North Carolina Looks To Remove Public EV Chargers, Probably To the Trash (caranddriver.com) 239
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Car and Driver, written by Ezra Dyer: Politicians have to run on some kind of platform, and Ben Moss -- my incoming state House representative here in North Carolina's District 52 -- decided that his animating principle is Being Mad at Electricity. To prove his animosity toward this invisible menace, he's sponsoring House Bill 1049, which would allocate $50,000 to destroy free public car chargers. It contains some other enlightened ideas, but that's the main theme: We've simply got to do something about these free public chargers, even if it costs us $50,000! Those things cost tens of cents per hour, when they're being used.
Of course, there's a caveat here. Moss isn't saying that free public Level 2 chargers -- of which there are three in my town, with plans in the works to convert to paid kiosks -- definitely need to get crushed by a monster truck. That rule only comes into play if a town refuses to build free gas and diesel pumps next to the EV chargers. So anyway, warm up El Toro Loco, we're smashin' some car zappers! But what about private businesses? you ask. Don't worry, Moss hasn't forgotten that a business might put a charger on its property as an inducement for EV owners to patronize the establishment. And small business is the heart of the local economy. That's why he's staying out of the way when it comes to private property. Just kidding! Ben Moss cares about the consumers being harmed by these hypothetical free chargers -- namely, any customer who arrived via internal-combustion vehicle, or on foot, or in a sedan chair. Why is someone else gaining some advantage based on a decision they made? That's not how life works.
Thus, House Bill 1049 decrees that all customer receipts will have to show what share of the bill went toward the charger out in the lot. That way, anyone who showed up for dinner in an F-150 (not the electric one) can get mad that their jalapeno poppers helped pay for a business expense not directly related to them. It's the same way you demand to know how much Applebee's spends to keep the lights on in its parking lot overnight, when you're not there. Sure, this will be an accounting nightmare, but it'll all be worth it if we can prevent even one person from adding 16 miles of charge to a Nissan Leaf while eating a bloomin' onion -- not that restaurants around here have free chargers, but you can't be too careful. Now, there is a charger at the neighborhood Ford dealership, which is marking up Broncos by $20,000. Coincidence? I think not. "Critics of this bill might point out that increasing the number of electric cars could actually benefit owners of internal-combustion vehicles, thanks to reduced demand for petroleum products," adds Dyer. "Electron heads, as I call them, also like to point out that electricity is generated domestically, so your transportation dollars are staying in the U.S. rather than going to, say, Saudi Arabia."
Of course, there's a caveat here. Moss isn't saying that free public Level 2 chargers -- of which there are three in my town, with plans in the works to convert to paid kiosks -- definitely need to get crushed by a monster truck. That rule only comes into play if a town refuses to build free gas and diesel pumps next to the EV chargers. So anyway, warm up El Toro Loco, we're smashin' some car zappers! But what about private businesses? you ask. Don't worry, Moss hasn't forgotten that a business might put a charger on its property as an inducement for EV owners to patronize the establishment. And small business is the heart of the local economy. That's why he's staying out of the way when it comes to private property. Just kidding! Ben Moss cares about the consumers being harmed by these hypothetical free chargers -- namely, any customer who arrived via internal-combustion vehicle, or on foot, or in a sedan chair. Why is someone else gaining some advantage based on a decision they made? That's not how life works.
Thus, House Bill 1049 decrees that all customer receipts will have to show what share of the bill went toward the charger out in the lot. That way, anyone who showed up for dinner in an F-150 (not the electric one) can get mad that their jalapeno poppers helped pay for a business expense not directly related to them. It's the same way you demand to know how much Applebee's spends to keep the lights on in its parking lot overnight, when you're not there. Sure, this will be an accounting nightmare, but it'll all be worth it if we can prevent even one person from adding 16 miles of charge to a Nissan Leaf while eating a bloomin' onion -- not that restaurants around here have free chargers, but you can't be too careful. Now, there is a charger at the neighborhood Ford dealership, which is marking up Broncos by $20,000. Coincidence? I think not. "Critics of this bill might point out that increasing the number of electric cars could actually benefit owners of internal-combustion vehicles, thanks to reduced demand for petroleum products," adds Dyer. "Electron heads, as I call them, also like to point out that electricity is generated domestically, so your transportation dollars are staying in the U.S. rather than going to, say, Saudi Arabia."
What percentage... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, given that all of them are politicians, and that politicians only take that job when they have no other life skills, I'd say roughly 57% are contrarian dickheads, and the only 43% are morons who are in office because it's cheaper than day care.
Re:What percentage... (Score:5, Informative)
...of 'Murica's elected representatives are contrarian dickheads? Asking for a friend.
75%.
100% of the repubs and 25% of the dems.
