Arcimoto

[3wheelin]

I just did a little looking around and yes, I see that current draw for A/C and EV charging is similar. Yes, A/C is on during the day but typically I think the brownouts occur when people are returning from work and turning on their A/C when they get home. Isn't this exactly what you would be doing with your EV car? Furthermore, if you have limited range and make the 8 trips a day that many homes do then it seems that there would be a very high likelihood that you would be using the fast charge during the day between trips. If A/C and other electrical uses are already pushing our grid to failure then piling on EVs will only make things worse. I stand by my original assertion that EVs cannot scale without crippling our electric grid.

If we choose to ignore the issues with the grid we can talk about the efficiency of fueling with gas vs. electric. Sure, it may take some effort to get a new gas station built and put in place but for the most part the gas infrastructure is already there so this really isn't an issue. Additionally, it takes only minutes to fuel your gas car so several gas vehicles can move through the gas station in a short period of time.

Electric charging stations are not in very many places and the small number of EV users are already fighting over access to them; clearly the infrastructure to support large numbers of EVs is not in place. This leads to the next question of what it might take to create the infrastructure needed to charge large numbers of EVs (again,assuming the grid doesn't melt).

It takes hours to charge an EV so charging stations remain tied up for lengthy periods of time as opposed to gas cars that can fuel up in minutes and move out of the way. This means that if you want to charge a similar number of EVs vs. gas cars that you would need to have significantly more charging stations spread across a much larger area so that all of those EVs can be charging at the same time instead of just queued and moving through the gas station.

Charging stations at every parking spot would clearly be your nirvana but it simply is not economically feasible. Consider that of the charging stations that have been installed in Minneapolis; in order to be able to provide the necessary power they are grouped in small numbers in dedicated parking spaces. ALL of these have been installed and are being operated at a loss and only really exist because of taxpayer support. Subsidizing may work for a small number of people but simply won't scale to large numbers of EVs. In the meantime you have businesses and other drivers that are annoyed that prime parking spaces are unusable when they are empty and EV drivers that are pissed when that can't get access to the few charging stations available.

Each charging station requires the initial investment in the charger itself, the installation, power delivery, the ongoing maintenance, etc.. Who should pay for this? In the case of gas the gas station owner pays for the station, the pumps, the maintenance, the workers, etc and they expect to make their money back through gas and in store purchases. Due to the length of time to charge, the same density of customers does not exist for EV charging and without the density there is a loss of the additional in store sales. Also consider that because so many charging stations are needed vs fuel pumps that initial installation as well as maintenance costs will be staggering in comparison. I don't believe private industry could make the money necessary to support this and so I don't believe there would ever be a large number of EV charging stations available. Again, EVs work for small numbers but they simply can't scale.

Good point. EV's Achilles heel is it's battery obviously but tech is moving forward and someday in the future, the battery maybe small enough to be swappable and not built in! In the meantime, EV works for people that can afford them and will only make a small dent on it's gas counterpart's market dominance.

 

[Sethodine]

I just did a little looking around and yes, I see that current draw for A/C and EV charging is similar. Yes, A/C is on during the day but typically I think the brownouts occur when people are returning from work and turning on their A/C when they get home. Isn't this exactly what you would be doing with your EV car? Furthermore, if you have limited range and make the 8 trips a day that many homes do then it seems that there would be a very high likelihood that you would be using the fast charge during the day between trips. If A/C and other electrical uses are already pushing our grid to failure then piling on EVs will only make things worse. I stand by my original assertion that EVs cannot scale without crippling our electric grid.

If we choose to ignore the issues with the grid we can talk about the efficiency of fueling with gas vs. electric. Sure, it may take some effort to get a new gas station built and put in place but for the most part the gas infrastructure is already there so this really isn't an issue. Additionally, it takes only minutes to fuel your gas car so several gas vehicles can move through the gas station in a short period of time.

Electric charging stations are not in very many places and the small number of EV users are already fighting over access to them; clearly the infrastructure to support large numbers of EVs is not in place. This leads to the next question of what it might take to create the infrastructure needed to charge large numbers of EVs (again,assuming the grid doesn't melt).

It takes hours to charge an EV so charging stations remain tied up for lengthy periods of time as opposed to gas cars that can fuel up in minutes and move out of the way. This means that if you want to charge a similar number of EVs vs. gas cars that you would need to have significantly more charging stations spread across a much larger area so that all of those EVs can be charging at the same time instead of just queued and moving through the gas station.

Charging stations at every parking spot would clearly be your nirvana but it simply is not economically feasible. Consider that of the charging stations that have been installed in Minneapolis; in order to be able to provide the necessary power they are grouped in small numbers in dedicated parking spaces. ALL of these have been installed and are being operated at a loss and only really exist because of taxpayer support. Subsidizing may work for a small number of people but simply won't scale to large numbers of EVs. In the meantime you have businesses and other drivers that are annoyed that prime parking spaces are unusable when they are empty and EV drivers that are pissed when that can't get access to the few charging stations available.

Each charging station requires the initial investment in the charger itself, the installation, power delivery, the ongoing maintenance, etc.. Who should pay for this? In the case of gas the gas station owner pays for the station, the pumps, the maintenance, the workers, etc and they expect to make their money back through gas and in store purchases. Due to the length of time to charge, the same density of customers does not exist for EV charging and without the density there is a loss of the additional in store sales. Also consider that because so many charging stations are needed vs fuel pumps that initial installation as well as maintenance costs will be staggering in comparison. I don't believe private industry could make the money necessary to support this and so I don't believe there would ever be a large number of EV charging stations available. Again, EVs work for small numbers but they simply can't scale.

