Tesla and other electric cars drives parts of Norways electric net to its knees - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 07:14:30 am
content: Latest from Norway - electric companies having issues due to too many Tesala's with high power chargers. There are a lot of Tesla's in norway....https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tu.no%2Fartikler%2Fnettet-overbelastes-lamper-blinker-og-sikringer-ryker-elbilen-pekes-ut-som-syndebukk%2F408789%3Futm_source%3Dtu.no%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3Dfeed_most_read&edit-text=&act=urlOhh well that was bound to happen. I think London is next for Tesla flicker.Uptake here seems to grow fast.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 07:42:51 am
content: Yeah like who didn't think this would happen ?Time to restart some coal fired power stations ?

author: stmdude
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 08:49:01 am
content: Quote from: tautech on October 05, 2017, 07:42:51 amWouldn't help one bit, as it's the distribution net that is overloaded. The energy companies simply didn't plan for this amount of power being consumed way out at an endpoint (aka, house).What I find really interesting is that they're running into this issue with "only" 4% of the cars in Norway being electric.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 09:42:34 am
content: Quote from: stmdude on October 05, 2017, 08:49:01 amI think the electric companies dont plan for anything ever. They are acting like the firefighters.I'm fighting a different issue at work. Too many solar installations cause the voltage to increase, at some point the inverters have to switch off to avoid overvoltage. This decreases the voltage for others, who can switch on, and they start bouncing on-off until the situation changes. Some people loose 50-100 EUR a year because of this, sometimes even without knowing about it.Of course instead of replacing the cables with just thicker cables, they want software solution. Great planning. They cannot predict simple things, like: In 5 years we will switch off this powerplant. It takes 5 years to build a new one. When do you need to start building a new power plant:A) When the lobbyist gives me moneyB) After the catastrophic failures start happeningC) Right now? No that cant be right.There is a strategic system for a country, the power grid. If the grid goes down, GDP goes negative. So it makes total sense, to sell these systems to private operators driven by profit. For example, the USA loses 33 Billion USD every year because power outage. I wonder, if you would spend that money on the power grid, make it redundant and resilient, move it underground where needed, if that would pay back. In a year.I went to Croatia for a vacation this year, to an island (with a bridge to mainland EU). 3 out of 10 evenings, the power went down for 30+ minutes. Are you kidding me? What is this, early 19 century?

author: stmdude
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 10:09:53 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 05, 2017, 09:42:34 amThey just did this is Sweden a few years ago, as we had some storms that tore the grid to shreds (I was without power for 5 days. That was fun). Well, at least the "move it underground" part.Thing is. I doubt they planned for the increase in demand, so if we end up having the same issue as Norway (highly likely), they'd have to dig everything up again to put down bigger cables. ( I live in a rural area, so putting cables underground is as elegant as digging a ditch, toss in the cable and cover it with dirt )

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 10:23:47 am
content: Here in the UK i do have a 100A/230v single phase supply. That would power a Tesla big charger - but I think if more than 5% of properties here had Tesla's - we would get brownouts.On my road we are at 2 1/2% Tesla's.... 2 more Tesla's and I think we will have troubleat peak hours.Tesla's are very much "In" in London as you do not have to pay congestion charge to drive in central London. With prepay Congestion Charge cost GBP 10/day (US$13) - so 200 working days a year - GBP 2000/US$2600 to drive in central London.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2017, 03:07:08 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 05, 2017, 09:42:34 amThere are bits of Britain like that, 3KM from my home I can visit a friend who has a gas lantern hanging from his ceiling because the electricity supply is carried by overhead cables, they 'trip' the pole fuses when it's windy, he's 200M from an area where houses are owned by Premier League footballers and regularly sell for several million pounds so it's not an undeveloped part of the country.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 09:14:03 am
content: Elsewhere I've analysed the mass electric car charging scenario, and shown that each one is equivalent to about three UK homes.The Greens want us to all go electric, AND they want to charge them from wind turbines, which only supply about a fifth of the present demand.Then, they want to make the batteries double as a reserve for the Grid.Somebody, please loan them a nixie-tube calculator.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 11:21:37 am
content: The fast chargers are a problem to the distribution net. They just need a lot of power compared to normal households and there is a good chance that some neighborhoods are ahead in going electric. So the only 4% number of cars converted is misleading. Some sub-stations will likely already see more than 20% maybe even more than 50% electric cars.With so much power needed they will have to make the chargers / grids smarter: slow down or delay charging if there is no enough power available locally and charge an extra price if the uses insist on fast charging. If done smart, the chargers might even stabilize the grid. If done the stupid way they can break it, even in a grid with otherwise very good conditions.Norway would not need new coal power stations - if at all more hydroelectric and maybe wind. But the current problem seems to be a local grid problem. So more like additional / larger transformers and a few more lines.

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 11:51:18 am
content: IIRC, in Norway electric cars were heavily subsidized in order to promote sales. I can't help but think that they maybe got caught by surprise that they sold so many more than they had planned to do.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 04:37:25 pm
content: I think the electric car charging problem is pretty predictable. I was commenting about it 15 years ago, about why everyone having an electric car is not viable, just purely considering the power demand for charging them.It's very clear. If a car charger is going to draw 10 or 20 kW continuously for several hours overnight, and every house is going to have one of these chargers installed (or more than one charger for multi-car families), then the distribution network absolutely cannot handle that demand. The existing network is sized for much lower average power demands than that, probably 10% of that.Consider that in hot parts of the USA the power grid is already stressed during the day by people running air conditioners, and they use far less power than car chargers.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 05:10:52 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on October 07, 2017, 04:37:25 pmNot viable if power production and distribution network remains the same. I don't see why it cannot be viable given there is a time for them to be upgraded. It is still more efficient to burn fossil fuel at power station and charge electric car than to burn fossil fuel in ICE located directly in the car. IMO the most efficient way would be to charge batteries directly at power plant and swap them at filling station.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 05:15:03 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on October 07, 2017, 05:10:52 pmThis part is true, but the necessary upgrades will be expensive, which will cause electricity prices to increase.

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 05:17:30 pm
content: Localised batteries may help in the short term. Longer term is going to be a major headache for national network infrastructure.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 05:54:46 pm
content: Quote from: stmdude on October 05, 2017, 10:09:53 amIgnoring legacy, I wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to simply have PVC pipe big enough to walk through below each public street to install everything in. I wouldn't be surprised if you could pay for it simply to save digging up a street one extra time for not having it.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 06:22:57 pm
content: Quote from: RGB255_0_0 on October 07, 2017, 05:17:30 pmBig time headache !A while back while having a chat with my Dr. EE buddy, he told me how his Tech institute had asked a power network design engineer to address the EE students.Specifically the design spec for urban subdivision was discussed and theknowingof them were shocked to learn that a 6KW average/household was all that was allowed for.Little wonder that the population is encouraged into denser/closer living arrangements of flats and apartments where it's not practical to own or find parking for a private vehicle.Instead the local authorities and corporates will have fleets of E vehicles for hire by swipe card, all in little ranks waiting for customers and able to be reserved for an inflated price.Just hope there's one available when you want one.

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 06:29:56 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on October 07, 2017, 05:54:46 pmA brand new subdivision i my town is built with a culvert system. A culvert (2.5 m diameter) is used for electricity, fiber, water, central heating, domestic trash suction system and sewage is used for the whole subdivision. The plan is for this system to last for more than 100 years.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 07:34:43 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on October 07, 2017, 06:22:57 pmWith sufficient land available building up is not economically interesting. Which most first world countries have, in theory. If it weren't for our governments selling us to global political interests. New Zealand being one of the absolute champions, your country is being literally given away to foreigners.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 08:05:47 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on October 07, 2017, 07:34:43 pmTell me about it.Over the next few days a new MMP govt will be formed here with the minor party having strong views on foreign ownership and immigration. One of theirbottomlines is to address this andregaincontrol of our country which will make things very interesting over the next few months/years. Our NZ exchange rate is pretty sensitive to any talk of curbing foreign investment and it goes duck diving as confidence diminishes. Good for primary exporters but not so for anything we need to import.Anyways, we need be careful this doesn't turn into a political debate as it's frowned upon on the forum.

