Okay, but who is building the vast energy grid infrastructure required to move the gargantuan amounts of electricity that will be required once all vehicles make the switch?
I’m all for it, but I don’t hear anybody talking about the huge national grid upgrades that will be required, or who’s going to pay for it all, or how many years it’ll take to get done.
Everyone seems to talk about building more chargers, but not going any further than that.
I can’t speak for other countries, but since the article is about Germany: You have never heard of Netzentwicklungsplan, Südlink, Südostlink, Lastmanagement für Ladestationen and many more of these things? The Netzausbau (expansion of the power grid) and Lastmanagement (power distribution management) is pretty much a huge topic for all Netzübertragungsbetreiber and the other smaller power grid operators in Germany. Most of the development is slow at the moment because of bureaucracy and NIMBYs but it is actively being worked on.
Hopefully they will have it so that the EV charging stations included will be under canopies to protect them from the weather, as I know that that is a big problem with current canopy-less implementations.
Indeed it should, though there are many EV charging stations where it isn’t the case, especially in America. Tesla’s Charging locations are like that, they usually don’t have a canopy over the Chargers, which in my opinion doesn’t seem like a great practice because it exposes the machines to the elements and make them unpleasant for users when it’s raining or snowing.
They should concentrate on making EVs financially more plausible for people without an electrified garage. Half of Germany lives in flats, most without an own parking space and will pay much more for charging their EV with much less comfort. And politics seem to completly ignore that.
While I agree, it is much easier to bring in charging stations to gas stations where infrastructure is already built out. It seems like a near-term win with the long-term option for flat integration/power connectivity
The electric infrastructure is the whole grid. I’d argue apartment complex are better prepared for the increased power use than a gas station and is more convenient a location than gas station.
What are you going to do while waiting for your car to charge? At least at home you can go… home. Shopping centres are a close second. You can do your shopping while you’re charging. Parking spaces and grid are already there.
Im guessing but I bet it is mostly due to the local infrastructure. It is easier to run electrical and install new chargers at a place of business versus residential. The infrastructure at a business is built to expand unlike parking spaces at an apartment complex. You cannot easily tear up the concrete and install electrical when hundreds of families are sleeping or getting home from work
Concrete near houses is wasteful. In NL stones are used instead. Installing a charger is easy. There are loads and loads of chargers. In my city they are at most 50 meters apart from each other.
I completely disagree with pretty much everything you said based upon how NL does it. It’s easy, it doesn’t take a long time, it doesn’t affect anyone sleeping, etc.
that’s assuming these things actually work I keep picturing the scenario where you pull up to a gas station in the air pump doesn’t work while you’re trying to inflate your tire
I’d argue apartment complex are better prepared for the increased power use than a gas station and is more convenient a location than gas station.
They solve different problems: in the apartment complex you charge during the night for the daily usage while at the gas station is for the longer drives.
And while charging, at least in Europe, you can simply eat your lunch at the station restaurant/fast food/self service/whatever
I mean, if you live in a flat without your own parking space, I'd expect you're taking public transportation most of the time. If you don't own a car in the first place, there's no need to convert you in the first place, at least if you have no reason to need a car.
I get your point. But to be fair: for landlords where massive subventions in place. This program ended amd was not renewed because of lack of interest.
But at least for new buildings, a policy to force charging stations at every parking lot would be a good idea
Where you still wait 30 minutes and pay much more than those charging at home.
So: no. That is not what I mean. That is a pretty much useless imo, there are so many charging stations everywhere and they are mostly empty whenever I see one anyways (maybe, just maybe, because depending on a EV is so difficult for almost everyone living in flat?).
I live in the city and am lucky to almost never need a car. Many of my neighbours need a car though for various reasons. There is not a single EV car in the whole neighborhood of several thousand people. And guess the reason: it is impossible to switch to one. And this law proposed here will do zero to change that.
You see a shitload of EV cars in the suburbs though.
Imagine thinking people are going to wait 30 minutes to charge for work. Putting charge stations at gas stations is stupid and will never work. They already get long lines during busy periods when if takes 3 minutes to fill.
What a bone-headed move. A gas station is not really set up to handle vehicles that might be there for 5x, 10x or maybe even 15x longer than a gasoline car takes to fill up. You’d be far better off, putting them in the parking lot of a local grocery store or movie theater or restaurant.
