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YSNIP The latest Tesla Superchargers can give a half charge (100 miles) in 20 minutes.
All the the other car makers are going to use the Tesla system? Really?
That's a logical fallacy called Ad Ignoratiam, and you use it a lot. The basis of your argument is that if you don't know about it, it must not be true. But you could save yourself a little embarrassment in the future if you'd stop and do a quick check on the internet to educate yourself a little before firing off with such misinformed pronouncements.
Again, you misunderstand. I get the technologies you refer to. What you don't get is that they aren't ready for prime time and won't be for decades or the time horizon to move away from gasoline.
The first time I encountered a production car with a solar panel roof was a couple of years ago, on a Daimler Car2Go car rental, which model I've since driven in several cities. Here's a photo of one:
How much does that Mercedes cost and where can people of average means buy one? There are pictures of solar this and that all over. Now go find 10-20k of them ready for sale and operation.
Today solar PV roof panels are available as an option on a number of cars, not to mention the smaller solar panels used in other cars to boost AC power or run electronics, the way the Lexus 8 does. None are anywhere near having the capacity to power a car yet, as I clearly said before, but this field is all about incremental improvements, as I also said before. Every little bit helps.
I can put a solar panel on the roof of my car tomorrow to power the radio and trickle charge the battery. So what?
The big problem with incremental improvements is that you simply can't accept the scale of the car industry and incremental improvements when talking about a radical change in the engine or motor doesn't work. You can refine what exists and works on a large scale and do so incrementally but you can't change the entire basis for what gets the car from point A to B on an incremental basis. You need either a bridge technology or an ability to convert the enormous existing value in cars to a new or alternative technology and that means fuel, not storage batteries.
Doesn't that parking garage get in the way of the solar panel on the roof? I think it would.
You're not even trying to understand, are you? Keep in mind that the average EV owner won't need to use an outside charger for their daily commute or for their run for weekly chores. This is "extra."
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Does your employer offer the charging for free? If so, that is an employee benefit and will become a taxable event, just like per diem and other benefits. As soon as it gets popular, employee benefits for charging electric cars will be taxable. Then what? Can they provide you with free gasoline and not declare they gave you a monetary equivalent benefit? Not a chance.
So far it is treated just like a company cafeteria... you can use it or not, it is not a taxable benefit, but it is a deductible expense for the company. Same thing as plugging your cell phone charger into the outlet in your cubicle, just scaled up. I don't see that changing.
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Okay, now onto the charging stations. How long does it take for a car to charge in one of those charging stations? Lets take the Chevy volt or Nissan Leaf. A hour with the 220 charger, 2, 3? Lets say 3 so as not to get to wound up here. You park your car and go to work. Your car is charged up and now you do what, leave the meeting to move your car so that someone else can get a charge?
So far it's not an issue. You charge all morning, go out for lunch, come back and another car is in the spot, no hay problema. Or you park all day, find another space the next day. Remember, you normally don't NEED to charge your car, it's just an extra.
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You really have no understanding of what scaling up means.
You really have no idea how big a mistake you make every time you say I have no understanding. Really, just give it up.
And I'm clear that you cannot understand what is currently happening (present tense) to scale up EV use, as long as you look this from inside a gas engine paradigm. Relax, EVs are breaking the mold in significant ways. It's a whole new deal.
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Do you think cars in general would have ever taken off as a means of transportation if the demand of car owners was used to scale up the availability of fueling stations? Not a chance.
As a matter of fact, that's exactly what happened. In the early days, traveling outside a limited area required a lot of logistical planning, and they had to do it all without smart phones! What, did you think that somehow gasoline stations just magically appeared across the landscape like fairy mushrooms as soon as the first motor cars appeared? Oh, and lets not forget that fuels were not standardized in the early days, and octane ratings weren't in use yet, so filling up your tank at an unfamiliar location could easily lead to a long tool session under the hood trying to get the old buggy to run on it. Last, I can still remember when a good friend bought the first Mercedes Benz sedan with a diesel engine I had ever seen. He loved that car, drove it maybe 300,000 miles, but when he first got it he sometime had a nightmare finding places to fuel up. And that wasn't all that terribly long ago. Or let's say you have a car today that runs on 100% ethanol. Where you gonna fill that up besides at the Alaskan still in your garage? Oh, yeah... propane! Another tiny little niche with precious little infrastructure.
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Have you visited any cities lately? Bothered to look at the street with all those parking meters? Notice how full they get? Most people aren't parking in garages, public or private, there isn't enough space to accommodate them.Back to the garage. Now that your car sits in a charging space that means one less space for the next electric car. So you say there will be more space with charging stations. How much will that cost and with what energy will those charging stations be produced? So instead of a single fueling station being able to handle hundreds of cars per day, even a thousand at some, we're going to devote one space and charger per car. Such a benefit to the environment.
