
Shortage of charging stations to become a bottleneck to mass adoption of EVs? - prostoalex
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article215854560.html
======
rconti
It's a fair point, if overdone.

My current employer has 16 EV chargers and they're all full by 8:45am. Even in
just a few months here, I've noticed them becoming occupied more rapidly.
People need to start rotating their cars off the charge mid-day to accommodate
more cars. The 4 handicapped spots with chargers are often also poached with
some regularity. (private garage, but still risky).

At former employers, I saw chargers go from nonexistent, to installed, to
saturated, in a matter of 6 or so months. In a given site, so far,
construction isn't keeping pace.

I own an EV and charge at home so it's not really an issue for me, but those
with shorter range vehicles are more likely to have issues, and it is
something that will have to be dealt with.

It's not insurmountable, but it's an issue. The massive increase in electrical
demand from EV charging when rates go off-peak but solar generation is
nonexistent is definitely something that'll have to be dealt with. My house
used to consume maybe 1500w at 9pm. Now, when the charger flips on, bam, 13kW.
It's impressive how much more load a neighborhood with even just a few EVs can
put on the grid.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Surely it would be enough in most cases to put an ordinary domestic single
phase supply to each parking bay. No need to have big fast chargers. My Tesla
S 70D gets about 1 km per hour per amp at 230 V. So if it sits there for an
eight hour work day and can get 10 A (common for a domestic circuit in most of
Europe) it would get 80 km or about 50 miles. Surely most people commute less
than 50 miles each way?

~~~
TomMarius
It's easy to commute more if you're on a highway, your range in Europe can be
around 150 km given 1 hour commute. My father used to commute 120 km (less
than 1 hour ride on a highway).

~~~
kwhitefoot
But nonetheless most people don't commute so far. The average commute time in
the US is 26 minutes
([https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801](https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801)),
so probably less than 30 miles (each way I presume). And that amount of charge
is easily done in an eight hour working day on a normal domestic circuit, no
special charging infrastructure is required just a pole with a normal socket
on it at every parking bay.

~~~
TomMarius
Yeah, but the average is most probably skewed by people who live next to their
workplace. And still, even if it was just a fifth of people who commute from a
larger distance, it's still _a lot_.

Also, in the USA it probably works different than in the EU - the cities and
rural areas look very different. Here it's extremely common to live in a
village that's around 50km from the city where you're working.

------
LeoPanthera
Article like this always seem to ignore/forget that you can charge your EV _at
home_ , and that this is usually where you charge it the majority of the time.

It's an understandable thing to forget, since you can't fill up your gas car
at home.

I own an EV and I only use public chargers extremely rarely.

~~~
tjohns
Assuming you own your own home.

If you live in an apartment complex or otherwise only have street parking, you
likely don't have access to electricity. Or at the very least, would need to
negotiate with the landlord to have a new outlet installed -- which is going
to depend on how much you get along with said landlord.

~~~
fpgaminer
Not a problem in California at least:

"Assembly Bill 2565 would give tenants the right to install an electric-car
charging station at their residence, provided the tenant submits a written
request to the landlord and pays for the installation costs."

(Passed already)

~~~
gav
At a cost of at least $1000 for a charging station and installation, I can’t
see many people wanting to pay for this if they are renting.

~~~
nostrademons
The demographic that would currently buy an electric car in California can
easily pay for $1K for a changing station. If you're going to spend $30K on a
Leaf or plug-in Prius or $50K on a Model 3 (vs. $18K for a Corolla or Fit),
$1K is a drop in the bucket. It's also a tiny fraction of rent in Northern
California, roughly 12 days worth.

~~~
prostoalex
The new Hyundai Ioniq PHEV can be bought for $25k.

