Piles of Tesla owners stranded at charge stations abandons their EV's.

[Bud]

Do not worry about your vehicle in apocalypse. Someone will come and take it from you. Either the government for the state military needs or a group of organized thugs.

[vad]

I suspect a few solar panels is easier, you only need about 1kW to charge most EVs.  Also, not competing between your food and fuel demands is good.

I am not an expert on solar, but according to a Forbes article a 1 kW solar system produces 750-850 kWh annually for average installation in North America. So charging Tesla Model 3 from 20% to 80% would take a whopping 2-3 weeks on average depending on battery option.

Luckily cornfields grow overnight!

Also: I have about 13kWp on my roof.

How is the output at night?

What is your solution for storing solar panels output for just a few hours, making the energy available for overnight charging? How complex is the solution?

PS. Luckily, dent corn has a shelf life of 30 years as a food source and much longer as a fuel source. All you need for storage is a cool, dry place.

[Siwastaja]

What is your solution for storing solar panels output for just a few hours, making the energy available for overnight charging? How complex is the solution?

I just love this scenario that in apocalypse and total destruction of everything, you are farming your land, have still managed to have functioning PV system, even the sun is shining, and you have an EV you can charge, but the only problem is that.... you need to charge overnight because you have to drive to work in the morning!

[floobydust]

Do not worry about your vehicle in apocalypse. Someone will come and take it from you. Either the government for the state military needs or a group of organized thugs.

I fully expect Tesla's to croak without a connection to their HQ. I think it's 8-year term right now.
Have you renewed your Connectivity subscription? Sorry, we do not accept Zombie dollars lol. Lack of payment will lead to a brick...

I worked on an old vehicle that has no diodes, no transistors, no semiconductors - at all.
That was an uh huh moment at how far corporate overreach and monopoly building has gone.
It would survive EMP, works fine at -30°C and doesn't vampire suck monthly payments out of a person.
No safety features but you can drive.

[Marco]

No man is an island, no machinery either. Yeah, it will be slightly easier to keep diesel going for 100 years with stocked parts, a machine shop and a farming community to harvest seed oil (not a one man operation, with enough spare parts maintaining a PV field is a one man operation though). Eventually you're going to need an industrial civilisation to keep everything going though.

Absent an apocalypse, productivity is more important than complexity for the moment ... so combines are complicated as hell, but bang for buck ye olde self maintained tractors are for hobbyists only. Likewise fuel is expensive enough that mileage matters and some electronics are profitable.

[fourfathom]

I worked on an old vehicle that has no diodes, no transistors, no semiconductors - at all.
That was an uh huh moment at how far corporate overreach and monopoly building has gone.
It would survive EMP, works fine at -30°C and doesn't vampire suck monthly payments out of a person.
No safety features but you can drive.

Following this thread I was thinking of my old 1960's VW Bug.  I could keep that thing running with just a set of socket wrenches and a couple of screwdrivers.  Now eventually the gaskets will degrade and brake pads wear out, but when the rings/sleeves/bearings go I guess it's all over without a functioning machine shop.  Horses do start to sound pretty good, and manufacturing more horses is pretty low-tech.

But by then the zombies would probably have eaten my brain...

Re: EVs in the cold, we've got relatives in Finland, and a few weeks ago it was *COLD* (even for Finland in the winter).  We saw stories of many Teslas stranded on the roads; because of the reduced range they ran out of juice before they could reach a charging station.

[SiliconWizard]

There is like zero question that any simple ICE vehicle is more "resilient" than any EV. Even if there was no access whatsoever to official gas or diesel fuel (and if things get hairy, people will just start getting fuel out of abandoned vehicles for quite a while), you can pretty easily make your own fuel and at least run your vehicle for a good while. Diesel engines, particularly the simpler ones (as opposed to the high-pressure stuff that is more recent), can run on vegetal oil without a problem. Actually many people have been doing this, at least occasionally, for years. And of course, they can run at much lower temperatures than EVs.

