After Emissions Scandal, Volkswagen Pledges Charging Stations Across The US (siliconvalley.com) 142
Here's how the Volkswagen emissions scandal ends in California -- and the rest of America. An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area News Group:
In a decision with lasting implications for the growth of electric vehicles, state regulators on Thursday approved Volkswagen's plan to invest nearly $1 billion in California's EV network as penalty for its diesel-emission cheating scandal... San Jose and San Francisco are two of six cities slated for expanded community charging stations. A Volkswagen subsidiary, Electrify America, also will target low-income communities for at least 35 percent of the projects... The first phase calls for $120 million to build 400 charging stations with between 2,000 and 3,000 chargers. About $75 million will be used to develop a high-speed, highway charging network, mostly consisting of 150 kilowatt fast-chargers. The other $45 million will build community charging stations in six metro areas: San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego. Another $44 million will build a "Green City" in Sacramento. It will provide access to zero-emission vehicles to low-income residents, through ride-sharing and other programs. As part of the 10-year comprehensive plan, Electrify America will build a nationwide network of fast-charging stations with universal technology.
That nationwide network is expected to cost another $2 billion.
That nationwide network is expected to cost another $2 billion.
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They're actually pretty (relatively) cheap now-a-days.
https://electrek.co/2017/07/26... [electrek.co]
http://www.carsdirect.com/deal... [carsdirect.com]
Re:Low income communities (Score:5, Insightful)
Low-income area means people who can only afford a used Corolla, not a new $35k car. Those subsidies are going bye-bye long before the lower classes are going to be able to afford electric cars (and of course, a tax credit means nothing if your net income tax each year is $0.)
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There was at least one car maker here (forgot which, I think it was a French one), that offered EVs with
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But a second hand EV? When that battery goes, you're looking at a replacement costing over $10.0000.
I am not sure how much money that is but I can't make it come close to the cost of a new battery.
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Silly Europian inverting commas and dots. In Europian notation, it would have been 10.000,000. Yep! that is correct! This is a correct representation of 10K.
Nice reply although, 10k seems simpler to me indeed ;-)
Re:Low income communities (Score:5, Informative)
EV batteries last the lifetime of the car anyway. By the time the battery is worn out, the car will have fallen apart around it.
Taxi companies have Leafs with over 200k miles and >80% remaining. Some Tesla owners are over 400k with the same.
If you can get a home charger and the range is okay, used EV, especially a Leaf, is a great cheap car. Maintenance is low, fuel costs are low, and the buy price is ridiculously low.
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"Similar to a mechanical device that wears out faster with heavy use, the depth of discharge (DoD) determines the cycle count of the battery. The smaller the discharge (low DoD), the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine. There is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles to prolong life."
http://batteryuniversity.com/l... [batteryuniversity.com]
The linked page includes a chart showing t
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Most, if not all EVs, won't let you discharge the battery below safe levels. For example, the original Leaf had a 24KWh battery, but you could only actually use about 22KWh of energy from it at most. Then the car would shut down and prevent you doing any damage. Naturally the remaining battery % and range displays were calibrated to account for that.
Older Leafs have a special 80% charge mode that stops charging at, you guessed it, 80%. It was called "long life mode". The newer ones don't have it, Nissan rea
Re: Worst fucking idea ever. (Score:2)
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How do you drive normally if you can't keep your foot on the pedal?
How to measure battery performance? (Score:2)
Taxi companies have Leafs with over 200k miles and >80% remaining. Some Tesla owners are over 400k with the same.
This depends on the usage history of the battery. One of the things I would worry about as a purchaser is how do you determine the performance of the battery? It's not like a mechanical engine where wear-and-tear is visible to a trained mechanic. Is there are way to determine the "wear" on a battery short of discharging and recharging it - which takes time and adds wear- to measure capacity?
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In the Leaf, if you charge all the way up and there is some battery degradation, the display will show less than the full 12 bars of capacity. A few people have managed to lose a bar or two.
It will be different in other EVs, but having driven a few they all seem to have plenty of data on the battery available. When I get my Leaf serviced they also give me a report on the battery. There is also an app (LeafSpy) that talks to a Bluetooth OBD-II dongle that can give you precise information on the Leaf battery,
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Experience seems to be that people worry far too much about battery degradation. Sure, if you buy are really old used EV it might have lost 20% of it's battery capacity. But equally an old ICE car will have lost a proportion of it's power and fuel efficiency. You have to accept that one reason an old used car is cheap is that it's not good as a new car.
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Re: Low income communities (Score:2)
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These types of things aren't for the plebs like us. They are for the high up corporate types. You know the ones that make $300k/yr and cant budget in how they're going to afford having a kid.
