Ask HN: Is the adoption of electric cars too fast to be sustained?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32390789

by julienreszka • 4 years ago

20 115 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Will there be enough charging stations to avoid the problems of queues that take longer than a day to recharge all the cars that need it? Is the fast charging technology likely to improve fast enough to make this problem disappear? Are there alternative to horizontal (load balancing over multiple stations) and vertical (faster chargers) scale ups?

Kon-Peki• 4 years ago

I think we are still at the point where most people are charging at home, but it is pretty easy to imagine overwhelming the public charging system if that dynamic changes unexpectedly.

You also have to consider that supply of EVs is not meeting demand and that helps.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Home charging should be the default. You come home after work, you spend 15 seconds plugging in and that's it. You get 100-150km of range overnight by doing essentially nothing.

Most people don't commute 100km+ every day, so the car will be topped up every morning.

sojournerc• 4 years ago

Most people don't live in single-family homes where this is feasible. How do those who park on the street charge their vehicle?

jmnicolas• 4 years ago

I believe charging stations is the least of our problems: will there be enough rare earth metals to build batteries for everybody and will there be enough electricity production for all those EVs?

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Battery tech is still evolving. We've went from NiMH in early Prius models to Lithium-Ion to Iron-phosphate and solid state batteries are around the proverbial corner (5+ years).

Meanwhile diesel and gasoline haven't changed that much in the last 100 years. Synthetic options are being developed, but the cost is still over 5x more than gasoline - even at current inflated prices.

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

Newer battery chemistries are being developed which try to minimize rare earth minerals. But are we going to be able to develop these new batteries quickly enough?

bilsbie3• 4 years ago

Plus there’s battery recycling.

Fatnino3• 4 years ago

It's theoretically possible to use the gasoline not being burned in those cars to generate the electricity for them.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Just powering a proper generator with gasoline or diesel to power an EV is more efficient than blowing it up thousands of times per second inside an engine.

Just because combustion engines are 30% efficient at best (Prius-level tuning required, most are way under) and electric engines are 90%+ efficient.

tamaharbor• 4 years ago

The electrical system will need to double in capacity to support 90% electric vehicles.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

The electrical system in the US.

Many many other countries are just fine, it's just the US grid that's singularly messed up. Most parking spots in the nordics have had 230V 16A plugs in them for over half a century for engine block heaters.

You can just shove a gas pipeline over anyone's land with one permit. But if you want to do power lines you need federal, state, county, city and land owner permission. And in some states anyone who can SEE the power line from their property can veto the permit...

sitkack2• 4 years ago

Not true at all. You can charge an EV at 5miles/hr on a standard 15A circuit, the same amount of power drawn by a hair dryer. You can generate that much power from 4 or 5 solar panels.

5 panels per EV deployed near where the EV charges will unburden the edges of power grid and not force any upgrades in the feed lines. High power charging stations are another matter, but the grid is sized for peak load, with a bit of coordination I don't see those being much of an issue either.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Panels + a few hundred kWh of batteries for chargers might even turn a profit even if no cars ever charge there.

Charge the batteries when electricity is the cheapest, sell it back during peak load.

bilsbie3• 4 years ago

How come no one is selling something like a 5 panel slow EV charger?

Fatnino3• 4 years ago

That's 60 miles of charge a day. And this isn't counting the losses sustained to charging range while the car is being used for actual work.

60 miles is bare minimum daily range for many folks.

Xylakant• 4 years ago

The problem is more that the power grids were built under some assumption of average use per household. In germany, numbers of about 2kw/hour on average have been mentioned lately (two hair dryers). Adding significant sustained load to that upsets that calculation, and electric cars as well as switching to primarily electric heating (heat pumps) will require substantial investment into that infrastructure.

Syonyk4• 4 years ago

No, it really won't. You're looking at about a 25% increase in annual energy use, and almost all of that can fit in the cracks of system capacity. Charge at work in the late morning to early afternoon, and it's a perfect fit for the "peak solar, low demand" part of the curve as well.

Where are you seeing double the capacity? I've done the numbers a few days and I always end up around 25-30% more annual electricity use in the US if you replace everything with EVs.

orangepurple10• 4 years ago

People are being sold a range reduction of 50 to 90% and are being told this is good for them. Traveling long distance is made much harder and refueling times are long. The faster you refuel the more exponentially quickly you permanently damage the battery. Energy density is a massive problem.

Electric cars are excellent if you fit their use case but AWFUL if you don't. You have to go into the purchase of an electric with your eyes wide open.

