Tesla unveils supercharger locations

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rathji

But a full charge is like a couple bucks on normal power at your house. This isn't about saving money, it is about convenience, which doesn't fully jive with taking 30 mins.

Well convenience in that you can actually drive further than the range of the vehicle in a day. In that way a 30 min rest stop is better than not being able to drive to grandma's house to show her your new fancy car at all.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Rathji

You gotta wonder, what kind of person would be ok with taking 30 mins to fuel their car?

I guess if there was a restaurant, or mall nearby. Stop for lunch and get a free tank of juice.

It's a start.

People are environmentalists if it doesn't inconvenience them much.

This new development can go about 300 km and would be about 35 minutes to refuel (pulling over, hooking up, then the half hour charge, unhooking, taking off).

An electric car that can go 550-600 km without refueling and needs only 10-15 minutes to refuel (pulling over, hooking up, pulling out) is the ultimate technological goal, the equivalency of a fossil fuel car.

There's a lot of game-changing questions in this and huge economic turmoil that will have to be thought through.

Looking ahead, you would wonder if all charging stations would be proprietary or, for more efficiencies, they'd licence the technology to other electric automakers so that anyone could pull into a charging station instead of having to search for one from their brand.

If integrated oil companies were smart, they'd be starting to look at how their going to be integrating this charging technology into their normal filling station networks, as one example.

It looks like this technology is about halfway there to becoming convenient enough to make us all environmentalists.

Cowperson

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

I forgot electricity comes from a clean source.

/sarcasam

even if all your power comes from coal plants, having the emissions coming from one central site (the power station) instead of countless individual combustion engines is a helluva lot easier to manage from an environmental perspective

[jammies]

Originally Posted by photon

Sure, I can claim anything I want, being able to deliver it and have it scale up is a totally different thing. .

For one, if they can offload power they can grab power, so I would assume that if they don't have sufficient juice they just take some off the grid, theoretically to be replaced later. For another, if only (for example) 4 cars can use the charging station at a time, and each takes half an hour, there's a maximum throughput of power per day that they can plan around.

The scaling argument is valid, though, although you would think it would actually be cheaper per station as you increase the number of stations. Except that not everywhere is suited for power generation from solar, although it'd work here (except maybe in mid-winter where it's usually sunny, but not for many hours) I'd suspect.

[HELPNEEDED]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

even if all your power comes from coal plants, having the emissions coming from one central site (the power station) instead of countless individual combustion engines is a helluva lot easier to manage from an environmental perspective

there will be no sustainable management of such, if even 5% of cars switched to electric use, electricity rates would go sky high, and so would coal combustion.

[MolsonInBothHands]

A solar kit to retro fit your garage with would be a nice touch. I never thought I would own an electric car in my lifetime, but it looks like it could really happen.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

there will be no sustainable management of such, if even 5% of cars switched to electric use, electricity rates would go sky high, and so would coal combustion.

Based on what? Your intuition?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

there will be no sustainable management of such, if even 5% of cars switched to electric use, electricity rates would go sky high, and so would coal combustion.

well it's a good thing that significant progress is being made in fusion reactors then

[HELPNEEDED]

Originally Posted by jammies

Based on what? Your intuition?

Simple exercise if you want to disprove me:

Work out the average conspumption in joules of a car, then take 5% of mobile vehicles in alberta and calculater total kj or kwatts used.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

Simple exercise if you want to disprove me:

Work out the average conspumption in joules of a car, then take 5% of mobile vehicles in alberta and calculater total kj or kwatts used.

Here on the internet, the one making the absurd claim is the one who has to provide the proof.

-edit- And before you waste your time, your calculation doesn't take into account that vehicles don't run 24x7. What you actually need to do is calculate the average kj/hr consumption rate of a vehicle, find out the average number of hours vehicles are on the road, then divide that into the consumption rate to get the real use of power per hour.

Of course, this doesn't take into account the problem of peak power usage hours, which, in the case of electric cars, would probably involve charging said vehicles late at night when power usage is at its minimum by the simple expedient of timed chargers. Which, naturally, would be almost universally used and subsidized by the power companies because said late night power is much cheaper. And so, in summary, you don't know what you're talking about.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

there will be no sustainable management of such, if even 5% of cars switched to electric use, electricity rates would go sky high, and so would coal combustion.

The least efficient coal power plants these days are more efficient and cleaner than even the most fuel efficient gasoline engines.

Certainly, electrification of vehicles would require more power infrastructure, but the fact that most people would charge their vehicles at night when power demand is much lower would ease most of that. Mostly, electric cars would just balance out load demand.