There is a minority in the middle who haven't been corrupted completely yet, but give it time.
Re: (Score:2)
...of 'Murica's elected representatives are contrarian dickheads? Asking for a friend.
75%.
100% of the repubs and 25% of the dems.
There is a minority in the middle who haven't been corrupted completely yet, but give it time.
I love working out this math.
Assuming there are three mutually exclusive categories into which a voter may fall (Repub, Dem, or Otherwise), and working with your numbers:
the percentage of people who are dickheads AND Otherwise is around 120%.
This isn't meant to be an attack on your hyperbole; I take away that it's kind of nice to know that the whole temptation to put people into Us-vs-Them camps leads to ridiculous results.
Re: (Score:2)
...of 'Murica's elected representatives are contrarian dickheads? Asking for a friend.
75%.
100% of the repubs and 25% of the dems.
There is a minority in the middle who haven't been corrupted completely yet, but give it time.
I love working out this math.
Assuming there are three mutually exclusive categories into which a voter may fall (Repub, Dem, or Otherwise), and working with your numbers:
the percentage of people who are dickheads AND Otherwise is around 120%.
This isn't meant to be an attack on your hyperbole; I take away that it's kind of nice to know that the whole temptation to put people into Us-vs-Them camps leads to ridiculous results.
I spend some of my day working out entropy equations for physically unclonable functions.
I needed some light relief where I could be wrong in many ways.
Smart politics. (Score:2)
There's no shortage in pinheads willing to get bent out of shape over shit like this. If he keeps amping it up he could be president.
Don't forget to bitch about toilets and shower heads. The Venn diagram works in your favour.
Republicans can't govern (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Republicans can't govern (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: Democrats consider using tax dollars to help the general public to be good governing. Republicans prefer to make sure that the benefits go only to the people who they feel deserve those tax dollars (read: "wealthy white men").
Re:Republicans can't govern (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, Republicans constantly run on a platform of lowering taxes or giving tax rebates on the amount already spent. Sounds a LOT like buying votes. Be nice if someone campaigned on a platform of doing a good job.
Re:Republicans can't govern (Score:5, Interesting)
And so they have to come up with increasingly bizarre wedge issues to get people interested in voting for them. They're very good at running fun rallies, doing exciting advertisements and generally whooping up a crowd. But if you want someone to actually run the government and if you want things to run smoothly in your day-to-day life you vote Democrat. 96% of all jobs in America or created during Democratic administrations. Seriously look it up. The problem with the Democrats is they are absolutely terrible at advertisements and rallies. Democrats are boring. Boring as fuck.
I participate on a muscle-car forum where folks seem to lean pretty heavily R. It's... interesting.
Now, I grant that a forum for high-displacement internal-combustion cars isn't the right place to expect many proponents of EVs, but that topic seems deeply offensive to many people in a way that say... high-RPM, low-displacement "rice-burner" cars never will be. They say they're just pissed because EV "is being forced on us" and "we want to be able to choose", but when you dig deep enough, you find most are like this Ben Moss guy. They want the freedom to choose only what they want, and nobody else should be able to choose anything they don't want. There's zero room for compromise, hybrids, or a transition over time. Nope. EVs are evil and should be banned, ICE is godly and emission laws (especially Californian ones) are the enemy.
Mind-blowing. But these are the same guys whose answer to "what kind of an alarm should I get" is "a Glock". Because taking a human life isn't at all disproportionate to having a car stolen... in their minds.
Re: (Score:2)
It's because they don't just want a choice, they want their preferred choice to be cheap and popular enough to have a community built around it. They worry that if EVs become popular and combustion engines become niche, their hobby will change or die off.
Everyone else has to make the same choice as them, otherwise things might change and they fear change.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe you genuinely believe this; this is what's so pernicious about political dogma in 2022.
Here is a reasonably intelligent person who has convinced himself that half - half of the American body politic - is utterly incompetent or malignant or both. As factual to him as the rising of the sun.
Now, this is objectively implausible. We have in the op a ridiculous bill, I would agree. But to extrapolate that as an assertion of proof takes an astonishing level of cognitive blinders. We just had a widely
Re: (Score:3)
"Are you convinced that liberals are incompetent or malignant or both?" Not at all.
Of my (still at age 55) best friends from high school, all 3 are liberals. One is a son of a leftist congressman, I'd call him an establishment liberal. Another dropped out of MIT and is making oodle$ in tech, very much about whatever is twitter's 'rage du jour' (generally, still, about Trump) I'd call him a popular liberal, and the third is a teacher, again hardcore liberal.
I love them, they are my best friends, and we se
Parking validation? (Score:2)
Does North Carolina have a law that requires a business which validates parking to disclose the amount of a person's bill used for that fee? Many business validate parking, and the parking is not owned by the business, which means the business pays some amount to the owner of the parking lot/ramp. People using public transportation or that walk to the business should be in anger!!!
