Electric vehicle discussion

[Scott Kenny]

Yes, that's what I said.
Synthetic fuels require you to increase the size of total generation by ten times.

And my point was that generation capacity in the US has not increased since 2010 (at least according to Decarbonization. I could not find similar data on the Department of Energy website, but .gov data search and chart formats suck bad.)

Electric cars are significantly more practical than carbon-neutral synthetic fuel vehicles.

You do know that biodiesel requires minimal electrical input, right? Oil press, distillation rig, stirring the reaction, and baking the drying agent between batches. I'd need to check to see if you can just use the leftover bits of canola oil plants to make enough alcohol to turn their oil production into biodiesel. (Yes, biodiesel is incredibly simple to make, you can have a 10k gallon reaction vessel on a farm and never have to buy farm diesel again. Put oil in system, add appropriate amount of absolutely anhydrous alcohol, add some herculite dessicant to make sure it's absolutely dry, stir till there's no oil or alcohol left. Done.)

E98 only requires electricity during the distillation if you (edit) DO NOT let yeasts chew on the plants for 3 weeks or so at room temperature.

And classic cars are easy to convert to E98, if not cheap to do because you need to replace all your fuel lines, the fuel pump, and the carburetor. Things like my 1994 Jeep Cherokee are expensive to convert because I need to replace the computer and injectors, add the alcohol quantity sensor, add a high volume mechanical fuel pump, and replace the fuel lines, the in-tank pump, etc..

edited for major lack-of-words!

 

[chimeric oncogene]

biodiesel

Generating enough farmland to produce the biodiesel you need is going to do quite incalculable environmental damage...

You might as well just drill baby drill; they're not running out anytime soon.

Doubling the grid is a challenge duh, and California style regulations are going to triple the roadblocks (they have had a ball of a time approving new capacity and connections), but it's not like it's impossible, plus it's necessary anyway for the rest of the economy to decarbonize. No easy lunches, especially with US regulation. Now the Chinese OTOH have doubled electricity consumption decade on decade...

 

[Scott Kenny]

Generating enough farmland to produce the biodiesel you need is going to do quite incalculable environmental damage...

We already have a shit-ton of farmland that can be used in rotation. The US can afford to divert probably half of the farmland into power production without reducing the internal food supply.

You might as well just drill baby drill; they're not running out anytime soon.

Yeah, and based on finding carbon-14 in the Gulf Coast oil fields, we know that making new oil takes less than 50k years.

Doubling the grid is a challenge duh, and California style regulations are going to triple the roadblocks (they have had a ball of a time approving new capacity and connections), but it's not like it's impossible, plus it's necessary anyway for the rest of the economy to decarbonize. No easy lunches, especially with US regulation.

You just need to override the NIMBY brigade somehow. I would suggest telling them that they will be the first area for rolling blackouts every time, and the highest priority area so that if there are ever rolling blackouts they get cut off every time. Because they obviously don't want to have enough power to charge their EVs and power their homes at the same time.

 

[GTX]

Fiat to be first electric car produced in Serbia after EU lithium deal

The agreement made in June has been fiercely criticised by environmentalists and opposition groups in Serbia, who argue that it would cause irreversible environmental damage while bringing little benefit to its citizens. #EuropeNews

www.euronews.com

My challenge is not the veracity of the reports of Serbian environmentalists not wanting lithium mining but rather the garbage comment that "For environmentalists, only cars made in China serve to save the planet.". That is utter BS and has no place here.

 

[Scott Kenny]

My challenge is not the veracity of the reports of Serbian environmentalists not wanting lithium mining but rather the garbage comment that "For environmentalists, only cars made in China serve to save the planet.". That is utter BS and has no place here.

If mining lithium in China is acceptable to the "environmentalists", but mining lithium in Serbia is not, what else do you call it?

