No need for home charger...we only have street parking!

No problem here. Economic pressure will fix this. Imagine you have a choice of Motels, but the one you picked doesn't have cable TV ...or air conditioning... How you going to rent your apartments and town houses if you don't have charging as a perk? Even without a mandate, we should see widespread chargers in new construction because capitalism.
Indeed. And the fact it is already happening in places like Boulder that are a bit ahead of the EV curve is a sign that economic pressure will work nationwide. We also have EV spots in most public parking garages, and even a fair number of street parking spaces that are designated electric with L2 chargers, for those who don't have private spaces.

The last thing we want to do is replicate the gas station model. The media keeps repeating the idea that until there's a charging station every few blocks, EVs will never take off. I couldn't disagree with that more. Home charging is the key benefit to having an EV.

In fact, I would surmise the reason why the EA and EVGos of the world are struggling is that EV charging stations are never going to be a profitable business in and of themselves. Unless you tie them to restaurants, entertainment, etc., they are doomed to lose money, and thus remain unreliable.

Put a row of 30-40 chargers at every Buckey's, Cracker Barrel, etc. along the interstate, and now you're talking. Let the charging be cheap or free. Get them on the food, impulse items, etc.
 
No problem here. Economic pressure will fix this. Imagine you have a choice of Motels, but the one you picked doesn't have cable TV ...or air conditioning... How you going to rent your apartments and town houses if you don't have charging as a perk? Even without a mandate, we should see widespread chargers in new construction because capitalism.

While we wait for capitalism to address this issue, there are literally thousands of residences under construction right now in Naples, FL that will not have the necessary electrical service capacity installed. Just a few miles from us a 10,000-home gated community is under construction. I have inquired and found that the homes will not have the enough amperage at the box to support Level 2 charging. Likewise with a 400-unit apartment complex that is under construction nearby. Once these buildings are completed, it will be many years entailing much expense before they become amenable to EV ownership, if ever.

If you're on a trip requiring a motel stay, at least you're prepared to use DCFC highway chargers. Not being able to find an otherwise desirable home, condo, or apartment that offers home charging is a very different kettle of fish.

The whole purpose of building codes is to force builders to do things related to safety, suitable use, and future marketability that "capitalism" historically failed to induce them to do. Many builders are forced by building codes -- against their inclination -- to make homes in south Florida hurricane resistant. Why would the same logic not apply to mandating home EV charging capacity for residential construction if there is, as claimed, a public policy interest in advancing EV use?
 
OK bummer. Florida enters the chat. I'm not expecting Florida to be around much longer....even if it were possible to shut off all new carbon and methane going into our air....Florida is doomed. I wouldn't waste money on charger networks on a coral atol that floods with every tide.

Better use of funds would be to build a wall about where Mason and Dixon drew their line to keep Florida retirees from returning.

It astounds me that people buy real estate there. The whole state is a magnet for stupid.

It's worse than it looks

"This means that in many coastal cities, if you bought a house with a 30-year mortgage today, by the time you paid off your mortgage you could be experiencing extreme 100-year storm surges ten times more frequently due to sea level rise alone. This does not include the added risk of more intense storms resulting from warmer water and a warmer atmosphere, which could further increase storm surge damage."
 
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Long-term, this is not a good plan after free EA charging is gone. Currently, the cost for supercharging is roughly 4X local electric rates. As an example, my local electric rate is .12/kw; while the local supercharger fee is .43/kw. A home charger will quickly pay for itself.
I did the math since Rhode Island Energy more than doubled their electricity rates since September. Used to be 0.08 /kW, now it’s .17/kW. BUT there’s more! They charge additional electricity delivery charges of .11/kw, so that’s a total 0.28/kW to charge the car at home. I did a test and went to my local EVGo which Rhode Island law requires the price to be by the minute rather than kW. I was at a slow operating 350kw one, maxed out at 86kW but it was also 28F outside. It cost me .26/kW at that slow rate, so it was actually CHEAPER to pay to DC Fast charge the car than charge at home! I think nearby Massachusetts has even cheaper by the minute EV rates, and even higher home total electricity costs. So basically I’m only going to ever charge at home out of convenience, because it now costs more than DC fast charging.
 