Also, this law assumes the cost of the free charging is passed onto all patrons. Are they saying that a business would not be al
Helping the 'haves' (Score:3)
Where customers get $1.00 worth of fuel, just like the electric chargers. I'll pass that (legislative) bill. Of course, then businesses can report what share of the bill covers the cost of storing highly flammable chemicals and fire-suppresion chemicals.
Customers' ICE car spewing soot and carbon monoxide into the air isn't a business expense: So this demands that businesses don't contribute to protecting the environment. A less discriminatory bill would start charging a polution tax to create parity but we can't take money off 'rich' people, even though an EV costs more than a ICE vehicle.
I swear (Score:2)
The forced sterilization of black people back in the day... they may have been on to something. Only instead of black people, it would target people like this asshole and his family, who very clearly should not be breeding for the good of the species. If you have a perfectly functional brain, but choose not to use it, you and your immediate family will be sterilized for the good of the human race. Willful stupidity will no longer be tolerated.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a problem with your proposal. Empirical evidence would seem to indicate this gentleman is *not* in possession of a "perfectly functional brain".
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing the death penalty can't solve.
Gee, I wonder which political party he's with. (Score:2)
Moron (Score:2)
Paid municipal chargers (Score:3)
No one pays for slow chargers unless they are using them for a full work day. There is no value to them for less than 3 hours. But no one complains about paying to use chargers at shops or street parking. I honestly have never seen anyone use chargers at the grocery store which are free because you do not get enough of a charge to bother with them.
That said, when you are out of juice, it is great to be able to get a few extra km to make it home or to a fast charger.
I am also a smoker and as a smoker, I understand the effectiveness of EVs better than most. Before Oslo went almost all EV… and we are so far beyond all other countries on that front that it will take a decade for others to catch up… but I cannot light a cigarette anywhere without upsetting people. The air quality has improved so much that a cigarette or a woman with strong perfume is insanely obnoxious at a distance. Thanks to electric vehicles, I actually use an electric scooter to get me 100m or more from the nearby houses to keep from people smelling my cigarettes while they sleep.
I am now on vacation in the US and all I smell is tail pipe and my cigarettes are not nearly as offensive.
But, to each their own. If people do not care about clean air, keep driving those ICE vehicles.
Keep the chargers, make people pay to use them (Score:2)
What will be his next great idea? (Score:2)
Easy to comply, charge $0.01 per charge (Score:5, Interesting)
To make it extremely clear it's a PAID service, print a receipt for each charge. And send a recording of the payment to a central location, which then prints another receipt.
And if the law comes into play before you have the EV charger parking meters in place, simply have the EV chargers locked up. But, have an alarm on anyone parking in the spot. Then send out an employee with a receipt paid and key to un-lock the charger. Employee accepts payment, (a penny!), then writes up a receipt, (with license plate to make it official), gives 1 copy to customer, keeps one copy on site, and a third copy sent to a central location at the end of the week.
I am guessing that their is no requirement for the amount that an EV charger charge per charge, (hmm, that actually makes sense?!).
Re: (Score:2)
Brilliant! You've actually come up with a way to make the free EV chargers even more expensive! Now we have to hire people to collect the coins, replace the receipt paper,, etc. Brilliant.
The private business thing is stupid, but using taxpayer dollars to benefit on a handful of the community's richest residents is kind of a bad idea, don't you think?
Re: (Score:2)
Charge $0.001 instead. Not free, but we'll round it down.
Free public chargers (Score:2, Interesting)
he's sponsoring House Bill 1049, which would allocate $50,000 to destroy free public car chargers. It contains some other enlightened ideas, but that's the main theme: We've simply got to do something about these free public chargers, even if it costs us $50,000!
Let's call them what they are taxpayer-funded charging stations that mainly benefit those community members that can afford an EV. Who paid for the land they are on, prepared the engineering diagrams, prepared the permits, hired the electricians, pays for the electricity provided, and who covers the maintenance & upkeep of them? Largely, it's people that don't drive EVs.
Those things cost tens of cents per hour, when they're being used.
Cute, ignore every cost to put the thing in a parking lot and ignore the cost of the electricity pouring out of the charger, let's focu
Re:Free public chargers (Score:4, Insightful)
The cost of maintaining a system to pay for the chargers outweighs the cost of charging for their use. If you have a product that costs cents, it's often cheaper to give it away for free than to charge for it.
You like inefficient government, then jump onto your high horse and make those rich people pay those few cents. That's good use of your tax payer funds right? Paying for nothing but the principle of being angry that someone gets something insignificant for free.
