Electric vehicle charging

What if 2/3 of car customers don't want or can't pay for an electric car in 2032?

Most I think will need a cheaper option... In the meantime there's all the loopholes to explore...

Zoom zoom baby....

Hey guys (and gals) the key word is "new" cars. I for one haven't bought a new car EVER. So it will just be a while before the new EVs in 2032 filter down to my price and up to my availability. Then I'll be buying a used EV. In the meantime I would think there will be plenty of used IC engine cars hitting the market.

What might be more to the point is to explore what the price of gasoline is likely to be when the oil companies are only refining 80, 75, 50, 30, percent of the motor fuel they now produce. That is gonna rock the economy for those of us still driving IC engine cars.

Then there's how to pay for roads, still needed for EVs when the tax revenue that has traditionally covered this is in the crapper as fuel usage goes down. Let's practice bitching about per-mile road usage taxes.

We can also bitch about public transit that never pays for itself (Is there some reason it should? Rapid transit is a public good. Maybe the public, not just the users should be responsible?) AND "never serves my neighborhood".

Changes are coming to the country and the world. Whether we like them, fight them or work with them.

Are you still under the delusion that we have a free market or you have any liberties or freedom left?

Are you still under the delusion that we have a free market or you have any liberties or freedom left?

Sadly, not. Politicians are making all the important decisions...

That could be a very good thing for America and the planet at large. not being able to afford the cost estimate of those future vehicles. Of course that cost would be a disaster for whats left of the middle class in America. Roads assigned as major highways all ready take up the total area of a medium small small size state. Meaning the land mass of just one of those states. Parking for cars and light trucks take up 5 times amount of that land mass in America. Paying for parking at those parking lots and road construction and maintenance is several degrees more costly to the middle and lower class American. The answer to your question is not what you were referring to. As being unaffordable. Mass transit ( all ways currently available ) must be pushed forward and new tech. invented. The real answer to your question is: A tax system where the new, best design vehicle is rebated in some simple tax restructure to all Americans. Costly variations of those American made vehicles have to be taxed / priced very high to those purchasing them. The roads are all ready crammed with to many cars. To heavy cars. to many delivery vehicles. The speeds that cars can travel safely are already being exceeded. The whole infrastructure of America roads and cars needs to be changed.

I agree with many of your thoughts. In 2007-08 I studied the topic of urban mass transit. Somewhat dated but still valid information can be found from:

. A very frequently-quoted study of transit was published in 1977, (Public Transportation and Land Use Policy, Boris S. Pushkarev and Jeffrey M. Zupan, Indiana University Press). In it, and in many presentations since, Zupan has related density of land use to sustainability of transit:

Population Density Transit Frequency Business Dist. Retail Space

4 houses / acre Bus hourly 5 – 8 million sq.ft.

7 houses / acre Bus half-hourly 7 – 17 million sq.ft.

15 houses / acre Bus each 10 minutes over 20 million sq.ft.

9 houses / acre Streetcar service over 19 million sq.ft.

12 houses / acre Rapid Transit 50 – 70 million sq.ft.

These numbers were drawn from studies on the New York metropolitan area,

If you want to read my analysis, write me at jmueller245@yahoo.com. I didn't see a way to attach it to this post. --JMM

The idea of having all the electric cars act together as peaker plants is a weak unrealistic plan...Trucks would require hydrogen fuel cell technology from ammonia, that technology is not viable at this time, at least 20 years out...

This report is likely an early step in deciding what additional production facility is required in the next decades.

Accurately predicting demand will give better return on investment, and putting the idea of using car batteries for grid smoothing in our heads now will lead to better acceptance of the ‘inevitable’ once it is required.

This method will also be used to reduce the required investment to certain infrastructure and increase investment where it will provide the best returns.

And if they can keep the customers from moving away to other sources of energy, so much the better.

Customers are paying retail for the electricity to charge their vehicles, if the batteries are drained back into the grid it's not likely that the electric companies will pay retail for that electricity back...then there's the charge cycles to consider for the battery pack, this would shorten the life of the batteries......People are not going to donate and sacrifice for no compensation, and not likely to accept break even calculations from some fast talking representative...it's a can of worms best left sealed...you can only screw the pooch so many times before getting bitten..

