5 ms·

EVs are not really popular in my EU city because they require a dedicated parking space with a charger and most people live in an apartment with none of that.

• pornel 3y ago
  Daily at-home charging is needed only for plug-in hybrids. BEVs can easily do a week of city driving without needing to charge. In my city supermarkets have charging on their parking lots, so my car charges when I'm shopping.
  • netsharc 3y ago
    I wonder if the next invention will be a "powerbank" for cars... rather than those dumb e-scooters littering the sidewalks, how about a giant battery on 4 wheels you can leave next to your car to charge it? When it's close to depletion, just like the e-scooters, a van can come around and take them to a hub to be charged. Or I suppose a car driver can put them in the trunk and return to that hub, in case they're driving that direction anyway (plus, they can collect another one to place in their neighborhood). Sadly it'll probably need protection against people whose denial of the climate crisis involve violence and vandalism.
    • pornel 3y ago
      Charging is so close to being solved, that I don't think we need any new boondoggle. Just build more infrastructure and modern batteries. For road trips, Nio has 10-minute battery swapping stations, but modern 800V BEVs can be recharged in 20 minutes. City use is an even easier case, because most cars will spend hours parked somewhere. If not at home, then in a parking garage at work. There are street-side chargers too. In many cases you don't even need a fast charger.
• BytesAndGears 3y ago
  At least in my city (in NL), there are a bunch of public electric chargers with the street parking around the city. It seems like almost 25% of spots are electric only in my neighborhood
  • posix_monad 3y ago
    NL is so far ahead of other countries that it's kind of ridiculous. I wish there was a way for average citizens from other places to get a sense of what is possible.
  • reacharavindh 3y ago
    Living in another NL city in the Randstad. Although the infrastructure is getting there and is apparently much better than other countries, it is still hard for me, living in a terraced house without a dedicated car parking space in front of my house. The charging spots in my neighborhood are almost always full - and I will be anxious to leave my car there because what happens when my car is done charging and it is occupying the slot from someone else? Or worse, if others do the same and I don’t have a spot. The public fast chargers cost pretty close to the equivalent Diesel cost for my ICE car. That is after paying extra to go electric compared to a cheaper ICE car. We are not there yet to get more folks like me to give up their ICE cars and go electric. I’ll keep my VW Golf kicking until the situation improves and hopefully soon.
  • wink 3y ago
    I'm not 100% sure where the next public charger is here (quick research says: 1x 1.4km and 1x 1.8km) and one at Aldi closer to my apartment. For me this basically means an EV is completely off the roadmap. This is in Munich, Germany, so basically an unimportant remote place. :P
• curun1r 3y ago
  This isn’t inherently true. Take a look at the Silence S04. The batteries are removable and have wheels and a handle like luggage. You could park in any old spot and wheel the battery home to charge. They’re even cheap to buy because you can buy just the car and lease the batteries on a monthly basis. For small city cars with batteries that aren’t too heavy, this kind of design makes an EV workable for a lot of people who might otherwise not consider one for the reason you’ve stated.
  • ale42 3y ago
    I wouldn't say that bringing batteries home like a wheeled luggage is exactly a convenient option, although it's better than no charging possibility at all... But that can be a showstopper for many people who don't have access to charging spots: putting gas in a tank is way simpler (although clearly not ecological... but that's still secondary for many people, unfortunately).
  • mcntsh 3y ago
    I feel like charging these batteries in my apartment would be some kind of a safety hazard.