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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 19 2020, @06:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the electrifying dept.

Electric car charging stations head to Love's Travel Stops across the US:

[Electrify America] announced Tuesday a new collaborative effort with Love's to install charging stations at its stops across the US. Five locations are already open as of today in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah and Florida. Crucially, the stops now open helped complete a nationwide charging route from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.

The new stations will charge at rates up to 350 kilowatts and can add up to 20 miles of range per minute. Ultimately, Electrify America's goal is to continue chipping away at America's range anxiety about electric cars. With more places to charge, it will be mighty difficult to run out of juice. Of course, the company's also bound to invest the cash as part of a Volkswagen dieselgate settlement here in the US...

Will such partnerships vanquish range anxiety for electric vehicles (EVs)?


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2020, @11:16PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2020, @11:16PM (#1039094)

    "The solution is getting rid of cars. The problem is, uh, whatever's necessary to justify that."

    Clean energy is becoming cheaper than fossil fuel even without subsidies. Rare earths are a phony shortage. Nobody would have switched to trucks in the first place if they weren't more efficient than rail freight. The problem is that while trains might be more fuel-efficient at moving stuff pound for pound, they're less efficient economically because it's easier for trucks to share roads than for trains to share tracks, it's easier to build and operate freight loading stations for trucks, and you don't have to change modes for the last mile. So trains are good for really large loads of bulk cargo, or long haul container freight coming off of ships, and trucks better for smaller shipments. And most of the shipments are smaller shipments.

    Passenger rail is awful for long distances. It's slow, expensive and the only real benefit is that it's fun to ride on trains. Europeans frequently mock the American rail system, while ignoring the fact that it takes about as long to go by rail from Portugal to Greece as it does to cross the United States. Rail works in Europe only because people usually travel short distances. The only place in America that resembles European travel patterns is the corridor from Washington to Boston, where rail is practical and commonly used, even if it isn't quite as good as Eurostar. Also, American freight trains are much better than European ones - partly because European freight trains aren't allowed to be quite as big, but mostly because the railways are full of passenger trains. So "just switch to rail" is not exactly an easy option.

    There's a nonzero chance that electrified trucks become a thing in the next decade or two, and that chance increases if truck stops get into the charging business. Electric trains work OK in the city center where the rail comes with its own high power wiring, but I've never heard a serious proposal for a long haul battery-powered locomotive. (They're on the way as auxiliaries for regular diesel ones, but not to pull a whole train by themselves). Probably, trucks will be the more environmentally friendly option soon, on top of the economic benefits.

    Nothing wrong with telecommuting, though. Half of those big downtown office buildings ought to be converted into apartments, and let downtown areas become cultural centers, not places where people sit in traffic on their way to sit in a cubicle.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 20 2020, @08:33PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 20 2020, @08:33PM (#1039526) Journal

    Nobody would have switched to trucks in the first place if they weren't more efficient than rail freight.

    Actually, no. The problem with rail is, the rail company can't be held accountable. They can lose cars for months, and it's not their fault. As for actual efficiency? A study proved that you can move freight by rail for about 2 cents per ton per mile. Over the road trucks are closer to 40 cents per ton per mile. The ONLY reason trucks get the lion's share of freight in this country, is that truckers are held accountable. Trucking companies don't routinely "lose" trailer loads of freight only to "find" them months later in the wrong city, with the goods rotten inside.

    If/when rail cars are equipped with GPS tracking, and the cars are actually tracked by some decent computer algorithms - then rail may compete with trucking. But, even more important, someone has to be held ACCOUNTABLE for getting the freight where it needs to go.