this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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How Many Charging Stations Would We Need to Totally Replace Gas Stations? (www.wired.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm kinda surprised the article doesn't mention IONNA. I mean there's not a lot of meat there, but 7 major auto makers are planning a pretty significant increase to these stations (30k, and they're already starting in 2024). They're supposed to be pretty nice, with access to food, restrooms, etc. similar to a normal gas station.

I'm smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt in the US, where EVs are evil, but I rented an Ioniq 5 to test it out. Charging stations were by far the most anxiety-inducing part of the experience.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It remains to come up with an environmentally friendly analog for lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, but this is probably for the distant future

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There's sodium batteries that are picking up right now

They look pretty damn promising from a safety and environmently friendly standpoint

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It will be a while for sodium batteries to solve this problem. They have low energy density, both by weight and volume. I expect it to change enough to be a better choice relatively soon. In the meantime, lithium recycling is picking up, which will reduce the burden of the increased demand for lithium.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They're pretty comparable currently to LiFePO4 batteries currently in terms of energy density. And they're seeing use in electric vehicles in China. I'd say they're popping off for sure.

And just last month the first sodium battery manufacturing plant opened in the US.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Natron Energy, the American sodium battery manufacturer, is only talking about making EV fast chargers, not actual EV batteries. I'm guessing the big reason is energy density. I'm not sure what the range of the Chinese EVs are, but I suspect it won't be enough to attract North American consumers at this time, although I expect that will change. Also, in other locations where the population density is higher, lower range probably isn't as big of a factor.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If everyone could plug in at home it wouldn't need that many.

To be on the road and then plug in is inconvenient no matter how many stations there are, plugging in over night or during lunch, thats the way

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

tbh charging at fast stations doesn't actually take much longer than petrol realistically. It would be annoying if it was the only chance to charge but like my car gets ~300 km in like 20 minutes or so? It's not a very efficient one being small SUV sized (large dogs :( ).

If even if you commute a fair bit every day that's still a once a week or so thing that's idk ~10 minutes longer than a fill up and pay?

The apps are the pita. Need to regulate them out of existence in favour of standard payment terminals.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Okay dad, just tell us the punchline.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Currently there are nearly 190k charging ports (public + private) and nearly 70k charging stations

If we replace all gas cars with electric, we would need about 850k more charging stations.

Currently, there are 240 more charging stations planned.

They also say many existing charging stations are poorly maintained and/or don't work.

They alsoalso say 20% of Americans report that they don't have access to consistent off street chargers for night time charging, and I am fairly confident that number is a huge underestimate.

A huge number of people live in apartments that have none, or at best a small percentage of parking stalls that are or can be set up to support EVs.

I feel that that number must only be sampling current actual EV owners (ie, basically the double or above median area income, environmentally conscious, well to do urbanite/suburbanite crowd) and not people generally, and 20% of current EV owners do not have the ability to charge overnight.

Go on zillow and look up how many apartments in any US city you can afford on the median wage of an area that support EV in their parking lot/garage.

Ok, now in for those you've found, every apartment complex like that I have ever heard of of seen offers maybe 5, 10 percent of their parking stalls as EV capable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I’m not here to disagree with what you’re saying, but I do like to point out; I think the low number of planned charging stations currently planned for the next year and built over the last year is mostly due to the war between CCS and NACS. Now that NACS has won out I think we’re going to see a boost in planned stations again as they prepare to switch. We’ve just been in a holding pattern while trying to figure that whole thing out. I thought for sure CCS would win because Tesla wouldn’t want to give up their charger… oh well, we all win!