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Why can't most people slow charge EVs at night while they sleep? Seems like an easy choice that won't lead to any problems for the user or the provider of power.
 
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Most people don't even have a basic understanding of how the electrical grid works.

It's quite a common problem here, so many people argue against the adoption of EV's citing "the grid" or "the grid can't support it" as the reason. When questioned why "the grid" is an issue they can't give a more detailed explanation, because they are simply headline readers on Facebook and have formed their entire opinion based on the headline of a biased article that was created by some content provider simply to sell ad-space.
 
Why can't most people slow charge EVs at night while they sleep? Seems like an easy choice that won't lead to any problems for the user or the provider of power.

Common sense is a rare commodity. ;). Adding an economic incentive to reduce their peak loads and do load shifting may get some folks over the fairly "low fence" but many people assume that power from the grid is not anything until its gone. Talk to any rural person who has to run off a generator for a few days and they will be very much aware of load shifting and peak loads.
 
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Common sense is a rare commodity. ;). Adding an economic incentive to reduce their peak loads and do load shifting may get some folks over the fairly "low fence" but many people assume that power from the grid is not anything until its gone. Talk to any rural person who has to run off a generator for a few days and they will be very much aware of load shifting and peak loads.
Frugality and commonsense used to be national virtues. Now it is all about entitlement and what's in it for me.
 
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The ME ME ME generation
 
The ME ME ME generation
Seems to be more than that. This spans generations from boomers to millennials. It's more of a national mindset that has been developing for many decades.
 
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that's right if one house has something the next couple of houses has to have the same thing even tho they don't really need it.
solar is good till we need power and we are having 4 straight day of rain. wind is better except it's mechanical. we have a few wind machines in boston but they who run them choose to not run them for quite a few days if not weeks in a row then it might run for a day or two. doesn't make sense to spend the money to put up a wind machine and not run it. if we all had battery's for storage it would be a great option to have for those night or cloudy day when the solar is not making much. when i put up my solar thru a company the power company would not allow a battery installation. that was six years ago.
 
Mass will gladly have you install a battery these days as long as the capacity can be borrowed on occasion which requires a UL 1741 SA inverter and an intermediate company like Tesla to send signals to your inverter to dispatch the power when needed. Right now I think Solar Edge and Tesla are the only firms supporting this dispatch. If you have the right setup you can basically get a battery for free. Yes the rule change typically every few years the Mass DOER changes the rules to reflect new technology and changing goals.

The wind turbines you see in urban Mass are PR devices more than viable generators. Towers need to go where the wind is and in most cases thats at high elevations or off shore. The company I used to work that built 100 KW turbines had an option to turn the blades slowly with power from the grid if there was no wind.
 
We might be getting an EV. Been doing the charging math. I think I could get by with a 20 amp 120v slow charger. Except for those times when we come home late from longer day trip and want to leave the next morning on the normal routine and can’t charge until we get home from work. Couple times a year. Could just plan lunch near a fast charging station.
now how often Is your gas gauge always clear full? I think once you get used to it you won’t need your EV battery always topped clear off. I figure we drive 100-150 miles in an average week. That’s a full charge every week or two.


Just like we have a “smart” shut off on the HVAC unit controlled by the utility company we will have those on the chargers as well in the future. I get a 25$ annual credit for my participation.

I probably will go with a larger 220v charging circuit. Pulling all the wire once just seems like the best future proofing decision.
Electrical demand will increase and with that there will be opportunities to generate more revenue.
Evan
 
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FYI, there are no standards for EV chargers that I can figure. My plug in Toyota came with 120 VAC charger that puts out 8 AMPs and that is all the car can take for 120VAC, I can switch it to 16 AMPs 240 volts. If I want or need to charge faster I need to buy a $5000 option that puts in all sorts of goodies. The folks with Tesla's who are working on project with me seem to a have 150 miles range point. They are in CT and work along the I95 corridor lots of charging options. I on the other hand have few if any options in a rural area. My guess is charging will be free initially but surge pricing is on the horizon for charging.

I was on the phone the other day with a firm that does a lot of commercial buildings and EV charging is giving them fits. It turns out that the building electric load is minimal compared to the possible EV charging load if everyone plugs in at the same time when they drive into work. To make it practical there has to be some load management of the chargers or the wiring and support equipment gets vastly oversized.
 
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I was on the phone the other day with a firm that does a lot of commercial buildings and EV charging is giving them fits. It turns out that the building electric load is minimal compared to the possible EV charging load if everyone plugs in at the same time when they drive into work. To make it practical there has to be some load management of the chargers or the wiring and support equipment gets vastly oversized.
That's cause every Facilities Manager wants the 240v 50amp charging circuit, times 5 parking spaces, because every FM knows bigger is better. Most employees could do quite well with a 240v 16amp EVSE. Connected for 7 hours, that's about 23kwh into the car battery assuming 85% efficiency. At 3 miles per kw (most little EVs do better), you won't need to charge at home.
My company's building (I work there, I don't own it) is supplied 120/208 3-phase in the utility room, so it's really limited. But we got 3 parking spaces with 16amp level-2 Clipper Creek EVSE's happily running at 208v. The plan is to add 3 more spaces in the Fall.
What kind of miles are you getting for each kw into the battery?
 
