While Huawei’s claims have generated excitement, experts caution that these estimates remain theoretical at present, with practical application depending on charging infrastructure that is yet to be developed commercially.
Like, if even half of the theoretical claims are upheld, for an 800 mile range and 10 minute charge, it would be a great first step toward lightening the weight of EVs. Get the EVs lighter than...
Like, if even half of the theoretical claims are upheld, for an 800 mile range and 10 minute charge, it would be a great first step toward lightening the weight of EVs.
Get the EVs lighter than their ICE counterparts and that will be the end of every argument against EVs that made even a modicum of sense.
After 7 months of EV ownership, I'll never go back to gas if I can avoid it. Right now charging in public is still a bit of a messy, expensive, crapshoot.
I routinely see public chargers charging $0.65 per kWh. In areas where the residential (read: most expensive) rate is under $0.12. IMO it should be capped at double the base electric rate.
Comment box Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation Tone: neutral, explorative Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none The price should be market rate. Capping the price of charging-specific...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation
Tone: neutral, explorative
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
The price should be market rate. Capping the price of charging-specific electricity is a car subsidy that incentivizes wasteful long-distance driving over other uses of electricity.
While EV adoption could slightly accelerate with such subsidies in the next 5–10 years, it will happen by itself. The technology is leaping forward at such astonishing rates that ICEs simply will not be economically viable within a decade. All consumers respond to pricing. (The American market’s obsession with oversized luxury vehicles will fade once the economic reality of the new world order sets in.)
Once a subsidy as broad as that goes in, assuming uptake is large, it’s probably never going away -too much political support from drivers. Because what politician will voluntarily raise the cost of [gas|electricity]? They’d have to be sneaky about it. Good luck.
Charging stations can presently raise prices because there is a relatively low supply of them on certain routes. But if you look at the Alternative Fuels Data Center datasets on charging trends, the number of public L2/DC charging ports is increasing by 5–8% every quarter. That’s stock market-level growth… but 3–4x as fast. When there is truly enough supply, prices will go own. If they don’t, tough—that means we’re already at equilibrium. Long-distance driving is more resource-intensive than short-distance and should be priced accordingly; the real cost per mile including externalities is definitely more than linear.
The end goal is ecological sustainability, and that’s only possible if people aren’t driving cars everywhere. They have their place, but it should really be a niche method of transport.
I didn't say "fixed cap". I said double market rate. In my neck of the woods, even if we assume a very high per-unit install of a 64kw charger around $50,000, it's only being used 4 hours a day,...
I didn't say "fixed cap". I said double market rate.
In my neck of the woods, even if we assume a very high per-unit install of a 64kw charger around $50,000, it's only being used 4 hours a day, and $0.24 profit per kWh, that's $22k profit a year, less than 3 years to cost recovery. Even if the whole unit needed replaced every 5 years it would still be a net win.
Even at the cheapest place in the country, at about $0.11 profit, that's still only 6 years till costs are recouped. And that's assuming they're only being used for 4 hours a day. By contrast, estimated payback time for a residential rooftop solar is on the order of 10-15 years.
The real answer for fast deployment is zoning code mandates, especially for new lots: At least 50% of spaces must have Level 2 available.
Part of the reason for the forced cap/deployment is that, especially in denser urban areas, people do rely on public chargers. Yes, it would be better if that money were spent on public transit and forcing cars out, but that isn't going to be viable inside a decade or two.
Comment box Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation Tone: neutral, explorative Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: dryly, a bit My suggestion is that the EV charging market is resilient enough to...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation
Tone: neutral, explorative
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: dryly, a bit
My suggestion is that the EV charging market is resilient enough to manage itself. Whether it’s a flat cap or a market-based cap, it’s still an explicit auto subsidy vs. other energy uses. We would be better off with additional negative incentives for gas stations and gas-powered vehicle use.
To be honest I’m not sure that’s strictly necessary either, though it would speed things up a lot—I’m usually on the other side of the tech futurism bandwagon, arguing for policies and incentives, but the engineering simplicity of EVs and, as we see, rapidly increasing energy density per area and weight just leave ICEs in the dust.
