752 miles in a Tesla S
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enordy
Member
Turbobricks! I had 4, stopped with the '99 model year. Ford and whatnot.....
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
Same here. Dad had seen a lot of (air force pilot bravoure) friends kill themselves. So when babies arrived, he bought what (he believed) was then the most safe car. I remember him showing me the beams in the doors... Built like a tank.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Is not the majority of demand to be created by EV charging to occur in overnight or off-peak hours, anyway? Could not smart charging options delay charging until grid usage is at its overnight minima, to help increase load stability of the grid? By increasing base load, increasing the fraction of generation from sources that cannot be easily throttled on an hours time scale becomes more feasible, eg. nuclear.
I'm not going to waste my time poking thru Google results to find the data on this, but I'd bet hard cash that the fraction of global population seeing normal winter daily lows of -45C is damn near 0%. There are bound to be situations were EV's are not the best solution, but if the numbers are small...
The bigger problem for those living and working in situations where a new technology dominates, but is not accessible or practical for their use, is the reduced availability and increased cost of staying with the old tech. Put otherwise, when mainstream auto manufacturers stop all development of ICE's, what are you going to drive? There will be options, but they won't benefit from the present economy of scale.
The nice thing with EVs is other countries are acting as guinea pigs, Norway has gone big time into EVs and at some point will ban fossil fueled cars. They have similar temperature extremes. They also are sitting on a lot of pumped storage hydro. My Rav4 Prime will not run under -21 F (-29C) unless it is plugged in to keep a couple electric strip heaters running to keep the battery warm and the range suffers which means a bit more gas is used to run the engine.
Storage is basically no longer a technical issue it's an economic one, surcharge renewable that has no storage or incentivize storage and the storage will get installed. The Energy Vault gravity based storage towers use readily available materials and can be made in North America. Iron Air batteries and zinc based chemistries are soon to deploy. Add in real time demand pricing and the tech is there but not the will.
Begin Rant, the long term answers are there but there is a large portion of the population and in congress whose philosophy is take the money and run, they could care less what happens down the line to their descendants when they are in the grave. Throw in the religious folks who figure judgement day is right around the block (like it has been for centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events) so they do not have to worry and they add up to be enough to split a divided electorate. Every indication is any progress on climate is going to get thrown out at the midterms when the US goes conservative again.
Storage is basically no longer a technical issue it's an economic one, surcharge renewable that has no storage or incentivize storage and the storage will get installed. The Energy Vault gravity based storage towers use readily available materials and can be made in North America. Iron Air batteries and zinc based chemistries are soon to deploy. Add in real time demand pricing and the tech is there but not the will.
Begin Rant, the long term answers are there but there is a large portion of the population and in congress whose philosophy is take the money and run, they could care less what happens down the line to their descendants when they are in the grave. Throw in the religious folks who figure judgement day is right around the block (like it has been for centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events) so they do not have to worry and they add up to be enough to split a divided electorate. Every indication is any progress on climate is going to get thrown out at the midterms when the US goes conservative again.
Most EVs (if not all) have an option for delayed charging for this reason. On our car it's manually set by the owner to match evening reduced electric rates.
IMO Toyota is blowing it on delayed charging. Their ap can do that and lot of other things but its free only for a limited duration (first year) after that if you want delayed charging you pay the monthly fee for connected services or buy a more expensive smart EVSE in the garage with a brain to do the work. I have an ancient X-10 system in my house so all I need to do plug in my cord to an X-10 240 volt module and I can program it through the X-10. I am on a straight rate so no incentive to do so.
