[therealrootuser]

As someone that is currently in the market for a new car, I would love to get an EV, but I also don't have a good way to charge. Seems like most EV owners just charge at their house, but what about people that don't have access to a good power tap? (apartment dwellers, renters, etc.)

Sometimes it feels like there is a group of EV elites out there that are predicting the complete demise of ICEs while conveniently downplaying the problem of charging access. I live on the outskirts of a major metro area. I've looked at the charging maps, and there just aren't good chargers available right now. I really hope that chargers will become ubiquitous in my area in the future, but until that happens, I don't have a great choice.

And so, my next car is going to just be a standard ICE hybrid. I hope that will be the last ICE I have to buy, but for right now, an EV seems like it is just not quite practical for me.

[blahedo]

Thanks for raising this issue—as you point out, it's often ignored—but I'd posit it's even worse than you (and others on this thread) indicate.

When the issue is framed at all, it's usually boiled down to "landlords won't want to install chargers in the apartment garages" with the possible counterpoint of "demand will force them to" or there will be subsidies or etc etc.

But there are vast, vast numbers of people whose permanent parking situation is literally "on the street in front of my building"... or down the block... or around the corner... or wherever there's a spot free. This poses two tremendous difficulties for EV adoption. First, now we're talking not just about upgrading an electrical supply and mounting a new outlet; to bring overnight charging to street parking we'd need to dig up and re-lay concrete and asphalt. Second, people already grumble about "someone took my spot" and get a lot louder about it when there's something dedicated about the spot (google "Chicago dibs" for some serious rage on this topic) and if some-but-not-all of the street spots have charging stations, you better believe the fights over them will be epic, neighbourhood-destroying affairs.

Street parking is a central problem for anyone pushing widespread EV adoption. It can't be driven purely from consumer demand.

ETA: Can someone who spends a lot of time in California tell me if there's a lot of overnight street parking there? Because I've suspected that there isn't and that that's why this gets overlooked, but there might be some other reason.

[audunw]

I feel like most of these issues are solved in Norway now. There's plenty of people with just street side parking in Oslo. The municipality set up public charging poles on a lot of them. They were free to begin with but now you have to pay. There's always a shortage since scaling up fast enough is hard during this transition, but in the long term I don't think it'll be a problem.

At the same time, there fast chargers eeeeeverywhere now. Supermarket, gyms, shopping mall, hardware store, etc. I would be fine just charging whenever I shop for food. Most of them were built in like the last 5-7 years.

There's legislation that encourages or forces apartment buildings with garages to install charging points.

There's really no significant technical barrier that hasn't been already solved in Norway. So it's down to cost and political will. I'm optimistic that even in the US this will solve itself in the coming years.

[markus92]

In my country, they solved that overnight street parking pretty easily. If there's not a charger close by, you can request the city council to place a charger in your street. They do indeed dig it up, wire it to some electrical lines there and there's your charger. And the cost? Commercial companies actually do all of this and you just pay for the electricity when you charge, the city council takes care of the permits. Win/win/win situation I'd say.

[bigcheesegs]

There's lots of overnight street parking in the bay area, but there are lots of other opportunities to charge. The actual hard case is someone that drives a significant amount during the day, doesn't have charging at work, and can't have charging overnight. Here really the only option is DC fast charging.

However, this is a reasonable rare circumstance, and it's only getting easier to charge.

[asdff]

One potential source of traffic in LA that will be tough to meet with an EV solution as currently offered is the 'handyman' persona. Either legitimate businessmen such as plumbers or landscapers and what not, or those people who extend their truck beds with plywood to stack the scrap as high as the freeway bridges will let them, either way all of these groups of people are driving all day, at all hours, to oddball places all over the place, and are in need of cargo space. The job site of the day might not have reliable drinking water let alone a supercharger for you to tap into.

[slavik81]

The streets in my neighbourhood have plenty of parked vehicles with extension cords running out to them. The cords are there to power block heaters, not to charge EVs. Nevertheless, that would at least be one option for slow charging.

[anovikov]

Maybe finally THIS will force regulation of parking so people will simply have no way of leaving their car in a random place like that. Japanese way of doing it - "if you don't have a permanent, legally fixed place to park your car, you can't buy a car" - is just right.

We have too many cars filling in sidewalks, narrow city roads reducing them to single-lane, and so on. That's a problem in itself, and while it was only about people's convenience, harsh measures were hard to justify - but now we can frame it as "it's either that or Putin is coming for you" - and it becomes easier.