[Marco]

It still boggles my mind that not one manufacturer offers a low temperature package consisting of vacuum insulation panels for the battery (obviously only works with water cooling)

[Marco]

SiliconWizard, you just need to be on an operating farm with an oil extraction mill and/or fermentation tank and still. Obviously this applies to pretty much everyone.

[BrianHG]

You can charge your EV from waste cooking oil as well!

Cooking oil can be clean filtered and run through most diesel engines with perhaps some adjustments.  So, if you want to use waste cooking oil from your fryers and don't mind your exhaust smelling like french fries, why don't we skip EV and use normal diesel ICE cars powered by our fast food waste?  The technology already exists...

Wait a minute, cooking oil's pollutants, the un-burned particulates which are exhausted, are actually really unhealthy for our lungs... 

[themadhippy]

why don't we skip EV and use normal diesel ICE cars powered by our fast food waste?  The technology already exists..

many have in the uk,and our good old goverment is there with there hand out demanding the fuel duty

[Andy Chee]

You can charge your EV from waste cooking oil as well!

Cooking oil can be clean filtered and run through most diesel engines with perhaps some adjustments.  So, if you want to use waste cooking oil from your fryers and don't mind your exhaust smelling like french fries, why don't we skip EV and use normal diesel ICE cars powered by our fast food waste?  The technology already exists...

Putting aside emissions regulations and climate change issues, "free" electricity from rooftop solar is usually more readily available than free waste cooking oil, particularly if that energy source gains mass common usage.

Another issue particularly in the USA is that waste oil often belongs to the big corporate waste companies i.e. taking waste oil is regarded as theft.

[EEVblog]

Latest John Cadogan video, guess the subject:

[Stray Electron]

Putting aside emissions regulations and climate change issues, "free" electricity from rooftop solar is usually more readily available than free waste cooking oil, particularly if that energy source gains mass common usage.

Another issue particularly in the USA is that waste oil often belongs to the big corporate waste companies i.e. taking waste oil is regarded as theft.

  You can't be serious! Why are you stealing used oil?   There are restaurants on very street corner and several in the middle of the block and they ALL use cooking oil and most will give it to you for the asking. The same with used motor oil and used transmission fluid and used gear box oil. I have a number of friends that use all of them in their diesel trucks.  But in some states they will stop trucks and check to see what fuel you're using and will issue you a very heavy fine if they find you using anything other than on-road diesel fuel. It's all about the revenue! North Carolina is very bad about that and i see them checking the fuel in trucks every time that I go through there.  Otherwise the use of other fuel sources would be much more common.  True some places do get paid for used oil but only pennies per gallon and if you're a friend or a regular customer, they will give it to you if you ask.

[pickle9000]

This is the craziest / funniest thread ever. Could you imagine a shortage of french fry oil in the US? Off grid living
hiding out from the bad guys . Wait I'll make some moonshine and run my car on that. And promptly grows some
corn, year later moonshine. Has a party and the moonshine s gone.... but it was a good party. The cornbread was
great. And the struggle continues.

In case I wasn't clear the bad guys are the french fry oil bandits. Not sure but I think its for cooking because they
all drive EV's.

[themadhippy]

You can't be serious! Why are you stealing used oil?

no surprise in a country were the local council claims your rubbish belongs to them ,even though you aint thrown it away yet.

https://news.yahoo.com/county-shuts-down-woman-thriving-213000893.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADvnVURbh2MzQkJkSfNMZlfW3uZEjSznMOAosyBdpJd0uj-Js9Dhv7goW2oIw_aAH7SXtB3NuSBP4lGAi1Y9SiztOi98R4ugPdWOWk7aK_lcBekUZWlqBQ2ElvZbz-rybLPlnHf3q5co9ULdgGCMt_DdRkuA0Qux7duVrgFsIyXH

the key statement

She explained to Palm Beach Daily News, “Whether or not it’s on the curb or in your house, if it’s trash, it’s the property of the Solid Waste Authority.”