 

[GTX]

So I consider myself pro-environment and pro electric vehicle however I do not consider the only option is to have electric cars made in China. In fact, I will avoid buying any car made in China. Therefore I automatically disprove the statement made. My key point being that generalisations/stereotyping like this is BS and have no place here.

 

[shin_getter]

Samsung’s 20-year-life EV battery runs 600 miles on 9-minute charge

Samsung's solid-state battery could be the game-changer EVs need, boasting a 600-mile range, 9-minute charging time, and 20-year lifespan.

interestingengineering.com

500Wh/kg solid state, claimed to be in testing by users with mass manufacturing at 2027.

Have you seen how much a power wall costs?

Power walls are a total ripoff, sometimes entire new cars with same battery capability can be had for cheaper. Low end batteries like sodium or flow coming into deployment is set to drop costs as scale goes up.

In any case networks of 800V fast chargers are showing up in Europe and China and deployment is feasible if the state apparatus is not completely dysfunctional. Alterative if the state is utterly insane than no suggestion would be useful because its, like, insane.

We already have a shit-ton of farmland that can be used in rotation. The US can afford to divert probably half of the farmland into power production without reducing the internal food supply.

The Thermodynamic efficiency of sun to plants to oil to heat engine is just plain awful.

The efficiency of sun to electricity to motive power is just far far higher and you need two orders of magnitudes less land.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

Generating enough farmland to produce the biodiesel you need is going to do quite incalculable environmental damage...

Bio-ethanol can be created by letting algae digest food waste, sewage, manure and nitrates, which should be able to help reduce the need for landfills.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Bio-ethanol can be created by letting algae digest food waste, sewage, manure and nitrates, which should be able to help reduce the need for landfills.

The fundamental problem with Algae to oil schemes has been the fat boy Algae (packed full of oil) are not the most resilient. So they get ousted, snuffed out and taken over by the lean, albeit good for nothing, Algae types. A few large scale experiments were conducted about ten years ago which failed. This has killed investor confidence and interest has waned. The devil is always in the details.

 

[Foo Fighter]

There is a shed load of bio plankton growing out of control at various times of year. Harvest that for a start. Farm the stuff at sea if you have to, not convinced you need to though.

The BE brigade will continue to beat the drum, despite the bloody drum being broken.

Plenty of ways to produce synthetic/bio fuel without destroying the ecology and mining exotic metals does no good either.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

The fundamental problem with Algae to oil schemes has been the fat boy Algae (packed full of oil) are not the most resilient. So they get ousted, snuffed out and taken over by the lean, albeit good for nothing, Algae types. A few large scale experiments were conducted about ten years ago which failed. This has killed investor confidence and interest has waned. The devil is always in the details.

I'm certain that if more research is conducted that there will be a means of getting more efficient algae to do the job, even if it is genetically modified. Considering that some algaes are already eating plastic in the natural world, it doesn't seem all that difficult, especially if we do what is stated in Reply #370

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

I'm certain that if more research is conducted that there will be a means of getting more efficient algae to do the job, even if it is genetically modified. Considering that some algaes are already eating plastic in the natural world, it doesn't seem all that difficult, especially if we do what is stated in Reply #370

I wonder whether lab creating a roughty-toughty fatty algae is in the same league as a magic battery (2kwhr/kg, 20C, inherently safe & 10k charge cycles) or nuclear fusion. These are great idea’s but you can’t just command someone to do it and often doesn’t happen even after vast expenditure.

 

[shin_getter]

Don't really need new technology for BEV to replace commuter and urban vehicles as economic crossover point for that application have been reached as seen by adaption in the market sector even without government incentives. The main issue to its expansion is lack of permissions to build power plants, power lines or run extension cables in apartments. Some firefighting rules and capabilities might have to change but other than that there is nothing major to be done.

As for other technologies, from the economist's view the proper thing is to tax externalities like all pollutants and the market would naturally seek the cost optimized solution. From the outside perspective it is not reasonable to decide on future development since it only takes one person with the right idea to change everything.

