5 ms·

The problem with electric cars is charging infrastructure in cites. An electric bike or scooter can be brought indoors to charge.

tim333 2y ago
That's part of it. I had a look in central London and I could sort of charge but the costs are very different too - something like £20k for a car whereas I got a used ebike for £180 and it's much quicker to get around on and you don't have the parking issues.
conductr 2y ago
It’s not so much of a problem due to the average daily drive being a fraction of range. So long as you can charge at home, city life is fine for electric cars.
- edwcross 2y ago
  Most countries still do not mandate that new apartments include charging ports for parking spots. So densely-populated areas will still be plagued with non-EC compatible buildings for decades to come. That's what "city life" mean in several countries.
  - eftpotrm 2y ago
    Agreed, but they're not that complex to retrofit to a parking space. I can foresee a future where each space has a port and an account card reader - they'd make the buildings more valuable, the supplier to that space has a basically guaranteed income stream, and the government has an easy emissions reduction. Wins all round, so why wouldn't it happen?
    - NewJazz 2y ago
      The operator could demand an exclusivity contract from the landlord, provide faulty equipment, then charge high fees to repair it, eventually leading to many stalls non-functional until the contract is invalidated in court or the two parties settle, the chargers are ripped out, maybe with purposeful permanent damage to the wiring to make it unusable, and another mildly more honest provider comes in and does something slightly better but not by much. Or, an enterprising landchad could realize they can charge 10% more kWh than people actually pull (blaming efficiency losses), along with a healthy margin for "maintenance". Lots can go wrong.
      - eftpotrm 2y ago
        Sure, it's a market with massive abuse potential, but we have a world full of them and we regulate to control the abuses. The underlying service is clearly of societal benefit and would clearly be profitable to all parties, so it's worth doing and working out the regulation to make it viable.
  - ehnto 2y ago
    Cities shouldn't have to mandate carparks, let alone charging in them. Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that. Pre-empting, obviously many places still require cars, but we shouldn't codify cars into the building code. It makes everything that bit more expensive, and it's a waste of valuable city real estate. At the moment the cost per square meter in Melbourne and my city means a single carspace is worth more than my salary. That's ridiculous.
    - tonyhart7 2y ago
      "Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that." Yeah its sounds great until you need mass transport system to support this idea which means only mega cities can benefit the most when tier 2 and tier 3 cities is having a hard time investment see: japan
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Tokyo has a great subway system (for the most part--there are locations that aren't that well served) and there's good train service between many moderate-sized cities in Japan. But my experience is that, once you get to a city outside of Tokyo, the public transportation options aren't great.
        amrocha 2y ago
        I’ve personally never felt like I needed a car in fukuoka, osaka, or kyoto. What places did you have a bad experience at?
        ghaff 2y ago
        Not really a bad experience but I was able to walk as a tourist to where I wanted to go because the areas were pretty centrally located. The one time I took a bus to somewhere--don't remember location--it wasn't that convenient.
        2y ago
  - PatronBernard 2y ago
    Densely populated areas shouldn't have surface-area-inefficient cars as a main mode of transportation at all! Good public transport and the other 2-wheel modes should do just fine, but of course those aren't as profitable.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Good public transport is the key part and I can tell that in most European cities, not the capitals that everyone visits when they say they have been on country XYZ only hanging on the city center without even venturing into the suburbs, that is quite far from where they were supposed to be.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        A lot of people look at Europe through the lens of the tourist areas of large cities. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the UK countryside and smaller towns, there is absolutely not a good public transit system even if there might be a few buses during the day. Heck. I arrived by train from London to a town where I found the busses to the start of my walk were basically non-existent. Fortunately a taxi pulled up as I was trying to find a taxi service by cell as the train station didn't have any staff.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Yep, exactly my point.
        stuaxo 2y ago
        Bus deregulation wrecked public transport for much of the smaller places in the UK. One of the positive things labour has done is allowed local authorities more control over this, which should help - I can also imagine them being very bad at communicating this if it does. Of course I'd prefer a bunch more investment too, more train lines and go ahead with many of the previously touted tram schemes.
    - conductr 2y ago
      It’s a great ideal state, I just happen to think it’s several decades away. Most people reading this will never witness it. We’ve already heavily invested in what you say should not exist. Financial inertia is strong to keep things on that path. However if we, US, shrink our vehicles we can double or triple the throughput of current roads.
  - goodpoint 2y ago
    Countries should mandate not owning a car.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >It’s not so much of a problem due to the average daily drive being a fraction of range Most people who own a car in cities in Europe also use it for long commutes to visit family in weekends or on holidays, often crossing borders. Range is then a problem since most families can afford only one car so edge cases matter. Maybe the wealthy Benelux and Scandinavia have top EV charring infrastructure but a lot of central, eastern and southern Europe is lacking.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    It is the 1% or 10% case. Like for me going to bigger airport. Renting a car would be complete waste for it to sit a week there. And for range I would want something that can get me there in one go and back also in one go, with week of sitting idle. As adding extra 30 minutes to 1h travel time on top of all time it takes is less than ideal living. And public transport would add even more time or less flexibility those types of trips. Also there is some possibility that there is no power at for example summer home...
