Tesla Achilles Heel

[Sparky617]

Range anxiety is real, but friends that have EVs don't really have a problem. As most have stated most of your travels are probably well less than 100 miles a day. If they do take a trip they can top up at a Tesla supercharger in the time it takes to grab a bite to eat/bio break. Non-Tesla super chargers are becoming widespread as well. From a hurricane perspective, I'm 100 miles inland in NC, in 26 years I've had one category 1 hit us, and it was bad enough. They normally weaken by the time they get this far inland and we never gave a thought to evacuating. We have had a pretty bad ice storm that took power out for many. We didn't lose power but many did. You really couldn't go anywhere anyway as the roads were in pretty bad shape with ice and downed trees. That you can power your house with an EV for a couple of days is pretty attractive to me. I saw the new F-150 hybrid can power the house for quite a while with 120vac and 220vac.

The writing is on the wall, EVs are going to be the primary personal vehicles in the next 10 years or so. GM has announced that by 2034 they're going all electric. Ford is probably going to follow suit. The Mach E is the first, they are looking at an all electric F-150 which will be a game changer. Rivian is coming out this year with a very attractive and capable truck and SUV. They have already delivered delivery vans to Amazon with thousands more on order. The WSJ recently did an article that looks at the total CO2 output of an EV v an ICE and after about 30,000 miles or so the EV comes out on top regardless of how the electricity is generated. If it can be solar, wind, nuke, or hydro even better. This included the CO2 for manufacturing and mining the rare earth elements to produce the batteries. CO2 capturing is possible with electrical generation, not so much with personal autos, pickups, SUVs, buses, and heavy trucks.

One fuel source I'm surprised hasn't moved beyond fleet sales is compressed natural gas. Much cleaner, lower CO2 than petrol, and easily refueled.

 

[Eddie_T]

Did I miss it? Has anyone solved the charging problem for those who park on the street at home. Tesla solved the 300 mile problem by suggesting to only go to grandma's once per year at Thanksgiving. Fortunately for all my power outages in the mountains I have been able to drive my Prism to a gas station that has power to get gas for my ICE generator to feed my panel. There's a local radio station that helps people find gas.

 

[Sparky617]

Did I miss it? Has anyone solved the charging problem for those who park on the street at home. Tesla solved the 300 mile problem by suggesting to only go to grandma's once per year at Thanksgiving. Fortunately for all my power outages in the mountains I have been able to drive my Prism to a gas station that has power to get gas for my ICE generator to feed my panel. There's a local radio station that helps people find gas.

Urban environments and apartments are the real challenge. But in the largest cities, many don't own personal autos.

 

[Eddie_T]

Urban environments and apartments are the real challenge. But in the largest cities, many don't own personal autos.

The ones that don't are not the problem how about those that do? They often can't even park in front of their own house. It wouldn't matter as their cords would be stolen anyway. The heck with them let them use public transit.

 

[Sparky617]

The ones that don't are not the problem how about those that do? They often can't even park in front of their own house. It wouldn't matter as their cords would be stolen anyway. The heck with them let them use public transit.

I suspect they'll have to build out public charging stations in cities. They won't be able to charge at home due to the theft issues. This is why you won't see ICE vehicles disappear overnight. And likely why GM has set a 13 year time line for going all electric. The grid is certainly going to need an upgrade to handle the massive increase in EVs. People charging at home at night doesn't exactly jive with solar power. One thing that works right now is energy use goes down at night and EVs charging at night uses capacity that exists. That said, natural gas generators can be spun up and down much easier than a coal plant. EVs play into using excess generation capacity in a coal fired world.

 

[Eddie_T]

Nuclear fusion would solve a lot of our grid problems and do it cleanly. LPPFusion has an interesting concept a friend of mine worked for them until he passed away. If the concept proves achievable a generating station for a community could be about the size of a two car garage.

 

[Bob Reynolds]

I suspect they'll have to build out public charging stations in cities. They won't be able to charge at home due to the theft issues. This is why you won't see ICE vehicles disappear overnight. And likely why GM has set a 13 year time line for going all electric. The grid is certainly going to need an upgrade to handle the massive increase in EVs. People charging at home at night doesn't exactly jive with solar power. One thing that works right now is energy use goes down at night and EVs charging at night uses capacity that exists. That said, natural gas generators can be spun up and down much easier than a coal plant. EVs play into using excess generation capacity in a coal fired world.

