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Auto Makers Announce Electric Car Charging Standard
Overly Critical Guy writes "Auto makers are launching a universal EV charger that charges an electric vehicle in 15 to 20 minutes. The standard, called Combined Charging System, has been approved by the Society of Automotive Engineers and ACEA, the European association of vehicle manufacturers, as the standard for fast-charging electric vehicles."
I could claim that my phone "charges" in 30 seconds, and I'd be correct. Of course, it only charges ~1% in 30 seconds, so that's not very useful.
When they say this charger will charge your car in 15 minutes, I'm assuming they don't mean a full charge. But what DO they mean?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If this catches on (I don't see any Japanese partners in TFA), it could be a sudden outbreak of common sense. Maybe even... convenience for the consumer?
Standardization sounds like a good plan, so we can focus on one format of charging infrastructure.
With my prostrate, it takes me about that long to pee anyway, so it's good to see progress is being made.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why not make the batteries replaceable? Just switch them as a gas station, simple.
Because it's a stupid idea for reasons we've covered numerous times before.
1. Either you need a standard battery which prevents auto manufacturers from building different vehicles with different batteries, or the replacement station needs to store all possible batteries.
2. If you get there with a flat battery and they're out then you're screwed. That's not a big deal for a car where you can drive on to the next gas station twenty miles down the road, but a big problem if your electric car only does eighty miles per charge anyway.
3. Replacing batteries that weigh several hundred pounds is far from a simple task.
4. No-one wants to pay $30k for a new car, then drive it into a replacement station where they'll hand over their brand new battery and have it replaced by one that's done 500,000 miles.
etc, etc, etc.
Simple in theory, incredibly complex in practice. Not to mention expensive.
But these guys are still working on it.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
This just in, gas stations rolling out new chargers that will charge your vehicle for a whole week and it will only take 2 minutes. Please have your credit card handy.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Nissan advises Leaf owners to only Quick Charge twice per month. Some of the newer cars will be able to do it more frequently, possibly without any consequence over slow charging.
Any day now, I'm expecting a lot of noise around owners who didn't RTFM and end up frying their batteries early.
lets just hope that Sony isn't supplying the batteries...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
This is endorsed by Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, GM, Porsche and Volkswagen. Tesla is conspicuously missing. The Tesla Roadster and the Tesla Model S are the only electric cars in or near production that are close to road-trip worthy, so the omission is unfortunate.
1. Different vehicles with the same battery profile. Or have standards. Small medium large.
2. If you get to a gas station and they are out you are screwed.
3. It isnt that hard, there are already prototypes. We refill flying planes with other flying planes and you think this is 'far from simple?
4. Then dont include the battery with the car. 20k or whatever for the car and some 'battery insurance' in case you rally your car and the battery falls out. At that point you don't care what condition the battery is in, it isn't yours.
etc etc etc please do go on, the one and only problem is getting an entire nation to roll out stations which is expensive with a slow return on investment and getting auto manufacturers to standardize batteries.
And predictably, the only 2 major players in the EV market now, Nissan and Mitsubishi, will just stick to the only widely-deployed fast-charge connector to date, CHAdeMO http://www.chademo.com/
By announcing this new American-only Frankenplug, the SAE only helps delaying the (IMHO much-needed) EV adoption in the US and related charging infrastructure. But that's probably exactly what Chrysler & Co want, so they have more time catching up with the Japanese automakers...
Yeah! Standards!
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Actually, it's not all that stupid.
1. Standardized battery packs can only be a good idea. Auto manufactures should develop and conform to standard packs (at least size, shape, and voltage). As battery chemistry progresses, it's not difficult to get the benefit of an upgrade. Just put it in.
2. If you run that close to the edge that you arrive at the station with little or not charge left, you are a fool. That being said, I'm sure that they could spot you with a quick (15 minute charge) so you can get to the next station or get home to do a proper charge.
3. You are not a mechanical engineer, are you? It is not really that hard to build an automated battery swapping system.
4. This is the hard bit. You would get a choice: It comes with a standard capacity (low cost) battery that the dealer/charging stations/whoever owns but you pay a small amount extra per swap. If you want a better battery that you own, then buy one outright, and charg it at you home / work / or other plug in charging station.
It's not rocket science people.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
When did Audi, BMW, Daimler AG, Porsche, and Volkswagen become American companies?
Something just dawned on me... They have made a standard for this connection... and you're going to be trapped at the charging station for 20min... How long do you think it will take them to include a data connection along with the plug and the car companies allow them to flood your car with ads for 20min as part of the payment for the charge?
3. It isnt that hard, there are already prototypes. We refill flying planes with other flying planes and you think this is 'far from simple?
Aerial refueling is far from simple, but it is performed by highly trained operators in billion dollar equipment. And you use that to justify why installing 100,000 battery changers, performing hundreds of millions of changes a year, operated by idiot consumers with cheap vehicles is somehow easy? You might as well say "We put a man on the moon, why don't we all travel in miniature scramjet pods?"
etc etc etc please do go on, the one and only problem is getting an entire nation to roll out stations which is expensive with a slow return on investment and getting auto manufacturers to standardize batteries.
So the only problems are that the infrastructure is too expensive to be profitable and the vehicles are too expensive to be profitable. Sure, that sounds totally viable in a free-market economy. /sarcasm.
Why are people so obsessed with having gas stations for electric cars? That defeats the whole purpose. Charge the car at home and at work, like your smartphone. No trips out of your way, no cruising for the cheapest price, no waiting by the pump, just a few seconds before and after to plug/unplug. If you need to go long distance, take a train/plane/bus, enjoy the view and relax for once in your life. And if your commute is too long, then you're not in the target demographic anyways.
For the cost of installing battery-swap infrastructure in a handful of locations, we could cover a city with standard charging stations. Then you could charge no matter where you park. Even installing networks of the fast-chargers on major corridors will end up being cheaper and more versatile.
Besides, you've seen how long it took them to agree on a standard for a charging plug. Just think how long it would take them to agree on standards for whole battery packs. By the time they finish, we'll have 400-mile Litihium-Air batteries and hydrogen fuel cell backups, and no one will care anymore.
What the J1772 CCS standard has going for it is that it's a free-license standard. (And that it can be covered by a single round "fuel cap".) All those cheapskate developing countries don't want to pay CHAdeMO royalties on every single connector they build, so once China starts producing them en masse the cost for the rest of us will come down. Unless CHAdeMO opens up its standard, it will slowly be eclipsed by the free standard.
