CATL pushed production battery capacity to 500wH/kg

[SpaceBus]

I was without my home charger for 8 days. Just had to plan a trip to the charging station like you would a store run. I wonder What percent of the population is more than 20 minutes from a Tesla super charger. That would be a very interesting data point for this idea of range anxiety.

There's no way I would live with an EV if I had to go some place to charge it. Maybe if it can recharge to a nominally full state in a matter of minutes. Otherwise it's functionally an ICE that takes a long time to fill up, of course ignoring environmental impacts, etc.

 

[peakbagger]

As a second vehicle, a small EV is no brainer to me but as primary vehicle I will stick with my plug in hybrid.

The regional utility is telling the towns around me that the local street level transmission grid is just not beefy enough to support a level 3 charger station. The local system was built decades ago assuming fairly low individual electrical use and if they hang a level 3 type charger on the circuits they run into times when the local circuit just cannot handle the load. They are indicating 2 million dollars of upgrades in my town to rearrange the circuits. My guess is the only way its going to change is if the utility has real time control of the level 3 chargers so that if the load goes up they shut them down or the level 3 station owner has a large battery bank to ride through these high demand periods. There have been cases already in the state where non profits that put in early charging stations had to shut them down as they cannot afford the demand charges.

 

[DBoon]

When chargers are literally everywhere I think people will have less anxiety.

That's looking at the problem rationally, they way people on this forum (mostly) look at the problem. But I know many, many people who will not let their gas engine car go below a half a tank and there are literally gas stations everywhere, so go figure.

I take people for rides in my BEV all the time to show them what the experience is and to debunk people's assumption that it is a "golf cart" or has a "weird interior", and (if my battery is near half capacity) somewhere around 25% of the people who ride in my car will immediately point out that my battery is low. If I ask them "do you ever drive your gas car with less than half a tank", they answer "never".

 

[EbS-P]

There's no way I would live with an EV if I had to go some place to charge it. Maybe if it can recharge to a nominally full state in a matter of minutes. Otherwise it's functionally an ICE that takes a long time to fill up, of course ignoring environmental impacts, etc.

But we make that compromise with our ICE vehicles. Grew up on a farm. Every vehicle got to fill up on the farm but our 1982 Volvo. Was little and figured Volvos must need special gas that you got in town.

Th first grocery store with loyalty discounted charging will win big in my book.

As a second vehicle, a small EV is no brainer to me but as primary vehicle I will stick with my plug in hybrid.

The regional utility is telling the towns around me that the local street level transmission grid is just not beefy enough to support a level 3 charger station. The local system was built decades ago assuming fairly low individual electrical use and if they hang a level 3 type charger on the circuits they run into times when the local circuit just cannot handle the load. They are indicating 2 million dollars of upgrades in my town to rearrange the circuits. My guess is the only way its going to change is if the utility has real time control of the level 3 chargers so that if the load goes up they shut them down or the level 3 station owner has a large battery bank to ride through these high demand periods. There have been cases already in the state where non profits that put in early charging stations had to shut them down as they cannot afford the demand charges.

If infrastructure is that close to capacity it needs an upgrade. We all pay for those in the end. Level 3 charging rates for the Tesla charging station near me are about 3x my residential rate. Somebody is making money on that. I have a hard time believing, that as we transition to an all electric nation, electric utilities can’t afford the upgrades. Why aren’t they jumping in and installing chargers? They are happy to run wire to a new house?

 

[SpaceBus]

If an EV could be recharged instantly, like a gas car, I don't think it will be a big deal. With the current rate of charging it only makes sense if you can charge while you sleep.

 

[EbS-P]

If an EV could be recharged instantly, like a gas car, I don't think it will be a big deal. With the current rate of charging it only makes sense if you can charge while you sleep.

7 year old car I can fast DC charge at about 250 miles range added per hour up to 60% state of charge. So 30-40 minutes of charging per week.

 

[SpaceBus]

7 year old car I can fast DC charge at about 250 miles range added per hour up to 60% state of charge. So 30-40 minutes of charging per week.

Maybe in a city it works, but not in a rural setting. Not being able to charge at home means I would have to go out to charge my vehicle and hope I need to be in one place for the time it takes to get a very high state of charge. Not just 60%, because distances are vast out here. Depending on the vehicle if I only charged to 60% I would lose a big chunk of range just going home, and then I have to use that same chunk of range to go back to the place to recharge. With an ICE I can just stop while I'm out doing literally any kind of errand and be back on my way in minutes. Not 30 to 60 minutes. Charging at home is the only way it makes sense outside of a modern urbanized area.

 

[begreen]

Yes, we would not have an EV if not for home charging. There are only a couple of chargers in our town and they are L2 only, so not faster. Our Clipper Creek L25 system & car are old school so 4 hrs gets us 60 miles which is adequate for 95% of our driving needs. With a 50 amp charger and a modern EV like the Mustang EV, that range would be over 100 miles in the same time. (28 miles in an hour) That's good enough for most uses. In practical terms, I am about an hour away from the nearest Tesla supercharger.

 

[EbS-P]

Maybe in a city it works, but not in a rural setting. Not being able to charge at home means I would have to go out to charge my vehicle and hope I need to be in one place for the time it takes to get a very high state of charge. Not just 60%, because distances are vast out here. Depending on the vehicle if I only charged to 60% I would lose a big chunk of range just going home, and then I have to use that same chunk of range to go back to the place to recharge. With an ICE I can just stop while I'm out doing literally any kind of errand and be back on my way in minutes. Not 30 to 60 minutes. Charging at home is the only way it makes sense outside of a modern urbanized area.

If you don’t have access to charging infrastructure EVs make zero sense. Rural areas will need more infrastructure spending per capita. I hope that gets addressed. We didn’t do a good job with funding high speed internet access in rural areas. I hope this is different.

 

[SpaceBus]

If you don’t have access to charging infrastructure EVs make zero sense. Rural areas will need more infrastructure spending per capita. I hope that gets addressed. We didn’t do a good job with funding high speed internet access in rural areas. I hope this is different.

I think we could easily make an EV work for us with home charging, even just one mounted on the exterior of our house near the parking area would be fine. Perhaps an easy workaround for renters or other folks that can't charge at home is to mandate employers with more than "X" employees must have charging available.

 

[begreen]

I think we could easily make an EV work for us with home charging, even just one mounted on the exterior of our house near the parking area would be fine. Perhaps an easy workaround for renters or other folks that can't charge at home is to mandate employers with more than "X" employees must have charging available.

Agreed. Apartments in CA seem to have more charging spots than others. That needs to become more common.