Best to look at commercial fast chargers as a convenience service. You pay more for a 1/2 liter Coca-Cola at the gas station than you would for a two-liter bottle at the grocery store. You pay extra for the convenience of it being right there as you get gas and for it being pre-chilled. For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs. If you take a long trip, then you will end up paying convenience rates. But unless you frequently take long trips, it's a small share of the annual cost of using the vehicle. And if you do take frequent long trips, perhaps an EV isn't the best choice for you at this time.
For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs
Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then (in addition to their many other problems as a realistic transport option for many).
As much as I like the idea of electric cars, the complacency of those championing them in the light of the lack of suitability for a huge part of the population is really frustrating.
I took a trip to Fairbanks in February a few years ago. I was warned to plug in the engine block heater whenever I could. There were outlets many places. There was no charge for using the outlet but it was just the typical 110 volt US outlet.
If people would aim more for that kind of infrastructure - really slow but "too cheap to meter" - it would be more widespread. No need for the expensive upgrades to the electrical system, no need for cabinets with cooling systems, no internet, no computers at all.
You could put all the EV slots in one part of an apartment or shopping center parking lot, like now. It'd be nice if there was a proportional circuit breaker, so that if every EV was charging they'd get half charge instead of tripping the breaker.
There is a marked difference in the needs of a block charger and an electric car - block heaters draw between 4-10a, a car charger will draw 15+ (as much power as can be supplied).
And while someone may abuse the engine block charger (I've seen someone plug in a mobile phone to one) the total cost is minuscule and not worth metering.
Not so for actual electric cars (you can plug one into a block charger but you won't get that many miles per hour) - especially on high-speed chargers that are 220 or 440 and many amps.
You also don't "need" a block heater for a modern (last 40yr) spark ignited gasoline engine in good repair anywhere on earth. It's just a "nice to have".
a lot of street lamps had a socket in London; but then they're on 230v 10A. with 110v 10A in colder areas it's probably just enough to keep the battery pack warm...
Most people I see championing them 1) own one and use it daily 2) understand that overnight charging is a blocker to mass adoption and aggressively push for better access for renters and business owners etc to add normal outlets and 3) openly advocate for people who don't think electric cars work for them to not get them.
Remember that you don't necessarily need to charge AT HOME. If you drive yourself to work and sit there for 8 hours, your employer should be encouraged and subsidized to set up 15 amp charging for some of their employees.
I've just moved from the US to London, and one interesting approach I've seen here to EV charging is adding it to municipal infrastructure. In many London boroughs, there are now EV chargers built into the street lights. You simply scan the QR code at the device and the charge point unlocks for use.
Whilst I think QR codes are maybe the wrong choice for this because of the security implications, I think the idea of integrating chargers into existing public infrastructure is quite a good one, and applicable in many places where you'd otherwise have issues with EVs.
This of course doesn't solve apartment buildings, but new apartment buildings should be required to provide EV charging infrastructure, and grants to implement it in existing apartment buildings would go a long way, too.
Totally agree. Also what will this demand for electricity created by EVs do to the price of electricity for ordinary household devices? Already in the UK people are turning off their fridge because they can't afford to run it. This is due to Ukraine crisis affecting electricity prices, so what effect will EVs have on the price of electricity?
It's all just assumed things will be wonderful.
Blinkers on as usual.
> Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then
There's another massive constituency that has access to home charging, but can't afford the EV itself.
E.g. I can afford to pay the mortgage on my home, but not a $50,000 EV car, because I don't want to pad the pockets of dealerships and greedy manufacturers.
I want my $200/kWh car or I'll keep using the car I already have.
Absolutely, I was thinking of things like economic and geographic factors with my parenthesis note.
But some of the commenters seem to be unaware of those constraints and how significant they are, or at least, use a tone that conveys those assumptions.
Is anybody advocating for leaving them out? Most EV enthusiasts that I know are all for extending overnight grid access to people who don't currently have it (which is a big number of people, to be sure, but still less than half). It's an important problem to solve, the solution is not to give up on efficient cars and stick with gasoline.
People need efficient transport not efficient cars. Efficient cars are merely less bad, rather than good. We need more public transit and less urban sprawl so that we can reuse infrastructure efficiently.
Another option is to promote commuter electric motorcycles, e.g. something like the Ryvid Anthem which has a removable battery you can take inside and charge. With a range of 80 miles it's definitely a commuter motorcycle, but it's top speed of 75 MPH definitely allows you to hop on the freeway as part of your commute.