Or, consumers will get frustrated that they never have the right plug in the right place, and give up on L3 charging altogether, which doesn't help anyone. Really not sure how this one is going to play out.
exactly! just think about propane tanks. most places i go, they just take your empty tank and hand you a full one. all the rest is engineering and standardization. imagine a car-wash set-up that slips into a keyed channel on the underside of the car the charged battery in front of the depleted one that it slips out. it's not only not rocket science, it isn't brain surgery.
Besides, you've seen how long it took them to agree on a standard for a charging plug. Just think how long it would take them to agree on standards for whole battery packs. By the time they finish, we'll have 400-mile Litihium-Air batteries and hydrogen fuel cell backups, and no one will care anymore.
What I find hilarious about this is that I've started seeing a number of proposals to switch to parking spot mounted inductive chargers. They're agreeing on a standard plug when the plug might end up going away anyways. In which case you wouldn't even need to spend a minute plugging your car in - just park and accept the charge for the electricity while inside your car(assuming that it's not a subscription and therefore fully automatic).
I don't read AC A human right
I was hoping to see an inductive charger similar to the one sported by the EV1.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Why can't they just use micro USB like everyone else?
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Oh, stop it. Sorry, but this debate isn't over. Don't try to bully this forum by simply resorting to name-calling.
A standard set of battery sizes (A, AA, AAA, C, D, camera batteries, 9-volts, watch batteries, etc.) and capacities has prevented electronic device makers from building different devices? No, it hasn't.
The electric car battery issue is also a bigger deal, so there's even more motivation to come up with a standard solution. People aren't terribly worried about charge times for their flashlight, but they are for their EVs.
Your point number 2 ... do you worry about gas stations being "out of fuel"? (you actually did in the 70s, but that didn't stop people from wanting cars). You're exploiting the fact that any new technology has certain chicken-and-egg issues. As soon as EVs are prevalent, charge stations will exist to meet demand, like what you see for any other product.
3? Don't confuse "simple" with "not able to be done by hand". No, a person can't lift an EV battery pack. That doesn't mean they can't be made modularly to be swapped out by a machine with some mechanical advantage. A gas pump can pump hundreds of pounds of fuel in a few minutes. A battery lift isn't fundamentally more complex.
4 can be addressed. First of all, you're not stuck with the battery you swap in at a charge station, any more than you're stuck with the one that comes with your car. Like an odometer in a car, you attach a lifecycle monitor to each battery pack, so it's known how many cycles it's gone through. For a multi-thousand dollar pack, that's easily a justifiable expense.
You'd also probably have to sign up for some kind of network to be allowed to use the swapping system. That way, if you try to leave them with some kind of battery that's had its cycle counter tampered with, the charge station knows who you are. Lack of anonymity is a minor inconvenience for getting a full battery in a few minutes. Besides, nobody today (except tinfoil hats) buys gas with anything but a credit/debit card, which certainly isn't anonymous.
You're out of excuses.
Finally, a way to charge our laptops in a minute!
We just have to wait for the battery packs and chargers that will appear in a year.
And the only thing you care about is electric car charging stations?
Did anyone not read that in a high-pitched voice?
"Besides, you've seen how long it took them to agree on a standard for a charging plug. Just think how long it would take them to agree on standards for whole battery packs."
Once you have that standard, you are STUCK with it, and replacing that sort of equipment isn't like going from AT to ATX form-factors in disposable PCs.
Electric car development is still in its infancy. A great way to "knife the baby" would be too many standards too early in the game.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
One of the things I've discovered is that I almost never need to charge away from home. I've been driving my Leaf for a year and so far I've charged at public stations 3 times, and really only one of those times did I really need to.
Ask yourself this question. If you could fill up your gasoline car in your own garage, how often would you use public gas stations?
Sure, there are proposals for inductive charging systems, but they are years away from any reasonable standard, and I don't think "fast charging" speeds are even physically practical at the moment. Inductive charging will always be less efficient than plug charging, and given the likely cost of deploying permanent inductive charging stations, uptake will be slow in markets where the plug works just as well. I certainly don't anticipate everyone digging up their driveways and garages to install them. Besides, there is no way they can sell an electric car without a standard 120V "contingency" charger, and that needs a plug. Trust me, friend, the humble plug is going nowhere, and we will be thanking them in a decade that all our cars have the same standard.
Charge the car at home and at work, like your smartphone
The problem with charging at work is that charging everyone's car during peak electric demand hours is a terrible idea. Cars should be charged in the middle of the night with cheaper electricity, not dumped on the grid just as the day starts heating up.
Really!? Are you really comparing battery packs to propane tanks!? How much is an empty propane tank? How often do they wear out? Now, how much is a battery pack and how often do they wear out? While it's not rocket science, or brain surgery, your suggestion financially unsound.
That's right.. it's so stupid that Better Place raised $700 million to do it.
Thank you for pointing out how difficult it would be if they ran out. It's not like one switch station with 15 batteries could swap batteries for over 2500 EVs. and each station would cost 1/2 the cost of a gas station.. and the batteries could be swapped out in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place
http://www.autoobserver.com/2011/03/better-place-denmark-plan-gives-glimpse-of-battery-exchange-cost.html
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/better-place/
http://www.autoobserver.com/2010/04/battery-swap-program-begins-in-tokyo-with-taxi-company-demo.html
You're such a genius for pointing how wrong they are.
...says the article.
I should say not, given that the photo of the plug at the top of the article would obviously never fit into the photo of the socket halfway down. The accompanying plug photo in the second photo may not have the same problem (at least the two parts of the plugs don't protrude different amounts). Anyway, graphic designer fail.
And, for a less-superficial observation, who's going to want to open two port covers on opposite corners of the socket, especially given that both are likely to be spring-loaded? You're gonna need three hands to plug the car in! Let's hope those were subject to the artist's wild imagination as well.
The average commute in the US is 40 miles round trip.
A 100 MPC is nowhere acceptable for a commute ride, much less a cross town trip
You poor bastard, my commute is 20 miles round trip :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
While sitting for hours behind creepy crawlies the day they decide to repair a pothole. Plan to add two hours to a commute on some days.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
before blatantly stating that a suggestion is financially unsound describe the payment and costs involved. you do know that the propane tank example was just an example of a similar market exchange and not in direct monetary proportions, yes? i really don't understand this knee-jerk resistance to a possible solution to the recharge time problem. where has gone the modicum of imagination and ingenuity that used to triumph against far greater challenges than merely swapping batteries - even fairly large ones?
What about a main battery and a smaller higher voltage battery to top off the main battery? Kind of like the small USB pack that I carry when I travel to allow my Android phone to make it an entire day.
Load a 40 pound loaner battery into the trunk and maybe make it an extra 60 miles.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
They just avoid standard batteries when then want. My Canon 7D uses a proprietary battery pack.
