5 ms·

Infrastructure is absolutely the deciding factor for those of us who are not suburban home owners. I live in a building which has 1 EV space for 200-something

Infrastructure is absolutely the deciding factor for those of us who are not suburban home owners. I live in a building which has 1 EV space for 200-something units. I work in an office building which has 2 EV spaces installed, but they're reserved for the Tesla-driving building owners. There are no public charging stations remotely convenient to either location. My next car will absolutely be a Prius/Insight/Ioniq, but a full EV is not a reasonable consideration, and not because of range or habits but 100% because of infrastructure. Despite a majority-freeway commute I still pass 5 or 6 gas stations going to and from work every day. I ought to be passing at least one charging station.

sokoloff 7y ago
I daily drive an electric for the last 4.5 years. I can't see what possible good passing a charging station on my highway commute would do me. If the car isn't going to naturally rest there, that charging station is only useful for emergencies, IMO. (I bought the LEAF with the intent to mostly charge at home. Since then, our company moved and we have chargepoints at work, but I agree with your overall point that no charging at home or work is a deal-breaker. I disagree that that is meaningfully ameliorated if there was an intra-commute charging station.)
- xienze 7y ago
  > I can't see what possible good passing a charging station on my highway commute would do me. Helping people not driving an electric understand that charging stations exist and are in abundance, thereby alleviating concerns that an electric will leave them stranded. I know where at least ten gas stations are in my normal driving radius, and where some are in adjacent towns. I have no clue where the nearest charging station is, even though I'm aware that some exist. To the average person, it appears as though charging stations don't exist at all and gas stations are in abundance. It's a mindshare thing.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I'm not sure that "here's a place where you could park and charge for 2 hours in the middle of your commute home" is a positive influence for adoption.
    - xienze 7y ago
      Well, remember that "range anxiety" is more about "I wouldn't buy an electric because what if I have to make a 200 mile trip?" than "I'm worried it won't make it to my office 15 miles away." The fact that electric charging stations are essentially hidden from view reinforces the notion that an electric car would be a horrible choice because it would be unable to handle anything other than in-city commuting (and remember that not everyone has the luxury of buying a car for tooling around town and one for lengthier trips, hence the desire to have one car that "does it all"). Keeping charging stations hidden from view reinforces the notion that you're SOL for long-range trips. Having them be visible and in abundance, even though they wouldn't need them often, would go a long way towards reassuring people that charging stations aren't these incredibly rare things that you won't be able to find when you really need one.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        If you have an 80 mile electric (as I do), take your second ICE car or rent an ICE car. No one is going to add 2 3-hour charging sessions (at 24 miles of charge per hour) into a 200 mile road trip and be happy about it.
    - Klathmon 7y ago
      well to be fair, with a Tesla Model 3 it's not "park and charge for 2 hours", it's "park and charge for <20 minutes" in most cases. (assuming it's at a tesla supercharger) I feel like throwing out exact numbers is disingenuous at best since a lot of things vary charge rate (state of charge, temperature, type of charger, etc...), but 20 minutes will almost always get you to the next charger or a destination in the Model 3. And while I agree it's not quite "charge on your way home from work", it is something that at least Tesla is working on. Their "Supercharger v3" stalls cuts the stop times roughly in half in the ideal situations. And IMO "stop for 10 minutes on the way home" is absolutely acceptable.
fragmede 7y ago
How sure are you that you aren't? Compared to gas stations, which require a large underground tank to hold gasoline (and diesel), a small electric charging station may require little additional infrastructure and are often rather utilitarian - no awning and no convenience store, just a charger behind a parking spot or two. They are often tucked away behind a restaurant in rest stops next to gas stations, and not always visible from the main road. (Fortunately the Tesla's dashboard knows where they are.)
- xienze 7y ago
  > hey are often tucked away behind a restaurant in rest stops next to gas stations, and not always visible from the main road. Perhaps they need to be, because to the average person it seems as if there is a complete dearth of charging stations.
leetcrew 7y ago
another issue is, even if there are charging stations in convenient locations, what do you do if you get there and all the slots are being used. I rarely, if ever, have to wait to fill up at the gas station, and when I do it takes less than five minutes for the car in front of me to finish filling up. worse case scenario is I wait for the other person to buy a bag of chips inside the station. it takes about an hour to charge a tesla most of the way full at a supercharger. no one is gonna wait that long with their car. who knows when they'll be back?
- Klathmon 7y ago
  >it takes about an hour to charge a tesla most of the way full at a supercharger. while you aren't wrong (it's actually much longer than an hour from low-charge to 100%!), there is a caveat that charging in the 20-80% range is significantly faster, so stopping at a supercharger for more than 30 minutes is almost always slower than only charging the range which can charge most quickly and move on to the next one or your destination. And because of that Tesla has begun limiting max charge at busy supercharger locations to help prevent the issue of no stalls being available in the first place. The superchargers are also networked and you can see how many stalls are open at any time, which really helps relieve any anxiety i had about it. Many other charging networks (like Chargepoint) are networked as well, and can show you how many are available, and even peak usage times.

