Energy grid wouldn’t survive quick mass EV adoption most likely. Heck, how would you even charge a car if you don’t own a house - ideally parking places would have a slow charger where you could recharge car during night for cheap.
Litte remarks regarding EV and not having a point of charge at home.
I have an EV but don’t own a house to charge it. Neither have a charging point on my appartement parking or my office (too complex/expensive to install). So I delayed buying an EV during few years. But I did the switch last year and don’t regret it at all.
The solution?
I found a charging station with good price at 7km of my place.
When I come back from office and I’m starting to be below 30% battery remaining, I go there and charge up to 90% during ~30 min.
I read a book on my tablet while waiting in the car with the music and air conditioning (as it quite hot currently) while charging at approx 80~90 kW/h… A nice break before going home to be honest ^^
I really handle the EV like a classic combustion engine car but with a small tank. Instead of having 800km of autonomy, i have 400~450km.
The key is to have a reliable and cheap charging station near your daily travel.
Best being having it at home but it’s definitely not mandatory.
I’m currently at an average of 4.02€ for 100km driven and my charging station doesn’t require monthly fee. Just register an account, associate your car once and now it’s plug and charge.
I share your view regarding the grid, you need to prepare it properly and good charging station is the first step.
It’s cool that charging works for you that good. However, now imagineg a rush of new EVs storming your charging point at the same time of the day. And also imagine people driving a lot more than you, charging each day for half an hour - that’s quite some time spent as charging point.
While I agree that having a charging point at home is not mandatory, it’s much much friendlier, specially in case of mass EV adoption where chargers would lag behind demand.
Seems pretty easy, instead of incentivizing and infrastructure around gasoline, you incentivize electric already. Data centers are already pushing this for their own use, why would it be impossible in your mind to do this for a transition to greener energy usage?
Not to be “um actually”, but I owned a Nissan Leaf 1st gen over a decade ago, and the pain points you worry about weren’t really pain points back then, and there was a loooooooooooot less EV infrastructure in place back then. Less reliable, too.
A couple of years ago I rented an EV with a friend who had zero experience with them. I explained everything, we had no evse at the hotel so needed to use public points, still was no issue at all. Each point we used was about 20% to capacity, they all had places to stretch, eat, etc at. No points were damaged or giving less than maximum output. It was extremely pleasant, and we used about $25 in fuel costs, vs $100+ for gasoline in a comparable vehicle.
I also didn’t have an evse installed at home - I used the 110V, ‘level 1’ charger that plugs into an outlet for my Leaf. I drove a ton - 10k miles in 4 months, so 2.5x the national average. Even with heavy reliance on public points on a network that was in its infancy and prone to downtime, I still got by just fine.
That is very anecdotal, and unlikely to apply to anyone else. If you charge 30-90% in an hour, that means that you must have found a cheap super charger? Not even just the regular 22kW fast chargers? Where I live all the super chargers is quite expensive, like 1.5x the price of gas /km. Which is fine as you would mainly use them fore rare long trips. Meanwhile charging at home is like 1/4th the cost of gas /km, and regular public 22kW chargers about the same as gas.
Having to regularly wait 30 minutes somewhere to charge can definitely be a real inconvenience, but I buy that it’s nice to just sit and relax for a bit though.
Also, isn’t regular super charging very bad for the battery health in the long run?
Gas tank fills in 5 minutes if you are empty and have a large tank to fill, otherwise less. Also, if I know that I am going to be away from gas stations for awhile (camping, offroading) I can fill up my can and carry that with me.
It can be, and traditionally has been. But how fast do you think you can bring a solar farm online? Securing the land and zoning is probably the biggest delay, followed by running lines to the grid.
That makes it worse. Feeding a little more electricity spread across many locations puts a much smaller strain on the grid than trying to feed a huge amount to one location.
Or even nuclear (in case of Three Mile Island NPP). Regardless of what they run, they don’t require extensive energy grid since they are located nearby.
That’s tricky though. Would you deplete it during night to have it empty in the morning? Wear expensive battery? Plus, I assume, car is disconnected from grid for most of the day (i.e. when you are at work).
“solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.
Yeah a day you can get 2% of battery, but this would make extend range and make it more susteninable considering rooftop and hood space is always unused
2% is probably near the theoretical maximum, too. Actual output considering weather, efficiency losses, etc is probably less than half that. Solidly in “not-worth-it” territory for most use-cases. Heck, my car won’t even properly charge on a 120V outlet when it’s too cold, because it needs to heat up the battery to a safe temperature first and at -20°C that takes more than the ~1kW available from the outlet.
Energy grid wouldn’t survive quick mass EV adoption most likely. Heck, how would you even charge a car if you don’t own a house - ideally parking places would have a slow charger where you could recharge car during night for cheap.
Idk they’re making it work for data centers and those need way more energy
No, I don’t think so
Litte remarks regarding EV and not having a point of charge at home.
I have an EV but don’t own a house to charge it. Neither have a charging point on my appartement parking or my office (too complex/expensive to install). So I delayed buying an EV during few years. But I did the switch last year and don’t regret it at all.
The solution?
I found a charging station with good price at 7km of my place.
When I come back from office and I’m starting to be below 30% battery remaining, I go there and charge up to 90% during ~30 min.
