3 ms·

Nearly everyone can charge at home. EV charging is for those rare trips when you need to top up. Like drinking water at home (home charging) vs water bottle fro

Nearly everyone can charge at home. EV charging is for those rare trips when you need to top up. Like drinking water at home (home charging) vs water bottle from a vending machine, $1.50.

nradov 3y ago
I'm surprised to still see such uninformed claims. Many drivers have no practical way to charge at home due to lack of an available garage or even a dedicated parking space where a charger can be installed. The available of chargers in places like apartment complex parking lots and street spaces will gradually improve over time but this will take decades until "nearly everyone can charge at home." The availability of reliable high speed chargers in other places will be crucial for EV adoption. Last time I had an EV rental car, multiple chargers that I tried to use simply didn't work at all.
- consp 3y ago
  As a bonus the public chargers are about 2-4x as expensive as home charging (at least where I live), and that is without possibilities like solar power etc.
consp 3y ago
> Nearly everyone can charge at home. People living in cities would most likely not agree with you, which is more than half of the world population.
- vel0city 3y ago
  The majority of the US population lives in a single-family home or a duplex. These can almost always be easily upgraded to have home charging.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    About 35% of the US population lives in an apartment. Without that population you're never going to get mainstream EV adoption.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      TIL 65% is not mainstream. Also, most of those who already choose to not own a car are already in that 35%, so of "people looking to buy a car" its even more weighted towards that 65% who don't live in an apartment.
      - r00fus 3y ago
        No one runs numbers thinking the non-apartment dwelling population is going 100% EV. So 30% EV adoption is pretty mainstream, but not if it's 30% of 65%.
        vel0city 3y ago
        If 50% of non-apartment households got an EV, that would be ~33% of all households with an EV. With your definition of 30% == "pretty mainstream", it is pretty achievable to have EVs be mainstream while excluding every apartment dwelling household. Roughly 8% of US households have zero cars. What do you imagine the breakdown is between apartment and single-family households? I'd guess probably all dense apartment, the main cohort we're talking about that would lack charging access. So for those actually looking to charge a car, if 50% of single family homes moved to an EV that would in reality be even more than just ~33% of the market, because 8 of the 35% of apartment dwellers weren't shopping for a car to begin with. It is really more like 27% of households want a car and live in an apartment that would be challenging to charge a car in. But hey unless we solve it for 27% of the population it just can't possibly be considered "mainstream".
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      It's slower than for houses, but apartment parking can have charging points. The parking where I live in Copenhagen has two spots with chargers, and they (like all the spots) are reserved for specific cars. I suspect the people paid at least part of the installation cost. They were installed 7-8 years ago. The electricity cost should be very low. This is no different to owning a house. More recently I've seen commercial low-power (~7kW, standard three-phase supply in Europe) overnight chargers by apartment buildings, in the parking reserved for residents. Presumably people try and get one of these spots often enough, but as demand increases they will need to install more. The electricity cost is probably a bit more, to cover the overheads of the company maintaining the charger. If the spots are a free-for-all, I'd not want to rely on needing one every night, but it could be OK for a car that only needs charging once a week or so.
Velofellow 3y ago
Incorrect. I rent in Austin. I think about 50% of the population here rents. I'm sure some newly built multi family mid & high-rises have EV charging infrastructure, and some single family home rentals as well. During recent lease hunting, nothing in my price range had even a single EV charging point, never mind infrastructure to support the the majority of renters. When I've brought this up to people making this argument, they suddenly switch tacks to "well, just charge at the public locations, they are everywhere!" Every time I respond by asking, well sure - but would you make that same compromise if this was your only vehicle and you didn't have DCFC at home? Guess their response...
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  Was their response “you can plug it into an outlet”? Not the fastest charge you will ever get but doable as long as you can get what you need in the time the car is parked.

Nearly everyone can charge at home. EV charging is for those rare trips when you need to top up. Like drinking water at home (home charging) vs water bottle from a vending machine, $1.50.

nradov 3y ago

I'm surprised to still see such uninformed claims. Many drivers have no practical way to charge at home due to lack of an available garage or even a dedicated parking space where a charger can be installed. The available of chargers in places like apartment complex parking lots and street spaces will gradually improve over time but this will take decades until "nearly everyone can charge at home." The availability of reliable high speed chargers in other places will be crucial for EV adoption. Last time I had an EV rental car, multiple chargers that I tried to use simply didn't work at all.

consp 3y ago
As a bonus the public chargers are about 2-4x as expensive as home charging (at least where I live), and that is without possibilities like solar power etc.

consp 3y ago

> Nearly everyone can charge at home. People living in cities would most likely not agree with you, which is more than half of the world population.

vel0city 3y ago
The majority of the US population lives in a single-family home or a duplex. These can almost always be easily upgraded to have home charging.
- r00fus 3y ago
  About 35% of the US population lives in an apartment. Without that population you're never going to get mainstream EV adoption.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    TIL 65% is not mainstream. Also, most of those who already choose to not own a car are already in that 35%, so of "people looking to buy a car" its even more weighted towards that 65% who don't live in an apartment.
    - r00fus 3y ago
      No one runs numbers thinking the non-apartment dwelling population is going 100% EV. So 30% EV adoption is pretty mainstream, but not if it's 30% of 65%.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        If 50% of non-apartment households got an EV, that would be ~33% of all households with an EV. With your definition of 30% == "pretty mainstream", it is pretty achievable to have EVs be mainstream while excluding every apartment dwelling household. Roughly 8% of US households have zero cars. What do you imagine the breakdown is between apartment and single-family households? I'd guess probably all dense apartment, the main cohort we're talking about that would lack charging access. So for those actually looking to charge a car, if 50% of single family homes moved to an EV that would in reality be even more than just ~33% of the market, because 8 of the 35% of apartment dwellers weren't shopping for a car to begin with. It is really more like 27% of households want a car and live in an apartment that would be challenging to charge a car in. But hey unless we solve it for 27% of the population it just can't possibly be considered "mainstream".
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    It's slower than for houses, but apartment parking can have charging points. The parking where I live in Copenhagen has two spots with chargers, and they (like all the spots) are reserved for specific cars. I suspect the people paid at least part of the installation cost. They were installed 7-8 years ago. The electricity cost should be very low. This is no different to owning a house. More recently I've seen commercial low-power (~7kW, standard three-phase supply in Europe) overnight chargers by apartment buildings, in the parking reserved for residents. Presumably people try and get one of these spots often enough, but as demand increases they will need to install more. The electricity cost is probably a bit more, to cover the overheads of the company maintaining the charger. If the spots are a free-for-all, I'd not want to rely on needing one every night, but it could be OK for a car that only needs charging once a week or so.

Velofellow 3y ago

Incorrect. I rent in Austin. I think about 50% of the population here rents. I'm sure some newly built multi family mid & high-rises have EV charging infrastructure, and some single family home rentals as well. During recent lease hunting, nothing in my price range had even a single EV charging point, never mind infrastructure to support the the majority of renters. When I've brought this up to people making this argument, they suddenly switch tacks to "well, just charge at the public locations, they are everywhere!" Every time I respond by asking, well sure - but would you make that same compromise if this was your only vehicle and you didn't have DCFC at home? Guess their response...

thebruce87m 3y ago
Was their response “you can plug it into an outlet”? Not the fastest charge you will ever get but doable as long as you can get what you need in the time the car is parked.