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By 2028 there must be fast chargers every 60 km on the EU’s key motorways
- stevenhubertron 3y agoSeems reasonable.
- sigio 3y agoI think NL, SE, NO, and DE are already there, or mostly.... We just need more destination-chargers / on-street / at-parking-locations slow (7 - 11 kw) chargers
- closewith 3y agoIreland, too, thanks to a small motorway network. Really something radical like mandating every public parking space has a charger is necessary.
- yurishimo 3y agoI don't think anyone needs to go that far, especially when most EV owners charge at home. Can you imagine parking downtown and every spot has a cable running to a car? Seems like a tripping hazard waiting to happen.
- smileysteve 3y agoThe economies of this will be interesting; Gas stations make small margin on gas, but high margin on convenience stores; Electric Cars upset this, because 80% of trips can be slow charged at home; But the one difference is those 20% of trips requiring charging will have longer stops (potentially optimizing for higher, restaurant margins). *Yes, there are situations where home charging in cities is less likely possible.
- bagels 3y agoMost restaurants have much lower margins than convenience stores I would guess.
- cyral 3y agoThey are probably thinking gas-station's with more than just snacks, e.g. wawa, sheetz
- OJFord 3y agoI'd guess so too, bigger ticket though, could believe they'd profit more from a meal while EV charges vs average convenience sale while nipping in to pay for fuel (that's only if you don't pay at pump anyway), which I think is GP's point.
- tech_ken 3y agoAnd their biggest margin item is alcohol, which is kind of a non-starter for a roadside restaurant.
- hiatus 3y agoEr, what? Don't they sell beer and wine at the roadside in Europe? At gas stations and rest areas even?
- tech_ken 3y agoDo they? As in for immediate consumption on the premises? Or packaged to-go? The latter seems reasonable, but the former seems like a somewhat dangerous idea. Maybe I'm just too US-centric
- pjc50 3y agoUsually to-go, yes. It seems in the UK that it's possible but discouraged to sell for on-premises: https://motorwayservices.uk/Alcohol https://motorwayservices.uk/Alcohol
- rapsey 3y agoIf only it weren't ~4x as expensive to charge outside my home. I guess that will get fixed eventually by raising my home electricity price.
- recursive 3y agoAlready fixed for me. Peak rate in the summer is about 55 cents in the summer at my home. Electrify America is in the 40s.
- guerrilla 3y ago> by raising my home electricity price. Already done in Europe. Thanks Russia and Germany.
- zer8k 3y agoOr peppering every outdoor surface with solar panels. What a techno-noir nightmare that will be. Otherwise, electricity generation via natural gas/coal would mean you may as well just stick with ICE.
- JohnFen 3y ago> electricity generation via natural gas/coal would mean you may as well just stick with ICE. I'm not sure about this. As I understand it, burning fossil fuels to generate electricity at a central facility is far more efficient than running millions of small engines.
- eloq 3y ago[flagged]
- closewith 3y agoRange anxiety is still there, as there's no telling how long you'll be waiting for a charger to become available.
- svorakang 3y agoThis akin to parking anxiety, where you never know how long it will take to find a parking in the city. Still, we have cars in the city. I've had an ev for over five years now and I have so far waited on a charger once, for twenty minutes. And that was at peak hours of the spring break mountain rush (when every swede packs their cars and heads from the populated south to the mountaneous north-west). On the other hand, I have spent accumulated hours on driving from broken charger to charger that is only for customers to one that I'm not sure if it's in operation yet. Also hours on just installing different charging apps with the usual registration flow (email, password, verify email, register card, etc). More chargers and standardized experience (why not just chip and pin?) would be highly appreciated.
- closewith 3y agoHere in Ireland, in the motorway filling stations where the chargers are located, it is very common for me to not only have to wait, but often for 2-3 car to charge ahead of me. Very limited infrastructure here, though.
- rootusrootus 3y agoI've never encountered range anxiety myself, or the people I know. I'd have to work pretty hard to get enough miles around town to deplete the 90% charge I start every day with. And on road trips the computer just tells me where I'm going to recharge and it always works. I have yet to wait. Granted, I don't live in California.
- Simulacra 3y agoI'm surprised someone hasn't created the Airbnb of EV chargers. For example, you're traveling and you need to find a charger, so you open the app and fine someone with a home charger. They are willing to let you use the charger for a small fee, plus energy use etc. The app arranges the connection, then the person goes and plugs in. If someone is not already working on it, someone will be soon
- electricduck 3y agoThose do exist and there's plenty of them: it's known as "co-charging". There's even one literally called ChargeBnB.