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Ultimately there will be charge points most places that cars are parked. Every stall in a car park. Every parking spot by the side of the road.
But even as it stands right now, there are apartment dwellers that have bought EVs. It just needs more planning. If you're just doing short trips around town, you probably don't need to charge every day, but perhaps twice a week. And rapid chargers can charge batteries in a reasonable amount of time now. 30 mins gives a lot of charge.
Right now you probably need to be
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Or you buy a Hyundai. Since 2012 their EVs have come with a transferrable lifetime battery warranty and they have a 6/60k bumper to bumper and 10/100k powertrain warranty. Anyone who buys any EV right now which is not a Hyundai is doing themselves and everyone else a disservice, because the standard should be a lifetime battery warranty.
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Tesla's battery warranty isn't bad.
8 year unlimited milage on the Model S & X.
8 year 100K or 120K on the Model 3.
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Tesla's battery warranty isn't bad.
Compared to Hyundai's, it is garbage. I only tend to drive cars which are at least ten years old, and usually closer to twenty. (My "new" ride is a 1998 A8 Quattro. It's replacing a 1982 300SD.) Assuming we're still allowed to drive cars that old, and drive ourselves, in that time I can buy a Hyundai Ioniq and know that the battery will cost me $0. That means that the resale value of the vehicle will probably be much higher than any other EV anywhere near its class even at ten years. A Model S will be worth
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I tend to buy cars that are 3-5 years old, and then drive them into the ground. So I know where you are coming from. But I don't expect any warranty.
And with an EV I don't think I'd need one on the battery. Time has shown that they are far more reliable and long lasting than people would think.
But in any case, if you are buying cars that are 1-+ years old, you can't expect the car industry to care less what you want.
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But in any case, if you are buying cars that are 1-+ years old, you can't expect the car industry to care less what you want.
I don't, but I do expect them to care about what customers want, and customers want resale value. It's not their first consideration, but it is a consideration.
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You're thinking of Renault. Nissan also does it as an option on the Leaf.
It may lower the sticker price on a new car, but it's a really bad idea. First of all, battery degradation has shown not to be an issue. Pretty much the batteries tend to have a useful life the same as the car itself. And they are unlikely to have a complete failure and need replacing.
But rather than making selling a car easier, it makes it very much more difficult. People who are buying a used car rarely want to get roped in to an obl
Rented batteries (Score:2)
There was at least one car maker here (forgot which, I think it was a French one), that offered EVs with leased batteries. You buy the car but rent the battery which gets replaced when needed.
That's the french Renault, for their Zoé line of cars.
It's basically the same electric platform as Nissan (they worked together on this one) but with a Renault Twingo body bolted on it.
(They also has electric bigger sedans and electric mini-vans, but I don't have experience with those).
The older modal had a 22kWh battery that was only available as a rental.
It has an official range of 125km, (in my own experience, between 100 and 150 km depending on for conservative I drive which is far enough in dens
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(and of course, a tax credit means nothing if your net income tax each year is $0.)
That depends on how the credit is implemented. If it's an actual tax credit then you get a rebate for the amount of the credit, anyway. If it's just a tax discount then it isn't. The word "credit" is often used erroneously when it comes to taxes.
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It depends on whether or not it is a refundable tax credit. Many are not, including the federal EV tax credit. In other words, you only get the full credit if you owe at least that much tax. Non-refundable tax credits are a perverse incentive; they punish people for being TOO POOR. (Major gripe: the federal tax credits for education are also non-refundable.) If you can't take advantage of the credit, you're better off leasing the car (the leasing company gets the credit and reduces your rate accordingly) an
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We already offer a 10 year plan for parking tickets without any binding promises:
You come to jail and do some work in our factory unit every week-end for ten years. If you miss a week-en or if you are late, you do your full time.
The Chief Justice,
Time to regulate (Score:5, Interesting)
Charging stations and connectors.
I want one standard for charging, and one type of connector, so I can drive up to any charging station without worrying about it being the wrong kind.
It's almost as bad as if Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, Toyota and Honda had special stations that only worked with their cars.
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And then Ford manages to monopolize a 100 mile radius, so if you have friends visiting who drive a Honda they need to make special arrangements just to avoid running out of gas.
This would surely be beneficial for all of society.
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You can't monopolize electricity. It's much more fungible than gasoline. If there are people who need electricity to operate their car, somebody else will make it available.
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Not if every brand of car has its own specialized and highly patented plug, they won't. Of course with a minor computer interface to be able to apply the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions against anyone trying to reverse-engineer the plug.
