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The plan to go 100% EV seems odd to me. There are many people who have cars with no place to charge at home because they lack in premise parking. Not sure how
by devoutsalsa 4y ago
The plan to go 100% EV seems odd to me. There are many people who have cars with no place to charge at home because they lack in premise parking. Not sure how that plays out.
- wilg 4y agoPut chargers wherever they park
- deevolution 4y agoHow is California planning to cleanly support the extra electricity load from EVs since they've planned to decomission all their nuclear power plants? The base load is going to be generated with coal and nat gas now. Most people will likely be charging their EVs at night so they'll be charging their cars from coal or gas rather than carbon free nuclear.
- ryantgtg 4y agoThere are substantial efforts in California (at least in SoCal, which I’m most familiar with) right now to supply renewable energy. I’m not sure what’s preventing you from doing a search before asking such questions. Lotta information at your fingertips. https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/los-angeles-100-percent-renewable-study.html https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/los-angeles-100-percent-renewa... https://ceo.lacounty.gov/2021/12/07/sustainability/staying-power/ https://ceo.lacounty.gov/2021/12/07/sustainability/staying-p...
- ekianjo 4y agoEnjoy your substantial power cuts.
- GoldenMonkey 4y agoThe grid needs 30% more power generation. If all cars are EV. CA is doing rolling blackouts as it is. Maybe Californians will be riding horses in the next 10 years ;)
- outside1234 4y agoThere is substantial unused grid capacity overnight and during the day that the most basic of smart grid logic can schedule the car to turn on charging during. In other words, shift the demand from the 4-9PM slot that is the hot spot. For what this doesn't cover, this is not rocket science. We will build the capacity. It's just wires and generators.
- ryantgtg 4y agoAnd storage. I work at an engineering firm that is heavily involved in these efforts in SoCal, and this is probably boring to say (without details) but the storage component is fascinating. Not my sector, though, so I won’t/can’t elaborate (I do work in sustainable transportation planning, though).
- dangrossman 4y agoI am curious how a voluntary "please conserve power 4 hours a day during a historic heat wave" request turned into "CA is doing rolling blackouts because they don't have enough energy" in the minds of millions. Residential electric use doubled over the past 30 years without issue.
- ryantgtg 4y agoThe NYTimes The Daily podcast described the voluntary request as “the state asked people to not charge their EVs” (paraphrase). Poor quality information everywhere.
- anikom15 4y agoRolling blackouts are separate from Flex Alerts.
- dangrossman 4y agoHence me asking why they're being conflated in the public consciousness.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dangrossman 4y agoMost people charge their cars at night because utility companies incentivize to do so via time-of-use rate plans. There's nothing natural or convenient about delaying the charge until the middle of the night, what's most convenient is plugging in the car as soon as you park it. Wind farms generate the most power at night, so that'll continue to work. If solar becomes dominant, then they'll make it cheaper to use electricity when the sun's still up, and we'll stop delaying charges until after sunset. It's going to take decades to fully transition to electric vehicles, plenty of time to build all the renewables needed, all the storage needed for time shifting, and all the smarts needed for cars to participate in the smart grid.
- gbear605 4y agoBecause of scale, an EV running off of coal-powered electricity is better for the environment than a gas powered car, not even taking into account emissions that aren’t carbon dioxide. That aside, there are a variety of electricity storage mechanisms that have been becoming more and more efficient, like normal batteries, hydrogen electrolysis, and pumped water. With some clever engineering, solar power works at night. I wish California would keep their nuclear plants open, but the loss of them is not an impediment for electric vehicles.
- quickthrower2 4y agoImagine if, when people plug their big battery into the grid, the grid and the millions of big batteries talk to each other to negotiate electicity flows. Then the EV fleet could help even smooth the power supply and shift load and supply to match. Sun comes out, loads of EVs are charged at that point. A bit of cloud. The EVs give some back. To incentivise you could choose a cheaper per kwh "keep me topped up if you can" and more expensive "definitely fill the battery asap" and even a "hey not using this car for a bit, make use of my battery and pay me!". This is in addition to, if the battery is plugged in at home with solar panels, the home can self-smooth and do a lot of this locally, giving the grid the net in/out it desires from the house based on sum of: battery, appliances, solar as a whole unit.