Merely changing battery packs has big issues. What if you get a bad set that was electrically abused and won't hold a charge for very long?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Electric vehicles use zero power while stopped, and damned little while moving slowly in stop-and-go with regenerative braking. It's maintaining the highway speeds that kills the battery faster. This isn't like an internal combustion engine, which makes peak efficiency at more-or-less highway speeds and wastes power idling in traffic.
Yeah, if we were to have a world-wide universal standard, then we could drive to Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and both Americas in the same car.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
On 15% of the cars by then.
The bigger problem is that an easily replaceable battery pack means lots of wasted space. Manufacturers have trouble finding enough room to put in enough batteries to give a reasonable range. forcing them to all sit in one or two easily accessible packs for the convenience of swapping them would severely limit the options for fitting in more batteries. electric cars with reasonable range often shoehorn batteries in to every nook and cranny all over the car. Not really an option if you want to be able to swap them quickly.
You'll also notice that while this is standard practice for propane tanks for barbecues, they never swap the tank on your vehicle if you have a propane powered car... probably because it's quite awkward to do so.
What happens when you get a bad tank of gas and your car won't run? You have to drain the tank (usually pay a mechanic) and refill it.
I wouldn't expect it to be much different in inconvenience to require exchanging for another battery pack and tagging it as bad when you exchange it.
Besides, nobody today (except tinfoil hats) buys gas with anything but a credit/debit card, which certainly isn't anonymous.
Citation please.
Or to put it another way, you are full of shit on that point.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
> 4. Then dont include the battery with the car.
That's actually brilliant.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sorry, but this debate isn't over.
Actually, it absolutely is over among auto engineers.
Not that all traction batteries are the same (this is the whole point after all) but if you were to pick a typical one, it's the size of 4-5 gas tanks, and weighs 200-300 kg. At that scale is a structural part of the car. Making a one-size-fits-all battery is even less likely than a one-size-fits-all gasoline engine.
It's also entirely unnecessary. The desire for fast charging (and other manifestations of range anxiety) are mostly prevalent among people who don't actually drive the cars. Charging at home utterly dominates, since it's by far the most convenient, efficient, and cost effective.
Frankly this is a non-issue. Some people have to charge at work to make the return trip, some don't. If the employer charges a nominal fee for charging at work, the two groups will sort themselves out on their own. Either way, it's not like cars suddenly drain the grid when they get plugged in--a typical trip uses far less than the whole-battery-charge which most numbers are based on. Right now we're still in the build-out phase, and it's important that people have as many options as possible. The employers who forbid charging at work are shooting themselves in the foot because it limits their employees' mobility. Maybe when 25 or 50% of all commuter vehicles are electric we will have to worry about grid load, but certainly not right now.
it's so stupid that Better Place raised $700 million to do it.
It is stupid. The Better Place model only makes sense when you're optimizing the system to get Israel off "foreign" oil at any price. It's utter folly otherwise, as evidenced by no real progress (smoke-and-mirrors demos don't count) in spite of the $700 million.
Better Place would be better off if Shai ever actually tried driving an EV instead of trying to solve imaginary problems.
It's not an imaginary problem. Even with this tech, making people wait at a charging station for 30 minutes is a problem. No one is going to look at that and think it's a good thing. It's a ridiculously long wait before the driver can continue on their way.
Second, you obviously didn't read any of the links I posted. The swap station is 1/2 the price of a gas station, and the price to the driver is competitive with gasoline.
Third, Better Place is a Californian company, not an Israeli company. They are rolling this out in Finland, Japan, and Israel.. Not because Israel needs to get off gasoline, but because these are small areas where they can roll it out the service across the entire area (or country, in the case of Israel).
Why don't you try actually reading about what they are doing, instead of blindly dismissing it.
If it takes 15 minutes to charge up - exactly how big would a charging stop have to be to replace a gas station? I can fuel up, pay and be gone in less than 4 minutes in a busy gas station with 12 pumps. If I had to wait for people to charge up when the pumps took almost 4 times as long, there would be a long line in front and behind me.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
My last commute would have made a 100 mile battery last over a month.
That's unlikely. The companies that have standardized on CHAdeMO are actually producing and selling electric vehicles while the ones that are adopting this new "standard" are not.
I hope they included some type of offset/tarrif scheme to the charging stations (or at least suggested it, unfortunately the news article didn't really illude) - as we get more and more EVs and charging points, you're eventually going to get to the point where everyone comes home from work and plugs their EV in. That's going to place a tremendous strain on the local electricity grid as EV's suck up a lot of power, especially if you're doing fast charges!
Either you need a standard battery which prevents auto manufacturers from building different vehicles with different batteries, or the replacement station needs to store all possible batteries.
Why would you need different batteries? How about standard batteries in different combinations. Parallel or series gets the needed power output or duration.
That, or there will be a few standard sizes, just like we have for A-D batteries for everyday stuff.
Still, being able to "plug in" is a better solution, but a quick swappable battery would also do in a pinch.
It is awkward simply because it was not designed to be otherwise. For what ever reason. And, yes larger tanks are swapped. Granted, generally it's fork truck tanks, but the idea is in principal the same. It has not been done because there has not been the demand. I think that if electric is going to really make it, fast charging (under 5 minutes) or battery swapping must be done. The time to do the PROPER engineering is NOW, not after the fact.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
The comments I saw said that the inductive charging is as efficient as a corded.
Besides, if you're providing the option for 120V 'cripple' charge, you're going to be using a standard, if heavy duty, extension cord, not some fancy high speed charge port.
I don't read AC A human right
If you need to go long distance, take a train/plane/bus, enjoy the view and relax for once in your life.
I go hiking on my weekends, with some locations being as far as 150 miles away (e.g. Hoh rainforest). Quite obviously, there are no charging stations there, and even if they were, most EV vehicles on the market can't drive that far even one way. Taking a bus that far, with all the hiking gear? No thanks.
Something like a Volt, though, that looks interesting - 100% EV for commute, and gas where you need it. It's still too expensive, though.
Many people who suffer from 'Range Anxiety' also have small penises.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Because not all batteries are equal. Some are just made to higher standards. Some are old, and with age comes lost capacity. Some will be damaged by abuse. A battery replacement service is just a machine by which someone can turn their hundred-quid cheap box of plastic and lead-acids into a fresh new five-thousand-quid li-ion pack. Operators would also have to inspect every single battery by hand to ensure it hasn't been damaged, or else be held potentially liable when they install it into another vehicle which shorts and ignites.
3. I am! And yes! it really is that hard!
From Lego university, no doubt. Poncy git. If you want me to take you seriously, don't post as A/C
The fact is that heavy (but easily) removable packs have been designed and are in use right now. Have been for years. Not so much in consumer automobiles, but the basic systems can be adapted to cars with a bit of imagination. Easily? Perhaps not, but far from hard or impossible.
