Right! And I suspect by 2035, not having a 220v outlet in the garage will be like not having a microwave in your kitchen in the mid 90's.
Regardless, my cheap LEAF turned 8 just a bit ago and I’ve driven it in New England year-round without issue, even with only level 1 charging at home. It’s fine for an around-town daily driver (which is what the LEAF is well-matched to).
I only have 220V in an indoor laundry room, not the garage. Adding it would only be a small one-time expense.
The breaker panel is in the garage so it'd be easy to add, but my only 220V devices, the dryer and stove (along with their outlets), are inside the house.
I've never heard of a dryer in the garage before. It isn't heated, and in winter months, it's cold enough that snow doesn't melt. Would that have an effect on drying my clothes?
Funny enough my internal dryer can cause my clothes to be damp, as the exhaust runs to the attic instead of directly outside, and the moisture can come back into the dryer. (can be overcome by installing an active exhaust fan)
my brother does a lot of stuff with power tools, and whenever he moves he has to have extra lines brought in by the power company. While houses frequently have 220 coming in, they don't have 3-phase.
This discussion is assuming that the amperage is the same. The common "default" AC socket in the USA is AFAIK the NEMA 5-15, which is a 15A socket; the common "default" AC socket in other countries is AFAIK usually either 16A, 15A, or 10A, so at most you'd have one extra ampere.
Of course, if you're adding a dedicated socket where you'd expect to plug a car (or other high-power devices like a large air conditioner), you'd put a higher-power socket like a 20A one. But this discussion is, as far as I understand, about what you could find on a random garage; I believe it would be unexpected to not have at least one common "default" AC socket on am enclosed garage, but finding a higher-power AC socket would be less likely.
Here in Australia it's possible, though not very common. ~400v is useful for some larger sized machinery.
Common contracts - at least here (Italy) - are for 3 or 4.5kW, a few are 6 kW, 10 kW or more are rare, and you probably need to get to 15kW to be able to have those 10kW available for charging.
As an example, a charger in some EVs is 87% efficient when charging from 120v and the same charger is 94% efficient when charging from 240v.
Compared to a normal 220V 10A outlet where your max is 2kW.
Higher voltage also means you get more power for less current, less heat loss in the cables.
If you have an electric car, the example above should explain why you want to get a proper charger with proper wiring installed. Don’t use the ones which plug straight into a shuko.
What about the millions of people who live in apartments and rowhouses?
You've got to break that circle at some point.
If they have cars, they have a place to park them, and this place can host a charger. Outdoor parking without access controls may have security issues, but that's true without a charging point, too.
But this is not it.
Wealthy neighborhoods in the US are going to get these on the streets eventually. Places where poor folks live don't have the ROI needed to justify it. Wealthier folks tend to be older and have more time on their hands to do things like go complain at city council meetings.
You're going to get these chargers in the richest neighborhoods first (of course), and eventually to the decent middle class neighborhoods. The poorer areas where blue collar workers live (apartment complexes) will get it approximately never - the city won't invest in those areas because fuck them, and the apartment complexes won't invest in them, because fuck them.
There are a significant proportion of residential developments where it wouldn’t even be possible to install such infrastructure due to the legal framework around how the properties are owned and maintained.
Legislative changes are needed here to make this happen, but alas our government has had its mind on “other things” for quite a few years now and doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
By 2035 those streets must be refitted with chargers, one per parking slot and somehow replace the energy distributed as gasoline and diesel with electrical energy. If that doesn't happen people will have to leave their car at a charging station for far more time than what it takes to fill a tank with gas. And that doesn't solve the problem of the energy.
Or having a car will get so expensive that only a few people will afford it and that will solve all those problems, but create others.
I personally think urban development should be more expensive to cover its externalities (i.e. forcing people to buy cars because of landowner-enriching sprawl).
Get your politicians to call my politicians.
When the majority of Americans dislike and/or are unhappy with 100° Thanksgiving, beepocalypse, aging out of being able to drive, or whatever else “cars” wreck, then they will start voting to push the externalities off to heavier users.
Eventually, the resulting ghost sprawl of empty suburban neighborhoods will provide enough recyclable building materials to rehome us all nicely in subterranean hive cities. Our eyes will evolve larger to gather the dim light. Our ears will shrink to muffle the incessant hum. Our useless teeth will disappear after a few centuries of microbial food paste consumption. Clothing will become an affectation.