Though the natural time lag from idea to prototypes to scaled production does suggest a time table. Multiple higher performance and low cost battery technology is in the pipeline though nothing hitting the holy grail yet. In the next decade at least, battery expansion is on the table and it'd take a very successful demo of alternatives today to make industrial scale change likely for the next.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Don't really need new technology for BEV to replace commuter and urban vehicles as economic crossover point for that application have been reached as seen by adaption in the market sector even without government incentives. The main issue to its expansion is lack of permissions to build power plants, power lines or run extension cables in apartments. Some firefighting rules and capabilities might have to change but other than that there is nothing major to be done.

Yep, not gonna lie, my parents and I have been solid use cases for EVs for a couple of decades (and my parents for more than that). They walked to work, only drove to run errands in town (and some occasional long trips). They actually drive more now that they've retired!

But EVs were stupid expensive in my Parent's generation or you had to build one yourself. And my Dad was not that mechanically inclined. And as much as they drive now that they've retired, they're not as good a use case anymore. More 300 mile trips one way, etc.

Now, I live in an apartment, so no charging options for EVs. I'm not seeing any new construction apartments advertising charging stations, either. What I'd like to see is some kind of government incentives to install charging stations in housing. What level of .gov? probably State or County level, since I'd like it to be a property tax break, though income tax break would also be acceptable if less direct.

As for other technologies, from the economist's view the proper thing is to tax externalities like all pollutants and the market would naturally seek the cost optimized solution. From the outside perspective it is not reasonable to decide on future development since it only takes one person with the right idea to change everything.

Better is to find a way to value those pollutants.

For example, IIRC there's a bunch of random metals in coal flue gasses that as soon as someone worked out the average values the industries using large amounts of coal were tripping over themselves to install scrubbing equipment so they could sell the metals. Apparently the scrubbers paid for themselves in less than a year!​

That way the companies happily volunteer to install pollution control tech that really works well and keep it working, instead of looking for ways to bypass the stuff because it costs them money.

Gotta use a carrot, not just a stick. (Semi-related: the animal rights activists lost their minds about how one Japanese village would harvest dolphins every year. They protested and protested, but the villagers just dug in their heels even harder, basically saying "F you, herding dolphins into the bay and killing them all has kept us alive when other harvests and fishing was bad!" Then one smarter group of people showed the villagers how high the mercury content in dolphin meat was (several times higher than allowed in tuna), and the village hugely cut down on their harvest and tested each animal for mercury levels before killing it. They still take a few dolphins, like 5-10, but now it's a small number and it's more of a ritual than anything else.)

Though the natural time lag from idea to prototypes to scaled production does suggest a time table. Multiple higher performance and low cost battery technology is in the pipeline though nothing hitting the holy grail yet. In the next decade at least, battery expansion is on the table and it'd take a very successful demo of alternatives today to make industrial scale change likely for the next.

Yup.

And one of the killers is how long it takes aviation to accept technology as "safe"... Same reason aircraft piston engines are still 1930s or 40s designs/technology.

 

[windcalm]

Mercedes EV fire causes power outage, hospitalizations with 140 cars damaged

A fire caused by a Mercedes EV explosion in an underground garage at an Incheon apartment complex caused a power outage for 480 households, forcing residents to relocate.

koreajoongangdaily.joins.com

It seems to be one of the biggest EV fire incidents.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Electric car sales forecast slashed as drivers turn to secondhand market

Demand weakens despite heavy discounting by car makers

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[shin_getter]

Frontline report: Ukrainian Forces use salvaged hydrogen fuel cell to decimate Russian position in Vovchansk - Euromaidan Press

Ukrainian military employs a drone carrying a car's hydrogen fuel cell and plastic explosives to decisively disrupt a Russian position in Vovchansk, forcing a retreat.

euromaidanpress.com

 

[Elysium]

