I still don't see EV's Replacing ICEs.

In reply to frenchyd :

Couple things a few minutes on a 110 charge doesnt get you very much, like almost nothing, for example a Tesla is like 3 miles an hour plugged into a 110. We also have a pretty low rate of reliability on charging stations currently. You consider it a gotcha, someone who has to make that drive, considers it a reason why many EVs will not work for them,

Even in a Bolt it turns a 3 hr drive into a 4 hour drive. Thats a 30% increase in travel time on a relatively short drive. 

I don't believe coal will be successful in the future. 
  Environment  aside and even forgetting about people health.  Coal is horribly expensive fuel.  Extracting it requires big expensive machinery.  Trains to transport it. 
Expensive  Equipment to handle it at the power plant.  And some place to haul the resulting ashes to.   Look at Kentucky?   for some of the disasters  in that happen when dealing with ash. 
      Then maybe we shouldn't ignore health and the environment to buy something with those problems at that cost?

  Our local utility company  reported that in the last 14 years since they shut down the coal plant they  stopped something like 14.7 million metric tons of carbon going into our air.  
  The remarkable thing is we aren't having brown outs or power shortages.   And our use of renewables is growing.  
   Now that was all heading East to cause acid rain and breathing problems for children and seniors.    Minneapolis /St Paul  have to deal with Seattle's pollution. But much of their energy comes from hydroelectric and Nuclear. Then it has to climb over the mountains and cross the plains of the Dakota's.  So it's pretty clean here.   
    Except don't fly some days,  the yellow smog is pretty thick.   And IFR rules  are called for. 
      

In reply to frenchyd :

Very little of Seattle's energy comes from nuclear, like almost zero.  Most of the coal used today in the US comes from Wyoming and not Kentucky.  Don't let reality stop ya though..... 

frenchyd said:

I don't believe coal will be successful in the future. 
  Environment  aside and even forgetting about people health.  Coal is horribly expensive fuel.  Extracting it requires big expensive machinery.  Trains to transport it. 
Expensive  Equipment to handle it at the power plant.  And some place to haul the resulting ashes to.   Look at Kentucky?   for some of the disasters  in that happen when dealing with ash. 
      Then maybe we shouldn't ignore health and the environment to buy something with those problems at that cost?

  Our local utility company  reported that in the last 14 years since they shut down the coal plant they  stopped something like 14.7 million metric tons of carbon going into our air.  
  The remarkable thing is we aren't having brown outs or power shortages.   And our use of renewables is growing.  
   Now that was all heading East to cause acid rain and breathing problems for children and seniors.    Minneapolis /St Paul  have to deal with Seattle's pollution. But much of their energy comes from hydroelectric and Nuclear. Then it has to climb over the mountains and cross the plains of the Dakota's.  So it's pretty clean here.   
    Except don't fly some days,  the yellow smog is pretty thick.   And IFR rules  are called for. 
      

No one is saying coal is good or the future. Im saying that it seems pretty dumb to move to EVs for emissions while they are being powered by things like coal. All it does is move the pollution to poorer ares (which is pretty much the USs MO). As in we should fix and update our energy infrastructure before we mandate EVs, otherwise we are putting the cart in front of the horse.

frenchyd said:

I don't believe coal will be successful in the future. 
  Environment  aside and even forgetting about people health.  Coal is horribly expensive fuel.  Extracting it requires big expensive machinery.  Trains to transport it. 
Expensive  Equipment to handle it at the power plant.  And some place to haul the resulting ashes to.   Look at Kentucky?   for some of the disasters  in that happen when dealing with ash. 
      Then maybe we shouldn't ignore health and the environment to buy something with those problems at that cost?

  Our local utility company  reported that in the last 14 years since they shut down the coal plant they  stopped something like 14.7 million metric tons of carbon going into our air.  
  The remarkable thing is we aren't having brown outs or power shortages.   And our use of renewables is growing.  
   Now that was all heading East to cause acid rain and breathing problems for children and seniors.    Minneapolis /St Paul  have to deal with Seattle's pollution. But much of their energy comes from hydroelectric and Nuclear. Then it has to climb over the mountains and cross the plains of the Dakota's.  So it's pretty clean here.   
    Except don't fly some days,  the yellow smog is pretty thick.   And IFR rules  are called for. 
      

