5 ms·

I was in Europe recently. I have no idea where people are planning on charging these things. Massive new infrastructure will be required. EG, automakers exte

I was in Europe recently. I have no idea where people are planning on charging these things. Massive new infrastructure will be required. EG, automakers externalizing their costs onto society again. For what it would cost to roll out and maintain this infrastructure, you might as well just have free transit everywhere, and just keep a state-maintained fleet of rental cars. Would be much cheaper and more efficient.

wastedhours 7y ago
Yep - I for one wouldn't mind getting an EV, especially to drive around London. But I live in an apartment building, with underground parking, with no outlets. At least Tesla have their chargers, I saw an entire section dedicated to them at a motorway service station, that serve double purpose as chargers and brightly coloured adverts...
- wkearney99 7y ago
  You have parking. Installing outlets, while not 'free', is not impossible. Certainly more realistic than on-street parking situations.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    Actually, I've seen plenty of people with cords running across the pavement to their cars from the house. Obviously run the risk of being sued for a trip hazard or someone unplugging it, but it's a bit of a stop gap.
- simion314 7y ago
  Your comment makes no sense, you can't charge at home Tesla or any other vehicle, so what is your plan buy a Tesla and go to the mall and charge it? What if you don't have energy to start the car? AFAIK the only reasonable option for people that can't charge at home is to charge the car at work, going to a mall and hoping you will find a free port is not something reasonable IMO.
  - cheerlessbog 7y ago
    I think your are right. In the US, there are more driveways, a cable under the garage door is the most common solution. In Europe, at least the parts I know, on street parking is most common and the solution has to be building out chargers at work. A lot of them (I don't want to leave a meeting to move the car)
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    I don't have a plan to buy any, but my point was that at least Tesla is helping to build out the infrastructure to help support them, whereas very few other EV manufacturers are helping with the problem at all.
    - simion314 7y ago
      Is that actually true in Europe? Also IMO it would be stupid to have BMW petrol stations, Renault petrol stations etc, the local authorities may need to give some incentives for the businesses to add generic charging stations, this could be like part of the petrol tax will go into subsidizing the chargers or putting public charging stations.
      - wastedhours 7y ago
        > Also IMO it would be stupid to have BMW petrol stations, Renault petrol stations etc Wholeheartedly agree - but EV use is growing faster that local authorities can build out supply in some areas and flawed capacity planning means there are chargers going unused in others. There's fewer independent suppliers as there are with petrol stations so the market incentive for other companies to pick up the middle ground isn't clear yet (esp compared with at home/work usage).
        simion314 7y ago
        Private companies could fix this if the correct subsidies are provided,here in Romania for example when you install a solar panel to heat water or solar photo-voltaic panel , the government will pay 90% of the costs, there are limits for total cost and the budget is limited(the funds come from the polution tax from petrol I think) , my brother used this to install the water solar panel and he put the paperwork to install the photo-voltaic one. So a fair solution would be to get a percent from the petrol taxes and help people that want to install a charger. You can probably do similar programs for apartment associations to install chargers for the entire building parking space/street.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  It's detrimental to the life of the battery to use fast chargers all the time. Your underground parking already has an electricity supply, at least for the lighting. It's not impossible for the owner of the building to install additional circuits for charging cars.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    I'm not saying it's impossible, just that infrastructure is needed. I don't see other examples of EV companies helping with infrastructure - even if fast charging isn't ideal, it's there.
LeonM 7y ago
Europe is a bit of a big place, and made up of a lot of countries with their own governments, so the charging situation varies from country to country. I live in the Netherlands and the FastNed charging network is almost been fully rolled out, as well as charging stations from other vendors (like Shell, NLE, and Tesla). Charging options are plentiful here, and most of them are fast (175kW) chargers.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Describe plentiful. Seemingly, you need an almost 1-1 ratio of chargers to personal vehicles if you expect 100% of vehicle owners to be driving electric. So, while it's currently a minuscule portion of electric to ICE, it doesn't say much about rolling out capacity to charge everyone's vehicle. So, you either need to roll out chargers to every residential area that currently utilizes street parking, or you need to erect some kind of charging garage.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    1-1 ratio is crazy. there isn't a gas station for each gas car. Charging has gotten vastly more common and faster. range has increased too, which reduces the need for charging. New teslas are 370 miles.
    - linuxftw 7y ago
      I'm willing to be there's more chargers than teslas on the road. For every Tesla on the road, there's most likely a charger at the residence or where ever the car is parked overnight.
      - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
        Well, I believe your claim is misleading but you do have a point. Since every electric car comes with some kind of charger by definition all home owners have a charger and the vast majority of single home owners have power in the garage. However common usage in the ev scene would be charger is a commercial station with higher power than 120v.
radicalbyte 7y ago
It's coming. There in The Netherlands they're putting in residential charging in an on-demand rate. This kind of build out can go really quickly because the hardest part (the cables) are already there. We've got about 10 years now to build out the infrastructure which is plenty of time. Great for the economy too.
clouddrover 7y ago
Europe has standardized on the CCS type 2 plug for EVs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System). Some European charging networks are: - Ionity: https://ionity.eu/ https://ionity.eu/ - Fastned: https://fastned.nl/en/ https://fastned.nl/en/ (their blog is also interesting: https://fastned.nl/en/blog https://fastned.nl/en/blog) - ultra E: https://www.ultra-e.eu/ https://www.ultra-e.eu/ - Ovo Energy is putting charging points in streetlamps in London: https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/urban-charging https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/urban-charging Porsche is putting in chargers for customers at its dealerships, etc.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  That's better progress than the US https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/electric-car-major-headache-waiting-hours-for-charging-bay-then-hrs-to-charge-NidkyH-xY0alvIoaQibQJw/ https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/electric-car-major-...
icebraining 7y ago
It's not an externality, because it affects the parties involved in the transaction (the car owners), not unrelated third-parties. And since there's no free lunch - every penny spent on infrastructure by car manufacturers will come from their customers -, you might as well unbundle the two, and let other companies compete for that.

