<story><title>Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric-vehicles-close-to-tipping-point-of-mass-adoption</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>slovette</author><text>I disagree with this. Retro installs maybe, yes. But new construction, which I consult heavily on, most of the developers I work with are motivated to install them. They’re revenue sources and attract the kind of tenants they want occupying their new building.&lt;p&gt;The answer to retro installs (which is always about money anyway) is to not force the hand of property owners, but make the install cost a no brainer with tax rebates and subsidies. Regulation in this regard would just cause negative effects I think, IF it ever passed a public vote (Cali maybe, but not much of the rest of the country).</text></item><item><author>mywittyname</author><text>A staggering amount of buildings are built to code, and nothing more.  If code says that there needs to be 1.5 parking spaces per bedroom for the complex, and the complex has 80 bedrooms, you can bet there will be 120 parking spots.&lt;p&gt;Apartment managers will be dragged kicking and screaming into offering chargers for cars.  The best way to get chargers into apartment buildings is going to be a local mandate that they have a charger per X units.</text></item><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you&amp;#x27;re speaking Klingon.&lt;p&gt;This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past &lt;i&gt;three&lt;/i&gt; Teslas in my building&amp;#x27;s car park, one of which is new and wasn&amp;#x27;t there last week!&lt;p&gt;Do people... not plan ahead? Do architects not read the news? Are they from another planet where electricity delivery is not a problem that architects have to deal with in building design?&lt;p&gt;Mind you, I got the &lt;i&gt;exact same&lt;/i&gt; dumbfounded stare from people when talking to cafe managers and gym owners about the impending COVID lockdowns back in February 2020: &amp;quot;Lock...down...? You think so? Really? Here?&amp;quot; (Don&amp;#x27;t think IT is spared from this, I get the same vacant expression when I talk to network engineers about IPv4 exhaustion and the need for IPv6.)&lt;p&gt;On a more practical note, I have business idea that might interest the YC News crowd: The main problem raised by building managers I spoke to was that it was &amp;quot;too hard&amp;quot; to solve charge-back and the like. Wiring is &amp;quot;easy&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s just a matter of calling out contractor, but organising the billing of the tenant and then splitting the revenue between the various parties involved is more work for them than it is worth, because it is complex to set up but initially there may be only a couple of electric cars generating very little revenue. An &amp;quot;electric charging billing&amp;quot; cloud service that manages everything with low overheads might sell well...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sli</author><text>My city is building tons of new apartments clearly meant for commuters to the nearby big cities and exactly zero of them have EV chargers despite being the most expensive apartments in town. I&amp;#x27;m not holding my breath that new construction will do this all that soon, either.</text></comment>
<story><title>Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric-vehicles-close-to-tipping-point-of-mass-adoption</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>slovette</author><text>I disagree with this. Retro installs maybe, yes. But new construction, which I consult heavily on, most of the developers I work with are motivated to install them. They’re revenue sources and attract the kind of tenants they want occupying their new building.&lt;p&gt;The answer to retro installs (which is always about money anyway) is to not force the hand of property owners, but make the install cost a no brainer with tax rebates and subsidies. Regulation in this regard would just cause negative effects I think, IF it ever passed a public vote (Cali maybe, but not much of the rest of the country).</text></item><item><author>mywittyname</author><text>A staggering amount of buildings are built to code, and nothing more.  If code says that there needs to be 1.5 parking spaces per bedroom for the complex, and the complex has 80 bedrooms, you can bet there will be 120 parking spots.&lt;p&gt;Apartment managers will be dragged kicking and screaming into offering chargers for cars.  The best way to get chargers into apartment buildings is going to be a local mandate that they have a charger per X units.</text></item><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>My problem is renting apartments. If you ask the strata or the building managers about charging points in the carpark, they look at you like you&amp;#x27;re speaking Klingon.&lt;p&gt;This is true of even very recently completed buildings in well-off areas of relatively wealthy western countries. Heck, I just walked past &lt;i&gt;three&lt;/i&gt; Teslas in my building&amp;#x27;s car park, one of which is new and wasn&amp;#x27;t there last week!&lt;p&gt;Do people... not plan ahead? Do architects not read the news? Are they from another planet where electricity delivery is not a problem that architects have to deal with in building design?&lt;p&gt;Mind you, I got the &lt;i&gt;exact same&lt;/i&gt; dumbfounded stare from people when talking to cafe managers and gym owners about the impending COVID lockdowns back in February 2020: &amp;quot;Lock...down...? You think so? Really? Here?&amp;quot; (Don&amp;#x27;t think IT is spared from this, I get the same vacant expression when I talk to network engineers about IPv4 exhaustion and the need for IPv6.)&lt;p&gt;On a more practical note, I have business idea that might interest the YC News crowd: The main problem raised by building managers I spoke to was that it was &amp;quot;too hard&amp;quot; to solve charge-back and the like. Wiring is &amp;quot;easy&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s just a matter of calling out contractor, but organising the billing of the tenant and then splitting the revenue between the various parties involved is more work for them than it is worth, because it is complex to set up but initially there may be only a couple of electric cars generating very little revenue. An &amp;quot;electric charging billing&amp;quot; cloud service that manages everything with low overheads might sell well...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>topkai22</author><text>I agree it&amp;#x27;s probably not so bad even for retrofits - 70% of housing in the US is SFH or a duplex (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.infoplease.com&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;census&amp;#x2F;housing-statistics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.infoplease.com&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;census&amp;#x2F;housing-statistics&lt;/a&gt;). Getting a charging solution for those units seems achievable. I&amp;#x27;m also willing to bet that multifamily housing is generally massively over represented in blue cities, which might be able to require&amp;#x2F;incentives retrofits. That&amp;#x27;s a huge marketable population to start buying electric vehicles and normalize them. I suspect that by the time there is significant used electric market there will also be enough market and political demand to figure out the multi-family situation.</text></comment>