Alternatives are important here since while most Americans drive that doesn’t mean that they love everything about it and won’t consider alternatives. There are a ton of people who would love not to pay thousands of dollars to sit in traffic and make their health worse, but they don’t see a good alternative. The activists getting bike infrastructure, improved buses, and density are giving them that option and climate change is causing a lot of younger people to realize that the timing has to be stepped a lot since even EVs produce more CO2 than any other form of ground transportation.
There’s big generational component here, too. Most drivers aren’t old enough to think of roads without traffic as normal, and economic trends mean that a lot of younger people are faced with even longer commutes in cars, not to mention that transit is more appealing when you have smartphones.
1. In addition ti the obvious one of pollution, housing & retail prices are high due to requirements to provide subsidized parking to drivers. Removing that allows owners to make different decisions.
It's fair to say that people hogging chargers even when they're done charging is a problem, there's a public charger on my street that is near 100% utilization. However this seems pretty solvable- companies can just charge per minute as long as the spot is occupied and let the free market sort it out.
Adding public chargers is also a great way for places like malls, grocery stores, offices, etc to stay relevant, since my weekly shopping trips would probably be enough to keep a car topped off
Makes sense to charge a penalty every minute a charger is connected but not drawing power (full battery).
I don’t have an EV or a car at all, but if I did my charging regimen would be “plug it in at the fast charger at the grocery store and charge it while I shop”. It’s just not a big deal.
We certainly don’t need to make our residential streets more ugly than having a bunch of cars parked on it already does by stringing up charging infrastructure all over it.
We all charge our EVs on those same outlets, and I never heard of anybody not having a full charge the next morning.
The main reason why we have so many EVs here -> they are more reliable in the cold. People stopped freezing to death in their Diesels that got stranded on the roadside.
It’s 2022 (almost 2023) and I don’t have a microwave. Never once missed it and glad it’s not taking up space.
Anything you can cook in a microwave you can cook in an oven (or steam) and will taste 10x better for a minimal increase in time.
Probably should add that my garage doesn’t have power at all.
Rolling power outages in many states last couple of days. Many forms of energy are being retired faster then wind solar are being brought online.
People wildly overestimate advances. Look at how much has changed in the last 20 years. Not much.
Apparently some truck models over there have a built-in metal tray for this purpose.
If you perused the manual, you found out why - it suggested you light a small fire under it to serve as an outback engine heater.
The Niva was, uh, an interesting car to own, but was amazing whenever conditions turned to shite. Nothing short of an anti tank mine would stop it.
It didn't like starting in the cold, and it didn't have battery enough to crank it for long. And failure-to-start was, um, not good.
The solution was a built-in electric heater and charger. Basically it was permanently plugged in so the battery was 100%,and the engine block was "not freezing cold" (I wouldn't go as far as "warm").
Had a push button start that fired up instantly, at the cost of an extra 3 seconds unplugging it it an emergency.
My point I guess is that you don't really have to heat the garage, you just need to warm the battery up a little.
You’re right but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not the right time for people in certain areas or with certain lifestyles to have an EV.
"Trucks don't belong in cities for personal transportation."
"I need a truck for my farm."
"Vehicle transportation is a huge chunk of global warming contributing fuel consumption, so we need to reduce car usage in cities towards more and better public transport, and EVs when possible."
"I don't live in a city and the bus only comes twice every day and I have to drive 30 miles to work."
These are not mutually exclusive statements!
EVs aren't great for long distance transportation. Particularly ill suited for long haul trucking in winter. But that's not what most people do. Most vehicles drive short distances in fair weather. Many American families have more than one car. That second car doesn't need to be able to drive cross country in the winter. I don't complain that my sneakers are not snow shoes so they are useless to me and anyone else. No one is talking about making ICE vehicles illegal. At most there might be restrictions on usage in cities, no different to how some european cities keep private cars outside of historical city centers.
Certainly in Europe. Not directly but via a back door:
Must not enter the city center in a diesel car
No new ICE cars after 2035
Diesel cars are an issue due to dust emissions. Most modern, read Euro 6 temp, and above, engines should be more or less fine. How the latter will be controlled and enforced so, excluding older cars from certain places, is trickey.
I have to point out so, this will be a social issue. Well off people will most switch to EVs, one of the reasons I guess why VW and others are diverting marketing budgets from EVs (read Diesel) to EVs. Those that cannot afford EVs will face issues, since it either used petrol cars, with higher consumption, or used diesels, with issues going to some places due to emissions.
