Featured The Dirty Truth About Combustion Engine Vehicles

You are making up requirements for a few percentage of the population.
We DON'T need a perfect solution when we have one that is good enough for most and heading in the right direction.

Probably half of all cars never travel beyond one full charge of a Model 3 before returning home.
And 90-95% can handle the spacing of the current Supercharger network for all trips.
Yes, I just made up those numbers ... but they are just as good as what you are making up.

The last 5-10% can wait 5 or 10 years until the chargers are half as far apart and spread further from the Interstates.
And battery capacity will also creep up as improvements are made (Lucid and the new Model S will be 500+ by the end of the year)

The main point is that with known technology we have TODAY and the direction of current investments by Tesla and others we can easily get to that goal. With H2 the costs would be much higher for infrastructure and there is NOBODY to pay for it. And in the end the consumer would be paying more for fuel everyday than with gas now. With BEV fuel costs are much lower and you have the option of buying solar and paying even less

Mike

 

FCEVs were given tax credits back when hybrids got them, and they've been extended yet again. The amount is higher than for plug ins at $8000. California added $2 to every car registration to pay for hydrogen stations. It isn't like hydrogen was denied support because of the existence of BEVs. It was more likely the other way around by the CARBs actions. The federal government spent millions through the years developing hydrogen FCEVs.

Toyota has the means to build their own hydrogen stations. Absolutely no one would prevent them from doing so if they had chosen to do so.

The failure of hydrogen FCEVs to commercially viable has nothing to do with other technologies.

 

So, we quadrupled global battery production to make around 1-2% of car sales.

Do you see a problem there?

 

I didn't give you requirements. I showed you how EPA range is reduced in real life road trips.

The NHTS survey said it's more like 10%.

More like 5%.

If all but the last 5-10% can make due with current EVs then why do 98% buy gas cars??

We have about 1,000 fast charging stations in the US and about 120,000 gas stations. Long, long way to go.

 

Good thing you omitted the number of charging plugs at each EV station. Also, EV stations have no 'attendant' so they work 24x7 ... don't mention the availability of charging plugs vs gas hoses and labor cost.

Bob Wilson

 

I haven't seen a gas station attendant in 40 years (which is before I had a license). Do they still exist somewhere? I've filled up all over the country, coast to coast, California to Washington to Virginia to Florida.

And if I omitted the number of charge plugs at each EV station, so what? I also omitted the number of pumps at each gas station. Most gas stations I've seen are open 24/7, excluding Costco.

 

New Jersey? I visited Cape May and never saw one. I was in Oregon but I don't think I filled up there.

 

Under you proposal, that battery production would be good for just 6% to 8%

Then you didn't fill up in NJ, or broke the law.

 

More like 10-20%.

I never saw an attendant. I filled up before returning the rental car.

I had no idea attendants even existed past the 60s.

 

New Jersey and Oregon.

Bob Wilson

 

Funny how you know so much about the non-existent FCEV market but aren't aware of how gas stations work.
I think many states require a person (usually a cashier in a booth or store) to be present when the station is open as well.

Mike

 

You guys are forgetting that some states are mighty small, and you can easily drive right through them with a Prius or Prius Prime. It's only 160 miles from top to bottom of New Jersey. That's what? 3 gallons?

I spent several months in Oregon and charged my car whenever I was not driving. The engine only fired up once in that 3 months, and that was for a few blocks. I had over 1/2 tank of gas when I left to go home. I refilled the gas tank before leaving Oregon just because the gas prices were so low in comparison to California. Yes, they still have attendants there, but as of 2018 you are allowed to self serve in most counties.

Dan

 

Do some simple math. In a country that is about 3000 x 1000 miles (48 states) chargers located in a 100 mile grid requires only about 300 stations to be within 71 miles of every location as the crow flies. Double the number and you are down to at least 50 miles. Of course all the roads aren't evenly laid out in a grid, but it doesn't take too much to get close to most everywhere.
The current superchargers aren't like this yet because Tesla is putting chargers where most people want to go and/or near where they live.
There are at least a dozen supercharger locations within 10 miles of my house.

Also, besides the ~1000 supercharger locations in the US there are about 4500 destination chargers which aren't necessarily near the Interstates and typically at hotels, restaurants, etc.

And they don't require an attendant, unless the site owner wants one!!!

Mike

 

The claim was using a gas station inside NJ.

The point is that gas stations require an attendant no matter if its self pump or not. The station makes very little profit on the fuel, and you need someone to keep the shelves stocked.

It is very likely that hydrogen stations will require also requirement an attendant.

 

No one claimed to use NJ gas stations. My point was that just because someone is in New Jersey, it's not necessary to use their gas stations.

The assertion that a gas station must have attendants is invalid. There are countless unmanned filling stations throughout the country. Most of the unmanned stations that I've seen are 24 hour stations for commercial accounts or co/op. When I drove a milk truck I filled it every morning at 3 am in an unmanned self serve.

As for requiring an attendant to pump Hydrogen... It seems quite similar to the propane that my dad used to pump into the huge tank in the back of his 1960s Impala. He filled it whenever he wanted, and dropped the purchase tag in a box if it was after hour. Can you imagine using the honor system like that today?

 

I've used gas stations in 26 states and 99% of the time I just use a credit card at the pump and that's it. The other 1% is when I have to go inside because the pump doesn't work.

So what? There's rarely a reason to see them in person.

 

Which is stupid. There shouldn't be a supercharger inside any city. If you can't charge at home you shouldn't own an EV until you can. They should be between major cities (in small towns) or at the edges of big cities. Even Tesla themselves originally said superchargers were for getting from city to city, not for charging up at home.

And yet, lot of the places I like to go are not within 150 miles of a charger, Tesla, CCS or L2. In lots of those places the only way to charge is to rent an RV slot and charge on a NEMA 14-50 plug for the night or spend three days charging on an extension cord thrown out of the hotel window. Some people even rent an RV slot just to charge and then walk to a hotel. That's convenient.

When every restaurant and rest stop has a 50kW charger, and every hotel has L2, then we're getting there, at least with today's low-range cars.

It boggles my mind that every conventional car has a >400 mile range and the ability to fill up anywhere in 5 minutes and yet EVs with a 250 mile range with limited charging locations that take tens of minutes to 10s of hours are considered "long range". Today's EVs are in the 1930s as far as range and energy distribution go. That's the main reason so few people are interested in them (like 2%).

 

Not seeing them doesn't mean you aren't paying for them.

Post 128: New Jersey? I visited Cape May and never saw one.
Post 129: Then you didn't fill up in NJ, or broke the law.
Post 130: I never saw an attendant. I filled up before returning the rental car.

Which might have different regulations than retail stations. A commercial driver being trained in the emergency shut off system for the pumps is a reasonable assumption, but not one for everyone making use of a public station for example.

Is self serve filling up propane tanks for the grill common now? In my experience, an employee fills them for you.

A hydrogen station can easily be unattended, but it likely won't be for legal reasons, and they would likely be part of a convenience store like most gas stations. Public chargers charge more than the going rate of electricity in part because they don't have other revenue streams to help pay for everything. Hydrogen can already be over $16/kg for a car.