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They've been figured out, years already. Drove pure electric starting in late 2014, BMW i3, and can confirm it's awesome, I never once got stuck, the cost of "

They've been figured out, years already. Drove pure electric starting in late 2014, BMW i3, and can confirm it's awesome, I never once got stuck, the cost of "fuel" is such that the equivalent MPG (eMPG i think they call it) was around 130 eMPG. Point is, you can recharge on 110 volt plugs like at home just fine, and you spend at least 5x less on fuel per distance, when gas is cheap, and around 10x less when it's not. Maintenance costs on the powertrain are essentially 0. Battery resilience is the only concern i had: how do they degrade over time?

ethanbond 5y ago
I don't think the delivery question is about how to get electricity to a few early adopters. It's about how the grid takes on the increased load of millions of electric cars.
- shiftpgdn 5y ago
  Every single family home in Texas has at least one A/C unit pulling 10-60 amps of power from May - August and the grid is mostly just fine due to the availability of peaker plants. I think grid problems for people charging at home is overstated.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Texas famously has its own electrical grid (for better or worse) that is built with this concept at least somewhat in mind. But MN and WI and IL do not have a grid built to charge (maybe) 60 million automobiles. CA even more so. Even in Texas, the issue of getting sufficient amperage to residents of the state's larger cities is non-trivial, not necessarily because of supply but because of physical access.
  - newaccount2021 5y ago
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  Right, but recharging on 110v plugs is adequate for daily travel if not cross country, so if the grid can handle roughly one lightbulb per house left on overnight, it can charge cars. The calculation that's unclear is if every car is a big battery tesla and if its entire range is drained every single day. That's just irrelevant, but what fear-mongering focuses on.
  - _aavaa_ 5y ago
    I think it's a little disingenous to compare the load of an electric car to "one lightbulb". One lightbulb is probably 100W, 200W if you're pushing it. The car is probably drawing the max 1500-2000W it can from the plug
    - jjtheblunt 5y ago
      >The car is probably drawing the max 1500-2000W it can from the plug They don't draw from the plug like that; their onboard electronics is configurable to slow charge, and thus the incandescent bulb or two analogy. It's actually not misleading at all, after 7+ years of doing so, and paying electricity bills for such. The technique, to your point, works well when charging overnight when rates are low and the time to charge need not be a short time span, which therefore means the average daily distance isn't outlandish.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    no offense, but it seems like you don't know how tension and current intensity relate to each other. Tension (100V) is like the pressure you get at your water tap: it can be high or low. Current Intensity is how much water it's flowing through your tap. The same amount of water (say 100 liters per minute) can flow from a high pressure tap that is only opened a little bit, or from a low pressure tap opened all the way. Just because the car charges at 110V, it does not mean it consumes only as much as a bulb. In order to charge overnight, an EV will need to draw 1000s of times more current than a bulb. Multiply that by all the houses in a city, and you start having issues.
    - 5y ago
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > It's about how the grid takes on the increased load of millions of electric cars. In my condominium we have chargers which talk to each other, to limit the overall power draw for all our cars. Modern chargers also integrate with grid pricing, so they can charge when the price is low (and hence ample supply). Couple that with EVs starting to be able to act as grid-connected batteries, and it seems the equation isn't as horrible as it might first appear. Not saying upgrades won't be needed, more so in some countries than others.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    Yeah I personally have no clue how valid this concern is, and with that ignorance I can confidently say it can and should be solved ;) I was only pointing out that the comment above ("I can charge my car") didn't seem like it was responding to the actual concern ("can we charge 300,000,000 cars?")
    - jjtheblunt 5y ago
      > "can we charge 300,000,000 cars?" == "is the average driven distance per day ~40miles" && "can the grid handle running ~ two lightbulbs for 12 hours for each electric car needing 40miles of charge?"
kayodelycaon 5y ago
Figured it out for a few people. The current reality is they are no where near adequate for many people. There are no outlets were my car is parked and the nearest charging station is a 2 hour walk. And for me, the range is also far too low. I make several 8+ hour, 500+ mile trips per year. At least one in the middle of winter. Actual winter. With snow. And temperatures where breaking down in a blizzard without proper clothing is fatal. (Which means you'll be using the heater a lot.)
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  An EV at 50% battery has enough juice to run the seat heaters for a month. And no dangers of plugging the exahaust and killing yourself with Carbon Monoxide. I've made 500km blizzard trips in my EV, and I consider it much safer than my ICE car. It has better traction and is more reliable, especially in the cold
_aavaa_ 5y ago
While all of that is great, it is irrelevant to the point Toyota's making.