- stephenc_c_ 3y agoIt exists: https://www.plugshare.com/ https://www.plugshare.com/
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoI would expect that at least somewhere, terms of residential electricity provision would forbid one from selling that electricity to a third party.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 3y agoThere's various "airbnb for parking" apps, I imagine some will add "charger?" as an option.
- rootusrootus 3y agoI used to advertise my outdoor plug on Plugshare (it should still be there, AFAIK). The only time it's ever been used is by my neighbors before they got their own EVSE installed, and my in-laws when they visit. No random stranger has ever used it.
- pornel 3y agoIt exists: https://co-charger.com/ https://co-charger.com/ However, this is a different use-case than motorway charging. Home chargers are slow, designed for charging overnight. On a road trip you want to recharge in 20-30 minutes, and that requires much bigger DC chargers you won't find at home.
- nixass 3y agoAlso to note > Not forgetting other sustainable alternatives to ICEs, the European Parliament mandated at least one hydrogen refueling station every 200 km along TEN-T motorways by 2031. Good stuff
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoWhat’s the range on hydrogen fuelled cars?
- hiatus 3y agoThe Mirai has a range of 502km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai
- clouddrover 3y agoThe second generation Mirai's range is 647 km (402 mi) on the EPA test cycle. The Hyundai Nexo gets 570–612 km (354–380 mi) EPA range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Nexo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Nexo
- ljf 3y agoComparable to petrol cars - the figure I've seen is 3-400miles refueled in the same time as a gas car: https://driveclean.ca.gov/hydrogen-fuel-cell#:~:text=Fuel%20cell%20cars%20can%20carry,three%20years%20of%20complimentary%20fuel https://driveclean.ca.gov/hydrogen-fuel-cell#:~:text=Fuel%20... That said - my diesel car easily does 600-700 miles per 60litre tank
- eptcyka 3y agoThe refuel time is dependent on the pressure in the tank. There's an intermediate tank that's used to pressurize the hydrogen before it can be pumped into the car, and pressurizing this vessel can take a lot longer when the main tank is empty. I'd say that the refueling time is only as good as petrol in the best case scenario.
- ryzvonusef 3y agoIt mentions chargers, but from my quick perusal, it doesn't mention how many stalls per charger station. EV charge stations have a slower throughput than petrol stations, and that means you require more stalls to cover the same number of cars. One of Tesla's "killer" feature is not just the number of charge stations, but also the number of stalls per station; there are usually 8 per station, though exceptions are abound. But it increase the likely hood that you will have access to a stall when you reach the station.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago> EV charge stations have a slower throughput than petrol stations, and that means you require more stalls to cover the same number of cars. The thing that they say about EVs is "imagine if your car started with a full tank of gas every morning. How often would you use a filling station then?" You can't simply compare "time to fill at the filling station, times number of stalls, is this number the same or else it's an issue". That math doesn't work. As the majority of trips are short, and the majority of charging is at home overnight, and even when on the road there are other charging options (for e.g. I usually see cars charging near my local shops on one of these https://www.sourcelondon.net/home https://www.sourcelondon.net/home) then the numbers are not directly comparable.
- zamadatix 3y agoThis is about motorways and there I haven't seen a decrease in the amount of filling station stops just because it starts charged. If anything, electric has had an increase in fills required so far due to range limitations and the desire to avoid filling completely (for both charge time and battery wear).
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoWon't many motorway trips still be within EV range without a charge en route? i.e. under e.g. 200 miles. I once had a long car commute for a while, with time spent on the M25 (a ring road around London, a major motorway / traffic jam) and that was still around 110 miles daily round trip. I could have done it daily on an overnight charge. So maybe EVs doing a quick partial change out of "desire to avoid filling completely" which swings the numbers the other way. IDK how big these relative effects are, but this is another way in which the maths is different, the numbers are not directly comparable.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThis essentially means that gas stations will add fast chargers to their parking spaces, as there is already an European directive mandating a gas station every 100Km (I think) in highways and freeways.
- pmontra 3y agoYes, this is probably what's going to happen. After all they'll want to stay in business: as they'll sell less and less gas they'll have to sell more and more electricity. I wonder if they'll buy some thick line or if they'll use gas or diesel generators to charge a big battery, plus solar panels.
- pjc50 3y ago> they'll use gas or diesel generators This obviously can't be allowed to happen .. but I don't think there's any sign of that, as grid electricity remains cheaper than onsite generation. On a trip last month it was very noticeable that several rest stops had under-construction chargers in addition to the one or two that had previously been put in.
