8 ms·

I love the idea of "EV everywhere", but failing to acknowledge that vast swathes of the world do not have electric grids capable of supporting "all new cars are

by olliej 3y ago

I love the idea of "EV everywhere", but failing to acknowledge that vast swathes of the world do not have electric grids capable of supporting "all new cars are EV", or in some cases any grid at all, seems questionable.

greyface- 3y ago
The used vehicle market is robust. Those currently without access to adequate EV infrastructure can buy secondhand in the meantime.
- thatguy0900 3y ago
  Covid, a temporary vehicle disruption, caused used vehicles to appreciate in value instead of depreciate. The market is not very robust at all, unless you think paying above sticker price for a used car is something people can do. Keep in mind the people who would need to buy these are not the landlords who can install the infrastructure.
  - greyface- 3y ago
    This wasn't unique to used vehicles -- new vehicle prices also spiked during the same time frame.
    - delfinom 3y ago
      At roughly the same rate. The problem is far more people were hurt by used car prices than those of us fortunately well off enough to buy new cars.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Why would car companies leave money on the table like that by shutting out the majority of their customers? Seems like an awful business decision.
- quantified 3y ago
  The used market will explode in price. It'll be a long time before infrastructure gets where it needs to go. If I'm an automaker, I'm going to root for all of my competitors to drop internal combustion immediately and have it all to myself.
  - hengheng 3y ago
    Even in that setting there's no need for ICE R&D. Just leave the last production line running to eternity. Meanwhile the rest of the company is free to do the switch.
    - htag 3y ago
      There are probably a half dozen platforms that we could declare 'good enough' and stop all major R&D in. Maybe some changes to the interior/self driving systems as those are being researched for EVs anyway. Maybe some minor tweaks to the internals as issues are identified at scale. The design and production is good today, and it wouldn't be a major loss if they represent the height of consumer ICE while EVs take over. A large reason why car manufactures update model lines is to comply with updating emissions, efficiency, and safety regulations. This is the environmental condition that forces major model refreshes.
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    You’re not going to believe me, but: you can literally just charge an electric car with a 120V outlet. Generation capacity is also not a problem. The US used to double electricity generation every decade for like three or four decades in a row in the middle of the 20th century. A single doubling would be more than enough to power all electric cars, and there is no way we are going to switch all of them over to electric immediately. It would take 10 years from today if literally not a single new gasoline vehicle was sold in the US and EVs magically boosted production today to compensate. Oh even incredibly optimistically, you’re talking about two decades to transition which is much more time than needed to produce enough electricity. This is not at all the showstopper that folks on the internet claim it is with even a cursory look at historical data. In fact, electric companies need the additional demand to help justify and pay for building out new clean electricity production. The extra electric demand is essential for preventing a cost spiral as we transition to clean electricity. But again, that is sort of the opposite of what every commentator on the Internet says.
- veggieburrito 3y ago
  I agree the used vehicle market is robust but the rest of your comment communicates extreme negativity. Will leave it at that.
  - greyface- 3y ago
    Not my intention at all, and to be honest, I still don't see it. It's likely I'm not recognizing the full connotations of my phrasing (some of which was borrowed from the comment I was replying to). I've edited the comment to try to use more neutral phrasing.
wmf 3y ago
Third-tier automakers will keep building ICE cars for developing markets.
anigbrowl 3y ago
Sure, but the point is that EV can be the main focus and ICE can be the 'legacy propulsion' division.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  these companies have global supply chains across dozens of countries, multi year contracts with suppliers, many existing locations and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of employees. It's not a videogame, you can't just open a dropdown menu and declare you're now a different company. Also of course the customers aren't there. EV sales in Japan is 2% of the market, 7% in the US, 15% in Europe and China. Makes no sense to drop everything and ignore 90% of your consumers.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Nobody is saying to drop everything. I'm talking about the internal organization of the company.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    That’s true, which is why countries are enacting new fossil fuel vehicle sales by future deadlines. It gives industry time to reconfigure but also doesn’t let them off the hook to deliver.
quantified 3y ago
There are a lot of parallel actions that need to occur. Many many landlords will need to be forced by statute to provide charging facilities. For the many who only have street parking, their mobility and therefore economic productivity will be a problem unless the city and regional transportation dynamics also change. I don't see every lamppost becoming a charger, and there are more parking places than streetlights anyway.
- vegetablepotpie 3y ago
  Right, and landlords are not the only barrier either. To accommodate the larger loads from charging EVs landlords will need larger grid hookups. They’re expensive and utilities don’t just give those out, they build them to sell you more electricity. If none of your tenants own EVs (yet), the utility will still want compensation for their investment regardless. Who provides that is not answered nationally, but by state utility commissions. There’s lots of parties involved to answer the EV infrastructure question, electrical coops, investor owned utilities, property management companies, utility boards, local, state, and national governments. They all have vastly different incentives and electric car users need them all to walk in lock step to provide adequate EV infrastructure. I don’t see that happening without a serious public mandate, and visionary charismatic leadership.
  - quantified 3y ago
    By the concerns you raise, we need to note that "landlord" covers a lot of ground. There are owners of large buildings, and there are owners of one or two small apartment buildings, and there are owners of grandma's house rented out or one half of a two-family. Each has its own challenge. Even as a property owner, the wife's car in the driveway put mine in the street.
- veggieburrito 3y ago
  This is such an understated point, especially on HN! EVs can be great for certain use cases and individuals but, as as renter, do not fit my situation at all.
bad_alloc 3y ago
EVs use energy much more effectively and can be charged from local renewables. The import of petrol and its distribution is also a massive headache in many places. What is likely needed though is a way to charge EVs ar just a couple of hundred watts, to not overload anything.
- olliej 3y ago
  You need (at current market rates) something in excess of $10k in solar panels to be able to fully charge an EV, plus additional high power charging equipment so that you can get more than a few miles of charge per hour. The other generally available renewable is wind. Wind generators look like prices are somewhere around a dollar per watt of maximum output once you get beyond low end ~400W outputs. So again you're looking at 10s of thousands of dollars in hardware. Both Solar and Wind are not continuous generators, so you'll need batteries, which for a reasonable capacity you're looking at more than 10k. There are micro hydro generators but they all require a reasonable head and flow, and the way they throw around generation figures I couldn't work out when they were talking maximum output vs cumulative output over a day, month, or year (TBF this is a common problem with all discussions I can find about home power generation). Geothermal generators are out of the question, they're not generally available, and there's no real small scale story that generates power in "I have an EV" quantities that I can find.

