We had it easy and we have made it very difficult. We had to get "all" Spaniards who do less than 80 kilometers a day to always do them in electric mode. And we have gone through the branches or through the roof. With that desire to be the most purists in the universe, we have followed the 100% electric strategy, which is a huge problem for the vast majority of citizens and also for the planet. We have done everything wrong.
Instead of creating a select (and expensive) infrastructure of high power recharging points, we would have to have equipped all the parking points with normal plugs, those for washing machines and ovens, and that the city councils managed the collection in some cheap way of that consumed electricity. Even "giving it away" would be beneficial to everyone, like a streetlight.
The type of car suitable for this rapidly expanding model of car use in electric mode is the plug-in hybrid.
Thousands of low power plugs
We have created a church arch with recharging points and with crazy and expensive battery electric cars, when the electric car should have been presented for what it is, like a washing machine on wheels that has to be constantly plugged in when it is stopped. . We would have to have 10-amp plugs, from the oven ones, in all the places where parking is allowed, and that all parked cars were constantly plugged in. Would it be a problem for the network? Maybe, but we have to learn to fix them. It will be necessary to do it by zones, but it will have to be done and for the moment those plugs will be progressively occupied.
In supermarkets and in all public parking places, instead of an 11 kW charging point, for one or two cars, we would have to have 100 normal 2 kW sockets. That the power consumed was 200 kW when the 100 cars were parked and not 11 kW in the best of cases. It is about having many electric vehicles driving a few kilometers in electric mode and not having few electric vehicles stopped, but with the capacity to travel many kilometers.
Plug-in and plug-in hybrids are the solutions
Large battery-electric cars are a misconception. I never tire of repeating it. I say more. Pure electric cars, right now, are bad for the environment. The CO2 emissions of manufacturing them are not offset in many cases and in many countries. One day they will make sense from an ecological point of view. Today they do more harm than good. But that is another debate.
We have to look for short emission payback periods for each battery that is produced. That means using it several times a day.
Tesla, which has such a good reputation for so many people, has done a lot of damage to the environment. Cars of very high weight, very expensive in energy to build, which drags millions of followers around the world, which has even made the global automobile industry abandon the initial rationale of small electric cars, with autonomy extenders, to build monsters that will travel two dozen kilometers per day in many cases and that will never amortize manufacturing emissions.
We have to get thousands of cars plugged in at once. The measure of success is not the size of the battery and the autonomy that electric cars achieve, but how many kWh are consumed by plugged-in cars each day. In big cities, we would have to have 10,000 cars plugged in at all hours, day and night, on sidewalks, in supermarkets, in houses, and in parking lots. Cheap plugs scattered all over the city and thousands of plug-in hybrids continually sucking up electrical power.
Cleaner cities
It has been a very serious strategic mistake for our economy, to fight against the greenhouse effect and to reduce NOx emissions in cities. Electric car batteries have to be fully charged and discharged several times a day. And charge and discharge them at low powers, to take care of them as best as possible. If we have the cars stopped for 22 hours a day on average, we have the possibility of charging and discharging the battery up to four times at low power.
Sometimes the battery capacity will not allow us to reach the destination point. For those days or for those minutes, we have the combustion engine, always outside the urban centers. We will use it for 10-20% of our total mileage. And that together will be very beneficial for the planet and for the pollution of our cities.
I mention Tesla, but in no way do I think he is responsible for anything. Those responsible are each of the citizens and our representatives, who make the decisions we make. It hurts me, because many environmentalists and advocates of the environment put Tesla as the champion company in the fight for the electric car and the environment, probably because they get carried away by the brilliant marketing of Elon Musk. However, in my opinion, that concept of a luxurious car and elephantiasis batteries has done immeasurable damage. And the rest of the industry, as if following the star of the wise men, has been carried away. No gentlemen, no. The era of pure electric cars has not yet arrived, except for those who live on illusion and fantasy and not on results. Its use, still, should be marginal.
All short tours, electric
What percentage of the total number of kilometers traveled by passenger cars in a country is done each day on short trips? 60%, 70% or 80%? Well, that percentage, whatever it is, is what we have to attack. With cars with small batteries and permanently plugged in at low power when the cars are stopped. This objective is achievable by many citizens and by infrastructures. Thinking about travel infrastructure is absurd, at least for now. Where do you add more kilometers? Where is it easier to install massive charging points? The day there are 10,000 electric large batteries that go out at the same time on the same road on the weekend, it will be business to set up a bus system to return its occupants home.
In cities, it makes no sense to put charging points of 7, 11 or 22 kW of power. Who are they intended for? Transport professionals need recharging points of more than 100 kW and individuals need to be able to always plug the car in, as soon as it is parked. It is not that we have it for a short time at high power in places always occupied by other electric cars, but that we always have plugs available, so that our car is plugged in at low power at all times. The management and location of the charging point is much easier in the second case and there is no need for specialized companies or super-modern charging posts. Normal plugs, protected from the rain. Nothing more. And until we know how to charge that electricity, let the municipalities give it "free".
We are on time
No one is to blame for mistakes in times of transition like this. I have not been clear about this concept until today and that I do not stop using electric and electrified cars at all hours. It seems to me that we still have time. We need thousands of outlets in cities and in private home garages. Forget very high power recharging points. We don't need them. Let's have our cars plugged in at all hours while they are stopped. This system would also teach us to restructure the electricity grid to provide service in the future.
We have been radically wrong in the electric car strategy