- flavius29663 3y agoI would argue it SHOULD be allowed to happen, maybe even encourage it. An EV that needs a gas powered generator for 0-1% of its life is many times better than an ICE that needs a gas powered generator for 100% of its life. If you allow gas powered generators to complement EV stations, you will have more EV charging stations in remote areas or otherwise areas that wouldn't see EV chargers. Every extra EV charger will drive up the adoption.
- pjc50 3y ago> If you allow gas powered generators to complement EV stations, you will have more EV charging stations in remote areas But you don't have to do this! You can just put them on the grid. There are very few places that are truly off grid in Europe, mostly on islands, and absolutely zero on motorways.
- efitz 3y agoIt seems funny to me that legislators all over the world think that they can change the physical world with a written law. While I like the idea of a convenient fast charging network for EVs, there are all these details like funding, electric infrastructure, availability of raw materials, availability of labor, and the ongoing cost of maintenance. Here in the US charging stations are broken all the time. Even Tesla supercharging stations often have several stalls down. I would bet huge sums of money that there is no possible way Europe has this in place on schedule.
- dleeftink 3y agoEven if it is not on schedule, it is better to have some infrastructure than none. The 2028 schedule adds some urgency to the matter.
- yokoprime 3y agoInfrastructure is the responsibility of the government. This actually works pretty well in Europe.
- veave 3y agoIn HN or Reddit you could write a comment as vague and incorrect as "Europe is perfect" and get a gazillion upvotes. Of course that does nothing for us saps who actually have to live here.
- mucle6 3y agoWhats the top 3 worst things about Europe in your opinion?
- veave 3y agoThese things are always compared to other regions and I have never lived anywhere else so I can't really give a coherent answer. But Europe is pretty big and diverse (in the positive meaning of the word) which means that making a sweeping statement such as "European governments do a pretty well job of handling infrastructure" is absurd. Do the national and regional governments of every region in every country of Europe do a pretty well job of handling infrastructure? The answer is obviously no. Some things are pretty good and some things are pretty bad. Like... everywhere else in the civilised world.
- seydor 3y agohow about overhead lines to charge while moving? lets be creative here
- thepbone 3y agoThat already exists for trucks in several countries, although only as trial operations. https://insideevs.com/news/440388/germany-a5-autobahn-catenary-overhead-lines-trucks/ https://insideevs.com/news/440388/germany-a5-autobahn-catena...
- pjc50 3y agoWe should have another go at "trolleybuses", they seemed like a really effective technology. I guess the maintenance of overhead lines was more expensive than you'd expect.
- sefrost 3y agoThey are prevalent in Vancouver, Canada but our electricity is a lot cheaper than Europe.
- bluGill 3y agoVancouver, Canada has the best transit system in North America. Better than many cities of similar size in Europe.
- bluGill 3y agoIF you are running frequent service, then a trolley bus with all the wire costs is cheaper than batteries or engines. However most bus systems have a lot of less frequent sections and so it isn't worth it. The real disadvantage of a trolleybus is your are stuck going exactly where the wires are. If something is blocking your lane you can't go around. If you want to close the road for maintenance you can't run the trolley bus. This loss of flexibility makes the regular bus make more sense in a lot of cases. If you do have a situation where a trollybus will work, you probably should just put in a train that doesn't run in traffic. A tram running on tracks that are not in a road at all isn't much more expensive, and can handle more people than a bus in the busy part of the day. I'm a big fan of the automated light metro system idea: it runs faster than a tram (because it doesn't have to worry about anything in the tracks), it is cheaper in the long run (operating costs the big cost in any transit system), is can run 24x7 (if designed for it - many are not), and you won't have problems finding crew (many transit systems have the money to expand service, but cannot hire qualified drivers). In the end though there are pros and cons to everything so you need to figure out what is best for you.
- iamEAP 3y agoLove to see it. I wish it addressed reliability, though. In my neck of the woods in Sweden, coverage is pretty decent, but on more than one occasion, I've had to bounce between 7+ fast chargers before finding one that actually worked.
- cedel2k1 3y agoInteresting. Fortunately, this never happened to me anywhere, and I've been to quite a few around the globe :)
- wg0 3y ago[flagged]
- bgirard 3y agoWhy does swapping out a battery pack cost more than the cost of the car? Seems like a simple maintenance step and I doubt battery packs are sold at below cost in new cars. Do you have a good citation for that? If so that's news to me. Edit: Ohh you're comparing the price of swapping out a battery on a luxury car with getting a small and frugal ICE car. That's apple to oranges.
