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So long as the incentives to build and maintain charge stations is private, then profit needs to be on the horizon for operators. What doesn't have to be on th

So long as the incentives to build and maintain charge stations is private, then profit needs to be on the horizon for operators. What doesn't have to be on the horizon is high cost for consumers, because you're absolutely right that concern over charging stations is a drag on EV adoption. There are grants to build EV charging stations, but what's less clear to me are operation grants. Ideally we'd see grants for operation that cover the majority of the cost for a period of time, reduce consumer cost and reward good operation (most stations being open, etc.) We'd also ideally see incentives for solar installations or other green energy offsets for EV charging stations with grants that phase out. Grants also would ideally be more about distance from existing charging stations, to incentivize spreading out chargers and rewarding "first movers". There are still lots of issues with chargers from an operator perspective. While electricity is cheap and cheaper to run than building a gas station, the operating expenses are still there when it comes to maintenance and security, and there's the fact that charging takes significantly longer than filling a tank with gasoline, meaning that one needs more space to service the same number of vehicles. Some costs do need to be handed back to the consumer, such as cost of using the space at a charging station. If not, then they could become de-facto parking lots.

WorldMaker 3y ago
> Some costs do need to be handed back to the consumer, such as cost of using the space at a charging station. If not, then they could become de-facto parking lots. Vice versa, too. If a parking lot already charges $15/hour, it seems like an extra hidden fee if charging also costs an additional $2/hour. As charging becomes more common it makes more sense to roll the costs together into a single advertised price. > there's the fact that charging takes significantly longer than filling a tank with gasoline, meaning that one needs more space to service the same number of vehicles. Though all of that space doesn't need to be in the same sorts of places. Home and destination charging shake up the need for centralized "stations". Cars already spend most of their time parked, electrifying more existing parking lots and garages where cars already spend most of their time should be common sense. (And if it happens to economically profitable that should just make easy economic sense, circling back to the topic in the article. We probably need to make L1 and L2 destination charging "just profitable enough" without high cost for consumers, too.)

WorldMaker 3y ago

> Some costs do need to be handed back to the consumer, such as cost of using the space at a charging station. If not, then they could become de-facto parking lots. Vice versa, too. If a parking lot already charges $15/hour, it seems like an extra hidden fee if charging also costs an additional $2/hour. As charging becomes more common it makes more sense to roll the costs together into a single advertised price. > there's the fact that charging takes significantly longer than filling a tank with gasoline, meaning that one needs more space to service the same number of vehicles. Though all of that space doesn't need to be in the same sorts of places. Home and destination charging shake up the need for centralized "stations". Cars already spend most of their time parked, electrifying more existing parking lots and garages where cars already spend most of their time should be common sense. (And if it happens to economically profitable that should just make easy economic sense, circling back to the topic in the article. We probably need to make L1 and L2 destination charging "just profitable enough" without high cost for consumers, too.)