Wrong paradigm. Out of 100 EVs, maybe 3 might need to charge during the day. Remember, for daily use, EV drivers are using them within their car's round-trip range, and they're already practical for the purpose right now, today.
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See, didn't think it through did you?
I've done more than think it through... I've researched it heavily, I've lived it, I've experienced it, and I've talked to many owners, therefore my mind is fully open on the subject, not limited by the silly obstacles you keep imagining. I know it already works, and that the market is expanding.
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Now work is being done to devise batteries that can be charged much faster, say in an hour. What happens to all the chargers already in place that can only charge a vehicle in a few hours at best? Do they get ripped out and replaced? So think about the garage that has 50% of it's spaces devoted to electric car charging and then the technology changes for next year. That is how it works by the way. What does the garage do when those who had older charging technology cars trade them in for the new models? Lots of people that commute trade their cars for new ones. So, does the garage now rip out the old chargers and replace them with new ones?
Still the wrong paradigm. Existing chargers are already able to serve different brands of EV. And the technology used is simpler than a microwave oven and not much bigger.
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Say they do that. Now you park your car and in an hour it is all charged up. It's monday morning and 45 minutes after you get in the weekly prep meeting starts and then another one with your boss for team information delivery. Do you welch out to go move your car or are we now just charging one car per slot per day when the charging is done in an hour? Thought about that real world example?
Not much different than parking at a parking meter. It's not hard. People figure it out. Really.
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Well, lets do it with quick change battery packs. Now we're getting closer, except for one little detail. No one has figured out how to get competing car makers to standardize their engines yet that is going to happen for electric cars? One battery pack fits all? Not a chance in you know what. No car maker is going to give up the one thing that really distinguished their cars from others, performance and with electric cars, the distance they can run on battery is a huge marketing issue. Somehow all that goes away because you want it to and it's good for the environment?
Non-issue. Have you ever noticed that Ford owners don't go to Chevy dealers for service, and vice versa?
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Now, to the number of charging stations around and the lists or apps available to find them. Okay, you need a charge. You call up your app or get out your list and pick one close to you. You get there and have to wait only 15 minutes before you get in for a charge. You hook up and now what? You aren't where you want to be so you sit there, for hours. Great.
At Tesla stations, 20 minutes for a top-up, or 90 seconds for a battery swap. Using an Israeli battery technology due to arrive here in a couple of years, the consumable "fuel" is actually aluminum plates, and you'll be able to fuel up for a 1,000 mile trip in just minutes. Or how about the virus-powered battery being developed at MIT that might just need a quick bowl of protein soup to get you back out on the road again? Or maybe it will be something else, but in any case the car will still be electrically propelled. It's got a lot of advantages.
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You see why I said the standard must come first?
Too late. They started the party without you. In fact in many industries standards often don't appear until there is enough mass to a market to demand it, and then in some cases it comes down to dog-eat-dog in the marketplace and the winner sets the standard. Think 8 Track Tapes, BetaMax Video, Kindle vs Nook, Apple connectors vs The Whole Rest of the Computer Industry.
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There simply isn't enough charging capacity that can be installed to make electric cars more than a niche market. They work for people who don't need to drive far but those average commute distances are not really valid. They take into the mix places where people live very close to work to offset what happens in most cities where commuters drive in from every increasing distances.
The whole auto market is fragmented into niches already. This is just a new one, and it's one which appeals to a lot of people, and the appeal is growing. It doesn't have to displace every other kind of vehicle to find a valid place in the current market, or to make a difference, or to possibly one day displace the conventional gasoline powered cars we all grew up with. .
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Driving distances to work are increasing, not decreasing.
For people with longer commutes, an obvious solution is to drive your compact, short haul commuter car over to the Park-N-Ride and get on the light rail car or express bus to your workplace. We simply cannot keep expanding highway capacity indefinitely. Or did you forget about the scaling issue?
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One might charge at home. Ok. Once again, we are building out one charging station per car. So, instead of the corner gas station handling a great many cars on an as needed basis, we're putting charging stations at every house or a great number of them. How is all that good for the environment? Is there now going to be a "green" manufacturing plant to make charging equipment? Most of that equipment involves the use of plastics, copper and aluminum. Guess where plastics come from? Recycled? Uh huh.
Again with the wrong paradigm. This is a different way of looking at personal transportation. Near term this is a market of several different niches, for sure, but over time it has the potential to grow into a substantial segment as the technologies evolve and improve.
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So eventually we'll have what, millions of charging stations all over the place? Can you begin to imagine the resources need to build and install all of them and then do it all over again when the battery technology changes? It will you know.