ethanbond 5y ago

I don't think the delivery question is about how to get electricity to a few early adopters. It's about how the grid takes on the increased load of millions of electric cars.

shiftpgdn 5y ago
Every single family home in Texas has at least one A/C unit pulling 10-60 amps of power from May - August and the grid is mostly just fine due to the availability of peaker plants. I think grid problems for people charging at home is overstated.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Texas famously has its own electrical grid (for better or worse) that is built with this concept at least somewhat in mind. But MN and WI and IL do not have a grid built to charge (maybe) 60 million automobiles. CA even more so. Even in Texas, the issue of getting sufficient amperage to residents of the state's larger cities is non-trivial, not necessarily because of supply but because of physical access.
- newaccount2021 5y ago
jjtheblunt 5y ago
Right, but recharging on 110v plugs is adequate for daily travel if not cross country, so if the grid can handle roughly one lightbulb per house left on overnight, it can charge cars. The calculation that's unclear is if every car is a big battery tesla and if its entire range is drained every single day. That's just irrelevant, but what fear-mongering focuses on.
- _aavaa_ 5y ago
  I think it's a little disingenous to compare the load of an electric car to "one lightbulb". One lightbulb is probably 100W, 200W if you're pushing it. The car is probably drawing the max 1500-2000W it can from the plug
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    >The car is probably drawing the max 1500-2000W it can from the plug They don't draw from the plug like that; their onboard electronics is configurable to slow charge, and thus the incandescent bulb or two analogy. It's actually not misleading at all, after 7+ years of doing so, and paying electricity bills for such. The technique, to your point, works well when charging overnight when rates are low and the time to charge need not be a short time span, which therefore means the average daily distance isn't outlandish.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  no offense, but it seems like you don't know how tension and current intensity relate to each other. Tension (100V) is like the pressure you get at your water tap: it can be high or low. Current Intensity is how much water it's flowing through your tap. The same amount of water (say 100 liters per minute) can flow from a high pressure tap that is only opened a little bit, or from a low pressure tap opened all the way. Just because the car charges at 110V, it does not mean it consumes only as much as a bulb. In order to charge overnight, an EV will need to draw 1000s of times more current than a bulb. Multiply that by all the houses in a city, and you start having issues.
  - 5y ago
magicalhippo 5y ago
> It's about how the grid takes on the increased load of millions of electric cars. In my condominium we have chargers which talk to each other, to limit the overall power draw for all our cars. Modern chargers also integrate with grid pricing, so they can charge when the price is low (and hence ample supply). Couple that with EVs starting to be able to act as grid-connected batteries, and it seems the equation isn't as horrible as it might first appear. Not saying upgrades won't be needed, more so in some countries than others.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  Yeah I personally have no clue how valid this concern is, and with that ignorance I can confidently say it can and should be solved ;) I was only pointing out that the comment above ("I can charge my car") didn't seem like it was responding to the actual concern ("can we charge 300,000,000 cars?")
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    > "can we charge 300,000,000 cars?" == "is the average driven distance per day ~40miles" && "can the grid handle running ~ two lightbulbs for 12 hours for each electric car needing 40miles of charge?"

kayodelycaon 5y ago

Figured it out for a few people. The current reality is they are no where near adequate for many people. There are no outlets were my car is parked and the nearest charging station is a 2 hour walk. And for me, the range is also far too low. I make several 8+ hour, 500+ mile trips per year. At least one in the middle of winter. Actual winter. With snow. And temperatures where breaking down in a blizzard without proper clothing is fatal. (Which means you'll be using the heater a lot.)

bryanlarsen 5y ago
An EV at 50% battery has enough juice to run the seat heaters for a month. And no dangers of plugging the exahaust and killing yourself with Carbon Monoxide. I've made 500km blizzard trips in my EV, and I consider it much safer than my ICE car. It has better traction and is more reliable, especially in the cold

_aavaa_ 5y ago

While all of that is great, it is irrelevant to the point Toyota's making.