There is not going to be a need for a lot of public charging stations as the range has increased on the electric vehicles. They simple will not be necessary for the newer electric vehicles.

Level 3 Fast Chargers are going to be about all that are needed near the interstate exits and rest areas. Most electric cars will be charged at home because that is the cheapest place to charge. Public chargers cost 3-4 times as much per kilowatt hour as charging at home. They can also be charged at work, but again with the extended range it is not an absolute necessity.

It is nice to park your electric car at the airport parking lot and leave it plugged in so when your flight came back in you were fully charged and ready to go. I've done it many times. That is no longer necessary because of the extended range of the newer electric cars.

Some of the electric cars (like the Nissan LEAF) do have locking charging ports that will not allow the car to be unplugged while it is charging. Some do not. All of the electric cars do notify your smart phone when the car has been unplugged or when the car is fully charged and needs to be unplugged from the public chargers. So if someone tries to steal your cord (which is going to be difficult because it is usually attached to the wall or a pole, then the car will notify your smart phone. Someone would have to cut the cord (with 240-480 live volts going through it) in order to take the cord. This cord issue is one being brought up by those that do not drive or own electric vehicles. Many newer electric cars have cameras on them that connect to your smart phone like a ring doorbell. If someone is messing with the vehicle then there is a video that can be given to the police.

Of course if someone is using their emergency charger, that one can be stolen just like a catalytic converter can be stolen off of a regular gas powered car. Maybe we should eliminate gas powered cars because someone might steal the catalytic converter.

You must have a level 2 charger at home in order to charge your vehicle. You can't rely on the emergency charger than comes with the car to do it. That's like putting gas in your car with a 1 gallon gas can. You can do it, but it's going to take a while.

Your level 2 charger should be wall mounted and attached to an inside wall if possible. It should not be one of the "extension cord" like chargers for many reasons including sudden drops that will damage the electronics, damage from the car running over the electronics, moisture from rain or water runoff or someone just walking off with it.

There are some folks that electric cars are not suitable for. Those are folks without a dedicated parking spot to charge the car. If you don't have a place to park the car then it can not be charged. You can not park on the street and drape a charging cord across the sidewalk.

We charge our cars in our garage. The cord can also reach outside the garage to plug into a car on the carport. However the charger is mounted on the wall inside the garage.

If you live in a multifamily apartment or condo and they do not have dedicated electric vehicle charging spots then you can not have an electric car until that apartment or condo installs electric chargers. The difficulty in getting the car charged will out weigh the benefits of the electric car if there is not a charger at your residence.

Most power plants have incredible amounts of excess energy in the evening. The sun goes down. Business and Industry shuts down. Air Conditioning is used at peak times (when it is hot). It is not as hot in the evening and the power plants have excess capacity that is going to waste if it is not used. That's why the power companies are interested in electric cars. They can be charged off peak--not at 4 PM when the need for air conditioning is at an all time high for homes and businesses.

 

[Sparky617]

There is not going to be a need for a lot of public charging stations as the range has increased on the electric vehicles. They simple will not be necessary for the newer electric vehicles.

Eddie's point was about city dwellers that can't park directly in front of their houses and apartment dwellers. They will have a hard time charging at home. Not everyone has a garage or even a driveway. I know when I lived in the Philly area when the snow falls people go to great lengths to protect the parking spot they spent an hour clearing. In sections of cities with row homes parking is at a premium. Some of the row homes are barely wider than a car is long.

 

[ekrig]

Very interesting discussion so far. I have regular cars (bought new) and we keep them until they are falling apart, so this is not a decision that we'll need to make for probably another 10 years... That said, I do agree that EVs are here to stay and at least one of our cars will likely be replaced by one when the time comes.