And yes, I am a mechanical / electrical engineer who deals with heavy, high current systems all the time.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
So, your commute was about a mile and a half each way? Would you even bother driving that kind of distance?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ah, the 'it doesn't work for my atypical use case, therefore it's useless argument'. Obligatory for any technology article, well done.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Because most people cannot charge their car at work. Because people that live in apartments or condos cannot charge their cars at "home".
If there's a standard for electric car charging, expect to see charging stations appear in business parking lots and on the streets. When I was in Paris a few months ago there were already a number of electric car charging stations dotted around the place. You can deploy one anywhere that has a connection to the electricity grid and the space required is about the same as a parking space.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The air conditioner and the heating system consume power even if the car is stopped. Heating is not always optional, because you want to keep windows defrosted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle#Heating_of_electric_vehicles
So, your commute was about a mile and a half each way? Would you even bother driving that kind of distance?
In parts of the world there is no alternative. I remember seeing a nice restaurant across a highway from a hotel in Texas once, and after wandering around for a bit I realised the only way to get to t was to get in the car, drive half a mile to an exit with a loop under, then drive back again.
I don't know what's so atypical about my use case. You don't ride out on weekends? Most of my coworkers do that, not every weekend perhaps, but certainly often enough. Living next to several state and national parks kinda encourages that kind of thing.
My daily commute is about 15 miles round trip. While I'm actually working, though, I can easily clock up four or five hundred miles depending on what has broken and where.
Merely changing battery packs has big issues. What if you get a bad set that was electrically abused and won't hold a charge for very long?
Change it again?
Predicted next question: what about if the next one is just as bad?
Answer: The EV infrastructure company has some SLA with the customer. If they need to swap battery more than X times over Y period, their account gets a credit. (I think with Better Place it is 52 times a year - I'm not sure how they handle specific use cases, such as someone who travels over 150km a day every day.). The point is that there is a financial incentive to get rid of poor performing batteries and keep the "fleet" fresh.
- Chuq
Granted, generally it's fork truck tanks, but the idea is in principal the same.
Forklift LPG tanks are of the same design as your BBQ bottle just larger, they are however mounted on their side and you can't fill them when they're like that, Add in the fact that your average forklift doesn't travel really fast driving it to a service station to fill up is not a good use of it's time, so you get the gas man to deliver an entire bottle and swap it over.
Good time to invest in nuclear power?
tlax says: "Lol".
So, your commute was about a mile and a half each way? Would you even bother driving that kind of distance?
I used to commute half that distance.
Sure, it's only three quarters of a mile, why not break the American mold, get some exercise, and save money in the process? Because I always sucked at playing Frogger, that's why. There are no sidewalks, there are no crosswalks, and there is no respect for pedestrians between here and there. It's good exercise running like hell trying to avoid getting hit by cars going 20 mph over the speed limit, true enough, but running for your life tends to make you show up for work looking sweaty and haggard.
This phenomenon is one of the bigger things that I really wish America, or at least my corner of it, would fix. I actually like to walk, and I'd be happy to walk that distance and more every day if it weren't such a fundamentally suicidal undertaking.
I guess it's all moot now anyway. I lost that job, and now I have to drive 115 miles round trip.
Aerial refueling is far from simple, but it is performed by highly trained operators in billion dollar equipment. And you use that to justify why installing 100,000 battery changers, performing hundreds of millions of changes a year, operated by idiot consumers with cheap vehicles is somehow easy?
That's why you let robots do it. Robots have been replacing vehicle batteries (the vehicles themselves often robots) for quite some time now.
For the cost of installing battery-swap infrastructure in a handful of locations, we could cover a city with standard charging stations.
I did some back-of-the-envelope calcs some time ago and concluded that a battery swap station would not be any more expensive than a typical gas station. Standard L1/L2 chargers are great and should be everywhere people tend to park for several hours at a time - but they're not going to help someone driving between cities.
Now I agree that the "gas station for EVs" is stupid, and that home.work charging is the primary means to keep it electron'd-up. But I also recognize the need for a minimal infrastructure to support long distance travel without the need to be parked somewhere for 20 minutes out of ever hour (or more).
=Smidge=
It's not an imaginary problem. Even with this tech, making people wait at a charging station for 30 minutes is a problem.
The need for fast charging (or battery swapping or any of a host of other non-economical "solutions" to the "range problem") is what's imaginary. As anyone who actually drives an electric knows, the overwhelming majority of charging happens at home. Depending on range expended, the typical charge time is an hour or two, but it doesn't matter because it happens while you're doing other things.
Your argument applies much more strongly to cell phones. They only make calls for a few days, and then you have to wait for hours while they charge. No one would ever think that's a good thing!
The swap station is 1/2 the price of a gas station, and the price to the driver is competitive with gasoline.
It doesn't matter, because it's far cheaper still to charge at home. The economics of "fast charge" stations are dubious (that's being generous) and battery swapping is an order of magnitude worse.
And of course this is moot, because the auto industry is not adopting battery swapping. Period. Even Renault, which is building cars is not going along with it, which is why BP still has not deployed a single production swap station. Smoke and mirrors prototypes? Yeah, they got those. I'm sure their investors are thrilled that they blew a third of their cash on that.
They are rolling this out in Finland, Japan, and Israel.
Yeah sure they are. I guess that's why, according to Wikipedia: "As of March 2012, none of these deployments have occurred. Better Place plans to deploy the infrastructure on a country-by-country basis."
They're being left in the dust by the rest of the industry. Innovation by press release only works until other companies start delivering the stuff you promised.
Several standard deviations of charging happens at home. The rest happens as part of the routine (e.g. at work) and the rest is down in the noise. If Shai Agassi ever spent any significant time driving an EV, he'd realize this.
Yeah, but there are a vast number of people that are desk jockeys. Just because the system doesn't work for you doesn't mean it's not ready at all.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Maybe when 25 or 50% of all commuter vehicles are electric we will have to worry about grid load
I suspect it won't even need to be that high, but I'm planning for the future.
Can you try planning for the future by anticipating actual technology instead of resorting to knee-jerk reactionary tactics? Seriously, when it does become an issue, we have MUCH better ways to deal with it than shaming people who dare to plug in during the day. Yes, if everyone traded in their cars for electric right now it would be a big deal, but we have about a decade to figure it out before we hit even 1% market penetration.