No, the utilities won't pay back retail, but they will pay for the grid stabilization services that car batteries can add to the grid. Many early adopters of EVs are also making their own fuel with home PV systems. If this can be extended to more EV owners then better yet.

Why bother with the EVs? Vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells will be what you will be driving within 10 years. The convenience of refueling will cause people to choose hydrogen fuel cell cars over EVs even if it costs more. At least one country thinks so. Germany is building a network of hydrogen refueling stations all over the country. We are used to 5 minute fill ups and we won't give it up!

That's the crux of the matter. Hydrogen may be a better choice but will only work if the refuelling stations are there. Certainly in the UK, the government seems to be locked in to EVs & the number of charging stations is gradually increasing. New homes will also be required to have charging points.

It's not the number of charging stations, it's the time to charge whether at a charging station on the road or at home. Say, you get home, plug in your car, then discover that you need to go across town for something and your car hasn't recharged enough to get you across town and back. There's no question that the long wait for recharging will lose to the quick charging of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars. And, with enough solar panels at home, one can make their own hydrogen. Now, wouldn't that be convenient. Hydrogen is a wonderful gas. Break water apart with electricity to get hydrogen and oxygen separated, then put hydrogen and oxygen back together to get electricity!

The politicians want you to buy electric cars so that they can have control of the economy, thus hydrogen vehicles may never get a fair chance. They'll say it's too dangerous. With fully electric cars they can lock you, the "owner", out and take control of the vehicle. It's already in place. As stated above, they want to use your cars as one segmented battery. Can't do that with anything else.

However, they still can't produce enough electricity to charge even a small percentage of the vehicles. And with the new obsession with getting rid of natural gas we'll be going back to coal. So much for lowering the emissions.

I like the energy density and non carbon aspect of this tech...BUT I don't think the general public can handle a fill-up without mishaps. Ammonia is nasty stuff. If I'm filling up with gasoline and it spills, or I drive away with the nozzle I'm not going to poison myself or the others around me at the filling station to the same degree as I would if I was pumping ammonia. And will we have to evacuate the station to fill the station tanks?

Ammonia was used as a refrigerant but was replaced by Freon because a Freon leak wouldn't cause you to wake up dead. Ammonia leaks kill people. So if you're vehicle is damaged in a crash and the fuel system leaks, you could die from that before any other injury got you!

Jus' sayin'

Yes we will need to have safety precautions in place...but it does seem manageable

https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/ag-hub/publications/anhydrous-ammonia-managing-risks

This seems logical...

Although it does lack the production and processing and distribution infrastructure that would be necessary....seems like a long uphill battle....maybe in 100 years or so....

Anyone who thinks that that many vehicles will be charged by wind and solar is hardly a scientist. We can barely heat and cool our homes and commercial buildings as it is.

Making 2/3 of the population buy something they can't afford, and essentially making them buy a "new car" every 7 years when the battery quits is only going to dramatically increase the gap between the haves and have nots.

These vehicles are currently only going to be charged with grid upgrades and natural gas power plants.

How has buying batteries from China, that we have to dispose of by the millions every year in our landfills, become good energy and environmental policy?

That's why its going to be hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles. And, eventually, homes, to.

Where does the energy necessary to produce hydrogen come from?

Photons.

You will need to collect a lot of them.

There's a lot of them. If all the worlds supply of energy came from photons, it would not have any effect on the sun for more than a billion years.

The photons are free. The equipment to collect them and convert them into electrical energy is quite another story with all of its attendant baggage as well. And then there is the issue of how much precious land do we want to cover with all these panels. That's when the rose colored glasses begin to fog up.

The rose colored glasses become clear. The panels can be completely recycled. When elevated and spaced properly, agriculture can flourish beneath them. They can be located in other parts of the world to keep us with a constant supply of electricity when the sun goes down. My concept of the world wide grid will come. It's natural progression.

Can be recycled? What is possible and what is practical is not always the same.

What percentage of solar panels are recycled today? Care to hazard a guess? About the only practical part to recycle would be the aluminum frames and maybe some wiring.

Putting HVDC links across the oceans is no easy task. The Pacific HVDC inter-tie from Washington to California runs at 560,000 volts. Underwater cables capable of those voltages are extremely expensive and would be cost prohibitive over ocean distances.