One thing that nobody seems to have mentioned so far is the stress on the electric grid of EVs. Right now there's only a small percentage of folks that have EVs and everything works fine, but what about when everyone needs to pull 50 amps every night to charge their cars. Personally I think that the government should stay out of the business of picking "wining technologies" (i.e., solar, wind) via subsidies and instead invest that money in upgrading the electric grid and maybe even make it a national electric network (instead of the current 4 zones). In fact, I suspect that they would achieve the same goal while enabling even more innovation and private investment, and in a more economically sustainable manner long-term.

 

[Sparky617]

Very interesting discussion so far. I have regular cars (bought new) and we keep them until they are falling apart, so this is not a decision that we'll need to make for probably another 10 years... That said, I do agree that EVs are here to stay and at least one of our cars will likely be replaced by one when the time comes.

One thing that nobody seems to have mentioned so far is the stress on the electric grid of EVs. Right now there's only a small percentage of folks that have EVs and everything works fine, but what about when everyone needs to pull 50 amps every night to charge their cars. Personally I think that the government should stay out of the business of picking "wining technologies" (i.e., solar, wind) via subsidies and instead invest that money in upgrading the electric grid and maybe even make it a national electric network (instead of the current 4 zones). In fact, I suspect that they would achieve the same goal while enabling even more innovation and private investment, and in a more economically sustainable manner long-term.

Some believe this will all be powered by unicorn flatulence. There is a real problem in the thinking of many in the environmental movement with respect to the ability of wind and solar to provide all the power we're going to need in the near term. Natural gas is going to be the bridge to the future. That requires fracking and pipelines.

Europeans are importing wood pellets from the SE USA to power "carbon neutral electrical generation." That they call it carbon neutral is a big lie. Since the forests being cleared aren't in Europe they aren't counting the loss of the trees. A tree that takes 30 years to reach maturity is burned in 3 minutes (or less) in a wood pellet powered plant.

 

[bud16415]

#Bob Reynolds is a happy user of the technology because he made his setup match his needs. Many people may not have the budget or resources to accomplish the same level of satisfaction but if EV is the only choice out there and the government and the automakers dictate it to us we will have lots of problems to solve before a total switch to electric is possible. Right now it is just an option and the free market is working as it always has and people can decide if they want a horse, gas vehicle, EV, bicycle, or walk/run as Segway that was going to save the planet never flew to far. People also put out CO2 and I have read comparisons of how much CO2 is produced when 4 people run a mile compared to 4 people driving a mile. You would be surprised.



Mass transit is logical but most don’t like the bother. The company I worked for bought 40 12 passenger vans in the 90s and gave/sold them to the employees to form van pools. For 10 years I rode one and paid $12 a week for my seat. We slowly paid back the company and bought fuel and maintained the vans with that money. I was the second guy to get on so if the driver was off that day I was the driver. It was a big win for me in savings along with we didn’t need a second car. When the van died we went to the company and said lets do it again and they told us the federal program they were part of was no longer going on and that was the end of it. The trouble with most mass transit is the first mile and the last mile. Getting from your house to the transit and then getting from the transit to where you need to go. We want it all to be easy and then we want to drive to the gym after work. I once heard a comic say only in America we have electric garage door openers and when the door goes up there is a weight training machine.

The sad part is China is putting on line a new coal powered power plant every week and they will be building the batteries for our cars so we can save the planet.

 

[Eddie_T]

Consider the number of vehicles on the road at this very moment. Now imagine that every one of them sports a 1200 pound lithium ion battery. That's a lot of batteries and and lot to recycle when their life is over. A 15 year life is speculated but what if it's more like eight as some solar users have experienced? Highway use will place a lot more stress on batteries than power walls in the home. Unless there is some yet to be discovered battery technology soon, we are indeed living in a time of unicorn flatulence dreams.
BTW the CO₂ scare has not been scientifically proven yet we spend a lot of money on it.

 

[Sparky617]

The trouble with most mass transit is the first mile and the last mile. Getting from your house to the transit and then getting from the transit to where you need to go.

