EV Infrastructure

If only keeping the Diablo Canyon plant open were so easy....  I wouldn't bet on it at all.  I hate losing money.  PG&E wants out.  Is there a new licensed buyer?  When is the refueling scheduled?  Is the fuel purchased?  Are the workers scheduled?  This stuff is normally planned years in advance.

Mist if the grid is in conservative, hands off, or a flex alert.  It's summer.  Winter is the same.  All maintenance is normally planned for fall or spring.  Most plants are behind on maintenance and the entire grid is in run til failure then sound out a team to fix it now mode.  
 

Making sacrifices to transition is also kinda funny.  No amount of wind or solar power will fix the grid.  Infrastructure is needed and little to none is being built.  
 

We have plenty of sources of energy.  We also have plenty of knowledge to build and distribute it.  But if we do that, there won't be any problems for the people that know nothing about power generation to save you from by raising your taxes.  

Those are some interesting considerations.  The planned shutdown was 2025, so maybe that is enough time to still have the processes in place.

Power generation in winter in CA I don't think is much of an issue since almost all non-rural houses have natural gas piped to them and the winters are not that cold.  Of course, being CA, they want to eliminate natural gas furnaces also, but that will either take a very long time or be very very expensive.

Home solar is probably the most practical way to get a lot more renewables, but of course it's still pretty expensive and CA is already expensive enough, and that will still only get you part way to 100%.

aircooled said:

Home solar is probably the most practical way to get a lot more renewables, but of course it's still pretty expensive and CA is already expensive enough, and that will still only get you part way to 100%.

What happens during Gray May and Gloom June in S. CA?

I am thinking that, as mentioned above, there needs to be years of planning before you can pencil whip ICE cars away at a hard date. There are still people rocking 1980s Corrollas there. Imagine their sticker shock when they need to purchase a new vehicle.

I don't think anyone's talking about outlawing all ICE cars (other than perhaps in certain very dense city centers like London). Stopping the sales of new ICE vehicles will have no real effect on someone driving a 40 year old Toyota. 20 years from now, the makeup of the national fleet will look different but those 1980's Corolla drivers will only be on 2000s Corollas by that point :)

I see Kash for Klunkers coming to CA.

That hasn't happened for all the older ICE vehicles despite the fact that it's a more affordable way to clean the air. You can still drive around in a 1970 El Camino with no cat and CA hasn't offered to buy it back.

Also, to clarify, as was discovered in the other thread:

  This mandate does NOT stop the sale of IC engine powered cars, it DOES require any passenger vehicle sold to at least be PZEV (e.g. Hybrid).

  As noted above, it also has no effect on old / used cars (which are a VERY small % of cars regularly driven).

  I believe Massachusetts is also enacting this, and it is very consistently being misreported as a no gas powered car mandate, which is entirely untrue.  Also as noted, the primary effect of this will be that it will make the minimum price of a new car, that much higher.  The sort of irony of this is that who live in dense areas can likely go to electric (if the priced drop), while those in more urban areas will need to buy a hybrid which of course is where they are the least useful / effective (very little stop and go traffic etc).

preach (dudeist priest) said:

aircooled said:

Home solar is probably the most practical way to get a lot more renewables, but of course it's still pretty expensive and CA is already expensive enough, and that will still only get you part way to 100%.

What happens during Gray May and Gloom June in S. CA?

I am thinking that, as mentioned above, there needs to be years of planning before you can pencil whip ICE cars away at a hard date. There are still people rocking 1980s Corrollas there. Imagine their sticker shock when they need to purchase a new vehicle.

Even on cloudy gloomy days solar panels generate some electricity. Granted not as much as on sunny shiny days which SanDiego averages more than any other city.   
     But here in Minnesota we get panels installed at no cost to the home owners. 
 Yep Free, $0.  So if it makes sense to put them up here in the frozen arctic of the North, anybody South of the Mason Dixon line should be screaming at their politicians to stop taking money from the fat cats and set them up for solar and wind.  
    It's cheaper for the utility companies than building a new plant.  Plus the utility companies get repaid first from the excess energy you sell  so  they make money  from energy you collect. 
     Then there are wind generators.  If it's cloudy and rainy,  modern permanent magnet wind generators start making electricity in as low as 4 mph breeze.  
     Think of all the homes in America.  20 years from now most will have that sort of collection system.  
   The Oil companies won't have to go to the ends of the earth.   Deal with governments that enslave their citizens.  Or spend billions of dollars drilling in the ocean depths. 
   Instead of asking if it has stainless steel appliances. Home buyers will ask how much money the solar and wind collection system earn per month. 

aircooled said:

Also, to clarify, as was discovered in the other thread:

  This mandate does NOT stop the sale of IC engine powered cars, it DOES require any passenger vehicle sold to at least be PZEV (e.g. Hybrid).

  As noted above, it also has no effect on old / used cars (which are a VERY small % of cars regularly driven).

