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EV charging surprise?

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Thanks. I figure the chargers must work for more than just Tesla. But who'd park for 30 minutes to "top up" the battery ... while watching gas-fuel cars whiz by?

Still seems to me that self-driving cars, and electric cars, have a very limited clientele, at least for the near future. Interesting predicament:

www.theverge.com

A driverless Waymo got stuck in traffic and then tried to run away from its support crew

The video provided a rare look at a stuck Waymo vehicle.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

The "look at what I bought" aspect may be taking precedence for a while.
 
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Dinosaur.jpg
 
Anybody know if fuel cell cars will be in our future?
 
Around here, I see Tesla's just like I saw VW beetles in 1968. They still don't make sense to me. Way too much$$$. If you need heat... Range goes down. If you need AC.... Range goes down. Seems like an OK city car but.... If you do not have your own garage.... No charger at home. You need to go somewhere to charge? Long range... The problems are charge time. When they develop a battery that can charge in 5 minutes, and costs the same as a gas car, Somebody call me. Until then, They are as smart as a smart car. But that's another story. My 2 cents for the day.
 
Hydrogen fuel cells are the most common sense conversion but end-user transfer is the weak link. As in:"Make something fool proof..."

And at end-of-life with Li-Ion batteries, where will they end up? Nevermind the front-end costs to make the things. Net loss for EV's.
 
So to me the big difference between the advent of gas power and now is that fueling stations gradually expanded out of high population areas into the countryside and early on, by explicit agreement or just no better ideas, fueled the same way so the infrastructure didn't need to have much in the way of differences. To build 1000s of charging stations as part of a mass infrastructure project you either have some of everything and possibly end up with chargers that get little or no use as their "standard" didn't win the eventual consumer battle, or the major manufacturers sit down and agree on something this basic to the product like gas pumps have been to avid being the odd man out.

Eventually they will figure this out like business processes tend to, particularly if it cuts costs and maybe increases profit. It's just how fast will that occur on it's own when government wants to rush ahead with the stations.
 
Good question - are the charging stations only fitted for one type of charging connection now? Or are they already using a "standard" plug?

Inquiring minds want to know!
 
If I were running a chain of restaurants like Cracker Barrel, I would install charging stations at each one. Charge your EV while you eat Fried Chicken. Remember - you heard it first here.
 
pdplot said:
If I were running a chain of restaurants like Cracker Barrel, I would install charging stations at each one. Charge your EV while you eat Fried Chicken. Remember - you heard it first here.
Click to expand...
That's going to require a MASSIVE culture shift - up until now all you could get from Cracker Barrel is gas. 😁

(I'm here all week folks, don't forget to tip your waitress) :LOL:
 
George_H said:
When they develop a battery that can charge in 5 minutes,
Click to expand...
I’m not a fan of electric cars (sorry), but if I were to suggest a support infrastructure it would not be charging stations. Instead, I would make the batteries easily changeable. Then, you pull into an exchange station…exchange for a fresh battery and be on your way in a lot less time. The exchange station would have capacity to charge numerous batteries at once so as to always have some fresh when a customer pulls in.
 
Basil - "make the batteries easily changeable". YES YES YES

Battery nearly discharged? Stop at charging station and put in a newly charged battery. The charging station then re-charges the old batteries, for installation in other cars.

Good grief - I've been pushing that for over ten years. Glad someone else has the same idea!

Thanks.
Tom M.
 
Assume the batteries are small and all interchangeable.
I remember when the VW Beetle came out, they were supposed to be able to change engines in about an hour as I recall.
 
NutmegCT said:
Basil - "make the batteries easily changeable". YES YES YES

Battery nearly discharged? Stop at charging station and put in a newly charged battery. The charging station then re-charges the old batteries, for installation in other cars.

Good grief - I've been pushing that for over ten years. Glad someone else has the same idea!

Thanks.
Tom M.
Click to expand...
Great minds…. 🤠
 
NutmegCT said:
Basil - "make the batteries easily changeable". YES YES YES
Click to expand...
If you highlight a section of text, then click the reply button that appears, it will put the selected text in a quote box, like this. You may already know that, but in case you didn’t…
 
pdplot said:
Assume the batteries are small and all interchangeable.
I remember when the VW Beetle came out, they were supposed to be able to change engines in about an hour as I recall.
Click to expand...
That's doable. My old boss and I could do it in under an hour.
 
Interchangeable batteries has been floating around for a couple decades or more. GM had a concept where the body would be moved onto a new rolling chassis. That was when your only choice of batteries was lead/acid and the cells weighed close to a thousand pounds.
 
Greg - now *that* is quite a possibility. A very popular vehicle all over the USA, needing charging stations. Might be enough to tip the scale and get the infrastructure build up going.
 
Hmmm, that ended sooner than last night. The electric F-150 was revealed today. Later in that segment, they showed the prototype pulling 10 freight cars. I'll try to find that.
 
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