- tekla 3y ago> (guaranteed because of the chemistry and physics of battery - charge/recharge cycles, temperature and even just sitting idle in the garage will erode battery life anyway) Please post the "guarantee" based on chemistry and physics. https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-replacement/ https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-rep... > While it was a major issue, it’s still impressive that the original battery lasted over 300,000 miles or 500,000 km. https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-long-does-a-tesla-battery-last/ https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-long-does-a-tesla-ba... > According to Tesla's 2021 impact report, its batteries are designed to last the life of the vehicle, which the company estimates as roughly 200,000 miles in the U.S. and 150,000 miles in Europe. Tesla's own data show Model S and X batteries retain about 90 percent of their original capacity on average over 200,000 miles of use. > whereas cheapest battery replacement costs are north of 25,000 USD/EURO - sometimes 25% or more of the cost of the a new car. Where are you getting these numbers from? https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-often-do-tesla-batteries-need-to-be-replaced https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-often-do-te... Here are a couple of price examples: Anywhere around $13,000-$20,000 for Models S At least $14,000 for a Model X premium SUV At least $13,000 for a Model 3 entry-level sedan I'm supposing you are just making shit up
- addisonl 3y agoThis doesn’t prove anything when it comes to battery age, this is just high mileage teslas.
- rjsw 3y agoI would like to see lots of slow chargers at hotels. Being able to just plug in when you arrive and leave it overnight is more useful than a few quicker chargers where you need to switch cars between them.
- ComputerGuru 3y agoIn downtown metros of the largest US cities, hotels do not have on-site parking or sufficient on-site parking (or free parking), though they almost always do in the suburbs. As for Europe, I think there was one time where I found a hotel that had parking. Hotels in Central and Latin America will have you use either nearby street parking or a cramped underground lot (nothing like underground car parks in the USA). Hoping for them to offer EV charging in light of the current parking situation is almost laughable.
- rjsw 3y agoThe hotels that I use in Europe have plenty of parking.
- bluGill 3y agoHotels in the suburbs and rural areas will start offering charging though. A lot of people on those areas drive and as drivers switch to EVs they will discover chargers is something their customers look for. Of course it will start with the expensive hotels and move down the price range. People who look for cheap budget hotels drive cheap used cars and so they have not yet reached the early adopter stage of EVs (the early adopters might have a 2011 leaf, but that isn't a road trip car) while people who stay at expensive hotels have already looked at a new EV (they probably haven't bought one yet, but they have seriously considered it)
- pornel 3y agoBTW, is there a reliable search site for hotels with EV chargers? booking.com lies — their "has EV chargnig" search filter actually means "there may be an EV charger somewhere in the same city".
- ojagodzinski 3y agoThis is the reason why for some time no company has undertaken to build travel service points in Poland. Investing in a very expensive charging infrastructure (motorways are often located in places where the nearest power transmission line is far away) does not pay off with contracts signed by the state for a short time.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> All customers must be able to pay with cards or contactless devices ... I find that directive/rule/law very very very nice. I wish more were like that. I don't see why I'd need to have a phone with me and even less why I'd need to install any app on it. > (at present, some charging networks require subscriptions or app downloads). Makes me happy to know they'll either comply or GTFO.
- mike_hock 3y agoThen why not require cash payment as an option. Vending machines have been able to do that for well over half a century.
- barbazoo 3y agoProbably the cost associated with storing, counting, insuring, securing, depositing the money. I get the privacy aspect but then why not get a prepaid credit card or something like that?
- haneefmubarak 3y agoAFAIK as part of anti-money-laundering (AML) efforts, most places require ID when you try to buy prepaid cards with cash.
- fguerraz 3y agoAnd all this (including the electricity grid upgrade and new power plants required) are going to be financed with loans at a 5% or more interest rate. Sure.
- frankreyes 3y ago"mandate to be x every y of z" means it will be financed with taxes, debt and subsidies, which leads to inflation and lower growth. That means, again, that poor people and those without ev cars will finance those who have. Relevant : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36763419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36763419
- rileymat2 3y agoI am not following, often debt enables growth if it is used wisely. I don’t know about Germany but often the poor are not paying taxes at a significant level, and those without ev cars will start paying for some of the externalities.
- frankreyes 3y agoI've already put evidence and data for grow comparison between EU and US in my post. Can you provide evidence of your claims?
