
The Problem with Electric Vehicles - AndrewDucker
http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-problem-with-evs
======
_ph_
I have to disagree with many points in that article. My point of reference is
the German grid, so it might be different in the US.

\- switching all cars to electrical would increase the total electricity
consumption by 20%, while currently we export about 10% of our production. All
the changes are going to happen over a timeframe of more than 20 years,
because that is how long it takes to replace the cars at minimum, a long time
to make any necessary adjustments to the grid.

\- in general, electrical cars should be rather beneficial to the grid. There
is no reason to charge them at dinner time. Electrical cars have timers and
current control, it is very easy to have them charge at times where the grid
is underloaded. Many power companies have rebates at night anyway to get rid
of excess electricity. (Assuming a car with a reasonably sized battery, like
the Model 3)

\- long term, the speed of charging could be controlled remotely by the power
company (for a rebate) so they could use this further to stabilize the grid.

\- The Model X is available with a tow hitch, and it seems that the Model 3
might have one too (Elon tweeted something to that extend)

\- Most Tesla owners seem to be happy with the combination of range and the
Supercharger network, and the range is going to improve by about 5% per year.

~~~
zodPod
> No reason to charge them at dinner time. Timers and current control &
> remotely adjusting by power company

My main issue is with your notion that the cars should, somehow, be limited to
only charging at certain times. The issue becomes, "OMG I CUT OFF MY FINGER".
"Oh, sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh, I want to go to Walmart and grab some
chips." "Sorry, cars not charged yet." "Oh man! I forgot about a meeting I had
with my realtor!" "Sorry, cars not charged yet"

> "There's no reason to recharge them at dinner time."

The issue is that this could be a problem now. Instead of me just being able
to put fuel in my car whenever, now I have to be like "Oh yeah, it's dinner
time and I'm home. Can't recharge my car yet!"

AND, when everyone has an electric car, it will very quickly become like a
busy cable network in your neighborhood. "Well, it's estimating 18 days until
the ~download~ charge is done."

Refueling with an ICE takes no time at all and can be done anywhere. Even if
the car is out of gas in my driveway, I have a chance to walk and get a can of
fuel and put fuel in my car (in probably less time than it would take to
recharge it).

I would bet that the "power company's night time rebates" would go away really
fast when they were struggling to meet the sudden demand of charging
everyone's cars.

> Most Tesla owners are happy with their range and it will improve by 5%/year.

Even if their current range is 300 miles, that's 15 miles the first year.
That's not really significant.

Lastly, your disagreements all seem to be either flawed or they seem to be
with the less important issues (tow hitch, range) and ignore the more
important (charge time, accessibility, cost, cost of infrastructure, etc).

~~~
rplst8
> Refueling with an ICE takes no time at all and can be done anywhere.

So right.

It is truly amazing that more people don't realize the disconnect here between
current motor fuels and electricity. The average gallon of gasoline contains
33 kWh of energy. You can pump about 15-20 gallons in 5 minutes or so. That's
equivalent to around 6 MWh or 21,000 MJ of energy, every hour. Less if you
allow for the time between cars. The average household electrical supply in
the US is 200A at 240V which can supply a paltry 48 kWh or 172 MJ each hour.
And that's if one were able to use the supply at full capacity.

Electric cars require 1/4 to 1/3 of the energy as typical ICE counterparts,
but the fuel delivery systems are separated by factor of over 100. We're still
well over an order of magnitude apart on the fueling convenience factor.
Installing three phase 480V 400A (1.2 MJ per hour) service to homes would help
solve this, but would be much more dangerous to work with - even if the
charging systems on the EVs could use it.

~~~
_ph_
An average car in Germany would require about 10kWh per day recharge, this can
be done on a plain wall socket. Even if you drive twice that range every day,
you would not need anywhere close to the powers you are talking about.

The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and
electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as
effective, so you would need only a third of the energy transfer speed.

Then, with a gasoline vehicle, you have always to drive to a fuel station and
wait for it to be filled up - there speed matters. With an electric vehicle,
the common case should be overnight recharge, so charge speed does not matter
much there. This also means, that you are likely to start with a completely
filled battery every morning. So unless you are doing long distance travel,
you never have to recharge except over night (or, if your work parking
facilities offer electrical outlets, during work time). And for long distance
travel, there are Superchargers. Yes, those do take longer than refueling
gasoline, but unless you travel long distance every day, this might be a good
tradeoff.

~~~
rplst8
> The comparison about the energy transfer speed between gasoline and
> electricity is misleading. First of all, an electric vehicle is about 3x as
> effective, so you would need only a third of the energy transfer speed.

I stated that in my original reply.

> With an electric vehicle, the common case should be overnight recharge, so
> charge speed does not matter much there.

I know here in the DC metro people have 100 mile per day commutes - and more.
That is 1/3 to 1/2 (all in some cases) of the battery capacity of most EVs. A
regular 20A wall charger has no chance of replenishing that overnight, and at
85% charging efficiency, a level 2 charger or whatever would struggle to
supply 40+ kWh over night as well.

Slow charging EVs may work for some, maybe even most - but definitely not
everyone. Especially in the rural United States.

~~~
Kastaka
This looks like a Europe vs US comparison problem?

In Europe you're unlikely to be travelling vast distances on a regular basis,
whereas it's much more common in the US, so the range problems become much
more important in the US than they are in Europe.

~~~
Reason077
In Europe we also have 230V power as standard, so the standard 32A EV wall
chargers provide 7kW - more than enough to charge any EV overnight. Even a
standard UK wall socket can provide about 3kW.

In Germany they have 3-phase wiring right into homes, so even faster home
charging is possible there.

------
epistasis
This is not the type of in depth though that I expect from this author, whom I
usually find to be brilliant. These are first-level concerns of somebody who
just realized electric cars exist and is looking for the "problems", however
in practice most of these are mitigated by tech curves, and the true problems
are going to be far different.

~~~
crispyambulance
I think he sort of suggests the "true problem" in the beginning by questioning
the premise of even owning a car. He decided, perhaps wisely, to not go down
that rabbit-hole.

We are all interested in how technology will change our lives and solve
problems but many folks aren't willing to consider that actually solving some
problems requires living in a way which is intrinsically different. It might
very well be possible that "tech curves" will eventually solve the problem of
transitioning everyone now driving gasoline cars to electric but that is
perhaps a localized optimization.

Maybe to _REALLY_ solve the problem requires us to re-consider the way we're
living. Is it really sane to live 20-50 miles away from where one works and
drive a car in bumper-to-bumper traffic as a daily commute? Sure, if the cars
were electric, a larger fraction of the energy wasted doing this would be
"renewable" or at least "greener" but what about the wasted time, erosion of
well-being, and the continued waste of space. Yes, even electric cars need
highways, parking lots, and cities which force themselves to be car-scaled
rather than human-scaled. How much would we really solve by the transition to
electric cars?

These are not considerations which are easy to talk about, but they're the
"true problems" which are being swept under the rug by techno-optimists.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Presumably at least some techno-optimists would agree, but suggest that
transitioning to electric cars is a step towards making our bad situation
better. Restructuring our cities, getting everyone to bicycle, walk, or use
public transit (and killing off the auto industry, which is a significant
chunk of the manufacturing economy) would be much harder to accomplish in the
near future.

~~~
crispyambulance
The path we as a society ultimately take isn't up to any one entity making
decisions (not even Elon Musk :-) ).

Certainly lifestyle transitions will require decades, after all, it took
decades to cities to become car-centric. But can happen even within a
generation. Many millennials eschew car ownership and are moving back to
cities, whereas for baby boomers the car was a rite of passage as well as its
concomitant house in the 'burbs.

Transitioning entirely to electric vehicles will also take decades (admittedly
it would be less time because car-years are much quicker than people-years).

What will happen is some mixture of both of these along with random jags of
reactionary fascination with the happy-motoring era and who knows what else.

Ultimately, we only have a finite quantity of fossil fuels and there is no
"free-refill" for the planet. At some point, lifestyles will have to change
drastically to accommodate this limitation as population continues to grow.

------
anexprogrammer
Hmm. All problems that could have been set at the door of internal combustion
when it was new. They'll be solved as EVs make up a larger percentage of
what's on the road.

Are EVs the endgame? I suspect not. Apart from anything else I think it's
going to prove far, far harder to replace trucks than buses and cars with EVs.

Would we be better investing in public transport that's convenient and
reliable enough people want to use? Certainly. But we like personal vehicles.
They're not going to go away easily.