They are NOT as versatile as ICE vehicles.

bilsbie3• 4 years ago

Range reduction?

orangepurple10• 4 years ago

For the VW ID.4:

When equipped with a level 1 120-volt outlet, it takes approximately 50 hours of charging time to go from 0 to 100% charge. A level 2 240-volt outlet takes an estimated 7.5 hours while the DC fast charging battery charges from 0 to 80% in just 38 minutes.

You have to be lucky to find a fast charger for this vehicle, and even if you find one, charging is not cheap, and you permanently damage your battery by charging the battery this quickly.

Visiting family with a road trip across Germany is still a hassle with these things and you permanently damage the expensive battery by fast charging

surfmike• 4 years ago

Compared to ICE cars. A normal gas-powered car has a median 412 mile range.

Source: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-939-august-22-2016...

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

I really want to meet some of these mythical beasts that drive 1000km+ trips regularly and don't take any breaks. Maybe 3 minutes maximum to refuel and they're off again.

Don't they eat? Get tired? Need to relieve themselves?

The Ioniq 5 can charge itself from 10% to 80% (400km+ range) in 18 minutes. That's about the time it takes to stuff a gas station sandwich in your face and do a quick toilet run. Is that really a dealbreaker? Even when it's 80% cheaper to drive that way?

frogpelt• 4 years ago

Probably not. What if you're having to wait on 10 other Ioniq drivers to refuel their cars for 18 minutes each?

YarickR22• 4 years ago

Let me introduce myself. 500km no breaks done regularly. 1000 km with one break to refuel and take a leak , easily. You know, good comfortable diesel car (BMW X5 ) does wonders to make traveling long distances a non-issue.

tomtheelder• 4 years ago

That's how I tended to drive historically when I had an ICE car. On my last really big road trip before getting an electric I did ~700 miles with only gas/pee breaks except for one 10 minute stop to eat. It's definitely doable.

My new electric car takes like 30 mins for a "refuel" on decent charging infrastructure. And you know what? That's like 100% completely fine. I do like one of those massive road trips a year. Who cares if it adds like an hour or two to my total travel time. The electric is better in so, so many ways that it's the easiest tradeoff in the world to take a slight inconvenience once or twice a year.

ceeplusplus• 4 years ago

A lot of ICE cars have much crappier range than a hybrid like a Prius. I know my old econobox only goes about 300-350 miles on a tank, which is comparable to a Tesla. Not everyone has 55 mpg cars that sip gas.

The refueling problem is big though. Maybe if they can cut it to 15 mins for a 15-90% charge it'll be good enough.

orangepurple10• 4 years ago

If you cut down the charge time you damage the battery. It's a fundamental limitation of physics. The damage is caused by physical expansion of the battery (and later contraction). The expansion is uneven and eventually wears out the film that separates the anode and cathode and develops pin holes (short circuits and sparks). The membrane is designed to lose ionic conductivity at elevated temperature and that spot becomes inactive by design and doesn't conduct electricity to protect the battery to prevent fire. Larger pin holes vaporize electrolyte, blows up seals, and causes a fire. That's why they don't want you to pack lithium batteries in checked luggage.

sliken14• 4 years ago

If you can charge at home this is generally not an issue. How often do you drive 400 or more miles in a day?

Generally I save WAY more time not going to gas stations, oil changes, smog checks, and related than I do occasionally hanging out for a 550 mile/hour charger to give me enough range to get home/next charger.

Most people think of the extra time at a charger as a weekly thing, in reality it's pretty rare for most. Often if you've been driving for 5 hours at 60 mph you are ready for a snack/bathroom break anyways.

I do wish that gas stations didn't waste so much time. What kind of gas? Oh did you want the weather? How about a car wash? Prepay for a drink inside? Donate to a charity? Oh, did you want to see another ad? What is your zip code? Oh, insert your credit card.

Tesla is literally grab the handle, push the button, and insert to charge in the car.

owenwil• 4 years ago

This is not my experience with an EV (and I'm a relatively new EV owner). My range is ~480km (300-350 miles) to a charge–the same as my previous ICE car. I can charge from ~20% to 80-90% in about 15 minutes on a 250kW charger, which is not rare where I live and more are being installed regularly. By the time I've gone to the restroom and grabbed a coffee, the car is fully charged again–I've never found myself standing around waiting for it to finish, and even faster chargers are already being installed out there en-masse right now. I have to stop every 4ish hours for a quick break/stretch legs/bathroom or it's unsafe anyway, so it's really never been a hassle.

On top of that, I always leave my house with a "full" tank and 90% of the time I charge at home...when I need to charge out in the world I've never had a problem finding a fast charger. The "damage" from fast charging over the lifetime of the car is minimal at best, most older Teslas (10+ years) still retain more than 75% of their capacity despite using superchargers regularly.