The charging standard is set up so that the grid can control everyone's rate of charge. If you have a parking garage full of partially-charged vehicles they could easily be synchronized with the rest of the building and throttled so that the average load of the company is flat. If you have to leave in less than 6 hours, pay an extra buck and you get priority charging. Or the simplest solution of all: Install solar panels over your parking lot to charge the cars. Then it doesn't matter what the rest of the grid is doing, and you can sell back the excess.
For a typical commute of 40 miles one way, a car uses 40 miles / (4 miles/kWh) = 10kWh of electricity. At the max L2 rate of 6.6kW, this can be done in less than two hours. If you have a garage of 20 cars all traveling this far, you need 200 kWh of electricity delivered in about 8 hours, which is an average draw of 25kW. While not chump change, a constant load of 25kW is about the same as two or three commercial air conditioning units, hardly a drastic load on the grid, and the actual charging could by throttled so it only happens when the building A/C is off. This is also a pretty extreme scenario, with 20 cars all having long commutes. If there are 20 cars that require charging at work, there are probably 50 more that don't, and that is pretty high market penetration right there.
Your "minimal infrastructure" involves make EVERY SINGLE CAR compliant with some battery standard, and installing these robot things all over the place. Sure, it works in a place like Israel because there's only one corridor and the whole country is small and self contained. But in the US? There are corridors freaking everywhere. Making that system ubiquitous enough that people would pay extra for a compatible car would be next to impossible. When you DO need to move your BEV between cities, waiting for 10-20 minutes won't be a big deal if it's in a nice location. Who would pay so much extra just to save 10 minutes when they do this once a year, or even once every five years?
And once again, traveling between cities in a BEV on a frequent basis is a generally dumb idea--that's what trains, planes, buses, and (at worst) rental cars are for. If such travel is in your job description, stop bitching and by a gas car, it's the only one that meets your requirements. You wouldn't try sailing across the Atlantic in a kayak, would you? But just as important, you wouldn't paddle the canals in a 100-foot schooner. Embrace BEVs for what they are, commuter vehicles designed to punch SMOG in the nuts and reduce our reliance on OIL in general. They ARE NOT magic unicorns come to replace every vehicle on the road right now.
Some of us aren't that lucky, bro, and are stuck in a metropolitan hell-hole. Actually, there are plenty of parks and even a few other cities within 50 miles of here, so I'm happy. If your daily commute is less than 40 miles round-trip, though, go for the Volt. It would be perfect for your use case, and I hear it is awesome fun to drive.
LOL - did that for a few years and it was AWESOME!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I forgot to mention in my post that my wife's commute is only about 10 miles round trip... we actually put under 5000 miles per year on her car. We'll be totally sick of it before it actually wears out... at the current rate we're looking at over 12 more years until the 100,000 mile mark. We'll get a new car when we retire the mortgage :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why not standardize what connectors should be available charging portable electronics? Ie. mandate USB 3.0 ports internally. So that you can always expect to plug in your tablet, smart phone, portable hard drive or whatever..
thank a lot. I faced the restaurant on the other side of the highway, unzipped mine, and, "going commando" at the time, was subsequently incarcerated for public indecency. Damn you, slashdot anonymous coward!
Quite true. The optimal speed for a Tesla Roadster under controlled conditions (perfectly flat, no wind, no accel/decel, etc) is 17-18 mph. The Roadster's range under such conditions is about 410 miles, versus the 170 or so that you'll get driving 70 down a highway (the Roadster's nominal range is generally achieved at around 55mph steady-state).
Yes, running the AC or heater takes power. But, say, 3kW to run a heater (the heat output of two blow driers running at full blast) for two hours stuck in traffic in freezing weather is still only 6 kWh, compared with the 3x efficiency gain from driving slowly. Run a heat pump or insulate the vehicle, and your heating requirements become much less.
Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
Only in batteries not designed for fast charging.
That may sound like a snarky answer, but it's not. There's a huge number of engineering design decisions and tradeoffs that one can make, and you can basically pick and choose your ability to deal with different challenges by how much you care about them versus other challenges -- namely, cost and energy density. Of course, today's LiPos and spinels have advanced so much that it's not hard at all to deal with fast charging, from a cell chemistry perspective; the main challenge now is simply designing a pack that can be cooled properly without being overly heavy or complicated.
FYI, A123 has packs that can repeatedly be charged and discharged in just a couple minutes without any special cooling that are popular in the RC world, but they're quite expensive.
And anyway, beyond all this -- how often do you think the average person goes more than 100 miles on a tank? No, seriously? A couple times a year perhaps? A couple fast charges per year -- let's say 6 -- and, say, a 10 year battery life = 60 fast charges. Not a freaking lot.
Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
that's alarmist fud, we are not running out of helium. helium can be extracted from the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is where all that past used helium went. A perfect application for solar power panels out in wasteland, to provide the energy source for the refrigeration.
Exactly. I just wanted to make the point that the commute isn't everything...
True...
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Those are VERY rarely seen in the US.
I don't recall seeing one ever when I've had to visit Houston....and I've run into the 'restaurant across the hwy' scenario a number of times. Yep...you gotta drive over there and back, unless you want to die trying to walk/run over there.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
So, you're suggesting, that every time someone changes a job, they pick up, sell their homes and move to be closer to the new job. Hmm...what about people with kids, you want them to uproot them from schools every time jobs change? If a married couple...who's job take priority....likely as not one of them will have to drive further than the other one, rarely do couples work at the same fucking place you know...
I mean, this is no longer the age of having a job for life. The only way to gain higher job position and, more importantly increases in job PAY...is to change jobs with regularity. No one trying to move up in the world stays at one place usually more than 3 years or so.....and in this economy, it is a bit hard to sell your house every few years.....not everyone rents and is single. Even those that are....have enough stuff that moving is a major even in terms of time, effort and money.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I hate commuting so I usually try to move close to my job (and I tend to keep jobs for a while). I remember my last car was 12 years old when I sold it... with 70,000 miles on it. And yes, I took road-trips. It's just that my daily commute was very small.
Even now, my commute is only about 9 miles round-trip (throw on more for driving to lunch, so call it "under 15"). Driving around town during the week probably puts on another 50 or so total. I don't drive a lot. My current car is seven years old now, and still feels "new".
I'm glad they've made this crucial step towards electric car adoption. I'm seriously looking at something like the Volt for my next car... at any rate, my next car WILL be a re-chargable electric/hybrid of some kind. I want to keep the flexibility of extended range and ability to use the gasoline infrastructure as things transition to nationwide electric fast-charging stations.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Why not make the batteries replaceable? Just switch them as a gas station, simple.
Because it's a stupid idea for reasons we've covered numerous times before.