It is a lofty goal no doubt. The problem is reality.

That inter-tie has been in use for decades now. Two big advantages it has--no charge/discharge 120 times a second with concurrent capacitance losses, and no worry about frequency stability. Really unusual when you see it, because there are only 2 cables on the towers instead of the typical 3 AC cables.

--JMM

[Solar panels] can be located in other parts of the world to keep us . . .

Selfish! They need electric power too.

Don't worry, the locals would get solar power from us for the use of their land. And, they would probably build more for their own use. And, eventually, the whole world would be using solar power and interconnected for a World Wide Grid! And, a lot of panels would be put on rooftops and tied into the grid.

And, as hydrogen fuel cell progresses, the solar power will be used to produce hydrogen that will power the fuel cell for the home thereby eliminated the large battery. Of course, a small battery will be necessary for the fuel cell to smooth out fluctuations in demand.

And, add some more solar panels (high power per sq ft to minimize area required) to produce hydrogen for your car.

Although it's a dream of mine, I think it will come. It's the natural, safe way to harness the powers of nature for the betterment of mankind!

Why not cut out the middleman (hydrogen) and use those photons directly in EVs?

I suspect; no, I predict, that nuclear fusion will become practical before worldwide solar energy connectedness happens.

For electric power generated in other parts of the world: how do you plan to transmit it to us?

The really unfortunate thing about all this is that the politicians that are imposing these regulations don't know anything about science, and most of the environmentalists aren't old enough to remember when we had REAL pollution.

50-60 years ago the air was so polluted in many areas that it burned your eyes. Visibility in big cities was a mile or less due to smog. Lakes and rivers were said to be 'dead' because fish could no longer live in them.

We have reduced pollution significantly, and the earth is very capable of healing itself. Just visit a road that has been closed for a few decades and you'll find the pavement broken up and plants growing up through it.

Climate change? Anybody that's been around a while remembers when it's been hot and when it's been cold. I can remember when Niagra Falls froze over in my lifetime. We've had massive floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. since Noah's time. We just haven't been recording such scientific stuff as temperature, wind velocity, and rainfall until the last century or so.

I just have to laugh at people that think they're 'saving the planet' by driving an electric vehicle or other nonsense.

It's time for common sense in writing new legislation, not just responding to people that scream the loudest.

Unfortunately there is a global shortage of common sense.

The trouble with common sense is that it's not very common - Voltaire I think

I agree and remember as well, if you ask me the air is cleaner than it ever was, enough to suit any reasonable person it would seem...the real problem if there is one, is environmental dumping of toxic and hazardous materials, something we hear very little about lately...but both these issues are not about global warming and CO₂ loading, the obsession that's facing societies around the world...a trace gas that I was happily ignorant of for most of my life...I was watching a video of a reporter asking politicians what percentage of the air was CO₂ , they all guessed, nobody knew, and their guesses were anywhere from 2% to mostly around 5%....the actual percentage of 0.04% was incomprehensible...They do what they're told, they know nothing....

I just have to laugh at people that think they're 'saving the planet' by driving an electric vehicle or other nonsense.

Yep! In many cases they are just transferring the pollution to wherever the generating plant is. Of course, that's because most generation is from coal or natural gas. We need more non-polluting electricity generation, and most of us know that solar and wind are not capable of fulfilling our demand. The primary other supply is nuclear, preferably Gen IV nuclear.

In the UK, recovery services will rescue EVs that are out of battery charge by turning up in a van with a big diesel generator on board, how green is that?

There are always people who will perceive the need and be prepared to capitalize on it. Good for them. EV's will work well for some people but not everyone. It's a shame the market is not allowed to evolve on its own.

I thought an "embarrassment" trailer with an auxiliary battery (or a small generator) might be what AAA should bring... Make a trailer hitch a requirement for EVs.

Amen.

"I just have to laugh at people that think they're 'saving the planet' by driving an electric vehicle or other nonsense".

Any comment on people who just want to consume less? I mean I get it about people who think they're "saving the planet" but If I wanted to kill the planet I'd probably hire a bunch of humans to do exactly what we're doing now.

most of the environmentalists aren't old enough to remember when we had REAL pollution.

And many of us aren't aware that the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire!

What! Nobody's jumped on me yet? I'll have to try "poking the bear" some more.