Do you think Lithium and Cobalt just sit out in the open, easily picked up by hand?

Regarding 110, my thought is more that it needs to be available for longer term parking areas.  Why are the daily and long term lots at airports not saturated with 110 charging?  I don't have an ev so someone enlighten me here... do you need a special charger, or can you just plug into 110 (charging electronics are built into the car)?

Having 5 spaces with 50kw chargers is dumb when those will remain blocked for everyone else.  50x 110 chargers means even a 1 day trip adds 24 miles of range, and a multi day trip will add a substantial amount.

same for charging in apartment complexes, longer term hotels, etc.

In reply to stuart in mn :

 That's neat, ours are at the other end of the spectrum.  I had a lot of doubts but over the last four years they've been very impressive.  If the city would let us put charging stations in some of they terminals they'd be even better.  There's an arm that the bus stops under and a contact lowers and automatically connects to terminals on the roof to top off the battery as the bus lays over between trips. 
 

frenchyd said:

red_stapler said:

Speaking of infrastructure, I was curious what the trip between Nashville and Louisville would be like if I bought an e-Golf or a MINI SE.

It's a little cursed:

It's 160 miles between the charger at the corvette museum, and the next one along i65.  A new Leaf or a Bolt could make the trip, but without much charge to spare if it were cold, etc.

Congratulations. You found a gotcha.  Or did you?  The Bolt travels 270 miles between recharge.   A lot of EV's  will go even further.
If you go slower it will go further. Just like an ICE    
  Hmm. You mean  in 160 miles there is no place that has a 110 volt outlet?  You do realize that a few minutes plugged into a 110  outlet will get you more mileage?   
        Plus people putting in chargers are installing  them as fast as they can. Have you seen the latest  projections?   
     If you drive along with your phone on the sites that find chargers you may find 30 in that 160 mile stretch and if you don't today,  it won't be long before they are everywhere.  
      Maybe you know who Warren Buffit is?  He just bought 80% of a company spending billions of dollars  that installs them in truck stops and  convenience stores all over the country.  

I realize you feel very passionate about this subject, but you're creating a strawman from my post.  All I have said here is that right now the two specific EVs that I'd be interested in owning can't currently take the direct route between Nashville and New Albany using charging stations they are compatible with.   I included an example showing that the trip is possible, if a bit absurd.  Then I acknowledged that other EVs, ones that I am not interested in owning, are capable of making the trip using the direct route.  I could probably pop into a cooperative RV park with a 5 prong somewhere between Bowling Green and New Albany to top an eGolf off with ~30 miles of charge in an hour or so that would get me the rest of the way there.

In reply to ProDarwin :

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Most of your infrastructure comments seemed focused on future concerns as if nobody will take any action.  Sure if there was 100% ev adoption tomorrow, it would be a problem.  But right now no single EV owner/purchaser needs to be concerned about lack of infrastructure if they live in a SFH with access to a plug.
 

That's an interesting way to look at things. Since you can find a place to plug your EV into right now, it's not an issue? You are absolutely right, if the goal is to convert a small percentage of cars to EV's. But the topic of this thread was "I still don't see EV's replacing ICEs." I don't think the O.P. meant that you can't replace an ICE car with an EV- pretty sure he meant to the scale that most of this discussion is about. And I never said that nobody is taking action- I described projects that I am actually involved with- I just pointed out that cost and time that anything of significant scale will require. We won't/can't have widespread EV adoption without it. Which is part of why ICE will be with us for decades to come in the form of plug in hybrids. Not just because drivers aren't willing to completely drop ICE, but because those that understand the scale of the task know that we will need hybrids to bridge the gap until the infrastructure is ready. 

In reply to ProDarwin :

Regarding 110, my thought is more that it needs to be available for longer term parking areas.  Why are the daily and long term lots at airports not saturated with 110 charging?  I don't have an ev so someone enlighten me here... do you need a special charger, or can you just plug into 110 (charging electronics are built into the car)?

Having 5 spaces with 50kw chargers is dumb when those will remain blocked for everyone else.  50x 110 chargers means even a 1 day trip adds 24 miles of range, and a multi day trip will add a substantial amount.

same for charging in apartment complexes, longer term hotels, etc.

