David S. Wallens said:But, really, it should have been closer to a 15-minute stop. Charging the car back to nearly full ate up the extra time. For science.
It was older tech, but during my ownership experience my car would 'DC quick charge' very quickly to about 80% and then begin to taper off the charging rate. Charging past 90% slowed dramatically to the point that it wasn't worth waiting for; in fact, I seem to remember that a software limitation may have even prevented DC charging to 100%.
In reply to nderwater :
Same thing here, basically. Tom's article has more details.
If simply trying to get from Atlanta to Daytona, we could have quick charged up to about 80% and gotten back on the road. Tom (my co-driver) wanted to recharge back to 98% so he could better monitor our efficiency.
Fifteen minutes at Walmart would have been enough time to make a pit stop, grab a bite, and maybe walk around for a few minutes.
That's just physics, the last 20% go a lot slower.
On our road trips, we've gone shopping (at Athleta, not so much Wal-Mart), had ice cream and stopped for a good dinner. You plan for it.
We haven't actually visited a charger since October.
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I don't profess to be an electrical guy, I know enough to be dangerous. But, I have read before that the current grid/infrastructure is pretty much stressed to the limit currently ( what great wordplay here). I wonder what the increase in demand due to EVs is likely to be. Rolling brownouts/blackouts ??
Anyone ?
300zxfreak said:I don't profess to be an electrical guy, I know enough to be dangerous. But, I have read before that the current grid/infrastructure is pretty much stressed to the limit currently ( what great wordplay here). I wonder what the increase in demand due to EVs is likely to be. Rolling brownouts/blackouts ??
Anyone ?
I think the "stress on the grid" argument is overblown.
Yale says we pretty much have enough power now, just need to be smarter about how/where we use it.
This study says that the majority of us would be fine RIGHT NOW if every ICE suddenly became an EV overnight, as long as charging is done off-peak hours. Obviously, it's not likely that the entire fleet will ever be all EVs, and it would take decades to come to fruition giving time to make some changes/upgrades. It's also important to remember that it's not like every EV will be charging at the same time. ICE powered vehicles go days at a time without refueling. A 200-300 mile EV can do the same thing, either charging just a little every night, or charging from "empty" to "full" once very few days. It's not like every 100KwH EV will need 100Kwh of charging every day. They might charge 10Kwh every night, or charge the full 100 KwH once every 10 days.
The power grid isn't the same as, say, gasoline distribution. The latter is all about total product delivery - if a region needs 10000 gallons per day, you have to deliver 10000 gallons per day. That might be in one trainload of 10000 gallons, or 10 1000 gallon trucks (obviously these numbers are illustrative only, I haven't checked to see how big a truckload is). You just have to make sure your delivery rate over time keeps up with useage, and you can use storage to even out the supply.
The grid is more concerned with peak use. If part of the grid needs to pull 1 MW at peak, that means it has to be built to deliver 1 MW at any given time. It's almost never used to peak capacity, and if demand drops below 1 MW there is unused capacity. EVs can be smart about their charging, doing the majority of their consumption at off-peak hours. They could even theoretically communicate with each other and the grid itself. Really, they can smooth out the use of the grid so it runs at a more consistent load. A mid-day charging stop is the exception rather than the rule, whilst it's the other way around with ICE vehicles.
People see news reports of lineups at chargers at peak periods (holiday weekends, for example) and assume that's what it's normally like. But there's all this invisible charging going on that a lot of people don't realize, that the EVs are powering up when they're resting.
Almost off topic - the house next to us is for sale. Last weekend, there was a couple with a Model 3 looking at it. They were followed by a couple with a Leaf. Then came a guy on a Harley. I have extrapolated from this that 2/3 of the vehicles in our town are EVs and the other 1/3 are deliberately anachronistic noisemakers :)
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