Comment box Scope: summary, information, analysis Tone: neutral, excited Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none You can be more optimistic about the financial feasibility of owning an electric vehicle...
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Scope: summary, information, analysis
Tone: neutral, excited
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
You can be more optimistic about the financial feasibility of owning an electric vehicle than officially published battery lifetime metrics would have to think, according to new research from Stanford:
The batteries of electric vehicles subject to the normal use of real-world drivers – like heavy traffic, long highway trips, short city trips, and mostly being parked – could last about a third longer than researchers have generally forecast, according to a new study by scientists working in the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center, a joint center between Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. This suggests that the owner of a typical EV may not need to replace the expensive battery pack or buy a new car for several additional years.
“To our surprise, real driving with frequent acceleration, braking that charges the batteries a bit, stopping to pop into a store, and letting the batteries rest for hours at a time, helps batteries last longer than we had thought based on industry standard lab tests."
For example, the study showed a correlation between sharp, short EV accelerations and slower degradation. This was contrary to long-held assumptions of battery researchers, including this study’s team, that acceleration peaks are bad for EV batteries. Pressing the pedal with your foot hard does not speed up aging. If anything, it slows it down.
In the places where most people live, they're not driving at highway speeds all the time. Even if they do take the highway sometimes, the beginning and end of every trip involves plenty of waiting at lights, taking slow turns, and sitting in traffic. Apparently, tests to determine the lifespine of an EV battery do not consider this. (I think it's okay for the tests to be conservative, but this is still good to know.)
So the industry is significantly underestimating battery lifespan for casual consumer use. This would reduce the lifetime cost of ownership of an EV a lot, or at least extend the amount of time until a new battery is needed. It also means there will be slightly less capacity need for battery recycling, since they won't be being replaced quite so frequently. And fundamentally it means less batteries have to be produced in the long term, which is good for the environment from a mining and material production standpoint.
The best way to reduce your transportation emissions is to not drive a car in the first place. However, if you prefer to drive a car in order to sustain your lifestyle, an electric vehicle has significantly lower lifetime emissions (less than half) than any internal combustion engine car, even including mining and manufacturing. Decreasing costs of battery manufacturing and therefore higher energy density enables improvements to battery range. Significantly more charging stations (see a map here: there are few meaningful gaps) mean that more locations than ever are accessible to EVs. And new technology, like solar roof racks and (on the truly cutting edge) solar automotive paint, are making consistent, off-grid charging a reality for people without access to home charging -- with the added benefit of letting you take your EV camping and always have some range.
P.S. the Alternative Fuels Data Center finally updated their Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Trends dataset to include data from the first two quarters of 2024. In Q1, the number of chargers in the US increased by 6.3%. In Q2, the number increased again by 4.6%. This is not anomalous: before than, there was a quarterly increase of 5.0% (Q4 2023) and, before that, 7.7% (Q3 2023). That's an average of 5.9% growth every quarter! That's high!
Between 2022-23, there was a 21.7% increase in the number of EV chargers available in the US, most of them public. This follows a 17.4% year-over-year increase between 2021-22, 19.9% between 2020-21, and 25.9% between 2019-20. The trend is holding very strong. Earlier this year I did a napkin math analysis and found that, in real-world conditions (yes, cold), you can very safely take an EV with an average range (245 miles, actually on the low end) to remote destinations up to 60 miles from any charging station and still have more than enough range to get home (with a generous buffer). At that time, the most recent data and maps were from 2023, but over 10% more chargers have been installed nationally since I wrote the comment... in September. That effectively means 10% more range into remote places. After just 6 months. And since the data lags a bit (we don't have Q3 2024 data yet), there are actually even more chargers. I've been saying for over a year that range anxiety is an exaggerated myth at this point of the technology, and I'm finding even more certainty in that statement. There are already basically no well-populated places in the US more than 20 miles from a charger, and few places more than 50 miles from one even in rural areas (where home charging is no problem). Paired with the increasing viability of off-grid solar charging, I am seeing fewer and fewer niche edge cases where the mechanics of having an EV "just don't work." You can charge it at home, you can charge it along any highway; you can charge it near tourist sites; you can charge it in random places in the countryside; you can even charge it in the middle of nowhere, by yourself. And ranges continue to increase.
