Official Fats and Hamburgler EV Thread.

Nah, charging can easily be built into parking garages and city blocks could be wired with chargers should the demand be high enough.

Most parking garages near me already have some to dozens of EV charging spots.

Harambe wrote:

Nah, charging can easily be built into parking garages and city blocks could be wired with chargers should the demand be high enough.

Most parking garages near me already have some to dozens of EV charging spots.

Correct. As I have pointed out to agip before, a lot of people who park on the street or in garages already have EVs. So it's definitely a solvable problem.

And yes, I generally think that if you buy a new gas car you are an idiot. You will lose a lot of money because they are expensive to fuel and maintain. Plus, they are quickly becoming obsolete. Nobody will want a used gas car and you will get killed on depreciation.

Fat hurts wrote:

Harambe wrote:

Nah, charging can easily be built into parking garages and city blocks could be wired with chargers should the demand be high enough.

Most parking garages near me already have some to dozens of EV charging spots.

Correct. As I have pointed out to agip before, a lot of people who park on the street or in garages already have EVs. So it's definitely a solvable problem.

And yes, I generally think that if you buy a new gas car you are an idiot. You will lose a lot of money because they are expensive to fuel and maintain. Plus, they are quickly becoming obsolete. Nobody will want a used gas car and you will get killed on depreciation.

if a garage has 400 cars in it, they have to build 400 power stations? The workers have to figure out some kind of rotation? Logistically I don't see how this works.

and you want to tear up every street in boston, LA, NYC, Chicago and put in power cables? Seriously? That is a multi-trillion dollar job and the environmental impact reports alone would take decades to get through.

agip wrote:

if a garage has 400 cars in it, they have to build 400 power stations? The workers have to figure out some kind of rotation? Logistically I don't see how this works.

and you want to tear up every street in boston, LA, NYC, Chicago and put in power cables? Seriously? That is a multi-trillion dollar job and the environmental impact reports alone would take decades to get through.

First, yes, just build 400 power stations in a garage. That's insanely easy. We have 1/2 of a deck already dedicated at my garage and if those fill up the building says they will build more. Screwing conduits into concrete is fairly straightforward.

Second, they already have power cables on the streets and we've run millions of miles of electrical cables all over these cities before! Cable TV... the internet... phone lines... fiber to the home... I don't see the issue.

We should be phasing out street parking in the big cities anyway for bike lines and more sidewalk anyway.

Environmental impact reports are a scam and are rightfully being curtailed in many cities. Your arguments seem to be "this will require a whole new way of viewing cities" and YES! We need that!

The correct answer is that people living in dense urban areas should only need to charge when they commute outside the city and should be using public transportation to make short trips inside the city. A transition to EVs is meaningless if there isn't also a transition to using more public transportation. EVs still carry a pretty big carbon footprint and are a tremendously inefficient way to transport people compared to well used busses and trains. If the plan is to just transition to EVs with no shift to public transit, there is really no point in transitioning to EVs.

If people living in big cities use public transportation as their primary means of getting around the city and leave their EVs for trips to the grocery, Target and trips out of the city, the charging burden will be minimal. And people who commute to the burbs for work can charge in the burbs where it is easier to build charging stations.

Also, you don't need EV charging for every parking space. Most EVs don't need to charge every night.

Lots of big cities have placed EV chargers for street parking. I seriously doubt that they required an environmental impact report.

And sometimes it doesn't even require tearing into the sidewalk. A street in central London converted all lamp posts to double as EV charging stations.

https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-posts-on-residential-street-to-electric-car-chargers/

You can put a charging station almost anywhere you have electricity. It's a really easy problem to solve.

S

Soviet Kommisar: After the revolution everyone will have strawberries and cream!

Soviet Comrade; But I don't like strawberries and cream.

SK: BUT YOU WILL LIKE STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM!!!!

Point is that this kind of diktat of what people should do...doesn't take into consideration humanity. In NYC millions of cars move every day. Your saying what should and shouldn't happen is just dreaming of idealism. Delivery trucks gonna deliver, taxis gonna taxi, commuters gonna commute in their cars.

What you are saying is that any solutions have to consider behavioral economics. All solutions must be such that consumers want it. This is the Tesla approach. Make a car so cool that everybody wants one. Then you can charge a high enough price to make development of green transportation economically viable.

The problem we face is that there isn't enough time for behavioral economics to solve the climate crisis on its own. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where government mandates will be required. And I'm talking about much more than just transportation.

I don't think these mandates need to be overly painful, but change is always hard. And if politicians are not willing to stake their careers on the future of humanity then humanity will likely die out.

I always take some flak for talking about the end of humanity. But if you take an honest look at the science then this is obvious. All I am saying is what the scientists are telling us. We just don't want to listen.

Fat hurts wrote:

Also, you don't need EV charging for every parking space. Most EVs don't need to charge every night.

Lots of big cities have placed EV chargers for street parking. I seriously doubt that they required an environmental impact report.

