4 ms·

When ppl talk about EVs overtaking petrol all I can do is shake head. Infrastructure is not there and is not going to be there for EVs for a long time. Its no

by pojzon 4y ago

When ppl talk about EVs overtaking petrol all I can do is shake head. Infrastructure is not there and is not going to be there for EVs for a long time. Its not only gas stations but also power plants, transit cables, personel, supply chains, technology, laws and other. If we make good investments it will take around 50 years in some developed EU countries to reach appropriate infrastructure levels. In less developed countries probably 100+years.

tppiotrowski 4y ago
If you want to replace gas stations with EV charging stations that 'full-up' your car in less than 5 minutes, you're right. But if every parking space just gets 1KW of solar panel ~$500 and sun shines for 10 hours a day, you probably have enough power for the 30 miles of daily commute. A car sits idle for 90% of the day. We can use this time to charge it. It's not the long road trip use case but I think will put a big dent in the resources needed to migrate to EV.
- kortilla 4y ago
  > ~$500 and sun shines for 10 hours a day I’m not gonna spend 10 hours in an office and definitely not from sunrise to sunset. Also, 10 hours of sunshine in a day is a rarity in most of the US, especially during the winter.
  - tppiotrowski 4y ago
    Every parking space will have a 1KW charging panel so anytime you're not using your car it will charge. No need to stay at the office. Go about your day and every time you park your car it'll recharge.
rootusrootus 4y ago
I'm not saying EVs are going to overtake ICEV anytime in the next few years. But a 10% reduction in demand for gasoline would be huge. Not sure I'm feeling as pessimistic on infrastructure. A bunch of the infrastructure for EVs already exists and is wired to every house. Even if we converted 100% of all newly sold vehicles to EV today, the grid build-out required wouldn't be any harder than what we've done in the past.
- BuckRogers 4y ago
  I agree and I see a lot of people concocting additional premises to make this seem like humanity's largest challenge. I would suspect many people are starting from where I am mentally on this topic. In my household we want to move to one gas/diesel vehicle, and one electric. If everyone did that it would be a significant shift in just about any related metric. You could leave everyone in rentals with gas vehicles, and if you have every single two car household with just one EV that's a massive change from today. No reason to go further than that at this point in time. Even if we do go beyond to create a doomsday scenario for EVs, it will be worked out because few of these things are unanswerable open questions. If this were hinging on some technological homerun like figuring out fission or the Alcubierre drive then I would feel differently about it.
ericd 4y ago
Oh, not this again. If you have a standard household outlet accessible where you park, you probably don’t need charging stations outside of road trips, because you’ll be getting 60+ miles of charge overnight. The load at a given time is like a third that of a central air conditioner. I think we can handle it.
- pojzon 4y ago
  Please talk to any energy technician working on national grid. We have troubles generating enough power to not force blackouts in EU and we talk about introducing hundreds of millions of EVs / to every household. Currently it all works only because they are a novelity.
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    Build wind, solar and grid batteries, then. Nothing magically hard about it. The grid itself will need updates too.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      > EVs are excellent grid batteries, with the incentives.
      - jupp0r 4y ago
        Excellent point, although I haven't seen this actually be done in practice either at grid scale or household scale. Do current EV's charging electronics support this use case?
        ericd 4y ago
        Teslas aren’t currently bidirectional, some of the new Fords are, unsure about others.
        ciceryadam 4y ago
scythe 4y ago
>it will take around 50 years That would be twice as long as it took the US to electrify 90% of farm houses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act >Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn was a major proponent of the REA, which he helped pass in 1936 as Chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Rayburn stated in 1959 that ninety percent of farm homes in the U.S. were electrified, compared to three percent in the early 1930s. Furthermore, electrifying gas stations along major highways will obviously be much easier than electrifying farms scattered around everywhere.
- pojzon 4y ago
  How energy production looked like in 1930s vs now. How many charging points do we need now vs # those farms ? What was the quality of cable lanes used ? Did we consider off-grid then ? Whats the estimated cost in comparison to now ? You make it sound simple, but its not. Making that comparison is like comparing apples to oranges.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - scythe 4y ago
    >How many charging points do we need now vs # those farms ? There are ~150,000 gas stations in the United States. There are 2 million farms, and that's after significant consolidation of agriculture during the Green Revolution. >You make it sound simple, but its not. You are simply posting 'questions' without bothering to do the least bit of research. Looking up those numbers took less than a minute. Climate change discussions benefit from informed skepticism, not intransigent fatalism.
    - pojzon 4y ago
      We need around 50 million household charges, around 15 million parking spot charges and 150k gas stations. For me thats “a lot more” than 2 mil farms. Its realism. Consider a situation when 50 cars have to park at the station to charge back to full. The station is out of service for the next 10h… This is a pretty common situation on highway. We would need hundreds of those charging spots often with hotels. Im more excited for Hydrogen cars than EVs. Its a lot cleaner and future proof solution.
galdosdi 4y ago
I don't see what the problem is. (1) HOME CHARGING. In sparser areas where people live in houses with garages, duplexes, and even to some degree rowhouses, it's easy to run an extension cord and get a full charge nightly. (2) STORE PARKING LOT CHARGING. In denser places where people live predominantly in apartment buildings and perhaps some rowhouses, there is enough density to have rapid chargers in store parking lots. You drive to the grocery store, park for half an hour while you shop, and you have enough charge for the rest of the week. There is also enough density that daily milage is much less so you can get away with charging once or twice a week instead of daily. (3) OTHER TRANSPORT CHOICES REDUCE RANGE ANXIETY. Also at least in the USA TONS of households have multiple cars -- especially in sparser areas that are more car dependent and have plentiful parking. This creates an easy in for the plugin EV -- if one of your (typically two) cars is still ICE or hybrid, you don't have to worry about range anyway (while still putting most miles on the EV). Conversely, in denser areas (USA or EU) it is common to own zero cars or one car that isn't even used every day because public transit covers some of the transport needs. In either case, range anxiety becomes not much of a problem because the EV isn't your sole option for getting around (but, at 250mi range, range anxiety is kind of obsolete anyway) So once again, whether you're in a sparse or dense area, there are dynamics that make it easy for many people to get started with an EV. Does it work for 100% of people, today? No. But that's how change works. Once a lot more people, starting with those who can easily do so, get EVs, it becomes more normalized, and there's more infrastructure, and the cycle continues. Good plugin EVs like the Bolt or Leaf with 200+ mi of range are now in the $20-$29k range. It's starting to become pretty practical. They're not competitive with getting the cheapest camry shitbox you can find on craigslist and running it into the ground, but they're competitive with a lot of ordinary cars ordinary people buy.
- nradov 4y ago
  Your numbers are way off. The MSRP for the cheapest Nissan Leaf with 200+ mi of range is $36K (plus sales tax and registration fees, so total cost out the door is significantly higher). And that's if you can even find one; most dealers are out of stock, or are gouging customers with additional mark-ups. Federal EV tax credits can bring the net price down for some customers but that depends on their individual income tax situation. https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still-qualify-for-us-federal-tax-credit/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still...
sanderjd 4y ago
50 years, ha! People who talk like it's all gonna happen next year are wrong, and people who talk like it's going to take 50 years are also wrong.

