> Except that as we keep trying to point out, 90% of EV charging occurs overnight at home, or at work during the day.
This isn't a good comparison at all. You're looking at the set of people who looked at the operational requirements for EVs and said "yes, this works for my needs" and then looking at how those needs are met. What you would really want to do is compare the operational requirements for EVs and the general usage of motor vehicles to see what proportion of the general usage of motor vehicles can be replaced by EVs and their operational requirements.
EDIT: Even further, you would really want to know about the value of different modes of usage as well. So, for example, it is possible that users value edge case usage (such as very long trips) much, much higher than they do day-to-day usage and so still you could meet 90% of general motor vehicle usage with EVs at the same convenience but if the remaining 10% was far more valuable to end users and the inconvenience too high, it might still not be reasonable.
People don't know what they want. The fact is, the infrastructure for renting gas vehicles for long drives is already in place, and 99% of driving is short and local.
Thinking about "how much users value x" based on the CURRENT PARADIGM is a constraint to progress, and doesn't help predict very much at all. Consumer habits change.
> The fact is, the infrastructure for renting gas vehicles for long drives is already in place, and 99% of driving is short and local.
Exactly.
If you are going on a long trip, renting or renting plus flying is likely best. If you are traveling 1200 miles, do you really want to drive for 20 hours solid? I've done it and it mostly sucks.
> If your goal is to reach 100% green transportation, batteries will never get you there.
When you pose every problem as an absolute, it's impossible to come up with a solution for anything.
I'm not one to make perfect be the enemy of good. If 99% of driving is EV and 1% is ICE then we have a much smaller problem to deal with.
Not long ago, people predicted EVs would never get to the point they are now. The picture will be entirely different in 10 more years. By the time we've replaced the first 90% of ICE vehicles, the solutions to the last 10% will become more obvious than they are now.
Nobody seriously expects to get to 100% green anything. Getting to 95% provides all the benefit anyone rationally hopes for. Squeezing out the remaining few percent is not worth the extra cost, much as getting the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube is not worth the bother (unless you are indulging obsessiveness).
People seriously expect fuel cell cars to allow for 100% green transport. Only from a BEV context do you talk about figuring out the last 10% or whatever.
I’m significantly more interested in saving the planet for my child than I am in driving a car with a specific powertrain. I’m pro-BEV because it seems to be a good way to move in the right direction. I drive an ICE VW but will move as soon as it makes sense to.
Are pro-BEV people actually missing this? At least for now, the goal is only to remove some of the more significant sources of pollution. Vehicles for personal transport are a reasonable place to start. Obsessing about perfection is only going to hold us back.
I think the point made here is that those very requirements are tailored around a ICE world. If, say, your city bus network is designed so that each driver can make a 5 minute stop at terminus and fill up when required, of course pushing an electric bus into that will create 1-2h gaps in service and be "not fit to operational requirements". But it's a simple exercise to shift things around so that all recharging is done in low demand periods and all your fleet is online during rush hour.
The bottom line: electrics are quickly overcoming the 1000Km/charge barrier, in the next 10 years it will probably become the norm. That's a charge level that can last you a full day in almost any conceivable usage mode, so it can cover 99% of real world tasks.
Sure, there will still be very specialized tasks where 2 hours of downtime per day is unacceptable, or some fresh produce delivery route that requires 36 hours non stop driving by a shift of truckers. But that would be negligible in the grand scheme of things.
The other possible option to work around range issues with electric vehicles is to electrify our major highways so that battery capacity is no longer a concern. That would require expensive infrastructure upgrades and new standards for how to charge a moving vehicle, but it would mean vehicles could be substantially lighter and less expensive.
>36 hours non stop driving by a shift of truckers. But that would be negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Can you elaborate on why you’d consider trucking to be a negligible edge case? What I could find online shows it’s over 40% of commercial miles and over 60% of transport for delivered goods.
You left out this important qualifier in your quote: "[...] some fresh produce delivery route that requires 36 hours [...]". yholio was talking about a particular niche case, not about trucking in general.
Trucking is 40% of commercial miles. Most trucks are parked for hours/ day so the driver can sleep. It'll be interesting seeing how this changes as autonomous driving becomes more common.
Some trucking companies are using a “local” model where a driver will drive 4 hours one way, drop off the trailer to another driver for the next leg, and pick up a trailer to drive back home to be more efficient
> So, for example, it is possible that users value edge case usage (such as very long trips) much, much higher than they do day-to-day usage and so still you could meet 90% of general motor vehicle usage with EVs at the same convenience but if the remaining 10% was far more valuable to end users and the inconvenience too high, it might still not be reasonable.
How much do you weigh the inconvenience of being 10 minutes late for an appointment because you had to make an unplanned fuel stop?
How much do you value 100s of unneeded fuel stops interrupting your life?
Fortunately, it's not necessarily an either/ or. You can buy an EV for 99% of driving and just rent an ICE car when you need to road-trip.
Totally. I’m not taking a side here. I think it’s a really complicated issue. I’m excited for EVs and optimistic about their future but we have to be real about trade offs when considering other possibilities.
> This isn't a good comparison at all. You're looking at the set of people who looked at the operational requirements for EVs and said "yes, this works for my needs" and then looking at how those needs are met. What you would really want to do is compare the operational requirements for EVs and the general usage of motor vehicles to see what proportion of the general usage of motor vehicles can be replaced by EVs and their operational requirements.
The vast majority of journeys and days overnight charging of a tesla style car is fine. The average driver
"93% of all vehicle-days show a total distance below 100 miles. It is important to note that only vehicle-days are included where the cars were used that day"
A car with a 300 mile range covers almost all drivers for almost all uses.
So you're down to whether the downsides of owning and operating a gas-fueled car outweighs the downsides of an electric car (having to hire a gas one for occasional long trips)
As more and more people move to electric, there are fewer and fewer customers for gas stations, reducing the number around, and reducing the utility of a gas car even more. The costs of repair become higher, and the cost of the car in the first place will increase as economies of scale tip the other way.
> A car with a 300 mile range covers almost all drivers for almost all uses.
Depends on charging options. If you can charge overnight at home or at the office, then yes. If your only option is spending a long time at a charging station away from home / office, an EV suddenly requires planning.
Thankfully there's more and more public chargers in or near residential areas around here.
> What you would really want to do is compare the operational requirements for EVs and the general usage of motor vehicles to see what proportion of the general usage of motor vehicles can be replaced by EVs and their operational requirements.
Okay, has this been done by anyone? Something that shows current limitations of the infrastructure and projected mitigation of those?
A quick Google search doesn’t find anything official from NREL or similar DoE labs, but I’m mobile so my search is quick and not comprehensive.
The average American round trip commute is under 40 miles. Longer commutes can be accommodated with financial incentives and legal requirements for employers to provider EV chargers on prem (with pass through billing for the power, or providing it for free). Anything beyond that (high daily mileage outliers) are served by long range EVs and Fast DC charge networks.
This isn't a good comparison at all. You're looking at the set of people who looked at the operational requirements for EVs and said "yes, this works for my needs" and then looking at how those needs are met. What you would really want to do is compare the operational requirements for EVs and the general usage of motor vehicles to see what proportion of the general usage of motor vehicles can be replaced by EVs and their operational requirements.
EDIT: Even further, you would really want to know about the value of different modes of usage as well. So, for example, it is possible that users value edge case usage (such as very long trips) much, much higher than they do day-to-day usage and so still you could meet 90% of general motor vehicle usage with EVs at the same convenience but if the remaining 10% was far more valuable to end users and the inconvenience too high, it might still not be reasonable.