• Mihies@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    Energy grid wouldn’t survive quick mass EV adoption most likely. Heck, how would you even charge a car if you don’t own a house - ideally parking places would have a slow charger where you could recharge car during night for cheap.

    • Asetru@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      EV adoption can’t happen in a second. If more EVs are sold, countries can just expand grids and charging networks with it.

        • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          It can be, and traditionally has been. But how fast do you think you can bring a solar farm online? Securing the land and zoning is probably the biggest delay, followed by running lines to the grid.

          • Mihies@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            You would need huge farms and huge batteries. The first can’t be built in the city or in any densely populate area and the later is a big challenge.

            • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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              1 month ago

              Huge is subjective, but there are many solar farms today running on just a few acres. Some quick googling says that community-based and commercial farms typically run on 10-40 acres, generating between 50-200 megawatts. If you consider 40 acres to be a huge farm, then sure. But it doesn’t make much sense to run these in a decent populated area anyway. This is no different than coal, gas, or other power plants today, albeit for different reasons.

              As for huge batteries, yes, we will need them once solar power capacity reaches a point where generation in the day exceeds the demand. As it stands, many places still have off-peak pricing at night. Solar would need to counterbalance that completely before we need huge batteries for solar.

    • Don_alForno@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      Heck, how would you even charge a car if you don’t own a house

      How would you even fill a tank if you don’t own a gas station?

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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        1 month ago

        Gas tank fills in 5 minutes if you are empty and have a large tank to fill, otherwise less. Also, if I know that I am going to be away from gas stations for awhile (camping, offroading) I can fill up my can and carry that with me.

    • mecen@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Seem like the greatest solution, these EV can also act as battery storage for renewables.

      • Mihies@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        That’s tricky though. Would you deplete it during night to have it empty in the morning? Wear expensive battery? Plus, I assume, car is disconnected from grid for most of the day (i.e. when you are at work).

        • mecen@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          But you park it at work there could be slow AC charger, to slowly charge it when you are away.

          Placing solar on rooftop of car also seem as good idea

          • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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            1 month ago

            “solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.

            • mecen@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              Yeah a day you can get 2% of battery, but this would make extend range and make it more susteninable considering rooftop and hood space is always unused

              • ebc@lemmy.ca
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                1 month ago

                2% is probably near the theoretical maximum, too. Actual output considering weather, efficiency losses, etc is probably less than half that. Solidly in “not-worth-it” territory for most use-cases. Heck, my car won’t even properly charge on a 120V outlet when it’s too cold, because it needs to heat up the battery to a safe temperature first and at -20°C that takes more than the ~1kW available from the outlet.