In any case, most people don’t just shell out a random $30,000 they have
burning a whole in their pocket, they finance the purchase over 5-6 years.
Sudden out-of-pocket $1,000 is kinda a big deal, especially if one plans on
moving out in a year or two.

~~~
nostrademons
I must be living in Silicon Valley too long, because a large number of people
I know - amongst the tech crowd at least - do in fact shell out a random $30K
they have burning a hole in their pocket.

(Lest I get accused of being way too out of touch, I do know people for whom
affording even a $200 car repair is out of reach, and something they'll put up
a GoFundMe over. _These people do not drive electric cars_. If you can afford
the ~$5K in interest that financing a car over 6 years will cost you, you can
afford the $1K charger. If you can't afford this, you buy a used Ford or Chevy
rather than any of the cars we're talking about here.)

~~~
prostoalex
The way I see it that with 0% financing deals aplenty there’s virtually no
incentive to pay cash upfront. Might just as well stick that $30k into some
high-yield savings account and set up automatic payments from there. Builds
credit history, too.

~~~
nostrademons
The last couple times I've been car shopping the 0% financing deals come with
a jacked-up list price. You may get the loan at 0%, but the way that works is
that they quote a higher price to begin with and then the 0% financing
(assuming good credit) was their "concession" in the negotiation. We bought
our cars for under dealer price, paying by cashier's check, so I assume that
the _actual_ dealer price was even lower (otherwise they wouldn't be willing
to sell us the car), particularly since the lowest price they would go with
financing was a couple thousand higher (credit scores in the 800s).

~~~
jjeaff
This is exactly right. And i reiterate this often, TANSTAAFL. (There ain't no
such thing as a free lunch).

No one is loaning you money interest free. You are just paying for it in the
purchase price or through other fees.

I will admit there are rare cases where strange incentives may make it cheaper
or the same price to buy with credit, but these are very rare, and are only
applicable if you artificially limit your available selection of vehicles to
brand new. Even though you could get virtually the same car with 10k miles on
it for much less.

~~~
prostoalex
For used cars there's always room for negotiating, but for new cars I felt the
pricing was standardized through TrueCar (and their derivatives, like Costco
Auto, Amex Cars, Overstock Cars). Is that not true?

~~~
nostrademons
There's the floor on prices that they will advertise to the public and then
there's the actual floor on prices, and the latter can be significantly lower
than the former.

Car dealerships have a number of incentives that can change their reserve
price in strange ways. There's the advertising holdback and potential
servicing cross-subsidies that sokoloff mentions, and then there are also
monthly quotas and per-salesperson quotas. If the dealer is very close to
their monthly quota and it's almost the end of the month, you can get a car
below invoice price, because the manufacturer will give them a bonus for
hitting the quota and so the _marginal_ profit on the one car they sell you
can be positive (including the bonus) even though the car itself sold at a
loss. Similarly, if an individual salesperson is close to hitting their
personal quota, they will let you have the car for the lowest price that won't
get them in trouble with the dealer, because it helps them hit their numbers
and gives them a bonus.

It's entirely possible that similar incentives exist for financing, and that's
why people get zero-percent auto loans with cash back, and they're cross-
subsidized by people who end up paying thousands in interest because their
credit scores weren't as good or they didn't get as good a deal. But _on
average_ , the financing cost needs to be eaten by somebody, so _on average_
you're likely to get better deals paying cash than financing. The dealer can
also book all the cash immediately when you pay cash, which makes them
somewhat more amenable to offer deals and opens up some other incentives for
them to sell cheap (like getting rid of old model years near the end of the
fiscal year and converting it to cash so their numbers look good and they can
order more new model years).

(There can also be strange situations that make buying new more economical
than buying used - I bought my Fit in 2009 for less than used 2007 Fits were
going for, because the bottom had fallen out of the economy and oil had gone
from $100/barrel to $50/barrel. The used car owners had paid ~$2000 over
sticker price for a fuel-efficient car in a booming economy, while I paid
~$500 under _invoice_ price because dealers were desperate to hit their
quotas, and the dealer's beliefs about where the market is at adjusts faster
than private owners' beliefs about where the market is at. Such situations are
the exception rather than the rule, though.)

------
zamalek
The problem is the delivery mechanism. Charging is always going to be a
bottleneck, unless we invent mass production supercapacitors on the order of
what graphene promised (which is seems to be highly unlikely). Edit: even with
supercapacitors, the amperage required seems unlikely.

