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  #61  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 4:57 PM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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Originally Posted by zzptichka View Post
I think it would be interesting to see how electric cars compare to emergence of first gasoline cars in the beginning of XX century.
They were also seen as something for hobbyists for the first ~20 years and people were skeptical they would ever come close to replacing horses. Until Ford Model T came around (what Tesla is doing today)
They had to clear much higher hurdles back then - mass gasoline production, gas stations network, roads, parts, mechanics, traffic laws, etc. Most of that we already have.
Remember, in those days, steamers and electric cars were on equal footing with gasoline cars. But once all the other hurdles had been passed, the gasoline car proved to be the most practical and reliable. And the steamers and electric cars were gone by the 1920s.

We will see if electrics become practical in the North American context but have we gained much, if we need to supplement the electrical grid substantially with environmentally unfriendly power generation. Where is all this additional power coming from?

It seems to me that we should be improving our alternative transportation network first, so that we need to travel by car less.
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  #62  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 5:00 PM
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Originally Posted by acottawa View Post
(100km of charge costs about $3 in ontario, 100km of gasoline costs under $2 in a smallish car)
Where did you get these figures from? I did my own calculations using data extracted from a Consumer Reports Study and Ottawa's electricity rates and typical gas prices.

Comparing the Nissan Leaf (certainly not the best electric car, but its also at a more reasonable price) to a Toyota Prius (one of the most fuel efficient gasoline 4 seater cars that you don't plug in (at least not yet)).

For the Leaf:
mi/kWh 3.16
km/kWh 5.09
$/kWh $0.087
$/100km $1.71

For the Prius:
mpg 44
l/100km 5.35
$/l $1.00
$/100km $5.35

Assumptions:
  1. You charge at night when electricity is cheapest. Not a bad assumption and the Leaf will schedule this for you automatically.
  2. You already are paying for electricity, so fixed fees have already been paid and are not included.
  3. I picked a gas price of $1.00/l (here in Ottawa it has been jumping around that mark).

From this, you can see that the electric vehicle costs 1/3 as much as the gas vehicle for "fuel" Even if you only ever charged at full peak, it would still only be 2/3 the cost of gas.
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  #63  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 5:43 PM
AndyMEng AndyMEng is offline
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Originally Posted by acottawa View Post
Interesting.

I wonder what the ratio of reservations to deliveries is? There was someone on one of these boards that put in a reservation for a tesla but also bought a condo without charging facilities.
There are zero deliveries at the moment. The factory (one of the largest buildings in the world) isn't even finished yet. Its a race to see how quickly they can deliver the 500,000 new cars that have been reserved.

I don't know what the deal is with Tesla, but with a Ford all-electric, a charging station is included in the price, along with a $2000 allowance for an electrician to install the system at your home base, whether that be a parking garage or your private home.

There is also a new government program providing grants to install public charging stations if you can demonstrate the need. There are three people in my office with reservations for Model III's and we intend on applying for the grant for a station at the office. Otherwise I'll just keep the car plugged into the block heater at work to try to keep the battery topped up, but as stated before, its something like 19 hours for a full charge on a regular plug-in.
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  #64  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 5:45 PM
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Originally Posted by HighwayStar View Post
But first, we really need to have an adult conversation about where all that electricity comes from.

Burning more coal?

Destroying more of the environment in China to build wind turbines:
http://www.bccrwe.com/index.php/8-ne...or-environment

Massive expansion of the electrical grid?? None of that is free.

Cars may be "zero emission", but the carbon footprint to get that electricity to the car can be significant.
It is an important consideration, that is true. One thing that does help is most people will be charging at night, when there there is surplus electricity and the grid is under utilized. There will be an increase during the day though from those who are on road trips and need to recharge or those who also need to recharge at work. The quick charge stations will draw a large amount of electricity.
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  #65  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 5:52 PM
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Originally Posted by AndyMEng View Post
Otherwise I'll just keep the car plugged into the block heater at work to try to keep the battery topped up, but as stated before, its something like 19 hours for a full charge on a regular plug-in.
Full charge, yes. But the charging isn't linear. During your 8 hour shift, you should be able to get well over a 50% charge (maybe 75%?) if you were empty (and assuming the block heater outlet is on continuously and not cycled on and off, as done by some businesses).
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  #66  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 5:54 PM
zzptichka zzptichka is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
It seems to me that we should be improving our alternative transportation network first, so that we need to travel by car less.
For sure.
I'm looking forward to see how they deal with disappearing gas tax money. Good opportunity to re-evaluate whole road usage fee model.
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  #67  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 8:10 PM
Buggys Buggys is offline
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Originally Posted by roger1818 View Post
Where did you get these figures from? I did my own calculations using data extracted from a Consumer Reports Study and Ottawa's electricity rates and typical gas prices.