Why wouldn't it improve over time from here, which is pretty good and acceptable for most people's usage? It seems odd to assume that the technology won't get a lot better quickly, as it has in the last few weeks. It might take thinking about it for 5 seconds longer than an ICE car at the start of the trip, but overall it's not changed much about the realities of roadtrips for me.

hollerith• 4 years ago

Maybe in the future, when a family wants to take a long trip, they will rent a gas-powered electrical generator on a trailer.

Thorentis2• 4 years ago

Battery trailers might be a good idea. A charger station will have a bunch of trailers with different size batteries for rent. If you need to get somewhere fast and don't want to wait to recharge, or if you want to go on a long trip, you can rent one.

To be honest, this just logically leads to hotswapping car batteries. If a car manufacturer was able to make their batteries quickly hot swappable and then sell spares to gas stations (who could have large charging racks) then you could solve the charging time problem nicely.

orangepurple10• 4 years ago

My fever dream has been one of an electric road train where any cars hook into an exoskeleton which autonomously travels between cities.

outworlder11• 4 years ago

The faster you refuel the more exponentially quickly you permanently damage the battery.

Eh, not exactly true. Sure, if I take my Leaf's battery and somehow jury-rig a quickcharger delivering twice the current, assuming I won't fry any contacts, the battery would die a very early death.

However, note that batteries are made out of cells. They all can charge in parallel. If you compare older EVs with small batteries against more modern ones with much more range, you'll notice that the charging times haven't changed all that much, as long as the charge can provide the current requested. Newer EVs generally have larger batteries, with more cells.

Sure, if your metric is filling back up to 100%, that's a problem. But if the metric is getting enough range for your next leg, then the charging times have been _decreasing_

orangepurple10• 4 years ago

See my other reply

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32391433

sliken14• 4 years ago

A neighbor had a leaf, had a battery pack die, and was under warranty. Which dies ... out of warranty, so they bought a 3rd party replacement battery ... which also died.

They ended up buying a Tesla 3 years ago, and has had no problems since.

zip1234• 4 years ago

Even in the US, only 5% of trips are longer than 30 miles. 60% were 5 or less. For the ~50% of households with more than one car, one of them could easily be electric.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1042-augu....

esmIII• 4 years ago

It's too late to do it slowly. If we want any chance of avoiding the worst parts of climate change.

trhway• 4 years ago

Nightly charging, to which wide adoption of EV leads, smoothens the day/night load cycle and thus improves the business of power generation and delivery which is better for everyone.

Given how cheap the batteries already, i think the EV adoption would be growing exponentially and is slowed only by the manufacturers' capacities.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Pair this with Vehicle to grid/home/load -features all plugged in EVs can be used to balance the load in the grid.

There's a billion dollar idea for a startup right there. Let the electricity company use a percentage of your battery when you don't need it - for a price.

sliken14• 4 years ago

Not sure that's worth it.

Cooling batteries is tricky, and cars are designed for high loads with high airflow. Draining a car when it's in a hot garage isn't going to be battery friendly. Adding extra cooling, DC -> AC inverter, and related infrastructure is going to cost weight, space, and money.

Not sure it's worth the wear and tear for peak clipping, especially since charging off peak is a form of peak clipping.

Instead of having the grid pay to wear down EV batteries, seems like there's better places to put that money that will have more benefits. Obvious choices being solar, wind, grid scale batteries, incentives for covering parking lots with solar panels, etc.

thesuitonym2• 4 years ago

If we try to overlay the EV network on the existing ICE model, yeah, charging will be difficult. But if we rethink the whole ordeal, it becomes much simpler, and in fact, I think once EVs become dominant, you'll see fewer mom and pop charging station than you see gas stations, not because it will be more expensive and difficult to run, but because the need just won't be there.

The majority of charging will be done at home, or maybe at work (I can see EV charging parking lots becoming a benefit). Long haul trips, depending on conditions, could be charged overnight at hotels, or quick-charged at restaurants.

Cross-country EV trips are already viable, although they require some planning up front.

And yes, quick charging produces more load on the grid than fueling up at the pump, but again, the majority of charging won't be done at a quick charger. It will be done cheaply, at home, at night.

