7 ms·

This should bode well for electric vehicles if an electrical outage were to occur.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago
One of the inherent weaknesses of external combustion engine-powered vehicles.
twblalock 4y ago
Unless you routinely run your electric car down to a low battery, it's not a problem. 300+ miles per charge is normal now. Most people top up every night. It would take a power outage that lasted longer than a week for my car to run out of juice with my normal driving habits. By the way, if the power is out, gas station pumps don't normally work either.
- jasonjayr 4y ago
  They could have on-site generators for the gas pumps for such an emergency. It's not like they don't have a tank of gas nearby .....
smm11 4y ago
If we all had electric cars, those batteries would BE the grid.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  This isn't really true without massive distribution system redesign. It could be true for individual homes with transfer switches that disconnect them from the grid if that's what you mean, but a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Even the first part (powerwall setup basically) could be useful. But it’s best when coupled with reduced usage where possible - if we get to a point where the majority of residential electrical usage is cars we’ll be doing pretty well.
  - mwint 4y ago
    What substantial investment is required, at the hardware level?
    - jandrese 4y ago
      A big inverter would be the first thing you need.
      - mwint 4y ago
        Right, I guess my question is if anything that needs to be done to the grid itself (outside of individual homes). You're going to have a big inverter anyway to power just your house from your solar panels, batteries, whatever.
        falcolas 4y ago
        You need transmission lines capable of handling the current. Too much current through local transmission lines can cause drooping lines, which touch trees (i.e. grounding that line), which shuts those transmission lines down automatically. It's something like this that helped cause that big power outage in Chicago. Power couldn't flow through the big transmission lines (they got shut down for a couple of reasons), so it flowed through the local lines towards the demand, and then those were shut down because they hit trees. Ironically, this electrical current issue is also a problem for charging electric cars at stations, since one fast charger at 20% utilization can draw 2-3x more power than the store whose power grid it's attached to.
        mwint 4y ago
        This is the original claim I'm asking about: "a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment." Wouldn't it be less current, in general? If your neighborhood gets 20% of its power from solar panels on your neighbor's houses, it seems clear that power lines inbound to the neighborhood would need to carry 20% less load, and lines inside your neighborhood would also carry somewhat less on average (your power consumption has not changed, and presumably your neighbor is powering his house off his own power before exporting the rest to you). I understand there are probably some topological hot spots, like if one dude has a 1MW solar installation in his backyard, but as a general principle I don't understand what big upgrades need to be done to the grid to support P2P.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > but a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment. We already have grid-tie solar, and beyond that, grid-tie batteries at homes and them doing work to support frequency and voltage of the grid in many locations. Having an EV do it isn't any harder. The big challenges are figuring out how to compensate/bill for all this.
dubcanada 4y ago
Rather then some strange comment about electric vehicles and your apparent distaste because they depend on a electric grid (as opposed to gas, which is also a commodity and has the same issues, transportation being one of them). Why not look at how do we fix this? Maybe we need to offer more incentives for solar panels or fix the grids by providing money to the states?
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Electrical outages take out gas stations, too. We have an electric car, and we survived a 3 day outage caused by a wind storm a few weeks ago just fine. That's because we started with a full battery, just like we do every morning. OTOH, many people with gas cars had empty tanks and had to endure 4+ hour lines at the few gas stations that had electricity and hadn't yet run out of gas.
- chrischen 4y ago
  I suppose you'd have been fine if your gas car had a full tank too?
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    It's harder to ensure a full tank of gas every day than to ensure a full EV charge every day.
    - Arrath 4y ago
      Yes it takes more effort to ensure you stop by a gas station on the way home than it is to plug in at night, but still fairly minimal. My father instilled in to me to never let my tank get below half, in case there are emergencies and I still follow that practice.
      - mwint 4y ago
        Two points: 1. When I switched to an EV as a daily driver, I realized I had underestimated how much time and hassle I was spending at gas stations. When it's been engrained in your psyche as being just part of life, we don't really realize how nasty gas stations are compared to just plugging something in. 2. Another good reason to never let your tank get below half: If you get "bad" gas, you'll only have half a tank of it, diluted with presumably "good" gas. Rare occurrence nowadays, but a benefit nonetheless.
      - jermaustin1 4y ago
        A buddy of mine from the Air Force (I wasn't in AF, he was) told me they never fill above half-full unless you are going long distances. Apparently something to do with MPGs and the weight of fuel. I never listed to him, but to this day he still only fills his car up half way for better gas mileage. I'm sure it matters if you have a 200 gallon tank, but 60 pounds of fuel will not make a difference in a vehicle that weighs 3000 pounds. Adding a single passenger is going to be more than double that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
- Jackim 4y ago
  Not GP, but I ride my bicycle for all of my transportation needs.
Arubis 4y ago
Yes, it should. EVs make great standby power sources.
cachecrab 4y ago
Should be fine if the vehicle is kept charged. Ford F-150s can power most homes for a few days on a single charge [0] [0] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/40695/the-electric-ford-f-150-can-power-your-entire-house-for-three-days-on-a-single-charge https://www.thedrive.com/tech/40695/the-electric-ford-f-150-...