...and yet betterplace is implementing this solution with success in Europe, Israel and Japan
http://www.betterplace.com/the-solution-switch-stations
Nobody sane is suggesting that EVs entirely replace IC engine vehicles in the near term. There are too many edge cases that make EVs impractical for all uses while at the same time making perfect sense for many. We're talking multiple decades, perhaps generations to change off everything.
There is plenty of oil for that - we just have to start somewhere, somehow as there isn't enough (cheap) oil to last for multiple generations.
Perhaps your kids will be taking a driverless electric bus up from a transfer point on the highway, dropping off their gear and hiking over to another bus, transferring down to the main highway and picking up their EV which drove itself to the new spot.
Or maybe they'll be hunkered down in their bunker playing with an old Xbox run off a 12 v battery. Who knows?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I used to get an apartment within walking distance of wherever I worked, but marriage and kids have changed that strategy :)
Now we split the difference as much as is possible while also staying in the school district that we prefer. And of course, buying a house and having kids in the local school system has made us less mobile should one of our job situations change.
I've also looked into hybrids, but they simply don't make sense for me or the environment. When a car is more likely to rot than wear out, you aren't spending enough money on gas to recoup your investment. I could justify an all-electric conversion kit with a short range, so maybe I'll look into that more.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If we could reduce the number of "standard form factors" required to maybe four or five, it's possible. Small (compact, 2-door sedans) , Medium (4-door sedans, wagons, crossovers), Large (Larger crossovers, SUVs, vans, light trucks) and Heavy Duty. Considering the level of standardization in other industries - most notably the electronics and telecom industries - it is profoundly cynical to say the auto industry is unable to do this.
Remember that the fundamental reason most EVs don't have compatible batteries is all but two or three manufacturers are focusing on shoehorning an electric drivetrain into an existing car. Everyone who is building pure EVs from scratch have been accommodating: The Nissan Leaf has the battery pack under the floorboards (though the attachment system is not swap-capable, the location is). The Renault Fluence Z.E. is specifically built in partnership with Better Place with a swappable battery behind the rear seat. The Tesla Model S and BYD's e6 are also said to be swap compatible.
This goes way beyond Israel too. Better Place is an Israeli company, sure, but their battery swap pilot stations can be found in Japan, France, Denmark, and the US (California and Hawaii).
It's not just "waiting 10-20 minutes when moving between cities." For every ~60 miles you drive you will spend a minimum of 40 minutes recharging. That's ~1 hour of highway driving and 40 minutes charging. That's with fast chargers, not the significantly slower L2 stations which would take 6-8 hours. Battery swap takes less than 2 minutes and is fully automated. Roll up, swipe a credit card (or membership card for bill-me-later service), pull into what is essentially a car wash, and drive out faster than you could order a cup of coffee.
Don't forget that the ultimate goal is to "de-carbon" transportation, so "stop bitching and by (sic) a gas car" is antithetical to that goal. It's also irresponsibly unsustainable.
=Smidge=
"So, you're suggesting, that every time someone changes a job, they pick up, sell their homes and move to be closer to the new job. Hmm...what about people with kids, you want them to uproot them from schools every time jobs change?"
Well, that's what we did when my dad changed jobs, maybe an average of once per year at times IIRC, and it didn't kill us.
And I don't own a car (and never have) and manage to commute less than half the week, and when I do it is by (electrified) public transport and to decent/fun clients that pay well and at non-peak hours.
The horrors! Maybe it *is* terrible being a creepy commie energy-efficient European banker IT consultant after all, and my kids hate me too, really.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
In Brussels I saw some parking spaces with charging while at FOSDEM, here:
http://gallery.hd.org/_c/travel/_more2012/_more02/car-electric-ZERO-ZENCAR-pair-charging-from-pillars-on-snowy-streets-of-Brussels-Belgium-1-DHD.jpg.html
Now this may be currently limited to one car rental scheme, but that's more-or-less a matter of software to fix, especially once a standard plug is widespread.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
We refill flying planes with other flying planes and you think this is 'far from simple?
The military does that. No civilian planes do, AFAIK. In-air refuelling would save LOTS of fuel on long trips; if it was practical it would surely be in use.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Come on. This would be much quicker.
I come here for the love
Not really, but it is two ENTIRELY different standards of living conditions. You're likely in a small country, the size of one of our states, with old cities, with small streets, short distances....and public transportation.
That type of thing just plain doesn't exist at all in the majority of the cities in the US. In most cities, you can't walk down the street for a loaf of bread, you have to get in the car and drive a few miles, to buy your groceries, etc. Public transportation is pretty much non-existant, and what is there, isn't suitable for normal lifestyle.
It is hard for you to go on like that....when you live in Europe somewhere, that is likely 180 degrees different than how we have to live over here....at bare minimum, is the existing infrastructure one lives within....
Does you wife also work? Are the kids old enough to have jobs too (I've been working since I was 16yrs)....?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If solar cells keep improving their cost/benefit at the current rate and electric car uptake does not speed up dramatically, mid-day electricity will come from solar cells in most of the world.
Either way, we are too far away from 50% electric cars to really worry about that kind of thing. The power infrastructure will likely look quite different in 10 or 20 years.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Right, but there are plenty of people in US cities who could live like I do in a European one. Energy consumption per capita is comparable I suspect between EU and US cities, unlike the average US citizen using twice as much as the average EU citizen, of which a lot will be (self-inflicted) travel.
No one forces the building of exurbs or living there! And we have crap-to-get-to places in the EU too.
We've taken a conscious decision to live somewhere that has good public transport.
And no, my partner does not currently work, but that will change. My kids are not old enough for me to send them down the mines yet. B^>
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
A bigger battery pack can usually charge at higher power than a smaller one. Sure enough the Tesla Roadster with its monster 52 kWh pack has a 16 kW AC charger, by far the most powerful of any electric car. It came out before the SAE J1772 AC charging standard was adopted in 2009, so Tesla developed its own connector; You can buy an expensive adapter cable for it to use at the thousands of public AC charging stations. The Roadster doesn't support even higher-power DC fast charging.
This new standard has a Frankenplug that adds two fat pins for DC power to the existing 5 pins (RTFA for a picture). But Tesla didn't go for it. They developed their own compact plug that supports both AC and DC fast charging (scroll down for a picture) with fewer pins. Using it a Model S with the biggest battery option can recharge at 90 kW (the same maximum power as this new standard) from a Tesla-specific "SuperCharger", and Elon Musk has talked about setting up networks of SuperChargers along major highways.. But I don't think Tesla ever seriously proposed it as a standard, SAE was always only going to choose between the Japanese CHAdeMO plug on the Nissan Leaf and this Frankenplug. I hope Tesla develops an adapter for the DC fast charge that succeeds.
=S
Sure, Better Place raised all that money and Shai Agassi is everywhere saying how great it is.