We had a phone call at work with a major engineering firm that does large office and lab buildings, they are in quandary that the biggest electrical load in the new buildings will be the potential EV charging load. The owners want full charging capability at every parking space and if every employee, plugs in when they get to work the electrical demand is huge far larger than the rest of the building. They will need to put in a much larger electrical system to deal with it and the owner is looking at setting very high electrical demand rates. With loads in the building they can get tricky and put in load demand for large loads by staging stops and starts but the EV charging it is out of their control. This EV load is generally on peak load, the exact opposite of what the grid needs. If the employee can charge up at work for "free" during the day what is in it for the employee to burn up their own KWhrs at home at night to charge up? If the owner puts a billing system for their employees for charging, they look like cheapskates and if its a competitive industry its a disincentive to the employees who may decide to go elsewhere.
We had a phone call at work with a major engineering firm that does large office and lab buildings, they are in quandary that the biggest electrical load in the new buildings will be the potential EV charging load. The owners want full charging capability at every parking space and if every employee, plugs in when they get to work the electrical demand is huge far larger than the rest of the building. They will need to put in a much larger electrical system to deal with it and the owner is looking at setting very high electrical demand rates. With loads in the building they can get tricky and put in load demand for large loads by staging stops and starts but the EV charging it is out of their control. This EV load is generally on peak load, the exact opposite of what the grid needs. If the employee can charge up at work for "free" during the day what is in it for the employee to burn up their own KWhrs at home at night to charge up? If the owner puts a billing system for their employees for charging, they look like cheapskates and if its a competitive industry its a disincentive to the employees who may decide to go elsewhere.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
Use solar covered parking; production peaks during charging peaks.
Upfront investment (solar vs system to handle big loads) may be similar?
Upfront investment (solar vs system to handle big loads) may be similar?
Solar powered parking doesnt have a great rep in the northeast. Snow loads and where the water goes after thawing is big issue. I know of one large installation that was locked out for a couple of years due to failure to get a handle on both. It was third party install so the hosital was holding the output hostage until the icing issues were dealt with. I have looked at it for two clients and its very pricey. Plus a lot of urban sites have shading issues so hours of actual daylight is short especially in winter with low sun angles.
One of my projects was in a urban hospital setting with 2 six story garages, one for employees and one for the patients and visitors plus overflow of staff. No way is a roof mounted array going to make much of a dent in 6 story parking garages. Sure a suburban campus type facility would be better suited but in urban areas its problematical.
One of my projects was in a urban hospital setting with 2 six story garages, one for employees and one for the patients and visitors plus overflow of staff. No way is a roof mounted array going to make much of a dent in 6 story parking garages. Sure a suburban campus type facility would be better suited but in urban areas its problematical.
What a different world some of us live in, most employers around here won't install a standard 15 amp plug so their employees can run their block heater in the winter, nevermind a charger for an EV.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
As an employee of a state university I have to pay 250$ a year for a parking permit free charging at work is benefit that I could only dream of and I have a PhD. If the company really sees that as essential to be competitive they will need to pony up the cash and make that investment. Personally is seems excessive and with range of EVs increasing like the OP’s article stated I see wool charging as unnecessary. Really they can’t replace this benefit with extra salary?
I’m not dismissing the magnitude of the problem, it just seems that it’s a problem they are choosing to tackle. Just just give a 2-4$ a day bonus for driving an EV to work. License plate scanner at the parking entrance. Done……
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
The water is nonsense; there is not more hard surface with solar panels as compared to blacktop.
In fact, one can keep more water off the black top (less drains).
Snow is understandable. Not unsolvable though imo. Urban issues I don't know much about - avoid urban areas like the plague
At the hospital site, the water ran down the panels and dripped off the lower edge forming icicles and ice patches. They tried to patch it with gutters on the lower ends but they iced up due to inadequate slope. The gutters dumped out on the ground and then still caused ice patches. No doubt if the area was paved and sloped correctly it may have been different, but they just installed foundations for the panels on an existing parking lot. When I was looking at another site a few years later, we were told to install an extensive underground drainage system in the lot to deal with icing issues associated with the panels. Its a lot easier to plow a open lot and let the sun melt it off eventually but once its covered with panels ice is apprently a lot more of an issue. Snow inevitably blows in under the panels and snow removal apparently is a lot more difficult. At the first site they had to redo all the inverters and conduit as the location required by code was right in line with plow blades.
