Biden Pushes EV Chargers As Six Utilities Plan a Unified Network (arstechnica.com) 294
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: US President Joe Biden has made the shift to electric vehicles an early focus of his administration. Days after his inauguration, he vowed to replace hundreds of thousands of federal civilian vehicles with electric versions. On Tuesday, Biden held a virtual meeting with CEOs from companies building charging infrastructure. The administration has set a goal to build more than 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations by 2030.
Also on Tuesday, a coalition of six electric utilities announced a new initiative that will help Biden achieve his goal. The companies are planning to build a "seamless network of charging stations" in and around the American South. The group plans to build chargers near major highways in every southern state, stretching as far west as Texas and as far north as Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia. This is not a joint venture. Each utility will build and run its own charging stations. But the goal is to make them appear to the customer as a unified network.
Also on Tuesday, a coalition of six electric utilities announced a new initiative that will help Biden achieve his goal. The companies are planning to build a "seamless network of charging stations" in and around the American South. The group plans to build chargers near major highways in every southern state, stretching as far west as Texas and as far north as Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia. This is not a joint venture. Each utility will build and run its own charging stations. But the goal is to make them appear to the customer as a unified network.
"No, I'M the standard!" (Score:5, Funny)
Each utility will build and run its own charging stations. But the goal is to make them appear to the customer as a unified network.
I can see it now. Huge queue of unified EVs waiting in line to use the standards-based filling station..
..while the Apple iPump sit there bored, waiting for a compatible fashion accessory to drive up.
Re:"No, I'M the standard!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you point on this doll where Apple hurt you?
What is it with the Apple bashing? If you don't like Apple products because they they don't fit into your idea of what "standards compliant" means then don't buy them.
Re:"No, I'M the standard!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you don't use products from a company doesn't mean you can't point out their faults anyway.
And at the same time, just because you do use products from a company doesn't mean you approve every single decision that company makes.
Re:"No, I'M the standard!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you don't use products from a company doesn't mean you can't point out their faults anyway.
Sure, and I'd expect commentary on Apple's choice of keeping the Lightning connector in a discussion about cell phone chargers, not EV chargers. Bringing it up here is rather odd.
And at the same time, just because you do use products from a company doesn't mean you approve every single decision that company makes.
Sure. I wasn't happy about the choice to get rid of the MagSafe chargers on Apple's laptops. Keeping MagSafe would not prevent the use of USB-C charging but I don't bring that up when talking about EVs. I see that Lenovo has laptops that charge from USB-C and their own power connector, Apple could have done the same. Recent rumors suggest Apple may offer the MagSafe power connector again, or a MagSafe connector again. I'm hoping it's a return of the same connector as before but I'd still be happy with something that is incompatible but highly similar. Oh, and I'm assuming they won't go backwards on not supporting USB-C charging, that would suck if they did.
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He never mentioned anything about Apple's Lightning connector, you did:
"..while the Apple iPump sit there bored, waiting for a compatible fashion accessory to drive up."
Since phones and tablets can't "drive up", I'm assuming he's talking about the future "Apple Car" we've been hearing rumours about for the last few years and it pot
Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:2)
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If you don't like Apple products because they they don't fit into your idea of what "standards compliant" means then don't buy them.
Ever since my wife switched from Android to iPhone, my phone chargers have stopped vanishing.
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That's fine to want a standard compliant world, I'm just confused on the selection of Apple to beat up on in a target rich environment.
Call me an idiot fanboi if you like but I've seen plenty of problems with smart phones and chargers. Not so long ago every phone manufacturer had vendor lock in on their chargers. Even within the same brand it was possible to see different cables for charging and data. When the mini and micro USB-B connectors were used there were plenty of phones that could not keep withi
Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m pretty sure every device out there uses the exact same 5v supplied by USB.
Re:"No, I'M the standard!" (Score:4, Insightful)
..while the Apple iPump sit there bored, waiting for a compatible fashion accessory to drive up.
Where I live, they recently installed charging stations right on the sidewalks so you can charge your car while parked on the street in a public parking spot. I am not aware which models of cars are supported and I am not very familiar with the compatibility issues.
This should be standardized as soon as possible, car makers could be required to have a standard connector in order to charge the car. I assume that different charging profiles could be implemented by the charging station but at least a standard connector would be nice.
