
Soros fund management backs electric-vehicle charging startup - hhs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/soros-fund-management-backs-electric-vehicle-charging-startup
======
OliverJones
Why is this even a thing?

<rant>

Because the electric utilities don't understand, and can't/won't adapt to, the
electrification of transportation.

BEVs from skateboard- to class 8 truck- size are

a) an unimaginably vast opportunity for electricity distributors. They're
going to get ALL THE GAS STATION BUSINESS in the next generation.

b) a time-shiftable load. For the BEV energy business to be viable at scale
the time-shifting technology is mandatory. They need smart ways to spread out
the electric load. If every good doobie battery car owner says, "I'll tell
mine to charge at midnight" guess what happens when they all start drawing 8kW
at midnight? The peaking generators have to kick on and the power gets really
expensive. And "frequency control ancillary services?" They get costly with
sudden large loads.

Tesla's already figured out a localized approach to the load-control: I now
tell my car what time I need it rather than when to start charging, and it
picks the time to start charging. But for load-balancing work at scale is
going to require, basically, real-time capacity auctioning.

In Norway, the electric utilities use the FM radio text channel (the one that
announces songs on fancy radios) to announce current electricity rates, and
their meters pick it up and use it. That's a start.

If the electricity distributors won't build this smart grid, I guess third-
party companies have to step into the breach. It's a lot of hands in the
cookie jar.

</rant>

~~~
AmericanChopper
> an unimaginably vast opportunity for electricity distributors. They're going
> to get ALL THE GAS STATION BUSINESS in the next generation.

This isn’t at all obvious. Putting aside the fact that it’s not exactly
obvious when non-ICE cars will take over the majority of the market from ICE
cars (I wouldn’t bet on it happening before my yet to be born children get
their drivers licenses), it’s definitely not obvious that electric cars will
be the ones to do it. I’ve driven both battery electric cars and hydrogen
cars, and hydrogen cars offer a far superior driving experience. Charging an
electric car simply sucks. It’s also not clear how you’d expect to manage
charging stations at scale. It take 75 minutes for a full charge on a Tesla,
nobody enjoys waiting that long for their car to charge, and the amount of
Superchargers you’d need across the country/world would be insane if a
majority of cars were electric. Hydrogen cars don’t have that problem, and
they don’t have the same hard constraints on range.

You can say that hydrogen car tech, or the infrastructure, isn’t there yet.
But it’s not there for electric cars either. If you want some evidence that
hydrogen cars have serious potential, Elon Musk described them as “mind-
bogglingly stupid”.

~~~
Tade0
Hydrogen has a few issues of its own which are slowly, but surely tipping the
scales in favour of BEVs, namely:

1\. The fuel is relatively expensive and will be for the foreseeable future.

2\. Likewise the fueling stations.

3\. Not to mention the vehicles themselves - this is true for BEVs as well,
but while it's possible to make a cheap BEV, the same doesn't hold for
hydrogen cars due to the cost of tanks, pumps and plumbing.

4\. A hydrogen station's failure mode is a giant fireball.

Sure, hydrogen wins on charging time now, but that advantage is diminishing.

Meanwhile battery tech is getting both better and cheaper. Who knows, perhaps
the next gen of EVs, arriving around 2025 will have ranges comparable to what
a normal human being can stay behind the wheel without rest?

~~~
AmericanChopper
Due to the current efficiency of electrolysis, hydrogen could easily become
less expensive than gas. Which is already quite cheap.

BEVs were equally expensive when they first came onto the market. There’s no
reason to think hydrogen cars won’t be able to match them on price in the
future.

A gas stations failure mode is also a giant fireball, so is a BEV and ICE cars
failure mode. We seem to be doing fine despite that.

I’m not predicting that hydrogen cars are going to replace BEVs. Just that
they obviously have the potential to do so, that they better align with the
existing value propositions of ICE cars, and that to say the future is 100%
confirmed BEV is simply wrong.

~~~
Tade0
> Due to the current efficiency of electrolysis, hydrogen could easily become
> less expensive than gas.

I did the math and while it's possible, it's still not the case today. Even
worse - hydrogen is _more_ expensive per mile driven.

> There’s no reason to think hydrogen cars won’t be able to match them on
> price in the future.

