All the messaging about fast charging speed is focused on the wrong thing. EV drivers should be able to do the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination. The messaging should be about getting chargers in more homes, apartment complexes and workplaces. Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight. That’s something that gas simply can’t do.
Fast charging stations should only be necessary for road trips, where you should be taking a break every so often anyways.
The fact that so many people don’t think about this or are unaware shows how well the propaganda worked.
Here is a car that is by far the easiest car you’ll ever own, the power to run it is the cheapest you’ll ever see, and 99% of your trips will be within one charge/tank meaning you’ll never need to worry about range ever - but the propaganda convinced them all that that’s a deal breaker.
As an EV owner the road trips we take are the vast minority of driving anymore. When we do there are options.
- plan out your route and stops. Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
- if you are one of the 80% of households with 2 cars, take the other car for that roadtrip.
- get a rental car for your trip. (Remembering that a couple hundred for a rental car is vastly cheaper than paying for gas for 10+ years)
I can’t help but feel if EVs were invented first, convincing people to adopt gas cars would be impossible.
- “You mean I have to take it somewhere and stand outside every time I need energy?”
- “Why do I have to put all these fluids in it? And why does it need all these filters, brake pads, and maintenance?”
- “These things are so slow, why would you ever want to drive one?”
- “What do you mean I can’t turn on the climate control anytime I want? You mean I have to wait for this thing to heat up?!”
The saddest part is that EVs were invented first, but it was easier to tanker fuel everywhere, rather than building out the electric grid in low-density areas.
Tbf, battery tech was also shit back then.
Many people fail to appreciate just how much consumer battery technology has improved, in their lifetime.
Yes. And another thing people don’t appreciate is that gas always had the inherent advantage in that the oxidizing agent is just sitting around wherever you go. You don’t even need to carry all the chemical agents. If gas cars had to carry around their own oxidizer like rockets do, batteries would have surpassed them long ago.
EVs still use brake pads. lol
Also electric cars, gas, and steam has a bit of a format war in the 1890’s-1920’s or so, and people really did make a lot of these points back then. Unreliable and sometimes unsafe chargers (basically due to people not understanding electrical engineering as well as we do now) were a big part of why gasoline won out
EV brake pads can last a lot longer on one pedal cars. Henry Ford’s wife drove an EV, she hated his gasoline cars because they were loud, stunk, and could not be started by most women.
Chiming in from experience, our EVs brake pads were rusting faster than they were wearing down. We bought used, so maybe the previous climate was humid, but around 80k miles may have been their first change.
Many (most?) EVs now periodically apply friction brakes to reduce corrosion issues. If an EV doesn’t have it, you can do it manually.
EVs still use brake pads. lol
not really. almost all EV breaking is regen, unless you drive like shit.
First, just to be pedantic, EVs did exist first. They go all the way back to the early 1800s. But battery technology didn’t advance enough to make them a good option until recently, so your point remains.
I fully agree with you that the only thing keeping gasoline going is inertia. There have been parodies applying the same logic to other fields, like the gas-powered phone.
There’s a reason why 80%+ of EV owners say they’ll never go back, and a good chunk of the remainder are just waiting on the field to mature a bit.
“those fluid is VERY flammable, it’s insane people wanted to sit above one”
“it stink when it’s running.”
“leave it running in a closed garage and it will kill you in minutes with poison gas”
“the wear and tear from containing thousands of internal explosions will inevitably wear parts down over time.”
Ha, I never thought of it that way but yes, that tracks perfectly. The “inconveniences” of EVs aren’t worse than gas cars, it’s just that the gas car inconveniences are considered “normal” right now.
Also, that place is disgusting and you have to step over the rotting corpse of 600 soft drinks poured out next to the pump, then touch a handle which is visibly soiled and often sticky, and then you will probably smell like gas for at least the next 20 minutes.
Wait, since when did electric cars stop having brakes?
1 pedal driving doesn’t use brake pads to slow down your car. You still have brakes in case of an emergency, but if you’re using them enough to wear out your brake pads then you’re doing something wrong. As someone else pointed out, you’re much more likely to rust off your brake pads rather than wear them out.
The amount of braking force that you can apply with that is relatively small, so if you want to either brake quickly or come to a complete stop, you’ll still use the actual brakes. While your brake pads would last longer than typical car, they would still need wear down.
A year later, we still haven’t even gotten a 240V fast charger at home. Still just pluggin’ in to the old wall with a regular old cord. We still manage to get all the charging we need done during the cheap-metered hours, too.