  I believe Massachusetts is also enacting this, and it is very consistently being misreported as a no gas powered car mandate, which is entirely untrue.  Also as noted, the primary effect of this will be that it will make the minimum price of a new car, that much higher.  The sort of irony of this is that who live in dense areas can likely go to electric (if the priced drop), while those in more urban areas will need to buy a hybrid which of course is where they are the least useful / effective (very little stop and go traffic etc).

Look at what Minnesota and other states are doing.  Free solar panels. Installed and connected for no cost to home owners.  

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

If only keeping the Diablo Canyon plant open were so easy....  I wouldn't bet on it at all.  I hate losing money.  PG&E wants out.  Is there a new licensed buyer?  When is the refueling scheduled?  Is the fuel purchased?  Are the workers scheduled?  This stuff is normally planned years in advance.

Mist if the grid is in conservative, hands off, or a flex alert.  It's summer.  Winter is the same.  All maintenance is normally planned for fall or spring.  Most plants are behind on maintenance and the entire grid is in run til failure then sound out a team to fix it now mode.  
 

Making sacrifices to transition is also kinda funny.  No amount of wind or solar power will fix the grid.  Infrastructure is needed and little to none is being built.  
 

We have plenty of sources of energy.  We also have plenty of knowledge to build and distribute it.  But if we do that, there won't be any problems for the people that know nothing about power generation to save you from by raising your taxes.  

Please be careful.  Minnesota is already near 50% renewable and scheduled to be there by 2030 long before 50% of the cars are EV's   
 Yep, up here in the snow covered arctic wasteland you can make a 10 minute call and get free solar panels installed and connected. $0 cost to the homeowner. 
    Ask how it makes so much sense the Utility companies are supporting it.  

This is what makes discussions so hard. Folks are so very polarized and their news is intentionally helping that. Read these headlines:

Now I include the last, not only as they are known for sensational headlines, but because they are the only outlet I could find with, GASP, an actual copy of the actual letter actually sent to Californians. They also included the hours in their subhead, so two bonus points for them.

Look at that, so they ask for a reduction in all electrical equipment between 4-9PM. Amusingly, here is South Carolina, the polar political opposite of California, my Bolt is set not to charge until 7PM for a similar reason, though Duke Energy simply asked and rewarded me, and we're not facing issues like California is.

California sends out a memo asking people to avoid unnecessary energy usage during specific hours due to a heat wave, and all I hear all day around the watercooler is "hyuck hyuck stupid California" and "See, I told you EVs weren't ready for prime time". All of this could have been avoided if journalists were actually journalists, and actually either copied or linked to the actual source material.

Take this and multiply it for each and every issue with EVs and you see why it's so difficult.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/autos-hybrids/how-quickly-will-electric-vehicles-take-over-now-that-california-has-mostly-banned-gas-powered-cars-in-2035/ar-AA11lTiH?ocid=hplocalnews 

"Still, the 2035 mandate is ambitious, requiring substantial investment in supporting infrastructure. For one, an additional 3.2 million chargers would need to be installed by 2035, according to a May 2022 paper published by Tal and his colleagues. California also needs to ensure that its grid can handle the influx of charging cars, including during extreme weather events such as the upcoming west-wide heat wave."

They will be tossing some money at it.

Article also explains the proceeding years and the percentages of ICE vehicles per year that can be sold along with the fines if the auto makers do not comply.

I'm still waiting for an Alpha EV product.

frenchyd said:

preach (dudeist priest) said:

aircooled said:

Home solar is probably the most practical way to get a lot more renewables, but of course it's still pretty expensive and CA is already expensive enough, and that will still only get you part way to 100%.

What happens during Gray May and Gloom June in S. CA?

I am thinking that, as mentioned above, there needs to be years of planning before you can pencil whip ICE cars away at a hard date. There are still people rocking 1980s Corrollas there. Imagine their sticker shock when they need to purchase a new vehicle.

Even on cloudy gloomy days solar panels generate some electricity. Granted not as much as on sunny shiny days which SanDiego averages more than any other city.   
     But here in Minnesota we get panels installed at no cost to the home owners. 
 Yep Free, $0.  So if it makes sense to put them up here in the frozen arctic of the North, anybody South of the Mason Dixon line should be screaming at their politicians to stop taking money from the fat cats and set them up for solar and wind.  
    It's cheaper for the utility companies than building a new plant.  Plus the utility companies get repaid first from the excess energy you sell  so  they make money  from energy you collect. 
     Then there are wind generators.  If it's cloudy and rainy,  modern permanent magnet wind generators start making electricity in as low as 4 mph breeze.  
     Think of all the homes in America.  20 years from now most will have that sort of collection system.  
   The Oil companies won't have to go to the ends of the earth.   Deal with governments that enslave their citizens.  Or spend billions of dollars drilling in the ocean depths. 
   Instead of asking if it has stainless steel appliances. Home buyers will ask how much money the solar and wind collection system earn per month. 