They were looking at doing commuter rail here in the Raleigh/Durham area. The airport wouldn't allow the trains to come to the airport, not after spending millions on parking decks. None of these other areas would be serviced directly by the trains either: Wake Med Hospital, PNC Arena, Carter Findley Stadium, Crabtree Valley Mall, Streets at SouthPoint Mall, Duke Hospital, Rex Hospital, Regency Office Park, Weston Office Park, Centenial Campus Office Park. The big office park area, Research Triangle Park is a huge, sprawling area where the offices are often a half mile off the road. The trains will stop at least 1 mile away probably further. Barring other factors like really expensive parking or bridge or tunnel tolls (think NYC) people will take 2 modes of transportation to work. They'll drive to the train station, take the train and walk from the train to the office. When you go to a third mode usage drops very quickly. It just takes too long as every change in transportation mode easily adds 10 minute to the commute if everything is timed perfectly. People put up with it in NYC because it costs $7 (probably more now) to cross the bridge or tunnel into the city, and $40+ per day to park in the city. The subway can get you to most places faster than a car/cab. I was working on Long Island for almost 2 months a few years ago and took the train into NYC on a day off. It was $31/round trip. Monthly passes are probably cheaper, but still. It was an hour train ride and I still had to take the subway to get where I was going. I don't know how people can stand it up there.

 

[Spicoli43]

Consider the number of vehicles on the road at this very moment. Now imagine that every one of them sports a 1200 pound lithium ion battery. That's a lot of batteries and and lot to recycle when their life is over. A 15 year life is speculated but what if it's more like eight as some solar users have experienced? Highway use will place a lot more stress on batteries than power walls in the home. Unless there is some yet to be discovered battery technology soon, we are indeed living in a time of unicorn flatulence dreams.
BTW the CO₂ scare has not been scientifically proven yet we spend a lot of money on it.

Yeah, The Environ-MENTAL-ists never think anything through. The banning of the Keystone XL destroyed thousands of jobs. The Left says that it will save the Earth if there are no spills, but they can't figure out where the oil came from in the first place, not to mention that trucking it or putting it on a train will massively increase the very pollution they are *Saying* they are trying to avoid.

It's not like the Right doesn't lie, but the Left doesn't even try to hide their lies and idiocy.

Now, CO2 is required for life, from the smallest bacteria to the largest animal. CO2 greens the Earth, as proven by NASA imagery.

And my favorite, the Leftists that preach about the "climate" fly private, own gas hogging vehicles, and build mansions on the beaches that were supposed to be underwater decades ago due to "Global Warming".

You can't fix stupid.

 

[ekrig]

The sad part is China is putting on line a new coal powered power plant every week and they will be building the batteries for our cars so we can save the planet.

While I believe that the part about new coal power plants is accurate, it is also grossly incomplete. The fact of the matter is that their energy needs have grown leap and bounds due to substantial increases in per capita GDP. Yes, they've build a lot of coal power plants, but also build a lot of nuclear, wind, and solar capacity. In terms of wind, it is a lot more than US and, perhaps most crucially, they've built brand new high power lines to move that energy to where it is needed and are very aggressively researching new power grid management approaches. Thus, I must regretfully admit that they are much better positioned for the future, unlike our idiot politicians (from right and left) gambling with our future from both an economic and environmental perspective.

Many environmental folks clearly either haven't spent 5 mins thinking things through (e.g., they want to get rid of fossil fuels but have no clue how what is needed to fill-in the gaps created by renewables) or are hypocrites (e.g., it's ok to build wind/solar farms but not near their house). People want things to be simple, except that pretty much anything worth doing is seldom simple or easy. Don't get me wrong, I very much want to improve nature and the environment, but I'm also realistic about the challenges. It will be at least one decade for us to develop the necessary technology, let alone build it to scale, which is why I advocate focusing on the grid for now. Also, politicians talking about climate change (again, on either side) are either naive or disingenuous (possibly because they have the pockets of all these donors to fill).