NC is very small, and /. is getting very dumb (Score:3)
Seriously, this is a draft bill that got its first referral to committee. It may have more support, but it isn't apparent from the article, so calm down.
Also, for all you folks smugly painting this as simply a measure to prevent EV owners from unfairly benefiting from taxpayer dollars, kindly read *everything* else the bill does. Moreover, government at all levels has used financial incentives like this to encourage rollout of technology for the lion's share of the US's existence. The network you jackasses are using to bitch about this wouldn't be here without the government handing out money to build up systems that initially benefit only those members of society wealthy enough to access them.
Time for some malicious compliance (Score:2)
unless the county or city provides gasoline and diesel fuel for motor vehicles through a pump to the public at no charge.
So make it a "free gas program" where proven EV Owners at the city charging stations can get a non-transferrable one-time coupon to visit an out-of-the way "partner station" during very limited hours and obtain 0.04 Liters of their choice of gasoline or diesel fuel from a pump at no charge (Obviously, other than the cost of any fuel to drive to the free gas station, which would obvio
Article intentionally confusing (Score:3)
Putting in chargers (similar to parking spaces) where people can pay to charge their cars is fine. Providing free electricity for cars, but not say for low income hosing units seems problematic.
Re: Eh (Score:4, Interesting)
They are pollution shifters. They are an economic wedge issue driven into the globe spanning hydra that is the oil and gas monopoly.
And, they are a link to a possible future where money invested in new technology results in massively greater energy density batteries, faster charge times, and longer lifespans.
They are as you say, but once we have enough time to sink one eighteenth of the R&D money we have already spent on oil and gas, the landscape will be drasticay different.
Re: (Score:2)
The net emissions of buying a new EV, including the emission costs of the battery, mining, transportation, etc., actually pays off in a few years, but I'm not sure if that takes into account the electricity generation costs. I know it'd be a lot less damaging to the environment if the grid was powered by nuclear, but the concept that you can buy something to new to "help" the environment is a joke. Really what it means is you're damaging it to a lesser degree than you would've been.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Eh (Score:5, Informative)
> Oh please. Tell that to the people living around Fukushima or Chernobyl.
So... one plant run by cheapskates who didn't update a tired design even when warned of design problems, and the other run about as well as Russia runs anything, including their current incursion.
How about you do the other 450 reactors around the world and tell us what horrors those have spawned? What's that? They haven't? Fancy that.
Now, how about you look at the downwind cancer rates around all the coal plants - you DO know that burning coal releases radioactive particles right?
Nuclear when done even marginally well is safe.
Re: Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
Sunshine is free. Sunshine makes electricity with a few solar panels.
Parent is being an ass and oversimplifying to the point of uselessness.
But solar current isn't "free", either. Creating those panels does do harm to the environment. For starters, it costs energy, which isn't clean yet. But also the materials themselves... it's not exactly like the photovoltaic panels are made out of naturally growing wood and grass.
So in this regard Parent is right: nothing is "free" ecology wise, some things are just less damaging.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most truck owners don't tow a damn thing with their grocery getters. Six grocery bags at most for these pavement queen trucks that live in a garage.
Guess what? Are you hauling heavy shit a lot? Then electric vehicles aren't the best choice and yes diesel would be better. Mind blown.
Re: (Score:2)
>Guess what? Are you hauling heavy shit a lot? Then electric vehicles aren't the best choice and yes diesel would be better. Mind blown.
If it can't do the job of a truck it shouldn't pretend to be a truck. And the comparison I made was a gasoline vehicle to EV, not diesel, and it still was blown out of the water.
Re:Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
>Guess what? Are you hauling heavy shit a lot? Then electric vehicles aren't the best choice and yes diesel would be better. Mind blown.
If it can't do the job of a truck it shouldn't pretend to be a truck. And the comparison I made was a gasoline vehicle to EV, not diesel, and it still was blown out of the water.
Most trucks sold in my corner of the world have a short bed and a large cab and are jacked up higher than is convenient. They aren't even pretending to be work trucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Because I'm not a hypocrite politician. I don't care what you drive, I'm just stating that the majority of trucks are used to haul passengers way more than cargo, I mean you can option a King Ranch to over $100k now, that is luxury vehicle and not a work truck.
Re: (Score:2)
... I mean you can option a King Ranch to over $100k now, that is luxury vehicle and not a work truck.
Is that including the vintage "Obama's Last Day In Office" bumper sticker?
Re: (Score:2)
The F-150 Lightning isn't marketed as a vehicle that is suitable for towing trailers long distances. In-city driving or a work truck with electricity for power tools is fine for many people.
Ford closed pre-orders after they reached ~200k. Annual production will be only around 40k units to start so there is quite a backlog unless they can ramp up production.
Re: (Score:2)
70 miles isn't long distance. It's questionable why it even has a tow hitch.
