WATCH: Family’s road trip delayed when electric Ford Lightning truck needs a tow

[Dashinka 24,420]

4 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Interesting logic.  Comments?

This won't really be a problem for Seattle since the government of WA will mandate EVs like CA, and who knows, they may even accelerate this.  Overall, nothing really new here.  Most current EV buyers (early adopters) have access to garages, or other fairly easy home charging options.  They also, like this "All Electric Family", have multiple vehicles and usually one or more are ICE.  So when more people buy EVs as their sole car, or live in multi-family buildings, charging will become more of a challenge, requiring more public charging, etc..  One of the other big challenges as more people look at shared or public charging options, is many of these locations are ripe for vandalism.  I can see these charging stations installed along congested streets of a big city that also has a big homeless/drug addict problems, having issues keeping these charge points operative.  Heck, even Tesla's charging stations have issues with vandalism, so much like the OP family, if you are depending on some app to lead you to a charging station when nearing the end of your driving range, you may find the stations inoperative.

 

As a side note, and purely anecdotal, I frequent a supplier office occasionally, and they provide 4 free charging stations for their employees.  Back a year or so ago when these were first installed, you always saw 1 or 2 EVs (always the same vehicles) taking advantage of the free electrons, well yesterday, I saw all of them in use with different vehicles, so one wonders when the company will switch to a pay to charge system.  I also wonder how they police charging as more people buy them.  For instance, I am an early arrival at my office, so if I had an EV and free charging was available, I would certainly plug in (probably everyday) rather than charge at home. As to those that come later, well tough luck. 

[Mike E 11,739]

6 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Interesting logic.  Comments?

 The article is correct. Unless there is minimum of one 6 kW circuit for every home, EVs just aren’t practical. My two biggest ticket home improvements since moving to AZ: a gas pool heater and a 10 kW circuit for my EV.  It’s a pipe dream that neighbors are going to share limited chargers.

 

Before I retired, my last job in California had free charging at work.  You were limited to 4 hours of charging.  As your deadline approached your phone would  alert you. And so it meant a 10 minute brisk walk to unplug and move the car.    And it was never convenient. It was just a 30 minute productivity killer.  If you  didn’t arrive T with by 8am, you were out of luck until 3pm. 
 

I hated it.  And so I put a 6 kW circuit in my home.  That was a game changer for me.  
 

I always tell people that without a 6 kW circuit at home, you will hate the EV lifestyle.

 

The push to switch  dwellers of apartments to use EVs will just lower quality of life. This is sad because EVs are about fun.   
 

I disagree with the plant meat analogy. Chopped up insects is better.  Sharing a charger station is like eat deep fried grasshoppers, because chicken breasts cost $20 / lb.  Yum!    

[Mike E 11,739]

2 hours ago, Dashinka said:

This won't really be a problem for Seattle since the government of WA will mandate EVs like CA, and who knows, they may even accelerate this.

the above is contradicted by this

Quote

 

So when more people buy EVs as their sole car, or live in multi-family buildings, charging will become more of a challenge,

Of course it will be problem / challenge.  
 

People who have a garage can practically have a level 2 (starting at the base configuration of 240V / 30A ==> 24A drawn so about 6 kW.  A car with a 75 kWh battery that is at 20 percent at the end of work day gets   gets to 80 percent charge in about  5 hours. 

With variable peak / off peak electric power pricing starting at midnight, garage owners can wake up without the stress of figuring how they will charge the next morning.  
 

Shared level 2 charging just isn’t practical for apartment dwellers. The ratio of level 2 charging stations to apartment units  has to be 1-1 or otherwise there will be  EV owners with dead batteries.  
 

Not all locales within a city can do that so the answer will have to be fast chargers. To go from 20 percent to 80 percent has to be a half hour or less.  You simply aren’t going to see this randomly placed on the side of street.  Every Tesla  supercharger I’ve seen that is in an urban core, whether it is downtown Colorado’s Springs, Vegas, or LA, is in a parking garage, usually paid, and sometimes valet.
 

 As we’ve seen, Electrify America and EVgo aren’t up to the task.  Just as cities own and operate a large percentage of parking garages they will have to own and operate fast chargers.  And they will be forced to expropriate  privately owned utilities that operate in their cities to get it done because provisioning high energy circuits isn’t easy. 

 

Quote

 Heck, even Tesla's charging stations have issues with vandalism

I’ve never see a vandalized Tesla supercharger.  Wanna win the Darwin Awards? Just  go vandalize a 250 kW (480V / 500A) fast charger.  Given Oregon’s laws about banning self serve gasoline stations I’m surprised fast charging is still self serve there.  The horror. The horror. 
 