I read a book on my tablet while waiting in the car with the music and air conditioning (as it quite hot currently) while charging at approx 80~90 kW/h… A nice break before going home to be honest ^^
I really handle the EV like a classic combustion engine car but with a small tank. Instead of having 800km of autonomy, i have 400~450km.
The key is to have a reliable and cheap charging station near your daily travel. Best being having it at home but it’s definitely not mandatory.
I’m currently at an average of 4.02€ for 100km driven and my charging station doesn’t require monthly fee. Just register an account, associate your car once and now it’s plug and charge.
I share your view regarding the grid, you need to prepare it properly and good charging station is the first step.
We have them in public parks here in my area, and people will park their EV’s and just go for a hike or a walk. It’s not that complex.
It’s cool that charging works for you that good. However, now imagine
ga rush of new EVs storming your charging point at the same time of the day. And also imagine people driving a lot more than you, charging each day for half an hour - that’s quite some time spent as charging point. While I agree that having a charging point at home is not mandatory, it’s much much friendlier, specially in case of mass EV adoption where chargers would lag behind demand.Seems pretty easy, instead of incentivizing and infrastructure around gasoline, you incentivize electric already. Data centers are already pushing this for their own use, why would it be impossible in your mind to do this for a transition to greener energy usage?
Not to be “um actually”, but I owned a Nissan Leaf 1st gen over a decade ago, and the pain points you worry about weren’t really pain points back then, and there was a loooooooooooot less EV infrastructure in place back then. Less reliable, too.
A couple of years ago I rented an EV with a friend who had zero experience with them. I explained everything, we had no evse at the hotel so needed to use public points, still was no issue at all. Each point we used was about 20% to capacity, they all had places to stretch, eat, etc at. No points were damaged or giving less than maximum output. It was extremely pleasant, and we used about $25 in fuel costs, vs $100+ for gasoline in a comparable vehicle.
I also didn’t have an evse installed at home - I used the 110V, ‘level 1’ charger that plugs into an outlet for my Leaf. I drove a ton - 10k miles in 4 months, so 2.5x the national average. Even with heavy reliance on public points on a network that was in its infancy and prone to downtime, I still got by just fine.
And that was 12 years ago.
That is very anecdotal, and unlikely to apply to anyone else. If you charge 30-90% in an hour, that means that you must have found a cheap super charger? Not even just the regular 22kW fast chargers? Where I live all the super chargers is quite expensive, like 1.5x the price of gas /km. Which is fine as you would mainly use them fore rare long trips. Meanwhile charging at home is like 1/4th the cost of gas /km, and regular public 22kW chargers about the same as gas.
Having to regularly wait 30 minutes somewhere to charge can definitely be a real inconvenience, but I buy that it’s nice to just sit and relax for a bit though.
Also, isn’t regular super charging very bad for the battery health in the long run?
We’re blessed that it can survive the datacenters though
The quick mass adoption is happening in Scandinavia now, and we’re ok
How would you even fill a tank if you don’t own a gas station?
Gas tank fills in 5 minutes if you are empty and have a large tank to fill, otherwise less. Also, if I know that I am going to be away from gas stations for awhile (camping, offroading) I can fill up my can and carry that with me.
EV adoption can’t happen in a second. If more EVs are sold, countries can just expand grids and charging networks with it.
Expanding energy grid is a slow process. Like really slow.
Is it? Seems data centers are able to do it quite quickly, and all at the cost of local taxpayers.
It can be, and traditionally has been. But how fast do you think you can bring a solar farm online? Securing the land and zoning is probably the biggest delay, followed by running lines to the grid.
You would need huge farms and huge batteries. The first can’t be built in the city or in any densely populate area and the later is a big challenge.
Just like replacing all cars.
Tell that to datacenters
AFAIK many datacenters try to build their own generators/powerplants. Also datacenters are at one location, not sparsely around.
That makes it worse. Feeding a little more electricity spread across many locations puts a much smaller strain on the grid than trying to feed a huge amount to one location.
You have only one line to upgrade if you feed it from energy grid. If they have their own PP, it’s even less of a problem.
What do the datacenter’s generators/powerplants run on?
In all probability diesel or natural gas.
Or even nuclear (in case of Three Mile Island NPP). Regardless of what they run, they don’t require extensive energy grid since they are located nearby.
My point is that EVs is supposed to reduce pollution, not just just move the pollution to a DC instead of a car.
Seem like the greatest solution, these EV can also act as battery storage for renewables.
That’s tricky though. Would you deplete it during night to have it empty in the morning? Wear expensive battery? Plus, I assume, car is disconnected from grid for most of the day (i.e. when you are at work).
But you park it at work there could be slow AC charger, to slowly charge it when you are away.
Placing solar on rooftop of car also seem as good idea
“solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.
Yeah a day you can get 2% of battery, but this would make extend range and make it more susteninable considering rooftop and hood space is always unused
2% is probably near the theoretical maximum, too. Actual output considering weather, efficiency losses, etc is probably less than half that. Solidly in “not-worth-it” territory for most use-cases. Heck, my car won’t even properly charge on a 120V outlet when it’s too cold, because it needs to heat up the battery to a safe temperature first and at -20°C that takes more than the ~1kW available from the outlet.
You don’t have to charge 100% using solar