My biggest critique with EVs is their cost. They are just more expensive than gas cars, at least upfront (EVs have much lower general maintenance costs due to being mechanically simpler). But now even the lifetime cost of the battery is considerably lower than we thought.
I think everyone in the US who drives should seriously be considering an EV for their next automobile purchase if the upfront price is acceptable. If you live in Glasgow, MT or Austin, NV, maybe wait a few years. But if you live almost anywhere else, and do basically anything other than drive your EV in circles in the desert, it is increasingly likely that it would work out.
Charging networks have been growing like crazy, and now that most manufacturers are backing NACS in the US (and presumably Canada as well), it means that drivers have access to even more chargers...
Charging networks have been growing like crazy, and now that most manufacturers are backing NACS in the US (and presumably Canada as well), it means that drivers have access to even more chargers without needing to own a Tesla. You know what this means, right? Road trips!
The YouTube channel Aging Wheels did two videos on EV road trips to go over the current situation with public fast charging networks. Last year he did two trips - one in a Polestar and one in a Tesla. The drive on the Tesla was great because the chargers were well maintained and every charge went smoothly, but his polestar was a hellish trip because nearly every charger he came across was either broken or diminished in capacity. This year he took the exact same trip with his Polestar with a NACS adaptor which he would be using exclusively, as well as his mother’s Kia EV6 which would be using CCS exclusively, and both of them were fairly uneventful.
Just two weeks ago my husband and I took a trip from LA to Las Vegas in my Bolt EV. That car is generally not considered a road trip machine because its fast charge capacity is a paltry 55 KW. But the trip was actually pretty good; there were a bunch of small charger stations on the way that weren’t super busy and there was actually a recently completed larger installation in Baker which, by chance I actually got a chance to talk to one of the contractors who was checking on it. This trip was made entirely on CCS because my NACS adapter actually came in the day after we left. Not only that, but I drove further out to Laughlin to visit family out there and charging was also a non-issue (the hotel I stayed at actually had free charging, even).
Charger companies are also starting to get a little bit better with amenities as well. The Baker charging station had a roof over it to give shelter and was right next to a gas station with two restaurants and public restrooms inside of it.
Comment box Scope: comment response, personal perspective Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none The AFSL has a great trip mapping tool for planning purposes (you can even filter it to...
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Scope: comment response, personal perspective
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
You know what this means, right? Road trips!
The AFSL has a great trip mapping tool for planning purposes (you can even filter it to just show DC chargers), and I know that Tesla at least has something similar in the cars. It makes road trips super easy. The corridor tool also helps measure distance between stations along designated fuel corridors.
Charger companies are also starting to get a little bit better with amenities as well.
A small detail that makes a big difference.
I think this trend of better charging amenities will continue as the number of stations increases and there is more competition. If drivers on a route have a choice between two otherwise equivalent stations, they're more likely to choose the one with shelter, at least if it's raining/snowing; and especially the one with a restroom. That means more income to stations with better amenities, and the losers will take notice of why.
The last trip I took I used ABRP (A Better Route Planner). But then I manually put the stops into Apple Maps because I’m pretty sure that they charge money to use navigation on it (and beside that...
The last trip I took I used ABRP (A Better Route Planner). But then I manually put the stops into Apple Maps because I’m pretty sure that they charge money to use navigation on it (and beside that I find the app very annoying to use).
ABRP seems to be the only app that seems to know where just about every charger is, but I’ll try to remember your resource the next time I attempt a trip. I might make a trip to Laughlin again direct from LA and there is definitely not going to be as many nice stations on that route.
I'll preface by saying I love my EV. Here are the things that annoy me: DC fast charging is (relatively) expensive and is bad for the battery. We need free level 2 chargers in every commercial...
I'll preface by saying I love my EV. Here are the things that annoy me:
DC fast charging is (relatively) expensive and is bad for the battery. We need free level 2 chargers in every commercial parking lot with more than 10 spaces. Consider it another cost of doing business. One they can mitigate by installing solar panels.
Second: The dependency on apps, even for many free chargers, is a major annoyance. I don't want to have to maintain balances and keep 5 different apps on my phone, but here we are. It also increases chances of a charging station being unusable.