by pojzon 4y ago

tppiotrowski 4y ago

If you want to replace gas stations with EV charging stations that 'full-up' your car in less than 5 minutes, you're right. But if every parking space just gets 1KW of solar panel ~$500 and sun shines for 10 hours a day, you probably have enough power for the 30 miles of daily commute. A car sits idle for 90% of the day. We can use this time to charge it. It's not the long road trip use case but I think will put a big dent in the resources needed to migrate to EV.

kortilla 4y ago
> ~$500 and sun shines for 10 hours a day I’m not gonna spend 10 hours in an office and definitely not from sunrise to sunset. Also, 10 hours of sunshine in a day is a rarity in most of the US, especially during the winter.
- tppiotrowski 4y ago
  Every parking space will have a 1KW charging panel so anytime you're not using your car it will charge. No need to stay at the office. Go about your day and every time you park your car it'll recharge.

rootusrootus 4y ago

I'm not saying EVs are going to overtake ICEV anytime in the next few years. But a 10% reduction in demand for gasoline would be huge. Not sure I'm feeling as pessimistic on infrastructure. A bunch of the infrastructure for EVs already exists and is wired to every house. Even if we converted 100% of all newly sold vehicles to EV today, the grid build-out required wouldn't be any harder than what we've done in the past.

BuckRogers 4y ago
I agree and I see a lot of people concocting additional premises to make this seem like humanity's largest challenge. I would suspect many people are starting from where I am mentally on this topic. In my household we want to move to one gas/diesel vehicle, and one electric. If everyone did that it would be a significant shift in just about any related metric. You could leave everyone in rentals with gas vehicles, and if you have every single two car household with just one EV that's a massive change from today. No reason to go further than that at this point in time. Even if we do go beyond to create a doomsday scenario for EVs, it will be worked out because few of these things are unanswerable open questions. If this were hinging on some technological homerun like figuring out fission or the Alcubierre drive then I would feel differently about it.

ericd 4y ago

Oh, not this again. If you have a standard household outlet accessible where you park, you probably don’t need charging stations outside of road trips, because you’ll be getting 60+ miles of charge overnight. The load at a given time is like a third that of a central air conditioner. I think we can handle it.