[Siwastaja]

Re: EVs in the cold, we've got relatives in Finland, and a few weeks ago it was *COLD* (even for Finland in the winter).  We saw stories of many Teslas stranded on the roads; because of the reduced range they ran out of juice before they could reach a charging station.

We did, but we also saw a lot of stories of diesels stranded on the roads. Just like EV fanboys say EVs are problem-free in any weather, ICE fanboys say the same about diesel vehicles. Yet both fail at some similar-ish % in the real world.

Tow truck companies were asked by media about the relative numbers and their comment was pretty much that EVs did not stand out at all, so that their "gut feeling" was the failures are roughly in relation to having fewer EVs than ICE cars on the roads.

And BTW, it wasn't that particularly cold. There is some kind of mass psychosis (especially in classic media, but social media too) going on such that normal winter weather is touted as something extreme. It was a week between -23 .. -30 degC in the southern parts (and down to nearly -40degC up North) and that is totally absolutely normal for January here; you don't hit -30 every year but one could say nearly every other year, and -25 pretty much every year. Seems like people are suffering some kind of collective memory loss and lost touch with reality, in the presence of "new normals" ("climate changed so much so quickly we will never see snow again!") we have lost the idea what is the "old normal", and the fact that actual true reality is still pretty close to it.

[fourfathom]

And BTW, it wasn't that particularly cold.

I've been in the middle of a half-dozen Finnish winters over the course of 20+ years, and my son was there a few weeks ago (and of course we hear from our relatives often), and this winter did seem substantially colder than what I've experienced.  But my (very limited) experience doesn't begin to compare with yours, so I'm sure you are correct.

[Siwastaja]

And BTW, it wasn't that particularly cold.

I've been in the middle of a half-dozen Finnish winters over the course of 20+ years, and my son was there a few weeks ago (and of course we hear from our relatives often), and this winter did seem substantially colder than what I've experienced.  But my (very limited) experience doesn't begin to compare with yours, so I'm sure you are correct.

Yeah, 80% of winters have a really cold week or two. Gulf stream and proximity of the seas basically prevent long-sustained cold periods (usual in more continental areas like Siberia). Just that in some years this "really cold week" means -25, but sometimes -28, this year has been in the latter class so yes, maybe a little bit colder than usual, but I don't "feel" anything being weird like some apparently do for reasons I can't understand and call "mass psychosis". And I don't even like the cold so I have every reason for a personal "oh shit it's colder than ever" bias!

But when you have just one cold week, even if you visit during three coldest months, your visit would have 1/12 chance of coinciding with that cold week, so you need quite a few random visits to statistically see that, unless you plan ahead. Going up North is a good way to increase chances of experiencing temperatures below -30degC if you are masochistic enough to like it. I don't like cold at all, I would prefer building a heated glass bubble and put some palm trees inside. The positive side of the -25...-30*C week is that today it was -11degC in the morning and it feels so warm and cozy outdoors as you have adapted to the cold (and the EV consumption went below 20kWh/100km again, too). And I'm under the impression that adaption to cold happens more quickly, in a few days, than adaption to excessive heat, which would take weeks.

[tom66]

It's no comparison to -20C weather, but I found the ID.3 to be very good even in -5C which is pretty cold for the UK.  The only noticeable issue is that the power output is limited to about 80% of normal, but on icy roads you don't want to be accelerating too hard so it's not a major problem.

Preheating the car to deice it is fantastic.  It also turns the heated seats on, nice and toasty.  For some reason though it doesn't deice the mirrors, which are heated.  Well, I guess you can't have it all.  My Golf PHEV had the same limitation, so you had to sit in the car for 60s waiting for them to deice.  Since everything is software controlled it surprised me as an omission.  First world problems though right?

Seems once at temperature the heat pump uses about 1.5kW to maintain cabin temperatures at a comfortable 20C.  The implication would be then for a 3 hour drive, that is about 4.5kWh extra load, or roughly 8% of the battery.  In the real world the drop in range seems to be around 10% at these temperatures so that seems about right.

Haven't yet tried to see what a cold soaked battery will do for rapid charging though.