Personally I am less interested in working on problems that already have the inertial weight of physics, industry, and technical media behind them, which EVs essentially do. It’s not literally solved yet, but it’s a ball rolling down a hill. The writing is on the wall, internationally; China’s industrial direction is electric and we’re going to be living in that world sooner than we think. In contrast, de-carifying our built environment is not even close to a solved problem in the United States and for the most part doesn’t benefit from those inertial forces as easily. Our policy efforts have to be designed accordingly.
With exceptions for edge cases, I don’t like legally mandating EV infrastructure as an incremental step toward car-free/car-lite cities because once a municipality makes that investment, it’s going to be unpopular to remove it. Just see how hard it currently is to remove free on-street parking even in highly transit-accessible neighborhoods. Once people feel entitled to a particular lifestyle amenity, they’re going to fight bitterly to retain it—even logically understanding the tragedy of the commons and recognizing the environmental and financial peril it puts our society in.
Mandating specific charging infrastructure by ZIP is a variation of zoning-based minimum parking requirements, which are generally antithetical to successful human civilization (see Shoup/Parking Reform Network). I see why they’re appealing, but American local governments are broadly structurally incapable of managing land use in a way that isn’t waaay ecologically destructive. It basically creates a new paradigm where charging (parking) is doubly enforced rather than one where it can be whittled away through better urban planning.
We can do this car incentive stuff now for EVs, but we have to undo it all in 10 years anyway. The activist organizing effort necessary for that is higher than getting it right the first time.
This assumes that charging stations will be permitted to be dense enough to permit market dynamics. It's not obvious that this will be true and we won't see typical pay to play development...
This assumes that charging stations will be permitted to be dense enough to permit market dynamics. It's not obvious that this will be true and we won't see typical pay to play development dynamics that ensure artificially high prices.
Comment box Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation Tone: neutral, explorative Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none If gas station density currently meets market demand, EV charging definitely...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, opinion, speculation
Tone: neutral, explorative
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
If gas station density currently meets market demand, EV charging definitely can. They serve the same overall market need (public vehicle fueling). With DC fast charging of only a few minutes, EV charging stations have a similar spatial requirement to gas stations.
You’re right that there’s a political element here too. My assumption is that there will be a certain point where constituents economically benefit enough from EVs specifically, as opposed to ICEs, that that problem handles itself. (This is a separate economic question from car-free/car-lite paradigms because adopting an EV is way easier than getting rid of a car altogether.)
Most development limitations in the US are the direct result of local permitting restrictions. In housing, we’re already seeing states take control of regional zoning (California etc) to increase market responsiveness to demand. EV charging land use is just a lagging version of that, because transportation is usually the 2nd or 3rd cost behind housing in most household budgets.
I guess to set out a bit my stall: I own an EV I have an executive position at a firm manufacturing vehicle charging (residential, not public). I'm not in the US, so I can't comment on that with...
I guess to set out a bit my stall:
I own an EV
I have an executive position at a firm manufacturing vehicle charging (residential, not public).
I'm not in the US, so I can't comment on that with any accuracy.
All this to say I'm pretty biased towards EVs, and pretty plugged into what's going on with the grid where I live. What I am worried about is that fast DC charging is capital intensive and there is a limited market for it, in the sense that most L2 charging can just be done at home, and I am worried not that EV infrastructure won't grow to meet demand, I think that's already happening (I've just been on a 600 mile road trip served by 150kw chargers at every stop), I am more worried about monopoly dynamics preventing efficient price discovery, and instead just seeing 3/4 companies owning all the charging infrastructure at large highway rest stations and engaging in soft price fixing in typical cartel fashion.
That’s a good comment. I wonder how monopolistic the gas station industry is? I mean, off the top of my head, I can think of about dozen gas brands on interstate highways… though I am not sure if they’re all independent.
At least where I live, there’s a reasonable amount of price variation station-to-station (not sure how they’re capable of that considering they’re all buying oil from the same global market, I think?)
In theory the federal government has the ability to break up monopolies. I am not sure if there is a special characteristic of EV charging that makes it resistant to that, or more resistant than gas.
I guess one could make the argument that electric charging is necessarily less monopolistic than gas fueling because electric power generation is much more decentralized than the oil industry, which seems to be a few giant political price-fixing blocs. (Whereas one can generate electricity in 5+ cost-competitive methods.) It’s not clear to me exactly how much that structural efficiency affects end-user costs.