Comparing the Nissan Leaf (certainly not the best electric car, but its also at a more reasonable price) to a Toyota Prius (one of the most fuel efficient gasoline 4 seater cars that you don't plug in (at least not yet)).

For the Leaf:
mi/kWh 3.16
km/kWh 5.09
$/kWh $0.087
$/100km $1.71

For the Prius:
mpg 44
l/100km 5.35
$/l $1.00
$/100km $5.35

Assumptions:
  1. You charge at night when electricity is cheapest. Not a bad assumption and the Leaf will schedule this for you automatically.
  2. You already are paying for electricity, so fixed fees have already been paid and are not included.
  3. I picked a gas price of $1.00/l (here in Ottawa it has been jumping around that mark).

From this, you can see that the electric vehicle costs 1/3 as much as the gas vehicle for "fuel" Even if you only ever charged at full peak, it would still only be 2/3 the cost of gas.
If lots more people switch from was to electric cars, wouldn't the cost of electricity go up relative to gas?
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  #68  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 9:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Buggys View Post
If lots more people switch from was to electric cars, wouldn't the cost of electricity go up relative to gas?
Consumer load will jump significantly, but from what I gather, consumer load is small compared to industrial load. Given that most of the increase will occur at during the off peek, but that is actually a good thing for the utilities as they have excess power, which is why it is cheaper. That might cause the off peek market rates to increase, but the utilities will likely keep the billing artificially low for fear that people will stop trying to use electricity off peek, which would be a huge problem for them. The rates we pay are only loosely related to the actual market rates.
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  #69  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 9:57 PM
Norman Bates Norman Bates is offline
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I watched an interview with a person representing the electrical utilities in the United States and the question was posed about the strain that electric cars will place on the grid.

He responded that the grid will need some work as demand ramps up - but not as much as people think. Certainly, he said, not as much as was required when central air conditioning became available to home owners in the 1960s and '70s.

Full information here: http://www.autoline.tv/show/2013?play
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  #70  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 11:33 PM
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Originally Posted by acottawa View Post
fast-charging stations have to become ubiquitous (who will pay for that?)
Governments. Ontario has already funded the construction of 500 new fast charging stations.

https://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2016/...-stations.html

The provincial government has also:
1) Announced that electric vehicles will get free electricity overnight
2) Announced the elimination of provincial sales tax from electric car sales

And we're far from the only jurisdiction doing these sorts of things. The trend is happening anyway, but now governments are accelerating it.
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  #71  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 11:37 PM
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
It seems to me that we should be improving our alternative transportation network first, so that we need to travel by car less.
We need to do this, and move towards electric cars. By doing both we can solve the problem much more quickly than just focusing on one area.
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  #72  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2016, 11:45 PM
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Originally Posted by acottawa View Post
There is a difference between a proposal from a "handful" of politicians and a law doing so.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/ho...5-news-report/
In Norway, it's not a handful of politicians... it's reportedly agreement of four of the five major parties on the subject.

http://fortune.com/2016/06/04/norway...gas-cars-2025/
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  #73  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 1:25 AM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
Governments. Ontario has already funded the construction of 500 new fast charging stations.

https://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2016/...-stations.html

The provincial government has also:
1) Announced that electric vehicles will get free electricity overnight
2) Announced the elimination of provincial sales tax from electric car sales

And we're far from the only jurisdiction doing these sorts of things. The trend is happening anyway, but now governments are accelerating it.
This is not sustainable and will only apply to early adopters.

These type of programs typically pander to people who have extra money to spare and get government subsidies on top of that.
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  #74  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 1:44 AM
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
This is not sustainable and will only apply to early adopters.

These type of programs typically pander to people who have extra money to spare and get government subsidies on top of that.
Arguably true, but these subsidies do encourage more people who were on the fence before to make the plunge, thus accelerating the rate of EV adoption. That's the essence of the government's climate change strategy; its focused on maximizing progress on environmental objectives. This is arguably the most effective way to truly create a low carbon economy; past initiatives (like BC's tax redistribution scheme) have focused too much on economic or social goals, which compromises environmental effectiveness.