OK bummer. Florida enters the chat. I'm not expecting Florida to be around much longer....even if it were possible to shut off all new carbon and methane going into our air....Florida is doomed. I wouldn't waste money on charger networks on a coral atol that floods with every tide.

Better use of funds would be to build a wall about where Mason and Dixon drew their line to keep Florida retirees from returning.

It astounds me that people buy real estate there. The whole state is a magnet for stupid.

It's worse than it looks

i can't say that I disagree.

However, one of the luxuries that advanced age provides me is that I won't be around when we finally slip under the waves. Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy the warmth, sunshine, wildlife, and not having to fool with winter tires.

That said, when I designed our house, I took several precautions. I insisted that the contractor comply with the stricter Miami-Dade hurricane codes rather than the more lenient codes still used on the west coast of Florida. I also had the slab poured at the 19'8" elevation that new FEMA guidelines recommended (and that the Trump administration rescinded) instead of the 17'0" elevation that was restored to appease the climate deniers down here (but whom the state ignores behind the scenes in trying -- probably futilely -- to brace the infrastructure for what's coming). As I've weathered direct hits from Hurricanes Irma and Ian without the damage incurred by surrounding properties, my chances of leaving the house in a hearse instead of a boat are pretty good -- as long as it's not raining.

On the other hand, we do have younger friends who are seriously considering leaving Florida. Unfortunately, they're Democrats, and the departure of their kind will ease the state's quickening slide into God-fearing, gun-toting, vaccine-rejecting, immigrant-hating, drag-queen-fearing climate denialism.

Yeah . . . it's worse than it looks.
 
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OK bummer. Florida enters the chat. I'm not expecting Florida to be around much longer....even if it were possible to shut off all new carbon and methane going into our air....Florida is doomed. I wouldn't waste money on charger networks on a coral atol that floods with every tide.

Better use of funds would be to build a wall about where Mason and Dixon drew their line to keep Florida retirees from returning.

It astounds me that people buy real estate there. The whole state is a magnet for stupid.

It's worse than it looks

"This means that in many coastal cities, if you bought a house with a 30-year mortgage today, by the time you paid off your mortgage you could be experiencing extreme 100-year storm surges ten times more frequently due to sea level rise alone. This does not include the added risk of more intense storms resulting from warmer water and a warmer atmosphere, which could further increase storm surge damage."
This is why I think I'm sticking with Colorado for now. It'll be a coastal property by the time I'm ready to retire.
 
This is why I think I'm sticking with Colorado for now. It'll be a coastal property by the time I'm ready to retire.
What was the original topic here? ;)
 
What was the original topic here? ;)

Home charging.

Actually, state-by-state politics will have a lot to do with how home charging evolves, so . . . kinda still on topic. Maybe. If you stretch.
 
What was the original topic here? ;)
Yes, where were we? Ah, street parking. The last problem to solve. Anyone have any good ideas on how to solve home charging for those folks in cities that have no garage?

I remember at one point, Philadelphia experimented with mandating all new homes being built needed to have at least one garage parking space. Didn't quite work out the way they hoped. People just used the garage for storage and kept parking their cars on the street.

Personally, I think all street parking should be either eliminated or made incredibly expensive. I can't believe it's 2023, and we haven't developed a better system than roping up your horse outside the saloon, so to speak.

If you read books like Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic (highly recommended) the research clearly shows cheap or free street parking is one of the biggest causes of inner-city traffic. Not to mention it's just a terrible waste of valuable real-estate.

But that would require massive investment in public transport, more parking garages that were cheap (cheaper than parking on the street), and fewer cars per household. That last one could be addressed with cheap monthly ride sharing. (Robotaxis? But that's decades away still).

We're a long way from where we need to be, but I think we could get there with sufficiently regulated capitalism, to tie it in to our earlier discussion. I think we should try everything, and keep whatever works.
 
hmp10:


"On the other hand, we do have younger friends who are seriously considering leaving Florida. Unfortunately, they're Democrats, and the departure of their kind will ease the state's quickening slide into God-fearing, gun-toting, vaccine-rejecting, immigrant-hating, drag-queen-fearing climate denial-ism."

