EVs, Aspirations vs Reality

[normiss 622]

On 12/5/2023 at 6:58 AM, lippy said:

So you're part of the lefties' war on Toyotathon!?!?!?! Let's not lose sight of the reason for the season!

I'm reminded of the BCG's in the military.

[ryoder 1,395]

3 hours ago, normiss said:

I'm reminded of the BCG's in the military.

The new Family Truckster?

[brenthutch 388]

From the BBC

“While electric vehicle sales in the United States are rising, demand has slowed. According to a July 2023 Pew Research Center survey, half of Americans say they're unlikely to consider an EV, and 13% are sure they don't want one. In fact, according to the report, the share of the public interested in purchasing an EV is down 4% from May 2022.…A recent S&P analysis showed that among people who do make the switch to an EV, some feel considerable disappointment. The survey showed nearly half of households who own a non-Tesla EV decide to buy a gas-powered car next.”

Imagine it is a Friday afternoon, you want to make it to the DZ and get on the sunset load, you get to the charging station and there is a line several cars deep, you are now looking at at least an hour’s wait.  Unlike a normal car which can charge 400 miles of range in about two minutes, you will be stuck waiting and waiting and waiting…

[billvon 2,426]

5 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Imagine it is a Friday afternoon, you want to make it to the DZ and get on the sunset load, you get to the charging station and there is a line several cars deep, you are now looking at at least an hour’s wait.  Unlike a normal car which can charge 400 miles of range in about two minutes, you will be stuck waiting and waiting and waiting…

Imagine it's a Friday afternoon, you want to make it to the DZ so you get in your car and  . . . out of gas.  The nearest gas station is two miles away. 

Unlike an EV that you can just plug into your house, that gas car is going nowhere until you hoof it to a gas station.

So you find a container, make the two mile walk, get a few gallons of gas, hoof it back, put the gas in, drive to the gas station, get more gas, get on the road and get to the DZ - just as the last load is taking off.  You watch all your friends jump as you sit on the ground, frustrated and angry.

Your gas car just screwed you.

[brenthutch 388]

6 minutes ago, billvon said:

Imagine it's a Friday afternoon, you want to make it to the DZ so you get in your car and  . . . out of gas.  The nearest gas station is two miles away. 

Unlike an EV that you can just plug into your house, that gas car is going nowhere until you hoof it to a gas station.

So you find a container, make the two mile walk, get a few gallons of gas, hoof it back, put the gas in, drive to the gas station, get more gas, get on the road and get to the DZ - just as the last load is taking off.  You watch all your friends jump as you sit on the ground, frustrated and angry.

Your gas car just screwed you.

In my scenario both vehicles were at a gas/charging station with their respective lines three vehicles deep.  Gas vehicle gets topped off in about 10 minutes, EV? Hours.

[gowlerk 1,923]

38 minutes ago, billvon said:

Imagine it's a Friday afternoon, you want to make it to the DZ so you get in your car and  . . . out of gas.  The nearest gas station is two miles away. 

Unlike an EV that you can just plug into your house, that gas car is going nowhere until you hoof it to a gas station.

So you find a container, make the two mile walk, get a few gallons of gas, hoof it back, put the gas in, drive to the gas station, get more gas, get on the road and get to the DZ - just as the last load is taking off.  You watch all your friends jump as you sit on the ground, frustrated and angry.

Your gas car just screwed you.

If the DZ is not within range of your EV that you charge at home every day you probably need to move closer. Friday after work is closer to sunset than battery range is. The bigger problem is the fact that a lot of people live in apartments with limited ability to recharge overnight. And....is the DZ going to have charging available for the return trip?

Edited December 14, 2023 by gowlerk

[olofscience 422]

To move fossil fuels you'll need tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc.

To transport electricity, you just need a piece of metal.

[gowlerk 1,923]

Just now, olofscience said:

To move fossil fuels you'll need tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc.

To transport electricity, you just need a piece of metal.

Tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc are all just pieces of metal as well. Permitting and building power lines is also subject to nimbyism and high costs.

[olofscience 422]

1 minute ago, gowlerk said:

Tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc are all just pieces of metal as well. Permitting and building power lines is also subject to nimbyism and high costs.

With quite a bit higher failure rate and higher maintenance costs than electric infrastructure.

You can pipe electricity to every room, in every house and building in the country. It's scalable.

Imagine if all our devices like TVs ran on tiny gas engines and instead of electric sockets, every room in a house had a little gas tap...

[gowlerk 1,923]

6 minutes ago, olofscience said:

With quite a bit higher failure rate and higher maintenance costs than electric infrastructure.

Mostly true. But where I live a lot of people have natural gas fired emergency generators for comfort during what are very occasional blackouts. Manitoba has a very robust power system mostly run on hydro power. But the point is infrastructure and distribution is not cheap either way. I'm currently using NG for heat and the carbon tax would need to go very high to get me to switch. Not to mention that my 100 amp service panel would need upgrading and especially so if charging two vehicles was to start happening.

[olofscience 422]

22 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

I'm currently using NG for heat and the carbon tax would need to go very high to get me to switch.

Like throwing away a perfectly fine ICE car to buy a new electric car, I think switching when you don't need to yet will result in a higher carbon footprint anyway.

New build houses in the UK are usually all-electric (no more gas heating) but you should really only switch older houses when their gas boilers reach the end of their service life.

Edited December 14, 2023 by olofscience

[wolfriverjoe 1,351]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc are all just pieces of metal as well. Permitting and building power lines is also subject to nimbyism and high costs.

I don't know of any houses in.my town that don't have electricity already up and running.  The infrastructure is largely there already.

 

 

43 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

...Not to mention that my 100 amp service panel would need upgrading and especially so if charging two vehicles was to start happening.

Would you? 

I have 100 Amp in my house. 

I also have a 30 Amp 240v breaker that I wasn't using (for an A/C that I've never used in 20 years). 

That adapted nicely to power a 24 Amp level 2 charger. 

I can put a normal day's worth of electricity back into the battery in 4 hours or so. If I had a 2nd car, both could easily be charged, not simultaneously. 

 

Edit to add: Electric cars aren't for everyone.  I spent a decent amount of time evaluating what I needed, what I had and how it would fit my life. 

It looked good on paper, and has worked out well so far.

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by wolfriverjoe

[gowlerk 1,923]

17 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Would you? 

Like my post said, if I converted from gas to electric heat and also needed to charge two cars I would. Actually the furnace conversion alone would require it. Replacing ICE vehicles with EVs is going to require many distribution upgrades. My wife is absolutely not forgoing the AC either. The truth is that transitioning away is great in theory, but will be a long slow process.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gowlerk

[gowlerk 1,923]

10 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

The infrastructure is largely there already.

In many places the grid is just barely strong and stable enough for the current load. Luckily EV adoption is slow enough right now and charging happens mostly at low demand times that the needed build out may be possible in time. A complete change over to EVs is going to require a lot of both generation and distribution. Far beyond the nibbling around the edges done so far. 

[billvon 2,426]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

In my scenario both vehicles were at a gas/charging station with their respective lines three vehicles deep.  Gas vehicle gets topped off in about 10 minutes, EV? Hours.

Yep.  But that half hour walk to the gas station is going to suck - especially carrying 20 lbs of gas back with you.  No one I know has an oil pump and a refinery in their garage.

[gowlerk 1,923]

18 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Electric cars aren't for everyone.

They will need to be if "transitioning away" is to become a reality.

[billvon 2,426]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Not to mention that my 100 amp service panel would need upgrading and especially so if charging two vehicles was to start happening.

Unlikely.  Most home chargers run at 30 amps or so.  If you have a fast charging vehicle (like a Tesla) a 50 amp outlet would be nice, but no reason you can't charge two cars at 30 amps each.

Now, if you have central air and an electrically heated hot tub, AND you added an EV, then you might need to think about upgrading.  But usually it's not needed, since efficiency gains have been bringing down peak loads for decades.

