Will the EV survive in America?

IMO, EVs (and PHEVs) as they exist today and for the next 5-10 years are going to be used for commuting. And hybrid (gas) mode for long trips between cities. No one is really going to want to drive, say from SF to LA with an EV that goes 80 - 100 miles per charge and stop to fast charge 5 times along the way...except to just say they did it.

I suspect that none of us were around at the time...but it took decades for the gas station infrastructure to get established. 80-100 years ago people drove their cars mostly locally, worried about flat tires, break downs and where to fillup.

Mike

 

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, it was pretty much expected that a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles would involve a couple of tire changes. Or so says my mother-in-law.

 

most people don't want to sit at a dealership for 2 or 3 hours. But 12 to 18 minutes - most people don't mind. That's why Nissan is finally starting to install quick chargers at their dealerships. They came to their senses ... long charging time bad ... short time good.

 

Very good point, Hill
You would think after Katrina, Sandy, Andrew, etc, the existing grid would be made more robust with redundancy systems built in. We are all lucky to get this far with the old, worn out grid we use daily.

Forget about "SMART GRIDS", rebuild the existing grid to withstand the forces of nature.

DBCassidy

 

Long term, two things will happen:

Cost of plug-in cars: DECREASE
Cost of gasoline: INCREASE

 

And all it took was talking to BEV owners and remembering that it's easier to sell a fast charging option if there are fast chargers around.

I'd think of the chargers as back-up. Not only does a fast charger allow a driver to spend less time charging, it can also allow more drivers to spend the same time charging.

 

Isn't 1.5 hours fast enough? It will finish after a movie or dinner.

 

I agree with that.

I also think the cost of electricity will increase too as it gets cleaner and the demand gets higher. It'll get more tricky to design a balanced plugin hybrid, considering not only the cost but also emission, interior space and refueling time.

 

No, not at all. I wish we had fast-charge capabilities in the pip, because then you'd be able to charge it in 5 MINUTES. Then you could actually make the argument that the small battery is more "useful" due to its small size.
But I really don't want to have this argument again.

 

The entire question will EV's survive in America Is somewhat comical. Cheap fossil fuels are pretty much a thing of the past. Mega field's reserves continue to spiral downward. So if there's any question about when ... Maybe the question ought to be how much longer will ice Vehicles be able to continue. I'm just sayin ... perhaps the author has misconstrued EV's slow take off with death ... so much so, that he can't see the potential slow death of the ice. Everything changes. Nothing lasts forever.

 

Gas is actually really cheap right now if you consider inflation and subtract out taxes. It is just that electric drive can be so much more efficient. But if everyone had an EV, and they were all as big as the current fleet and we had to tax electricity to pay for roads, I don't think the EV advantage would seem quite as good.

For me, I estimate that I'm driving my PIP on approximately the equivalent of $0.75 - $1 gal gas.

When I bought my first Prius (Oct 2000) everyone was talking about how in ~10 years we'd be paying $10/gal for gas...hasn't happened.

Mike

 

What would it take to get higher power lines for the fast chargers? 220-volts seems to be a challenge in itself, despite being a common option for home & business use. 440-volts gives the impression of being an expense few will choose to invest in until the slower are well established.

Regardless, the 1.5 hour recharge time matches well with mall, movie, coffeshop, and restaurant visits.

 

I'd suggest searching for some old comparison analysis reports. You'll find it was quite a challenge even arguing $4 would happen. It was actually quite frustrating. The belief was gas would continue to be cheap.

What's much more interesting is the change that happened when $4 gas really did arrive. The guzzlers started to disappear, despite the arguments then having shifted to $5 being the tipping point. Clearly, it wasn't.

Now, we are still looking at $4 being the norm for the next few years. That's somewhat of an influence, but people are slowing growing use to paying more. Becoming tolerant of higher prices poses a very real challenge for plug-in growth.

 

Most of the L2 charging stations support 6.6+KW AC charging (20 miles of EV range per hour of charging). The "quick chargers" are DC and bypass the onboard chargers built into the EV.

Tesla's quick charger/super charger stations are using their batteries to store a combination of solar generated DC and grid sourced AC so they can provide a DC charge directly to the batteries in the vehicle.

 

True. Sit down dinners and movies are very good examples of where 1.5 hours is perfect, but I see about 2 movies per month and go to sit down dinner about 2 times per month. So 4 times per month 1.5 hours is perfect.

This also is assuming available free or low priced chargers at those restaurants and theaters....

 

first off, as John H mentioned above, the Prius already fails to draw down the max power on EXISTING L2 infrastructure. second, no one is talking about installing these in the home; it would obviously be a public station.

with the Prius getting 50 mpg, at $1/hr, you'd have to pay $1.50 to charge up your battery. That corresponds to $7.50 gas. Useless. Especially given that you can't do this "on the way" somewhere.
Now, if I could charge up that battery in 5 minutes? I'd be willing to even pay $1 for that charge, which would translate to $5/gal gas, because I don't mind paying a little extra to save the environment AND I don't have to sit around twiddling my thumbs for the charge to finish.

 

Don't get too excited about getting a 5 minute quick charge with a PiP, even if you could get a DC port installed. The rate at which you can charge seems to be more a function of how many individual cells there are in the battery pack. The Tesla models have quite a few.

 

obviously it's not possible with the current models. i was just responding to the claim that fast charging for the prius would be useless. no, it would be extremely useful.

 

... and at a minimum that's about what gas would cost if it weren't heavily subsidized. Roll in collateral health costs caused by exhause, multinational oil company tax exemptions, military protection of "our" interests, trade deficit, etc. ... yea, $7.50 is still a bargain.

 

Compared to the cost of building a gas station, 440V electricity is cheap. It's a matter of when volume will get there.

Here in alameda, the parking garage in downtown has two chargers. I've seen the number and variety of vehicles using these chargers steadily increase this fall. I've seen Leafs, Volts, a Tesla, a Ford something, and lots of PiP's. We really like this parking spot; only wish we had more chargers.