[dghlsakjg]

Why are people so convinced that we need an EV charger per car at every home?

We need enough high speed chargers in the right places. The average American drives 37 miles per day. That pencils out to less than 30 minutes of charging per week using current high speed standards (which will continue to drop). Your friend could take their car at 20% if they knew that they could charge quickly at their destination.

We don't need a fast charger for every car anymore than we need a gas pump for every car. When I got my EV, I thought I would need to hire an electrician to put in a fast charger. After a week of just running the 1.5 kw slow charger I realized that was fine. Even using just that charger I am able to get 43 miles of range on my 10 hour overnight charge in an SUV. If you told me I was never allowed to charge at home, I would still use an EV. Parking at the charger while I shop once a week is fine. Most people with EVs that I talk to have the same feeling. Charger anxiety ends up being a non issue except for outliers that drive a lot, or in bursty patterns.

We need to have enough high speed chargers in spots where people spend at least 30 minutes per week, and that will cover the huge majority of driving.

Put high speed chargers at malls, grocery store and workplaces and it doesn't matter if you have a charger at home, you can just charge when your car is parked away from home.

I'm not even sure it's that big of a buildout that's needed. Where I am, there are far more public chargers (level 2 or better) than gas pumps. If I want to charge my car while I'm out and about, its pretty hard to find a commercial district where I would have to be more than 2 blocks from a charger (and I live in rural Canada).

This feels like a political problem (and maybe consumer perception) a lot more than an intractable one.

[lumost]

This math is bad and shouldn't be used as a justification. It presumes that every charger is always available, that variable battery conditions and traffic conditions make reaching that charger every time, and that drivers have time to drive to the fast charger and spend 30 minutes there every time their car has low battery.

I drive a new EV in the Boston metro, I do not need to drive most days. Charging without an in-home charger is a massive pain even with Superchargers within 20 minutes drive and a 300 mile range.

A trip to the super charger takes about 1.5 hours assuming its available when I arrive, I can only make the trip when the car needs charging or I am wasting time and energy. The exact time I will need to make this 1.5 hour trip work is variable. It depends on battery conditions, traffic conditions, and what I need to do. I cannot assume that the car will be charged when I need it to be - if I need to depart on Friday evening, or unexpectedly needed to get groceries during the week - I am obliged to spend the 1.5 hours at that moment.

To avoid these problems, I generally need to charge the car when it has ~30-40% and for battery protection I can only charge to 80%. Turning a car rated for 310 miles range into one with ~100-120 miles of usable range and a 1.5 hour weekly maintenance schedule. That range could be further reduced to 50-70 miles in winter conditions. The stalls at charging station charge by the minute, so you can't exactly wonder off.

With a reliable home charger, these problems mostly go away, even a slow 5kw charger should charge the car overnight - and a typical tesla installation delivers 11kw. A renter with no ability to plugin and charge overnight will have a tough time with an EV compared to a gas car.

[dghlsakjg]

Sounds like lack of a good network of fast chargers is a real issue for you. I can understand why you're so frustrated.

If you have to drive 20 minutes to find one in a tier 1 city, you are living in a country that is pretty backwards by modern standards.

In my small rural Canadian town I have to drive farther to get to a gas station than I do to get to a high speed charger. I've also never been skunked on getting a charger. My math works fine here. It works fine in China, and Nepal too. Is Boston still not electrified? Because lack of a grid would be constraint, but otherwise its a very easy problem to solve.

I feel bad that it is made to be so hard for you to do what many, many millions of people around the world are able to manage with ease.

[nradov]

I live in the SF Bay Area and the local shopping centers closest to me have zero EV chargers. California is supposedly going to mandate that all new vehicles be electric in 2035 but that's obviously a ridiculous fantasy; the deadline will be pushed back or eliminated.

[dghlsakjg]

Which is why I'm advocating for them to get built.

I live in a far less wealthy place than you and it isn't an issue here. Nepal has it figured out, so does China.

Sounds like California should work on catching up to Nepal, or Portugal, or Ireland, or China, or any of the many other places that have this problem solved.

[Macha]

I don’t have a garage, as is common in my country. Charging my car off a regular socket would thus require leaving a ground floor window open all night (undesirable from both a security and wildlife intrusion perspective) or installing a socket outdoors (at which point why not just get a charger?)

[bloak]

There are so many different options, it's confusing. But a "proper" 7 kW charger can cost over £2000 to install if your house isn't wired in a convenient way, while installing an ordinary socket outside might cost about a tenth of that and give you 2.3 kW. You might get about 4.5 miles per kWh, so potentially more than 80 miles from an 8-hour overnight charge from an ordinary 230 V socket, which can deliver 10 A for a long time if it's a modern one and properly installed though you need to be a bit careful because it's not normal to take that much current from an ordinary socket and you'd be doing this at night so you should worry a bit about something overheating and catching fire. Worth getting someone competent to take a look at the wiring, I'd say.

Basically, as far as I can tell, you can take 10 amps off lots of places in an ordinary modern house, but to get 32 amps for a "proper" EV charger you probably need to go back to where the power supply enters the house and start there afresh with new and rather more expensive equipment and cables.

(US readers note that I'm talking about GB where domestic wiring is all 230 V.)

[dghlsakjg]

Sounds like my suggestion to use a high speed public charger is perfect for you since that's a solution that scales and makes it so people that don't have a garage can use EVs and keep their windows closed at night.