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 08:09:33 pm
content: the problem wouldnt exist in the first place if utility companies would take the collected income and do the upgrading of the infrastructure what they charge for. here we pay a big sum for this and they do nothing unless a storm shreds the overhead uninsulated cables to shreds 3phase+neutral on every street approx 5-6 meters in the air, which by design greatly undersized for the load they get nowadays

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 08:28:23 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on October 07, 2017, 08:05:47 pmSo tax exporters, oh wait that's expropriation of the foreigners owning your exporting industry ... ISDS says hi. That is New Zealand's problem, even people who fight the symptoms in government aren't allowed to mention the causes and what is truly necessary to solve it. International agreements have locked the first world into a death spiral, with some temporary take all winners in a race to the bottom, there can be no escape without taking the blinders off.Any way, energy is political ... there is no escaping it.

author: zl2wrw
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2017, 04:01:18 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 05, 2017, 09:42:34 amIf the grid connection at each solar inverter looks like it has an inductive reactive characteristic (inductance of transmission lines, leakage reactance of transformers etc), then each solar inverter can have some influence on voltage by either sinking or sourcing reactive power (sink VAr to reduce the voltage and source VAr to increase the voltage - like adjusting excitation on the synchronous alternators in a power station...). Think of it as a distributed STATCOM.Replacing all the cables (and distribution transformers etc) would be rather expensive. "Smart grid" with peak demand charges (just like AMD & RCPD charges for large commercial/industrial customers) would help "encourage" customers to spread their loads out throughout the day (and slow charge electric cars during off-peak times instead of fast charging them during on-peak times)Quote from: Marco on October 07, 2017, 08:28:23 pmSovereign nations can renegotiate, withdraw from or denunciate treaties (other treaty parties might not want to trade with them as a result, but ISDS isn't exactly going to send an invasion force...)

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2017, 01:31:50 pm
content: Quote from: zl2wrw on October 08, 2017, 04:01:18 amYes, using reactive power is reducing this problem. But you need to control the inverters and synchronize the whole thing with smartness. Its complicated. And it doesnt really solve the issue. Also, they want to encourage auto-consumption. Which is retarded, the best case senario is some 0,2% power reduction, and huge inconvenience.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2017, 07:01:46 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on October 07, 2017, 05:10:52 pmMeh, their capacity is still too bloody tiny. Full electric are presently for value signalling (with an ICE backup) and hippies ... maybe in the future they will be forced on poor people, but with current battery tech they will never be truly popular. Develop Lithium-Air and/or Aluminium-Air batteries before making this whole switch over, they will allow vastly different and far more comfortable use cases.If aluminium-air batteries and their reconditioning (with ionic liquid electrolysis for the Aluminium) could get say 75% round trip energy efficiency we can just forget about rechargeable batteries. Just standardize the batteries and have a robot replace them at the gas station (also make them modular and light enough they can be exchanged by hand if necessary with a little mechanical help or 2 men).

author: hendorog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2017, 07:45:10 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on October 07, 2017, 04:37:25 pmAll that is required is for the demand to be a bit smarter. Fast charging overnight is an oxymoron. Overnight charging should be slow by definition. Simple variable pricing which already exists is the way to solve it. Just expose the customers to the variable pricing.The average draw just needs to replace the average daily consumption, which is probably in the 10kWh - 20kWh range - based on a quick google on consumption/km and a 60km commute.So based on that you have all night to charge 20kWh - which is 10 hours at 2kW, which is the same as running an electric heater all night. I think the grid will cope with that.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2017, 10:07:41 pm
content: Quote from: hendorog on October 08, 2017, 07:45:10 pmThe nice thing is that it is fairly easy to work out based on published figures rather than guesswork and I did some back of envelope calculations a while agoIn the UK there are approx 240 billion vehicle miles travelled by car per year (2016 figures)1Assuming 3 miles per kWh that would need 80 billion kWh if it were all in EVsDaily electricity demand varies from a trough of around 26GW to a peak of around 50GW2- Generating capacity in 2015 was just over 78GW380 trillion WH is 219 billion WH per day, if this were delivered in 8 hours overnight that would add 28GW to demand for those 8 hours. Let's say this is 10pm - 6am - demand is still quite high 10pm-midnight (low 30's of GW) so the peak demand would increase to something like 60GW which is significantly higher than currently but the grid as it stands could probably deliver on overnight charging.If, on the other hand, the charging was all done in the 8 hours from 9am - 5pm the grid would be at the point of collapse.The trouble is that, AIUI, grid capacity is set to fall as elderly fossil fuel stations are decommissioned and not replaced - or rather replaced with renewables. There are worries about meeting current demand - much less the roughly 27% increase that 100% EV penetration would bring.Edit: PS the above assumes commercial traffic continues to use fossil fuels.https://www.licencebureau.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/road-use-statistics.pdfTotal vehicle miles is plausible, given 28 million private vehicles that is about 8500 miles per vehicle per year which seems reasonable and ties in with other published figures.http://www2.nationalgrid.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8589939291https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/633779/Chapter_5.pdf

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 06:42:58 am
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on October 08, 2017, 10:07:41 pmGreat calculations thanks - but there is a huge difference is what is produced and what is actually delivered to customers- so add about on average 40% in delivery cost/losses. So when you use 10A they probably have to generate around 14A on average. Then add another 10-20% for energy losses during charging as no charge cycle is 100% efficient. So I think realistically divide the 1kW/3miles with factor 1.5 or 1.6.The other issue is the capacity from transformer station to the endpoint. Just because someone have like me a 100A circuit - does not mean I and all my neighbours can pull 100A continuously (or even 1/2 or 1/3 - or even 1/5)I think the "close to consumer" distribution points are the main bottlenecks. And worst places are old cities with very old infrastructure or "remote" villages where infrastructure is expensive to get all the way. New'ish city suburbs is probably the best areas.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 06:57:54 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on October 09, 2017, 06:42:58 amWhile you are completely correct in that I didn't really account for losses they are not, I think, as high as you suggest - OFGEN gives a figure significantly less than 10% for grid losses, for example.I think you have a very valid point about the "last mile" though which I suspect isnotsized for everyone pulling an extra 20-30kWh overnight.One point in all of this is that it is all very well making 24 hour demand flat - or even pushing the peak demand around midnight unless you are relying on solar for a good proportion of your capacity

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 07:12:33 am
content: I hope everyone knows, that the solution is obvious. You need to place smart (and not fast) chargers at your workplace. Which will charge the car with solar, during the day. You need to encourage the companies to install this, and the employees to use it. For example price reduction for the electricity, incentives, tax free stuff. And install solar panels.In the meantime, they need to work on the low voltage network. This "sun is shining too high, car charging too low" means they need more cabling. It is really not the consumers problem, but the DSO-s.

author: voltsandjolts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 07:57:22 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 09, 2017, 07:12:33 amNorway is a beautiful country but from what I remember there isn't a whole lot of sun in winter.Edit: Added quote to clarify what I was responding to.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 08:14:57 am
content: Quote from: voltsandjolts on October 09, 2017, 07:57:22 am"Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from hydropower plants."Well my solution still stands. And it is applicable to the other countries with the electric car "problem".

author: hendorog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 08:16:42 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 09, 2017, 08:14:57 amMy solution made your solution completely unnecessary several posts back

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 08:26:20 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 09, 2017, 07:12:33 amYeah, if you live somewhere with high insolation perhaps lots of local solar charging during the day would work.Not sure the UK is such a place.As noted above the grid will not cope with significant amounts of charging during the day as things stand.