While it is a good idea to put them near the places you suggest, it not stupid to put them also at the gas stations. Here we already have gas station on highways with EV charging stations and they just take some parking places, usually a couple in the smaller stations and maybe up to a dozen in the biggest ones. It is a nice advantage to be able to have lunch while the car recharge.
Some gas stations are also highway rest areas with restaurants and whatnot. The ones that aren’t close to rest areas are in mixed used neighbourhoods, so possibly close to the customers’ homes. If you take your car to the cinema in Germany, you’re doing it wrong.
My nearest cinema in the UK is 90 minutes walk away.
There used to be two in my town. One closed back in the mid-90s and has been several pubs and clubs since, and the other closed long enough ago that there’s still a faded poster for The Hunger Games outside. Nothing else has moved into this building, except presumably for the local spiceheads.
But I digress. Putting charging points at motorway service stations is a good idea. Such a good idea that it’s already been done in just about all of them, and as electric vehicle use climbs, will presumably increase the number of charging points accordingly until there’s one for every parking space. Putting them in a regular petrol station would be a shit idea. I assume when we finally drink the Earth dry of oil, these places will close and be another polluted husk on the apocalyptic hellscape called Britain. Cars will be charged from home by then, we’ll have no use for them. As more of them close, it’ll trigger a cascade of people who don’t want to drive 10 miles to fill their car up, so will switch to electric.
Home and car parks will be the only place to charge in the future.
As others have mentioned it’s as well as not instead of.
However it’s boneheaded to charge to 100% the vast majority of the time as it’s often as slow to charge from 20 to 80% as it it from 80 to 100% on an ultra rapid charger as it massively slows down above 80.
I can charge twice from 10 to 80% with my car in about 40 minutes for a range of almost 500 miles vs. One 10 to 100% for a range of almost 320 miles in the same time.
I only fully charge at home and only if it makes sense for the journey I’m doing. It’s not good for the long term health of the battery to repeatedly charge it to 100% all the time. Plus it’s kind of a dick move to block fast and ultra chargers with the slow charge above 80%.
Then there’s the cost, I don’t want to spend 45 to 75p a kWh to charge on a public charger when I pay 9p at home on my ev tariff. If I do need to charge I only charge what I need, which can be as little as 5 minutes for about 60 miles.
Sure, not every car comes with 350kw support (or even 250kw) yet, but more will as people realise that charging speed is at least as important as range if you plan to travel in Europe.
Charge to 80% twice, if you read what I wrote, is almost 500 miles, and takes about as long to charge both of those times in total vs. charging just once to 100% on an ultra rapid charger.
Gas stations are much better place for that than random tesla supercharging spots, there are people to assist the disabled, you have Toilets, food, coffee basically you can do stuff for 15 minutes easily.
germany recently shut down their last running nuclear power plants and basically bricked them so they can't be used ever again, had both nordstream piplines destroyed, is heavily dependend on french nuclear power and u.s.-american liquid gas and is already talking about "controlled brownouts" - i guess installing millions of high voltage charging outlets for cars (that are not even on the streets yet) when one of the three governing parties actually wants cars mostly gone is rather bizarr, but hey - it's germany lol
For a family trip? Toilet break, coffee, cakes for the kids, that’s 15-20 minutes on a rest area. We do this on a weekend, so need a quick grocery run (our supermarkets are famously closed on Sunday), that’s easily 30-40 minutes total.
it’s not, what about the handicapped who need assistance? Gas station has those.
all the amenities that are at the gas station so you can do stuff during your 15 minute charge,
this should be done along major roads everywhere
Though I’d agree simple 230v (since it’s the EU) charging in many places is something that should be a focus too, mainly at workplaces and stuff like that where people spend a lot of time
Most gas stations have some building with a (or multiple) shops which could easily be adjusted to slow moving chillin car charging peoples (no offense, I’m one as well).
You’re not spending 30+ minutes charging on modern EV’s (maybe some cheap crappy ones IDK)…I spent my summer holiday driving around Europe for 3 weeks, and charging stops were always <25min from leaving the highway to back on the highway. The actual charging time was often so short that we barely had time to get the kids to the bathroom and back before the car was ready to drive for another couple of hours. Having them at gas stations in Germany, where there’s almost always a decent level of amenities (at least along the highway) is just fine and makes perfect sense.
