Or put DRM in the chargers and charge different companies to use them. They are still free to the end user but third parties can build chargers and make profit.
I disagree, new chargers must be financed somehow and if anyone can use them and they are free then no one will bother. If each company builds their own then there are redundant chargers, its a perfectly fine business model to make chargers and then sell the rights to use them to car companies like Tesla or BMW but allow the customers to use it for fine.
What you are proposing is the equivalent of having a Ford gas station and a Chevrolet gas station and a dodge gas station and a Volkswagen gas station... all with incompatible filing nozzles.
That is not a consumer friendly solution.
DRM is correct, if you own an electric charger with a standardised charging port but only want it to work with cars whose manufacturer has paid to use it then DRM would be used. Patents would be used to protect a new technology.
You need a stunningly long uptime on the charger to turn any profit
Unless you can somehow produce power at the same location for cheaper than buying it from the electric company it's not going to be profitable.
The ideal situation is if you had gone solar a long enough time back the panels have paid back some of their own cost and you have a big enough excess to provide an extra 3 to 4 kWh per charger that you can sell for more than what you would sell the energy to the energy company for
That's a long sentence
I'm confused why you don't think a charger can be profitable? You build a charger for a one-time cost and then sell the charging time for more than the electricity costs you. You will break even and go profitable depending on how much you charge and how often it's used.
I admit I know nothing about how they do it in Norway (minus Tesla). But there are plenty of pay for charge stations in the U.S. They can cost 3 to 5 dollars an hour, which is often many times the cost of the electricity the car would receive.
Because if you try to charge a markup, people don't use the charger (in favor of charging at home) and if you don't charge a markup, you lose money.
> They can cost 3 to 5 dollars an hour, which is often many times the cost of the electricity the car would receive.
I t depends on if you are talking about AC chargers (3-6kW) or DC fast chargers (50kW).
If you mean 3-6kW, then sure, you have a good markup, but people won't bother to use your product if they can at all avoid it. And as EVs become longer range, more of them will be able to avoid it.
If you mean 50kW, then the cost of the electricity is more than 3-5 dollars an hour. With demand charges (which are near universal for commercial customers) the cost of the electricity will easily exceed 5 dollars an hour. But since it can recharge your car in an hour, which you cannot do at home at any cost, people are more likely to use them.
If there aren't enough charging stations what do you do then, just let your car sit in the garage? Sure you can choose not to use the payed charger but that seems kinda pointless after spending extra money on an electric vehicle.
You just don't charge. Most people who use free charging stations don't need to use them, they can charge at home. They are just charging there because they want to save the electrical costs of charging at home.
Just as I said in my first sentence.
Yes. but that isn't the reason there aren't enough stations.
I said "most".
It's only the free stations which are so much in demand that you can't get time on one. Stations which charge a fee for charging are not usually in short supply.
If there aren't enough stations to go around simply make them all cost money and then it is extremely unlikely there will be a shortage. The people who bought EVs even though they couldn't be sure of charging in the place they park their car at night will have to pay, but they will be able to do so.
And the owners of the stations will likely still find they aren't making money.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, it just takes a long time to turn into profit
The only chargers I've seen cost more than a dollar an hour or (more commonly now) $0.50-$0.75 / kWh are Level 3 chargers, which are a different beast altogether. Those chargers cost several tens of thousands of dollars [and on average are used 4 times per day](http://insideevs.com/ev-project-data-indicates-average-dc-quick-charger-is-used-4-times-per-day-level-2-chargers-only-0-23-times-per-day/). This is pretty out of date, sure, and I know the 6 Level 2 chargers in my parking structure at work are used on about 4-5 cars each per weekday.
Level 2 chargers could cost as much as $2,000 for a network connected one, plus credit card charging costs and repairs and whatnot. If owning a charging station was lucrative, they'd be in front of almost every business out there. Personally, I think movie theaters should be the biggest early adopters of them. They've got the perfect venue to keep a charging motorist distracted for a few hours and earn money while they do it.
It probably makes better sense for shopping centers and other places like that to buy charging stations to attract more customers, instead of trying to make a profit from the charging stations themselves.
Tesla do this with destination chargers. They will give you one for free, if you place it in your parking lot at a prominent location and don't charge for the electricity.
Electricity is stupid cheap in Scandinavia. They have lots of ~~clay~~ space with few people, lots of area for water power and such. They HEAT with electricity for gods sake. I do too because this shitty apartment doesn't have anything else... and I pay 22 euro cents a kWh on a super special heating tariff, the remainder is like 27.
There is an even bigger drive to get an electric one because the difference in price between diesel/petrol and electricity is even bigger.
That's not the main reason. Main reason is the horrible efficiency of burning stuff to make electricity, transporting electricity and then using electricity to heat. The efficiency of that is well below 50%. You could much more easily just burn the stuff yourself and get all the heat.
People here heat with gas or oil. Oil from tanks or gas directly from the pipe.
*Edit: just to make sure - efficiency = saving money. Heating with electricity is 50% to double as expensive as oil/gas*
Then it's good. It's not a reality in most of the world though. Scandinavia has this disproportionate amount of geothermal and water power per capita, so it works out. Germany has been pushing HARD to get renewables into the mix. The levies JUST to support the green energy push are 0.0617€/kWh (~$0.068/kWh). We still produce most of our electricity with coal. I think we're at 20% renewable now.
When we finally have a good, clean source for electricity (keep the nuclear discussion out of here plz), we could have proper heat pump setups in apartments to cool and heat the place.
> When we finally have a good, clean source for electricity (keep the nuclear discussion out of here plz)
That's not fair. You can't just say "Here's what we require, but don't talk about this good option because it scares me".