author: fcb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 09:40:35 am
content: I think you're all being a little negative about the situation and the future. I've lived with an EV for over two years now, and I've had a hand in designing some of the chargers for them, so have been pretty immersed in the field.Outside of Norway, the uptake as a % of total is small (although China is the one to watch), it's growing for sure, but it looks like the car manufacturers will win in delaying the switch to 100% EV with mild hybridisation for sometime to come. Will we all be buying EV in the future - yes, in the next 5 years no. Mild plug in's aren't a big threat to the grid.Chargers are getting more intelligent. The vast majority of KWh's delivered to EV's are from home, in the evening - I have the data to back this up. Next is workplace charging and that is intelligent (we can do active load management, load-balancing, remote grid control etc..), all this goes to protect the local grid and works now. Home chargers will have this capability next year, and you can throttle the car charger comfortably from 1.5KW to 7.2KW (& off) in around a second, and this functionality will probably be mandated in the next couple of years.In my experience (40,000 miles +) you use something like 0.250KWh per mile travelled, so a 10 hour charge (most UK chargers are 32A) you'd be able to pump 288 miles of range overnight - but the reality is you might only need 40 miles, so you can charge at a couple of KW easily.Local storage is becoming a thing. This is taking off surprisingly quickly, the uptake could be higher than solar panels and there are some inventive tariff's and financing options in the works, this could pretty much turn the entire grid into 'base load'. V2G might have well have the same effect and may well be mandatory in the next few years. Car manufacturers WILL become energy companies.Apart from Norway (with it's super high tax on ICE) I have seen no evidence of a problem now or any panic/concern from the network operators.

author: Avacee
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 09:42:15 am
content: I posted this link from the UK's National Grid in another thread but seems relevant here:http://fes.nationalgrid.com/media/1253/final-fes-2017-updated-interactive-pdf-44-amended.pdfIt's the National Grid's long-term projections of energy demand.Section 5.3 specifically mentions the increase in Peak Demand from the charging of electric vehicles.In essence the UK needs 5 more Nuclear Power Stations the size of Hinckley (which took years to agree, will take years to bring online and thanks to our incompetent government signing one of the stupidest and most financially crippling agreements in history will be financial millstone around the neck of consumers for 50+ years). The UK can't expect many more Nuclear Plants in the short-term.Unsurprisingly the report also states that the National Grid needs to spend a considerable amount of money upgrading current infrastructure to cope with the increase in electricity usage (and doubt bigger director's bonuses, etc)

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 09:59:54 am
content: Quote from: hendorog on October 09, 2017, 08:16:42 amSolar power has an exponential growth, and it will replace the mayority of power generation. Simply because the economics, and it is not an IF, it is a WHEN question. And sun is only up during the day. So you need to charge your car during the day. And current society is still based around the ancient and stupid 1930 ways, when we are at work during the day.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 10:09:49 am
content: Quote from: fcb on October 09, 2017, 09:40:35 amI appreciate that you have much more expertise in this field than I do but, however intelligent the charger, the overall increase in demand needs to be met - It can be managed to reduce the impact but it still needs to be met.Don't forget that people do not just commute, longer journeys are undertaken and with 100% penetration into car use then there will be a lot of light commercial use as well so my back of envelope calculations are probably under the mark by 25-30%. Also your pattern of EV use does not necessarily map to the general case.All of this against a background of reducing generating capacity.I think it will be quite a challenge to manage.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 10:14:11 am
content: Quote from: fcb on October 09, 2017, 09:40:35 amAnd when every house has an EV or two, some of them three?When somebody needs to do 300 miles in a day and you don't know if the car is going to charge up enough overnight because the charger might have throttled back the charge rate?I know that's an extreme case but it's not that out there, fact of the matter is that EV is still not a great solution for a tank of fuel that can be replaced in a couple of minutes.Until we can work out a way of dumping the huge amounts of energy required into a car in minutes, EV will remain a poor alternative.I do not know what the answer is and know that a hydrocarbon transport solution isn't sustainable but can't for the life of me think of a viable alternative that won't cause massive social upheaval (people being effectively forced to give up personal transportation).

author: ludzinc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 10:25:02 am
content: Quick Question:Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work. (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?Not a very practical idea at all....

author: fcb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 11:11:54 am
content: Quote from: CJay on October 09, 2017, 10:14:11 amSo a couple of weekends ago (with no planning whatsoever), my wife and I took off in a 2017 i3REX (range extender) to the Sussex/Kent coast. The i3 has 130 miles on battery and around 90 miles on petrol. We did ~320 miles and alot of it at speed (so the range is reduced), we filled up once with petrol (£10.47) and once with electric (45mins 30.9KWh, ECOTRICITY £8.25), got back with about a half tank of petrol. So cheaper than taking our frugal diesel Audi estate and if had known where we were going in-advance I could have planned a charge on before the range extender kicked in and used pure electricity.Charging infrastructure for long distances has improved in the UK, still away to go, but it's happening. The car ranges have nearly doubled in the last two years. The first non-subsidised solar farm (Flitwick, UK, 10MW) opened last month. New wind turbines generate 50x more power per device than in the 90's.I don't doubt that there are some major challenges to deal with, but the rate of increase in renewable generation and storage is going to solve alot of these problems before they bite.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 11:18:35 am
content: Quote from: ludzinc on October 09, 2017, 10:25:02 amJust using the parking lot, you can install half a megawatt capacity. Standard parking space is about 2.5mx5m plus road, total area is around 10.000 sqm. For a 1MW plant you need around 20.000 sqm. It is not the required capacity, but a good start. It would cost around half a million to make it, plus chargers. That is 1000 EUR/USD/AUD/Deutsche mark per employee, AKA almost nothing for the company. Say one week salary. Chargers are also cheap, they start from 500.And solar panels are worth it alone.

author: fcb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 11:25:58 am
content: Quote from: ludzinc on October 09, 2017, 10:25:02 amSo you are saying that the average for your site is an 40 mile each-way commute??? Seems high as an average.Most drivers will charge at home before they leave for work (it will likely be cheaper for them to do so), those that live in flats without easy to access to charging can charge at work (and will pay for this). Also, the site would likely have battery storage (it would pay to do so, so there would be a way to finance it) to even out the load on the site transformer. If they could fit solar, great, the price is dropping very quickly - and the offset from getting rid of the CO2 of 500 workers driving 80 miles a day would be substantial.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 11:45:56 am
content: Quote from: fcb on October 09, 2017, 11:11:54 amYour petrol powered hybrid is a good example of why a pure EV is a viable substitute for a petrol/diesel powered car?I may be being somewhat picky here but I have a nagging feeling that there's a teeny logical flaw in your argument.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 12:06:54 pm
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on October 09, 2017, 06:57:54 amok lets lower Grid loss to 10-15% - but I read up on Tesla efficiency (so energy used to refill a Tesla after use) - so socket output vs battery consumption is in the 70-80% efficiency. (So use 10kW - refill the lost capacity) - about 10% is lost in charger and another 10% lost in battery technology (roughly). Figures are from Tesla's forums where people have measured with different degree of efficiency. It is probably also the old 18650 batteries and not the new ones. If you do not charge the battery all the way to 100% your charge efficiency will probably be better. But the examples from Tesla's forums was not 100% recharge.so best case - 10% distribution + 20% charge lossworst case 15% distribution + 30% charge lossYou can't directly add the percentages as they are taken from different parts of the calculation:1000 from plant10% delivery loss = 100Net 900 delivered to client20% charge loss = 180Net 720 delivered to cars batterySo in total there best case about 28% loss from power plant generatedFor worst case :1000 from plant150 distribution lossNet 850 delivered to client30% charge loss = 255Net 595 delivered to car.So roughly anywhere between 28% to 41% loss from production before capacity is in your battery.---And regarding Watt/km/mile - The best Tesla drivers seem to get around 250 Wh/mile - most says around 300-330 Wh/km (Tesla S'ssss) - and those with heavy feet or AC/Heater consumption for large parts of the year are closer to 400 Wh/mile. But based on the how to drive--I'm not against Tesla's or electric cars - I love them!But I do not drive enough miles to have one (driven about 90 miles since March). So in my case Petrol is cheaper / mile than a Tesla as I do not have to keep battery charged every day.... (Battery loss/Vampire Drain/24x365 consumption is about 30w on a Tesla S - or battery drain as per Tesla manual is about 1% per day)

author: fcb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2017, 01:06:26 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on October 09, 2017, 11:45:56 amAbout 33,000 electric miles has been in 22KW Renault Zoe's (around 100 mile range), the remainder in i3REX's and a Tesla SP100DLI absolutely never said they are perfect. But they are the future and getting better very rapidly. Had the charging infrastructure been a little betterorI had actually planned the Kent coast trip, then the range extender wouldn't have been required.At somepoint early next year I and my family will be 100% electric, we are largely there now - If not for any other reason than cost saving (I have a charger at work also and the govt. hasn't started billing electricity as a BIK 'benefit-in-kind').