I'll give you one then: expensive parts in the form of platinum catalysts and
generally higher complexity, since all hydrogen cars which don't rely on
combustion of hydrogen are actually hydrogen-electric hybrids with a buffer
battery - something necessary due to the low power density of fuel cells.

> A gas stations failure mode is also a giant fireball

But would be rarer if we had enough cases to compare. Petrol being a fluid
doesn't combust as easily - its NFPA flammability rating is 3, while
hydrogen's is 4.

Sure, natural gas is also highly flammable, but has less than 40% of the
energy density.

------
bsder
I'm so tired of these charging companies. Especially since I have to "sign up
and use our app" for all of them instead of just present my credit card at
point of charging because they are all trying to corner the market.

Can we please just get a state government to start installing charging
stations in all public lots so these charging companies have to give up their
dreams of being a monopoly?

~~~
saagarjha
Even worse, many use incompatible sockets. (As a CHAdeMO car owner, it’d be
nice if Tesla switched from CCS…)

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Question for anyone who works in the EV space - why can't EV owners just get
an adapter like I do for wall outlets when I'm travelling? Are the currents
too high? It seems like an obvious aftermarket gizmo for someone who lives in
an area with competing charger designs.

~~~
clouddrover
The charging standards also have software protocols the car must support. And
some chargers will refuse to charge your car if it's the "wrong" brand.
Tesla's chargers in Europe have CCS type 2 combo plugs but they won't charge
non-Tesla vehicles whereas Ionity's chargers will charge anything that can
plug into them.

CCS:
[https://www.charinev.org/index.php?id=170](https://www.charinev.org/index.php?id=170)

CHAdeMO: [https://www.chademo.com/](https://www.chademo.com/)

------
greendave
> The Mountain View, California-based company helps commercial vehicle
> operators go electric by providing charging infrastructure and fixed prices
> to charge their vehicles.

I imagine that commercial power rates are less variable than residential
rates. Nonetheless, providing fixed-cost charging, could get complicated
across different states/regions/timezones.

~~~
Mvandenbergh
Commercial power rates are much _more_ variable. Large users are billed based
on half hourly rates so are directly exposed to wholesale fluctuations. I'm
sure their fixed rate charging offer includes a forecasting and trading module
that makes decisions about when to charge if there is any fleet flexibility.
So a vehicle that passes through the depot at 60% charge during a low power
price period and which has schedule slack might charge but not if the power
price is currently very high. The degree to which power price fluctuations can
be used depends on how much control you have over charging time. If you run
your vehicles down to 20% and they then have a fixed time slot in which they
must charge before returning to service, then obviously you're just a
permanent price-taker and must simply put up with it.

Capital costs are currently sufficiently higher than charging costs that
strategically over-provisioning yourself with fleet in order to reduce your
average charging cost is not worth the money.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/qlMqm](https://archive.md/qlMqm)

------
olivermarks
Having watched Jeff Gibbs/Michael Moore produced 'planet of the humans' last
week I'm not enthusiastic about the way EV's are currently mass produced or
the ways the energy they rely on is created.

[https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE](https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE)

~~~
floatrock
That documentary completely and/or intentionally missed the point so they
could churn out video clickbait. I wrote more about it the other day here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950172)

~~~
olivermarks
There are some damning facts about Green capitalism there (Blood and Gore etc)
and the platform Moore appears to have moved to with Gibbs is that there are
too many people on the planet, and burning more wood and coal to create
electricity isn't solving pollution problems. The materials EVs are created
out of need some serious changes to be a lot cleaner before ramping up out of
the current niche market.

~~~
olivermarks
I really hope the Gibbs film shakes up the entrenched 'green energy' cabal,
they badly need a wakeup call.

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

I haven't watched this episode of Rising yet but looks like a good follow up
discussion

[https://youtu.be/Bop8x24G_o0](https://youtu.be/Bop8x24G_o0)

~~~
rsynnott
> The central thesis of the film is that various people and organizations in
> the United States claiming to promote green energy have actually been
> promoting biomass energy, largely meaning burning trees instead of fossil
> fuels

Wood would appear to be 0.98% of the US's fuel mix, vs 1.58% solar, 6.51%
wind. So, this seems like, er, a dubious claim? Maybe they're just really bad
at promoting it.

~~~
olivermarks
A major part of the film is about biomass and wood consumption for power. Have
you watched it?