The best part? It costs less than a typical used ICE car, so it's very budget friendly. And it has virtually no maintenance.
I'm not against public transit but it's a significant investment and towns like mine have spent the past 40 years failing to make it happen and unlike an e-bike an electric motorcycle can fully utilize all existing roadways.
I think it's time to start re-thinking transportation.
Main issue with electric motorcycles is that it still doesn't solve the safety issue of motorcycles, especially at freeway speeds.
At least e-bikes are locked at 25kph/mph. And can be folded into public transportation.
* Currently the predominant category of motorcycle riders are young males who ride like idiots (i.e. they are their own biggest cause of their own accidents)
* People driving 2 ton vehicles with their heads completely up their posteriors while driving. Fortunately those people are generally easy to spot and deal with.
If anything, more motorcycle riding will make the roads safer because you actually have to pay attention to what you're doing while riding. You can't shave, put on your makeup, or read text messages while riding. You actually have to pay attention! Also, motorcycle-on-motorcycle crashes are extremely rare outside of the context of group rides.
My biggest concern with e-bikes is people treat them like bicycles. I see people cruising around my neighborhood going 35 MPH on an e-bike without any safety gear on outside of maybe a bicycle helmet. The motorcycle safety culture of ATGATT isn't even on the radar of the e-bikers. Not to mention they don't seem to know the strategies of lane position, how to make yourself visible to others, how to swerve and brake quickly - which are all standard fare for motorcycle riders.
So let's keep driving gasoline cars? Or are you suggesting that we can just wave a magic wand and change how people use transportation? What you want takes decades. In the meantime, the world is getting hotter.
I'm not sure I see your point, the only way to get to a world with L2 chargers at apartment buildings and such is to have demand for it or legislation supporting it, the best way to get that is to champion EVs.
Who are you blaming? People who have access to overnight charging and therefore are enthusiastic about EV ownership? The government? I'm confused. Are you saying that it's not okay to advocate for EV adoption without disclaiming every statement with "but only when we've figured out how to get grid access extended to everybody's parking spot?"
The grid already exists everywhere. Getting it out to the parking spots is mostly a tedious exercise in construction, not even much of an engineering problem. Yes let's encourage this construction. Incentivize it, even.
To repeat again (see me earlier reply to you), I'm questioning the tone and implied assumptions of those conveying the idea this is an acceptable solution for the majority of the population of even developed countries.
Agreed, particularly in the states, we seem to be charging into electric cars by mandate when the infrastructure just doesnt exist for it. It doesnt have to be this way, we can mandate building the infrastructure too, or just outright pay for it - like 35% of americans live in apartments, they must be reasonably accommodated to help them with the transition. This doesnt even begin to touch on the issues rural places have with the electric revolution - again, all solvable problems that.. I think we're just assuming will solve themselves.
My largest frustration is, we're charging into electric cars in such a way that will leave the poor behind, and create a larger wealth gap. I genuinely worry that the poor will be priced out of automobile access in the states, and before anyone says "well, they shouldnt need a car" - the realistic truth is.. they do and there is a massive amount of capex and opex that must be spent to make it not so. In America, we have structured our world around personal transportation, and while we can change that, it will take a concerted effort and lots of money to do so.
The earliest mandate is California's, which takes effect 12 years from now and only applies to new cars sold. The poor generally do not buy new cars.
Other than the possibility of fuel price increases as time goes on (which, as a net exporter, the US has some amount of control over), how are electric vehicles making the wealth gap larger?
The poor are certainly priced out, but considering EVs currently have constraints and are expensive, what benefits would they bring outside of reducing externalities to the environment?
In an ideal world, I probably would be tying a phase out of ICE cars to charging access.
I'd then also mandate charging access in every apartment with two or more units and put together a government fund to help fund building it out. You also offer a rebate to homeowners (with the rebate covering up to 100% of reasonable costs the lower income they are) so they can do the needed electrical work (which might involve a whole new load center and service to the house - think 10-15k in work).
Once say, better than 90% apartment and condo dwellers have access to electric charging and there is an ongoing program in place to ensure that everyone else has access, then its pretty safe to mandate a ban ICE vehicles.
I bought a brand new car two years ago. I expect it to last twenty more, and 200k miles or more. Nobody is going to put a gun to my head and make me replace it with an electric anything, ever.
