Tesla

[Kamban]

Real question, where do Tesla's recharging stations get electricity in the areas impacted by the Colonial Pipeline? Maybe Kamban might shed some light?
Seems like the grid might be vulnerable to hacking too. Just a thought.

Luckily we get a significant portion of our electricity from nuclear power plant nearby, with some natural gas plants also thrown in the mix. I don't think solar and wind power are popular with Duke power. I would love to get solar roof, but not without reverse metering.

[Kamban]

If EVs do get more and more widespread, then a lot more work needs to be done in areas that are more apartment/condo/street parking heavy as well as improvements to the grid.

Gas stations don't make much money off selling gas, but more from the stuff inside. Same thing could be done for electricity.

I think the issue of apartment / condo / town home charging has to be solved.

I own rental property in a town home community that has 2 parking spaces allocated in front of the front door , numbered, for each home. There is a side walk between the home and the parking spot so no charging cable can run over it from the house to the car. An owner has asked for EV charging option.

I am a board member. We will have to meet and see how to solve this issue. Separate charging stations would require dedicated extra spots, installation of destination Level 2 charger and then some payment option which would be much higher than home electricity costs. I will let you know how if goes in the meeting.

[Kamban]

I am waiting for Tesla to start producing the new Model Y with 4680 batter at its Austin plant and place an order for our 2nd car. Hopefully it should come out later this year or next year. That should give me some additional range and become our primary long distance driver.

[Nysoz]

I think the issue of apartment / condo / town home charging has to be solved.

I own rental property in a town home community that has 2 parking spaces allocated in front of the front door , numbered, for each home. There is a side walk between the home and the parking spot so no charging cable can run over it from the house to the car. An owner has asked for EV charging option.

I am a board member. We will have to meet and see how to solve this issue. Separate charging stations would require dedicated extra spots, installation of destination Level 2 charger and then some payment option which would be much higher than home electricity costs. I will let you know how if goes in the meeting.

Unfortunately that's the norm for a portion of the country with street parking. That's going to require digging underneath and running the cable/conduit underneath and come out near the street on a waterproof post.

Either that or a centralized area that's dedicated for EV charging. Annoying for owners but cheaper/easier up front construction. Would also harder to charge people.

[Kamban]

Unfortunately that's the norm for a portion of the country with street parking. That's going to require digging underneath and running the cable/conduit underneath and come out near the street on a waterproof post.

Either that or a centralized area that's dedicated for EV charging. Annoying for owners but cheaper/easier up front construction. Would also harder to charge people.

Issues I see coming up

1. How many spaces to dedicate for chargers. Will it be too little, too much or just right. How to expand it when you have more EV. What happens when they do not function.
2. Owner states it is too far away from the house for him to get going in the morning. Other home owners think he is getting an extra parking space.
3. Compatibility issues. Need for adapters.
4. The HOA and board do not want the headaches of doing the project, owning it and collecting charges. A third party commercial vendor will have to maximize profits. That will translate to high charging costs. One can out up with higher charging costs on a road trip knowing that at home you charge it for dirt cheap prices but if you have to pay high prices all the time , the people who are interested in EV will say, heck with it. I will stick with my ICE car since it is cheaper to buy and run.

Maybe apartment complexes might find it easier than town home communities.

The whole thing reminds me of the divide between the haves of broadband in cities and sloooooow speeds in rural areas. Here the coin is somewhat flipped and single family homes in suburban and rural have it better than the densely populated cities.

[xraygoggles]

I am waiting for Tesla to start producing the new Model Y with 4680 batter at its Austin plant and place an order for our 2nd car. Hopefully it should come out later this year or next year. That should give me some additional range and become our primary long distance driver.

If the new batteries are as good as they say, then I would buy a Tesla again.

Right now, I need to make 1-2 stops when driving from SoCal to the Bay. Would be much more convenient for road trips if could do it in one full go.

[Tim]

Unfortunately that's the norm for a portion of the country with street parking. That's going to require digging underneath and running the cable/conduit underneath and come out near the street on a waterproof post.

