New EV Charging Schemes

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
Electric cars are not going to go away but I do believe like fossil fuel vehicles, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors that takes place. A vehicle can have close to no emissions but what about the factories in other parts of the world that built them? What about all the wasted parts that go into vehicles when techs can't diagnose them. They still have to be produced and the old parts head for the landfill. I am sure that this is a very efficient way to stay green.
So now we have electric. Same story, different dance steps. Same ending. If I spent 60 grand or more on an electric vehicle, it would be a frosty day in hell that you would take part of my car and trade it for someone elses. Sooner or later these batteries die. Who pays for the replacements? Oh wait, that will be built into that nice little money grab for the exchange program. No thank you.
Sticking to fossil fuels for now. Love electricity but .....
My youngest son and one of his friends are making a little money on the side. They buy used Prius's and similar cars from dealers cheap. Ones with batteries going bad and too old for the dealers to make money fixing them. They then diagnose the battery packs and replace the dead cells and then sell them on the friends brothers used car lot. Not getting rich doing it but keeping busy and having fun. Kind of like back in the day when I bought cars with bad engines, trannys or rear ends and fixed them and my father in law sold them on his car lot.
 

bwilliams60

Joined Nov 18, 2012
1,442
Where are they getting replacement cells? I have a friend who does something similar and just graduated into Teslas last month. Must be some money in it or he wouldn't be doing it. There are a lot of Prius' going cheap now. That would explain why.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
Where are they getting replacement cells? I have a friend who does something similar and just graduated into Teslas last month. Must be some money in it or he wouldn't be doing it. There are a lot of Prius' going cheap now. That would explain why.
So far they have got them from either a wrecking yard or they are now negotiating with an insurance company, to buy a totaled low mileage Prius to harvest cells from. Seems like they have kind of locked into the Prius because they are popular in our area. Haven't asked them if they will expand to others. They just like working on them and have known each other since school.
 

graybeard

Joined Apr 10, 2012
99
Over a decade ago, an Israeli tech startup partnered with Renault to build a vehicle with easy to swap batteries.

There was a long and thorough article on WIRED magazine.

They did deploy both vehicles and battery swap stations, but eventually failed.
I wish I could remember the company name to Google it for further information
It was called A Better Place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)
 
I meant to post this before but didnt get around to it and then while discussing something else here i remembered i wante to post it.

There has come about a new idea about charging electric vehicles which have become more popular now and more 'charging stations' have been popping up around the world especially in places where air pollution is a really big problem.

The new idea is to have the battery completely replaced rather than have it charged by the owner of the vehicle. This means the owner will not own the battery just the car itself. This in turn could reduce the price of the car also.
The main problems though are:
1. Charging a battery takes time, and owners dont like waiting hours for a charge.
2. Charging at home is ok for some owners but there is a large percentage of people who dont ahve a driveway so they ahve to charge on the street, which means running an extension cord across the sidewalk, and this is not really legal in many areas as well as having all the problems associated with extension cords carrying lots of current.
3. The area infrastructure is not set up for a lot of people drawing a ton of current from the line for long periods of time. Heck , they barely manage as it is without any charging.

These have led to the idea of replacing the battery at a charging station rather than have the owner charge it themselves.
Benefits:
1. They dont have to wait for a battery to charge.
2. They dont have to charge at home.
3. They dont have to stress the already stressed infrastructure in their area. The batteries will be charged elsewhere and shipped to the charging stations. The owners pay a fee for the replacement 'charge' not the entire battery.