I laugh when I think back to buying the EV. I was so panicked about getting fast charger as soon as possible. I thought the wall plug would get us through the weekend while we tried to find an available electrician, but then we’d get desperate. It just never happened.
I can vouch for this 100%. Have had an electric vehicle for 6 months now.
The vast majority of my charging has been done at home on 120v. Granted, my wife and I both work from home most of the week and have short commutes. Our grocery store has free 240v charging so I top up while I shop.
We took one long trip in those 6 months and rented cars for the drive to/from and used public transit while we were there.
I used a fast charger for the first time this weekend to drop off a kid at the grandparents a couple hours away on Friday and then picked them up in Sunday. Didn’t have enough time between trips for the trickle charge to leave me in a comfortable range. 20 minute fast charge did the job for about $15.
After 100k miles in an EV, road trips add about 20 minutes for every every 3 hours of driving. That’s all. It’s basically a trivial difference which gets statistically lost in the noise of traffic variability. If this causes an issue, it’s a lack of prior planning.
I fully agree with you, but you should check out the rest off this thread. I have someone who literally said:
I’m not willing to compromise on my road trip plans.
I’m unwilling to plan out two 20 minute stops in my day long road trip that happens maybe once or twice a year in order to have the lowest maintenance lowest fuel cost vehicle I have ever owned. Not to mention the other two options if you seriously cannot do it. People are so carbrained/gas brained I just can’t even. I will never go back to owning an ICE vehicle, literally why would you?
Yep, though that depends on destination in some regions. When my partner and I planned our trip to their parents’ place, what’s normally a 9 hour drive turned into a 13 hour one because we ended up having to charge up to 100% from 5% for one of the intervals due to lack of CCS stations, which was nearly a 60-70 minute charge each way.
That may have changed in the intervening year, and I’d love to have that drive only extended ~1hr instead because we can do ~15% -> 80% charging intervals instead.
Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
It assumes when you want to eat coincides with when you need to charge. It assumes there’s something you want to eat within walking distance of the charging station. Also assumes you eat as often as you charge. I almost never find any of those to be true.
Good thing I wrote up two other options if it doesn’t work for you. It works perfectly fine on our car trips.
And what will happen to all those gas stations when we are at 90% EVs adoption, as is the goal? Where will you find a gas car to rent? How many gas stations will be left? EVs still need to be much faster at charging if we are going for high adoption
Is your argument both in the same breath that EVs will catch on too quick that all gas stations will disappear in a matter of days and also that EV adoption will not catch on quick enough because charging is too slow?
I want EVs, but they’re simply not good enough yet. They need to be much better before they can reach 90% adoption
EVs are perfectly fine, even with current charging speeds. the problem is not fast charging but AC charging coverage. everyone should be able to charge their cars at home or work.
The thing with charging times is mostly anxiety based on fear of the unknown rather than anything tangible
simply not good enough yet
This thread is full of people telling you the opposite. I own an EV and am telling you it’s the best car I’ve ever had and will never go back. If you don’t believe they’re good enough then you need to analyze why you believe that, because it’s simply not true. If you want to ask me questions about what they are actually like, feel free, but I won’t sit here and help you “feel” better about them when all the facts show that they’re great vehicles to own.
okay so a few times a year your meal isn’t exactly when you want to eat. or you can’t eat exactly what you want to eat.
i’ll take that over having to go to a gas station weekly to fill up and pay $50 for the privilege.
the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination.
Absolutely true, which is also why I found it extremely annoying when reviewers began claiming that range wasn’t as important as fast charging speeds in daily use. Luckily most have stopped that shit, probably realizing there’s a reason most people want good range, and this is one of them. Also charging at home/destination cost way less than using a fast charger, and it’s better for battery life too.
Yeah EVs seem almost non-viable if you live in an apartment complex right now, which is a shame. At least where I am
I live in an apartment and can neither charge at home nor at work. I just charge when I go grocery shopping. It’s absolutely viable.
You can literally have just a simple wall plug and charge a car. It doesn’t need to be a fitted wall-mounted charging box. Yes, it is much slower and takes 24+ hours to charge the car completely but most people don’t actually use much of their battery per day anyway so if you plug in every night when you get home, you’re not going to have a problem for the majority of the time. And those are a very cheap socket run that an apartment’s body corporate could/should install.
Not OP, but nearly every apartment complex I’ve ever been to has absolutely 0 electricity to a surface lot, and very limited/restricted access in a garage. And no apartment managers are going to change that unless there’s money to be made from it.