Of course, this will cause another standard debate (Dilbert on standards etc.) but after all, gas pump nozzles are standard.
Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:3)
For 110/220 volt charging there's a standard or an affordable adapter.
For fast charging there is Tesla, Japan, and everyone else (I think Japan is switching over though).
In the US Tesla (and if Aptera ever happens, also Aptera) use Tesla, Nissan uses the Japan standard and everyone else uses the everyone else standard.
In Europe Tesla has an adapter and can charge on either Tesla or Everyone else (Europe has standardized), in the US I've never seen a place that has the Japan plug but not the everyone else pl
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There really needs to be ample street charging, even if it's slow.
No, there does not need to be street side charging. We don't have street side gasoline pumps.
If an electric car can't handle a trip to a shopping mall or going out for a burger without needing to be plugged in then EVs deserve to fail. I can remember driving two weeks on a tank of gasoline before having to fill up. In recent years it seems that gasoline tank shrinkage is exceeding the pace of increased fuel mileage and I can't go nearly as far between fill ups as before. Perhaps that's deviating too far
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Hint: electricity is not exactly like gas.
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Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:5, Insightful)
> If an electric car can't handle a trip to a shopping mall or going out for a burger without needing to be plugged in then EVs deserve to fail. I can remember driving two weeks on a tank of gasoline before having to fill up.
That's great; I can also drive my EV for 2 weeks (or more) without plugging it in. But we'll both need address the vehicle's energy reserve *eventually.* Just like not every ICEV needs to be connected to a gasoline pump every time it's parked, no EV needs to be plugged in every time it's parked.
The argument for streetside charging is exactly equivalent to the argument for charging in parking lots - that's where the vehicles sit when not being used. Add on top of that the fact that not everyone owns their own home and so can't install their own private EVSE.
FYI The reason we don't have street-side gas stations is because gasoline is kinda dangerous and requires a lot of support infrastructure to dispense, making street-side refueling logistically and economically unfeasible. That's not true for electric vehicle charging, though...
> This doesn't leave out the option of a fast recharge at the same places people with a BEV would use.
Except it does. Rapid charging is severely limited by battery capacity and temperature; Fully recharging a 64KWh battery will take about 45 minutes (for a non-Tesla vehicle). Recharging an 8kWh battery will take about 30 minutes. Why? Because an 8kWh battery can't absorb DCFC power very long before it gets too hot, even with active cooling, and you can't get beyond 75-80% SOC at those rates regardless of power or pack size.
Plug-in electric vehicles are the worst of both worlds; the benefits of either tech are negated by the extra weight, cost and physical space needed by having both systems. You either end up with a gasoline car with a uselessly small battery (Prius) or a BEV with dead weight of an ICE you hardly use but needs to burn fuel anyway so it doesn't rust up and die on you (Volt).
Honestly, I'm at the point now where anyone who opines about BEVs without ever having owned or used one simply does not deserve to be included in the conversation.
=Smidge=
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Why would you ever want to take the chance of not having a full tank of gas?
Because you know, with a very high degree of certainty, how much driving you'll be doing over the next day or two. And you know, with at least a decent degree of certainty, what you might need on short notice. You don't stop for gas every single day because you know you don't need to, and I don't charge to 100% every day because I know I don't need to.
Hell I only charge to 80% as it is. If I need more range the next day, I plug in.
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Why would I ever want to take the chance of leaving my vehicle not 100% charged?
Because that accelerates battery degradation. 90% is fine. 80% gets you a little more benefit.
Day to day with a model 3, many people (myself included) charge between 20% and 80% and only fill it full when starting on a long trip since electricity is cheaper at home than at a supercharger. 20-80% gets you several days of local driving (at least in these work-from-home times).
At a supercharger, charging slows down as the battery charge level increases. On a recent trip I was charging at 192KW at 15% and 75KW
Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:2)
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I guarantee you that if it were cheap and easy to do so, there would be curbside gas pumps. The convenience of not having to go out of your way to a gas station would be incentive enough by itself, and the value of real-estate especially in cities means nobody would waste that value on a gas station if such a more convenient refueling method were available.
Also, did you know that mobile refueling services exist? Someone in a tanker truck comes by in the middle of the night and tops off your tank. Used only
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In recent years it seems that gasoline tank shrinkage is exceeding the pace of increased fuel mileage and I can't go nearly as far between fill ups as before.
