All electric vehicles...will not work.

Tesoro

Well-known member
I was speaking with an electrical engineer yesterday and we were discussing all electric vehicles. He lives in the newest section of town, built his house 4 years ago. He told me "with the electric lines running down our street, there would only be three cars that could charge at one time". Multiply that problem by the size of a small town, small city, New York city.

Electric cars will not replace gas engines.
 
 
I was speaking with an electrical engineer yesterday and we were discussing all electric vehicles. He lives in the newest section of town, built his house 4 years ago. He told me "with the electric lines running down our street, there would only be three cars that could charge at one time". Multiply that problem by the size of a small town, small city, New York city.

Electric cars will not replace gas engines.
You can charge a vehicle on a 20 amp circuit and get about 25% battery charge in 6 hours (depending on battery size, etc). That all works out to about 2kw per hour.

For reference, a baseboard electric heater uses about 1.5 kw per hour.

If the range on the vehicle is 240 miles, and you drive 40 miles a day, you only need to run the charger 8 hours roughly every other day to top it off.

If everyone in the neighborhood has to drop in a 50amp super charger, then there would need to be upgrades.
 
I'd wager there are many places throughout the country where there are more than 3 or 4 charging overnight on a single street
 
Do the math...
A 50KVA transformer provides 208 amps at 240 volts single phase. 75 KVA is 312 amps at 240 volt single phase. Most transformers are this size and serve 2-3 homes at a time.

My suspicion is he was referencing how many cars could be plugged in on one transformer, in areas where natural gas is the primary source for water and air heating, they can hook more homes up per transformer than places where they use all electric. These natural gas residential centers will be unable to supply the electricity needed with the current infrastructure. In the rural areas, an extra 20-50 amps should be less of a problem.
 
An all electric car that taps into a source provided via an inground rail system similar to city buses overhead lines makes the most sense to me. Outfit vehicles with power meeters that measure the wattage collected. You could charge a smaller battery pack while running on the rails and to make turns or short trips off the main lines you would have a modest battery backup capable of say 100 miles. This allows for the reduced need for batteries, energy lost in conversion from supplied electricity converted to stored electricity then back to supplied energy to the motor when needed. Also gives us more time before required upgrades to residential infrastructure.

RIGHT NOW, LIKE IT OR NOT, IT APPEARS ALL ELECTRIC VEHICLES ARE ON THE HORIZON.
 
I was speaking with an electrical engineer yesterday and we were discussing all electric vehicles. He lives in the newest section of town, built his house 4 years ago. He told me "with the electric lines running down our street, there would only be three cars that could charge at one time". Multiply that problem by the size of a small town, small city, New York city.

Electric cars will not replace gas engines.
You should consider deleting this thread. Currently, it serves as a shining example of ignorance.
 
You can charge a vehicle on a 20 amp circuit and get about 25% battery charge in 6 hours (depending on battery size, etc). That all works out to about 2kw per hour.

For reference, a baseboard electric heater uses about 1.5 kw per hour.

If the range on the vehicle is 240 miles, and you drive 40 miles a day, you only need to run the charger 8 hours roughly every other day to top it off.

If everyone in the neighborhood has to drop in a 50amp super charger, then there would need to be upgrades.
Forty miles is pretty arbitrary. I drive 80 - 90 miles a day some weeks. And I think Tesoro's point is that if we go completely electric you're talking about 2 or more cars per house requiring charging. Heck in my neighborhood throw in a kids car and it's 3 vehicles per some houses.

If we go down this path determining the electric load and ensuring a generous capacity margin needs to be done now. Or we'll all be facing limits on how long we can charge our cars and how far we can drive.

On the bright side we can do what the Chinese are doing and build a bunch of new coal fired electric generating stations to power this new fleet of vehicles. Since the USA has the worlds largest coal reserves it should work out great. And as we upgrade the electric grid we can also harden it against emp bursts.

One question though - will our commercial truck fleet be going electric to?
 
Saying electric vehicles are not viable is not a debatable subject.
Put away your straw man NO ONE is saying electric cars are not viable. What some people are asking is if they truly are the best option from:

* An environmental standpoint

* An economic standpoint

* A practical infrastructure standpoint.

And if you don't think these are debatable points then you don't know what the word debate means.
 
Put away your straw man NO ONE is saying electric cars are not viable. What some people are asking is if they truly are the best option from:

* An environmental standpoint

* An economic standpoint

* A practical infrastructure standpoint.

And if you don't think these are debatable points then you don't know what the word debate means.
WTF are you talking about? The title of the thread says they will not work. That means not viable.
 
WTF are you talking about? The title of the thread says they will not work. That means not viable.
I think he's saying all electric cars for EVERYONE will be very problematic.

I don't want the government and the electric company dictating when and for how long I can charge my car vs. driving up to the corner gas station, and filling my tank for use over the next 450 miles or so.

Not to mention I can fill my tank when I want to.

It's all about choice.
 
I think he's saying all electric cars for EVERYONE will be very problematic.