We have the opposite problem, the welding shop I work at has a three phase 480 volt 400 amp feed, we have 120kw in welding machines and this week are commissioning an automated rotary pipe cutter/plasma table combo with a 300 amp power source that pulls 66.5kw at full output, and we still have lots of power to spare. Management however will never allow EV charging, stating that they won't pay to power employees vehicles in the same way they don't buy us gas/diesel. I'm sure glad they haven't figured out how much power us employees draw for the 3 months of winter when we keep our vehicle block heaters plugged in...
 
That's cause every Facilities Manager wants the 240v 50amp charging circuit, times 5 parking spaces, because every FM knows bigger is better. Most employees could do quite well with a 240v 16amp EVSE. Connected for 7 hours, that's about 23kwh into the car battery assuming 85% efficiency. At 3 miles per kw (most little EVs do better), you won't need to charge at home.
My company's building (I work there, I don't own it) is supplied 120/208 3-phase in the utility room, so it's really limited. But we got 3 parking spaces with 16amp level-2 Clipper Creek EVSE's happily running at 208v. The plan is to add 3 more spaces in the Fall.
What kind of miles are you getting for each kw into the battery?
Around 3 miles per KW . If I do lot of local driving in the 40 to 50 MPH range it goes up to 3.1. Some folks claim 3.3. Its very outdoor temp related, the battery is kept within a temperature range with either heat or cooling from the HVAC system.
 
The Volt gen2 will take either 8 or 12 amps from 120vac. We run ours on a 20a Clipper Creek, but the car only takes 16a on 240vac. On average we are getting about 4.3 miles/kW with the car, driving on local roads, under 50mph.
 
So who owns an electric car that thinks it’s fair to use the roads for free?? Fuel taxes help keep the roads in fair condition.
How is a charge at work not being paid for by the employer or Owner of the space?
 
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Its all carrot and stick. Society wants to shift to EVs so the "carrot" is to make EV more affordable to overcome perceived and current limitations. The stick would be to slowly drive up the cost for ICE vehicles but letting prices drift up enriching foreign producers or adding taxes and enriching governments. Use some portion of the taxes on fossil to cover the extra EV costs and eventually switch to pay per mile for all users including EV. Private businesses will get tax write offs for EV costs shifting it to overall society.
 
Pay per mile burns people that live on state borders and work in the adjacent state. And unless the funds trickle down to the county or town level, state collected EV taxes don't help local town and county roads which may be 90% of all that the EV is driven on.
 
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the only fare way i see it is pay per mile. so if you put 5000 miles on a car like i do it's so much and for 10,000 double. i get hit twice but still pay how ever miles i drive. i don't have a problem paying a little bit more if the roads are ok but that subject is a whole other ball of wax.
 
and to keep with oil prices if they go up so do the roads
 
EV's are not damaging roads, big over the road trucks tear up roads, along with plows and other winter stuff.
 
Pay per mile burns people that live on state borders and work in the adjacent state.


Why is that? Pay per mile deals with distance, not state lines in my understanding?
 
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I think the issue is which state gets the revenue. An example is many folks live on the NH border but commute to Mass due to lower overall NH taxes. So they are putting wear and tear on Mass roads yet NH would most likely collect the pay per mile fee as most pay per mile schemes are tied to recording the data during annual inspections. It also may be tricky if one state puts in pay per mile and one does not. Not all state require annual inspections so how would the data be recorded? Oregon is looking at it and Illinois reportedly do it with trucks but I havent looked up any details.

Folks are getting pay per mile car insurance usually combined with nanny software that detects unusual vehicle operation like aggressive acceleration, hard braking or operation over the speed limit. That effectively allows the insurance company to pick low risk drivers who are more profitable. They usually get the data from a plug in device on the OBD port. Many new cars now have cell phone transmitters in them that communicate to the manufacturer so it would not be hard to piggyback mileage data to a state via the manufacturer.

Of course pay per mile hits the folks in rural areas far worse than in urban areas so its another regressive tax.
 
I think the issue is which state gets the revenue. An example is many folks live on the NH border but commute to Mass due to lower overall NH taxes. So they are putting wear and tear on Mass roads yet NH would most likely collect the pay per mile fee as most pay per mile schemes are tied to recording the data during annual inspections. It also may be tricky if one state puts in pay per mile and one does not. Not all state require annual inspections so how would the data be recorded? Oregon is looking at it and Illinois reportedly do it with trucks but I havent looked up any details.

Folks are getting pay per mile car insurance usually combined with nanny software that detects unusual vehicle operation like aggressive acceleration, hard braking or operation over the speed limit. That effectively allows the insurance company to pick low risk drivers who are more profitable. They usually get the data from a plug in device on the OBD port. Many new cars now have cell phone transmitters in them that communicate to the manufacturer so it would not be hard to piggyback mileage data to a state via the manufacturer.

Of course pay per mile hits the folks in rural areas far worse than in urban areas so its another regressive tax.

So it burns the people living on a border not directly but only in second order, because it burns the state (not getting paid for miles driven there) and the state has less to spend "on the amenities for their people".

Yes, rural gets hit - but for their higher use of (road) amenities. Turns out there is a cost (too) for living away from the burbs.
 
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EV's are not damaging roads, big over the road trucks tear up roads, along with plows and other winter stuff.

Road signage, line painting, extra lanes for increased traffic, access roads to shopping centers, subdivisions etc are all directly related to the amount of vehicles on the road regardless of fuel type. Take all the passenger vehicles off the roads and the infrastructure required to just support transport trucks would be significantly smaller than it is today, there is a cost associated with passenger vehicles.

EV owners need to pay for the roads they operate on, and I suspect most jurisdictions will enact road use taxes on EVs in the coming years.
 
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