The blended gasoline we are forced to use has crappier mileage
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No, there does not need to be street side charging. We don't have street side gasoline pumps.
Wait a sec--are you one of those guys who says, "People in apartments that don't have parking can't use EVs! Lots of people have to park on the street!"
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Well, if anything solidified my point regarding charging standards, this feedback certainly did. Err, thanks?
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Where I live, they recently installed charging stations right on the sidewalks so you can charge your car while parked on the street in a public parking spot. I am not aware which models of cars are supported and I am not very familiar with the compatibility issues.
I just saw a YouTube video on this yesterday. There's apparently three different high voltage plugs in common use, Tesla's plug, CCS, and a third I can't recall the name of right now. I recall from that video that the EU chargers and cars are required to have CCS plugs. There's Tesla only charging stations in the EU built before this law went into effect, and most public chargers will have charging cables at each station for the two most popular connectors. I don't like the idea of the government dictat
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The government already dictates the speed you can drive at (the same in that Tesla as a 20 year old poorly maintained death trap) which could easily have more impact on how long your journey is than a slight difference in charge speed. You might be pretty happy if the same government mandate meant you could charge your Tesla somewhere
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I suspect that wasn't always so. There's no one standard gasoline and yet we figured out how to make that work. It's a common sight to see filling stations with three grades of gasoline and at least one grade of diesel fuel. Diesel and gasoline nozzles are apparently different. I read somewhere that ethanol filling nozzles are different. If we can manage to have these different fuels and nozzles then we can manage different chargers.
One solution I expect to be popular is having two power inlets on the car. One is the "standard" (or however close we can get to such a thing), and the other being the manufacturer preferred power inlet. It sounds like the CCS connector can handle 50 kW while Tesla's connector can handle 250 kW. If I were a Tesla owner and the government dictated I had to use the 50 kW charger away from home then I'd be a bit pissed. It's when away from home I need that fastest charge.
I don't think manufacturers will be shipping cars with two different inlets unless they really have to, I base this on the fact that Tesla is already equipping their cars with *only* CCS in Europe. BTW CCS is capable of 350 kW charging not 50 so there is no downside at all to the EU mandating this standard...
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Different octane grades of gasoline will not, as a general rule, cause problems with interchangeability - the car just won't run as efficiently/performantly/whatever with the "wrong" grade. There are bas
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> the car just won't run as efficiently/performantly/whatever with the "wrong" grade.
Specifically, the engine will knock under heavy load if the octane rating is too low.
I wish more people understood what the different grades are - they are NOT how "good" the gas is. It's purely how resistant it is to knocking. If you don't get knocking with 87 octane, buying 92 octane is doing absolutely nothing but wasting money.
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I believe that's the CHAdeMO [wikipedia.org] standard. It is most widely adopted by Japanese auto makers.
Re: "No, I'M the standard!" (Score:2)
Climate change is the enemy. (Score:2, Insightful)
China is the enemy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe people are buying ICEVs because they don't want to fund the oppressive nations that are providing the cobalt and rare earth metals that are needed to produce EVs.
The ICE is not the problem, it's where we get the fuel. We have the technology to produce carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels. Perhaps if we had some government incentives to encourage development like we had with EVs then perhaps in a few short years we'd have carbon neutral fuels for every existing vehicle on the road.
My point is that there'
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> Maybe people are buying ICEVs because they don't want to fund the oppressive nations that are providing the cobalt and rare earth metals that are needed to produce EVs.
So you'd rather drive a petroleum fueled vehicle and fund literal terrorist states instead... okay. That's especially ironic when contrasted against the "not fund the people that would like to see us dead or enslaved" comment.
Here's the ironic thing about what you just said: The number one use of cobalt is in the petroleum refining indus
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So you'd rather drive a petroleum fueled vehicle and fund literal terrorist states instead... okay.
Canada is a terrorist state?
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Just how many people, when browsing a car lot, have that in the forefront of their mind? Rather, I suspect the overwhelming majority are thinking one of two things: 1) why should I buy an EV when an ICE car is 1/2 or 2/3 the price, or 2) how/when will I charge it to avoid get stranded? I am not going to get into whether these are rational
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In short, hydrocarbons of any form are a poor technology choice for propulsion in every aspect except energy density for a given weight,
Energy density for a given weight is very important.
and there's no reason to think that batteries won't be able to surpass that.
