-uk-streets/ https://www.electrive.com/2019/08/18/on-street-chargers-to-p...
    • masklinn 7y ago
      > Oh I wouldn't say it's non-existent [1]. One charging point — or even a thousand — across a country with >30 million cars does qualify as nigh on non existent. > It's just a matter of putting up the infrastructure. It's a policy issue not a practical one. It's both. When the charging infrastructure is not in place, it's impractical for many people to buy an EV.
• nemoniac 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, in Amsterdam the municipality has hundreds of charging stations all around the city. https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/traffic-transport/map-charging-station/ https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/traffic-transport/map-charging-s...
  • henvic 7y ago
    I've just moved to the Netherlands, and one of the first things I noticed is that you can find charging stations everywhere around Rotterdam too.
• deleted 7y ago
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• whoanow 7y ago
  I was told I couldn't use the 110 volt plug in my parking spot in my condo building. I live in a city with hydro electric that is very environmentally conscious. I emailed the property manager that the local newspaper would probably be interested in the story of them blocking the adoption of clean cars, they quickly changed their tune and now I plug my Tesla in and pay the strata council $30 / month. You might be able to try something similar, or find a government elected official in your area who is pro environment to go to bat for you.
  • toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Well done!
• natch 7y ago
  We have two and live in an apartment. The problem is not that insurmountable when there are chargers at work and Superchargers. At work, they are expanding the number of chargers year after year. Same with Superchargers. I am always able to charge well beyond my commute miles at work, for free. I'm not saying it's a non-issue, but it is possible for a lot of people, and it is getting better, even for people who currently do not have chargers at work, things are changing rapidly.
  • callalex 7y ago
    What happens when you fall ill for a week and don’t go to work? Do you trade cars with your partner for alternate day charging?
    • sagarm 7y ago
      An ICE vehicle always requires going to a specific place to fuel up. For many people, an electric vehicle can be fueled at work or home eliminating most fueling stops. A few exceptions are not a deal breaker. If you're just looking for excuses to say no, of course, just stick with the ICE for now.
    • natch 7y ago
      Supercharging fills in any gaps just fine. Of course you need to live near one.
• gok 7y ago
  When I got an EV, my apartment had shared chargers in the parking garage. As an experiment, I tried to not use them for a couple weeks and lived on public chargers. It wasn't terrible. It was basically back to periodically filling up the tank, except that you get some shopping done while waiting.
• pedrocr 7y ago
  In Portugal a law was passed to solve most of these cases. It says that if you own the apartment all you have to do is notify about the installation in your parking spot. The building management can then opt to do an installation themselves but usually doesn't. The install itself isn't too hard usually. There is an opportunity to set up a business to do cooperative charging where the chargers limit themselves to a total max power. Otherwise garages will need large upgrades in total peak power capability. None of these issues are all that hard to surpass though. The power grid is pretty good already and most needed charging is only in the <10kW range which most places can manage easily.
• btgeekboy 7y ago
  Agree. Only now that I own a home in a suburb (and therefore own my garage) would I consider buying electric. My previous 3 apartments all had no provisions for charging overnight.
• m463 7y ago
  Elon Musk did say something related in one of his presentations. Wherever they put in Superchargers, sales soar.