It's a dependency for dominating the entire vehicle market, but it's not a dependency for the substantial slice of the market with access to off-street parking at home. That's probably at least 10–20% of the market right there.

Add to that the slice of the market with access to off-street parking at work which can be retrofitted for charging. As EV sales grow, car parking will adapt and recharging will be bundled into the cost of parking. That's another 10–20%.

Once you've sold to those markets, the "robust charging network" will solve itself.

The electric grid is really well built out at this point. Every street lamp, every electronic parking meter, every exterior wall outlet on a building is a possible Level 1 "trickle" charge. We have the ubiquity of power everywhere, just not the access in most current situations (street lamps and parking meters don't currently have outlets; exterior building outlets are intentionally hidden away from parking lot usage; places that do have those don't have processes for clearing access to them / may want ways to bill the extra electric usage).

Cars spend most of their day sitting somewhere and most of that often less than a meter from any sort of electric grid connection (just most of those can't be hooked into today). (I like to play a game of spot the nearest electrical object from wherever I park. It's rarely hard.)

Fancier, higher voltage/current Level 2+ chargers are great, but it should be incredibly easy to very quickly up the number of Level 1 charging spots on the electric grid: aka add more traditional wall outlets in parking lots/garages/streets. That sort of bootstrap should be something we talk about more, because it really is hard to beat the ubiquity of our electric grid build-out already. We can take advantage of that.

Or go solar and charge anywhere you have daylight:

- Experimental Toyota Prius: https://newatlas.com/toyota-prius-solar-roof/60461/

- Sono Sion: https://sonomotors.com/en/sion/

- Lightyear One: https://lightyear.one/

Even if you're only getting a small amount of range from solar in Winter, that's still less charging that has to come from the grid.

A solar roof providing 3.8 mi of battery-only range per day isn’t going to replace the need for a charging network.

A 1.9 mile commute is what, 4 minutes drive?

I didn't say it would replace the need for a changing network.

I do say that in Summer you could get an average of 50 kilometres per day from solar in the Lightyear One (if you live somewhere sunny). That would cover the daily commute of many people. You could go months without plugging in.

The 3.8 mile range figure is from the Experimental Toyota Prius article you linked.

I’ve also used my home rooftop solar PV to charge a Hyundai Kona. Unless this “lightyear one” has solar panels the size of six parking spaces, I suspect the reason they claim so much more than Toyota is because it’s BS.

> The 3.8 mile range figure is from the Experimental Toyota Prius article you linked.

Read the article again. You're confusing the small solar panel Toyota has as a current production option with the new experimental solar Prius which has much larger panels.

> I suspect the reason they claim so much more than Toyota is because it’s BS.

Based on what? The fact that the Lightyear One is being developed by members of Solar Team Eindhoven who have won the World Solar Challenge race three times? How many times have you won the World Solar Challenge?

  Based on what?

When I visit https://lightyear.one/ the default location for the range estimate is "Rotterdam, Netherlands" and the default display is "year max" which is "5311 Wh, 59 km per day"

Firstly, the moment you select "Summer" that drops to "2731 Wh, 30 km per day" so the headline figure of 59km is already exceeding even their claimed summer range by almost 100%. So they're fudging figures right from the front page.

Secondly, that's 6.9 miles per kWh, whereas the Tesla Model 3 gets 4.1 EPA-rated miles per kWh [1]. So they're going to be 69% more efficient than Tesla?

A 69% increase in efficiency is a 40% drop in battery cost for the same range. To me it seems unlikely that Tesla, Hyundai, Nissan, Kia, Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi would have all left a cost saving that big on the table, if it was easy to achieve.

Thirdly, [2] says the Lightyear One has "five square meters of integrated solar cells", and that "The 12 km/h added by the solar roof and hood during daylight exposure extends the range as you drive", i.e. 7.4 miles/hour of solar charging. Even assuming they're 69% more efficient than Tesla, that means they're getting 1.08kW out of 5m² of solar panels.

For comparison, if you look at a random rooftop solar installation in California [3] with 40m² of panels, from 9am-5pm the mean output was 4.5kW - so with 5m² of panels, the output would only average 0.55kW. So the Lightyear One claims 96% more output - even making the very generous assumptions that "during daylight" is only the peak 8 hours a day, that the shade and angle of the car panels are as good as a residential rooftop solar installation, and ignoring winter and places less sunny than California. Unless they're using solar panels made of Unobtainium, used in price-no-object applications like satellites, this seems unlikely to me.

Seems to me there are two possibilities here:

1. They've developed an EV 69% more efficient than a Tesla, AND solar panels 96% more efficient than rooftop solar, AND rather than selling either of those technologies to the existing car or solar companies that would very much like them, they've decided to start their own car company.

2. They're quoting efficiency figures for driving at golf cart speeds, or solar figures for noon in the Sahara desert, or daily range figures assuming you'll visit a plug-in charger every so often.

I know which I think is more likely - and my €149,000 will be staying firmly in my pocket.

