Posted on 01/29/2022 7:24:56 PM PST by DoodleBob
...woe to the urbanites. Chargers built into apartment parking lots are few and far between. And as if parking in a city isn’t nightmarish enough, competition for plug-friendly street spots leaves EVs stranded from the electricity that gives them life. Could you hack into the power lines above and snake a cord into your Tesla? Sure, if you prefer your biology extra crispy....
...convincing urban dwellers to pony up for EVs is tough. Even those who have gotten over anxieties about battery ranges will find there aren’t many places to charge them....
So the goal is clear: Build more chargers. But in dense places, the eternal question is, where? And how to guarantee that they will not only be accessible, but cheap enough for anyone to use them?
Whatever the strategy, though, cracking the problem is vital if cities—and the feds—want to stick to bigger goals for improving equity, accessibility, and racial justice, which many politicians have named as priorities. After all, low-income folks can’t switch from traditional cars to electric ones until they have abundant access to affordable charging infrastructure....
...
But getting buy-in from residents in those places will be critical, because communities of color have grown accustomed to “neutral or benign neglect and sometimes even directly malignant [transportation] policy decisions,” says Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, the clean transportation consultant at GreenLatinos, a nonprofit. For communities unfamiliar with EVs, who might depend on gas stations or conventional auto repair shops for jobs, the sudden appearance of chargers could look like a harbinger of gentrification, she says—a physical sign that they are being replaced.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypressnews.com ...
they installed in a rest stop on US101 on the border of Monterey and San Luis Obipso Counties in CA, 4 Solar panels for charging EV’s. They have Backup gasoline Powered Generators for the EV Chargers, In plain sight behind Plexi Glass with spray painted red letters “In Case of emergency.”
Just wait until the homeless people start destroying all the capitalist bourgeois chargers or hacking into them.
What’s in them? Copper? Aluminum? Gold? Recyclable rare earths? Then for sure, they will be demolished by thieves.
Just wait til the black market in EV charger connection heads gets started. You’ll come out in the morning and find every connector within a 40 block radius has been cut and hi-jacked. Just go to South-side Chicago and find a public telephone with a handset in place. God knows what they do with them.
Would you rather drive into an "urban" gas station in your $25,000 Chevy Malibu for a 3 minute fill-up, or park at an "urban" EV station in your $45,000 Tesla Model 3 for 30 minutes while you charge up?
-PJ
The problem with attempting to radically change a transportation system is that it is “a system.” If you ban internal combustion engine car sales or manufacturing, what is going to happen? Can you make all the pieces fit neatly in a timely manner?
My crystal ball sees the US roads, becoming a lot like those in Cuba. 50 to 70 year old vehicle shells, with tractor and diesel engines having replaced the old engines. Diesel's because if we really do legally kill the gasoline engines, what is going to happen at all those oil refineries?
So if we go all in on EV’s we need to go all in on passenger, truck, bus, charging stations. That will cost so much money that no one is talking about. Not just for the charging stations, but also for the electric utility infrastructure that will need to be build to support the power needed by the charging stations, including the new non-fossil fuel power stations.
The cost of converting to EV’s has not even begun to be addressed by policy makers.
And how to guarantee that they will not only be accessible, but cheap enough for anyone to use them?
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And the bigger question is how do you prevent the free ranging ferals from stealing the juice?
A tesla with 24” chrome rims and low rider hydraulics might be cool
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Until you come out and find it on blocks or worse its been jacked.
Of course, all of those wonder-filled ideas presuppose there is enough juice in the local power grid system to allow a million of two other EV owners to do the same thing simultaneously ... while relying solely on wind, solar, and biomass for power generation - since fossil fuels will be outlawed by then.
Then there's the issue of winter snow removal which was always a pain in the ass for us since the plows could never fully clear the snow due to all the parked cars. Add to that the threat of a plow hitting a charger and one can see that charging stations for apartment dwellers is just not possible.
All true, and I am a fellow traveler of sorts.
We have a plug in hybrid, home charger of course and solar power with a battery.
The challenge is that what ‘we’ have is only available to people who live in their own homes.
And of course “that’s not fair” will become the rallying cry.
I own an EV.
Standard battery, did not care to pop another $6K for extended. Charging to 90% and not letting it go below 20% gives me about 100-120 miles range in ideal circumstances.
Currently the temperature is in single digits. My usable range, according to my car, is down about 15-20%. My car told me that I should keep it plugged in when not in use.
That’s fine for me as this is a commuter car and I have a home charger in my garage.
How is that going to work for all the people who live in apartments in cities, especially large ones?
Metmom- an inverter on your car doesn’t have the “oomph” to power your home.
The big batteries in an electric vehicle can supply upwards of 75 kWh of power at 20-30 amps continuous, and it’s pure sine wave with few harmonics, ie clean power, and lots of it.
Your car is probably not able to power much of an inverter via the accessory plug/cigarette lighter. And if you attach a more powerful inverter to the battery, consult an automotive electrician so you don’t overload the battery/ alternator.
Larger vehicles with 2 batteries or larger batteries can power large inverters, but even they cant compare to what an EV can do. At least one designed to do it like the Ford Lightning.
Go to tractor supply and get yourself a dual fuel generator (burn propane). It’ll work better and use less fuel than idling your vehicle to run an inverter.
Not quite that easy. A level 2 charger has some smarts to it and a special shaped plug.
In a true emergency, take a sledge hammer to the charging station and run 4 gauge wire to your house with 240V. Hope you have a neighbor who’s an electrician. 😉
FYI, 4 solar panels will NOT charge an EV. That’s maybe 1500 watts.
You’d have to park there several days to get a decent charge 😀
I know that.
The point is, that electric cars are not the only cars that can do that.
Besides, all you really need to run are just a few basics, like the furnace.
And the rest of your post, you’re preaching to the choir.
The mother of a previous boss of mine who went on month long vacations around the world with her husband: "Jack and I travel a lot and we've noticed that the workers in many other countries don't have cars or big houses and they seem perfectly happy. Why can't our workers be like that?"
Yes, she emphasized "OUR" as if implying ownership. That's the mentality of the elite.
Better solution for them is convert street parking to bike lanes, and tell them to get rid of their cars and go to bicycles.
“For about $300 you put an adapter on your 220 Vac line, and your car leaves home with 80% charge for your daily commute. That’s basically leaving home every morning with about 200 mile range
This will add about $50-100/month to your electric bill. What do you spend a month for gasoline?
No oil changes. No maintenance, except rotating tires. Batteries should last about 1 million miles. Why 80% instead of 100%? This maximizes battery life. If you have a longer trip planned, simply tell your car a few hours before you leave to top off; and it will do that
From there, every 200 miles or so you stop 30 minutes at a Supercharger station and spend $18-25 to top back off (depending on your charge) which is a fraction of the cost of gas
If you have solar at home; your solar can charge your car. Conversely, if there is a storm, your car can donate a programmed amount of power to power your home”
Great ideas - who’s stopping you?
“I always laugh at the EV people as i review parking in my neighborhood in philly. If they put charging stations around i would run a cord to my house. thank you. I’m sure everyone else would as well.”
Can’t imagine any charging station for street parking lasting more than a week in our cities, at this point. The cords would be cut and the copper in them sold as scrap.
“An inverter on your car can do the same thing.”
Yep, we did that in the Texas Freeze last winter. Ran our truck for close to 48 hours while powering a 1 kilowatt inverter. Having a 150 Amp alternator (pretty standard these days on larger vehicles) was the key!
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