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2017, 12:37:26 am
content: Quote from: CJay on October 09, 2017, 10:14:11 amIn a freer market then you would pay more to charge at your convenience and pay less to charge at the convenience of generators, so access to the additional energy you hadn't scheduled/announced in advance would cost more per unit. One of the challenges is that the electricity market in most countries is a crude single price structure or fixed time of day tariffs, neither of which work when you have fluctuating demand and supply. At the moment this is absorbed by expensive peaking plants and then spread across everyones bills, but if you could access the fluctuating wholesale market and use V2G or other storage then you could end up well ahead.

author: ludzinc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2017, 11:56:08 am
content: Quote from: fcb on October 09, 2017, 11:25:58 amAgree 40 mile (50kM?) is a high average each way trip. My total commute for work is 50km, so that halves all my ballpark maths right there - but I've also assumed 100% efficiency too, so, meh.Still - crazy amounts of power needed. Just shows how much energy there is in a car's fuel tank....

author: ludzinc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2017, 12:04:17 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 09, 2017, 11:18:35 amGoogling shows solar system here in Oz run about $1 - $2 / Watt. So lets say it's $1k per kW. For 500kW that's $500k - $1M - same ballpark as what you're stating.But10,000 sqm is a LOT of area - a Large house block is 1000sqm, so you are needing 10 *generous* house block sized areas. What's the cost of those? $50k per 1000sqm for industrial areas, $1M for the same in the heart of the city?And to simple think a company will think that scale of investment is a no-brainer, I'd beg to differ.Yes - solar on rooftops help offsets the need for land area, but it's not a simple or cheap solution really.Here in South Australia they are *finally* building thermal solar in the desert, so finally there's solar that can support base load.But thinking businesses will be able to put this infrastructure in place? No way!

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2017, 01:00:11 pm
content: I just converted the entire parking lot into solar roof. It is there anyway, unless you have a multi stock parking garage, which is unlikely, since it is (probably) more expensive than land.It is not magic. I look out of the window, I see 9*4 solar panels on a tracker, above my car. It is a tracker, an old one, installed probably a decade ago. Already payed back itself. Few meters away, there is another tracker. The top of the building is covered with solar of course. There are 4 parking places with chargers. According to google maps, almost all the buildings in this industrial park has solar panels on it.Its not the question of how would you. Why the hell wouldn't you?The thing is. People can say it is impossible, unpractical and all the Luddite negativity. EU nations are already banning petrol and diesel cars. In Germany you can only buy electric in 2030. China wants to ban combustion engine. What will you buy then? A Tuktuk? Rubbish american cars? This is how the car exports look like:preatty much everything on the left marked blue will became electric in about 10 years. Just because they dont want to miss out from the markets, like germany, where the average car owner replaces the car as soon as the 5 year lease runs out. Or the french market, where after 5 years they fall apart.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2017, 03:54:53 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 10, 2017, 01:00:11 pmWell, I'm looking out of my office window now at the excavations for a new multi storey car park so I'd say, at least here, the land is more expensive than the structure.I hope we go electric, I really do, but in built up areas I can see so many down sides to the schemes I just don't see how it will work, there needs to be a hybrid alternative, if that's alcohol, CNG, LPG, Hydrogen, potatoes, I don't know.To make it viable there's a ridiculous amount of investment required in the infrastructure and/or some incredible advance in the technology.

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2017, 10:22:33 am
content: I'm a little bit stunned about the ignorant (I mean that in the nicest way) math in this thread. No, EVs are not adding that much generation load to the grid. And you're making some kind of massive instantaneous change fallacy. EV penetration is not going to increase massively in a short amount of time.First of all; the original post was about distribution network load. Not generation capacity. There's plenty of energy storage and generation capacity in Norway to handle much, MUCH higher EV penetration. It's all about the wires actually delivering the energy, and then only to relative fast-chargers. And then only to locations previously not outfitted with heater outlets.Secondly; we already have 100% functional, 40-year tested overnight EV charging infrastructure in Scandinavia. It's called mantle heaters. These suck about 10-15kWh per day just to keep the fuel and coolant from freezing. That's well in excess of average energy need for cars. In winter, they service about 30-35% of all the cars at once. This is a solved energy distribution problem. You do that with thicker cables (typ. 250/300A), which cost very little extra on top of regular 100/133A LV three-phase distribution cable.Thirdly; no, total energy demand will not go up appreciably. Say we invent a country with only passenger cars that has an average 100M vehicle kilometers per year demand at 15km/L, so 6.7M litres of gasoline per year. At 150Wh/km, that's going to be replaced by 15GWh of electricity. Say we lose 20% in transmission, distribution and charging (substitute whatever you think is right, I'll stick by TenneT's numbers + tesla chargers), that gives us 19GWh primary electricity remand.A US gallon of gasoline requires about 6kWh to be produced (https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html<--read for more context). We are displacing 6.7M L = 1.8M gal = 10.8GWh of refining/mining/distribution electricity cost. Total energy increase is thus only about a third.But wait, there's more! The vast majority of charging does not happen at peak times, and electric grids (as well as generation) does not care about anything but peak demand as far as limits on the infrastructure go. Smart charging will further perform demand response on actual generation capacity to smooth out capacity. This leads to the assertion by most grid infra experts that most likely, no generation additions are required at all even for a 100% transition to electric road vehicles. At most, average energy increase numbers around 10% is what I see in literature. Not even the 50% you'd expect.So, now you say: but what about the distribution network? Didn't we just discuss that being overloaded by Teslas in Norway?Generation, transmission and distribution are sized to peak loads, not average loads. Because there is practically no demand response and no energy storage on the grid, generators have to modulate their electric output to instantaneous demand, which fluctuates quite widely. Here's a very typical dispatch curve for instance:The first dotted line is average minimum load, the second is average and the third is peak. The very rightmost part of the graph, near 80GW, is still 25% over the typical peak and in most systems you can go over that a decent bit more before tripping anything if the load is sufficiently distributed. This means at any time of the day, only about 40-50% of dispatchable generation is actually online and most of the reserve just sits there for a few days of the year (or in case of the top 10% of generation: a few *hours* per year) when for some reason demand peaks that high.So if you look at the integral demand on the grid, and this goes for both generation and distribution, it is at most maybe 20-25% of actual peak, we-run-this-baby-all-the-time capacity. There is plenty more juice to be strangled from the grid with literally zero upgrades, just by distributing demand into less problematic parts of the day.This is the *big* opportunity for battery storage. Batteries have way too low energy density to do seasonal storage, but they are awesome for load-shifting a couple of hours. Then, instead of overloading the grid during peak hours and paying a higher price for electricity as a result (and possibly requiring massive upgrades), you actually consume that energy from the grid at low-demand times. This increases generator value as well over the entire day, alleviating some other intermittency issues with especially renewables and nuclear as well.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2017, 04:28:03 pm
content: Quote from: mux on October 14, 2017, 10:22:33 amThanks for the input. I have checked our 2002 built London suburb - and our distribution station is calculated to 8kW peak per household - and a lot of households (3/4's) have electric floor heat and electric water heaters. Everyone have 100A "input" - but according to builders we are already seeing issues with hitting close to peak in the coldest winter days.2nd input - batteries - there is still a cost to charge and discharge a battery. Most commercial stations have between 1000-5000 full charge cycles as stated capacity. So just putting in batteries can be a good idea for short time balancing - but it does have a cost associated with it. So probably batteries have to be replaced every 10'ish years with current technology.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2017, 09:07:34 pm
content: Quote from: mux on October 14, 2017, 10:22:33 am100 million km per year is very low - private car mileage in the UK is 240billionmilesor nearly 400 billion km. Norway had 2,662,910 private cars in 2016 - at 10,000km per vehicle per year that is 20 billion km, so for Norway you need to multiply your power needed figures by 200. OK maybe less if you have good evidence for a lower average annual mileage but even for a small country your figures are not realistic.150Wh per km is also on the low side for fuel used, the median estimate is more like 200Wh/km.You are right, of course, that EV penetration into the market is low at present but with the UK pledging to ban diesel and petrol cars and vans after 2040 you are looking at almost 100% penetration by the mid 2050's - heck I might even still be alive by then so it is not really that far away.And, of course, you are correct in that there is plenty of time to plan generating capacity but new projects take anything from 5 to 15 years to come on stream (Hinckley Point C has a forecast of 2025-2027 before it starts generating, for instance, having been granted a site licence in 2012). If anything the current trend in generating capacity is downward (again speaking for the UK alone).But a back of the envelope calculation suggests that even if charging were limited to off peak hours UK peak demand would still increase compared with today so if the government in the UK continues to push EV's to the point of 100% market penetration without planning generating capacity to match it will be a disaster.Given the UK government's track record in providing infrastructure in the face of slowly but predictably growing demand (housing - chronically under supplied for 20 years and now in crisis; school places - under supplied for 10 years and now nearly in crisis) I am not convinced disaster will be averted.That said I agree it should be manageable, especially with a bit of imagination. Let's face it, it's not as if demand is going to go up tenfold - but we just can't sleepwalk to 100% EV use without planning for the extra power needed.