- ekianjo 4y agoWho is paying for that ?
- h0l0cube 4y agoThe people charging both your car and your wallet. Fuel isn't free, why wouldn't chargers become a vehicle^ for investment? ^ not intended but I'll leave that in there
- chrisseaton 4y agoMost people don't need to charge every night. You likely don't refuel every night, do you? The average commute is like 40 miles a day. Go somewhere and recharge once a week while you have a coffee.
- nicbou 4y agoThat's true for city dwellers in the west. I wonder how a 100% electric world would work in the parts of the world where the Toyota Hilux is a necessity.
- chrisseaton 4y agoElectric is great for off-road - all that torque at low speeds! And you can recharge from anything you can get power from - not dependent on only diesel.
- assttoasstmgr 4y agoI regret to inform you that plugging your EV into a tree to charge only works in cartoons.
- chrisseaton 4y agoI don't get why you're being sarcastic to me? You can recharge from mains, or a diesel generator, or a gas generator. Maybe put a big diesel field generator and tank static in a temporary camp location and then work out of that location charging each night.
- northwest65 4y agoBecause out in the bush there is no mains, no diesel generators, and no gas generators, so they probably regards comment as worse than useless, at a guess.
- chrisseaton 4y agoThere's no diesel in the bush either. So how do you refuel a diesel vehicle? You haul it in. How do you think a diesel generator would get into the bush? Haul it in with the diesel. An off-road tanker can carry 40 tonnes of diesel into a camp. A generator doesn't add much to that. Have you got much experience running an off-road operation at distance?
- nicoburns 4y agoMy neighbourhood (London, UK) has on-street charging ports. Some of them are in lampposts and some of them are sunk into the pavement (sidewalk). This seems to work well.
- itsoktocry 4y agoThis seems to work well when 95% of cars are still ICE.
- nicoburns 4y agoWhy would it not work with 100% EVs?
- krater23 4y agoBecause the cables that deliver the energy would then burn through.
- velhartice 4y agoOr get nicked.
- nicoburns 4y agoCars don't actually use that much power relative to the amount that households already use if they're not fast-charging (using power here in the technical sense (amps) not as a synonym for energy (watts)). Smart charging meters that default to a cheap off-peak slow-charge (i.e. an overnight charge) with the option to override with a fast charge for a premium will probably solve 90% of our problems here.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoI wonder how well this works when some (many?) people don’t move their cars for days or weeks as a time.
- 4y ago
- Philip-J-Fry 4y agoMost of the places they drive their car to, will have chargers. Supermarkets, workplaces, parks, etc. You don't need to charge at home. It's just the most convenient.
- birdyrooster 4y agoMany of those parking spaces in major cities cannot handle even a slight increase in congestion due to charging, and the time to plug-in and un plug is too much for them. Think about your local downtown Whole Foods parking lot.
- dangrossman 4y agoMy local Whole Foods parking lot has had EV charging spaces for 8 years. I used to charge my Nissan LEAF there while grocery shopping back in the day.
- krater23 4y agoAnd how many others can charge when you charge? 5? Or fewer?
- dangrossman 4y ago4, and I never saw all 4 in use at once. You don't need infrastructure for 200 million EVs today if there's only 2 million on the road. They'll grow together.
- neon_electro 4y agoIs that a bad thing if it’s still early days for EVs? Do you not think that more stations can and will be installed?
- Balero 4y agoWhy are you driving downtown to supermarket? Perhaps your city needs to be planned in a more efficient and livable manner.
- CTDOCodebases 4y agoThis isn't the odd part for me. The part I'm curious about is how will militaries manage the change? It's clear fuel isn't going to disappear but will the military or the government end up refining their own petrol for cost reasons or will they just end up shipping around batteries as if they were fuel.
- XorNot 4y agoMilitary fuel infrastructure is already separate from civilian. The US uses JP-8 for everything it can because it simplifies logistics, but that's hardly what you fill up with at the servo.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago800v cars can charge to 80% capacity in ~20 minutes on fast chargers, and that's for well over 300 miles of range. However: EVs don't fix the problems inherent with high rates of individual car ownership in high population density areas, or with low occupancy vehicle, short distance travel.
