Automakers to invest $300B in electric vehicles

[Music Lover]

An intelligent person would take their Model 3, which has a range of 310 miles, and drive 61 miles leaving 249 left. Then they would charge their vehicle for 15 hours (in our example) and leave the next day with 309 miles of range.

A moron would attempt to drive 61 miles with 60 miles of range.

I have confidence that you would be in the former category.

Ah...so now I'm a moron because I see the real world limitations of electric vehicles and choose not to buy one?

The real moron is the person who needs to stop 4 times for 15 hours each time to charge their car for a 310 mile trip.

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by Bamaman
Solar won't produce enough electricity. There's not enough steel in the world to build enough windmills to produce any appreciable amount of electricity.

Wrong on both counts above. This world has plenty of steel remaining and solar power can and will produce vast quantities of electricity. It’s just a matter of time.

The statements are too vague to analyze seriously. What's "enough electricity"? What's "any appreciable amount"? What are "vast quantities"?

But if we were looking to provide all our electricity with wind/solar, w/o long term storage (as the only options today are limited and expensive), or installation of long power lines (expensive and environmentalists will fight them), how much would we need to overbuild? It would mean so much wind capacity at night, that even a slight breeze would provide all we need. And remember, power drops off sharply at low wind speeds.

Cut-in speed.
At very low wind speeds, there is insufficient torque exerted by the wind on the turbine blades to make them rotate. However, as the speed increases, the wind turbine will begin to rotate and generate electrical power. The speed at which the turbine first starts to rotate and generate power is called the cut-in speed and is typically between 3 and 4 metres per second.

That's about 7-9mph.

That could be a lot of steel, but I'll let someone else do the math.

-ERD50

 

[ncbill]

Wind is only really viable in the center of the USA.

Here in the SE USA it's a dead zone for wind, except in the mountains & at the coast where aesthetic concerns usually mean local governments prohibit the installation of wind turbines.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Ah...so now I'm a moron because I see the real world limitations of electric vehicles and choose not to buy one?

The real moron is the person who needs to stop 4 times for 15 hours each time to charge their car for a 310 mile trip.

I never said anything about you being a moron. I never said anything about what you should buy.

We were talking about a 60 mile charged battery. You said it wouldn't work for a 61 mile journey. I even said you wouldn't do that.

No one is stopping 4 times for 15 hours either in our discussion. The 15 hours was mentioned by me, because you asked how fast did 110v charging take. So I said if one charged on 110v, you get 60 miles for 15 hours of overnight charging. Level 2 is much faster.

I don't think we are getting anywhere in this discussion.

 

[Totoro]

But there are a lot of apartments in suburbia, and lots of apartments and street parking, and detached garages w/o high power circuits in urban areas. Yes, I know, some will say that overnight charging access for these millions of people is 'easy'. Major infrastructure changes are never easy.

Small charging stations are quite cheap, and can be rolled out as you go. Lots of apartment buildings and office buildings out here have them already (Netherlands). Same goes for street parking and detached garages. Drive to work, plug in there, drive back home. Supereasy. I actually wouldn't need a charging station at where I live, can do it at work.

There is no need for high power circuits, most people are fine with 4 to 15 kw. Everywhere except the US the average distance driven is well below 10k miles. Even the US has 13k or so.

The really high density housing: usually these folks don't have cars (Paris, London, New York) at all.

I am curious to put this investment in perspective. Does it include hybrids?

Doesn't seem so.

How does it compare to current R&D?

A typical large automotive car maker seems to spend $10 billion annually on R&D.

Six Car Makers Make the List of Top 20 R&D Spenders - The Drive

Regarding to what exactly it refers .. I don't know. They probably include everything, including e.g. design, steering, seats, sound, manufacturing tests which aren't drive train specific.

Do you have any time frame for that?

No. Adoption curves are easy to draw, hard to get right. Anywhere between 20 and 40 years? I'm not saying it is a problem, just curious what's going to happen. For example, gas stations frequently have a shop to keep them afloat out here, especially along the highways. Will they still be viable I wonder.

Since travel distances on average are so short in Europe, it's not a matter of passing less of them but they might disappear altogether. The gas stations at the supermarkets have a different audience, so they will feel it differently but might morph into a charging bank? lots of parking spots have charging stations. Then again, if you're only shopping for 30 minutes or less, does it even make sense to install them?

i.e.: where will the charging locations end up vs. the current gas stations?

 

[NW-Bound]

... if one charged on 110v, you get 60 miles for 15 hours of overnight charging...

If I had a Tesla, I would at least install a NEMA 14-50 outlet to charge it with 50A @ 220V. One can refill the battery overnight. Cost would be minimal, and I would install it myself.

