9 ms·

Ultra-rapid fast charging really should only be used on long road trips, which is likely a fraction of the average driver's mileage. The vast majority of EV cha

by birken 4y ago

Ultra-rapid fast charging really should only be used on long road trips, which is likely a fraction of the average driver's mileage. The vast majority of EV charging should be slow charging at home, where the owner should be able to time their electricity usage so they are always paying around the cheapest rate. So even if this is true, it probably will only have a negligible effect on the total operating cost for an EV.

dogma1138 4y ago
Many people don’t have off street parking where they can install their own charger. Even in the UK many terraced and semi detached houses don’t have parking especially in cities and dense suburban areas. Then you have those who live in apartments. You have a very skewed view of how most people live. Pretty much everyone I personally know with an EV doesn’t charge at home because they can’t. They either charge overnight using an on street charger or they charge the same way people fuel up their cars and that is going one a week to a fast charger.
ajross 4y ago
Not "negligible", but yeah, relative to the opportunity cost of a $50k+ vehicle, it's pretty much noise. Over the year I've owned my Model Y, it's driven 11k miles (including three 1000+ mile road trips) and per TelsaMate[1] 70% of its charging has been on my home electricity service. [1] One of the hidden gems of owning these vehicles is the amazing community of analytic software you get to play with.
pornel 4y ago
And if you're lucky to have solar panels too, then the marginal cost of charging the car remains free.
- robk 4y ago
  In the UK? Good luck with solar. We're north of Maine.
  - pornel 4y ago
    It's still quite usable: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight and UK has solar farms north of Calgary: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map
- bacheaul 4y ago
  Rather than free, I'd say the marginal cost would be more like what you could otherwise sell the electricity back to the grid for. eg. if you're paying $0.25/kWh to buy from the grid, and selling back to the grid at $0.06/kWh, then you're really "paying" $0.06/kWh in opportunity cost to charge your vehicle from your solar panels.
judge2020 4y ago
From what I understand many people rely on fast charging (72kW) at the grocery stores or shopping centers if they live in an apartment or otherwise can't access a plug where they park their car. Not sure what can be done for these people other than expanding the availability of 40-80kw chargers at common destinations in high-density areas.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  Im in Sydney and the number of charging spots at the shopping centres is no where near enough, if the majority of people switched over to EVs. A lot of parking lots still don’t have chargers for EVs. And you need to be “bought a house” rich to be able to charge at home. I haven’t seen the newest developments, but any apartment block 4-5 years or older doesn’t have power in the garage for individual spaces. EVs are a real luxury good still.
  - WelcomeShorty 4y ago
    Anecdotical but here am I: one phone call to the company that manages the rentals where we live and bang, next month our charger will be installed where they pick up the infrastructure costs, we just pay for the outlet. Looking forward to our first e car, which will be delivered in august.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Curious :-) recently I've reasoned here about the impossibility to recharge EVs used as ICEs replacement, stating that such revolution it's doable only by a minority of the people, wealthy enough to have a home, a p.v. system or something else local to produce electricity and WFH so using cars not every day to been able to recharge, for others the sole option will be living in social housing depending on public transports etc the slave-life depicted years ago by the WEF i.e. https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... or already there in China in various part of the country. Such reasoning ALWAYS have got some quick upvotes than get quickly downvoted, but ANYTIME such discussion appears, with less details, with less projection to the whole society same conclusion spot here and there. I'm curious if it's a kind of silent propaganda to erase critics or really genuine actions by individuals who dream so much that they refuse to be told "hey, that's a dream" but being intelligent being without completely erasing the dream they spot here and there same conclusion without connecting dots to remain asleep... More in-topic: IF we REALLY want a new deal where renewables can at least cover most domestic usages (because there is NO HOPE for industrial ones, beside nuclear and isolated cases with mountain hydro, not on scale for mere orography reasons) we need to de-urbanize: cities can't evolve, we can't cover them with enough p.v., eolic etc achieving good enough results. Surely we can start building new cities, but for where they will be built our needs will likely be different wasting a hyper-giant and nightmarish effort. So to say China have done that, and failed. The sole sustainable model I see is few on-purpose "hubs" (schooling/academia/research, industries by sectors, military, ...) and vast Rivieras for the rest, not too low in density, not too high, with a distributed economy where all eligible jobs are done from home and most others would be in a short distant range. Such also monster evolution probably need much initial works, the colonial way, witch means young slaves oppressed for the sake of others, than making them die, a new world for who remain IF that's work, IF who remain is still able to evolve etc so big IFs beside any moral consideration that for a whole society is a desperate and probably crazy and fatal move, not much different than classic nazism vision. I hope a day, at least in a restricted cohort like HN, some SERIOUS debates will arrive on such topics instead of just partisans comment on one side and another religiously divided...
kbob 4y ago
Apartment dwellers will want to use the fastest charger regularly. They have to sit in their cars in some desolate location for the whole time, and they have to charge every week. Not an experience to prolong.
- pornel 4y ago
  It's important to remember that you don't need to be near the car during charging. In cities, chargers aren't in desolate locations pretty much by definition. You can leave and do something else while it's charging. Chargers are increasingly common in parking lots of fast food chains and supermarkets.
  - kbob 4y ago
    I've been to a lot of Tesla Superchargers, and in my experience, drivers hardly ever leave their cars at urban/suburban spots. We are unusual in that we usually get out and walk the dog or ourselves a little. Part of it is that Tesla levies a fee for leaving the car plugged in after it charges, so we can't go too far.
- cameldrv 4y ago
  This is why we need slow chargers everywhere. Even a basic 120V outlet can provide 1.5kW of vehicle charging. Over the course of the night, this is 18kWh, which is enough for about 80 miles of charge for a Tesla Model 3. This is more than enough for the vast majority of people's daily usage. If apartment dwellers that park on the street had access to these slow chargers, for example, using power from street light circuits, they could handle 90% of their charging needs, using fast chargers for days where they drove an unusually long ways. In Europe, or other 240V places, the slow charger is about twice as fast, so the situations where a fast charger is needed are even less.
breadloaf 4y ago
Around 50% people in EU lives in apartments. They can't charge at home and they will be using fast DC chargers in same way as they are using gas stations today. If fast DC charging will be slower than taking gas, while being more expensive than taking gas, then we can say good bye to mass BEV adoption.
- Isinlor 4y ago
  The car needs to stand somewhere over night. That's where you put a charging port. I live in Finland. No issue with charging next to my apartment block. Before I lived 4 years in Netherlands. Also, zero issues. Plenty of people charging cars parked next to road side.

