Interesting thread on the Tesla forum towing an Airstream.

time2roll wrote:

troubledwaters wrote:

time2roll wrote:
The grid will never be an issue. Growth will be slow and will be accommodated along with the adoption of electric vehicles. Most charging is done at night when there is an abundance of over capacity. Solar is growing so fast there is already mid-day glut of energy in CA requiring curtailment in renewables. Electric vehicle owners are frequently also installing home solar so net demand on the grid is often reduced when an EV is sold.

The grid already is an issue. They may have the capacity to generate the power, but they do not have the capacity to deliver it where it is needed. The last mile has always been the biggest and most costliest piece of the puzzle to fix. This was true with telephone, cable, fiber, and now the electric. Just imagine a few thousands homes on the last mile of a typical suburb all plugging in their hybrid at 6:00 p.m. when they get home from work. Lines will melt, transformers will smoke, and line fuses will pop like popcorn. Unless of course you have some plan for the several hundred billions of dollars it will take to up the capacity of the last mile, all over the country.

Brownouts are already prevalent. Now exacerbate that with a few thousand chargers on the same last mile of line.

CA peak demand history:
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory.pdf

I think this is one of many adaptations that will be made as transportation becomes electrified in both the public and private realm. Eg, busses etc.

Interesting reading on busses as well. Most city bus manufacturers don't see any market within 7 years for anything but electric buses. No natural gas or diesel busses etc. China doesn't expect to manufacture internal combustion city busses of any type within 3 years.

We will also be able to see how they do the transition in Europe and learn from their experience and probably save some money in the process. Micro grids are showing promise in a few European countries although they also come with challenges. Sometimes there are benefits from being behind the technology curve. :)

troubledwaters wrote:

time2roll wrote:
The grid will never be an issue. Growth will be slow and will be accommodated along with the adoption of electric vehicles. Most charging is done at night when there is an abundance of over capacity. Solar is growing so fast there is already mid-day glut of energy in CA requiring curtailment in renewables. Electric vehicle owners are frequently also installing home solar so net demand on the grid is often reduced when an EV is sold.

The grid already is an issue. They may have the capacity to generate the power, but they do not have the capacity to deliver it where it is needed. The last mile has always been the biggest and most costliest piece of the puzzle to fix. This was true with telephone, cable, fiber, and now the electric. Just imagine a few thousands homes on the last mile of a typical suburb all plugging in their hybrid at 6:00 p.m. when they get home from work. Lines will melt, transformers will smoke, and line fuses will pop like popcorn. Unless of course you have some plan for the several hundred billions of dollars it will take to up the capacity of the last mile, all over the country.

Brownouts are already prevalent. Now exacerbate that with a few thousand chargers on the same last mile of line.

CA peak demand history:
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory.pdf

Terryallan wrote:
Gonna show my Redneck ways. Beside range. Electric cars have another problem. They are silent. I'm old, and from the time cars go OOOOMAAAOOOWW. I love to hear a good V8 with Pacemakers wind out.

My truck is a OOOMAAAWWOOO. truck. It sounds great winding thru the gears. I only wish there was a place I could take it, and let it wind thru all of them. But alas. Even on the highest speed limit interstate. By the time it winds it's way part way thru 3rd. I'm out of speedlimit, and still got 3 1/2 gears to go.

Yah. I remember fondly the sound of my Trans Am 400 with tuned exhaust. Sweet. Both our EV's by law project an artificial sound out the front to warn passengers. It cuts out at 30 KMH. I wonder if I could substitute that with a digital reproduction of that old TA. Hmmmm.

Gonna show my Redneck ways. Beside range. Electric cars have another problem. They are silent. I'm old, and from the time cars go OOOOMAAAOOOWW. I love to hear a good V8 with Pacemakers wind out.

My truck is a OOOMAAAWWOOO. truck. It sounds great winding thru the gears. I only wish there was a place I could take it, and let it wind thru all of them. But alas. Even on the highest speed limit interstate. By the time it winds it's way part way thru 3rd. I'm out of speedlimit, and still got 3 1/2 gears to go.

RCMAN46 wrote:
During my searching for information on electric cars a common number I find is it takes 6 kwh of power to process a gallon of gasoline.

But I found this on the internet and as with much internet information I can not find a reliable source to verify the number.

Tesla claims 6 kwh will take their cars further than a gallon of gasoline will take most gasoline powered cars.

One problem I see with this gasoline is not the only thing that comes from a barrel of crude oil.

If we stop using gasoline then what will the oil companies do with the gasoline when they process crude oil?

Back in the early 1900's the oil company just burned off the gasoline.

I am not a chemist but there may be a way to convert the gasoline into something we can use.

If all of this is possible then there would be no need to enlarge our electrical power system.

One problem I have is the range of an electric car. Example I am not excited about adding one hour to a trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to recharge my electric car when I can easily do it non stop with most gasoline powered cars and trucks even when towing a large trailer.

Just imagine the size of the recharging station in Baker, California to handle the Friday and Sunday traffic.

If they can get the electric range to 400 miles while using the air conditioner or heater I would be interested.