[Siwastaja]

Some observations from Nissan Leaf 60kWh:

* At -5degC heat pump power draw is approx. 1kW to maintain +16 cabin. I don't usually see any reason to use higher cabin setting. We use winter clothes in winter and it's inconvenient to overheat vehicles, shopping malls etc. Home is different, there you are spending more time and getting undressed.
* At -25degC this rises to 3kW all the time (resistive heating is probably used additionally)
* The phone app is buggy and crappy, and you can't choose what is on for preheating (e.g., seat heaters are on if you happened to leave the physical switches that way), but much better than nothing, it works and does the job.
* With fully charged battery, despite what marketing and manuals say, preheating always starts with battery power, which is unsurprising because of power path design (the compressor/PTC elements have to be connected to the battery, and having changeover contactors for mains-only would cost more, and battery charger has some hysteresis before it can start supplying power to the pack.)
* After battery charge has dropped to 98%, "charging" can commence simultaneously with preheating and it seems that battery net current is very close to zero, i.e., charger supplies DC power to the climate control circuits and battery is just paralleled in the circuit. This means with preheating you are always "losing" a few km of range because you can't get back to 100%. But of course the savings from preheating are bigger than this loss.
* At -25degC, battery efficiency loss in normal driving is probably more than I have assumed, something in range of 20%, because there seems to be unexplained loss component not shown by the drive computer (which obviously counts Wh coming out of battery, so battery ESR isn't part of measurement). This seems to be more significant range loss component than I have assumed previously, on par with the cabin heating loss. Since battery loss is directly proportional to current draw, this would mean unaggressive driving patterns, going smoothly instead of quick accelerations, are hugely important in winter.
* Still at -15degC or so, it seems driving power is not yet reduced,
* At -29degC, driving power was limited from the usual 160kW down to 90kW which is very noticeable in full acceleration, but quite frankly, EVs accelerate quickly so I could probably accept this power level year around.
* 60kWh LEAF does not have battery heater, which I think is just an advantage, given the 40kWh model which does but the logic is stupid beyond belief: ON at -20degC battery temperature, OFF at -10, using battery power down to 30% SoC, so better keep it connected to an EVSE in cold conditions. Heater power is around 300W I have heard.

[tom66]

The Leaf's preheating setup is better than the ID.3.  The ID.3 always preheats from the battery.  If you remember you turn on the battery charging once the battery reaches 99% so that it will top up both.  I might have to write a Home-Assistant automation for it. That said 98% battery vs 100% is not a big deal and I rarely aim to arrive at the destination on electric fumes so I can probably leave it for now.

The Golf on the other hand would preheat from the mains fine, and if you used a current clamp you could almost see the PTC heater current oscillating on and off at about 2Hz.  My guess was the battery was still in parallel but the charger was effectively maintaining a constant battery voltage.  Aircon never worked properly from the remote control, which sucked in summer.  They did at least fix that in the ID.3.

[Siwastaja]

Actual data from Norway where the winter has been pretty harsh too: https://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/klart-darligst-i-sprengkulden-helt-ekstremt/16370146/

TLDR, 87% of tow jobs were for ICE vehicles and 13% for EVs, while 23% of vehicles in Norway are EVs, so EVs are significantly more reliable in harsh winter conditions.

[Monkeh]

TLDR, 87% of tow jobs were for ICE vehicles and 13% for EVs, while 23% of vehicles in Norway are EVs, so EVs are significantly more reliable in harsh winter conditions.

Or a greater percentage of EV drivers are either smart enough not to venture out, or in a work or financial position not to venture out. There's a lot of factors.

Better, I think, to say that those numbers suggest EVs aren't demonstrating worse reliability in those conditions.

[CatalinaWOW]

This shows examples of what I see in almost all discussions of EVs.  The threads are largely populated by two groups of people.  People whose use case is easily adapted to EVs and those whose use case doesn't fit well with current EV technology.  What both groups have in common is a belief that their use case is universal.

The really positive thing about this thread and this forum is that those two groups are not the only, and not even the dominant voices.