It's good that Tesla cars can be plugged into a standard 220V outlet. I wonder if other EVs are the same.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

If I had a Tesla, I would at least install a NEMA 14-50 outlet to charge it with 50A @ 220V. One can refill the battery overnight. Cost would be minimal, and I would install it myself.

It's good that Tesla cars can be plugged into a standard 220V outlet. I wonder if other EVs are the same.

I put mine in a month before the first EV arrived.

 

[Texas Proud]

I never said anything about you being a moron. I never said anything about what you should buy.

We were talking about a 60 mile charged battery. You said it wouldn't work for a 61 mile journey. I even said you wouldn't do that.

No one is stopping 4 times for 15 hours either in our discussion. The 15 hours was mentioned by me, because you asked how fast did 110v charging take. So I said if one charged on 110v, you get 60 miles for 15 hours of overnight charging. Level 2 is much faster.

I don't think we are getting anywhere in this discussion.

It was me who asked about the 110 charging... and I did it since it would be the only plug I would have if we towed our boat to the lake... I would need to stay there however many hours needed to get a charge to get home or at the least to get to a real charging station...



Decided to check if there were any near the lake... surprised to find 1 Tesla charger at a B&B near there and a generic one in a town a bit away... but there are not any between the lake and Houston so I would need a full charge...

 

[mpeirce]

It was me who asked about the 110 charging... and I did it since it would be the only plug I would have if we towed our boat to the lake...

It'll be interesting to see marinas with super-charger-like hookups for each boat. Electricity and water, sounds like fun.

 

[ncbill]

If I had a Tesla, I would at least install a NEMA 14-50 outlet to charge it with 50A @ 220V. One can refill the battery overnight. Cost would be minimal, and I would install it myself.

My household's electric panel (100A) has only 30A 220VAC circuits, which means I could charge at, what, 25A continuous?

Can your panel support a 50A circuit without upgrading the service?

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I read this whole thread and don't really understand what all the hubbub is about.

But I thought I'd stop in and remind people that Tesla isn't the only EV, and you don't have to buy them new.

I paid $12.5k for my [-]used[/-] Certified Pre-Owned Leaf, and I probably overpaid. I've put about 12k miles on it so far.

 

[NW-Bound]

My household's electric panel (100A) has only 30A 220VAC circuits, which means I could charge at, what, 25A continuous?

Can your panel support a 50A circuit without upgrading the service?

My home panel is 200A, 220VAC. Currently, the only 50A breaker installed there is for the AC.

Earlier homes may not have the same rating, but new homes have a 200A panel as a standard, I believe. The whole world is becoming energy hogs.

However, not being a Tesla owner but I researched out of curiosity and learned that you can program the car to draw less than 50A when charging. This shows they put some thoughts into this.

 

[NW-Bound]

I read this whole thread and don't really understand what all the hubbub is about.

But I thought I'd stop in and remind people that Tesla isn't the only EV, and you don't have to buy them new.

I paid $12.5k for my [-]used[/-] Certified Pre-Owned Leaf, and I probably overpaid. I've put about 12k miles on it so far.

Used Leafs are quite inexpensive and very appealing as a 2nd car for running errands in town. Has the range of your car degraded much from the specification when new?

 

[CaptTom]

It'll be interesting to see marinas with super-charger-like hookups for each boat. Electricity and water, sounds like fun.

It actually makes a lot of sense. Most marinas already have power to every slip to plug in the boat's shore power cord. Sort of like an RV park. Doing the same for a few parking spaces wouldn't be a big deal.

Come to think of it, our marina did some electrical work which included adding extra outdoor outlets in the parking lot (for use during winter storage.) We put in spare capacity for possible future use. Maybe we should look at putting in a charging station.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I researched out of curiosity and learned that you can program the car to draw less than 50A when charging. This shows they put some thoughts into this.

Oh yeah. The common J1772 plug is not just a power cord but a communications bus. The actual charger is built into the cars; the EVSE (what one might intuitively want to call the charger/charging station) is just a power cord and a little computer to tell the car how much power it can provide it.

I have a 30A home EVSE, but I can open it up and set it to lower amps if I need to share the circuit with a dryer or somesuch. It would then tell the car "you can take this much power".

Used Leafs are quite inexpensive and very appealing as a 2nd car for running errands in town. Has the range of your car degraded much from the specification when new?

I don't know what the "real" new range of a 2014 Leaf is. They claim 80-84 miles.

My range indicator ("guess-o-meter") will show anywhere from 70 to 100 when full, but generally speaking I don't want to count on more than 60 miles in good conditions. When the weather gets below 40-50 degrees F the range degrades a bit more, especially if I run the defroster a lot.

