Tesla truck to revolutionize RV towing?

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Patandlinda

Brian they sell this tech to invade your privacy even more . Try to use as much wired tech as possible .

The utility uses this tech to read your meter with much less time and manual effort and greater accuracy than having a person walk into your yard, read your meter, and scribble something on a bit of paper to be later transcribed into the billing system. No one other than the utility cares about your power consumption, or is trying to read it... and even the utility doesn't care how much power you use or when you use it, as long as you pay for it.

[emers382]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

It is interesting how we end up paying more so that the utility company no longer has to provide readers (remember "gas man") who would read your gas and electric and water meters, monthly. Cities were full of people walking around daily performing their duties. Even mail was delivered twice daily and your street was cleaned by broom and in the evening the lights were all turned up by the gas man. Milk and butter was delivered to your home and left in insulated boxes on your porch. The alley in the rear were full of hucksters selling fruit and vegetables and knife sharpening. Just a lot of hustle and bustle that sometimes saved people who had fallen or were trapped near their homes or there was the smell of gas in the home. Cars were a luxury, as everyone took streetcars downtown to work or shop. All gone, progress supposedly!! I like the old days....

Jim it's not happening everywhere. Here our gas is supplied by Manitoba Hydro and they have meter readers who come every two months and read both hydro and gas. On the other month we can read ourselves and post on our account or phone it in, otherwise they estimate.

[cpaharley2008]

Thanks Adrian, and I believe Exxon is still Esso up there and you still have phone booths....all nostalgic .....

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

It is interesting how we end up paying more so that the utility company no longer has to provide readers (remember "gas man") who would read your gas and electric and water meters, monthly. Cities were full of people walking around daily performing their duties. Even mail was delivered twice daily and your street was cleaned by broom and in the evening the lights were all turned up by the gas man. Milk and butter was delivered to your home and left in insulated boxes on your porch. The alley in the rear were full of hucksters selling fruit and vegetables and knife sharpening. Just a lot of hustle and bustle that sometimes saved people who had fallen or were trapped near their homes or there was the smell of gas in the home. Cars were a luxury, as everyone took streetcars downtown to work or shop. All gone, progress supposedly!! I like the old days....

Reminds me of the day the Edison fellow came to put a opt out tag on our meter . He said his buddy a meter reader ,was almost at retirement and was paying for his son to go to college , losing his job was a little upsetting for him . He said he would be fine because he was training to switch to be a line man but not his buddy.
He also told me to put no trespassing signs up there was trouble from sub contractors doing everything to get your old meter . At the time they could get 40 a meter .
Pat

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

The utility uses this tech to read your meter with much less time and manual effort and greater accuracy than having a person walk into your yard, read your meter, and scribble something on a bit of paper to be later transcribed into the billing system. No one other than the utility cares about your power consumption, or is trying to read it... and even the utility doesn't care how much power you use or when you use it, as long as you pay for it.

Brian our mechanical meter so many years ago was changed to a meter that can be read from the street . Just now the new and improved meters (joke) !
We had dogs and it was hard for meter readers to get in backyard so I consented for them to install this meter to make it easier for them . They could just drive by and get the reading . Do not want a smart meter . Pat

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by Patandlinda

Brian our mechanical meter so many years ago was changed to a meter that can be read from the street . Just now the new and improved meters (joke) !
We had dogs and it was hard for meter readers to get in backyard so I consented for them to install this meter to make it easier for them . They could just drive by and get the reading . Do not want a smart meter . Pat

Also the gas company installed a little device on the gas meter that allows them to more easily read from the street . Don’t have an issue with those devices . But the smart meter is another issue altogether . Pat

[Greg A]

I do have to chime in on a more positive side of the smart meters. Our cabin is in a rural co-op and when we purchased it 6 years ago we had quite a few power outages, some lasting for days.
4 years ago they installed smart meters and we rarely have outages now. When we do have an outage we receive an email, they are normally very short, and then we receive an email that it’s restored.
I wouldn’t go back to the old meters now, as it’s invaluable in monitoring a remote property and the service improvement has been significant.

[gbaglo]

It doesn't have to be remote to see the advantage in quickly monitoring and addressing power outages. BC Hydro has a web site with outage maps ( area, cause, number of customers affected, etc. ).


The sun bombards the earth with rays continuously.

What would somebody do with the information if they knew that you watch TV every afternoon?

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by Greg A

I do have to chime in on a more positive side of the smart meters. Our cabin is in a rural co-op and when we purchased it 6 years ago we had quite a few power outages, some lasting for days.
4 years ago they installed smart meters and we rarely have outages now. When we do have an outage we receive an email, they are normally very short, and then we receive an email that it’s restored.
I wouldn’t go back to the old meters now, as it’s invaluable in monitoring a remote property and the service improvement has been significant.

Greg we live in a city . And believe me they continued to contact us about losing our power because of the fires by phone . . As for outrages they have gone down too. Just maintaining their equipment to not start fires seems to be a problem for them . Pat

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Thanks Adrian, and I believe Exxon is still Esso up there and you still have phone booths....all nostalgic .....