I've been making assumptions about the folk here EV + climate concern = forward thinking, educated, affluent

stereotypes are useful. they save time.

and yet I find myself daily thinking like a Prepper: I want solar/battery/off-the-grid power. I want a wind or solar water well and a cistern. My son (the baker) convinced me to grow wheat on the South lawn...turns out I'm too late (should have planted months ago). I need to build a root cellar and expand the garden. I should buy land with a stream and build a grist mill. I'd love to have chickens and maybe goats. I am losing my mind here. So much to worry about is nothing to worry about.
Maybe the gun nuts are right about how to cope with what's coming.

 
We're a long way from where we need to be, but I think we could get there with sufficiently regulated capitalism, to tie it in to our earlier discussion. I think we should try everything, and keep whatever works.

What he said.
 
Personally, I think all street parking should be either eliminated or made incredibly expensive. I can't believe it's 2023, and we haven't developed a better system than roping up your horse outside the saloon, so to speak.
Since you mentioned Philly: The streets of Philadelphia are no place to park a nice car. Whether it's catalytic converter theft or hit-and-runs. Or that the city is full of jerks who think they've rented exclusive use of public parking spaces for the price they unilaterally set, of shoveling snow from it once.

But eliminating/making expensive residential street parking would be a political no-go. Public transport exists but it's slow and there is no enforcement of e.g. no-smoking rules. Working class neighborhoods would suffer way more than the Lucid buyer. And Philadelphia simply does not have the tax base to fund a massive expansion of public transport or cheap parking garages on top of its poor management of the budget it has.

I do like the idea of EV charging points being integrated into streetlamp poles. Though in Philadelphia, if the charging cables contain copper, they will be immediately cut and stolen.
 
No problem here. Economic pressure will fix this. Imagine you have a choice of Motels, but the one you picked doesn't have cable TV ...or air conditioning... How you going to rent your apartments and town houses if you don't have charging as a perk? Even without a mandate, we should see widespread chargers in new construction because capitalism.
In Houston, there are many new apartments are being built with Level-2 EV charging stations. When I got my home charger installed by QMerit assigned contractor in July, they told me their backlog is crazy with apartments adding charging to entice renters.
I saw them basically in every lamp posts in Notting Hill neighborhood of London when I was visiting in September.
 
"On the other hand, we do have younger friends who are seriously considering leaving Florida. Unfortunately, they're Democrats, and the departure of their kind will ease the state's quickening slide into God-fearing, gun-toting, vaccine-rejecting, immigrant-hating, drag-queen-fearing climate denial-ism."

I've been making assumptions about the folk here EV + climate concern = forward thinking, educated, affluent
stereotypes are useful. they save time.

Very well put it.
 
hmp10:


"On the other hand, we do have younger friends who are seriously considering leaving Florida. Unfortunately, they're Democrats, and the departure of their kind will ease the state's quickening slide into God-fearing, gun-toting, vaccine-rejecting, immigrant-hating, drag-queen-fearing climate denial-ism."

I've been making assumptions about the folk here EV + climate concern = forward thinking, educated, affluent

stereotypes are useful. they save time.

and yet I find myself daily thinking like a Prepper: I want solar/battery/off-the-grid power. I want a wind or solar water well and a cistern. My son (the baker) convinced me to grow wheat on the South lawn...turns out I'm too late (should have planted months ago). I need to build a root cellar and expand the garden. I should buy land with a stream and build a grist mill. I'd love to have chickens and maybe goats. I am losing my mind here. So much to worry about is nothing to worry about.
Maybe the gun nuts are right about how to cope with what's coming.


(By the way, I forgot to add library book burning to the list of Florida Today. It's now a thing down here, cheered on by a governor who sets up state commissions to investigate vaccine administration, who pushed a law (recently overturned in court) to restrict what professors can saw in college classrooms, appoints an election police force and, just last week, set up a state panel to look into the public threat posed by drag shows. And get ready. He'll soon be on your doorstep, too, as 2024 nears.)