In fact just like horses and steam trains became a leisure pursuit, I suspect
ICEs will also become something for play. The old v8 classic, the motorbike,
the quad. You might have increasing difficulty getting fuel, so start lugging
5g jerry cans around in your EV to fuel the Mustang weekend toy. EVs can't
beat the soul and sound of a v8 or Triumph triple.

~~~
Reason077
_I think it 's going to prove far, far harder to replace trucks than buses and
cars with EVs_

The economics don't stack up today for long-distance EV trucking, but it's
quite possible that they will in a decade or so, with ongoing incremental
improvements in battery costs and energy density.

The limitations now are cost and infrastructure, not technology. If we
imagine, say, an HGV with a 500kWh battery pack then it should be able to haul
a typical load for hundreds of miles between charges. Fast chargers can be
installed at existing truck stops.

HGV drivers in Europe are legally required to take rest periods every 4.5
hours (and can drive for a maximum of 9 hours per day), so stopping for
charging on a similar schedule would not have much impact on existing work
practices.

350kWh packs are already being used today for double-decker busses in London,
which can run all day without recharging. So 500kWh (or more?) packs in HGVs
are not unrealistic.

The only exceptional case I can think of is extreme long-haul trucking in
remote, off-grid locations (think Australian Outback, or Ice Road Truckers).
Those may be the last hold-outs for fossil fuelled vehicles.

~~~
anexprogrammer
I think the best solution involves evoluton of the delivery network, so maybe
EV haulage is closer than I think..

An EV light truck is perfect for the final delivery to home or shop, and
doubly so in congested inner cities with pollution charges, like London.

I could be wrong, but I thought the London Routemasters were hybrids?

HGV delivery might evolve to a combination of more rail, longhaul diesel HGVs
and EV light trucks, or even full EV HGVs where the range is lower. Like
making several supermarket drops in a city. Whatever way you look at it, we're
already making excellent, and suprisingly quick, progress.

~~~
Reason077
The "New Routemaster" busses are indeed diesel-electric hybrids, but London is
also now testing new fully electric double deckers:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/wor...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/world-s-
first-electric-double-decker-bus-london-a6934646.html)

We already see a few EV delivery vans around (Nissan have one based on the
Leaf technology). They need to get a bit bigger and have longer range before
they'll start replacing all the diesel vans, but we are indeed making
progress.

There's various problems with using intermodal rail for things like
supermarket deliveries, though, at least in the UK. It's not really compatible
with the just-in-time model that supermarkets and other retailers operate,
where the supermarket places an order every day based on their real-time sales
data which is fulfilled overnight from their large regional distribution
centres.

Consider a shift from truckloads of goods to intermodal container loads: you'd
be going truck-rail-truck, with all the inefficiencies of transferring between
modes. You'd need intermodal freight depots on the outskirts of cities,
shunting yards, etc which just don't exist any more. You wouldn't actually be
cutting down on city traffic, since the same number of local trips would need
to be made anyway.

And the distances involved from distribution centre to supermarket are usually
relatively short, so there just isn't a huge fuel saving to be made in using
rail.

------
AnthonyMouse
This pretty much boils down to "if overnight we replaced 100% of cars with
electric it would cause these problems."

Let's take a more realistic scenario: That tomorrow all of the existing two
car households have one electric car.

> 1\. Your average town does not have the power infrastructure to deal with an
> extra draw of a whole bunch of commuters arriving home roughly around the
> same time (say, between 5:30 and 7 pm) and all of them plugging their cars
> in to recharge.

This has easy solutions, e.g. you tell the charging station what time you need
the battery charged by and in 95% of cases it ends up doing the charging from
10PM to 6AM, which makes the power grid very happy.

> Rapid charging is actually not so rapid, highway re-charging stations will
> have to be _much_ larger than current gas stations

But you will also need fewer of them because you can't currently buy gas at
home but you can charge your car there. So you're really only talking about
the gas stations on major highways, i.e. truck stops, which are already quite
large because it's typical for people to stop and eat there already.

And in the one out of two cars scenario, for long trips you could take the
gasoline powered car.

> Every highway would be more or less automatically accompanied by a bunch of
> power infrastructure

Most of the existing high voltage power infrastructure already follows the
highways because both go to population centers and are installed in places
which are cheap and efficient to claim with eminent domain.

And needing to build infrastructure is only a problem if we build electric
cars faster than we can build power infrastructure, which we probably won't.

> Re-charging will not work nearly as well when vehicle utilization goes up
> due to sharing

Which is only a problem for the subset of vehicles used for sharing and there
is no reason they can't be hybrids instead of pure electric.

Alternatively the people who purchase cars for this purpose could use cars
with swappable batteries and leave one charging while the other is on the road
and then swap them as needed.

> If a substantial chunk of our energy consumption due to transportation needs
> is going to shift from being directly petroleum based to being mostly based
> on the timely delivery of electrons in vast quantities and to a very large
> number of locations then we will have to invest massively in both generating
> capacity and grid capacity.

That isn't necessarily true. If most electric vehicles are charged at night
then they'll be using the idle capacity of the existing grid rather than
requiring new capacity to be built.

Of course some new capacity may be necessary, but that doesn't seem like any
kind of insurmountable problem. We already know how to do that.

> Range

This is a problem exactly where it's a problem. Future electric cars may or
may not solve it, but in the meantime you know what kind of driving you do. If
you take long trips for business, buy a hybrid. If you have a two car
household, buy one electric car and one hybrid and take the hybrid on long
trips. There is no law that says 100% of cars have to be electric; they can
work where they work.

> Trailers

Range when towing a trailer is generally not that important because even if a
lot of people do it periodically, they don't do it very often. And this is
again solved by having a family buy one EV and one hybrid and using the hybrid
for what the EV is bad at.

> Service

This is clearly a problem exclusive to early adopters. If electric cars were
half of all cars it wouldn't exist.

> Tax Breaks

I'm not sure how this one is even supposed to be a problem. All else equal,
tax credits increase tax rates because the money has to come from somewhere.
If everybody buys an EV then everybody gets the credit and the government
raises the tax rate so that everybody ends up paying what they would have
without it. If half of everybody buys an EV then the government raises the tax
rate half that much and there is a significant tax advantage if you buy an EV,
which was the whole idea. The credit can never bankrupt the government because
the government also sets the base rate.

------
tsmarsh
I have an electric car, a leaf. I also have solar power from Solar City.

I live in sunny MA, where in the winter we average 15kWh generated to the
summer we average 50kWh. My commute is 60 miles per day which is around 6-8kW
depending in traffic and weather.

Also, my local power is a mixture of nuclear and wind.

So. Can we please stop rolling coal burning power plants into the electric car
equation as if it is universally applicable.

The car was affordable: $12k second hand. The solar was $0 down and half the
national grid per kW. My commute is at the edge of viable for a first gen
electric car (really looking forward to the 200mile range of 2nd gen).

I do the vast majority of my charging is at home. My only issue is that the
current system (sic) takes DC power converts to to AC only rectify it back to
DC in the car. There is still a need for charging stations, but for rare 100
mile journeys. Drive 80 miles charge for 20 minutes, drive 80 miles. 2nd gen
it's 160 miles, charge for 40 minutes. We have family in Western MA, which is
150 miles away. With a 200 mile range we'd do it in a single charge and
recharge at their house. The use of a charging station is really rare, not
part of the routine of ownership, like it is with ICE.

We don't have the infrastructure? We don't need the infrastructure. You can
run an electric car almost entirely from energy reclaimed from the environment
around your house. It will even store it for you in those handy, replaceable
lion batteries it has, solving some of renewable energies gnarlier problems.

Whilst I understand that electric cars don't work well for people who travel
more than 100 miles without a 20 minute break, that number is about to shift
to 200miles... and that is virtually nobody. The infrastructure problems are
solved by local generation (either municipal renewables or home solar). The
recharging problem, even at 100mile range isn't a problem, you just charge it
at the end of your journey.

~~~
coldcode
I live in an apartment there is no way to plug in a car or build a solar
panel. Basically without a means of owning an outlet no plugin hybrid is
possible.

~~~
erikpukinskis
While this is a problem for you, it's not a problem for the market at large.
As electric cars become more popular, landlords will offer outlets.