Re:Eh (Score:5, Informative)
> 70 miles isn't long distance. It's questionable why it even has a tow hitch.
The independent/informal testing I've seen shows the F-150 Lightning (with the large battery pack option) will do at least 100+ miles towing ~4400lbs worth of trailer up a mountain at ~65MPH. ~1.2 mi/kwh. That's not super terrible all things considered and there are plenty of situations where that towing ability is perfectly usable, hauling stuff back and forth in town.
The most interesting thing is the larger battery pack version has a lower towing capacity, presumably because of the extra weight already in the vehicle.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
> The in car computer predicted 160 miles but that algorithm is obviously fudged or something else is wrong.
The estimation is adaptive and will change while you drive based on actual efficiency. There's any number of reasons why they were burning more energy than predicted, including driving efficiently before the test since it accounts for previous driving history.
Not really in the mood to watch a couple of jackasses banter for 20 minutes (seriously it sounds so forced...) but skimming through it they
Re: (Score:2)
They do talk about battery efficiency and the various factors that go into the distance calculation. They also talk about the sweet spot of speed, weight distribution, etc.
Perhaps you consider them jackasses because you're emotionally attacked by the conclusion that I've drawn from their video?
>This suggests they are using the trim level with the smaller battery pack,
Wrong, they have the towing package with the larger battery
>So it seems "what they did wrong" was not actually give you the useful infor
Re: (Score:2)
I have a boat that I tow, I expect it would get pretty good range with that. A moderate-size utility trailer would be fine for around-town use.
Re: (Score:3)
"Give the government money because I don't have fun the way you have fun"
I hope you're already elderly because you're all set to sit on a porch and bitch about other people
Re: (Score:2)
Thinking parking is the fun part is like thinking people go to fancy restaurants because they like to have expensive shits
Re: (Score:2)
Holy fuck can we get the edge police over here? They're gonna want to take some statements from witnesses cut to the quick by this serious outburst of edge
Re: (Score:2)
>Let's burn people alive in their cars for not paying $1000 per cm of space they take up
>I'M. NOT. BEING. EDGY.
Settle down edgelord, this isn't an anarchist circlejerk where everyone tries to prove how badass they are by fantasizing harder than the next guy
Re: (Score:2)
You can find the video as "How Far Can a Gas Truck & an Electric Ford Lightning Go Towing the Same Camper On ONE Fill-up?"
I believe this is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
There's all kinds of videos out there showing how bad electric vehicles are on range and charge times. Could a person manage a long trip in an electric car or truck? Even while pulling a trailer? Sure, I guess so. It might not be all that convenient or quick though. Electric cars manage fine for fair weather driving but they can take a big hit on range if there is a need for heating or cooling.
I like the idea of a plug-in hybrid electric veh
Re: (Score:3)
I like the idea of an EV for going around town that also doubles as a plug-in battery bank for solar storage and as a backup. In-home solar batteries are insanely expensive (like $30k for a complete setup) and it means your solar conversion will never pay off, but with an EV that might become feasible.
Re:Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
(And can the electric grid even support this being common?)
Yes. Easily.
Americans drive 3.2 trillion miles/year.
Americans consume 4 trillion kwh of electricity each year.
An EV uses 0.3 kwh/mile. So if all cars were EVs, electricity demand would go up by 3.2*0.3 = 1.06 trillion kwh, or about a 25% increase.
The existing grid can handle that since the extra load would be mostly at night when the grid is currently lightly loaded.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
>Yes. Easily.
Funny, for the past few years I've been told the grid is on the brink of collapse because of GPUs doing wasteful math and that we're a few 3090s away from a global meltdown, but only a fraction of the population would ever run GPUs. Practically 90% of the population drives. Plugging in all those cars wouldn't be orders of magnitude worse than crypto mining?
Re:Eh (Score:5, Interesting)
>Yes. Easily.
Funny, for the past few years I've been told the grid is on the brink of collapse because of GPUs doing wasteful math and that we're a few 3090s away from a global meltdown, but only a fraction of the population would ever run GPUs. Practically 90% of the population drives. Plugging in all those cars wouldn't be orders of magnitude worse than crypto mining?
The data I have heard reported several times, with references that check out is that if all the vehicles were switched to electric overnight, the load on the grid would increase 20% in total, but since most cars charge at night, it wouldn't result in a 20% increase in generation capacity since the base load plants would handle it at night and thus the total use efficiency would improve.
But the cars are not going to turn electric overnight. The grid has plenty of time to adapt. They should be delighted for the additional custom.
Re: (Score:3)
No you weren't. But surely you can support this interesting claim with a few links to supposed sources.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the grid is also transitioning to having much more variable supply which drops considerably overnight (hello solar).