- slaw 4y agoThere are only two cars that make 300 miles at highway speed. Lucid Air and Tesla S Long Range Plus. Tesla is still at old 400V system. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36302930/tesla-model-s-long-range-plus-highway-range-testing/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36302930/tesla-model-s-lo...
- timbit42 4y agoThe Aptera will do over 300 miles at highway speed, probably over 600: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiH-Y-HOvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiH-Y-HOvE
- speedgoose 4y agoWho drives 500km on a highway in a luxury vehicle without allowing them to take a little break? Do they pee in a bottle too?
- slaw 4y agoDo you have to pee every 3 hours?
- speedgoose 4y agoI drink enough water yes.
- bertil 4y agoThe plan shouldn’t be to replace 100% of existing ICE cars with electric cars. The carbon impact of the construction of those would still be too high. The plan should be to invest in public transport and electric bicycles, and use electric cars when either of those options isn’t enough, to complement. All cities built around cars (and that’s almost every American city for instance) will have to change—either by arranging for bicycles and building public transport or through floods, fires, and hurricanes.
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoI think this is the key. Almost too the point that car sized private vehicles should be banned from the inner city.
- sigzero 4y agoYes, but I don't see that happening in the near and not so near future.
- randiantech 4y agoMy 82 years old, disabled dad disagrees that this is a good idea.
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoWith awareness of having zero context, I'd believe your 82 year old disabled dad, and the general public, would be safer if he was not allowed to drive a car in the inner city.
- jvanderbot 4y agoPower delivery exists more places than gasoline delivery. The number of places that have gas but no power is very, very low. Enough to ignore. It's amazing to me we have put all this work into a fantastic logistics network for gasoline and cough at the thought of chargers in all the same places.
- scld 4y agoThe logistics of a 15-30 minute charge time at a power station seems harder than a 1.5 to 3 minute gasoline fill, IMO.
- ceejayoz 4y agoChargers at work. At the grocery store. At your doctors appointment. Most people spend a significant time with their car sitting somewhere for at least that amount of time.
- Patrol8394 4y agoAt work? For those lucky enough to have chargers at work, good luck when fighting for one. Also, I really hope the world keep shifting towards remote working; I won’t drive to the office just to charge my car.
- brianwawok 4y agoYou have it backwards. Put chargers where people park cars. Don’t awkwardly drive to a random place to charge. For 75%? Of people that can be at home. For others work. For others the grocery store.
- nonethewiser 4y agoMost cars parked at "home" dont have access to a charger.
- 4y ago
- jeffalyanak 4y agoThat's an easy problem to solve, though. Lower-speed L2 charging could easily be made ubiquitous anywhere that street parking exists. Since the wattage demands are relatively low, it would not be too difficult to have L2 charging available anywhere that residential parking exists. Unlike fast-charging, you wouldn't need a lot of expensive high-power infrastructure, and if the power utilities were smart they'd do it themselves. They could put little parking-meter size boxes by the side of the road—tapped off of existing residential power infrastructure—with credit card tap to pay. I don't think it would take that long to reach a large density of that type of inexpensive, overnight charge systems.
- Scoundreller 4y agoAlready a thing in cold climates in parking lots, except it’s for your block heater. Usually it switches between sides of the lot every X minutes. https://www.gm-volt.com/threads/plugging-into-outdoor-parkade-plugins.18920/ https://www.gm-volt.com/threads/plugging-into-outdoor-parkad...
- theshrike79 4y agoOver here it's a 2 hour timer you set up, most cars heat up from 0600-0800 or 0700 to 0900, depending on when people start off to work.
- jeffalyanak 4y agoYup! I'm not sure what the max power output of those types of deployments are, but I've seen block heaters in Canada that pull as much as 1500 watts, so that's not insignificant.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoI think that calling this "an easy problem to solve" is really understating the issue. It may not require any new inventions or new technology, but it requires a monumental infrastructure effort, on the same scale as the original electrification processes that happened to industrialized societies 100 years ago.
- treis 4y agoFeel like solar panel roof/hood are an underrated solution here. Lots of people park outdoors and the trickle charge of 20-40 miles a day is nearly enough to meet the everyday needs.
