TonyWilliams said:
I'm thankful I don't have to live in your shoes with those kind of issues !!!
Blink has always been the go-to name for anything negative about electric vehicle charging. Thankfully, the world may be rid of them very very soon as the last quarterly report said that they had an income of about a half a million dollars with around six or seven million in expenses. So, you won't have that dead horse to beat anymore !!!
Since I know I've said this numerous times there are other logical places to charge an electric car in your area. Again, other people won't have an issue with whether something is .4 miles away or 1.9 miles away. Sorry, but that's just not the way the average vehicle owner thinks.
Actually, the average vehicle owner sees no compelling reason whatever to shift to an AFV to date barring massive government bribery, as is clearly indicated by the continuing lackluster sales, but continue.
TonyWilliams said:
Particularly in your area as EV's become ubiquitous I can very easily see parking meters on every street with a place to plug in (for a fee). It may only be 1.5 KW, but you don't drive very far anyway ;-)
Tony, I've listed upthread the number of public parking spaces, both on-street and in public/privately owned lots/garages, in just one very EV-friendly city (SF) in 'my area'. Offhand, the number of on-street spaces was something over 200k. Installing charging at every curb-side space would require ripping up and replacing every sidewalk (if using conductive charging) or every parking lane (if using inductive charging). The cost is staggering, and considering the lack of funds for numerous other worthy issues, how many decades/centuries do you think this will take to accomplish, since it obviously can't be done all at once, not to mention that the typical bay area surface street is a potholed minefield from deferred maintenance owing to lack of funds? Where do you think the politicos will be more likely to direct the money given the choice between repairing/repaving streets experienced by most, or installing curbside charging to benefit the few? Realistically, it will have to be publicly accessible parking lots/garages that get wired first, along with a requirement for all new-construction MFH to provide charging; almost certainly both will have to be subsidized with public funds/tax breaks, but unless the electricity can be supplied direct by utilities it's unlikely that it will be cheaper than gas, barring a major hike in the price of the latter. As streets/sidewalks come due for maintenance/replacement, curbside charging can gradually be added, but I stress 'gradually', and that assumes money is available (since the civic authorities will also have to subsidize installations in garages/lots).
Even in my relatively low-density (compared to SF, but my part predates car-based sprawl) bedroom community on my short street, with one exception (a single small apartment building with its own parking lot) it's all detached single family homes with garages or at least parking pads/driveways for every dwelling. Nevertheless, I count 20 plus/minus a couple cars parked curbside every single night. While it's likely that a lot of these cars could be parked in their garages if they weren't full of the owner's "stuff": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
as long as there's free curbside parking available that's not going to happen. I've mentioned before that I'm a believer in charging market rates for all public parking, but that's another issue.
TonyWilliams said:
So, my response isn't really generated for your consumption... it's for other people who might read it and think there might actually be something important to understand, and there just isn't. You're too easily inconvenienced / apathetic / whatever term applies that these tiny distances actually mean something to you. Since I live in suburbia there isn't anything that's a mile from my house!! But I have the admittedly important advantage of overnight charging at my house. That is huge for EV adoption today.
And that's the main point of agreement between us. If you have guaranteed charging at home/work, with no likelihood of having to move or change jobs to someplace that doesn't have such, a PEV is great. But most of the world's urban population, which is most of the world's
total population, doesn't, and won't for decades if ever. For them, a car that doesn't dictate where you live or work because there's always somewhere you can go reasonably conveniently to refuel/recharge it in a short period of time is an advantage, which is one reason why liquid fossil-fueled ICEs defeated PEVs among consumers over a century ago, and why they've dominated ever since. That is finally starting to change, but any transition to PEVs will be slow for the reasons I've stated above. In the meantime, there is no technical reason, just an economic one, why sustainably-produced H2 dispensers couldn't replace every gas/diesel dispenser at every gas station.
Admittedly, whether the economic issue for H2 can ever be solved remains the major unanswered question; obviously they aren't cost-effective now. But, as I've said repeatedly, for me the question is how quickly we can get off fossil-fueled transportation; whether the public ultimately opts for BEVs or PHEVs with renewably-produced or nuclear electricity, plus for PHEVs either fuel cells or sustainable bio/liquid fuels for range extension, FCEVs, sustainable-bio-/liquid fueled ICEs or (as I expect) some combination of the above I consider of much less importance.
TonyWilliams said:
A close second place will be 200 to 300 mile range EV cars with ubiquitous DC charging on every street corner. That's even more important than workplace charging because, as I have gleaned from your situation, workplace charging wouldn't help you as it wouldn't help about one half of the population! But DC chargers help everybody;
commuters to a daily job
homeowners
retirees
military
students
single mothers
etc.
Rather depends on how long, where and how often they have to stop to charge doesn't it, plus the price? But we're in agreement that a BEV which provides at least one week's autonomy for local driving, with a reasonably quick, cost-competitive recharging could make a big difference. Whether 200 miles (when new to empty; remember that most car sales are of used vehicles, and vehicles need to provide the required range year-round in all conditions for at least a decade of service, i.e. to be viable for a second or even third owner) is enough for the general public to buy in remains to be seen. Even the 2nd gen 200 mile BEVs will require a stretch for the average middle-class buyer for some years yet, given any extra-cost options. Affordable FCEVs are a few years further out, with affordable H2 in the who knows? category. Judging by the survey results I posted in another thread, the general public still demands 300 miles of range before they'll consider a BEV, presumably while using the HVAC system. That's what they're used to with ICEs, and they see no reason to settle for less. Whether they can be convinced that they don't actually need that much is a good question, but without very strong incentive to do so, I think it goes against human nature to voluntarily accept less than you're used to.
TonyWilliams said:
In regards to your complaint about the cost per mile, I am able to use the NRG / eVgo network to arrive at around five cents per mile. This is ridiculously below the cost of gasoline for similar vehicles, while grossly below the cost of a hydrogen powered vehicle at $13-$17 per KG (one KG moves a Toyota H2 approximately 60 miles therefore $15 ÷ 60 miles = 25 cents per mile).
I think I'll stick with electricity.
Sure, H2 is ridiculously expensive at the moment, especially in comparison to the alternatives. Fortunately, no customer has to pay for it for three years, so it's effectively free for that period. As for the cost of NRG, which you use enough to benefit from membership (I'd have to increase my driving to do so, which would be ridiculous), the station I buy gas from is charging $2.46 for regular today. For a 50 mpg HEV like the Prius, that's $2.46/50 = $0.0492/mile, the fueling infrastructure is ubiquitous, and it doesn't start at $72k, or even $35k - a base 2016 Prius is $24,200. Granted it's god-awful fugly, and won't suit everyone's needs let alone their desires (Chelsea Sexton recently opined that if everyone bought cars for strictly rational reasons, we'd all be driving white Honda Civics):
The Electric Car Revolution Is Now Scheduled for 2022
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/electric-car-revolution-now-scheduled-2022/
I'd amend that to 'almost all', as some people do live on farms/ranches or have small businesses where a pickup isn't a fashion statement, or who need a van to haul lots of people frequently, but generally she's correct.