Try this basic question: Where do we get the energy for permanent growth? Not just the energy we use but the faster rate at which we seem determined to use it. Where will it come from? And what will we do to get at it? Spread solar panels all across the landscape? Build wind towers all along our shorelines? Dig mineral resources out of the ground to either extract energy or to simply re-arrange the consumption of what energy we can muster? (Reference to electric cars)

Look at the world population. Look at energy consumption. Us supposedly civilized humans have been spending energy left to us in the form of fossil fuels as if it will never run out, or as if we could simply replace it. What a bunch of entitled trust-fund-babies we are.

Fossil fuel energy has been getting, and will be getting more so, hard to EXTRACT (Think- Fossil fuels are not "produced" by pumping or mining them out of the ground. That's EXTRACTION. They are PRODUCED by millions of years of geological processes. Got a couple million years? And a bounty of dead jungles to turn to coal/oil/natural gas? I didn't think so. That would be fossil fuel PRODUCTION.

To think that we are somehow going to pull an energy rabbit out of a hat just in time to keep doing what we've been doing is indescribably stupid. It looks more to me like we'll squander the last of the "easy" oil fighting about whether solar cars and fusion (twenty years out) are the answers or not. Then we'll wish we'd started working on the real problem (too much consumption from too small a pool of resources) while we still had cheap, plentiful energy to work the solutions with.

OK Jump.

Wildcatting in Russia has always been based on the geological assumption that oil is abiotic rather than biotic.

Guess what...they have a much higher hit rate than we do.

My point is simply that it is possible that oil won't run out...ie "peak oil".

Using less energy is not going to happen. How we harvest that energy will.

We had better S L O W down and do this gradually, using common sense, rather than politically. Politicians have shown themselves to be knee jerks as best as I can see.

That's my jump.

"it is possible that oil won't run out" Oh, of course it won't run out There is no "last barrel" extracted then all the roughnecks go home. But there is a point where the next million barrels are beyond economic reach. Who wants them? Nobody, because they're too expensive to extract.

Using less energy IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Energy "harvests" are going to get harder (more expensive) and rarer (the stuff will be rarer). There's a point where there is very little accessible to harvest, no matter how we propose to do it. Like I said, we don't have teratons of swamp plants to input to the natural production process.

But kudos for "slow down and use common sense" and "Politicians are knee jerks". I often use worse words than that to describe them. But to keep their support bases politicians will likely keep waiting to do much that is sensible. Then the changes we'll face are likely to be sudden, and less predictable.

Another thing worth mentioning is that most of the politicians will be dead before the bills for their inaction come due. I'll be dead too, but I do have grandchildren....

We are not going to use less energy; energy use will always go up.

Where that energy comes from is up for debate. Will it be the tokomak, nuclear next gen plants, some as yet undiscovered source...who knows. We still have about 30 years of already discovered fossil fuel left. We'll probably discover more.

The notion that the world will put on the energy brakes and move backwards toward the stone age is a nice Kum Ba Ya idea, but it ain't happening.

But you don't need to listen to reason, you can just sit back and watch.

We are not going to use less energy; energy use will always go up.

You're one of the few to mention Gen IV nuclear, which I'm sure we'll have to use to keep our standard of energy. I have heard that we have enough depleted uranium (U-238) on hand that we won't have to mine it anymore. Plus Gen IV can use thorium as fuel.

Well I can't do much but sit back and watch. Except maybe take the bus. But an obstacle is what you run into when you watch the goal instead of the road ahead.

I am worried we've spent the energy we need to develop any sort of balanced usage in our essentially closed system (We do always have solar pouring in at a fairly fixed rate. That's what gave us fossil fuels.) We'll run out of easy energy before we figure out how to live on our incomes rather than our inheritance. Supply chains? Inexpensive foreign labor? Cheap transportation of distant resources? Will these survive the increasing cost of energy? Best get to work on that... Your faith that it will all work itself out to your satisfaction is incredible.

before we figure out how to live on our incomes

I think not so much "before we figure out" but "before we have enough guts to do something about it." In place of "guts," you might want to insert "intestinal fortitude."

Well, I'll jump, but I can't come down on you, because I agree! But I'll be gone and won't be able to observe it and laugh! Our leaders, aka politicians, have to get serious about this and not think so much about the next election.

