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I think part of the problem here is that the public and government officials don't treat lack of charging infrastructure and broken chargers as an emergency. I

by elihu 3y ago

I think part of the problem here is that the public and government officials don't treat lack of charging infrastructure and broken chargers as an emergency. If a tree falls across a major road, you can bet there will be work crews showing up within hours to cut it up and move it aside to restore access, because a road with a tree across it doesn't function as a road anymore. We should treat lack of working charging infrastructure the same way: a road without the necessary infrastructure for EVs to traverse it with the confidence that they can charge when they need to isn't a road either. If EV owners really wanted to press the issue, they could protest by blocking roads. If, say, there's a dozen or so EVs all stuck at one charging station because the chargers are down, they could move their cars to the middle of the adjacent highway and form a roadblock. Unfortunately this isn't safe, as it would probably lead to violence from angry ICE drivers.

junofan 3y ago
Ideally EV owners would obtain a permit before blocking a highway. I would expect the violence to come from the state.
- elihu 3y ago
  I'm actually not sure what the legal criteria are around blocking roads. I mean, it's not unusual for protests to block roads, but there's usually some amount of rule-bending when it comes to protests -- that's often the point. I don't know if you can literally apply for a permit to have a protest that blocks a highway in most jurisdictions. I'd imagine in most cases you'd have the police come and give everyone a ticket and/or tow their vehicles. There is a significant recent precedent when it comes to vehicles blocking roads: there was the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest > "Beginning January 22, hundreds of vehicles formed convoys from several points and traversed Canadian provinces before converging on Ottawa on January 29, 2022, with a rally at Parliament Hill. The convoys were joined by thousands of pedestrian protesters. Several offshoot protests blockaded provincial capitals and border crossings with the United States." ... > "Between February 17 and 20, a large joint-operation police presence in Ottawa arrested organizers and protesters, removed parked vehicles, and dismantled blockades from Ottawa streets. By February 21, most of the protesters had been cleared from Ottawa." So, if you're right wing, you can shut down major cities for weeks with minimal consequences. I don't think EV owners protesting the sorry state of infrastructure would get the same treatment.
azinman2 3y ago
Do gas stations get treated the same?
- elihu 3y ago
  Come to think of it, that's probably going to happen eventually. There's no future for internal combustion ground transportation, and eventually most of those gas stations are going to be closed. I wouldn't be surprised if, when parts of the country begin to be unreachable by ICE vehicles because of lack of gas stations, some irate ICE truck owners block the roads in protest. It doesn't happen now because petroleum is available basically everywhere. "I had trouble locating an open gas station" is a problem that's happened to me I think once about twenty years ago, and even then we didn't have to go all that far to find an open gas station. (That I remember it at all had to do with the circumstances of the event. I was on a road trip through the deep south, and the police showed up at the second gas station and questioned us because someone apparently thought we were trying to rob the first gas station we stopped at which was closed.)
  - azinman2 3y ago
    We have a long way to go before this happens. EVs are still a small percentage of cars, we haven’t solved long haul trucks and many already exist (and are expensive to replace), charging times prohibit many scenarios, rural areas are going to be hard pressed for chargers, and EVs don’t do well with cold which a majority of people experience with winter (not everyone is in coastal west coast).
    - elihu 3y ago
      Those things can all be solved with current technology. Batteries can be insulated and heated to optimal temperatures in cold climates. There are already some roads in Sweden and Germany where trucks can charge from overhead lines while moving. One of the roads in Sweden uses rails embedded in slots in the road surface, which can be used by cars as well. The current fleet of cars will take a long time to replace, just because cars usually take a long time to wear out. I think we'll hit an inflection point soon, though, where it just doesn't make financial or practical sense to buy an ICE vehicle anymore. Infrastructure is a pretty big hold-up at this point. Battery manufacturing is also a bottleneck, but at least lithium prices have dropped quite a lot. There's nothing stopping companies from building a lot more factories for LFP cells.

by elihu 3y ago

junofan 3y ago

Ideally EV owners would obtain a permit before blocking a highway. I would expect the violence to come from the state.

elihu 3y ago
I'm actually not sure what the legal criteria are around blocking roads. I mean, it's not unusual for protests to block roads, but there's usually some amount of rule-bending when it comes to protests -- that's often the point. I don't know if you can literally apply for a permit to have a protest that blocks a highway in most jurisdictions. I'd imagine in most cases you'd have the police come and give everyone a ticket and/or tow their vehicles. There is a significant recent precedent when it comes to vehicles blocking roads: there was the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest > "Beginning January 22, hundreds of vehicles formed convoys from several points and traversed Canadian provinces before converging on Ottawa on January 29, 2022, with a rally at Parliament Hill. The convoys were joined by thousands of pedestrian protesters. Several offshoot protests blockaded provincial capitals and border crossings with the United States." ... > "Between February 17 and 20, a large joint-operation police presence in Ottawa arrested organizers and protesters, removed parked vehicles, and dismantled blockades from Ottawa streets. By February 21, most of the protesters had been cleared from Ottawa." So, if you're right wing, you can shut down major cities for weeks with minimal consequences. I don't think EV owners protesting the sorry state of infrastructure would get the same treatment.

azinman2 3y ago

Do gas stations get treated the same?

elihu 3y ago
Come to think of it, that's probably going to happen eventually. There's no future for internal combustion ground transportation, and eventually most of those gas stations are going to be closed. I wouldn't be surprised if, when parts of the country begin to be unreachable by ICE vehicles because of lack of gas stations, some irate ICE truck owners block the roads in protest. It doesn't happen now because petroleum is available basically everywhere. "I had trouble locating an open gas station" is a problem that's happened to me I think once about twenty years ago, and even then we didn't have to go all that far to find an open gas station. (That I remember it at all had to do with the circumstances of the event. I was on a road trip through the deep south, and the police showed up at the second gas station and questioned us because someone apparently thought we were trying to rob the first gas station we stopped at which was closed.)
- azinman2 3y ago
  We have a long way to go before this happens. EVs are still a small percentage of cars, we haven’t solved long haul trucks and many already exist (and are expensive to replace), charging times prohibit many scenarios, rural areas are going to be hard pressed for chargers, and EVs don’t do well with cold which a majority of people experience with winter (not everyone is in coastal west coast).
  - elihu 3y ago
    Those things can all be solved with current technology. Batteries can be insulated and heated to optimal temperatures in cold climates. There are already some roads in Sweden and Germany where trucks can charge from overhead lines while moving. One of the roads in Sweden uses rails embedded in slots in the road surface, which can be used by cars as well. The current fleet of cars will take a long time to replace, just because cars usually take a long time to wear out. I think we'll hit an inflection point soon, though, where it just doesn't make financial or practical sense to buy an ICE vehicle anymore. Infrastructure is a pretty big hold-up at this point. Battery manufacturing is also a bottleneck, but at least lithium prices have dropped quite a lot. There's nothing stopping companies from building a lot more factories for LFP cells.