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Comment by kurthr | Hacker News Reader

Is there a reason you assume people won't simply charge at night with relatively standard 240V (or even 120V) chargers? Most cars don't average more than 60 miles a day, which is less than 20kWh. In much of the US you could install 10-15 solar panels to do that even in the winter.

Now solar panels are mostly made in China (as are almost all consumer electronics), but that seems like a far more general problem to solve.

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Charging in cities and apartment compexes is still an unsolved problem, and most people live in cities.

For example, just to provide enough chargers for Philadelphia's 1.5M residents (63% of them drive to work), one of every ~6 car lengths on every residential sidewalk would need concrete dug up and a charger installed. The city will never pay for that, and it would be a logistical and political nightmare. Even if individuals went through a city process to get a permit to do it themselves and pay for & install their own charger, and assuming there was a posted parking limit for only EVs, some jerk down the street with a Tesla will take the spot, and you may have to drive blocks and blocks to find a free charger. Many people may decide to just stick to ICE.

Why would it require that? In the UK instead of doing all that the councils have been installing EV charging points into streetlights, negating any requirement to dig up the pavements (beyond that required to replace a streetlight) to install these.

That is not being considered currently, I don't know why. https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/electric-car-charging-sta...

Philadelphia is an interesting choice of example. I've seen charging cords going out windows to cars from time to time, facilitated by the popularity of the rowhouse. (IMHO even in south philly, you can usually snag a spot in front of your house several times per week if you care enough to try-- if you only drive enough to charge once or twice a week this is already enough)

Obviously not an ideal solution but a good example of the kind of stop gaps we'll be seeing over time.

I'm also already seeing rapid chargers frequently in strip malls and stuff. So maybe doing errands and spending at least an hour there once a week will be another stop gap.

Considering how often streets get repaved and that we're talking about gradual change over the next decade or two, and that there are inferior but workable stopgaps as mentioned above (that will allow people to get by, yet also incentivize them to loudly demand better) I think there's time to add the charging stations necessary as needed without any serious issues.

I've been thinking about this for a bit (I happen to live in Philly) & I think the easier answer for cities is instead of focusing on charging "at home" parked on the street, to instead go all-in on destination charging (charging at work, at the grocery store, etc).

Adding charging to a garage or parking lot is easier than on the street, and you don't have to worry about not being able to access "your" spot.

That's great for people living in houses with plenty of roofspace. Trickier for people living in cities with on-street parking.

> made in China (as are almost all consumer electronics), but that seems like a far more general problem to solve.

Production does not mean capacity.

Obvious one is Tesla. has alot of solar capacity but doesn't make alot of sales since they are at the high end of the market. Same with Misson Solar and Solaria.

If we took a hard stance on trading with China it would hurt alot of the big name players, there would be alot of constraints for a while, but would give smaller, US Based manufacturers with more capacity than sales time to shine.

There is no way around the labor equation in products without effective legislation.

Eh? Tesla's the cheapest I've seen on a per-installed-watt basis, unless you mean solar roof?

My point was that there are domestic suppliers.

That does add the cost of a 20kWh external battery for each car.

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