Third: Ban proprietary chargers. Or at the very least, mandate that all chargers can fallback to a standardize connector without needing some special BIOS update on every EV. There is nothing more annoying than seeing a dozen unused Tesla or Rivian chargers with no way to hook up to them. This seems to be getting there, but for legacy systems its a major roadblock.
Comment box Scope: comment response, personal perspective Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none In most cases there's no benefit to free parking. This is a subsidy for an inefficient...
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Scope: comment response, personal perspective
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
We need free level 2 chargers in every commercial parking lot with more than 10 spaces. Consider it another cost of doing business.
In most cases there's no benefit to free parking. This is a subsidy for an inefficient method of transportation that already doesn't pay for itself. I think this is also true for free electricity for cars.
But I'm comfortable with a mandate for (non-free) EV charging in designated (non-free) parking lots on the precondition that minimum parking requirements be abolished or reduced from their current, arbitrary, unscientific baseline. Along with a flexible parking mandate, requiring EV charging in a parking lot is a good incentive to only build parking lots where they're actually needed, rather than wasting valuable urban space to overbuild parking. Too much parking is the cause of much urban sprawl and is not beneficial.
The main reason for free EV charging (regardless of paid lot status) is the incentive to switch to EV over gas, as well as assuring sufficient capacity as people transition. I'm mostly talking...
The main reason for free EV charging (regardless of paid lot status) is the incentive to switch to EV over gas, as well as assuring sufficient capacity as people transition.
I'm mostly talking retrofitting existing parking lots in suburbia where they're already more or less completely car bound for the forseeable future. And not every space, just something like 1 out of every 10 spaces must have a charger. If every Walmart in the USA was forced to have free L2 the charging infrastructure in the USA is basically solved for travellers...albeit slower than going full fast-charge.
You may get your wish. Universal Plug & Charge is in development.
Second: The dependency on apps, even for many free chargers, is a major annoyance. I don't want to have to maintain balances and keep 5 different apps on my phone, but here we are. It also increases chances of a charging station being unusable.
While I'm less-worried, they do explicitly state most of this data is from cars less than 6 years old. I'd feel more confident in these results if we see a repeat in 5 years.
Keep in mind that the vehicles we observed are relatively young and we do not know how these fast charged batteries will continue to age.
While I'm less-worried, they do explicitly state most of this data is from cars less than 6 years old. I'd feel more confident in these results if we see a repeat in 5 years.
I went XC skiing yesterday in VT and was happy to see that they had 4 EV chargers (probably the slow 7 kwh ones) at the resort. I'm sure that a portion of that energy was going to warming the...
I went XC skiing yesterday in VT and was happy to see that they had 4 EV chargers (probably the slow 7 kwh ones) at the resort. I'm sure that a portion of that energy was going to warming the battery pack since it was well below freezing, but I saw at least 8 EVs taking turns for the charger throughout the day (many of the longer trails were still closed, so was doing shorter loops that passed the parking lot).
One of the biggest things detractors like to bring up is that EVs just can't work in cold climates, but I see a lot of EVs here in our rather severe climate, and they seem to be OK.
I don't currently own one, I tend to keep my vehicles until the wheels fall off and EVs weren't quite ready for my needs last time around, but we live in a rural area with only one car and my wife is traveling more and more these days leaving me without any way to leave the house when it's too cold to cycle, so I'm very seriously considering a small Bolt or similar for a runabout car, leaving our 10 year old Subaru for the most sloppy snow days and trips that involve long dirt roads or similar needs for the AWD.
EVs just keep getting better! I've always wanted one, but I've been putting it off for as long as possible to avoid early adopter syndrome. I think my next car may be an EV though if I can find a...
EVs just keep getting better! I've always wanted one, but I've been putting it off for as long as possible to avoid early adopter syndrome. I think my next car may be an EV though if I can find a nice affordable option.
I’ve seen people talking about the potential for using an EV’s enormous battery pack as a potential house battery (charge up during off-peak hours or when solar is doing it’s thing, discharge to...
I’ve seen people talking about the potential for using an EV’s enormous battery pack as a potential house battery (charge up during off-peak hours or when solar is doing it’s thing, discharge to cover some of the house’s power needs during peak/nighttime) but is this hypothetical future stuff or is there already the equipment required to make this possible?
