Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in Ottawa-Gatineau

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by roger1818

While I am not saying they won't succeed, it isn't a sure thing that they will either. The oil industry won't just roll over and die and have been very successful at blocking the electric cars so far (just look at the EV1 debacle).

This sort of thing isn't really happening anymore. All the big oil companies are now "energy companies" and they're investing in renewable now. They know which way the wind is blowing.

[1overcosc]

EVs don't have to be cheaper to buy than ICEs to take over the market. They just have to come within about $10k. That's the point at which the savings on operation & maintenance over the lifespan of the car significantly outweigh the price premium.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

EVs don't have to be cheaper to buy than ICEs to take over the market. They just have to come within about $10k. That's the point at which the savings on operation & maintenance over the lifespan of the car significantly outweigh the price premium.

I wasn't suggesting that they need to be cheaper. I was suggesting that they most likely will eventually be cheaper.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

EVs don't have to be cheaper to buy than ICEs to take over the market. They just have to come within about $10k. That's the point at which the savings on operation & maintenance over the lifespan of the car significantly outweigh the price premium.

Someone would have to be a pretty hard core driver to get savings like that out of saving a few dollars/100km on fuel and oil changes and spark plugs (I guess a timing belt eventually). Such a power user would probably not like the capacity decline in the battery and battery replacement would negate a lot of those savings.

[Kitchissippi]

The other trend that's favouring EVs is development of autonomous cars. EVs are just more responsive and compatible with electronic controls because they run on the same blood. While I'm still skeptical about fully self-driving vehicles until there is more infrastructure integration, I'm sure the innovations will seep into more accident prevention features in the near future.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Someone would have to be a pretty hard core driver to get savings like that out of saving a few dollars/100km on fuel and oil changes and spark plugs (I guess a timing belt eventually). Such a power user would probably not like the capacity decline in the battery and battery replacement would negate a lot of those savings.

Maintenance and servicing is a much bigger expense than many people think.

Giving an approximate lifespan of 150,000km (cars typically run for a lot more than that, but let's be conservative), that's $3,000 worth of charging on an EV and $15,000 worth of gas on an ICE.. so a difference of $12k and we haven't even thought of other items yet.

As for battery degradation, that's not nearly as much of a concern as the ICE lobby would have you think. People with 4 year old Nissan Leafs with a ton of mileage who have reported nearly no loss of battery capacity. The lifespan of a battery pack is very long, often comparable to the car itself.

Urbanists should actually be worried about EVs for this reason; they have the potential to considerably reduce the cost of driving. In the new EV age that is coming, once you have a car, it will cost very little to use it. So anyone who has to get a car for anything is going to have very little motive to ever choose transit instead. This could it make it a lot harder to grow non-auto modes.

As for power users... EVs are actually very powerful cars and they have incredible performance when it comes to torque & acceleration. Even the most basic EV is comparable to a luxury sports car in this regard... the internal combustion engine is actually an incredibly inefficient machine. Gearheads will love EVs.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

The other trend that's favouring EVs is development of autonomous cars. EVs are just more responsive and compatible with electronic controls because they run on the same blood. While I'm still skeptical about fully self-driving vehicles until there is more infrastructure integration, I'm sure the innovations will seep into more accident prevention features in the near future.

I'm very skeptical about fully self-driving cars. They're probably coming, but I think they're a long way off from commercial reality. As opposed to EVs, which will be going mainstream imminently.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Maintenance and servicing is a much bigger expense than many people think.

Giving an approximate lifespan of 150,000km (cars typically run for a lot more than that, but let's be conservative), that's $3,000 worth of charging on an EV and $15,000 worth of gas on an ICE.. so a difference of $12k and we haven't even thought of other items yet.

As for battery degradation, that's not nearly as much of a concern as the ICE lobby would have you think. People with 4 year old Nissan Leafs with a ton of mileage who have reported nearly no loss of battery capacity. The lifespan of a battery pack is very long, often comparable to the car itself.

Urbanists should actually be worried about EVs for this reason; they have the potential to considerably reduce the cost of driving. In the new EV age that is coming, once you have a car, it will cost very little to use it. So anyone who has to get a car for anything is going to have very little motive to ever choose transit instead. This could it make it a lot harder to grow non-auto modes.

