Shell Says It Will Start Installing Electric Vehicle Chargers at Gas Stations

Are you good at twiddling thumbs for a few hours?

don't forget to buy some provisions for your stay.

Maybe they'll make pods available

You could buy a magazine in the store and use the restroom . . .

A capital suggestion!

And while your Tesla eats lunch, you can go looking for a taco.

Charging an electric car in a short amount of time takes a huge amount of power transfer. Maybe we can go back to the pony express model. When the car runs out of juice, swap it for a charged one. I don't particularly like this idea because I like owning a car, but young people these days have different attitudes.

Hey if the car can drive itself, maybe it can clean itself as well....?

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/181370-nissans-self-cleaning-car-could-kill-off-car-washing-forever

Self-cleaning cars?

Not for us Jeep fans, thank you.

A proper Jeep Wrangler does not wear chrome⁽¹⁾, it wears MUD.

Notes:

1. Baring the chrome rings around the headlights (which have a practical purpose, they reflect headlight shine that would be wasted illuminating the front grill forward to boost the brightness of the driving beams), there should be no chrome trim on the exterior of the vehicle, unless it is owned and driven by a woman, or a metrosexual man. Those two groups are allowed to 'pretty up' the Wrangler to their own standards⁽²⁾.
2. And for those who may not realize it, the preceding was SATIRE on the 'manly man' attitudes concerning cars. Personally I do not have any objection HOW people choose to decorate their Wranglers, or the 'personal preferences' of the drivers. I question the wisdom of the 'large hub/thin tire' combination on Jeeps, if only because the normal suspension on Wranglers is set to 'pretty stiff⁽³⁾' and removing the cushion of the pneumatic tires only makes the ride even more 'adventurous⁽⁴⁾'.
3. Some of you may remember the old commercial of a man riding a buffalo bareback down a hill as part of the "There's a feeling you can get, only in a Jeep" advertising era. Wranglers still have that 'feel every bump' suspension.
4. Some would say it would enter the category of 'kidney-shattering,' or 'spine-dislocating.'

You just need some proper suspension parts...

A parking garage with vehicle rechargers makes some sense, but unless one can swap out discharged batteries for charged batteries this does not make sense.

Stopping on the road for coffee and a sandwich, 20 min....enough time for a fast charge...This would be for people with time on their hands or perhaps on a journey, most charging would be done at home....another 10 years they'll have this down to 10 min....time to walk in the store and get a hot dog...Perhaps a merging of the gas station and strip mall...

Another 10 years and batteries may be obsolete.

A H² fueled car that plugs into the home battery bank may negate the need for "filling" stations and power lines running to your house.

Mr. Fusion. FTW

Heck metallic hydrogen will be all the rage by then.

So then, it is all a giant conspiracy devised by the evil Lyn, of Lyn-Door Industries. It is an attempt to get us paying for parking in his garage.

Did you actually read that "article"? Did you notice how illiterate and stupid the first paragraph was?

Yes...no I'm generally only concerned with the message and truthiness of the information....I gave up on proper sentence structure, punctuation and spelling some time ago....as far as well written articles, I mean seriously?

One can tell society is in deep trouble when the hospital form legalese is rife with misspelled words.

I would be expecting much less from a convenience store clerk. Sir, would you like right-handed chiral electrons with your coffee, or left-handed enantiomeric protons? Not that such things could (or should) exist.

"...no I'm generally only concerned with the message and truthiness of the information..."

Did you mean 'truthiness' or 'truthfulness'?

Truthfulness: The quality of being truthful.

Truthiness: Superficial or asserted truthfulness, without recourse to evidence.

(Definitions from wiktionary)

To know one side of the coin is to know the other..

There is a significant opportunity for a re-think on fuel station layout.

It is abstruse that, having fuelled a vehicle, the driver will then leave the fuelling point occupied by a locked, parked vehicle while collecting a bag of shopping from the shelves and joining the check-out queue; if other vehicles cannot use the fuelling point as a consequence, then the operation stands to lose business. Clearing the fuelling point, or having sufficient fuelling points to cater for the numbers of customers bumbling though the aisles and queueing to pay, seems to be a re-design challenge that could yield significant payback.

More charging spots will show up in supermarkets lots. I don't want to be stuck as a petrol/charge station for any shopping chores less a bag of crisps.

I've seen Tesla charging stations in parking areas.

How about charging stations that actually move along with the car as it charges, so that it comes off the end ready and you are also already?

As far as that goes, what every happened to the presto-chango battery station?

It's a real-estate problem--where do you put all the batteries being charged?

The geometry will have to vertical (most likely underground integration of charging and storage, maybe some above ground depending on local water table issues, or flooding issues. Just like storing the dead...batteries. Only the batteries are resurrected these days.

The storage capacity would be limited by the business size, capital outlay for charging power and material storage. That is why having metallic hydrogen for batteries makes a lot of sense (but so far this is the most rare and expensive material on earth).

I'm totally with you on the presto chango charging station.

It's only because it makes complete societal, economic and manufacturing sense that it will be quite some time before this ever shows up.

The problem is a rather lucrative yet obscene, dishonest and wasteful revenue stream who name shall not be spoken. (planned obsolescence) Many years will go by before they figure out that they can model it after the very successful propane cylinder exchange. A long time will pass before they figure out that it could be fully autonomous and fast.

eg. 1 cell average car - 2 cells for an suv and so on.