Meanwhile the used car market will be full of ICE vehicles forever.
In some countries or cities, you may be prevented from driving into those countries or cities.
Several European cities have low- or zero-pollution zones, and these are likely to increase once the disruption to normal people is limited. Currently, it's generally old diesel trucks and buses that are banned or restricted.
Many apartments already have slow chargers installed, many more are working on it. The world rapidly built a massive network of gas stations to make gas cars work, requiring massive underground tanks full of toxic chemicals and pumps and machines to pump them into cars.
For EVs we need to run some wire, its way simpler, its already happening, rapidly. It doesn't even put more net load on the grid, since it takes the same amount of electricity to refine a tank of gas, as to fill a "tank" of an EV.
This also means that EVs aren't ready for people who can't charge at home, like most apartment renters or people in rental homes who drive too much for whatever outlet is available in their garage.
I dont think every outlet in Europe can do the 20a to 30a at 240v that you'd expect for a car charger - just like most outlets here are rated for 15a at 120, most outlets in the UK are rated for 13a at 240 (and thats on a ring circuit fused for 40a, which may be shared with many other outlets) - its a difference of about 1320w (in Germany 10a outlets are common, which means even less, a mere 600w difference) in actual power delivery. Whereas a dedicated home charging ciruit in states will be 4800-7200w.
while yes, there is a difference, you dont know how many other devices that power line will pass, and it wont do in common space living situations where often exterior outlets are.. A) Shared and B) on the buildings meter, rather than the individuals.
It's a convenient backup, and can easily be sufficient for normal use.
My friend can drive to another friend's house in the British countryside and plug an almost-empty Tesla into the ordinary socket in the garage. After a weekend hiking etc, with little use of the car, it is full or close enough.
That's something he can rely on in the UK/Ireland (13A@240V=3120W), something he couldn't rely on in North America (15A@120V=1800W), and the rest of Europe is somewhere in-between.
(Does a typical German house have higher-rated sockets in the garage?)
> Does a typical German house have higher-rated sockets in the garage?
At least where I'm from, it's not super unusual to have a 400V socket with 16A or higher in private garages (either for tools or people preparing for an EV at some point), but you can't count on it.
It often isn't as good as an L2 charger, but it is usually better than an American L1 charger. Incidentally, I already see this effect in using an electric water kettle: in the USA they are really slow, but in Europe and Asia, they are much faster (because 230-240V).
Ya, my next kitchen renovation is going to have a 220/240 outlet just to use a faster water kettle (well, an induction cooktop should already be able to boil water quickly, but just in case a separate appliance still makes sense).
Point taken, and conceded in my original comment - the larger issues are, to suddenly add a bunch of high amperage loads at everyones parking space requires additional infrastructure - infrastructure we probably dont already have.
I've never seen power outlets in shared parking in Europe, so I didn't really consider that case. I guess I'm just considering Europeans in SFHs, where they really don't need to worry about adding L2 wiring for most use cases.
I don't know about private parking, e.g. a car park reserved for residents of adjacent apartments. My building has two chargers, but it's not something I look out for elsewhere.
Every US electrical grid connected site has access to 240V. It's just not the voltage at regular outlets, despite being trivially available from the main service panel.
You need to wire it, which depending on how your garage is located vs your access panel, can be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand. In my case, we have to wrap around a cable (so $$$, but I also need a panel upgrade, so $$$$), but I've found L1 to work well enough for my usage.
Unsafe for obvious reasons, not remotely a practical solution.
As others have pointed out there are real infrastructure problems, and not really difficult in cases like the above to sort technically, but nobody seems to be doing it practically, it's clearly in the power of the government and suppliers to do en masse if the intent is to encourage wide scale adoption.
Yes, continue to build out overnight grid access for the segment of the population that does not currently have it. That is a good idea. Are you suggesting otherwise that we all continue to drive gasoline cars until that happens, then it'll be okay to switch to electric?
You seem to be taking an awfully defensive stance as if comment was from someone anti-EV, when in reality anyone reading it would see it merely points out issues with the current available infrastructure.
I haven't heard much hullabaloo made about kerbside EV charging or such for apartment complexes or terraced housing etc in the UK.
Is this something happening quietly, or not being invested in much like rural broadband wasnt?