Fortunately, newer buildings are now including some public charging stations, presumably getting a portion of the sales.
Theres no external outlets just out in the parking lot in my complex. You’d have to run an extension cord out a door or window all the time, which would leave them cracked, and I live on the third floor
More progress really needs to be made on infrastructure for a lot, probably the majority of apartment complex dwellers
I have been an EV owner since 2018 and I have never had a “level 2” charger installed. I’ve been fine with just plugging into the wall. Now, granted, my cars have been 80-125 mile range vehicles. But it’s been fine.
Which part of “apartment complex” did you misunderstand
When we made laws for handicap parking, there was handicap parking everywhere, overnight.
Amen. The building I work at, where there’s roughly about 100 people each day, including police department and local part of ministry’s office has exactly ONE charging point built last year. One.
My EV’s getting older now, but it’ll still do 400+km if I charge it fully overnight. If we’re doing a road trip it’s time for a burger and to stretch ones legs when it’s getting low anyways. Eat my food, get some rest and 20-30 minutes later I’m ready to go again.
I was sceptical before buying it, but I will never buy a gas car again. And I work in oil and gas
Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight.
The apartment complex and workplace chargers I’ve seen all limit how long you’re allowed to leave your car parked at them. I suppose speed doesn’t matter in the sense that having to move your car 20 minutes later isn’t much less annoying than having to move it 4 hours later. Still, I wouldn’t want an EV without my own garage even if I never went on road trips. It seems like a pain.
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Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit, and how modern L2 chargers can both downrate dynamically and be activated with simple apps or cards, this is not a difficult problem to solve.
Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit
I have a 50A circuit that i just installed. And previously installed a 30A circuit at my last house. It’s not inexpensive. A 50A breaker and 30 feet of 6/2 Romex with ground costs $240. Then add in a 40A capable Grizzl-E Classic for another $299 and you’re on your way to $600.
If you’re like me, you also buy conduit for the wiring in the garage to keep it dry/protected and a receptacle rather than hardwiring to allow for a little more flexibility.
Easy, yes. Cheap, no.
Only $600??? That’s cheap as hell! I thought you were going to say $2k at the absolute lowest
You do not want 50A 240V circuit built cheap, because of the circuits arcs, the house will burn down. The proper way to do it is a pony box for the charger circuit only, and special plug hardware designed for 100% duty cycles, not clothes dryers. States haven’t even updated codes for EV charge circuits.
That’s only $10/mo over a 5 year period.
Great which contractor offers those terms?
I have a 50a charger installed but holy hell this comment is silly.
You still have to pay up front for the charger+wiring. That can be a deal breaker for many, and the point is apartments are much harder as most don’t offer any electricity for even l1 charging
Think like a business and it makes sense.
Again most people can’t afford the up front cost.
Its expensive to be poor, and most people are poor
They are already in debt paying huge amount of interest monthly.
I like being able to charge at home and it’s a luxury I know not everyone gets.
For the numbers:
Paying off a $600 charge at $10/month like you suggested would take almost 13 years and cost over $900 in interest at a 18% apr
So you are spending almost 50% more on interest than the original charge. So 150% more expensive at 1500 vs 600.
For a 5 year payoff you have to spend just over $15/month but still are paying over $300 in interest. That’s now over $900 total or 50% more expensive because you can’t afford the up front cost.
Then you have where my apt had another company put in and manage the charges but they charge 15 cents more a kw then the fast charger around the corner.
I don’t mind sitting every so often in the morning drinking some tea while charging but it would be nice if it’s faster
Ugh, greedy landlords.
Even disregarding the fact that reliable electric cars are much more expensive secondhand than comparable ICE cars, there’s still a significant economic barrier to owning one. It’s significantly more difficult to effectively own an electric car if you have an apartment, or live in a house that only has street side parking, or live in a house that has a landlord that’s not willing to install an expensive electric car charger, which covers the vast majority of lower income housing.
One doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Fast chargers ARE for road trips. And we can improve them irrespective of L2 chargers. Where are you seeing “messaging” that suggests otherwise?
It’s for all the people that wont accept that must be able to charge to full at any moment regardless that they usually wont have to because its already full from being charged at home/work etc
Gasoline cars need to accept grass if they are ever to be a viable replacement for a horse. Like, what if you’re far from a gas station but there’s a meadow right there?
Only fringe enthusiasts can own a gasoline car that doesn’t have a biofuel fermenter attached.
Ah yes I forgot that fusion energy has been a few years away for decades now.
