Dino juice v Electrons....

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

Towing just got longer....A LOT LONGER...(and harder)

Well....I guess it would work.....if you're retired....and like to wait around at charging stations half of your life.....and like to play solitaire on your phone while waiting... and have a gen set in you tow rig to run your AC for 14 hours while your truck is charging.

Yep...it's a win!!!! (I'm sure some would say):R

PS, I've driven on this road many times and I don't remember it being steep at all. Wait till someone buys a Lightning and try's towing the Ike. Good luck with that!

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

time2roll wrote:
Actual rolling blackouts due to lack of generation capacity have been very rare in CA.

Really?? The last 3 years PG&E has killed my power off because of too much demand and not enough capacity to produce power. Not fun when you have to be at work and the freezer on my back porch is full of meat and thawing in 100 degree weather.

Do you really think that 10 of millions of electric cars are going to make this problem better? :R :S

[time2roll]

valhalla360 wrote:
Right now, it's mostly related to intermittent energy sources (ie: wind and solar). But if the grid is struggling now and you are increasing the load by 20-30%, you can't expect it to be better.

The last actual blackout due to lack of generation was a natural gas plant that had an issue and went off line unexpectedly.

There are no grids with tons of excess capacity as that comes at a high cost to have plants idling most days.

CA is improving and expanding the grid every day and I have confidence it will easily meet the needs of electric vehicles as they are phased in over the next 30 years.

The air quality has improved remarkably over the last 40 years and continuing this effort is well worth the transition to electric. Looking forward to the day the Carson refinery is dismantled.

The rest is FUD.

[valhalla360]

stsmark wrote:
The interesting piece of that Lightning video was the charge rate. It was plugged into the 50 amp service but the truck said it would take over 3 hrs to top it up from around 80%. Granted the top part of a charge is usually at a reduced rate but I wonder just what it could do overnight.
I’m guessing from the video that was a 28 ft Airstream. That combo with the small battery would really test your EV patience. I still like the truck.
They also touched on the problem with the powered Airstream, 50 amps into the truck leaves the 30 for charging but also powering the trailer. At the end of the day somebody is going to have to pay for all the changes to park infrastructure, would it be a 100.00 plus a night spot?

With Lithium batteries there isn't the same penalty slowdown for the last 20% you get with lead acid.

20% of a 135kwh battery bank is 27kwh. A 50amp outlet peaks at 12kw but for constant loads is de-rated to 80% or 9.6kw. 27kwh @ 9.6kw is pretty close to 3hours.

You are correct that charging at the campground is a huge issue if it ever becomes more than a stray EV. Your average 30amp rig running the air/con in hot weather is going to be averaging something like 1.0-1.5kw (it will vary as the air/con and other loads cycle on and off). Even a 50amp rig might only average 2.0-3.0kw in hot conditions.

So say we have a park with 100 - 30amp sites and 100- 50amp sites at 1.5kw & 3.0kw. They need a power supply that will cover 450kw (or about 1875amps @ 240v). Electrical code takes into account that most people won't be pulling at the maximum often.

If we have just 10% of the rigs as EVs pulling 9kw for charging most of the time they are hooked up, they around an extra 180kw (or 700amps @ 240v). Almost a 50% increase to accommodate 10% EV users. With EVs, they are going to pull as much as they can, so that they are fully charged in the morning which means the old codes allowing reduced amp ratings are likely to cause a lot of issues as the campground electrical systems are oveloaded.

[valhalla360]

time2roll wrote:

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
You might and try learning about what is going on in California RIGHT NOW. PG&E can't even keep our AC on when it gets hot on some days. I live next to the biggest Geothermal unit in the world and have family and friends that work there. They said that there will be rolling blackouts this year too because of too much demand.

This has nothing to do with energy density but too little electrons and to much demand. Think millions of electric cars are going to help? :R

Flex Alert? Oh please spare us. This campaign has been in place since at least the 1960s to give the afternoon off. Were electric vehicles killing it then too?

