Electric Cars Not Yet Viable

[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 1:31:10 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires 4 with
times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

There's about 200 residences (very rough estimate) on my street and
only 3 (pad-mount) step-down transformers all inside cabinets.

You need to go back and see what is wrong with what you are saying. In the US houses are all wired with 240 volts. It is appliances that are wired for 120 vs. 240 and most of them have very little power loss in the house wiring, much less the losses in the transformer or wiring to the house. The high power devices are all wired for 240 volts.

There are no additional losses in the distribution wiring in the US related to appliances using 120 volts.

--

Rick C.

-+--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:22:49 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
<jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage.

Current, actually.

For 115V you need wires 4 with

times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

Makes no sense. My house in the USA has 240 volt input from the
neighborhood distribution transformer. Houses in Europe also get 240
from their transformer. Both transformers step some kilovolts down to
240. Our transformers are slightly smaller per KVA because we use 60
Hz, not 50.

Only the outlets here are 120 (a few are 240 for big loads) and the
wires from the breaker box to outlets are short, so there's not much
loss there.

There's about 200 residences (very rough estimate) on my street and
only 3 (pad-mount) step-down transformers all inside cabinets.

We have about one pole-mount transformer per block. My house has
underground wiring, but many older ones are still overhead wires. The
overheads are gradually being replaced, but the ground here is mostly
rock so it's expensive.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 21:56, makolber@yahoo.com wrote:

This is where fleet learning comes in handy. Initially, the vehicle fleet will take no action except to note the position of road signs, bridges and other stationary objects, mapping the world according to radar. The car computer will then silently compare when it would have braked to the driver action and upload that to the Tesla database. If several cars drive safely past a given radar object, whether Autopilot is turned on or off, then that object is added to the geocoded whitelist."



oh boy, the black hats are going to have a load of fun with this.

And the college students pranking cars.

I wonder how Teslas and the like deal with potholes
that appear, and whether it will be possible to
"paint potholes" on a road.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2019-06-28, Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 1:01:08 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-06-27, Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 10:31:23 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

Maybe I'm confused. What lower voltage? UK and much of the world supply 240 to the home. The US supplies 240 to the home.

UK supplies 415V (240 phase to neutral)

My understanding is each outlet is 240 volts. The 415 volts is between phases?

yeah.

> How would you wire a stove to 3 phase?

Typically different loads between different phases and neutral, because all the
loads in a domestic stove are 240v loads, and all the switches are single pole
switches.

--
When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2019-06-28, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:22:49 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage.

Current, actually.

For 115V you need wires 4 with
times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

Makes no sense.

[...]
I didn't express myself very well.

what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

My house in the USA has 240 volt input from the
neighborhood distribution transformer. Houses in Europe also get 240
from their transformer. Both transformers step some kilovolts down to
240.

No, down to 415 3 phase wye in UK. (and here in NZ) they run that
along the street and tap off single phase feeds or three phase
feeds as required.

for example

at 415V three phase 1 MVA

the phase current is 1389 A
allowing a 10 kW loss (which is 1%) the cable can have a resistance of
1.73 milliohms

so that's 4 conductors of 478 S conductivity so 2314 S total. (IE
total conductivity of the 4 conductors in parallel)

at 240V "split" phase 1MVA

the phase current is 4167 A and the 1% loss occurs at only 0.288
millohms resistance, so that's three conductors of 3472 S so about
10416 S total conductivity.

looks about 4.5 times as much copper is needed to do the same job.

Only the outlets here are 120 (a few are 240 for big loads) and the
wires from the breaker box to outlets are short, so there's not much
loss there.

Almost all outlets here are 240V, three phase loads are usually
hard-wired. Three phase sockets are used in industrial settings.

There's about 200 residences (very rough estimate) on my street and
only 3 (pad-mount) step-down transformers all inside cabinets.

We have about one pole-mount transformer per block. My house has
underground wiring, but many older ones are still overhead wires. The
overheads are gradually being replaced, but the ground here is mostly
rock so it's expensive.

--
When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.

 

[Andy Bennet]

On 28/06/2019 04:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 19:11:17 -0700 (PDT), keith wright
keith@kjwdesigns.com> wrote:

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 16:08:09 UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
...
Why? The batteries aren't gonna freeze, just a few minutes
of use and they'll warm themselves up.

Google knows.

