Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Gale Hawkins]

Locally the hotels are starting to do this and they are basically provided by Tesla and they had two destination Chargers and they also put in one of the the old standard J1776 or whatever like my leaf and some of the early EVs used.

There is no charge if you're staying in the hotel and they really don't have an option to charge unless you are in the hotel and but again I understanding Tesla covers the cost in this location and the hotels have to foot the electric bill.

Since we are an EV free zone seldom are they used but that will change over time.

When I first got our Nissan Leaf I did charge on one of the Destination Chargers for 15 or 20 minutes just to test the adapter and it worked fine. They're just 240 volt home chargers.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Does anyone know any evidence that the USA is trying to keep BYD from selling EVs in the USA? That is the Chinese EV corporation that Warren Buffett has been invested in for many years.

 

[Oaktree]

In Vancouver, every car space in new hotels must have an EV charger

It would be interesting to see the the results of that mandate.

Let's see if it stands up to the inevitable court challenge. IMHO just another case of government overstepping.

 

[goeduck]

Fast chargers in a hotel would be a bad thing, it would encourage people to sneak into hotel lots while running errands or whatever. Then the hotels would have to police their lots. When I know I need to make a call while driving, I often pull into hotel lots during the day to be legal (they almost always have open spots then). If I had an EV and the hotel had fast chargers.......

As has been mentioned, who needs a fast charger if you are staying the night and paying for the room?

 

[3930dave]

Let's see if it stands up to the inevitable court challenge. IMHO just another case of government overstepping.

BC….. different world. ICE cars are evil…. haven’t you heard…..

Gasoline is about $1.60 - $1.70/L, most of it taxes. Right in Vancouver, there are virtually no gas stations anymore.

You can have a (dope) smoke-in in the middle of an intersection, with enough smoke you’d have to close the road anyway. No Harm/Foul…..

But…. Question any allegedly “green” initiative and you’re gonna be in big trouble……

It’s a beautiful Province, but I wouldn’t live in the lower-mainland, even if I could afford to.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

If I had an EV and the hotel had fast chargers.......

With all the stupid "Smart" tech out there, it would be trivial to interlock the EV charger with a room-rental transaction.

Even if electricity is cheap locally, the incentive for business would be to keep the charger available for renting customers.

If I had an EV, and booked a room there planning to recharge, I would not be impressed with Joe Schmo sleeping in his charging EV, because he was too cheap/broke to rent a room.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Does anyone know any evidence that the USA is trying to keep BYD from selling EVs in the USA? That is the Chinese EV corporation that Warren Buffett has been invested in for many years.

I haven't gone chasing that story, and probably won't....... but I wouldn't be surprised to see today's version of the Chicken Tax slid into place....

Rgds, D.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Eventually it can go back to the politicians that forced electric vehicles on people.

Electric is the future; no forcing needed.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

In some countries McDonald's has free Chargers for to get more customers.

All we have to do is watch what happens in Western Europe to see the trends that will be soon in the United states.

I think we're pushing the envelope too fast in the United states. Just this week Tesla had another $1,000 price increase announced on certain models because of the EV demand is just so overwhelming and there's very few makers and no makers of the quality of Tesla.

 

[3930dave]

Grid uptime. 2 articles, one more general, one mostly technical.

The US has more power outages than any other developed country. Here’s why.

An assessment of threats to the American power grid - Energy, Sustainability and Society

I hadn't heard of the 1921 Railroad storm before. It is estimated to be 10x the 1989 storm that took down Quebec, and destroyed that large xformer in New Jersey.

I do like EVs, for certain applications. I also know a bit about the magic that keeps the grid running. I'd suggest that anyone who is considering owning a non-hybrid EV as a sole vehicle read and understand the risks discussed in the second article.

Under widespread relatively short-term power outages, one of my priorities is being able to retain mobility for critical needs - medical transport, food, water, medications, evacuations..... I have a plan B with ICE - stock extra fuel. Even under totally normal conditions, I travel remote parts of Canada with 40L of extra fuel for ICE.

You can have a backup plan for EV transport, but after the grid is down is not the time to start thinking about it......

Complexity. I may sound like a Luddite at times, but it is precisely because I do understand what some of the failure points are, that I have concerns. In my case, this is not Fear of the UnKnown, but rather the knowns.....

There is a great paragraph in the second linked article, that relates to what I bang on about....

"The ability to operate a system in the absence of computer-driven actions is fast disappearing. The electric power industry spends over $1.4 billion dollars annually to replace electromechanical systems and devices that involve manual operation with new SCADA equipment [60]. With modest increases in efficiency come exponential increases in vulnerability. The extent to which reduced labor costs (and perhaps reduced energy costs) are passed on to the public is uncertain."

Rgds, D.