Either that or a centralized area that's dedicated for EV charging. Annoying for owncers but cheaper/easier up front construction. Would also harder to charge people.

https://news.yahoo.com/nc-1-natural-gas-pipeline-110000913.html

The lead time on any source of generating electricity is extremely long. Nuclear, natural gas, solar or wind. The infrastructure lead time is also critical. EV's are in a phase I would call proof of concept. The power generation and distribution is piggy backing on existing generation and distribution. It will not be cheap. I don't think anyone objects to an EV. I don't think anyone objects to renewable energy. What we have is John Kerry flying in his private jet shutting down pipelines that provide fuel for his jet. That is "stupid". There is proof of concept on renewable energy and EV's. There is no plan to make it available without significant changes at an extremely high cost that has not even been laid out on a straw man. The auto industry is moving to EV's, someone needs to be working on the infrastructure. A big hole exists and the cost of electricity cutting off fossil fuels will skyrocket. Should EV's be taxed for that? Or do we have a prototype and proof of concept? Scaling it up the challenge.

[Nysoz]

Issues I see coming up

1. How many spaces to dedicate for chargers. Will it be too little, too much or just right. How to expand it when you have more EV. What happens when they do not function.
2. Owner states it is too far away from the house for him to get going in the morning. Other home owners think he is getting an extra parking space.
3. Compatibility issues. Need for adapters.
4. The HOA and board do not want the headaches of doing the project, owning it and collecting charges. A third party commercial vendor will have to maximize profits. That will translate to high charging costs. One can out up with higher charging costs on a road trip knowing that at home you charge it for dirt cheap prices but if you have to pay high prices all the time , the people who are interested in EV will say, heck with it. I will stick with my ICE car since it is cheaper to buy and run.

Maybe apartment complexes might find it easier than town home communities.

The whole thing reminds me of the divide between the haves of broadband in cities and sloooooow speeds in rural areas. Here the coin is somewhat flipped and single family homes in suburban and rural have it better than the densely populated cities.

1. Not sure if larger installs would be the same idea as home installs. Maybe get a sense of how many people are interested in EVs now and in the future. Also remind people that they wouldn't have to charge every day and would have a scheduled day/night/time to charge. Would get a sense of how many chargers would be needed now but also needs the honor system or form of communication to help charging logistics. Then when running wires, run larger wires that would be able to take a larger load for possible future expansion. The main cost would be the digging than the actual cost of the wire.

2. Owner would get charged extra for the amenity. If they want it right at street level it'll be a higher cost for them and possible future renters to recoup costs. Other home owners should understand EV owners would be paying more for the 'extra parking spot'.

3. Just install the J1772 plug. It's the US standard and Teslas would have to use the adapter.

4. If a third party takes on all the costs/repairs, then would make it easier for the board but more expensive for charging. Depending on gas/electricity rates, it could still be cheaper than an ICE vehicle but not as much as if your own home supply. If the board did decide to take on the headache, it would add to amenities of the location and possibly pay for itself on down the road, depending on how much users get charged.

[Nysoz]

https://news.yahoo.com/nc-1-natural-gas-pipeline-110000913.html

The lead time on any source of generating electricity is extremely long. Nuclear, natural gas, solar or wind. The infrastructure lead time is also critical. EV's are in a phase I would call proof of concept. The power generation and distribution is piggy backing on existing generation and distribution. It will not be cheap. I don't think anyone objects to an EV. I don't think anyone objects to renewable energy. What we have is John Kerry flying in his private jet shutting down pipelines that provide fuel for his jet. That is "stupid". There is proof of concept on renewable energy and EV's. There is no plan to make it available without significant changes at an extremely high cost that has not even been laid out on a straw man. The auto industry is moving to EV's, someone needs to be working on the infrastructure. A big hole exists and the cost of electricity cutting off fossil fuels will skyrocket. Should EV's be taxed for that? Or do we have a prototype and proof of concept? Scaling it up the challenge.