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cold-weather-range-loss

https://tomharrisonjr.com/tesla-model-3-cold-weather-tips-e8db94afb1eb

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/aaa-confirms-what-tesla-bmw-nissan-ev-owners-suspected-of-cold-weather.html
...

And yet in spite of all this, Norway, not a country known for its warm weather, has a very high EV penetration. Maybe these problems are worth the tradeoffs and not as bad as portrayed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-autos/tesla-boom-lifts-norways-electric-car-sales-to-58-percent-market-share-idUSKCN1RD2BB



Unless you wear Longjohns and a fur coat, it is going to be quite cold
in the car. Alternatively use some battery power to keep the
passengers warm, which reduces the range or you can use a petrol
powered space heater .

You need to keep the lights on most of the day in the winter, winter
tyres or studded tyres will also increase consumption, reducing range.

Most recent EV's use a reversible heatpump for the HVAC so very efficient.
How long do you reckon a charged 60kWh battery will last with 150W of
tungsten lighting, let alone lower power LED????
Add in another couple of hundred watts for wipers/entertainment and
systems management???
Peripheral power consumption is insignificant compared to the traction
motor(s).

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:56:45 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
<jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-28, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:22:49 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage.

Current, actually.

For 115V you need wires 4 with
times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

Makes no sense.

[...]
I didn't express myself very well.

what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)


So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

My house in the USA has 240 volt input from the
neighborhood distribution transformer. Houses in Europe also get 240
from their transformer. Both transformers step some kilovolts down to
240.

No, down to 415 3 phase wye in UK. (and here in NZ) they run that
along the street and tap off single phase feeds or three phase
feeds as required.

for example

at 415V three phase 1 MVA

the phase current is 1389 A
allowing a 10 kW loss (which is 1%) the cable can have a resistance of
1.73 milliohms

so that's 4 conductors of 478 S conductivity so 2314 S total. (IE
total conductivity of the 4 conductors in parallel)

at 240V "split" phase 1MVA

the phase current is 4167 A and the 1% loss occurs at only 0.288
millohms resistance, so that's three conductors of 3472 S so about
10416 S total conductivity.

looks about 4.5 times as much copper is needed to do the same job.

Sorry. Your transformers output 240 volts to the wires that run down
the block to houses. So do ours.

No more copper is needed outside the houses.

We do distribute 120-N-120, which requires a neutral conductor. But
the neutral current is low, because the many 120V loads in many houses
mostly balance.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 9:17:40 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:56:45 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-28, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:22:49 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car..

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US.. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage.

Current, actually.

For 115V you need wires 4 with
times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

Makes no sense.

[...]
I didn't express myself very well.

what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)


So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

My house in the USA has 240 volt input from the
neighborhood distribution transformer. Houses in Europe also get 240
from their transformer. Both transformers step some kilovolts down to
240.

No, down to 415 3 phase wye in UK. (and here in NZ) they run that
along the street and tap off single phase feeds or three phase
feeds as required.

for example

at 415V three phase 1 MVA

the phase current is 1389 A
allowing a 10 kW loss (which is 1%) the cable can have a resistance of
1.73 milliohms

so that's 4 conductors of 478 S conductivity so 2314 S total. (IE
total conductivity of the 4 conductors in parallel)

at 240V "split" phase 1MVA

the phase current is 4167 A and the 1% loss occurs at only 0.288
millohms resistance, so that's three conductors of 3472 S so about
10416 S total conductivity.

looks about 4.5 times as much copper is needed to do the same job.

Sorry. Your transformers output 240 volts to the wires that run down
the block to houses. So do ours.

No more copper is needed outside the houses.

We do distribute 120-N-120, which requires a neutral conductor. But
the neutral current is low, because the many 120V loads in many houses
mostly balance.

The neutral current balances but there are still two conductors carrying the current. In a three phase distribution the neutral current pretty much balances and with the larger number of loads, it balances better. With current on all three phases it delivers multiple times the power with four wires than a 240 volt split phase system does with three.

The weird part of the UK system is what they did to save using a separate safety ground. But they seem to make it work.

--

Rick C.

-+-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 5:56:37 AM UTC-4, Andy Bennet wrote:

On 28/06/2019 04:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 19:11:17 -0700 (PDT), keith wright
keith@kjwdesigns.com> wrote:

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 16:08:09 UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
...
Why? The batteries aren't gonna freeze, just a few minutes
of use and they'll warm themselves up.