YarickR22• 4 years ago

"The majority of charging will be done at home" ? With multifamily/apartment style homes, no way every parking place in the basement parking is getting a dedicated charger. "or maybe at work (I can see EV charging parking lots becoming a benefit)" - with work from home trend gaining traction ? "Quick-charged at restaurants" ? So, eating out for $50 per person and an hour to eat and quick-charge, instead of stopping for 5 minutes at the pump ? "It will be done cheaply, at home, at night" - no it won't. Majority of low pay workers won't be able to charge their EVs at home, even if they would be able to buy them. More "rich get richer, poor get poorer, and affected by running dirtier ICEs"

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

"no way every parking place in the basement parking is getting a dedicated charger"

Why not? Everyone in the nordics has done that for 50 years.

A "dedicated charger" is just a normal outlet, it's not some high-tech piece of gear.

ericbarrett• 4 years ago

My prediction: Businesses will spring up which offer to install chargers at an approachable cost (or even free) in mom-and-pop apartment complexes, with no fuss for the landlord. In return they'll take a big cut from the rate charged to the end-user, which will be much higher than the power company. Variations on this model might charge the property owner a monthly fee instead, or even squeeze both sides; the important thing is it won't be something that smaller landlords have to manage directly, so even if it's a cost they might opt for it, to be competitive (should the rental market ever swing back) or to meet local regulations. There are already enterprises with this model in things like billing, direct management, maintenance, etc.

thesuitonym2• 4 years ago

no way every parking place in the basement parking is getting a dedicated charger.

Why not? 50 years ago, the same probably would have been said about putting air conditioning in every unit in an apartment. 100 years ago it might have been bathrooms. Why can't we have a charging cable at every parking spot?

So, eating out for $50 per person and an hour to eat and quick-charge, instead of stopping for 5 minutes at the pump ?

Did you miss most of my post? That was in regards to long distance road trips, where people are stopping to eat several times per day anyway.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Non EV-owners always overestimate the need for quick chargers.

I've had an EV for 2 years now and I've used a quick charger about 2-3 times per month during the summer and around 0 times during winter. All other charging is done either at home or at a slow charger at a mall or something.

sliken14• 4 years ago

Heh, indeed, I think I've spent $50 in 2 years. But I can charge at home, although I spent 1 year at 120v. Many live in apartments and can't charge at home which changes the situation quite a bit.

5555624• 4 years ago

The majority of charging will be done at home, or maybe at work

We have a long way to go before most people can charge an EV at home.

It's not just people living in apartments and condos. A lot of people park on the street and not in a home garage or driveway. There are 23 houses on my block and less than half have a driveway; so, people would have to run extension cords to the street. This is an old neighborhood, laid out over 120 years ago.

If I look at the neighborhood I grew up in, in Arlington, VA, most of which was laid out post-WWII, while almost every house has a driveway, there are still many people parking on the street.

outworlder11• 4 years ago

Cities manage to build things like parking meters even in old neighborhoods. It is doable, it's just a matter of priorities.

Next time the street needs maintenance, lay some cable.

andrewem• 4 years ago

“while almost every house has a driveway, there are still many people parking on the street”

Perhaps that’s because they pay no cost for privatizing a part of a public way.

qikInNdOutReply• 4 years ago

Whats not yet visible now, but might be in the future is that electrical vehicles can use a superset of fuel, meaning you can charge your evehicle with power saved - for example by heating your home with wood.

Meanwhile traditional cars are bound to the one fuel they can handle. Which might be needed elsewhere in emergencies.

Relevancy, might become blatantly obvious this winter in europe.

mlinksva• 4 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32385157 related thread "The stumble over abandonment of ICE vehicles" responding to "Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?"

Personally I think it's "not fast enough" excect to the extent the speed is derailing substitutes for cars.

DoingIsLearning• 4 years ago

Charging is one part of the equation. You are assuming that charging is something that all cars need frequently, it doesn't have to be like that.

Concepts like Lightyear One prove that we can create cars that pass our crash requirements, have the space requirements, but yet are light enough and aerodynamic enough to have minimal power consumption.

The catch is people need to start to come to terms with the fact that personal transport has to ultimately be utilitarian. Yes it might mean you won't go 0-60 in 7 secs, yes it might mean that you will have to give up an oversized 3 tonne vehicle to 'feel safe'. Also cars shouldn't be a status symbol for anything, auto manufactures have exploited this to no end with dire environmental impacts.

Ideally what governments need to promote and invest in is public transit, especially inside densely urban areas. A car as a personal means of transport should only be something you feel you need when travelling to more 'remote' areas where public transit is non-existing or too sparse.

wikitopian• 4 years ago

The grid will be just fine. An advanced economy can install bigger wires and burn more natural gas. Battery technology is already diversifying around mineral mining constraints.

The problem I see is with lifestyles. There's a ceiling on how many people work and travel in a predictable manner to a predictable place with a garage that they own and can install a charger in.