I really wish there were a site that records hype-fuelled probably a bullshit claims and then revisits them 5,10 years later to see if they went anywhere and why not.
uawei has filed a patent detailing a sulfide-based solid-state battery design with energy densities between 180 and 225 Wh/lb, roughly two to three times higher than today’s typical electric vehicle batteries.
I really wish there were a site that records hype-fuelled probably a bullshit claims and then revisits them 5,10 years later to see if they went anywhere and why not.
When it comes to batteries, there is a canyon between the lab and mass manufacture. That being said, China is in fact on the leading edge of battery technology and solid state batteries are the...
When it comes to batteries, there is a canyon between the lab and mass manufacture.
That being said, China is in fact on the leading edge of battery technology and solid state batteries are the future. It's probably not bunk, but making it to mass production will never match the lab results.
Like, if even half of the theoretical claims are upheld, for an 800 mile range and 10 minute charge, it would be a great first step toward lightening the weight of EVs.
Get the EVs lighter than their ICE counterparts and that will be the end of every argument against EVs that made even a modicum of sense.
After 7 months of EV ownership, I'll never go back to gas if I can avoid it. Right now charging in public is still a bit of a messy, expensive, crapshoot.
I routinely see public chargers charging $0.65 per kWh. In areas where the residential (read: most expensive) rate is under $0.12. IMO it should be capped at double the base electric rate.
Comment box
The price should be market rate. Capping the price of charging-specific electricity is a car subsidy that incentivizes wasteful long-distance driving over other uses of electricity.
While EV adoption could slightly accelerate with such subsidies in the next 5–10 years, it will happen by itself. The technology is leaping forward at such astonishing rates that ICEs simply will not be economically viable within a decade. All consumers respond to pricing. (The American market’s obsession with oversized luxury vehicles will fade once the economic reality of the new world order sets in.)
Once a subsidy as broad as that goes in, assuming uptake is large, it’s probably never going away -too much political support from drivers. Because what politician will voluntarily raise the cost of [gas|electricity]? They’d have to be sneaky about it. Good luck.
Charging stations can presently raise prices because there is a relatively low supply of them on certain routes. But if you look at the Alternative Fuels Data Center datasets on charging trends, the number of public L2/DC charging ports is increasing by 5–8% every quarter. That’s stock market-level growth… but 3–4x as fast. When there is truly enough supply, prices will go own. If they don’t, tough—that means we’re already at equilibrium. Long-distance driving is more resource-intensive than short-distance and should be priced accordingly; the real cost per mile including externalities is definitely more than linear.
The end goal is ecological sustainability, and that’s only possible if people aren’t driving cars everywhere. They have their place, but it should really be a niche method of transport.
I didn't say "fixed cap". I said double market rate.
In my neck of the woods, even if we assume a very high per-unit install of a 64kw charger around $50,000, it's only being used 4 hours a day, and $0.24 profit per kWh, that's $22k profit a year, less than 3 years to cost recovery. Even if the whole unit needed replaced every 5 years it would still be a net win.
Even at the cheapest place in the country, at about $0.11 profit, that's still only 6 years till costs are recouped. And that's assuming they're only being used for 4 hours a day. By contrast, estimated payback time for a residential rooftop solar is on the order of 10-15 years.
The real answer for fast deployment is zoning code mandates, especially for new lots: At least 50% of spaces must have Level 2 available.
Part of the reason for the forced cap/deployment is that, especially in denser urban areas, people do rely on public chargers. Yes, it would be better if that money were spent on public transit and forcing cars out, but that isn't going to be viable inside a decade or two.
Comment box
My suggestion is that the EV charging market is resilient enough to manage itself. Whether it’s a flat cap or a market-based cap, it’s still an explicit auto subsidy vs. other energy uses. We would be better off with additional negative incentives for gas stations and gas-powered vehicle use.
To be honest I’m not sure that’s strictly necessary either, though it would speed things up a lot—I’m usually on the other side of the tech futurism bandwagon, arguing for policies and incentives, but the engineering simplicity of EVs and, as we see, rapidly increasing energy density per area and weight just leave ICEs in the dust.