1. America is installing way more wind than solar. Wind is about half the cost. The wind blows at night.
2. EVs mesh well with variable supply because they can adapt to the availability of power, pausing charging during troughs and ramping up the charge rate during peaks.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I figure a BEV truck could do everything quite well and even better than my Dodge except when I go on a road trip with the horse trailer, or any other heavy haul; that doesn't compute at all even in the summer. Winter would just compound the problem.
Batteries have to have more capacity and charging has to be much faster, plus the refueling network has to be ubiquitous.
I just don't see working BEV light trucks as a viable choice at this point.
Charging time makes BEV construction equipment is a no go a
Re: (Score:2)
It seems like pure delusion to think modern-gen EVs are anything but fun vehicles for in-city driving, where you go back home and charge them overnight.
That's exactly what they're good for. Most driving is people going to work and back, if you convert all the daily commuters to EV it would significantly reduce demand for gas, save people money on daily fuel costs (although not so much on the purchase costs depending on the age of their existing car) and improve air quality around cities.
For thoe who want to take occasional longer trips, it's possible to have two cars or rent one for your trip etc.
Re:Government shouldn't fund "free" electricity (Score:5, Informative)
Who said the government is funding free electricity? It says right in the fucking story that a private business can't have a charger for customer use.
Party of small government indeed.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it just EV owners you object to or are you against money or tax breaks the government would give to any select group?
Re:Government shouldn't fund "free" electricity (Score:5, Interesting)
The government shouldn't be using taxpayer dollars to give out free energy to EV owners. Or if they do, then they need to give out free energy (in the form of fuel) to all vehicle operators.
Gasoline is already heavily subsidized, including through foreign policy and paying for all of the externalities.
Re:So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:5, Informative)
They aren't if you read the story. The bill places a heavy burden on the business to show on your receipt how much the charger cost during your visit. I guess you'd also like to know how much water you cost the establishment when you took a piss or how much gas was used to cook a potato.
Re:So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, the proposal is about a single page long, 22 lines of changes, it isn't hard to read. Force everyone to disclose their cost whether they use it or not, and force both counties and cities to give free gas and diesel at no charge.
It seems like a case of "If I cannot use it, nobody can!" The mentality seems to be that if a specific amenity isn't used by everyone, it should be removed. If I have no dogs then dog parks are a waste of money and should be removed. If I don't ride a bike then bike lanes are a waste of road space and should be removed. If I don't use running trails then they're a waste of money and should be removed.
The proposal seems to forget the entire purpose of public amenities. Only some people use them but a lot of people benefit.
Re:So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the proposal is about a single page long, 22 lines of changes, it isn't hard to read. Force everyone to disclose their cost whether they use it or not, and force both counties and cities to give free gas and diesel at no charge.
It seems like a case of "If I cannot use it, nobody can!" The mentality seems to be that if a specific amenity isn't used by everyone, it should be removed. If I have no dogs then dog parks are a waste of money and should be removed. If I don't ride a bike then bike lanes are a waste of road space and should be removed. If I don't use running trails then they're a waste of money and should be removed.
There's a solution for that. Get women legislators to propose that if they can't use the men's room, it should be removed from the capitol building. Maybe that would force politicians to stop and think for at least a minute or two before they come up with bonkers legislation like this.
Re: Move to Commiefornia, whining fudgepacker! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sick, why should I fund hospitals?
Oh wait, this is the USA. Carry on, I guess.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, no, it doesn't work like that.
But electricicy isn't free either. Someone has to foot the bill. ... an unfair financial advantage to those already enjoying an elite lifestyle.
The costs are nowhere near as extreme as being presented. The costs of electricity are not "an elite lifestyle", topping off an EV at a park will be around ten to twenty cents. Even a full charge -- which takes about 10 hours on a standard power charger -- is between ten to fifteen dollars total depending on local electricity costs. For top-off charges they usually don't process payments because it costs more money to bill the transaction than it does for the electricity
Re: (Score:3)
This is a stupid proposal, but it has one sponsor, little chance of even making it to the floor of the legislature, and no chance of passing into law.
It would be meaningless anyway. I have an EV and haven't seen a free charger in years. Charging networks such as "Blink" and "ChargePoint" have replaced them, and they aren't free.
Re: (Score:2)
Hillsboro, Oregon, right on Main st next to the government building there is a small row of "free" electric chargers. When I moved nearby but had not yet installed my home charger, I went there for the sweet sweet free charging. I had to wave my chargepoint card to get it to charge, which I thought was a little suspect. Then when I looked at the log, I found the electric was indeed free, but a charge had been added for parking, roughly $0.13 per KWh, which was completely unmarked at the charger.
