Internal combustion bans

[Martin Williams]

In response to 30kW Leaf's post:

Ten minutes is five times longer than two minutes (which it takes me to fill my ICE) That means to serve the same number of battery cars as ICEs needs five times the number of charging points as pumps, assuming equal mileage from battery vehicles as from an ICE car.

Five times 400kW is 2 MegaWatts. Now imagine a filling station with half a dozen pumps. If it goes electric, it will need 30 charging stations, and take 12 MegaWatts peak. This will require its own substation big enough to serve 2000 homes.

Unfortunately, electricity doesn't just pop up out of the ground under a charging point. Someone has to get it there, and that is likely to be expensive. If you wanted a 400kW charging point at your home, I guess you could have one, but it would probably cost more than the car to install the necessary infrastructure - cabling, transformers etc!

So far, the long charging times of today's batteries has disguised this problem, but it will become a lot more immediate if batteries get to be charged faster.

 

[Timothy]

In response to 30kW Leaf's post:

Ten minutes is five times longer than two minutes (which it takes me to fill my ICE) That means to serve the same number of battery cars as ICEs needs five times the number of charging points as pumps, assuming equal mileage from battery vehicles as from an ICE car.

Five times 400kW is 2 MegaWatts. Now imagine a filling station with half a dozen pumps. If it goes electric, it will need 30 charging stations, and take 12 MegaWatts peak. This will require its own substation big enough to serve 2000 homes.

Unfortunately, electricity doesn't just pop up out of the ground under a charging point. Someone has to get it there, and that is likely to be expensive. If you wanted a 400kW charging point at your home, I guess you could have one, but it would probably cost more than the car to install the necessary infrastructure - cabling, transformers etc!

So far, the long charging times of today's batteries has disguised this problem, but it will become a lot more immediate if batteries get to be charged faster.

I am not saying your not right in claiming it will be difficult, but you are leaving a major variable out of your equation. No one now fills up their gasoline powered cars at home. For many folks with EVs the majority of their charging will be at home. So charging stations will not have to match the capacity of current gasoline pumps.

 

[Martin Williams]

I am not saying your not right in claiming it will be difficult, but you are leaving a major variable out of your equation. No one now fills up their gasoline powered cars at home. For many folks with EVs the majority of their charging will be at home. So charging stations will not have to match the capacity of current gasoline pumps.

I concede your point for local power stations. Indeed they may well have a hard time of it if home charging becomes really popular.

However, if you consider the European models where major trunk roads - Autobahns, motorways etc. have periodic refuelling points which typically may have 30 or more pumps, then the situation becomes worse as those roads are used for long journeys and people will often want a near full charge. In terms of charge points you might need 150 of them which might take a peak power of 60MW!

It is certainly do-able, but I suspect the cost would be such as to put the dream of cheap electrical motoring to sleep permanently. Even if the power came free, the capital cost of such an installation would make for a very expensive charging experience.

You will recall I mentioned that I assumed equal mileage from a charge. Clearly, if you get less mileage, you need more charging points. Thus if a battery gives you half the mileage of a full tank, you would need to double up on the above estimates.

I repeat there is nothing to stop this being done if that's what people want, but I think its as well to do some simple sums and see what is likely to be involved if BEVs became universal.

 

[Domenick]

In response to 30kW Leaf's post:

Ten minutes is five times longer than two minutes (which it takes me to fill my ICE) That means to serve the same number of battery cars as ICEs needs five times the number of charging points as pumps, assuming equal mileage from battery vehicles as from an ICE car.

Five times 400kW is 2 MegaWatts. Now imagine a filling station with half a dozen pumps. If it goes electric, it will need 30 charging stations, and take 12 MegaWatts peak. This will require its own substation big enough to serve 2000 homes.

This is why charging centers will have battery storage, so they don't spike demand from the grid.

But anyway, this is off the topic of internal combustion bans and more to do with the current shortcomings of batteries.
Yes, that was an intended pun. Apologies.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Ten minutes is five times longer than two minutes (which it takes me to fill my ICE) That means to serve the same number of battery cars as ICEs needs five times the number of charging points as pumps, assuming equal mileage from battery vehicles as from an ICE car.

There are two fallacies there:

(1) You are comparing minimum times, not average times. The average gasmobile driver doesn't pull away from the pump after only two minutes. A lot of customers go inside the convenience store to buy a soda and/or snack, and/or they may visit the rest room.

Furthermore, you're ignoring the "down time" for pumps sitting idle, after one customer stops pumping but before the next one starts. Most of the time, there are not lines of cars sitting and waiting to pull into the first available gas pump.

For both of these reasons, if we were to get down to about a 5 minute charge for BEVs, then the advantage to even faster charging starts to become more and more irrelevant.