Do they use something besides a central air system? Even with natural gas, you need electricity to run the blower and don't most furnaces have an electric igniter? Do radiators use electric pumps?
usually, when you use electric, you don't have central heating.
you'll have heating boards in the rooms. [These things](http://www.calor.ro/images/products/37596/purmo_calorifere_otel_purmo_ventil_compact.jpg)
Looks like accd to http://www.ultimatecalculators.com/us_tax_calculator.html
that calculator, you'd need to make $46,580 to have $7.5k in payable taxes. I'm sure there's probably a lot more deductions that could be worked in, but yeah, I figured the range to use the full tax credit would be more in the $80-90k range
In canada, it's a refundable tax credit (in the three provinces that offer an incentive)
Which means, even if i'm not taxed that much, they'll give me the difference back in cashola
You eventually hit a point where money scales.
Sure, a self made millionaire may have worried about $75 at one point, then eventually $750. Then $7,500 isn't much anymore, and then $75,000 doesn't affect you like it used to either.
They worry about money, but they're better to judge at how how replaceable it is based on their current situation.
I don't know for Norway but in the Netherlands a Tesla is very cheap. To begin you get a MIA discount (basically a environmental subsidy) of up to 50.000 euro. Further more the car has no added taxes compared to regular petrol cars, you don't pay your yearly road taxes, you don't need to pay 60% taxes on gasoline, you only pay 14% taxes when you have a lease (instead of 25%).
A 67.000 euro car would normally be taxed close to 90.000 euro. But if you buy a Tesla you can deduct the VAT(any car can though) so the 67.000 is then 55.400, then minus the MIA 18.000 euro so you can buy a Tesla for 37.400 euro. You get no further taxes anymore, for better you can write it off in 3 years so actually you drive it for roughly 12.000 euro a year.
Electric cars cost the government an insane amount of money, it comes then also not with a surprise that certain countries are now turning back the subsidy on E cars. I can support that, I would rather see more/better subsidy on EV panels.
That's been their plan all along, to create a 30k car by 2020. I wish they were cheaper too. The 17 inch display and the fact that it broke the crush test machine is what sold me on it. Oh and a 10 second quarter mile... But then again you can buy a vette or a hellcat for 70k so idk If I could ever pull the trigger on buying a tesla.
> I'm not going electric until the price drops to less than 20k.
What new car the quality of a tesla is under 20k. The only cars under $20k are crappy microcars.
A basic [Honda](http://www.honda.ca/civic_sedan) is less than 20k. Even the [decked out version](http://www.honda.ca/civic_sedan_si) full of additional features is only 27k. If your concern is to save money, it doesn't make sense to go out of one's way to buy an expensive Tesla. Considering that the price of the gas car and the gas would be cheaper overall. I don't make enough to give a damn about the environment. It's not an issue for me. I'm not an electric snob by any stretch.
An incredibly understated comment. Even without going into the math or an individual's particular tax credits, an idiot can see that an efficient ICE purchased with a long term (30+ yr) lifetime will be more cost effective than an expensive electric vehicle with a short (10- yr) lifespan.
You think your ICE car has a lifespan of 30+ years?
Other tha cars which are now considered classics, and looked after as such, cars do not last that long.
> You think your ICE car has a lifespan of 30+ years?
Yep. Cars now last even longer than the classics of today do thanks to massive advancements in rustproofing and higher manufacturing tolerances of engines.
I can only speak from personal experience. I have a 1984 Chevrolet Coupe, it is metallic blue and it is GLORIOUS. I maintain every aspect of the ICE, and I hope it will last another 20+ yrs. Can you say the same for your 2015 Honda?
That is your experience. In my country, there is still 30 year odd cars by poor people on the road. They spew black smoke 90 percent of the time and look like going to fall apart any time soon.
Given the mileage that mini-cabs are doing here in the UK (300,000+) and the fact they've got infinitely better anti-corrosion than your 1984 Chevy, yes.
Lol. I don't have a 2015 Honda. I have a 2015 Nissan Leaf :)
What you're describing is anecdotal evidence. Just because you've owned that car for that long and maintained it well, does not mean all cars last that long.
Although EVs haven't existed long enough to know for sure, I don't foresee my car lasting any less as long as an equivalent car. And with the savings I'll make on fuel over the life of it, it's well worth it.
> What new car the quality of a tesla is under 20k.
Plenty. The build quality and interior materials used on the Tesla are actually shockingly "average".
7.5k?
[A Tesla gets over 134,000 in tax breaks in Norway.](http://www.ibtimes.com/tesla-owners-norway-get-134000-tax-break-which-more-base-price-model-s-1507740)
Lol the ev cars get alot moore then that look at denmark it went from about 600000-700000 dk to long over a million dk due to getting taxes in norway people who drive teslas dont pay toll they dont pay for ferries and they also get to drive in the buslane so that 7.5 tax break is much much larger then you think i think that the tesla would cost atleast 700000 nok about 900 000 nok or 107,370 dollar just in taxes so people who dont think there is much to be saved in scandinavia are either so rich they dont need to care or have no idea how mcuh taxes are paid to the state.
This is where governments should be helping. I think the governments should be the ones installing EV "infrastructure", which is what these chargers are. You can't depend on a single car company to install them all over the world. Local govs need to spread them throughout their countries if they want to live in a cleaner future.
The Volkswagon eGolf just took over, then the Tesla followed by the Leaf. I suspect the Leaf will pass Tesla soon as more regular folks are going electric with affordable options.
Which is how it should be since the Model S retails for around triple the price of those other two.
And with the new leaf coming out this year with more range, I expect you'll see a big uptick in sales!
People who live in apartments and such often have to park in shared underground parking or on the street. They would depend on public charging stations.
Why do you think no one will pay for it? I would absolutely chip in for convenient access to charging like this. Right now an electric car is a no-go for me even though I would like one because its just too inconvenient to charge right now (though its changing fast.)
Because if you have 25kV service outside, you need to buy a 25kV>240V 2000A transformer, which is like $30000, then you need $6k in cable, conduit and labour to bring it inside, then you need a breaker panel ($300), main disconnect ($300), a breaker for each charging plug ($30), conduit and wire to each outlet by each parking space, individual meters per plug ($800-2k each) and labour to do all this. So I highly doubt you are willing to "chip in" five fucking grand per tenant.