Google knows.

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cold-weather-range-loss

https://tomharrisonjr.com/tesla-model-3-cold-weather-tips-e8db94afb1eb

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/aaa-confirms-what-tesla-bmw-nissan-ev-owners-suspected-of-cold-weather.html
...

And yet in spite of all this, Norway, not a country known for its warm weather, has a very high EV penetration. Maybe these problems are worth the tradeoffs and not as bad as portrayed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-autos/tesla-boom-lifts-norways-electric-car-sales-to-58-percent-market-share-idUSKCN1RD2BB



Unless you wear Longjohns and a fur coat, it is going to be quite cold
in the car. Alternatively use some battery power to keep the
passengers warm, which reduces the range or you can use a petrol
powered space heater .

You need to keep the lights on most of the day in the winter, winter
tyres or studded tyres will also increase consumption, reducing range.



Most recent EV's use a reversible heatpump for the HVAC so very efficient..
How long do you reckon a charged 60kWh battery will last with 150W of
tungsten lighting, let alone lower power LED????
Add in another couple of hundred watts for wipers/entertainment and
systems management???
Peripheral power consumption is insignificant compared to the traction
motor(s).

I've never tried to account for the smaller loads such as wipers or even headlights (LED, not tungsten) as they are truly insignificant. The heater/AC does seem to make an impact, but still not large. The real point is no one does calculations to see what their range will be. You look at the "gas" gauge and if you are doing something other than local driving you let the car tell you where you can charge.

This is an engineering group so of course we want to dissect the bloody beasts. Owning such a car doesn't require that level of understanding or detail.

At this time, anyone who doesn't want to think about the issues of owning an EV at all should either stick with their ICE or consider a hybrid. But it is not realistic to think driving an EV is a PITA. If your use of a car is not far outside the envelope of typical use and you can charge at home or work, you will find an EV to not only be very practical, but fun!

--

Rick C.

-+-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 3:01:06 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2019-06-28, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:22:49 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts
jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2019-06-27, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:31:20 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much.. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

That's silly. The size of a transfomer depends on KVAs, not voltage.

The size of the wire depends on voltage.

Current, actually.

For 115V you need wires 4 with
times cross section to get the same power loss as for and equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

Makes no sense.

[...]
I didn't express myself very well.

what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)


So for 240V you can install fewer transformers and run longer drops (reducing maintenance
costs) and still come out ahead on energy loss and amount of copper used.

My house in the USA has 240 volt input from the
neighborhood distribution transformer. Houses in Europe also get 240
from their transformer. Both transformers step some kilovolts down to
240.

No, down to 415 3 phase wye in UK. (and here in NZ) they run that
along the street and tap off single phase feeds or three phase
feeds as required.

for example

at 415V three phase 1 MVA

the phase current is 1389 A
allowing a 10 kW loss (which is 1%) the cable can have a resistance of
1.73 milliohms

so that's 4 conductors of 478 S conductivity so 2314 S total. (IE
total conductivity of the 4 conductors in parallel)

at 240V "split" phase 1MVA

the phase current is 4167 A and the 1% loss occurs at only 0.288
millohms resistance, so that's three conductors of 3472 S so about
10416 S total conductivity.

looks about 4.5 times as much copper is needed to do the same job.

It looks to me like you are comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing 415 volt, 3 phase distribution in the UK to 240 volt, single phase distribution in the US. We don't distribute power at 240 volts. As has been explained, we use a transformer for typically 1 to 4 homes. The runs of 240 volt, single phase are relatively short and directly to a home. It is not like what I believe you are describing which is a 415 volt, 3 phase line that many homes are tapped off from.

I expect if you compared the losses overall you would find they are comparable. The US system has more, smaller transformers, the UK system has fewer, larger transformers.

--

Rick C.

-+--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:2cf0cea2-8496-43e4-a708-32b2b0e3e820@googlegroups.com:

I expect if you compared the losses overall you would find they
are comparable. The US system has more, smaller transformers, the
UK system has fewer, larger transformers.

