4 ms·

True, but ideally we'd reduce land that's allotted to simply parking a car long-term, instead of turning a single gas station into something like 250 parking sp

by scld 4y ago

True, but ideally we'd reduce land that's allotted to simply parking a car long-term, instead of turning a single gas station into something like 250 parking spaces spread out around town. There are just certain sections of the country where you'd either have to turn half of the streetlamps into a chargers (maybe a good idea?)...or make a modular battery swap gas station scheme....or stick with ICE.

markdown 4y ago
You'd never have to visit a "gas" station. You'd charge at home, at work, everywhere the car parks. Every parking lot in every building will be a charging station. You plug in your car wherever you are, and get a bill from the electricity company at the end of the month. Just park the car, and the lot will charge your batteries for you.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  So instead of building some gas stations here and there we just install hundreds of thousands charging stations on private and public property across a metro?
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    It's not a "charging station", it's an electrical outlet. Your house probably has a couple dozen of them, they're cheap and easy to install. In cold regions, most parking spots already have one so people can plug in their block heater. That's proof by example that it can be done.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    You need to change your view of a "charging station". It's not the huge fridge sized thing that says "Electrify America" or something on it. It's just a normal plug, maybe with some components related to metering and billing included. Load balancing if you want to be fancy.
- scld 4y ago
  Yeah, the issue is that you'll either have to install chargers every 10 feet in almost every city, or come up with some scheme to swap batteries, or have more "gas" stations because the charge time is longer. My town has on average 1 car per household, but I'd guess like 0.25 off street spots per household. That's a lot of infrastructure on public land.
  - markdown 4y ago
    > Yeah, the issue is that you'll either have to install chargers every 10 feet in almost every city It's just an electrical outlet. There are dozens of them for every parking spot already, in the house/office/building. Adding an extra electrical outlet isn't hard for a homeowner/lot-owner to do. This isn't going to have to happen overnight. It will happen slowly over two decades.
    - scld 4y ago
      I think we're talking about completely different areas. There aren't any electrical outlets on any of the parking meters or utility polls in my city or the surrounded city, and it's illegal to run an extension cord from, say, your 3rd story window, down the side of the building, across the sidewalk, to the street. Regardless though, you're correct that it will take decades, but I think that this is one reason why a CEO wouldn't be all in. If it's going to take 25 years for a large chunk of customers to buy an EV, you still have a lot of cars to sell that are ICE.
lostapathy 4y ago
The point isn't to add new parking spots for EV charging - it's to making charging available at places you normally park anyway. A trip to the grocery store takes 30-45 minutes. If even 20% of the existing spots had a charger (even a modest rate charge), you'll get quite a bit of charge. Or if 20% of the parking spots at your workplace had chargers, you could leave it on the charger all day one day a week and charge very slowly (which as a bonus, low-rate chargers should be easier to provision than superchargers).

by scld 4y ago

markdown 4y ago

You'd never have to visit a "gas" station. You'd charge at home, at work, everywhere the car parks. Every parking lot in every building will be a charging station. You plug in your car wherever you are, and get a bill from the electricity company at the end of the month. Just park the car, and the lot will charge your batteries for you.

nonethewiser 4y ago
So instead of building some gas stations here and there we just install hundreds of thousands charging stations on private and public property across a metro?
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  It's not a "charging station", it's an electrical outlet. Your house probably has a couple dozen of them, they're cheap and easy to install. In cold regions, most parking spots already have one so people can plug in their block heater. That's proof by example that it can be done.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  You need to change your view of a "charging station". It's not the huge fridge sized thing that says "Electrify America" or something on it. It's just a normal plug, maybe with some components related to metering and billing included. Load balancing if you want to be fancy.
scld 4y ago
Yeah, the issue is that you'll either have to install chargers every 10 feet in almost every city, or come up with some scheme to swap batteries, or have more "gas" stations because the charge time is longer. My town has on average 1 car per household, but I'd guess like 0.25 off street spots per household. That's a lot of infrastructure on public land.
- markdown 4y ago
  > Yeah, the issue is that you'll either have to install chargers every 10 feet in almost every city It's just an electrical outlet. There are dozens of them for every parking spot already, in the house/office/building. Adding an extra electrical outlet isn't hard for a homeowner/lot-owner to do. This isn't going to have to happen overnight. It will happen slowly over two decades.
  - scld 4y ago
    I think we're talking about completely different areas. There aren't any electrical outlets on any of the parking meters or utility polls in my city or the surrounded city, and it's illegal to run an extension cord from, say, your 3rd story window, down the side of the building, across the sidewalk, to the street. Regardless though, you're correct that it will take decades, but I think that this is one reason why a CEO wouldn't be all in. If it's going to take 25 years for a large chunk of customers to buy an EV, you still have a lot of cars to sell that are ICE.

lostapathy 4y ago

The point isn't to add new parking spots for EV charging - it's to making charging available at places you normally park anyway. A trip to the grocery store takes 30-45 minutes. If even 20% of the existing spots had a charger (even a modest rate charge), you'll get quite a bit of charge. Or if 20% of the parking spots at your workplace had chargers, you could leave it on the charger all day one day a week and charge very slowly (which as a bonus, low-rate chargers should be easier to provision than superchargers).