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They are not all rapid chargers of course. But the point is that mostly those are only needed if you run out of juice on a longer journey. For most normal drive
by jillesvangurp 2y ago
They are not all rapid chargers of course. But the point is that mostly those are only needed if you run out of juice on a longer journey. For most normal drivers that only happens a few times a year. Otherwise you just top up at home or using one of the many slow chargers overnight or in a few hours while you are doing something else.
My parents in the Netherlands bought an EV two years ago. They live in an apartment without their own charger in the building. Mostly my father just uses one of several public slow chargers in the neighborhood; once a week or so. He checks on his phone when one is available, drives there and plugs in. They also use chargers at hotels when they are traveling and are typically booking things with chargers available. Destination charging is a thing. Drive somewhere, plug in, do what you came to do, and drive back with enough charge to get home.
They went on a longer trip to France half a year ago. That's the first time he used a rapid charger. The most stressful thing with that is figuring out the payment systems. It's getting better but there are still way too many options for that. Recently Tesla super chargers became an option as well for them (lots of those) and those seem to work best. They drive a Renault.
Anyway, this is very typical behavior with EVs. You charge when it's convenient instead of when you have to. Mostly you are not going to run out on a normal day. It's only on longer journeys that you need to do a bit of planning (make sure the car is charged up before you leave, pick where & when to rapid charge). The worst case is having to take a 45 minute break or so when it's not convenient. That can happen but mostly you can plan to combine that with lunch or something else. And my father is 75, so he needs to have breaks more frequently than the car.
- atonse 2y agoThis might be a very American-centric view but I usually tell people that if you have a garage or driveway then your electric car ownership will be a dream where you truly stop thinking about range. But if you don't, I can imagine there being more stress about charging times, fast chargers, etc. For road trips, thanks to Tesla's extensive Supercharger network, they are really great for that. But with more standards (CCS and NACS) becoming pervasive, hopefully this becomes an issue of the past (payments, etc). My big question is, I don't understand why the oil companies haven't gotten on board. Why aren't we seeing more and more L3 chargers at gas stations?
- blowfish721 2y agoGermany seems to be forcing this through law in a few years. https://www.heise.de/en/news/Elektroautos-Bundesregierung-beschliesst-Ladesaeulenpflicht-fuer-Tankstellen-9740583.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Elektroautos-Bundesregierung-be...
- coldpie 2y ago> Why aren't we seeing more and more L3 chargers at gas stations? It's a good question. I don't know for certain, but my hypothesis would be because of what you and the OP said: > Destination charging is a thing. Drive somewhere, plug in, do what you came to do, and drive back with enough charge to get home. > if you have a garage or driveway then your electric car ownership will be a dream where you truly stop thinking about range No one goes to a gas station to hang out, you know? Instead you plug in at work, or the mall, or the restaurant, or just don't bother until you get home. It doesn't make sense to spend your 20+ minute charge time at a gas station.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoTesla colocated Superchargers at grocery stores. You have to eat, right? First world problem is the car is done charging before I'm done shopping! To your point, put chargers at existing locations humans dwell at, the only other use case is highway travel chargers. There are ~110k gas stations left in the US, and I'll argue many of those will not be needed going forward as mobility electrifies [1] [2] [3]. [1] https://www.axios.com/2022/07/15/gas-stations-prices-closing https://www.axios.com/2022/07/15/gas-stations-prices-closing [2] https://enpowered.com/the-death-of-gas-stations-will-be-far-sooner-than-you-think/ https://enpowered.com/the-death-of-gas-stations-will-be-far-... [3] https://www.urbanismnext.org/resources/americas-gas-stations-are-running-out-of-time https://www.urbanismnext.org/resources/americas-gas-stations...
- JshWright 2y agoThere are a bunch of reasons why it wouldn't be worth implementing, but it would be cool if you could tell it how long you thought you would be in the store and it could adjust the charging time to be a bit gentler on the battery. I'm sure it wouldn't get used much (unless the UI was very front and center, and maybe recommended a time based on your previous stops at that charger), and Tesla would be somewhat disincentivized to build it anyway as their goal is to get as many unique cars through the charger as possible, but it would still be neat...
- nashashmi 2y agoIf majority of them are not rapid chargers, and once they all become rapid chargers, won't we have too many chargers then? the time it takes to charge a vehicle will be 2 hours vs 8 hours of slow charging occupying the same spot.
- toyg 2y ago> He checks on his phone when one is available, drives there and plugs in. One more things on the busy todo list - not a biggie for a retiree for sure.
- oliwarner 2y agoIsn't that expensive? Where I am in the UK, the unit rate at home is ~10p, while it's 40-50p at a public charger. I can get the home rate even cheaper (5p/kWh) with good timing.