We use 3 phase at the HV level thru the substations and out to the
local distributions because residential and commercial is pulled off
the same HV feeds. So we balance the phases residential segments get
put on so they all get taxed relatively equally.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 19:09:00 -0700, Rick C wrote:

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with
folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they
do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is*
a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally
different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house,
so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other
hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for
charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets
you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating
thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

You have already been told many times that getting higher currents from a
domestic UK installation is a piece of cake. It's a trivial matter indeed
to install a 32A breaker to the house's distribution board and run a
higher current cable from it for your charging purposes. If 32A isn't
enough, you can go up to 60A to 100A depending on the age of the house
and there is NO need whatsoever for a 3 phase supply for what you propose
to do.



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[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 4:02:54 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:

On Friday, 28 June 2019 12:37:23 UTC-7, Cursitor Doom wrote:
...
You have already been told many times that getting higher currents from a
domestic UK installation is a piece of cake. It's a trivial matter indeed
to install a 32A breaker to the house's distribution board and run a
higher current cable from it for your charging purposes. If 32A isn't
enough, you can go up to 60A to 100A depending on the age of the house
and there is NO need whatsoever for a 3 phase supply for what you propose
to do.
...

Three-phase may be required to charge an EV at the highest rate using AC for a UK/European delivered car.

US EVs have a different connector and do not support 3-phase.

The J1772 standard has multiple types - the US version is single phase only. The European version supports 3-phase and single phase but with a higher capability when operating on single phase.

The Tesla model S for example supports 7.4kW with single phase but 16.5kW using 3-phase.

Not trying to be pedantic... well, ok, I guess I am by definition. Previously Teslas were shipped with chargers capable of up to 72 amps. My car has that. But since November the S and X only had 48 amp capability. The model 3 has always been 48 amps, so 11.5 kW maximum. But I am assuming this is the same in Europe. While the power connector may be different, I'm thinking they only make one charging board, but certainly I don't know for sure..

In the UK can you pull the full rated current from an outlet? In the US outlets are rated for a current, but for "continuous" use, which car charging is, they are derated to 80%. So a 60 amp connection is required to get 48 amps to the mobile cable. We don't have a connector for that so you need a wall unit from Tesla.

It gets worse... We have a 50 amp outlet which will pass 40 amps all day. But we don't have a 40 amp outlet so it is approved to use the same NEMA 14-50 connector. The original cable would run at 40 amps on this connector. To err on the side of caution the current cable only draws 32 amps as if it were a 40 amp connection. lol

To get higher currents than 32 amps in the US you need a Tesla wall connector. Not really needed though since 32 amps is 7.7 kW which is around 35 mph.

--

Rick C.

-++-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[keith wright]

On Friday, 28 June 2019 12:37:23 UTC-7, Cursitor Doom wrote:
....

You have already been told many times that getting higher currents from a
domestic UK installation is a piece of cake. It's a trivial matter indeed
to install a 32A breaker to the house's distribution board and run a
higher current cable from it for your charging purposes. If 32A isn't
enough, you can go up to 60A to 100A depending on the age of the house
and there is NO need whatsoever for a 3 phase supply for what you propose
to do.
....

Three-phase may be required to charge an EV at the highest rate using AC for a UK/European delivered car.

US EVs have a different connector and do not support 3-phase.

The J1772 standard has multiple types - the US version is single phase only. The European version supports 3-phase and single phase but with a higher capability when operating on single phase.

The Tesla model S for example supports 7.4kW with single phase but 16.5kW using 3-phase.

kw

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:56:45 +0000, Jasen Betts wrote:

> I didn't express myself very well.

No kidding?

what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)

That explains it. The laws of physics are obviously different in the
southern hemisphere from where you post. ;-)



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[Cursitor Doom]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 22:04:42 -0700, Rick C wrote:

My understanding is each outlet is 240 volts. The 415 volts is between
phases? How would you wire a stove to 3 phase?

You don't. You install a 32A breaker with higher capacity cable to the
cooker. I don't know where you keep going on about 3 phase. 3 phase 415V
is the standard street wiring from which 240V is taken for a typical
domestic installation. You can have the elecricity co install a 3ph feed
and meter from the street to your house, but for your purposes this is
TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.
Jeez!


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[keith wright]

On Friday, 28 June 2019 13:20:18 UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
....

The Tesla model S for example supports 7.4kW with single phase but 16.5kW using 3-phase.

Not trying to be pedantic... well, ok, I guess I am by definition. Previously Teslas were shipped with chargers capable of up to 72 amps. My car has that. But since November the S and X only had 48 amp capability. The model 3 has always been 48 amps, so 11.5 kW maximum. But I am assuming this is the same in Europe. While the power connector may be different, I'm thinking they only make one charging board, but certainly I don't know for sure.

