[HN Gopher] Electric cars are coming fast - is the nation's grid...
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Electric cars are coming fast - is the nation's grid up to it?
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 108 points
Date : 2021-01-30 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| lucidguppy wrote:
| FUD?
| dghughes wrote:
| This reminds me of my elderly parent's home 50+ years old,
| original 100A service and wiring, glass fuses. Built in a time
| when electrical devices were; washer, dryer, fridge, stove, TV,
| furnace, lights. All 15A 120V except for the stove at 30A 240V.
| Probably four circuits for the entire house.
|
| All homes on their street have electrical service entering from
| the opposite side of the driveway. So if they wanted a car
| charger the house would have to be rewired, service upgraded.
|
| Electric vehicles are for the young and rich.
| sib wrote:
| Yup - this is very common in southern California, for example.
| My mother-in-law and brother-in-law's homes are both in this
| situation. Ours would also have been except we were lucky that
| the previous owner was an EV early adopter and when he did a
| big remodeling project, he upgraded the service panel. (We then
| added solar when we moved in...)
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Knob and tube wiring is outdated and very dangerous. This
| article is about the grid in general, not your parents' ancient
| fuses.
|
| 240V 30A is over 7kw. Even a 15A 120V is enough to charge a
| typical electric car.
| dghughes wrote:
| >Knob and tube wiring is outdated ...
|
| Knob and tube was discontinued in the 1940s not 1970s.
| blabitty wrote:
| The grid in general has a lot of old wiring especially in
| earlier settled parts of the country. I grew up in a house
| built in 1940 and it wasn't especially old for my area. These
| are real costs that affect real people when discussing a
| massive paradigm shift like going mainly to EV and comments
| like yours perpetuate the idea that EV's are for a certain
| wealthy disconnected from reality virtue signalling crowd.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| My house doesn't even have grounded wires. I wonder if that
| is an issue when charging an EV.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Overdue maintenance for real people.
|
| Cloth and/or ungrounded wiring is a electrocution and fire
| hazard and should be considered unsafe for anybody using
| basic electrics near any water source, much more if it has
| any load. This warning should be more pronounced for
| elderly, children, or people who have not been accustomed
| to it.
|
| This is not much different than the Lowndes Al homes that
| haven't had working septic in 30 years that are bringing
| back hookworm.
| smileysteve wrote:
| > except for the stove at 30A 240V
|
| So you're saying that your perfect example of a house that is
| behind on maintenance...
|
| would only require...
|
| A quick job to wire the 240 to the garage that every other
| house that isn't behind on safety maintenance.
|
| If you're lucky, the electrician would install a modern code
| compliant panel while on the job.
| dghughes wrote:
| What lack of maintenance? The wires and panel work fine. The
| house is the same as it has been for years no electrical
| issues.
|
| That "quick job" costs a lot of money probably $15K not to
| mention the labour and time involved. And to a garage that
| doesn't exist.
|
| My point being adding modern things more power hungry like an
| EV are not easy for older homes. Renovating to update the
| entire electrical system is not cheap.
| djrogers wrote:
| 15k? Are you buying cocaine for your electrician and his
| hookers, or are you hiring him to run a 240v outlet?
| Because the latter should cost about 1/10th of what you're
| expecting..
| mindslight wrote:
| House insurance companies charge a significant premium for
| houses that still have fuses for a reason. We've learned a
| lot about electrical (fire) safety in the past few decades.
| cf knob and tube wiring.
|
| You don't have to rewire the whole house. A panel swap and
| new service entrance should run you about $3k (depending on
| area of course).
| smileysteve wrote:
| The lack of maintenance is updating the circuit panel first
| and wires second, I believe this is the _ $15k you're
| referencing. Cloth wiring, no grounds, no gfi around water,
| and fuses create for a very dangerous fire and
| electrocution hazard; any electrician or home inspector
| would have recommended changing it out 20 years ago;
| without electric cars being in the conversation.
|
| You don't have to rewire the rest of the house to extend
| the 240 across the width of the house. 240 is the least
| integrated wiring. And every house (new and old) that needs
| a driveway or garage placement requires the same wiring
| change.
|
| If you wanted, the cheapest option is to move the service
| point (no cost)
| exabrial wrote:
| I have no doubts the transmission grid is up to the task, but
| ironically you'll run into the "last mile" problem on the
| distribution side.
|
| A lot of homes from the 60s-70s in my area only have 100a-125a
| 2-Phase service. That's quite inadequate do get a meaningful
| charge quickly.
|
| It stinks that 3-phase is really only available to commercial
| areas.
| kgermino wrote:
| Isn't most residential charging done at 30amps? That's enough
| to charge a car to full in a few hours and should be available
| in almost any house with 100 amp service a that doesn't use
| electric heat.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The main challenge is not so much generating more energy but
| dealing with the notion of many TWH of battery capacity being
| plugged into the grid and leveraging that. Which at face value
| would be part of the solution except it isn't. That would be too
| easy. The real challenge is dealing with 2 orders magnitude of
| magnitude drop in price per kwh for the grid and the consequences
| that has for demand. Hint: it will sky rocket; the projected
| demand for charging cars is peanuts compared to that.
|
| People have trouble dealing with exponentials; they lack the
| imagination. But the fact is, we're about to see an orders of
| magnitude shift in prices and capacity when it comes to energy
| production. If you are thinking in terms of the current supply
| and demand, you're basically off by magnitudes. Our very near
| future is this market being disrupted to the extreme.
|
| An EV is basically a big battery with plenty of capacity for
| soaking up excess energy during off-peak hours and delivering
| back to the grid during peak hours. So, you could be deceived
| into thinking that the challenge is simply infrastructure for
| leveraging this capacity. People are actually working on this and
| it's not particularly hard from a technical point of view.
|
| For reference, most grid battery being installed currently is
| still sub GWH. Anything over a few hundred MWH is considered news
| worthy. A Tesla has about 60kwh. A million of those is 60GWH;
| that's some serious capacity. There are about a quarter billion
| cars in the US; or about the equivalent of 12.5 TWH if we set the
| average EV battery to 50KWH and they would all be converted to
| electric. The US produces about 4000 TWH of energy every year (a
| bit over) currently; so 12.5 TWH of battery that can be
| charged/discharged in hours, is a lot of capacity. Arguably much
| more than actually needed (currently). So plug that in, and
| problem solved.
|
| Of course, that's not the solution to this challenge but a very
| narrow tunnel vision of a hypothetical part of the solution
| (involving just car batteries). It will never happen because it
| won't be economical.
|
| In reality, there will be mass deployment of wind, solar, and all
| sorts of grid energy storage that is probably a lot more cost
| effective than car optimized lithium ion batteries. Companies
| will be producing this as fast as they can for the foreseeable
| future and it will be like printing money in terms of business
| opportunity. Basically demand will be insatiable for the
| foreseeable future. The lower the prices get, the higher the
| demand and there is not enough supply as it is so prices are
| pretty good.
|
| We have decades to crack this nut; so charging cars is going to
| be a complete and utter non issue by the time all those quarter
| billion cars have converted (2040-2050 timeframe). But the flip
| side is that operating the remaining ICE vehicles will have
| become uneconomical long before that (about 5 years from now).
| So, people will be buying EVs at a premium just to get in on the
| action of lowering their cost for the foreseeable future. If you
| can afford it; great but lots of people will be burning cash
| (quite literally) for some time to come because they can't.
|
| Actually, when everybody finally has converted, energy prices
| will have dropped so low that the upside of renting out your car
| battery for grid support won't be worth the trouble unless you
| can do it at scale. It makes sense at today's prices but with a
| few decades of improvements in cost and efficiency it won't; not
| even close.
|
| This is the bit people struggle with. Energy is expensive
| currently and people assume this will remain true. The lesson of
| the past decade is that solar went from being 100x more expensive
| to being the cheapest option. It's not done dropping in price
| unless you happen to suffer from extreme pessimism regarding
| scientific and industrial progress on this front in the next
| decades. This being HN, I assume you are not that foolish. IMHO
| the only debate worth having right now is on the number of orders
| of magnitude we are talking. I worry about being too conservative
| here.