I honestly think plug-in hybrids are the future, bar some great technological breakthrough in batteries.
I think that we got so much wrong with EVs as they currently stand.
First, the fact that you need to lug around a literal ton of batteries just to have a shot at decent range, which they'll lie to you about anyway, as they'll tell you the WLTP or whatever range, but not how far you can drive on the highway, which is the only time you care about range anyway, not to mention concerns about temperature and elevation, or driving at actual highway speeds.
Second, fast charging I think is an expensive mistake. I live in a 100+ sqm house, have 2 ACs, an electric boiler and stove, and still my house only has a 10kW grid connection. You could literally run a neighborhood off a single 300kW charger. And you'd need to fill a parking lot with these, and probably in the middle of nowhere too, next to a highway. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why its insanely expensive to buy power at these places and I'd bet they're still losing money on them.
I think the reasonable solution would be to put an 5kW AC charger in every parking lot. They're not much more than a three-phase grid connection and some safety electronics anyway. They're good enough to charge your car over the course of 8-12 hours if you plug them in at your home, or at work. Doing this would still require a boatload of money and political will, but would be actually feasible.
For the highway, and longer trips, you'd have the gasoline engine.

I rather like BYD's hybrid system, here's a video about it:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6H_EH9rBU

It's essentially a series hybrid, with a generator on the petrol engine, and an electric motor driving a wheel, but with a clutch between the two which engages at highway speeds, allowing for direct drive. And all this is coupled with a rather generously sized battery. It's brain-dead simple, and cheap too, seeing how much BYD charges for its plugins.

I don't know about you, but I personally make a long trip every month or so to visit friends and family, otherwise I just use the car for commute and grocery runs.

And building engines like these would allow us, to move away from all the fever dream complexity that engineers have dreamed up to make engines hit emissions standards, that in my opinion have made them expensive to build and repair, and unreliable. You could pretty much build a naturally aspirated 4 banger, and still hit emissions standards.

I feel like this is a future that's actually feasible to reach within a decade.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Plug in hybrids were given a tax break, business users bought them in droves because of this, then drove them as they did ICE cars, no plug in charging. Any they did was on the move which negated the point.

Whatever faffing about they do with BE will be mittigated by the average HB reverting to 'Simply Stupid'.

 

[Elysium]

The problem of plug ins is that essentially they are built with 2 distinct philiosophies: ICE cars with small electric motors for beating tax regulations, and EVs that have petrol engines instead of huge batteries.
A lot of bad plug-ins were the former - they drove like crap in EV only mode and the AC/cabin heating relied on the engine running.
Also the best way of making the driver not care about fuel efficiency is having the company pay for it.

 

[Shoes31]

I've always thought the biggest first push for EV's should have been plug in hybrids for the average consumer. Something like 40-60 miles of range and a small engine. That takes care of the majority of peoples driving habits for one day, and you'd charge up overnight. The majority of drivers do not need a battery capable of 300 miles + for everyday driving. So getting them to adopt PHEVs first, and developing better battery tech for the later full BEVs would have been better. Standardize on charger tech, charging protocol, 800v architecture, etc.

That being said, fast chargers are absolutely critical for BEV adoption. A fast charger allows you to say I'm only going to give the consumer 200 miles of range with a smaller battery, because they can charge to 80% in 10 - 15 minutes which is acceptable. Having to wait 40 minutes to charge is not going to entice people to buy an EV, they want to be able to charge while using the bathroom, buying a quick snack, and then back on the road.

 

[Scott Kenny]

That being said, fast chargers are absolutely critical for BEV adoption. A fast charger allows you to say I'm only going to give the consumer 200 miles of range with a smaller battery, because they can charge to 80% in 10 - 15 minutes which is acceptable. Having to wait 40 minutes to charge is not going to entice people to buy an EV, they want to be able to charge while using the bathroom, buying a quick snack, and then back on the road.

Exactly.

