4 ms·

It doesn't have to be equivalent. Just being comparable from a user experience and business case perspective would be enough. Getting it down to five minutes t

It doesn't have to be equivalent. Just being comparable from a user experience and business case perspective would be enough. Getting it down to five minutes to fill to 80% may be sufficient. Right now it's 15-20 minutes.

bonzini 4y ago
The problem is not just the time to charge a single car but the capacity in cars/hour. First, if a car takes five times longer to charge, you need a lot more space to cover the needs for peak days. This may not be a problem on highways (or in the US) but space in Europe is much more limited. Second, a smallish 6-pump filling station serves 150-200 cars per hour. An equivalent charging station would need 12-15 MW which means working at 40 kV. Dealing with peak days is easy for filling stations, you just request gasoline trucks more frequently. For charging stations you need to build infrastructure that might hardly exist in more rural places, it's the same as sneakernet vs broadband.
- chroma 4y ago
  It's hard to calculate how many charging stations will be needed. Most EV owners plug their cars in at home and wake up every day with a full charge. They only use charging stations for road trips. Also charging stations can be installed in far more places than gas stations. There are no hazardous fumes or massive fire risks. They don't require nearly as much maintenance or staff. For these reasons it's common to see charging stations in parking garages, in front of hotels, or even next to the beach[1]. 1. https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk
  - majewsky 4y ago
    In fact, I've already seen some employers list charging-at-work as a perk on their job offers.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    The problem is the peak demand on the road trips, such as everybody doing hundreds of km on the same days to go on vacation. Using the car for your summer holidays is quite more common in Europe than in the US for example.

bonzini 4y ago

The problem is not just the time to charge a single car but the capacity in cars/hour. First, if a car takes five times longer to charge, you need a lot more space to cover the needs for peak days. This may not be a problem on highways (or in the US) but space in Europe is much more limited. Second, a smallish 6-pump filling station serves 150-200 cars per hour. An equivalent charging station would need 12-15 MW which means working at 40 kV. Dealing with peak days is easy for filling stations, you just request gasoline trucks more frequently. For charging stations you need to build infrastructure that might hardly exist in more rural places, it's the same as sneakernet vs broadband.

chroma 4y ago
It's hard to calculate how many charging stations will be needed. Most EV owners plug their cars in at home and wake up every day with a full charge. They only use charging stations for road trips. Also charging stations can be installed in far more places than gas stations. There are no hazardous fumes or massive fire risks. They don't require nearly as much maintenance or staff. For these reasons it's common to see charging stations in parking garages, in front of hotels, or even next to the beach[1]. 1. https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk
- majewsky 4y ago
  In fact, I've already seen some employers list charging-at-work as a perk on their job offers.
- bonzini 4y ago
  The problem is the peak demand on the road trips, such as everybody doing hundreds of km on the same days to go on vacation. Using the car for your summer holidays is quite more common in Europe than in the US for example.