|
| With solar and wind, the cost of energy is basically a function
| of the purchase cost of the infrastructure and how long it will
| keep mining energy from the sun/atmosphere (for absolutely
| nothing whatsoever). Current equipment is rated for decades of
| use. So, as that stuff gets cheaper and better, the $ per kwh
| will continue dropping to the point where it is no longer
| interesting for consumers to worry about such mundane things as
| efficiency or price per kwh. When a GWH is basically a dollar,
| why bother renting out your car battery for pennies? It doesn't
| make sense. When the equipment needed to generate a lifetime
| supply of energy for the vehicle is a fraction of its purchase
| price, why even think of it as variable cost?
|
| Charging a Tesla at grid prices currently costs you about the
| price of a cup of coffee (maybe plus a cheap lunch if you use a
| supercharger, which of course you won't most of the time). That's
| right now at rates that are basically reflecting the old
| expensive coal+gas+nuclear world we are still in. It's a hard
| sell as it is to spend a lot of time and energy monetizing that.
| Imagine that dropping by 100x. That's roughly what is going to
| play out over the next few decades. Any math involving today's
| prices is basically going to be wrong by orders of magintude.
|
| That's the real challenge for grid suppliers: surviving in a
| world where most of their current infrastructure is obsolete and
| about 100x more expensive than the market rate for energy. It's
| going to be brutal if you are in that line of business unless you
| keep up. If your business is burning coal, your life is going to
| suck. But good riddance.
|
| The challenge for grid operators is continuing to function in
| that world. It will involve aggressively investing in renewables
| + cheap storage + transport (aka. wires) just to stay in
| business. That's basically what they are doing. Some more so than
| others. Investors already moved their money.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I appreciate your optimism, but "energy too cheap to meter" was
| first promised in the 1950s. We never got it thought.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Charging a Tesla at grid prices currently costs you about the
| price of a cup of coffee
|
| I think you've got your math a bit wrong - average cost of
| electricity in CA is .24/kWh, while my marginal cost for
| electricity is .42/kWh. That makes charging a tesla battery a
| $20-$40 proposition, not a $5 one.
| Animats wrote:
| _" If every American switched over to an electric passenger
| vehicle, ... the United States could end up using roughly 25
| percent more electricity than it does today."_ That's not so bad.
| With about 15-20 years of lead time, it just means adding 2%
| capacity per year.
| m463 wrote:
| adding it as solar would be cheap and effective (if you have
| the sun).
|
| According to fueleconomy.gov a honda accord costs $1400/year in
| gasoline in the US.
|
| There's got to be a way to put that towards solar panels, then
| at some point your transportation costs (for energy) go to
| zero.
| madhadron wrote:
| It's the peak load that's the problem, which makes the obvious
| thing to put in local storage substations. They draw down during
| peak hours and refill during off peak.
| Ekaros wrote:
| On large scale building new power plants and transmission lines
| is pretty simple.
|
| But I think the real challenge will be for the last km. It's a
| nice idea to add the charger to lamppost and so on. But how do we
| cope with increased demand there then? We are talking about
| dozens or hundreds of extra kilowatts of demand compared to
| current. And the current local grids just aren't designed and
| build for that. Even bigger problem in places where people
| commute to, with potential of hundreds of kilowatts of extra
| demand in relatively short window of time...
| axaxs wrote:
| Where I lived, virtually every big parking lot had charging
| stations. As big parking lots are generally wasted space
| anyways, why not work with them to be the place to charge? Just
| as I don't gas up at home, I can live with not charging at
| home, especially as charge times come down in the future.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Doesn't solve the issue of how electricity gets to those
| charging stations. Specially when there will be dozens of
| them in that big parking lot.
|
| Grid basically works with electricity being produced in large
| plant, then it's voltage is raised for long distance
| transmission, at other end it is lowered in stages. And all
| of these stages have limited capacity of how much electricity
| can pass through them. And there isn't too much extra in
| these as that would cost more. So it's a big thing to build
| up...
| erratas wrote:
| yes
| [deleted]
| ChrisIsTaken wrote:
| Yeah, most people are recharging 20-30 miles of daily driving
| not the whole battery. As long as the car pulls its 10-15 kWh
| overnight before it leaves the garage in the morning EV owners
| aren't going to care when charging happens.
|
| With managed charging / demand response and day ahead weather
| forecasting you'd rarely need to spin up a gas turbine. On the
| coasts wind is strongest at night, the distribution grid is at
| minimum load and cars are parked. Seems like a perfect match.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Someone should probably check areas like denver where
| everyone will pack up and head a full charge into the
| mountains every weekend.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| How many is "everyone"? All of your friends and
| acquaintances or literally 100% of the population?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Given the shitshow that I've heard that highway is, you'd
| think someone would have developed an economical public
| transit option specifically for skiers / mountain rec.
| Whenever I look into this kind of thing when I plan ski
| vacations I find the bussing options outrageously priced
| (for example from Calgary to Banff or Kelowna to
| Revelstoke, etc.) and it ends up being more economical for
| a family to simply rent a car.
|
| Back in the early part of the 20th century Vermont had
| extensive train access to ski areas, apparently. And much
| of the alps is accessed this way (tho in general European
| travel by rail is much more of a thing)
| ghaff wrote:
| >Back in the early part of the 20th century Vermont had
| extensive train access to ski areas
|
| I'm guessing you probably still needed transportation of
| some sort from the train stations to the mountains.
|
| One of the issues with just having a bus is that a lot of
| ski resorts have multiple base areas and most of the
| lodging and eating options are off-mountain. Some are
| pretty self-contained but the layout for resorts in the
| northeast for example pretty much presupposes that you
| have a car if you're going for a weekend.
|
| There are self-contained exceptions of course but many
| aren't.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| A few ski area towns in Vermont actually still have their
| own local transit. I know at least Waitsfield (Sugarbush
| / Mt Elln & Mad River Glen) and Stowe have that kind of
| thing, to get you from local hotels and restaurants and
| the like to the hill and back etc.
|
| And I recall that Steamboat Springs Colorado has
| something like this; shuttles from airport, hotels, ski
| areas.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Though you could regenerate part of that on the way back
| down. As I understand it electric cars are well suited to
| Denver and other mountain regions as regenerative electric
| braking saves on brake pad wear.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| You'd think so, but in practice my electric car is less
| efficient going over the mountains than driving a flat
| stretch.
|
| So yes, they will be able to recover some energy on the
| way down and reduce wear on brakes, but they'll have to
| make sure their batteries are up to the task.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Regen isn't 100% efficient, but its a lot better than
| dumping the momentum as heat. The problem is that the
| horizontal distance alone from denver to many
| destinations like lake city is enough to drain a battery.
| firebaze wrote:
| It'd be wise to calculate for yourself. Existing and future green
| energy plants (solar/wind/water) won't be enough to charge 60%
| EV's in 10 years without nuclear or fossil backup, if all current
| oil-based traffic was now using EVs. But as soon as you start
| generating energy for EVs from fossil fuel, the CO2 balance
| reverses due to an even lower efficiency factor than combustion
| in modern ICEs.
|
| Either we accept nuclear energy as "clean" and massively stock up
| in this area (also investing massively in next generation
| nuclear, like fusion power), or we'll face a huge backlash in a
| few years. Or we invent a next-generation battery which is cheap
| enough (on resources) and improve upon existing energy storage by
| at least one order of magnitude.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/12/f69/GITT%20I...
| est31 wrote:
| We are only at the beginning of the S-curve of renewable
| adoption. The US is particularly well suited for this due to
| its large area.
|
| Furthermore, you can capture the CO2 of a the fossil based
| electric plant way more easily than putting all this machinery
| into each and every car. Retrofitting filters etc. is also way
| easier than telling your voters to buy new cars with better
| filters.
| firebaze wrote:
| Economy of scale is important, definitely. I'm just not so
| sure if the economy of scale favors energy storage (required
| for large-scale EVs) or ICEs right now, or in the forseeable
| future if we don't heavily invest in backup energy if
| renewables are not available.
|
| The US is heavily dependent on air conditioning, for example.
| What would happen if the available energy was low in summer
| nights? Some kind of base energy backup needs to be there,
| and the energy cost of air conditioning alone is huge.