 

[Elysium]

Honestly let me dig in my heels - you can't fight physics. Or more precisely, you can, but the costs quickly become untenable. I think we're all well aware of this fact considering this is an areospace forum . I don' think safe, high energy batteries are coming any time soon. On the contrary, considering there's an article every week of an EV going up in inextinguisable fire, and taking the entire parking lot with it, I think governments will enact even more stringent safety standards. EV batteries are incredibly dangerous. A 100kWh pack can smolder for a week in absence of air.

The fact that internal combustion takes 16 parts oxygen by mass, means that energy density is 17x better, even if the efficiency sucks. You literally can't beat that.
Batteries produce tremendous currents when shorted, and all of that gets converted into heat. And search on youtube what happens when metallic lithium gets dunked into water.
Likewise, increasing energy density means more lithium in the pack that more lithium needs to move between the anode and cathode, leading to drastic physical deformation.

High density, safe, cheap and long lasting batteries are a pipe dream. I think we as a civilization will move from gasoline to hydrogen fuel cells.

Likewise, charging infrastructure is unsolvable. Building 500kW fast chargers at scale is an impossible engineering challenge, and the power generation and delivery requirements are similarly hair-raising.

 

[Shoes31]

I don' think safe, high energy batteries are coming any time soon. On the contrary, considering there's an article every week of an EV going up in inextinguisable fire, and taking the entire parking lot with it, I think governments will enact even more stringent safety standards. EV batteries are incredibly dangerous. A 100kWh pack can smolder for a week in absence of air.

High density, safe, cheap and long lasting batteries are a pipe dream. I think we as a civilization will move from gasoline to hydrogen fuel cells.

Likewise, charging infrastructure is unsolvable. Building 500kW fast chargers at scale is an impossible engineering challenge, and the power generation and delivery requirements are similarly hair-raising.

I don't see any of that as true.

LiFePo4 cells are much more fire resistant than the NMC cells used in existing EVs which can be fire prone. That switch alone will make EV batteries safer, and eventually there will be regulation in battery pack design to help make batteries even safer. And that's before we get to solid state batteries or other battery designs / chemistries which promise more energy density. To say that high density, safe, cheap and long lasting batteries are a pipe dream sounds a lot like saying close the patent office because everything that can be invented has been invented. Auto EVs isn't about being more efficient than ICE because that's not likely to happen, its about being cleaner and greener. It can also be about self reliance, because with solar panels or other electrical generation I can power my car by myself, lowering operating costs.

I like the idea of hydrogen or ammonia engines, but for larger vehicles like semi trucks etc. The ranges and energy those vehicles require means either large batteries or other cleaner fuel types IMO. And if going large batteries they need to be hot swappable at truck centers, which presents more logistics issues to solve - another fuel source seems best in the short to mid term.

And I hardly consider building fast chargers an impossible engineering challenge. Build a proper electrical grid that connects the various states together so energy can be sent across the US, add various different green energy solutions like solar over parking lots and commercial buildings, wind turbines to the grid, get large scale grid batteries using simple designs like iron-air for redundancy, and add more nuclear plants. The US electrical grid needs an overhaul anyways, EV's just give us a perfect reason to do so. As a bonus point, we'd be able to power a planet wide phase shift system if the Ori invade.

 

[Justo Miranda]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...ment-against-planned-lithium-mine-2024-08-08/



https://apnews.com/article/serbia-l...je-nedeljice-f61c39c8d5e8b92ed92b0b21addadc71



https://www.balkanmin.com/rekovac-lithium-borate-project-serbia-100/

 

[Scott Kenny]

I don't see any of that as true.

LiFePo4 cells are much more fire resistant than the NMC cells used in existing EVs which can be fire prone. That switch alone will make EV batteries safer, and eventually there will be regulation in battery pack design to help make batteries even safer. And that's before we get to solid state batteries or other battery designs / chemistries which promise more energy density. To say that high density, safe, cheap and long lasting batteries are a pipe dream sounds a lot like saying close the patent office because everything that can be invented has been invented. Auto EVs isn't about being more efficient than ICE because that's not likely to happen, its about being cleaner and greener. It can also be about self reliance, because with solar panels or other electrical generation I can power my car by myself, lowering operating costs.