Are landlords going to install enough chargers to fill entire apartment complex parking lots? Are they going to maintain and repair them? Will they charge for charging?

Do we live in a society where people won't routinely vandalize and neglect the chargers?

I fear a future where there will be a privileged set of suburbanites who get to drive their subsidized cars from their subsidized jobs to their subsidized homes and charge it with subsidized electricity, but a very large subset of people will be stuck driving combustion cars that are heavily carbon taxed and penalized. And it won't be because they don't care about climate change, but because their lives are different.

outworlder11• 4 years ago

I fear a future where there will be a privileged set of suburbanites who get to drive their subsidized cars from their subsidized jobs to their subsidized homes and charge it with subsidized electricity, but a very large subset of people will be stuck driving combustion cars that are heavily carbon taxed and penalized

That is _already_ the case. I could charge at home today, but why bother, next time I'm at the office I can fully charge at 0 cost to me (and a low cost to the employer, who gets electricity at much cheaper rates). I was supposed to get some subsidies too (but for bureaucracy reasons, could not).

People around me are getting hit by high gas prices, they have their periodic oil changes, they need to fork cash for smog checks.

That said, if humanity had gone the opposite route and we were trying to transition from EV to ICE, that task would be deemed impossible - building the network of gas stations, all the refinery and fuel transportation logistics is an incredible task. While electricity is everywhere.

As for "chargers" (EVSE, not chargers), they are not expensive at all. It's peanuts for new construction. The main issue is existing buildings with old wiring(or non-existent wiring on garages).

As for revenue, they could easily charge for them if they wanted to, today. Add some, say, Chargepoint stations, set the price and off you go.

Syonyk4• 4 years ago

Add some, say, Chargepoint stations, set the price and off you go.

Ugh. Please don't.

You pay more for the charger and the ongoing maintenance fees than you'd pay for electricity in an awful lot of cases with a "free, dumb charger."

Chargepoint makes really nice stuff. Their hardware side is great, and the units are very well tested for long term operation.

It's just their entire business model that I hate. Their model is, "We should be able to intermediate in, and get a cut of, all EV charging, everywhere except home. And ideally home if it's an apartment complex." And this is simply not needed in the bulk of cases.

Apartments should either just wire a 240V EVSE circuit to apartments for charging ("Parking spot 101 goes to apartment 101, parking spot 102 goes to apartment 102, etc"), or just have some "EV charging" spots that are $20/mo or $40/mo or something. It's cheaper to do this than to try and monitor every kWh that goes into the EVs, and if the net is close enough, call it good.

I say this having tried the cost recovery thing on a charger, and discovering that, with infrequent use, the $5/mo management fees to then recover costs were more expensive than literally just paying for the power.

If a 240V/16A EVSE runs flat out for 30 days, at our local $0.10/kWh costs, that's $275/mo in power... but nobody will actually do that.

bryanlarsen3• 4 years ago

IMO, the best solution for apartment complexes is to run bog standard 120V/15A to every stall. That's a lot easier to manage than trying to share a limited number of 240V L2 chargers.

And 120V is enough for everybody who averages less than 100 miles per day. Everybody does more than 100 miles on some days, but only when you have multiple consecutive multi-hundred mile days would you need more than 120V overnight. For the rare occasions that happens, you can use a commercial fast charger.

120V at every stall would be much nicer than a limited number of 240V L2 chargers. You just plug in when you park and forget about it. With a shared charger you have to wait until the charger is free, and you have to move off the charger after you're charged to be polite.

sliken14• 4 years ago

Don't forget you often can't charge when away from home. So it's more like 50 miles a day of charging not 100.

Most cars charge around 3-5 miles per hour on 120v, and if you have an 8 hour job, 30 minutes for lunch, and 30 minute commute (approximately average I believe) you are gone for 9.5 hours a day. That's assuming no dropping off kids, picking up kids, grocery shopping, etc.

falcolas2• 4 years ago

A fast charger can consume 300 watts. An 80% fast charge takes around 9 minutes for a Tesla. Let’s say each charger sees 20% utilization, and a location has 6 chargers, so around 300 kWh a month. FWIW, that’s about double the amount of energy a small store already consumes every month.

Free won’t ever be easy.

bryanlarsen3• 4 years ago

Stores don't install 300kW L3 chargers, they install 10kW L2 chargers. They don't want customers charging in 10 minutes, they want customers plugged in for an hour or three.

Tesla calls them "Destination Chargers" in contrast the superchargers that you use in the middle of your trip.

lamontcg• 4 years ago

Lamp-post chargers are one possible solution in urban centers:

https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-ca...