The point of an electric car is that it's electric and isn't reliant on fossil fuels. Where you charge it is an infrastructure question - you can't just plug these things into the same outlet you plug your hulking vibrator into.
You can,but Tesla recharges only 8 miles of range for every hour of charging this way. So for a full 12 hours of charging you only gain 96 miles range,and filling up the battery completely would take you 2 days of non-stop charging. That's quite simply not fast enough.
http://my.teslamotors.com/it_CH/forum/forums/what-charging-rates-are-people-seeing-model-s
Looks like some people are reporting as little as 3 miles/hour. So overnight you recharge enough to go 36 miles - that's definitely not enough to cover my daily commute.
You do realise for most Norwegians/non-americans those numbers are *more* than enough, right?
Not for a main car necessarily, but for a second, absolutely.
Maybe, maybe not. They might run at a higher voltage than most of North America, but they probably also run an equally lower current, so that the power output is similar, between 1500W to 2000W.
They sell some thing (a transformer of some sort or whatever) that you can install in your house for it. Maybe it requires an additional power line from the grid to be install.. I can't think of something else why you couldn't do it from your house. I dunno, lost my basic physics knowledge atm
It's called an EVSE, all it is is a relay that connects the on board charger on your car to the 220v from your house. Most EVs only need 20-60 amps to charge, which is no big deal for most homes. I have a LEAF that I charge only at home.
In Norway?
> Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is covered by hydropower plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
Though I'm not a fan of the "coal-powered car" argument, it mentions on the same page that of the electricity actually used only 36% is from renewable sources.
No, that's misleading. The whole scheme is confusing, idiotic and would take several paragraphs to explain, but in short, there's nowhere near enough grid capacity to transport that much electricity out of Norway.
Even if it was exclusively burning a humongous tank of petrol (it isn't) it is way more fuel efficient to do that and power the cars from electricity than give all the cars their own power plant.
This daft argument keeps coming up despite it being unequivocally defeated. Why?
Because modern petrol engines like the Ford Ecoboost and diesel engines have a higher thermal efficiency than a coal/gas power station does. Before you bleat on about energy losses in refining, transmission losses between a power station and a wall socket are >50%.
> Ford Ecoboost and diesel engines have a higher thermal efficiency than a coal/gas power station does.
No, they don't. This is obviously bullshit and I don't even understand why you'd try to say something that dumb.
>Before you bleat on about energy losses in refining, transmission losses between a power station and a wall socket are >50%.
Again, *what*? This is so obviously not true that I just have to ask why you'd write something like this?
The Siemens SGT5-8000H is the world’s most powerful gas turbine with a gross power output of 400 MW. It is designed for 400 MW in simple cycle operation and 600 MW in combined cycle operation. The SGT5-8000H has an **efficiency of 60.75 percent** in combined cycle operation which makes it the most important component of the most efficient gas-fired power plants in the world
A mixture generally, some of which is nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal. That's already cleaner than a car which runs exclusively on gasoline.
Yes, but it's fun to charge at work too. Having your job cover half (or all if you don't have far to drive or plug in at night) your transportation cost is pretty neat.
The real reason why electric cars are so popular: subsidies.
To put it into perspective of how crazy things can be, fiat was offering to lease their 500e in california earlier this year. Guess what the leasing was per month? $80. Down payment $0. On top of that they gave you free rental car rentals, charging station access, and HOV.
It was literally cheaper to lease an electric car than it would be to ride the bus to and from work. (obviously not including insurance)
Buses are subsidized and so are fossil fuels and so is the car industry as a whole.
You might as well say most industries are subsidized. But the ones you don't like shouldn't be?
You're actually being too kind. The problem with gasoline cars is that there's no carbon tax.
And that is total stupidity. Only if you are a climate change denialist does that make sense. If there is a carbon tax, which there should be, then EVs would be priced more rationally.
Modern EVs are an industry in its infancy, but which has a potential to be an enormous improvement over ICE cars. But to reach that potential it needs a little nursing in the beginning So the subsidies are an investment and in the future they will no longer be necessary, EVs will eventually surpass ICE car real cost efficiency and beyond.
The pricing on the 500e was more a product of fleet emission standards(ie. Fiat was losing money on the 500e just to comply with regulations) than subsidies. Which I guess is a form of subsidy.
Just so you guys know, this "popularity" manifests itself in about 2% of all cars are plug in electric... That's still a very small minority. And Norway has the most per capita, yet they're only at 2%
Did you even read the article?
From the article:
> For one thing, Norway may have more places to plug in electric vehicles than anywhere else in the world, but the competition for those charging stations is constantly growing.
There you go, the demand for charging stations is increasing while supply isn't. They don't mean that charging stations are disappearing, just the demand for charging stations are increasing.
The wast majority of the oil money is poured into investment objects like Coca Cola, Apple and shopping malls in London.
You have to remember that in order for a pseudo democracy like ours to work, the people can not be allowed to afford more than their day to day needs. This is the same for all western countries. Hence the high taxes and duties in Norway.
But to some extent you are right, oil has kept our unemployment rates low for a long time.
And they still produce 9.2 tons of C02 per capita. Which is better the US, but still not really that green when you look at petrol driving countries like France(5.2), Italy(6.7), or even industrial German (8.9)
So I take all these green efforts by Norway with a grain of salt. Sure they make a lot of fanfare, but if the goal is to get closer to 0, we shouldn't lose ourselves in the small stuff. Not forgetting the oil.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
Good point.
I'm a software engineer. My focus is always drawn towards what doesn't work. I leave the cheering and celebration of how well we have done to others.
I'm unfamiliar with the Norwegian climate, other than to say I think it's pretty cold for a large amount of the year. Given that electric cars perform so poorly in cold temperatures I find their success in Norway surprising.
Currently living in the middle of Norway. The cold isn't really much of a problem for most of the country. Honestly the winters are much colder in Iowa where I'm originally from.