~~~
chadgeidel
Anecdotal, of course. And I'm bitter because I wanted to get an EV. :-D

I live in a "green" (LEED certified at some level) high-end apartment complex
built in 2014 just south of downtown Denver, CO. There are zero electric car
charging stations in the gated, enclosed garage. If my apartment complex
didn't have the foresight to build at least a few charging stations I can't
imagine the hope of retrofitting on some 10, 20, or 30 year old building.
Nevermind the vast number of apartment complexes that simply don't have the
garage space.

------
tombert
This was why I thought the Chevy Volt had the right idea; having a gas-tank
there as a backup, but depend on electricity 95% of the time.

But, in my opinion, the _best_ thing to do is to move to a big city and use
the trains, or campaign for a good train system in your city, which obviously
can't work for everyone.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Chevy Volt goes a step further and has the gas powered engine hooked up to the
wheels. I prefer the approach taken by the BMW i3 where the (optional) gas
powered range-extender is purely used to generate electricity, but there's
room for both in the transition period and PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles) seems like it might be an important market segment.

~~~
artimaeis
The Chevy Volt and BMW i3 are identical in the regard of the function of their
petrol engine. The Volt is using Chevy's Voltec drivetrain, so there's no way
for the engine to put power to the wheels except through charging the battery
- the same as the i3.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Voltec_powertrain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Voltec_powertrain)

~~~
tclmeelmo
"When the engine is running it may be periodically mechanically linked (by a
clutch) to a planetary gear set, and hence the output drive axle, to improve
energy efficiency."

~~~
artimaeis
Yeah not sure how I skipped that part so effectively. I've since looked
through what else I can find about that Voltec drivetrain and it's clear that
the planetary gear can engage in such a way that the petrol motor can provide
assistance to the electric motor.

In case anyone's interested, here's a fairly good and simple explanation of
the 3-clutch system which allows the petrol motor to provide some power to the
wheels when in the correct scenario:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80E1fOp95rA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80E1fOp95rA)

------
phkahler
I think this guy over estimates how much burden electric cars will put on the
grid. For a round trip of 20 miles to work and an efficiency of 200 Watt-hours
per mile, you get 8kWh which can be charged slowly at 1kW over 8 hours. Think
of that in comparison to air conditioning or electric dryers.

~~~
maxerickson
$5000 of solar panels in the office parking lot and you get almost 0 draw from
the grid for the commute.

I guess that doesn't compare favorably to $600 (~200*$3) per year for fuel,
but it isn't real far out either.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Gas is $2 right?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Temporarily. You successfully tell me where oil prices are going to be in a
year, and you'll be the richest person in the world.

[http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-
char...](http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart)

~~~
YesProcrast
Between $1 and $1000.

How do I collect?

~~~
maxerickson
Arbitrage the accuracy of your prediction against the oil futures market.

There's an implicit requirement for a _useful_ prediction of the price in the
GP comment.

------
ryanmarsh
Several of the author's arguments center around what exists today in terms of
infrastructure. Yes, if necessary grid/stations don't exist the average EV
purchaser might have trouble getting recharged, kWh prices might go up, etc...

Deep eye roll at stuff like this.

I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas
stations across the country, there wasn't much of an electrical grid, or a
highway system for that matter.

Some of the solutions to these potential challenges are related to public
investment, many can be solved by private investment and there is a profit
opportunity, thus solutions will come. Better solutions in my mind.

Here's the most missed point I see in all this infrastructure discussion. The
most costly piece to next-generation recharge infrastructure already exists,
and it is the natural gas "grid". It's massive and empowers much cleaner (than
coal) local electricity generation. Today you can buy a small plot of land
alongside the highway, pour a concrete pad, install a natural gas generator,
purchase gas at bulk rates, and charge EV's for $$$. Even the smallest towns
in America have NG lines running near or through them. The highest cost I've
seen to have a bulk gas line brought on to a business' property was in the low
tens of thousands. You can spreadsheet this, there's profit in this model and
it requires NO improvements to the electrical grid and suffers practically no
energy loss.

Most of what the author sees as problems others will see as investment
opportunities and solve. In fact I think I'm going to go take a look at the
map of supercharging stations right now...

~~~
vinceguidry
> I hope the author realizes that at some point there wasn't a network of gas
> stations across the country,

Not much of an argument. The ICE won out over electric drivetrains for the
express reason that liquid fuels are far easier to provide logistics for than
batteries. Most electric car makers stopped production at some point in the
1910s. It's not that electric vehicles were never tried out. They were.
Gasoline was just a way better fit.

~~~
djrogers
Yes it was. In 1910. Do you honestly expect that to always be true?

~~~
vinceguidry
Until and unless something fundamental changes about batteries, sure. If you
can figure out how to charge a battery at the same rate as filling up a gas
tank, then that would qualify. If you can quadruple capacity, and therefore
range, that would also qualify.

Right now and for the foreseeable future, EVs are a promising alternative to
regular cars, but if everyone hops on board, the logistics will murder us.

EVs won't work until they're actually better than ICEs in every way. Not just
some of the ways, all of them. Because only that will make the economics of
replacing our entire gasoline-based infrastructure work.

~~~
ryanmarsh
> EVs won't work until they're actually better than ICEs in every way.

I'm guessing you haven't spent much time behind the wheel of a Tesla. You're
making a sweeping and unsupported assertion there.

~~~
vinceguidry
Do you think every EV is going to drive like a (specced-out) Tesla?

------
bcatanzaro
The author forgot well to tank efficiency when looking at ICE efficiency. You
don't get gasoline out of the ground, you get crude oil. In the middle of
Nigeria or Venezuela. Which then has to be transported, refined, and
transported again. Gasoline well to tank efficiency is somewhere around 80%,
which means ICE well to wheels efficiency is somewhere around 14-16%.

So EVs at 30% are about 2X as efficient as ICE.

------
pjkundert
If you consider that EVs have A) large batteries w/ efficient charge/discharge
cycles, B) efficient high-capacity inverters, and C) are plugged in
(somewhere) for large fractions of their life, and D) very often have capacity
far exceeding their next expected trip duration, then:

It is inevitable that Tesla (or someone else) will implement Grid-tied battery
backup as a standard option on these vehicles.

When that happens -- the Grid gets "free" multi-GWh battery-based load
shedding.

Why is this not considered an inevitability? Am I missing something obvious
here?

~~~
jacquesm
No, you're not missing anything, that is a very likely thing to happen.

~~~
cdibona
This assumes the cars are plugged in when there is the most 'extra' capacity
being generated from , say, solar thermal/pv. This is when most cars are out
at a workplace, not plugged in.

This is also when industrial consumption/ac use peaks, so why would you over
produce and feed a battery rather than run a plant/keep places cool...

~~~
jacquesm
Load shedding.

------
sremani
This is a good debate, Purist vs Practitioner. The Purist point of view is
Autos are horrible, Cities designed for autos are horrible etc. But for the
Practitioner, the world we live is not our choice, we are given a shitty hand,
so lets improve it 10% at a time, in that world PHEVs and EVs are a solution
working towards improvement.

edit: I do not mean, Purist in any disparaging way, the actual cost of roads
(and their maintenance) is enormous. Please read Purist as one who sees the
Core or Central problem.

------
stcredzero
_Problem 1: Transportation will load the grid and generating capacity in
rather nasty ways_

Maybe. It depends on exactly where. He cites simultaneous draw from many
commuters at once. If the utilities incentivized slower charging overnight
through pricing (which is something that they already do for power intensive
industries) then this would be greatly ameliorated. Also, in many places, as
noted by the op, people will start charging after getting home from work. If
charging is delayed by just 3 hours, they will merely be using capacity that
already exists for running air conditioners.

 _Problem 2: Rapid charging is actually not so rapid, highway re-charging
stations will have to be much larger than current gas stations_

Op is assuming the same structure as gas stations. No need for this. What if
the car companies implemented a "charge crawl" feature, where a charging car
would slowly inch down a track for a half hour while charging, attached to an
overhead suspended cable? Actually, there's no need for that. Just have lots
of parking, with each space with a charger. Most road trip rest stops take
about 1/2 hour anyhow -- and that's when I'm in drill-sergeant mode with my
passengers.

 _Problem 3: Gas stations are not generally in the neighbourhood of
electricity generation stations._

Tesla is already building stations that get power from solar.

 _Problem 4: Re-charging will not work nearly as well when vehicle utilization
goes up due to sharing_

Consumers may not want battery swaps yet, but car-share companies might well
want it.