Higher energy densities are NEVER safer.

Never have been.

And I hardly consider building fast chargers an impossible engineering challenge. Build a proper electrical grid that connects the various states together so energy can be sent across the US, add various different green energy solutions like solar over parking lots and commercial buildings, wind turbines to the grid, get large scale grid batteries using simple designs like iron-air for redundancy, and add more nuclear plants. The US electrical grid needs an overhaul anyways, EV's just give us a perfect reason to do so. As a bonus point, we'd be able to power a planet wide phase shift system if the Ori invade.

It's needing to put multi-megawatt generators where the demand for electric chargers is that is the problem. Power lines have resistance, there's only so far away you can have a generator.

And of course we have a lot of people agitating to breach all the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to restore the fish runs. Without any discussion of what will be used to make power in their place.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

multi-megawatt generators where the demand for electric chargers

Fast charging isn't an issue at all. The key to mass adoption is home charging and ubiquitous slow charging. Overnight charging is quite adequate for most applications, and if you can plug in at work, that's all the better.

Stop for a bite, plug in your car, get a few kWh.

Stop overnight, plug in your car.

Go to work, plug in your car.

Stop by the meter, put in a quarter, plug in your car.

You plug in your laptop and cell phone whenever you get the chance, likewise your car. If your car isn't on the road, it should be plugged in.

Ubiquitous charging is far more important than high power charging, and opens up new vistas of grid stability strategies using EVs for storage.

Now of course this is not cheap, it will require a lot of low level and mid level infrastructure, but the flexibility for self driving vehicles, robots and other future transportation and utility devices is significant.

 

[Foo Fighter]

In a real world scenario where not all homes have off road parking or any kind of parking space?

Where there is actually nowhere to place these charging points that would be required?

Where big cities do not have the public transport infrastructure to deal with traffic they face now, let alone a world where basically, private transport is legislated off the road?

How many tower blocks have no parking for residents and where do the charging points go then?

If those in power actually smelled the coffee and looked at the real situation before giving pennies and pounds to 'associated pals' they might realise the emperor does not need new clothes.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Fast charging isn't an issue at all. The key to mass adoption is home charging and ubiquitous slow charging. Overnight charging is quite adequate for most applications, and if you can plug in at work, that's all the better.

Stop for a bite, plug in your car, get a few kWh.

Stop overnight, plug in your car.

Go to work, plug in your car.

Stop by the meter, put in a quarter, plug in your car.

You plug in your laptop and cell phone whenever you get the chance, likewise your car. If your car isn't on the road, it should be plugged in.

Ubiquitous charging is far more important than high power charging, and opens up new vistas of grid stability strategies using EVs for storage.

Now of course this is not cheap, it will require a lot of low level and mid level infrastructure, but the flexibility for self driving vehicles, robots and other future transportation and utility devices is significant.

I live in an apartment. There are zero charging stations available for use here. The condos up the road? No charging stations.

As to parking meters with charging stations, that requires running 240V to the chargers. 120v basically does not even cover the "sitting parked" losses unless you put the vehicle in "camping mode".

 

[GTX]

considering there's an article every week of an EV going up in inextinguisable fire, and taking the entire parking lot with it

Really??

 

[Apophenia]

... The fact that internal combustion takes 16 parts oxygen by mass, means that energy density is 17x better, even if the efficiency sucks. You literally can't beat that...

Literally, you can

Interesting how the "physics" of batteries are always insoluble. Not long ago, 'car fire' invariably referred to burning petrol/gasoline. And yet burning ICE vehicles never get mentioned in most discussions on the emergence of EVs. Instead, its the predictable prematurity/undesirability/unfamiliarity/not-the-samedness of EVs trope

Full disclosure: I do not own an EV and haven't driven an ICE vehicle in over 30 years.