| neogodless wrote:
| Posted just 2 minutes after the link below.
|
| EDIT My mistake - not a duplicate... below linked article is
| categorized under business, this one is under climate, and
| content is different (though related, of course!)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25969677 "G.M.'S Electric
| Car Goal Blindsides Rivals and Shakes Up an Industry"
|
| Both are looking into the effects of GM's plan to take
| manufacturing electrical cars seriously - infrastructure and the
| competitive landscape.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This change isn't happening overnight. Electrification is going
| to take _at least_ 20 years, so we 'll have time to figure things
| out. Even if _all_ new cars are EVs in 15 years, a lot of people
| can 't/ won't buy a new car which will drag out the transition.
|
| Also, I know a lot of people who are buying EVs are also
| installing solar. While it's not a perfect match for a person
| with a 9-5 job, it is a fantastic solution for the growing number
| of remote workers. This is what I am doing personally.
|
| I understand that a lot of people don't have places (or the
| money) where they can install solar so it's not a solution for
| everyone.
| CyanLite4 wrote:
| Solar is already cost effective for charging stations. Hydrogen
| isn't too far behind.
|
| Bring on the charging station infrastructure.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| I take issue with these headlines that say "X is now the
| cheapest energy in history!" when they mean "at noon on a sunny
| day in summer, completely ignoring any extra equipment and
| capacity needed at scale to deal with the fact that it is
| intermittent"
|
| Hydrogen is not an energy source but rather an energy carrier,
| like a battery. If you want to use hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
| that can exchange cells at street stations you need extra
| energy clean-energy capacity to make the hydrogen. There are
| still plenty of hurdles.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's really a shame the Chevy Volt didn't dominate like the
| Tesla. It's the perfect transition vehicle. I had a Smart Fortwo
| which was cute but had terrible range - followed by the Nissan
| Leaf which was better but had terrible battery life in the winter
| which has only been resolved recently.
|
| Tesla Model 3's are nice, but if you're an economical driver the
| cost per mile is still way higher than a hybrid. Ugh.
|
| EDIT: To clarify I'm referring to the total cost per mile, not
| just the cost to drive a mile - the Model 3 wins in that regard
| as far as I know. The problem is that the Model 3 costs tens of
| thousands of dollars more than the cheapest hybrids, so unless
| you're going to keep your Model 3 for like 300K miles it's not
| worth it on a purely economical basis.
|
| If you compare to a gas car, again on a purely economical basis,
| it's even more lopsided. Factor in used vehicles and _even more_
| so. I ended up just buying a used Corolla in the end sadly since
| it was cheaper and from my understanding more environmentally
| friendly.
|
| TLDR: If you want to be "environmentally friendly" that means
| minimizing driving. However, if you minimize driving it makes
| basically no sense, economically or environmentally to buy an
| electric car - you're better off buying a fuel efficient used
| vehicle. Please correct me if you believe I'm wrong in this
| thinking.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| This is the barrier for me too-- my family lives in a walkable,
| downtown community and our overall driving is 5-10k km/yr. It
| would be _fun_ to have an EV, but from both a $$ and eco point
| of view, I think if you 're already committed to a low car
| lifestyle, your best option for some time yet is to carry on
| buying lower-efficiency vehicles that are at least 4 years old.
|
| This prevents an existing vehicle (for which the carbon cost to
| manufacture it is sunk) from being abandoned, but using it as a
| backup vehicle means it won't be driven more than a minimum,
| and having your gas be "expensive" on a per-km basis creates
| the proper incentives to avoid driving except where necessary.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| We're in a similar situation. Can walk to everything we need
| so we only end up driving about 3500 miles (about 5KM) per
| year. I've got an old 98 Honda civic which "only" has about
| 130K miles on it (meaning it's good for at least another 70K
| miles) and still runs great. I can't justify the expense of
| an EV given these criteria, though I'm looking forward to
| getting one someday.
| emj wrote:
| Just commit and sell the car, our driving was about double
| that and we do not miss it a bit now. Still drive about 1000
| km/year in rentals, but we are trying to minimize that.. It's
| especially nice as a family to primarly transport yourself in
| other ways were you get to spend time together interacting
| freely instead of being stuck in a car.
|
| Economically it's more or less the same, but a better quality
| of life.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| We've thought about it. One of the main barriers is
| honestly the combo of a) out of town family and b) young
| children. Installing carseats and boosters in a rental is a
| giant pain, and the train/coach schedules aren't dense
| enough to permit a reliable day trip to a location that's a
| 60-90 minute drive away.
|
| We do have another family in our circle are are carfree and
| they make it work with a combination of rentals and every
| now and then they borrow our car in exchange for
| babysitting and other favours.
| Shivetya wrote:
| My 2017 Volt is what took me to my 2018 Model 3. Now I can no
| longer see myself driving any car that is not electric. This
| from someone who loves the sound of a good muscle car even to
| this day.
|
| GM's issue has always been they have played the compliance game
| while claiming otherwise. Even Ford is doing it now with the
| Mach E by limiting availability to 50k models, a number a third
| of the sales of vehicles they have cancelled for low
| unsustainable sales.
|
| I never bought my TM3 to save money, buying any new car pretty
| much is a losing proposition. I bought it because it was cool.
| It was the closest I have even seen to those dream/concept cars
| from the seventies and eighties. All those cars with radical
| exteriors and even more radical interiors. Well someone built
| it.
|
| Is it perfect. No. However as an EV is had my most important
| feature. Range. I could care less about its 0-60mph times. I
| want range. I want to drive to my friends in the boonies and
| back in all seasons without having to divert to charge. I want
| to be able to skip chargers because I have the range to do so.
|
| Plus remember, every range number given should be hedged by
| multiplying it by 0.90 as no manufacturer suggests charging to
| 100% all the time.
|
| On a side note : Do not buy FSD. Tesla will not let you
| transfer it to another Tesla and even right now trade ins to
| Tesla are hit and miss as they have been giving ZERO dollars on
| trade for the feature. You don't need it for lane keep assist
| or traffic aware cruise control. I don't care if you believe
| Tesla can or cannot deliver it, the simple matter here is they
| don't honor you by giving you anything for it on trade;
| something that Elon claims to be looking into
| cwhiz wrote:
| The Volt is boring, ugly, and slow. I don't know what they were
| thinking. It looks like it was designed by soccer moms in a
| focus group session.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yep. I think a big reason why Teslas are so popular and other
| EVs (and to a lesser extent Hybrids like the Prius) are not
| is the styling. Teslas look like normal cars. The others look
| like caricatures.
|
| It's subjective, but the styling of Volt, Bolt, Leaf, Prius,
| i3, id.3 are all turn-offs for me.
| Tagbert wrote:
| The Tesla M3 is rather homely and ill proportioned, though
| NDizzle wrote:
| I was looking at Volts two weeks ago.
|
| You can get a 2018 year model (premier trim level w/ driver
| confidence 2 - the highest possible trim level combination)
| with 13,000 miles on it for $17k.
|
| Due to living on dirt roads I passed on it, but it's a pretty
| good deal if you commute and can charge at your destination. 52
| mile range all electric, 400 miles combined range.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I live rural Canada and drive plenty of dirt roads and have a
| Volt and ... no problems ever.
|
| It's got fairly low clearance, but it's heavy and has
| excellent traction. Handles excellent in snow with good
| winter tires.
| NDizzle wrote:
| The front splitter wouldn't make it up my drive, much less
| the road. Cybertruck instead!