Now compare that to the seemingly endless number of evangelists who think that 10 years from now is a good time to impose a mandate to kill all new ICE vehicle manufacturing, in spite of EV tech being only 80 years (or 30 years of "modern tech hard push") behind ICE infra.
This is how every conversation about EV goes.
Person A: "look how awesome EV is!"
Person B: "yeah, but it won't work for me based on where I live and the needs I have from a car. It seems foolish to push a mandate for a technology that can't be proven to work how the vast majority of people need it to work."
Person A: "you are being unfair in your comparison!" or "no, you are only imagining those problems!"
Literally any location in the northern US, especially the more rural and more dense urban, and doubly true if you make under 30k per household person and don't already have a circuit in your garage for an electric oven or electric clothes dryer. I suspect the same is true for other locations in the world.
Well, FWiW the Australian (and New Zealand) standard across the entire country is 240v with (most) internal circuits rated for 10 A .. but a call to an electrician gets you a { 15 | 20 | 25 | 32 } amp circuit pulled from the household breaker box (if high amp circuits weren't added at build time) [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS/NZS_3112
In other EV news an Australian state (South Australia) had a net 104.1 per cent wind and solar over seven days (ie produced more renewable energy than total energy used and exported the excess) [2], and in my state "Renewables reach 84 pct share of world’s biggest isolated grid" [3]
[2] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australias-incredible-week...
[3] https://reneweconomy.com.au/epic-stuff-renewables-reach-84-p...
So, uhh, we have the infrastructure to charge EV's in isolated rural parts of the country and have had for decades .. increased generation is an issue but we have plans to significantly increase global green hydrogen production and export excess over local demand.
My comment specifically mentioned a 2030 or 2035 mandate, which is a US mandate. Why would you argue against a US mandate by talking about Australia? You're not doing the EV group any favors by ignoring the problems people describe that prevent them from buying one, and there is currently no US legislation to enable a mandate in the timeframe it would be required.
No. How did arrive at that conclusion? Did you misread the user names and assume I made that comment?
> Why would you argue against a US mandate by talking about Australia?
You made a statement about other places in the world which was false, I gave an example of why it was false. You are now better informed, you're welcome.
But no, what I said was not false. I said that I suspect there are other locations in the world where this is true (meaning northern US isn't the only one), and the reply was that there are locations where it isn't true (Australia).
A few points of note;
* like or not Australia as a country is an interesting case study wrt "how do other countries fare?" .. we have charging capabilities .. but hellish distances between towns outside of cities. On the plus side the vast bulk of the population is urban | near urban .. so it's only the actual outback | rural | FiFo types that may be left with ICE down the timeline.
* Future mandates are aspiration and exert a pressure to change; come crunch day it may have come to pass that sufficient recharge capability has been pushed out to Backwater Dale in Banjo County .. or not. When the reality comes to pass there is the option to modify policy in the face of some areas being better suited for mandated EVs than others.
In the US, I also do not care much about whether cars are EV or not (my only actual hangup about EV as a technology is the raw material sourcing. It is perhaps as immoral as how we obtain oil, and we do not have a story on what to do with the waste). I may even buy one in a couple years (I run all my cars to the point where they need constant repair, and only buy used cars, so the average age of my cars when they are retired is about 12 years). But that is different than the fantasy that EV as a primary form of personal transportation will work for the vast majority of the northern US.
I think the opposite of the intended effect will actually happen. We are forcing a mandate without a means for it to work.
This is actually a larger problem in Canada than the US, and most of the political and policy discussion is in favour of this change.
I am discussing the mentality of the opposition in the US and the reasons they cite where the EV solution does not work for them. If your government is committed to making it work by 2035, that's a different matter. The US government has made no such commitment, they only discuss mandates. All of the pain, none of the gain.
Only North/Central America and Japan uses ~100V systems. The rest of the planet uses ~200V systems where more wattage in your outlets is standard.
Brazil (which is in South America) has many cities using 110V/115V/120V/127V (you can see at https://antigo.aneel.gov.br/tensoes-nominais which voltages are used for a given city). Note that a single city can have both ~110V and ~220V, and sometimes both can be found in the same building, or even in the same room.
This is where I'd hope a government looking to encourage EVs would step in and help, if they're trying to make things happen before 2035.