------
sickbeard
These are relatively minor problems however. The gas station problem for
example is solved by charging your car at home or work. Gas stations exist
because we can't refuel our cars at home.

~~~
vkou
What about people who park curbside? Will their cars be spending 2 hours/night
at the charging station?

~~~
mikeash
There's no particular reason you can't install curbside chargers. It's just a
matter of convincing the powers that be to allow it, and _that_ is just a
matter of EVs becoming common enough for there to be demand for it.

~~~
vkou
There's no particular reason we can't install a gas pump on every street
corner, and in every office parking space, either - except for economies of
scale, environmental reviews, HOA opposition, theft and vandalism...

These are not insurmountable problems, but they are expensive, or very time-
consuming ones.

You also can't just run a power cord from a wall outlet to the street. You'll
need to tear up the sidewalks, to connect the charging stations to the grid.
In many places, power isn't underground, so you'll have to bring it down from
the power lines to the underground - maybe through the buildings?

This quickly starts running to far more then $1000/charging station, and
closer to $10,000/charging station.

This is what curbside parking looks like where I live:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6236671,-122.3252994,3a,73.2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6236671,-122.3252994,3a,73.2y,7.77h,80.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjRaPaYN1H3ZYnCkDQVHexw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

It would cost a fortune to wire that up. Better yet, if only half the streets
in the area were wired up, due to the saturation of parking spaces, it would
be close to worthless.

~~~
mikeash
What's your point? The expense and danger of gas pumps make them completely
incomparable to EV charging stations.

Replying to your edit: If you're installing them for a whole street at once,
then the cost of bringing power down from a pole or digging under the sidewalk
gets amortized across them all. We already hook every house up for water, gas,
electricity, and communications. Providing power to every parking spot doesn't
have to be particularly hard. It's not so easy you can ignore it, but nor is
it a particularly big deal, not when looking at a timespan of decades.

~~~
vkou
Most of the houses in these areas are already hooked up for water, gas,
electricity, and telecom - and the power comes from throwing a power line to
the roof. Bringing it down to ground level would be cheap-ish if you're
already tearing up the street, but there isn't all that much new construction,
either.

Yes, you can slowly convert the whole area to support street-level chargers
over the next few decades - but until you do, having chargers on ~20% of the
streets would be next-to worthless. There is a dire shortage of street level
parking in this neighborhood - if you limit your possible spots to the ones
where chargers are available, it's quite unlikely that you'll be able to get a
space.

~~~
mikeash
Sure, I know they're already hooked up. My point is just that these utilities,
which are generally more difficult to connect, managed to be run to every
dwelling, showing that hooking stuff up on a large scale is doable. It's an
existence proof.

There does seem to be a chicken-and-egg problem as you describe. Making the
spots with chargers EV-only would mitigate that, although I'm sure it would be
unpopular with the non-EV owners. It would help if cities got out of the
business of subsidizing parking for their residents, but that ship sailed long
ago.

------
jwalton
1 isn't a problem; it's awesome. Most people are going to plug in their cars
at about 5:30-7, but most people don't actually care when, overnight, their
car charges, so some smart software can stage charging, and we can use this to
smooth out the peaks and valleys in demand. The electric company here in
Ontario already tries to do this by charging less for electricity off-peak.

2 is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Replacing batteries is
something Tesla played with for a while but ultimately abandoned. Super
Chargers charge a car in far less than an hour. There are probably other
interesting solutions out there. These are all fixes for problem 4 as well.

Problem 3 and 5 seem like the same problem - we need to build more
infrastructure as we build more cars.

6 is a non-issue for many people. I drive 15km to work every day, and then
15km home. I'd be happy with a car with a 100 mile range, to be honest.

7 is an interesting one, because most gas cars actually _don 't_ allow you to
tow a trailer. My Honda Fit stated in the manual that towing a trailer would
void all warranties. My Hyundai Sonata says "Towing with this vehicle is not
recommended." Lots of larger cars that you think would be able to tow
something can't, usually due to undersized cooling for the automatic
transmission. Also, adding a trailer to an EV will hurt the range, but adding
a trailer to a gas powered car hurts the range too; you just don't care
because it's easy to refuel more frequently. See problems 2 and 4.

Problem 8: Service. Yeah. Xerox said they had nothing to worry about when it
came to Japanese companies producing cheaper photocopiers, because none of
them could match Xerox's humongous service infrastructure. You couldn't get a
Canon tech down to your company to fix your Canon photocopier. Who makes your
photocopier?

And problem 9 seems like a non-issue to me.

~~~
jacquesm
> is a non-issue for many people. I drive 15km to work every day, and then
> 15km home. I'd be happy with a car with a 100 mile range, to be honest.

You should cycle if that's an option where you live. That's not a distance
that I would consider taking the car for, but then again, nl has excellent
bicycle infrastructure.

~~~
nmeofthestate
Hmm. I just calculated that it'd take me over 2 hours to cycle 30km, based on
my commute (mind you, we have hills here). Nae chance!

~~~
jacquesm
2 hours is too much, that's way too much overhead on a day. Hills don't help
and besides costing you a lot of time they will (depending on the grade) also
make you sweat quite badly, which is not the best way to arrive at work.

One of my family members does 30 km to work and back again in the evening, it
takes him about an hour but he's in top shape and there are no hills.

------
vvanders
I really hate the long tailpipe argument every time it comes up.

Here in WA state the large majority comes from Hydro so an EV _is_ much
greener than traditional forms of transportation.

~~~
extrapickles
Also, adding new emission controls at the power plant automatically upgrades
the entire electric vehicle fleet.

EVs will be very good for places with wind power as they can easily tailor the
load to what is being produced so you don't have any more cases where the
price of electricity goes negative.

------
Unklejoe
While the electrical grid as a whole may be able to handle the load, can the
average US residential service?

My house has a 100A 240V service which is barely adequate as it is. I’m sure
it could handle a single EV if I charge it overnight, but what happens when
the rest of my family switches to EVs?

If I remember correctly, a charger for a Tesla requires a 50A 240V dedicated
circuit, which would be half the capacity for my entire house just for a
single car. Additionally, many homes don’t have such a circuit, so one would
need to be installed.

This can be easily solved by upgrading my service, but that’s another cost.

In the end, it’s not a show stopper, but it’s certainly another hurdle that
will cause a slowdown in adoption rates.

Perhaps codes should be passed which require the garage of new homes to have
such circuits installed by default

------
joshvm
If EVs really take off, I wouldn't be surprised if workplaces started putting
in more chargers in their car parks. It's an obvious solution to the problem
of home charging.

The other option is leased batteries which solves a whole host of problems. It
would probably cost a bit more, but you would never need to worry about the
state of your battery pack. This would require standardisation though, unless
everyone drives a Tesla.

In addition to that, home charging is only an issue if everyone decides to do
a full charge every single night, which is unlikely. Most people will only
need a daily quarter or half charge, city drivers much less.

Even if electricity doubled or tripled in price to compensate for the grid
upgrade, it would still be cheaper than gas (at least in this country).

------
vlucas
All of these problems strike me as temporary. The only barriers here are
current technology getting cheaper and more efficient, which always happens
over time - especially the timescale needed for EVs to go mainstream.

The tone of this article seems to think we will be stuck with current levels
of technology.

Some future possibilities with in 20-30 years:

* Battery capacity doubling, tripling, or more.

* Widespread solar panel use for recharging at home (maybe they even come with solar panels as an upgrade?)

* Solar panels integrated into the car itself for continuous trickle charging (on the rooftop, for instance)

* Companies offering free charging while patronizing their retail locations (ala free Wifi)

* Parking lot charging via installed solar panels

Those are just the first few I could think of off the top of my head. I know
there will be others as time goes by.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Battery capacity has a long way to go. For vehicles, one efficiency measure is
Watt-Hours (energy) per kilogram. For Lithium batteries we're at 220. Gasoline
for comparison is 13200. So about two orders of magnitude to go, before gas is
obsolete.

[http://www.energyadvocate.com/batts.htm](http://www.energyadvocate.com/batts.htm)

Good news: metal-air batteries can achieve close to gas efficiencies! If we
can only build an efficient portable reactor, and then an efficient fungible
way to refuel with metal.

------
traviswingo
I want to quickly point out that these appear to be short-term problems, and
have been addressed by Elon Musk many times. The manufacturing of EVs is,
right now, not a clean process, but this is planned to be remedied by self-
sustaining factories with solar and storage.