by birken 4y ago

dogma1138 4y ago

Many people don’t have off street parking where they can install their own charger. Even in the UK many terraced and semi detached houses don’t have parking especially in cities and dense suburban areas. Then you have those who live in apartments. You have a very skewed view of how most people live. Pretty much everyone I personally know with an EV doesn’t charge at home because they can’t. They either charge overnight using an on street charger or they charge the same way people fuel up their cars and that is going one a week to a fast charger.

ajross 4y ago

Not "negligible", but yeah, relative to the opportunity cost of a $50k+ vehicle, it's pretty much noise. Over the year I've owned my Model Y, it's driven 11k miles (including three 1000+ mile road trips) and per TelsaMate[1] 70% of its charging has been on my home electricity service. [1] One of the hidden gems of owning these vehicles is the amazing community of analytic software you get to play with.

pornel 4y ago

And if you're lucky to have solar panels too, then the marginal cost of charging the car remains free.

robk 4y ago
In the UK? Good luck with solar. We're north of Maine.
- pornel 4y ago
  It's still quite usable: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight and UK has solar farms north of Calgary: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map
bacheaul 4y ago
Rather than free, I'd say the marginal cost would be more like what you could otherwise sell the electricity back to the grid for. eg. if you're paying $0.25/kWh to buy from the grid, and selling back to the grid at $0.06/kWh, then you're really "paying" $0.06/kWh in opportunity cost to charge your vehicle from your solar panels.