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| How is the cost per mile higher in a Model 3 than a hybrid? As
| far as I know the model 3 is basically the most energy
| efficient EV on the market, in terms of KWh per mile. The Model
| 3 is lighter, more aerodynamic, and has more efficient motors.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The parent has edited their comment, but the issue is that
| the sticker price on the Model 3 is still too high-- you need
| to drive it for a super long time/distance to recoup those
| costs.
| djrogers wrote:
| Or sell it. Resale value in Tesla's is quite high compared
| to a Volt.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Apparent resale value, perhaps -- that is, what people
| ask for them. What they actually sell for is a different
| story. I am trying to sell my Model 3 Performance right
| now. After owning it for just over a year. It seems to
| have depreciated about a thousand bucks a month.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Well and who knows what they'll be worth in four to five
| years, particularly as battery tech continues to improve.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The base Model 3 or the SR+ (probably) are pretty efficient.
| But the dual motors are a bit more thirsty. My wife's Bolt
| weighs 500 pounds less and gets substantially better economy
| from every kWh than my Model 3 Performance does. Whether I
| drive like a jerk or not.
| danans wrote:
| It's definitely possible. It just depends on local gas and
| electricity prices.
|
| For example, in CA current regular grade fuel is about
| $3.40/gal. A Prius gets 60mpg, which works out to 6c/mile.
|
| For electricity, the average rate in CA is 24c/kWh. A model 3
| uses 250 Wh/mile which works out to 6c/mile.
|
| So exactly the same price per mile. A small change in either
| fuel price could advantage one or the other.
|
| Of course you can take advantage of overnight lower EV
| charging rates, or drive to an area with cheaper gas, but at
| least with current average energy prices, there isn't a huge
| difference in per mile energy consumption costs.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Electric engines are much simpler and should last a lot longer
| than ICE, so that extra upfront cost will be divided over a lot
| more miles, and there will be a lot less maintenance expense.
| blabitty wrote:
| If the electronics and computer industries are any guide the
| manufacturers will "recover" those savings through
| desupporting software / forced upgrades. Either that or go to
| a pure leasing model since the car's software driven
| propulsion is now completely proprietary protected IP that
| you won't be able to have fixed except through them.
| carlmr wrote:
| The motor yes, but a gas tank lasts forever while a battery
| doesn't. Batteries have gotten a lot better, but I think you
| need to look at the whole car, not just the motor, to make a
| fair assessment of durability.
|
| I do think that electric has a lower maintenance cost, even
| accounting for the battery, but it's not that low that i
| think you can make up a 30k price difference.
|
| If you plan on keeping the car for 10 years and drive 1000km
| per month. The up front 30k are 3k per year or 250 per month.
| That's quite a lot of an additional fixed cost for not having
| moved yet.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| you can replace a tesla battery pack for 12K (after the
| warranty expires at 120K miles or 8 years), which i would
| imagine is probably be close to/less than the maintenance
| costs of a ICE vehicle after 120K miles/8 years
| carlmr wrote:
| But if it's similar to the maintenance cost, you've not
| gained anything on the initial cost differential. Making
| it still the worse investment.
| m463 wrote:
| I always thought of the volt as twice the complexity, twice the
| responsibility.
|
| You still have to keep track and change the oil, and the
| coolant. You still have a water pump and spark plugs and all
| this other stuff to keep track of.
|
| AND you have all the EV worries like the battery.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Way less effort than a a regular gas car. If you don't use
| the ICE very often, you only have to service it every 1-2
| years. The electric system is very simple and requires almost
| no maintenance.
| Tagbert wrote:
| In practice, a PHEV like the Volt is more reliable and has
| less maintenance than an ICE vehicle. The engine in the Volt
| only runs in the rare cases where the battery charge is low.
| When it does run, it generally runs at a constant, low stress
| RPM while supplying power to the electric motor with
| buffering from the battery. This is generally acting like a
| series hybrid. (The parallel hybrid mode is only activated in
| some rare cases). The result is that the EV motor is used for
| most miles and the gas engine lives a rather pampered life.
|
| The car also keeps track of gas miles and gives you an
| estimate for remaining oil life. Under typical usage, that
| results in an oil change every couple of years. I think that
| the spark plugs are 100K plugs so they will eventually need
| replacing but not often.
| maxerickson wrote:
| EVs (increasingly) have cooling loops for the batteries. They
| can likely be very low maintenance, but the stuff is there.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Are any of these using pressurized systems, do they even
| have an open side? Complex systems like the Tesla do have
| pumps that could potentially go bad.
|
| Hopefully lithium batteries aren't reaching 200f degrees;
| jdeibele wrote:
| I would have agreed with you but Consumer Reports did a study
| https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020.... that said this wasn't the case.
|
| "Analysis of real-world maintenance and repair cost data from
| thousands of CR members shows that BEV and PHEV owners are
| paying half as much as ICE owners are paying to repair and
| maintain their vehicles."
|
| "The data were filtered to remove: * Incomplete responses. *
| Vehicles that reported traveling less than 2,000 miles in the
| past 12 months. * Vehicles that reported traveling more than
| 60,000 miles in the past 12 months. * Vehicles that reported
| maintenance costs of over $20,000 over the past 12 months. *
| Vehicles with more than 200,000 total miles."
| m463 wrote:
| that doesn't change the responsibility angle. granted, I
| might be more acutely aware of it because I've always
| bought used vehicles.
| cowmix wrote:
| 2013 Volt owner. What you are saying is, on paper, true I
| guess. The actual situation of me and all my Volt friends is
| that the cars are VERY reliable. I have 128K miles (105K EV
| miles) so my engine has only 22K miles after 7 years. Besides
| tires, ONE oil change and a front-end CV issue -- I've spent
| zero on maintenance.
|
| FWIW, my next car will be a Model Y.
| fencepost wrote:
| I do suspect that the ICE portion of the Volt could be a lot
| simpler than a regular gas powered vehicle since it's not
| directly connected to the wheels. A generator configured to
| run primarily with a fixed load size and in its peak
| efficiency zone is different from what you find in the
| typical gas car.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| In Gen2 Volt it is actually connected to the wheels in some
| modes. It's not a series hybrid.
|
| But its maintenance is very low. Very little wear on it.
| Tagbert wrote:
| For almost all normal use cases, the Volt gen 2 is a
| series hybrid. The engine only runs when the battery is
| depleted and it operates in a non-stressed, constant rpm
| mode where it is supplying charge to the EV motor that is
| buffered by the battery. There is a parallel hybrid mode
| but it is only triggered under extreme conditions.
| m463 wrote:
| As mentioned the volt has the electric motor, gas motor and
| wheels all part of the same unit.
|
| On the other hand, the bmw i3 is a serial hybrid. I think
| the two models are basically an EV and an EV+generator
| (range extender). One got more subsidies than the other.
|
| What I wonder about is - what happens to the i3 when the
| electric battery is depleted and all you have is the
| generator? Can you maintain speed? Will you run out of
| battery first or run out of fuel?
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's true that the Volt does have a lot of complexity -
| however you also have access to the existing infrastructure
| for gas cars.
| m463 wrote:
| My solution was a leaf and a gas vehicle (which pretty much
| went unused)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I've never had a vehicle that required less maintenance than
| my 2017 Volt. Up to 100k KM on it now and I've changed the
| oil once + tire swaps and some rust removal on the brakes
| because they don't get much use due to regen. That's all. But
| 88% of my travel is pure electric, so. The ICE only needs as
| much maintenance as you use it for.
| djrogers wrote:
| You can't gauge cost per mile without taking resale value into
| account, and tesla resale value is great, while the Volt? Not
| so much.... I'd bet if you owned each vehicle for 3-4 years
| then sold and actually did the math, the tesla would be ahead.
| supertrope wrote:
| I find it unlikely that the depreciation on a $40K automobile
| is less than on a $30K one. If one is selling a car after
| only three years they should have leased it.
| powerbroker wrote:
| Overnight (morning of 1/30/2021), the Texas grid [1] received
| 20,000 MW (average) of wind generated energy. If all Texas cars,
| or 9 million, were Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), the wind
| turbines (at the 20,000MW rate) would end up supplying 46% of the
| electricity to those cars if they plugged in last night.
|
| Now, last night was exceptionally windy. However, wind turbines
| generation is growing by about 10-20% annually. Accordingly, in a
| few years 20,000 MW overnight wind generation will become the
| Texas median production rate or even will fall among the lower
| percentiles of production.
|
| The article that the NY Times references [2] shows how the 100%
| electric fleet demand compares to the current daily load profiles
| in Texas and California. The Texas grid, as depicted, shows a
| peak at 3PM -- for now. However, if there were 100% EVs, that
| peak would shift to 3AM. Then, in addition to the typically
| abundant wind energy, natural gas (peaked) generators could come
| online to easily deliver more power.