We want them at office car parks, super market car parks, restaurant car parks, etc. Anywhere you going to leave your car for hours. It doesn’t need to be rapid.
In the future, when cars are largely V2X, while just sat there, they can be local power stage. Buying and selling power, making you money and smoothing the grid.
Cars are sat most of their lives. While sat, they should be plumbed in and their huge batteries made use of.
Gas stations will need to evolve to account for the wait of EV charging. They will need to become fast casual restaurants with options for long-term stayers and this is not possible with some landlocked locations, as opposed to newer developments in the states.
Some US chains are primed for this, or at least pretty close. Wawa, Buc-ee’s, and similar, have ready made and made to order food, restrooms, and many have shopping as well. They aren’t full sitdown restaurants, but they could optionally add seating areas if they didn’t want to just let people eat in their cars.
So pretty much they just need to find space for the car chargers at their normal parking spots, and maybe add some more spots to deal with increased demand in the future. I’ve seen both Wawa and Buc-ee’s testing chargers at some of the locations, so they’re definitely moving in the direction already.
With housing the way it is, and AI driving being a possibility, we’re going to see a huge influx of people truly living in their cars. Add remote work into the mix?
My experience is that even places with fast food are not fast enough for EV charging. I pretty much always end up charging more than I actually need, or even move the car because its fully charged, before we’re done eating and back at the car.
Right now EVs charge fast enough that you can’t do anything meaningful with the time, but too slow for just sitting and waiting.
Gas stations don’t need to evolve to become restaurants… restaurants needs to simply add chargers.
It isn’t even a huge leap for customers to expect it either. Some 15 years ago there was a big push for restaurants and stores and markets to install wifi for their customers. This is not all that different, quite honestly. If a restaurant has 15 parking spots in it’s lot, it shouldn’t be a huge ask to install a handful of chargers which can be shared by most of the parking spots. Most parking lots already have some kind of power out there for signage or lightpoles. You can tap off that, or go solar.
Most restaurants that germans go to don’t have a parking lot nearby. Most restaurants are in the city. Although maybe some enterprising country inn/restaurant owners already offer EV charging.
You’re thinking cities with single use neighbourhoods like in the US, where residency and commercial areas are usually separated. That’s not the case in Germany.
I think they are closer than you might think. You obviously can’t consider what it would cost to set up wifi using today’s technology. You’d have to consider early 2000s tech and what that cost. Also for EV chargers today, many areas have rebate programs to reduce costs. There’s also the incentive to charge for the electricity - turn it into a money maker for the business.
Seems I have fallen for a hoax. Over the years, tesla charging stations appeared here and their. Some of them with a suspicious container. People told me that there is a backup generator in there, when the power grid fails to provide. But the generator /container ist to small to provide the output needed for supercharging. But I couldn’t find any article explaining the real purpose.
A container/ small building could be the inverter/transformer for DC fast charging. Essentially most things for DC fast charging are handled in this small ~10m^2 room and the charging stations that you can see provide the plug and the interface for the customer and nothing else. Everything needed to get grid AC turned into 300V or 600V DC is in the box.
Even a diesel generator charging an EV is less pollutant than an ICE car.
It is basically the concept of a hybrid.
Combustion engines need to rotate at a specific rpm to be efficient. That is why ICE cars have gearboxes, because otherwise they would be even less energy efficient.
Rented a Tesla this summer for a trip with my family- where I was in Michigan, the nearest superchargers were in the lot at Meijers (a regional supermarket chain), which made sense for Meijers (there’s already a big lot there, already infra, it’s a place you can tie fueling up with getting groceries) but it meant I had to drive half an hour to shop instead of going to the local market.
My thought is that they should be planting superchargers (or their functional equivalent) in every store or restaurant parking lot because when the only place to get a charge is in the next county over, that’s directing EV drivers there and not local
Yeah, it’ll cost something to build out infra to support that much power but honestly the US grid needs the upgrades anyhow- and if anything, electricity is relatively cheap compared to buying gas
Yeah, it’ll cost something to build out infra to support that much power but honestly the US grid needs the upgrades anyhow- and if anything, electricity is relatively cheap compared to buying gas
It’s a good thing that Inflation Reduction Act Biden got passed includes a crapton of money to help businesses pay for chargers and other infrastructure, eh?
