Thanksgiving 2019 Supercharger lines?

[wdolson]

Yes, EVs are "better" than ICE in terms of releasing carbon, but not to a useful extent. The carbon problem is ginormous. I saw a book once with an illustration showing the present state of the atmosphere carbon content and the future increase was divided into a number of equal wedges corresponding to the number of proposed solutions to the problem. The book then goes on to show that not a single wedge was completely mitigated by the solution applied to it. Not one.

Driving an EV is exactly the same sort of solution to a problem that is so massive it would appear that humans literally can't comprehend the magnitude of it. A problem of our own making. So patting ourselves on the back when we buy an electric car seems inappropriate when it isn't even solving a portion of the problem.

Oh yeah, that book was written around a decade ago and in the meantime we have climbed higher up on the curve without making much of a dent in the slope.

This is a bit of a tangent from the topic, but electricity generation is getting cleaner over time as dirtier forms of electricity generation is replaced by cleaner methods. Coal is already on the way out in many parts of the world and oil has not been used for much electricity generation since the early 80s. Natural gas has been replacing coal and of course solar and wind are growing.

Another thing people don't realize is how much electricity is used to refine gasoline. Depending on the grade of crude, it takes 8-16 KWh to refine one gallon of gasoline. 8 KWh is enough to drive a Model S about 25 miles.

Electric cars are far lower impact on the system energy-wise and their carbon footprint is shrinking as electricity generation gets cleaner, but the biggest issue is the scale of the problem. The world makes about 100 million cars and light trucks a year. To supply all those vehicles with just a 50 KWh battery will require 5 TWh of battery production.

There are over 1 billion cars in the world. Switching over production completely will require 10 years production to replace all the ICE.

Elon was hoping that the rest of the world's car makers would jump on the bandwagon when Tesla showed how much better electric cars can be, but he underestimated the resistance to change within the industry. It would take a concerted effort of the car industry as well as support services to pull off the conversion at any reasonable pace.

 

[bmah]

Let's please keep this thread on the topic of heavy Supercharger usage during the Thanksgiving 2019 travel season.

If people want to discuss the environment impact of driving EVs, might I suggest one of the following forums?

Energy, Environment, and Policy
Technical

Thanks.

Bruce.

 

[THX723]

Early bird catches the worms.

I knew it'd be mega busy, so set off from the bay area (towards LA) @5am ... much to my wife's chagrin.

Arrived at Kettleman City around 8am on Sunday, following Thanksgiving, to a wide open station. Most people seemed unaware of the v3 stalls at the side-wing. Only 2 other person were on them.

On another note, on Thanksgiving day I did have to head up via 101 due to the 5 & 58 closure. That route is in need of more supercharing expansion, especially the coastal/Big Sur route.

 

[Captain Crook]

This has been a problem West of Oslo in Norway at Lierstranda for years, actually most days and especially in the very early morning and the afternoon & evenings. In weekends it was hopeless. Now it's much better as Tesla has built several more SuC's towards the South and Northwest in addition to people in nearby city Drammen seeing that you save about $ 87 an hour compared to saving at home. A normal Norwegian is about $ 25 an hour or more.