|
| Something like 60-70% of Texas daily wind generation occurs
| between 9PM and 9AM, because of the diurnal wind patterns. This
| means that the usually strong nightly winds allows Texas to
| outproduce electricity at 3AM as compared to 3PM.
|
| In contrast to the habits of California EV drivers, Texas drivers
| get 80-90% of their annual charge needs by plugging in overnight
| at their homes. So, the Texas grid is uniquely suited to host a
| rapidly growing EV fleet.
|
| [EDIT] 9,000 MW would provide 1 kWh for 10 hrs for each car of
| 9,000,000 EV cars to get 30+ miles of range. So, yeah, last night
| the Texas grid could accommodate _all of them_.
|
| 1.
| http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.htm...
|
| 2. https://theconversation.com/switching-to-electric-
| vehicles-c...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| A lot of hyperbolic reporting but there's a ton of off-peak
| excess overnight electricity capacity. This is also when you will
| tend to be charging because you are home and done driving for the
| day.
|
| Many utilities already offer off peak rates generally. My utility
| offers incentives to install an EV charger which is networked and
| then gives you a rebate for charging overnight after 11pm. My EV
| charging is barely 30% of my wintertime electric use, driving
| 500-800 mi/month. This is in a home with oil heat. In summertime
| using AC in the home, my EV usage will shrink as a percent of
| usage.
|
| Current solar prices keep dropping and incentives are pretty big
| there as well, so if you are a big EV driver you could put up
| some solar with a pretty quick break even of ~4 years or so.
| Finance it correctly and you won't have any increase in your
| monthly outlays.
|
| Biggest barrier right now is simply EV cost. I love my car but
| EVs are still only barely price competitive after incentives/gas
| savings if you are a small/midsize sedan shopper. If you need
| something larger like a CUV/SUV/Van/Truck, EVs are only price
| competitive with a luxury brand/vehicle in the class.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > but EVs are still only barely price competitive after
| incentives/gas savings if you are a small/midsize sedan
| shopper.
|
| Is this true if you also consider maintenance? EVs require much
| less maintenance - no oil changes, filters, no cooling system,
| no fuel system and associated pumps. Much less time wasted to
| service those things.
|
| Sure, the costs are higher up-front for an EV but cost of
| ownership over the lifetime of the vehicle are much lower.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| You should also consider lifespan. I'm a broken record on
| this but automotive gasoline engine is basically toast after
| 5000 to 8000 hours. That more than anything else defines the
| lifespan of a car.
|
| Electric motors and fixed gears can go 25,000 to 50,000 hours
| before they need a rebuild. And they can be rebuilt multiple
| times. And the industry is talking about EV batteries that
| will last a million miles.
|
| Factor that into the capital cost of owning an EV and it
| changes everything.
|
| Now consider that the usual finance term for car is about a
| third it's expected life. Typical car lasts 15 years, typical
| finance is 5 years. If an EV's expected life is 30 years, vs
| 15 above. Then the reasonable finance term can double to 10
| years.
| bumby wrote:
| If you're talking specifically about the drive train,
| that's one thing. But the reliability of electrical
| components will likely not come close to approaching 30
| years. That's especially relevant in cars that combine
| everything into a single display and everything is
| electrically controlled. The old school vice grip solution
| to roll down windows won't work with most new cars :-)
|
| There are anecdotes of displays costing $7k, and designed
| for planned obsolescence after 5-7 years. Ironically, this
| is the same timeframe where the car depreciation makes a
| stronger case for buying a new vehicle rather than paying
| that kind of money on fixing an older one. Point being, I
| don't think we can plan on a 30 year EV life anymore than
| we can count on using the same personal computer for
| decades.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _so no waiting in line for 45 minutes every two years
| either_
|
| Pretty fucked up that you only check for air pollution and
| not actual road-worthiness.
|
| Here all Teslas had an inspection failure rate after of 10.8%
| (61,000 km driven on average) in 2019 after three years of
| driving, which is quite bad. For comparison, Mercedes-Benz
| E-Class and BMW 5-series both had 7.1% (108,000 km and 91,000
| km driven on average). This suggests to me that Tesla owners
| should really spend more time queuing at the shop and at an
| inspection center.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Well Tesla owners are told that their cars need zero
| maintenance so why would they even think about having them
| inspected routinely?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm also curious about resale. Batteries degrade and a good
| portion of the vehicle's value is the battery. Right now the
| resale is quite good on EVs, but I don't know if that's
| attributable to the novelty of EVs or some other factor that
| won't last ten years. Perhaps someone who knows more than I
| do could weigh in?
| skolos wrote:
| Tesla Model 3 has 100k miles warranty for battery with
| guarantee that battery will have at least 70% capacity
| remaining. Actual numbers indicate that degradation usually
| is significantly less - closer to 90% battery capacity at
| 100k miles: https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-
| degradation-rep...
| jjeaff wrote:
| I suspect the fall off is non-linear. I would be curious
| to know how they fair in the next 100k miles.
|
| I have never bought a car with less than 100k miles on it
| and I drive pretty nice cars. There are a whole lot of
| ice cars on the road with more than 100k miles because
| the last decade has produced very reliable ice vehicles
| with very replaceable parts.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I suspect that tesla modified the drop by giving you a
| battery which has a higher capacity than advertised and
| then borrowing from that extra capacity as the battery
| degrades. This works until it doesn't and you run out of
| extra to borrow from. I wish the mechanics of how the
| battery is managed long term was more open.
| Retric wrote:
| Batteries are becoming a minor issue for EV's both due to
| price drop, longer ranges reducing the number of charge
| cycles, and reduced capacity still being adequate. At 80%
| capacity a 400 mile EV is still doing 320 miles which is
| fine for the vast majority of people. Similarly, 500 full
| recharges hits 200k miles with a 400 mile range. Range is
| becoming the EV horsepower metric where bigger numbers keep
| coming out even if it's not really relevant to most people.
| Batteries also degrade with age, but usage tends to be a
| larger issue.
| natch wrote:
| You're right. You should be upvoted, not downvoted. And then
| there is the cost of accidents. I've had two people hit me
| (their fault in both cases) and both clearly expressed to me
| their intention to lie about the details of accident to avoid
| responsibility. They then followed through and lied to the
| insurance company, just as they said they would.
|
| You might think I must live in a sketchy area to encounter
| such people. Well no. One was a specialist doctor at Stanford
| hospital and the other worked at Apple. But they both lied.
| My car defended me from severe financial costs these people
| could have inflicted on me. Thousands of dollars if you add
| up the two cases. And that's in just a couple years of
| ownership. Both were caught on video and were held
| responsible despite their lies.
|
| Of course it might seem that having cameras has nothing to do
| with being an EV. But some EVs do have a lot of cameras, and
| that's part of the cost people complain about, but it's also
| part of how the car has much lower total cost of ownership.
| It should be factored in when making cost comparisons, just
| like the lower maintenance costs you point out.
|
| The way it does have to do with the car being an EV is that
| these cameras are backed by a massive battery, so they can be
| always on. ICE cars can't come even close to doing that.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > You might think I must live in a sketchy area to
| encounter such people. Well no. One was a specialist doctor
| at Stanford hospital and the other worked at Apple. But
| they both lied
|
| You must have been upper middle class for either too long
| or not long enough to not thing upper middle class folks
| can be sketchy as hell :-).
|
| > Of course it might seem that having cameras has nothing
| to do with being an EV. But some EVs do have a lot of
| cameras, and that's part of the cost people complain about,
| but it's also part of how the car has much lower total cost
| of ownership. It should be factored in when making cost
| comparisons, just like the lower maintenance costs you
| point out.
|
| Yeah, you can have a dashcam in any car ?
| zwily wrote:
| You can have a dash cam in any car, but having several
| cameras around the car recording is more rare. (And very
| helpful in case of an accident)
| natch wrote:
| Having the cameras active even when the car is parked and
| you are not anywhere near the car is even more unusual.
| But super valuable in my opinion.
| franklampard wrote:
| Was about to say the same. In my experience these
| privileged people are the most likely to pull this kind
| of tricks.