The advantage that electrons have over hydrocarbons is that the delivery network for end use is very highly decentralized. We have to stick hydrocarbons into a gas station with a big tank underground because we can't just have gasoline being piped into everyone's homes because that's just way too dangerous. With electrons you can stick charging stations all over the place.

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

Are landlords going to install enough chargers to fill entire apartment complex parking lots?

Yes, because they can bill for that.

Are they going to maintain and repair them?

It's just an outlet. Do landlords fix outlets inside their houses? If yes, they can also maintain and repair the charging sockets.

Will they charge for charging?

Depends on the laws. Over here it's illegal to resell power at too big a profit, you need to be an actual licensed power company to do that. A monthly cost with a slight premium per kWh is OK though.

Do we live in a society where people won't routinely vandalize and neglect the chargers?

Depends. I've had an outlet at every parking spot I've had in the last 25 years. They have been vandalised zero times.

Well, OK. The grandma on the opposite spot once backed up to the pole and the maintenance guy had to spend 20 minutes poking it back upright.

kkfx• 4 years ago

Two notes: if you try to summarize G8/"World Government" [1]/McKinsey [2] public reports it's not there but essentially implied that "smart cities" residents will be just slaves while some "wealthy" people profit from their work living outside.

McKinsey goes further [3] probably imaging without telling a world with far less ground infrastructures, mostly dedicated only for commercial transports, with people living essentially where they born or get relocated Chine's style, while only those who can afford flying vehicles can travel.

From the distopic scenario to a practical one the second note: dense urban areas are not sustainable just because they can't evolve. Let's say you construct a new skyscraper "A class" in energy saving terms (hard to achieve for a skyscraper but anyway), it's the best of the tech today. In 50 years is probably a hard to maintain dinosaur. You can't really rebuild it in practical terms since there are too many people inside, too many conflicting interests. On contrary with modern logistic you can made "rivieras alike suburbs" where people live and work from home or at a short distance range in small buildings, single family homes. Something CAN evolve practically for instance when the owner change, where there is physical space to evolve etc. A bit of density because we are social animals, but not too much.

Long story short: in cities the only SHORT term evolution is nearly-only public transport systems with the city as a single complex building (not that different than the classic "the datacenter as a computer" in scale design principles), no matter if the future will be distopic or not. In the long terms cities can only be wiped and rebuilt as we have always done in history, with the important difference in space and time scale and tech terms (cities with buildings made of rocks and wood source much of the needed raw material from ruins of the old city itself, concrete and steel are another story), something we can say confidently it's not sustainable. Suburbs USA style never really work. Far spread people never lift themselves to a civilization so we need something in between. IMO that's a riviera where people live in single family homes with a bit of land around but not in residential-only areas, instead in mixed residential and commercials areas where they can live and work at a short range, few districts for things can't be done differently (like mining, various manufacturing industries, but also high schools/campus, military stuff etc) that being single-purpose can be rebuilt as tech change.

Seen the actual state of things... Well... Probably we can't evolve like that due partially to the reactionary ideas of most and mere overpopulation. So it's easy to predict even outside of a distopic scenario that some people, most of humans actually, will suffer much the change while few will benefit from the start.

[1] https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org

[2] you can start with https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-w...

[3] https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-...

Syonyk4• 4 years ago

If you're thinking of EV charging as it's commonly portrayed in the media ("You have to go to the fast charge stations and wait, or you have to have, like, 700A service to charge your 300 miles in an hour overnight!"), yeah, there are problems.

If you talk to people who actually own and use EVs, almost none of that matters, because slow charging at home overnight is what people do, and it simply doesn't take much power.

The average American drives about 35 miles a day, which on an EV is about 10kWh. Maybe more in the winter, but if you charge on a 3.8kW charger (240V/16A), that's only 2-3 hours of charging at home. You can charge on less if you want, or even on 120V and be fine most of the year, but winter will be a problem in some areas - you're using more power for heat, and the car has to warm the pack to charge in the cold, so 120V may not deliver enough power to both warm the pack and charge the pack. It's not impossible, but you make your life a lot easier with 240V/16A charging (max continuous current on a 20A circuit).

DC fast charging is only needed if you don't have a place to charge at home or at work (which will be the case for plenty of people right now and hopefully fewer long term), or for long road trips (also a fairly rare case).

My preferred method for EV charging infrastructure [0] is to simply put those 240V/20A chargers everywhere. Apartments, shopping parking lots, etc. Your car is "grazing" in enough places that it's never a big problem except for road trips. If it's not full, oh well, it'll be filled up next time. I can do 100 miles a day on a Chevy Volt (10kWh battery pack before the gas engine kicks on) purely on battery if I'm going between places that have chargers, and have some time at home to charge, etc.

