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Two points. 1. Infra will need to upgrade in order to handle heavy charging in neighborhoods with wholesale change in the fleet. It would change our electrica

by boringg 7mo ago

Two points. 1. Infra will need to upgrade in order to handle heavy charging in neighborhoods with wholesale change in the fleet. It would change our electrical use model considerably in terms of times of use -- and we would be adding all the energy used from gas powered cars to the electrical grid - which is somewhat significant. 2. While you are correct technically -- I think what I am implying is older cars (ICE) will be the ones without all the tracking and software - whereas all EVs will have that embedded as they are all relatively new. There is no world where they remove that from new car production.

eigencoder 7mo ago
Just gotta hope that slate auto is successful!
linkregister 7mo ago
It's a myth that EV charging requires an upgrade to a 100 amp connection. Scheduling charging to times when you're not using appliances will still result in a charged vehicle by morning. The Youtube channel Technology Connections has an interesting video where it describes a successful transition to a fully-electric house while remaining on a 50 amp electrical connection. (it requires a smart circuit breaker)
- hedora 7mo ago
  We have a F-150 lightning, and charge it on a 12A, 120V charger. It’s fine for 6-10 trips a week. If I commuted in it to an office without a charger it wouldn’t be fine, but a smaller commuter car would be. (The truck gets 2.5 miles/kWh, commuter cars are at 4-5). I’m sure we are outliers, but still. Put another way: growing up with incandescent bulbs, I remember light switches that would turn on 6-8 lamp track lights. That’s half the current our EV charger draws. We had a space heater that drew more than our EV charger currently does. Houses and neighborhoods are still built with electrical systems provisioned for pre-LED, pre-induction/heatpump workloads. They certainly have enough slack for everyone to plug in a level one or two charger simultaneously.
  - reverius42 7mo ago
    I wonder if the household share of grid power has gone down faster than total power has gone up, and that's why people are worried about EVs taking out the power grid even when everyone's individual house seems to handle it easily enough.
- elihu 7mo ago
  That's true enough at the level of individual households. If the whole neighborhood switches to EVs, the power grid in general might not be built to handle it. (Personally I don't expect this will be that big a deal, since switching to EVs is something that happens one household at a time over many years. So, it shouldn't come as a sudden shock, and its something the utilities can make long term plans about. It just means power utilities need to be on the ball about not putting off infrastructure upgrades, and it means somewhat higher electricity prices for residential customers.)
wileydragonfly 7mo ago
We are a net oil exporter. I have no idea where everyone around here thinks all this electricity to charge cars is going to come from.
- defrost 7mo ago
  > We are a net oil exporter. That's a problem and behaviour with poor long term consequences. Bit like Columbia being a net cocaine exporter. > I have no idea There are annual IEA reports on global energy demand and supply by means and country. Those looking ahead to sustainable energy are improving technology and infrastructure to better utilize the great fusion reactor in the sky. Certainly the US could use a plan for charging infrastructure and grid improvements- it's currently lagging both the EU and China there. eg: Electric vehicle charging - https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/electric-vehicle-charging https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/electric-... ( Just the current trends in public charging stations, not trends in supply )
  - MiiMe19 7mo ago
    >Producing things that other people use is bad and literally cocaine!!! >Stop wanting to actually make things and have a well rounded economy!!!
    - defrost 7mo ago
      It's poor HN practice to badly strawman others comments. Dragging up sequestered carbon in the billions upon billions of tonnes and changing the insulation factor of the atmosphere _is_ bad and will lead to no good if not unchecked and somewhat reversed - that's just physics. Ergo - that should _stop_ and other things should be made that sidestep the issue.
    - wileydragonfly 7mo ago
      I’m really at a loss with these “we should stop using the abundant natural resource bubbling out of the ground and completely overhaul our entire infrastructure” arguments. We also produce more wind power than anyone else. Change will come incrementally.

by boringg 7mo ago

eigencoder 7mo ago

Just gotta hope that slate auto is successful!

linkregister 7mo ago

It's a myth that EV charging requires an upgrade to a 100 amp connection. Scheduling charging to times when you're not using appliances will still result in a charged vehicle by morning. The Youtube channel Technology Connections has an interesting video where it describes a successful transition to a fully-electric house while remaining on a 50 amp electrical connection. (it requires a smart circuit breaker)

hedora 7mo ago
We have a F-150 lightning, and charge it on a 12A, 120V charger. It’s fine for 6-10 trips a week. If I commuted in it to an office without a charger it wouldn’t be fine, but a smaller commuter car would be. (The truck gets 2.5 miles/kWh, commuter cars are at 4-5). I’m sure we are outliers, but still. Put another way: growing up with incandescent bulbs, I remember light switches that would turn on 6-8 lamp track lights. That’s half the current our EV charger draws. We had a space heater that drew more than our EV charger currently does. Houses and neighborhoods are still built with electrical systems provisioned for pre-LED, pre-induction/heatpump workloads. They certainly have enough slack for everyone to plug in a level one or two charger simultaneously.
- reverius42 7mo ago
  I wonder if the household share of grid power has gone down faster than total power has gone up, and that's why people are worried about EVs taking out the power grid even when everyone's individual house seems to handle it easily enough.
elihu 7mo ago
That's true enough at the level of individual households. If the whole neighborhood switches to EVs, the power grid in general might not be built to handle it. (Personally I don't expect this will be that big a deal, since switching to EVs is something that happens one household at a time over many years. So, it shouldn't come as a sudden shock, and its something the utilities can make long term plans about. It just means power utilities need to be on the ball about not putting off infrastructure upgrades, and it means somewhat higher electricity prices for residential customers.)

wileydragonfly 7mo ago

We are a net oil exporter. I have no idea where everyone around here thinks all this electricity to charge cars is going to come from.

defrost 7mo ago
> We are a net oil exporter. That's a problem and behaviour with poor long term consequences. Bit like Columbia being a net cocaine exporter. > I have no idea There are annual IEA reports on global energy demand and supply by means and country. Those looking ahead to sustainable energy are improving technology and infrastructure to better utilize the great fusion reactor in the sky. Certainly the US could use a plan for charging infrastructure and grid improvements- it's currently lagging both the EU and China there. eg: Electric vehicle charging - https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/electric-vehicle-charging https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/electric-... ( Just the current trends in public charging stations, not trends in supply )
- MiiMe19 7mo ago
  >Producing things that other people use is bad and literally cocaine!!! >Stop wanting to actually make things and have a well rounded economy!!!
  - defrost 7mo ago
    It's poor HN practice to badly strawman others comments. Dragging up sequestered carbon in the billions upon billions of tonnes and changing the insulation factor of the atmosphere _is_ bad and will lead to no good if not unchecked and somewhat reversed - that's just physics. Ergo - that should _stop_ and other things should be made that sidestep the issue.
  - wileydragonfly 7mo ago
    I’m really at a loss with these “we should stop using the abundant natural resource bubbling out of the ground and completely overhaul our entire infrastructure” arguments. We also produce more wind power than anyone else. Change will come incrementally.