Also, as an Australian, I think I still want an EV for daily driving (and maybe rent an ICE once per year for my 680km/420mi road trip), but I don’t know if the charging infrastructure is there yet for longer trips, especially considering the kind of car I want to get (small city car, less range than most EVs at the moment). That said, I’m sure the situation is likely to change over the next few years; while Australia is huge, most of the population is concentrated on the east coast, which makes justifying EV chargers a bit easier.
What @scroll_lock's link describe is called "vehicle to grid" (bidirectional flow of energy), but there's also vehicle to home (your car is just a big battery that connects to your home power,...
I’ve seen people talking about the potential for using an EV’s enormous battery pack as a potential house battery (charge up during off-peak hours or when solar is doing it’s thing, discharge to cover some of the house’s power needs during peak/nighttime) but is this hypothetical future stuff or is there already the equipment required to make this possible?
What @scroll_lock's link describe is called "vehicle to grid" (bidirectional flow of energy), but there's also vehicle to home (your car is just a big battery that connects to your home power, Ford F-150 does this) and vehicle to load (your car is just a big battery that connect to whatever has a normal electrical plug, the same Ford model does this, but also some Hyundai model; YouTuber Technology Connection has a video using his Ionic 5 for this)
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, speculation Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none This technology exists and is legal in at least some areas, including Australia as far...
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Scope: comment response, information, speculation
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I’ve seen people talking about the potential for using an EV’s enormous battery pack as a potential house battery ... but is this hypothetical future stuff or is there already the equipment required to make this possible?
This technology exists and is legal in at least some areas, including Australia as far as I know. I don't know what its market-readiness is everywhere, but it's on an upswing. I think this is less of a technological lift and more of an economic one. People just have to be convinced to sign agreements to use their car's battery as grid storage.
but I don’t know if the charging infrastructure is there yet for longer trips
Unless you're trying to get to Perth, I don't think you will have an issue. The A1 has okay coverage, but there are a few gaps of around 200km which seems iffy to me.
If you're just getting around Victoria or the east coast, I imagine you would be just fine, but you'd have to map your route and see.
Yeah, I think you’re right about the range. I take one roadtrip per year from Melbourne to Canberra, and if I was driving a BYD Seagull (it’s not actually available in Australia, but there are...
Yeah, I think you’re right about the range. I take one roadtrip per year from Melbourne to Canberra, and if I was driving a BYD Seagull (it’s not actually available in Australia, but there are rumours it’s on the way) I probably wouldn’t be comfortable taking that trip in the EV, but trips within Victoria should be mostly fine.
But officer, I'm just trying to improve the life of my battery! This is a pleasant discovery. I think there is no downside to being conservative on battery life for EVs. It would seem ideal to me...
Pressing the pedal with your foot hard does not speed up aging. If anything, it slows it down.
But officer, I'm just trying to improve the life of my battery!
This is a pleasant discovery. I think there is no downside to being conservative on battery life for EVs. It would seem ideal to me that people like myself who are driving an EV for the first time would have a more positive feeling about the technology if the battery lasts longer than expected, etc.
the downside to quick acceleration is gonna be tire wear. I have a Prologue and the tires for it are $380 each, or were when I got it, they'll likely go up too.
the downside to quick acceleration is gonna be tire wear. I have a Prologue and the tires for it are $380 each, or were when I got it, they'll likely go up too.
Comment box Scope: comment response, personal perspective Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I agree that tire microplastic management is a field that needs more study. There are...
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Scope: comment response, personal perspective
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I agree that tire microplastic management is a field that needs more study. There are probably manufacturing processes and treading designs that minimize wear, and material choices that are better for the environment.
But in general (not specific to the Prologue or any one car) one of the best ways to reduce the rate of tire wear is to reduce the weight of the vehicle overall. In addition to buying smaller cars, this can also be done by adopting lower-weight battery packs, even if that means lower energy density. In practice, most people vastly overestimate how often they'll need an ultra-long range. If most consumers were more realistic about their actual driving patterns, more of them would be okay with a stated range of 100-200 miles (that they might use) rather than 300-400 (they they wouldn't), and save the weight of hauling around all those extra batteries. Of course some people have greater use-cases for long ranges and therefore will choose heavier cars.