I don't want the government and the electric company dictating when and for how long I can charge my car vs. driving up to the corner gas station, and filling my tank for use over the next 450 miles or so.

Not to mention I can fill my tank when I want to.

It's all about choice.
Nobody is making you buy an electric car.
Nobody is saying all cars will be electric in the current generation.

This thread is like saying microwave ovens are not for everyone.
 
Nobody is making you buy an electric car.
Nobody is saying all cars will be electric in the current generation.

This thread is like saying microwave ovens are not for everyone.
Microwave ovens don't require a dedicated 220V line. They are a very minimal investment.

A car is a personal, sometimes emotional choice, and a very expensive one.
 
Microwave ovens don't require a dedicated 220V line. They are a very minimal investment.

A car is a personal, sometimes emotional choice, and a very expensive one.
So what? None of that has anything to do with their viability. The entire auto industry would not be betting this big if they were not the obvious future. But keep questioning the obvious by all means. It’s amusing.
 
Forty miles is pretty arbitrary. I drive 80 - 90 miles a day some weeks. And I think Tesoro's point is that if we go completely electric you're talking about 2 or more cars per house requiring charging. Heck in my neighborhood throw in a kids car and it's 3 vehicles per some houses.

If we go down this path determining the electric load and ensuring a generous capacity margin needs to be done now. Or we'll all be facing limits on how long we can charge our cars and how far we can drive.

On the bright side we can do what the Chinese are doing and build a bunch of new coal fired electric generating stations to power this new fleet of vehicles. Since the USA has the worlds largest coal reserves it should work out great. And as we upgrade the electric grid we can also harden it against emp bursts.

One question though - will our commercial truck fleet be going electric to?
The average one way commute distance in the US is 16 miles or 27 minutes. I used 40 miles because it's easier to do math with. Personally I can not have an electric car, because my commute would be over half of the longest currently available range daily. So they are not viable for everyone situation with today's technology.


Even if we built new coal plants to power all the new electric cars it would still be about 20% cleaner to go to electric.


I wouldn't be opposed to nuclear plants, the Chinese are doing interesting things with thorium.

Commercial truck are farther out, but companies are starting to work on them.


From a personal, drive on the highway standpoint, I'd rather long haul freight by train. :)
 
maybe you should stop dropping by yappi... you show over and over your ignorance.... besides it would give you more time to work off that extra 60lbs on that 5'8" frame.....
Gotta love it when someone tells someone else to leave the debate forum. bigkat gonna bigkat.
 
Electric vehicles seem to have a shorter mileage range than most gasoline vehicles and then to recharge or in the case of gas refuel the time needed is much different. OK I am traveling on vacation with an electric car and running low after only a short driving time because I was driving in the dark (lights on) and had to run heat and defrost because of cold temps. all these things shorten driving range. Now I stop for a rest at a large hotel and I and my vehicle get recharged. How is there going to be enough power to charge all the electric vehicles at these hotels at the same time?
 
hamster GIF
Bring on the electric vehicles. I will corner the market!:cool:
 
Electric vehicles seem to have a shorter mileage range than most gasoline vehicles and then to recharge or in the case of gas refuel the time needed is much different. OK I am traveling on vacation with an electric car and running low after only a short driving time because I was driving in the dark (lights on) and had to run heat and defrost because of cold temps. all these things shorten driving range. Now I stop for a rest at a large hotel and I and my vehicle get recharged. How is there going to be enough power to charge all the electric vehicles at these hotels at the same time?

When I first contemplated the application of gasoline for vehicles, I had a bicycle plant in Cleveland. Because bikes interested me, my mind naturally turned to something a rider wouldn’t have to push and keep pushing if he was trying to get some place. But the great obstacle to the development of the automobile was the lack of public inter- est. To advocate replacing the horse, which had served man through centuries, marked one as an imbecile. Things are very different today. But in the ’90s, even though I had a successful bicycle business, and was building my first car in the privacy of the cellar in my home, I began to be pointed out as “the fool who is fiddling with a buggy that will run without being hitched to a horse.” My banker called on me to say: “Winton, I am disappointed in you.”

That riled me, but I held my temper as I asked, “What’s the matter with you?” He bellowed: “There’s nothing the matter with me. It’s you! You’re crazy if you think this fool contraption you’ve been wasting your time on will ever displace the horse.”
 
So what? None of that has anything to do with their viability. The entire auto industry would not be betting this big if they were not the obvious future. But keep questioning the obvious by all means. It’s amusing.
Or the liberal pukes in government werent forcing their hand
 
Electric vehicles seem to have a shorter mileage range than most gasoline vehicles and then to recharge or in the case of gas refuel the time needed is much different. OK I am traveling on vacation with an electric car and running low after only a short driving time because I was driving in the dark (lights on) and had to run heat and defrost because of cold temps. all these things shorten driving range. Now I stop for a rest at a large hotel and I and my vehicle get recharged. How is there going to be enough power to charge all the electric vehicles at these hotels at the same time?
You are a racist
 
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