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 09:10:21 am
content: Note that my 100M v-km/yr example was just an example to show the order of magnitude. Much of why I called it an invented country. 19GWh is also an almost-no amount of energy (on the scale of a country). Typical countries consume tens to thousands of TWh primary. Regardless of everything, the calculation is only there to show the relatively small aggregate impact on generation.But regardless of the generation capacity argument, which I consider not a problem at all due to the timescales, the real kicker in my opinion is still distribution capacity. That is nigh-unsolvable in the short term. Likely, people will have to be slow-charging at home for the coming decade or two. Or build massive home batteries to quick-charge, then trickle-charge the buffer. I mean, with the price trends on batteries, that doesn't even seem so far-fetched.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 03:22:39 pm
content: "But wait, there's more! The vast majority of charging does not happen at peak times, and electric grids (as well as generation) does not care about anything but peak demand as far as limits on the infrastructure go. Smart charging will further perform demand response on actual generation capacity to smooth out capacity. "The majority of charging WILL be required just after the rush hour when commuters get home. I can't see them being happy with a situation where they have to wait until maybe 3am when the smart meter decides the can have some charge. Especially if that might not happen, so they end up not getting to work the next day.A worse situation arises if only a partial charge is delivered. In that case the owner has to either take a gamble on the range being enough to get to work and maybe risk being stranded, or else face the boss's wrath for not turning up at work.If the official charger can't be relied on, then an alternative will be found. The alternative won't be so convenient to the Grid operators. It might also be decidedly unsafe.

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 10:23:09 pm
content: That's just not a very realistic view on matters. You don't need a perfectly filled tank of gas every time you leave for work. Likewise, you don't nearly need a fully charged EV every morning. For the vast, vast, vast majority of people, delayed charging will be advantageous. For cars that have severe range limitations, delivering a full charge will be no problem as their batteries are necessarily tiny.Because we're not talking about now, we're talking about a decently far-off future where EV penetration is so high that it WOULD actually strain generation and distribution if charging were to happen all at once. So utilities will be incentivizing deferred charging and grid compensation in some way or another.You can't mix current and future realities and say it's going to be a massive problem when 70MPH highway speeds are introduced among all those horse-drawn carriages. Change and adaptation happens in tandem.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 07:07:40 am
content: Quote from: mux on October 31, 2017, 10:23:09 pmI might not need a full tank of fuel every morning but at the moment, I have the ability to top up my tank of fuel in a couple of minutes should I discover that it's empty or that I need to travel further than the available fuel will allow.As with every proponent of pure EVs you don't have a very realistic view on life, you all very conveniently neglect the length of time it takes to charge an EV compared to the length of time it takes to 'charge' an IC car fuel tank, that length of time, lengthened by the charging schemes which 'ration' charge make an EV a liability.EVs in one form or another are the future but until problems like that are solved then they're a pain in the arse.

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 09:45:09 am
content: But again, you too seem to have this really weird view of the world. Think critically about the actual problems you are trying to solve and the scale of those problems.A very, very tiny minority of people will have a completely empty tank of electrons at the end of the day.A tiny minority of those people need it to be completely full at the start of the next, possibly in a reduced amount of timeAn even tinier minority will have a car that cannot cope with the range it will get even with a deferred charging scheme.And even if that happens, there are quick chargers that will happily top off the missing 5-10% in a minute. Not five, not ten, not half an hour, just one minute at a fast charger. How is that inconvenient compared to having to ALWAYS drive up to a gas station in the current state of the world?And when you don't have your own car at the ready because you somehow managed to turn off automatic overnight charging which you have to do literally nothing for except park your car... you just get a self-driving taxi. It'll be there 5 minutes later than your own car, sure, but at least you have the option.This kind of edge-case thinking really only exists in the minds of people trying to find the absolute worst-case situation and pretending that generalizes to all cars. It's just not a thing. Nobody has this problem, nor will anybody in a future with high EV penetration.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 10:33:33 am
content: Nope, that's not the case at all, it's not a 'weird view of the world' to imagine people wanting to be able to jump into a car and to be able to go where they want when they want because that's exactly what people do already without having to wait hours for a battery to charge or hope that the grid had capacity to fully refill their electron bucket the night before.What happens when you wake up on a day off, look outside and see it's a beautiful day so you decide to go for a drive in the countryside or to the sea but find your EV hasn't charged past 25% because the charger decided the grid didn't have the capacity?It is a nonsense to take the freedom a tank of diesel, gas, LPG, hydrogen, alcohol etc. etc. gives away from people, regardless of how that fuel is used, IC engine or Fuel cell, as yet there simply is no EV technology that can put that much energy into a vehicle in a comparable time (hint, even 15 minutes is too long for many people).I agree, EVs should/probably/will work just fine for the daily commute and local shopping, far better than an IC engined (or even fuel cell) vehicle, but they are a very poor alternative if you want a life outside of that commute *UNTIL* such time as they can be 'refuelled' in a comparable time to a vehicle that carries a tank of fuel.Some sort of battery swap technology might make it palatable but even that seems fraught with problems...

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 11:04:40 am
content: Quote from: CJay on November 01, 2017, 10:33:33 amOr even just want to undertake a longer journey than usual.Most of my current commute is easily within range of an EV, I might need a full charge only once per week, but there was a time I was doing 650 miles per week to and from work.However not infrequently I travel 300 miles+ in a single journey which is out of the range of EV's at present. Since we tend to drive into France for holidays occasional journeys of 600+ miles would not be out of the ordinary.Now, it is a mistake to say that because today's ranges are (at best) in the 250 mile region that EV's will never have ranges of >300 miles but it is less likely that "fuel" efficiencies will improve radically which still leave us with 250-350Wh per mile, so you will need 100kWh+ batteries to extend ranges to compete with fossil fuel powered cars - my 2003 Mondeo will do that 650 miles I mentioned on one tank.To charge a 100kWh battery in 15 mins (which I think is about as long as is reasonable in the middle of a journey) needs 400kW to be pumped in - not impossible but quite challenging and very tricky in a domestic environment where supplies tend to be limited to a few 10's of kW (though I guess most people would be happy with overnight charging domestically).