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It would be bad for consumers. Only being able to use a subset of chargers is a negative. The more different incompatible systems, the worse it is.
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>I want one standard for charging, and one type of connector, so I can drive up to any charging station without worrying about it being the wrong kind.
While clearly that's ideal. I'm not sure how hard it would be. I mean, some cars will be able to charge faster than others. So even if the charger "knows" the maximum rate, the charger may not be rated as high and it'll still charge slower. And this is assuming all vehicles are running the exact same voltage at the connector and converting it to what they
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While clearly that's ideal. I'm not sure how hard it would be. I mean, some cars will be able to charge faster than others. So even if the charger "knows" the maximum rate, the charger may not be rated as high and it'll still charge slower.
So? Let it charge slower. The problem is not being able to plug in in the first place. The open fast charging standards already negotiate the charging rate, that's not what the GP is complaining about.
We'll need another "compatibility layer"
There already are compatibility layers.
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Indeed. And chargers already do that. They're not simple plugs, there's negotiation with the vehicle over charge rates before the charge begins.
I was reading over VW's plan... and I have to say, while it's not quite as ambitious as Tesla's, it's a lot more substantial than I expected. 450 stations with 2500 chargers in the US, a mix of 150kW and 350kW chargers, over the next two years. Tesla is currently at 140kW per charger, with plans to unveil an "over 350kW" charger soon. Tesla has 909 stations wit
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How many people would buy petrol cars if there were no gas stations to fill at?
Building a charging network means that you actually think that EVs are / will shortly be a mainstream thing for normal people, including people that actually go places, rather than just a hair
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Yes, and partly because of that it took half a century (1880s to 1920/1930s) before car ownership became widespread. Gas stations weren't the only problem, but they were a major one, particularly early on. Gasoline was originally unpredictable, in different formulations that may or may not work with a given vehicle, dispensed slowly and manually, sold fr
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Because it shows *they don't plan on their vehicles being a hair shirt for hippies*. How many times and ways do I need to state this? It means "I'm not content for it to take half a century to scale up". It means "I want this to be a mass market vehicle". And on and on and on.
This is simply not true. High-power charging stations (aka, meaningful ones for ro
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In the early stages, which we are still in, it makes sense for car companies to get involved to jump start the market. Basically, they're subsidizing charging station construction to promote car sales. The problem with that scenario is that there is an incentive for the car companies to make their charging stations proprietary (ie, Tesla Supercharger) so that other car companies don't get a free ride on the infrastructure.
In the long run, I expect that car companies will exit the charging station business a
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Re:Time to regulate (Score:4)
Standards like CHAdeMO and CCS allow the vehicle to tell the charger what voltage to produce and query the maximum available current.
The chargers use switch mode power supplies too convert AC to DC with high efficiency. They can produce a wide range of voltages.
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Unfortunately, the current is capped. So for example, if you have a 500V charger and connect a 350V vehicle, the maximum deliverable power would be 70% of what the charger could theoretically provide. Contrarily, if you had a 350V charger, and a 500V vehice showed up, it wouldn't be able to charge at all. So there is some balance involved.
Adapters can themselves be capped, too. For example, Tesla's CHAdeMO adapters appear to cap at around 43kW, regardless of what the charger is theoretically capable of.
Th
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So you're saying you want it in USB Type-C format? That kilowatt charger will turn your Apple Macbook into a Samsung real quick!
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Re:Time to regulate (Score:5, Informative)
The standard is SAE J1772-2009.
The only EV manufacturer that doesn't have a J1772 port is Tesla, but they still include an adapter for it.
Some US manufacturers want to use the CCS1 plug style, which is backwards-compatible with J1772.
=Smidge=
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That standard only supports up to 240V/50A AC charging.
The issue is in the standardisation of DC charging.
Thankfully, CCS1 seems to be winning the race at the moment. It's likely that VW will install only CCS1 stations, since their US cars all use it. But Nissan and Tesla are still notable holdouts on not using CCS1.
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I do understand how DC charging works, and none of what you said contradicts anything at all that I said. It may be really hard, but it's slowly being solved. Several vendors have already standardised:
Cars with CCS1:
- VW eGolf
- Chevy Bolt
- Chevy Spark
- BMW i3
- Ford Focus electric
Cars with CHAdeMO:
- Nissan Leaf
Cars with Tesla DC charging:
- Tesla Model S
- Tesla Model X
Cars that are coming out soon supporting CCS:
- Audi Q6 electric
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I want one standard for charging, and one type of connector, so I can drive up to any charging station without worrying about it being the wrong kind.
Normally I'm not against government regulating standardisation, but why regulate this? The industry is already converging. These chargers will be CCS which is backed by the majors and even Teslas can be charged from CCS stations.