This is amazing.  I was in MN for several days last week, and my Princeton-educated in-law (who grew up in CA) made no mention of the solar deal.  What an excellent move by the state!

tuna55 said:

This is what makes discussions so hard. Folks are so very polarized and their news is intentionally helping that. Read these headlines:

 

 

 

 

 

Now I include the last, not only as they are known for sensational headlines, but because they are the only outlet I could find with, GASP, an actual copy of the actual letter actually sent to Californians. They also included the hours in their subhead, so two bonus points for them.

 

Look at that, so they ask for a reduction in all electrical equipment between 4-9PM. Amusingly, here is South Carolina, the polar political opposite of California, my Bolt is set not to charge until 7PM for a similar reason, though Duke Energy simply asked and rewarded me, and we're not facing issues like California is.

 

California sends out a memo asking people to avoid unnecessary energy usage during specific hours due to a heat wave, and all I hear all day around the watercooler is "hyuck hyuck stupid California" and "See, I told you EVs weren't ready for prime time". All of this could have been avoided if journalists were actually journalists, and actually either copied or linked to the actual source material.

 

Take this and multiply it for each and every issue with EVs and you see why it's so difficult.

It is agreed that the news is there to sell copies and ads, but it's not wrong.  Brown-outs have been a thing in CA for decades.  Using SC as an example against CA, as a population consideration, does not work.  Too many people in metro areas and crappy old infrastructure (along with increasingly hot weather--also a thing) can only amount to failure.  Scumbag utilities like PG&E will push their advantage for as long as humanly possible, because the gov't literally does not force them to improve.  Southern states (and apparently northern) actually improve things.

https://fortune.com/2022/10/02/toyota-ceo-electric-vehicles-hype-department-store-of-powertrains/

"

The CEO said a lack of sufficient infrastructure will hold back EV adoption rates, which is a factor in its decision not to go all in on electricity.

“Toyota is a department store of all sorts of powertrains,” he said. “It’s not right for the department store to say, ‘This is the product you should buy.’”

Toyoda expressed skepticism that automakers will be able to achieve the California mandate that will effectively ban gasoline-fueled vehicles by 2035 and require a substantial portion of sales be EVs by 2030. New York said Thursday it would institute similar regulations.

“We have to look at the current price range and infrastructure availability and at what pace they’re going to be upgrading,” he said. “Realistically speaking, it seems rather difficult to achieve.”

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

Oregon just passed a law matching California's requiring all new cars sold in 2035 to be full EV, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen fuel cell. Of course all the headlines said new gas cars would be banned, which annoyingly ignores the hybrid option. 

In reply to thatsnowinnebago :

To be fair to the reporters- and hell must have frozen over if I'm defending reporters- you could say that they are accurately reporting the inaccurate information that was purposely given to them. The actual legislation and CARB announcement stated a complete ban of ICE engines. It also said that hybrids are allowed. They redefined an ICE engine connected to a hybrid system as not an ICE engine. Despite the fact that it is still an internal combustion engine burning gasoline. A hybrid mandate wouldn't be front page news, and EV mandate was. 
 

preach (dudeist priest) said:

https://fortune.com/2022/10/02/toyota-ceo-electric-vehicles-hype-department-store-of-powertrains/

“Toyota is a department store of all sorts of powertrains,” he said. “We carry BMW, Mazda, and Subaru in our premium lineup, as well as store-brand offerings.”

In reply to tuna55 :

I generally wouldnt defend journalists, and this was obviously tarted up to be hyperbolic as possible, but I think its a valid critic on whats happening.

I think saying you can get a plug in hybrid is a cop out, because the point of the policy is to get off gasoline as an energy source for individual travel. Having a plug in hybrid and no electricity just makes it a worse than a comparable ICE car.

I also find the inclusion of hydrogen powered cars hilarious. Is California set on having cars only be powered by things they have a shortage of (electricity and freshwater)? I understand there are new ways to get it from seawater but I dont think they have been implemented yet.

For a while I was worried Mazda might be left holding the ICE bag, now I'm worried about Toyota.

Meanwhile, in Germany:

https://electrek.co/2022/12/20/audi-is-converting-all-factories-to-produce-electric-vehicles/

With regards to infrastructure I took this picture a couple of weeks ago

One of 107 in the US, that's a huge increase, just a few years ago you could've counted them on your fingers:

https://www.glpautogas.info/en/hydrogen-stations-united-states.html

I don't think it's going to beat electricity being in most every manmade structure though.

Porsche is just going to use air and water for fuel in their Mobile 1 racing series:

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/porsche-replacing-gasoline-air-water

"Since it requires as much carbon dioxide to make as it emits in its emissions, it is essentially a net-zero fuel and could be approved for widespread use under future emissions rules. Porsche, other sports car companies and even the Formula One series have been investigating its implementation in order to preserve the performance and aural entertainment benefits of internal combustion engines in their products."