I bet that’s what Iran was working on before the freedom fighters of Israel and USA blew up that elementary school.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
Say what? Outside of a long road trip, that’s very much what I do every time. I haven’t been into the store at my gas station in years. I’m hardly alone, I see plenty of other people fill up and leave.
The “charging problem” is most completely addressed by doing less driving. Obviously.
In the context of EVs, your daily grind refueling is a scenario that doesn’t really exist - and shouldn’t exist. Your weekly trip to the gas station should be replaced almost entirely with AC charging, either at home or at work. DC fast charging should only be used when you are driving an extended amount in a single day. And if you’ve been driving 200 miles that day, you probably need some food and a restroom.
Coincidentally, it solves one of the biggest (and least explainable) gaps on fast charging. If you make your regular rest/food stops the same thing as your charging stops, then you’ll spend very little extra time charging on a road trip. It’s always been weird to me that fast chargers have traditionally been nowhere near amenities like food and restrooms.
We just came back from a trip. Started with below 50 percent, first stop was a nice caffee for a second breakfast. Within 20 minutes, charge went up to 80, giving uns around 400 km range. The car was full before we even finished.
The planing simply changed. Instead of rushing through a gas stop, we prefer a route with places for a nice break. Or, in a pinch, nearly every McDonald’s now has a row of quick chargers.
It is becoming a non-issue.
Literally my solution in a nutshell. I’ll take a longer trip with a nice place I can stop for an hour-ish, then move on.
Went to Italy…wanted to grab an Espresso… the car was at 80 percent before I even manage to get the cup in last my hand…
Yeah, same for me. But it is true that it doesn’t necessarily apply when charging at home, overnight.
I prefer the idea of plug it on and go get lunch and take a piss and have a stretch, rather than have to stand there with it for a few mins and then do all that other stuff.
ITT: Lots of people dont realize how infrequently you actually stop at a charger if you have charging at home or work.
Yup. I’ve had an EV for 6 years (in Texas of all places) and have only used a public charger a handful of times, and mostly because of the novelty to see what DC charging is like. I’ve only needed it one time on a long distance trip. So 6 years, 1 DC fast charge.
Since they installed chargers at my workplace roughly one year ago, I have stopped exactly 3 times to charge in a public charger:
First was when we had an issue with chargers the day before I was going on a 2 weeks holiday out of town.
Second was when I arrived to my holiday destination.
Third was the day we were going back home from the holiday destination after two weeks.
That’s about it in a whole year.
Okay, now what about the people who don’t live in SFHs? I could charge at home most nights if I had an EV, but a lot of people literally can’t install chargers.
It’s so easy to install communal chargers, that no house has an excuse to not do it. It just needs to be normalised.
Here where I live, I don’t think there is a house with no ev charger at a parking space.Of course your daily mileage comes into play… but
You don’t have to install a charger, if you can charge your laptop/phone at home you can charge your car at home.
It’s just an extension cord.
Of course this requires you to run the cord outside if you don’t have a garage but it’s not like you have to bury it or anything. Because again it’s just an extension cord.
And even if you want “fast” charging at home you aren’t really “installing” a charger you are just getting a 220v outlet installed in the US. If you have a central A/C unit or electric dryer as an example you already have this installed in your house you are just adding an additional outlet for ease of access.
The “real” fast chargers that are installed for public use are not being installed in your home because those are 480v or even 800v. Which is considered industrial use, as far as I am aware you can’t get that power connection in your garage because the infrastructure isn’t there.
I’ll let my friends living in apartments know they can run an extension cord from the 5th floor then lol, I’m sure there’s nothing unsafe about that.
Daily mileage isn’t the only factor either. I’m not sure why I would pay 30k for a used EV if it costs almost the same to charge per 100km as a diesel car worth under 2k takes to refuel per 100 km but takes much more time to do so. EVs start making more sense for people in apartments when public fast charging is nearly free, like charging at home is.
Hey everyone with an electric car did you know you are wrong because if i follow this correctly.
1 .You can buy a 20 year old car for $2000. 2. This person knows someone who lives on the 5th floor.
Yeah it’s called individual choice. It’s not for everyone in every situation. Just like diesel versus gasoline or natural gas or walking or riding a bike or taking a bus.
But the point I made still stands you don’t “have” to install anything.
And yes I have seen people running cords out of windows from apartments. Is it the best option. No. Would I do it also no.
But there are options available.
Make the choice that works best for your situation.
If we’re going to ban fossil fuels 100%, we need EVs to work for everyone. If we don’t ban fossil fuels altogether, people can continue driving old cars which is bad. I know I will.