Ah, I see you are in Minnisota. Perhaps that may be factoring into your opinion. Here on the pacific coast, EV charging stations are plentiful. That said, most of my charging is done at night on the trickle charger. Despite the number of around-town hops we need to make on a daily basis, there have been very few instances where we have even needed the public chargers (3 times, since we bought our Nissan Leaf back in May 2015). Some nights we could go without charging it at all, but we like to keep it topped-up just in case we need to make an unexpected trip. The Leaf is rated for around 80 miles on a charge, but most days we use less than 40. We lost our "range anxiety" months ago.

The vast majority of public charging stations here are privately owned. The owner can choose how much to charge per kW/h, or can give free charging. Thus an owner can charge enough to cover the installation and maintainence costs, or they can take a loss. Many choose to take the loss and offer free charging because it takes hours to recharge--they are counting on those EV owners spending time and money in their restuarants/shopping centers/movie theaters.

This is the primary difference between Gas and EV refueling: gas refueling is profitable as a dedicated business, but not every business can offer gas refueling without a multi-million dollar investment. EV refueling is not profitable as a dedidcated business, but can be easily installed and operated as a secondary service by just about any business with a parking space to offer. No rule says that EV parking must be as convenient as disabled parking, and in many lots the EV charging is way in the back to discourage non-EVs from parking in those spots (this is called "getting ICE'd" by the EV community )

Because of the pleathora of charging stations, I've never had to "fight over a space", nor have I ever had my plug removed by another EV owner. Most of the time I drive by a charging station it is empty, but even if the free ones are all full I can always look up the location of a pay-to-charge station on my smartphone and go there instead. In fact, there is even an app called "Plug-Share" where other EV owners offer up their own home charging stations for others to use for free, out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Concerns over scalability are valid. Widespread solar power has the potential to help alleviate this, but--as has been mentioned--solar is daytime and most charging happens at night. I see a future where most fossil-fuel power plants only operate at night, and solar provides most of the daytime power generation. Even as utility companies lag in installing solar, private rooftop solar is booming thanks to cheap panels from China. Combine this with smart meters to help track energy use, and we can have a whole new power infrastructure management system that can handle widespread EV charging and summertime A/C, without the brownouts.

On a related note: in England, all of the power companies have to boost production at 4:00pm. Because everybody is putting on their electric kettles for tea. I'm not joking.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

1. 1. • 
        
   If electricity costs $0.11 per kWh and the vehicle consumes 34 kWh to travel 100 miles, the cost per mile is about $0.04. If electricity costs $0.11 per kilowatt-hour, charging an all-electric vehicle with a 70-mile range (assuming a fully depleted 24 kWh battery) will cost about $2.64 to reach a full charge.Jan 5, 2015

 

[Sethodine]

1. 1. • 
        View attachment 8329
   If electricity costs $0.11 per kWh and the vehicle consumes 34 kWh to travel 100 miles, the cost per mile is about $0.04. If electricity costs $0.11 per kilowatt-hour, charging an all-electric vehicle with a 70-mile range (assuming a fully depleted 24 kWh battery) will cost about $2.64 to reach a full charge.Jan 5, 2015

Getting the Leaf has only added about $25 to $35 per month onto our power bill. Perhaps because we rarely ever get the battery below 25% in our daily use. The leaf has a 24kWh battery and gets around 80 miles on a full battery. However, the Chevy Spark EV can get the same range with only a 19 kWh battery. Size DOES matter

 

[Rickb]

Getting the Leaf has only added about $25 to $35 per month onto our power bill. Perhaps because we rarely ever get the battery below 25% in our daily use. The leaf has a 24kWh battery and gets around 80 miles on a full battery. However, the Chevy Spark EV can get the same range with only a 19 kWh battery. Size DOES matter

.........and speaking of size we have the !023 lbs. 12 or 20 kWh battery optioned future SRK:

 

[Paul DeCrans]

1. 1. • 
        View attachment 8329
   If electricity costs $0.11 per kWh and the vehicle consumes 34 kWh to travel 100 miles, the cost per mile is about $0.04. If electricity costs $0.11 per kilowatt-hour, charging an all-electric vehicle with a 70-mile range (assuming a fully depleted 24 kWh battery) will cost about $2.64 to reach a full charge.Jan 5, 2015

good thing I live in North Dakota and only pay .05 per kwh it would be less than half that to fully charge

 

[RUCRAYZE]

good thing I live in North Dakota and only pay .05 per kwh it would be less than half that to fully charge

might be less now that drilling has trickled down, The folks in Oil country are really hurting, hope you're o k

 

[Rickb]

Mashable SRK test ride video:

 

[TCBronson]

Interesting video. I am not a big fan of electric vehicles because of the expense of batteries and the range.

 

[Rickb]

Interesting video. I am not a big fan of electric vehicles because of the expense of batteries and the range.

Range anxiety was an issue for me too, but the SRK's base 70 miles gets me to and from where I drive most days, usually under 40 miles round trip. Money saved on fuel and maintenance may offset the replacement of the battery pack in an estimated 5 + years at an estimated $2K replacement cost.

How much to maintain and repair/rebuild a V Twin or three cylinder engine if/when she blows and/or the tranny?