The interplay of capitalism and government regulation is a complicated phenomenon. My brother, an EV addict, lives in a mid-rise condo in downtown Atlanta. The attached multi-story garage owned by the condo association has two Level 2 plugs on the ground floor for a complex that already has five EV owners in residence. Every time he or another EV owner brings up the question of expanding EV charging availability, they get shouted down at owners' meetings by other residents who either don't want to face the expense, plan to stay with ICE vehicles, and/or think EV owners are somehow subversive.

With EV ownership percentages still in the single-digits, it's going to be a long time before economic imperatives induce developers on a large scale to incur the expenses of adding charging infrastructure to current building projects. But this avoidance of current expense will resonate years into the future, when the supply/demand equation might look very different.

Every new 10,000-home development without home charging infrastructure put in today will mean several times that number of future car-buying decisions impacted by that lack of infrastructure. (Most new homes, at least in Florida, are built with 200-amp service. Given the A/C loads down here, home charging for EVs needs closer to 300-400 amp service to the home, especially if there will eventually be more than one EV in the household).

Remember that GM, Ford, and other car markers claim they're going to switch to EV-only production in the coming decade. How many ICE selections will be available then for people who are buying these new homes and condos now without home charging capacity?

This is the reason that government regulation of the housing supply on this issue needs to get ahead of the lagging response of capitalism.
 
Since you mentioned Philly: The streets of Philadelphia are no place to park a nice car. Whether it's catalytic converter theft or hit-and-runs. Or that the city is full of jerks who think they've rented exclusive use of public parking spaces for the price they unilaterally set, of shoveling snow from it once.

But eliminating/making expensive residential street parking would be a political no-go. Public transport exists but it's slow and there is no enforcement of e.g. no-smoking rules. Working class neighborhoods would suffer way more than the Lucid buyer. And Philadelphia simply does not have the tax base to fund a massive expansion of public transport or cheap parking garages on top of its poor management of the budget it has.

I do like the idea of EV charging points being integrated into streetlamp poles. Though in Philadelphia, if the charging cables contain copper, they will be immediately cut and stolen.
I mostly agree. But Philly most definitely has the tax base. They just need to stop the money flowing into the pockets of the wrong people.

My dad’s taxes are monumentally higher than what I pay in Colorado. And we have better services in many respects (though not all). It’s not always about how you collect. It’s where the money goes once it’s collected.

But cleaning up Philly’s corrupt political system is beyond the scope of this forum, so I’ll leave that discussion for another place.
 
While we wait for capitalism to address this issue, there are literally thousands of residences under construction right now in Naples, FL that will not have the necessary electrical service capacity installed. Just a few miles from us a 10,000-home gated community is under construction. I have inquired and found that the homes will not have the enough amperage at the box to support Level 2 charging. Likewise with a 400-unit apartment complex that is under construction nearby. Once these buildings are completed, it will be many years entailing much expense before they become amenable to EV ownership, if ever.

If you're on a trip requiring a motel stay, at least you're prepared to use DCFC highway chargers. Not being able to find an otherwise desirable home, condo, or apartment that offers home charging is a very different kettle of fish.

The whole purpose of building codes is to force builders to do things related to safety, suitable use, and future marketability that "capitalism" historically failed to induce them to do. Many builders are forced by building codes -- against their inclination -- to make homes in south Florida hurricane resistant. Why would the same logic not apply to mandating home EV charging capacity for residential construction if there is, as claimed, a public policy interest in advancing EV use?
This post surprises me. If the homes under construction were in Levittown I would understand the amperage limitations. But Naples is a very high end community and I would expect that the new houses there would have ample electrical power.
 
This post surprises me. If the homes under construction were in Levittown I would understand the amperage limitations. But Naples is a very high end community and I would expect that the new houses there would have ample electrical power.
It's our fault, EV owners! We are destroying the power grid...

Sorry, couldn't resist. 😇 ;)
 
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