Saturday: piano lesson, photocopies, post office, square

Piano lesson went well. I asked the instructor if he had poke at Duolingo Music before and he didn’t even know about Duolingo, which is completely fine.

We are doing “photocopies” (scanner plus printer) for our trip to the post office for the appointment for getting a new passport.

Last night, someone signed up with Square using my gmail account. As I caught up on email, I saw the, you’re signed up email (not round trip to make sure they entered the email correctly, which obviously they hadn’t AND no way for me to tell them, uh, no I didn’t). In subsequent emails, they were informed a 1c charge to their bank account would happen, then that it was successful and then that their bank account was suspended and then that their square account was suspended and then the first marketing emails from Square started.

Note to Square: Fucking Do Better. JFC.

I unsubscribed but made no effort to take over the account. I hate trying to take over accounts connected to financial information. Hopefully, they’ll get it all figured out. Otherwise, I’m going to have another lost hour trying to find someone at Square who will listen to a non-customer to get the email removed.

I also got an email from a State Farm agent in Ohio with auto insurance update (not the details, just that there was updated info so call). Seemed like it was typed by a real person, so I was really nice telling him, uh, wrong email.

Modern Life, I guess.

Today in exploring the EV / home charging space: Kia’s EV9

Kia has a new SUV out, the EV9 which supposedly paired with the Quasar 2 Wallbox and some extensive wiring will do V2H. They’re gonna make it in Georgia.

And there will be a Superbowl ad. Hmmm.

ETA:

GM’s Ultium line is shipping compatible units, even tho the rest of the system is not yet available.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1141819_2024-chevy-blazer-ev-v2h-home-power-backup-gm-energy

Summary article, including summarizing the various partnerships between car companies, utilities, installers and charging equipment makers.

https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2024/01/bidirectional-ev-chargers-to-finally-materialize-in-2024/

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2023/09/14/ford-bmw-and-honda-team-to-build-new-charging-system/

This one is really interesting. The utilities are trying to figure out how to cope with everyone charging their cars at once.

“While studying what would be needed from utilities to support the electrification of MHDVs, one power line called a “study feeder” was analyzed to estimate the EV and system impacts as larger percentages of vehicles charged. It found that when 10 percent of current MHDVs electrify, peak electric demand on the case study feeder would nearly double and when one-third charged, the line would exceed its rating.”

MHDV are “medium heavy duty vehicles” like trucks and buses.

Local solar generation-to-vehicle can’t fix all of this but maybe it could help out.

This article also contains some detail on the timeline to NACS for Honda and Ford.

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0417218EN_US/more-power-to-you:-bmw-of-north-america-and-pg-e-start-v2x-testing-in-california

Press release with more details on ChargeForward, a partnership in California between BMW and a utility. The focus here is on scheduling — charging the vehicle from the grid when the grid-mix is predominantly renewable energy, and then using the battery to power the household during the time when it is not / reduce demand on the grid to improve grid reliability. Basically: charge during the early part of the day, and then run the household off the car battery from 4-8 pm, maybe? That’s speculative.