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>This only works if EVs can be charged easily, everywhere. They can be. Electricity is omnipresent. It is available literally anywhere in the industrialized wo

>This only works if EVs can be charged easily, everywhere. They can be. Electricity is omnipresent. It is available literally anywhere in the industrialized world. Compare this to gasoline, which must be shipped across the country/world, refined, and stored in highly specialized containers which take years of permitting and construction to build. All of that can be replaced with 220v electrical outlets. It's not a technical or financial challenge, but a cultural one. People have to get over the idea of going to a central point where they "fill up" their EV like a gas station. You will simply charge everywhere you go. Work, school, malls, etc. It will become expected in short order that all parking spaces include some type of charging, and once you get used to it it's not a big deal at all.

dragontamer 9y ago
> It is available literally anywhere in the industrialized world. A Tesla Supercharger is 120kW of power. A typical US house uses 74.75kW-hrs per day (if averaged over 16-hours, that's 5kW per hour). Even if you dropped down to a typical "L2" charging station of 7.2kW(roughly 10-miles of charge every hour), each charging car is virtually the same electricity usage as an entire residential house. 10kW of Solar Panels is easily "googlable" if you want to estimate the costs of this kind of infrastructure. Buy a 10kW panel for each car you want to charge in your parking lot, and you can see how expensive this can get. With current levels of infrastructure, it is probably infeasible to charge more than 10 cars in most parking garages today. You'd have to build transformers of significantly higher power to supply the electricity required at schools, work, malls, etc. etc. And then there is the question of "who pays for all this infrastructure", as well as "who pays for the electricity". Finally, with "smart grids", we still need to decide upon policies when the grid is overpowered as well as underpowered. Some smart-grid systems will run air-conditioning at half-power during underpowered grid status for example, should car charging in parking lots also run at half or less charging speed in the case of poor grid functionality??? Its a non-trivial problem. 3 or 4 L1 chargers in a parking lot (which barely gives 3-miles of charge per hour) is practically useless to the typical consumer. Electric car owners will rely upon a 240V L2 unit in their garage if they want to be practical about all of this. As well as a car that has a big enough battery to take yourself to work (the mall, the school) and back on a single charge. In summary: there are cultural, infrastructure, AND policy questions that need to be answered should electric chargers be widely deployed in a typical parking lot.

dragontamer 9y ago

> It is available literally anywhere in the industrialized world. A Tesla Supercharger is 120kW of power. A typical US house uses 74.75kW-hrs per day (if averaged over 16-hours, that's 5kW per hour). Even if you dropped down to a typical "L2" charging station of 7.2kW(roughly 10-miles of charge every hour), each charging car is virtually the same electricity usage as an entire residential house. 10kW of Solar Panels is easily "googlable" if you want to estimate the costs of this kind of infrastructure. Buy a 10kW panel for each car you want to charge in your parking lot, and you can see how expensive this can get. With current levels of infrastructure, it is probably infeasible to charge more than 10 cars in most parking garages today. You'd have to build transformers of significantly higher power to supply the electricity required at schools, work, malls, etc. etc. And then there is the question of "who pays for all this infrastructure", as well as "who pays for the electricity". Finally, with "smart grids", we still need to decide upon policies when the grid is overpowered as well as underpowered. Some smart-grid systems will run air-conditioning at half-power during underpowered grid status for example, should car charging in parking lots also run at half or less charging speed in the case of poor grid functionality??? Its a non-trivial problem. 3 or 4 L1 chargers in a parking lot (which barely gives 3-miles of charge per hour) is practically useless to the typical consumer. Electric car owners will rely upon a 240V L2 unit in their garage if they want to be practical about all of this. As well as a car that has a big enough battery to take yourself to work (the mall, the school) and back on a single charge. In summary: there are cultural, infrastructure, AND policy questions that need to be answered should electric chargers be widely deployed in a typical parking lot.