Good luck finding a phone booth in Canada. They're around, but only a very few. In the use of most technology, there is little difference between the U.S. and Canada.

[Mike Lewis]

Originally Posted by gbaglo

It doesn't have to be remote to see the advantage in quickly monitoring and addressing power outages. BC Hydro has a web site with outage maps ( area, cause, number of customers affected, etc. ).


The sun bombards the earth with rays continuously.

What would somebody do with the information if they knew that you watch TV every afternoon?

Yes, my electric utility now publishes an outage map on its website. The data must come from the smart meters. When I need to know, of course, I have to read it from my laptop when it's on battery power. Or plug the laptop into my trailer.


The only explicit privacy concern that I can think of with smart meter data is that one can tell when someone is away from home. That's reason enough to make the data private imho, but I think they should do so on general principle anyway.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

Yes, my electric utility now publishes an outage map on its website. The data must come from the smart meters.

Outage maps can be based on both customer reports (by phone or via the website) and staff reports as they work on the problem. The utilities here all have live outage maps, even for areas with remote-reading meters, as well as automated notifications. Even where the information may be fed from customer's meters, these maps don't indicate the status of individual residences, and of course they don't provide any information about how much power those customers are using.

https://service.fortisalberta.com/ (for most of Alberta)
https://www.epcor.com/outages/power-...r-outages.aspx (for Edmonton)
https://outages.enmax.com/portal/ (for Calgary)
Of course these maps are uninteresting at the moment, since - as usual - there are essentially no outages in the entire service area of all of these companies (just one small outage in Calgary "caused by an incident involving members of the public"). There are many issues related to the choice of an electric vehicle, but to me the risk of being unable to drive because the utility power is out is a minor one.

[Mike Lewis]

Queuing up during Thanksgiving:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/...r-thanksgiving

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

Queuing up during Thanksgiving:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/...r-thanksgiving

I do wonder a bit about this, and the overall charge time when on the road. I would imagine in time this will be taken care of though. I can see myself getting an EV even for towing if all the parameters I feel I need are met, but will most definitely wait until that is all in place.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

Queuing up during Thanksgiving:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/...r-thanksgiving

Just growing pains maybe? I did a little bit of sleuthing. In the nascent years of the internal combustion engine – the early 1900’s 3 out of 4 cars were steam-driven. This situation changed of course when gasoline became more readily available. By 1910 mass production of gas-powered cars had eclipsed the steamers. The emergence of the fuel infrastructure isn't the only reason the internal combustion engine eclipsed steam and electric. There are a myriad of economic (production) reasons. The demand for one, gasoline fueled engines, led to the demand for the other - energy supplies.

[Mike Lewis]

What I found interesting in the article is that Tesla has sold over 400,000 cars in the U.S. I had no idea they had sold that many. So the demand is certainly there.

Perhaps in the future I will buy a larger truck for towing and maybe later a used electric car (Leaf?) for daily driving. I'd be more willing to buy a used EV since there are fewer things that could go wrong with it, and it might be easier to check out with some kind of electronic scan.

[Vermilye]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

The utility uses this tech to read your meter with much less time and manual effort and greater accuracy than having a person walk into your yard, read your meter, and scribble something on a bit of paper to be later transcribed into the billing system. No one other than the utility cares about your power consumption, or is trying to read it... and even the utility doesn't care how much power you use or when you use it, as long as you pay for it.

My utility provider (National Grid) does seem to care how much I consume. They send me a snail mail & email notice each month that tells me how much I used, with a graph that compares my usage to all my neighbors as well as my "most efficient" neighbors.

While I have an older home without modern insulation requirements & don't have a high efficiency boiler, since I've switched to all LED lighting, I'm very close to the most efficient neighbors.

[Greg A]

I'd agree with Jon, our Coop at the cabin and our solar lease/utility co on our house in Phoenix have been very proactive with helping guiding our usage and being more efficient.
May the "not caring about your usage" is a utility company that is behind the curve, which still exists out there.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Vermilye

My utility provider (National Grid) does seem to care how much I consume. They send me a snail mail & email notice each month that tells me how much I used, with a graph that compares my usage to all my neighbors as well as my "most efficient" neighbors.

Yes, they know how much you use, they show you that consumption, and they encourage less consumption (energy suppliers and drug and alcohol suppliers being nearly the only businesses expected to discourage consumption of their own product)... but they are not part of some sinister conspiracy to invade your privacy, report you to anyone, or control your consumption, as suggested by some people.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

What I found interesting in the article is that Tesla has sold over 400,000 cars in the U.S. I had no idea they had sold that many. So the demand is certainly there.

The number of electric vehicles produced and sold by Tesla is impressive, but their entire production of all models over the history of the company is still comparable to just one year of any one of the most popular models of pickup trucks or other vehicles, such as the RAV4, Rogue, or CRV.

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

I'd be more willing to buy a used EV since there are fewer things that could go wrong with it, and it might be easier to check out with some kind of electronic scan.

There are tools to do this, reporting battery service history and remaining charge capacity (which degrades with time and use)... but some of that information is in the standard instrument panel displays.