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      >It is the 1% or 10% case. Not based on where I live. Many people I know routinely drive hundreds of KM on a weekly basis to their families and renting a car for that doesn't makes sense.
      - NewJazz 2y ago
        The Hyundai Ioniq 6 has a range of over 500 km, and typical 20-80% charging times are around 20 minutes. Where in Europe can you drive 350 km and not pass a single charger?
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Where did I say there are no chargers? Charging on long trips increases the time of the journey by a lot. And many EU drivers don't have money for a new Ioniq 6.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  Maybe if you live in suburban single family house, but not if you live “in cities”.
  - conductr 2y ago
    I'm in US and most of our cities are mainly comprised mostly of suburban single family houses, but even if you don't live like that, you could also easily seek out a weekly/biweekly charge station and cover most of your needs. The problem comes with long range drivers and charging station availability concerns
- jonasdegendt 2y ago
  Heck I can't plug my car in at home and it's still fine. I simply plan for the fact that I might spend 20 minutes here or there at the charger, at most once a week. Best case I do some grocery shopping, worst case I just sit in the car watching YouTube, either way is fine.
  - stavros 2y ago
    I don't know, I'm kind of annoyed to have to go to the charger. My parents' house has a plug and the car is always full, whenever I need it. It does make a difference in convenience, so I'm installing a charger in my garage in a few days as well. However, many parking lots have slowish AC chargers nowadays, so it's very convenient to have the car charge for an hour or two while I do my shopping or whatever. Basically, it's the difference between having to wait specifically for a charge or whether I'm doing my own thing and charging the car as a bonus.
moffkalast 2y ago
Solar freakin' parking lot roofs.
- consp 2y ago
  Or get rid of parking lots and build other infrastructure. Solar roofing is quite expensive and it is also much easier to do on an existing building which requires less investment.(Thus is done first). I've seen some happen but only as trail-by-subsidization or because the owner didn't care about the cost.
kqr 2y ago
The problem with electric cars is that you're still taking a heavy metal box, a large storage chest, a couch, and two recliners with you whether you need them or not. That's always going to be a problem, no matter how well charging works.
- Lutger 2y ago
  I agree. I'm all for phasing out cars completely, but I don't think it is realistic even if there would be support for it. Next best thing is to move cars to the edges of districts in urban areas. Create big parking spaces, covered in solar panels and equip them with chargers. Design them in such a way that everybody can walk in 5-10 minutes to their home from these parking spaces. In the space that we save this way we can have cycling lanes and trees. Of course, every house should still be reachable by car, if only just for mail delivery, for moving, for doing groceries etc. And people with handicaps should be able to get a permit to park near their houses. I know one such district near me and its lovely. And one big city in the Netherlands is planning to build a new district in this way for 10000 people, it should be amazing to live there. When you couple this with drastic improvements to public transport, I think we can move to pretty much ideal cities within a single generation, without abolishing cars and too much inconvenience. It is much easier for newly build districts, but I think this concept can be retrofitted to existing areas very well, if you can find enough parking spaces or garages at least.
  - oblio 2y ago
    Phasing out cars completely would be a bit much. But I think they should be completely removed from some very common actions, anyone capable of walking/cycling/using public transit going for non-essential trips of less than say, 5km, should not be allowed to use a car. Definitely anything under 1km should not be allowed. Those distances are easily walkable or bikeable. Of course, this will require that the built environment allows walking or biking (guess what, that makes for amazingly liveable environments, so it needs to be done anyway). Anything between 1-5km is debatable, but those distance are easily bikeable and it takes about the same time, especially in a city. Similar problem with walkability/bikeability. At these distances public transit also becomes a solid option. Anything between 5-10km requires either great bike lanes or at least decent public transit. Anything over 10km is fair game for cars. Though for good to great public transit corridors, that's definitely a very viable option. I think if we somehow manage to enforce this, we'd be in an amazing place, including for drivers. Because a huge chunk of the non-essential traffic would be just taken off the roads, leaving roads MUCH emptier, so whoever is still driving would get to where they need to a lot faster.
datadeft 2y ago
> An electric bike or scooter can be brought indoors to charge. Just look at this: https://www.newsflare.com/video/704902/e-bike-battery-explodes-blowing-doors-off-and-starting-huge-fire https://www.newsflare.com/video/704902/e-bike-battery-explod... There are a lot of videos like this that shows the devastation of charging electric bikes or scooters indoor.
yndoendo 2y ago
Always thought that the parking meters should be changed out for chargers that act as parking meters too. City would get more money and the infrastructure would be there to help with downtown charging. Duel use meters would still allow ICE to use the them too. As EVs become more popular, big name stores should start adding a few chargers to their parking lots. Apartment complexes could add them to entice maximum capacity too.
- Gasp0de 2y ago
  It would be extremely expensive to replace every parking meter with a charger.
  - gibolt 2y ago
    It would cost money, but could be done more cheaply at scale and if amortized. Start by spacing them mostly near housing, and spread them to replace more parking meters as usage increases. It is also expensive to not switch off of ICE vehicles.
  - stuaxo 2y ago
    On my street they have attached chargers to the street lights.