|
| Maybe because they have been so privileged throughout
| their life that they feel entitled to not taking
| responsibility
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| Rich white people are sketchy as hell because they stand
| a lot to lose and generally can get away with pulling
| shit.
|
| I should know, I'm a sketchy upper middle white guy who
| recognizes his privilege.
| natch wrote:
| I never mentioned race. It didn't enter the picture here
| [Edit: as far as I can tell but... the stuff can be
| subtle]. fwiw the doctor wasn't white. Entitled,
| definitely. I do understand your point and would agree
| that white privilege is a thing.
| wernercd wrote:
| I'm an upper middle class white guy. I have no
| "privilege's" except being blamed for stuff by my skin
| color by those who claim to be fighting racism.
|
| I have what's called "results" of hard work, good
| decisions and a healthy dose of luck to go from the poor
| kid of a single mother on government cheese and living on
| family couches to making a good salary at a good job. I
| earned my place - I wasn't "privileged" into it.
|
| The only REAL privilege I have is being an American - and
| that's color blind. The top 1% globally make 30k/year and
| that's the vast majority of Americans. And I'm not
| ashamed of that... I'm proud of it - as I should be.
|
| Any attempts to place race as a factor is done by what we
| love to call... racists.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| It's sad that you have a blind spot as to the benefits
| that have been afforded to you by society that others do
| not have. And, of course, since you cannot experience
| what life is like on the other side, you will continue to
| have this blind spot and deny that you have it.
| natch wrote:
| > Yeah, you can have a dashcam in any car ?
|
| How about eight cameras covering pretty much all angles,
| that are always on, even when parked?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| To be fair, the sentry mode on Teslas is great but if we
| are going to talk about cost of accidents & Tesla ... it's
| mostly a negative story. I'm an owner and fortunately
| avoided accidents so far, but the stories of people waiting
| on parts dealing with rentals for weeks or months are..
| extensive. The cost of accidents is reflected in the fairly
| high insurance costs for Teslas. This may not be terribly
| different than a German luxury make you could be cross
| shopping in the price range, but it's something to bear in
| mind.
| colordrops wrote:
| I've avoided two accidents in my model 3 due to its
| automatic avoidance system, so I'll put up with the
| alleged slow fix times.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _This may not be terribly different than a German
| luxury make you could be cross shopping in the price
| range, but it's something to bear in mind._
|
| Definitely seems higher. I just checked the price for
| insuring a 2019 Mercedes-Benz E-Class (hybrid). It was
| 1350 EUR/year or 2100 EUR/year if I choose the premium
| coverage options. For a 2019 Tesla Model 3, the same
| prices were 2030 EUR/year and 2670 EUR/year.
|
| 2019 Tesla Model S was even worse at 2400 EUR/year and
| 3260 EUR/year. Model S is definitely more expensive than
| an E-Class, so I also compared to a 2019 Mercedes-Benz
| S-Class (hybrid), which was about 16,000 EUR more
| expensive to buy than the Model S. Got 1920 EUR/year and
| 3060 EUR/year.
|
| (Premium coverage options were parking coverage, glass
| insurance, better write-off compensation and temp car
| coverage.)
| njarboe wrote:
| Tesla has their own insurance product[1] to try and lower
| what they think are inflated insurance costs on their
| cars. I don't know if they actually do offer better
| prices. It would be interesting to know.
|
| [1]https://www.tesla.com/insurance
| natch wrote:
| Way better prices. Saving about $3000 a year on two cars
| compared to Geico. But only available in the US for now
| as you may be aware.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I imagine that's only available in the US. The page is in
| English and there's only an American phone number even
| when switching to the local Tesla site.
| njarboe wrote:
| It say only California at the moment. They say they are
| expanding to other US states. If it catches on I imagine
| they will continue to expand it if its not illegal in
| other places.
| bumby wrote:
| Has Tesla indicated why they believe their insurance
| rates are inflated?
| natch wrote:
| I vaguely recall (could be wrong) Elon said the other
| companies are not adequately taking into account Tesla
| safety features. Possibly including the cameras I
| mentioned.
|
| They do take the safety features into account, but notice
| I said "adequately."
|
| Whether Elon actually said it or not, I think it's a good
| hypothesis.
| yholio wrote:
| What's this madness of driving a car that you cannot
| afford to repair out of pocket?
|
| I understand paying for mandatory liability insurance,
| since you might hit a Bugatti Veyron and do damage far
| surpassing your net worth. But I have no idea why would
| someone pay 10% of the vehicle cost per year to cover
| repairs to their own vehicle due to their own driving
| mistakes. How about... they drive a cheaper vehicle until
| they learn how to drive?
| gambiting wrote:
| Those are.....insane insurance prices? Which country is
| this for? What kind of driver?
|
| I got a new Volvo XC60 T8 last year(400bhp, PS60k car),
| my fully comprehensive insurance as a 29 year old
| is...PS400 a year. With their highest tier premium
| insurance option, with premium courtesy car, full EU
| cover, glass cover, full legal cover, 20 million euro
| liability cover....etc, full package basically.
|
| Before that I had a Mercedes GLA45 AMG and my insurance
| was marginally more expensive, like PS500 a year.
|
| I can't believe any of the cars you listed would be more
| to insure than these two....so what gives? Why is it so
| expensive?
| Hamuko wrote:
| They're the quotes that I'm getting from my insurance
| company's website. For context, I am 27, live in Finland
| and don't have full bonuses.
|
| Granted, the online prices usually suck compared to what
| you can get once you call (or get called by) an agent. If
| I tried buying my current insurance for my car it's
| giving me 1100 EUR/year whereas my actual price is 940
| EUR/year.
|
| A 2015 Mercedes-Benz GLA45 (49,000 EUR) would cost me
| 1380 EUR/year or 2040 EUR/year with all bells and
| whistles.
| sgt wrote:
| You should be driving a more suitable car for Finland,
| like a Lada or a Volvo 240 imported from Sweden.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| you don't know if they would have been held responsible
| even without video
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Don't know about that last point. Gas cars have a starter
| battery and alternators which probably produce enough juice
| to power cameras, that don't take a lot of power.
| supertrope wrote:
| Everyone lies after a car accident. The claims adjusters
| expect it and only go off the evidence.
| cmason wrote:
| Check out this total cost of ownership comparison of a wide
| range of Internal Combustion, Hybrid, and Battery Electric
| vehicles:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/climate/elect.
| ..
| bumby wrote:
| If you go to the source of that graphic, you can find more
| info. The Tesla's are fairly high on the cost scale,
| particularly when comparing to other cars (as opposed to
| SUVs and trucks which typically have heavy duty components
| and more expensive maintenance)
|
| https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore
| bluGill wrote:
| Gas cars don't need a lot of maintenance. The oil is $40
| every few months. Everything else is 100,000 miles if you
| even bother, or is the same with electric. Cars have improved
| a lot.
|
| Note that there are a lot of myths drving up costs for no
| reason. A 3000 mile oil change isn't a treat for your engine.
| In some tests the least engine wear was 8000 miles on the
| oil. Changing the oil early lets a bit of dust in so is not a
| good thing if the oil is good. (Synthetic oil is a treat, but
| the car will be fine without)
| cptskippy wrote:
| A brand new car might not but after 5 years or 100k miles
| the maintenance compounds significantly.
|
| Are suggesting that people shouldn't keep cars beyond 5
| years or 100k miles?
| Noos wrote:
| This assumes you only charge at home because you can, and only
| work first shift. A lot of people may wind up charging at work
| because that's the only place that could really make charging
| points accessible with no worries. At least 5% of people work
| third or swingshifts too, so thats a load that has to be
| compensated for.
|
| You also need to worry about fleet vehicles charging, and other
| uses. So the off-peak capacity isn't always possible.
| smileysteve wrote:
| The average commute in the U.S. is 32 miles a day, pre
| pandemic. Which means that the load is distributed not only
| in 24 hours, but every 72 hours for even lower capacity
| batteries like the leaf.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Unless work or whatever has battery storage, which they might
| well if they already installed a line of charging points.
| Noos wrote:
| Not sure work would go that far, to be honest. I figure
| just the increased load and charging ports would be all you
| could expect them to do.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Depends how many wires they have but it's quite possible
| that "add a battery pack that charges when electricity is
| cheap" is cheaper than "pay for everyone to charge at
| peak rates".