Sure there is. Physics.
And let's be real here, nobody is going to pay extra money for the generation of carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels when it's always going to be cheaper to refine existing natural, polluting hydrocarbons.
The cost of synthesizing hydrocarbons has been getting lower with research and development. The cost of drilling for petroleum will increase as it gets harder to find. At some point those lines on the graph will meet and then the petroleum industry will end.
You want to "be real here"? Here's "real" for you, we are not going to get passenger carrying aircraft powered by batteries any time soon. Maybe we will see some novelty flig
Re: Climate change is the enemy. (Score:2)
"... stretching as far west as Texas" (Score:5, Interesting)
So, let me get this straight... (Score:3, Interesting)
The US government is pushing for all new cars to be electric cars by 2030, but they're only building 500,000 new public charging stations for them?
I think that we're going to have a wee a bit of a problem when you have 15 million electric cars being sold in the US every year in 2030 and only 500,000 new places to publically charge them. If you think that finding a place to charge your Tesla during holiday travel weekends is tough now, imagine what it's going to look like for everyone owning an EV ten years from now. Sure, some private companies will chip in and build their own chargers, but is it going to be enough? Can the power grid even handle the additional load?
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15 million EVs being sold each year in the U.S.? What alternative timeline did you come from? Since 2010, only 1.4 million electric vehicles have been sold in the U.S, and that includes the hybrid, not just pure EV. To think there will be 15 million EV sold each year by 2030 is pie in the sky thinking.
The real issue will be even if there is exponential installation of charging stations and the subsequent ability to deliver the electricity, there will still be lines waiting to use them and the overall wai
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Err....replacing something that wears out, isn't the only reason people buy new.
Hell, I"d venture to guess it isn't the primary reason they buy new...they want the newer models, newer looks, bells and whistles.
People don't generally buy a car and drive it into the ground till it stops working you know.
If they don't buy thi
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Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of my EV charging is done at home. I use public chargers once or twice a year.
My daughter also has an EV and no home charger since she lives in an apartment. So she charges her car at work at a charger in the employee parking lot.
Comparing EV chargers to gasoline filling stations makes no sense. The usage patterns are completely different.
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Go to a town that has a lot of manufacturing. In no way do they want extra load, the loss of electricity even for 5 seconds costs tens of thousands of dollars even for the small plants. What happens to your daughter when 50% of the cars in the parking lot want to charge and she is late for work? all charging slots full. Do you really think charging at work is going to be free? Right now your not paying any road tax on your EV, only an up front fee. Once you have to pay a road tax fee and your power go
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:5, Informative)
What happens to your daughter when 50% of the cars in the parking lot want to charge and she is late for work?
Then she doesn't charge that day. She drives five miles to work and five miles home. Her car has a 240-mile range. So she only needs to charge once a month.
Do you really think charging at work is going to be free?
It isn't free now. When she plugs in, the charger identifies her car and debits her account. The electricity is billed at a wholesale rate, so it is cheap, but not free.
Right now your not paying any road tax on your EV
As EVs proliferate, our voting power will increase. Once we are the majority, we can vote for higher gas taxes and push more of the cost onto the ICE stinky cars.
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As EVs proliferate, our voting power will increase. Once we are the majority, we can vote for higher gas taxes and push more of the cost onto the ICE stinky cars.
I think this got you modded funny, but it brings up a good point. Has Biden also come up with a plan to make up for the loss of gas tax revenue? Ultimately, we'll have to switch to a mileage-based tax somehow. I can only hope the eventual implementation isn't egregiously privacy-invasive (since the "easiest" way to do it would be for each car to have a GPS tracker that tracks mileage and tax jurisdiction, and auto-reports it).
Maybe at the same time we can push for having the tax based on the fourth power of
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know what state/country you live in, but where I live they are already tacking on a fat tax each year for having an EV when I renew my vehicle registration.
As for places that are reliant on a teetering power grid to support manufacturing, they'll either have to pressure their utility overlords to deal with reality and increase capacity OR they'll be left behind as residents and industry move to greener pastures.