Tens of millions of homes have microwave ovens, which are in the same range of complexity and amount of materials use. It's not that big a deal to replace old microwave ovens, one at a time, just a chargers will eventually be replaced.
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No one even begins to believe that the battery technology available today will be around 10 years from now.
Who cares? The basics of charging will still be the same. I have chargers now for lead acid batteries, ni-cad, and lithium-ion. They all use the same electricity.
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Talk about a resource waste for all those charging stations. They aren't making them upgradable you know because no one knows even what kind of connector they will use.
Not true. Again, check out reality, rather than consulting your imagination.
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Notice how almost all gasoline engines run on the same gas?
Sure, but notice how none of them run at all if everyone is out of gas? Do you remember when that actually happened during the oil crisis? I do. Remember when Hurricane Katrina wiped out the gas supply for a very large area, for quite a while? I do.
And one day every gasoline pump in the world will finally be dry, forever, and then where will your reasoning be?
That's the inevitable, unavoidable issue electric car technology is working to head off, as well as intending to reduce the pollution which fossil fuels cause through their entire lifecycle.
The rest was of your post was just repetitive and more of the same...
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You need an alternative to electric cars and right now the car makers are working on just that and electric cars will remain a niche and later a curiosity.
Maybe, unless they become even more popular and even more practical as the technology evolves. You really have no way of predicting which way history will turn. Nobody does. But fine, bring on the competition, the more the better, and let the best solutions win, I say. I'm not locked into current EV technology as the ultimate forever answer, I just see it as a far better solution for today than you do.
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A new fuel will be developed or one already available will be refined to a point where the type of infrastructure for gasoline cars can be replicated and because the manufacture of those vehicles will be on the scale as they are for those using gasoline. Anything else is a pipe dream.
OK, now THAT is a pipe dream. What else is even in the running besides other carbon-based fuels, which will continue to pollute our environment? CNG? Nope, that's a fossil fuel and there's only a finite supply. Ethanol, which has huge problems? Nope, it's a CO2 producer as well.
Well, how about hydrogen, then, which can be produced from water by solar power or wind power, etc. ?That would be way cool, and I'm down with that. And the Tesla S technology be adapted to run on fuel-cells instead of batteries in a flash. Probably 90% of the design would directly transfer.
But gasoline powered internal combustion engines? It's pretty clear that the use of fossil fuels is inevitably going to end at some point, while the sunlight hitting the earth will continue to supply 12,000 times the energy we currently use. All we have to do is convert a little of it into electricity.
[color="red"]I can put a solar panel on the roof of my car tomorrow to power the radio and trickle charge the battery. So what?
The big problem with incremental improvements is that you simply can't accept the scale of the car industry and incremental improvements when talking about a radical change in the engine or motor doesn't work."
<sigh> It's boring to have to keep plowing the same ground with you when you're continually missing the key points. You keep trying to show that something can't possible work which is already working. AND, you have no better alternative to offer. Good luck with that!
So now for something completely different... Tesla's remarkable 90 second battery swap! Turns out they engineered the car for this possibility from the beginning, they just didn't tell anyone it was going to happen until they were ready. Now they are ready. No, it's not for everyday use, not for the daily school run, but if you want to take a long trip in your Tesla, this is another option.
This is fun too. It's just one of a number of promising new battery technologies being developed, but this one is already under contract to a car manufacturer to bring it to the US market for the 2017 model year.
1,000 miles on a set of aluminum plates and some distilled water. To extend the range, sip in a new set of plates and add more water. And it's already a proven technology, used until now only in military applications.
A great thing about this technology is that the metallic aluminum used in the Phinergy battery becomes aluminum oxide in the process. That oxide is a non-toxic chemical which can be collected and recycled back into aluminum plates... and that recycling is done in electric furnaces, which can be powered by renewable sources such as hydro and solar and wind and geothermal power, in effect "charging" the battery in a very convenient and practical way.
And how about this for a thought... an EV could offer different battery packs, to use at different times, depending on what your plans are... short run commute, long run weekend... whatevah!
The possibilities are expanding, and we've just barely started!
In this case the utility is being forced to pay the "competitor" the retail rate for electric.
In this case the utility is being forced to provide the "competitor" infrastructure at no charge.
To the best of my knowledge, the infrastructure isn't being used for free. Solar customers will still pay the 'delivery' portion of their bills, which they, and all other customers, are already paying.
In the context you put in the beneficiary is the "competitor" at the expense of the utilities customers. I doubt anyone needs higher electric rsates so that is not meeting the needs of their customers.
The utility is still paying retail rates to the "competitor".
Your doubt isn't very important in the larger scheme of things, Many people will willingly pay a premium for electricity with superior environmental attributes. I'm lucky in that it actually saves me money.