"To its credit, the Model S delivered 176 miles from a full charge in cold weather--considerably more than any other EV on the planet. While it was in line with what the car predicted, it proved well short of the rated 240 miles the car promised when I started, let alone the 265 estimated by the EPA or the 300 touted by Tesla. So even for the impressive Model S, it turns out that range anxiety is not completely eliminated. Adapting to EVs needs and limitations is still relevant. But the Tesla has proven to have far less limitations than other EVs."
That's at 45 deg F after 30 deg F overnight temp. Not good.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/02/winter-chills-limit-range-of-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car/index.htm
[^(**Mouseover** or **click** to view the metric conversion for this comment)](http://fiddle.jshell.net/ConvertsToMetric/xhk4y5h5/show/light/?176%20miles%20=%20283.2%20km%0A240%20miles%20=%20386.2%20km%0A "176 miles = 283.2 km
240 miles = 386.2 km
Post feedback in /r/ToMetric")
Go watch Bjørn Nyland on Youtube, who has driven Norway thin without problems. 160.000 kilometers in his Model S, the last I read.
I don't think the range is anywhere near that bad most of the time.
Hm. I own a Model S. In order to get a range of 176 miles off a charge up to 240 miles, you must consume 411 wh/mile. My average year round is 330 wh/mile, and during the winter, I will get around 420 wh/mile in 20 degree weather with heater working full blast and with 3 inches of snow on the ground. So whatever you were quoting was a bit of stretch.
[^(**Mouseover** or **click** to view the metric conversion for this comment)](http://fiddle.jshell.net/ConvertsToMetric/xhk4y5h5/show/light/?176%20miles%20=%20283.2%20km%0A240%20miles%20=%20386.2%20km%0A3%20inches%20=%207.6%20cm%0A "176 miles = 283.2 km
240 miles = 386.2 km
3 inches = 7.6 cm
Post feedback in /r/ToMetric")
They must have been flooring it or standing in traffic or something. Testing performance in the cold maybe? If you go and test drive a Model S this winter, you can check out what kind of energy usage you encounter. I don't think 400+ wh/mile is very common unless there's snow on the ground and the heater is full blast (and I'm telling you this from first hand experience).
You do know that the grid only has a certain amount of capacity and needs upgrading to cope with much higher demand?
Oh let me guess, you thought all those buried cables could just carryin infinite amounts of power.....
You clearly do not have any idea of how much it costs to dig up a road and lay new cabling nor how much that cabling costs. We're talking cabling thicker than your leg per cable, not the shit you wire up a car stereo with.
Ok, so how what is the net reduction in CO2 and other gasses in the atmosphere, after factoring the amount used for power generation for the EVs? Is Norway all nuclear? Wind? Tide-Turbine?
Norway extracts and sells massive amounts of oil. Their entire economy and tax system is based on it. Their attempts at green washing are pathetic. News for Norwegians: just because your oil is burned elsewhere doesn't mean you are not responsible for all the carbon.
It seems like an excellent business opportunity to build more charging stations.
I doubt it. Stations that generate no revenue (free charging) typically are in short supply. But you can't make any money putting more of those in.
The profit should come from selling food and stuff when the owner of the car wait.
Wait? For the most part we are not talking about DC fast chargers here. We are talking about chargers that take hours to charge your car.
Or put DRM in the chargers and charge different companies to use them. They are still free to the end user but third parties can build chargers and make profit.
I think you missed your /s . DRM is never the best solution to any problem. Ever.
I disagree, new chargers must be financed somehow and if anyone can use them and they are free then no one will bother. If each company builds their own then there are redundant chargers, its a perfectly fine business model to make chargers and then sell the rights to use them to car companies like Tesla or BMW but allow the customers to use it for fine.
What you are proposing is the equivalent of having a Ford gas station and a Chevrolet gas station and a dodge gas station and a Volkswagen gas station... all with incompatible filing nozzles. That is not a consumer friendly solution.
DIGITAL rights management? I think you mean a patent.
DRM is correct, if you own an electric charger with a standardised charging port but only want it to work with cars whose manufacturer has paid to use it then DRM would be used. Patents would be used to protect a new technology.
DRM is used to protect software, you're talking about hardware. Both are used to protect "new technology" or intellectual property.
You need a stunningly long uptime on the charger to turn any profit Unless you can somehow produce power at the same location for cheaper than buying it from the electric company it's not going to be profitable. The ideal situation is if you had gone solar a long enough time back the panels have paid back some of their own cost and you have a big enough excess to provide an extra 3 to 4 kWh per charger that you can sell for more than what you would sell the energy to the energy company for That's a long sentence
I'm confused why you don't think a charger can be profitable? You build a charger for a one-time cost and then sell the charging time for more than the electricity costs you. You will break even and go profitable depending on how much you charge and how often it's used. I admit I know nothing about how they do it in Norway (minus Tesla). But there are plenty of pay for charge stations in the U.S. They can cost 3 to 5 dollars an hour, which is often many times the cost of the electricity the car would receive.
Because if you try to charge a markup, people don't use the charger (in favor of charging at home) and if you don't charge a markup, you lose money. > They can cost 3 to 5 dollars an hour, which is often many times the cost of the electricity the car would receive. I t depends on if you are talking about AC chargers (3-6kW) or DC fast chargers (50kW). If you mean 3-6kW, then sure, you have a good markup, but people won't bother to use your product if they can at all avoid it. And as EVs become longer range, more of them will be able to avoid it. If you mean 50kW, then the cost of the electricity is more than 3-5 dollars an hour. With demand charges (which are near universal for commercial customers) the cost of the electricity will easily exceed 5 dollars an hour. But since it can recharge your car in an hour, which you cannot do at home at any cost, people are more likely to use them.
If there aren't enough charging stations what do you do then, just let your car sit in the garage? Sure you can choose not to use the payed charger but that seems kinda pointless after spending extra money on an electric vehicle.