------
peter303
I am encouraged by the progress made so far. I point to the documentary "Who
Killed [GMs] EV-1?". That movie had a laundry list of the technological and
political obstacles to EVs in the 1990s. Many of those have been reduced in
the 2010s.

------
merraksh
Most of the problems listed in this article are, in my opinion, only temporary
and would be solved if the technology becomes widespread. As in many
technological shifts, what is required is either 1) evolved technology or 2)
demand (which would trigger more technological improvements). I remember a
similar discussion about SSDs some time ago: they were slow and expensive and
a few commentators were quite skeptical about their widespread adoption.

 _Problem 1: Transportation will load the grid and generating capacity in
rather nasty ways_

But not in specific times of the day, as A/C does. Granted, we're talking
about much more power.

 _Problem 2: Rapid charging is actually not so rapid [...]_

Yet.

 _Problem 4: Re-charging will not work nearly as well when vehicle utilization
goes up due to sharing_

If sharing makes usage of a vehicle go up to ~100%, it will only be a matter
of having a few more vehicles. If a vehicle spends even 10% of its time
recharging, we'll just need ~10% more shared vehicles. This only drives up
production by 10%.

 _Problem 5: We don’t actually have all this infrastructure yet_

Yet. The technology won't be too convenient for the next few years.

 _Problem 6: Range_

That would make adoption easier in more densely populated regions.

 _Problem 7: Trailers_

That's a problem for a small percentage of the population (at least here in
Europe).

------
matheweis
I'm really surprised by this article. Electric cars shouldn't be discounted
just because they aren't as green as the seem/are advertised to be - they are
still by all accounts more efficient than ICE vehicles (even with our terrible
electric grid and issues with demand).

Load demand will be solved with local and utility scale energy storage,
something which is occurring already in Hawaii where solar is so widely
deployed that utilities have placed a moratorium on storage-less solar
deployments because they can't handle the demand changes when a cloud rolls
through town.

The issue with our electric grid is recognized at the highest levels of our
nation. President Obama brought this up largely unprompted during his recent
interview with Destin Sandlin.

Destin: "These huge technological projects that you're talking about, stuff
America builds with our hands; I'm thinking of the Hoover Dam, the Eisenhower
interstate system, Kennedy launched Apollo... Am I gonna to see that, ever
again, in my generation?"

Obama: "I would like to see it - you know - in that order for us to do that,
it requires a common vision of some of these big projects - now, I'll give you
an example of an area where we should be investing, and that is creating a
smart grid. This is something I've been interested in for a while. The way we
link up energy is hugely inefficient in this country ... but the basic
electricity grid that we have wastes huge amounts of energy."

This leaves us with only the range/changing issues which will both resolve as
battery tech improves. Either of increased range or faster charging batteries
will help, and we are seeing both. The demand for the Tesla proves we are
already at parity.

------
bryanlarsen
Problem 2:

Electric cars are charged at home most of the time. Let's assume that it takes
10x as long to charge a car at a supercharger compared to filling it with gas.
(3 vs 30 minutes). But if you charge at home 90% of the time, then refueling
stations can be the exact same size. And I'm fairly sure that people will be
charging at home or at work much more than 90% of the time -- it's probably
closer to 99%.

------
rmoriz
Short-range EV only works in cities however especially in central Europe there
is such a good public (and green) transportation system in place, that there
is no benefit in (co-)owning an expensive EV that also needs special charging
ports installed on at least "one end". Even the number of <30 year olds
without having a driver's license is growing. You don't need a car here
anymore!

Given that you need invest a couple of 1000$ to install a charger (per parking
slot) and also limit yourself to one type of EV (there are competing
standards) and also your Employer ("Destination") needs to do the same…

So we're down to a irregular usage of vehicles, like car rental, car sharing
or uber, all of which need to be flexible. EVs are not the right thing.

The only useful EV usage I can come up with is for commercial usages in pre-
defined distances/routes. E.g. last mile delivery operated in a pool that
justify setting up a central maintenance location, battery chargers/or
swapping systems and more or less fixed usage time (=> loading
batteries/servicing cars during the night or via spare cars)

~~~
mikeash
You don't need to limit yourself to one type of EV. In the US, a J1772 charger
can charge every EV on the road. In Europe, the Mennekes connector does the
same.

Fast DC charging has a bit of a standards war going on. There's CCS, CHAdeMO,
and Tesla Supercharger, which are all mutually incompatible. But for routine
AC charging, you can install one charger and work with every car.

~~~
rmoriz
Simple 230V AC charger take 24hrs to charge a car...

~~~
mikeash
My Model S takes about 9 hours to charge from 0-100% on my home 240V charger,
and you rarely need 0-100%. For it to take 24 hours, you'd have to be limited
to pulling 14A. And, well, don't install something so ridiculously slow!

------
jeromeflipo
A few thoughts/ideas:

Grid saturation: smart charging to flatten the demand curve (overnight),
daylight charging with more chargers in parking spaces at the office, west-
facing solar panels and grid storage to smooth the duck curve.

Lack of chargers on the highway: increase in charging speed (15 minutes breaks
are recommended after 2h of driving), increased battery range, platooning with
autopilot can save 15% of energy [0], very low cost of expanding supercharger
networks, auto-pilot to tolerate longer drive, auto-park to accept longer
pauses, battery swapping

Energy sources far from charging stations: don't underestimate the
predominance of home charging; south-facing solar panels and wind turbines
along highways; grid storage; battery swapping

Car sharing: battery swapping again; autonomous fleets to dispatch charged car
and auto-park cars (with snake-like charger to auto-plug)

Infrastructure investment: large public program for distributed generation
with solar panels and grid storage

Range anxiety: 250 miles might be the average range for EV in 2020,
supercharging and battery swapping to the rescue

Trailers: battery swapping again, and battery integrated in the trailer (might
turn into a backup battery once at home)

Lack of servcie: EVs require far less maintenance than ICE, Musk intend to
make a 1-million miles powertrain and reuse battery for grid storage; also
industry-wide standardization

Tax break: they will somehow be extended to balance the externalities of
fossil fuels (health, environment); EV will reach cost-parity very soon too.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_%28automobile%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_%28automobile%29)

------
mikeash
A world where all cars are EVs will need many changes from the world today,
but we have decades to make those changes. Take the grid capacity problem.
Household electricity usage has already increased by a ton throughout the
history of electrification. The grid can adapt. It takes a long time to build
out this sort of infrastructure, but we _have_ that time. Grid capacity needs
to increase by 20% over the next 30-50 years? Ok, and?

The article also can't seem to make up its mind about whether EVs are suitable
for long distance travel. It talks about how highway charging stations will
have to be much larger than gas stations because charging takes longer. Then a
few points down, it says that range and recharging time are incompatible with
charging while traveling. Which is it? If it's incompatible, then you don't
need highway charging stations in the first place....

------
wimagguc
This is actually a list of 9 pretty solid research ideas: the current re-
charging stations are too small? Find out how to make them bigger. Can't toe
with an electric vehicle? Invent one that can do just that.

Seems like the first reaction of most people here is to debate that problems
exist in the first place.

------
rorykoehler
The major concern from my perspective is how ecologically damaging battery
production is. That said I'd still choose it over fossil fuels. Fossil fuels
pollution is uncontainable, spewing out into our atmosphere, while the
pollution from rare earth extraction is largely localised.

------
RP_Joe
The problem I have with these arguments is they compare all electric vehicles
to all internal combustion engines. I don't think that's realistic. Everyone
is not going to convert to electric vehicles.

I think it's terrific that there is diversity in the energy base for
transportation. This is very healthy for the economy and for the country in
general.

While it's true, that these new technologies may require adjustments,
sometimes these adjustments can be overstated.

The actual energy usage for many appliances and industry is going down. LED
light bulbs and other technologies are lowering the load to the grid. It's not
a simple equation. It's a very complex equation and I don't think anyone has
spent the time to factor that. At least I have not seen any studies on that.

This electric vehicle movement is not just about electric cars. People are
rethinking their transportation. That's very healthy. It would be great if we
continue to improve mass transit in America, so that less vehicles of all
types are needed. I think many Americans would like to see that.

We're still also in the very early stages of electric vehicle's engineering.
It's not a good idea to extrapolate out into the future based upon the
technology of today. It's likely these electric vehicles become even more
efficient in the future. As we see more volume in the industry, third-party
players will also come in with unique ideas and improvements.

This mix of electric and internal combustion is really exciting. I think it's
terrific that people are being lured from internal combustion to electric
vehicles. The whole system seems to be going in a good direction. I don't
agree with the naysayers. The outlook looks very promising.

These electric vehicles continued to sell even though the price of fuel for
internal combustion's has fallen. The price of electricity is much more stable
than the price of gasoline. This may also help people in making their
decisions.

I suspect in the future we will see families with both electric cars and
internal combustion. It will not be either or.

