Forget it jjak . . . It’s Americatown.
What a strawman. I’d love to see a robust network of intercity rail lines. I’m not sure that it is possible because of the lack of population density, but I wouldn’t oppose lines connecting major, close-together population centers as a start of a network. I would consider taking it myself on those occasions where I am only visiting one city, or several close-together cities if the network is good enough.
What I don’t share is the optimism that I, as an apartment dweller who takes several long road trips a year, will not have to take major hits to my lifestyle for little gain. Although I’d accept a wholesale move to electric vehicles if we otherwise are carbon neutral in society as a whole and the gas is the bottleneck preventing that.
When they come up with an intercity rail line that can provide a private compartment for me and can get me directly from my garage to my grandmother’s garage in Peoria, maybe this will be a realistic option. Private cars are going nowhere until trains can do this, and of course they never will, so private long distance travel by car is here to stay. As a society we’ve progressed beyond being forced to sit next to strangers and the inherent limits of train travel.
It’s the departure I’m more concerned with than the arrival, since there can usually be someone at the station to pick you up or you can use the plethora of other transportation options these days. I’d be willing to do it myself for a medium-length journey if it was cheap and good for the environment. If it were only $100 or so for a round trip medium length (i.e. a hefty portion of a day) journey it would be cheaper than the wear and tear on the car.
However, it would need a good parking lot at the departing terminal because ubering or taking the bus in order to take the train outward bound would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
So only America counts as “society”? What about nearly all of Europe, Japan, China, India, and Russia? Just because you have a particularly strict notion of what’s “acceptable” for travel accommodations doesn’t mean it works for everybody, especially when it requires herculean levels of government subsidy to maintain. If trains or electric cars don’t work for you, that’s fine, but it doesn’t therefore follow that driving is the best option for everyone.
If Americans loved driving so much, our roads wouldn’t have so many Kias, Chevys, minivans, and SUVs that never go off-road. People have to make rational decisions about how best to operate in the environment where they exist, but if there’s no realistic choice then those decisions are not a true indication of preference. If gas was $10/gallon and every highway had tolls, or if you develop vision problems, or if it’s snowing, you may well find that driving directly to grandma’s garage isn’t such a great approach after all.
Point being that switching the entire vehicle fleet to electric will solve some problems we have currently, but it doesn’t address some problems at all, and others it may even exacerbate. A more rational holistic approach to transportation would be prudent.
What makes you think we never will? I’ve seen proposals for trains that carry cars for long-distance travel: Instead of driving to the interstate on-ramp, you’d drive to the train station, and get on the train. At the other end, you drive to Grandma’s garage.
On the other hand, there’s no sense wishing that we had intercity passenger rail lines, because we do. When I was in college, they were my primary means of long-distance travel. Though it helped that both my school and my grandmother’s house (where I went for most vacations) were on the same line.
Of course, we could have electric rail lines designed to handle electric cars that have rail-compatible inner flanges on the wheels and dual hitching links so that a train could be composed of cars drawing power from the rail system. For what Americans would want, that seems like it could be immensely practical.
@TroutMan @Dinsdale @jjakucyk @echoreply @PastTense @YamatoTwinkie (easier than multiquoting; my apologies if I missed anyone)
Re: the availability of home charging:
We estimate that less than half of US vehicles have reliable access to a
dedicated off-street parking space at an owned residence where charging infrastructure
could be installed. Specifically, while approximately 79% households have off-street parking for at least some of their vehicles, only an estimated 56% of vehicles have a dedicated
off-street parking space – and only 47% at an owned residence. Approximately 22% vehicles
currently have access to a dedicated home parking space within reach of an outlet sufficient to recharge a small plug-in vehicle battery pack overnight
(Somewhat dated) link
This obviously doesn’t address new charging capital at commercial establishments for day-charging. Although one advantage of night-charging is in using off-peak electricity to reduce the need for new generating capacity.
I think that’s a big problem. Easy charging at home is a much bigger issue that waiting a few extra minutes to charge on an occasional long road trip. I’m a huge EV fan, but if plugging in at night wasn’t really easy, I’d think twice.
We do not currently have a path to long-haul electric trucking in this country unless we put the generator on the truck* (e.g. fuel cells) or implement electric roads.
*But maybe there’s your portable generators for Thanksgiving.
I did think twice and don’t have one. I haven’t had access to home charging since I lived with my parents.
And so I wonder how other countries are handling not-at-home infrastructure or making it easier to make at-home charging an option.
Last month, Shell Oil bought ubitricity, a company that has 2,700 streetside charging points in the UK and more in Germany and France. The idea is to add EV chargers to light poles and other existing infrastructure. So one solution for those without access to at-home charging is expanding this sort of thing.
There are other paths.
