Charging your electric vehicle - a window to the wonder

[DaSDGuy]

Yeah this is going to work out so well in CA.

Of course. No buried power lines because they disrupt the protected insect species. o overhead power lines because they cause wildfires. Can't use fossil fuels (climate change), hydroelectric (kills fish species), nuclear power (because), wind energy (kills birds), or solar cells (pollution generated to manufacture process) to generate electricity.
So that leaves fairies and magic.

 

[glhs837]

How long have you worked for Tesla?

Not at all, but I did buy some stock a while back, and so have learned a lot as to why they are different from other EV makers. I will be buying one in the next few years. Luckily for me, I'll be doing it with the proceeds from that stock buy.

In other words, the power company customers will pay for upgrading the grid, whether they use an EV or not. Great. At least I can avoid costs for gasoline but I can't avoid costs for EVs.

Yep. Upside is that a more robust grid does benefit everyone even if its indirectly.

Regarding California, well, they chose to cripple their own grid for stupid reasons. Like Europe. That's not an argument against EVs, its an argument for not doing what they both did. Build a robust grid with a mix of sources and storage to level the available load and buffer. That benefits everybody. Reduces the effects of the variability of some generations methods, decreases outages or minimizes the effects of outages.

 

[Grumpy]

Not at all, but I did buy some stock a while back, and so have learned a lot as to why they are different from other EV makers. I will be buying one in the next few years. Luckily for me, I'll be doing it with the proceeds from that stock buy.

Well, with your enthusiasm and knowledge, they should be paying you. And good on you for taking my tongue-in-cheek comment as not so much a snark but just an observation of your pro-EV stance. .

 

[glhs837]

Well, with your enthusiasm and knowledge, they should be paying you. And good on you for taking my tongue-in-cheek comment as not so much a snark but just an observation of your pro-EV stance. .

Look at the stock price over the last three years and this last year. They may not be paying me, but they are making me money. Took a two old job rollovers (7K three years back and 20K in September of 2020) and that's now worth almost $120K. Hell, that will pay for my cybertruck with a lot left over


And its really just pro-Tesla. As a car guy its fascinating to see what they do differently than the industry. No dealerships, massive vertical integration, the willingness to just do things differently. Guy named Joe tweets that the warning chimes are waking his small children, a month or two later, one of the software updates contains "Joe Mode" that reduces the sounds of warning chimes by 20% or some number. Consumer Reports testing finds a "hole" in the ABS programming, Tesla confirms and rolls out fleetwide software update in a couple days.

They are not perfect by any means, but the amount of change they have forced from the industry is funny to watch.

 

[Sneakers]

Consumer Reports testing finds a "hole" in the ABS programming, Tesla confirms and rolls out fleetwide software update in a couple days.

They just announced a rollback of the software related to the autonomous driving.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

First Tesla Superchargers for other automakers begin service, higher fees and membership offered

Tesla is launching a pilot program for non-Tesla electric vehicles to use its Supercharger network for the first time. The...

electrek.co

 

[Sneakers]

First Tesla Superchargers for other automakers begin service, higher fees and membership offered

Tesla is launching a pilot program for non-Tesla electric vehicles to use its Supercharger network for the first time. The...

electrek.co

Something caught my eye in that photo. The way the cars were parking, some backing in, and no protection for the 'pumps'. Wonder how long before the chargers all full of dings and creases.

 

[DaSDGuy]

 

[Sneakers]

View attachment 160455

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Something caught my eye in that photo. The way the cars were parking, some backing in, and no protection for the 'pumps'. Wonder how long before the chargers all full of dings and creases.

A week

I wonder how good they are with repairs or will they be like the free air machines at gas stations, always broken.

 

[jrt_ms1995]

View attachment 160455

St. George Island?

 

[glhs837]

View attachment 160455

Yep, that's one in England that floods

View attachment 160455

Yep, that one's in England, floods like this every few years. Other than that, it's fine. I'd rather have this that's out of service a few days every couple of years than not have one available at all.

 

[glhs837]

A week

I wonder how good they are with repairs or will they be like the free air machines at gas stations, always broken.

Well, I can't speak for other networks, who even now have a lot of availability issues, where one of two, or two of four points at a station might not work, but Tesla's Supercharger network is always held up as the gold standard. They are owned and operated by Tesla so they know it reflects on them, unlike others. Tesla takes care of them, and upgrades them as they go. They doubled the size of the network this year and plan to triple it this year.

 

[Clem72]

I 'wonder' what is going to happen to the costs of electricity as more switch, by choice or force, and the demand overloads providers.... gee I wonder... but in the meantime let's look how things are now....

The study has four major findings:

• There are four additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and "deadhead" miles.
• For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage.
• Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices.
• There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers – even then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20% to an 80% charge.