~~~
jeromeflipo
As more and more people will adopt EVs, you can expect:

\- gas stations and car dealers to go bankrupt

\- price for maintenance and spare parts to jump

\- investment in oil extraction to drop (as demand for oil decreases)

\- gas prices to increase at the pump, due to diseconomies of scale within the
oil industry and carbon tax

This could quickly translate into a vicious circle, and make ICE as luxurious
as horse riding.

~~~
Grishnakh
I disagree about several of these.

\- spare parts: assuming you're talking about spare parts for the new EVs and
not the old gas cars, I don't see why. They'll still need spare parts for
crash repair, mechanical wear-out, etc. There's more to a car than the
propulsion unit, and things will still need to be repaired. It'll be the same
supply-and-demand we have now.

\- maintenance: maybe. With less overall maintenance being necessary, there
might be fewer mechanics and prices could then be higher. But it's easy to do
non-engine-related maintenance on cars anyway, and they still need their tires
changed, brake pads replaced (though not as much), etc. Tire shops won't see
any change at all, I'm sure.

\- car dealers: I don't know about this. People still have to buy cars
somewhere, and while they might keep EVs a little longer, people usually
replace cars now because the interior is getting old and nasty, the paint
looks bad and repaints are expensive, it has dents and dings, new models look
nice and have fancier electronics, etc. They could go to buying directly from
dealers a la Tesla, but that's really orthogonal to gas vs. EV.

\- gas stations: small local ones, yes. Interstate rest stops, no. We'll see
more large rest stops with charging stations and restaurants all in one
complex, so people can recharge for an hour while going to the bathroom and
eating lunch/dinner on their road trip. We already have stuff like this, like
on the NJ Turnpike. We'll probably also see other businesses integrating food
and recharging in one spot: sit-down restaurants that are popular with
travelers will likely add recharging facilities, and will advertise this
(you'll see a billboard on the highway that says "next exit: Cracker Barrel
now with 30 charging stations!").

------
RodericDay
I want public transport and walkable cities to win over electric cars. A lot
of people take the need for cars for granted, and gush over the electric car
future as optimum. This means that their transport utopia is something where
you have these wide streets, click a button in your phone, and an Uber-Tesla
picks you up and drops you off anywhere.

For me, this is the "faster-horse" of transportation.

I want more radical changes towards walkable cities with more space for people
and less space for vehicles. Roads take up an insane amount of space, and
self-driving electric cars don't make things much better.

The car should be more like a family appliance used in weekends for holiday
trips.

------
dreamcompiler
I'm seeing at least an article or two per day like this now: Scary FUD-filled
headline suggesting that we are stupid to pursue EVs because they're not
completely benign, while the body of the article itself eventually
acknowledges that in almost every respect they're a helluva lot more benign
than ICEs today, and will likely become even more advantageous in the future.
There's only one science problem remaining for EVs: Better batteries. All the
rest are relatively straightforward engineering problems, and a big chunk of
those already have scaled-out solutions (e.g. Tesla's superchargers).

------
sosuke
On the question of larger gas stations I present Buc-ee's in New Braunfels. An
18 acre lot with 60 pumps and 67,000 square foot building.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buc-
ee's/@29.726694,-98.07...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buc-
ee's/@29.726694,-98.0798213,451m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x865cbccd44bfe4b3:0x695760c690117684)

[http://seguingazette.com/news/article_6dd61114-989d-11e1-b79...](http://seguingazette.com/news/article_6dd61114-989d-11e1-b790-001a4bcf887a.html)

------
turar
Can somebody explain how are EV, and especially Tesla, batteries different
from, say, my laptop batteries, which normally degrade to the point of being
unusable within 4-5 years, and have to be replaced?

~~~
mikeash
EV batteries are treated much better than the batteries in your laptop.

First, EV batteries typically have active thermal management. Heat kills
lithium ion batteries. When you charge your laptop, the battery gets hot, and
this accelerates degradation. When you charge your car, the cooling system
engages and keeps the battery at the optimal temperature. (The LEAF doesn't
have an active cooling system for its battery. It also suffers much worse
battery degradation than other EVs. Coincidence?)

Second, EV batteries are somewhat de-rated from their full capacity. Lithium
ion batteries don't like spending time at the ends of their capacity. They
want to live in the middle, not be fully charged or fully discharged. Laptop
and phone makers tend to view their products as short-lived, disposable items,
so they'll optimize for maximum running time on the battery by charging to
100% and draining to 0%, at the cost of battery longevity. A car will wall off
some of the capacity so that when you're at 100%, you're really at, say, 90%,
and when you're at 0% you're really at, say, 10%. At least some of these cars
take it further and let you limit the maximum charge so you only use what you
need. For example, I normally charge my Tesla to 90%, which is all I need for
99% of my driving. When I need that last little bit, I can charge it all the
way to 100%.

Third, a large portion of degradation comes from the number of actual cycles
you use, and deeper cycles are worse. A typical battery might last 300 100%-0%
cycles before it degrades beyond usability. If you only use 50% of the
capacity each time, then it might last 800 cycles. (Very rough number, totally
pulled out of my nether regions, but you get the idea.) Long-range EVs are
typically not driven to the limits of their range every day, so the batteries
are treated well. Most days, my car might go from 90% to 80%, then get charged
back to 90%. My phone, by comparison, goes from 100% to around 20% and back to
100% each day, which degrades the battery far more.

~~~
NickM
Excellent writeup. Also worth noting is that there are many different types of
battery chemistry used by different lithium-ion cells: laptops may have cells
with chemistries optimized for a certain lifetime/capacity/power tradeoff,
whereas EVs may use a completely different chemistry with very different
properties.

------
mdip
Well thought out points but he's suffered from a common mistake when comparing
a revolutionary technology with a current, well proliferated, technology. The
rules of vehicle ownership have changed and will continue to change as we move
to EVs.

As to points about the grid: The electric companies already manage unexpected
peeks/valleys using several techniques. Interruptable power used to cut
people's AC off in the summer when the grid is suffering by offering
participants a steep discount in electric rates will likely see its first
expansion into recharging ports. Off-peek/On-peek rates will change. Even
surcharges for vehicle owners charging at certain times could be implemented
-- all before the first changes to the grid take place.

Refueling: This fell victim to thinking of EVs as having the same limitations
as ICEs. With the current crop of EVs, 99.95% of my travel would eliminate the
need for a refueling station. I can charge at home and a look around my area,
it's easier to find an EV charging parking space than it is to find someone
driving an EV (Metro Detroit). More of these will appear -- the incentive to
install these at retail locations is that you'll potentially increase your
traffic and those who are there "just to refuel" will be there until they're
sufficiently charged giving you ample time to make a few sales in the process.
Cities are adding them as well and it's probable that this will become another
revenue generator by having the car owner pay a rate above the electric
rate/maintenance rate. For long-haul travel, these stations will now have
something they never had before: a captive audience stuck there for the
duration of the charge and their incentives will be similar to retail
locations adding "EV parking spots"

The remaining problems fall under the category of "EVs are new and not as
common as ICEs." Service stations will become more familiar with the products
as more of them appear on the road. Add in self-driving, which seems to be
growing just behind EVs, and you end up with a model where disabled passengers
can be met with a new "rental" while their vehicle is towed to a location that
can service them.

Because of a simple change to the fuel and engine, EVs don't suffer from some
of the pain points of ICEs and require us to think about the similar problems
that they share with ICE vehicles very differently.

------
bjourne
I think electric BIKES, not cars, is the future. We're already seeing bikes
with 1000W engines and batteries which have enough for 60 km range. It takes
much less energy to transport one human on a bike than one inside a "steel
cage".

For longer trips, you still need mass transit or perhaps car pooling services
of some sort. But for commuter trips, I think electric bikes or trikes will
absolutely replace cars in the near future.

------
cdibona
The Model S is very popular in the crescent park neighborhood of Palo Alto.
There were brownouts until they upgraded the neighborhoods supply and
transformers.

Just some food for thought. Most neighborhoods simply are not wired for
overnight charging of a significant number of EVs. I would expect EV
interconnect fees or time sensitive tierd electric consumption independent of
your net metering deal.

Or hyper-local generating capacity based on natural gas...?

------
omg_ketchup
Can't "gas stations" just swap out your empty battery for a charged one, the
way you can swap out an empty propane tank and $20 for a full one?

