It makes much more sense to put the chargers in places where you park your car: At home, at parking lots and at work.
Gas stations. No.
These are fast chargers to top-off for extended trips.
Those places make a lot more sense than what the US is doing, which is putting its long distance fast chargers in weird ass parking lots that lack access to a restroom, convenient store, food, or even a bucket with a window squeegee.
DC fast chargers. Not level 2 240v chargers.
Next, what a shit article.
You need infrastructure for fast charging so that people can travel long distances.
It takes several hours to charge my car at home. I do that twice a week or so.
That's too long when I go on a trip long enough where you'd need to get gas . If I go to the supercharger, it's 25 minutes every four hours or so. That's just the opposite of a problem for me.
The only remaining problem for me is that there's not more fast DC chargers.
I'd really like to take my EV camping, but the places where I like to go camping are far from any fast charging and don't have RV plugs. A regular 120v/15A wall plug overnight would resolve the issue, but I just can't guarantee that one's available.
That's the only "range anxiety" I have. On a daily basis, I just never have to worry about running out of juice. It's just full all the time.
It's like a phone. I charge it every night (I don't even do that for the EV). The only problem is if I'm traveling, and cars and planes have charging for me.
Once there's more infrastructure, it's just no problem.
Fast chargers at sizeable gas stations make sense. Sheetz has already been putting them in at some larger locations.
My favorite are the chargers at buc-ees. Get to buy some beef jerky and a bbq sandwich while charging.
In much of the rural US gas stations are a "one stop" - gas, groceries and often a restaurant. It would be a no brainier to add charging to those.
Places you can spend time at. Restaurants, coffee shops, even fast food, the mall, etc.
Work. The answer is always work. Eke out a little more profit while people recharge.
If you're taking a road trip, charging at work won't help you.
Oh c'mon everyone hangs out at the local gas station!
To your point, mandate public places not a relic of a dying industry.
I'm not even supposed to be here today!
Ok, I know that wasn't a gas station, but it felt like it fit.
IMO the current model we use for gas stations wouldn't work for EVs. Charging times for EVs can take a long time compared to petroleum vehicles taking only a couple minutes (depending on tank size). The lines would be a terrible experience, and you'd probably end up having to reserve a spot.
I can't imagine why you'd think that.
Yes. It takes a bit longer, but most people would charge at home.
You only use the fast DC chargers when you go on long trips.
There would just eventually be enough spots anyway. Supply and demand.
With my EV, you don't "go to the gas station" unless you're on a road trip. In your day to day travel, you just always have enough juice.
It's actually a lot nicer than a gas car in this respect.
Honestly, it makes sense for any business off of a highway that sells things to provide fast chargers. They still take several minutes at a minimum to charge, so you have a captive and probably bored customer. Seems like a gas station, restaurant, whatever would quickly make back the money spent on charging infrastructure in increased sales from people who’d rather shop or eat than sit in their car for a half hour.
Exactly. This is the same reason as why convenience stores make the profit to support the gas stations.
Here in Australia, I think it would actually work quite well, particularly in rural areas... then again all our service stations are pretty much convenience stores where you can buy fuel. Many of them you can buy a coffee and baked goods as well, some even have full restaurants.
That's a terrible place to put them. They should be in large parking lots and garages where people leave their car for 30+ minutes.
You're not spending 30+ minutes charging on modern EV's (maybe some cheap crappy ones IDK)...I spent my summer holiday driving around Europe for 3 weeks, and charging stops were always <25min from leaving the highway to back on the highway. The actual charging time was often so short that we barely had time to get the kids to the bathroom and back before the car was ready to drive for another couple of hours. Having them at gas stations in Germany, where there's almost always a decent level of amenities (at least along the highway) is just fine and makes perfect sense.
it's not, what about the handicapped who need assistance? Gas station has those.
this should be done along major roads everywhere
Though I'd agree simple 230v (since it's the EU) charging in many places is something that should be a focus too, mainly at workplaces and stuff like that where people spend a lot of time
Most gas stations have some building with a (or multiple) shops which could easily be adjusted to slow moving chillin car charging peoples (no offense, I’m one as well).
Gas stations will need to evolve to account for the wait of EV charging. They will need to become fast casual restaurants with options for long-term stayers and this is not possible with some landlocked locations, as opposed to newer developments in the states.
Every gas station has non gas pump parking. Slap a couple of them in there.
If anything its a boon for them, as gas is sold at cost generally. Nearly all the profit comes from items in the convenience store.
My experience is that even places with fast food are not fast enough for EV charging. I pretty much always end up charging more than I actually need, or even move the car because its fully charged, before we're done eating and back at the car.
Right now EVs charge fast enough that you can't do anything meaningful with the time, but too slow for just sitting and waiting.
this is a reminder that EVs are here to save the car industry, not our lives.
wish they’d invest in public transport.
They're doing both. Yeah, I'd wish they'd do more for public transport. But the 49 Euro ticket was a good start.
They should concentrate on making EVs financially more plausible for people without an electrified garage. Half of Germany lives in flats, most without an own parking space and will pay much more for charging their EV with much less comfort. And politics seem to completly ignore that.
I mean, if you live in a flat without your own parking space, I'd expect you're taking public transportation most of the time. If you don't own a car in the first place, there's no need to convert you in the first place, at least if you have no reason to need a car.
Rented a Tesla this summer for a trip with my family- where I was in Michigan, the nearest superchargers were in the lot at Meijers (a regional supermarket chain), which made sense for Meijers (there's already a big lot there, already infra, it's a place you can tie fueling up with getting groceries) but it meant I had to drive half an hour to shop instead of going to the local market.
My thought is that they should be planting superchargers (or their functional equivalent) in every store or restaurant parking lot because when the only place to get a charge is in the next county over, that's directing EV drivers there and not local
Yeah, it'll cost something to build out infra to support that much power but honestly the US grid needs the upgrades anyhow- and if anything, electricity is relatively cheap compared to buying gas
We could have a look at Norway how they are dealing with the transformation, e.g.https://insideevs.com/news/532464/fuel-stations-norway-fast-chargers/. And maybe this is also part of it as well: https://www.fuelsandlubes.com/totalenergies-to-sell-retail-network-in-germany-and-netherlands/. And Aral is already having REWE to go.
Okay, but who is building the vast energy grid infrastructure required to move the gargantuan amounts of electricity that will be required once all vehicles make the switch?
I'm all for it, but I don't hear anybody talking about the huge national grid upgrades that will be required, or who's going to pay for it all, or how many years it'll take to get done.
Everyone seems to talk about building more chargers, but not going any further than that.
I can't speak for other countries, but since the article is about Germany: You have never heard of Netzentwicklungsplan, Südlink, Südostlink, Lastmanagement für Ladestationen and many more of these things? The Netzausbau (expansion of the power grid) and Lastmanagement (power distribution management) is pretty much a huge topic for all Netzübertragungsbetreiber and the other smaller power grid operators in Germany. Most of the development is slow at the moment because of bureaucracy and NIMBYs but it is actively being worked on.
Germany is so weird. Sometimes they're fuckin genius: xrays, airbags, aspirin... and then we have this.
Who spends enough time at a gas station to charge an EV? What are you thinking?
Hyundai and Kia EVs go to 80% in 15 minutes.
Gas stations are much better place for that than random tesla supercharging spots, there are people to assist the disabled, you have Toilets, food, coffee basically you can do stuff for 15 minutes easily.
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