Desperate reaction by those using the black goomp

[i3marc]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/11/07/oil-change-costs-quick-lube-castrol-nexcel/74615512/

Looks like car oil manufacturers are seeing the writing on the wall. This above is a bit like polaroids or whatever desperate actions film makers did at the onset of digital cameras. There is a massive disconnect between the high maintenance of gasoline or diesel cars and the simplicity and carefree usage of BEVs.

The issue at stake is once PURE electrics are 1-2% of the fleet, there will be a tipping point reached. The next few years will see 10-20-50 then complete obliteration of gas cars.

Gated communities will be built excluding gas car ownership altogether. Towns will ban non electrics from their downtown as much as it is forbidden to smoke indoor nowadays.

For example I convinced close to 30 people by now to go electric soon and for their next car... as a mere drive in my i3 is sufficient to evoke OMG reactions.

The acceleration alone does that.

And progression in the market is non linear.

 

[gt1]

What a bunch of nonsense. I personally knew only one EV owner. When his LEAF lease was over, he happily purchased a Toyota Highlander SUV. And why start this post with an article about the progress in the oil change technology?

 

[jadnashuanh]

Universal use of EV's won't happen until the world embraces and deploys affordable electrical grid supply issues and they come up with an affordable means to produce H2 for those that choose a fuel cell verses the grid to recharge their vehicle. In the interim, I think something like the i3 for shorter range use or plug-in hybrids that can bridge the gap for longer trips are useful. As battery tech improves, more options will appear, but those have been incremental, not monumental changes.

SOlar, tidal, wind, are all useful, but not feasible everywhere since they are unable to produce and adjust for peaks. Nor, do we have a good means of storing any excess energy they may produce when conditions are ideal and the supply is greater than the demand.

 

[gt1]

I couldn't agree more. If by some miracle we could get a high capacity inexpensive battery, the sudden influx of electric vehicles would kill the power grid. Electric cars have a huge potential, but the adoption will be a long process.

 

[Jeffj]

Not to minimize the grid issues, but much of the required power to be delivered to EV's is already present in some form on the grid. While the actual amount is hard to define, an oft-quoted number is that it takes ~6 kWh of electricity to refine a gallon of gas. So for each gallon of gas NOT refined, there is an excess of 6kWh of electricity that could be fed into the battery of an EV - for an i3 that translates to 24 miles of travel. In other words, with no change in the total electrical power produced and consumed each day in the US, EV's could travel 9,000,000,000 miles.

Obviously some of that power is locally generated at the refineries and not drawn from the grid, but the capacity to generate the power is already present.

 

[gt1]

I was thinking about the distribution capacity, especially at the "last mile". However the current grid can handle the AC load on hot days. L2 charging power is comparable to an AC unit. Considering that most of the charging done at night when the AC use is much lower, the grid might cope with it just fine.

 

[jadnashuanh]

What's tougher is if every EV had huge battery packs, and everyone wanted to plug in using a CCS unit (DC fast charging), where they may need or at least want 100A at 360vac or so...IOW, lots more power than an EVSE can provide.

In most places in the USA, there is an excess capacity of electrical supply at night. Most car-type EVs tend to recharge then. Commercial units may need to charge during the day as well, but there are not many of them, at least for now.