Electric Cars

[tombogan03884]

This brings up a question. When you "fill up" with gas it only takes a few moments. How long does it take to charge your car and are people willing to wait that long? I was under the assumption that charging cars took some time.

As I understand it, it does take a long time.
However, there is a company in Pleasanton Ca. making batteries that last 25000 years.
They work on the radioactive decay of diamond dust.
Currently they are being used in computer chips, but it's just a matter of scale.

[alfsauve]

My experience from the LEAF charging when it was down to 10%

120Vac charger: 14hours

240Vac 1Phase charger:  6hours

480Vac 3Phase charger:  30minutes 

The later are what dealers have and of course can only be installed were you have 3Ph 480V service.  Not at home obviously.

The commercial charger sounds not too bad, except you may get to a dealer and find there are 3 or 4 cars in line ahead of yours.   That means a one to two hour wait just to get your turn.

[TAB]

Tesla model 3 at a super charge station its up to 15 miles a minute.  At home with 220 its about 30 miles am hour.  110 is about 10 miles an hour.

At least thats what I hear from people that own them.

[les snyder]

the US needs to come up with a front end ion to replace Li+ or we will be in the same political/economic hostage situation as middle eastern oil

NH4+ compounds?

[Rastus]

There is something now or on the drawing board that will charge 80% in 15 minutes. 

Going all electric won't save pollution unless they build a lot more dams, harness a lot more wind, build more nuke plants and get solar cell efficiency to a very high % along with some affordable room temperature superconductors.  But I guess that doesn't matter...so I'm thinking if we collectively jump off into the deep end on this we're going to have a "game changer" for shopping.

15 to 20 minutes to charge.  What are you going to do?  Gas and diesel you had time to grab a snack and go...now you can actually shop some.  I can see the future on retail with boutique shops around charging stations along with stores like Dollar General.  Charging stations are going to take up a lot of real estate.  I have a 12-1/2 acre long rectangular plot of ground north of Tulsa adjacent to a bedroom community.  If I go through with the charging stations I'm going to leave places for stores. 

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

the US needs to come up with a front end ion to replace Li+ or we will be in the same political/economic hostage situation as middle eastern oil

NH4+ compounds?

Using "Rare earth" elements is a poor idea for a mass market item in the first place .
They are called rare for a reason.
Get the effect you want, then find how to do it with common materials.
For example, there really must be something cheaper than Platinum that will work in catalytic converters.

[MikeBjerum]

The rapid (30 - 60 minutes) is what they are installing in the shopping malls and businesses around here.  Some are free if you shop (like the old validated parking), and others are pay per charge only.

[alfsauve]

Except for the dealers I haven't seen any free ones.   Plus if someone else is already there you have to wait until they finish shopping.

I asked, and received permission, to charge at work and to charge at my gun club.  While both were 120Vac it helped even if I was only at the club for 2-3 hours.   I thought about making a Y cable to use at the club to get 240 off of two outlets on different sides of the buss, but all the outlets were CFI and they would have tripped.    At work, since I was the house electrician, I could have put me a 240Vac anywhere I wanted, there already were one or two outside anyway, just not convient.  But, I knew I was retiring in the near future, plus the Leaf lease was only for 2 years.

By the by.  A local dad of a high schooler got charged with theft by taking for charging his car at an outlet by the tennis court. 

REST OF THE STORY:  Actually the HS and the County School Board didn't really mind the use of the outlet, but this dad had become a nuisance around the tennis court interfering with the coaches during practice.  This provided a quick and dirty way to get a restraining order against him without involving the coach and the students.   When he protested it was just a miniscule amount of electricity, they compared it to stealing gas out of a school bus.  The amount wasn't the issue except as to whether it was to be treated as a misdemeanor or a felony.  He got a convicted, fined a $1, and ordered to stay off campus. 

[tombogan03884]

They are the logical next step.
Remember, most early garages were repurposed stables, so it won't happen over night.

[Dirty Bob]

"Free" charging stations all over the place was one of the things the proponents were talking about, but the few free stations that were installed around here—in a movie theater parking lot—have been removed. Not sure why, but I suspect that (1) nobody was using them with the cinema slump, or (2) people started using them a lot, and the owners figured out how much they were spending!

Dirty Bob