Free overnight charging may very well stay permanently even once EVs have majority market share as it's also a tool to encourage people to charge their cars at a time when grid load is low; however, exempting EVs from sales tax is probably going to be phased out once EVs become commonplace.
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  #75  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 11:17 AM
Buggys Buggys is offline
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
Governments. Ontario has already funded the construction of 500 new fast charging stations.

https://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2016/...-stations.html

The provincial government has also:
1) Announced that electric vehicles will get free electricity overnight
2) Announced the elimination of provincial sales tax from electric car sales

And we're far from the only jurisdiction doing these sorts of things. The trend is happening anyway, but now governments are accelerating it.
Is #1 even possible? How would the electricity company know that it's an electric car being plugged in, not something else?
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  #76  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 11:48 AM
eltodesukane eltodesukane is offline
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
.. The provincial government has also:
1) Announced that electric vehicles will get free electricity overnight
2) Announced the elimination of provincial sales tax from electric car sales
It's easy to give it for free when no one has an electric vehicle. Will it still be free when electric vehicles are actually in use? I doubt it.
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  #77  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 12:11 PM
Norman Bates Norman Bates is offline
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A tremendously detailed look at autonomous cars.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/testi...ndai-mercedes/

If you want to know the future, invest the 12 minutes in reading the story.
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  #78  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 1:34 PM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
Arguably true, but these subsidies do encourage more people who were on the fence before to make the plunge, thus accelerating the rate of EV adoption. That's the essence of the government's climate change strategy; its focused on maximizing progress on environmental objectives. This is arguably the most effective way to truly create a low carbon economy; past initiatives (like BC's tax redistribution scheme) have focused too much on economic or social goals, which compromises environmental effectiveness.

Free overnight charging may very well stay permanently even once EVs have majority market share as it's also a tool to encourage people to charge their cars at a time when grid load is low; however, exempting EVs from sales tax is probably going to be phased out once EVs become commonplace.
This would be totally unfair because obviously this would only apply at public locations. If I had a recharging station at my house (and this would be more typical in long run), electricity usage would be added to my hydro bill. Surely, we are not going to have a set of permanent subsidies that will permanently distort the market. This goes far beyond incentives. In the long run, if there is going to be an incentive for the private sector to build charging stations, there has to be an opportunity to make a profit. Otherwise, if we are dependant on subsidies, then there will be a permanent shortage of charging stations, which will have the opposite effect on up take of electric vehicles.
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  #79  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 2:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Buggys View Post
Is #1 even possible? How would the electricity company know that it's an electric car being plugged in, not something else?
There are several options for this:
  1. It is only free at public charging stations. Sounds great as a tag line, but not very practical for most people.
  2. Allow the installation of the charging station prior to the household meter. Only works if it is going to be permanent and opens a huge can of worms for abuse. May also require changes to the electrical code.
  3. Install a separate smart meter on the charging station, and subtract the night time usage by it from the total household usage. Optimally the meter would we integrated with the charging station. This is the most practical option.

My issue with this is there are many people in Ontario who are struggling to pay the current, higher electricity rates and are getting their electricity cut off. This is especially true in rural Ontario (who have Hydro One as their power company) as they have much higher delivery fees. This free electricity would be a slap in the face to them.

See Rural Ontarians left in the dark as electricity bills skyrocket
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  #80  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2016, 2:34 PM
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Kitchissippi Kitchissippi is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
This would be totally unfair because obviously this would only apply at public locations. If I had a recharging station at my house (and this would be more typical in long run), electricity usage would be added to my hydro bill. Surely, we are not going to have a set of permanent subsidies that will permanently distort the market. This goes far beyond incentives. In the long run, if there is going to be an incentive for the private sector to build charging stations, there has to be an opportunity to make a profit. Otherwise, if we are dependant on subsidies, then there will be a permanent shortage of charging stations, which will have the opposite effect on up take of electric vehicles.
I get free water in public washrooms but I have to pay for water at home. Is that a permanent subsidy? Many of these charging stations won't be free exactly, especially the ones downtown where you'll have to pay a parking fee. There's the incentive for the private sector right there — install a charging station and EVs will pay to park at your garage.
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