7 ms·

Charging stations are already far more ubiquitous than gas stations. Every garage with an outlet is a charging station. A solution is still needed for people w

Charging stations are already far more ubiquitous than gas stations. Every garage with an outlet is a charging station. A solution is still needed for people who park on the street. Chargers on the street is the obvious way to handle that.

termie 7y ago
Someone has to make a business case to get the chargers on the street. There are questions like who owns the sidewalk, how to route sufficient power there, capital outlay for digging up the street and getting the charger there. All those costs and up and the revenue for a given charger is capped. People might pay a premium over the the cost of electricity, but how much? And they have to compete with free charging in many cases.
bt848 7y ago
It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. The “obvious way to handle this” is to build cities without cars at all, where people walk and bike and take the buses and trains.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd pick my own car over any form of public transportation any day. The privacy, convenience, utility is incomparable. You can build a city with all the buses and trains and cycles but I'll still drive my own car. I don't care about congestion. I don't care about cost.
- SECProto 7y ago
  > It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. This is very misleading. It takes several minutes to fill a gas tank (depending on tank size, pump speed, and how many times the damn thing gets gaslocked). Charging a modern BEV does not take several hundred minutes. Fast charging exists and functions similarly for BEVs as it does for cell phones - fast charge for the middle bulk of the cycle, charge rate slows to a trickle above 80%. Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end.
  - bt848 7y ago
    There are 2 DC fast chargers in the city of Berkeley, California. That's at best a total of about 400 miles per hour of charging, for a city of 120k people. EV boosters radically overestimate the widespread-ness of charging infrastructure. At a much more common 6.6kW charge station you're getting 25 miles per hour of charge. I can put about 350 miles of gas in my car in one minute.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      Ok, so your own numbers (350 vs. 25) come out as 14x slower, not 100x slower.
      - bt848 7y ago
        No, that's 25 per HOUR vs 350 per MINUTE.
    - SECProto 7y ago
      If the lack of chargers was causing issues, it becomes a business opportunity. Electricity is everywhere already. It's really not an issue.
  - carlmr 7y ago
    >Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end. It's a bit unrealistic to expect people to park again after the charging is done.
    - SECProto 7y ago
      Not really unrealistic? I have lived in an apartment. On weekdays off, I've had dealt with moving my car every few hours due to street parking time limitations. Having to move my car 30 minutes after plugging in to charge doesnt seem like a big ask.
      - 7y ago
- mikeash 7y ago
  They already are way more popular. There are 168,000 gas stations in the US. How many electrical outlets are there?

termie 7y ago

Someone has to make a business case to get the chargers on the street. There are questions like who owns the sidewalk, how to route sufficient power there, capital outlay for digging up the street and getting the charger there. All those costs and up and the revenue for a given charger is capped. People might pay a premium over the the cost of electricity, but how much? And they have to compete with free charging in many cases.

bt848 7y ago

It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. The “obvious way to handle this” is to build cities without cars at all, where people walk and bike and take the buses and trains.

dingo_bat 7y ago
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd pick my own car over any form of public transportation any day. The privacy, convenience, utility is incomparable. You can build a city with all the buses and trains and cycles but I'll still drive my own car. I don't care about congestion. I don't care about cost.
SECProto 7y ago
> It take roughly 100 times longer to charge a car than to refill from a fuel pump so chargers need to be WAY more popular than gas stations. This is very misleading. It takes several minutes to fill a gas tank (depending on tank size, pump speed, and how many times the damn thing gets gaslocked). Charging a modern BEV does not take several hundred minutes. Fast charging exists and functions similarly for BEVs as it does for cell phones - fast charge for the middle bulk of the cycle, charge rate slows to a trickle above 80%. Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end.
- bt848 7y ago
  There are 2 DC fast chargers in the city of Berkeley, California. That's at best a total of about 400 miles per hour of charging, for a city of 120k people. EV boosters radically overestimate the widespread-ness of charging infrastructure. At a much more common 6.6kW charge station you're getting 25 miles per hour of charge. I can put about 350 miles of gas in my car in one minute.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    Ok, so your own numbers (350 vs. 25) come out as 14x slower, not 100x slower.
    - bt848 7y ago
      No, that's 25 per HOUR vs 350 per MINUTE.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    If the lack of chargers was causing issues, it becomes a business opportunity. Electricity is everywhere already. It's really not an issue.
- carlmr 7y ago
  >Chargers generally cost per minute, so you're incentivised to stay plugged in for the bulk fast-charge portion of your charge, not the trickle at the end. It's a bit unrealistic to expect people to park again after the charging is done.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    Not really unrealistic? I have lived in an apartment. On weekdays off, I've had dealt with moving my car every few hours due to street parking time limitations. Having to move my car 30 minutes after plugging in to charge doesnt seem like a big ask.
    - 7y ago
mikeash 7y ago
They already are way more popular. There are 168,000 gas stations in the US. How many electrical outlets are there?