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Comment Re: solid state (Score 1) 245

Even if you are rural, the 5% of the time you need to have fast charge, it’s highly unlikely a fast charger isn’t available along your route. Even in the town of 1,200 people I regularly stay at there are fast chargers available at 50kW and 250/350kW chargers along major freeways in the surrounding area. This is true for the majority of America, and it’s only getting better coverage as time goes on.

Comment Re: solid state (Score 1) 245

It’s not very convenient for city people who can’t charge at home. They have to pay 4x as much per mile for electricity and it wastes their time at fast chargers.

I take it yours isn’t a plug in? You can use a 10ga extension cord to charge at up to 3.6kW off 240V and 100’ isn’t a problem. Even at 120V you can charge at 1.8kW. So if you are in a rural area, not only could you easily meet all your charging needs at home, but you are more likely to have 240V access.

Comment Re: solid state (Score 1) 245

Yep, I made a splitter cord for the dryer at my in laws house because the dryer plug is behind it. That way I can have both plugged in at the same time and outlets don’t get wear from inserting plugs, plus the dryer doesn’t have to be moved. That way the dryer stays plugged in, and the splitter cord reaches just past the dryer on the floor. They can both be used at the same time due to the circuit amperage and dryer amperage and not pop the fuse, though generally they aren’t even being used at the same time.

Comment Re: solid state (Score 1) 245

But yet again. You can't say that 120V is fine for everyone, only that it is fine for you.

But you are provably wrong. The average American drives 33-37 miles while spending 16hours per day at home. Even low efficiency EV getting 2.5 miles/kWh like large SUV and trucks charge in 8 hours. This means that home charging off a wall outlet meets nearly everyone’s needs, even ginormous oversized American vehicles off our anemic 120V plugs. The idea that it’s not feasible is a lie, nothing more.

Comment Re: solid state (Score 2) 245

I’ve owned an EV for nearly 4 years now and drive it regularly. I could charge it on the cheap 1.8kW EVSE that are portable and plug into any US wall outlet and be fine. I keep it in the frunk with a 100’ extension cord and adapters that let me charge at 3.6kW from things like RV or clothes dryer plugs at 3.6kW when out. 1.8kW gives about 6 miles per hour range, and a two day charge time from 0-100%. Plugging in overnight for 8hrs gives roughly 45-50 miles range. Only about 5% of the time do I actually need to charge faster and if I didn’t have one then fast charging at a level 3 is easy, nearby, and charges to what I need in around 15 minutes, or 40 min if I needed absolute maximum for a long road trip and forgot to charge it when it’s near empty.

The biggest problem are people who can’t charge at home from a regular outlet. They need to use fast charging all the time which is 3-4x the cost (equal to gasoline per mile) which is expensive and it degrades the battery faster plus wastes your time.

Comment Re: solid state (Score 1) 245

The cost to instal an EVSE @9.6kW here in the US for me was $270. This is because I already had a 240V 50A circuit in my garage for welding, and the EVSE itself is nothing more than a glorified switch that ensures the vehicle doesn’t ask for more power than is available on the circuit. If I need to weld and charge the car I just unplug the car. Really it’s barely better than the portable 1.8/3.6 portable EVSE I keep in the frunk with a 100’ extension cord and several 240V adapters if needed. Only about 5% of the time do I need more than the 1.8kW available from common US outlets.

Comment Re:It's a Huge Win (Score 1) 113

It’s a reasonable middle step under constraints. You need to update the BMS in many cases, supply the BMS with proper handshaking, and supply coolant all for a modest return at high maintenance that isn’t guaranteed to be cheaper. Batteries themselves degrading through optimal cycling takes a back seat to coolant leaks and abuses before hitting secondary markets. It can make sense though. Primarily the comment was refuting the ridiculous notion of throwing away valuable resources as if it’s not profitable. Compared to CO2 emissions, the long term impact of EV and battery manufacturing and use of batteries in grid storage is vastly lower which really hurts some peoples identity complex.

Comment Re:It's a Huge Win (Score 3, Insightful) 113

Batteries don’t consume elements like a fission or fusion reactor, and with all the clamoring about precious metals and the cost of lithium it’s actually profitable to recycle such that lithium batteries from power tools to EV are being recycled. Recycling reclaims over 80% of the materials, and in theory this can approach 100% as process technology matures. So the idea that valuable materials just go to a landfill is nonsense, if we ever produce all the batteries we need in the future we could pretty much stop mining materials.

Comment Re:Life Expectancy Study. (Score 1, Interesting) 113

The problem with this model is very close to that of light bulbs. When incandescent bulbs were replaced with LEDs, the expected lifetime went from the low thousands (a balance of efficiency and bulb lifetime) to a predicted 40k hours+. It’s true the LEDs do last this long when properly driven at optimal temperatures. However, modern LED bulbs don’t really last much longer than incandescent and it’s in the manufacturers best interest to keep them this way. Cheap capacitors used in limiting current from AC sources, over driving the LEDs at high currents and temperature to skimp on costs, etc. not only make it cheaper to produce per bulb but you need to keep buying as they burn out far far before the claimed hours.

This same model applies to EV batteries. They are skimped on such that not long after the warranty expires things like coolant leaks, cells failing from defects in manufacturing, BMS failures, being over driven by excessive charge or discharge currents, etc. cause the battery to have to be replaced. Some even didn’t have any thermal regulation like the class action lawsuit for early Nissan leafs where there were extensive failures within the warranty period. So while it’s true the batteries themselves would last under ideal conditions, it’s not in the manufacturers best interest to have the battery actually last because then you wouldn’t need to scrap the car for a new one.

Comment Re:shark skin (Score 1) 112

The summary even says that the data analysis showing transition from laminar to turbulent Is a quarter century old while the data itself is approaching a century. Even someone as old as me had this thought ingrained in coursework a quarter century ago, so the idea the single source cited is unique among engineering and science researchers fails miserably. There aren't closed form solutions for simple shapes that resolve to easy to compute answers from a generic solved formula, like simple drag for example, but instead require very intensive finite element analysis, and ideally across more than just simple fluid dynamics. This is why they haven’t had practical use beyond some simple experimental results like golf balls, where the dimple patent is 121 years old, as an example predating the summary. Once you can include this property reliably into physics simulation models for engineering platforms, as is currently being done, we will see many more advances such as the now banned Olympic swimming suits.

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