Well thanks! I was expecting to be taught a few things by the readers here. I often do learn from you all.

It seems like those photons hitting the solar panel and converting to electrical current is an unlimited supply of energy. There's lots of photons when the sun is shining. And using the electricity produced to take hydrogen away from water and then put them together again to produce electricity seems like a never ending source of power.

NOTHING is unlimited! Even the amount of water in all the oceans, lakes, atmosphere, etc, is limited--big, but still limited.

Energy cost is the boiler plate of the economy, and everything is relative...so if the cost of energy goes up, so must everything else, so if the energy costs go up 100% so must my salary....is it that simple?....no, because the cost of energy doesn't take into account the cost of adaptation and infrastructure, which are added to the end product and the consumer must pay for all these changes....still the salaries can be raised to account for all this....eventually

So it doesn't take a genius to see that the cleanest most efficient form of energy will be the cheapest in the long run...and the most reliable will always be favored....what does all this add up to? I think you know...

Interesting that the original post has led down this pathway. I remember some time ago there were threads here about how bad alcohol was (as a replacement for liquid fossil fuels) and that technology doesn't seem to even get a whisper now??

There were "science year books" published in 1940 USA about conversion of plant waste material (sawdust) using acid and other reactions to yield alcohol on an industrial scale.

I feel that the momentum is currently moving towards what is "trendy" or "novel" rather than comparison to what is already available. The alcohol debate went out of favour as it created a trade-off food V fuel, but didn't then migrate to waste vegetative matter.

Similar technology exists for conversion of vegetation into readily managed gas sources also, but again these aren't "trendy" enough to be given focus.

As for grid smoothing, I suspect that most vehicles would be needing charge input at the exact time proposed to be drawing them down to support the grid. The domestic model here is solar PV with home battery and charge EV when arrive home (from battery) at end of day.

Though I am spoiled. My employer has public free access chargers in our customer carpark, available 24/7. In theory I could charge at work and then sell to grid from home.

Cellulosic ethanol is used, it's just not cheap enough to replace other methods....yet

..."Cellulosic ethanol currently costs about $2.65 per gallon to produce, down from more than $5 per gallon in 2001, while corn-based ethanol costs between $0.90 and $1.65 per gallon to produce, depending on the price of corn."...

The good thing about ethanol from corn is that it keeps the farmers of America healthy and growing on a large scale which contributes to the robust nature of a domestic food supply....

Link..

Bonus video....Black mass...

As a mechanical engineering graduate of Purdue University, I have to say that I'm a bit embarrassed at the comments made by Purdue Assistant Professor Rebecca Ciez (5:50) in which she says that EVs are now more efficient and much better for the planet than conventional vehicles. I guess she hasn't figured out that batteries STORE energy, they don't PRODUCE it. The energy still has to come from somewhere else, i.e. a power generating plant of some sort.

It's sad to see people promote their agenda over actual science.

One of the first things I learned in school was that you had to define the problem before you can develop a solution. So, what exactly IS the problem? CO2? No. Climate change? No. The government wanting to dictate how you live your life and make other people rich? Hmmm... Have to think about that one.

No, the problem is we are running out of cheap fossil fuels, and we have to replace them with something awesome....

Not too many people seem to realize that there are these natural green factories who need the CO2 emissions. They eat the stuff up and crap out oxygen for us critters to breath. The current percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere is .04%. The trees and plants need a minimum of .02% in order to survive. And if they go, we're next.

https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/greenhouse-carbon-dioxide-supplementation.html

..."This means that currently, the concentration of carbon dioxide is growing by about 2.27 ppm per year.Apr 5, 2023"....

The optimal level for plants seems to be around 1000ppm or 0 .1%.. so +600 ppm divided by 2.27 = 264 years at present growth rate...

I think ~600ppm is the sweet spot...

A problem with trading "carbon credits," or whatever they call them, is that trading does not reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Don't worry. The 5 minute fillup will win. By 2032, hydrogen fuel cell cars will be the rage. 5 MINUTE FILLUP!!!

Heres an interesting on the ‘green’ ideas… which are so environmentally ‘green’

Lithium Leach fields… interesting to see what the long term effects are, but hey, not the first time I was called a denier…

don’t know how toxic this is,.. if any of this is true.