Now, are there problems with sourcing the raw materials for batteries? Yes. And this is why I'm a fan of PHEVs (40-50 mile battery range, gas engine for longer travel) for the next decade or so of vehicles, because you can put a given number of cells into a lot more cars that way (you can build about 5 Chevy Volt packs for the cells going into a single long range BEV), and that offsets far more gas use, while also being less annoying to use - if you can't always charge, it's no problem, you just have a hybrid.

In terms of additional power needed, because EVs are so much more efficient than ICEs (about 85% wall-to-wheels vs 25-30% on an ICE), you only end up needing about 25% more annual power production. There are some peak demand concerns here, but they're fairly easy to mitigate as they approach - peak demand increases from population growth anyway, so it's a "Build out peak capacity slightly faster than you were planning to" concern for power companies, not an overnight panic sort of problem.

And while you're at it, EV charging after the morning commute can take up a lot of the mid-day solar surplus.

0: https://www.sevarg.net/2020/04/27/slow-dumb-charging-quit-ch...

malermeister• 4 years ago

Electric cars are a distraction that don't solve most problems cars bring.

It's fundamentally inefficient, both energy and space wise to move a huge box weighing around two tons for what is most of the time a single passenger.

We need to rethink how we transport people and emphasize trains, metros and bikes much more strongly.

There'll always be a need for cars for a few use cases, and we should make those electric, but the much more important step is to greatly reduce our overall car use.

awillen3• 4 years ago

The problem is that getting people to use electric cars is a practical, doable thing, where greatly reducing our overall car use is vastly more difficult. Electric cars aren't a distraction, they're a big improvement to an existing system.

the_third_wave• 4 years ago

Trains weigh hundreds to thousands of tons [1] - a single passenger car (as in 'train car') weighs around 70 tons and carries around 60 people when fully occupied (which does not happen that often on longer hauls but occurs frequently on commuter lines). In the linked article an example is given of an Amtrak passenger train carrying 560 passengers with an empty weight of 1228 tons empty, 1278 tons loaded. While this example is skewed by the inclusion of 50% sleeper wagons (which carry fewer passengers) it does show trains are not a good comparison when talking about moving heavy boxes to carry passengers.

[1] https://www.trainconductorhq.com/how-much-does-a-train-weigh...

Thorentis2• 4 years ago

Hot swappable batteries need to be more seriously considered.

Imagine: a gas station has a huge bank of batteries on charging racks. You pay a fee to swap out your used one for a fully charged one in less time than it currently takes to fill a gas tank.

This would require industry standardisation over battery shapes, connectors, etc. The US sadly won't move on this, but the EU might. Unfortunately we might be tok far gone with the number of EV already sold without this capability, but I think there is still time.

outworlder11• 4 years ago

Only if EVs are sold without batteries.

sliken14• 4 years ago

Why bother?

Not to mention the tech is changing so quickly that any standardization is going to cause problems with cooling, cable side, connector, amps, volts, etc. Maybe in 5-10 years things will settle.

A few years ago charging at 550 miles an hour were common, seems to be heading towards 1000 miles/hour, but that requires fancier cooling things like circulating coolant through the charging cable.

Not sure replacing 25% (by weight) of a car is worth while, could just encourage/provide incentives for more charging locations (malls, public transit gateways, businesses, etc).

jpm_sd• 4 years ago

We have a 2022 Leaf and use it almost exclusively for outings that are <200 miles round trip, so no need to charge anywhere but at home 99% of the time. In fact most trips are probably well under 20 miles. So if you have a garage and are willing to install a 240V, 50A circuit, a lot of use cases are covered?

One weekend my wife drove it from Boston to NYC and planned ahead stopping in Connecticut once in each direction, found a ChaDeMO fast charger, topped up in less than an hour both times. Kind of inconvenient, but felt like the future is getting here, slowly?

outworlder11• 4 years ago

I had a 50 mile/day commute at some point. The 120V outlet in the garage was enough to 'refuel' every day.

dfox• 4 years ago

The main issue is that the power grid simply is not designed for that kind of a load. If you only look at the power, it may even work, but there is the power distribution infrastructure in between. For EVs to be usable the whole electrical grid has to be significantly redesigned and exactly that kind of redesign is also needed for small scale solar to be useful.

Ekaros• 4 years ago

No. A kilometre not driven is best kilometre. So it is good thing if EVs do not get charged as they will use less energy overall.