E.g., in my area, the regional council has a scheme where home owners can get a very low interest (or even no interest) loan to install good insulation, and you can also get another one to install a heat-pump.
They're run through banks, but backed by the regional (and maybe central?) government.
But, doing something like this will, initially, only subsidise the people who can already afford to buy an electric vehicle.
TL;DR - it used to be that you couldn't refuel your car unless the servants brought more on horses, as the only service stations focused on oats. But we invested in infrastructure.
https://www.fox29.com/news/pennsylvania-warned-of-rolling-bl...
This is not an artic circle problem. This is a problem that affects way more of the world than you seem to realize. Sorry that we don't all live in mild climates.
I'm unsure why wind-chill is relevant to a car being charged in a garage?
> This is a problem that affects way more of the world than you seem to realize.
The original commenter was stating that EVs were entirely unsuitable for a hypothetical person.
The only way that it I can envisage it being entirely unsuitable is if they had no access to grid electricity.
My comment about a hut in Siberia is based on that.
Yes, some Americans might need to upgrade certain circuits, but that's not an blocker, it's just an implementation detail.
I'm very well aware of how cold it can get in the USA, but that doesn't prevent EV use, it just requires investment in infrastructure, and that's an investment I'd hope a smart government would subsidise if it's serious about reducing emissions.
Public transport will also have to be EV based. Trains won‘t cut it in most areas outside cities.
And besides - what you‘re saying is insanely risky. You want to keep going with ICEs for 15 years? This would just push back the necessary transition another decade. We would loose the time we desperately need to make the necessary changes.
Sounds like it's time for you to vote for the prohibition of self-service gas stations!
If you have "summer diesel" in your tractor during a cold spell, it will gel. And a block heater won't help, since the fuel gels in the fuel lines and tank too. And trying to start the engine pulls in that gel into the fuel filter and sort of strains the chunks out, causing your fuel filter to need to be replaced even once it's warmed up.
I'm not sure at exactly what temperature it happens, but a Kansas winter will typically gel summer diesel at least a couple of times.
I don't know where you live, but here in Germany my diesel car had no big problems with -19°C around 10 years ago. Biggest problem was heating the interior that the windows remain ice free during driving. I want to see your new electric car driving in this circumstances the 100km I had to drive.
And please note, 2035 means 13 years in the future. I don't doubt that the infrastructure for electric cars can work in 100 years...but what's with 13?
I believe you that it's no problem for a diesel. But it's no problem for electric either.
But I also was in a good sized metro area with a couple Tesla superchargers not far off my route, so my backup plan was to stop at one for 15 minutes if it ever looked like I might not make it.
It depends on the formulation of your diesel. If you had a tank of "summer diesel" it would be gel at that temperature. Generally the supply chain starts changing the formulation as the weather gets colder and everything is good until you get to arctic temperatures. But if you fill up at a station that doesn't sell a lot of diesel and they still have summer diesel and its an early cold spell, or you are driving a vehicle you don't fill often, you can be in trouble. There are also additives you can add on your own if you know you have summer diesel.
It's literally as easy as having the right fuel additives on hand before it gets too cold. It's not even an infrastructure problem.
I will say that you left out the most fun part of a good winter driving a diesel, which is when you can't fill up even at a station with diesel on account of the fuel gelled in the pump hose. Luckily the gas station on the way home from work is a truck stop and the pumps for the tractor-trailers were still working.
On a related note, it's not unusual for us to lose power here for a couple hours to a couple days at a time either in the worst of winter, or during summer storm season. What do you do with an electric car when the electricity is out in the neighborhood?
Filling up the car is the least painful part of driving in the winter. You park up next to a fuel pump with the heated seats slow-roasting your ass (and the car is probably warm by the time you reach a station), you get out of the car for about 4 minutes, and then you go back in the car to continue the slow roast.
You have a garage. Those who don’t have a garage freeze their asses off in howling winds every second day while plugging the car into an outdoor charger.
Sometimes we forget that we have 100 years of infrastructure behind our internal combustion engines and about 10 behind the electric vehicles.
In the first 10 years of internal combustion engines, you bought benzene at the local apothecary and used that to fuel your car.
Three years of EV in a more or less unheated garage and I'm still just charging off my 15A 120V outlet. It's fine. I plug in every other day or so. But you know what I don't do? Freeze my ass off standing in a gas station in subzero temperatures and howling winds! Not missing that at all.