As for batteries being "a pipe dream" ... interesting choice of words for someone promoting HFCs. No problem anticipated in producing, piping, or storing hydrogen for mass consumer use?

 

[TinWing]

Fast charging isn't an issue at all. The key to mass adoption is home charging and ubiquitous slow charging. Overnight charging is quite adequate for most applications, and if you can plug in at work, that's all the better.

Stop for a bite, plug in your car, get a few kWh.

Stop overnight, plug in your car.

Go to work, plug in your car.

Stop by the meter, put in a quarter, plug in your car.

You plug in your laptop and cell phone whenever you get the chance, likewise your car. If your car isn't on the road, it should be plugged in.

Ubiquitous charging is far more important than high power charging, and opens up new vistas of grid stability strategies using EVs for storage.

Now of course this is not cheap, it will require a lot of low level and mid level infrastructure, but the flexibility for self driving vehicles, robots and other future transportation and utility devices is significant.

Back in the real world, 120V won’t come anywhere near charging the immense battery pack of Cybertruck “overnight.” Even 220V is a bit of a waste of time with the huge batteries of the F-150 Lightning and GMC Hummer. It’s hard enough to convince owners of leased PHEVs to plug them in. I know a woman who has never once plugged in her PHEV and complains vehemently about it being slow and a gas guzzler - no wonder consider the vehicle is weighed down by 1,000lb of battery and electric motors.

Personally, I only plug in my cellphone and laptop once a day to charge. Why? I don’t buy rubbish electronics with tiny batteries. The same applies to electric cars.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

There are zero charging stations available for use here. The condos up the road? No charging stations.

Yes, that's something you need to build.

My locality has been rolling out subsidies for retrofitting parking garages for years. They taught the importance of putting up charging infrastructure in high school as a key part of enhancing electric vehicle adoption, over a decade ago.

Charging infrastructure was always known to be an essential component of any EV rollout; if it's not keeping up with EV adoption, that's a policy problem that needs to be fixed.

No chargers, no EVs. If you want to use EVs, you need the chargers.

 

[Shoes31]

Back in the real world, 120V won’t come anywhere near charging the immense battery pack of Cybertruck “overnight.” Even 220V is a bit of a waste of time with the huge batteries of the F-150 Lightning and GMC Hummer. It’s hard enough to convince owners of leased PHEVs to plug them in. I know a woman who has never once plugged in her PHEV and complains vehemently about it being slow and a gas guzzler - no wonder consider the vehicle is weighed down by 1,000lb of battery and electric motors.

Personally, I only plug in my cellphone and laptop once a day to charge. Why? I don’t buy rubbish electronics with tiny batteries. The same applies to electric cars.

If that woman just plugged her PHEV into a level 1 120v charger at home, it would fully charge her battery overnight. If PHEV's become mass adopted there is no issue with the charging network as it stands today.

And lets be real here, for the vast majority of drivers they only need to charge at most 80 miles a day. Your home based level 1 or 2 charger would do that overnight, and level 2 in at most 4 hours. If you adopt the approach that chimeric oncogene suggested and have level 2 chargers everywhere and charge when you can, that would solve most peoples range issues. I doubt such chargers would be an issue to install widespread. They call it range anxiety for a reason, in that people see the limited range and think oh no this will be an issue, when in fact for the majority of users it will not be.

 

[TomcatViP]

As said above, EV are for a certain part of the population that gets to have individual parking spots where charging can be done. Essentially that´s true for half the population of a modern large city where, ironically, the need for EV is the most acute. The fact that there is an imbalance b/w the EV market and the demand is a problem as it shows that the basis of the problem hasn´t been addressed yet either at the political level but also on the industry side.

Tesla was nearly there with their static battery offer (Power wall) but never made the correct connection with their car (charge the power wall on a multiday process and then fast charge the EV).