I think that
Re:So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:4, Funny)
but I certainly can't be bothered to fight over $1.80
You think $1.80 is bad? Chevron charges me $75 for 5 minutes of parking in front of their pumps.
Re: (Score:3)
Gas pumps have decades of economy of scale attached to them.
Charge points aren't quite there yet.
Both devices need to be ruggedized to some extent to allow for people's stupidity. Charge points need to be designed to prevent people from inadvertently touching a hot wire. And we're still figuring out the best way to do that.
All of that is expensive.
Re:So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:5, Informative)
Charge points need to be designed to prevent people from inadvertently touching a hot wire.
The chargers don't work that way.
They have sensors that detect when they are plugged in and recognize the car. If they are not plugged into a recognized car, no power is available and there is no "hot" wire.
Re: (Score:2)
You're not comparing accurately. A gas station pump isn't a standalone cost, whereas a charger is. In other words, a charger can operate with nothing else by way of infrastructure, but a gas station pump needs the gas station, including the storage tanks etc. The capex costs in the UK for a gas station are about £2m.
Re: (Score:2)
The $0.13/kwh at your "free" charger is more than I pay at non-free chargers.
I pay $0.07 for off-peak nighttime charging in my own garage.
Re: (Score:2)
This still doesn't solve the problem of my Nissan Leaf's 66 mile range on a charge.
If the 66-mile range doesn't fit your needs, why did you buy it?
66 miles is ok for a HEV, but for a BEV? No way.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: So, have the municipality lease operation? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's 60mpg US. https://www.encycarpedia.com/a... [encycarpedia.com] says 40mpg US. So 60mpg is quite an achievement. Stated range is 716 miles.
25mph is not a realistic average speed for most purposes. If you tried to go 25mph in a BEV on a highway there would be plenty of time to charge it up whilst talking to the police about why you were doing that.
Re: (Score:2)
If you get to park easily in a busy area, in some circumstances I'd say $1.80 is a deal. :-) (But -- obviously if you're paying more than your own electricity costs, this would be bad for long term continual usage.)
Re: (Score:2)
The parking cost was roughly equal to the residential electric cost $0.13/KWh. There are really only 3 spots, which are usually full since the chargers were a typical token effort, rather than a serious attempt to make on-street charging widely available.
Re: (Score:2)
"Here is your 22 cents worth of gas." (Assuming 1 hour of charging (1 hour of eating at a restaurant), $0.11/kwh, and a low current level 2 charger.)
This would be about half a cup of gas in most areas. (Assuming $5/gal of gas.)
Uhhhh.. In a typical gas car (assuming 28mpg), this would get you around 1.5 miles.. Soooo.. you really want all that hassle for so little gas? LOL.
Re: (Score:2)
That might backfire, though, because a lot of the free chargers I've seen are "free" because they're ad supported.
You've run electricity out to your parking lot already, you've got a bunch of electronics to support the charger, why not throw in a large TV and run constant video ads?
The municipal ones, at least around here, all cost $0.30-$0.50/kWh to use. Yes, some charge $0.50/kWh. Seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason they're not 98% similar with your own utility billing cost is that commercial EVSEs somehow cost $11k. (And more if some light construction costs are required.) They are trying to reimburse for some huge costs they had to put out. This is why some hotels just install home chargers (that cost 10x less) and then just say the access to them is restricted to hotel guests only.
Re: (Score:2)
Just have a separate ownership of the parking lot and the business. Surrounding businesses rents the parking lot for a fixed fee and you are able to create such a maze of headache that lawyers just would cost to much to put a wedge into it.
The parking lot owner is then free to fine anyone parking a fossil fuel vehicle on the charger places and cover the costs from that.
Re: (Score:2)
They should print on the receipt...
% of price due to free charging: 0.1% ($xx.yy)
% of added price increase due to Ben Moss' House Bill 1049: 3% ($yy.zz)
Re: (Score:2)
Also they need:
Here is the address of Ben Moss to sent complaints: ...
___ Check here if you'd like to round up your bill to the next dollar and we'll use it for the "throw eggs at Ben Moss's house" fund.
Re: (Score:3)
There is one point I can find common ground with the Republican on this one: State government money shouldn't go toward free public charging. So you could say don't build more, but what about the existing ones? Well pissing away even more money to purge them seems to be more spite than productive. Start having it cost money (like a toll road) or figure out a private company to take them over and have that company get revenue.
A mixed bag is his proposal further *prevents* city governments from doing it. On
Re: (Score:2)
What about free parking? It's not actually "free" you know, it costs money to allocate the land, money to paint the lines, and if they put in expensive parking meters it would generate revenue. Who cares if it attracts business which would indirectly create tax revenue, it stills sounds like a commie plot!
