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> Europe and the UK have put down standards and basically forced some level of interoperation between charging network systems, which reduced friction for EV ow
by yarcob 5y ago
> Europe and the UK have put down standards and basically forced some level of interoperation between charging network systems, which reduced friction for EV owners.
They standardized the connector, but the problem (at least in my area in Austria when I looked into it 2 years ago) was that there are so many competing charging networks with different contracts and pricing models that it was basically unusable.
Near my house there were 3 chargers from different companies, each with space for two or three cars. If I wanted to use either of them, I would have to sign up with three networks, pay monthly fees for two of them, and have vastly different prices on each of the chargers.
The fast charging prices were also so high that I'm not sure it's any cheaper than a gasoline car.
I don't know if it's gotten any better since then, but as far as I could tell EVs only make sense if you can charge the car either at your home or at your workplace.
- paranoidrobot 5y agoI was under the impression that all, or at least most, EV charging networks in the UK and EU allowed a PAYG model, where you tap your credit/debit card against the machine. > The fast charging prices were also so high that I'm not sure it's any cheaper than a gasoline car. While it being cheaper than gasoline is a nice perk, I think it's more important to get a wider deployment of fast charging infrastructure (and that is dead easy to use). Without massive deployments of charging infrastructure, it won't matter what it costs - people will not buy EVs if they've got no way to rapidly recharge. Governments should also be incentivising deployment of on-street charging infrastructure for areas where off-street parking is difficult or uncommon.