More stringent regulation about reducing tire microplastics (tire wear) could incentivize the production of more efficient, lighter-weight EVs in general, which would ultimately save consumers a lot of money on fuel and tire costs.
Holy crap... are they run flat tires or something? Every person I know that had run flat tires (including myself on one vehicle) just replaced them with regular tires when the time came. Edit: to...
Holy crap... are they run flat tires or something? Every person I know that had run flat tires (including myself on one vehicle) just replaced them with regular tires when the time came.
Edit: to the point about sharp acceleration being good; maybe we could better design cars around that concept? I love accelerating quickly from a stop but modern EV's are too fast to be doing that a lot.
It's good news, however I'm afraid it's definitely not enough to stop global climate changes. Current private cars, especially big ones, are pretty inefficient regarding pollution, especially in...
It's good news, however I'm afraid it's definitely not enough to stop global climate changes. Current private cars, especially big ones, are pretty inefficient regarding pollution, especially in the times we live now. I am happy for every new study like this, but at the same time I'm so angry that not enough money is invested into public transport which is way better tool to fight human-made future catastrophe. There are already much more efficient „electric cars” and they're called trains and trams, they should be given much more love by people.
The problem is used car market. Many companies would do operative leasing on the car and after a year or two, they will switch to new one. The used one, often time with quite high mileage for its...
The problem is used car market. Many companies would do operative leasing on the car and after a year or two, they will switch to new one. The used one, often time with quite high mileage for its age, wil go to used cars market. But here is the difference between ICE and EV - while ICE will atill run ok for another couple years (probably), EV will have battery quite used. Sich cars may have like 50 to 100 thousand kilometers clocked. And seeing how they have warranties of 100 thousand km or 8 years (whichever comes first), you don't know if yu are buying prospective EV or near-future wreck.
I'm not against EV at all! Quite the opposite - I'm.perfect example of its user, I do 10 thousand kilometers a year, most of this on short distance (less tha 150 kilometers a trip, often city use). Yet I don't have EV. When we bought new car there were not that good EV options - low range and high price and I wanted a car with big trunk/boot (combi). We spent 1/3 the price of new EV on our Ford Focus Combi. In other words I could have had three cars (of quite good utility value if you have to drive small kids) instead of one overpiced and small EV.
Once EVs are price competitive with ICE of the same class, there is no doubt I would pick EV.
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You can be more optimistic about the financial feasibility of owning an electric vehicle than officially published battery lifetime metrics would have to think, according to new research from Stanford:
In the places where most people live, they're not driving at highway speeds all the time. Even if they do take the highway sometimes, the beginning and end of every trip involves plenty of waiting at lights, taking slow turns, and sitting in traffic. Apparently, tests to determine the lifespine of an EV battery do not consider this. (I think it's okay for the tests to be conservative, but this is still good to know.)
So the industry is significantly underestimating battery lifespan for casual consumer use. This would reduce the lifetime cost of ownership of an EV a lot, or at least extend the amount of time until a new battery is needed. It also means there will be slightly less capacity need for battery recycling, since they won't be being replaced quite so frequently. And fundamentally it means less batteries have to be produced in the long term, which is good for the environment from a mining and material production standpoint.
The best way to reduce your transportation emissions is to not drive a car in the first place. However, if you prefer to drive a car in order to sustain your lifestyle, an electric vehicle has significantly lower lifetime emissions (less than half) than any internal combustion engine car, even including mining and manufacturing. Decreasing costs of battery manufacturing and therefore higher energy density enables improvements to battery range. Significantly more charging stations (see a map here: there are few meaningful gaps) mean that more locations than ever are accessible to EVs. And new technology, like solar roof racks and (on the truly cutting edge) solar automotive paint, are making consistent, off-grid charging a reality for people without access to home charging -- with the added benefit of letting you take your EV camping and always have some range.
P.S. the Alternative Fuels Data Center finally updated their Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Trends dataset to include data from the first two quarters of 2024. In Q1, the number of chargers in the US increased by 6.3%. In Q2, the number increased again by 4.6%. This is not anomalous: before than, there was a quarterly increase of 5.0% (Q4 2023) and, before that, 7.7% (Q3 2023). That's an average of 5.9% growth every quarter! That's high!