author: fcb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 12:06:45 pm
content: CJay - The future won't have battery swap. They aren't even seriously considering that for bus fleets.The generation of vehicles just launched 40KW Leaf, 40KWh Zoe, Hyundai ioniq, E-Golf, 33KW i3, BOLT) have pushed the range up from 90 miles to 130-150, they probably won't go much beyond 60KWh for the next few years.Chargers are getting faster, but still the fleet of DC quick chargers are mostly 50KW - they getting long-in-tooth and the next generation (100+KW) are being rolled out along with matching local battery storage. There's a good likelihood you'll see at least half the filling stations in 5 years being converted into local grid storage and rapid charging depots, along with the obligatory coffee&convenience shops. Charging at home is sorted, it will be 7.2KW with some network intelligence for load control.I've lived mainly with a 22KW EV for the last couple of years (20,000 miles PA), perfectly feasible. Next purchase is 40KW EV and will be happy to take that anywhere in the UK and will definitely be going abroad in that.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 01:08:54 pm
content: CJay,You bring up a good point in that EV's lack the storage capacity to go any long distance and also it can be cut off like that.But that might also be seen as a feature by some people.I think the price of gasoline may eventually go down all around the world as the business need for commuting falls.Likewise the price of electricity may rise, during the winter at least, if more of it depends on sources that diminish during the winter.The key to EVs being viable as primary transportation I think is the whole picture. Which still is patchy.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 01:33:46 pm
content: One thing we have to remember is evacuation in emergencies, for example, in coastal areas when we have extreme weather. Substantial rises in sea levels could occur much faster than projections due to sudden loss of coastal ice in Antarctica that is holding the inland ice in place. Huge scrapes on the sea floor in Antarctica indicate that this has happened multiple times in the past. Similar scrapes from huge icebergs exist on the floor of the Atlantic as far south as the Carolinas.All in all there is enough evidence of rapid changes in climate in the past that I think people should attempt to keep as much flexibility and diversity in our energy supplies as possible.Its estimated that we could gain as many as seven meters of sea level within a fairly short time period due to the loss of the Antarctic polar ice cap. Similar but smaller sea rise could occur because of the loss of the Greenland ice cap.That means that many coastal areas could possibly be inundated - especially by storm surges, within the next century, if current trends continue. We should plan for that happening.Many areas along the US East Coast in particular would be likely to suffer repeated storm surges and that would necessitate evacuation of large numbers of people when a storm was coming.There is a long chain of coastal communities on barrier islands separated from the mainland by long bridges and an inland waterway. Evacuating them seems to me as if it would be likely to be very difficult without a substantial amount of planning which I suspect is not occurring in the current climate of denial.EVs dont lend themselves well to that scenario because of the grid capacity issue. People may not be able to keep them fully charged up all the time. And what happens if they stall out on the bridge. Push the car over the edge to get it off the bridge? See the problem? I think special rules should apply on coastal islands and areas likely to need evacuation during major storms.Homes themselves?Here in the US its quite normal for a suburban house to have a 200 amp 220 volt electric service.Some older houses have much less. But I think a conscious effort is being made via building codes to encourage people to upgrade their electric service on older homes when any kind of work is done on them.So many homes do have the electricity capacity to charge them.Quote from: grumpydoc on November 01, 2017, 11:04:40 am

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 01:45:38 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on October 07, 2017, 09:14:03 amNixie calculator? That is waaaaay too much cutting edge.I would advise a hand-cranked mechanical calculator. They work even during complete blackouts:http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/05/computers-antiq.html

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 10:53:09 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on November 01, 2017, 10:33:33 amIts unlikely that a EV owner will be prevented from charging their vehicle, its more likely that they would pay a higher rate for the flexibility. Just the same as the current situation where petrol prices fluctuate and people choose when to fill up their tanks, you can get caught out and pay more than you expected if you run close to empty and didn't plan ahead.While people want long distance travel and the convenience of liquid fuels its not inconceivable that households that already have more than once car can have a mixture of EV and conventional vehicles to select the most appropriate for the specific use. Or as many people already do, use car sharing or rentals to cover the unusual needs and other vehicles for the typical trips (public transport etc included).

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 11:38:22 pm
content: Quote from: cleaningOut on November 01, 2017, 11:05:23 pmI'm reminded of a cute article written about a hypothetical car sales person trying to sell a petrol powered car to a hypothetical person who has only ever experienced an electric vehicle, it had things along the lines of:"what do you mean I can't add more energy to it at home, I have to drive to a special shop to buy special fuel? this sounds inconvenient""its powered by explosions? that sounds dangerous""why is it so noisy? wont it disturb all the people and wildlife around it?"and I'll ad my own to try and bring us back to the topic of this forum:"its permitted to produce how much EMI?"

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 11:41:40 pm
content: And after some hunting, here is the link:http://teslaclubsweden.se/test-drive-of-a-petrol-car/

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 07:35:34 am
content: Quote from: cleaningOut on November 01, 2017, 11:05:23 pmI test drove a few current model hybrids earlier this year when I gave up my company car and I've had intermittent access to them through my jobs over the past couple of decades*, I like them a lot.Fuel mileage (around 58MPG real world, I got better than 50MPG average from a 1.6 diesel Skoda Octavia and on long journeys I got even better, indicated by the in car computer and calculated by me) so combined with a ridiculously high purchase/lease price (I know, the tech isn't cheap) means even the CHR (I like it, a lot) is a nonsense from an emissions and financial point of view though if the price was a *lot* better I'd be driving one.We would still be having this discussion though.However...If we take EV to mean pure electric and no IC engine (I don't think there are fuel cell hybrids out there yet?) then no, I've never done more than ten-fifteen miles in an EV.The one pure EV I've driven, the Nissan Leaf, it's kinda OK (not my type of car, too small for my needs) the experience of pure EV is a little surreal even compared to a hybrid, I'd get used to it, but the range, yeah, not there yet and certainly not useful for me or anyone in my family except perhaps my brother's wife and my mother but only because her partner has a non EV car for the times when EV is useless.*we used to work with a LOT of Toyota dealerships so were present when the Prius was launched in the UK and the place I'm at now has a major investment in renewables, grid scale off-shore/on-shore wind farms and solar projects, so they push PHEV technology pretty hard and offer incentives for employees to buy/lease PHEV (Chevy Volt or the Vauxhall equivalent, the Ampera is the favoured one of the moment though you can get Mitsubishi, BMW and many others).