I am against regulating after the fact for something that is already sorted.
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Right now electric vehicles are bought by people who do the research and learn the fac
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You must regulate to avoid some company playing the "embrace, extend and extinguish" game.
No you don't. Embrace Extend Extinguish only works if you have a monopoly. The car market on the other hand is competitive.
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If the consumers are not informed, market will be fragmented.
Not at all. Fragmentation doesn't just come from ignorance, it comes from market power. Even an uninformed consumer quickly gets informed when their new toy doesn't work.
Microsoft did not have any monopoly in authentication servers and protocols.
No they had a monopoly on the systems that connect to these servers which allowed them among other things to drive the major benefit of Active Directory forward. If Unix workstations were the dominant machines then Microsoft's additions never would have made a dent in the market. You need incredible market power in the "extend" step of the
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Yea, you think regulating it is a bad thing until you realize you've been pay fifty cents per kilowatt-hour and somehow only the VW charging stations deliver half that power to you...
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No, I'm just capable of following a conversation and don't construe other people's words to mean something completely irrelevant that isn't at all being discussed, e.g. the sale of electricity when we're talking about connector compatibility.
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"No, I'm just capable of following a conversation and don't construe other people's words to mean something completely irrelevant that isn't at all being discussed"
You might be capable of following a conversation but your historical recollection is utter shit if you don't know the relationship between things being a standard and things like standards collusion (like diesel vehicle emissions testing) and the shit that goes on behind the scenes and always has since the day of Ma Bell.
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Look please take your autism to a conversation where it matters.
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Sorry yes you're right. Got the two mixed up.
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Nissan and Tesla are really the only outliers at this point as far as I'm aware. Everyone else uses J1772 + Combo.
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Maybe it will take the European Union to make this happen, since they did make equivalent happen for mobile phones? With the anti-regulation stance of the current US administration, I see it less likely happening there, hence believing it will be the EU who will make it happen, if industry doesn't gets its act together first.
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I think a single standard, even a very flexible one, at this point would slow progress.
The battery tech is on the way to allow full charges in less than 5 minutes. If the vehicle has a 100 kWH pack, delivering 100 kWH in 5 minutes requires more than 1200 kW on the feed. So, something like a 12 kW feed at 100 amps. Try to get that through your current standard connector.
Instead of standardizing the feed to the vehicle, what they should standardize is the feed to the "pump" and they should make that extreme.
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There is a new charging technology out which will charge 25% in 5 minutes and 90% in 15 minutes. Sounds very promising.
It uses a water cooled connector. It might require a new connector.
I agree that I hope they all use the same connector. Tesla released so many patents to encourage electric cars.
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Not the real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
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Their not doing it to make amends. The EV market is growing, they're just laying the groundwork for their future business.
All of the automakers have been waiting for someone else to handle this problem for them, because it's complicated and expensive. Real Estate is not really a thing that automakers do often. They occasionally buy a big piece someplace for a campus, but given the upcoming changes in the auto market it's unlikely that any major automaker will ever build another large factory. One Automated Vehicle has the potential to eliminate ten normal vehicles in the ideal case. Even if we see a one hundred percent increas
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The automakers dont have anything to do with gas stations. Why would they have something to do with charging stations?
Gas station infrastructure is mainly built and supported by the oil companies. The oil companies even pay to replace the old tanks when they start leaking. Thats a CITGO gas station, not a FORD gas station.
Ultimately the charging stations will be built and maintained by the electric companies.
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I think you are confused about who will be building the infrastructure.
Sigh.
The automakers dont have anything to do with gas stations. Why would they have something to do with charging stations?
Because nobody else is building them. They would like someone else to build them, which is what I said. Now VW is going to be building them, which is literally the topic of discussion at hand. Here is the pulse, and here is your finger, far from the pulse...
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But VW isnt actually going to build them.
They own the company that will build them, what's the difference?
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Lots of companies have said that they plan to build things. Hell, we were supposed to have hydrogen fueling stations for our hydrogen fueled cars by now, but all we still have after DECADES is more promises about building one. The majority of the few hydrogen filling stations in North America were built with government dollars.
The latest promiser of a hydrogen fuel network is Toyota. Toyota isnt
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What you dont seem to understand that an announcement about building things is not the act of building things.
What you don't seem to understand is that if VW doesn't build these things, they will be fined more than it costs them to build these things.
When electric companies say that they will build a charging network, only then take it seriously.
You didn't see Erin Brockovich, huh? I not only don't believe anything a mainstream power company says, but I also consider the people who work for them to be mass murderers until proven otherwise. You fucking idiot.