Quote

 

As a side note, and purely anecdotal, […]. 

Your office observational anecdotes mirror my experience.  After I got a level 2 charging station installed  in my garage and stopped charging at the office, I asked other people who I knew had their own level 2s  at home  why they persisted in charging at work too. They said they wanted the free charging.  They would be lucky to get 16 kWh of charge in the 4 hour allotment and at home this would cost them $4. these were people earning  in excess of $300,000 a year.  I shook my head at the banality.  
 

We also had some parking spots with 120V / 20A circuits this delivering 120V * 16 = 2 kW.  People would come in early to work and grab these, and charge for 9 hours, adding 18 kWh of charge which for me would be over 50 miles. But we quickly found how that each pair of parking spots was on single circuit and so when two EVs plugged in next to each other, an inaccessible circuit breaker tripped. 

[Dashinka 24,420]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

the above is contradicted by this

Of course it will be problem / challenge.  
 

People who have a garage can practically have a level 2 (starting at the base configuration of 240V / 30A ==> 24A drawn so about 6 kW.  A car with a 75 kWh battery that is at 20 percent at the end of work day gets   gets to 80 percent charge in about  5 hours. 

With variable peak / off peak electric power pricing starting at midnight, garage owners can wake up without the stress of figuring how they will charge the next morning.  

 

If EVs are widely adopted, won't this change the peak vs off-peak pricing eventually?  The one thing though is for a DC Fast Charger to run, there needs to be a power source, and I would suspect that these would be highly controlled by the power companies where they can dial them back quickly during high load periods.
 

Shared level 2 charging just isn’t practical for apartment dwellers. The ratio of level 2 charging stations to apartment units  has to be 1-1 or otherwise there will be  EV owners with dead batteries.  
 

Not all locales within a city can do that so the answer will have to be fast chargers. To go from 20 percent to 80 percent has to be a half hour or less.  You simply aren’t going to see this randomly placed on the side of street.  Every Tesla  supercharger I’ve seen that is in an urban core, whether it is downtown Colorado’s Springs, Vegas, or LA, is in a parking garage, usually paid, and sometimes valet.
 

 As we’ve seen, Electrify America and EVgo aren’t up to the task.  Just as cities own and operate a large percentage of parking garages they will have to own and operate fast chargers.  And they will be forced to expropriate  privately owned utilities that operate in their cities to get it done because provisioning high energy circuits isn’t easy. 

 

I’ve never see a vandalized Tesla supercharger.  Wanna win the Darwin Awards? Just  go vandalize a 250 kW (480V / 500A) fast charger.  Given Oregon’s laws about banning self serve gasoline stations I’m surprised fast charging is still self serve there.  The horror. The horror. 

 

I don't think there is current running through the cable unless it is actually connected to a vehicle and charging.  I saw this article, and though a few months old, it seems there are supercharging stations run by Tesla are also being hit.

 

https://insideevs.com/news/566070/tesla-supercharger-cables-cut-stolen/

 

Your office observational anecdotes mirror my experience.  After I got a level 2 charging station installed  in my garage and stopped charging at the office, I asked other people who I knew had their own level 2s  at home  why they persisted in charging at work too. They said they wanted the free charging.  They would be lucky to get 16 kWh of charge in the 4 hour allotment and at home this would cost them $4. these were people earning  in excess of $300,000 a year.  I shook my head at the banality.  
 

We also had some parking spots with 120V / 20A circuits this delivering 120V * 16 = 2 kW.  People would come in early to work and grab these, and charge for 9 hours, adding 18 kWh of charge which for me would be over 50 miles. But we quickly found how that each pair of parking spots was on single circuit and so when two EVs plugged in next to each other, an inaccessible circuit breaker tripped. 

 

[Boiler 45,367]

 

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

If EVs are widely adopted, won't this change the peak vs off-peak pricing eventually?

 

Definitely. Google says the average car is driven 14263 miles per year.  So 39 miles per day. That would require 2.3 hours to charge my S with 24A/240V draw.  2.3 * 24 * 240 / 1000 = 13.2 kWh per night per home or 4818 kWh per year. Eia.gov says the average gone used 11,000 kWh. Thus Carie’s by region and type of dwelling. In the east, the government doesn’t starve people of electricity and it is generally cheap and plentiful so I don’t see much of an impact.  
 

The west will have to build nuclear power plants to support EVs.  
 

 

Quote

The one thing though is for a DC Fast Charger to run, there needs to be a power source, and I would suspect that these would be highly controlled by the power companies where they can dial them back quickly during high load periods.