No Tesla fanboy I, but the Semi includes a model with 500 miles range. The scenario is easy to imagine: a fleet in which a driver (or driverless autonomous vehicle) pulls into the truck stop, where a recharge Semi awaits, flips the load to the charged Semi, leaving the uncharged one plugged in to be ready fully charged for the next truck to come in on schedule. That could even be done with a group of them all travelling “train mode” together, with a lead vehicle that has a driver and the others slaved to it, exchanging all out at the same time.
So much lower range and much lower payload. See analysis here:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00432
But yeah, you could, in theory, buy extra $180k tractor units and leave them sitting around charging.
Exactly the sort of thing I was wondering about, thanks.
There’s no need. Drivers are limited to 11 hours of driving per day, with a 30 minute break somewhere in there. The truck starts the day with 500 miles, and can add 200+ miles of range during the mandated break. 700 miles effective range should be sufficient for 11 hours driving (more than sufficient in CA, where heavy trucks are limited to 55 mph).
I’ve only skimmed the paper you linked to, but it appears to be using figures which were pessimistic even for 2017 (the publication date). Among many other things, their numbers are based on a minimum coefficient of drag of 0.45, stating “Class 8 vehicles currently have an average coefficient of drag (Cd) of 0.63,(8) with a projected value of 0.45(8) for future vehicles.” However, the 2017 Tesla Semi has a Cd of 0.38.
The problem with analyses like that it that it assumes the same usage pattern model as current trucks: “300–600 miles traveled per day assuming a daily driving time of 8–16 h throughout the year.” That’s also 8 to 16 hrs per day not driven! Sitting around. Needed to let the driver sleep and eat and of course refuel.
OTOH a “train” of three trucks with a crew of three drivers (to imagine just one scenario) in which the lead truck has an active driver and the two others are slaved to it (lowers Cd and labor costs with established technology that is just not implemented yet), with the Semis switched to new loads staggered on schedules not long after each one completed its half hour charge, could be in service more like 22 h each, each day, more like 825 miles traveled per day, or roughly 83% more miles traveled each year using the mean, with a vehicle that has lower cost to run, and lower maintenance.
Fleets accepting trucks sitting around doing nothing for 8 to 16 hours each day (using that articles numbers) when that choice becomes more available, would be strange.
Not saying that will be the future. But am saying that the only paths possible are fuel cells or electric roads is simply incorrect. And the relatively fixed routes of long distance trucking makes it the easiest case for autonomous vehicles that can run almost 24/7.
Yep, that’s just what I said upthread:
Something around 70% of Americans live in detached houses. Those will be the easiest to add charging. The about 50% who own their homes will do it themselves, often with a utility or tax based subsidy, and the remaining rent, and will depend on their landlords to install the charging. Those people still have easy access to 110 volt charging, which is adequate for many needs.
My expectation is that apartment, condo, and rental charging will start as a perk, like a pool or exercise room, and will at some point move to a requirement, like air conditioning. There will still be people who don’t get easy home charging, just as there are people now who don’t have AC, even though they need it in the summer (though perhaps they didn’t 50 years ago in that area).
This will disproportionately affect people of lower means, as these things always seem to.
Just like for private homeowners in many places now, I expect landlords will be incentivized to install charging through tax or utility based subsidies.
I own (and rent out) a condo in Boulder, which is a green city saturated in chargers, but I have not heard anything from the HOA about adding chargers. To me, the easiest thing to do is for the HOA to install (so the owners collectively pay for) adequate power to each parking structure to put a 30 or 50 amp outlet at each parking spot. Then let each owner pay to wire their individual parking spaces. Currently the parking structures have enough power to run a few light bulbs.
If I still lived at my condo, I think I could still own an EV. It would not be as convenient as charging at home, but on the two mile commute to the office I would pass a Tesla supercharger, a 50kW EvGo charger, numerous level 2 chargers (some free, some pay), and then still have free level 2 charging at work. On the same trip I would pass two gas stations. Most places are not going to be at Boulder’s level of charger access, but this is what was achieved at a time when EVs and plugin hybrids are still only a small percentage of total cars.
Anyway, the point of that much to long post, is it’s not an impossible problem, but it is a problem.
Electricity produced from solar cells might mean that daytime charging is cheaper than night-time. Ideally, the utility might offer discounted rates if you’re willing to be flexible about when your car recharges. And if there is a spike in demand, electricity could even be drawn from plugged-in electric cars.
Naturally electricity is everywhere in the country and charger build-out is kind of a big thing, though not exactly monumental, but as pervasive as the juice is, do we have enough to support the equivalent of 20Mbbl/day of motor fuel? Yes, the actual equivalent would be probably 2/3rds of that, but that is still a metric shitton of juice.