 

[billshack]

they win the Darwinian award ,

https://darwinawards.com/

 

[bud16415]

They were looking at doing commuter rail here in the Raleigh/Durham area. The airport wouldn't allow the trains to come to the airport, not after spending millions on parking decks. None of these other areas would be serviced directly by the trains either: Wake Med Hospital, PNC Arena, Carter Findley Stadium, Crabtree Valley Mall, Streets at SouthPoint Mall, Duke Hospital, Rex Hospital, Regency Office Park, Weston Office Park, Centenial Campus Office Park. The big office park area, Research Triangle Park is a huge, sprawling area where the offices are often a half mile off the road. The trains will stop at least 1 mile away probably further. Barring other factors like really expensive parking or bridge or tunnel tolls (think NYC) people will take 2 modes of transportation to work. They'll drive to the train station, take the train and walk from the train to the office. When you go to a third mode usage drops very quickly. It just takes too long as every change in transportation mode easily adds 10 minute to the commute if everything is timed perfectly. People put up with it in NYC because it costs $7 (probably more now) to cross the bridge or tunnel into the city, and $40+ per day to park in the city. The subway can get you to most places faster than a car/cab. I was working on Long Island for almost 2 months a few years ago and took the train into NYC on a day off. It was $31/round trip. Monthly passes are probably cheaper, but still. It was an hour train ride and I still had to take the subway to get where I was going. I don't know how people can stand it up there.

When we had the 12 people in the van carpooling to work the first thing everyone noticed is the trip took at least an extra 45 minutes. Everyone was wondering why. I pointed out to slow down stop open the door climb in close the door get back up to speed, not to mention all 12 guys didn’t live on the exact same path. It all added up. Then there were 11 guys that were where they needed to be each morning at the proper time and one guy that we would pull up and stop and everyday he was a half block away running with his coat unzipped. He would get in huffing and puffing and say sorry guys it won’t happen again.



After 9/11 our plant about 1 square mile stopped letting city busses pass thru because there were people riding the bus that didn’t work there. The bus stops were all moved outside the gates and in mid winter hardly anyone rode the bus. Because of lack of riders the bus service by the city was stopped.



During the Carter years I worked for a good couple year on the flywheel bus project. Below the floor of the bus we installed a massive flywheel pancake motor. The plan was the bus when at a bus stop would have probes contact the roof and deliver power to spin the flywheel up. The stored energy then would power the bus to the next stop. No batteries no engines just stored energy in a massive spinning disk. We spent millions and millions on the project bought two city busses and made them work as a proof of concept. Carter got one term and that was the end of the flywheel bus.

If I can say anything good about China it is that they don’t change plans every 4 or 2 years with elections.

 

[ekrig]

As has been mentioned on this thread, EVs seem to be better to the environment overall but they are not nearly as clean to the environment has many would like to believe, especially with the current mix of energy sources using in power production. Charging them from solar or wind is nice, but remember that there is no solar at night, so that means either from wind or most likely a gas power plant. Nuclear is good for base load, but there are huge fluctuations in power consumption throughout the day and the only to compensate for those are with coal, oil, or gas power plants. Therefore, unless there a few breakthroughs in battery storage, it is going to take a while.

Plans should not change, drastically at least, with elections. All that says is that politicians don't work for us but for their donor and interest groups, and many of the things that they are changing should not be changed. In fact, on a number of things, it is even highly debatable whether they should be legislating, or regulating via the governmental agencies, on many of the things that they do. Both parties are guilty of this. With regard to energy, on one hand we have the republicans are trying to maintain coal around when they should instead let market economics play out, and democrats are trying to push more subsidies, grants, etc for anyone that promises any supposed new form of green energy when again they should be clear what they are trying to achieve and focus instead on infrastructure while letting everyone innovate whatever needs to happen to get us there.

Significantly off topic: the more I think about it, the more I believe that nearly all laws should only pass congress it they can muster 60% of the votes in both the house and senate. If not even 60% of them can agree that something is worth doing, them maybe they should just stay put and not mess it up.

 

[Bob Reynolds]

Well, to muddy the water even more, they are predicting a gas shortage this summer because there are not enough truck drivers available to bring the gasoline to the gas stations.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/business/summer-gasoline-shortage/index.html

 

[Steve123]

Consider the number of vehicles on the road at this very moment. Now imagine that every one of them sports a 1200 pound lithium ion battery. That's a lot of batteries and and lot to recycle when their life is over.

They already recycle the thousands of pounds of steel and aluminum in a car. Batteries will be easier because there is less mixture with unwanted materials. Companies are already popping up that recycle the battery materials.