Where the Heck Are We Going to Charge All of the Electric Cars? (only 9.24 years left)

Slate ^ | 10/28/21 | Henry Grabar

[Libloather]

On May 7, 2019, Lisa Lemble and Robert Gordon cut the ribbon on Ann Arbor, Michigan’s first curbside electric vehicle charger. It was an ordeal that required nearly a year of negotiation and permitting, and cost the couple about $15,000. “Mainly we want people to know that if they live in the city of Ann Arbor and don’t have a driveway and don’t have access to a garage, that it’s possible to put in a charging station curbside,” Lemble said at the time.

Possible, yes. Easy, no. More than two years after the Tesla-owning couple installed their dual-nozzle Level 2 charger on the curb in front of their condo, their example has not caught on. Missy Stults, the sustainability and innovations manager for Ann Arbor, said she does not know of another such project in this city of 120,000, home to the University of Michigan.

“It is so bedeviling,” Stults said. “Multifamily is a large portion of our housing stock and we start to have challenges.” The city estimates it needs as many as 10,000 electric vehicle chargers to prepare for full electric-vehicle adoption, and Stults is focused on getting them into publicly accessible parking lots - like the four “fast chargers” in the City Hall parking lot Ann Arbor put online just this Monday.

As for the streets, where residents like Lemble and Gordon park? “Trenching in the right of way gets complicated,” Stults said of the digging required for such a project. “And then what tends to happen is people park in a spot and don’t move.”

Ann Arbor is one of many cities confronting a vast challenge as Democrats pin their hopes to reduce U.S. emissions on the rapid, widespread adoption of electric vehicles: How do you get power to people who park on the street?

[Covenantor]

The free market will address this pro issue when there are more ev’s

Mean while our tax dollars are subsiding the entire solar energy enterprise from panels to charging stations...don't recall any government subsidies, grants to produce IC engines nor gasoline stations. That was free market at work.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan's equal to Madison Wisconsin with regard to far left, project at $15,000 per charging station envisioning a need for 10,000 such stations would cost....well you do the math....

$15,000 x 10,000 = Bueller?

Whose dollars, direct or indirect will come from tax payers pockets. Municipal, State,Feds...these sources?

3 local large gas stations near me are putting in charging stations.

Guess you don't remember the FiskerKarma model conflagration that occurred after dockside unloading. Runaway thermal reaction caused that slag heap. Fisker went bankrupt soon after.

Perhaps having charging stations in close proximity to large gasoline storage is not a good idea.

Stores and restaurants are also looking at putting in charging stations.

mmm huh...how much will that add to the overhead coupled with $15/hr min wage. And then there's the amount of charge done in the time it takes for dining. Rather like an expensive restaurant offering a few quarts of "Free gasoline" while you eat...but only to the early birds, the rest of the EV diners are on their own.

And the last booger on the plate is the successful concerted effort to eliminate native petroleum and natural production and distribution. Where's the power coming from to produce the EVs, transformers stations, cabling. Already we've stopped producing the large transformers required at main power distribution points. Lead time for off shore ones is many months if not years when demand increases dramatically...doesn't matter because of current port tie ups and distribution blocking by west coast states.

[Hot Tabasco]

I never thought about that. How the heck are apartment dwellers going to charge their cars?

[Betty Jane]

Is the charging station free? 3 is okay as long as EV is still a novelty, but is there a way to actually charge the customer for it? What happens when more people need to charge up? Will there be charging stations like there are gas stations? How long does it take to recharge even with fast chargers?

[Flick Lives]

Ask Greta. She’s the expert.

—

Indeed. World experts and leaders are all hanging on the words of an autistic teenager with a perpetual scowl of the constipated.

[Flick Lives]

For the life of me I cannot figure out why conservatives are agauinst ev’s.

—

Electric motors are great. In fact, no motor provides better torque capacity than an electric, which is why all diesel locomotives are really diesel generators powering electric motors which provide the actual traction force.

The huge, as yet unsolved, technical gap is battery technology. Towing around a 1,200 pound dead weight battery in a car is the issue. Current batteries are hard to manufacture, hard to dispose of, and slow to charge.

We haven’t yet made the big breakthrough on the power to drive the electric motors in vehicles. Who knows. Maybe some day someone will figure out a way to tap the quantum vacuum and we’ll have unlimited power to drive anything. We’re just not quite there yet.

[PIF]

Basically nothing is free as there are cost that someone has
to pay. Thus there will be charges for their use.

—
Bah! the Dems will just pass a 40,000 page bill mandating free charging among their other $30 Trillion package contents, and the bill will be free along with tax cuts for all except the rich (now defined as assets worth more than $50,000, or income above $15,000). Hidden in the small print will be a free sample package of fairy dust!

[SaxxonWoods]

I don’t see this as a problem. Less charging means less pollution from power plants, and Gaia is saved.

[1FreeAmerican]

That should be no big deal man.

It’s only 150+ MEGAWATTS.

[EVO X]

Problems I'm sure. Just brainstorming.

New EV cars are advertised to have plenty of range. Why would a parking deck operator invest big bucks for something isn't needed?

[Romulus]

What gave you that idea? You apparently are unable to grasp the possibility that I mention it because it is a consideration for some. Just as the cost of powering a generator is a consideration for some. Simply to mention these elements is not an endorsement. You are not thinking rigorously, and infer too much. Are you a victim of public schooling?

[babygene]

?10,000 stations each drawing 220 volts at 48-72 amps. Did anyone talk to the power company about this?”

That’s only 1440 mwh... the average home uses 1.25 kWh.

[BitWielder1]

It's the same math that says 3.5 trillion dollars will cost the taxpayers zero, zero, zero.
Somehow, energy and dollars come from nothing.

[seowulf]

Problem solved!

[beancounter13]

A better question would be “How will we generate enough electricity to recharge all the EVs?”

It takes 25 years to plan and receive approval to construct a Nuclear power station.

It takes 5 acres of solar cells to generate enough power for a single home.

Wind, Thermal, and Hydro power have geographic limitations.

What else is there?

While you work on that question, I will have another cup of coffee.

[EEGator]

“Where do people think the electricity for these stations come from?? A kite and a key??”

These people either don’t think or don’t care.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

If a city of 120,000 needs 10,000 charging stations, then we need 27.5 million for the US - based on a population of 330 million. (correct my math as needed). My calculator cannot calculate 27.5 million X $15,000 per charging station.

I searched the interweb and there are an estimated 111,000 gas stations in the US.

One of the many reasons EVs are limited purpose vehicles, and will never replace gas vehicles without a major technical breakthrough.

[nascarnation]

The ChiComs are building lots of coal fired power plants to fuel their electric cars.
Supposedly to conserve petroleum for the military.

[outofsalt]

"“We have WiFi!” Remember that plastered on billboards?"

I remember, "Color TV's" My family watched the moon landing in a motel that had color TV, but the Eagle's TV camera was black and white. (The Orbiter had color cameras.)

[Oldeconomybuyer]

… you might as well believe in the Sooners’ defense …

lol

[Windcatcher]

Damn. Now I really feel old.