That’s going to create traffic snarls in the down town areas.  Hence cities will take control of electric utilities.  They will dial back electricity use in homes before dialing back  fast chargers. 

Quote

 

 . 

 

I don't think there is current running through the cable unless it is actually connected to a vehicle and charging.  I saw this article, and though a few months old, it seems there are supercharging stations run by Tesla are also being hit.

Cutting cords is different than mowing down a charger.  Either way it doesn’t happen often enough to have any impact.  I suspect news stories about cutting charging cords off super chargers get more play than news stories about cutting hoses off gas pumps for same reason news stories about burning Teslas get more play than news stories about burning  ICE cars.  
 

it’s just more interesting to attack things that are novel and strange. Society prefers conformists. Society once hated ICE cars, before that horse drawn vehicles, and before that foot wear.

 

 And never forget: “if man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings”.  
 

Progress will always be opposed. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Mike E

[Dashinka 24,420]

42 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Definitely. Google says the average car is driven 14263 miles per year.  So 39 miles per day. That would require 2.3 hours to charge my S with 24A/240V draw.  2.3 * 24 * 240 / 1000 = 13.2 kWh per night per home or 4818 kWh per year. Eia.gov says the average gone used 11,000 kWh. Thus Carie’s by region and type of dwelling. In the east, the government doesn’t starve people of electricity and it is generally cheap and plentiful so I don’t see much of an impact.  
 

The west will have to build nuclear power plants to support EVs.  
 

 

That’s going to create traffic snarls in the down town areas.  Hence cities will take control of electric utilities.  They will dial back electricity use in homes before dialing back  fast chargers. 

Cutting cords is different than mowing down a charger.  Either way it doesn’t happen often enough to have any impact.  I suspect news stories about cutting charging cords off super chargers get more play than news stories about cutting hoses off gas pumps for same reason news stories about burning Teslas get more play than news stories about burning  ICE cars.  
 

it’s just more interesting to attack things that are novel and strange. Society prefers conformists. Society once hated ICE cars, before that horse drawn vehicles, and before that foot wear.

 

 And never forget: “if man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings”.  
 

Progress will always be opposed. 

Why would someone cut the fuel hose at a gas station?  I mean, I know of some people that drive away with them still in the fill neck, but fuel hoses are not 0 gauge copper cables.  EVs are in no way novel or strange, heck electric vehicles have been around for as long as the ICE vehicles.  What is novel and strange is the movement of cars and trucks to mimic smart phones and tablets.  What is also novel is the joke that an EV is zero emission and a climate change fighter, they are not, and only represent a shift in what raw materials are needed.  I for one look at EVs as the betamax of vehicles.  Fuel cells will be the way to go eventually.

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

Why would someone cut the fuel hose at a gas station?

You are asking why fold do fool things. Ask a fool. 
 

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

 .  EVs are in no way novel or strange, heck electric vehicles have been around for as long as the ICE vehicles.

EVs haven’t been more more than 2 percent of market share for over a century.  

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

 What is novel and strange is the movement of cars and trucks to mimic smart phones and tablets.

That’s called progress. Yes people are opposed to it. They miss their distributor caps and carburetors and crank starts and manual steering and braking, and of course their manual shift. Some people even hate cup holders, the cyclops  brake light, day time running lights, air conditions and automatic high beams. And what’s the deal with no more 8 track players in cars?

 

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

 

What is also novel is the joke that an EV is zero emission and a climate change fighter, they are not, and only represent a shift in what raw materials are needed.

Yes they enable vehicles to be powered by coal (again), hydro (again), and for the first time nuclear fission,  as well as natural gas, solar,  wind, whatever else is used by utilities to generate electricity.  
 

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

  I for one look at EVs as the betamax of vehicles.  Fuel cells will be the way to go eventually.

They are literally giving away hydrogen  cars for free and there are few takers.   Useless if you cannot refuel them.  The state with the largest number of hydrogen stations is California, and last I checked most of the time, most of them don’t have fuel.  
 

And the source of most hydrogen in fuel cells comes from natural gas. I know Europe has reclassified methane as a green fuel but c’mon. 
 

Hydrogen requires a whole bunch of brand new infrastructure for production, delivery and distribution.  
 

EVs use the existing electrical grid. All that’s needed is to build nuclear power plants.  Wind and solar is just icing on the cake. 
 

When i start  seeing fuel cells in smart phones and airlines permitting them on board, I will take notice.  

[Dashinka 24,420]

5 minutes ago, Mike E said:

You are asking why fold do fool things. Ask a fool. 
 