I am not saying it cannot be done, its just a lot more expensive.
I am not saying it cannot be done, its just a lot more expensive.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
Sure, but the larger electric system you started with is also a lot more expensive. And "the slope was wrong" is a rather poor argument regarding price. It's a fantastic argument for better thinking before designing ...
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I said this more than two years ago, I think, but this is a market sector ripe for the picking. Someone should be implementing a management system between utility and EV end users, to smartly manage this massive un-tapped storage resource. Elon should be all over this one, in fact I'd be amazed if he is not. Is not storage still a primary obstacle to increased nuclear, hydro, and wind generation?
Someday we'll have to explain to our grandkids that we once thought driving across town to fuel our vehicle at a service station was more convenient than just plugging it in when we got home at night, like we already do with our smart phones. Yeah... it already sounds crazy.
Smart charging and resource sharing are being explored closely by many electric utilities. I don't know where we will see it first, Asia, Europe, or here, but it is definitely being looked at. The transition is not a trivial matter but possible. I believe ABB and Hitachi are working on the technology necessary and companies like Honda and Toyota have research projects. Using one's car to power the grid also brings up socio-economic issues that need to be resolved. It's not a trivial change, but seems inevitable.
cleantechnica.com
climatenexus.org
Excuse Me, Can I Use Your Car To Stabilize & Power The Grid? - CleanTechnica
Vehicle to Grid for more information on the REVs project which is being implemented across 11 Australian Capital Territory Government sites across Canberra.
cleantechnica.com
Electric Car and Truck Charging, Explained
Electric car and truck charging, explained. How often do electric cars and trucks need to be charged? Where can I charge? And more!
climatenexus.org
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
New Ford F-150 EV does allow to power home but you need their 80amp charger which requires 320 amp service.
Can you elaborate on this? I have 100amp service currently and could likely get 200amp, but I don't see how I'd easily get 400amp service.
DBoon
Minister of Fire
I'd love to think that electric utilities will pay me a fair price to utilize my car battery for grid needs when there are times of peak demand, but I really doubt that this will happen in the next twenty years. My local utility still sends a meter reader to physically read my meter every two months, and I'm not sure that there are any utilities who really do true time-of-use billing to the 15 minute increment that would make it helpful for a consumer (such as me) to recognize times of peak load and either shed load or provide supply, based on some price signal from the utility and some type of smart device. Does any electric utility have the capability to do this in the next 20 years?
We haven't had a meter reader for the past 15 yrs. in our rural area. It's all radioed back to some head office. Our house has been set up for net metering for the past 12 yrs. It would seem to be a relatively straight-forward task to determine peak load metering. I think this is already done in some states like California.
One thing that would be necessary with a vehicle backup interface is for it to instantly disconnect the main service in the event of a power failure to avoid backfeeding the system in the event of a downed wire or line work being done.
One thing that would be necessary with a vehicle backup interface is for it to instantly disconnect the main service in the event of a power failure to avoid backfeeding the system in the event of a downed wire or line work being done.
Solarguy3500
Feeling the Heat
MA has a program for home backup batteries already. Gotta think it's only a matter of time before they start doing it for EV batteries too. The numbers they advertise on the website for what you can earn tend to be optimistic because they assume a best case scenario contribution from your battery over the whole season, and don't take into account that some battery manufacturers take a cut of the revenue. Example: Tesla takes 20%
Battery Storage | Mass Save
Earn incentives and lower carbon emissions by enrolling a battery storage system in ConnectedSolutions.
www.masssave.com
Ashful
Minister of Fire
The non-trivial issues would appear more political and sociological than technical, but let's also not assume that electrons need to float both directions to make something of this. Simply managing the timeframe in which the car takes charge from the grid could provide enormous benefit to utilities, without any need to use the batteries as a power source during peak demand.
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