Infrastructure for electric cars: a good or bad idea?

bk

Here is the thing, everything to do with driving is dangerous.

A car is basically a big metal object that is propelled by a large amounts of very compact energy source (petrol/diesel/electric) to speeds up to 160km/h !!

When you are dealing with something like that, there is always risk involved. Hell petrol/diesel cars are basically powered by a controlled explosion!!

Is there some risk of fire in a battery, yes. But I honestly believe that the risk is lower then a petrol/diesel car.

Electric car and battery makers know that people are irrational beings. That they will go "oh I'm scared of the battery catching fire", but then will happily sit into their car with highly flammable petrol/diesel behind them and an explosion of those fuels in front of them!! So EV car and battery makers are going to extremes to make their batteries as safe as possible, in order to avoid any bad press.

You have to balance the risk with the benefits. This is something we do everyday, after all most of us drive every day, despite the fact that every 30 seconds someone is killed somewhere in the world from a car accident. In fact car accidents are the 6th most common cause of death in the western world, ahead of stomach cancer, heart disease, TB and suicide!! Yet most of us still take the risk of getting in a car everyday.

donspeekinglesh

Nissan are planning on competing in the LeMans 24hrs next year with an all electric car.
Be interesting to see how they manage to keep it going for 24hrs with a minimum of stops.

spacetweek

EV technology has progressed slowly for many years due to the nature of exponential growth which increases slowly before passing the knee of the curve. In the last 5 years (even since this thread was started) we've seen significant progress. Nobody could ever realistically have thought they would take over overnight. We'll see a long introduction as they gradually displace ICE cars over many decades, but they'll never be 100% - there will always be niches that require fuels. Hybrids have gone from being a curiosity to commonplace in only a decade. All-electric will probably do so over the next 10 years.
The biggest thing holding back research and advancement in battery tech over the decades has been cheap oil, due to the massive level of subsidy it has always enjoyed. You are not charged a price for it or its byproducts that reflects the total cost of providing it. As its price has risen above the rate of inflation over the last 10 years, finally other propulsion technologies are getting the attention they deserve.

petronius

I think city centre car parks should be mandated to have charging pods available - i.e. charge your car while it is parked - maybe an additional revenue streem for car parks or selling point for e-cars owners to use a specific car park

Maybe even mandate them to have say solar panals atop car parks so as to compliment the electricity provision.

petronius

I think charging pods in indoor car parks is a major benefit for the promotion of e-cars

The fact indoor car parks can be monitored by CCTV means it is more secure and less likely for vandalism, where as i always fear the on street e-chargers are prone to be damaged by vandals or even liable to be broken by exposure to the elements etc.