Most of the cost of installing level 2 chargers is the trenching and electrical. The chargers themselves are relatively cheap. Running electrical long distances is expensive. It would be more expensive to run 110 out to airport lots because lower voltage requires larger wire, and long distances require larger wire still. Large wire is expensive. That's why most parking lot lighting is 277 or 480v- likely 480 for a large lot. There is/was a company that was trying to sell a car charger that was meant to hook into light poles. The idea was to upgrade old metal halide or HPS lot lighting to LED and use the newfound capacity to power the car charging. But it doesn't free up as much power as you would think. A typical light pole with two 400W fixtures could be retrofitted with 150W LED fixtures. So 500W at 480V, that's just over 1 amp, 4.5 amps after you drop it down to 110. So it would take you 4 poles to get one 110 outlet to charge one car. 

Parking garages would be easier since there are more places to get power. Still expensive, and the work would put you most of the way towards a level 2 charger. Plus, there is no way to monitor/control access/charge for level 1 charging. Airports charge an arm and a leg for parking, I doubt they want to just give away free charging. Many level 2's can be set up to share power for two spaces. If one car is plugged in, it gets full power. If two are charged at the same time, they get half until one is done then the other gets full power. I've seen that option used frequently to add more chargers while reducing cost. 

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

 That's neat, ours are at the other end of the spectrum.  I had a lot of doubts but over the last four years they've been very impressive.  If the city would let us put charging stations in some of they terminals they'd be even better.  There's an arm that the bus stops under and a contact lowers and automatically connects to terminals on the roof to top off the battery as the bus lays over between trips. 

Metro Transit (the main bus service in Minneapolis) has had a handful of full size electric buses in trial service for several years -it started in 2019 and then they pulled them off the street due to some reliability problems, but they've been back in service since early 2022.  I haven't heard anything about them recently so I don't know how they're doing.  The full size buses came from the New Flyer factory in St. Cloud, MN.

frenchyd said:

stuart in mn said:

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

The Minnesota Valley Transit Agency serves the south suburbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.  They're testing a small electric bus made in Turkey:  https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/03/05/minnesota-transit-agency-is-testing-a-new-electric-bus-from-turkey

Turkey was also building something for Ford?  

Ford electric transit vans are built in Turkey but they come from a different factory than the MVTA bus.

Boost_Crazy said:

Most of the cost of installing level 2 chargers is the trenching and electrical. The chargers themselves are relatively cheap. Running electrical long distances is expensive. It would be more expensive to run 110 out to airport lots because lower voltage requires larger wire, and long distances require larger wire still. Large wire is expensive. That's why most parking lot lighting is 277 or 480v- likely 480 for a large lot. There is/was a company that was trying to sell a car charger that was meant to hook into light poles. The idea was to upgrade old metal halide or HPS lot lighting to LED and use the newfound capacity to power the car charging. But it doesn't free up as much power as you would think. A typical light pole with two 400W fixtures could be retrofitted with 150W LED fixtures. So 500W at 480V, that's just over 1 amp, 4.5 amps after you drop it down to 110. So it would take you 4 poles to get one 110 outlet to charge one car. 

Parking garages would be easier since there are more places to get power. Still expensive, and the work would put you most of the way towards a level 2 charger. Plus, there is no way to monitor/control access/charge for level 1 charging. Airports charge an arm and a leg for parking, I doubt they want to just give away free charging. Many level 2's can be set up to share power for two spaces. If one car is plugged in, it gets full power. If two are charged at the same time, they get half until one is done then the other gets full power. I've seen that option used frequently to add more chargers while reducing cost. 

Fair point on the voltage.  Surely there is a way to limit charging a different way.  My point is more that for long term lots I am far more interested in every spot having a 1kw charger than only a small handful having mega high KW chargers.  Similar with street parking, apt. complexes, etc.  It should still reduce costs as the total amperage in whatever electrical run is going to be relatively low (compared to what it could be).

Regarding Airports making $ off it, there seem to be easy ways around that.  Most airports have multiple lots/garages.  Just convert 1 to an EV garage/lot and charge more for it.  No need to monitor down to the last kwhr charged... the most someone is going to charge in a day at 1kw is ~$2.40 so just jack the daily rate by $2.50 + some margin and call it good.  