It doesn’t have to be a binary choice. We could have regulations that require EV charging stations on new construction, from street lamp poles, etc, and still let people fill up their gas car.
The government should probably do something to combat the proliferation of huge pickup trucks, but idk what that would look like.
If we are going to ban fossil fuels 100% (we aren’t) but if were going to, personal vehicles would be banned for being grossly inefficient uses of space and resources to build.
If we’re going to ban fossil fuels 100%, we need EVs to work for everyone.
Why? We’ve made THOUSANDS of changes to society over the last century that did not work for everyone, but where a lot of them benefitted the (vast) majority. We should continue having that as the aim. The idea that a solution (for ANY problem) exists that works for literally 100% of the population is silly.
So like, out my door and into the parking lot?
I’m very pro ev, but getting apartments to have charging stations is a big step forward we need to take to encourage adoption
You live somewhere that allows randoms to lay trip hazards across the pavement?
Allowed? No. Do people do things that they aren’t allowed to do even when they aren’t the best option. Yes all the time.
I would be willing to bet wherever you live there are things that aren’t allowed happening all the time. In fact you, just like everyone else probably participate in some of those activities regularly.
For example, since this conversation is about cars. You have never once driven over the speed limit (depending on where you are under the speed limit) or drove somewhere without a seat belt or used your cell phone with your hands while driving. How about using your turn signal to change lanes 100% of the time.
The world is full of rules not being followed.
Most EV owners do not realize that most car drivers live in apartment buildings and have no chance to charge their car at home.
I live in a building that was built in 2023 and has no underground charging stations. In fact no stations around the building either. In Germany. Berlin. Yep
Most people in western countries (Europe+US) live in houses.
I suspect, without digging up evidence, that people living in houses are more likely to be car drivers than people living in apartments (who are more likely to have access to mass transit), so the data skews even further towards houses.
Also, without digging up more numbers, I suspect many of the apartment-bound-car-drivers have consistent workplace parking that could be (but likely isn’t yet) converted to support workplace charging.
I recognize that information doesn’t help your current situation at all, but it is not in fact the majority experience.
Most of the time, they don’t need to be anywhere near as fast as gas (most, maybe even nearly all, people have or can have a way to charge at home). But there’s lots of people that don’t do long stops on their trips and just want to stop, fuel up, and go. The EV can be a bit slower, but anything over about 15 min is going to be a showstopper for alot of people.
Many people don’t enjoy having to regularily go to the fuel station, but they have to. You do not necessarily have to do that with EVs. Habits form around necessities.
Oh, for sure. I haven’t needed to go to a public charger since I got my EV. And I don’t forsee making very many trips to one in the future. Home charging just changes so many things.
(most, maybe even nearly all, people have or can have a way to charge at home)
What? Most people where?
I live in a fairly rich European country, and EV chargers here practically don’t exist. Almost everyone lives in apartment buildings. If you’re lucky, yours will have 1 or 2 chargers in the underground parking lot or somewhere close by outside.
It’s even worse in Eastern and Southern Europe. Outside of North America, Europe, and China, EVs, as well as chargers for them, don’t exist at all.
Are those ‘most people’ you’re talking about actually just <5% of human population that happen to live in North America or Western Europe, and happen to be wealthy enough to afford that?
I mostly agree but part of me thinks you can get away with below 80% charges to save time rather than being hung up on the time to reach that 80-100%. (shifting one’s thinking like how EV roadtripping is currently about reaching the next charger rather than a 100% fill each stop)
I say that because some gas vehicles like the two-door Bronco just have relatively poor range (in the 200’s) due to smaller tanks and I’ve seen how long folks can wait in line for gas at Costco. (having also been in line)
And that’s why battery swap stations should exist.
Give me an option to quick-swap modules ;-;
It sounds way too easy to do.Only issue I see: How to make all manufacturers agree on the battery form?
So many people will get gas then go in for snacks by the time you wait in line and get gas that’s 20 minutes alone.
I was arguing with my mum and she said it can take twenty minutes to recharge the car. I said, after driving for five hours don’t you want to get out, stretch your legs and have a coffee? That’s half an hour easy.
The great majority of my gas stops are stop, fill up, leave. I expect those would be eliminated by having a EV I just charged at home though.
Yes… I see a DC charger maybe 2 or 3 times a year.
For the cost of running a washing machine.
Hmm. There’s many ways that could be a lie. Could I get a source?
A source that a car and a washing machine both use 240V? Sure you could.
Voltage != power draw
Pretty sure that beats the $40 to fill my tank by quite a lot.