If it's fast. people wont stop for a taco, coffee and a magazine for the bathroom. That's a huge problem with today's business model.

___________________________

Quick Question

Can you elaborate on that first sentence about the take away charging station? Me be baffled all day. is that a real thought?

I was imagining a slower than traffic, but useful sort of assembly line re-charging station about 1/4 mile long out on the Interstate (?) where the people get out onto a synchronous track, and step off to slower succeeding tracks until they can go inside the station at the hub, get their magazine, beer (self-driving cars), beer nuts, condoms, etc. and then start catching up with their car that is being charged (swap-out or traveling charger connection (like a trolley)), then step back in and zoom off.

These chargings would be fast-charge top off only, more of a pee stop.

Sounds like a cross between a Route 66 Roadside Attraction stop and a mini roadtown.

We've had the roadtown idea since 1940, thanks to Heinlein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll

Sure. I never said my idea was original or new, or really even that it was mine, or that it was an idea, did I?

Sheesh. I am proud to hand it back to Heinlein.

I've always thought we could set up some sort of inductive charging - built into the road at certain intervals. The system would read your car id (like the fast track readers we have here in CA) and assess a cost for driving by a charging sta ... Whoa, hold on one second! I think I just cited a good reason to charge people DMV fees based on mileage driven!

Yep. Except who owns the cars? The rental company gets stuck with some of this? I don't think so.

The current trend is toward leases, so in the future, there's a good chance that most cars will be leased.

In the last few years, manufacturers have been leasing used cars to their customers. These are cars that have come back from an original three year (most are three year, but there are other terms) and are refurbished and leased again.

You will not ever, ever, ever catch me losing my mind and signing a lease for anything ever again in this world. Not a car, not an abode, not a piece of equipment. If it is needed, I will buy it or leave it alone, or build it myself.

If no pickups are for sale when my 2001 Chevy quits, it will get rebuilt, one way or the other. Or I will go buy a horse, and to hell with cities.

"You will not ever, ever, ever catch me losing my mind and signing a lease for anything ever again in this world. Not a car, not an abode, not a piece of equipment. If it is needed, I will buy it or leave it alone, or build it myself."

Good luck with commercial software in the future; looks like the trend is for SaaS (Software as a Service), and even the current EULA's make it sound like a rental. (A non-transferable license to use the software for an unspecified length of time.)

Then again, perhaps you are one of the 'early adopters' who is using Free and Open Source software exclusively.

But Software is not a physical object that I would care to attempt to make for myself, although I am midst (somewhat unwillingly) to learn to program in C+ (Arduino IDE).

I have found that even with open source software, sometimes you cannot have the necessary Libraries until you make your donation. It is commerce in another form.

I hate these Microsoft Office "Leases" where you supposedly buy the license to the software for one year, etc.

Welcome to the Western World where Middle Earth is no more, hobbits no longer come for even a visit. As soon as "you" slide from your mother's womb, the lawyers are there with their fox like, or wolf like fangs showing, with paperwork for the infant to sign before he can hit the ground running. It is as prophesied in the New Testament Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, where the lady (America) gives birth, and the dragon (lawyers) are there to instantly devour the newborn.

For the next generation, leases will be the way to go. Why?

1. They don't care about owning things.

2. They care about using things.

3. They don't make as much as we do (on average).

4. Leases cost less than buying (lower monthly payment).

5. Leasing a car can save money. How?

- You only pay sales tax on the down payment and monthly payment. You don't pay sales tax on the residual, unless you buy it.

- If you want a luxury car (Merc S550, BMW 750, Audi A8, etc), you're much better off having it when it's under warranty. That's what a lease does for you. Knowing how much repair costs are for these cars; example - 4 new shocks/struts/air bags are about $15K. Why would you want to own one of these cars.

- It's easier to write off a lease if you're an outside salesman or you own a business.

Think of a lease as a long term rental. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you understand what the terms are and you have the means to pay for it.

It sounds like you got screwed with a prior lease. Many people have.

Here's a question for you - it's actually something that could happen and not some once in a lifetime event.

If you had a great business idea (which most of us do) and you had the means to take action, but it required you to lease a commercial building, would you do it?

Maybe you could buy the building, but would that be the best for your business?

Or another example. Let's say your employer sent you on a year long project in San Francisco. Would you lease an apartment? You'd have to make a lot of money to buy something (tear downs are over $1M there).

My point is that there are perfectly good leases out there. The problem is that there are unethical people who take advantage of unsophisticated buyers and over charge them for leases.

And if you need to hear about a good lease, about 1/2 year ago, I leased a 2016 Toyota Camry SE (with moonroof) for my daughter. 2 year/12K miles per year, $0 out of pocket and $181/mo including tax. And free maintenance for 2 years/25K miles! That's one hell of a lease!

So, it comes down to tax tricks for business 101. I knew I should have taken that derned class.

Oh well, I will just drive my clunker smoking pickup to hell and back.

Inductive charging will be a real thing once the GaN transistor engineers finalize (and they are virtually there) all the power board prototypes they have been designing.

Actually, one can order prototype boards for bench testing right now. GaN transistors can run at higher temperatures, can handle more current, have better switching characteristics in PWM applications, etc., etc.

I have no idea what the etc. is exactly, but I was urged by the devil on my shoulder to say that.