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > This assumes you only charge at home because you can, and
| only work first shift.
|
| No it doesn't?
|
| Most charging can be done at night when power is both cheap
| and plentiful. The fact that only 5% of people work third
| shift is testament to this!
|
| No one is pretending that ALL charging is at off-peak hours.
| But the fact is that not only can most charging be off-peak
| much of it will be. This is excellent news you should be
| happy about!
| aseerdbnarng wrote:
| > A lot of hyperbolic reporting but there's a ton of off-peak
| excess overnight electricity capacity.
|
| Looking at California's demand-profile it appears almost flat
| throughout the day (page 3 http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/j
| acobson/Articles/I/Combi...). I dont see an obvious reaon why
| other cities would follow a different profile, so no I dont
| think that assumption is correct. The problem is indeed cost,
| but more the cost of storing the energy created by green
| renwables to be used when the wind isnt blowing or the sun isnt
| shining. If anything electricity will become _much_ more
| expensive and become cheaper not overnight but instead when the
| weather is great. Indeed this is whats happening in Germany as
| a result of their energiewende program
| appleiigs wrote:
| > I dont see an obvious reaon why other cities would follow a
| different profile, so no I dont think that assumption is
| correct
|
| A flat demand profile is definitely not normal. Do i really
| need to explain that the rest of the country doesn't have
| same weather as California...
| usrusr wrote:
| > This is also when you will tend to be charging because you
| are home and done driving for the day.
|
| In absence of demand-based pricing and clever "when will you
| need the car again?"-UI (both are necessary to see an effective
| load spread) all the cars from evening rush hour will meet
| again for evening rush hour 2, the grid edition, during supper
| and immediately after. At the time of nighttime overcapacity
| most will already be on sustain trickle.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Solar is great but it doesn't work at night.
|
| At least here in California it seems like the toughest times
| for the grid currently are around 7-9pm when they do the solar
| to fossil fuel transition (wind can be sporadic). I imagine
| that'll coincide with when a lot of cars are charging so
| hopefully we're able to step up our energy storage capacity
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Nuclear is pretty constant (hard to stop and start like
| coal), if it is part of the mix then EVs can soak up output
| at night.
|
| I live in the PNW, hydro is fairly flexible so we don't get
| off peak discounts. California uses a lot of hydro also, I
| suspect they are using more of that rather than coal to fill
| in the gaps between solar
| njarboe wrote:
| California is shutting down its last nuclear plant in 2025
| due to new cooling water regulations.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Natural gas is the preferred fossil fuel here. It spins up
| faster than coal, and as a result California has had to
| delay the decommissioning of nat gas plants as nuclear ones
| have been shut down.
|
| Hydro is a pretty small part of our grid (real-time and
| historical data here:
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Hydro is almost as much as solar according to
| https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/califo... when PNW imports are considered.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| But off-peak usage hours will change as more and more people
| get cars that they charge overnight.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| There is ton of overnight capacity but it's mostly non
| renewables right now, which drives up your CO2 emitted per
| mile.
|
| We really need, in California at least, to ramp up workplace
| charging, otherwise we're going to have a lot of unused solar
| :-/.
| selectodude wrote:
| In states like Illinois with a high percentage of base load
| coming from nuclear and wind, charging overnight is basically
| free. In fact, overnight, Illinois is a net exporter of
| electricity.
| njarboe wrote:
| Too bad California is shutting down its last nuclear power
| station in 2025 (which provides 10% of California's
| electricity) because upgrading its cooling system to meet new
| ocean water temperature regulations would cost on the order
| of $10 billion dollars.
| ben_w wrote:
| While true, the plus side is EVs are still a net CO2 win even
| when charged by dirty fuel.
|
| As part of the same topic, I think we're going to see PV-
| covered EV cars in the not too distant future; not because
| they don't need charging (they're about 10% of your instant
| needs on the move), but because adding PV reduces the
| pressure on the grid, and will significantly reduce the need
| to install power lines to sunlit car parks.
|
| Home, multi-storey, and hotel/motel parking will still almost
| certainly still need power.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| There's some overhead to the charger-battery system to
| actually generate any sort of a charge. I've had the exact
| same assumption multiple times, and as soon as I do some
| research with the math breakdown.. its clear why we don't
| see these in production yet.
|
| With current efficiency PV systems, the math requires a
| fairly large surface like the entire flatbed of a
| Cybertruck to actually generate a meaningful charge.
|
| This also requires the vehicle be parked somewhere its
| going to get a good amount of sun, excluding parking
| garages, a lot of urban areas, etc.
| [deleted]
| ben_w wrote:
| Ok, as you've done the maths: what charge do you get? Not
| the ~10% I got from a back-of-the-envelope calculation?
|
| Model 3 is about 5m by 2m, and is apparently rated for
| 241 Wh/mile
|
| 4m * 2m * 1kw/m^2 * 50% * 20% = average power 800 W
|
| (50% because the panels are flat, 20% because cell
| efficiency)
|
| 241 Wh/mile * 60 miles/day = average usage 602 W
|
| I'm not sure what fraction of the day people drive for
| given that I'm not a driver, but I'm eyeballing 5-10%. I
| acknowledge professional drivers -- taxis etc. -- can't
| possibly rely on PV alone, that PV can only supply a
| fraction of what they need (my 10% guesstimate), but I
| still think this should help with the general public. Or
| are my assumptions way off?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| First you missed a decimal point or two here and
| scrambled the units of measure- " 241 Wh/mile * 60
| miles/day = average usage 602 W" The correct math is 241
| Wh/mile * 60 miles/day = average usage 14,460Wh, or
| 14.46kWh
|
| Further answer - The consensus from people who know this
| better than you & I, have these cars, and in some cases
| have tried.. is basically - it won't charge much, and
| it's way more expensive than the electricity it is going
| to generate.
|
| Note there are AC-DC inverter losses of 10-20%. plus
| input->battery charge losses which are non-linear and
| very bad at the low end. For example a Tesla won't even
| take a charge if the input is below the ~300-500W range
| in good weather. In cold weather say Northeast US winter,
| the floor is closer to a 1kW input as there is a heating
| system to get the battery put to temperature for charging
| that is going to eat almost all of that.
|
| https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/93521/solar-panels-
| on-th...
|
| https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/150998/charge-tesla-
| w-so...
| ben_w wrote:
| You're calculating energy use per day, you have to divide
| by time to get power. 14.46 kWh/24h = 0.6025 kW = 602 W.
|
| (Or, equivalently, multiply the power from the PV by time
| to get daily energy output).
|
| The "won't take a charge below 1 kW" is definitely a
| killer, if it's a limit of the batteries themselves and
| not the charging circuit logic.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I don't understand your math, I'm sorry. Why would you
| divide by 24 hours? There is not 24 hours of sun for your
| PV to capture and put into the car. Peak solar generation
| is 3-6hrs/day depending on region and time of year.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| So just taking the parent example, even if we assume
| plastering the car in PV will generate 800W peak 1) This
| will probably not translate into any charge in winter
| weather, but possibly allow you to keep the car battery
| from being fully cold soaked, best case
|
| 2) In good weather you are probably looking at post-
| inverter input to charger at 700W, with charger losses
| meaning about 400-500W making it to the battery. So that
| is, in an efficient Tesla about 2 miles of range for
| every hour of peak sun. Depending on your location,
| orientation and time of year you might expect peak sun
| hours of 3-6 hours/day. So grand total 6-18mi/day of
| range added making a lot of happy assumptions and not
| moving your car during lunch. This amount of charge per
| day could be acquired in 1-2 minutes at a supercharger
| and worth about 30-75cents. Or charge at a L2 charger in
| your own garage in 12-36 minutes.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| You're also unlikely to pick up any useful charge anywhere
| more northerly or where the weather tends to overcast.
| ben_w wrote:
| My baseline is the U.K., which is further north than any
| of the contiguous USA and frequently overcast.
| rapsey wrote:
| > While true, the plus side is EVs are still a net CO2 win
| even when charged by dirty fuel.
|
| Are they? Does that include the manufacturing process?
