hachyderm.io is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Hachyderm is a safe space, LGBTQIA+ and BLM, primarily comprised of tech industry professionals world wide. Note that many non-user account types have restrictions - please see our About page.

Administered by:

Server stats:

10K
active users

all the east siders have come to clog up our charging infrastructure because, presumably, they couldn’t be bothered to charge up before the mesocyclone…

(the other charging networks have the same situation going on)

though to be honest any time i have to deal with electrify america i question if chewing glass will have a more useful payoff

at least here in seattle, EA chargers are frequently “online” but vandalized (and thus not usable) by idiots trying to steal the copper

evgo is not much better, they can install chargers quickly but repairing vandalized ones takes months

tesla seems to have the fastest turnaround on repairing broken chargers, but the people vandalizing the chargers also seem to leave the tesla ones alone. maybe the branding of their DCFC product communicates to them that they should leave it alone

frankly i question if it’s even worth it. by the time you’ve stripped the charging cable down to raw copper, you’ve probably spent quite a bit of time.

and no scrapyard is going to let you just drop a CCS1 charging cable on their desk or whatever, they will know it’s stolen right away…

all of this to say, i await the true crime youtube episode involving this EV charger copper theft issue

Cassandrich

@ariadne I await EVs that charge purely from the PV panels on them not a silly theft-ridden charging infrastructure. And that have batteries whose mass is measured in kilos not tons.

@dalias @ariadne the surface area of a vehicle isn't enough for panels that can produce enough power to produce a useful range. Cars would have to shrink by an order of magnitude for that to be possible, like with the Sunraycer which only weighed 265kg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrayce

You can get about 1500W if you cover the entire surface area of a car with panels. I.e., basically 2hp, which won't even get you moving on a flat road.

en.wikipedia.orgSunraycer - Wikipedia

@hyc @ariadne "Cars would have to shrink by an order of magnitude..."

Bingo.

@hyc @ariadne "Basically 2hp, which won't even get you moving on a flat road" is inaccurate. Arbitrarily low power can get you moving on a flat road with suitable reduction gearing. But in particular, 1-2 literal-horse power moves a horse drawn carriage made of dense legacy materials. It's plenty for an efficient CF frame.

@dalias @ariadne If you're talking about a vehicle capable of carrying 4 occupants, I suspect the 0-100km/h acceleration time would be so slow you could never safely enter a major highway from a feeder road.

@hyc @ariadne You could if the battery provided enough burst power, or if on-ramps had overhead or inductive power transfer for the acceleration.

@hyc @dalias @ariadne Maybe they could unfold like the panels on satellites and stick 30m up in the air. Wind could be a problem, though

@hyc @ariadne @slyecho @dalias

I’ve read a little bit about the trend towards having a solar roof on golf carts – if they have lithium ion batteries apparently it can extend the range a non-trivial amount; but again, that’s because the vehicle itself is very lightweight

(and slow: not something you’re going to use to accelerate on to the highway 😂)

@ariadne @dalias @hyc @slyecho

The high-end version of the Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid, has an optional solar roof, and I’ve seen some video reviews of it on YouTube that suggest it fills the battery by around 5 to 10% each day on a sunny day

not a lot; though if it were a car one only drove a couple times a week it could add up I guess

@clive @ariadne @slyecho @dalias I think the lawnmower I used back in Michigan had more power than 2hp. ...

@hyc @clive @ariadne @slyecho Mine is electric and runs easily on shared 15A circuit so can't be more than 1hp or so.