~~~
wwweston
A few years back I worked on the web presence for a company focused around
doing exactly that (along with a network of charging stations).

It didn't quite work out as planned:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place)

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-
pla...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place)

~~~
omg_ketchup
I was thinking more like a car battery meets a propane tank- easy enough to
just lift up and take inside to the attendant.

One day, I guess.

------
rosalinekarr
Ugh... here we go again...

> Problem 1: Transportation will load the grid and generating capacity in
> rather nasty ways

Electric cars are not a _complete_ solution on their own. They are _part_ of
the solution, along side more renewable power sources like solar and wind. I
drive an electric car and I charge it almost exclusively with solar panels at
a local free charging station provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority. (I
live in Chattanooga, TN.)

Also, as for putting load on the electric grid, electric cars actually help
with that. Many can be configured to feed power back into the grid, and as a
result, they can balance out the grid load throughout the day with their
batteries.

> Problem 2: Rapid charging is actually not so rapid, highway re-charging
> stations will have to be much larger than current gas stations

Shift your thinking! Electric cars won't be charged at gas stations like gas
cars of the past. Most electric drivers charge at home in their own garages or
driveways. I have neither, but I still manage to charge my car in street
parking with an extension cord, an exterior wall outlet, and a few of those
little safety mat things so strangers don't trip over my cord.

Charging stations will still be important for cross-country trips, but the
average driver doesn't travel that far often enough for it to clog up charging
stations across the country.

> Problem 3: Gas stations are not generally in the neighbourhood of
> electricity generation stations.

See above.

> Problem 4: Re-charging will not work nearly as well when vehicle utilization
> goes up due to sharing

See above.

> Problem 5: We don’t actually have all this infrastructure yet

Well, duh. That's why we need to build it. That's not an issue with electric
cars themselves. That's a problem with our infrastructure that we need to fix.

> Problem 6: Range

This is something we need to work on, but it's not as big of a problem as
people realize. More than 90% of US drivers drive far less than 100 miles per
day. The few times I do need to travel farther than that, it's actually kind
of relaxing to stop at a mall or restaurant with a charger, plug in, and have
a 30 minute lunch while I charge.

> Problem 7: Trailers

Really? This is problem for most drivers? This is a niche problem for the few
people that actually need to haul trailers. So those people can just use
regular cars.

> Problem 8: Service

I drive a Nissan Leaf, and I am very active in the Leaf driver community. I
have _never_ heard of a Leaf having major maintenance problems. Chevy Volt's
are known for having some issues, but in my opinion, that's your fault for
buying something from GM.

> Problem 9: Tax Breaks

How is this a problem? Tax breaks will eventually go away? So what? The whole
idea is to make these cars cheaper now until manufacturing gets cheaper and
the prices start to go down on their own. This is really grasping at straws.

~~~
Unklejoe
> Problem 2: Rapid charging is actually not so rapid, highway re-charging
> stations will have to be much larger than current gas stations

Shift your thinking! Electric cars won't be charged at gas stations like gas
cars of the past. Most electric drivers charge at home in their own garages or
driveways. I have neither, but I still manage to charge my car in street
parking with an extension cord, an exterior wall outlet, and a few of those
little safety mat things so strangers don't trip over my cord.

-> I agree to an extent, however, I think you over estimate the discipline of the average person with respect to them always remembering to charge their car at night. The time it takes to recharge an EV to a significant capacity is still too long for people to easily transition, not to mention the massive current demands that would be required for such a quick charge. In an ideal world, people would plug their EV into an outlet every night when they come home from work, but we all know that the average person isn't as deterministic as that. How many people wake up in the morning and realize that they forgot to plug their cell phone in at night? This is why there's such a push for rapid charging technology in those devices.

In order for people to easily make the switch, I think we would need vehicles
capable of charging to a ~100 mile capacity in under 5 minutes; similar to how
long a refill for a gas vehicle takes. I’m not up to date on the latest EV
news, so maybe we’re already there.

Nonetheless, I find myself many times in the morning on my way to work,
glancing down at the gas gauge, realizing that I forgot to refill last night.
This forces me to make a quick stop on my way to refill, which only adds about
8 minutes to my total commute. Waiting at an EV charging station for 30
minutes would require a significant change in my lifestyle.

People like the average HN user are generally responsible enough to make
appropriate accommodations, but my 68 year old father wouldn’t go through the
hassle.

Another hurdle I see with overnight charging is the mess it would cause in
cities like Philadelphia where you aren’t guaranteed to end up in the same
parking spot every time. The people there can’t even handle shoveling out a
parking spot without shooting each other, so I expect a few issues when there
are extension cords in front of everyone’s house and you need your specific
spot to charge your car. This could easily be solved with a universal charging
infrastructure that includes chargers every 10 feet, but that infrastructure
will only come when adoption reaches a certain rate where the _massive_ costs
can be justified. This is the obvious catch 22.

Of course, these issues will slowly go away as EVs become a part of everyday
life, but I’m specifically talking about the transition period.

------
746F7475
All this shit we've been working on and actively can improve? Shiiiiiet, I
guess we might as well not do it and use gas until it runs out, right?

------
robg
_First of all, if you really want to improve the environment the best way to
do so is to not buy any vehicle at all._

It's pretty clear to me that I will be unlikely to ever own a car again. But
this Tesla is the one I expect will be my self-driving taxi for many years to
come and before the decade is out.

------
rajahafify
The arguments pointed out is rather week. Most can be solved given time and
effort. With regards with the environment concerns, I think it's easier to
solve the dependency of fosil fuel when all consumers is located in power
stations compared to in individual transport unit.

------
merraksh
_One stop-gap hybrid solution for a number of these issues would be a gas
station that has a small power generation station powered by diesel fuel._

This would cancel out the ecological benefits of running an EV, even if the
power station had more efficiency than a combustion engine.

~~~
sevensor
You've got to burn something. Much of the electric power used by EVs in the
States comes from burning coal. Diesel is the clean option.

~~~
mikeash
The US grid is currently about one third coal, one third natural gas, and one
third zero emissions (mostly nuclear). I doubt diesel is cleaner than an EV
given that, even if you don't account for the fact that coal emissions happen
far away from most people, while diesel happens in your face.

------
ebbv
This is a bunch of fallacies that have been brought up again and again and
have been addressed.

The biggest canard is "If everybody switched to EVs tomorrow our power grid
couldn't handle!"

Yes and if everyone went outside right now and pooped in the street we'd all
drown in shit. Neither scenario is actually going to happen.

The reality is that EVs are far, far more efficient than ICE vehicles. Not
only that, they don't create all the secondary waste products like used engine
oil, coolant, etc. LiOn batteries are highly recyclable.

Adoption of EVs has been and will continue to be gradual, and our power grid
will continue to expand to handle the load.

Just as a personal anecdote, I currently have a Nissan LEAF and when we got it
we expected our power usage to jump dramatically. It did not. But our savings
on fuel (not to mention maintenance) did jump. Even with current cheap gas
prices, it's still way cheaper to drive the LEAF than our 30mpg CR-V.

~~~
Grishnakh
Exactly correct.

Just wait though, I said the exact same thing above and the author told me to
"fuck off", and the HN hivemind is heavily down-modding any comments critical
of this guy.

~~~
ebbv
Yeah wow, my comment had like +2 earlier today and now it's down to 0. Guess
the dude called his friends in.

~~~
jacquesm
> Guess the dude called his friends in.

Any more unsubstantiated and bull-shit accusations you'd care to make?

~~~
ebbv
I said "guess". :)

~~~
jacquesm
Fair enough.

------
lasermike026
Cars are an antiquate mode of transportation that are dangerous and
inefficient. Something truly disruptive would be transportation systems where
cars and trucks don't exist.

------
ZeroGravitas
This reads a bit like something a staffer on one of those listicle sites got
asked to churn out, the last three (listicle items 7 through 9) in
particularly seem very weak.

------
return0
How about horses? Tried and true method, reliable for millenia, green and
sometimes majestic.