judge2020 4y ago

From what I understand many people rely on fast charging (72kW) at the grocery stores or shopping centers if they live in an apartment or otherwise can't access a plug where they park their car. Not sure what can be done for these people other than expanding the availability of 40-80kw chargers at common destinations in high-density areas.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
Im in Sydney and the number of charging spots at the shopping centres is no where near enough, if the majority of people switched over to EVs. A lot of parking lots still don’t have chargers for EVs. And you need to be “bought a house” rich to be able to charge at home. I haven’t seen the newest developments, but any apartment block 4-5 years or older doesn’t have power in the garage for individual spaces. EVs are a real luxury good still.
- WelcomeShorty 4y ago
  Anecdotical but here am I: one phone call to the company that manages the rentals where we live and bang, next month our charger will be installed where they pick up the infrastructure costs, we just pay for the outlet. Looking forward to our first e car, which will be delivered in august.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Curious :-) recently I've reasoned here about the impossibility to recharge EVs used as ICEs replacement, stating that such revolution it's doable only by a minority of the people, wealthy enough to have a home, a p.v. system or something else local to produce electricity and WFH so using cars not every day to been able to recharge, for others the sole option will be living in social housing depending on public transports etc the slave-life depicted years ago by the WEF i.e. https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... or already there in China in various part of the country. Such reasoning ALWAYS have got some quick upvotes than get quickly downvoted, but ANYTIME such discussion appears, with less details, with less projection to the whole society same conclusion spot here and there. I'm curious if it's a kind of silent propaganda to erase critics or really genuine actions by individuals who dream so much that they refuse to be told "hey, that's a dream" but being intelligent being without completely erasing the dream they spot here and there same conclusion without connecting dots to remain asleep... More in-topic: IF we REALLY want a new deal where renewables can at least cover most domestic usages (because there is NO HOPE for industrial ones, beside nuclear and isolated cases with mountain hydro, not on scale for mere orography reasons) we need to de-urbanize: cities can't evolve, we can't cover them with enough p.v., eolic etc achieving good enough results. Surely we can start building new cities, but for where they will be built our needs will likely be different wasting a hyper-giant and nightmarish effort. So to say China have done that, and failed. The sole sustainable model I see is few on-purpose "hubs" (schooling/academia/research, industries by sectors, military, ...) and vast Rivieras for the rest, not too low in density, not too high, with a distributed economy where all eligible jobs are done from home and most others would be in a short distant range. Such also monster evolution probably need much initial works, the colonial way, witch means young slaves oppressed for the sake of others, than making them die, a new world for who remain IF that's work, IF who remain is still able to evolve etc so big IFs beside any moral consideration that for a whole society is a desperate and probably crazy and fatal move, not much different than classic nazism vision. I hope a day, at least in a restricted cohort like HN, some SERIOUS debates will arrive on such topics instead of just partisans comment on one side and another religiously divided...

kbob 4y ago

Apartment dwellers will want to use the fastest charger regularly. They have to sit in their cars in some desolate location for the whole time, and they have to charge every week. Not an experience to prolong.

pornel 4y ago
It's important to remember that you don't need to be near the car during charging. In cities, chargers aren't in desolate locations pretty much by definition. You can leave and do something else while it's charging. Chargers are increasingly common in parking lots of fast food chains and supermarkets.
- kbob 4y ago
  I've been to a lot of Tesla Superchargers, and in my experience, drivers hardly ever leave their cars at urban/suburban spots. We are unusual in that we usually get out and walk the dog or ourselves a little. Part of it is that Tesla levies a fee for leaving the car plugged in after it charges, so we can't go too far.
cameldrv 4y ago
This is why we need slow chargers everywhere. Even a basic 120V outlet can provide 1.5kW of vehicle charging. Over the course of the night, this is 18kWh, which is enough for about 80 miles of charge for a Tesla Model 3. This is more than enough for the vast majority of people's daily usage. If apartment dwellers that park on the street had access to these slow chargers, for example, using power from street light circuits, they could handle 90% of their charging needs, using fast chargers for days where they drove an unusually long ways. In Europe, or other 240V places, the slow charger is about twice as fast, so the situations where a fast charger is needed are even less.

breadloaf 4y ago

Around 50% people in EU lives in apartments. They can't charge at home and they will be using fast DC chargers in same way as they are using gas stations today. If fast DC charging will be slower than taking gas, while being more expensive than taking gas, then we can say good bye to mass BEV adoption.

Isinlor 4y ago
The car needs to stand somewhere over night. That's where you put a charging port. I live in Finland. No issue with charging next to my apartment block. Before I lived 4 years in Netherlands. Also, zero issues. Plenty of people charging cars parked next to road side.