- kccqzy 3y agoThat's the point of the policy. You drive an ICE car, you pay extra for EV infrastructure you don't use. You drive an EV, you get subsidized infrastructure you don't fully pay for. Perfectly fine example of a government aligning the incentives towards its goals (EV adoption), rather than ensuring absolute fairness.
- frankreyes 3y agoI walk and ride my bike, I don't have any kind of car or ev. How's fair that with my taxes I'll be financing someone else's car? (Hint: it's not fair)
- kccqzy 3y agoThen it would depend on the nature of the taxes. If the government is smart, they would only use taxes related to motor vehicles to finance this infrastructure. Think vehicle registration, fuel taxes, sales taxes on vehicles, sales taxes on automotive parts, etc. Whether or not it's fair enough depends on how much your government tries to make it fair. (As a fellow cyclist I am also cognizant of the fact that roads are mostly paid for by gasoline taxes where I live, and I also enjoy subsidized infrastructure that way.)
- jenadine 3y agoHow is this going to be enforced? What if there is a 70km gap in one of the highway because no private company though it was worth to build a station there? Who is going to be blamed and who is going to pay a fine?
- WA 3y agoDo they merely have to exist or do they also have to work? And if they are broken, how fast must they be fixed and what’s the consequence if they are not fixed? Unless this is also clarified, it’s not a finished proposal.
- nine_k 3y agoIndeed. For them to work, some massive electric grid infrastructure has to be added. The directive mentions "at least 400 kW by 2026", which is probably doable mostly with existing spare capacity. They also mention 1.4MW and 2.8MW chargers 120 km apart by 2028. This will require a number of new transmission lines, and quite some new electric generation, at the very least in hundreds of megawatts of base load. (A nice new nuclear power station providing a couple GW would be handy, but I can't expect it to spring up by 2028 anywhere, except maybe France.)
- kvdveer 3y agoThe consequences of not fixing them is losing returns on what must be a significant capital investment. No further incentive needed. In practice, these charging spots are leased out by governments, and operated by private parties that sign some SLA. Miss the SLA, lose the lease.
- tzs 3y agoSuppose one company has built charging stations in city A but not in city B and a different company has built charging stations in city B but not in city A and new stations need to be built between the two cities. If neither company wants to build the stations, what happens? Does government build them? Offer subsidies to entice the companies to build them? Make building them a condition of approving permits for other stations that the companies do want to build?
- clouddrover 3y agoCompany C will build them. Europe standardized on CCS chargers and CCS type 2 combo plugs quite a while ago. All brands of charger on all charging networks charge all brands of EV. Standardization drives investment and development for infrastructure.
- tzs 3y agoIf that were generally the case there would be no need for them to legislate that there must be fast chargers every 60 km. So what happens when no company actually wants to build chargers in a place where the legislation requires chargers?
- clouddrover 3y ago> If that were generally the case there would be no need for them to legislate that there must be fast chargers every 60 km. It's still early days for EV infrastructure, even in Europe. They're setting the direction. > So what happens when no company actually wants to build chargers in a place where the legislation requires chargers? They aren't specifying particular locations, just maximum spacing. Member states can incentivize deployment however they like. And there are deployment exemptions available for exceptional cases where there just isn't going to be the traffic: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230327IPR78504/fit-for-55-deal-on-charging-and-fuelling-stations-for-alternative-fuels https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230327IP... A lot of it will be as simple as adding more chargers to existing fuel stations along those routes. Circle K, Shell, BP, etc. have been doing that for years.
- karaterobot 3y agoIt's cool that there is a mandate for it. I suppose I'm surprised they aren't close to achieving this already, or that it wouldn't happen on its own. I was talking to my parents, who live in a very rural area of the U.S.—the nearest mailbox is a ten minute drive—and they said "we'd love an electric vehicle, but where would we charge it around here?" and we pulled up a map and there were something like two or three suitable charging stations within 20 miles, and many more within the range of a full charge. That's why I'd assume that the busiest motorways in the EU would already have plenty of fast charging stations within a 60km drive. Maybe they already do, and this is more about adding additional bureaucracy. Or, more generously, maybe it's about those other clauses, like the payment system and displaying the prices and whatnot, and the bit in the headline was always expected to take care of itself.
- threesquared 3y agoI worked at a company who made charging points a few years ago and the consensus then was that the idea of charging on the road at petrol stations was outdated. Chargers need to be where you park for an hour or more, so at the home, destination or basically where there are car parks.
- jochem9 3y agoAbsolutely true for short distances (e.g. a daily commute), but not when you travel a long distance. If you want to cover say 1000km in a day, you probably need to charge twice along the way. Fast chargers along the highway are perfect for this.