by olliej 3y ago

greyface- 3y ago

The used vehicle market is robust. Those currently without access to adequate EV infrastructure can buy secondhand in the meantime.

thatguy0900 3y ago
Covid, a temporary vehicle disruption, caused used vehicles to appreciate in value instead of depreciate. The market is not very robust at all, unless you think paying above sticker price for a used car is something people can do. Keep in mind the people who would need to buy these are not the landlords who can install the infrastructure.
- greyface- 3y ago
  This wasn't unique to used vehicles -- new vehicle prices also spiked during the same time frame.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    At roughly the same rate. The problem is far more people were hurt by used car prices than those of us fortunately well off enough to buy new cars.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
Why would car companies leave money on the table like that by shutting out the majority of their customers? Seems like an awful business decision.
quantified 3y ago
The used market will explode in price. It'll be a long time before infrastructure gets where it needs to go. If I'm an automaker, I'm going to root for all of my competitors to drop internal combustion immediately and have it all to myself.
- hengheng 3y ago
  Even in that setting there's no need for ICE R&D. Just leave the last production line running to eternity. Meanwhile the rest of the company is free to do the switch.
  - htag 3y ago
    There are probably a half dozen platforms that we could declare 'good enough' and stop all major R&D in. Maybe some changes to the interior/self driving systems as those are being researched for EVs anyway. Maybe some minor tweaks to the internals as issues are identified at scale. The design and production is good today, and it wouldn't be a major loss if they represent the height of consumer ICE while EVs take over. A large reason why car manufactures update model lines is to comply with updating emissions, efficiency, and safety regulations. This is the environmental condition that forces major model refreshes.
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  You’re not going to believe me, but: you can literally just charge an electric car with a 120V outlet. Generation capacity is also not a problem. The US used to double electricity generation every decade for like three or four decades in a row in the middle of the 20th century. A single doubling would be more than enough to power all electric cars, and there is no way we are going to switch all of them over to electric immediately. It would take 10 years from today if literally not a single new gasoline vehicle was sold in the US and EVs magically boosted production today to compensate. Oh even incredibly optimistically, you’re talking about two decades to transition which is much more time than needed to produce enough electricity. This is not at all the showstopper that folks on the internet claim it is with even a cursory look at historical data. In fact, electric companies need the additional demand to help justify and pay for building out new clean electricity production. The extra electric demand is essential for preventing a cost spiral as we transition to clean electricity. But again, that is sort of the opposite of what every commentator on the Internet says.
veggieburrito 3y ago
I agree the used vehicle market is robust but the rest of your comment communicates extreme negativity. Will leave it at that.
- greyface- 3y ago
  Not my intention at all, and to be honest, I still don't see it. It's likely I'm not recognizing the full connotations of my phrasing (some of which was borrowed from the comment I was replying to). I've edited the comment to try to use more neutral phrasing.

