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
@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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunraycer
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.
@dalias @ariadne an admirable goal, but look at images of the Sunraycer https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=sunraycer&iax=images&ia=images
Not a very practical design for grocery-getting.
@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 @hyc @ariadne Somethink like https://www.squadmobility.com/#specs might work in a city or village.
@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