[labcomputer]

Honestly, as someone who has owned and driven an EV for the better part of a decade, L1 home charging has been sufficient most of the time. That uses the same type of 120V plug that you'd use for a coffee maker, and it's enough for about 40 miles of range while you sleep.

With a modern long-range EV, nightly L1 charging plus occasional DCFC or L2 charging would meet the driving needs of almost everyone.

So the solution is very simple: Just install L1 EVSEs everwhere. Streetlights have extra capacity now that LED bulbs are in vogue, so putting L1 charging next to every on-street parking space isn't even a technical challenge.

[yurishimo]

This could actually work pretty well. It would add more complexity to building parking lots, and possibly retrofits, but running junction boxes out to every parking space should be possible.

It can start small as well, maybe converting 10% of spaces and then expanding as adoption ramps up. You run into the grocery store for an hour, and you get a couple of miles. Park at work and get some more, then plug it in when you get home. I'm envisioning something like a retractable cable that you can pull out to your car, but maybe I'm overthinking the desire for theft of these cables.

[Artlav]

So... that's just "gas station on every corner" model taken to it's extreme, no?

[labcomputer]

I guess that's one way to look at it.

But:

1. Most gas stations break even on the gas an make money on the attached convenience store. That's a different business model than "charge at home" or "charge at streetlight" while you're sleeping.

2. A gas station is a place you "go" to. You're normally taking a detour or at least making an extra stop. Most day-to-day EV charging is done at your normal destination while you're doing things you'd otherwise be doing.

Those are fairly fundamental differences to the gas station model, as far as I'm concerned.