This is already happening in some areas of the world where the problems above are just too great to overcome any other way, and some of them have air pollution problems so they really need electric vehicles.
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You make a few assumptions that aren't nearly as problematic as you assume. I suspect that you don't own an EV. The whole charging inconvenience argument is massively overblown.
Those comparing the limited number of places to publicly charge versus the number of gas stations intentionally overlook the fact that this is not an Apples to Apples comparison. For petroleum vehicles there is no choice but to refuel at a petrol station. Subsequently there simply must be a lot of places to refuel. This is not true for EVs since most owners have the option of recharging at home. Consider as well that since many new EVs get between 250 and 350 miles per charge, and since the vast majority of commuters need less than 50 miles per day, there's rarely a need to recharge anywhere other than at home. I've owned an EV for nearly four years and drive it just under 100 miles each day. I have never needed to stop at a public charging facility. Your idea would need to target the extreme few percent of commuters that need to go over 250 miles per day and or those that have no place to charge at home. There simply aren't that many commuters that need to drive that far and now that many parking garages and apartment complexes are installing chargers most EV owners will have the option to charge where they live. You also make it sound as if charging at home is somehow a problem. It requires only two seconds of my day to recharge my EV. One second to plug it in before going to bed and one second to unplug it before leaving in the morning. My EV has a full tank every morning, warmed and defrosted before opening my garage door. I leave home every morning with far more range than I can possibly use in one day. The bottom line here is that I don't think that there would be enough people needing to use your service. I also feel your concerns about stressing the infrastructure are largely unfounded. Undoubtedly there are neighborhoods in this country that are presently not optimized to handle every homeowner plugging in at the same time but this is changing rather quickly. Nearly all newer communities are designed to provide each home with 200A split phase service (roughly 48kW). Most home Level 2 charging units typically draw between 6.6kW and 7.4kW of power for charging. Since most commuters drive less than 50 miles each day (using roughly 12kWh of energy), they can typically top off at home in roughly 90 minutes. This isn't likely to tax the system. Consider as well that most EV owners will be charging overnight using off-peak energy which is energy that utilities would love for someone to use rather than let it go to waste (as usually occurs every evening). With solid state batteries now on the way charge times will be on par with petroleum refill times. Having said all this I can see how shrinking battery sizes with increasing energy densities could make your idea more feasible. If a 60kWh battery pack ever shrinks to the size of a small suitcase and less than 200 lbs. I can see how this might become an acceptable option for long distance travelers.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
My EV has a full tank every morning, warmed and defrosted before opening my garage door.
I just turned in my old lease car and got a new one. The garage thing is the only reason I didn't get an EV. For a lease in my area you must have a garage for charging. While I do have a big garage, an old barn actually, I have too many toys and other junk to get a car in, so no EV for me.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
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You make a few assumptions that aren't nearly as problematic as you assume. I suspect that you don't own an EV. The whole charging inconvenience argument is massively overblown.
Those comparing the limited number of places to publicly charge versus the number of gas stations intentionally overlook the fact that this is not an Apples to Apples comparison. For petroleum vehicles there is no choice but to refuel at a petrol station. Subsequently there simply must be a lot of places to refuel. This is not true for EVs since most owners have the option of recharging at home. Consider as well that since many new EVs get between 250 and 350 miles per charge, and since the vast majority of commuters need less than 50 miles per day, there's rarely a need to recharge anywhere other than at home. I've owned an EV for nearly four years and drive it just under 100 miles each day. I have never needed to stop at a public charging facility. Your idea would need to target the extreme few percent of commuters that need to go over 250 miles per day and or those that have no place to charge at home. There simply aren't that many commuters that need to drive that far and now that many parking garages and apartment complexes are installing chargers most EV owners will have the option to charge where they live. You also make it sound as if charging at home is somehow a problem. It requires only two seconds of my day to recharge my EV. One second to plug it in before going to bed and one second to unplug it before leaving in the morning. My EV has a full tank every morning, warmed and defrosted before opening my garage door. I leave home every morning with far more range than I can possibly use in one day. The bottom line here is that I don't think that there would be enough people needing to use your service. I also feel your concerns about stressing the infrastructure are largely unfounded. Undoubtedly there are neighborhoods in this country that are presently not optimized to handle every homeowner plugging in at the same time but this is changing rather quickly. Nearly all newer communities are designed to provide each home with 200A split phase service (roughly 48kW). Most home Level 2 charging units typically draw between 6.6kW and 7.4kW of power for charging. Since most commuters drive less than 50 miles each day (using roughly 12kWh of energy), they can typically top off at home in roughly 90 minutes. This isn't likely to tax the system. Consider as well that most EV owners will be charging overnight using off-peak energy which is energy that utilities would love for someone to use rather than let it go to waste (as usually occurs every evening). With solid state batteries now on the way charge times will be on par with petroleum refill times. Having said all this I can see how shrinking battery sizes with increasing energy densities could make your idea more feasible. If a 60kWh battery pack ever shrinks to the size of a small suitcase and less than 200 lbs. I can see how this might become an acceptable option for long distance travelers.
Well some good points but there are changes that will have to occur if everyone is to have an EV.
One country already felt the burn and had to go to charging stations only with no at home charging allowed. That was with E mopeds where there were a lot of people using them in that area. They actually stated that the infrastructure in that area was not in par with this type of power requirement.