Assuming self-parking as a baseline (although it's not strictly required),
cars would be able to position themselves over an automated battery pack
replacement station. Replacing the discharged pack could take less time than a
petroleum refuel, so EVs could be _more_ convenient than petroleum vehicles
(any replacement technology should offer more benefits than what it replaces).

The station could then move the pack underground for recharging. This
underground area would have much higher density compared to cars (where
batteries are, what, 10% of the volume?). In addition, dead packs could be
identified and scheduled for pickup and recycling.

The first problem that most people would bring up is: replacing a worn pack
with a new one. This problem actually turns out to be an advantage: disclose
the mileage of the pack and allow the customer to pay less for it. I don't
need a 300mi pack if I'm just going 5mi to work. This way, more useful
lifetime can still be extracted from old packs while turning the recycling
problem into a logistically simpler problem (no more complicated than
delivering petroleum to fuel stations).

The only real problem with this is the clamping mechanism between the car and
the pack. It would need to be standardized. Reliability: mechanical systems
fail - it's the undercarriage of the car, there's dust and other particulate
getting in the way.

~~~
geerlingguy
Tesla originally had a demo of this 'replace the pack under the car' method
(called "Fast Pack Swap"; see:
[https://vimeo.com/68832891](https://vimeo.com/68832891)). But they seem to
have backed off that idea, probably for a variety of logistical reasons.

I remember reading about an underground battery swap system in a 1980's
electronics encyclopedia too, but it seems the barriers are too great for the
size batteries needed for a good long-range EV.

~~~
zamalek
Wow. I was convinced it was a foolproof solution. I wish I could learn more
about the problems that they were worried about.

Thanks for the citation, it's nice to see the idea in action :)

~~~
Zanni
Here's an article on Tesla abandoning battery swap [0]. There was also an
Israeli company trying to do the same thing that failed to pull it off. [1]

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-battery-swapping-
plan...](https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-battery-swapping-plan-isnt-
working-out-2015-6).

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-
pl...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place)

------
endymi0n
People still don‘t get just how radically synergistic electric driving, self-
charging and self-driving technology will be. All the drawbacks of electric
driving such as low range and slow and cumbersome charging will just instantly
disappear as soon as cars will just drive away and charge themselves. It will
mostly solve parking problems, availability of chargers and even help absorb
the (basicall free) excess energy produced by photovoltaics in the middle of
the day. Just one or two of these technologies won‘t do much, but I suspect
we‘ll see a massive tipping point once all three hit. If you ask me, we‘ll see
this completely altering cityscapes and car ownership between 2020 and 2030.

~~~
peterwwillis
Self-driving is expected to bring down ridesharing costs. As costs go down,
ridership goes up. As ridership goes up, traffic goes up. Currently I can get
around by bicycle, rideshare, bus, subway, trolley, and rail. With the
exception of the subway, all of those are slowed down by increased vehicle
traffic. The tipping point you're talking about may be city streets becoming
gridlocked.

Then there's the bit rot problem. Most of this self driving tech is software.
Over time, software becomes old, eventually is abandoned, and has to be
rewritten. Assuming the cityscape was changed by 2030 (this is impossible, but
just for argument's sake) we could have broken legacy tech by 2050. But we
will either be stuck with it, or middle-aged people will have to start driving
30+ year old cars as taxis, as no young people will have gotten a drivers
license, and all the self driving cars won't have steering wheels.

~~~
WhompingWindows
A vehicle miles added tax would, in smart policy districts, allow the curbing
of excessive car use, especially for a company like Uber or Lyft. There's also
congestion tax, which many cities are already implementing. Some cities just
straight up banned non-electric past a certain year, so we're already moving
slowly to deal with traffic. I think we'll have the tools we need by the time
it's a huge problem. In Boston, the traffic is pretty awful, there are just
many cars shoved into a small area with infrastructure based on cow paths from
original settlements.

~~~
peterwwillis
You don't think they'd just pass the taxes on to the customer in fees and then
blame the local govt?