EVs haven’t been more more than 2 percent of market share for over a century.  

That’s called progress. Yes people are opposed to it. They miss their distributor caps and carburetors and crank starts and manual steering and braking, and of course their manual shift. Some people even hate cup holders, the cyclops  brake light, day time running lights, air conditions and automatic high beams. And what’s the deal with no more 8 track players in cars?

 

Yes they enable vehicles to be powered by coal (again), hydro (again), and for the first time nuclear fission,  as well as natural gas, solar,  wind, whatever else is used by utilities to generate electricity.  
 

They are literally giving away hydrogen  cars for free and there are few takers.   Useless if you cannot refuel them.  The state with the largest number of hydrogen stations is California, and last I checked most of the time, most of them don’t have fuel.  
 

And the source of most hydrogen in fuel cells comes from natural gas. I know Europe has reclassified methane as a green fuel but c’mon. 
 

Hydrogen requires a whole bunch of brand new infrastructure for production, delivery and distribution.  
 

EVs use the existing electrical grid. All that’s needed is to build nuclear power plants.  Wind and solar is just icing on the cake. 
 

When i start  seeing fuel cells in smart phones and airlines permitting them on board, I will take notice.  

You make it sound like building a nuclear power plant is so easy.  Personally, I would like to see more, but I really doubt the regulations will loosen up to make that happen very quickly.  As to the emissions of an EV, I was really talking about the heavy hydrocarbons that come off all the plastics, upholstery, carpeting, adhesives, rubbers that are used in EV's.  Now regular ICE vehicles are subject to the same emissions, and are regulated by bodies such as CARB or the EPA, but for some reason these agencies are simply calling EVs "zero emission".  In the end, I am not against EVs, and will most likely get one for my wife when it makes economic sense (apples to apples comparison ICE to EV including all the features).  EVs are definitely fun to drive, although that is not a discriminator for me when buying a vehicle (I don't use most of the features on cars today, so will look forward to subscription for some features I never use).  What I am against is a government (Fed or State) mandate that this is all we can buy new based on the erroneous categorizes them as "zero emissions".

[Mike E 11,739]

I agree that government  mandates won’t help EVs succeed and instead I think they likely will hurt EV adoption. Just let EVs win on the free market ob their merits. They will.  

If

* cars are being charged at night

* fossil fueled power plants are being shut down 

then as your earlier question about peak and off peak rates points out, there needs to be a fall back energy source when the wind isn’t blowing.  The wokes don’t like dams.  They don’t like being burning wood from forests (an actual renewable, sustainable  carbon neutral source of energy). What’s left is the least of all evils: nuclear power plants. 
 

[TBoneTX 45,075]

3 hours ago, Mike E said:

the least of all evils: nuclear power plants

Try convincing the hippie/Commie crowd that nuclear power plants are not the same as the "No Nukes that the hippie/Commies always protest.

[Mike E 11,739]

Just now, TBoneTX said:

Try convincing the hippie/Commie crowd that nuclear power plants are not the same as the "No Nukes that the hippie/Commies always protest.

Hippies are all in nursing  homes now, angry that the TV is always set to Fox News 

[TBoneTX 45,075]

27 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Hippies are all in nursing homes now

True, but was referring to their modern descendants.  

[LIBrty4all 3,749]

All this BS about EVs and charging is tiresome.  

As @Dashinka said, EVs have existed for nearly as long as ICE vehicles have.  There is a REASON why they are still only 1% of the vehicles on the road in 2022.  130 years of "technology advancements" for a whole 1%.  Think about that.
 

EVs are for people with a lot of disposable income.  If you have it, you don't qualify for the tax rebates.  If you don't have it (cannot afford the vehicle) you are entitled to it, and MIGHT be suckered into paying more for a vehicle than you should. But either way, it's just excess cash thrown away for the promise of "saving money".  Which you won't do.

 

Is it really so hard to understand?  It's no different than owning a Porsche, Lamborghini, Maserati, Aston Martin, etc.  Some can, and choose to.  Many cannot, and only dream.  Others can, but choose not to.

Edited September 16, 2022 by LIBrty4all

[TBoneTX 45,075]

California Government Recommends Purchasing A Giant Hamster Wheel To Charge Your Electric Car

 

SACRAMENTO, CA — With skyrocketing costs and grid failures across California, the Californian government is recommending everyone purchase a giant human-sized hamster wheel to generate electricity to charge their electric cars.  [...]

 

https://babylonbee.com/news/californian-government-develops-hamster-wheel-to-charge-your-car-when-the-grid-goes-down