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They are soo behind. (Score:3)
I had a VW GTI Jetta that I just turned in just 3 weeks ago. The process was way to simple. My original goal was to just trade it in for a new GTI but VW abandoned the diesal in the states.
So I got a Hyundi Ioniq Hybrid [hyundaiusa.com] instead. VW is WAY behind on there interior electronics. Even looking at the newer non diesel Jetta had no options in the way of LCD controls. The first time I tried Android Auto, I wondered why the hell everyone doesn't just do this instead of getting some proprietary menu. As a hybrid I have been getting about same mileage as I was from my GTI (about 44mpg per tank) so I am happy with that.
I wanted the Model 3, but no way that's is happening in the next year till manufacturing catches up with the pre-orders and knowing Tesla, a bunch of early small recalls initially too. It just shows that some 3rd tier automaker and build a decent hybrid with an interesting interior. I really hope this is a wake up call for VW because all they seem to have is the bettle.
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As a hybrid I have been getting about same mileage as I was from my GTI (about 44mpg per tank) so I am happy with that.
Wait, WTF? I get that mileage from my 10 year old french piece of shit and I don't even have the smallest or most efficient engine that was sold at the time. How are you not getting 70+mpg in a hybrid?
Too late for VW (Score:3, Insightful)
It's too late for everybody who isn't named "Tesla". Tesla's got over 100,000 charging stations installed already. Tesla's chargers are going to be the de facto standard at this point.
Looks good on paper. (Score:4, Interesting)
Charging stations will offer the most powerful and advanced charging technology ever deployed. 350 kW charging has the capability to add about 20 miles of range per minute to a vehicle, allowing up to300 miles of fuel to be added in only 15-20 minutes for some next generation vehicles
Also not vendor locked, the chargers will not be proprietary.
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Which level 3+ fast charge system will they use? CCS, CHAdeMo, or Tesla? If they were smart, they might consider spending some of the money developing an adapter that allows a CCS car to plug in to a Tesla Supercharger. The eGolf uses CCS for level 3 charging.
What's a pledge from VW worth? (Score:2)
I'm not inclined to take them at their word after what they did.
Newton's second law of motion, F=a*M (Score:2)
VW Golf weights 1300 kg, an SUV weighs 2500 - 3000 kg. This weight is M in the formula F=a*M. F - is the amount of burnt fossil fuel.
No way around this law. The heavier the car the more fuel it burns, the more pollution it produces. It is not possible to burn fossil fuel without producing CO2. The VW Golf burns less fuel than a SUV. Maybe they did s
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You're right about CO2 but the problem with diesels is NOx and particulates. These give people lung and heart disease and lead to thousands of premature deaths.
OTOH, electric vehicles don't emit CO2 or NOx or particulates directly. Depending on the source of the electricity, they are usually much cleaner. In most of the US, the electric grid provides electricity which gives EVs a CO2 footprint equivalent to a 80 mpg car (and negligible NOx and particulates).
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Electric cars produce heaps of particulates. They still drive on tyres...
As opposed to gasoline and diesel cars that magically hover over the road?
Who approved this boondoggle (Score:2)
Oh, we soooo sowwy, we sold cars all across the US with these flaws. How about we appease the largest voting bloc in the US. Here's a snippet from the strategic plan we proposed to investors, how about we do "this" as punishment in a single state. That note about receiving all sorts of discounts and tax breaks from the government, we will still sue them if they don't give them. That $2/kWh we will charge customers on top of the base energy cost, just ignore that dear lawmaker, we will pay taxes on that (*co
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You have badly congested roadways because you have bad policies.
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Many cities in the US have congested roadways. One of the more interesting reasons for this would be that one time the auto industry decided to buy up and dismantle [wikipedia.org] light rail around the country. It's almost as if there's an industry which has succeeded in convincing America to construct all its infrastructure around their product, whether or not it's a actually a good idea.
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I live in California and frequently complain about the traffic but I recently visited the East coast and drove around NY, NJ, PA for two weeks and I can categorically state that the traffic was much worse than any I have encountered in California. Plus, you have all these toll roads which don't seem to do anything to reduce congestion but do make it more expensive to drive ("free market" capitalist road policy failure).
I think the problem of "bad policies" is national. We are dependent on automobiles. Subur
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California isnt the rest of the country.
Congested roadways and pollution wasn't invented in California. And they sure as hell don't hold a patent on it, preventing the rest of of the world from abusing it.
You have badly congested roadways because you have bad policies.
If this is merely a policy problem, then that "policy" has been adopted by damn near every other heavily populated country in the world.
Volume is a critical value, as any engineer can attest.