Personally I'm for banning cars altogether from city centers. Many cities are
implementing that too, and not nearly soon enough.

------
aphextron
Chargers have been getting noticeably more busy over the last year (bay area).
It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies like
Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure. The state really
needs to get on top of this and start building out more level 3.

~~~
lazerpants
>It's pretty absurd at this point that we are relying on private companies
like Whole Foods to build public transportation infrastructure.

Most (maybe all?) gas stations are privately owned, how is this different?

~~~
chc
Probably because gas stations and EV chargers have very different logistics
and modalities. For example, you could realistically put an electrical outlet
by every parking space, but doing that with gas pumps would be completely
untenable.

~~~
bluGill
A gas pump by every parking spot is probably easier at scale. Manufacturing
costs would scale down significantly, and a plastic gas pipe is cheaper than a
copper wire.

We don't do it because a gas car refuels fast enough that you don't need it.

~~~
mikeash
How about the cost for the nozzle, the pump, and all the safety equipment you
need to stop an oopsie from turning into a kaboom?

~~~
lgats
Let's not forget vapor recovery systems for all these gas spickets in
California

------
drb91
I'm pretty shocked at the low adoption of hybrid cars. Why don't people want
them?

~~~
jlv2
BEVs are mechanically simpler, requiring less maintenance and expense (and
they eliminate all use of fossil fuels). Hybrids and PHEVs are mechanically
more complex than ICEVs, often requiring more things that need maintenance and
repair.

PHEVs are the worst of all, in my opinion, because on top of everything else,
they tend to clog up public charging stations.

BEVs with decent range (the Chevy Bolt, Tesla, and some upcoming models) are
the real solution. Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current)
public charging for trips.

Background: I've had a LEAF for 4.5 years as my daily commuter car; it's got
(32K miles). For trips last year we got a Tesla Model S (24K miles).

~~~
drb91
> Charge at work and home - and only use DCFC (high current) public charging
> for trips.

As I essentially only use my car for weekend road trips, how is the long-
distance experience hopping from charger to charger? How about country driving
--is the density high enough you can check out some nature?

~~~
outworlder
Previous generation Leaf? Debatable. I have one. I plotted a trip from the
East Bay to Yosemite and the range seemed enough on paper, even accounting for
elevation. But in at least one stretch there was a single quick charge station
(ChaDeMo) that I could rely on. If that was out of service I would have
issues, as even L2 were not plentiful. On Yosemite itself I could find only
one L2. So I did not attempt the trip.

Current generation Leaf, Bolt, Tesla? The range would be pretty adequate and
comfortable.

Not sure about long desert stretches, you could have an idea here:
[https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/](https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/)

Also of note is that a major drawback in the US is the high highway speeds.
Drag increases to the speed squared, so going 60mph vs 80mph makes a huge
difference. We don't notice as much in internal combustion engines, because a
gas tank has so much energy – we may notice in our pockets though.

------
tamaharbor
Maybe they should start with a common-sized charging plug?

~~~
LeoPanthera
This has essentially happened. J1772 is the standard for "normal" charging,
CHAdeMO is the standard for fast charging.

Even Tesla, the only company to not follow these standards, supplies a J1772
adapter with every car.

~~~
jac_no_k
In Japan, Tesla supplies the adapters to use CHAdeMO.

------
irrational
I've come to the conclusion that we need two cars. 1. an EV car for around
town and 2. a gasoline powered car for when we are on a road trip to very
rural places (which is quite frequent). I'm hoping that at some point even in
the hinterlands of the US there will always be an available charging station,
but we aren't there yet.

~~~
thebluehawk
I road trip regularly with my Tesla Model S. You would be surprised at where
there are charging solutions. Any RV park can charge you up over night. If you
use superchargers, it's hardly slower than a gas car. A 600 mile day that
would take roughly 9 hours of driving and 1.5 hours of stopping (getting gas,
eating, bathroom breaks) in a gas car takes about 9 hours of driving and 2
hours of stopping (charging, eating, bathroom breaks).

To me that's totally worth the savings on fuel and the fact that the car does
90% of the driving for me. If you left at the same time, you'd beat me by 30
minutes, but I wouldn't feel like I'd been driving all day, and I would save
$50+ on gas.