At the end of the day, now that I'm paying only about $8 in electricity to travel 300 miles and haven't had to do anything other than add windshield washer fluid and rotate the tires, there's no going back.
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the loss of electricity
Something tells me you understand precisely zero of how electricity generation and supply and demand works.
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99% of my EV charging is done at home. I use public chargers once or twice a year.
My daughter also has an EV and no home charger since she lives in an apartment. So she charges her car at work at a charger in the employee parking lot.
Comparing EV chargers to gasoline filling stations makes no sense. The usage patterns are completely different.
So in the future, finding a charging station in a pinch is going to be a lot like needing a gun. 99.999% of the time, you won't need it, but when you do, it can become a rather critical matter very quickly.
Surgically extract the smartphone from a Gen-Y/Z'er for a few hours. Watch them suffer like a fish out of water. Now imagine them running out of EV juice in the middle of recharge-nowhere...
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So in the future, finding a charging station in a pinch is going to be a lot like needing a gun.
I honestly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
If I pull into a supercharger station, and there are no open chargers, then the obvious solution is to wait a few minutes for someone to finish.
How is that analogous, in any way, to needing a gun?
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No but when you have 8-50 stalls 1 tends to clear up pretty quickly after you arrive.
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A few minutes? Tesla batteries don't charge in "a few minutes", that is a tad bit disingenuous.
The closest supercharger station has 12 chargers. It takes 20 minutes to go from 20% to 80%. So a car will be finishing every 2 minutes.
That is assuming all the chargers are busy, which rarely happens. 99% of the time, there is no wait at all.
I have had my EV since 2015. In six years, I have never waited for a charger.
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can the power grid even handle the additional load?
It could with nuclear fission power.
I'll have idiots complain that we can't wait ten years to build a nuclear power plant, we need solutions now. Well, first of all it doesn't have to take a decade to build a nuclear power plant. We've been able to do that in three years before, we can do it again. Also, we can do more than one thing at a time. If you believe solar power is the quickest way to get to carbon neutral energy then go do that. In the mean time stop tossing wrenches in the plans to build more nuclear power plants and maybe we can get them online in less than 10 years.
The longer we wait to start building new nuclear power the longer it will be before they produce power. I'm sure that in 10 years a lot of people will be pleased to see safe, abundant, reliable, and carbon neutral nuclear power regardless of how long it took to build.
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Can the power grid even handle the additional load?
It could with nuclear fission power.
With a properly set up smart grid, peak generation requirements with that much storage connected to the grid might actually be *lower*.
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have owned a Tesla for about a year and a half. I've only put about 6000 miles on it since I haven't needed to commute to work, but that's still a respectable amount of driving. I have yet to visit a charging station. The car charges in my garage. I suppose some day I may want to use it to drive farther than 300 miles in one sitting and will need to use a public charging station, but I'm not losing sleep over a plug being available when that happens. There appear to be a LOT of them around and more are appearing all the time. Just Tesla's network is rather extensive (over 20,000 locations so far):
https://www.tesla.com/supercha... [tesla.com]
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Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
> I think that we're going to have a wee a bit of a problem when you have 15 million electric cars being sold in the US every year in 2030 and only 500,000 new places to publically charge them
There are only ~170,000 gas stations in the US and it doesn't seem to be a problem for the ~234 million gasoline cars on the road.
And nobody has a gas station at their house.
=Smidge=
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Umm the ratio of gas stations to cars is 1:175. The point here is you don't need anywhere near a 1:1 ratio of charge points to BEVs like it seems to be implied. 500,000 charging locations is already three times as many gas stations that currently exists, and even at 15 million new EVs per year that's only 5% of the current fleet of cars in the US.
Charging an EV *can* take hours - there are a lot of variables - but the beauty is it does not need to be contiguous. Go shopping for 30 minutes, eat dinner at a r
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"If you live in an apartment, I don't think you can run a cord out to your car."
I did, ran it from the dryer hookup, worked fine.
Re: So, let me get this straight... (Score:2)
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I blame Richard Nixon.
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I came of age in the eighties, so I'm still blaming Reagan.
Re:So, let me get this straight... (Score:5, Funny)
1.61803398875
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If this was Reddit, that comment would be golden.