tim333 2y ago

That's part of it. I had a look in central London and I could sort of charge but the costs are very different too - something like £20k for a car whereas I got a used ebike for £180 and it's much quicker to get around on and you don't have the parking issues.

conductr 2y ago

It’s not so much of a problem due to the average daily drive being a fraction of range. So long as you can charge at home, city life is fine for electric cars.

edwcross 2y ago
Most countries still do not mandate that new apartments include charging ports for parking spots. So densely-populated areas will still be plagued with non-EC compatible buildings for decades to come. That's what "city life" mean in several countries.
- eftpotrm 2y ago
  Agreed, but they're not that complex to retrofit to a parking space. I can foresee a future where each space has a port and an account card reader - they'd make the buildings more valuable, the supplier to that space has a basically guaranteed income stream, and the government has an easy emissions reduction. Wins all round, so why wouldn't it happen?
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    The operator could demand an exclusivity contract from the landlord, provide faulty equipment, then charge high fees to repair it, eventually leading to many stalls non-functional until the contract is invalidated in court or the two parties settle, the chargers are ripped out, maybe with purposeful permanent damage to the wiring to make it unusable, and another mildly more honest provider comes in and does something slightly better but not by much. Or, an enterprising landchad could realize they can charge 10% more kWh than people actually pull (blaming efficiency losses), along with a healthy margin for "maintenance". Lots can go wrong.
    - eftpotrm 2y ago
      Sure, it's a market with massive abuse potential, but we have a world full of them and we regulate to control the abuses. The underlying service is clearly of societal benefit and would clearly be profitable to all parties, so it's worth doing and working out the regulation to make it viable.
- ehnto 2y ago
  Cities shouldn't have to mandate carparks, let alone charging in them. Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that. Pre-empting, obviously many places still require cars, but we shouldn't codify cars into the building code. It makes everything that bit more expensive, and it's a waste of valuable city real estate. At the moment the cost per square meter in Melbourne and my city means a single carspace is worth more than my salary. That's ridiculous.
  - tonyhart7 2y ago
    "Having no car at all should be viable and we should build toward that." Yeah its sounds great until you need mass transport system to support this idea which means only mega cities can benefit the most when tier 2 and tier 3 cities is having a hard time investment see: japan
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Tokyo has a great subway system (for the most part--there are locations that aren't that well served) and there's good train service between many moderate-sized cities in Japan. But my experience is that, once you get to a city outside of Tokyo, the public transportation options aren't great.
      - amrocha 2y ago
        I’ve personally never felt like I needed a car in fukuoka, osaka, or kyoto. What places did you have a bad experience at?
        ghaff 2y ago
        Not really a bad experience but I was able to walk as a tourist to where I wanted to go because the areas were pretty centrally located. The one time I took a bus to somewhere--don't remember location--it wasn't that convenient.
        2y ago
- PatronBernard 2y ago
  Densely populated areas shouldn't have surface-area-inefficient cars as a main mode of transportation at all! Good public transport and the other 2-wheel modes should do just fine, but of course those aren't as profitable.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Good public transport is the key part and I can tell that in most European cities, not the capitals that everyone visits when they say they have been on country XYZ only hanging on the city center without even venturing into the suburbs, that is quite far from where they were supposed to be.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      A lot of people look at Europe through the lens of the tourist areas of large cities. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the UK countryside and smaller towns, there is absolutely not a good public transit system even if there might be a few buses during the day. Heck. I arrived by train from London to a town where I found the busses to the start of my walk were basically non-existent. Fortunately a taxi pulled up as I was trying to find a taxi service by cell as the train station didn't have any staff.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Yep, exactly my point.