My daily round trip with a lunch excursion runs 56-70 miles / day (shorter recently), so I'm constantly pushing the range limits, and every little bit of difference can impact my day. I undercalculated my work commute when I bought the car, but things are getting better as I'm in my 3rd temporary work building, each getting closer to home, and the permanent building will be complete this year and will have EV charging. The current building has a couple of 110v outlets I can access which makes all the difference for me as 5-10 miles of range is the difference between me sweating whether or not to stop at a charging station on the way home and taking the high-speed toll lanes, making a side stop, and pulling into home with miles to spare.

I bought the car in March 2018 I think, and it had "11 bars" (out of 12 battery health). It has since gone down to 10 bars, but I can't really tell that my range has decreased in the 12k miles I've driven it. I worry more about Leaf battery longevity than other vendors because I'm in Texas with hot summers, and the Leaf batteries don't have active cooling like pretty much every other EV.

But the newer EVs have improved range, and I wouldn't need to sweat at all with one of the newer ones. Some of the 2016 Leafs have more range, and the 2017+ Leafs have much more range.

Edit: My 2014 Leaf recently turned 50k miles old.

 

[Texas Proud]

My home panel is 200A, 220VAC. Currently, the only 50A breaker installed there is for the AC.

Earlier homes may not have the same rating, but new homes have a 200A panel as a standard, I believe. The whole world is becoming energy hogs.

However, not being a Tesla owner but I researched out of curiosity and learned that you can program the car to draw less than 50A when charging. This shows they put some thoughts into this.

One problem that needs to be addressed is not just if you have 200A, but what is the max you can use... IOW, if you have your AC running and the car plugged in you are already at 100A.... now throw in an electric stove, clothes dryer, oven and fridge and you could be in trouble...



One coworker said that they had to sue a property inspector when they were selling their house... seemed he wanted to test their panel and turned on ALL electrical loads he could and it blew out the panel... I would have thought there were something that would trip, but according to them nothing... IOW, no individual breaker was overloaded but the whole panel was....

 

[travelover]

............. IOW, no individual breaker was overloaded but the whole panel was....

Seems like the main breaker would trip - isn't its function?

 

[Ronstar]

Seems like the main breaker would trip - isn't its function?

I would think so.

I think I could add a 50 amp circuit without much problem. 200 amp panel for the house. My AC, oven, cooktop, well pump, water heater, and sprinkler pump would probably all have to kick on in order to trip my main breaker if I was charging a Tesla at the same time. And the combined sum of all of the breakers exceeds the total amps being drawn, so maybe all of that might not trip the main breaker.

 

[ERD50]

.... And the combined sum of all of the breakers exceeds the total amps being drawn, so maybe all of that might not trip the main breaker.

Yes, it would be almost unheard of to run every single circuit to the max at the same time. So the individual circuits can sum to be much higher than the main.

In the case posted, yes, the main breaker should have opened w/o damage. There must have been a problem. He might have done them a favor by detecting it with that test, OTOH it might have never happened in real life?

Hmmm, electric dryer, my well pump, and AC all coming on at the same time, along with normal draw from fridge freezer could be pushing thing? OK, just looked - 40 for the well, 30 AC, 20 dryer. Might run the microwave, another 10 amps, maybe another 20~30 assorted around the house (that seems high)? So 130, even with 50 for an EV, that's 180. All those others are continuous, so would mostly be at no more than 80% of the rated AMPs (but the 200A main would also be rated for 80% continuous). Getting somewhat close, but if charging at night, even less likely for all those to be triggered at once.

If it were to be a common problem, and/or if you were on a 100 AMP MAIN, maybe someone would make a controller that would tell the EV to reduce it's charge to keep the MAIN AMPS to 80% of rating? Would not be hard.

-ERD50

 

[aja8888]

FWIW, my ex's 1974 house in Texas had a panel that did not contain a main CB. All it had were CB's on each individual circuit.

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh yeah. The common J1772 plug is not just a power cord but a communications bus. The actual charger is built into the cars; the EVSE (what one might intuitively want to call the charger/charging station) is just a power cord and a little computer to tell the car how much power it can provide...

Yes. The 110V/220V charger is built into the EV. Only Tesla Supercharger stations bypass the onboard charger to dump high-voltage DC power directly into the battery.

I have a 30A home EVSE, but I can open it up and set it to lower amps if I need to share the circuit with a dryer or somesuch. It would then tell the car "you can take this much power"...

The Tesla Model 3 will take a maximum of 32A from a NEMA 14-50 outlet. The long-range model will take a maximum of 40A. However, the owner can enter a menu screen on the car console to dial down the current from that maximum as he wishes.

 

[Texas Proud]

Seems like the main breaker would trip - isn't its function?

I would have thought there was something... but according to them no, it just got fried... no electricity to the house afterward and the panel had to be replaced...

 

[Texas Proud]

FWIW, my ex's 1974 house in Texas had a panel that did not contain a main CB. All it had were CB's on each individual circuit.

This might also be part of this... it was told to me about 35 years ago (which is why I do not remember everything about it) and of course in Texas...