As for power users... EVs are actually very powerful cars and they have incredible performance when it comes to torque & acceleration. Even the most basic EV is comparable to a luxury sports car in this regard... the internal combustion engine is actually an incredibly inefficient machine. Gearheads will love them.

When I do a back-of-envelope calculation comparing a bolt and a Cruze I get $10.5k for 150k km and $2700 for the bolt, which is about $7700 difference, assuming the EV buyer is able to do 100% of charging at night and there is no need for a high capacity charger (both big ifs).

[1overcosc]

^ It should be noted that gas cars rarely achieve their rated mileage claims consistently. Most modern compacts, despite being advertised at about 7-8 litres per 100km, are really more like 10 (where I got $15k, assuming a $1/L price of gasoline). Whereas EVs are the opposite; they actually typically slightly outperform their mileage ratings.

Grid load projections indicate that 90% of EV charging will occur at home overnight, so you don't have to go much higher than $2/100km.

Maintenance costs are complicated... this Australian source (https://www.finder.com.au/how-much-w...n-electric-car) suggests a cost savings of AUD$2,000 (Australian & Canadian dollars are almost equal in value) over the course of 150,000km.

So by my calculations we're looking at a difference of $14,000. That's pretty substantial. The effect could be amplified by government policy of course, but a $14,000 difference even without any policy pushes says a lot.

There's also the factor that most auto insurers give lower rates to EV owners but that's hard to quantify because insurance is so complicated.

[waterloowarrior]

CAA has a cost calculator which compares the chosen electric vehicle model (by province) to various car classes
https://www.caa.ca/electric-vehicles...st-calculator/

[1overcosc]

^ Now that's a fun tool to play with.. it would be interesting to know some of the methodology behind it, like how much they're factoring in TOU pricing and such.

[Buggys]

The biggest use where mass transit cannot compete with cars is outside urban areas, where gas stations are readily available & easily portable. EV's have a lot of catching up to do compared with gas cars in that respect.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Buggys

The biggest use where mass transit cannot compete with cars is outside urban areas, where gas stations are readily available & easily portable. EV's have a lot of catching up to do compared with gas cars in that respect.

True, but home charging is equally available to urban and rural households.

As roger1818 stated a while back, a lot the shift will require a change of thinking. A lot of people don't quite realize that home charging is a thing. With a gas car, you drive it until the gauge is low then you fill it. So when people hear that the Chevy Bolt has a 300km range that takes 40 minutes to charge, in their head, they're thinking that means that every 300km, they have to drive to a charging station and sit there for 40 minutes waiting for the car to charge. They don't realize that they can just charge it at home every night.. meaning they only ever have to go to a charging station if they drive more than 300km in a single day, which for the vast majority of people is something they only do maybe 10 days a year.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

True, but home charging is equally available to urban and rural households.

As roger1818 stated a while back, a lot the shift will require a change of thinking. A lot of people don't quite realize that home charging is a thing. With a gas car, you drive it until the gauge is low then you fill it. So when people hear that the Chevy Bolt has a 300km range that takes 40 minutes to charge, in their head, they're thinking that means that every 300km, they have to drive to a charging station and sit there for 40 minutes waiting for the car to charge. They don't realize that they can just charge it at home every night.. meaning they only ever have to go to a charging station if they drive more than 300km in a single day, which for the vast majority of people is something they only do maybe 10 days a year.

300 km might be ok for people who only drive to & from work, or or occasional drivers for errands.

But for driving around all day making stops in sometimes faraway locations, road trips, or occasional wilderness/camping trips, the infrastructure is very far off.

And who owns a car without wanting to make the occasional road trip to distant towns, or to the middle of nowhere.

So I think EVs are very far off from being the only car in a household, and is too expensive to be most people's 2nd car.

[acottawa]

At current prices they're almost exclusively for people who want to make political statements (or more likely get laid).

If prices were to drop somewhat they would may sense for people who put on heavy mileage in the city (stittsville residents, uber drivers) or make very predictable out-of town trips, and only in jurisdictions that heavily discount night electricity rates.

They are seen as a panacea by ontario liberals because they are way of consuming the province's electricity glut but other jurisdictions (and other Ontario parties) will not be nearly as desperate to promote their use.

