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The interesting thing is that people will mainly be charging at home, though, and will never need to visit a charging station - the car will be topped up every

by ericd 14y ago

The interesting thing is that people will mainly be charging at home, though, and will never need to visit a charging station - the car will be topped up every morning when you leave for work. So the number of fillups needing to be done at a station should be much lower. But an interesting point otherwise! I'd guess that the marginal cost of the plugs is low enough that it's feasible, though.

lgbr 14y ago
But the number of people needing to fill up at this station and others just off of major freeways wont change. The people filling up/charging at these stations are in the middle of a trip and probably did charge while they were at home. Furthermore, the range on even the Tesla Model S is half that of your typical car, so fillups are even more frequent. This could mean that highway stops have twice as many people needing to recharge.
- ericd 14y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point. Fortunately, I think it will be fairly cheap to make a large number of plugs, except for maybe the beefed-up electric infrastructure. There aren't too many rest stops right now with an industrial-sized electric feed :-)
  - chiph 14y ago
    The Santa Fe railroad had a similar problem - how to feed an entire train of passengers in the 30 minutes it took to take on water (steam locomotives typically run out of water before running out of coal). Their solution was to partner with a restaurant operator, supplying his restaurants with fresh produce & refrigerated meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company#History If McDonalds was smart, they'd sponsor charging stations at their restaurants. Park your electric car, swipe a credit card, go get your McMeal, use the bathroom, etc.
surrealize 14y ago
Right, I guess I should have said, replacing a mid-long-haul gas station (like the kettleman city one) would be a substantial effort. If this type of electric car becomes a mass-market thing, there would be less of a need for gas stations near home (as you say). But the number of cars needing fill-ups on long haul routes would be just as large, so the gas stations on those routes would have to be much larger if the occupancy time at them is that much higher.
- ericd 14y ago
  Ah yeah, you're right in that case. I am curious to see how that will be handled, it could create some nasty demand spikes during busy times (especially around holidays). It's not a big problem to put a bunch of plugs, I imagine, but it would take some serious power hardware to handle all of those, and the electricity infrastructure in general probably isn't ready yet for that kind of localized beating. But when we need it, we'll make it work. EDIT: Actually, even more interestingly, I wonder if this will get people to synch up their long-distance travel plans - ie everyone will plan to leave such that they're running low around lunchtime so that they can stop and eat while they're charging. This could create big traffic jams...

by ericd 14y ago

lgbr 14y ago

But the number of people needing to fill up at this station and others just off of major freeways wont change. The people filling up/charging at these stations are in the middle of a trip and probably did charge while they were at home. Furthermore, the range on even the Tesla Model S is half that of your typical car, so fillups are even more frequent. This could mean that highway stops have twice as many people needing to recharge.

ericd 14y ago
Yeah, that's a good point. Fortunately, I think it will be fairly cheap to make a large number of plugs, except for maybe the beefed-up electric infrastructure. There aren't too many rest stops right now with an industrial-sized electric feed :-)
- chiph 14y ago
  The Santa Fe railroad had a similar problem - how to feed an entire train of passengers in the 30 minutes it took to take on water (steam locomotives typically run out of water before running out of coal). Their solution was to partner with a restaurant operator, supplying his restaurants with fresh produce & refrigerated meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company#History If McDonalds was smart, they'd sponsor charging stations at their restaurants. Park your electric car, swipe a credit card, go get your McMeal, use the bathroom, etc.

surrealize 14y ago

Right, I guess I should have said, replacing a mid-long-haul gas station (like the kettleman city one) would be a substantial effort. If this type of electric car becomes a mass-market thing, there would be less of a need for gas stations near home (as you say). But the number of cars needing fill-ups on long haul routes would be just as large, so the gas stations on those routes would have to be much larger if the occupancy time at them is that much higher.

ericd 14y ago
Ah yeah, you're right in that case. I am curious to see how that will be handled, it could create some nasty demand spikes during busy times (especially around holidays). It's not a big problem to put a bunch of plugs, I imagine, but it would take some serious power hardware to handle all of those, and the electricity infrastructure in general probably isn't ready yet for that kind of localized beating. But when we need it, we'll make it work. EDIT: Actually, even more interestingly, I wonder if this will get people to synch up their long-distance travel plans - ie everyone will plan to leave such that they're running low around lunchtime so that they can stop and eat while they're charging. This could create big traffic jams...