Normally the anti-EV crowd does tend to just drop in little nuggets to prove that we don't have a perfect world for EVs yet, without furthering the discussion of how we get to that point. Because they don't want to get there to begin with, burning gasoline is their preferred permanent solution.
I do see a fair amount of quiet upgrading going on, at least in my area (in the US, not in UK, so I cannot speak to that). Having an EV charger is becoming a box you want to have checked on your rental property description, whether apartment or house. That doesn't mean we have a great solution in mind for curbside parking, mind you, but in most of the US that's a much less critical issue than apartment complexes which do have private parking lots.
The one question the "EVs still pollute" crowd can never answer is what ICEV owners can do that's equivalent to installing your own solar (or soon wind) to harvest your own clean energy for a vehicle. Same to a certain extent with heat pumps vs. oil/gas heating for the home. They act like green technologies are as good and cheap as they can ever be, and do absolutely nothing to reduce emissions, when in fact progress is being made rapidly on both fronts. It's this one-sided view that makes them seem like allies of Big Oil, even if they don't mean to be.
Britain (especially London) has more kerbside EV charging (per capita) than anywhere except China. It's often only 3000W or so, i.e. the rating of the normal domestic socket.
In the US, many people drive 5+hr long-distance trips a few times a year at least (visit relatives, vacation, etc). So the idea of either getting fleeced or stranded a few times a year is unappealing.
So, probably less than <1% of your miles travelled then. And throughout the rest of your travels you're paying significantly less per mile than you would in an ICE car. Even if you use super chargers on your long distance trips then in the grand scheme of things it's still cheaper.
My closest big city is 4 hrs drive away. I know lots of people in the UK who drive to places in France for vacation. I bet mainland Europeans do the same.
And then there is just range anxiety which is always gonna be there. I've driven from Scotland to East Anglia and it took long enough with the awful traffic, put a slow charge into that mix and it would have been a multi-day trip.
I just don't get why people are so ready to blinker themselves to some of this stuff. EVs are still in early adopter stage, IMO, but we are fast tracking whole nations into forcing them to be the only option. And they are just not fit for some people's usecases.
California is planning on preventing sale of new ICE vehicles in 12 years. So within 20 years, you’d expect it to be a prohibitively huge hassle to source a reasonably in-shape ICE vehicle.
Sure, not going to disagree with that (I might suggest more than 8 years from the last sale, but no matter).
It's still not a ban on the continuing use of ICEs. If ICEs still represent a desirable choice for enough people/purposes, the support for them will be there.
A lot of fast charging networks offer memberships that make frequent usage more economical. Though I'm not sure how that works for commercial users (including Uber drivers with Teslas).
I’m a new owner of an electric car. Speaking to my friends that own them, they made it clear that it’s always cheaper to charge at home (save for the first three years of my Porsche ownership where VW’s Electrify America picks up the tab). Fast chargers are convenient but resellers of municipal electricity are not going to be the most cost efficient option. The benefit you’re receiving for the premium charged is being absolved of the eight hours you’d have to spend (at 40A) at home.
And that is with your extremely high home rates. The national average is about 16 cents. Your base rate is higher than my peak rate. My overnight rate is under 5 cents.
Yeah, Europe is getting completely hosed on energy prices. Historically some of that is self-inflicted voluntary price increases, but I imagine that nowadays it's more about that pesky Putin guy disrupting the energy supply.
Many EVs are actually priced competitively for their specific segment. The issue is that there are 5-10 y/o used ICE cars that are obviously much cheaper, and EVs are generally short right now, so used prices are up.
The rules are extremely different state to state. Some states don't allow fast charging companies to resell their power like that, so they have to charge exclusively for the time you are using the charger, rather than the actual electricity you are using.
There's like an entire order of magnitude from the high end to the low end
As owner / operator of a small network of fast chargers, I can tell you, that delivering that kind of power to a vehicle isn't cheap either. Especially infrastructure cost.
I think this is often overlooked by EV boosters, and pointed out by people who think massive investment in EV infrastructure is a mistake. Even a small charging station with half a dozen slots will need a 10-ton transformer on a pad, a bunch of waterproof, tamperproof AC-DC power supply cabinets, and the 6 dispensers, plus bollards around everything because drivers are so stupid. The material investments are immense.
That is a good point, though you're overstating it slightly. My local EA station is that size and the transformer isn't even remotely in the 10 ton size range. It is three cabinets surrounded by arborvitae and takes about the same space as 1.5 parking spots, complete with the bollards.