Right now, it's mostly related to intermittent energy sources (ie: wind and solar). But if the grid is struggling now and you are increasing the load by 20-30%, you can't expect it to be better.

[valhalla360]

Lantley wrote:
Using that battery is the tank analogy. The EV can be recharged/refilled via the sun, ...

So sort of like biodiesel?

Yeah, it has it's issues but so does solar & wind.

[time2roll]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
You might and try learning about what is going on in California RIGHT NOW. PG&E can't even keep our AC on when it gets hot on some days. I live next to the biggest Geothermal unit in the world and have family and friends that work there. They said that there will be rolling blackouts this year too because of too much demand.

This has nothing to do with energy density but too little electrons and to much demand. Think millions of electric cars are going to help? :R

Flex Alert? Oh please spare us. This campaign has been in place since at least the 1960s to give the afternoon off. Were electric vehicles killing it then too?

Actual rolling blackouts due to lack of generation capacity have been very rare in CA.

CA grid reliability is ranked 19th by USNews. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/energy

[shelbyfv]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

shelbyfv wrote:

rhagfo wrote:

shelbyfv wrote:
I've edited out the troll comment. Let's just call it tiresome. Everyone knows battery capacity is what keeps EVs from being great for long distance driving. It's not news, few would dispute it. Can we just stipulate that and move on? As for "Our government wants us to all switch away from fossil fuels" it's hardly just the government. Every rational person who isn't a hermit understands this is something that has to be done.

Well with the electrical grid in it’s current state, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow.

Actually, the grid isn't as much of an issue as some imagine. Easy to Google if you are interested.

You might and try learning about what is going on in California RIGHT NOW. PG&E can't even keep our AC on when it gets hot on some days. I live next to the biggest Geothermal unit in the world and have family and friends that work there. They said that there will be rolling blackouts this year too because of too much demand.

This has nothing to do with energy density but too little electrons and to much demand. Think millions of electric cars are going to help? :R

I was through with this thread but you keep quoting me and posting stuff that's irrelevant. I'm not surprised that you have a simplistic view of the grid/EV relationship, or that you didn't bother to read up on it as I suggested. Your tired "talking points" only reinforce my point that you started this thread just to have an opportunity to yap yap about EVs in general, nothing to do with RVs. Anyway, fact is most EVs are charged overnight when demand for electricity is low. Chargers already exist that can be set to only charge when other demand is low. Evs already exist that can return power to the grid. This is an evolving, progressing situation and not the nyah, nyah deal breaker you make it out to be. Maybe you'd like to suggest some other path to our transportation future?

[stsmark]

The interesting piece of that Lightning video was the charge rate. It was plugged into the 50 amp service but the truck said it would take over 3 hrs to top it up from around 80%. Granted the top part of a charge is usually at a reduced rate but I wonder just what it could do overnight.
I’m guessing from the video that was a 28 ft Airstream. That combo with the small battery would really test your EV patience. I still like the truck.
They also touched on the problem with the powered Airstream, 50 amps into the truck leaves the 30 for charging but also powering the trailer. At the end of the day somebody is going to have to pay for all the changes to park infrastructure, would it be a 100.00 plus a night spot?

[Grit_dog]

And while Cali and other areas have issues literally every year during peak summer demand, the dreamers will tell you it’s not a problem, but that Texas was evil for having problems for 1 week during a streak of ALL TIME low temperatures combined with Covid stuff in general and All time record snowfall. (iE the equivalent of all of Cali experiencing a month of Phoenix AZ summer temps. )

Nothing has changed other than, in the last few years, I’ve learned just how dumb and gullible a large percentage of our population is.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

shelbyfv wrote:

rhagfo wrote:

shelbyfv wrote:
I've edited out the troll comment. Let's just call it tiresome. Everyone knows battery capacity is what keeps EVs from being great for long distance driving. It's not news, few would dispute it. Can we just stipulate that and move on? As for "Our government wants us to all switch away from fossil fuels" it's hardly just the government. Every rational person who isn't a hermit understands this is something that has to be done.