[ZeroGravitas]

Why would a landlord pay good money to build something that they can charge people to use for short periods of time and recoup their investment and start to profit in their sleep over a medium term timescale?

And cities, creating places for cars to park and forcing them to pay for that, either charging the car owner directly at the time or through taxes? I just can't imagine that.

[nicoburns]

We have street-side car charging in my neighbourhood in London now, and it didn't seem to be too difficult to install. There's a mix of outlets retrofitted into lampposts, and ports sunk into the pavement. I don't think they had to dig up the whole street. Just locally where they were actually installing the charging port.

[zizee]

> Sometimes it feels like there is a group of EV elites out there that are predicting the complete demise of ICEs while conveniently downplaying the problem of charging access.

I see the opposite. Every single discussion of EVs, people come out of the woodwork with all the edgecases/usecaes where current EVs don't fare so favourably to ICEs.

Guess what! EVs don't have to be perfect in every scenario to be better for a growing number of people. The cars and infrastructure continue to improve, and the number of edgecase are slowly falling like dominos.

Range not suitable for people that are regularly driving 1000km commutes? Lots of people have driving habits where a > 200km trip is a rarity. And available range keeps increasing as the tech improves.

Battery charging not so great in places with subzero temperatures have the year? Lots of people live in warmer climates. No doubt, someone is looking at improved battery chemistries or thermal regulation to help here.

Can't charge at home because you live in a studio apartment with no off street parking? There a lot of people that own their own homes, or have apartments with off-street parking. Meanwhile more charging stations are being installed at shopping centres, businesses, in reserved on street parking.

Why do people think EVs have to serve every single person perfectly before we'll see adoption? Why do they think the cars and infrastructure is going to remain static going forward? This transition is going to happen over a 10-20 year period as EVs improve, and old ICE cars are retired. It's not all happening next year.

Personally, I will buy one as soon as I have determined they make the most sense for me, just like everyone will. For some, that will be now, for others it will be five years from now, for some it will be 20 years from now.

[crims0n]

Let me add one more, and I don't think it's an edge case but for some reason nobody talks about it - a large percentage of people just don't want them. That, to me, is the biggest blocker of adoption. Most of the other arguments people have against EVs are engineering problems that would be solved quickly if demand was high enough - but demand is not high, only 2.5% of automobile sales in the US were EVs last year, and only 1% of the automobiles on the road today are EVs.

[adgjlsfhk1]

if you think people don't want them, try to buy one. the main reason that they're only 2.5% of sales is because not enough are being made.

[crims0n]

I realize my argument made it seem like I was using the sales data to justify my claim, but that wasn't really what I was going for - my mistake. I am aware of the demand issues, but the question is how far does that scale?

The current market for EVs seems to be middle to upper class city-dwellers who own their own homes and commute less than an hour each day. That is certainly a sizable market that will scale to a point, but what about after that point? What about rural folks who have no need for an EV and are perfectly content to drive ICE vehicles the rest of their lives? What about people who refuse to buy EVs for ideological reasons? What about car enthusiasts who love the roar of a V8? What about people who can't afford to spend 35k+ USD on a new (and base) model EV? What about people who need heavy duty trucks? What about people who have large families and need something with generous seating capacity and the ability to tow the occasional boat or RV for family trips?

Point being, there are large parts of the market that are either underserved because there isn't an EV that matches their needs, or they have no desire to be served at all.

[zizee]

For some reason your making the assumption EVs and related infrastructure are not improving all the time. ICE cars are not improving very much, where EVs are getting cheaper each year. Eventually there will be cheaper options, and a 2nd hand market. Eventually there will be heavy duty trucks. Eventually there will be options with generous seating capacity.

Yes there are some people that love the roar of a v7, some people think the choice is political. But the vast majority don't give a shit. It will come down to function and economics. Eventually EVs will beat out ICEs in more an more usecases per $ spent, and then many of the people holding out for ideological reasons will switch because they're friends and family are all driving them.

There will eventually be a tipping point where gas stations start shutting down because of EV becoming a significant part of the market, which I think will start a feedback loop. Gas stations that survive on slim margins will be uneconomical with 20% EV adoption, will either shut down or raise prices. This will make it worse to own an ICE for more people, that will switch to EVs. Then more stations are out under pressure, rinse and repeat.

[gbear605]

The low purchase amount is a supply issue, not a demand issue. I’ve talked to many people who want to buy an EV but can’t because all the dealers nearby have a waiting list of over a year long to buy one.

