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posted by takyon on Thursday July 30 2015, @09:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the electro-cliffhanger dept.

Geoff Ralston has an interesting essay explaining why is likely that electric car penetration in the US will take off at an exponential rate over the next 5-10 years rendering laughable the paltry predictions of future electric car sales being made today. Present projections assume that electric car sales will slowly increase as the technology gets marginally better, and as more and more customers choose to forsake a better product (the gasoline car) for a worse, yet "greener" version. According to Ralston this view of the future is, simply, wrong. - electric cars will take over our roads because consumers will demand them. "Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy," says Ralston. "The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

The Tesla Model S has sold so well because, compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars it is more fun to drive, quieter, always "full" every morning, more roomy, and it continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements. According to Ralston the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. When that happens even more gasoline car owners will be convinced to switch. Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck. "Elon Musk has ushered in the age of the electric car, and whether or not it, too, was inevitable, it has certainly begun," concludes Ralston. "The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday July 30 2015, @10:08PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday July 30 2015, @10:08PM (#216046)

    That would take a massive drop in prices. Just because most people don't need more range than is currently available doesn't mean that the electric car is ready for everyone.
    Look at Norway: price parity and good public infrastructure is what's driving sales through the roof. In the US? Nowhere near that point.

    As for the gas stations vanishing... it's gonna take a while, you see, with all the poor and the appartment dwellers not jumping to electric until the used prices touch 5k or less. And that's a good thing for the electric grid, because that won't be ready for quite a while either.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @12:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @12:52AM (#216094)

    > That would take a massive drop in prices.

    Used Nissan Leafs sell below $10K all the time now. [cargurus.com] It ain't 5K, but it is getting close.

  • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday July 31 2015, @02:51AM

    by RedBear (1734) on Friday July 31 2015, @02:51AM (#216128)

    That would take a massive drop in prices. Just because most people don't need more range than is currently available doesn't mean that the electric car is ready for everyone.
    Look at Norway: price parity and good public infrastructure is what's driving sales through the roof. In the US? Nowhere near that point.

    The very next generation of EVs coming out within the next 2-3 years are supposed to have 200+ miles of range and be priced below $35,000 (that's pre-incentives). There are already used EVs for under $10,000, and by all reports EV batteries are holding up remarkable well over time (as long as you don't get one of the early LEAF batteries that can't handle too much heat), so used EVs are generally considered a good buy. It would certainly help if we did better with incentives, like Norway, but for everyone who still believes EVs are too expensive there are a ton of people redoing the math every year and suddenly realizing EVs are actually far less expensive than they initially appear.

    As for the gas stations vanishing... it's gonna take a while, you see, with all the poor and the appartment dwellers not jumping to electric until the used prices touch 5k or less. And that's a good thing for the electric grid, because that won't be ready for quite a while either.

    This business of the electrical grid needing significant upgrades to handle EVs is a persistent but incorrect myth. Multiple studies have already been done that show the current grid can handle tens of millions of EVs. It's very important to realize that the usage patterns of the average vehicle, even here in the US, means that a typical EV will only need to replenish a relatively small portion of its battery every day, after only driving on average around 36 miles. With EV ranges of 200+ miles about to become common, that means most drivers will be able to set their vehicle to recharge slowly overnight, at home, using only a few kilowatts of electricity. That's how most EV drivers will end up doing most of their charging with these new higher-range EVs. We already have EV drivers charging 90+% at home with vehicles that only have between 50-100 miles of range. With higher-range EVs, that will probably approach 95%.

    Millions of EVs recharging at night will help fill in the "bathtub" of reduced energy usage at night and help power plants run more efficiently, reducing the extremes of ramping up and down their power output. Overall, until we get beyond tens of millions of EVs, it will actually be beneficial to the grid. By that time we will be collectively saving so much by not using fossil fuels that we'll have more tax revenue available to do any grid upgrades that are necessary. There will also be a significant increase in home solar installations and home battery storage during the intervening time period. I do not foresee the advent of the EV age to cause any significant issues with the national grid. We'll probably have more trouble adjusting the grid to accommodate significant levels of solar and wind inputs and bi-directional power flows from home solar feeding back into the grid than we ever will from charging EVs.

    But that's just my personal assessment of the situation.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @03:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @03:38AM (#216143)

      > (as long as you don't get one of the early LEAF batteries that can't handle too much heat),

      Nissan is giving free replacements to people with those. In fact, if you buy a used one with a bad battery you can get a pretty good discount because of the degraded capacity and then once you own it you can get a brand new battery from Nissan.

      > Multiple studies have already been done that show the current grid can handle tens of millions of EVs.

      Links please.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by RedBear on Friday July 31 2015, @05:14AM

        by RedBear (1734) on Friday July 31 2015, @05:14AM (#216171)

        This first link that comes up isn't exactly positive, but notice the quote. It's just a matter of setting the vehicle to charge slowly through the night. This is already common knowledge among EV owners and every current EV has the ability to schedule charging:

        http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-cars-threaten-the-grid/ [technologyreview.com]

        Electric cars can typically be programmed to charge at certain times, rather than just charging as soon as they’re plugged in. If car owners set their cars to be completely charged by a certain time, say 6 a.m., this has the effect of staggering when cars start charging. The start time depends on how depleted the battery is—to finish at 6 a.m. might require starting at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., depending on how much charging is needed. So instead of a surge of power demand when people get home from work, the charging is spread out through the night.