One of the inherent weaknesses of external combustion engine-powered vehicles.

Unless you routinely run your electric car down to a low battery, it's not a problem. 300+ miles per charge is normal now. Most people top up every night. It would take a power outage that lasted longer than a week for my car to run out of juice with my normal driving habits. By the way, if the power is out, gas station pumps don't normally work either.

jasonjayr 4y ago
They could have on-site generators for the gas pumps for such an emergency. It's not like they don't have a tank of gas nearby .....

smm11 4y ago

If we all had electric cars, those batteries would BE the grid.

idiotsecant 4y ago
This isn't really true without massive distribution system redesign. It could be true for individual homes with transfer switches that disconnect them from the grid if that's what you mean, but a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Even the first part (powerwall setup basically) could be useful. But it’s best when coupled with reduced usage where possible - if we get to a point where the majority of residential electrical usage is cars we’ll be doing pretty well.
- mwint 4y ago
  What substantial investment is required, at the hardware level?
  - jandrese 4y ago
    A big inverter would be the first thing you need.
    - mwint 4y ago
      Right, I guess my question is if anything that needs to be done to the grid itself (outside of individual homes). You're going to have a big inverter anyway to power just your house from your solar panels, batteries, whatever.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        You need transmission lines capable of handling the current. Too much current through local transmission lines can cause drooping lines, which touch trees (i.e. grounding that line), which shuts those transmission lines down automatically. It's something like this that helped cause that big power outage in Chicago. Power couldn't flow through the big transmission lines (they got shut down for a couple of reasons), so it flowed through the local lines towards the demand, and then those were shut down because they hit trees. Ironically, this electrical current issue is also a problem for charging electric cars at stations, since one fast charger at 20% utilization can draw 2-3x more power than the store whose power grid it's attached to.
        mwint 4y ago
        This is the original claim I'm asking about: "a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment." Wouldn't it be less current, in general? If your neighborhood gets 20% of its power from solar panels on your neighbor's houses, it seems clear that power lines inbound to the neighborhood would need to carry 20% less load, and lines inside your neighborhood would also carry somewhat less on average (your power consumption has not changed, and presumably your neighbor is powering his house off his own power before exporting the rest to you). I understand there are probably some topological hot spots, like if one dude has a 1MW solar installation in his backyard, but as a general principle I don't understand what big upgrades need to be done to the grid to support P2P.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > but a peer-to-peer setup where your house is powering your neighbor down the street doesn't work without some substantial investment. We already have grid-tie solar, and beyond that, grid-tie batteries at homes and them doing work to support frequency and voltage of the grid in many locations. Having an EV do it isn't any harder. The big challenges are figuring out how to compensate/bill for all this.

dubcanada 4y ago

Rather then some strange comment about electric vehicles and your apparent distaste because they depend on a electric grid (as opposed to gas, which is also a commodity and has the same issues, transportation being one of them). Why not look at how do we fix this? Maybe we need to offer more incentives for solar panels or fix the grids by providing money to the states?

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Electrical outages take out gas stations, too. We have an electric car, and we survived a 3 day outage caused by a wind storm a few weeks ago just fine. That's because we started with a full battery, just like we do every morning. OTOH, many people with gas cars had empty tanks and had to endure 4+ hour lines at the few gas stations that had electricity and hadn't yet run out of gas.

chrischen 4y ago
I suppose you'd have been fine if your gas car had a full tank too?
- Johnny555 4y ago
  It's harder to ensure a full tank of gas every day than to ensure a full EV charge every day.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    Yes it takes more effort to ensure you stop by a gas station on the way home than it is to plug in at night, but still fairly minimal. My father instilled in to me to never let my tank get below half, in case there are emergencies and I still follow that practice.
    - mwint 4y ago
      Two points: 1. When I switched to an EV as a daily driver, I realized I had underestimated how much time and hassle I was spending at gas stations. When it's been engrained in your psyche as being just part of life, we don't really realize how nasty gas stations are compared to just plugging something in. 2. Another good reason to never let your tank get below half: If you get "bad" gas, you'll only have half a tank of it, diluted with presumably "good" gas. Rare occurrence nowadays, but a benefit nonetheless.
    - jermaustin1 4y ago
      A buddy of mine from the Air Force (I wasn't in AF, he was) told me they never fill above half-full unless you are going long distances. Apparently something to do with MPGs and the weight of fuel. I never listed to him, but to this day he still only fills his car up half way for better gas mileage. I'm sure it matters if you have a 200 gallon tank, but 60 pounds of fuel will not make a difference in a vehicle that weighs 3000 pounds. Adding a single passenger is going to be more than double that.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Jackim 4y ago
Not GP, but I ride my bicycle for all of my transportation needs.

Arubis 4y ago

Yes, it should. EVs make great standby power sources.

cachecrab 4y ago

Should be fine if the vehicle is kept charged. Ford F-150s can power most homes for a few days on a single charge [0] [0] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/40695/the-electric-ford-f-150-can-power-your-entire-house-for-three-days-on-a-single-charge https://www.thedrive.com/tech/40695/the-electric-ford-f-150-...