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It won't happen without more nuclear power plants (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll hear advocates of EVs talk about how easy it will be to supply power to EVs because people can just charge the cars at home during the night. At night there's less load on the electrical grid since most everyone is sleeping meaning no new wires need to be run and no new power plants need to be built. Is that true though? I believe it is not.
EV charging stations will be run during the day. That's when people will not be sleeping and when electric demand is already high. Gasoline is a means in which energy is stored and distributed. If people switch to EVs, and public charging stations, then there needs to be an electrical grid that makes up for the energy that would have been moved in the form of liquid hydrocarbons on tanker trucks.
Not only is gasoline a means of energy storage and distribution it is also an energy source. If we assume that the current power plants have enough capacity to charge all these new EVs coming to the grid then there is still the problem of finding the fuel for these power plants. That means we burn more coal and natural gas, or we build power plants that use some other energy source. A source that is plentiful, reliable, inexpensive, safe, and low in CO2 and other emissions. That means nuclear fission power.
President Biden has advocated for nuclear power while running for office. I would like to see him act on it. Especially given his open opposition to the growth in other energy sources that are plentiful, reliable, and inexpensive. If he's going to make it difficult to frack for gas or mine for coal then we will need nuclear fission power. We are going to need a lot of them real soon because the nuclear fission power plants we have are reaching the end of their safe operational life. It's quite possible we would not have had the Fukushima meltdown if the Japanese public had not opposed the construction of new third generation nuclear power plants to replace the aging second generation nuclear power plants that provided 1/4 of their electricity until the tsunami and meltdown forced them to reconsider the safety of their existing power plants.
As evidence of the safety of second generation nuclear power we see that there was only one suspected death from that meltdown. Far more people died in the evacuation from the area than if they had just stayed in place. People died from automotive accidents, over exertion, people in poor health not getting proper care, and other accidents. Second generation nuclear power is safe. Third generation nuclear power is safer still, and the coming fourth generation nuclear power promises to be safer yet. Keeping these old nuclear power plants running beyond their designed life span is not safe. Closing them without new nuclear power plants to replace them will mean getting power from sources that are far less safe than nuclear fission power.
We will get more nuclear power plants in the USA. And we will see other nations build more nuclear fission power plants. I'd like to see this be a priority from the Biden administration. The Trump administration had quietly put some money into developing fourth generation nuclear power, and hopefully the Biden administration can continue this. We will see some fourth generation nuclear reactor prototypes come on line over the next few years. Until those designs have gone through testing we can build plenty of third generation reactors that have already been certified by the NRC.
We need to build things. Building EV chargers is a start but without some clean, safe, and reliable energy sources to go with them it could make the problem worse.
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superficially: the meltdown scare in the USA appears so strong in the population, and there is so much money invested in renewables anyways, pushing for nuclear at present seems to be a bit of a lost cause. my expectation is that once China or Russia announces a breakthrough and launches a gen IV, we'll get back to the start of the hype cycle and learn that "nuclear is the new green". until then, idk how marketable that idea is.
Re: It won't happen without more nuclear power pla (Score:2)
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My back of the envelope math says that if you replace 1/4 of the gasoline usage with electric vehicles, its on the order of a terrawatt hour of energy demand shifted to electricity.
A third of Americans also live in renter-occupied housing. I'd guess a lot of them live in apartments where it will never be possible to charge their vehicles "at home" -- lack of parking, too costly to add charging to existing parking, etc. I'd guess even some significant percentage of those people also work in a mode where ch
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a lot of them live in apartments where it will never be possible to charge their vehicles "at home"
In California, renters have a legal right to install chargers.
Other states may soon pass similar laws.
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How long will they last? (Score:3, Insightful)
Already, the small dicked pick up drivers deliberately park their rusting hulks at charging stations because, you know, it's funny to stick to those libs. How long do you think it will take before these are used for target practice in the South?
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Sounds like a nice source of revenue from parking fines.
Or maybe we should encourage some EV pickup drivers to take pot shots at petrol pumps, see how that works out.
Re: How long will they last? (Score:2)
EV charging dystopia (Score:4, Interesting)
So the car makers know that in order to get wide adoption, they have to deal with range anxiety and lack of public charging infrastructure. And of course I have no doubt there's a bunch of venture capital types wondering how they can monetize EV charging to finance a giant charging network buildout.
