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Home charging is great, but it only works out for people who have off street parking. That leaves a lot of people without off street parking that must use publi

Home charging is great, but it only works out for people who have off street parking. That leaves a lot of people without off street parking that must use public chargers only, and that's very inconvenient.

neilwilson 5y ago
"Home charging is great, but it only works out for people who have off street parking." Charge at work then where you park your car. Otherwise why do you need an electric car? Similarly you wouldn't have a diesel car if your service station didn't have diesel.
- packetlost 5y ago
  That requires that your work have electric charging stations and that they aren't already filled though.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I think you have pointed to the problem, a lot of people likely bought an EV without thinking it fully through. Being generous, you could also imagine life situations changing in a way unfavourable to the practicality of the EV. Rental runs out and your new place doesn't have off-street parking, maybe you lose your job that had charging available etc.
  - natch 5y ago
    Or they bought one with poor range or no good fast charging network and didn’t realize they have options now. There’s a lot of ignorance out there! Other things are changing too. Employers are realizing that providing charging is table stakes. More chargers are being built out. In some places landlords are now legally required to approve a tenant’s written request for permission to install charging equipment. Yes you still have to choose your new rental wisely, but if you have fast chargers as a backup it’s hardly a crisis if there’s a gap. One also can think fully through whether burning gasoline is sustainable…
    - ehnto 5y ago
      > One also can think fully through whether burning gasoline is sustainable… Just for fun because I have actually thought about it, this is my deprecation plan for my ICE vehicles: A 90s Nissan Skyline is my daily driver but also a track-day car. When it comes time to deprecate it, it will become a full time track car. I have converted it to run on Ethanol blends, which are already a niche race fuel and so are unlikely to go away unlike Unleaded petroleum and the hassle of getting it won't be a big deal as race tracks already have it on site often. My other ICE vehicle is a travel van, and it runs on a small turbo diesel. By the time I need to deprecate it, it may be that an EV van that is travel capable is available but if not, biodiesel until an EV conversion makes sense. I don't drive very often, so a pragmatic small range EV would be just fine, but I could even forgo a daily entirely in favour of my bike and public transport.
      - natch 5y ago
        I was referring more to thinking through the climate effects, and changing to EV, which even with the long tailpipe are still way better than ICE. But it's fair to say there must be a transition plan. EV vans designed by a current-century auto company would be nice! That's a top item for what I wish Tesla would work on next.
WorldMaker 5y ago
On Street charging will come. Most streets where people only have on street parking are already electrified (lamps, if not also parking meters). It's a matter of political will at that point to add electric plugs for car charging. (Some companies are also already investigating how to add it to historic street furniture in preservation districts.)
- stunt 5y ago
  I think you shouldn't go near EVs if you can't park your car off street plugged to your own charger. I'm sure on street charging will come, but what happens if a few neighbors have an electric car? You need to book them somehow I guess which is still inconvenient. (Or have more on street chargers around which I don't think will be available to most of the people any time soon) Current battery technology isn't great for highway charging either. How many EVs on the road it takes to fill up all the charging stations on your path during holiday season? If you own an EV now, you should be happy that most of the road users aren't EV. Otherwise you have to stay in the queue.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    If we can put an electric parking meter on every viable parking spot on a street, we more than have the technology to put a Level 1 or Level 2 charger on all those same spots. People keep thinking of chargers as complex things that are hard to install and expensive/inconvenient like installing gas pumps. Level 1 "chargers" are regular electric outlets like America has used since the early-ish 1900s. Level 2 "chargers" are "dryer" plugs that America has used almost nearly as long. Sure, we probably want to add electric meters to figure out how much to charge people for the service and the safety culture of automotive engineering has gifted us with some fancier plastic "adapters" for the plugs (because they might be plugged in outside for hours at a time and indoor home plugs weren't entirely built to be safe doing that), but at the end of the day the problem is "we want more plugs on the streets" and the answer is "we have the technology already, this isn't rocket science nor is it permitting and installing the chemically hazardous tanks of gas pumps".
    - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

neilwilson 5y ago

"Home charging is great, but it only works out for people who have off street parking." Charge at work then where you park your car. Otherwise why do you need an electric car? Similarly you wouldn't have a diesel car if your service station didn't have diesel.

