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Comment Re: But at what cost? (Score 1) 75

To add, datacenters should be humidified. Low humidity air something something triboelectric effect something something sensitive expensive electronics that are supposed to be reliable therefore not liking dry air. Something about air and silicon on opposite ends of the tribolectric series and normally humid air not normally being a problem because it dissipates the charge. Something else about computers being 100% efficient as resistive heating elements leading to a conditioned room being quickly dehumidified. Blah blah blah

Comment Re:I feel old... (Score 1) 145

I did actually run my electric car out ~1km from a charger and I was an idiot that day. We had just had a major storm and our power was out for the last 20 hours at home. The station I was going to charge at was 20km away (we live in a rural area) and I had ~30km of range. The L3 station was closed/disabled when I arrived (car dealership) and the next nearest L3 was an additional ~10Km away. I should have stopped at one of the 20 or so L2 stations on the way but risked it and ended up coasting into a parking lot and getting towed the last ~kilometer. It would have taken just as long for him to bring me gas and the in town rate was still less than a full tank on the 6.2L Ford I was driving around before.

Comment Re:I feel old... (Score 1) 145

Generally American people don't understand electricity. Like it often blows their mind to realize you can use a thinner extension cord on a 240v outlet and charge at the same speed as the 120v outlet... or use the same size cord and charge twice as fast by doubling the voltage with no negative impact... which actually speaks to the wiring in your house...
It blows their mind that in most of Europe they have 220v outlets as standard for everything so everything generally has thinner wires...

Comment Re: How about...no? (Score 1) 320

Again the technology isn't specific to electric cars. And I am a bit of a car geek. When you say "Just look at the underside of pretty much every car in existence." I assume you might not have actually looked closely at many of the German cars. Mercedes has been a major fan of aerodynamic optimization after flipping a couple LeMans cars... the CLA is a great example of a slippery car but their entire lineup outside the AMG variants have been made extra extra slippy beating out the Chevy Volt at the time. The humble Volkswagens optimized as well. Sure ICE vehicles with RWD and exhaust pipes can't be "perfectly smooth" underneath, but some manufacturers still optimize for what they have, which is in fact more "tech" than throwing a flat piece of plastic under the car and claiming to be technologically superior. If you look under most German cars, you will see they have in fact been optimizing under car aero since the early 2000's.

The hypermiling eco-tires may be great for fuel economy, but they just made the trade-offs we already knew and avoided and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most car geeks would chose better performing tires over their eco-variety on replacement.

And the option to buy the under-powered, narrow wheel sub compact has been there... but in America, that's an economy car which is balancing lowest TCO rather than raw efficiency. BMW i8s, which chose technology over cost, didn't sell well at all. The economy sub-compact seems like an insane decision of necessity in a capitalist country without universal healthcare when you are sharing the road with drunks, meth heads, armed road ragers and speeding over-loaded pickup trucks.

Often times the technology which makes a car more efficient also makes them perform better which is why many of the Mercedes are aluminum and AHSS and Porsche historically experimented with putting a lot of magnesium in their cars. I have an e-class wagon because it was the most efficient AWD 7 passenger "utility vehicle" my research led me to at the time. It didn't shout it's economy/technology/efficiency at me, but it's definitely there and could carry 600Kg payload (which is more than the Toyota Seqoia) while consuming less than 9L/100km.

Again, the problem is not that the technology isn't there in an ICE vehicle, you just have to pay more than you are willing to pay for it in a system where the manufacturer is incentivized to not give it to you and /hope you don't notice or care/. Electric vehicles come with IN YOUR FACE technology because the most pervasive new entrant into the market needed a distinguishing factor or it would bust, and now everyone else needs to copy. You could buy an electric car that is basically an electric forklift with a lithium battery thrown into VW Golf (the e-Golf)... and it is a fantastic car that didn't sell well.

Comment Re: I feel old... (Score 1) 145

I saw they say it's for parking lots, but that still doesn't make much sense.

They make 480V outdoor temporary power solutions which are used all the times for events, tents, stages etc.
Servicing a bunch of vehicles that can move under their own power with another vehicle that moves under it's own power doesn't make sense. Especially if you need keys to the other vehicles to actually open charging ports and unlock the charging cables. This only seems to make sense if you are charging vehicles in lots which are not serviceable, in which case renting a large diesel generator and a few temporary fast chargers probably makes a lot more sense than charging and discharging another intermediate battery.

Comment What isnâ(TM)t said (Score 1) 131

Is that almost every car dealership has a fast charger that is âoepublicâoe and counted but is usually blocked by the dealers own ice inventory or in a part of the lot they close outside business hours, or outright turned off. That 1:20 number is pretty meaningless unless itâ(TM)s geo-specific and couple with the ratio of cars that use public charging. EVs need the right infrastructure, in the right places, but interests who only stand to benefit (economically) should not be involved in the procurement and placement of infrastructure using public funds. Currently companies like Tesla get all the subsidies but then only benefit their own fleet with promise for NACS not actually materialized for the existing CSS fleet. The other car dealers receive subsidies to build infrastructure on their lots which they begrudgingly allow access to, and much of the subsidized infrastructure is not maintained once the cheques cash. Many municipalities are building L2 infrastructure in stupid places that donâ(TM)t see use, but could have seen major use if it was L3. Quebec is the only large geographic area I have been that I would consider EV friendly, and it was largely due to Circuit Electric focusing firstly on building proper accessible public infrastructure.

Comment Re: How about...no? (Score 1) 320

âoeBetter technologyâ thing really grinds my gears. There is nothing in an electric vehicle that requires âoebetter technologyâ and most people overlook the fact that gasoline vehicles are so stuffed with frivolous technology or technology to squeeze every bit of fuel efficiency out of the vehicle. Vehicles today regardless of the mode of propulsion are almost completely drive by wire or have the capability to be.

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