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JerryBaumchen

Electric vehicle charging network

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1 hour ago, billvon said:

Undisrupted and even increased commerce through local tourism and regular traveler stopovers, as EV owners from urban areas will naturally avoid small towns where they don’t have access to charging stations

My feeling is the importance is the overnight charging, not shopping charging, but I agree there is a point right at the edge of the "return to base" distance from home (currently say 120 miles) where an additional hour or two of L2 charging will make or break a trip.

But overnight L2 charging makes that make or break distance up to range of the car, provided the people will be spending the night in town.  In a small town if the chargers are available in parking places that could be used for shopping or overnight so much the better.

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2 hours ago, kallend said:

Commentary on how an all electric vehicle situation would work out in conditions like the I-95 winter storm fiasco in Virginia earlier this week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/04/imagine-virginias-icy-traffic-catastrophe-with-only-electric-vehicles/

 

 

WP was paywalled, was this the conclusion?

“Even if the EV batteries don’t freeze, an EV battery contains nowhere near as much energy as a tank of gas, so the safety margin is a lot thinner, for people stranded in severe weather who are using the stored energy of their vehicle to stay warm.

In my opinion, if everyone stuck on the I-95 had been driving an EV, the I-95 ice storm traffic jam could have become a mass casualty event.”

 

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2 hours ago, kallend said:

Commentary on how an all electric vehicle situation would work out in conditions like the I-95 winter storm fiasco in Virginia earlier this week.

From the article:

"Tesla is touting a new “heat pump” to extend winter range."

They've had that since the Model S first came out.  It's necessary to support fast charging.

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3 hours ago, billvon said:

From the article:

"Tesla is touting a new “heat pump” to extend winter range."

They've had that since the Model S first came out.  It's necessary to support fast charging.

Another issue is that none of these people were caught in traffic.  They were the traffic.

 

I seriously doubt that they all had such urgent business that they just had to drive during a well forecast major winter storm.

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3 hours ago, kallend said:

I seriously doubt that they all had such urgent business that they just had to drive during a well forecast major winter storm.

The storm was forecast over a wide area. The problem occurred over a 50 mile stretch of I-95 and it's alternate routes. By the standards of where I live, and even Chicago, it was not that much of a storm. But yes, most likely I would have seen it coming and been hiding away in a safe truckstop like I usually do these days. 

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3 hours ago, kallend said:

I seriously doubt that they all had such urgent business that they just had to drive during a well forecast major winter storm.

The other issue is evacuations and power outages, but I don't see the system changing too rapidly to outpace a solution. 

Overall I'm just excited for new tech.  We already have people up here in northern mi powering small cabins with a couple 'portable' solar kits.  There's also plenty of hydro up here.  I have my eye a lightly forested area right on a river bank near a small dam that could potentially be retrofitted or perhaps used for micro-hydro system.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe it's time to start growing a beard.

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1 hour ago, Coreece said:

The other issue is evacuations and power outages, but I don't see the system changing too rapidly to outpace a solution. 

Overall I'm just excited for new tech.  We already have people up here in northern mi powering small cabins with a couple 'portable' solar kits.  There's also plenty of hydro up here.  I have my eye a lightly forested area right on a river bank near a small dam that could potentially be retrofitted or perhaps used for micro-hydro system.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe it's time to start growing a beard.

Hi Coreece,

You going to go into the parachute business?

Jerry Baumchen

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I found this interesting 

“Tesla owners speak to CNBC about how they’ve used the internal computer and battery power of the car to mine cryptocurrencies.

San Francisco-based Siraj Raval mines ethereum by hooking up graphic processing units directly to the Tesla car battery.

Siraj Raval has tried just about every way there is to mine for cryptocurrencies from his 2018 Tesla Model 3.

He’s run free bitcoin mining software on his Apple Mac mini M1 and powered the computer by plugging an inverter into the 12-volt power socket located in the center console of his car.

He’s also hooked up interconnected graphics processing units or GPUs to the “frunk” of his Tesla, running these machines off the car’s internal battery.

Though it risks voiding his car warranty, Raval says it’s worth it.”

 

“Free” money as well as as a “free” recharge 

 

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I have a question. I know it's ballpark question, I'm just looking for a ballpark answer.

I you had a typical EV sedan, and you were at a fast charging station, what would be the minimum amount of time you'd need to be plugged in to make it worthwhile? Say you were on the road and ran out of 'go', and you had a few to 'lower several' miles to go, how long would you need to get just enough charge?

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2 hours ago, dudeman17 said:

I have a question. I know it's ballpark question, I'm just looking for a ballpark answer.

I you had a typical EV sedan, and you were at a fast charging station, what would be the minimum amount of time you'd need to be plugged in to make it worthwhile? Say you were on the road and ran out of 'go', and you had a few to 'lower several' miles to go, how long would you need to get just enough charge?

Depends on how far you have to go and what kind of charger.

Let's take one extreme - a 350kw level 3 DC supercharger.  That charges at 750 miles per hour.  So if you had another 50 miles to go, you'd need to be plugged in for 3 minutes.  Current superchargers range from 350kw to 70kw.

Let's take the other extreme - a level 2 AC charger that can charge at 6.6kw.  That's about the smallest charger you will see.  That charges at 27 miles per hour.  So you'd need to stay there for 2 hours for 50 miles of charge.

In general, level 3 chargers are intended for on-the-road charging; level 2 chargers are intended for parking lots while you are shopping or eating or something.