Yeah. If that keeps money in small towns and going into small businesses vs. big-box chain stores, it’s well-spent. Especially if it means your transport fuel dollar isn’t funding fossil energy(?)
At the moment, Michigan sources about 2/3rds of its electrical power from coal or natural gas but wind and nuclear are a growing piece of that. Where I live, in WA, most of our electricity is Hydro (and it’s cheap, at ~10¢/kWh). Also, fueling up on electricity (even in MI, where electricity is ~19 ¢/kWh) was pretty cheap compared to gasoline.
I think if we don’t put those in local, small-town small-business lots everywhere it’ll be bad for small businesses, small towns, and in marginal ways, for the environment.
Not just Tesla and not just NACS. Other charging networks using CCS are going into Sheetz as well. I know I always stop at two Electrify America Sheetz locations on the PA turnpike whenever I drive it.
While I’m sure Electrify America is doing the same thing as Tesla (installing electric “gas stations” at regular gas stations, because it’s an obvious place to put them), I’ve only seen one ccs charger in my life.
I’ve never actually seen anyone use it, and it’s frequently got tape around it.
I take that tape as “it’s broken” but I don’t care to check on it.
A Tesla driver probably wouldn’t have any great need to see a CCS charger, just like a non-Tesla diver has little reason to go to a Tesla supercharger. They’re around, though. EA seems to like putting chargers in Sheetz and Walmart. Chargepoint is less predictable as to where you’ll find them. They do seen broken more often than they should be (usually seems to be a computer/software issue), though, I’ll give you that.
For now, sure. Car makers want to support the connector that has the most chargers out there. The competition won’t go away, though. Most seem to agree that CCS2 is a superior connector to both CCS1 and NACS. What it amounts to is that EV owners will just have to have adapters in their car. Tesla’s move to NACS at least makes that possible (as the connectors will at least all share a communication protocol, as far as I understand).
You need infrastructure for fast charging so that people can travel long distances.
It takes several hours to charge my car at home. I do that twice a week or so.
That’s too long when I go on a trip long enough where you’d need to get gas . If I go to the supercharger, it’s 25 minutes every four hours or so. That’s just the opposite of a problem for me.
The only remaining problem for me is that there’s not more fast DC chargers.
I’d really like to take my EV camping, but the places where I like to go camping are far from any fast charging and don’t have RV plugs. A regular 120v/15A wall plug overnight would resolve the issue, but I just can’t guarantee that one’s available.
That’s the only “range anxiety” I have. On a daily basis, I just never have to worry about running out of juice. It’s just full all the time.
It’s like a phone. I charge it every night (I don’t even do that for the EV). The only problem is if I’m traveling, and cars and planes have charging for me.
Once there’s more infrastructure, it’s just no problem.
At home either you’re responsible on your own or your landlord is, in fact in Germany many people rent. Here there is a law already: if requested, the landlord has to install an EV charger. In many parking lots of businesses at least where I live chargers already exist. I don’t know if this is another law or if it just works in that field.
There is a difference between bad policy and unpopular policy. If each party caters to their target audience there are two others the policy is unpopular with. Blatantly bad policy is rare. Interestingly the current opposition had the same intention when they were in charge. But now they have to cater to their right wing audience.
Subsidizing foreign mega corps to make (not even develop) chips in Germany with €3M per job while the local infrastructure is inferior to other countries is not just unpopular. It's objectively stupid policy and a waste of taxpayer money.
no, please tell me how domestically producing chips is bad. remember 2021 when entire factories had to shut down because we couldn’t import those very same controller chips due to a single ship getting stuck? i sure as hell do. No, I think it’s incredibly important to make sure that a third of our economy isn’t killed just because china want to play ball right now.
and our infer structure in what? roads/rail? we are one of the best. the only nations with better rail service are all those who have a Rail trunk instead of a network.
or maybe you mean internet. well, that is getting expanded under the current government, after years of CDU led governments being completely apathetic to this problem.
and we’re finally addressing the cost of power being so high outside Bavaria by no longer subsidizing them.
These are fast chargers to top-off for extended trips.