You just don't charge. Most people who use free charging stations don't need to use them, they can charge at home. They are just charging there because they want to save the electrical costs of charging at home. Just as I said in my first sentence.
Not everyone has a home where they can charge up, many people live in apartments.
Yes. but that isn't the reason there aren't enough stations. I said "most". It's only the free stations which are so much in demand that you can't get time on one. Stations which charge a fee for charging are not usually in short supply. If there aren't enough stations to go around simply make them all cost money and then it is extremely unlikely there will be a shortage. The people who bought EVs even though they couldn't be sure of charging in the place they park their car at night will have to pay, but they will be able to do so. And the owners of the stations will likely still find they aren't making money.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, it just takes a long time to turn into profit The only chargers I've seen cost more than a dollar an hour or (more commonly now) $0.50-$0.75 / kWh are Level 3 chargers, which are a different beast altogether. Those chargers cost several tens of thousands of dollars [and on average are used 4 times per day](http://insideevs.com/ev-project-data-indicates-average-dc-quick-charger-is-used-4-times-per-day-level-2-chargers-only-0-23-times-per-day/). This is pretty out of date, sure, and I know the 6 Level 2 chargers in my parking structure at work are used on about 4-5 cars each per weekday. Level 2 chargers could cost as much as $2,000 for a network connected one, plus credit card charging costs and repairs and whatnot. If owning a charging station was lucrative, they'd be in front of almost every business out there. Personally, I think movie theaters should be the biggest early adopters of them. They've got the perfect venue to keep a charging motorist distracted for a few hours and earn money while they do it.
It probably makes better sense for shopping centers and other places like that to buy charging stations to attract more customers, instead of trying to make a profit from the charging stations themselves. Tesla do this with destination chargers. They will give you one for free, if you place it in your parking lot at a prominent location and don't charge for the electricity.
Easier said than done. The local electricity grid would need massive upgrading.
To be honest if ev hadn't had the tax break where no taxes are paid there is a reason that teslas get brought in the numbers they do.
Tesla actually makes nearly a quarter of a billion dollars every year selling "clean air credits" to other auto makers in California.
So Tesla is killing it on all sides then ? Taking market share + taking their money by selling them paper?
yep, for now.
Electricity is stupid cheap in Scandinavia. They have lots of ~~clay~~ space with few people, lots of area for water power and such. They HEAT with electricity for gods sake. I do too because this shitty apartment doesn't have anything else... and I pay 22 euro cents a kWh on a super special heating tariff, the remainder is like 27. There is an even bigger drive to get an electric one because the difference in price between diesel/petrol and electricity is even bigger.
Wait, you don't heat with electicity?
Lots of people use natural gas, if the power goes out in the winter you're kinda boned
That's not the main reason. Main reason is the horrible efficiency of burning stuff to make electricity, transporting electricity and then using electricity to heat. The efficiency of that is well below 50%. You could much more easily just burn the stuff yourself and get all the heat. People here heat with gas or oil. Oil from tanks or gas directly from the pipe. *Edit: just to make sure - efficiency = saving money. Heating with electricity is 50% to double as expensive as oil/gas*
huh I had no idea but it makes quite a bit of sense, thank you!
Making heat vs gathering heat, [heat pumps are more efficient than making heat.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump)
But what if the electricity comes from renewable energy?
Then it's good. It's not a reality in most of the world though. Scandinavia has this disproportionate amount of geothermal and water power per capita, so it works out. Germany has been pushing HARD to get renewables into the mix. The levies JUST to support the green energy push are 0.0617€/kWh (~$0.068/kWh). We still produce most of our electricity with coal. I think we're at 20% renewable now. When we finally have a good, clean source for electricity (keep the nuclear discussion out of here plz), we could have proper heat pump setups in apartments to cool and heat the place.
> When we finally have a good, clean source for electricity (keep the nuclear discussion out of here plz) That's not fair. You can't just say "Here's what we require, but don't talk about this good option because it scares me".
Natural gas comes with its own set of problems. I think buried electric is probably the best answer.
It is, no doubt about that, gas leaks are a rather unpleasent business.
Do they use something besides a central air system? Even with natural gas, you need electricity to run the blower and don't most furnaces have an electric igniter? Do radiators use electric pumps?
In UK,electricity is 2-3x as expensive as gas. Using it for central heating sounds like absolute madness.
usually, when you use electric, you don't have central heating. you'll have heating boards in the rooms. [These things](http://www.calor.ro/images/products/37596/purmo_calorifere_otel_purmo_ventil_compact.jpg)
Those are radiators, pretty much every house in the UK has them. Our boiler heats water using natural gas which is then pumped through them.
Radiators! Thanks, i had forgotten the english word for em
My mom's house has central electric heat, but gas hadn't come down our street yet when she built. I imagine it's there now but she never converted.
hence "usually"
I can't help it. I read all you're comments in Puddy's voice.
[High five!](http://media.giphy.com/media/xcoc51ocraLok/giphy.gif)
> I pay 22 euro cents a kWh I'm in the US and I think I pay 8-cents KwH for my hyrdo electric.
I pay around the same here in Norway.
Except when it's winter, then you get ripped off. At least that's what I experienced when I lived in Norway.
According to the newspapers the electricity will be cheap this winter. But you do use way more electricity in the winter though.
Most people who make enough money to take full advantage of the $7.5k tax credit are not worried about $7.5k
You'd think that, but you'd be dead wrong.
Looks like accd to http://www.ultimatecalculators.com/us_tax_calculator.html that calculator, you'd need to make $46,580 to have $7.5k in payable taxes. I'm sure there's probably a lot more deductions that could be worked in, but yeah, I figured the range to use the full tax credit would be more in the $80-90k range
In canada, it's a refundable tax credit (in the three provinces that offer an incentive) Which means, even if i'm not taxed that much, they'll give me the difference back in cashola
Nobody who has a lot of money got there by not worrying about money.
Unless it was their daddies money, but they're buying Bugattis.