wastedhours 7y ago

Yep - I for one wouldn't mind getting an EV, especially to drive around London. But I live in an apartment building, with underground parking, with no outlets. At least Tesla have their chargers, I saw an entire section dedicated to them at a motorway service station, that serve double purpose as chargers and brightly coloured adverts...

wkearney99 7y ago
You have parking. Installing outlets, while not 'free', is not impossible. Certainly more realistic than on-street parking situations.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  Actually, I've seen plenty of people with cords running across the pavement to their cars from the house. Obviously run the risk of being sued for a trip hazard or someone unplugging it, but it's a bit of a stop gap.
simion314 7y ago
Your comment makes no sense, you can't charge at home Tesla or any other vehicle, so what is your plan buy a Tesla and go to the mall and charge it? What if you don't have energy to start the car? AFAIK the only reasonable option for people that can't charge at home is to charge the car at work, going to a mall and hoping you will find a free port is not something reasonable IMO.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  I think your are right. In the US, there are more driveways, a cable under the garage door is the most common solution. In Europe, at least the parts I know, on street parking is most common and the solution has to be building out chargers at work. A lot of them (I don't want to leave a meeting to move the car)
- wastedhours 7y ago
  I don't have a plan to buy any, but my point was that at least Tesla is helping to build out the infrastructure to help support them, whereas very few other EV manufacturers are helping with the problem at all.
  - simion314 7y ago
    Is that actually true in Europe? Also IMO it would be stupid to have BMW petrol stations, Renault petrol stations etc, the local authorities may need to give some incentives for the businesses to add generic charging stations, this could be like part of the petrol tax will go into subsidizing the chargers or putting public charging stations.
    - wastedhours 7y ago
      > Also IMO it would be stupid to have BMW petrol stations, Renault petrol stations etc Wholeheartedly agree - but EV use is growing faster that local authorities can build out supply in some areas and flawed capacity planning means there are chargers going unused in others. There's fewer independent suppliers as there are with petrol stations so the market incentive for other companies to pick up the middle ground isn't clear yet (esp compared with at home/work usage).
      - simion314 7y ago
        Private companies could fix this if the correct subsidies are provided,here in Romania for example when you install a solar panel to heat water or solar photo-voltaic panel , the government will pay 90% of the costs, there are limits for total cost and the budget is limited(the funds come from the polution tax from petrol I think) , my brother used this to install the water solar panel and he put the paperwork to install the photo-voltaic one. So a fair solution would be to get a percent from the petrol taxes and help people that want to install a charger. You can probably do similar programs for apartment associations to install chargers for the entire building parking space/street.
Symbiote 7y ago
It's detrimental to the life of the battery to use fast chargers all the time. Your underground parking already has an electricity supply, at least for the lighting. It's not impossible for the owner of the building to install additional circuits for charging cars.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  I'm not saying it's impossible, just that infrastructure is needed. I don't see other examples of EV companies helping with infrastructure - even if fast charging isn't ideal, it's there.