How long until these two get together and think of ways of making it so that when you charge your car, the charging station gets to data mine your car's logs? I mean they're going to do everything to passively surveil charging station users, from video tracking, BT beacons, probably "free" wifi with snooping, and so on.
I guess I can totally see carmakers agreeing to some kind of data interchange standard so that charging stations can interface with the car. Of course some of this will be sort of necessary for regulating charging, perhaps identifying the vehicle make/model/battery pack so that they can at least load a factory spec charging profile and then fine-tune based on feedback.
But I don't doubt this will be exploited for other metadata, the only question is how much if it the carmakers will agree to give away to the charging vendor and how much they keep for themselves.
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> How long until these two get together and think of ways of making it so that when you charge your car, the charging station gets to data mine your car's logs?
About minus ten years or so. You don't seem to be aware of it, because you're clearly not an EV owner/driver and have thus not even thought to look into it, but there are several private companies building out for-profit charging station networks. The US has about 100,000 public charging stations. (For comparison, there is about 170,000 gas statio
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I thought that was already the case. A fast charger has to know what the charge cycle has to be for a given vehicle, so the VIN gets uploaded to the charger. And since the VIN is easily converted to a name and address, the system would know everything about you.
And since "fast" means means you will be there for forty minutes instead of five for a gas tank fill up, that is lots of marketing opportunity.
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I'm still waiting (Score:2)
...for someone to talk about evacuating from wildfires, earthquakes, and hurricanes in an EV.
Bubbles (Score:2)
Most people's cars are not kept in garages. Look at the largest cities' on-street parking, for example. Heck, in my current situation there are 3 cars in the driveway. And I see 5 in the neighbors' across the street. I'm sure no one wants a multiple chargers installed in their front yard, nor do they want to juggle cars every few days--I've had to do that when it snows heavily; it sucks.
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Predatory business tactics (Score:2)
need to ban apple & tesla only ones + repair l (Score:2)
need to ban apple & tesla only ones + repair lockouts.
No tesla can't ban you from changing if you did an non dealer repair.
Biden Lead the way (Score:2)
Really (Score:2)
"500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations by 2030"
That's 55,555 a year, or 150+ a day.
That's a lot of work. Better get started REAL soon.
"In February 2021, the U.S. had almost 100,000 charging outlets for plug-in electric vehicles (EVs). A considerable sum of these chargers is found in California, with almost 32,000 power outlets."
So that's a four-fold increase over the entire installed base in 9 years.
I doubt that this is going to happen, even if it's technically achievable.
Who pays? (Score:3)
Who is paying for this? Innocent utility ratepayers? Innocent taxpayers? Utility shareholders?
Note that utilities typically get their rates set on a target return on capital investment: if they build more stuff, they get to increase their rates based on the cost of what they built. Even if it is subsidized. What a racket.
Have you got stuck from EV running out of charge? (Score:3)
Serious question for EV owners who have run out of charge, like a gas car would on the side of the road.
With a gas car, the fuel can be easily brought to the car, poured in and off to the nearest gas station.
For EV, how does this work?
Do tow trucks have rechargers for EV? And how much of a charge and what time frame?
Do you get towed home?
Do you get towed to nearest recharger?
Running out of gas is common with gas vehicles and the process to refill is established with tow trucks.
How does running out of EV charge work?
No, it never happens.
No, only stupid people run out.
No, non-answers.
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I was under the impression that EVs have limp mode, so the cars don't just die like a gasoline car will. That raises some questions about how people will safely drive on the expressway to the next exit, but cars can at least make it to somewhere with a regular wall socket, even if that means a slow charge. Being "stranded" isn't likely.
A couple decades ago, I did lots of driving at night, and regularly encountered people stranded because they ran out of fuel. I did my share of driving people home or doin
Re:Biden Pushes EV Chargers? (Score:4, Informative)
In addition, [from Wikipedia] "Though the language of the clause is not specific, since the 1930s, the President has made [the State of the Union address] annually in late January or early February. Between 1934 and 2013 the date has been as early as January 3, and as late as February 12."
Biden has still not made a State of the Union address and no date has been set for one.
None of the past 4 presidents have given a State of the Union during their first year in office...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_Union#TV_ratings
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Perhaps Biden is too busy working to worry about press conferences? There are years of unread intelligence briefs to deal with after all.
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