Beyond that, almost nothing about EVs are scalable. Governments cannot afford to provide subsidies at scale, charging stations cannot be installed at scale, electricity cannot be produced at scale, incentives for HOV lanes cannot be replicated at scale and it is unclear lithium and other metals and minerals can be produced at scale. An EV future would require large increases in power production (which in most places means coal) large increases in strip mining, and a large increase in parking lots to charge the things.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Buggys

300 km might be ok for people who only drive to & from work, or or occasional drivers for errands.

But for driving around all day making stops in sometimes faraway locations, road trips, or occasional wilderness/camping trips, the infrastructure is very far off.

Except few people make these kinds of trips regularly. Maybe 10 days a year tops.

On average, cars are used for 60km a day in Canada.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Beyond that, almost nothing about EVs are scalable. Governments cannot afford to provide subsidies at scale, charging stations cannot be installed at scale

Once the technology moves further along the curve subsidies won't be necessary. Almost all subsidy programs have sunset dates on them; in the US, for example, the federal tax credit ends when a certain manufacture has a certain number of sales, and in Ontario our rebate program ends in 2020. The green licenses plates that give EV owners the ability to drive in HOV lanes will also cease being issued once a certain percentage of new car sales are EVs, I think it's 20%.

Originally Posted by acottawa

electricity cannot be produced at scale, An EV future would require large increases in power production (which in most places means coal)

Actually, the additional grid load of widespread EV use is not expected to be that much. The point about coal is well taken but in Canada where 80% of our electricity comes from carbon-free sources (rising to 90% by 2030), it's not a valid point. That said, widespread EV use in, say, China or the American South is probably a net loss for the environment due to heavy usage of coal power.. at least now, coal is on its way out worldwide due to the flood of cheap natural gas.

As for the metals, for some 20 years now we've constantly been hearing about mass panic from supposed metal production shortages but it never materializes. Between metal recycling and changes to which metals are used we always manage. Heck, within 10 years silicon-iron batteries will probably replace lithium ones.

[1overcosc]

I'm also bullish on EVs, because let's be real.. we need them badly.

Some combination of a massive shift to EVs or a massive shift to public transit is absolutely necessary within a generation. Without a massive drop in carbon emissions the human race is doomed.

If 80%-90% of personal transportation meets are still being met by gas cars in 2050, that's essentially guaranteeing the end of the world by 2100.

And here's the thing about humans.. we're mighty good at achieving things when we no choice!

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I'm also bullish on EVs, because let's be real.. we need them badly.

Some combination of a massive shift to EVs or a massive shift to public transit is absolutely necessary within a generation. Without a massive drop in carbon emissions the human race is doomed.

If 80%-90% of personal transportation meets are still being met by gas cars in 2050, that's essentially guaranteeing the end of the world by 2100.

And here's the thing about humans.. we're mighty good at achieving things when we no choice!

Transit would be ideal, if the only thing that changes in 50 years is the energy our cars run on then we are still doing it wrong.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Once the technology moves further along the curve subsidies won't be necessary. Almost all subsidy programs have sunset dates on them; in the US, for example, the federal tax credit ends when a certain manufacture has a certain number of sales, and in Ontario our rebate program ends in 2020. The green licenses plates that give EV owners the ability to drive in HOV lanes will also cease being issued once a certain percentage of new car sales are EVs, I think it's 20%.



Actually, the additional grid load of widespread EV use is not expected to be that much. The point about coal is well taken but in Canada where 80% of our electricity comes from carbon-free sources (rising to 90% by 2030), it's not a valid point. That said, widespread EV use in, say, China or the American South is probably a net loss for the environment due to heavy usage of coal power.. at least now, coal is on its way out worldwide due to the flood of cheap natural gas.

As for the metals, for some 20 years now we've constantly been hearing about mass panic from supposed metal production shortages but it never materializes. Between metal recycling and changes to which metals are used we always manage. Heck, within 10 years silicon-iron batteries will probably replace lithium ones.

There are about 8 million cars in Ontario if each one draws say 5kwh a night that is 40 MWh. Current electricity demand for the province is 17 MW. To meet that kind of demand that province would have to build massive capacity that would probably be fossil fuels.

All of your answers to all of the EV problems seems to be "all the technology in the future will be better". That may well be the case, but it makes no sense to try to upscale the technology until it is ready. the government did that with light bulbs, trying to encourage he adoption of crappy CFL bulbs before good LED bulbs were ready for scale. The result is lots of mercury went to landfill for no good reason.