(2) Most plug-in EV charging will continue to be slow charging. At the moment it's about 95%, altho with ultra-fast charging that might drop to 90% or perhaps even a bit less. Therefore, far fewer fast-charging stations will be needed than your numbers suggest. Pity the poor gasmobile driver, who doesn't have the convenience of charging up at home, and has to go to a gas station for a weekly fill up!

* * * * *

And, Martin, haven't we previously debunked these exact same EV-hater arguments from you? Aren't you once again deliberately ignoring facts and figures which you find "inconvenient" to your agenda of promoting the "hydrogen economy" hoax?
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[Roy_H]

They'll [gas stations] all have electricity chargers on their forecourts to sell stuff to EV drivers who will be captive for perhaps 30 minutes or more.

No they won't. The business model doesn't work for BEVs. People will charge at home, work, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels etc. but not at dedicated chargers unless there is no other option. Tesla has it right, Superchargers for highways, destination chargers everywhere else.

Gas stations will slowly go out of business, at any given time, people will drive farther to their local gas station to fill up, but the remaining stations will continue to sell in large volume and be able to keep prices down.

 

[Domenick]

No they won't. The business model doesn't work for BEVs. People will charge at home, work, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels etc. but not at dedicated chargers unless there is no other option. Tesla has it right, Superchargers for highways, destination chargers everywhere else.

Gas stations will slowly go out of business, at any given time, people will drive farther to their local gas station to fill up, but the remaining stations will continue to sell in large volume and be able to keep prices down.

Tesla has it right, for now. But, if charging speeds do make it to the 10-minute or less mark, then something close to the current gas station/convenience store model is saved.

 

[Roy_H]

Tesla has it right, for now. But, if charging speeds do make it to the 10-minute or less mark, then something close to the current gas station/convenience store model is saved.

Only if they can sell electricity competitively with home, shopping malls etc. Shopping malls, restaurants etc. will be willing to sell electricity at cost because this is an incentive to go to their prime business. Converted gas stations will want to make a profit on the electricity they sell. Maybe in areas where people can only park their cars on the street at night.

 

[Domenick]

Only if they can sell electricity competitively with home, shopping malls etc. Shopping malls, restaurants etc. will be willing to sell electricity at cost because this is an incentive to go to their prime business. Converted gas stations will want to make a profit on the electricity they sell. Maybe in areas where people can only park their cars on the street at night.

Good point, though gas stations now typically make very little from gas sales. Sometimes they even will lose money on gas sales, depending on the local market conditions and whether the attached convenience store does good business.

 

[Domenick]

Added Denmark to the list.

 

[Domenick]

Haven't updated this thread in a while, but with California quite possibly doing a 2035 ban on new ICE car sales is a pretty big deal. I feel like this is the kind of signal some of the straggling legacy automakers need to serve as a wake-up call (hello, FCA!). It's also telling buyers that they might want to think twice about buying a gas car because depreciation might be pretty bad by the time they're ready to trade it in on something new.

 

[SouthernDude]

Politicians in first-world countries are mostly just giving lip service to banning ICE vehicles. Contrariwise, the Chinese government is actually taking steps to do so! I'm not ready to chant "Go Chinese Communist government!", because it's a totalitarian regime, trampling its citizens and denying them human rights. But it's certainly true that when a totalitarian government decides to make something happen, then things move in that direction pretty quickly!

That point was also made in Frederik Pohl's novel Chernobyl, a novelization of the events surrounding that disaster. Centralized authority made it possible for the Soviets to react very quickly and decisively in response to the disaster.

I wouldn't trust a thing the Chinese communist party says. They still release a significant amount of ozone depleting chemicals and they are still building coal plants. They do a lot of things for show, but it never really amounts to any action. Anyone who tries to whistleblow gets taken out by authorities.

 

[briloop]

Haven't updated this thread in a while, but with California quite possibly doing a 2035 ban on new ICE car sales is a pretty big deal. I feel like this is the kind of signal some of the straggling legacy automakers need to serve as a wake-up call (hello, FCA!). It's also telling buyers that they might want to think twice about buying a gas car because depreciation might be pretty bad by the time they're ready to trade it in on something new.

I wouldn't be surprised, if someday, people who want to sell or otherwise dispose of an ICE vehicle, they will be required to pay a disposal fee.

 

[Domenick]

I wouldn't be surprised, if someday, people who want to sell or otherwise dispose of an ICE vehicle, they will be required to pay a disposal fee.

Yeah, that doesn't strike me as impossible, but I think it's smarter for the government to stick with regulating new vehicles like this. Makes it easier to build consensus with California residents. Put too much of the onus on them instead of manufacturers and it becomes more contentious.