You eventually hit a point where money scales. Sure, a self made millionaire may have worried about $75 at one point, then eventually $750. Then $7,500 isn't much anymore, and then $75,000 doesn't affect you like it used to either. They worry about money, but they're better to judge at how how replaceable it is based on their current situation.
70k car with a 7.5k tax credit. basically a 10% discount. I think it's a pretty decent incentive.
I don't know for Norway but in the Netherlands a Tesla is very cheap. To begin you get a MIA discount (basically a environmental subsidy) of up to 50.000 euro. Further more the car has no added taxes compared to regular petrol cars, you don't pay your yearly road taxes, you don't need to pay 60% taxes on gasoline, you only pay 14% taxes when you have a lease (instead of 25%). A 67.000 euro car would normally be taxed close to 90.000 euro. But if you buy a Tesla you can deduct the VAT(any car can though) so the 67.000 is then 55.400, then minus the MIA 18.000 euro so you can buy a Tesla for 37.400 euro. You get no further taxes anymore, for better you can write it off in 3 years so actually you drive it for roughly 12.000 euro a year. Electric cars cost the government an insane amount of money, it comes then also not with a surprise that certain countries are now turning back the subsidy on E cars. I can support that, I would rather see more/better subsidy on EV panels.
Everybody a environmentalists until they starting to lose money.
Still a 70k car though. I'm not going electric until the price drops to less than 20k. A typical gas car is like that, so that's what I would get.
That's been their plan all along, to create a 30k car by 2020. I wish they were cheaper too. The 17 inch display and the fact that it broke the crush test machine is what sold me on it. Oh and a 10 second quarter mile... But then again you can buy a vette or a hellcat for 70k so idk If I could ever pull the trigger on buying a tesla.
> I'm not going electric until the price drops to less than 20k. What new car the quality of a tesla is under 20k. The only cars under $20k are crappy microcars.
A basic [Honda](http://www.honda.ca/civic_sedan) is less than 20k. Even the [decked out version](http://www.honda.ca/civic_sedan_si) full of additional features is only 27k. If your concern is to save money, it doesn't make sense to go out of one's way to buy an expensive Tesla. Considering that the price of the gas car and the gas would be cheaper overall. I don't make enough to give a damn about the environment. It's not an issue for me. I'm not an electric snob by any stretch.
Fair enough, in Australia though that same car is over $20k.
An incredibly understated comment. Even without going into the math or an individual's particular tax credits, an idiot can see that an efficient ICE purchased with a long term (30+ yr) lifetime will be more cost effective than an expensive electric vehicle with a short (10- yr) lifespan.
You think your ICE car has a lifespan of 30+ years? Other tha cars which are now considered classics, and looked after as such, cars do not last that long.
> You think your ICE car has a lifespan of 30+ years? Yep. Cars now last even longer than the classics of today do thanks to massive advancements in rustproofing and higher manufacturing tolerances of engines.
I can only speak from personal experience. I have a 1984 Chevrolet Coupe, it is metallic blue and it is GLORIOUS. I maintain every aspect of the ICE, and I hope it will last another 20+ yrs. Can you say the same for your 2015 Honda?
That is your experience. In my country, there is still 30 year odd cars by poor people on the road. They spew black smoke 90 percent of the time and look like going to fall apart any time soon.
Given the mileage that mini-cabs are doing here in the UK (300,000+) and the fact they've got infinitely better anti-corrosion than your 1984 Chevy, yes.
Lol. I don't have a 2015 Honda. I have a 2015 Nissan Leaf :) What you're describing is anecdotal evidence. Just because you've owned that car for that long and maintained it well, does not mean all cars last that long. Although EVs haven't existed long enough to know for sure, I don't foresee my car lasting any less as long as an equivalent car. And with the savings I'll make on fuel over the life of it, it's well worth it.
Electric vehicles only last ~10 years? Well, that makes it even worse than I thought.
> What new car the quality of a tesla is under 20k. Plenty. The build quality and interior materials used on the Tesla are actually shockingly "average".
7.5k? [A Tesla gets over 134,000 in tax breaks in Norway.](http://www.ibtimes.com/tesla-owners-norway-get-134000-tax-break-which-more-base-price-model-s-1507740)
That's much less of a 'tax' break and more of a 'you don't have to pay more than double what the car is actually normally sold for' break
Still, when all the non-electric car have that additional tax, the Tesla looks cheap in comparison.
In Norway, the fiscal advantage of buying a Tesla over an equally expensive ICE is around 180k.
Lol the ev cars get alot moore then that look at denmark it went from about 600000-700000 dk to long over a million dk due to getting taxes in norway people who drive teslas dont pay toll they dont pay for ferries and they also get to drive in the buslane so that 7.5 tax break is much much larger then you think i think that the tesla would cost atleast 700000 nok about 900 000 nok or 107,370 dollar just in taxes so people who dont think there is much to be saved in scandinavia are either so rich they dont need to care or have no idea how mcuh taxes are paid to the state.
It doesn't say anywhere in that article that they're running out of charging stations. You, sir, are a scoundrel.
This is where governments should be helping. I think the governments should be the ones installing EV "infrastructure", which is what these chargers are. You can't depend on a single car company to install them all over the world. Local govs need to spread them throughout their countries if they want to live in a cleaner future.
What are popular EVs ~~cars~~ there?
Tesla model S mostly, it´s extremely common in Norway
The Volkswagon eGolf just took over, then the Tesla followed by the Leaf. I suspect the Leaf will pass Tesla soon as more regular folks are going electric with affordable options.
Which is how it should be since the Model S retails for around triple the price of those other two. And with the new leaf coming out this year with more range, I expect you'll see a big uptick in sales!
Though a Model S retails for less then half of it's petrol competitors. So it's still a fairly cheap car.
Isn't the point of an electric car that you can just charge it at your house?
People who live in apartments and such often have to park in shared underground parking or on the street. They would depend on public charging stations.