LeonM 7y ago

Europe is a bit of a big place, and made up of a lot of countries with their own governments, so the charging situation varies from country to country. I live in the Netherlands and the FastNed charging network is almost been fully rolled out, as well as charging stations from other vendors (like Shell, NLE, and Tesla). Charging options are plentiful here, and most of them are fast (175kW) chargers.

linuxftw 7y ago
Describe plentiful. Seemingly, you need an almost 1-1 ratio of chargers to personal vehicles if you expect 100% of vehicle owners to be driving electric. So, while it's currently a minuscule portion of electric to ICE, it doesn't say much about rolling out capacity to charge everyone's vehicle. So, you either need to roll out chargers to every residential area that currently utilizes street parking, or you need to erect some kind of charging garage.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  1-1 ratio is crazy. there isn't a gas station for each gas car. Charging has gotten vastly more common and faster. range has increased too, which reduces the need for charging. New teslas are 370 miles.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    I'm willing to be there's more chargers than teslas on the road. For every Tesla on the road, there's most likely a charger at the residence or where ever the car is parked overnight.
    - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
      Well, I believe your claim is misleading but you do have a point. Since every electric car comes with some kind of charger by definition all home owners have a charger and the vast majority of single home owners have power in the garage. However common usage in the ev scene would be charger is a commercial station with higher power than 120v.

radicalbyte 7y ago

It's coming. There in The Netherlands they're putting in residential charging in an on-demand rate. This kind of build out can go really quickly because the hardest part (the cables) are already there. We've got about 10 years now to build out the infrastructure which is plenty of time. Great for the economy too.

clouddrover 7y ago

Europe has standardized on the CCS type 2 plug for EVs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System). Some European charging networks are: - Ionity: https://ionity.eu/ https://ionity.eu/ - Fastned: https://fastned.nl/en/ https://fastned.nl/en/ (their blog is also interesting: https://fastned.nl/en/blog https://fastned.nl/en/blog) - ultra E: https://www.ultra-e.eu/ https://www.ultra-e.eu/ - Ovo Energy is putting charging points in streetlamps in London: https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/urban-charging https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/urban-charging Porsche is putting in chargers for customers at its dealerships, etc.

olivermarks 7y ago
That's better progress than the US https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/electric-car-major-headache-waiting-hours-for-charging-bay-then-hrs-to-charge-NidkyH-xY0alvIoaQibQJw/ https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/electric-car-major-...

icebraining 7y ago

It's not an externality, because it affects the parties involved in the transaction (the car owners), not unrelated third-parties. And since there's no free lunch - every penny spent on infrastructure by car manufacturers will come from their customers -, you might as well unbundle the two, and let other companies compete for that.