Comment by troupo
4 days ago
How can I install a charger for my car in my apartment?
With ICE I can drive to the nearest gas station and be done in 5 minutes. With ICE I don't even think about it, I just drive to a station that's on the way to wherever I'm going
This problem is already solved in places with more developed infrastructure:
• Workplaces can have chargers in their parking lots. In places where cars are parked for many hours, slow chargers are sufficient, which makes them relatively cheap and easy to install, so they can be plentiful.
• Malls, supermarkets, gyms, restaurants, etc. can have medium and high power chargers. BEVs need 20-30 minutes to recharge from a high power charger. You can do your weekly shopping while your car recharges.
• Charging posts can be installed along roads with on-street parking. In some places even lamp posts can be modified to have charging sockets.
Modern EVs used for commuting need to be charged only about once a week (BEVs are most efficient in city driving, and the median US commute is 1/10th of good BEVs city range).
With the infrastructure in place, daily use of BEVs is more convenient than ICE, because you never need to go to a gas station. BEVs charge unattended, so you don't even spend the 5 minutes refuelling. You plug your car in and leave to do whatever you wanted to do at the destination you were going to anyway.
None of this solves the issue of charging at scale. How would you solve a small town of, say, 20 000 people charging for 20-30 minutes at a mall? Note: peak for "weekly shopping" is usually just the weekend.
For on-street parking (and any parking general) it's still a lot of investment in infrastructure, as it's not just hanging an extension cord from your outlet.
You're talking in hypotheticals, but Norway has 80%+ market share of BEVs, and quite a few towns with 20,000+ residents. There are already many multi-megawatt charging locations built all around UK and Europe. It's an expensive infrastructure, but when there's demand, it pays for itself. When it's busy, they build more. Growth of the grid is also manageable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dfyG6FXsUU
High-speed charging locations that have very uneven usage with peaks, save costs by using dynamic power sharing (so capacity isn't wasted when a car that has finished charging occupies a dispenser), and have battery storage on site to use a cheaper smaller grid connection, and usually also make extra money from power arbitrage.
> it's not just hanging an extension cord from your outlet.
It almost is! For slow (overnight) AC charging the expensive inverter is in the car. The "charger" on the street is just an extension cord with a network-connected switch and a few temperature sensors for safety. BTW, home "chargers" (EVSE) are overpriced. Many of them are literally a Raspberry Pi and some switches.
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