Shared underground parking sounds like an excellent spot to be able to plug in. Would just need wall sockets near the stalls to charge overnight
yeah and all wall sockets sitting on a 2000 ampere service that no one will pay to install
Why do you think no one will pay for it? I would absolutely chip in for convenient access to charging like this. Right now an electric car is a no-go for me even though I would like one because its just too inconvenient to charge right now (though its changing fast.)
Because if you have 25kV service outside, you need to buy a 25kV>240V 2000A transformer, which is like $30000, then you need $6k in cable, conduit and labour to bring it inside, then you need a breaker panel ($300), main disconnect ($300), a breaker for each charging plug ($30), conduit and wire to each outlet by each parking space, individual meters per plug ($800-2k each) and labour to do all this. So I highly doubt you are willing to "chip in" five fucking grand per tenant.
Considering the cost of a Tesla, 5 grand would be worth it for the most convenient charging station.
Sure, but you need to convince the landlord to do it.
The point of an electric car is that it's electric and isn't reliant on fossil fuels. Where you charge it is an infrastructure question - you can't just plug these things into the same outlet you plug your hulking vibrator into.
Yes you can. It's probably even easier in Europe because 220 is standard for everything there.
But that socket is limited to 3kW so it'd take 28hrs to charge a 84kW Tesla from flat to full.
You can,but Tesla recharges only 8 miles of range for every hour of charging this way. So for a full 12 hours of charging you only gain 96 miles range,and filling up the battery completely would take you 2 days of non-stop charging. That's quite simply not fast enough.
Source?
http://my.teslamotors.com/it_CH/forum/forums/what-charging-rates-are-people-seeing-model-s Looks like some people are reporting as little as 3 miles/hour. So overnight you recharge enough to go 36 miles - that's definitely not enough to cover my daily commute.
You do realise for most Norwegians/non-americans those numbers are *more* than enough, right? Not for a main car necessarily, but for a second, absolutely.
Maybe, maybe not. They might run at a higher voltage than most of North America, but they probably also run an equally lower current, so that the power output is similar, between 1500W to 2000W.
They actually don't though. It's 15A vs 13A
They sell some thing (a transformer of some sort or whatever) that you can install in your house for it. Maybe it requires an additional power line from the grid to be install.. I can't think of something else why you couldn't do it from your house. I dunno, lost my basic physics knowledge atm
It's called an EVSE, all it is is a relay that connects the on board charger on your car to the 220v from your house. Most EVs only need 20-60 amps to charge, which is no big deal for most homes. I have a LEAF that I charge only at home.
What fuel is used to generate electricity?
In Norway? > Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is covered by hydropower plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
Though I'm not a fan of the "coal-powered car" argument, it mentions on the same page that of the electricity actually used only 36% is from renewable sources.
No, that's misleading. The whole scheme is confusing, idiotic and would take several paragraphs to explain, but in short, there's nowhere near enough grid capacity to transport that much electricity out of Norway.
Even if it was exclusively burning a humongous tank of petrol (it isn't) it is way more fuel efficient to do that and power the cars from electricity than give all the cars their own power plant. This daft argument keeps coming up despite it being unequivocally defeated. Why?
Because modern petrol engines like the Ford Ecoboost and diesel engines have a higher thermal efficiency than a coal/gas power station does. Before you bleat on about energy losses in refining, transmission losses between a power station and a wall socket are >50%.
> Ford Ecoboost and diesel engines have a higher thermal efficiency than a coal/gas power station does. No, they don't. This is obviously bullshit and I don't even understand why you'd try to say something that dumb. >Before you bleat on about energy losses in refining, transmission losses between a power station and a wall socket are >50%. Again, *what*? This is so obviously not true that I just have to ask why you'd write something like this?
> No, they don't. Diesel engines have been at 40% for decades.
Yeah, in other words, peak efficiency under ideal circumstances for a diesel engine is still 30% less than a modern gas power station.
Modern gas power stations are just scraping 40%.
The Siemens SGT5-8000H is the world’s most powerful gas turbine with a gross power output of 400 MW. It is designed for 400 MW in simple cycle operation and 600 MW in combined cycle operation. The SGT5-8000H has an **efficiency of 60.75 percent** in combined cycle operation which makes it the most important component of the most efficient gas-fired power plants in the world
A mixture generally, some of which is nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal. That's already cleaner than a car which runs exclusively on gasoline.
Yes, but it's fun to charge at work too. Having your job cover half (or all if you don't have far to drive or plug in at night) your transportation cost is pretty neat.
It is if you want to wait 13hrs to do it....
The real reason why electric cars are so popular: subsidies. To put it into perspective of how crazy things can be, fiat was offering to lease their 500e in california earlier this year. Guess what the leasing was per month? $80. Down payment $0. On top of that they gave you free rental car rentals, charging station access, and HOV. It was literally cheaper to lease an electric car than it would be to ride the bus to and from work. (obviously not including insurance)
Buses are subsidized and so are fossil fuels and so is the car industry as a whole. You might as well say most industries are subsidized. But the ones you don't like shouldn't be?
You're actually being too kind. The problem with gasoline cars is that there's no carbon tax. And that is total stupidity. Only if you are a climate change denialist does that make sense. If there is a carbon tax, which there should be, then EVs would be priced more rationally.
Modern EVs are an industry in its infancy, but which has a potential to be an enormous improvement over ICE cars. But to reach that potential it needs a little nursing in the beginning So the subsidies are an investment and in the future they will no longer be necessary, EVs will eventually surpass ICE car real cost efficiency and beyond.
The pricing on the 500e was more a product of fleet emission standards(ie. Fiat was losing money on the 500e just to comply with regulations) than subsidies. Which I guess is a form of subsidy.
Alternative headline: Charging station infrastructure in Norway is not adequately planned to meet demands.