Between 2022-23, there was a 21.7% increase in the number of EV chargers available in the US, most of them public. This follows a 17.4% year-over-year increase between 2021-22, 19.9% between 2020-21, and 25.9% between 2019-20. The trend is holding very strong. Earlier this year I did a napkin math analysis and found that, in real-world conditions (yes, cold), you can very safely take an EV with an average range (245 miles, actually on the low end) to remote destinations up to 60 miles from any charging station and still have more than enough range to get home (with a generous buffer). At that time, the most recent data and maps were from 2023, but over 10% more chargers have been installed nationally since I wrote the comment... in September. That effectively means 10% more range into remote places. After just 6 months. And since the data lags a bit (we don't have Q3 2024 data yet), there are actually even more chargers. I've been saying for over a year that range anxiety is an exaggerated myth at this point of the technology, and I'm finding even more certainty in that statement. There are already basically no well-populated places in the US more than 20 miles from a charger, and few places more than 50 miles from one even in rural areas (where home charging is no problem). Paired with the increasing viability of off-grid solar charging, I am seeing fewer and fewer niche edge cases where the mechanics of having an EV "just don't work." You can charge it at home, you can charge it along any highway; you can charge it near tourist sites; you can charge it in random places in the countryside; you can even charge it in the middle of nowhere, by yourself. And ranges continue to increase.
My biggest critique with EVs is their cost. They are just more expensive than gas cars, at least upfront (EVs have much lower general maintenance costs due to being mechanically simpler). But now even the lifetime cost of the battery is considerably lower than we thought.
I think everyone in the US who drives should seriously be considering an EV for their next automobile purchase if the upfront price is acceptable. If you live in Glasgow, MT or Austin, NV, maybe wait a few years. But if you live almost anywhere else, and do basically anything other than drive your EV in circles in the desert, it is increasingly likely that it would work out.
Charging networks have been growing like crazy, and now that most manufacturers are backing NACS in the US (and presumably Canada as well), it means that drivers have access to even more chargers without needing to own a Tesla. You know what this means, right? Road trips!
The YouTube channel Aging Wheels did two videos on EV road trips to go over the current situation with public fast charging networks. Last year he did two trips - one in a Polestar and one in a Tesla. The drive on the Tesla was great because the chargers were well maintained and every charge went smoothly, but his polestar was a hellish trip because nearly every charger he came across was either broken or diminished in capacity. This year he took the exact same trip with his Polestar with a NACS adaptor which he would be using exclusively, as well as his mother’s Kia EV6 which would be using CCS exclusively, and both of them were fairly uneventful.
Just two weeks ago my husband and I took a trip from LA to Las Vegas in my Bolt EV. That car is generally not considered a road trip machine because its fast charge capacity is a paltry 55 KW. But the trip was actually pretty good; there were a bunch of small charger stations on the way that weren’t super busy and there was actually a recently completed larger installation in Baker which, by chance I actually got a chance to talk to one of the contractors who was checking on it. This trip was made entirely on CCS because my NACS adapter actually came in the day after we left. Not only that, but I drove further out to Laughlin to visit family out there and charging was also a non-issue (the hotel I stayed at actually had free charging, even).
Charger companies are also starting to get a little bit better with amenities as well. The Baker charging station had a roof over it to give shelter and was right next to a gas station with two restaurants and public restrooms inside of it.
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The AFSL has a great trip mapping tool for planning purposes (you can even filter it to just show DC chargers), and I know that Tesla at least has something similar in the cars. It makes road trips super easy. The corridor tool also helps measure distance between stations along designated fuel corridors.
A small detail that makes a big difference.
I think this trend of better charging amenities will continue as the number of stations increases and there is more competition. If drivers on a route have a choice between two otherwise equivalent stations, they're more likely to choose the one with shelter, at least if it's raining/snowing; and especially the one with a restroom. That means more income to stations with better amenities, and the losers will take notice of why.
Self-reinforcing.
The last trip I took I used ABRP (A Better Route Planner). But then I manually put the stops into Apple Maps because I’m pretty sure that they charge money to use navigation on it (and beside that I find the app very annoying to use).
