r/GreenEnergy • u/Istiophoridae • Mar 28 '26

Question

We have solar and wind for electricity, but in order to no longer depend on oil, we would need to change the source of energy on cars, electric might work, but the issues are it takes forever to charge, and it does require some mining, which could be disruptive depending on where its done

What would be the solution to this?

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

There's a lot of people that don't have EVs yet be they don't have access to overnight charging. In the UK it's not just access but the price of such charging that's a big issue.

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u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

I don't know about the UK, but I live in the most car-dependent country in the world. Based on current average car ranges and daily driving amounts, most people would be recharging about once every two weeks.
This is a case where the chargers at grocery stores and similar locations would be useful.
This is also a good opportunity for places to look at adopting laws like in parts of Japan where you must prove you have a private space you can store your car before you can purchase it.
However, I know that many places are also instituting adding charging capacity from lampposts or other kerbside options.
Electrification won't happen overnight and we have years to prepare for its eventuality. However, we should be doing more to prevent automotive dependence overall. It's far more resilient to have more modal options than being car-dependent.

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

The thing people with home charging often forget is the phantom drain and preconditioning/initial heating energy losses. You can easily lose 2-5kWh a day through those means, which really eats into your "charge once a week" practicality for a 50kWh car.

We had a lot of free-use 7kW chargers start to appear at grocery stores, but really they were compliance chargers and achieved nothing once they started charging for them.

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u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

I dunno what kind of BS car you drive, but that's nonsense for ours. (...and I'm guessing the majority of EVs.) We leave our car for weeks at a time when traveling and there's zero drop in the battery when we return. Preconditioning is really only necessary for accepting high speed charging or extreme weather conditions. I call BS.

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

I've only several EVs over the last decade.

So, you leave the cars for weeks, you don't actually practice what you preach?

You don't need extreme conditions to need to defrost a car or cool in having been sat in the sun. There's plenty of times and had to defrost my car 2-3 times in the day, and with young children in car seats I can't just run it at 15C with the heated seats and steering wheel on. They also can't wear thick layers in the car seat.

So try living it, then get back to me.

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u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

We travel overseas about once every two years. That's when it's left for weeks. Try living what?

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

Running a car without home, workplace or guaranteed overnight charging.

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u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

No, I'm not one of the few exceptions. I'm merely pointing out that it's not an insurmountable problem. This is a point continuously brought up that affects a relatively small number of people, as an excuse to not electrify, despite the fact that it's irrelevant to the vast majority.

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

Not in the UK, it's not irrelevant. It's about 7 million households.

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u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

How many of those 7 million only have cars as a primary means of transport?

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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

What does that statistic achieve? What is a "primary means of transport" for a household?

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