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Imagine the situation of the company installing chargers. They're fitting a curve between expense of (installation and maintenance) vs (profit from charges sol

Imagine the situation of the company installing chargers. They're fitting a curve between expense of (installation and maintenance) vs (profit from charges sold). It's reasonable that a company would want to minimize their expense by installing fewer chargers, while maximizing profit by ensuring that all their equipment is utilized as much of the time as possible. The charger company doesn't want to have chargers that are only utilized during peak moments but still need to be serviced and paid for. This comes at the expense of consumers who will suffer longer queues.

mrtksn 3y ago
Well, EU is a free market with safeguards. The libertarians hate EU because they believe that it's a socialist organisation, the hard left hates EU because they believe that EU is a neoliberal one. None of these would be happy, EU won't let companies optimize for absolute profit in the expense of society and EU won't act as a central planner which will turn the companies into a non-profits which build to comfort the electorate. I guess the situation on peak hours will improve as the battery tech improves. The tech problems won't be solved through regulations, EU would intervene only if the issues are caused by suboptimal market conditions like monopoly trying to milk the customers or the for-profit institutions fail to provide the services and cause issues(like not installing charger at low demand locations).
mft_ 3y ago
> They're fitting a curve between expense of (installation and maintenance) vs (profit from charges sold). Interesting, as there's clearly a high up-front cost from some of: contract negotiation/land purchase or rent/electricity infrastructure/charger parts/charger installation, and an ongoing cost of maintenance and electricity. I wonder how big the fixed upfront costs are (especially land-related, and electricity infra) versus the physical charger itself? I have a sneaking suspicion that the chargers themselves may be a surprisingly small part of the overall cost. This[0] suggests that Tesla may also have optimised the cost of their superchargers (assuming they weren't pricing them down for the bid discussed.) [0] https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-superchargers-revealed-one-fifth-competition/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-supercharge...
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Looking at how new motorway here was build ~15 years ago. The road and land might be most expensive parts. Ramps, and possibly bridges don't come cheap. Or then you need duplicated infra. That is separate charging stations on each side. Next part is probably power. Transmission new substation are likely needed to supply for demand. And it is unlikely to be available. Lines might or might not be present.

mrtksn 3y ago

Well, EU is a free market with safeguards. The libertarians hate EU because they believe that it's a socialist organisation, the hard left hates EU because they believe that EU is a neoliberal one. None of these would be happy, EU won't let companies optimize for absolute profit in the expense of society and EU won't act as a central planner which will turn the companies into a non-profits which build to comfort the electorate. I guess the situation on peak hours will improve as the battery tech improves. The tech problems won't be solved through regulations, EU would intervene only if the issues are caused by suboptimal market conditions like monopoly trying to milk the customers or the for-profit institutions fail to provide the services and cause issues(like not installing charger at low demand locations).

mft_ 3y ago

> They're fitting a curve between expense of (installation and maintenance) vs (profit from charges sold). Interesting, as there's clearly a high up-front cost from some of: contract negotiation/land purchase or rent/electricity infrastructure/charger parts/charger installation, and an ongoing cost of maintenance and electricity. I wonder how big the fixed upfront costs are (especially land-related, and electricity infra) versus the physical charger itself? I have a sneaking suspicion that the chargers themselves may be a surprisingly small part of the overall cost. This[0] suggests that Tesla may also have optimised the cost of their superchargers (assuming they weren't pricing them down for the bid discussed.) [0] https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-superchargers-revealed-one-fifth-competition/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/15/tesla-cost-deploy-supercharge...

Ekaros 3y ago
Looking at how new motorway here was build ~15 years ago. The road and land might be most expensive parts. Ramps, and possibly bridges don't come cheap. Or then you need duplicated infra. That is separate charging stations on each side. Next part is probably power. Transmission new substation are likely needed to supply for demand. And it is unlikely to be available. Lines might or might not be present.