ABRP seems to be the only app that seems to know where just about every charger is, but I’ll try to remember your resource the next time I attempt a trip. I might make a trip to Laughlin again direct from LA and there is definitely not going to be as many nice stations on that route.
I'll preface by saying I love my EV. Here are the things that annoy me:
DC fast charging is (relatively) expensive and is bad for the battery. We need free level 2 chargers in every commercial parking lot with more than 10 spaces. Consider it another cost of doing business. One they can mitigate by installing solar panels.
Second: The dependency on apps, even for many free chargers, is a major annoyance. I don't want to have to maintain balances and keep 5 different apps on my phone, but here we are. It also increases chances of a charging station being unusable.
Third: Ban proprietary chargers. Or at the very least, mandate that all chargers can fallback to a standardize connector without needing some special BIOS update on every EV. There is nothing more annoying than seeing a dozen unused Tesla or Rivian chargers with no way to hook up to them. This seems to be getting there, but for legacy systems its a major roadblock.
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In most cases there's no benefit to free parking. This is a subsidy for an inefficient method of transportation that already doesn't pay for itself. I think this is also true for free electricity for cars.
But I'm comfortable with a mandate for (non-free) EV charging in designated (non-free) parking lots on the precondition that minimum parking requirements be abolished or reduced from their current, arbitrary, unscientific baseline. Along with a flexible parking mandate, requiring EV charging in a parking lot is a good incentive to only build parking lots where they're actually needed, rather than wasting valuable urban space to overbuild parking. Too much parking is the cause of much urban sprawl and is not beneficial.
The main reason for free EV charging (regardless of paid lot status) is the incentive to switch to EV over gas, as well as assuring sufficient capacity as people transition.
I'm mostly talking retrofitting existing parking lots in suburbia where they're already more or less completely car bound for the forseeable future. And not every space, just something like 1 out of every 10 spaces must have a charger. If every Walmart in the USA was forced to have free L2 the charging infrastructure in the USA is basically solved for travellers...albeit slower than going full fast-charge.
You may get your wish. Universal Plug & Charge is in development.
This actually isn't true! Don't worry about it. :)
While I'm less-worried, they do explicitly state most of this data is from cars less than 6 years old. I'd feel more confident in these results if we see a repeat in 5 years.
I went XC skiing yesterday in VT and was happy to see that they had 4 EV chargers (probably the slow 7 kwh ones) at the resort. I'm sure that a portion of that energy was going to warming the battery pack since it was well below freezing, but I saw at least 8 EVs taking turns for the charger throughout the day (many of the longer trails were still closed, so was doing shorter loops that passed the parking lot).
One of the biggest things detractors like to bring up is that EVs just can't work in cold climates, but I see a lot of EVs here in our rather severe climate, and they seem to be OK.
I don't currently own one, I tend to keep my vehicles until the wheels fall off and EVs weren't quite ready for my needs last time around, but we live in a rural area with only one car and my wife is traveling more and more these days leaving me without any way to leave the house when it's too cold to cycle, so I'm very seriously considering a small Bolt or similar for a runabout car, leaving our 10 year old Subaru for the most sloppy snow days and trips that involve long dirt roads or similar needs for the AWD.
EVs just keep getting better! I've always wanted one, but I've been putting it off for as long as possible to avoid early adopter syndrome. I think my next car may be an EV though if I can find a nice affordable option.
I’ve seen people talking about the potential for using an EV’s enormous battery pack as a potential house battery (charge up during off-peak hours or when solar is doing it’s thing, discharge to cover some of the house’s power needs during peak/nighttime) but is this hypothetical future stuff or is there already the equipment required to make this possible?
Also, as an Australian, I think I still want an EV for daily driving (and maybe rent an ICE once per year for my 680km/420mi road trip), but I don’t know if the charging infrastructure is there yet for longer trips, especially considering the kind of car I want to get (small city car, less range than most EVs at the moment). That said, I’m sure the situation is likely to change over the next few years; while Australia is huge, most of the population is concentrated on the east coast, which makes justifying EV chargers a bit easier.