wmf 3y ago

Third-tier automakers will keep building ICE cars for developing markets.

anigbrowl 3y ago

Sure, but the point is that EV can be the main focus and ICE can be the 'legacy propulsion' division.

Barrin92 3y ago
these companies have global supply chains across dozens of countries, multi year contracts with suppliers, many existing locations and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of employees. It's not a videogame, you can't just open a dropdown menu and declare you're now a different company. Also of course the customers aren't there. EV sales in Japan is 2% of the market, 7% in the US, 15% in Europe and China. Makes no sense to drop everything and ignore 90% of your consumers.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Nobody is saying to drop everything. I'm talking about the internal organization of the company.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  That’s true, which is why countries are enacting new fossil fuel vehicle sales by future deadlines. It gives industry time to reconfigure but also doesn’t let them off the hook to deliver.

quantified 3y ago

There are a lot of parallel actions that need to occur. Many many landlords will need to be forced by statute to provide charging facilities. For the many who only have street parking, their mobility and therefore economic productivity will be a problem unless the city and regional transportation dynamics also change. I don't see every lamppost becoming a charger, and there are more parking places than streetlights anyway.

vegetablepotpie 3y ago
Right, and landlords are not the only barrier either. To accommodate the larger loads from charging EVs landlords will need larger grid hookups. They’re expensive and utilities don’t just give those out, they build them to sell you more electricity. If none of your tenants own EVs (yet), the utility will still want compensation for their investment regardless. Who provides that is not answered nationally, but by state utility commissions. There’s lots of parties involved to answer the EV infrastructure question, electrical coops, investor owned utilities, property management companies, utility boards, local, state, and national governments. They all have vastly different incentives and electric car users need them all to walk in lock step to provide adequate EV infrastructure. I don’t see that happening without a serious public mandate, and visionary charismatic leadership.
- quantified 3y ago
  By the concerns you raise, we need to note that "landlord" covers a lot of ground. There are owners of large buildings, and there are owners of one or two small apartment buildings, and there are owners of grandma's house rented out or one half of a two-family. Each has its own challenge. Even as a property owner, the wife's car in the driveway put mine in the street.
veggieburrito 3y ago
This is such an understated point, especially on HN! EVs can be great for certain use cases and individuals but, as as renter, do not fit my situation at all.

bad_alloc 3y ago

EVs use energy much more effectively and can be charged from local renewables. The import of petrol and its distribution is also a massive headache in many places. What is likely needed though is a way to charge EVs ar just a couple of hundred watts, to not overload anything.

olliej 3y ago
You need (at current market rates) something in excess of $10k in solar panels to be able to fully charge an EV, plus additional high power charging equipment so that you can get more than a few miles of charge per hour. The other generally available renewable is wind. Wind generators look like prices are somewhere around a dollar per watt of maximum output once you get beyond low end ~400W outputs. So again you're looking at 10s of thousands of dollars in hardware. Both Solar and Wind are not continuous generators, so you'll need batteries, which for a reasonable capacity you're looking at more than 10k. There are micro hydro generators but they all require a reasonable head and flow, and the way they throw around generation figures I couldn't work out when they were talking maximum output vs cumulative output over a day, month, or year (TBF this is a common problem with all discussions I can find about home power generation). Geothermal generators are out of the question, they're not generally available, and there's no real small scale story that generates power in "I have an EV" quantities that I can find.