[michaelmrose]

How many is enough is a complicated thing though. You don't need there to be as many pumps as cars because there is enough everywhere that you know with certainty that you can find one any given time within 15 minutes and be refueled in 5.

If you have a charger or as many chargers at your apartment for the number of electric cars you know you are going to be able to charge with certainty.

If you have some small number of chargers at work do you know that you are going to be able to charge? Are you going to go into work park at the charging spot for 30 minutes then play musical chairs with your coworkers instead of working or are you going to park for 9 hours then leave at approx the same time as others ensuring that exactly 5 cars get charged per week despite being able to theoretically charge 336 per week in 3O minute blocks.

Regarding trips to the grocery store. Did you spend 30 minutes in a parking lot of a grocery store or mall this week? I haven't this month and even so you can't be sure that one of a small number of spots are actually available.

Currently plug in vehicles are what 1.9% of cars on the road. A relatively small number of spots scattered here and there is enough for this to work better than expected but trying to scale this begins to get pretty stupid pretty fast.

What does this look like with 1 in 3 cars? At 2 in 3 cars? How does it look like when you try to put enough chargers in the place where people incidentally land for extended periods of time instead of just putting them in lots of homes and apartments?

[dghlsakjg]

We could just look at countries like Norway where the internal combustion car is extinct and see how they do it. If you are going to nitpick that Norway has a lot of houses and is rich enough to install chargers in every apartment parking spot, then we can look at Hong Kong, or China, or Nepal, or Portugal, or Ireland, or any of the countries that have mass EV adoption and a variety of conditions including incredible density.

These are solved problems. It is a case of social and political will (or lack thereof) at this point.

> Regarding trips to the grocery store. Did you spend 30 minutes in a parking lot of a grocery store or mall this week?

Yes. Have you not parked your car in a single place for longer than 30 minutes besides your house? It doesn't have to be a grocery store. It can be literally anywhere that you drive your car that has a power line (its actually pretty hard to find a place where this isn't true). The regional district parks near me offer free 7kw chargers for up to 2 hours. Because our province is a net overproducer of green energy, this is very cheap for the district. Never once had an issue getting a spot. My gym has them too, all new hotels in the province, the hospital, banks, gas stations, Costco, etc. Again, this is all in a small rural Canadian town. It really is a matter of will.

> Currently plug in vehicles are what 1.9% of cars on the road. A relatively small number of spots scattered here and there is enough for this to work better than expected but trying to scale this begins to get pretty stupid pretty fast.

Only in luddite and backward countries. Most modern, and even less developed countries have figured out how to do this without "getting stupid".

> What does this look like with 1 in 3 cars? At 2 in 3 cars? How does it look like when you try to put enough chargers in the place where people incidentally land for extended periods of time instead of just putting them in lots of homes and apartments?

It looks like a problem that a huge number of countries consider to be solved.

[mixmastamyk]

Whenever I’m in a hurry the local gas stations are swamped. Twenty minutes is common, thirty minutes not uncommon. A month ago the pump we were on was broken and had to get my money back and abandon the attempt. Had no more than ten minutes to fuel and couldn’t do it.

See, we can apply the same brand of defeatism to anything.

[michaelmrose]

Do you live in any extremely poor and rural area this isn't the experience for 99.9% of Americans where stations are plentiful and waits are 0-2 minutes

[mixmastamyk]

Yes, southern california.

[Yizahi]

> Why are people so convinced that we need an EV charger per car at every home?

> After a week of just running the 1.5 kw slow charger I realized that was fine.

Wait, did you tell that you were using EV charger at home actually? I'm confused by the wording.

[mixmastamyk]

120v slow charging, only needs a dongle perhaps. Fine for most people who aren’t road warriors.

240v medium charging often needs a wall mount charger, though can plug into a dryer/oven outlet. More expensive but meets the needs of everyone.

[Yizahi]

Both of these are fine. The problem is that a majority of people have neither option at all.

[mixmastamyk]

If there are lights in the garage or street (there are 95%) then install is cheap. An untapped business opportunity.

Shortsighted defeatism is not compelling.

[Yizahi]

Sure there are lights. It will cost me somewhere around 3000$ (Eastern Europe btw) just for the work, wiring and meter. And I will need to get approval of the home owners, and I will need to pay out of pocket for the whole building complex insurance difference, because apparently it will increase from a default "all ICE parking" to a "shared ICE and EV parking" and the latter costs more. I didn't even ask yet, there are 200 parking spots in a contiguous space, I imagine costs would be prohibitive.

I'm actually considering EV as my next car, and due to some legal BS and my own mistakes I will likely need to quickly sell my ICE car at a loss next year and buy something in replacement, which I otherwise wouldn't do for at least five to ten more years, my car is just fine for me. But without ability to charge my car at home, EV is an absolute non-starter and out of the question, I will likely get a hybrid Corolla instead. Taking vacations at a gas station or walking for an hour there and back or paying for an expensive public transport twice for every charging is not my dream really.

[dghlsakjg]

Yeah. My point is that I never bothered to install anything more than the super slow free charger that came with the car.

If you have a good fast charger network available you don’t really need to have a 240v charger or even a charger at all.

[Yizahi]

I still don't understand. So you do have an EV charger at home? Just a slow one? The issue with EVs is that a majority of people doesn't have any EV charger at home at all. These is almost no one who would willingly downgrade from a convenient car to a car which requires driving to some far away gas station and sit there for hours in a parking lot in a cold or in a heat, if it's even working in the first place which they often aren't.