I’ve got a Rav4. Costs about $40 to fill up. Just got a Subaru Solterra (same vehicle as the Toyota bz4x). Costs about $7 to charge, given my electric rates. Similar range (Solterra is a bit shorter). And that’s neglecting my solar.
The calculation is too difficult?
I don’t know how much it actually costs to run my washing machine so I cannot make a definitive statement.
Like EV charging, washers and dryers run on 240V. My approximate energy use for a laundry load (washing + drying): 3 kWh. My own EV driving uses about 5 kWh per day. That’s how I got the number. Same order of magnitude is my point. At least in my case. Changing the laundry size and frequency, and driving habits, could actually make those numbers (3 and 5 kWh) close to equal.
I wasn’t trying to argue with you.
Me neither, just explaining what I said for everyone to understand, hoping it helps someone.
The few times I’ve charged an electric rental car, I had to go pee and buy snacks or go for lunch anyway… in my opinion a longer break of a few minutes from driving is healthy and safer anyway.
Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away
This almost reads as satire. Like this has to be a joke, right? No way this guy can really be this stupid (or out of touch), right?
I certainly don’t rush it, tho. It’s full when it’s full, and then i wobble to the checkout.
Obviously they are not a fan of motorsport.
I’ve done a few cross country moves where I would only try to time out a stop for all three reasons at a time: restroom, refuel, meal. I was doing pretty great with only one stop every 4-5 hours or so, 14 hours of driving per day.
As an EV owner (and a parent who now usually has kids in the car), I go at a much more leisurely pace and don’t need to do that kind of road trip anymore. But I totally get why it’s the default for a lot of people trying to get from one place to another
It’s a banana, Michael. How much could it cost?
This is what happens when CEOs or any of these idiots are detached from reality for too long. Who is hanging out at the gas station? At most you go in to grab a pack of gum or cigarettes or something. I honestly feel like the only job of CEOs these days is to gaslight the public and convince them that the things they say are true, when every normal person clearly knows its false.
From ‘everyone loves to chill at the gas station’ to ‘people should love data centers in their yard because it brings jobs’.
Look I know the ‘elites’ think normies are idiots, and there are plenty… but its really getting old now
He is a shareholder in Buc-ee’s and sheetz and whatever large gas station chain. He wants you to spend 1-2 hours there increasing their sales.
He’s saying most folks take something like 10 minutes taking their leasurely time. So that is the goal for ev charging
I literally pump my gas looking at the time because i need to be somewhere, i’ve literally never leisurely gotten gas, i dont even know what that means. Like youre bored at home and decide to go get some gas??
There’s a huge difference between charging in town while you’re out for other things, and refueling while on a longer road trip.
If you’re in town with an EV, you theoretically never need to charge because you all have a full battery when leaving your house.
If you’re stopping after three hours on a longer trip, then you’ll likely need to attend to your biological needs at the same time, including just walking around and stretching your legs.
That’s fine, im still on a timer when im taking a rest stop on a long drive. Im just saying as a non billionaire, idk wtf leisurely getting gas or electricity is.
I mean, he’d still be wrong in my experience, but aiming for 10-15 min EV charging sounds fine. Would being as fast as gas be preferred? OF COURSE. I don’t want to spend a moment at a gas station that I don’t need to. Hell, I’ll leave if the pump is too slow and get gas sooner at a better place.
“Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away”
WTF? This is exactly how I have refeuled every single time I have ever gotten gas. If I could pay a little extra for a pit stop style refuel I would. Who wants to linger around gas fumes, processed “food” , and energy drink boner pills?
A big draw of EV for me is that 99% I don’t need to stop anywhere to recharge. If I do though I want it to be as fast as possible.
100%. The time I spend at a fucking gas station is the time the gas is flowing + the overhead of tapping the card. Plus, if there are ads and the mute button doesn’t instantly work, leaving a 1 star review.
“If there are ads”
WTF where do you live?
Ads at pumps are fairly common in the US. They been around since 2019 if not earlier.
I think he meant this as where would someone live that it would be an if. Ads are pervasive
No ads in Europe as far as I’ve seen.
Not as many but there are occasional posters, banners, window ads. Hard to be in a public place without them.
We have ads in Australia too. :(
In Latvia there is gas station chain that has no workers. Fully self service. They have screens that run ads.
AFAIK, in some countries some stations that have workers and where you have to go to pay at cash register also have pumps with screens and play ads on them. Some even have pistols with screens for the same purpose. Yep.