- valyagolev 4y agoioniq 5 with solar roof promises like 6-7 km a day (4 miles in weird). can we expect an order of magnitude improvement here?
- maxerickson 4y agoNo. The solar panels are likely more than 10% efficient and the battery and motor are going to be pretty efficient. Hitting 100% efficiency on the solar panels is ~impossible, so even if you get really close to ideal on both sides of it you aren't going to do 10 times better. I guess a wildcard would be making the vehicle lighter.
- valyagolev 4y agoyeah i'm also sceptical and that's i'm worried that it's going to be part of a hype to symbolically buy them, wasting the materials to create solar panels even further, only for them to stand in a garage or otherwise well-protected from the sun by the buildings around
- treis 4y agoSolar panels are getting pretty darn cheap these days. A roof + hood panel system is probably in the low hundreds to 1k per car. And ultimately more panels being sold leads to lower prices for everyone long term due to economies of scale.
- timbit42 4y agoThe Aptera is lighter and can get 40 miles of range from its solar panels on a sunny day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiH-Y-HOvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiH-Y-HOvE
- jltsiren 4y agoThe plan is more like 80% EV. A key feature of technological progress is that some people and some places will always be left behind. At least without massive government intervention. Once EVs are in a clear majority, gas station network will start shutting down, as it is no longer a profitable business. Without easy refueling, old ICE cars will become almost useless for most purposes, and that 80% will start looking more like 100%.
- ip26 4y agoIt isn’t perfect, but 120V outlets are not that bad for overnight charging, and pretty easy to add. Some 50kW chargers nearby can top you off when you need extra. Some claim it’s impossible to add such outlets to parking everywhere, but I’ve noticed some wintery towns already do this- for block heaters!
- standardUser 4y agoAnd at one time there was no place to put gasoline into your automobile. How did that play out? It played out very well and you can fuel up with multiple types of fuel in every corner of the continent. EV charging is simple by comparison.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoThe same way it works out for ICE vehicles. Do you have a gas station at home?
- hammock 4y agoI never understood what the problem with hybrid EVs was. They seem like the best of both worlds. Drastically improved gas mileage - competitive with the effective mpg of a full EV - but without the requirement to build superchargers everywhere (and add 30-60min stops on your longer trips)
- speedgoose 4y agoThey are more expensive to buy, you need two drivetrains. They are more complex, you have two drivetrains. They are heavier, you have two drivetrains. They are not as nice to drive compared to any pure EV. You have to put gaz into them. You may look stupid in your neighbourhood too. Not everyone buy a car for the social status but buying a more expensive fossil car today is not cool. At least in Norwegian urban areas. But yes you save a few minutes if your long trim at the cost of losing a few minutes every time you fuel it.
- llampx 4y agoCounterpoint to all of the above except your image problems: batteries are heavy and expensive. Also, studies have shown that PHEVs have a similar maintenance cost per mile as BEVs.
- pmorici 4y agoIt won't be a big deal. Just like there are apartments without washing machines and people deal with it. The batteries are big enough that you really only need to charge once a week with a good EV and an average amount of driving. Tesla super chargers are often co located with grocery stores so people will just end up charging while they grocery shop once a week it will be a non issue. It's what I did for the first couple months before I installed an at home charger. minor inconvenience at worst.
- sillysaurusx 4y agoI was surprised there was a Tesla charger right nearby. I live in middle of nowhere Missouri. The future is bright. And electric, apparently.
- googlryas 4y agoCan you estimate the percent of households which aren't able to plug in an EV overnight?
- apexalpha 4y agoMost people also lack a gas station in their driveway, seems to work out.
- legulere 4y agoThere seems to be some movement in putting PV on the roof of cars. With that you can get a significant part of the needed electricity of everyday driving (average is between 30-50km, if you remove long distance trips you end up with much lower numbers).
- theshrike79 4y agoPV on car roofs is as useful as those powerbanks with solar cells on them. Unless you keep them in optimal sunlight 100% of the time, the amount of electricity generated is next to useless. The only smart use I've seen of that was my old Prius that ran a fan using the panel on the roof if it noticed the indoor temp was higher than outdoor. Kept the car cool-ish when parking during the summer.