What @scroll_lock's link describe is called "vehicle to grid" (bidirectional flow of energy), but there's also vehicle to home (your car is just a big battery that connects to your home power, Ford F-150 does this) and vehicle to load (your car is just a big battery that connect to whatever has a normal electrical plug, the same Ford model does this, but also some Hyundai model; YouTuber Technology Connection has a video using his Ionic 5 for this)
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This technology exists and is legal in at least some areas, including Australia as far as I know. I don't know what its market-readiness is everywhere, but it's on an upswing. I think this is less of a technological lift and more of an economic one. People just have to be convinced to sign agreements to use their car's battery as grid storage.
Unless you're trying to get to Perth, I don't think you will have an issue. The A1 has okay coverage, but there are a few gaps of around 200km which seems iffy to me.
If you're just getting around Victoria or the east coast, I imagine you would be just fine, but you'd have to map your route and see.
Yeah, I think you’re right about the range. I take one roadtrip per year from Melbourne to Canberra, and if I was driving a BYD Seagull (it’s not actually available in Australia, but there are rumours it’s on the way) I probably wouldn’t be comfortable taking that trip in the EV, but trips within Victoria should be mostly fine.
But officer, I'm just trying to improve the life of my battery!
This is a pleasant discovery. I think there is no downside to being conservative on battery life for EVs. It would seem ideal to me that people like myself who are driving an EV for the first time would have a more positive feeling about the technology if the battery lasts longer than expected, etc.
the downside to quick acceleration is gonna be tire wear. I have a Prologue and the tires for it are $380 each, or were when I got it, they'll likely go up too.
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I agree that tire microplastic management is a field that needs more study. There are probably manufacturing processes and treading designs that minimize wear, and material choices that are better for the environment.
But in general (not specific to the Prologue or any one car) one of the best ways to reduce the rate of tire wear is to reduce the weight of the vehicle overall. In addition to buying smaller cars, this can also be done by adopting lower-weight battery packs, even if that means lower energy density. In practice, most people vastly overestimate how often they'll need an ultra-long range. If most consumers were more realistic about their actual driving patterns, more of them would be okay with a stated range of 100-200 miles (that they might use) rather than 300-400 (they they wouldn't), and save the weight of hauling around all those extra batteries. Of course some people have greater use-cases for long ranges and therefore will choose heavier cars.
More stringent regulation about reducing tire microplastics (tire wear) could incentivize the production of more efficient, lighter-weight EVs in general, which would ultimately save consumers a lot of money on fuel and tire costs.
Holy crap... are they run flat tires or something? Every person I know that had run flat tires (including myself on one vehicle) just replaced them with regular tires when the time came.
Edit: to the point about sharp acceleration being good; maybe we could better design cars around that concept? I love accelerating quickly from a stop but modern EV's are too fast to be doing that a lot.
not run flats, but a special harder compound for evs
It's good news, however I'm afraid it's definitely not enough to stop global climate changes. Current private cars, especially big ones, are pretty inefficient regarding pollution, especially in the times we live now. I am happy for every new study like this, but at the same time I'm so angry that not enough money is invested into public transport which is way better tool to fight human-made future catastrophe. There are already much more efficient „electric cars” and they're called trains and trams, they should be given much more love by people.
The problem is used car market. Many companies would do operative leasing on the car and after a year or two, they will switch to new one. The used one, often time with quite high mileage for its age, wil go to used cars market. But here is the difference between ICE and EV - while ICE will atill run ok for another couple years (probably), EV will have battery quite used. Sich cars may have like 50 to 100 thousand kilometers clocked. And seeing how they have warranties of 100 thousand km or 8 years (whichever comes first), you don't know if yu are buying prospective EV or near-future wreck.
I'm not against EV at all! Quite the opposite - I'm.perfect example of its user, I do 10 thousand kilometers a year, most of this on short distance (less tha 150 kilometers a trip, often city use). Yet I don't have EV. When we bought new car there were not that good EV options - low range and high price and I wanted a car with big trunk/boot (combi). We spent 1/3 the price of new EV on our Ford Focus Combi. In other words I could have had three cars (of quite good utility value if you have to drive small kids) instead of one overpiced and small EV.
Once EVs are price competitive with ICE of the same class, there is no doubt I would pick EV.