We Need to Build More EV Chargers, but Where?

Car and Driver via MSN ^ | 5/22/21 | Annie White

[Libloather]

President Joe Biden has announced a plan to spend $174 billion to make it easier for Americans to choose electric vehicles. Biden wants $15 billion of that money to go toward building a national network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030. The day after Biden's announcement, Representatives Andy Levin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - both Democrats - announced that they had revised their existing bill on electric vehicle infrastructure so that it would align with Biden's new plan. Republicans oppose Biden's plan. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) called it a "mandatory rush" toward EVs (it's not - Biden has declined to back a California proposal that would ban the sale of gas cars by 2035).

Whether or not Biden's plan can weather the slings and arrows of a bitterly divided Congress, an EV charging network is popping up across the country, driven by efforts from private companies and various government initiatives. But where will all those chargers go?

That depends on what's used to determine the optimal charge station layout, according to Mehrnaz Ghamami, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University. Ghamami led a team of researchers who developed a plan to optimize Michigan's EV charging network for inter-city trips and trips within high-traffic urban environments. The study's goal was to plan a network for 2030, which meant the team had to consider both the existing capabilities and adoption rate of EVs and charging networks and the potential for future higher adoption rates, higher-capacity batteries, and the wider availability of fast chargers. The state also directed the team to plan chargers with "uniform distribution throughout the state, for equity purposes," not just in areas where road traffic or EV adoption are already high.

[Gnome1949]

Gasoline is the most efficient storage medium of energy ever devised by mankind. Electrical vehicles on a mass scale is an impossible dream. What is being sold as universal will be very limited and THAT is the goal- to restrict ALL personal travel. The mandating of electric vehicles is a path to tyranny - our liberty is to be taken away. Charging stations can be instantly turned off by tyrants and you are frozen in place. The excuse will be “we have to limit electricity for necessary use.”

[AnotherUnixGeek]

We Need to Build More EV Chargers, but Where?

The nice thing about free markets is that they resolve questions like "who" and "where" quite efficiently. Statist governments don't resolve questions like that efficiently at all. Sadly, we'll go with the latter option anyway.

[oldbill]

We noticed in our democrat run town that the town employees would charge their personal electric vehicles at the city hall outlets on the building while they were “ working”.

Nice. The taxpayers were paying for filling their electric tanks (batteries).
How do we get such a deal?

[deport]

It is on the way now.

snip
A new type of electric car battery that offers a 250 mile (400km) range from just 10 minutes charge could finally end range anxiety, according to the researchers who developed it.

The team from Penn State university created a self-heating battery that quickly warms up to 60 degrees in order to optimise the efficiency of transferring charge.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/battery-electric-car-range-charge-time-b1790601.html

[Jim Noble]

It’s really not a problem, because unless the Chinese have a plan, the world is going to run out of child slaves to dig the cadmium out of the ground long before we have enough EV charging stations.

[Man from Oz]

Do you know how big these batteries are?

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Unless we embrace small modular nuclear reactors EV is a joke. Many types of the small modular reactors seem viable like thorium or pebble bed helium or molten salt, but try and get the public to accept them. The only viable renewable is hydro, and that relies on the primary flood control or water source reasons to build the projects, not the ancillary power generation.

Too much copper needed to widely distribute the huge amounts of power that will be needed for EV. Charging a car needs about the same amount of power 4 houses need for a day so lets do look at some facts.

286.9 million cars in the US. 750 KWH required to drive a Tesla Model 3 Standard 100 miles a day for a month.

35.74 quadrillion BTU's of electric production in the US per year out of a total of 92.9 qBTU of total energy produced.

1 kWh = 3412.14163312794 BTU so 2559106 BTU per car per month or 30,709,274 BTU per year (30 mBTU per car)

1 quadrillion = 1 with 15 0's 1 million = 1 with 6 0's

Look at the chart. Lets not ignore the electrical distribution losses of 65%. No matter how you slice and dice it when you add in the 65% distro loss it just does not work to move from ICE to EV unless you make a hell of a lot more electricity, and I mean an order of magnitude more.

[offduty]

Best places for EV chargers would be at truck stops. We travel to Florida from Michigan every year and noticed that Pilot/Flying J has installed RV pumps (gas and diesel) at most of their stations along I-75. Most of these stations also have a restaurant attached.

This would be the logical place to set up an EV charging unit. You can pull in and charge your car while you are eating. I’m surprised they haven’t jumped on the bandwagon already.

Some of the major retailers such as WalMart, Kroger, quite a few hotel chains are also including EV charge units in their parking lots.

The biggest issue is of course, range. Now that cars are seeing 300 miles on a charge, the potential for EV’s is much greater, but ICE will always outperform an EV when it comes to long-distance driving.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Even with instant charging, what energy ? See post above.

[Keyhopper]

So everyone can wait an hour while someone charges their car?
Wonder how much scrap copper is in those charging stations?

[Steven Tyler]

Hence, their plan is doomed to fail.
First, consider the cost of inner city land

[ronniesgal]

in my town, there are plenty of EV chargers in the parking lots and i’ve yet to see a car parked at one. It is probably because they are at the end of the lots where folks would have to walk.

[Keyhopper]

Wonder how well they do in hurricanes?

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Mineral Park’s not such a big deal. Morenci, now, is a really big copper mine in Arizona.

[xzins]

My calculator is saying 9 quadrillion for for 300 million cars. Is that correct?

[Roccus]

That method was used by city taxis back in the early twentieth century.
Of course, those batteries were much smaller.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Each type I mentioned shut down when cooling is removed. The problem with the existing tech is that when cooling is removed, the physics causes them to run away and melt down. The types I listed shut down when cooling is removed through the same simple laws of physics. The cooling is required to keep their reactions going, rather than the existing plants where cooling is needed to keep the thing from melting down.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, etc. may shut down their cooling and thus shut these types down, but the new types wont melt down or go uncontrolled like a 3 mile, cherno or fukishima. Some designs are small enough to fit on a flatbed trailers and be hauled in and out in modules.

[snoringbear]

Well, I live in Texas and have a deer lease in the remote area known by locals as The Big Empty. So, if I’m going to have to drive a EV pickup I will need a charging station installed on my lease at government expense. Being there’s no electricity near I will also need a generator installed at government expense to create electricity for my charging station. Oh, almost forgot; will also need a natural gas line run from nearest pipeline which is over 100 miles away at government expense. Hey, I’m not the one who is pushing EV’s 🙄…

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

As is transport uses 24.3 qBTU with 90% petro and another 4% nat gas. Remember to add in the 65% distro electrical loss.

9 qBTU seems right for just cars. Have not done the math. With the 65% loss that becomes 26 qBTU required for a sector in total using less than 25 qBTU. Make all transport be EV’s and that 25ish qBTU used today becomes 71 qBTU with the distro losses for just transport. That is more than total consumption today at 69 qBTU for just transport energy.

It does not work.

[MulberryDraw]

“Biggest problem now is getting the charge down to 5 minutes. Very difficult to do at least right now.”

You’d need a 440 volt circuit and about 3,000 amps. Plug it in and get the heck out of there in case the car blows.