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Comment by vorticalbox | Hacker News Reader

Is the world really ready to push battery power this quickly? We need to install millions of charging ports.

What worries me is charge time. Say it takes 2 hours to charge my car I pull over and all the charging ports are taken.

I could be waiting 2 hours to get a port and then another 2 to charge.

Literally any restaurant or shopping center will install a charging station in a heartbeat since it means an opportunity for a captive audience. They already have the space and the power supply, just need a reason to want to bother. My group is installing 2 spaces this week in one of our properties in downtown Memphis as an incentive to all our Tesla-driving office tenant execs. And we aren't doing it for free; charging for a power fill up is a new potential (small) profit center for us, and we will gladly install another dozen if and when We need more (edits: to clean up language)

Yes, I suspect they will be as pervasive as vending machines or pay phones 30 years ago. The biggest trick is faster charging.

>> charging for a power fill up is a new potential (small) profit center for us,

Is that profit potential large enough for financiers to offer you the install for free for all/share of the profits ?

From a real estate business perspective, it's a drop in the bucket so we don't really care about the revenue. It's real value is providing an amenity to our tenants, which has real traction with certain tenants.. again, the tesla driving execs.

But to answer your specific question, I do not know, probably. I think we (300,00sf office tower) buy electricty at a cheaper rate than residential rates, so we have a small potential arbitrage without the customer caring.

HOWEVER, fast forward to a not-so-distant future where majority of tenants demand/request a charge, now we are talking real money.

It does not take two hours to charge your car at a dedicated EV charging station. On the UK motorways my Renault Zoe charges from 0-80% in 30 minutes; of course we never charge it that much in one go whilst motorway driving, so we don't need to charge it as long.

My Tesla Model X charges in similar amounts of time, as whilst the supercharger outputs more power, the battery is bigger.

Friend mentioned a coworker with a Nissan Leaf. Coming to work to find all the charging spots taken up by Tesla's. The butthurt being, they're topping up because it's convenient. Charging is free and the spots are right in front of the building. Where he needs to top up to get home after work.

Improved, 200-300 mile range fixes a lot of that. With my current 30 mile round trip commute I'd only need to charge a Chevy bolt once a week. With my old ten mile commute... twice a month.

If we are ever in that situation, what's going to change is the way the car is used; people will adapt to the new expectations just like they adapted to not having a 'real keyboard' on their phones.

I think this is the kind of problem that gets solved by market forces. If the lines are too long, someone opens up a new station and has lots of customers right away.

The nice thing is that there's a lot less regulatory red tape (at least here in the US; China might be different) around putting in a charging station v. putting in a gas pump. Any commercial property owner can install EV chargers in some or all of the property's parking spaces (perhaps with dedicated EV-only spaces, like how some businesses already have spaces reserved for "low-emission" vehicles), and EV owners can install chargers in their own homes as well.

If everywhere you ever want to go has a charger in every parking spot, then suddenly - I reckon - electric vehicles will end up being way more convenient than ICE vehicles on that particular point (which is the only significant pain point besides high price nowadays).

Good point. One reason why I never liked the idea of hydrogen fuel cells, it'd be another system with a high barrier to entry. Electric is a lot nicer in that respect.

An advancement in supercapaitors or other storage types seems inevitable to win the race.

Current battery tech is variations on a century old concept and lacking real scalability without devastating environmental effects.

Generation is largely solved, storage and balancing electrical grids is the only problem left.

Rail energy storage making claims of half the price of pumped hydro: http://www.aresnorthamerica.com

Well, Tesla has that whole change out the entire battery in a few minutes thing going. There's also research into superchargers and capacitors that work like batteries. There's also the change in behavior and expectations. People can adapt some of their driving habits to meet charging requirements. Also eventually the whole move to self-driving cars.

There are no production EVs to my knowledge that allow a battery swap. Renault tried it with the Fluence in Israel, and discontinued that approach.

The Tesla Model S supports it. They only built one station, though, and I don't know if it's still operating. It turned out not to be very popular.

In 20 years the tech might advance so much that we could be charging them at home, like iPhones.

(maybe it's impossible, not a scientist, but I'd like to dream)

I charge my i3 at home right now and it's feasible. European AC plugs have 220V and can supply up to 16A before melting the socket. That is 3.5kwh charging. 33kwh battery in i3 can be charged in around 10 hours from zero which provides around 200km (~130 miles) of comfortable driving. More if you go for economy.

Tealas have much larger batteries though.

Teslas also come with a domestic charge adaptor, in case you really have to use it. As you point out, it takes a very long time - something like 25 hours for 90kWh battery.

> That is 3.5kwh charging

Nitpick: Either "3.5 kW" or "3.5 kWh per hour".

>We need to install millions of charging ports.

Quite a few places in China have 20CNY per hour charging stations, and I believe they are more prevalent in Northern cities

Yes. The Nissan Leaf has a range of 107 miles. How is most of Florida supposed to evacuate before a hurricane if they all drive EV's? There already isn't even enough gas down there for everyone.

Trunk batteries? Like jerry cans?

Nissan just released a new version of the Leaf with a 150 mile range. Also, at the moment, electric vehicles are mostly second cars for commuting, most will be owned by multiple car households which have access to other cars in the situation you describe. This target is for 2045, so it's still a few generations off. On current trends, they will have the necessary range, low cost, and charging speed by that time to be able to make up the majority of the market.

Last year’s model was 107 miles. The new model is 150, with an option to 300 miles next year.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/05/the-new-2018-nissan-leaf-o...

The article is about some point in the future. Why are you discussing current technology?

Bus or Train?

What about partially/fully immobile family members, larger than small physical things, supplies, lower income households (that use their car as a storage and live in a tent)...?

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