      - stuaxo 2y ago
        Bus deregulation wrecked public transport for much of the smaller places in the UK. One of the positive things labour has done is allowed local authorities more control over this, which should help - I can also imagine them being very bad at communicating this if it does. Of course I'd prefer a bunch more investment too, more train lines and go ahead with many of the previously touted tram schemes.
  - conductr 2y ago
    It’s a great ideal state, I just happen to think it’s several decades away. Most people reading this will never witness it. We’ve already heavily invested in what you say should not exist. Financial inertia is strong to keep things on that path. However if we, US, shrink our vehicles we can double or triple the throughput of current roads.
- goodpoint 2y ago
  Countries should mandate not owning a car.
FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>It’s not so much of a problem due to the average daily drive being a fraction of range Most people who own a car in cities in Europe also use it for long commutes to visit family in weekends or on holidays, often crossing borders. Range is then a problem since most families can afford only one car so edge cases matter. Maybe the wealthy Benelux and Scandinavia have top EV charring infrastructure but a lot of central, eastern and southern Europe is lacking.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  It is the 1% or 10% case. Like for me going to bigger airport. Renting a car would be complete waste for it to sit a week there. And for range I would want something that can get me there in one go and back also in one go, with week of sitting idle. As adding extra 30 minutes to 1h travel time on top of all time it takes is less than ideal living. And public transport would add even more time or less flexibility those types of trips. Also there is some possibility that there is no power at for example summer home...
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >It is the 1% or 10% case. Not based on where I live. Many people I know routinely drive hundreds of KM on a weekly basis to their families and renting a car for that doesn't makes sense.
    - NewJazz 2y ago
      The Hyundai Ioniq 6 has a range of over 500 km, and typical 20-80% charging times are around 20 minutes. Where in Europe can you drive 350 km and not pass a single charger?
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Where did I say there are no chargers? Charging on long trips increases the time of the journey by a lot. And many EU drivers don't have money for a new Ioniq 6.
littlestymaar 2y ago
Maybe if you live in suburban single family house, but not if you live “in cities”.
- conductr 2y ago
  I'm in US and most of our cities are mainly comprised mostly of suburban single family houses, but even if you don't live like that, you could also easily seek out a weekly/biweekly charge station and cover most of your needs. The problem comes with long range drivers and charging station availability concerns
jonasdegendt 2y ago
Heck I can't plug my car in at home and it's still fine. I simply plan for the fact that I might spend 20 minutes here or there at the charger, at most once a week. Best case I do some grocery shopping, worst case I just sit in the car watching YouTube, either way is fine.
- stavros 2y ago
  I don't know, I'm kind of annoyed to have to go to the charger. My parents' house has a plug and the car is always full, whenever I need it. It does make a difference in convenience, so I'm installing a charger in my garage in a few days as well. However, many parking lots have slowish AC chargers nowadays, so it's very convenient to have the car charge for an hour or two while I do my shopping or whatever. Basically, it's the difference between having to wait specifically for a charge or whether I'm doing my own thing and charging the car as a bonus.

