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efaardvark

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efaardvark last won the day on March 12

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Anime

  • Favourite Anime
    Lots. Off the top of my head (and in no particular order)...

    Ghost in the Shell
    プラネテス (ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ)
    Any "real" science fiction actually
    Angel Beats!
    Clannad: After Story
    Your Lie In April
    Pet Girl of Sakurasou
    境界の彼方
    しんせかいより
    Spice and Wolf
    ことうらさん
    FLCL (original)
    Any Miyazaki/Ghibli
  • Favourite Genres
    Comedy
    Fantasy
    Mystery
    Romance
    Sci-Fi
    Slice of Life
    Space Opera
    Rom-Com
  • Favourite Character Type
    Kuudere

Waifu/Husbando

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    Waifu

Profile

  • Location
    Someplace between Santa Monica and Sedna.
  • Occupation
    Data systems engineer
  • Interests
    reading (SF), electronics, science, engineering, space, computer programming.. and of course anime.
  • Gender

Video Games

  • Favorite Video Game/Series
    Kerbal Space Program. Anything that you can craft or build in actually... Minecraft, Valheim, Cities: Skyline, Stardew Valley, Terraria, etc.....
  • Favorite Video Game Characters
    GLaDOS, Duke Nukem, Jebediah Kerman
  • Favorite Game Consoles
    PC Master Race - May our frame rates be high and our temperatures low.

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  1. I've been charging my car at work where they have a bunch of chargers installed in the parking garage.  They're charging (no pun intended) $0.12/kWh for the electrons so - since my car is a PHEV - I was wondering how that equates to gas prices.  IOW, at what point does it make more sense to fill up my car with gas than with electrons?

    Some base numbers for my particular situation, given California gas and electricity prices and Prius Prime as my car:

    Price for regular gas = $3.80/gal
    My car's miles/gallon = 60
    My car's miles/kilowatt-hour = 3.64

    According to my math, that means:
    A mile on gas costs about $0.63.
    A mile on electrons costs $0.33.
    At $3.80/gallon, electricity could cost up to $0.20/kWh before gas becomes the cheaper option.
    At $0.12/kWh, gas would have to drop to below $2.30/gal to make gas a better deal.

    FWIW...

    IMG_4546.thumb.JPG.bcdda81fba2ac8bbd342d1cea9a001e3.JPG

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. Beocat

      Beocat

      Gas prices vary by state due to taxes. California and New York have notoriously high tax rates so they can be expensive. In my area (different state) we vary from $2.11 to $2.79 per gallon. The savings would still exist here but be less than driving in California. It's all about the taxes.

       

      Efaardvark, it's pretty cool that you can fuel up there. My favorite physics professor and I had a conversation once way back in the day about electric cars and the lack of "fueling" stations. Glad that isn't an issue for you. :)

    3. efaardvark

      efaardvark

      Yeah, our gas (petrol) prices are subsidized in various ways.  A lot of the costs of oil - geopolitical instability for example - are "externalized" by the industry and picked up by the taxpayer, or in the case of environmental damage simply not fully accounted for.  (BP oil spill, pipeline failures, etc.)  We're also the world's #3 oil -producer-, which helps on the domestic supply side to keep prices down.

      Electricity prices are all over the place.  In the Eastern US coal and nuclear produce extremely cheap electrons, coal because the environmental costs of pollution from what goes up the chimney and whats in the fly ash are not accounted for, and nuclear because it is cheap and abundant.  It also hasn't been updated for decades so it is generally fully-amortized.  Some of the rates in the eastern US are as low as 3 to 5 cents per kWh.

      Here in the south-western US where I live we’ve been phasing out nukes because of safety politics surrounding earthquakes and due to lack of water for coolant.  We could use molten salt reactors to avoid both issues, but that would require more thoughtful, intelligent politics than we can apparently manage.  We never did have much coal, and for air quality reasons we've banished the remaining coal plants to nearby states, which means transmission losses and interstate politics drives up the prices.  As a result the residential rates around here are between $0.19/kWh for the "base" rate tier to $0.42/kWh for the highest usage tier.  Solar being much less expensive than even the lowest tier there’s been a big interest in that around here, since we have the sun for it.  I’ve got 10kWh/day (@ $0.17/kWh) coming off my own roof in fact.  Commercial rates are again subsidized in various ways, so that’s how I get to $0.12/kWh from the chargers at work.

      My particular car has a relatively small 8.8kWh battery.  (Which gives me about a 30 mile range.  Work is only about 7 miles one-way so that’s plenty for the commute and local errands.)  There’s basically 2 types of chargers around here, “level 1”, and “level 2”.  Level 1 uses our standard 120V AC.  My car came with a L1 charger that just plugs into a regular household AC outlet.  It takes about 4 hours to fully charge a completely discharged 8.8kWh battery.  A L2 charger uses a 240VAC outlet and will take about half the time to charge a battery (vs a level 1 charger).  Level 1/2 are something that most people can install at home.  They’re relatively cheap and don’t require any special infrastructure beyond that required by the typical residential electrical/building codes.

      There’s also a “level 3” charger, but it isn’t really a standard.  Level 3s cost thousands of dollars, generally require access to commercial-level power infrastructure, and not all cars can accept a level-3 charge.  Tesla’s “Supercharger” is a L3 charger that works with Tesla cars, but I don’t know of anyone else’s car that can handle it in level-3 mode.  I know my Prius, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt don’t.  Even the original Tesla Roadster can’t use the Tesla Superchargers.

    4. efaardvark

      efaardvark

      @Beocat Charging used to be a BYO thing at work, and even then there were fundamental issues, like who was going to pay how much and where you could plug in your charger.  Then a few years back the parking situation became intolerable and they (finally!) built a parking garage, including about a dozen charging stations initially and an infrastructure that could support a bunch more.  It was a huge hit, what with all the engineers and their toys on staff :D, and we now have over 50 chargers in the parking structure and a couple dozen more up the hill in the old lot.  It is first-come, first serve parking so it is still a bit of a challenge to find an open charger spot for "normal" people.  Never a problem finding an open charger on the off hours when I often work however, and as long as I can plug in maybe every other day then I pretty much never have to buy gas.

      All I need is a "PowerFlex" app on my cellphone to manage the billing and control the charger and I'm good.  I just park, plug in, scan a barcode on the charger, and tell it to start.  While it is charging I can look at the app in realtime for how the charge is progressing.  I can stop it at any time from the app, and of course my car can stop when it is "full".  If I can't find a spot to plug in then I can add myself to a queue and get notified when someone else finishes charging.  If I'm charging, someone else is waiting, and my car finishes then the app also notifies me and asks me to move my car to free the slot for the next guy.  The service is pay-as-you-go and the app can be loaded with funds in various ways, including a CC, paypal, apple pay, etc.  So far it is all working out pretty well.  If they'd just cover the top level of the parking structure with solar panels it'd be perfect.  :)

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