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 10:55:48 am
content: I have a Prius (3rd gen). I dont like the CHR. Sure, it looks good, but I just didn't feel home at the wheel, and the space was also way too small. Also, no sunroof? Sorry, no.I've tried the 2nd and 4th generation prius, the audi a3 e-tron, Mitsubishi PHEV, Tesla S. From this obviously the Tesla was the most fun, the Audi coming second, and they are reeaaly expensive. Not because electric and hybrid, because they are premium cars. Here comes a trick question: Is hybrid expensive? I think not.Take the Toyota Auris as an example. Base model is 14KEUR, basically a russian gulag has better accessories. Hybrid starts from 22600 EUR. The similarly horsepower (136) automatic version comes with the 1,6 Valvematic (132 LE) CVT. I'm comparing cars with the same accessories. And it costs 20300 EUR. The difference is only 2300 EUR, or 10% of the cost of the car. The price difference breaks even financially at around 150.000 Km, plenty of Km more to go. Environmentally there is not even a race. Did you know, that the Prius emits 100 times less NOx than a VW Jetta Diesel?So unless you make the mistake of comparing a rust bucket to a car, it is not expensive. I have no idea, why anyone would buy a not hybrid car. Now, the only thing I need to do is buy the plug in prius. The prime (unlike the 4) looks really really sexy. In my calculations, I would need to fuel it up every 2-3 months.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 12:01:32 pm
content: I quite like the CHR, sunroof doesn't matter to me, I felt fine behind the wheel, my stepfather, he didn't like it at all and bought a RAV.Different people, different tastes and needs.Funny you mention the Auris, I also test drove that, it's too small for me, my two children and my partner. Nice drive though and if it were just me then it would have been a serious contender.The tax breaks for hybrids in the UK are now much reduced or even non existent, London's congestion charge is payable for some hybrids now so that's a non argument, tax breaks are being reduced again next year and will continue to be reduced until we all drive EVs.I totally agree on the use of hybrids, they make a lot of sense for me and if they were the same price as a non hybrid car then I would have one, no question, there is little to no cost saving to be had with my vehicle needs.Comparing like for like (or as close as possible) when I was car shopping this year, the hybrid is a *lot* more expensive.The CHR Hybrid is more than £5000 more expensive than the petrol equivalent, that's more like 25% of the price of a petrol equivalent, I.E. a *lot* of fuel and given that the CHR hybrid has owner reported MPG ratings as low as 32MPG (and as high as 52MPG) it's not an attractive option.I really did try to make it work for me but just couldn't.Plus, it's still a hybrid, a HEV not an EV so the whole point of this thread about charging and grid capacity is utterly irrelevant.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 12:30:49 pm
content: It's just taste... I like how it looks.I mention the Auris, because that is a car which comes in Hybrid and regular version, with similar engines. The CHR doesn't. It comes with a tiny 1.2 turbo, manual transmission. The RAV4 is another example. The 4x2 2,0 D?4D (143 LE) is 28800EUR, the 2,5 Hybrid (197 LE) is 29900EUR. 1100 EUR difference for a bigger engine, which is greener. And then there are Priuses from around 2005, converted to CNG with homemade plug-in extended battery, which is probably the cheapest way to travel.I think hybrids are relevant to the discussion. The plug in market is going to extend a lot in the next few years. Though they usually have "slow chargers" and wont bring the network down.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 02:12:12 pm
content: I just read somewhere else that a bubble is occurring with car loans. Similar to that which happened with real estate in 2008.At the same time, society's love affair with the automobile is closely associated with the world of work, especially commuting, and as we move into the 21st century, numbers of commuters is expected to fall tremendously as more and more work is automated, goes to telecommuting or is off-shored.The Internet, especially, has made it possible to reduce the number of commuters substantially.That means the price of gas will likely fall even though it's finite, because demand, driven by the number of drivers who use a car every day, and improvements in fuel efficiency, and larger numbers of electric vehicles, is likely falling.At the same time, the price of electricity, which more than anything else, is tied to natural gas prices, will likely rise, especially in the US, which had natural gas prices a fraction of those elsewhere for forty years, because of a historical anomaly (a ban on natural gas export since the 1970s) that is ending.I still thinkhybridsmake sense, but fully EV - for a small vehicle for doing errands, shopping, yes, but I wouldn't want to be tied to a charger for a family's main form of transportation.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 03:01:47 pm
content: "At the same time, society's love affair with the automobile is closely associated with the world of work, especially commuting, and as we move into the 21st century, numbers of commuters is expected to fall tremendously as more and more work is automated, goes to telecommuting or is off-shored.The Internet, especially, has made it possible to reduce the number of commuters substantially."Slightly offtopic, but I thought that would happen and it hasn't. At least not in the UK. What I see happening here is that real jobs on the shop floor are becoming scarcer as machines take over, but that office jobs are multiplying like crazy. Some places have three to five times as many office staff as shopfloor workers. The problem here is the EU and its mountains of regulations and red tape. Every time a new regulation comes out, that means firms having to employ another 'officer' just to ensure that they aren't at risk of being fined for noncompliance. In the nature of things bureaucratic these 'officers' have to be onsite; they can't work remotely. (Maybe if someone invented a remote controlled pen that ticks boxes over the Internet..) Hence more cars, more traffic jams, more pollution. GDPR is a case in point right now.The EU is one of the greatest promoters of climate change action, yet they are adding enormously to the problem of fuel wastage and pollution through their own red tape!

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 03:09:57 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on November 02, 2017, 12:30:49 pmAbsolutely, if we all liked the same things the world would be a very boring place, I thoroughly dislike the Audi TT but I know many people think it's a thing of beauty for instance...Hybrids, they aren't really relevant because they don't drop dead through lack of charge unless you've been remiss enough to forget to put petrol/diesel into them as well, even then you can usually walk to a fuel station and buy a gallon of fuel or bring one to you.You would find it difficult to buy a gallon of electrons to carry back to the car (though of course you can convert the energy from that gallon of fuel into electrons once it's in the car)The whole point of my comments was that a non hybrid EV is potentially useless if you can't guarantee it's got decent charge and good range, they're also pretty useless unless you're doing the kind of travel that would be far better served by public transport anyway so it might be valid to ask why that person needs their own car at all?Hybrids are a completely different case and if it weren't for the price differential would be the ideal solution for me and many other IC engined vehicle drivers, having created a spreadsheet and spent many hours filling it with MPG figures, prices, tax benefits, depreciation and all sorts of calculations, at best they work out even with a diesel, at worst, they are more expensive over the period of ownership I was looking at.It's been almost 9 months since I went car shopping so the recent diesel furore may have skewed the calculations slightly...

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2017, 03:17:39 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 02, 2017, 02:12:12 pmThere's a whole market segment in the UK where finance companies have driven car sales by offering very consumer favourable finance deals on cars that are priced to take into account the resale value of the vehicle when the user hands the car back.Unfortunately that means there's a huge number of 1,2 and three year old cars about to hit the market with low mileage and probably lower than predicted prices because of the large number available.Quote from: cdev on November 02, 2017, 02:12:12 pmTelecommuting has never really taken off in the industry segments I've worked in, it's difficult to refurbish locomotives and carriages over the internet for one exampleAgree on hybrids over EV, price differences notwithstanding, I'd have a hybrid tomorrow if I could.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2017, 11:17:04 am
content: "Telecommuting has never really taken off in the industry segments I've worked in, it's difficult to refurbish locomotives and carriages over the internet for one example."Which is a major flaw in the government's notions on public transport and cycling. They assume that all workers are penpushers who need take only very lightweight and small items of hand luggage.Even where only small items are needed, having to go to site to examine the job and then return to base to collect what's needed, all by cycle or public transport, is simply not economical. You put what's likely to be needed in the van and make one journey.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 12:10:21 am
content: How much transport in today's post-GATS UK is still "public"? I'm just curious.Quote from: IanMacdonald on November 04, 2017, 11:17:04 am

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 01:34:19 am
content: Several thoughts..If you look at old TV series or photos of offices you'll notice that businesses in the past employed far more office staff than today, across the board, You can pick almost any kind of work, in both goods and services. Everything was far more labor intensive in the past, requiring armies of workers.Most generic business processes now are mostly handled by computing applications (including the web) with the office staff planning the operation of the business and handling the exceptions.Large numbers of office jobs simply vanish with new advances in technology, within two or three years. Also large segments of businesses that used to be handled in house (fulfillment, shipping, delivery, etc.) is increasingly offloaded to specialized firms which handle the same task for hundreds or thousands or in some cases literally millions of businesses at once.Everybody knows automation is increasing exponentially, but at least as many, perhaps more jobs will be moved overseas as a sort of bridge to their being automated. The next few years will be the beginning of a huge shift of jobs to the places where people have high levels of education but are paid much less.This has been in the pipeline for 20 years but the thing that's hanging them up is "non tariff barriers". What you call red tape of all kinds. But the ink is already dry, it has been for 20 years, its just the implementation thats been taking forever, because the different sides all want different things in exchange for what they want to give up.The key term they repeat over and over is "efficiency gains".Its more efficient where they can do the work in the cheaper countries with services just like it is with manufacturing. They claim that efficiency gains will mean many many people will be freed up to pursue their dreams.The things that have been preventing them from being moved are what you call red tape. In the case of the UK, some of that was because of being in the EU. The jobs that before might have gone to Eastern European firms will likely end up much father away.BTW, Tim Berners-Lee ("timbl") invented that remote control pen around 30 years ago at CERN, on his NeXT workstation, we're using it right now. Its making it possible for people everywhere to do work over the net.Its impact on the workplace is still in its infancy compared to where we'll be in a decade or two. Hopefully the benefits of people being able to enter in their own data will accrue to more people around the world despite the falling wages. Its going to eliminate a lot of jobs but also create a substantial number of better ones.People will need different skills to do them, and will have to stay on top of the changes.Quote from: IanMacdonald on November 02, 2017, 03:01:47 pmDo you understand that when neoliberals rail against 'regulation' they are talking about the things that made working more fulfilling and less destructive to peoples lives (like limits on how many hours people work in a work week, and prohibitions against dangerous workplaces, also laws that regulate the kinds of intra-corporate travel corporations would like to see much much more of.The things you are talking about "competition" and "deregulation" and "eliminating red tape" will mean far far more job loss than new jobs. Most business owners see themselves as part of heir communities but huge mega corporations see themselves as being able to take their places on a large scale. That will cut out the middlemen for sure but there will be huge reductions in workers and the economies everywhere are likely to implode.You understand that wages and benefits are all determined bysupply and demand, right? So even if only a few jobs percentage wise move elsewhere, wages will fall because the remaining workers will be forced to accept less and less for their time. Younger and older people especially will suffer because there is a clock icking for both of them much more so than for people in the middle. Also investments people have made in housing, (especially in areas where there used to be a lot of jobs but are no more) stocks (when they were valued by the business they did or by over optimistic potential people saw for hem, perhaps being quite unrealistic about this ticking time bomb driven by the GATS IOU to the developing world) . Even the developing countries, which were projected to grow rapidly wont because their export markets will collapse and their internal markets wont increase because of falling global wages. There isnt a single group that will benefit. However, those currently in power will maintain control and get a larger and larger slice of the pie, even as the value of that slice plummets.People will lkely work for free to keep their skills honed.Businesses are alredy taking advantage of this effect by means of internships, extended qusi-traing 'jobs' that pay just a token amount. The number of jobs which either pay very little or eventually where the workers pay to work will increase.Many parents of would be workers will likely pay for them to gain work experience. When trade was truly free, businesses will likely get free workers. But would that be enough, if their customers can no longer buy things and vanish, whats the point?Under those conditions, even though freely traded workers would save the business owners trillions, how would those workers survive? How would the businesses survive, buried by huge debts and likely their business assets would be auctioned off to pay them.So, maybe inefficiency is more of a gain than efficiency now, huh?

