Hacker News Reader

Comment by saagarjha | Hacker News Reader

Charging at work is an option, assuming their workplace provides chargers. (I understand that this is a rose-tinted, tech company view…but it doesn't have to be.)

View on HN

It's still the same problem - you need that charging infrastructure and someone is going to pay for it, one way or another.

Getting a charging station installed at your office is often easier than it is at your apartment building. I'm sure companies get tax credits and greenwashing PR that your landlord may not really care much about. (This is also why a lot of parking lots get solar panels.)

But those credits/subsidies are usually provided with string attached, like you are obligated to allow anyone to charge on that charger. So you will have random people going on your property, charging their cars.

Then you will need to take care and maintain the chargers, maintain bureaucracy around charging and keep them operational and safe, because if somebody gets electrocuted by your charger, you are responsible for the damages.

I don't think this is true, most companies have chargers only accessible to their employees?

In theory yes, but try a small game: to charge "quick enough" you need let's say 7kWp power, at 3kW you can't even balance cells, so you just end up with 80% or so maximum charge. But EVEN at 3kW: 10 workers means 30kW load, in a building there are normally MUCH more. They start all around the same timeframe. That's means a BIG grid peak load, after another peak load (when the Sun start shining). An AC grid without enough battery storage (the sole who can compensate quick enough) simply will go down unable to keep a stable frequency.

The theory is that in a smart grid cars, witch happen to be rolling batteries, charge or discharge following energy needs and owner needs, the practice so far is that no such smart grid exists, inverters at maximum follow as quick as they can grid frequency witch do not allow "smart" programming at all and most chargers do not even have DC ports needed to pilot the charge/discharge bi-directional usage (since on AC in-cars inverter would demand too much signaling for a still slow response).

The reality is: those who have designed the new deal have imagined to shift hyper-expensive storage costs to the people and have them mount as p.v. mount. Actually p.v. is economically interested enough so many have accept it, BEVs not much so they artificially change energy prices to "reshape the market" making BEVs interesting and as a result they create a situation that force people to switch WITHOUT the needed infra or the physical possibility.

If you can’t charge above 80% at 3kw then you have a major problem with your car. Cell balancing does not require high wattage charging.

The issue is not in the car but in hours of sunlight vs battery SOC when the Sun start giving enough energy to charge... If you charge at 3kW it's a slow charge. In winter it means you end up in the "evening" after all "Sun day" at 3kW and still the battery hardly have more than 80%.

IF you charge at let's say 7-10kW than things change...

So in the US, health care is tied to employment not citizenship/residency.

Next up, let's tie car charging to employment. No job? Your car stops working.

Fair point, ideally we'd build public chargers that don't suck as well :)

>No job? Your car stops working.

Losing your job/income already has a pretty big impact on keeping your car running.

It’s somewhat common for literally all of one’s income to be tied to one’s job, so yes, that includes the money one spends on gas.

When you get fired you can keep buying gas with the money you have left. Losing access to your only charger immediately is different.

If my employee would have asked to charge his car, I would point him out to nearest public charger, because somebody needs to pay that electricity and it won't be me.

You can charge people for electricity.

If I want to do it legally, then I need to become an energy provider company and keep all bureaucracy and maintenance as an energy provider company. Sorry no, there is a public charger of somebody who already did this leg work.

Some of the public charger networks have offerings to manage that for you. You can task Chargepoint to install and maintain a charging facility on your premises for instance. This way you just need to organise the parking and the access to the connection, but everything else is outsourced.

I could surely also task OMV to build gas station on my property, question is why should I do that?

The folks who live near me are either students, immigrants, or they work blue-collar, minimum wage jobs. How many Wal-Mart greeters get fast-charger access in the parking lot?

This can definitely be non-zero if we put effort into it. After all, these people are buying gas, no?

Only companies large enough to afford that can... so what do all the smaller companies do? The rest of the world is so much much different than the West Coastal Cities, EVs are a pipe dream.

A 240V car charger is like $1000. They're not that expensive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com