Zythryn said:
Guy, you are factoring huge gains for the FCEV and little to none for the EVs.
On the contrary, as far as range goes, I'm talking about FCEVs that are available this and next year.
Zythryn said:
Today, I can travel to either the east or west coast via superchargers.
By the end of the year, I will be able to travel to even more of the US. And by the end of 2015 I will be able to travel to 98% of the US via superchargers.
If I am willing to use slower charging, such as RV parks, public level 2 chargers or 110 outlets, most of those restrictions disappear, even today.
The range of FCEVs is limited to where the hydrogen stations are. I expect we won't see those as wide spread as the superchargers much less the number of public chargers or 110 outlets.
California residents maybe willing to foot the bill for hydrogen stations, I doubt other states will be as willing.
Sure, we know fuel cell/charging infrastructure is key to either technology's success. California's footing the bill to kick start them, in the expectation that costs will come down to the point that they will be economical (they certainly aren't now). We did the same with BEVs and chargers, along with the federal government. No one is claiming that FCEVs will be widespread in a couple of years; they're still far too expensive. But they will have a reasonably large deployment inside California, which is the 3rd largest state in area as well as the most populous for people and cars, with a wide variety of climate and terrain. In short, I and (I hope) no one else here is assuming that this relatively small-scale deployment of production FCEVs is anything more than a large-scale test.
Even if I had a FCEV now, I know that I can't drive it across the country. OTOH, even if I had a Tesla now, I couldn't drive it to most of the places I'd want to drive it in state, and an FCEV (assuming the range is closer to 400 than 300 miles) has the ability to do that non-stop round trip, in winter. Tesla just opened the Roseville Supercharger, which finally allows Bay Area people in '60s to reach North Tahoe (ca. 180-200 miles and 7,200 feet of climb) without a detour and without having to white knuckle it. But you'd better have somewhere to charge when you're there, or you will be having to eke out the range. And you'd better hope that they don't shut the road down for any prolonged period of time, too.
There are still no Superchargers on the way to Yosemite (167 miles to the Valley from me, 187 to Tuolumne Meadows, and 207 to Lee Vining), and although the eventual Manteca/Lathrop SC will help, you're SoL if you want to cross over to the east side of the Sierra via Tioga (or any other) pass south of Tahoe. Nothing on the SC map for 2014 or 2015 indicates that this will change by the end of that period. But a FCEV could at least get me to Tuolumne Meadows non-stop, and a single refueling station appropriately placed could get me to the east side and back. And so on.
That's why I was so critical of the initial transcontinental SC route, passing as it did not only through areas with tiny populations of people and Teslas, but also largely lacking nearby weekend destinations from major metropolitan areas.
Zythryn said:
As for apartments, they are starting to install car chargers. Perhaps not many yet, but they are starting. I know of two apartment/condo buildings in Minnesota that have done so. I would be surprised if those are the only two in the nation.
Sure, they're a few apartment complexes that are installing chargers, but the numbers will be tiny for a long time. Housing stock typically lasts about 100 years. Unless government makes retrofit of existing multi-family housing units for EV charging mandatory at some point, it will be at least two decades before we see even a small % of MFHU equipped for it. California has made such provisions mandatory for _new_ construction, but again that will take decades to have a significant effect.
At the moment, my 100k+ population city in the EV-supportive Bay Area has exactly 37 public L2s, and the majority of those are unreliable Blinks - a large % are at McDonald's, and a fast-food joint is just about the last place I'd consider L2 to be useful in any case. I know of no apartment complexes in the city that offer L2 charging; there may be a few that allow people to use L1 but I don't know of any. As it happens, the closest L2s to me (Blinks) are a five-block walk; I'd be willing to make that, but how many other people would? And no one has yet figured out how to make public charging profitable except as an advertising expense; Tesla's SCs aren't public.
OTOH, we know that the gas station retail refueling model works; we had the 100th anniversary of the first U.S. gas station last year. Early adopters are more adventurous, but IMO it's far easier to convince mainstream consumers to keep doing almost exactly what they've been doing, than to force them to learn something completely new. As is the case with HEVs, FCEVs with ICE-comparable range, no big range swings due to temperature effects and centralized rapid refueling means no adjustment is necessary to their behavior. People are willing to pay a lot not to have to change. The only question is what the cost and performance differentials are between BEVs and FCEVs, because while people are willing to pay a lot not to change, they aren't willing to pay an unlimited amount. If BEVs provide acceptable performance at acceptable cost (as they currently don't for mainstream buyers) and FCEVs (ultimately) don't, then BEVs will win out. I have no idea which will win, and have no dog in the fight. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that it is far too early in both technologies to pick one as a winner. It took about 25 years for ICEs to defeat BEVs as the universal auto, and we're nowhere near the same level of development for FCEVs/BEVs.