But look at actual results.
*There is only one car in the world that supports the QuickDrop approach, the Renault Fluence Z.E. Despite all the PR and spin, no one else has an EV even planned for production using it. As others have pointed out, technology has advanced, so BP will have to offer a second pack for any second model, greatly increasing their costs.
* BP is only up and running in Israel and maybe Denmark. And I think they have only built one battery swap station in Israel, because a single swap station and a supply of batteries costs millions. (BP loves to conflate charging stations and swap stations, as when they claimed a Chinese utility was going to install thousands of the latter, or when they filmed some guys sticking an AC socket on a post.)
* Because of the cost of the stations and maintaining spare batteries, BP's approach can only increase the cost of operating an electric car. Their mantra "we sell you battery charge" means you have to pay them to recharge at home, where it's ordinarily cheapest and where most drivers do charging.
Better Place's value proposition is that with 5-minute battery swap range anxiety goes anywhere. It's great for a small country if and when BP can actually put in the swap stations required to cover it. It's an intriguing idea for city dwellers without a parking space with a (low-cost AC) charging station. But in the real world it isn't happening.
=S
I agree with your standards war analysis. SAE had a "bake-off" between the Frankenplug and CHAdeMO for fast DC charging, but the standards process was dominated by companies that don't have a pure EV for sale. They have every incentive to pick a slightly better standard in defiance of the only DC fast charge system shipping in cars you can buy and charging stations on the ground (1154 in Japan, 207 in Europe, and 34 elsewhere according to http://chademo.com/).
The significance of this announcement is that the Europeans have gone for it. The existing SAE J1772 AC charging standard (up to 19 kW) benefited USA and Japan but didn't support Europe where much higher power three-phase 400V AC charging is simple thanks to its 240V supply; so the Europeans were off proposing the Mennekes plug for up to 43 kW.
Many companies announced CHAdeMO charging stations in the hope of making big $$$, I think all were blindsided by the relatively cheap charger Nissan introduced that they say they'll put in all their dealers. The best hope is that they all offer a charging station with two plugs during the transition.
The "best" plug is the Tesla SuperCharger (scroll down for a pic), slim, elegant, reuses the same pins for DC and AC, also goes to 90 kW. But it never had a serious chance at standardization.
=S
I didn't say it was impossible, I said the political reality is that it will be irrelevant before it is ready for market. Fast chargers will only get faster, battery packs will only get bigger. Once we have 200-mile battery packs (really only 5-10 years away), even most intercity trips won't be a problem. The remaining fraction of a percent of all vehicle miles spent on longer trips will be almost negligible (environmentally speaking) if we can electrify the other 99.99% of miles traveled.
The telecom industry standardizes plenty, sure, but they are not consumer products. They don't have meet the same kind of physical, aesthetic, and price constraints consumer products do. The closest analog is the laptop and cell phone industries where they standardized the plugs (mostly), but you're lucky if the battery packs are compatible with more than one exact model, much less multiple years over multiple manufacturers.
If you're looking for carbon-neutral, there are much better ways to travel long distance than battery power: biofuel or hydrogen-powered cars (either ICE or fuel cell), and most importantly high-speed electric railroads. Battery swapping is basically what the military would do if presented with "We have X technology now, we want to do Y with it, so build a Z to make it possible." But the Y you are talking about, making personal vehicles go unlimited distances using Li-Ion battery technology, isn't the problem. The problem is getting people from point A to point B with as conveniently and efficiently as possible. I won't accept battery-swapping as the best solution unless it's compared to these and other options that aren't restricted to the religion of the personal vehicle.
The reason myself and many other EV advocates argue against battery swapping is because inflates the perceived cost of the electric vehicle transition. If people think all that infrastructure is necessary for BEVs to be at all useful, they are going to question the wisdom of using them at all. The time and money required for carmakers to standardize packs would be much better spent making the standardization unnecessary. The investment in infrastructure for battery swapping would really only serve a tiny, tiny segment of the population, and the overall cost would slow adoption and make it even less profitable.
I want to say any development is a good development, but I'm just not convinced that battery swapping is worth the expenditure of both financial and political capital that would be required to get it off the ground, given how rapidly technology is moving forward.
I run my entire house on an average of 6.2kW/H a day. If you need 3kW/H to keep your car warm you are doing something wrong (or live in a very cold place).
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I'm with you on the dubiousness of battery swapping[**], but
Once we have 200-mile battery packs (really only 5-10 years away)
Surely you know the Tesla Roadster has 245 mile range according to the EPA. And coming in July:
"Three battery options are offered: 160-, 230-, or 300-mile range. Model S comes standard with the 160-mile range battery at the quoted $49,900 base price (after the $7,500 Federal Tax Credit)."
[**] I like the idea of dropping in a few extra battery slices/sheets in the trunk for a long trip, sort of like clipping a bigger battery onto your iPhoPablet. But at 40 pounds each and with a host of electrical, mechanical, and thermal safety issues, I don't see that happening either.
=S
Australia is a fantasy, Better Place got an agreement that if Holden makes an electric vehicle then it may be compatible with their swappable battery design. It's as meaningless as their deal with Chery. Better Place had a swap station demonstration in "Gladsaxe" in Denmark last year, but I can't find it on Google Street View, and I don't believe a Dane can sign up for BP right now. Much like the hydrogen vehicle future, "roll-out" means "planning something," not "the first lucky owners are driving away in one."
=S
Sounds great, pop one or two add-on batteries in the trunk for a long drive. But
* how do you mount a heavy battery safely in the trunk?
* how do you monitor it for electrical and thermal runaway?
* how do you cool it?
* how does you safely cable it to safely supply 40 kW (80 amps at 500 V)?
* what happens to all this in a collision?
These are all merely engineering problems, but they're non-trivial.
And to go the extra 60 miles, you're looking at 200 pounds-plus of batteries even with next-gen battery tech. (The Leaf's 648 lb battery pack sends it 73 miles.) So someone has to carry five 40-pound sheets back and forth at the Amp'n'Go station. It'll be a great job for underemployed weight builders.
=S
My commute is 12 miles round trip (one gallon of gas in my truck).
I've been thinking of making a Karmann Ghia EV mod using LiPo batteries for weight. I figure all I need is a 40 mile range (run a couple errands) and I can charge for free at work. It's not cost effective, but I've done some math and I think I can gut sub 5 second 0-60 (I'm going to shoot for 4.3) and it'll be one hell of a fun ride.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
That'd be the fastest Karmann Ghia ever! LOL... lucky if the frame stays together.