Is your local station already have other transformers and such? Because you might just be seeing the final step down but the entire building/complex has something elsewhere.
This is a function of the UK’s absolutely not fit for purpose energy pricing model - it is insane that generated energy should cost more than refined fuel.
The problem is that all U.K. energy costs are pegged to the most expensive option - gas - in the most expensive way - taking the highest future price in the next six months - and with the government focussed on… not much in particular… it’s hard to see any improvement in the near term, excepting a continued fall in LNG prices.
The UK is at latitude too high to benefit very much from solar energy. It is not mountainous enough to benefit from hydroelectricity. Nor is there much scope for geothermal.
So we have gas, wind and nuclear, and that's it.
In the government's infinite wisdom they decided to place a moratorium on on-shore wind generation for stupid NIMBY reasons. Fortunately we have plenty of offshore wind capacity, but when the wind isn't blowing, all we have is gas turbines plus whatever scraps of nuclear France is willing to throw us.
The wind is blowing pretty frequently - the problem is actually more often one of transmission - there is not enough capacity on the grid to transfer energy from the relatively remote areas it’s produced, such as the Irish Sea, to consumers.
Further investment in transmission from snowdonia and expansion of pumped storage facilities could go a long way.
Not sure what you're referring to? As far as I can tell the national grid operates on a 30 minute settlement period.
> For each half hour, known as a Settlement Period, companies can trade up to 1 hour beforehand that time period is closed.
If you're referring to the consumer energy price cap, then that's not even relevant to this discussion, since the price cap applies to households, not commercial charging stations...
No, this refers to what and how they are permitted to trade, and how the wholesale market is regulated - the rules are baroque in the extreme, and were last reviewed 20 years ago.
The intent was good - it was supposed to ensure stability and certainty of supply, and by using the highest price for the cheapest source (gas, at the time) they guaranteed a stable price and supply of energy. It was also intended to prevent arbitrage and profiteering.
The outcome is still somewhat true - except the price is sky-high, and stably sky-high for at least the next few Qs.
I think the great failure of the electric car industry is how little effort was put into replaceable batteries.
Imagine if all the cars used a set of standard sized battery packs, engineer an interface where they can be easily replaced, size them so they can be easily manhandled(about 10 kilograms 20 pounds). Then you could stop at the service station, pay the fee, pull your empty packs, and replace them with charged packs. you would be on your way and the service station would charge the packs for a future customer. Something like the batteries for power tools.
The main point is that battery packs would become a commodity, easily acquired interchangeable and everywhere.
That keeps coming up, but it is a bad idea in general.
Batteries are big and heavy. However they are made up of lots of individual cells. So as a car designer you really want to place individual cells around other parts of the car that cannot go anywhere.
You cannot put the front wheels of a car in the trunk - no matter how much better you think the car would look, there are physical reasons for where they go and how much space they take up... Place the cells around all the big things where they fit, and you can get a lot more in.
There are a lot of other design considerations for a car that are helped by the ability to put cells where you want.
For the average person the engineering advantages of not having a standard pack are better handling, more cargo space/legroom, and longer range: this is more valuable than the ability to swap batteries.
I would make the packs about the size of an ammo can, put nice handles on them, little doors to automatically cover the terminals. integrated charge/status display and make the car fit 10-20 of them, half in the back of hood area, and half in the front of the trunk area.
On the subject of replacing them, while I would not mind shifting a couple of hundred pounds of batteries 20 pounds at a time, I can see how that would be hard for many people, I expect there would be many station attendants who would go home at the end of the day complaining about their minimum wage job shifting batteries.
Agree. We shouldn't be purchasing the infrastructure components but instead using it as a consumable. The same thing bothers me about putting solar panels on my house (they should go in solar farm somewhere else, I still depend on grid but that I'm okay with (could buy batteries if I had reliability concerns)).
Much easier to do with scooters https://www.gogoro.com/ but I don't think it would be too hard to engineer a connector/robot that basically did the heavy lifting/swapping from underneath the vehicle
You should put solar panels on your roof just because the sunlight hitting your roof otherwise goes to waste. If you put solar in a field that competes with any other sunlight uses of the field. (solar over a parking lots makes sense)
I understand that perspective and respectfully disagree.