The infrastructure definitely needs an upgrade. Instead of spending money on the past, invest in the future (easier said than done). Instead of all the oil and gas subsidies, put that money towards electric/clean energy infrastructure. It's so convoluted and shady it's hard to get a sense of how much is spent or needed for all these subsidies, but estimates are at $10s-100s of billions a year. Doesn't have to be all at once, but a transition over the decade to incentive/give these companies a chance to make the transition to clean technology or die off like old tech/products before them.

Since there is a lead time on generating electricity and upgrading infrastructure, people and government should realize that there's starting to be a shift toward EVs and get started now before it becomes a much more expensive and pressing problem.

[Molar Mechanic]

We're nowhere near capacity for electricity generation. We have something like a 65% utilization rate. As demand goes up, then additional plants get added, which do decrease efficiency and increase cost. The closest we get is in the summer days, and EV charging tends to happen at night, so concerns over the grid being overwhelmed are pure hyperbole and fear-mongering.

[Tim]

"put that money towards electric/clean energy infrastructure."
This is currently in place. I don't see a rush to any source. Which clean? We have wind to an extent. We have nuclear, but that has resistance. What we don't have is storage. THE technology is not there. But we do have the pipeline shut down. We do have Shell selling its one remaining refinery. Solar power is most prevalent in Ca because of regulation and I think income tax credits. Do you want a cash rebate? Whatever you want. You have 10k pipeline workers that will build these wonderful solar power farms. Just no place to store it. Throw money at it is not the answer. Most of the solar incentives previously given were to companies that are now bankrupt.
At this point there is not a private company that will bite. They will accept tax money though. There is not even a drawing on a napkin of an idea let alone a business plan.
A "new development" with its on power source and 100% clean energy with commercial, houses and apartments would go a long way. Self contained from the front to the end. Too expensive.

[Nysoz]

https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2021/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/

So Tesla is finally slowly delivering the new refreshed model S (plaid version) after much delay. As promised it's stupid fast but so far it's reportedly very comfortable and quiet to cruise around with too. The main controversy is the 'yoke' steering wheel/interface. Most think it's dumb and once again Tesla is solving a problem that doesn't need to be fixed. A few people are reporting that you do get used to it after a few days.

Surrounding the release event, people were asking why make a car that goes so fast? Elon's response is that he wants to show the world that EVs are the future and better than their gas counterparts in every way. Well, it's definitely now quicker than any other production car in the world at a much cheaper price point with less maintenance. The last piece of the puzzle will be longer range and charging speed/infrastructure to eliminate the last piece of range anxiety for those that can't charge at home or work.

[justlearning]

Here is a good interesting presentation about their self driving neural net they are working on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8

[StarTrekDoc]

Okay got FSD yesterday despite having a driving score of 92

And it drives like a newly permitted teen - of course!

Reminds me of the days of early Autopilot on the freeway (or PTSD screams)

Today it tried to go over speed bumps at 25mph. Speed up to the neighborhood gate and slam on the brakes 10 feet away. Enter the traffic circle widely swerving left/right/left and pumping brakes cause couldn't determine how the oncoming traffic to the left is behaving coming and going at the same time.

Once out of the neighborhood on the surface roads it did quite fine. Signaled traffic light turns fine. Right turns WITHOUT pedestrians - fine. stop-go-traffic perfect. On ramp metering lights - perfect.

Going to take it for a spin this weekend up to Anaheim to see if we get whiplash or migraines.

----On another front -- PW2 got a nice fun upgrade. Able to fully export battery to the grid during peak hours. Full arbitrage in force.

[8arclay]

Got into an big accident over the weekend, totaling my car (everyone okay, no serious injuries). Was hoping to get a couple more years out of the daily driver before looking into electric, an F150 Lightning or similar. However, the transition to electric has been expedited with this accident.

Currently have it narrowed to the Mach E v Model Y, leaning Y bc of availability, but still a ways out (delivery Dec-March 23 opposed to Mach E not even taking orders currently).

The other consideration is used. Prices arent a TON different, but at least the vehicles are a little more readily available. Any pitfalls I should be looking out for?