List of level 3 (DC) chargers - 

Tesla supercharger fast: 350kw (300kw is pretty common now)
Tesla supercharger slow:70kw
ChaDeMo charger: 50-100kw
SAE level 3 charger: 50-100kw

List of level 2 (AC) chargers -

Tesla destination charger - 22kw
'Standard' charger - 12kw
Low power charger - 6.6kw

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4 hours ago, billvon said:

Depends on how far you have to go and what kind of charger.

Let's take one extreme - a 350kw level 3 DC supercharger.  That charges at 750 miles per hour.  etc.

Is there any deleterious effect on battery life from repeatedly supercharging?

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6 hours ago, billvon said:

Let's take one extreme - a 350kw level 3 DC supercharger.  That charges at 750 miles per hour.  So if you had another 50 miles to go, you'd need to be plugged in for 3 minutes.  Current superchargers range from 350kw to 70kw.

Now that's cool. I hadn't realised they had got that fast. Once they become ubiquitous enough, the reasons to have an ICE car are dropping rapidly.

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5 hours ago, kallend said:

Is there any deleterious effect on battery life from repeatedly supercharging?

I've read that lithium metal formation is the limiting aspect for very fast charging. One of the highest mileage Tesla Model S has covered more than 1 million km (https://electrek.co/2019/11/30/tesla-model-s-1-million-km/) with 2 battery replacements.

The newer LFP models could reach 2 million miles expected lifetime, possibly even more than that: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00757-7.epdf

The theoretical lithium ion mobility seems to be much higher than current battery technology can use at the moment, so there's a lot of room for improvement.

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7 hours ago, kallend said:

Is there any deleterious effect on battery life from repeatedly supercharging?

Yes, in general the faster the charge, the worse it is for the battery.   Tesla recommends supercharging only on long trips, and charging at regular (10kw) chargers the rest of the time.  In Teslas that only supercharge, battery range degrades about 50% faster than 'regular' charging schedules.

That being said, anything under 1C isn't fast charging.  (1C means a rate that would charge a battery in 1 hour if everything was perfect.)  So if a Tesla (100kwhr) charges at the slowest supercharger (70kw) it's not really considered fast charging in terms of battery life.  Even the best ChaDeMo level 3 charger won't hit the threshold for "fast" in a Tesla.

 

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1 hour ago, olofscience said:

The theoretical lithium ion mobility seems to be much higher than current battery technology can use at the moment, so there's a lot of room for improvement.

Ironically the big problem with solid state batteries (one of the Big New Things in the battery space) is low charge carrier mobility in the electrolyte.  Which makes sense, since it's a solid.

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On 1/4/2022 at 8:59 AM, kallend said:

Ford appears to be confident:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/01/ford-will-boost-electric-f-150-production-to-150000-trucks-per-year/

Ford will build 150,000 F-150 Lightnings per year due to demand

The news comes after last month's decision to triple Mustang Mach-E production.

Ford’s market cap tops $100 billion for first time ever As at today.

"The gains have been fueled by Fords’ plans to increase production of electric vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E crossover and an upcoming electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup that’s due out this spring. The efforts are part of a Ford+ turnaround plan led by CEO Jim Farley, who took over the helm in October 2020.

Ford’s now worth more than crosstown rival General Motors, at about $90 billion, as well as electric vehicle start-up Rivian Automotive, at $75 billion, that has failed to sustain gains following a blockbuster IPO in November. Ford continues to significantly trail market cap-leader Tesla at more than $1 trillion market cap."

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On 1/4/2022 at 10:56 AM, BIGUN said:

Morning,

There's a couple of companies that specialize in helping rural areas. A few points they make regarding the community or community leaders being early adopters are....

Not to mention that tourism to small towns will only increase if the cost of driving goes down. Win-win for all.

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On 1/5/2022 at 1:55 PM, kallend said:

Another issue is that none of these people were caught in traffic.  They were the traffic.

 

I seriously doubt that they all had such urgent business that they just had to drive during a well forecast major winter storm.

Exactly.  IF everyone drove EVs, they would have had more incentive to use their common sense and stay home.

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On 1/5/2022 at 5:59 PM, Coreece said:

The other issue is evacuations and power outages, but I don't see the system changing too rapidly to outpace a solution. 

Overall I'm just excited for new tech.  We already have people up here in northern mi powering small cabins with a couple 'portable' solar kits.  There's also plenty of hydro up here.  I have my eye a lightly forested area right on a river bank near a small dam that could potentially be retrofitted or perhaps used for micro-hydro system.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe it's time to start growing a beard.

They now have drop-in hydro power systems that only require a 1-2 foot elevation change in water.

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42 minutes ago, NewGuy2005 said:

They now have drop-in hydro power systems that only require a 1-2 foot elevation change in water.

Yeah, but they generally generate very little power.  (A few watts.)

The conundrum in hydropower is that you either need a large head (over 50 feet) or you have to handle a lot of water (tons.)  High head systems end up with small, cheap turbines that generate a thousand watts or so.  To get a similar amount of power from a 1 foot head you have to have machinery that handles tons of water at a time, and that's not light, cheap or easy to install.

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On 1/13/2022 at 1:09 PM, billvon said:

Yeah, but they generally generate very little power.  (A few watts.)

The conundrum in hydropower is that you either need a large head (over 50 feet) or you have to handle a lot of water (tons.)  High head systems end up with small, cheap turbines that generate a thousand watts or so.  To get a similar amount of power from a 1 foot head you have to have machinery that handles tons of water at a time, and that's not light, cheap or easy to install.

Xcel just announced a plan for a pumped storage system in Western Colorado:

Unaweep Canyon is central to Xcel Energy’s big plans for renewable energy production in Colorado

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