Originally Posted by cowperson

An electric car that can go 550-600 km without refueling and needs only 10-15 minutes to refuel (pulling over, hooking up, pulling out) is the ultimate technological goal, the equivalency of a fossil fuel car.

The Tesla Model S is capable of that (~500km per charge , 5 minute "refuel") - it has 5 minute battery swap capability. However the infrastructure isn't there yet to actually go anywhere. It'll come though.

Battery swapping removes fears of an expensive full battery replacement at some point in the car's life as well.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The least efficient coal power plants these days are more efficient and cleaner than even the most fuel efficient gasoline engines.

First question, source? I know you can do much more intensive cleaning of the emissions of a coal fire plant, but I haven't checked the numbers on it.

I also think that the quality and the back of that argument kind of depends. The efficiency of conversion from coal to electricity and the internal efficiency of the battery's electricity to output movement has to be taken as part of the rate as well. It's not good enough to just consider the emissions rate of scrubbed coal and car emissions. Since our ability to convert one form of energy to another is generally piss poor, that extra step is a concern.

If that efficiency beats out the car's conversion of gasoline to output, then there's certainly a point to it.

(I think I have done this sort of calculation on CP before on an older electric car topic and found it isn't as good, but the strike zone is about 33-50% improvement in electric car technology to equal it. So we're getting to the point in time where it's reasonable to convert for energy reasons. For practical reasons in terms of more predictable energy loading, there could be a point to make the change)

[HELPNEEDED]

Originally Posted by jammies

Here on the internet, the one making the absurd claim is the one who has to provide the proof.

-edit- And before you waste your time, your calculation doesn't take into account that vehicles don't run 24x7. What you actually need to do is calculate the average kj/hr consumption rate of a vehicle, find out the average number of hours vehicles are on the road, then divide that into the consumption rate to get the real use of power per hour.

Of course, this doesn't take into account the problem of peak power usage hours, which, in the case of electric cars, would probably involve charging said vehicles late at night when power usage is at it's minimum by the simple expedient of timed chargers. Which, naturally, would be almost universally used and subsidized by the power companies because said late night power is much cheaper. And so, in summary, you don't know what you're talking about.

Oh the ignorance in that post.

If electric cars were to become norm and all owners ####****only****#### charged at night there would no longer be off-peak times. Further as previously mentioned by a poster there would be a gauranteed need for further electricity generation. Currently Alberta generates ~14,000MegaWatts of electricity, consumption is around ~10,000. It does not take a scientist to realize that 4,000MW of safety is reasonable. I am not willing to do the math, however simple, but I will tell you that adding electric cars will seriously shift the demand curve to the right whilst the the supply curve will not be able to keep up, thus raising the S=D point and hence the price. Basic economics.

In the figure below D1 represents current electricity demand and D2 demand after introduction of electric cars. We know that spending large amounts of captial to create electricity plants is not spontaneous, with that we can say that the supply is inelastic and unable to respond to increased demand.

Not only that, but financially more lucrative: P2xD2 > P1XD1, so aslong as the power grid can handle the extra load we will not see additional electricity coming online.



Currently alberta produces 40% of its electricity from coal and another 45% from natural gas, are these alternatives more ecologically sustainable? In Alberta NO.

For source: http://1800recycling.com/2011/01/ele...ing-pros-cons/

http://www.energy.alberta.ca/Electricity/682.asp

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by kirant

First question, source? I know you can do much more intensive cleaning of the emissions of a coal fire plant, but I haven't checked the numbers on it.

I also think that the quality and the back of that argument kind of depends. The efficiency of conversion from coal to electricity and the internal efficiency of the battery's electricity to output movement has to be taken as part of the rate as well. It's not good enough to just consider the emissions rate of scrubbed coal and car emissions. Since our ability to convert one form of energy to another is generally piss poor, that extra step is a concern.

If that efficiency beats out the car's conversion of gasoline to output, then there's certainly a point to it.

(I think I have done this sort of calculation on CP before on an older electric car topic and found it isn't as good, but the strike zone is about 33-50% improvement in electric car technology to equal it. So we're getting to the point in time where it's reasonable to convert for energy reasons. For practical reasons in terms of more predictable energy loading, there could be a point to make the change)

The UCS's well-to-wheels analysis shows that a battery-powered vehicle charged with electricity made from coal produces as much in the way of greenhouse gases as a conventional car that averages 30mpg. If the electricity is generated solely from natural gas, the emissions are equivalent to a petrol-powered car averaging 54mpg. And if the batteries are recharged using solar power, it is like having a car capable of 500mpg.

Here, your correspondent has the first of his quibbles. The petrol car the UCS team uses for comparison is a notional compact that gets 27mpg. Thus, the team's claim that even electric vehicles powered by coal (with an emissions equivalent of 30mpg) are cleaner than comparable petrol cars.

