Tag Archives: Tesla

Automobile, Energy, Travel

Accelerating Availability of EV Charging Stations through Legislation

Leave a comment

Are you planning on traveling this week for your vacation?  Bought a gas guzzler instead of an EV because of the time it takes to charge, and chargers were not readily available on your commute or a road trip?  Don’t want to get stuck without a charge, or kill a half day recharging your wheels?  It looks like with the release of the Tesla Model 3 it will address most of these items such as:

  • Range Per Charge – 215 miles
  • Supercharging
    • Tesla Supercharger provides up to 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes.
  • Relatively Affordable – 35k

But how wide spread are the charging stations, and what could be done as a catalyst to rapidly improve EV charging coverage?   We can look at EV charging coverage, US map like we do for cellular coverage (and range).  One possibility is to tack on a rider to federal funding requiring states that use federal funding for their highways implement EV Charging Stations at EVERY rest stop along the road.  

However, there are a vast array of EV Charging Stations on the market.   Although adoption across the US is currently sporadic, there are several brands/standards of EV Charging Mechanisms

  • A heterogenous mix of N EV chargers per rest stop / station, may allow for a diverse set of solutions.
  • Each state may declare N companies to install, maintain, and periodic upgrades for each EV Charging Station.  Each rest stop / station can be awarded to separate contractors, or clustered
  • The ‘bid winning’ companies per state responsible for the rest station EV chargers must perform ongoing evaluations of EV charging station adoption, and use quantifiable data for upgrading solutions, after N period of time.
Stakeholders to Gain from Expansion of EV Charging Stations across the United States of America.
  • The Consumer
  • EV Manufacturing Car Companies (Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Toyota, etc.) Click here for the complete list.
  • Car Rental Firms
    • Is the cost of maintaining an EV vehicle (e.g. batteries) more expensive than the combustible engine?
  • Retail / shops across the US; i.e. at least 1/2 hour to charge
Who is in a position to accelerate / fast track this program?

Finally, is there really a “lack” of EV Charging Stations across the United States?   Here is a map from the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) list of charging stations.

I found several EV Charging Stations in my area such as  the Molly Pitcher Service Area, Mile Marker 71.7 New Jersey Turnpike, Cranbury, NJ 08512

Artificial Intelligence, Business, Technology

Kosher ‘Like’ Certifications and Oversight of Autonomous Vehicle Implementations

Leave a comment

Do AI Rules Engines “deliberate” any differently between rules with moral weight over none at all. Rhetorical..?

The ethics that will explicitly and implicitly be built into implementations of autonomous vehicles involves a full stack of technology, and “business” input. In addition, implementations may vary between manufacturers and countries.

In the world of Kosher Certification, there are several authorities that provide oversight into the process of food preparation and delivery. These authorities have their own seal of approval. In lieu of Kosher authorities, who will be playing the morality, seal of approval, role?  Vehicle Insurance companies?  Car insurance will be rewritten when it comes to autonomous cars.  Some cars may have a  higher deductible or the cost of the policy may rise based upon the autonomous implementation.

Conditions Under Consideration:

1. If the autonomous vehicle is in a position of saving a single life in the vehicle, and killing one or more people outside the vehicle, what will the autonomous vehicle do?

1.1 What happens if the passenger in the autonomous vehicle is a child/minor. Does the rule execution change?

1.2 what if the outside party is a procession, a condensed population of people. Will the decision change?

The more sensors, the more input to the decision process.