packetlost 5y ago
That requires that your work have electric charging stations and that they aren't already filled though.
ehnto 5y ago
I think you have pointed to the problem, a lot of people likely bought an EV without thinking it fully through. Being generous, you could also imagine life situations changing in a way unfavourable to the practicality of the EV. Rental runs out and your new place doesn't have off-street parking, maybe you lose your job that had charging available etc.
- natch 5y ago
  Or they bought one with poor range or no good fast charging network and didn’t realize they have options now. There’s a lot of ignorance out there! Other things are changing too. Employers are realizing that providing charging is table stakes. More chargers are being built out. In some places landlords are now legally required to approve a tenant’s written request for permission to install charging equipment. Yes you still have to choose your new rental wisely, but if you have fast chargers as a backup it’s hardly a crisis if there’s a gap. One also can think fully through whether burning gasoline is sustainable…
  - ehnto 5y ago
    > One also can think fully through whether burning gasoline is sustainable… Just for fun because I have actually thought about it, this is my deprecation plan for my ICE vehicles: A 90s Nissan Skyline is my daily driver but also a track-day car. When it comes time to deprecate it, it will become a full time track car. I have converted it to run on Ethanol blends, which are already a niche race fuel and so are unlikely to go away unlike Unleaded petroleum and the hassle of getting it won't be a big deal as race tracks already have it on site often. My other ICE vehicle is a travel van, and it runs on a small turbo diesel. By the time I need to deprecate it, it may be that an EV van that is travel capable is available but if not, biodiesel until an EV conversion makes sense. I don't drive very often, so a pragmatic small range EV would be just fine, but I could even forgo a daily entirely in favour of my bike and public transport.
    - natch 5y ago
      I was referring more to thinking through the climate effects, and changing to EV, which even with the long tailpipe are still way better than ICE. But it's fair to say there must be a transition plan. EV vans designed by a current-century auto company would be nice! That's a top item for what I wish Tesla would work on next.

WorldMaker 5y ago

On Street charging will come. Most streets where people only have on street parking are already electrified (lamps, if not also parking meters). It's a matter of political will at that point to add electric plugs for car charging. (Some companies are also already investigating how to add it to historic street furniture in preservation districts.)

stunt 5y ago
I think you shouldn't go near EVs if you can't park your car off street plugged to your own charger. I'm sure on street charging will come, but what happens if a few neighbors have an electric car? You need to book them somehow I guess which is still inconvenient. (Or have more on street chargers around which I don't think will be available to most of the people any time soon) Current battery technology isn't great for highway charging either. How many EVs on the road it takes to fill up all the charging stations on your path during holiday season? If you own an EV now, you should be happy that most of the road users aren't EV. Otherwise you have to stay in the queue.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  If we can put an electric parking meter on every viable parking spot on a street, we more than have the technology to put a Level 1 or Level 2 charger on all those same spots. People keep thinking of chargers as complex things that are hard to install and expensive/inconvenient like installing gas pumps. Level 1 "chargers" are regular electric outlets like America has used since the early-ish 1900s. Level 2 "chargers" are "dryer" plugs that America has used almost nearly as long. Sure, we probably want to add electric meters to figure out how much to charge people for the service and the safety culture of automotive engineering has gifted us with some fancier plastic "adapters" for the plugs (because they might be plugged in outside for hours at a time and indoor home plugs weren't entirely built to be safe doing that), but at the end of the day the problem is "we want more plugs on the streets" and the answer is "we have the technology already, this isn't rocket science nor is it permitting and installing the chemically hazardous tanks of gas pumps".
  - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]