[1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1119556_tesla-model-3-r... [2] https://lightyear.one/lightyear-one/ [3] https://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=21356&sid=19238&dt=2019...

> default location for the range estimate is "Rotterdam, Netherlands"

Try Madrid. Or Athens. Or Cairo. Or Sydney. Or Los Angeles. Or San Francisco.

> So they're going to be 69% more efficient than Tesla?

Yes. They're using in-wheel motors, they have better aero (shape, wheel covers, wing cameras), and they've focused on reducing weight.

Maybe read about the Lightyear One first before going off on a tangent.

Personally I think it's unlikely that Tesla, Hyundai, Nissan, Kia, Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi were all so blinkered in their thinking that they forgot about better aero and reducing weight when doing so could save 40% of the cost of the most expensive part of the car.

If you think that's likely - and it would be great news for EVs and the environment if it was the case - I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree about the credibility of Lightyear's claims.

They're not blinkered. Audi and Honda are using wing cameras for improved aero, but they're not willing to commit to the Lightyear One's shape or to use in-wheel motors. A car like the Porsche Taycan has all wheel steering so it's not going to use wheel covers.

It's like you're not even reading what's in front of you. Compare and contrast the following cars:

- Lightyear One

- Tesla Model 3

- Mercedes EQC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JTew1D5Tk8

- Honda e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEKq8jmckz0

- Porsche Taycan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHEdaRhF1k

- VW ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8cHHNPRg-c

Have a look at them all. Think about their shapes. Think about their weight. Think about the engineering and design trade offs that are being made. Think about materials and manufacturing costs. Think about the market segment they're targeting. None of this is amazing or mysterious.

The Tesla Model S has a Coefficient of drag * area (or CdA) [1] of 0.562 m² so to have 40% less drag, the Lightyear One will need a CdA of 0.337 m² or better. (Choosing the Model S as I can't find CdA figures for the Model 3)

The GM EV1 only seats 2 passengers, it's 1.77 m wide and 1.28m high, it even has fender skirts [2]. Its CdA of 0.367m² is still only 35% below the Tesla.

The Lightyear One seats "5 adult passengers", and it's 1.90m wide and 1.43m high.

So the Lightyear One is wider, higher, and has 3 more passengers than the EV1 - but it's going to have less drag?

One of us might not be reading what's in front of us, but I don't think it's me :-p

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient#Dr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

I don't understand why you're going to so much effort to be wrong. The Lightyear One's drag coefficient is under 0.2, the Model S has a drag coefficient of 0.24. The Lightyear One is lower and narrower than the Model S. The Lightyear One is lighter than the Model S. The Lighyear One has in-wheel motors for greater efficiency, the Model S doesn't and neither did the EV1.

Again, reading.

20k in US

https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/electrek.co/2019/07/09/us-ele...

400k in China

https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2019/07/the-nu...

I'd bet that's where the shift comes from.

You need a garage, and a circuit with 60A capacity. Most houses built today have 200A total capacity, older homes are 100A. At some point the electric grid will need updated.

You need 60amps for high speed charging, but can't you plug into a 15 amp outlet and charge overnight?

You are correct that the grid will need updating - all those houses using 15 amps more add up.

Yes, but it is quite slow. Even 12 hours of charging might not be enough for someone's commute. For example, let's look at Honda's PHEV, the Clarity.

17kWh battery.

47 miles EV range.

Charge time @ 120V = 12 hours. It essentially can charge up to 4 miles of range per hour on a standard circuit in a US home. Cold weather? Your power needs go up, range goes down, and charge rate drops as well. 15 amps @ 120V EV charging is not practical for most EV owners, at this time, but you are correct that it is possible.

Why would you pick a PHEV for comparison? They are going to get a worse MPGe (because of the extra weight) and have a smaller battery (no catching up on charging during the weekend).

But more importantly, they can backup to gas so if you can only do 80% of your trip electric there is no real problem, you still are getting great fuel economy.

Slow and steady "wins the race" though. An average car is parked more than 12 hours a day. (The average is even closer to 23 hours than it is to 12 hours.) You easily cover the average commute even at 4 miles range added per hour (and as sibling post points out, some EVs do even better than that in a Level 1 charge) even just charging a car ~50% of the time that car spends parked.

Average commute for the US is 26 miles a day, but more than half drive considerably less than the average.

For the people for whom an electric car makes sense, the overwhelming majority could make due with a level 1 charger (12 amps 110 volts).

L1 charger provides 4-5 miles of charge per hour, so 8 hours in the garage at night would more than make up for the commute. If you have a larger range (200+ miles) you can make it up on the weekends.

If you have a 100+ mile commute each day, sure get a L2 charger. Or better yet, buy a hybrid.

The average car gets what, 12K miles a year? That's about 8 hours a night on average. You could easily get by without a 60A socket, and even if you do have a fast charging socket you're not going to be pulling 50A all night.

L2 chargers draw 30A, you only need a 40A circuit for that.