[ternus]

The infrastructure in question is DC fast chargers. Yes, you can charge at home if you have a house, with a parking space reachable with an EVSE, and your commute is short enough that you can fully recharge by the next commute, and nobody needs the car after hours when you'd otherwise be charging it, and you never take road trips or longer-than-usual drives.

Everyone else is, to a greater or lesser extent, at the mercy of the DCFC infrastructure, and it is sorely lacking in many places - even ones you'd expect it to be pretty good.

[stephen_g]

Your picture is not an accurate picture of what it's like for most people - you frame the exceptions as if it's the normal case.

Most people who have a driveway or garage where they can install an EVSE (or an apartment complex where the parking has chargers) don't even need to charge every day. Depending on the commute it could even be just two or three times a week. It would usually only be when your only option is trickle charging out of a standard wall outlet that you are in the 'might not be able to charge in time for the next drive' territory, not with EVSE where you can get 7 kW single phase or 11 kW three-phase with most cars (some cars can do up to 22 kW with three phase but that's rare for them to support that on AC charging and it would be rare to have an EVSE that could do that power at home).

[ternus]

I'm not making any representation of how common this is - just saying that unless all those conditions apply to you, you will eventually have cause to care about the quality, availability, and reliability of public DC charging infrastructure.

Anecdotally, I have 5+ friends with EVs, and every single one of them charges theirs from a standard 15A wall outlet. (I have an EV, but I also have a real charger.) Sure, most of the time it's fine - but when it's not, then you have to really care about whether that nearby EVgo pedestal is working today.

But furthermore: most apartment dwellers, many renters, people in multifamily homes/complexes where their parking spaces are not near their personally-metered power, those who have to street park - many more people than you may think have difficulty charging at home. I wish it weren't the case, and I'd love to see better solutions here.

[adrianN]

A 2kW socket for ten hours over night will give you a hundred kilometers of range or so. A regular 11kW wall box can fully charge your car over night. How long is the typical commute you're thinking about? Fast charging is pretty much irrelevant day-to-day for people who can plug in at home or at work. The only time these people need fast chargers is during road trips.

[ternus]

> 2 kW socket

> kilometers

It's much more tenable in the 220V world, for sure.

But even if you only charge during road trips, the quality of the chargers during those road trips matters!

[BLKNSLVR]

It is a good point.

I'm in the privileged position that I have solar panels and can charge in the garage. I only just had a conversation with someone who was considering an EV, but their 'housing configuration' doesn't support it, it just wasn't feasible purely from a charging perspective in their situation.

More public infrastructure, and knowledge of the presence of said infrastructure would open up EVs to a wider set of use cases. It's almost the 'confidence' in the suitability of EVs that needs to be worked on.

[MatekCopatek]

This is absolutely true, but IMO also a much smaller problem than some people are making it out to be.

Without any special car-charging equipment, just with a regular outlet, I'm able to get over 100 miles of range every night (charging only from 11pm to 7am).

This is enough for a pretty long daily commute and it doesn't block car use during normal hours.

Big disclaimer - I'm from Europe, which helps my case because of shorter commutes and faster home charging with 220 volts.

But at the end of the day I think the solution lies in equipping all parking spaces at home and at work with power outlets. DCFC is definitely needed, but should be viewed as a solution for exceptional cases (i.e. roadtrip that exceeds your range), not a gas station for EVs.

[rayiner]

It’s hilarious that the greenies who live in dense urban areas have a harder time charging their EV than folks who live in the burbs. I’m thinking of putting in a second EV charger so I can charge two cars at once.