We bought an EV and it took a few trips for it to click that you don’t need to charge to 100% or even 90%. Hook it up, hit the restroom, buy a latte, then get back on the road with 50% charge.
You only need enough to get to wherever your longer parking+charge is going to be.
We also figure out the range anxiety. Getting down to 10% isn’t a big deal, especially if that last stop is going to get you back to full charge. Our EV doesn’t even have that great of range to start with.
also charging 10-50% is a LOT faster than charging 50-90%.
When I had an ICE car, it was exactly the same. With our BEV however, I don’t generally need to charge “on the way” as I can start each morning fully charged, and have more than enough battery for a full day.
It’s only on longer trips we need to charge, and on those we can easily combine charge and a short break.Don’t forget the unmutable unskippable multimedia advertisements on the fuel pump!
(Yes, I know some of them are allegedly mutable, but I have yet to find one.)
I’ve been told that a butter knife placed in just the right part of the speaker slot unveils the hidden permanent mute button
Yea, I don’t get all these people who are like “yea lets get a 30 min lunch break at a gas station”. Dude, the last place I want to spend time at on a road trip is at a fucking gas station.
You are missing out on delicious sushi.
I think it means specifically in the context of long road trips, the kind where everyone gets out to stretch their legs and take a piss while stopping for gas. On the other hand, I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Modern EVs have hundreds of miles of range and can easily do road trips as long as there are chargers along the route. I haven’t done any cross county trips but I have driven from NorCal to SoCal and eastern to western CO without issue.
4 hours driving and a half hour charge while doing a biobreak is perfectly doable these days. You can keep that up a long time. Personally not a fan of that long a stretch and we’re doing more 2 hours driving and a break.
My EV has a 330 mile range, and a full recharge at home costs me $4. It’s amazing.
If I remember correctly, the new BMW 3 series EV is like a 430 mile range.
Keep in mind the range listed, just like mileage, is based on certain circumstances. Freeway speeds (~80 mph) will drastically reduce that.
I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Maybe 10 years ago that was true, but now ranges and charging speeds have gotten much better. The infrastructure of gas stations is still better for easy road trips without pre-planning though.
Where I live (Denmark) there is no need for planning your charging, there are charging stations everywhere. I think the same is true for Sweden and Norway.
It’s only a matter of when the infrastructure is established enough. Scandinavia is among the more developed regions with regard to charging infrastructure, but it will be the same in other countries soon.The same in Finland
The US doesn’t do infrastructure. Bridges barely work.
Yes USA is a funny country, one of the richest countries in the world, but for some reason they can’t afford basic infrastructure and healthcare for all?
Just sounds like a CEO who doesn’t want to invest anything in upgrading anything.
Of course I want to be out of there quicker. I’m driving to somewhere and it sure as shit is not to a charging point.
It’s Ionna, one of the (IMO) best options for DC fast charging.
He’s not justifying slow chargers; he’s justifying building stuff around them. Basically the “truck stop” model.
All Americans should travel to Italy and have a meal at an Autogrill on the highways. It’s likely the best food you ever eat. US highway stops are all hot garbage.
The Autogrills are absolutely great for a motorway stop but you’re over selling them just a tad. After all, you’re now comparing them to restaurants in the Italian cities at either end too.
Anyway, we’ve got 150+ kW chargers at most stops now, at least in the north. And signage for stops indicates if there are chargers. An espresso and toilet break is usually enough to keep going.
“And while China’s getting there, an executive in the U.S. aren’t so convinced that’s true.”
Why does this sentence bother me so much?
Probably the grammatical incorrectness of it
Like an executive will be driving himself anywhere.
- “China’s” is a possessive and makes no sense.
- “an executive” is singular, “aren’t” is plural
- “that’s true” is surperfulous and already understood
Does this sound better? “While China is getting there, executives in the U.S. aren’t so convinced.”
Also who the hell cares if existing execs aren’t convinced lol
The thing a lot of these people dknt understand is that not everyone has a garage where they can charge a car. I love in an apartment, where am I suppssdd to charge an EV? My parking space is too far away from my parking spot to charge, and I’m positive that my complex would never pay to add charging spots connected to each apartments meter.
Even if they did, I wouldnt trust my neighbors to plug tjeir EV into my charger. This alsomapploesmto people in houses that don’t have a garage. An I supossed to run an extension cord to the street st night so that anyone driving by can llut into my electricity?
most EV chargers can be locked so only you can use them (normally with a RFID or BLE tag).