[crims0n]

I believe it is a supply issue currently and will continue to be to a certain point, but that point falls far short of ubiquitous adoption.

[rubendv]

I've been driving an EV for over a year now. I don't have my own parking spot here in the city (one of the larger cities in Belgium) but there are around 10 public charging stations within walking distance of my house. Charging my car once a week by relying only on these public chargers has not been a problem so far. I think with the proper investment by the authorities this not a big problem.

I am a bit worried about the adoption of PHEVs though, as those tend to charge much more slowly and need to be recharged much more often than a full EV. I think it should be discouraged to get a PHEV if you do not have private charging infrastructure.

[reaperducer]

what about people that don't have access to a good power tap? (apartment dwellers, renters, etc.)

I've lived in two apartment buildings that had electric car chargers. In both buildings, the chargers were constantly engaged.

Hopefully some of that electric infrastructure money ends up putting chargers in private and public parking garages. I think that would give people more confidence that they could switch.

Related question: Once you charge an electric car, how long can it sit before it discharges on its own? Like how if you charge your cell phone, but even if you don't use your phone, eventually the batteries will still run out.

I don't drive much, so I wonder if it is practical for me to charge an EV in an apartment garage, then move it to another space and leave it for a week or two or three and it still be full?

[jeofken]

A Tesla Model 3 loses around 1% charge per day idle

[potatochup]

Depends on what is doing (see, Tesla sentry mode which keeps the cameras on) but otherwise self-discharge is well under 1%/day for most EVs

[01100011]

In my experience, charging networks are growing rapidly. Unfortunately so is EV ownership and it's outpacing the charging network(in the Bay Area anyway).

I think EVs mostly make sense for certain types of commuters or those with private garages/home chargers. You can certainly get by with a charger at work(i did) or use public chargers but it will depend on your area and your tolerance level. Public chargers can often cause headaches. Broken or busy chargers... Requirements to move your vehicle quickly after charging.. Commuting to a local charger.. the system needs work.

I'm about to give up my EV. I think I owned it during a sweet spot(lots of chargers, less competing EVs, and high gas prices). I'm happy going back to gas for a while. I don't see an advantage to buying an EV right now for me. EVs will still be there in a few years and I can always switch back.

[pengaru]

Once EV's become mandated for all new car sales, I fully expect new laws requiring rentals w/parking to provide EV charging facilities. They already require things like toilets and proper bathroom/shower ventilation, it's not particularly new ground to force landlords to jump through such hoops.

[sbt]

As an EV owner, I would say you either need access to a commercial charger (e.g. at work) or be able to charge at home. But either of those alternatives would be fine by itself.

I don't charge at home, but do most of my charging in the parking garage at work. This is not a fast charger (~2kW), but is wholly sufficient because I just plug it in in the morning. Alternatively, you could charge at home and not having access to any other charging would also be fine. The home charger doesn't even need to be good, because you can just leave it in overnight and even for a slow charge this will fill up aroun d 200km. The only time I actually use a "supercharger" location is for road trips.

The two most common qualms I hear from prospective EV buyers is range anxiety and time to charge. None of these are real issues for me. A full battery anyway lasts for around 400km, which is either 2 weeks of driving to work for me, or ~4 hours of roadtrip driving. After 4 hours of driving on the highway, I have no problems waiting 20min at a supercharger while I get food. Usually, the charger is actually too fast for me in this case.

[csa]

> I live on the outskirts of a major metro area. I've looked at the charging maps, and there just aren't good chargers available right now.

If EV adoption is low in your metro area, then EVs may only be convenient for home owners and folks who live near charging stations until more people get EVs.

Once there is a critical mass of EVs in your area (or even just passing through), then stations will pop up everywhere.

I live in a non-urban coastal area of California, and there are multiple EV stations at almost every mall and every Target within an hour drive of where I live (probably wider than that, but I haven’t really checked).

[franknord23]

With mass adoption of EVs and the further move to solar power, charging during the day is the sensible. Which mostly means chargers at workplaces.

(Not saying we don't need charging close to appartments at all, but workplace charging can alleviate some of it.)

[willsmith72]

there's going to be a huge market for tech that lets landlords of large apartments easily install carpark outlets and track usage

[bartvk]

Depending on how much you drive, and how far you live from a fastcharger, you could very well do without a local slower charger.

[AYBABTME]

The early adopters prove the market and make it so that charging infrastructure becomes more prevalent.