moffkalast 2y ago

Solar freakin' parking lot roofs.

consp 2y ago
Or get rid of parking lots and build other infrastructure. Solar roofing is quite expensive and it is also much easier to do on an existing building which requires less investment.(Thus is done first). I've seen some happen but only as trail-by-subsidization or because the owner didn't care about the cost.

kqr 2y ago

The problem with electric cars is that you're still taking a heavy metal box, a large storage chest, a couch, and two recliners with you whether you need them or not. That's always going to be a problem, no matter how well charging works.

Lutger 2y ago
I agree. I'm all for phasing out cars completely, but I don't think it is realistic even if there would be support for it. Next best thing is to move cars to the edges of districts in urban areas. Create big parking spaces, covered in solar panels and equip them with chargers. Design them in such a way that everybody can walk in 5-10 minutes to their home from these parking spaces. In the space that we save this way we can have cycling lanes and trees. Of course, every house should still be reachable by car, if only just for mail delivery, for moving, for doing groceries etc. And people with handicaps should be able to get a permit to park near their houses. I know one such district near me and its lovely. And one big city in the Netherlands is planning to build a new district in this way for 10000 people, it should be amazing to live there. When you couple this with drastic improvements to public transport, I think we can move to pretty much ideal cities within a single generation, without abolishing cars and too much inconvenience. It is much easier for newly build districts, but I think this concept can be retrofitted to existing areas very well, if you can find enough parking spaces or garages at least.
- oblio 2y ago
  Phasing out cars completely would be a bit much. But I think they should be completely removed from some very common actions, anyone capable of walking/cycling/using public transit going for non-essential trips of less than say, 5km, should not be allowed to use a car. Definitely anything under 1km should not be allowed. Those distances are easily walkable or bikeable. Of course, this will require that the built environment allows walking or biking (guess what, that makes for amazingly liveable environments, so it needs to be done anyway). Anything between 1-5km is debatable, but those distance are easily bikeable and it takes about the same time, especially in a city. Similar problem with walkability/bikeability. At these distances public transit also becomes a solid option. Anything between 5-10km requires either great bike lanes or at least decent public transit. Anything over 10km is fair game for cars. Though for good to great public transit corridors, that's definitely a very viable option. I think if we somehow manage to enforce this, we'd be in an amazing place, including for drivers. Because a huge chunk of the non-essential traffic would be just taken off the roads, leaving roads MUCH emptier, so whoever is still driving would get to where they need to a lot faster.

datadeft 2y ago

> An electric bike or scooter can be brought indoors to charge. Just look at this: https://www.newsflare.com/video/704902/e-bike-battery-explodes-blowing-doors-off-and-starting-huge-fire https://www.newsflare.com/video/704902/e-bike-battery-explod... There are a lot of videos like this that shows the devastation of charging electric bikes or scooters indoor.

yndoendo 2y ago

Always thought that the parking meters should be changed out for chargers that act as parking meters too. City would get more money and the infrastructure would be there to help with downtown charging. Duel use meters would still allow ICE to use the them too. As EVs become more popular, big name stores should start adding a few chargers to their parking lots. Apartment complexes could add them to entice maximum capacity too.

Gasp0de 2y ago
It would be extremely expensive to replace every parking meter with a charger.
- gibolt 2y ago
  It would cost money, but could be done more cheaply at scale and if amortized. Start by spacing them mostly near housing, and spread them to replace more parking meters as usage increases. It is also expensive to not switch off of ICE vehicles.
- stuaxo 2y ago
  On my street they have attached chargers to the street lights.