And sometimes it doesn't even require tearing into the sidewalk. A street in central London converted all lamp posts to double as EV charging stations.

https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-posts-on-residential-street-to-electric-car-chargers/

You can put a charging station almost anywhere you have electricity. It's a really easy problem to solve.

the question is NOW

I plan to buy a car next year. A used one, but still. I park on the street. In my city the lamposts have not yet been converted to power stations and likely they never will be.

I can't drive an EV. It doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for millions in cities.

I hope the suburban types drive a lot of EVs to balance out the cities.

Harambe wrote:

agip wrote:

if a garage has 400 cars in it, they have to build 400 power stations? The workers have to figure out some kind of rotation? Logistically I don't see how this works.

and you want to tear up every street in boston, LA, NYC, Chicago and put in power cables? Seriously? That is a multi-trillion dollar job and the environmental impact reports alone would take decades to get through.

First, yes, just build 400 power stations in a garage. That's insanely easy. We have 1/2 of a deck already dedicated at my garage and if those fill up the building says they will build more. Screwing conduits into concrete is fairly straightforward.

This is exactly what is done now in some areas - new construction is required to provide a Level 2 (220V @ 30-50A) charging outlet for EVERY non-guest parking stall. Outlet, not charging station.

The public charging network is extensive and becoming more so. Depending on your car and driving, you may only need to charge every few days or once a week. Many EV drivers do not have a dedicated charging station.

Chargers can be effectively used as a shared resource. Level 3 chargers, such as a Tesla Supercharger, you can get an 80% charge in 20-30 minutes.

Good on you for buying used if you can't get an EV.

If you want to figure out how you might be able to make an EV work for you, checkout PlugShare. It will show you a map so you can zoom in on all the charge points. It is crowd-sourced and updated often. You might be surprised at where you can charge. Until you get an EV you don't realize how many chargers are out there because you don't notice them.

The other consideration is that by next year we will know if the infrastructure bill has passed congress. It's looking like you will be able to get $12,500 off an EV. This will massively accelerate adoption (if manufacturing can keep up with demand).

Between that and the huge federal spending on charging infrastructure, it won't be long before you probably will have chargers on you lamp posts.

I saw more Teslas in SF city than in any suburb I’ve been to.

2600 bro wrote:

I saw more Teslas in SF city than in any suburb I’ve been to.

Just wait until the new Tesla factory in Texas ramps up. It's going to be like that everywhere.

Fat hurts is a bit of a loon, but I see his point. I'm surprised when people I know spend 50 to 80k on a gas car to drive around town, having no special use case requiring one. Maybe they just think Teslas are ugly and don't want to roll the dice on a brand new unproven model or cheap low-end version.

The challenge is getting sufficient electrical infrastructure into old cities. Fuel switching from gasoline to electricity essentially requires increasing the capacity of the old electrical infrastructure (from the panel and feeders in your house to the transformers and mid voltage lines that run through your neighborhood, to the substation that supplies your neighborhood and the high voltage lines and power plants that supply those) by about 50%. This isn't running a couple conduits. It is replacing panels, replacing transformers and all the way up to the power plant if enough individuals decide to go electric. Designing it into newer neighborhoods is easy. But tearing up downtown areas and running new infrastructure into old neighborhoods is a pain in the rear.

joed|rt wrote:

The challenge is getting sufficient electrical infrastructure into old cities. Fuel switching from gasoline to electricity essentially requires increasing the capacity of the old electrical infrastructure (from the panel and feeders in your house to the transformers and mid voltage lines that run through your neighborhood, to the substation that supplies your neighborhood and the high voltage lines and power plants that supply those) by about 50%. This isn't running a couple conduits. It is replacing panels, replacing transformers and all the way up to the power plant if enough individuals decide to go electric. Designing it into newer neighborhoods is easy. But tearing up downtown areas and running new infrastructure into old neighborhoods is a pain in the rear.

I'm sure the electric company will be happy to do the work though. They will get to sell a lot more power.

It would be simple to convert light poles or whatever.

But that's not my point. Anyone saying wiring a city for car charging would be impossible, or cost-prohibitive, apparently is blind. You know there were cable cars all over the place once upon a time, or gas lamps, not just on streets, but in everyone's houses? And once upon a time homes were not wired for electricity, or phones, or broadband. Funny how this works, isn't it?

agip wrote:

In my city the lamposts have not yet been converted to power stations and likely they never will be.

I can't drive an EV. It doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for millions in cities.

I hope the suburban types drive a lot of EVs to balance out the cities.

This is just weird nearsightedness, IMO.

"I don't have broadband internet and I likely never will." <- someone in a city in 1997.

"I don't have fiber to the home and I likely never will." <- someone in a city in 2012

If enough people buy EVs there's going to be tremendous pressure to provide ample charging stations.

All in all it's just not that complicated a task if the market is there.

In 15 years one of these new fast charging battery prototypes could pan out and refueling could be as easy as going to a gas station.

Remember batteries have come down 95%+ in price in the last 20 years.

If this was 2001, you'd be saying "batteries will NEVER be cheap enough make a car with a 300 mi range" or something like that.