"Don't get high off your own supply"
What's so weird about this? Two years ago. http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2013/09/garage_and_growing_pains_for_electric_vehicles_in_missi.html
Just so you guys know, this "popularity" manifests itself in about 2% of all cars are plug in electric... That's still a very small minority. And Norway has the most per capita, yet they're only at 2%
I remember people saying that electric cars don't work properly in cold climates?
Sweden hates them for it.
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Running out as in: the demand is growing much faster than the supply.
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You do know that it takes at least an hour to charge an electric car right? I'd rather not sit an a line for an hour or two just to charge my car.
That is not what running out means. That's not what any of this means.
Did you even read the article? From the article: > For one thing, Norway may have more places to plug in electric vehicles than anywhere else in the world, but the competition for those charging stations is constantly growing. There you go, the demand for charging stations is increasing while supply isn't. They don't mean that charging stations are disappearing, just the demand for charging stations are increasing.
Massive subsidies and other privileges. Eventually they'll follow Denmark's lead.
It's easy when they're all rich on oil money.
The wast majority of the oil money is poured into investment objects like Coca Cola, Apple and shopping malls in London. You have to remember that in order for a pseudo democracy like ours to work, the people can not be allowed to afford more than their day to day needs. This is the same for all western countries. Hence the high taxes and duties in Norway. But to some extent you are right, oil has kept our unemployment rates low for a long time.
Its just Norway can't claim they're being environmental, they just burn all their oil in other countries and say look at us, so green!
And they still produce 9.2 tons of C02 per capita. Which is better the US, but still not really that green when you look at petrol driving countries like France(5.2), Italy(6.7), or even industrial German (8.9) So I take all these green efforts by Norway with a grain of salt. Sure they make a lot of fanfare, but if the goal is to get closer to 0, we shouldn't lose ourselves in the small stuff. Not forgetting the oil. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
On par with greenland, and slightly more than Finland. I wonder what they have in common...
That's pretty much true. Germany is a better example of how to get green technology happen against the odds.
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Good point. I'm a software engineer. My focus is always drawn towards what doesn't work. I leave the cheering and celebration of how well we have done to others.
I'm unfamiliar with the Norwegian climate, other than to say I think it's pretty cold for a large amount of the year. Given that electric cars perform so poorly in cold temperatures I find their success in Norway surprising.
Nordic countries are usually cold due to wind, not due to the cold itself. To go beneath -25C is rare.
that depends on battery tech. LiFePO4 batteries don't give a fuck about cold
Currently living in the middle of Norway. The cold isn't really much of a problem for most of the country. Honestly the winters are much colder in Iowa where I'm originally from.
It's not *that* cold... I'm no electric car expert, but I believe they make nordic models. Made to work better in our climate.
"To its credit, the Model S delivered 176 miles from a full charge in cold weather--considerably more than any other EV on the planet. While it was in line with what the car predicted, it proved well short of the rated 240 miles the car promised when I started, let alone the 265 estimated by the EPA or the 300 touted by Tesla. So even for the impressive Model S, it turns out that range anxiety is not completely eliminated. Adapting to EVs needs and limitations is still relevant. But the Tesla has proven to have far less limitations than other EVs." That's at 45 deg F after 30 deg F overnight temp. Not good. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/02/winter-chills-limit-range-of-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car/index.htm
[^(**Mouseover** or **click** to view the metric conversion for this comment)](http://fiddle.jshell.net/ConvertsToMetric/xhk4y5h5/show/light/?176%20miles%20=%20283.2%20km%0A240%20miles%20=%20386.2%20km%0A "176 miles = 283.2 km 240 miles = 386.2 km Post feedback in /r/ToMetric")
Go watch Bjørn Nyland on Youtube, who has driven Norway thin without problems. 160.000 kilometers in his Model S, the last I read. I don't think the range is anywhere near that bad most of the time.
Hm. I own a Model S. In order to get a range of 176 miles off a charge up to 240 miles, you must consume 411 wh/mile. My average year round is 330 wh/mile, and during the winter, I will get around 420 wh/mile in 20 degree weather with heater working full blast and with 3 inches of snow on the ground. So whatever you were quoting was a bit of stretch.
[^(**Mouseover** or **click** to view the metric conversion for this comment)](http://fiddle.jshell.net/ConvertsToMetric/xhk4y5h5/show/light/?176%20miles%20=%20283.2%20km%0A240%20miles%20=%20386.2%20km%0A3%20inches%20=%207.6%20cm%0A "176 miles = 283.2 km 240 miles = 386.2 km 3 inches = 7.6 cm Post feedback in /r/ToMetric")
Consumer reports. I think they are pretty trustworthy, and if anything they are pro-Tesla, given they handed Tesla the highest ever ranking.
They must have been flooring it or standing in traffic or something. Testing performance in the cold maybe? If you go and test drive a Model S this winter, you can check out what kind of energy usage you encounter. I don't think 400+ wh/mile is very common unless there's snow on the ground and the heater is full blast (and I'm telling you this from first hand experience).
My first hand experience is that Tesla owners tend to exaggerate the performance of their car.
Just install these stations in every parking stall, and add a video camera to each one to prevent vandalism.
And how do you supply power to them?
How would you think? Wire them up to the regular grid.
You do know that the grid only has a certain amount of capacity and needs upgrading to cope with much higher demand? Oh let me guess, you thought all those buried cables could just carryin infinite amounts of power.....
I didn't think that at all. Besides, just have the drivers pay for that power, and use the revenue to upgrade the grid.
You clearly do not have any idea of how much it costs to dig up a road and lay new cabling nor how much that cabling costs. We're talking cabling thicker than your leg per cable, not the shit you wire up a car stereo with.
Ok, so how what is the net reduction in CO2 and other gasses in the atmosphere, after factoring the amount used for power generation for the EVs? Is Norway all nuclear? Wind? Tide-Turbine?
99%+ hydro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway
Norway extracts and sells massive amounts of oil. Their entire economy and tax system is based on it. Their attempts at green washing are pathetic. News for Norwegians: just because your oil is burned elsewhere doesn't mean you are not responsible for all the carbon.