Re:They have a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is paying for those charging stations electriciy and more importantly maintenance. Did you say the tax payers ? Here is your fall out.. Less than 1% of US drivers drive electric cars. Baiscally you are collecting money from 99% of the population and giving it free to the remaining 1%. Does it sound like a fair exchange to you ? To me, it doesn't.
First, an EV charger usually requires approximately no maintenance if it isn't being used.
Second, the main reason that fewer than 1% of U.S. drivers drive electric cars is because there is inadequate access to charging infrastructure. In states where charging infrastructure is more readily available, far more drivers drive EVs. Last year in California, for example, 12.59% of all new car registrations were either EVs or plug-in hybrids, with about 6.5% coming from Tesla alone. And that number is growing quickly.
Third, public charging is SLOW. Nobody can realistically get by using public chargers, both because there are orders of magnitude too few of them, and they take too long to charge your car. Realistically, the only use they're likely to get is for an emergency charge when someone can't make it to a DC fast charger, or for employees who are there all day. And frankly, city employees don't get paid very well, and often need all the help they can get, so this proposed bill is a seriously d**k move.
In california, every hour my car is charging, on a public charging station, it is costing me more than even the Biden gas prices to fill it up, mile-per-mile basis.
You're full of s**t. You're probably costing somebody on the order of 30 cents per kWh, which for a Model 3 would be 6.81 cents per mile. The average price of gasoline in California today is $6.14. Even a Prius costs 10.6 cents per mile at those prices.
Re:They have a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine we were talking about building a swimming pool, but the city built the swimming pool so far out of town that only people that had private transportation could use it (there are no city busses that go there in my hypothetical), would you be cool with that?
Since that's the situation 80 to 90% of Americans find themselves in with regard to getting pretty much anywhere, it wouldn't seem to matter whether we're "cool with it" or not.
As for the imaginary free gas stations, you seem to forget that billions if not trillions of tax dollars have gone into building and maintaining roads and right of way suitable for IC vehicles. (Ever stop to consider just how much land area all our roads and accompanying infrastructure occupy? I'm willing to bet it's not a small number.) That's been going on since at least the 1940s. Not to mention all the tax breaks and other incentives handed out to automobile manufacturers and petroleum companies over that same span.
Re:They have a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Less than 1% of US drivers drive electric cars. Baiscally you are collecting money from 99% of the population and giving it free to the remaining 1%. Does it sound like a fair exchange to you ?
Two issues with that.
First, relevance of the statistic. Why does it matter what percentage use it? What percent of people use public libraries, should we close them if you don't read there if others benefit? What percent of people use dog parks, should we close them if you don't personally have a dog but others do? What percent of people use running trails, should we close them if you don't personally run but others do? What percent of people use public transportation, should we close them if you don't personally ride? What percent of people use public drinking fountains, should we close them if you don't personally drink? These aren't a case of a percentage of society dictating the benefit or not, it's a matter of if the people feel that the public benefit is worth the public cost. No matter the amenity, be the amenity an electrical outlet, a dog park, a running trail, a public library, or anything else, even if only 0.01% of the people use it then the people in the community can decide if they want to pay for it. If the people of the community think it isn't worth it, then they can stop.
Second, location of control. The bigger problem here is that you've got a bigger government forbidding a local government from making choices. The law forbids cities and counties from making the decision on their own, and mandates that the bigger government controls what the local people want. It declares that the state knows better than either cities or counties, and forbids them from making local choices. It also forbids private businesses from deciding what amenities to offer to their customers, they are forced to break out the costs of an amenity but aren't forced to break out costs of things like their bathrooms few customers use, drinking fountains few customers may use, the cost of patio seating only some customers may use, and so on. By removing control they reduce freedom for both individuals and for local governments to manage themselves.
Re: (Score:3)
The short version: "Freedom for those who choose as we would have them do."
Re:They have a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Less than 1% of US drivers drive electric cars.
The idea is to make that number bigger. That's what government incentive programs do. They are *incentives*.
Also:
Trump legacy gas prices
FTFY. Biden may be pretty shitty, but I don't remember him spending 4 years pushing the world into China's waiting arms, weakening NATO, and stoking world war - but then again I don't keep up with the alternative facts.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm pretty sure that you meant "Trump gas prices", since those are where they're at now precisely because Trump's rhetoric and his attempts to undermine European unity convinced Putin he could get away with a quick grab of Ukraine.
Re: (Score:2)
First, someone please un-mod the 'troll' label on Nomad63's comment. I disagree with his opinion, but he has stated it clearly and this is a place for conversation including different viewpoints. We face many levels of dysfunction in our society, and one of the easier to fix is to convince rationally oriented people that we have to stop the viewpoint discrimination and cancel culture that has become far too normal.
Second, Nomad63 needs to study a little bit of economics and quantify the size of the sub