Well with the electrical grid in it’s current state, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow.

Actually, the grid isn't as much of an issue as some imagine. Easy to Google if you are interested.

You might and try learning about what is going on in California RIGHT NOW. PG&E can't even keep our AC on when it gets hot on some days. I live next to the biggest Geothermal unit in the world and have family and friends that work there. They said that there will be rolling blackouts this year too because of too much demand.

This has nothing to do with energy density but too little electrons and to much demand. Think millions of electric cars are going to help? :R

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

time2roll wrote:

danrclem wrote:
According to this 60% of all electricity in the U.S.A comes from coal and natural gas and only 20% comes from renewables. When you charge an electric vehicle battery from the largest source of electricity which is natural gas and coal that natural gas and coal is also gone forever.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php

And with any luck that 20% will increase by 2% to 5% each year.

How has that been working for you in the last 50 years?

[Huntindog]

Lantley wrote:
Using that battery is the tank analogy. The EV can be recharged/refilled via the sun, wind, even nuclear. However I don't think anyone is making more dinosaurs. Once the oil runs dry there is no replenishment.
Hence the term renewable energy!
If you guys can find a way to renew dinosaurs, I imagine the renewable energy guys will stop peddling EV's on us.
Unitil then you'll have to put up with the pipe dream of the EV.

Of course if you are sure the oil will never run out we can all sit around fat and happy sucking down as much fossil fuel as we like.
If you have doubts or are not sure we have multiple generations of fossil fuel available, you may want to consider some alternatives for the future.

Several problems here. The doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.Nuclear is just trading one form of pollution for another. Flip coin to decide which is worse. Oh yes we can store the sun and winds power in batteries. That is not even close to feasble at the scale it would take for the worlds present population, which shows no signs of slowing down it's increase. The demise of fossil fuel has been predicted several times, and it has always been wrong. Will it run out someday? Probably, but not for a VERY long time. The only real solution is to reduce the earths population I volunteer those that are the most concerned about it to be a team player and take one for the planets future.
Since thats not going to happen, the best bang for the buck is to bring the countries with little emission controls up to our standards. I lived in LA in the 60s, and it has improved dramactically. in spite of having a huge population increase. The sky there is not brown anymore. In any endevour, whether it is racing cars,building HI FI sound systems, etc. the first 95% of performance comes pretty easy and affordably. The higher one goes after that gets more and more expensive and harder. That is where we are in this country with emissions. The good news is that there are plenty of places that can be improved a LOT for not much effort and money. We have already paved the way for them by inventing the solutions. We just have to get them to follow our lead.

[time2roll]

danrclem wrote:
According to this 60% of all electricity in the U.S.A comes from coal and natural gas and only 20% comes from renewables. When you charge an electric vehicle battery from the largest source of electricity which is natural gas and coal that natural gas and coal is also gone forever.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php

And with any luck that 20% will increase by 2% to 5% each year.

[danrclem]

According to this 60% of all electricity in the U.S.A comes from coal and natural gas and only 20% comes from renewables. When you charge an electric vehicle battery from the largest source of electricity which is natural gas and coal that natural gas and coal is also gone forever.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php

[Lantley]

Using that battery is the tank analogy. The EV can be recharged/refilled via the sun, wind, even nuclear. However I don't think anyone is making more dinosaurs. Once the oil runs dry there is no replenishment.
Hence the term renewable energy!
If you guys can find a way to renew dinosaurs, I imagine the renewable energy guys will stop peddling EV's on us.
Unitil then you'll have to put up with the pipe dream of the EV.

Of course if you are sure the oil will never run out we can all sit around fat and happy sucking down as much fossil fuel as we like.
If you have doubts or are not sure we have multiple generations of fossil fuel available, you may want to consider some alternatives for the future.