In reply to stuart in mn :

Ours are New Flyers out of MN as well.  They've been pretty reliable. We've gotten a mix of diesel, CNG, and electrics from them and they've all been about the most trouble free orders we've had since I've been here. Modern technology is getting pretty good all around. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Most of your infrastructure comments seemed focused on future concerns as if nobody will take any action.  Sure if there was 100% ev adoption tomorrow, it would be a problem.  But right now no single EV owner/purchaser needs to be concerned about lack of infrastructure if they live in a SFH with access to a plug.
 

That's an interesting way to look at things. Since you can find a place to plug your EV into right now, it's not an issue? You are absolutely right, if the goal is to convert a small percentage of cars to EV's. But the topic of this thread was "I still don't see EV's replacing ICEs." I don't think the O.P. meant that you can't replace an ICE car with an EV- pretty sure he meant to the scale that most of this discussion is about. And I never said that nobody is taking action- I described projects that I am actually involved with- I just pointed out that cost and time that anything of significant scale will require. We won't/can't have widespread EV adoption without it. Which is part of why ICE will be with us for decades to come in the form of plug in hybrids. Not just because drivers aren't willing to completely drop ICE, but because those that understand the scale of the task know that we will need hybrids to bridge the gap until the infrastructure is ready. 

We are talking about degrees here,  I think.  Those who have purchased EV's know that a little forethought is required.   Not that the infrastructure can't deal with them , simply that it's not going to be a seamless as ICE  is right now.   However ICE isn't completely seamless.  There are places where you need to fill up before you go in that area.  If you drive into a lot of downtown areas there isn't a gas station on every corner.  Property is too expensive to allow that.  So you fill up before driving downtown or make sure you have enough to cover your trip. 
       However those down town parking meters are already being planned to provide charging capability.  Thus reinforcing the idea that EV's strong suit is  urban use.  
I'm sure there are exceptions.  Some downtown areas are in tight finical  position  and are more concerned with drinking water issues than easy  recharge capability. 

In reply to ProDarwin :

It's a good idea. I suppose since we have level 2 chargers that can share power 2 ways, they could make chargers that share 3 or 4 ways. Still a lot of work, and not really saving much on the charger end. But it would allow for more spaces for the same capacity. I do believe there are plans in the works though involving solar/batteries for remote lots. 

For something like a long term airport lot, I think we need more intelligent charging.  Maybe a system where you can tell the car / charger when you'll be back.  Then the charger can coordinate based on other demand, grid conditions, etc. and charge based on that, making sure that the car is full by the time you return.  If the car is going to sit for a week, it doesn't matter if it charges slowly or intermittently and isn't full until day 4. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

They have a number of programming options available depending on the charger. Most of ours can do up to four vehicles, and bias to the lowest charged one to get them all ready for service as quickly as possible. Say you plug in one, it gets the full amount available up to 800V.  Plug in four at say, 90%, 70%, 50%, and 20%.  The most will go to the 20% to bring it closer to the others, than the 50,70, and little to none to the 90 as that's an acceptable amount for service. As the levels rise it will adjust the amounts to bring all four to 100% in whatever way it determines to be quickest. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

Parking garages would be easier since there are more places to get power. Still expensive, and the work would put you most of the way towards a level 2 charger. Plus, there is no way to monitor/control access/charge for level 1 charging. Airports charge an arm and a leg for parking, I doubt they want to just give away free charging. Many level 2's can be set up to share power for two spaces. If one car is plugged in, it gets full power. If two are charged at the same time, they get half until one is done then the other gets full power. I've seen that option used frequently to add more chargers while reducing cost. 

That depends a bit on the parking garage. Newer ones I've been involved with can easily be designed with EV charging in mind and then the increase in costs aren't terrible. However, older garages typically do not have that much excess capacity.  A client I'm working with now wanted to add chargers to their existing garage and ended up bringing in an entirely new service to get the required capacity - which amusingly brings the number of services coming into two buildings on this site to a nice even dozen (yes - 12 services)... 

Boost_Crazy said:

 

 But the topic of this thread was "I still don't see EV's replacing ICEs." I don't think the O.P. meant that you can't replace an ICE car with an EV- pretty sure he meant to the scale that most of this discussion is about. 