Personally I am less interested in working on problems that already have the inertial weight of physics, industry, and technical media behind them, which EVs essentially do. It’s not literally solved yet, but it’s a ball rolling down a hill. The writing is on the wall, internationally; China’s industrial direction is electric and we’re going to be living in that world sooner than we think. In contrast, de-carifying our built environment is not even close to a solved problem in the United States and for the most part doesn’t benefit from those inertial forces as easily. Our policy efforts have to be designed accordingly.
With exceptions for edge cases, I don’t like legally mandating EV infrastructure as an incremental step toward car-free/car-lite cities because once a municipality makes that investment, it’s going to be unpopular to remove it. Just see how hard it currently is to remove free on-street parking even in highly transit-accessible neighborhoods. Once people feel entitled to a particular lifestyle amenity, they’re going to fight bitterly to retain it—even logically understanding the tragedy of the commons and recognizing the environmental and financial peril it puts our society in.
Mandating specific charging infrastructure by ZIP is a variation of zoning-based minimum parking requirements, which are generally antithetical to successful human civilization (see Shoup/Parking Reform Network). I see why they’re appealing, but American local governments are broadly structurally incapable of managing land use in a way that isn’t waaay ecologically destructive. It basically creates a new paradigm where charging (parking) is doubly enforced rather than one where it can be whittled away through better urban planning.
We can do this car incentive stuff now for EVs, but we have to undo it all in 10 years anyway. The activist organizing effort necessary for that is higher than getting it right the first time.
This assumes that charging stations will be permitted to be dense enough to permit market dynamics. It's not obvious that this will be true and we won't see typical pay to play development dynamics that ensure artificially high prices.
Comment box
If gas station density currently meets market demand, EV charging definitely can. They serve the same overall market need (public vehicle fueling). With DC fast charging of only a few minutes, EV charging stations have a similar spatial requirement to gas stations.
You’re right that there’s a political element here too. My assumption is that there will be a certain point where constituents economically benefit enough from EVs specifically, as opposed to ICEs, that that problem handles itself. (This is a separate economic question from car-free/car-lite paradigms because adopting an EV is way easier than getting rid of a car altogether.)
Most development limitations in the US are the direct result of local permitting restrictions. In housing, we’re already seeing states take control of regional zoning (California etc) to increase market responsiveness to demand. EV charging land use is just a lagging version of that, because transportation is usually the 2nd or 3rd cost behind housing in most household budgets.
I guess to set out a bit my stall:
All this to say I'm pretty biased towards EVs, and pretty plugged into what's going on with the grid where I live. What I am worried about is that fast DC charging is capital intensive and there is a limited market for it, in the sense that most L2 charging can just be done at home, and I am worried not that EV infrastructure won't grow to meet demand, I think that's already happening (I've just been on a 600 mile road trip served by 150kw chargers at every stop), I am more worried about monopoly dynamics preventing efficient price discovery, and instead just seeing 3/4 companies owning all the charging infrastructure at large highway rest stations and engaging in soft price fixing in typical cartel fashion.
Comment box
That’s a good comment. I wonder how monopolistic the gas station industry is? I mean, off the top of my head, I can think of about dozen gas brands on interstate highways… though I am not sure if they’re all independent.
At least where I live, there’s a reasonable amount of price variation station-to-station (not sure how they’re capable of that considering they’re all buying oil from the same global market, I think?)
In theory the federal government has the ability to break up monopolies. I am not sure if there is a special characteristic of EV charging that makes it resistant to that, or more resistant than gas.
I guess one could make the argument that electric charging is necessarily less monopolistic than gas fueling because electric power generation is much more decentralized than the oil industry, which seems to be a few giant political price-fixing blocs. (Whereas one can generate electricity in 5+ cost-competitive methods.) It’s not clear to me exactly how much that structural efficiency affects end-user costs.
I really wish there were a site that records hype-fuelled probably a bullshit claims and then revisits them 5,10 years later to see if they went anywhere and why not.
When it comes to batteries, there is a canyon between the lab and mass manufacture.
That being said, China is in fact on the leading edge of battery technology and solid state batteries are the future. It's probably not bunk, but making it to mass production will never match the lab results.
I know you're being metaphorical, but now I want to see that canyon. It sounds like a pretty cool canyon.