DOH! Forgot to plug in...

[adric22]

If you are talking about driving 300 miles in a day on a vacation, QC makes no sense at all to me. You would be stopping at least five times during the day's trip for half an hour each time (assuming you never had to wait for a charger), even if you held your speed down to 60 or so. Turning a five hour drive into a seven and a half hour drive does not meet my test of "realistic and practical".

I have run the numbers on this too and it just doesn't make sense to me. For example, a month ago my wife and I drove her Prius from Ft.Worth to Houston. I believe the trip was about 4 hours and we were driving about 75 mph most of the way there. At that speed, the Leaf would quickly run out of juice, especially running the heater like we were. So I'm thinking we'd have had to stop in the Leaf every 50 miles for a QC. Being about 250 miles, that is 5 times we'd have to stop for a QC. That is 2.5 hours of sitting at a QC, making the trip take a total of 6.5 hours instead of 4.

Yeah.. I just don't see EV's being a solution for longer trips until either the range is much greater, such as the Tesla. Either that, or there are more PHEV's available. But for a Pure EV.. I just don't see it.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

ok after this "volleyball" discussion of "gotta be this" or "no, you wrong" all i can say is

THANK GOD WE DONT HAVE TO CHOOSE!@!

because we WILL have L1, L2, L3 plus other options we dont even know about yet!

just thought i would let ya know the good news now. its like an early Xmas Present!

any way; we all have to remember that we all live in different areas with different driving needs. EVs will be fine right "as is", but will only flourish if we have a full compliment of charging options.

i think we would find L1/L2 much more convenient if we plugged in everywhere and not "just at MacDonalds". sure a 45 min boost at MacDonald is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

better yet would be a central charging in a large shopping complex along with free shuttle service to move you around the complex (helps keep you dry).

but if we get a boost at MacDonalds, then go to Sears, get another 30 minutes. stop off at Safeway get another 30 mins, etc. then that lessens the need for QC but in no way does it eliminate it.

there are a lot of places that are destinations in themselves like Snoqualmie. its a go there, may stay in one place for 2-3 hours then go home. L2 wont work. 3 hours is not enough (80% would barely do it. i would have to get 90% in winter to be safe...but then again the return is downhill so it could be done)

Same with the beach. sure once in a while the weather is good enough to stay 5-6 hours but then that is barely enough time for L2 to recharge. most trips to the beach are good for 2-3 hours. so a 45 minute QC to 90% (probably while eating...we always stop for ice cream on the way out of town, even when its cold) would be perfect.

but the "L whatever is a waste of money" argument is simply being short sighted. if you are old enough, you might remember odd/even gas rationing or gas stations being closed on Sunday. unless you lived it, you could not even begin to imagine the hassle of not being able to get gas whenever you wanted caused. i mean, it was like one day. but knowing ahead of time that buying gas tomorrow was not available made a task that normally took no forethought at all into a major scheduling decision.

gas cars did not work well that way and neither will making the same decisions about charging an EV. realize; we as early adopters are willing to put up with that, but i do so knowing that EVs are too good an idea and wont fail. but not supporting them early by creating the charging network means 7-10 years for widespread acceptance instead of the 2-3 years i am hoping for.

 

[bradleygibson]

Good points, all.

Just so it's clear, I don't see it as an "either or" scenario--apologies if I made it sound like I did. As I said, I do believe that we may be overinvesting in L2's though, given the early level of EV adoption--my concern is that this overinvestment (both in number, premium parking lot location) may come back to bite us given the low level of utilization. At some point it may become politically 'unfashionable' to install L2 chargers, even if they are needed.

On the other hand, we have the opposite problem with L3's. I'd like to see the L3's come on line in sufficient numbers to balance that (perceived) overinvestment in L2's. A single L3 for a million EV's obviously wouldn't cut it--here again, there would need to be a balance.

As for "long" trips in EV's, I think there is some confusion between the range of the Leaf and EV's in general. I agree, it may not be practical to travel 300+ miles with a 50-60 mile highway range even with DCQC. But that's not an artifact of the EV, that's an artifact of the energy efficiency and how much battery capacity the Leaf has today. As was pointed out, that is a perfectly reasonable trip in a Tesla EV.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

in this early adoption phase what we are really seeing is businesses balking at the high cost of an L3. the unit maybe provided free due to the rapidly expiring EV Highway Project which never really got more than token funding to begin with (never should have spent a dime on home charging options but that is another topic) but that $10,000 "gift" comes with some pretty hefty strings.

problems we are seeing is that many sites require tens of thousands in prep costs to host an L3. this is where most of the funding for the EV Highway project should have gone. have them installed on a federal program with businesses in the area paying a small part of the electricity used in exchange for the business generated.

now, i am not really privy to the actual deals being proffered but its obvious that its not all that good.

now, for all you that got free this and thats, i am sure this post will not be popular, but i stand on conviction by saying the EV Highway Project was a bit "off" from the get go. i needed no encouragement to buy a Leaf. (did nt qualify for program anyway since i am not a home owner but that fact does not change my opinion) so giving me a free QC did not play at all into my buying decision.

so, now our "electrified" highway has been delayed and considering the amount of unemployed construction workers we have sitting around waiting to do something, the delay is obviously money, mismanagement or a bit of both. but we have the money at least on one end, so its now the business we are looking at.

so, ya it easy to see why L2's are springing up all over the place (there has been over 100 added in my local area in the past 10 or so months to go along with the 3-4 J1772's we already had) its because the generate a HUGE amount of goodwill but really dont cost a whole lot to put in. a few thousand is absorbable by many companies. costs approaching $50,000 plus are not.

now, i do see a few places probably spent some money. Sears in Lacey has their sitting out in the middle of the parking lot at least 150 feet from the building. now there are lights out there but had to cost a pretty penny to put in 3 of them, but they also probably did it without significant upgrades to the electrical feed. they only had to run new lines out there from their existing power feed (this used to be a full fledged Mall with dozens of stores that is now only has 6 large vendors there)

i do know an electrical contractor who was part of both the original build of the mall and the retrofit (they took out all the small shop area and put in Target) and he stated that the configuration barely used half the power wired into the location. he was nt part of the the new L2 install so dont know how much that costs but he thinks they probably did the site work for significantly less than $10,000 since there was no asphalt work done so the lines were probably pulled from somewhere.

but i guess what i am trying to say is ... how many "highways" do you know of that run thru your living room?