sokoloff 7y ago

I daily drive an electric for the last 4.5 years. I can't see what possible good passing a charging station on my highway commute would do me. If the car isn't going to naturally rest there, that charging station is only useful for emergencies, IMO. (I bought the LEAF with the intent to mostly charge at home. Since then, our company moved and we have chargepoints at work, but I agree with your overall point that no charging at home or work is a deal-breaker. I disagree that that is meaningfully ameliorated if there was an intra-commute charging station.)

xienze 7y ago
> I can't see what possible good passing a charging station on my highway commute would do me. Helping people not driving an electric understand that charging stations exist and are in abundance, thereby alleviating concerns that an electric will leave them stranded. I know where at least ten gas stations are in my normal driving radius, and where some are in adjacent towns. I have no clue where the nearest charging station is, even though I'm aware that some exist. To the average person, it appears as though charging stations don't exist at all and gas stations are in abundance. It's a mindshare thing.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I'm not sure that "here's a place where you could park and charge for 2 hours in the middle of your commute home" is a positive influence for adoption.
  - xienze 7y ago
    Well, remember that "range anxiety" is more about "I wouldn't buy an electric because what if I have to make a 200 mile trip?" than "I'm worried it won't make it to my office 15 miles away." The fact that electric charging stations are essentially hidden from view reinforces the notion that an electric car would be a horrible choice because it would be unable to handle anything other than in-city commuting (and remember that not everyone has the luxury of buying a car for tooling around town and one for lengthier trips, hence the desire to have one car that "does it all"). Keeping charging stations hidden from view reinforces the notion that you're SOL for long-range trips. Having them be visible and in abundance, even though they wouldn't need them often, would go a long way towards reassuring people that charging stations aren't these incredibly rare things that you won't be able to find when you really need one.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      If you have an 80 mile electric (as I do), take your second ICE car or rent an ICE car. No one is going to add 2 3-hour charging sessions (at 24 miles of charge per hour) into a 200 mile road trip and be happy about it.
  - Klathmon 7y ago
    well to be fair, with a Tesla Model 3 it's not "park and charge for 2 hours", it's "park and charge for <20 minutes" in most cases. (assuming it's at a tesla supercharger) I feel like throwing out exact numbers is disingenuous at best since a lot of things vary charge rate (state of charge, temperature, type of charger, etc...), but 20 minutes will almost always get you to the next charger or a destination in the Model 3. And while I agree it's not quite "charge on your way home from work", it is something that at least Tesla is working on. Their "Supercharger v3" stalls cuts the stop times roughly in half in the ideal situations. And IMO "stop for 10 minutes on the way home" is absolutely acceptable.

fragmede 7y ago

How sure are you that you aren't? Compared to gas stations, which require a large underground tank to hold gasoline (and diesel), a small electric charging station may require little additional infrastructure and are often rather utilitarian - no awning and no convenience store, just a charger behind a parking spot or two. They are often tucked away behind a restaurant in rest stops next to gas stations, and not always visible from the main road. (Fortunately the Tesla's dashboard knows where they are.)

xienze 7y ago
> hey are often tucked away behind a restaurant in rest stops next to gas stations, and not always visible from the main road. Perhaps they need to be, because to the average person it seems as if there is a complete dearth of charging stations.

leetcrew 7y ago

another issue is, even if there are charging stations in convenient locations, what do you do if you get there and all the slots are being used. I rarely, if ever, have to wait to fill up at the gas station, and when I do it takes less than five minutes for the car in front of me to finish filling up. worse case scenario is I wait for the other person to buy a bag of chips inside the station. it takes about an hour to charge a tesla most of the way full at a supercharger. no one is gonna wait that long with their car. who knows when they'll be back?

Klathmon 7y ago
>it takes about an hour to charge a tesla most of the way full at a supercharger. while you aren't wrong (it's actually much longer than an hour from low-charge to 100%!), there is a caveat that charging in the 20-80% range is significantly faster, so stopping at a supercharger for more than 30 minutes is almost always slower than only charging the range which can charge most quickly and move on to the next one or your destination. And because of that Tesla has begun limiting max charge at busy supercharger locations to help prevent the issue of no stalls being available in the first place. The superchargers are also networked and you can see how many stalls are open at any time, which really helps relieve any anxiety i had about it. Many other charging networks (like Chargepoint) are networked as well, and can show you how many are available, and even peak usage times.