From this article. The article goes on to say that it's pretty close, but really hard to determine exactly, because there are many factors.

However, as the power grid gets cleaner, and it will, electric cars will give off significantly less emissions. Already, pollution from power plants is localized around the power plant, as opposed to everywhere that the public is, like with gas burning vehicles. Even with the same overall level of pollution, it would be much healthier for the public, and much easier to manage.

[GreenLantern]

Seems expensive, but I guess everything is when its new.

Once they get these down to the 20k range they will be all over the place. Also by then they should have all of the charging station drama figured out with the downtime decreased.

Then I will buy one, still cool to read about for now though.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by HELPNEEDED

Oh the ignorance in that post.

I still don't see your calculations. All that is very nice, but if off-hours consumption + new consumption isn't greater than the current peak consumption, your original assertion still fails. The two figures you are looking for are: Current Off-Hours Peak Consumption, and Projected Additional Consumption after converting 5% of Alberta vehicles to Electric Drive. That graph was a nice touch, another one of those would be spiffy as well.

-edit- Since it's lunchtime, I did a rough calculation and it would be about 1410 megawatts of additional consumption, given 150 000 vehicles, 15 000 miles/year, divided by an average 20 mpg, then divided by 365 days of 8 hours consumption (only at night!), to give 38527 gallons/hour @ 36.6 kw/h per gallon. So approximately 10% of peak capacity, which, considering it'll be needed at off-peak, is not going to cause the armageddon you anticipate.

[HELPNEEDED]

Originally Posted by jammies

I still don't see your calculations. All that is very nice, but if off-hours consumption + new consumption isn't greater than the current peak consumption, your original assertion still fails. The two figures you are looking for are: Current Off-Hours Peak Consumption, and Projected Additional Consumption after converting 5% of Alberta vehicles to Electric Drive. That graph was a nice touch, another one of those would be spiffy as well.

Have you ever taken an economics class? It does not matter if consumption is still below capacity. Economics don't require calculations in the case I have presented, its a simple qualatative analysis.

Bolded part: Does not matter, greater demand and inelastic supply will dictate increased prices.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

However, as the power grid gets cleaner, and it will, electric cars will give off significantly less emissions. Already, pollution from power plants is localized around the power plant, as opposed to everywhere that the public is, like with gas burning vehicles. Even with the same overall level of pollution, it would be much healthier for the public, and much easier to manage.

Undoubtedly. I was just going of the current notions.

The link makes sense in that "wells-to-wheels" is the best comparable stat. I'll have to give the paper (linked by the article) a reading later...I'm curious how bad the refining process from the well to usable gasoline is if it becomes close to the equivalent of that extra conversion process.

Hopefully the price goes down as well. It'd be nice if the combination of the two (cleaner power plants, cheaper cars) propagates the use of electrical cars as time goes on...it makes sense overall.

[photon]

Originally Posted by jammies

For one, if they can offload power they can grab power, so I would assume that if they don't have sufficient juice they just take some off the grid, theoretically to be replaced later.

Well sure, it's just an exercise in accounting then, at least until you exceed your ability to replace it. You can sign up for Greenmax and be happy that a portion of your electricity comes from "green" sources, but if everyone signed up they'd have to close or change the program.

Originally Posted by jammies

For another, if only (for example) 4 cars can use the charging station at a time, and each takes half an hour, there's a maximum throughput of power per day that they can plan around.

And they have to plan around the limiting factor of how much solar energy they have available to them. That maximum throughput of power would require 20,000 square feet of solar panels (far more actually, that's just the theoretical amount), for 1 station.

Originally Posted by jammies

The scaling argument is valid, though, although you would think it would actually be cheaper per station as you increase the number of stations.

The solar cells can't be onsite at the station (too big), so it's just an accounting exercise at that point, just make sure you have the 20,000 square feet of solar panels per station somewhere on the grid selling to the grid, and take the electricity off the grid.

Originally Posted by jammies

Except that not everywhere is suited for power generation from solar, although it'd work here (except maybe in mid-winter where it's usually sunny, but not for many hours) I'd suspect.

It'd work, but solar cells would generate half the energy here compared to California, so you'd need 40,000 square feet.



And that's yearly average I bet, the variation between winter and summer here is like 50% or something.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by photon

Lets say 10W per square foot of solar panel, and we'll assume 8 hours worth of sun for a day (which is probably unreasonably optimistic). 80Wh / sq ft, we need 8500Wh, which is 100 square feet of solar panels running all day to charge one Tesla once.

35W-50W per square foot depending on the build of the panel.