Also, having chargers in apartment parkings is absolutely viable. it is more expensive to install than in a house. Not sure about the US but where I live (Spain) I know people that have them without issues
It’s not a technical problem, it’s a people problem. We know how to run wires, count electrons and keep stuff safe behind locks (digital/normal).
Issue is (a) getting someone to pay for it upfront while you could pay for it in your rent (b) getting everyone in apartment to agree to a rent increase if they have a parking spot
This is absolutely a valid concern.
There are various available solutions, but little incentive for landlords to bother. Either ev charger for every renters parking spot with some mechanism to lock it out (expensive) or a large pool of chargers that are shared, but you have to badge in and get it billed to you. The latter if too small barely helps and if too large will piss off gas vehicle tenants that hate the “wasted” space.
I live in a cold climate and so my apartment stall is electrified in order to run a block heater. The way that it works here is that I am charged for power usage off of that stall outlet, but my unit has a breaker that allows me to turn it off and on. I think charging ports could operate similarly, hopefully offering some kind of smarter scheduling that allows you to only have it active when your car is in the stall and needs charging.
And you think the apartment complexes are going to foot the bull to install that here? Every parking lot would have to be torn up to install that. Its a ridiculous assumprion.
Cutting a narrow trench so you can run electricity out to parts of the parking lot you can’t get to otherwise isn’t exactly a big deal. Utilities do that sort of thing all the time. We can patch parking lots - we do it all the time. Or even just put a pole and run the lines overhead. And, in many parking lots, you can just run the trench or conduit around the edge of the parking lot. You also don’t need every space to be electrified, at least at first.
And who’s going to pay for that? I promise you, my shitty complex won’t.
Won’t they? What if they can charge say $20/month + electricity cost extra for those parking spaces and pocket more money?
Why would a parking lot need to be “torn up” to add a power outlet
Because the parking lot is paved? And you have to break throigh that pavement to run power lines?
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You can cut a small trench with a specialized tool… easy enough.
You don’t need to break up the pavement to add chargers. Indoors they usually add chargers to the wall spots, outdoors add them to (solar paneled) shade structures.
Not that it answers all your questions, but many EV chargers have access control. The Chinese one I have you have to tap an access card. Tesla charger allows you to limit to Tesla only or even specific Tesla VIN so you can just plug and change while others can’t.
There will need to be systemic improvements to get more chargers to more people (apartments, office buildings, parking garages, etc), but for L2 charging the electrical work is minimal since all the charging circuitry is in the car and the “charger” is just a fancy wire connector and authorizer.
Ultimately as other commenters have pointed out the problem is political rather than technical. Expanding access to things without a profit motive is continuously difficult under our economic and legal system. Chasing faster and faster charging speeds is not really a solution to the accessibility problem.
Exactly… the issue is the reluctance to install something simple as electric power to your parking space. This is not a technical issue… purely ideological nothing else.
It takes 20 mins, and many grocery stores have chargers, plug in when you do your shopping
Grocery store chargers are usually Level 2. I can typically recharge enough to cover my round trip to the grocery store while I’m shopping, but you’d have to camp there for 9+ hours to full charge.
All the ones near me are level 3
Most grocery stores here don’t have chargers. If they do, its like 6 spots and theyre always full. Now, how do I charge an EV?
Hell I’ve never seen one at the grocery stores in my area. In fact in the whole city I can only think of one place that has EV Chargers it’s a shopping center that I only go to once a year maybe. Its got like 6 or so Tesla chargers. There could be a couple others, but I’ve never encountered them.
In three years of ownership, I have used a fast charger once. A sudden unplanned road trip when I had let my charge get low.
Charging at home is so much nicer than a gas station. It is worth the rate longer fast charging on a road trip to usually not to go to a gas station at all.
If I lived in an apartment, I think I might be pretty frustrated though.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
I, in fact, do exactly that. I pull up in front of the pump, get out, stick my card in, fill up, and leave. It’s been over ten years since I went inside the store at a gas station, there’s nothing in there I want to buy.
However, needing to spend half an hour recharging if I were on a road trip would be fine, because on a road trip I would stop for a break from driving in any case. But, I almost never go on road trips, and 99.9% of my trips around town would be well within one charge, which I could do at home.
So, while I agree that charging doesn’t need to be as fast as gas, it’s not because of his stated reason.
I mean, he’s kinda right. It just needs to charge you enough to get you where you plan to go and then you can plug in again and charge passively. Being able to have on-site charging basically anywhere the car can actually go makes it more convenient for everything except road trips, and since initial charging from low battery percentage is much more efficient, people just need to not feel the compulsive need to top off at 100%.