The study found that the average cost of a Level 1 charger is $600. To install a Level 2 costs $1,600 because it requires hiring an electrician. An L1 charger uses a 120-volt supply of electricity and can take 20 or more hours to charge, whereas an L2 chargers uses 240 volts and can charge in a few hours.
Which is more expensive: charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? (msn.com)

Also, don't plan on ever having a 100% charge on your EV, he said.

"It’s very difficult to charge it up to 100%," Anderson said. "The chargers slow down and the manufacturers warn you not to do it because there is additional burden on the battery system when you get your vehicle above a 90% charge.”

That means if the vehicle advertises a range of 240 miles on a full charge, a driver in reality will get considerably less on, say, an 80% charge, he said.

So many things incorrect here. For chargers, just look at Amazon. You can buy a plug and play L2 (240v 30 to 50amp) charger for a couple of hundred bucks. Plug it right into your existing 240 socket for generator or dryer (I have both in my garage). If you have zero accessible 240v supply, sure then getting it installed might cost some money. Just use an L1.

Second, there are very few places in this country (maybe none) where even the least efficient electric vehicle costs more per mile than gasoline, even if you are comparing it to a prius. This is a fact, go do your own comparisons if you think otherwise.

And oh, range isn't advertised? Same as every car ever. Research before you buy.

The fact is, for many people EVs are a great choice. For me it's damn near a no-brainer, I have very little daily commute, my electric is already setup, and I have an existing gasoline people mover if I need to take a long trip. I just don't need a new vehicle at the moment (and new car prices are crazy). I am on the reserve list for an F-150 Lightning though.

 

[itsbob]

Nobody is looking to the future..

How many have sat in line at a gas station at a rest area, or in a city? How long does it take to fuel a car? 5 minutes or less (not counting the nimrods that park at the pump while they go buy lunch)?

How frustrated did you get waiting 10 minutes, or 20?

Now lets take the best, Tesla, case scenario... Now it takes 30 minutes to refuel, 6 times the amount of time it takes to refuel an ICE car, from here the numbers increase MUCH more than six times.. so in that 30 minutes of time to recharge, the waiting to fuel line increases 6 times over.. so your wait time increases by 36... So you need to recharge, you get into a line that is now 6 times longer, to wait for each car that takes 6 times more time to recharge.. so your 10 minute wait is now 360 or even 720 minutes. ( it gets worse when you talk about the cars that take HOURS to recharge)

Of course, this is the easy math solution.. other things have to be factored. How many places will have 50 or more charging stations that have the capability of supercharging at all stations??

Your 6x longer line gets worse, a lot worse, when you consider how often people will have to recharge. I don't know of many cars not capable of 300 - 400 miles on a tank of gas.. and most of us stop at 50%, so generally speaking we stop every 200 - 250 miles. Well, most electric cars don't have near the range, most vary between 140 - 250 miles, and like gas cars they are NOT going to wait to get to empty before they stop to charge, I doubt any of them let their cars get close to 1/4 before stopping.. but if EV drivers maintain the same habits they'll start looking at 1/2 tank mark, or they'll be stopping every 70 - 125 miles. Stopping more often, makes that line mentioned above even longer (up to twice as long).. so what does your wait time become then??

Lastly.. where the hell is all this electricity coming from?? The cheapest power plants to build and operate are STILL COAL... dirty, nasty coal.. China has already caught on, and they are busy little bees building coal fired electric plants.. how is this helping the climate?

 

[glhs837]

Nobody is looking to the future..

How many have sat in line at a gas station at a rest area, or in a city? How long does it take to fuel a car? 5 minutes or less (not counting the nimrods that park at the pump while they go buy lunch)?

How frustrated did you get waiting 10 minutes, or 20?

Now lets take the best, Tesla, case scenario... Now it takes 30 minutes to refuel, 6 times the amount of time it takes to refuel an ICE car, from here the numbers increase MUCH more than six times.. so in that 30 minutes of time to recharge, the waiting to fuel line increases 6 times over.. so your wait time increases by 36... So you need to recharge, you get into a line that is now 6 times longer, to wait for each car that takes 6 times more time to recharge.. so your 10 minute wate is no 360 or even 720 minutes.

Of course, this is the easy math solution.. other things have to be factored. How many places will have 50 or more charging stations that have the capability of supercharging at all stations??

Your 6x longer line gets worse, a lot worse, when you consider how often people will have to recharge. I don't of many cars not capaeble of 300 - 400 miles on a tank of gas.. and most of us stop at 50%, so generally speaking we stop every 200 - 250 miles. Well, most electric cars don't have near the range, most vary between 140 - 250 miles, and like gas cars they are NOT going to wait to get to empty before they stop to charge, I doubt any of them let their cars get close to 1/4 before stopping.. but if EV drivers maintain the same habits they'll start looking at 1/2 tank mark, or they'll be stopping every 70 - 125 miles. Stopping more often, makes that line mentioned above even longer (up to twice as long).. so what does your wait time become then??