But here in the USA, i just cant see this happening when the grid is already taxed. That's probably my main concern. Yesterday and the day before my local grid went down to 100vac when it is supposed to be 120vac. I suspect because it is warm weather again so many more people are using air conditioners. This always happens every summer and has for the last 25 years. Some months it may go as low as 80vac for short periods of time.
To add to that, they are building and have built many many apartment buildings in this local area. Each one can host at least 100 families probably 200 or more as they are quite large and have their own parking garage on the bottom floor. They built one at first, then two more about 1 mile down the road, then two more up the road about 1/10 of a mile, so they are very densely pack in the area. With all those people plugging in i just cant see a problem. I think they may have upgraded the incoming power line but i just hope they did it good enough. And also each apartment cant get 200 amp service that's just not possible, yet each one could potentially host two cars. Could you imagine 400 cars trying to charge on the bottom floor parking garage.

All i can say at this point is we will have to wait and see how this works out. Luckily not everyone can afford a new EV but as they get old the price may come down for used vehicles.
Would i want an EV? Well considering that we have a driveway that is 2 cars wide and i park on the side that is two cars away from the house and the side that is adjacent to the house has to be open for other cars to pass, i would have to have a cable that could allow cars to ride over it or an overhead cable installed or an underground cable installed. Extensions have been shown to be a bad idea for long term use so that's out so it would have to be overhead or underground.
Then we have to look at some failure analysis scenarios. What could go wrong with millions of people charging their cars with 230vac lines remotely.

It's a complicated issue i am sure there are arguments on both sides, but whatever way we look at it things will have to be worked out and it wont be easy.

Another interesting point:
When i drive down the side streets of our town i often see cars parked on BOTH sides of the street making it a little tricky when a car is coming from the other direction one or the other had to yield. Because of this they actually made some of the streets ONE WAY now (just within the past 2 months) so that cars could only travel one way on each of the streets that use to be the normal two way. That attests to just how many cars people own these days, at least two per family. On weekends the streets are literally lined up on both sides of the streets with the only gaps being where the driveways are and there may be cars in the driveway too. Thankfully they are not EV's :)

But feel free to bring up other points this is good to discuss i think.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
Yesterday and the day before my local grid went down to 100vac when it is supposed to be 120vac.
Your thinking that the chargers work on 120V? There are some but they recommend 240V input, cuts the charge time down. But then again I base my knowledge on what a car sales person told me when I looked at a Bolt.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
Your thinking that the chargers work on 120V? There are some but they recommend 240V input, cuts the charge time down. But then again I base my knowledge on what a car sales person told me when I looked at a Bolt.
Oh yes i am aware of that, and i think i mentioned that in one of my posts here.
I read about a guy who had to run a extension cord across the sidewalk to charge his car but had problems with it melting and so he eventually installed a 240vac outlet right at the curb so he could plug directly into the 240v line more or less, and using #10 AWG underground.
I really think it would be better if ALL appliances could run on 240vac instead of 120vac but right now it is a lot to ask of people all around the country and i wonder if it would even help enough. They already run 1000 killovolt high tension wires around, but maybe they should increase the transmission voltage closer to home. Maybe they cant for some reason i dont know.
 
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