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> ... trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a char

• theptip 3y ago
  With enough market penetration you just plug in to the nearest street light. https://www.evstreetcharge.co.uk/ https://www.evstreetcharge.co.uk/
  • robaato 3y ago
    We have them locally - but parking is generally not easy - so getting to chargers isn't either...
• chrisbolt 3y ago
  The market is mature enough to have standards for charging, but is nowhere near being mature for battery swaps. The charging problem will be solved long before battery swaps get close to being a thing, especially with the recent convergence on NACS.
  • b112 3y ago
    Which is why h2 is the answer. h2 that is shown to work, regardless of all the hyperbole and reckless claims battery fans make.
    • klodolph 3y ago
      Just need to solve that pesky little storage problem and it will all be coming up roses…
      • hedora 3y ago
        H2O is a pretty robust storage solution for H2. The bigger issue is scaling down cracking stations so you can use stranded electricity from solar and wind to generate the H2.
        • klodolph 3y ago
          That doesn’t make any sense at all. The point of storing H2 is to use it as a way to store energy. If you store it as H2O, you’re not storing energy any more, it’s just water. It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam.”
          • 7speter 3y ago
            >It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam You’re obviously not a New Yorker
      • b112 3y ago
        And here we go. If the storage problem is an issue, how are all these h2 cars getting refueled? And how is the h2 getting to them? And how is it stored before shipping? It's not a problem. At all.
        • klodolph 3y ago
          “It’s a problem” is not the same as “it is impossible.” Likewise, “It’s possible to ship and store H2” is not the same thing as “it’s not a problem to ship and store H2”.
          • b112 3y ago
            Meanwhile, the presumed "problem" was "preventing adoption", yet my counter point invalidated your statement. H2 is a success. It's stored. It's usable, in consumer driving applications. It's being refueled by consumers, right now, world wide. It's not a problem. At all.
    • toast0 3y ago
      I don't think the US is ready for a compressed gas powered car. Natural gas vehicles are basically gone except for some fleets, and there was already extensive distribution of natural gas. The fuel tanks on compressed gas cars expire, and chances are it won't be economical to replace them; it certainly wasn't economical to replace natural gas tanks when I was looking circa 2016. When cars are lasting longer and longer, having a 15 or 20 year ceiling on the life of a vehicle that's not connected to the amount of use is a problem. EV batteries might wear out over time, but that's more connected to number of charge cycles than how much time has passed. Maybe it took too long, but we've got a single standard for high powered charging going forward, and I think J1772 is universal for PHEVs and slow charging of EVs. Eventually, people running charging networks will figure out how to keep their machines working and add card readers. My favorite broken charger is the wireless ones --- someone has run off with the cable, but hey the advertising display still works.
    • tsimionescu 3y ago
      That is one of the least efficient solutions possible - making hydrogen gas from water is at best 50% efficiency, and then you get to burn that hydrogen in a thermal engine with 30% efficiency.
      • brohee 3y ago
        Fuel cells have much better efficiency no?
        • b112 3y ago
          This is the problem with the anti-h2 crowd. It's almost all based upon lack of understanding. One person in this thread, was talking about cars, with no knowledge or understand that 3 separate manufacturers have h2 products on the market. Not 3 cars. 3 manufacturers. Another was discussing things as if it's an insurmountable task, that having h2 in cars is "really hard", yet these cars are being sold and used all over the world, with loads of adoption in Japan. People make up weird claims about efficiency. About storage. About where h2 comes from. On and on and on. It's so ... absurd. This isn't a 'my team your team' thing, yet it seems like, especially americans, are wired this way. "It's not thing $x, thus evil! wrong!! We must, absolutely must destroy any hope of this other thing existing. h2 is the future for many application and usage spaces, and I can see batteries the same way too. It's not either or, and made up claims won't help the green movement at all.
        • tsimionescu 3y ago
          They're a maximum 85% efficiency, with a range of 40-60%, and then you're supplying electricity to a 90% efficiency electric motor. So, overall, you have 90% of 85% of 50% of the generated electricity going into moving your car, so at best around 38.5%. In contrast, an electric car uses electricity to charge a 99% efficient battery, and discharge to the 90% engine. So, 89% efficiency - much, much better.
    • wenyuanyu 3y ago
      Honestly, H2's got a long long way (if viable at all) to go as the future of clean cars. There is not much natural H2. In a way, H2 acts like a battery as well using electricity to produce from H2O, and discharge as electricity to H2O. Producing it cleanly, like with green power, isn't efficient yet – it's only around 70% efficient. Plus, getting H2 from the factory to the customer is way way pricier than just using our current electricity grid for charging stations... Converting it to electricity is only about ~30% efficient(?) It will cost a few times more than electricity in the foreseeable future. It will be definitely much harder than have charging stations everywhere. Not to mention the technical challenges (assume we can handle) of the low volume density, low temperature..
      • tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        > There is not much natural H2 There may well be, we don’t really know because we haven’t been looking for it at any scale.
      • b112 3y ago
        There's no clean power for cars at all. Every extra joule of energy used by cars, should be considered coming from the dirties of fuels... because the first thing we do, when we have an excess of power generation, is turn off the dirty plants. But outside of that, these things will improve, although your numbers are a bit out there.
    • brnt 3y ago
      Storage of H2 is a challenge in space and weight constrained devices such as cars. Plus, any well to wheels analysis shows H2 coming up behind the alternatives in efficiency. There aren't claims, these are physical constraints. For heavy vehicles such as trucks and busses (and trains) there might be a market, provided the H2 is an otherwise unused byproduct of some process and needn't be produced, but for the majority of personal mobility major breakthroughs are required to make it competitive.
      • b112 3y ago
        Yet there are 3 separate car manufacturers, with h2 passenger vehicles, all with 500km+ range, all being sold for 1/2 a decade. Seems like it isn't a physical constraint?
        • brnt 3y ago
          I did some (academic) research in a group working on storage (tanks and metal hydrides), so yeah, I know why it's only 3 and they all did it 20 years ago. Sources for such into aren't private, but I have the feeling you've never looked at them.
          • b112 3y ago
            20 years ago? These are sold now. Today. So much denial in the anti h2 crowd.
            • brnt 3y ago
              It's the same cars, from the same companies, using the same tech (structural use of metal hydrides isnt commercially viable yet). I'm not anti H2, why would I? I'm not part of any crowd. I just did part of my physics training on the subject. 20 years ago, while there were more H2 vehicles on the road, nobody in the H2 storage fields thought it would last. On a basc level, the physics of getting electrons out of a material is better than getting protons out. And then there is an already preexisting infrastructure for free.
        • 3y ago
    • coderenegade 3y ago
      I think green methanol is more likely, since that's what global shipping seems to be converging on. Methanol is really just a vector for H2, but you can make it without having to first synthesize H2 (although you can do that too if you want). Depending on the method of production, I've seen efficiency numbers around that of producing LH2, but you get a product that is liquid at STP conditions, which is a huge advantage.
    • andoma 3y ago
      One of the biggest upsides of an EV is that you charge at home. Always start in the morning fully charged. No "Dang, need to go to the station". H2 is definitely not a step in that direction so for me it's DOA.
      • b112 3y ago
        Indeed, for you this seems to be the case. For many, it's a royal pain to charge an EV. Maybe your apartment doesn't have plugs, for whatever reason. You work from home. You have to go somewhere to charge, and then wait. For such people, and there's a lot of these people, h2 is less work (quicker fill up) than electric charging. Right now, electric cars are targeting the wealthy. Wealthy people tend to have houses. That could certainly change, but even if it starts to target those with less fiscal fortitude, many such live in apartments with no charging infrastructure. What then?
  • brnt 3y ago
    I'd call the charging market far from nature. Installing random apps, practically per charging point? Or requiring a second wallet for all the 'network' cards? Wake me up when I need nothing more than the payment card I already carry.
    • DoesntMatter22 3y ago
      It's solved because you just use Tedla super chargers and that's it.
      • brnt 3y ago
        These don't exist in Europe.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • nsteel 3y ago
          Rubbish. > The stations are primarily deployed in three regions: Asia Pacific (over 2,000), North America (over 2,000), and Europe (over 1,000). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger Some supercharger stations also work with other cars. I used them over Christmas with my Kia. Surprisingly they were faster and cheaper than anything else in the area.
          • brnt 3y ago
            Those in Europese arent what they are in the US, they're just, of ten individuap, stations with the common plug, just like the other ones.
            • nsteel 3y ago
              What are they like the in the US? I've searched and on the face of it they look just like the ones I used in the UK with two types of connector (like in the picture at https://thedriven.io/2022/02/27/where-can-you-charge-a-tesla-or-other-electric-car-for-free/ https://thedriven.io/2022/02/27/where-can-you-charge-a-tesla...)
• kylebenzle 3y ago
  I thought batteries being built into the frame was the direction things were going, right?
• otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  Swappable batteries are a huge fire hazard. They stopped doing that even for scooters. Too dangerous.
  • donatj 3y ago
    We’ve literally got people right now open air pouring liquid gasoline. It’s not uncommon to even get some on yourself. My point is it can’t be much more of a hazard.