"Retail rates" represent a system average cost. There are many areas and times where it actually costs way more than the utility charges to supply that kWh of electricity. Rooftop solar is particularly good at delivering needed support where and when it is most needed. At full retail, it's still a cost savings in that circumstance to the utility.
[quote=OpenD;31937564]You're not even trying to understand, are you? SNIP
Who cares? The basics of charging will still be the same. I have chargers now for lead acid batteries, ni-cad, and lithium-ion. They all use the same electricity.
And now I really know why you can't understand much beyond the pipe dream.
Do they all use the same charger? How many different chargers do you have, one? This is unbelievable, you can't see the fallacy of your own words. There is a reason why all fueling station pumps use the same type of pump. Now take your very own example, every device using the same electricity but requiring different chargers.
How on earth can you apply that to electric cars? That is pure dreaming. Do you think cars would have ever become the common mode of transportation if every car used a different type of pump at the fueling stations? You really can't see that?
And there we have it. Finally you jumped hook line and sinker all the way to the bottom. You stated in your own words why EVs can't scale to meet more than a niche market.
You are also rather disingenuous in your comment. You conveniently leave out that your batteries require different chargers, even if they use the same electricity. So basically, it's a crock and you know it and isn't that why you didn't mention it? Betcha
Some cars use gasoline, some premium, some mid grade and some standard grade. Are the pumps all different or are they the same? They are the same, aren't they? WHat if like your batteries, the triple As had one charger the large AGM had another and the Lithium yet another? Think gasoline would work?
Please don't talk about the single charge you use to charge you phone, car battery, Solar storage batteries and so on, that would be a lie so don't go there.
I really liked your use of the Microwave in an example. People replace them when they break or wear out, usually. Cars are replaced when new, when slightly used, because they want a different one and all that. People replace cars more often than they replace microwaves. I can't believe you'd use the example of a microwave.
If you buy a microwave today, can you take it home and plug it in? Yes. If you buy one in 10 years, will you be able to plug it in? Yes. How about 20 years? Yes.
Will you be able to plug an EV made today in some miracle charge that might now be the standard all over the country, say 20 years from now? Not at your home but out where charging stations will be available to the general public. Most likely not because the technology of today for batteries will change dramatically. Can the changeable battery from a Tesla fit into a Ford? How about a Chevy, Nissan, Honda or Mercedes? Can any of those batteries be swapped into a different brand of EV? The microwave will still plug into that 120 receptacle.
Can you use a charger that equalizes on lithium batteries? Nope. So as battery technology evolves, what happens when the charging methods also change. No big deal right? We'll swap out all the charging stations across the country. Pure insanity.
You can't think past the word Go. All you see is the technology of the day and not past it.
Thanks for playing though. I used just a few examples of what you say to illustrate the lack of depth in your understanding. It really shows when you talk about your personal experiences because they really mean squat. The issue before us involves hundreds of millions of people and nearly as many vehicles.
You think in terms of hundreds or what billypop does next door. Somewhere along the line you forgot that in order for something to scale up, you need standards that a majority of the industry adheres to in manufacturing, implementation and use. If EVs had such a standard, you would be correct in many of your assumptions but there is no standard and isn't going to be because the stage of development isn't there yet. It might be some day but not today and not tomorrow or this year or next.
You said it yourself, we're running out of the fossil based fuels. So just how long do we have for the EVs to become standardized on how they charge, the battery types they will use? Can you answer that question?
Just so you know, my home is off grid, powered by electricity from solar that is stored in batteries and then brought into home and inverted to run all my appliances. The difference is that few people can have that kind or arrangement and what was relatively simple for me to do might not be for hundreds of millions of others.
The last thing, and pay some attention, even though I am off grid for electric, all my appliances still plug into the same type of receptacle found in any home in the USA. That is because there is an accepted and required standard. The Microwave I have from Panasonic uses the same plug as the one I have made by GE. Same for the TVs, same for the coffee makers and the same for everything else using electricity in the home. All standard plugs because they all accept the same voltage from the source.
EVs are not even close to getting there. It isn't what works for you in the small world of your limited understanding, it is what must work for you, your neighbor, the people across town, the next state and all across the country. It either works for everyone or it stays a niche.
Last edited by Mack Knife; 10-24-2013 at 01:20 PM..
To the best of my knowledge, the infrastructure isn't being used for free. Solar customers will still pay the 'delivery' portion of their bills, which they, and all other customers, are already paying.
If they reduce their bill to nothing there is no charge but they can't do that without the grid infrastructure.
LOL.. certainly when they are using others people money to do it.
I rarely (actually never) see people lined up outside the Public Utility Commission office protesting high rates associated with renewable energy. People protesting coal-fired plants are pretty common.
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Tesla Motors 90 Second Battery Swap "Refill"