This was my source (https://pod-point.com/guides/vehicles/tesla/2019/model-s-standard). Tesla wouldn't let me access the UK site.

I'm not sure what Tesla does now but in the past they did change the charger for the Model S between the US and Euro versions. It essentially had 3 chargers in the module that only has one in the US version (maybe each with lower power).

The Mennekes connector used in European J1772 has more pins to support the 3-phase.

In the UK can you pull the full rated current from an outlet? In the US outlets are rated for a current, but for "continuous" use, which car charging is, they are derated to 80%. So a 60 amp connection is required to get 48 amps to the mobile cable. We don't have a connector for that so you need a wall unit from Tesla.

The BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf are configured for 10A when plugged into a standard UK 13A socket. I
....

kw

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

fredag den 28. juni 2019 kl. 21.52.38 UTC+2 skrev Cursitor Doom:

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:56:45 +0000, Jasen Betts wrote:

I didn't express myself very well.

No kidding?


what I meant was

The size of the wire depends on voltage. For 115V you need wires with
four times cross section to get the same power loss as for an equivalent
power load at 240V (and it gets even better with three phase)


That explains it. The laws of physics are obviously different in the
southern hemisphere from where you post. ;-)

you do know Ohms law ?

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 4:30:21 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:

On Friday, 28 June 2019 13:20:18 UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
...
The Tesla model S for example supports 7.4kW with single phase but 16..5kW using 3-phase.

Not trying to be pedantic... well, ok, I guess I am by definition. Previously Teslas were shipped with chargers capable of up to 72 amps. My car has that. But since November the S and X only had 48 amp capability. The model 3 has always been 48 amps, so 11.5 kW maximum. But I am assuming this is the same in Europe. While the power connector may be different, I'm thinking they only make one charging board, but certainly I don't know for sure.

This was my source (https://pod-point.com/guides/vehicles/tesla/2019/model-s-standard). Tesla wouldn't let me access the UK site.

I'm not sure what Tesla does now but in the past they did change the charger for the Model S between the US and Euro versions. It essentially had 3 chargers in the module that only has one in the US version (maybe each with lower power).

The Mennekes connector used in European J1772 has more pins to support the 3-phase.

Ok, here is what I think is going on. In the Tesla forums people talk about the in-car charger boards handling 24 amps each. My car has three for 72 amps, others have two for 48 amps. I think they use three in the EU which lets then use three phase power, so you can get the max of 22 kW which new cars in the US can't do. I'm told this is how the Superchargers work, units of 12 kW which add up to 144 kW configured to supply power to two cars at once. I was told they have to switch three units together since they are on three phase, but I can't always tell who is a knowledgeable source and who is not. So the minimum to one car is 36 kW while the other car can have the remaining 108 kW. As the higher current car ramps down units can be switched to the lower current car. I can't recall ever being the lower current car so I can't confirm this.

In the UK can you pull the full rated current from an outlet? In the US outlets are rated for a current, but for "continuous" use, which car charging is, they are derated to 80%. So a 60 amp connection is required to get 48 amps to the mobile cable. We don't have a connector for that so you need a wall unit from Tesla.

The BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf are configured for 10A when plugged into a standard UK 13A socket. I

Ok, yeah, I guess they also derate to 80%. We have 20 amp, 120 volt outlets here which many in public spaces are. So in theory the US 120 outlets could charge as fast as in the EU. But the mobile cable needs the 20 amp, $35 adapter to know it is in a 20 amp outlet.

--

Rick C.

-++-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[whit3rd]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 4:08:09 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 15:07:05 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 10:13:41 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

The real trick is to park an all-electric outdoors overnight at
below-0 temps. Without running an extension cord to the battery
heater.

Why? The batteries aren't gonna freeze, just a few minutes
of use and they'll warm themselves up.

Google knows.

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cold-weather-range-loss

So, why didn't you READ what the article said? It's not battery damage, it seems
that the 'range' indication doesn't note the energy used in keeping the interior
heated, during weather that makes the heatpump operate only as an electrical
resistance heater. So, it tells you the wrong range.

The car works in cold. Resistance heater operation lessens mileage.
I routinely (for short trips) ignore the climate controls entirely, just dress
appropriately and leave a window open.