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 07:30:59 am
content: This is going far off-topic, but if you really want to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, you have to ask: do we live to work, or live to live? This is a system design question at heart, not an implementation question.Society right now, pretty much everywhere from subsistence farmers in Northern Afghanistan to office workers in the Shard, is designed in such a way to require some means of economic productivity (in the rules of society) to allow for a decent life. You have to either earn ordinary income or capital gains to be able to participate in regular society. This means that implicitly, whatever you wish to do has to eventually be monetized or consumable one way or another. So far this has been a decent model, because by and large, the only source of economic value has been people. Without a person doing something to propel its endeavours, nothing happens. Sure, machines and computers may multiply the efforts, but in the end it's all human labour. And the price of whatever end product is, by and large, determined by the required amount of labour, thus earning everybody willing and able to work a living wage.We have now well and truly entered the age of lights-out manufacturing, where you can create economic value without any human input whatsoever. Sure, this is still limited to operation only - LOM is only truly a thing in refining, car manufacturing and a bunch of food-related factories - but with self-driving trucks and mining equipment this will soon extend quite a bit beyond that, requiring a handful of people (who repair and maintain the machines once in a while) to literally produce all the pasta or all Mazda cars in the world. You said it rightly; these kinds of supply chains have gone from needing hundreds of thousands of people to tens or hundreds currently, and essentially zero in the near future. On a scale of automation, we're already very much near the end. It's a true miracle that people are still employed.Clearly, our model of society will break down when people are unemployable through no fault of their own. If whatever your capabilities, your economic output will always be negative. Where we fundamentally differ in opinion is whether this will result in people working for free. I don't think that is very likely. Sure, right now they are, but in the near future this will be completely futile. Regardless of what a human does, his output will be of such bad quality and/or completely outside of its capabilities that there is nothing to be gained from such labor. This goes for everything, from manual labor (he'll just be in the way of the ploughing robots) to food service (you're sneezing on my food!) to high-tech manufacturing (what, you think a human can do lithography?).Now you say, the solution to this is inefficiency. Yes, obviously, you can keep people working unnecessarily given the state of technology to keep them employed and extend the lifetime of our current model of society. Unfortunately this is an inherently unstable situation. That same model of society favors market dynamics, and if you insist on keeping lots of people employed in your country, thereby making your exports more expensive to the rest of the world, you will lose out on the world stage. Alright then, in order to insulate yourself from bad actors, you close your borders. Without trade, no economic area can prosper long-term, so you will necessarily have to accept lower standards of living and technological regression. Long-term stagnation, while the rest of the world (or even just one country?) can continue on the path of increased automation, because the incentives work that way.Stable systems have goals and incentives that point in the same direction. A well-designed and well-incentivized system should be something that allows for a peaceful transition from our current market dynamics to something that does not require human labor to provide for human happiness and prosperity. Obviously, this means that the only way forward is fully automated luxury gay space communism.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 05:13:34 pm
content: Quote from: mux on November 09, 2017, 07:30:59 amUltimately most people live to provide for their kin and future kin, even when work is mostly removed that won't change. Can't build a good society on hedonism.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 05:47:11 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on November 09, 2017, 05:13:34 pmWell, a lot of people regard reproduction as life's goal, but then isn't that a circular argument? We create more humans because creating more humans is what gives us fulfilment in life. If life is not satisfactory or rewarding for those kin and future kin though, the argument falls down. And, it won't be if we fill the planet to bursting point with humans.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 06:02:44 pm
content: For many people their family is their life. For others they want to push the sum total of human knowledge forward to benefit everybody. Both goals are good ones. Both are valid ways to motivate yourself.But putting money above all else and amassing money to the exclusion of all else and everybody else starts to get unhealthy at a certain point. That point may vary a lot but we know it when we see it.Maybe money should have a date attached to it and decrease in value if its kept and not spent beyond that date?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2017, 06:36:08 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on November 09, 2017, 05:47:11 pmNihilism is another thing which you can't build a good society on. Abandon logic where it stops being useful.

author: mux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2017, 02:52:37 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on November 09, 2017, 05:13:34 pmI don't agree at all, actually. Why not? It seems to me like a society based on hedonism would be pretty awesome. We *can't* build a society based on hedonism because we require useful work towards our survival to be carried out by people, but as our robot overlords come to exceed our capabilities in every way, why not let society become a hedon's zoo?sHedonism isn't just lots of orgies and drug use - humans have evolved to be pretty good at adaptive behaviour, tool use and other very advanced types of learning. This is very rewarding to us. Consequently I would expect a society based on stuff everybody wants to become a bit like a massive hackerspace; everybody doing things because they can or because it's interesting. Not because it is necessary - eventually - towards their personal or communal survival.Also, I'm very skeptical as to the percentage of people primarily interested in their offspring. Fertility has not increased with increasing standards of living and decreasing stress on individuals, quite the opposite. There is a whole further philosophical train of thought you can follow here, by the way. Not sure how far we can continue going off-track and into side streets until this topic is split off.

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2017, 03:06:22 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 09, 2017, 06:02:44 pmIt's an idea and it's called 100% inheritance tax. IMO a brilliant strategy but better not talk about it in public, it'll get lynched

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2017, 03:56:52 pm
content: There is no reason to think that people will have more time, rather most will have to work harder for their money, because so many things will be done for free by machines.Supply and demand always determines wages, even regulation cannot prevent it because trade agreements have already given poor countries promises for twenty years that they would be able to sell their low cost services to developed countries as the effect of machines on labor's price pushes wages downward by making jobs scarce and labor plentiful. So changing this now will be difficult, when the push is so strongly in the other direction, to open labor markets up to them since people in developed countries likely either don't want skilled jobs that only pay a fraction of what they did in the past, or don't have the advanced educations which will increasingly stand as the barriers to their getting them.Don't blame me, I am just trying to give you a heads up.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2017, 04:10:38 pm
content: Your idea of encouraging creative thinking is exactly what they don't want more of, because they already are trying to stay on top despite an exponentially increasing body of knowledge that is making their business models look more and more dated and broken. Its all they need to create more. Not.No, they want fewer logical thinkers who are not on a very tight leash, so thats is what trade agreements are setting up. They are making higher education so costly and so unlikely to lead to a paying job without investments which will look impossibly hard to most people, plus when one finishes eight or perhaps soon ten or twelve years of college then they will likelyhave to work for almost nothing for many years, that will become the norm. Only wealthy people will be able to afford to pay for that for their children.The challenge for them is to reduce their people's expectations of success without being obvious about it. Making it impossible to get an education is one thats most likely to succeed. People who could never get an education don't expect to succeed. So when they don't, nobody is surprised. People who have a good education expect to succeed, and its much much harder to create convincing scenarios within which they don't.Hard but some are determined to do it.Quote from: mux on November 10, 2017, 02:52:37 pm