Those places make a lot more sense than what the US is doing, which is putting its long distance fast chargers in weird ass parking lots that lack access to a restroom, convenient store, food, or even a bucket with a window squeegee.
As a non-Tesla EV owner, the one supercharger I’ve been to that accepted non-Teslas was out in a rural spot where there was one shop that was closed when I got there.
All the other chargers I’ve been to are stuffed in random parking lots. There’s often something within a 15 minute walk, but that’s completely random. It’s obvious no real attempt was made to cater to charging vehicles.
We’re now starting to get sites with more chargers, and they are being set up as convenient rest stops with food and other services available. But those are still few and far between.
Teal deer; your personal experience is not universal.
They usually don’t have anywhere to sit down out of the weather. They’re not designed for people to be there, you’re intended to buy stuff and get out. So they aren’t great as a half hour charging stop.
Maybe things are different in Germany, which is what this article is about.
My experience is of Telsa’s network in California. Which is home turf for the North America’s best EV network. Telsa is pretty good at putting superchargers near fast food and drug stores, but it’s kind of inconsistent. Some might not be near a public bathroom, and some might not be near a gas station if you want wiper fluid, air, or a squeegee.
Charger vendors are clearly trying to put chargers by places where people can get coffee and take a shit. I don’t see why people are so opposed to putting them in or right next to gas stations. That would be super convenient as long as it’s not a crowded station that can’t accommodate cars staying for a bit longer.
This is a infrastructure problem. This is a near-term win to put these in gas stations where power infrastructure already exists or can exist. Massive power infrastructure doesn’t work quickly, it will take time but ultimately you’re correct to push for parking locations.
IMO the current model we use for gas stations wouldn’t work for EVs. Charging times for EVs can take a long time compared to petroleum vehicles taking only a couple minutes (depending on tank size). The lines would be a terrible experience, and you’d probably end up having to reserve a spot.
Honestly, it makes sense for any business off of a highway that sells things to provide fast chargers. They still take several minutes at a minimum to charge, so you have a captive and probably bored customer. Seems like a gas station, restaurant, whatever would quickly make back the money spent on charging infrastructure in increased sales from people who’d rather shop or eat than sit in their car for a half hour.
Here in Australia, I think it would actually work quite well, particularly in rural areas… then again all our service stations are pretty much convenience stores where you can buy fuel. Many of them you can buy a coffee and baked goods as well, some even have full restaurants.
I’ve charged at many gas stations before. It’s super convenient. You’re in the back and have to walk a bit to get to the store. Go to bathroom, grab a drink, then come back and wait less than 10 mins. You’re only charging for 25 mins each stop every 2.5-3.5 hours. It seems like a lot, but you get used to it because it helps you stay awake for longer trips. I’ve gone all I’ve the USA with my car and it’s so easy and simple now. I don’t even think about stope like these anymore. I’m more angry when it’s not at a 24/7 gas station because I can’t pee or get a drink. I have peed behind my car before because the charger is in a mall parking lot and it’s like 2 am. Those are the worst.
I could say the same for it over here in the states bc geezus. Esp as someone who absolutely hates driving bc of audhd and so many other reasons. Not to mention everything is so far away when I need it and shopping online isn’t always ideal(and I’m still wary of buying certain things online…)
Yep which sucks. I want the same so bad. It shouldn’t be that bad of a request to just start investing in some form of transit and redevelopment for that reason. Better than investing in roads as the sole way to get anyone around 😭
Cars are just too much and I wanna bike more but I’m scared I’d get run over or have the bike stolen if I attempted biking more…
This is me, laughing at your comment as a bald eagle clutching an assault rifle flies over and shits simultaneously on my head and the idea of public transit.
A good start, but not proper investment in public transit. DB is still massivly underfunded and the road infrastructure, again, got more money to spend than the rail infrastructure, despite claiming the Ampel would do it the other way around… :/
DB the company has a lot of foreign interests. It bought a British transport company in 2010. Why did they do this instead of reinvesting the money back into the Deutsche Bahn? Because it’s a joint-stock company beholden to stake-holders. It should never have been managed like a private company. Now the damage is done and decades of unrepair is catching up to them.
Somehow I don’t blame the politics for this disrepair. I blame the execs and upper management.
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