Since EV charging is time consuming, and spot recharge not adapted to half the usage, the obvious solution is to Charge on the Go. But there are multiple projects around that never got any much traction.

 

[windcalm]

https://www.portugalresident.com/pj-police-investigate-massive-blaze-initially-attributed-to-electric-car/

Another Massive EV Fire: Tesla Ignites in Lisbon Airport Parking Lot; No Casualties, Reported

https://twitter.com/x/status/1824513058930393536

View: https://x.com/besugo_peter/status/1824513058930393536?t=Pq7_dy4IB61fIypq01VwUQ&s=19

 

[GTX]

Electric Vehicles Not Guilty Of Excess Short-Term Fire Risk Charges

Data shows EVs are much less likely to burst into flames than ICE vehicles. A clean bill of health? Not quite. EV history is too short for historical comparison.

www.forbes.com

Electric vehicle fires are very rare. The risk for petrol and diesel vehicles is at least 20 times higher

Reports of electric vehicle fires might lead some people to fear the growing numbers of these vehicles will increase fire risk. In fact, replacing petrol and diesel vehicles is likely to reduce it.

theconversation.com

 

[windcalm]

Electric Vehicles Not Guilty Of Excess Short-Term Fire Risk Charges

Data shows EVs are much less likely to burst into flames than ICE vehicles. A clean bill of health? Not quite. EV history is too short for historical comparison.

www.forbes.com

Electric vehicle fires are very rare. The risk for petrol and diesel vehicles is at least 20 times higher

Reports of electric vehicle fires might lead some people to fear the growing numbers of these vehicles will increase fire risk. In fact, replacing petrol and diesel vehicles is likely to reduce it.

theconversation.com

It’s important to consider whether the fire risk presented by EVs differs from that of ICEVs. Risk is generally assessed based on a combination of likelihood and severity. Both sources suggest that the fire risk from EVs appears to be lower than that from ICEVs, although this discussion primarily addresses likelihood rather than severity. Fires involving electric vehicles in public spaces, such as parking lots, can be particularly challenging to extinguish due to battery thermal runaway, and there is a significant risk of these fires spreading to become larger. Additionally, Forbes noted that EVs are generally newer than ICEVs, raising questions about how the likelihood of fires might change as vehicles age. It's reasonable for the government to take a cautious approach to fire safety with new technology, but being too strict with safety requirements when statistical data is still limited can affect other aspects, such as cost and practicality. For now, it would be wise for individuals to maintain awareness of the situation.

 

[GTX]

Sounds like someone is looking for a problem that's not there

 

[Grey Havoc]

3:39PM

Ford cancels large electric SUV as it warns of $1.9bn EV writedown​

Ford is cancelling a major electric SUV project, which could lead to a a writedown as big as $1.8bn (£1.4bn), as it struggles to make the shift to electric vehicles pay.
Facing competition from car makers with lower costs, Ford will now focus on electric vehicles that cost less, have longer range and could be profitable before taxes within a year of reaching showrooms.
The company said it will not now build fully electric SUVs with a third row of seating due to high battery costs, but instead will focus on making those large vehicles as gas-electric hybrids.
The changes will force Ford to write down $400m of its current assets for big electric SUVs, and it also expects to have additional expenses of up to $1.5bn.
John Lawler, finance chief, said:

We’re committed to creating long-term value by building a competitive and profitable business.

The company also said it will cut capital spending on electric vehicles. It now will spend 30pc of its annual capital budget to develop them rather than the current 40pc.
The company said in a prepared statement that the global EV market is changing rapidly, and it must evolve to compete with Chinese automakers that have lower production and engineering costs.

Reeves paves way for tax rises after £3bn borrowing surge

Rachel Reeves is paving the way for tax rises in October’s Budget after large public sector pay rises fuelled a £3bn surge in government borrowing.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Volkswagen attacks EU over ‘incomprehensible’ electric car tariffs

Porsche owner faces higher import taxes than Chinese rivals

www.telegraph.co.uk