
McCharge: McDonalds Is Now Charging EVs - reddotX
https://thenextavenue.com/2019/09/27/mccharge-mcdonalds-is-now-charging-evs/
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Animats
How much charge can you get in the time spent at a fast food outlet?

This is the beginning of gas stations and oil companies feeling the fear. This
week saw the first US gas station stop selling gasoline and switch to charging
only.[1]

Walmart is putting in charging stations. That makes a lot of sense. The amount
of time spent at a Walmart is enough for a good charge.[2]

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/first-gas-station-to-
ditch-o...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/first-gas-station-to-ditch-oil-
for-electric-vehicle-charging-now-open.html)

[2]
[https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/06/06/electrify-...](https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/06/06/electrify-
america-walmart-announce-completion-of-over-120-charging-stations-at-walmart-
stores-nationwide-with-plans-for-further-expansion)

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nroets
For 8 months I've been traveling in the US[1] and Europe[2] by bicycle. Most
of the time I was camping and McDonalds was the most convenient place to
charge my phone. I found that I could easily spend 2 hours per day there
without getting bored. I didn't have a stove, so it was my warm meal on most
days.

I suspect a lot of underemployed Americans could adopt a similar routine to
get their cars charged.

1:
[https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/burgers](https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/burgers)

2:
[https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/roads2rome](https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/roads2rome)

~~~
usecontainers
There was an interesting article[1] a while back about the social/community
roles that McDonalds plays for a large variety of groups. They are usually
pretty good about "loitering" if you (a) buy something and (b) are non-
disruptive.

1:
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-
community-centers-us-physical-social-networks)

~~~
nroets
And you are not sleeping, or appear to be.

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rbf
In Norway McDonalds have chargers in many locations already (and significantly
more EVs than Sweden)

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bald
In Germany there's also lots of McDonalds with chargers, some of them have
already been there for 2 years or more.

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jakobegger
I'm not familiar with EV charging prices, but this does seem a bit expensive.
2.5 SEK per minute is 0.23€ / 0.26USD. Is that for high speed DC charging?

Anyway, to me the focus on high speed charging seems to be completely the
wrong way to go about charging infrastructure. Our cars sit idle 95% of the
day. Aside from long trips, why should we try to charge them in as little time
as possible?

Almost all the new charging stations they install around here offer high speed
charging. They are extremely expensive to set up, because providing 50kW DC
charging requires big expensive electronics. This leads to the problem that
only very few charging stations are installed, and the charging stations have
to charge by the minute to make sure that people only park there as short as
possible.

What if instead the city provided 5kW AC outlets next to every parking spot?
Those would be much cheaper to install, the electronics needed for billing
would be extremely cheap (an NFC reader, a microcontroller, and a relay won't
cost much), and charging speed is not an issue for people who live or work
there. You would just leave your car plugged in while you're at the office, or
overnight. If you could top up 30kWh while you work that would be plenty for
most people.

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speedplane
> Aside from long trips, why should we try to charge them in as little time as
> possible? ... What if instead the city provided 5kW AC outlets next to every
> parking spot? Those would be much cheaper to install, the electronics needed
> for billing would be extremely cheap[.]

It's a lot easier to install a few high speed chargers than many thousands
lower speed chargers.

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rbf
Probably correct, however from a user perspective it’s much more convenient to
charge when parked overnight or at work. Installing an ordinary AC charger is
quite cheap, and the goal should be to have lots of these, to make EVs more
practical then fossil fuel cars.

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londons_explore
EV charging hardware is very expensive at the moment.

A 100 Amp relay good for 10kW is < $2, yet the cheapest similar EV charging
system is easily $1000.

I imagine a future where the people who make streetlights just integrate a
couple of sockets in the bottom of every streetlamp. Total human time to fit
one to an existing streetlamp should be only 15 minutes or so, so they can be
rolled out en-mass.

~~~
speedplane
> A 100 Amp relay good for 10kW is < $2, yet the cheapest similar EV charging
> system is easily $1000.

The grid operates at 10kV. Most electric cars accept voltages less than one
tenth of that. The cost is creating a large transformers.

That said, large transformers like these are pretty standard in sub-stations,
it's still not clear to me why our existing infrastructure can't support super
charging everywhere.

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newnewpdro
This is brilliant, and something I've been expecting for some time now.

Starbucks is next.

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andrewstuart
Wow this is bang on.

Cars come to Maccas to get food, why not charge there too?

And for MacDonalds, it brings new customers.

What a great idea.

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im3w1l
I think the reasoning is the opposite. Someone is doing a long drive, maybe to
get to the mountains in the north to go skiing. They need to stop and charge
somewhere on the way. Why not get food too?

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ccsalvesen
(Norwegian with Nissan Leaf) This is exactly what we do on a long drive. Stop
to charge, try to convince the kids that there isn't any happy meals left.
They are all out, we promise. No other burgers either.

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crishoj
Seems to be 50 kW chargers

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thrower123
You could probably top up pretty well in the time it takes to get your food
picked up from the drive-through.

I don't know what it is lately, but McDonalds takes forever to make a burger
now. At this point it isn't good, it isn't fast, and it isn't cheap.

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fyfy18
In Europe over the last few years they changed restaurants so all burgers are
made on demand. The only advantage I see is outside of peak times your meal is
fresher, and they potentially have less wastage. But as you say it has
definately increased wait times.

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dmckeon
s{(Super-size)}{$1 and Super-charge} me.

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samb1729
what?

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JasonFruit
I think it's supposed to be Awk.

