Wasn't this type of problem solved over 150 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Why isn't this a more reasonable solution vs. shutting down the world's industrial capacity? I know they have done retrofits to sky scrapers for earthquake proofing, so wouldn't the process be similar?

I would guess they don't want people tampering with the black box logs. Although, they could prevent that by just signing the logs from an embedded key as they get written.

I'm a little suspicious of it being exactly 100% max throttle. If it's an analog A/D you'd think it would be like 100.01% or 99.95% or some in-exact value. It would also be essential to record the intermediate values from 0% to 100%. A jump from 0% immediately to exactly 100% seems a little suspicious to me. Or it could just be the software discretizing the analog data from the pedal at a low sample rate. We don't have the source code to really know.

From my experience using several charge stations over the last year, I don't believe your concerns are that much of an issue. I haven't seen any charge stations vandalized in my area yet. If it did become a problem, I'm sure security cameras and law enforcement could deal with it.

As far as weathering, that should be a non-issue as charge stations are engineered to be outdoor rated (check out NEMA ratings).

What kind of "accidental damage"? Cars running into the charge station? I suppose this is a valid concern, but usually a bollards are installed in front of them.

This is why workplace charging is so important, but often overlooked in regards to EV tech. The technical challenges of adding charge stations to your destination is a solved problem. Doubling the range of lithium ion batteries is still in the laboratory at this point. Also, with PHEV the more opportunities you have to charge, the less gas you have to burn. So instead of 80% of your trips being in EV mode, you might hit 90% just by having destination charging.

I've found with our C-Max Energi the AC will hit about 2.5KW of power usage for maybe the first 10 minutes of running, so it's usually good to pre-condition the car before unplugging it. After it's been running for awhile it tends to maintain a draw of maybe about 500 watts from what I can tell from the dash gauge. This is in 90 degree weather.

The heater electrical usage is ridiculous though. It doesn't use a heat pump so it relies on resistance heating. At that point, I'm probably better off just enabling the engine.

Most U.S. homes with garages have 240V service. It's just a matter of adding a new circuit breaker. 50 or 30 amps at 240V is probably enough for overnight charging. So yeah, there is an initial investment there of probably around $1000 for the EVSE and new circuit breaker.

No need to own 2 cars. A PHEV like the Volt could cover most commute ranges and still be useful for long range trips.

As for total electrics aka the Tesla's of the world, they're not viable until you can charge them fully in the amount of time it would take to pump 15-19 gallons of fuel. Right now I can drive six hours from my place to my folks with a 20 minute stop to stretch and answer mother nature's call. Last I saw in the Tesla literature, that same drive would require 3 to 4 30 minute stops to complete. At 4 stops, that 6 hour trip just became 8 ours.

Don't understand your math here... at 75 MPH for 5.66 hours is 425 miles. Tesla 70D has about 236 mile range at 70MPH. So maybe you have to stop once or maybe twice for 30 minutes or so to super charge. I don't think it would be 3-4 times. Of course, I'm also assuming you could charge at your destination somehow for the trip back. You could also drive a little slow (60mph) and gain another 40mi range each charge. I guess there are a lot of variables here, but I think in general it's not as bad as it sounds.

It's amazing how much the politicians push the common people to "do their part", which amounts to saving a minuscule fraction of the water when the real problem is agriculture/environmental usages of the water. So you have a large percentage of the population wasting their time killing their lawn, spending $10k on drought resistant landscaping, etc. People feel good they have a dead front lawn but in the end, they are not really contributing anything meaningful to the solution, but the politicians did a good job making them feel like they did their part. Meanwhile, actual solutions to the problems are left unexplored.

Where I live (California) the base cost is about $2.50 USD per 100 cubic feet (748 gallons). There are then additional "tiers" that increase the cost over your baseline quantity. If you live in an apartment and don't have a lawn/yard/garden I can understand only 31 gallons/day, but I have a few fruit trees and such that I like to keep watered. One thing I'll admit is that if they want people to conserve, they need to raise water rates (and then use that money to acquire more water resources).

The best solution is to let the farmers sell the water to the residents instead of growing the crops. It's just a comparison of the profit from growing an almond vs. selling to residents at retail rates. Win-win right?

Because I live in the sub-burbs and see them everywhere around town. No farmers here. The tanks clearly say "reclaimed water". I see people pumping the water onto their lawns. They were not common last year.

So according to that article you posted almost 50% goes to "environmental" uses. Some of that could be recovered better engineering projects to capture the water before it's just dumped into the ocean.

That plastic is poylethelene http://www.latimes.com/local/l.... Same thing used in drinking bottles and the PEX lines in newer homes.