I think your concerns are valid for many in North America. Our distances are greater than those in Europe and single vehicle households need to be versatile and adopt to our various needs. I think the current crop of EV's though would make excellent second vehicles for two car families and they are especially useful for the commuting crowd who need to do 40 to 80 KM per day. This is where they shine. Low maintenance, cheap to run, no oil changes, no plugs, filters, belts, hoses etc etc. For us they are quite literally a small fraction of our former gas vehicle expenses. BUT... we only do 10,000 to 15,000 km a year between the two cars. So for those that do long trips and trips that are 400 or 500 km on a regular basis the current EV's might not be the way to go. For us if we need a truck we'll just rent one as it is not something we would need very often. We occasionally need to make a 400 KM trip to Vancouver but there are fast chargers at regular intervals so we are fine with taking a 20 minute break every 90 minutes for the once a year trip we might have to make. (We have a max range of 180 to 200 KM). That 400 KM trip costs us less than 12 bucks on power so its worth the extra stop or two. Besides, the Chihuahua needs to pee every couple hours. For us all the power comes from Hydro which is kinda cool I guess although we didn't buy our EV's for environmental reasons. Certainly the driving experience is better and it is much more convenient. No gas stations etc. Twice a week I plug it in overnight. 10 seconds to hook up, 10 seconds to unhook.

One thing we find amusing is the term "range anxiety". It was a term coined by GM about 10 years ago in their campaign to dissuade folks from the EV pathway. Mot EV drivers don't have "range anxiety" because we know how far our EV's go and we made the decision to buy them as they suited our needs. It comes down to...don't buy a car if you need a truck, don't buy a bike if you need a motorcycle etc etc.

EV's are a very nice driving experience and the plusses far outweigh any negatives. But they need to suit the persons needs, and for many of us and a world wide quickly growing number of people they do exactly that.

During my searching for information on electric cars a common number I find is it takes 6 kwh of power to process a gallon of gasoline.

But I found this on the internet and as with much internet information I can not find a reliable source to verify the number.

Tesla claims 6 kwh will take their cars further than a gallon of gasoline will take most gasoline powered cars.

One problem I see with this gasoline is not the only thing that comes from a barrel of crude oil.

If we stop using gasoline then what will the oil companies do with the gasoline when they process crude oil?

Back in the early 1900's the oil company just burned off the gasoline.

I am not a chemist but there may be a way to convert the gasoline into something we can use.

If all of this is possible then there would be no need to enlarge our electrical power system.

One problem I have is the range of an electric car. Example I am not excited about adding one hour to a trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to recharge my electric car when I can easily do it non stop with most gasoline powered cars and trucks even when towing a large trailer.

Just imagine the size of the recharging station in Baker, California to handle the Friday and Sunday traffic.

If they can get the electric range to 400 miles while using the air conditioner or heater I would be interested.

RCMAN46 wrote:
My source for kwh to gasoline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure I can relate to our results with our EV's but still interesting to see how they calculate it.

My source for kwh to gasoline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

I think its kinda fun to see how these first adapters are adapting to the challenges of towing small trailers behind electric cars. Obviously with the existing charging infrastructure in place there is lots of planning involved as well as finding a trailer with compatible weight and characteristics of the tow car. We are about four years from retirement and are thinking of trading in or selling our two existing EV's and getting a longer range EV and an Aliner. Nice low profile going thru the air. They don't have a bathroom but for the most part they would be well suited to something like a Leaf or Tesla 3 or maybe an Ionic. For the kind of camping we will be doing at that point they would be perfect. It'll be a switch from the 40 foot diesel pusher. :) Once we are retired we will be snowbirding overseas instead of in the US but want something to hit the more historic land mark type park etc during the summer season. By that time the charging infrastructure should be quite a bit better. Should be fun.

Terryallan wrote:

time2roll wrote:

Terryallan wrote:
I'm still concerned about the range. Will it be able to tow 6500lb, 300 miles with the heater, OR AC running full on? Then be recharged and ready to go again in 15 minutes. That is what it will take to make it a viable option to a regular TV. IF it could do that. It would be a game changer

Not there yet. Not even close. Would need 300+ kWh battery and recharge time will be an hour minimum.

May never quite equal liquid fuel for what you want because you do not carry both sides of the chemistry with gas/diesel. To burn and pollute the air is still free. Your engine pulls in almost 15x the weight of air as compared to the fuel you burn.

I would suggest that an electric vehicle has a larger carbon footprint than a F150. however, That was not the question. I am more concerned about getting to where I want to go in a timely manner On this thread there has been talk of a so called 1/2 ton vehicle. I was wondering IF it would be practical to use for a tow vehicle. apparently not.

I think Ford is aiming at giving the new EV customer more functionality rather than less. This is one of their marketing points about the F150 hybrid--"A hybrid version of the best-selling F-150 pickup available by 2020 and sold in North America and the Middle East. The F-150 Hybrid, built at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant, will offer powerful towing and payload capacity and operate as a mobile generator".
Their press release is here: Ford EV vehicles.

We, at westend fleet ;), are considering some sort of EV vehicle as a replacement for the Wife's commuter vehicle. I will try to stretch out my F-250 until the wheels fall off (I'm pretty good about that sort of thing) and we will have another gas sedan for misc. use. That may be the old BMW 530. It is just such a nice car, I hate to think of off-loading it. Maybe it will go to one of the kids.