If you did it with lead acid batteries and a DC motor it would probably be cost effective - but it would take a while and the performance would be more classically Karmann Ghia :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Let's hope this gets rolled out soon.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Where I live, people freak out when someone uses a mobile phone at a petrol station, 'cos they think it could ignite petrol fumes. (A myth, I know.)
So... electric car chargers at petrol stations?!?
It would be interesting to see how people react to that. My bet is that it'll slide, as most people will just accept it without noticing/thinking about it.
The US has a much higher ratio of home owners to renters than any other country in the world. In most parts of the world, it's fairly common for a family to uproot and move in search of work. Just look at distant history, humans were perpetually moving their families in search of work (animals to hunt)
The situation you describe, having to sell you house, move a ton of crap, and then buy a new house, is entirely intentional and was created by the US government in the 1940s specifically to prevent people from moving around in search of better pay and conditions, in an attempt to reduce the bargaining power of the unions.
the performance would be more classically Karmann Ghia
At which point it would be even better to just rebuild the engine to run on propane from an economy standpoint.
Also, I'm not sure the frame could handle the weight of Lead Acid to be honest. If I do the mod I'll be having the body professionally redone by a local body shop I trust, and while they're at it I plan on having them add stiffener bars/trusses in key areas.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Also, I'm not sure the frame could handle the weight of Lead Acid to be honest.
Ha! Good point! They sell kits for bugs, so I presumed they'd be OK in a Ghia. But you are right, the batteries are a lot heavier than the little engines that were back there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wait, muggers? What messed-up backwater are you talking about?
If people are too afraid to freaking cross the street then I put to you that your state has severe socio-economic issues. Wait, doesn't everyone in Texas own a gun?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Does Alaska count? About 6 months of the year the heat is permanently set to 'high defrost'.
The problem up north with heat is that cars tend to have NO real insulation, they're not even as air tight as homes. Also, do you have electric heat? I use a lot more than 6.2kW/H of heating in the winter.
I don't read AC A human right
So, you're suggesting, that every time someone changes a job, they pick up, sell their homes and move to be closer to the new job. Hmm...what about people with kids, you want them to uproot them from schools every time jobs change? If a married couple...who's job take priority....likely as not one of them will have to drive further than the other one, rarely do couples work at the same fucking place you know...
My suggestion would be to increase overall density. Encourage Arcology-light type buildings. I'd say that cities in the USA don't encourage housing within themselves anywhere near enough. They offer the top end and subsidize the bottom end, but they don't encourage the middle class with things like good public schools, decent sized apartments that are financially competitive with the suburbs, etc... You also have to contend with the 'american dream'.
by 'Arcology-light' I mean that you don't bother trying to make a single building handle 99% of people's needs - just 90%. Something like the first 3-5 floors are retail, the next 5-10 are office/light commercial, and the rest of the building, somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3rds, is apartment/condo space. Build GOOD apartments/condos.
Then have pedestrian skyways between the buildings and good walking paths. Preferably allow micro-electric vehicles, a bit bigger than Segways, but smaller than the open people-movers that many bigger airports have, that are optimized for light delivery of things like groceries, and deliveries like pizza. If the city gets big enough, go with slideways. The ideal is that the paths are developed enough that a walker can cover a mile quicker than a car. Maybe 2 with the slideways.
I don't read AC A human right
Hah, was about to respond to say this exact thing. Glad I didn't bother. This is correct - need to be careful not to assume zero power draw while sitting in stop and go traffic. Sure, you'll go quite a bit further at slow speeds not having to fight wind resistance, but don't ignore the power draw for climate control, stereos, and other accessories.
+1 Disagree
There's good points on both sides here. Many places in the US (as well as in the EU) are not amenable to walking down the street for whatever business you have to do. My observations in a medium sized US city is that there are a lot of ways we're improving and a lot of ways we're making it worse.
First off, there is a growing trend toward urban living here. People moving into smaller downtown condos or apartments (or in some of the denser old downtown neighborhoods). A handful of the downtown roads - those which are not major through-ways - have been converted from four lane throughways to two lanes with bicycle paths. Slower traffic and far more pedestrian friendly. There is a slowly growing population of bicycle commuters, so the city is adjusting its infrastructure and more importantly drivers are becoming more accustomed to seeing bicycles on the road and know how to deal with it.
On the flip side, we still have the "big box" stores (like Wal Mart). The kind that you go to for *everything*. They're huge so by their nature they won't be on every corner. People no longer walk to the corner store to pick up what they need for the day, they make weekly trips to pick up everything. Hard to carry on public transport, hard to put on a bicycle, discouraging putting the infrastructure in place. This ultimately is what kills the suburbs and forces the car-centric society - the dearth of neighborhood shops. We got too lazy to walk a few blocks to them, so they closed up and now we drive a few miles to the big box store.
+1 Disagree
Except that we do fine without a car even though those big places exist here too. For bulky stuff we have the supermarket deliver to us (which is probably more carbon-efficient too). Only light/fresh stuff then needs to be carried by hand.
There are several chains competing, but we use Tesco, which does a good job and is not expensive at all.
It simply matters between you and the car, which is to be master.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Maybe something worth noting is that electric forklifts also have, often automated, battery swap systems.
=Smidge=
I'm not disagreeing - there is no reason somebody here couldn't choose to live without a car and be perfectly happy. There are plenty of cities in the US where a car is a large expense with little added value. You can't discount the cultural difference though - going car-less sounds like it's a common thing to do there, but here it's a bit bigger psychological barrier outside of those few dense cities. It's not impossible to do, but it takes some more active choices in your lifestyle and where you choose to live.
All this said, while 90% of the time I ride my bicycle or motorbike to work, I would not choose to go without a car.
+1 Disagree
I do understand the cultural aspect, but maybe that culture will change quickly if/when the price of gasoline doubles again...
People have to be clear about the difference between "need" and "want".
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Is it a very very cold place?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
The heating can use electrickery(props to Catweazle) if nec. The underfloor interweb is fed by both solar hot water and a wetback fire. Will be adding more solar panels so will have more energy to play with soon. We are very frugal energy users but I guess you worked that out from our daily average. Not as frugal as I am with grammar.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I guess what I need to state better is that Cars, unlike houses, aren't (significantly) insulated. My house has over a foot of insulation excepting windows and doors. It also gets the short end of the stick when it comes to wind chill - 55mph winds are pretty much guaranteed.
As a result, I can turn the heat off in the house much sooner than I stop heating my car.
Alaska is far enough north that even if I bought an EV I'd probably be retrofitting a liquid fuel heater into it. It wouldn't need that much fuel to keep the cabin/battery warm, and 90% efficient burners are well known knowledge. That way you enjoy the energy density of hydrocarbons for heating, and the efficiency of electric for moving.
I don't read AC A human right