[wolfriverjoe 1,351]

16 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Like my post said, if I converted from gas to electric heat and also needed to charge two cars I would. Actually the furnace conversion alone would require it. Replacing ICE vehicles with EVs is going to require many distribution upgrades. My wife is absolutely not forgoing the AC either. The truth is that transitioning away is great in theory, but will be a long slow process.

OK, I missed the part about converting the heat too. 

[normiss 622]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Tankers, pipes, pumps, valves etc are all just pieces of metal as well. Permitting and building power lines is also subject to nimbyism and high costs.

I thought pretty much all right of ways for railroads, communications, and electricity were secured YEARS ago.   If it's new infrastructure, it's usually pretty quick to get approved and installed.

At least from what I've seen building out corporate infrastructure, data centers, and communications providers. 

[gowlerk 1,923]

43 minutes ago, billvon said:

Unlikely.  Most home chargers run at 30 amps or so.  If you have a fast charging vehicle (like a Tesla) a 50 amp outlet would be nice, but no reason you can't charge two cars at 30 amps each.

Now, if you have central air and an electrically heated hot tub, AND you added an EV, then you might need to think about upgrading.  But usually it's not needed, since efficiency gains have been bringing down peak loads for decades.

Just like Joe, you only read and considered part of my comment.

[billvon 2,426]

6 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Just like Joe, you only read and considered part of my comment.

?? I read the whole thing and agreed with most of it.  I disagreed with the 100 amp comment, which was the part I responded to.  A 100 amp service is enough for a small house with a heat pump and an EV charger.

[gowlerk 1,923]

13 minutes ago, billvon said:

?? I read the whole thing and agreed with most of it.  I disagreed with the 100 amp comment, which was the part I responded to.  A 100 amp service is enough for a small house with a heat pump and an EV charger.

Maybe being in San Diego you just don't understand a Winnipeg winter. Heating a 2000 sq ft home with an electric furnace and powering all of life's other niceties requires a 200 amp service. Most homes here do fine with a 100 amp service because almost all of us heat with NG. We use about 2400 watts on winter nights just plugging in the block heaters for our two ICE cars. Some people use more because they also run interior warmers. We need to be able to cope with temps of -30C sometimes for weeks at a time. Those can be daytime highs. We only get 8 hours of daylight at this time of year. Solar power is a marginal thing in this season.

 

Edit to add......We are currently really enjoying the El Nino winter. But we know it won't last. The last shot of "arctic air" only lasted a could days and it was pretty mild. Christmas season is usually a time of heavy parkas and ice fog. So far we barely have snow.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gowlerk

[billvon 2,426]

3 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Maybe being in San Diego you just don't understand a Winnipeg winter. Heating a 2000 sq ft home with an electric furnace and powering all of life's other niceties requires a 200 amp service. Most homes here do fine with a 100 amp service because almost all of us heat with NG. We use about 2400 watts on winter nights just plugging in the block heaters for our two ICE cars. Some people use more because they also run interior warmers. We need to be able to cope with temps of -30C sometimes for weeks at a time. Those can be daytime highs. We only get 8 hours of daylight at this time of year. Solar power is a marginal thing in this season.

Electric furnace - agreed.  You'd need a geothermal heat pump to be able to do that on 100 amps.

 

[gowlerk 1,923]

3 minutes ago, billvon said:

Electric furnace - agreed.  You'd need a geothermal heat pump to be able to do that on 100 amps.

 

A few people do use those here. But only as a supplement. The cost/benefit ratio is not that good when you factor in the need for backup.

[billvon 2,426]

34 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

A few people do use those here. But only as a supplement. The cost/benefit ratio is not that good when you factor in the need for backup.

We have the opposite - a heat pump with natural gas as a backup.  (Of course here we never need the backup.)

I'd be surprised if a geothermal heat pump couldn't keep up with heat in the winter, since it's a much more constant temperature six feet underground.