        Here's a link regarding Germany's grid. Note that Germany has about 1/4th the population of the US and that per-household European electricity usage stands at about a quarter what the typical American household already uses, so essentially as a _very_ rough estimate they are saying they can handle a million EVs with no problem on a grid that is currently designed to deliver 1/16th the total energy that the typical American neighborhood grid is already designed to handle. The equivalent EV population in the US would then be at least 16 million vehicles.

        http://www.metering.com/germany-s-power-grid-able-to-handle-1-million-electric-vehicles/ [metering.com]

        Germany’s utility industry believes that the federal government’s objective of having roughly 1 million electric vehicles on the country’s roads by 2020 would not pose any problems for the electricity grid.

        Remember we're just talking about people charging at home. Public charging infrastructure is not considered a problem, as they are part of commercial circuits that are already using massive quantities of electricity compared to what a neighborhood grid is designed to handle.

        I know this is CleanTechnica, but:

        http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/03/grid-capacity-electric-vehicles-actually-problem-studies-find/ [cleantechnica.com]

        I've seen people quote this 150 million EV number. Not sure how legit that is:

        http://insideevs.com/dont-worry-us-grid-capable-of-supporting-up-to-150-million-electric-vehicles/ [insideevs.com]

        Here's Forbes in 2013, not exactly a den of hippies:

        http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2013/01/28/electric-cars-and-the-power-grid-how-are-they-coming-together/ [forbes.com]

        Deloitte looked at precisely this issue recently, in its report Charging Ahead: The Last Mile. They interviewed numerous utility planners summarized “Surprisingly, we found that in general, the electric utility infrastructure is already prepared to meet the President’s 2015 challenge. Our research revealed that utilities will not likely need to upgrade or expand transmission or generation capacity in the next ten years specifically to meet electric demand from EVs at projected adoption rates…

        I wasn't prepared with any of this, this is just from a few minutes of Googling. I haven't seen contrary evidence that EVs are going to pose any serious issue for the grid if handled appropriately. Especially once Vehicle-to-Grid technology becomes widespread, letting millions of EVs briefly return energy to the grid or power homes during the morning/evening peak energy use periods.

        --
        ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
        ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 31 2015, @04:57PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Friday July 31 2015, @04:57PM (#216393)

          > So instead of a surge of power demand when people get home from work, the charging is spread out through the night.

          Unless you triple the price of electricity from 5 to 9PM, I'm pretty sure most americans will always get their car charged as soon as possible, "just in case".
          Come home right after sunset, plug the car, turn on all the lights, computer (just joking, it was still on), TV, A/C, microwave, electric range... when you get past the earth-conscious early adopters and get into the normal market, you can be sure the grid is going to have to deal with the sum of our selfishness.

          • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday July 31 2015, @07:20PM

            by RedBear (1734) on Friday July 31 2015, @07:20PM (#216491)

            > So instead of a surge of power demand when people get home from work, the charging is spread out through the night.
            Unless you triple the price of electricity from 5 to 9PM, I'm pretty sure most americans will always get their car charged as soon as possible, "just in case".
            Come home right after sunset, plug the car, turn on all the lights, computer (just joking, it was still on), TV, A/C, microwave, electric range... when you get past the earth-conscious early adopters and get into the normal market, you can be sure the grid is going to have to deal with the sum of our selfishness.

            1. Some areas do have significantly higher prices for peak electricity vs. off-peak. That is definitely one thing that will motivate the typical American penny-pincher to schedule charging during off-peak hours.

            2. A promising phenomenon seems to happen with a lot of people who drive EVs, and not just "EV advocates" but really anyone who drives an EV for a while. Because there is such a visible and direct correlation between driving style, energy used per mile/kilometer, and usable range, it becomes a psychologically rewarding game to most drivers to drive as efficiently as possible. This seems to happen not just with 55-mile range i-MiEVs and 80-mile range LEAFs but also with high-range vehicles like the Model S where under most circumstances you don't really need to pay any attention to the range. This completely unprovoked "gamification" effect also translates into increased awareness of how much energy is needed to recharge and thus by extension when it would be absolutely cheapest to do so. It also triggers a lot of EV drivers to look at installing solar so they can enhance their ability to "stick it to the man" and effectively pay the electric company even less to charge their EV. In other words, driving an EV tends to turn people into Earth-conscious hippies even if they weren't one to begin with. It's a very interesting phenomenon.

            I'm sure that won't happen to everyone, but it will be part of the perception change that will cause society to continue evolving toward being increasingly aware of our overall energy usage patterns. I'm also sure that the typical American will continue to find many other things to be selfish about.

            --
            ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
            ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
  • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday July 31 2015, @10:47AM

    by theluggage (1797) on Friday July 31 2015, @10:47AM (#216240)

    Look at Norway: price parity and good public infrastructure is what's driving sales through the roof.

    This was discussed a week or two back: Norway offers huge subsidies on EVs: purchase tax breaks, vehicle duty breaks, free toll road use, free ferries etc. (in an economy with higher income but higher taxation & cost of living c.f. the US). Also, Norway has massive hydroelectric power generation capability, so the benefit of EVs in terms of CO2 emissions and energy self-sufficiency is very clear there (part of the justification for the subsidies).