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Day to day it is already more convenient, because you charge mostly at home - you never have to go to the gas station in the first place. It's pretty rare that

by ericd 14y ago

Day to day it is already more convenient, because you charge mostly at home - you never have to go to the gas station in the first place. It's pretty rare that I have to drive more than 100 miles in a day, and when I do, I'm really happy to stop for half an hour here and there to stretch my legs.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> because you charge mostly at home One of Musk's arguments for the supercharger was that it doesn't use non-renewable sources of energy. If you're charging at home, you're doing just that, since you're relying on the power plant for energy.
- ericd 14y ago
  Err, not necessarily... at that point, it's decoupled, and can come from any source, which can be changed at any time. And your whole argument was about convenience, but now you seem to be darting to a tangential argument. Once the car fleet is fuel-agnostic, it becomes much easier to shift into whatever clean power source ends up working well, or whatever mix of clean and dirty works well. In terms of dirtiness, it's not hard to make the average impact of a car on the environment better... I think even pure coal might be cleaner with these things due to efficiency gains. In any case, I don't particularly care if their solar proposal ends up panning out overall - it's more or less irrelevant to the feasibility of the plan, other than for PR and making the people who implement them look good.
- lgbr 14y ago
  > If you're charging at home, you're doing just that, since you're relying on the power plant for energy. Not necessarily. In Seattle, where solar is less effective, the electricity comes from almost entirely hydroelectric, with a little wind and a little nuclear. Source: http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/ http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/
  - eric-hu 14y ago
    Amazing! Thanks for the link. I had no idea Seattle was so close to 100% renewable. For those too lazy to click the link: Hydro 92.39% Wind 4.07% Nuclear 2.52% Coal 0.52% All other categories are 0.25% and below.

by ericd 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

> because you charge mostly at home One of Musk's arguments for the supercharger was that it doesn't use non-renewable sources of energy. If you're charging at home, you're doing just that, since you're relying on the power plant for energy.

ericd 14y ago
Err, not necessarily... at that point, it's decoupled, and can come from any source, which can be changed at any time. And your whole argument was about convenience, but now you seem to be darting to a tangential argument. Once the car fleet is fuel-agnostic, it becomes much easier to shift into whatever clean power source ends up working well, or whatever mix of clean and dirty works well. In terms of dirtiness, it's not hard to make the average impact of a car on the environment better... I think even pure coal might be cleaner with these things due to efficiency gains. In any case, I don't particularly care if their solar proposal ends up panning out overall - it's more or less irrelevant to the feasibility of the plan, other than for PR and making the people who implement them look good.
lgbr 14y ago
> If you're charging at home, you're doing just that, since you're relying on the power plant for energy. Not necessarily. In Seattle, where solar is less effective, the electricity comes from almost entirely hydroelectric, with a little wind and a little nuclear. Source: http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/ http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/
- eric-hu 14y ago
  Amazing! Thanks for the link. I had no idea Seattle was so close to 100% renewable. For those too lazy to click the link: Hydro 92.39% Wind 4.07% Nuclear 2.52% Coal 0.52% All other categories are 0.25% and below.