| ants_a wrote:
| Yes, but it will take a few years of driving to break
| even.
|
| Example calculation: https://uploads.volkswagen-
| newsroom.com/system/production/up...
| zaroth wrote:
| Yes it does. Payback takes a few years depending on the
| CO2 intensity of the electrical supply, but you do get
| there even with some coal in the mix.
|
| Here is a quite comprehensive analysis:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0488-7.epdf
|
| Edit: you might have better luck with this link;
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0488-7.epdf?re
| fer...
| im3w1l wrote:
| I don't have access to that article but does it take into
| account the notion of _marginal_ power? That any
| increased load is going to be disproportionally dirty?
| philipkglass wrote:
| It's not a given that increased load is going to be
| disproportionally dirty. Wind farm output typically peaks
| at night. Wind is a great match for night time battery
| energy vehicle charging and it has the lowest life cycle
| CO2 footprint of any electricity source:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-
| cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis...
|
| I do like your emphasis on _marginal_ effects. As
| renewables and BEVs grow it will be a balancing act to
| pick the most _marginally_ effective resources for
| emissions abatement. California may soon reach a point
| where an additional dollar invested in solar doesn 't
| abate as much CO2 as the same dollar invested in
| transmission, storage, or wind -- even if solar has the
| lowest instantaneous generation cost.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > Wind farm output typically peaks at night.
|
| Is this generally true, or does it depend on geography
| (e.g. being near the coast)? Where I am in the midwest,
| it seems that the air normally gets very calm after
| sunset.
| philipkglass wrote:
| I think that it is generally true for land based
| turbines. Turbines are so tall that wind conditions at
| hub height can't be easily estimated by what we
| experience on the ground. Here's a somewhat dated study
| that shows hourly patterns for wind generation on the
| ERCOT grid in Texas, which has the largest wind fleet of
| any state:
|
| "The Relationship between Wind Generation and Balancing-
| Energy Market Prices in ERCOT: 2007-2009"
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/49415.pdf
|
| See Figure 5. Hourly generation reaches a minimum from
| about 1:00 to 5:00 PM and reaches its maximum around 1:00
| AM.
|
| Offshore wind output changes less from short term day-
| night cycles, and generally achieves a higher capacity
| factor. It is also more expensive to build than onshore
| wind and no large projects have yet been built for the
| US, though several are on the drawing board.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As usual, your comments on the topic knock it out of the
| park. Thanks so much for contributing.
| paul_f wrote:
| Not sure a coal-powered car is exactly ideal. We need a
| better solution
| Tagbert wrote:
| You are better off putting those solar panels on your
| home/apt roof where they can produce more power and not add
| to the weight of the car.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| They are a net CO2 win, but not enough of a win if you
| charge them on dirty fuel. So making sure we don't make
| people too relient on charging on dirty fuel is important.
| skolos wrote:
| Not everywhere. In Texas most extra renewable capacity is
| actually at night since at night wind is stronger.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's entirely true because you are only
| thinking of solar. I'd like to see daytime vs overnight
| generation source breakdown.
|
| Remember that hydro power doesn't care about time of day and
| wind is often able to generate more overnight than during the
| day.
|
| Further time of use rates can be tweaked as usage &
| generation requires. Maybe with a lot of EVs in the future &
| solar installed we encourage people to charge mid-day at work
| or sunrise->commute start & commute end->sundown, this
| doesn't work great in winter but also electric use is lower
| in winter so maybe it nets out.
| corty wrote:
| no
| jksmith wrote:
| Expat from the grid. This is an opportunity to arbitrage energy -
| that is until the monopoly bans that activity. They're already
| banning solar panel arbitrage activities.
| ghouse wrote:
| So long as EV charging doesn't contribute to net peak on the
| electric grid, then yes, the grid is up to the task.
|
| The grid is designed to handle the peak hour of a ten-year
| period. Increasing that peak is very expensive. However, because
| most of the grid is fixed-cost. The marginal cost of generation
| is between 1/2 and 1/3 the cost of electricity.
|
| California is moving to variable electricity prices (so-called
| Time of Use). Electricity is more expensive between 4-9 PM when
| it's more expensive to provide electricity. So, if people charge
| their EVs when it's less expensive to do so, we'll be fine. But
| regulators will need to continue to align electricity price with
| electricity cost.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| We had time of use in Ontario, but recently got rid of it. It
| hurts the poor more than it saves electricity.
|
| 4-9pm might be the only time I have to do laundry and cook, two
| of the most energy intensive tasks, if I'm working a 9-5 job
| that requires me to be physically present. I can't do it during
| the day and sometimes I can't do it on the weekend because of
| other obligations. So now I'm landed with a "tax" that I have
| no ability to avoid.
|
| And then you drive to Rodeo drive, where stores have their
| doors wide open in 100 degree heat, while their AC is on full
| blast, and wonder why the fuck you're stuck paying the energy
| tax.
| pengaru wrote:
| By me we already have deeply discounted low income household
| rates, it's trivial to qualify for and could exempt from TOU
| pricing if that's a problem.
| nayuki wrote:
| Are you sure that laundry and cooking are your most energy-
| intensive activities? I live in a house in Toronto and have
| TOU pricing. After measuring my appliances with a Kill A
| Watt, I determined that when averaged over an entire year,
| about 1/3 of my energy usage was for the refrigerator, 1/3
| for the HVAC fan (almost entirely for 6 months of winter
| heating), and 1/3 for literally everything else discretionary
| (lights, cooking, electronics). I doubt that TOU pricing
| negatively affected you as much as you perceived.
| jbob2000 wrote:
| The problem is that you measured energy usage for
| appliances that have non-discretionary use - ie. I don't
| get to decide when my fridge or HVAC turns on, that's a
| factor of the weather outside (for the most part...). Also,
| since fridges and HVAC fans run continuously, you end up
| with an averaged out price for energy.
|
| Laundry energy use can't be amortized like a fridge can.
| They use an extreme amount of energy in short bursts. If
| you time your laundry incorrectly in a TOU setting, you
| absolutely will have a larger energy bill. I know this
| because I've been burned by it. 9c/kwH (low TOU) vs. 14c
| (high) is more than a 50% price increase for a load of
| laundry.
| djrogers wrote:
| You absolutely do get to decide when your AC turns on -
| programmable thermostats have been a thing for something
| like 40 years...
| ghouse wrote:
| It's not an energy tax. Electricity is more expensive to
| produce and deliver during 4-9 PM. Flat rates subsidize use
| during 4-9 PM.
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| It will be interesting to see if there are any incentives for
| vehicle owners or manufacturers to adjust charging times across
| the grid. For example, all Tesla's in a time zone could
| communicate and decide which random hour they would begin
| charging that night so everyone doesn't hit at 2am. My iphone
| now doesn't charge immediately at night as it understands my
| typical schedule and just ensures the phone will be full when I
| wake up. I expect similar capabilities for electric vehicles.
| zdragnar wrote:
| We already have "demand pricing". I know of some companies
| who transitioned to electric vehicles (think skid loaders and
| other yard vehicles) who had to install their own battery
| systems and generators because by the time the vehicles
| needed to start charging, they were hit with way way higher
| than normal electrical prices.
|
| I dont know the specifics- i.e. if not all of their vehicles
| could go a full day of charging- but only that yes, there are
| mechanisms in place to force those who can afford it to
| adapt.
|
| Everyone else has to hope they can plug into a smart grid
| that only actually charges when the price drops.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| We don't have variable pricing for residential usage where I
| live but you can get a meter for home EV charging installed
| that does do variable pricing. From 11pm-7am, the cost is a
| penny per kilowatt hour, so practically free. Outside of those
| hours, the cost is either seven cents or twenty cents per kwh
| depending on the time of day and season. A 20X difference in
| charging cost is a pretty good incentive to plan things out so
| the car can be charged overnight.
| llampx wrote:
| /me cries in usury German electricity rates
| cuntrygrammar wrote:
| electrifying UPS and building infrastructure should help the
| cause as well
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/VPPWW
| dang wrote:
| There's another NYT electric car thread happening at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25969677. Which article is
| more interesting?
| mulmen wrote:
| Ah the rare exception to Betteridge's law of headlines.
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