As the guy who caused this 25 page monster that pretty much sums it up.  Again I'm not anti-EV and I do see EVs being a much bigger share of the market but I don't see them being the majority.  What that percentage is, 10, 20 or 50 years from now is hard to say but I will say the infrastructure costs are not insignificant. Many cities simply can't afford the infrastructure nor will they be able to any time soon.

These are simply my thoughts nothing more; I'm shocked that this made it to 25 pages and 600 posts (new record?) so again I'm just thinking out loud. It's no different than my telling you about how I like the salty goodness of anchovy pizza.

In reply to Tom1200 :

Just think about how much $$$$$ you could make if you started yet another outrage fueled podcast/YouTube/Twitter channel. It's all the rage nowadays! (Pun intended)

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

That depends a bit on the parking garage. Newer ones I've been involved with can easily be designed with EV charging in mind and then the increase in costs aren't terrible. However, older garages typically do not have that much excess capacity.  A client I'm working with now wanted to add chargers to their existing garage and ended up bringing in an entirely new service to get the required capacity - which amusingly brings the number of services coming into two buildings on this site to a nice even dozen (yes - 12 services)... 

Most definitely. I'd think that garages would have a bit of an edge due to having larger electrical services- they have elevators and air handling, so the odds of having a bit of extra capacity is better than an open lot with provisions only for lighting. The distance from the switchgear to the EV chargers is also likely much less. But neither was designed for the addition of EV chargers. New garages in some areas have tremendous EV charger requirements, including battery storage as a requirements. 

Tom1200 said:

Boost_Crazy said:

 

 But the topic of this thread was "I still don't see EV's replacing ICEs." I don't think the O.P. meant that you can't replace an ICE car with an EV- pretty sure he meant to the scale that most of this discussion is about. 

As the guy who caused this 25 page monster that pretty much sums it up.  Again I'm not anti-EV and I do see EVs being a much bigger share of the market but I don't see them being the majority.  What that percentage is, 10, 20 or 50 years from now is hard to say but I will say the infrastructure costs are not insignificant. Many cities simply can't afford the infrastructure nor will they be able to any time soon.

These are simply my thoughts nothing more; I'm shocked that this made it to 25 pages and 600 posts (new record?) so again I'm just thinking out loud. It's no different than my telling you about how I like the salty goodness of anchovy pizza.

Will you agree that current EV's are pretty much a non issues regarding infrastructure? 
      I mean plugging one in at home, work, or on the road,  isn't causing brown outs, or blackouts are they?  
       That you are anticipating events in the future, right?  
         You are saying that additional demand on the electrical network sometime in the future will not meet the need?   
       That some of that additional demand will be from EV's?  Not just bigger TV's more air conditioners, and further computing power?   
       

In reply to frenchyd :

Will you agree that current EV's are pretty much a non issues regarding infrastructure? 
      I mean plugging one in at home, work, or on the road,  isn't causing brown outs, or blackouts are they?  
       That you are anticipating events in the future, right?  
         You are saying that additional demand on the electrical network sometime in the future will not meet the need?   
       That some of that additional demand will be from EV's?  Not just bigger TV's more air conditioners, and further computing power?   
 

Frenchyd, nobody in the past 25 pages of this thread has said that the current level of EV's, at a fraction of 1% of the cars on the road, was a problem for the current infrastructure. Nobody. 
 

For some reason, you seem intent to extrapolate that to mean that there will be little challenge to our infrastructure, regardless of the increased demand. If we need to, we can just add solar and wind power, because using Frenchyd math it's pretty much free. 

TV's? The average home EV charger requires around the same power as 30+ 75" TV's. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

I'll ask you, since it's not a problem at this point, when do you anticipate it to be a problem?  5%_ 20%?  50%?   
         How many years from now will that be?    Exact,  isn't critical.  Just when do you think we should be getting into real problems?   
     My feeling on the subject  is that I didn't foresee LED bulbs.   Or appliances, A/C  that became so efficient  Etc.  
       There for a while it was actually cheaper to use Electric water heaters than natural gas ones.  
          You dismiss private parties contribution to the energy grid. But I regularly drive by wind generators  that I know are making a serious contribution to the power grid.     
   I realize not everybody with an EV  will be putting solar panels on their roof and some states really make it difficult.  In fact in my neighborhood I see more standby natural gas generators than solar panels.