    • klodolph 3y ago
      This is gonna sound crazy but gasoline is not that much of a fire hazard. I’m speaking comparatively. I used a gasoline stove for a while and it is bonkers how hard that thing is to light. You can spill the gas or do all sorts of things—the only thing I could do to get a fire out of it was to follow the instructions, exactly, and keep the stove perfectly level. I later learned that gasoline only burns if you keep the gasoline / air mixture within a narrow range. I know that gasoline is implicated in a lot of fires, but it’s also just so damn common and people are careless with it. Powerful batteries scare me more, to be honest. Not a lot more, just a little. Not trying to fearmonger here. It’s just that I love those sparks and that fire, and have spent time playing with batteries and playing with gasoline or other flammable substances. If you short a battery, it will basically dump as much energy as it can, as fast as it can. It’s easier to accidentally short a battery. Properly stored & maintained batteries are fine. I just get a little nervous holding a wrench, sometimes.
    • otabdeveloper4 3y ago
      Gasoline is not much of a fire hazard. (Compared to other things like a 32 ampere spark right next to a lithium battery, at least.)
    • petre 3y ago
      Sounds like you haven't seen a lithium or a sodium fire yet. After you've seen one, you'll handle batteries like you do explosives..
  • 3y ago
• moconnor 3y ago
  I used to think this, but my car adds about 300km range in 20-30 mins on one of the many plentiful 300kW chargers in my area. A whole chain of gas stations now has 6-8 high-speed chargers on the forecourt. I plug in, take a break in the heated seat and call a friend, unplug and drive away. On long trips stopping for 20-30 mins every few hours is ~normal anyway. Stretch my legs, use a restroom, have a drink, get back on the road. Newer cars charge even faster. I don't think battery swapping is going to be important in the end.
• masklinn 3y ago
  To me battery swapping makes no sense for consumer cars unless it’s used to significantly increase prices (possibly by removing home charging as well): battery swapping requires a ton more maintenance, space, infrastructure, and logistics, constrains vehicles enormously, and requires a very small number of standard battery formats.
  • malfist 3y ago
    Battery swapping is also not very accessible, not evening can lift 50+ pounds
    • masklinn 3y ago
      Oh battery swapping would be entirely automated, no way you'd do it at home (let alone on the reg). Nio Inc. has videos of the process, and that's what you'd expect (and I assume what tesla tried at one time), you drive to a booth, the car gets locked in and the battery is replaced automatically, then you drive out.
      • heavenlyblue 3y ago
        Who owns the battery?
        • dagw 3y ago
          In the NIO case, NIO owns the battery and you pay a monthly leasing fee. One interesting feature this allows is that you can lease a cheaper low capacity battery for the 48-50 weeks of the year you drive less then 100 miles a day, and upgrade to a more expensive high capacity battery for the few times you're driving far.
    • borg_ 3y ago
      https://www.nio.cn/charger-map https://www.nio.cn/charger-map This map has real time stats on battery swap. Unfortunately it's only available in Chinese. NIO has done 35 million battery swap to date and you can see where the swap stations are located. Not quite as accessible as your gas stations but not far off especially in the large cities.
• forgotusername6 3y ago
  I wonder if it would be easier to switch to say a part swappable battery, rather than try and make the whole thing swappable. Something smaller, but with a reasonable range, say 50 miles, might allow for a smaller ejection port on the car and possibly even light enough to handle by a person.
  • petre 3y ago
    NIO (Chinese brand) has solid state swappable batteries and a battery swapping station in a shipping container. You still need standardisation between all manufactureres for it to work.
  • tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    Or hook up a battery in a trailer for the occasional long journey.
    • forgotusername6 3y ago
      This is a good idea. Why carry round all that weight 100% of the time when you can only take it when you need it.
      • masklinn 3y ago
        One of the issues with that idea is you need very heavy duty connectors, EVs are hundreds of amps coming out.
        • ssl-3 3y ago
          A trailer mounted auxiliary battery doesn't need to supply hundreds of amps of current. It can supply energy slowly, perhaps at dozens-of-amps. The only time when an EV gets into hundreds of amps territory is when it is doing real work: Work like accelerating, or going uphill (or both). Maintaining a speed on a straight stretch of highway is not a huge burden in terms of work, and that is where I think that a trailer-mounted battery might shine brightest. The car's internal battery can take the brunt of rapid acceleration tasks and get filled back up over time, just like it already does in normal charge-daily EV use. So to put some of this into real terms: 20A at 355V is 7,100 Watts, or about 9.5 horsepower. That's a ton of real work. 100A at 355V is 35,500 Watts, or about 47 horsepower. Way more than plenty to keep a portly EV heading down the highway. The connection for the trailer APU doesn't need to handle the peak current draw of hundreds of amps. It just needs to be able to (slowly) pick up some slack and thus provide greater range. Like the BMW i3 with the gas-fired range extender: The EV drivetrain could consume a ton more peak power than the built-in genset could produce, and that's OK. It's not like people are using these in endurance racing or something. Most real-world driving is pretty mundane, with only occasional instances of rapid acceleration.
• imtringued 3y ago
  What makes you think complicated swapping stations are going to be ubiquitous compared to chargers?
• datavirtue 3y ago
  My wife and many millions of others will not be lifting any batteries. She asks me to deal with the batteries in the TV remote.