~~~
irrational
I'm not too familiar with how far an EV car can typically go on a charge. I
looked at our typical trip on [https://chargehub.com](https://chargehub.com)
and there are three sections where there is a 200 mile gap between charge
stations. Can a typical EV vehicle carrying say 7 people with all their gear,
kayaks, roof top luggage shell, etc. go 200 miles between charging stations?
Two of the sections would be through mountainous terrain with steep climbing
if that makes any difference.

------
walrus01
One point to consider if buying a condo, assuming you can get board
permission, it can cost $8-10k for a licensed electrician to extend a 240V 50A
circuit to a plug on the wall of your parking spot. It is definitely a
consideration. Electrical loads in parking structures for 60+ cars are not
usually designed to support electrical cars.

------
PhasmaFelis
What's the major impediment to installing new charging stations? My guess
would be that tearing up and replacing pavement to run cables is the biggest
expense, but maybe the charging electronics or the actual structural
components are particularly expensive.

------
madengr
Here in flyover country, Kansas City has 1600 public charging plugs. I reckon
that is much more per capital than Silicon Valley.

------
skywhopper
We need to improve the batteries/charging technology to make it possible to
fully charge an EV in five minutes or less. That will make them more practical
for long-distance travel and will also reduce the need for charging stations
in parking areas and in homes. Instead they can supplement/replace fuel pumps
at gas stations, and benefit from the existing built infrastructure, easing
the transition and keeping refueling patterns the same.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Easier said than done, though multiple car companies and charging companies
are stepping up the kW their cars can handle. It'll be a mixture of faster
charging, more battery storage overall, as well as more efficient use of
electrons, all three helping with range/recharge issues.

------
emiliobumachar
What are the obstacles to designing a new EV with a solar panel on the roof or
hood?

~~~
marvin
Just saw this prototype in the newspaper today. It is covered with solar
cells, and apparently, it recharges 18 miles of range if you leave it out in
the sun all day.

[https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-s...](https://www.dn.no/nyheter/2018/08/09/0926/Motor/testkjorer-
soldrevet-bil-som-kan-lade-mens-den-kjorer)

------
berbec
Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past
with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc.
You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-
charged ones if available, and charge if not.

~~~
aphextron
>Is it possible/financially doable to make charging mostly a thing of the past
with a standard replaceable battery pack? Tesla 3 gets 9, Prius uses 5 etc.
You got to a charging station and they swap your batteries out for fully-
charged ones if available, and charge if not.

The problem with swapping is that switching out a battery is not at all the
same as switching out a gas tank. Batteries degrade over time, and with
various different usages (lots of fast charging, high heat) can degrade much
more severely. You would have to have some kind of system that grades the
battery being turned in and credits/debits the account based on its condition.
On top of that it's just not necessary. A full charge from 20% is less than 30
mins at a 100kw charger.

~~~
thinkmassive
Swapping a fuel tank is actually not a bad analogy to swapping the battery.
Both are much more involved than a simple refill, the fitment is limited to a
single model (or a few similar ones), and I wouldn't want to replace my known
good unit with a random used one.

It just takes about 10x more time to refill a battery than a fuel tank.
Eventually gas stations will start to be replaced with more useful
establishments (grocery, coffee shop, offices) that happen to have a charger
at every parking spot.

~~~
outworlder
Yeah, if you can find charging spots with no hassle, then this becomes a moot
point. Buying some groceries? Plug it in. Going to the movies? By the time
your movie is done you'll be ready to go. Work, school, etc.

Then only actual need for quick charging is road trips. And given a decent
range, it is no big deal to stop every few hours. People do that even today,
as they need bathroom breaks and the like.

------
TheRealPomax
Oh hey, welcome to every news outlet that needs a quick "EV" article to get
clicks over the last 10 years.

