Whether you love em or hate em, one of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles has been a charging format war. There was a major development last Thursday on this front, and it’ll have impacts with Saskatchewan chargers and EVs in the near future. The repercussions from this will have a dramatic effect on the adoption of EVs.
“Seriously, the people paying to install these…” are likely being paid by the government to do so
“And to make it more complicated, there’s an add-on/combo to CCS called J1772…” blame the SAE, all of their standards start with a J
I suspect Ford is paying less for the connector license than they are for the California credits that they’ve been buying from Tesla
It makes sense to have a common standard, but I still wonder where the power is going to come from…..
Funny you mention that. https://pipelineonline.ca/when-albertas-wind-power-cratered-saskatchewans-wasnt-great-but-at-least-coal-and-natural-gas-provided-84-of-all-power-here/
Brian, quite right. What no sane government will ever do is allow the lights to go out. In Ontario, that’s why it’s ordered OPG to find ways to life-extend four reactors at Pickering well beyond 2025. The government hasn’t said it, but it will burn as much gas as necessary to keep the grid up. Ontario went through a grid collapse in 2003. This happened specifically because Bob Rae and Maurice Strong had skimped on nuclear maintenance budgets a decade before.
The socialists buggered around with the electricity system again in 2009 with the Green Energy Act, resulting in the collapse of much of Ontario’s small industrial load from business failures.
Spot on. The electric grid struggles to keep up with existing load and the prospect of blackouts grows. Grid reliability is under attack on two fronts:
1- Replacement of reliable thermal sources by unreliable wind / solar
2- Huge additional load increase driven my migration to EVs
EVs are Betamaxes. Most people haven’t realized it yet because EVs are less than 2% of the vehicles in North America.
Pro 1) No tailpipe therefore no exhaust fumes
2) Deluded drivers feel good due to false belief they are saving the planet
Con 1) Exhaust fumes are created elsewhere by fossil fuel power plants
2) Dismal range
3) Long recharge times
4) Low resale value due to high cost of battery replacement
5) Base Honda Civic $28,250. Base Tesla Model 3 $54,990 ($10,000 more for Long Range option).
6) Catastrophic fires if battery pack is damaged in collision or by running over debris
7) Environmental damage caused by lithium mining and refining
8) Child labour is used to mine cobalt
9) EVs are dependent on a reliable power grid. Green govt policies that replace fossil fuel power plants with wind mills will cause long term disruptions to power grids.
10) Lithium batteries are toxic waste
“EVs are Betamaxes. ”
Not even that. They are the LaserDisk and the Digital Compact Cassette.
No, they are the steam powered automobile, as seen on thee London to Brighton race
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_to_Brighton_Veteran_Car_Run
Don’t know if it was mentioned in the video but some say it was the porn industry that made the decision for us with respect to VHS vs. Beta. Make of that what you will.
The article reminds me somewhat of Edison and Tesla’s AC/DC battle. Fitting in a way only because as I understand it charging stations convert the AC to DC before going into your child slave mined EV battery.
I’m sure resident electricians here will tell me I’m wrong and to stay in my lane. I’m cool with that.
That said…I love my ICE and that’s how I roll. I’ll leave charger connectivity anxieties for the Maureen Huxters of the world.
Actually I think you are right. That would be the outcome that’s reasonable and expected, and why. Size matters; the net financial returns from California’s pornography industry dwarf the box office and video receipts of the conventional movie industry by as much as an order of magnitude.
That step only really solves one of the problems with charging. The little video at the end highlights another- station orientation. The current gas station design, with drive-by pumps, is far more efficient than the current charging station model, where the chargers are essentially piggy-backed on to someone else’s property, always along the periphery. There’s a reason every gas station in the world utilizes the pump island design. It works.
Another is the payment system. Again, I drive up to a pump, and I can either go inside and pay cash, or I can pay at the pump with a credit/debit card. Paying to charge with a phone app is routinely seen as troublesome. Virtually every EV road test I’ve read or watched features a segment about the failure of the charging app to work.
That gets us to this: The gas station up the street has two islands, and eight pumps. I’d say the entirety of the property is worth $3M, bare minimum. The property taxes alone probably hit $150K. Those eight pumps, plus a convenience store and a car wash, generate enough cash flow to profitably sustain the operation. In order to function at a semblance of parity, the charging network has to adopt this model. And just as Ford and GM are not allowed to own gas stations, or fuel companies, the manufacturers cannot own the charging networks. Nor can we expect the government to. Therefore, every use of a charger will have to be profitable to the people who build and own the charging stations, and the convenience stores and car washes that will inevitably be attached.
Only then will we see a true cost/benefit of real world use of EV’s versus gas.
And every E-run I have seen,and I have seen a few, the driver,passengers are pre-occupied with the next charging station. Now I realize this is part of the testing, but I think this will be a norm. As a male, I dread shopping, and I get the feeling that an EV drive would have the same emotional stress as a shopping trip. Not well explained, but thats why I won’t participate.
Yeah. We do a road trip, the idea of “where we gonna fill up?” is a once every four hours kind of deal, with an hour of flex time still in the tank.
The only plug on my truck is for the engine block heater.
Congrats, ev plugs and charging stations are getting slightly better. Now they just need to make them work below zero. Among other problems
Ever see the price of EV tires?
If you owned one long enough.
Some dude selling two used Goodyear Assurance tyres said I should sell my car before it wears out.
He talked me into not wanting to buy the tyres he was selling! D’oh
EV’s are not fit for purpose. The word “transportation” must therefore be redefined.
“And for longer trips, we’ve generously outfitted the community with this lovely sidwalk.”