~~~
mnw21cam
If everyone had a horse these days, the environmental impact would be massive,
from the infrastructure required to generate the food for them (there probably
isn't enough land area in the world to grow enough grass), and the amount of
methane they emit.

~~~
return0
We do the same with cows and other animals we eat. Plus we feed billions of
pets (for which we have no use). Someone will have to do the numbers, but it's
possible that, at a small density, they're a green alternative for short
distances. Plus it's easy to share them.

~~~
smacktoward
Even in the late 19th century, cities like London and New York had major
problems dealing with the massive volume of dung that horses were leaving on
the streets.

The population of New York City was 1.5 million people in 1890. It's 8.1
million today.

------
homero
I like my diesel car, sorry Tesla

------
atemerev
OK, it boils down to "if all cars will be electric, we'll need much more
electricity".

There are only two ecologically sustainable ways of increasing generating
capacity: solar and nuclear. Both will be deployed on massive scale.

The new atomic age awaits us!

------
elchief
Sometimes people are just against things. I don't find any of his arguments
particularly compelling.

------
cptskippy
I'm guessing Jacques lives in a large European city because this piece reads
like someone who has absolutely no understanding of how a typical American
uses an automobile. Land use, city planning, public transportation and highway
management in Europe are all completely different from that of America, or
specifically the United States. Accepting that you can't just give up your
car, he then enumerates short comings of EVs that just don't add up.

The implication that simple lifestyle changes would enable most American's to
do away with their automobiles is utterly ridiculous and demonstrates complete
ignorance to the suburban environment surrounding all cities in the United
States and other parts of America. If a large number of people did vacate the
suburbs for the city, this would create a housing market crash in the suburbs
that would draw just as many people out of the cities into the suburbs.
Without revising land use policies in the United States, there's no way to
support this. Just look at gun control polices if you need any more evidence
of how ridiculous this notion is.

His argument that everyone will be charging their EVs at peak times and will
overload the grid is ridiculous and completely ignores the fact that most
people today are aware of peak vs off peak electricity rates and specifically
charge their EVs during off peak hours to avoid paying higher rates. This is
analogous to driving a few extra miles to save $.05/gallon on gas. People are
cheap and won't do that for financial reasons.

He then goes on to make a number of points about the lack of charging
infrastructure that would make EVs unfeasible but these completely ignore his
first assertion that most people will be charging at home. More than 90%* of
commuters have a commute of less than 36 miles one-way which means that only 2
EVs on market (i.e. Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Smart Electric Drive) would be unable
to cover their daily commute. Which means that in most cases the need for
charging stations would be radically diminished. Another thing to consider is
that petrol stations exist in their current form because of regulator
requirements around the storage of hazardous materials (i.e. petroleum
products). There's no such restrictions around EV charging stations and in a
world with 90%+ EVs it's not hard to imagine every parking spot having a
charge station.

The assertion about vehicle maintenance being an issue is also equally
ridiculous. He states that most EV systems will be unservicable at the average
garage which is debatable. The power train will probably remain unserviceable
but an EV's powertrain is significantly more reliable than your typical ICE.
All of the other major and minor systems (i.e. drivetrain, environmental,
braking, etc) in an EV are similar to those of an ICE vehicle and thus
serviceable at a regular garage. Considering that most EVs will be daily
commuters, the likelihood that you'll find yourself with a powertrain failure
in a location where your EV can't be serviced is also highly unlikely.

 __[http://www.statisticbrain.com/commute-
statistics/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/commute-statistics/)

 __ __[http://ecomento.com/2015/03/23/nissan-leaf-ev-battery-
reliab...](http://ecomento.com/2015/03/23/nissan-leaf-ev-battery-reliability/)

------
VLM
Misses numerous the historical examples and present day analogies.

Prob 1 is solved by the death of 9-5 full time work. Its just not relevant to
most of the population anymore. The problems of deploying EVs in Levvitown in
1949 are not relevant to 2016+. Also "smart" grid connected battery chargers
are more advanced than the typical 1949 "battery rectifier".

Prob 2 insists that what he calls fast charging would in the industry be
called medium-slow charging. Also it strawdogs that a significant fraction of
people will every require it and be willing to pay the likely "just under the
cost of a SUV's tank of gas" they'll charge as a convenience fee. Finally he
misses how rest stops along interstates actually work in recreational states
like where I live... its just not a practical issue.

Prob 4 overestimates the popularity of sharing. Its kind of like wife sharing,
many talk and think about it, only a tiny fraction do it, but its not
unusually popular, nor growing, and not a significant population issue. Among
certain extremely small subcultures its popular, but much like rurals who
commute over 100 miles per trip, they're just going to be ignored and frozen
out of the EV market. They can buy hybrids and the remaining 95% of the market
will buy EVs. For a gas analogy, the fact that my micro-sub-compact can't tow
a 37 foot sailboat turns out not to have eliminated its sales from the market,
no matter how important that ability is for owners of 37 foot sailboats, or at
least those who aspire.

Prob 5 carefully ignores historical infrastructure growth examples, population
shifts in the USA, suburban sprawl, and ignores the slow rate of ramping up EV
production. Basically, we have decades of experience building new
infrastructure faster than we can possibly build new EV assembly lines. NIMBY
areas will suffer, nothing new there, but I couldn't care less about them, and
a little suffering might improve their views a bit.

Prob 7 is the great towing conspiracy (google it) where existing gas mfgrs try
to protect suv and truck sales by pretending that magically only trucks can
tow in the USA. Its pretty crazy, my (gas) car is rated to tow 2000 pounds in
Canada and of course 0 in the USA, because they have to protect truck / suv
sales. It is true, if you need to tow in the USA you already must buy a truck
to do it legally while insured. So not being able to tow with a commuter EV
isn't a downgrade from commuter gas cars that already are legally rated as
zero (in the USA). Further when I do need to tow, its usually 3 miles to home
depot or 5 miles to the lake, not crossing the Rockies in a blizzard.

Prob 8 is absolutely comical, like an anti-hybrid troll from over a decade ago
or an anti-import troll from when I was a kid. When that tired argument is the
best they can roll out...

Overall its mostly problems that exist primarily in the mind of opponents
where 99% of the population won't care no matter how many times the talking
points are repeated, much like the tired saw that no EV range is acceptable
other than (max_currently_available) + 50 miles for all available ranges from
10 miles (homemade lead acid conversions) on up.

------
fweespee_ch
I think the OP is overselling the following problems and/or failing to
understand the problem EVs are relevant to:

1) Grid strain - By the time EV cars are popular enough for this to be an
issue, installed home solar capacity is likely to be large enough that it is
likely to look more like this:

    
    
       2 kW worth of solar panels
       1 Battery Pack (possibly interchangeable with the car)
       Battery pack is drained when you get home and charge the car.
       This will cost you ~$15,000 which is cheaper than the car and will last ~20 years (minus the battery pack which you'll need to replace every 5-10 years). This might go as low as $7.5k depending on technology improvements, incentives, sunny days, etc.
       On cloudy days, it'll just charge from the grid over 6-8 hours while people are at work.
       You'll want a system like this with 1+ EVs simply because you'll be using enough power it'll start making financial sense in most of the US.
    

2) EVs are primarily commuter cars so as long as their battery back lasts long
enough to return home, it'll work. The rare instances where you'll need to
recharge at a station will largely be irrelevant for day-to-day activity. Cars
used for long distances ( 180+ miles ) regularly will likely remain hybrids or
fossil fuel for decade(s).

4) Sharing will largely also be a non-issue since even when utilization goes
up, we are talking ~3 hours of drive time to ~1 hour of charge time. You'd
need to have greater than 50% utilization before charge time is likely to
create issues. Similarly, as tech improves, that ratio will improve.

6) This is largely solved by the fact EVs are primarily going to be local
commuter cars. Replacing commuter cars, in and of itself, is a worthy goal as
it improves city air quality substantially which is linked to problems like
asthma and cancer. I honestly don't care if long distance trucks which largely
are spending their time in rural areas remain fossil fueled. I care about city
air quality.

[http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/world-health-
organization-...](http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/world-health-organization-
outdoor-air-pollution-causes-cancer) [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-
style/health-and-families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-
and-families/features/air-pollution-how-strong-is-the-link-to-
cancer-a6894866.html) [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-
pollution-s-im...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-pollution-s-
impact-on-cancer-is-grossly-underestimated/)
[http://discovermagazine.com/2013/julyaug/19-californias-
air-...](http://discovermagazine.com/2013/julyaug/19-californias-air-
pollution-causes-asthma-allergies-and-premature-births)

