It's here!
The intention is virtuous enough.Nuh uh. I'll buy a frickin' horse first.
By using such advanced telematics, drivers can locate nearby charging stations, know how far they can drive before draining the battery, monitor traffic to take less crowded routes, assess their driving habits to improve mileage and compare their mileage with that of other electric car drivers.
Owners can hook the car up to “smart house” grids in which the entire home’s energy usage is monitored and managed for efficiency.
Nissan Motor Co., which will launch its Leaf electric vehicle next month in the United States, is touting its own version of this communication system. It says that its CarWings telematics system will “retain historical driving, charging and electricity consumption information globally.”
Toyota envisions a similar scenario with so-called “smart homes” connected to plug-in hybrids. This system would not only monitor driving but also home energy habits.
The companies promise to collect such personal data only with the customers’ consent. And they pledge to keep it confidential. But securing this wealth of private information will be a key trust issue in promoting a future that makes the most of electric vehicles’ potential.
9 comments:
Electric utilities have asked Nissan, Toyota, and GM to provide them with the name and address of everyone who buys an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid.
Nothing nefarious: if there is more than 1 electric car plugged into a particular utility circuit, the pole-top transformer will be overloaded and fail. Perhaps spectacularly.
So they want to figure out which transformers need to be doubled in size.
I can't make this stuff up...
-S
"if there is more than 1 electric car plugged into a particular utility circuit, the pole-top transformer will be overloaded and fail. Perhaps spectacularly."
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If the car is plugged in downstream of the service entrance, it seems to me that the circuit breaker should pop before any damage is done at the pole transformer, spectacular or otherwise. Am I missing something?
Breakers will go way before the transformer... they can stuff their 'tronmobiles where the sun don't shine, I'll drive my 3/4 ton Chevy gas hog 'till the wheels fall off. Then I'll put new ones on and drive it some more. When gas hits 5 bucks or more, I just might get a horse!
Nope, the transformer goes first.
See, most modern homes have 200 amp service, at 240 volts. That means theoretically each house can draw 48,000 watts without blowing any breakers.
A fast EV charger for home use pulls 6,000 to 7,000 watts. No circuit breakers blow.
But utilities know that not all customers will pull 48,000 watts at the same time. Most homes will never pull 10,000 watts, and if they do, it will be momentary, like when the refrigerator and dishwasher and dryer happen to run at the same time for a few minutes. Transformers can handle infrequent, short-term overloads.
So those pole-top transformers aren't designed to provide 48,000 watts to every home. A typical transformer is rated between 35,000 and 75,000 watts, and serves 10-30 homes.
So if the 35,000 watt transformer is serving 15 homes that draw up to 2,000 watts each during peak periods, that's 30,000 watts, no problem.
Now add two 7,000 watt car chargers to the circuit. They run all night, every night. Now the transformer is running at 44,000 watts. The transformer is overloaded every night for hours at a time.
boom. No circuit breakers required.
-S
I hear that your neighbors have a gelding for sale, cheap.
"Nope, the transformer goes first."
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Thanks for the explanation. All that was new to me. Where I live, out here at the end of the world, every house has its own transformer. I'm also in no danger of ever owning an EV. :-)
"I'll buy a frickin' horse first."
From _you_ ... that's a real statement!
Has anyone figured out what the cost of charging these electric cars is going to be? Or if we have all the promised public hook-ups, what the public cost will be? Or how you'd pull into a station to charge ... and how long to charge? or who's going to pick up the people and tow the cars who run out of charge while they're out somewhere because they didn't notice that they were nearly on "E"??
Are businesses going to have to provide charging stations for their employees? Or parking lots supposed to have them?
I have a bunch of horses I'm to old to do much with besides feeding them - any takers??
At the rate we're going, I figure we might end up eating them first...
ANON- a fast EV charger isn't going to pull 29 Amps all night long, besides that lil' old .25 amp fuseable link would trip the cutout before that transformer went....or the insulation melted on the service drop.
"that lil' old .25 amp fuseable link would trip the cutout before that transformer went"
Yep, that's how it supposed to work. And so long as the $.02 piece of wire that's been hanging in the weather the past 15 years works exactly as it should, and no bird crap or squirrel cuttings or twigs or wet leaves gum it up, then all that happens is that 10-30 homes lose power for a few hours until the utility trucks come and fix it.
With a new link. That will be more likely to work. The blackouts continue until the transformer is upgraded.
Of course, if there are a lot of EVs sold, those utility trucks will be busy, and what used to take a few hours may stretch to a few days...
And if that link doesn't work, or if that 20-year old transformer gets tired of the nightly overloads before the link blows: boom.
Back to the original topic: utilities are worried about clusters of EV owners. They've asked, quietly, to be told the addresses of all new EV owners. Now you know why.
-S
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