TradingPlaces• 4 years ago

I don’t think those are the issues. As an EV owner, I do most of my charging at home, and speed/availability of chargers has yet to become an issue. We don’t have to replace every gas station. Transportation corridors and destinations

I believe the bigger issues are supply availability for nickel, cobalt, lithium, and silicon carbide. -Nickel and cobalt are key materials in high performing cathodes. Iron-phosphate is now being used for cheaper EVs, but the energy density is lower. Next breakthrough we are waiting for on the cathode side is iron-fluoride, which has a higher energy density, but doesn’t work outside of lab conditions yet. -There is not enough actively mined lithium to complete the EV transition, and we are also putting it in boxes on the ground for energy storage. -Silicon carbide chips are rapidly replacing IGBTs and MOSFETs in the engine and charging hardware, and the ramp to meet demand is going to take years

theshrike7918• 4 years ago

I read a statistic somewhere that we do have enough metals to replace all cars with EVs.

BUT, there's definitely not enough raw material to electrify all trucks, lorries, tractors etc etc.

Battery tech has to take a few leaps before we can get there. But stuff has advanced crazy amounts in the last 20 years, just think of phone and RC batteries from the 90's or early 00's. A drone wouldn't have made sense 20 years ago, the battery tech just wasn't there yet - too heavy. Now we sell them as kids toys for 20€.

sliken14• 4 years ago

Average miles per year in the USA is 12,000 miles or so. With a ev with 300 mile range that's 40 times per year, or less than once a week.

Typically a fill up in a sedan/small truck is around 75-80 kwh.

So basically the cost of the grid is related to it's peak power, which in most locales is the hottest day of the summer. So as long as you charge off peak it's not a big deal, and if anything it helps the grid. By charging off peak you are generating more revenue for the grid, while not making it more expensive to build or maintain. In fact if enough usage off peak and the cost per kwh can drop for everyone and the cost difference between offpeak and peak would decrease.

Charging 75kwh off peak once every 9 days or so, isn't a big deal. I've got a 60 amp circuit that charges my EV at 220v @ 48 amps, so one hour = 10.5 kwh. So that's about what I need to average a day. But if there was a heat warning (or say a electricity price spike) I could easily go several days without charging, even a week.

I was playing with a solar calculator and it looked like I could offset my EV's electricity use with 8 panels (on average) or something like 6 in the summer and 12 in the winter.

Because of this Biden set a goal of 50% of new cars being EVs by 2030. That's a pretty modest goal, especially since the average age of cars is in the 8-10 year range. So by the end of 2030 1/8 to 1/10th of the cars should be EVs. At that rate the current grid needs to grow by less than 1% a year.

Even a small incentive for workplaces to cover parking lots with solar should greatly help to offset the needs of EVs. The benefits would be manifold. Cities would have reduced heat island effects. Cars with less range would be more practical. Even ICE cars benefit by cooler cars in the summer, there's a significant energy spent cooling even car interior for the first few miles.

mataug• 4 years ago

I think we should consider more than just electric cars as a solution to this problem. We need to rethink the way we travel in many car dependent countries.

Cars are the most in-efficient means of personal transportation. People should have multiple options for different needs.

For shorter trips: Buses, Trains, light rail, Trams(StreetCars), bikes, walking, and finally electric cars.

For long distance travel: slower overnight trains, intercity busses, high-speed rail, planes, and finally electric cars.

Giving people multiple choices of transport for each trip helps reduce the need for massive roads, parking lots, and traffic jams. This also reduces the urban heat island effect because we can have more green spaces.

I think cars, like all tools, are extremely useful, but we really need to think of more wholistic solutions than just electric cars so that it's actually a pleasant experience when someone does need to drive a car

incomingpain• 4 years ago

Will there be enough charging stations to avoid the problems of queues that take longer than a day to recharge all the cars that need it?

I dont know where you live but practically everywhere I ever want to drive has level 3 chargers available. I also tend to find most chargers arent in use. There's a surprising amount of chargers now. Fueling up at home is even possible, if not preferred. Charging wont really ever be a problem. If Chargepoint sees some location is popular and always busy, it's good business to build more chargers. They profit off what they can charge per kwh and what they pay for the kwh.

Is the fast charging technology likely to improve fast enough to make this problem disappear?

Oh ya, level 3 charging while keeping the battery between 20-80% means you can charge full speed. Call this around 200kw, which means generally you're charging at 1000km/h. Which means about realistically speaking your time to charge 20-80% is really only about 20-25minutes in current cars.

Are there alternative to horizontal (load balancing over multiple stations) and vertical (faster chargers) scale ups?

Charging isn't really a problem. True years ago but not anymore.

Ask HN: Is the adoption of electric cars too fast to be sustained?

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