pojzon 4y ago
Please talk to any energy technician working on national grid. We have troubles generating enough power to not force blackouts in EU and we talk about introducing hundreds of millions of EVs / to every household. Currently it all works only because they are a novelity.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  Build wind, solar and grid batteries, then. Nothing magically hard about it. The grid itself will need updates too.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    > EVs are excellent grid batteries, with the incentives.
    - jupp0r 4y ago
      Excellent point, although I haven't seen this actually be done in practice either at grid scale or household scale. Do current EV's charging electronics support this use case?
      - ericd 4y ago
        Teslas aren’t currently bidirectional, some of the new Fords are, unsure about others.
        ciceryadam 4y ago

scythe 4y ago

>it will take around 50 years That would be twice as long as it took the US to electrify 90% of farm houses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act >Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn was a major proponent of the REA, which he helped pass in 1936 as Chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Rayburn stated in 1959 that ninety percent of farm homes in the U.S. were electrified, compared to three percent in the early 1930s. Furthermore, electrifying gas stations along major highways will obviously be much easier than electrifying farms scattered around everywhere.

pojzon 4y ago
How energy production looked like in 1930s vs now. How many charging points do we need now vs # those farms ? What was the quality of cable lanes used ? Did we consider off-grid then ? Whats the estimated cost in comparison to now ? You make it sound simple, but its not. Making that comparison is like comparing apples to oranges.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scythe 4y ago
  >How many charging points do we need now vs # those farms ? There are ~150,000 gas stations in the United States. There are 2 million farms, and that's after significant consolidation of agriculture during the Green Revolution. >You make it sound simple, but its not. You are simply posting 'questions' without bothering to do the least bit of research. Looking up those numbers took less than a minute. Climate change discussions benefit from informed skepticism, not intransigent fatalism.
  - pojzon 4y ago
    We need around 50 million household charges, around 15 million parking spot charges and 150k gas stations. For me thats “a lot more” than 2 mil farms. Its realism. Consider a situation when 50 cars have to park at the station to charge back to full. The station is out of service for the next 10h… This is a pretty common situation on highway. We would need hundreds of those charging spots often with hotels. Im more excited for Hydrogen cars than EVs. Its a lot cleaner and future proof solution.

galdosdi 4y ago

I don't see what the problem is. (1) HOME CHARGING. In sparser areas where people live in houses with garages, duplexes, and even to some degree rowhouses, it's easy to run an extension cord and get a full charge nightly. (2) STORE PARKING LOT CHARGING. In denser places where people live predominantly in apartment buildings and perhaps some rowhouses, there is enough density to have rapid chargers in store parking lots. You drive to the grocery store, park for half an hour while you shop, and you have enough charge for the rest of the week. There is also enough density that daily milage is much less so you can get away with charging once or twice a week instead of daily. (3) OTHER TRANSPORT CHOICES REDUCE RANGE ANXIETY. Also at least in the USA TONS of households have multiple cars -- especially in sparser areas that are more car dependent and have plentiful parking. This creates an easy in for the plugin EV -- if one of your (typically two) cars is still ICE or hybrid, you don't have to worry about range anyway (while still putting most miles on the EV). Conversely, in denser areas (USA or EU) it is common to own zero cars or one car that isn't even used every day because public transit covers some of the transport needs. In either case, range anxiety becomes not much of a problem because the EV isn't your sole option for getting around (but, at 250mi range, range anxiety is kind of obsolete anyway) So once again, whether you're in a sparse or dense area, there are dynamics that make it easy for many people to get started with an EV. Does it work for 100% of people, today? No. But that's how change works. Once a lot more people, starting with those who can easily do so, get EVs, it becomes more normalized, and there's more infrastructure, and the cycle continues. Good plugin EVs like the Bolt or Leaf with 200+ mi of range are now in the $20-$29k range. It's starting to become pretty practical. They're not competitive with getting the cheapest camry shitbox you can find on craigslist and running it into the ground, but they're competitive with a lot of ordinary cars ordinary people buy.

nradov 4y ago
Your numbers are way off. The MSRP for the cheapest Nissan Leaf with 200+ mi of range is $36K (plus sales tax and registration fees, so total cost out the door is significantly higher). And that's if you can even find one; most dealers are out of stock, or are gouging customers with additional mark-ups. Federal EV tax credits can bring the net price down for some customers but that depends on their individual income tax situation. https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still-qualify-for-us-federal-tax-credit/ https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still...

sanderjd 4y ago

50 years, ha! People who talk like it's all gonna happen next year are wrong, and people who talk like it's going to take 50 years are also wrong.