Tesla and COP

[Kevin D Pem]

Check this out!! Glasgow COP Has Fleet of Teslas To Be Diesel-Charged

 

[MichaelMdG]

Fact Check-The Scottish Government did not buy 20 Tesla cars ahead of COP26

A rumour that the Scottish Government has bought 20 Tesla electric cars at a cost of £2m to transport COP26 delegates is false, Britain’s Cabinet Office has told Reuters.

www.reuters.com

 

[redbaron]

Removed

 

[redbaron]

Upon further reflection, this thread is in the appropriate place. Feel free to continue discussion.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

L.O.L. When I posted, I posted it as a see what happens when infrastructure won't support a toy. I could care less if we were talking brand name EVs, or something as lowly as a Landrover, doesn't matter.
Back in the day I re-powered my sailing vessel with electric aux. Today you can buy a kit that makes the job easy, in that day the best kits were questionable. The Yahoo Group I joined is no longer a Yahoo group. And companies convert your sailboat if you have deep pockets. OK, OK, you had to have deep pockets, and a bunch of will, and had a steep learning curve, to complete a conversion when I did it.
If it were not for that experience, I would be blowing smoke with nothing substantial to offer, in both my opinion on the EV seen, or the RV electrical seen, as the two inter relate. Did I tell you I moderated that group for a while.
reuters.com Did a fine job of pointing out why I have my opinion, They did not counter it. @Neal post on the state of the electric grid also confirms my opinion. Although he was talking about RV resorts. My contention is the older resorts were not designed for the modern rig. It is this knowledge that has put the power supply system in the hands of the RV manufacturer. That is to say that without the modern smart power system the RV industry would have to back off on the things you have grown to love. The power grid is older than the RV parks are.
I used to install dual boot OS systems on computers for those I met that were far from home. In the kind of RVing I do that means you meet people from around the world. As you know AZ is hot on the southern side of the state a good share of the year. This Man I met was from the Netherlands. He was complaining about the heat, not protesting, just complaining. I asked him why he didn't buy a generator and run the A/C and his answer shocked me. He didn't want to get used to controlled temperature, because he had to go home. Seems he can't install such a thing as an A/C in his town because the only size main there is there is 15 amps. anything larger would take the whole grid for his town down. Honestly I don't believe he is worried about how to charge an EV, do you?

 

[redbaron]

Many parts of the US do not have 240v available. This is rural areas, but still represents a large area.

When building my home I had 600amp 240v (150kw) service installed in the house. This took a lot of effort with the power company. I then built the rv garage/ data center next to the house with 600amp 240v service.

The power company took 6 months upgrading the infrastructure to support this demand. This is rural Texas, only 30min south of DFW.

Because of my upgrades, when the natural gas boom hit, the power grid was ready for the booster pumps in the area for transfer. The entire area became a protected zone which is exempt from rolling blackouts.

This 150kw was very hard to get installed. I recently asked about adding 300kw to an expansion we are doing, and was told it would require additional build out. We estimate it will take 6 months to get the initial study and estimate in place.

Now consider this:

A Tesla v2 super charger is 150kw. That will charge a single car at full rate, or split between 2 cars at reduced rate.

The average home is 50KW, 200amps at 240v. Some in rural US are even less.

Neighborhoods built with single air built to 25kw, or 100amps at 240v.

A lot of work must be done to support the electrical system being used today to charge cars in mass.

I think the change will be in a new improved charger that doesn't require 150kw to fast charge. One day we will have that break through.

 

[Voyageurs]

I have mixed opinions on this. First of all, the vast amount of charging is done at home or work on 120 volt or 240 volt circuits. Superchargers are generally only used on road trips, partially because they are typically three times as expensive to charge at compared to home. They are a road trip convenience and are not used like a gas station.

We live in a townhouse with a 100 amp panel. Natural gas heat and hot water. Central air. Our electrician did a power audit and was able to install a 32 amp 240 volt EVSE (charge station) inside and a 12 amp 240 volt EVSE outside. More than adequate for a 2 car household.

We, like many do our charging During the night. Typically charging starts at 2 AM and is done by 3 AM.

Attached are a few pics for illustration. The picture with the burgundy leaf kind of hammers home that 32 amp 240 volt EVSE is nice but not necessary. That was our first EV. It only ever got charged by 120 volt 12 amps. You can see that it is plugged into the soffit plug for Christmas lights. Worked great. It was a reliable commuter and served us well on our round trip 50 kilometre commute.