Laslty.. where the hell is all this electricity coming from?? The cheapest power plants to build and operate are SILL COAL... dirty, nasty coal.. China has already caught on, and they are busy little bees building coal fired electric plants.. how is this helping the climate?

That's why govt should keep it's grubby lobbyist powered thumb off the scales. Left to itself, these problems will be solved by the market as adoption increases. Charge times have dropped over the last 5 years, and will continue to do so. More charging stations come online everyday, and will continue to do so. Best solution is nukes, hopefully some of these new designs can get past the idiots in the green movement.

 

[Clem72]

Now lets take the best, Tesla, case scenario... Now it takes 30 minutes to refuel, 6 times the amount of time it takes to refuel an ICE car, from here the numbers increase MUCH more than six times.. so in that 30 minutes of time to recharge, the waiting to fuel line increases 6 times over.. so your wait time increases by 36... So you need to recharge, you get into a line that is now 6 times longer, to wait for each car that takes 6 times more time to recharge.. so your 10 minute wait is now 360 or even 720 minutes. ( it gets worse when you talk about the cars that take HOURS to recharge)

Your best case scenario is already wrong, it's like 15 minutes for the smaller batteries up to 25 minutes for the larger batteries on the newest supercharging tech to fully charge, and like 5 minutes to get "100 miles" (I.E. a get-home charge).

But more importantly, 80+ percent of your charging needs will be done at home so you will have 80% less people needing to fill up at these stations. So if we went 100% EV tomorrow, and if we had even half as many charge stations as we have gas stations, you will never have a wait for a charge station.

 

[Sneakers]

But more importantly, 80+ percent of your charging needs will be done at home so you will have 80% less people needing to fill up at these stations. So if we went 100% EV tomorrow, and if we had even half as many charge stations as we have gas stations, you will never have a wait for a charge station.

Yes and no. I imagine all the cars currently that travel Rt 95 or Rt 40 or any other major interstate, and how many cars pull in and out at any given fuel depot in a 10 minute window. Those folks aren't looking for a 'get home' charge, they want as much charge as they can get to get to their destination. That will take time. Also means rows and rows and rows of charge stations to come close to being able to satisfy.

That's why govt should keep it's grubby lobbyist powered thumb off the scales. Left to itself, these problems will be solved by the market as adoption increases.

Not so sure about that. Given the current state of the tech, if left to consumer demands only, it will take much much longer to come to fruition. There are too many consumers that feel electric just isn't ready for prime time, and primarily due to battrey storage, and will continue to opt for ICE.

I like electric, and looking forware to having one, but until I can have one vehicle to satisfy everything I do (short trips, long trips, long trips with a trailer, etc..) I have to stay with ICE.

 

[itsbob]

Your best case scenario is already wrong, it's like 15 minutes for the smaller batteries up to 25 minutes for the larger batteries on the newest supercharging tech to fully charge, and like 5 minutes to get "100 miles" (I.E. a get-home charge).

But more importantly, 80+ percent of your charging needs will be done at home so you will have 80% less people needing to fill up at these stations. So if we went 100% EV tomorrow, and if we had even half as many charge stations as we have gas stations, you will never have a wait for a charge station.

Sorry, but you are partially correct, as our LOCAL issues will be worse, but not to the extent I say above.. My point being.. if you have been to a place where there was a line (like inner city, or on an intestate) those lines will be exponentially worse. I don't recall the last time I had to wait in line in St Mary's to get gas, and I doubt electric would be much different, though I don't see 48 charging stations at the corner of 235 and 4.. but maybe I've wrong.

But I guess you are suggesting when we go electric, no more vacations, no more long distance trips, no more interstate travel, nobody needing to be recharged enroute?

Add to that MASSIVE battery banks in commercial vehicles needing to be recharged..

 

[Clem72]

Sorry, but you are partially correct, as our LOCAL issues will be worse, but not to the extent I say above.. My point being.. if you have been to a place where there was a line (like inner city, or on an intestate) those lines will be exponentially worse. I don't recall the last time I had to wait in line in St Mary's to get gas, and I doubt electric would be much different, though I don't see 48 charging stations at the corner of 235 and 4.. but maybe I've wrong.

But I guess you are suggesting when we go electric, no more vacations, no more long distance trips, no more interstate travel, nobody needing to be recharged enroute?

Add to that MASSIVE battery banks in commercial vehicles needing to be recharged..

You're an idiot, every worry you have has already been proven to be inaccurate. But whatever, time will tell.