The future is stupid...

submitted by useless_aether from (magaimg.net)

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[–]yetanotherone_sigh 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

To be fair, this is only used in an emergency if you run out of battery charge. It's akin to calling AAA and having a 5 gallon can of gas delivered to you on the side of the road.

I've owned two electric cars over the course of six years. Never had to use this service, although we have occasionally drove into the charger on a very low charge.

We have a slow charger at home, and usually leave the car plugged in to trickle charge overnight. That's good enough for driving around town. If you want to take a road trip or do some extended back-and-forth driving more than 100 miles, you need to use a quick charger. You will see these in grocery store parking lots and malls. It takes about 20 minutes to fill the car up to 80% charge and another 20 minutes to get to 100% charge. If you plan your trip accordingly, you can quick charge while you shop. Online maps are available with the locations of quick chargers and the distance between them, so you can plan your trips carefully.

The only problem with electric cars is that they are so popular, the quick chargers are often busy and you sometimes have to wait for other people to charge before you can do it. Also, occasionally some asshole in a gas car will park in the spot and prevent you from using it. (Just being obnoxious or being oblivious to the many signs pointing out that you are not supposed to do this. This would be solved by making it an instant tow-away zone and people would stop doing it.)

As the popularity of the electric cars has risen, they are outpacing the availability of public chargers. These were installed and maintained by a private company that got a government grant. The grant was just to install the system, not maintain it. Sometimes the chargers are broken, and the company is slow to fix them. Since they were paid by the government grant to install them, not to maintain them, they are not incentivized to be quick to repair them when they break. (The brand name of this public charger system is Blink.)

The system is beginning to show its growing pains and is sometimes a pain. But it largely works well. I love driving an electric car. They are fun to drive and really fast. If someone else would invest in a another quick charge system to compete with Blink, and actually maintain their equipment, it would solve both the congestion problem and also the problem of arriving at a charger and not knowing if it is going to work or not. It's not like you have a lot of choices at this point. That's really the only problem with the system, and why these emergency trucks exist at all.

[–]happysmash27 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It takes about 20 minutes to fill the car up to 80% charge and another 20 minutes to get to 100% charge.

You should be aware that charging above 80% could slowly damage your battery and reduce its capacity, which is why I have an 80% charge limit on my phone. Not charging above 80% can make batteries barely degrade at all!

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yep, I'm aware. We only charge above 80% when the trip requires it (either by bad road conditions / temperature, or by length of trip between available chargers).

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Is that for lithium-ion batteries?

[–]happysmash27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes.

[–]Vigte 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

But if you all just shut up and eat bugs and learn to live with less - the world will live! /s

The second any green-technology becomes economically profitable vs current methods, it will be everywhere.

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

You should drive around in the Pacific NW. About 1 in every 10 vehicles are electric. Most are Teslas and Nissan Leafs.

[–]Vigte 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I'm talking about businesses (as the primary source of the pollution problem) using green-tech when it directly lowers their overhead costs, not individuals.

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Ah, understood. I read somewhere that the cost per KWH of new green energy (wind turbines, solar panels) is fast approaching the cost per KWH of a new coal power plant. The only problem is storing the energy, or having enough of it when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. The obvious answer is to pump water uphill into man-made reservoirs when you have excess energy, and generate electricity with that water when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. It's essentially a grid-scale battery. It's just expensive to have to build all that storage at scale.

Nuclear is still the best long-term option if you are shooting to not burn coal or natural gas. We just need to get over the political hurdle of reprocessing the waste or storing it for long term.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah a gravity battery, I think it's called. They're pretty efficient.

[–]Jesus-Christ 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Is there anyway to tell where the energy is being generated when you plug your electric car in to charge or are we all supposed to assume it's green energy? The irony of this post is funny but I also find it funny that people think they're doing the world a favor by driving an electric car. Electric cars are like the processed foods of vehicles lol

[–]useless_aether[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

i read once that there is not enough lithium for everybody, so electric cars will always be for the rich only

[–]Otacon 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[Citations Needed]

Also there's no guarantee lithium will always be the most popular material for batteries. If there's a need for something the market will often fill the need