My point being that I think many over estimate what amount of power is needed for the day to day life of an electric vehicle. We upgraded just because we could. And with a 500 kilometre range Tesla the chance of coming home from a road trip near empty was incentive enough to install the 32 amp EVSE in the garage. That’s the pic with the dometic freezer below it.

JMHO.

John.

Our 32 amp 240 volt EVSE (charge station)

Leaf on a 12 amp 120 volt EVSE plugged into soffit plug. .

Outside 240 volt 12 amp EVSE that replaced our soffit plug unit after we sold the leaf.

Our daily usage. You can see when the car charges at 2 AM. And you can see every day we charge. Probably 4 or 5 days out of 7.

JMHO.

John.

 

[redbaron]

@Voyageurs nice pics! Thanks for the info.

Your approach to charging makes sense. The super chargers or equivalent would certainly be overkill for a household.

The issue becomes the work place chargers, and mass transit roadways. Getting enough capacity to handle the masses is going to take time.

There is a super charger within 15 miles of me. This is along the i-35 corridor. I assume that all highways are pretty well covered by now, or will be soon.

 

[Voyageurs]

@Voyageurs nice pics! Thanks for the info.

Your approach to charging makes sense. The super chargers or equivalent would certainly be overkill for a household.

The issue becomes the work place chargers, and mass transit roadways. Getting enough capacity to handle the masses is going to take time.

There is a super charger within 15 miles of me. This is along the i-35 corridor. I assume that all highways are pretty well covered by now, or will be soon.

Yah, for sure. But just for context, an solar covered parking lot like this will provide enough power every day for the typical commute in North America. Not every where get the same amount of sun, and not every day is sunny, but many days are and many places are. On those days this approach is already working very well in some parts of the world. Its not a perfect solution, but it is part of a bigger solution. We live in BC Canada, and grid tied solar homes in our community are able to provide almost 100 percent of the homes needs including 2 electric vehicles and electric (heat pump) heating, Its actually getting quite common here. Contrary to popular belief one doesn't have to live in southern California to have a solar home.

This is our friends house not too far from ours. He posted this pic in september.

 

[MichaelMdG]

The summers in the Netherlands are not hot. The average high temperatures are between 68 and 77 during the summer and you will have just a few days that the temperature cross 86 and that is mostly in the southeast. That is the reason that just a few people will have AC (cooling) in their home.
Electrical power is also not an issue. In the Netherlands the standard voltage is 230 V and the frequency is 50Hz. Most households have a 3 phased 80 A connection.
We lived in the Netherlands from 1986 till 2001.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

didn't say they were hot. Just repeated what he told me at the time.

 

[Voyageurs]

The Netherlands has a very high rate of EV adaptation and it’s climbing fast. We still have lots of family there. This is a cut and paste from google.

“The Netherlands is also one of the leading electric vehicle markets, both in Europe and globally. In 2020, 21% of all newly registered cars were battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and 4% were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).“

We have been there a few times visiting family. I don’t recall any of them having power issues.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Hummm now I am wondering why he told me what he did, maybe just didn't want to run a genny.

 

[Voyageurs]

Hummm now I am wondering why he told me what he did, maybe just didn't want to run a genny.

Or he may have been poorly informed. There is a story circulating in North America right now that if any more than 3 people on a city block in North America have an electric vehicle it will black out the entire block. This is circulating all over social media...and people are believing it. I had someone at work tell me this when he saw our Tesla. And even after explaining the math to him and that it was total BS he still leaned toward the Facebook explanation.

Meh. People will eventually figure it out.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

I don't buy into that. EV was not an issue in 08, or 09. as I recall that was the years I was installing Ubuntu for people at the Library.
It is just as conceivable that my memory failed and he hailed from another country, I was sure until now that he said Netherlands. But then that was a few years ago. Know this, he did tell me what he told me. The reason I didn't question is I have been told about things that I have never experienced from people I have known while living this life. An example would be the friend that told me he used to move heavy machinery on Ice Bridges in BC. Sounds a little far fetched for someone in AZ, but I took his word for it. Or the couple from BC that she told me she never had indoor plumbing as a kid and she just wasn't that old for that story.
Truth be told, I looked at a house in Moriarty,NM that didn't have any power to it.
I may have the story right, and he lives in a small community.

It is really hard to realize when we have, that some don't. I think that is what the push does not take into consideration.