[ChuckNorris89]

>I work for a larger company that builds and maintains the electrical grid in many European countries.

Also European here. The problem for EV charging is gonna be the last mile, not the grid. Upgrading the grid is the easiest part. The charging points are the painful part to fix that nobody seems to have an answer to or want to talk about in the first place.

In my city, most of the residential streets where people live (in flats) are full of parked cars on both sides of the street. How will all those cars charge once they switch to EV? Will the already narrow sidewalks be full of charging stations next to each parking spot, and will pedestrians constantly be tripping over the charging cables? How will this work?

Currently all EV owners here are well off people who own their houses in the suburbs or in rural areas, and can install their own chargers at home for their EVs, but how will the people living in flats who have to park on the street charge their cars? Effectively those who aren't well off to own their own houses are penalized by the lack of EV charging infrastructure where they live.

Ideally, we'd get rid of private cars in the city completely and replace them with better public transport and cycling infrastructure, but looking at the real life facts, there's no political will to push car owners out of car ownership, and car owners are by far a majority of the voting population, even among the low earners. And upgrading the public transport and making it run frequent enough to make people give up cars ownership voluntarily would most likely make tickets too expensive for car owners to justify. And public transports is already subsidized.

Edit 1: Also, regarding the last mile charging infrastructure stations, another one of their weaknesses compared to filling up with gas at a gas station, is that they suck, the billing & payment systems sucks, the UX sucks and they often have faults or are broken, making them unusable or seeing people struggle to get them to work. MKBHD did a video on this proving this point and is definitely worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k

Edit 2: Another issue with EV adoption is the EV range and charging durations. Many Europeans hop into their cars in the summer and drive their family to the south of Europe hundreds or thousands of km. The range of a cheap EV still is subpar compared to a cheap ICE and so is the charging duration VS the refueling duration, making long holiday trips by EV a nightmare compared to a ICE car. We'd need a lot more charging points around these routes to cover summer or winter holiday trafic, and by a lot more, I mean a lot a lot more. Even some gas stations can have 15-20 minute queues for a 3 minute tank refuel at peak holiday season in summer or winter near popular routes like Austria, Italy or Croatia, so imagine what EV charging queues would look like when a charge easily needs 30 minutes instead of 3.

[nicoburns]

> Will the already narrow sidewalks be full of charging stations next to each parking spot, and will pedestrians constantly be tripping over the charging cables? How will this work?

In my neighbourhood (London) there are now some charging ports coming out of lamp posts, and some coming out of the floor. There is a short cable required to connect the car to the charging port, but it's not too bad a trip hazard as it's only between the car and pavement.

EDIT: looks like this https://imgur.com/a/H9aqMCo

[ChuckNorris89]

>charging ports coming out of lamp posts

Lamp posts don't really exist in my city. All city street lights are hung from overhead cables wired between the residential buildings on the sides of the street/sidewalk.

Like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.0814083,15.4423363,3a,75y,24...

[nicoburns]

I don't have pictures, but there are also some charging port embedded directly into the sidewalk around here.

[alain94040]

There are 3 places where people can charge their car: at home, at work, and at the store. If you can't charge at home because you park on the street, that still leaves two opportunities to charge.

Another way to think about it is where does your car spend its time, 24 hours a day? Is there any time where you car is somewhere for an hour or more, sitting idle? That's where chargers should be.

[cjrp]

The variance in pricing needs to be tackled though. At home, on an EV-optimised electricity tariff, you can pay £0.10/kWh whereas at my local supermarket it’s about £0.45/kWh. You’re penalised for not having access to a charger in your flat. Compared to petrol, where it costs what it costs (ish).

[ChuckNorris89]

Indeed the pricing is another big one. In public spots you'll have much higher prices than what you could get with domestic charging, meaning the ones who aren't home owners or can't have domestic charging get shafted further.

[ChatGTP]

Ideally, we'd get rid of private cars in the city completely and replace them with better public transport and cycling infrastructure, but looking at the real life facts, there's no political will to push car owners out of car ownership, and car owners are by far a majority of the voting population, even among the low earners.

In Tokyo it’s illegal to own a car unless you have a deviated car space near your apartment. Within 1km (if I’m not mistaken).

You must prove you have a space to rent (they will come an inspect it) before you can register.

Maybe a model like that should be introduced ?

No one owns a car in Tokyo and taxis and bikes are happy, it’s an incredible city to visit.

[ChuckNorris89]

Most EU cuties aren't dense like Tokyo though.

[seanmcdirmid]

I lived in Switzerland (Lausanne) and it was similar. There was basically no free street parking, so you couldn’t really own a car without a place to park it.

[ChuckNorris89]

Paid subscription street parking is everywhere in European cities. But you're not banned from owning a car without a designated space.

[ChatGTP]

Tokyo is dense, but it's not relevant because it's absolutely huge, and you still need to get around. The subway system is amazing.

In my opinion, if people care about the environment, it needs to be bikes, and delivery / utility vehicles only. Everyone else should be on public transit.

[ChuckNorris89]

Tokyo can afford a Subway system because it's super dense. In my 300k city the public transportation system sucks because it can't justify further expansion because the city is not dense enough.

[ChatGTP]

I bet it’s not the size of Tokyo so you couldn’t just use an e-bike instead of a car ?

[alfor]

- in the streets: lamp post or dedicated post

- at work (need parking anyway)

- charge station with fast charge (not that different than gas stations, but slower)

[ChuckNorris89]

>- in the streets: lamp post or dedicated post

My city has no lamp posts since sidewalks are too narrow. Lights are hung from overhead cabels between buildings.

>- at work (need parking anyway)

I don't drive my car to work anymore (thank god) but good luck forcing employers to spend money on installing enough charging stations for everyone. Some employers don't even have enough parking spaces for all employees so it's a game of music chairs already.

>- charge station with fast charge (not that different than gas stations, but slower)

Fast chargers are not ubiquitous yet, nor are EVs with it, especially affordable ones. And even EV fast charging is still much slower than filling a tank of gas in a cheap car.

[alfor]

My point is there are solutions, as the number of EV grow so will the solutions.

It’s way easier and safer to charge an EV than to fill a gas car (electricity is everywhere), so you can expect the solutions to come progressively (with some bumps along the way of course)

It’s a good thing, EV will become a big part of the battery we need for a renewable grid, absorbing the excess electricity in period of overproduction.

[pornel]

Lack of fast public chargers is a problem that can be solved almost overnight. In my area it was dreadful, until it wasn't.