I don’t want to be personally responsible for the initial capital cost, maintenance/repairs/replacements, and knock on cost associated with their general presence.
Some of which could be leaks due to bracket punctures, reduced access for roofers, gutter cleaning, hanging lights, clearing tree debris, etc., and any reason a contractor needs to do work on the room. Or, something that I could normally diy on the roof becomes something I have to high a pro for.
The field makes sense except in the US at least we have tons of land where this would actually be the highest and best use of the land. If it’s not being farmed/used for some sort of ag purpose right now, there’s probably a reason, it’s not suited for it.
Further, nearly every house has suboptimal positioning to create an optimal layout. Given this is a mutually exclusive decision (I would only want to ever own one set of panels), it makes sense for me to put them in a field that has optimal conditions and transport the electricity over the grid for my consumption. It also means I can change houses and my generated electricity follows me without much effort.
Parking lots I support. I actually tried this once as a quick customer feedback test, they didn’t want covered parking due to “safety” concerns of their guests and employees. Also, I’d be concerned the solar stuff would get stolen in an empty parking lot.
at current energy density 10kg probably only good for 10-15km... and that's without any additional overheads in packaging so one day perhaps with higher energy density batteries?
Forgetting the home vs fast-charger nuance here, important to remember than electric vehicles have no spark plugs, no muffler, no engine oil, and a very simple coolant system.
My Volvo XC40 Recharge has a 2-year/20,000 mile maintenance cycle, the only work it needs is a check of the coolant and brake fluids and replacing cabin air filters.
Having suffered through broken engine mounts, torn exhaust flex pipes, painful spark plug replacements, coolant leaks, pump failures, and countless other issues with ICE engines, the simplicity of electric is a breath of fresh air.
Of course there’s the question of what happens to the battery over the long term but i’ll take that trade over what ai had before any day.
I tend to agree, though on the flip side there's things like the octovalve, which is a construction that doesn't really exist on an ICEV. I think there are some trade-offs, though I expect that over the long haul we'll see that EVs are generally more reliable. For certain I think that the norm will be the battery lasting the life of the vehicle, and when it does get replaced it'll be about as bad as replacing the drivetrain in an ICEV. So a wash in that regard.
Any ICE car only has in addition 2-3 oil changes in that 20,000 miles maintenance cycle. Spark plugs are 100k miles.
Your car doesn't have an engine mount, but it has a motor mount that could fail. You have already admitted to coolant, which implies it could leak and it has a pump that could fail.
Most people who complain about how bad EVs are seem to be comparing a new EV to a very old ICE, or memories of their parent's generation which wasn't as good as modern ones. New ICEs are reliable and have been for a few decades.
I’m really comparing it to my previous ICE cars, both an Audi sedans and a Mercedes. All built in the last 10-15 years.
100,000 miles for spark plugs is extremely rare. I just pulled up a 2022 A4 and it’s 30k. Transmission fluid is 40k miles. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the heat, vibration and weight from an ICE engine wears down parts faster. Add in complexity from turbochargers and there’s even more parts that can fail.
The coolant system on an electric vehicle is extremely simple. There’s no radiator even. An ICE coolant system is far bigger and more complex.
The graph and the article are inconsistent. The graph shows "per kilowatt home charging costs vs petrol" but the article refers to "rapid charge points used by motorists topping up on long drives."
This doesn't mean that the assertion is wrong, but the data provided seems less relevant than one might hope.
I'll also note that as an EV owner, when I bought a home charger I didn't even consider a rapid charger, because I don't need it -- charging at medium speed is just fine. In retrospect I could have done OK with a standard outlet and slow charge, but the thousand or so it cost me for the charger and installation was worth it for convenience. I think I'm the norm. That would mean the graph showing high prices for rapid charge at home is not terribly important -- the key metrics will always be standard charge vs. petrol for at home charging.
I discussed this with an Uber driver with a rented Tesla. I asked him how much it cost to charge at home. He said he doesn't, he only uses pay chargers $10-$20 per day.
Some people don't charge at home, even if it would save them money long term
He also has a defined usage case where time charging is money lost; it's worth $10-20 a day to get him back on the road as fast as he can, and it's likely that he doesn't live anywhere close enough to the "active uber areas" to make it worthwhile to even install a charger.
"Topping up the e-Corsa’s charge by 80pc on a slow charger at peak times results in a cost of 16.18p per mile.
"The AA said: “A continued fall in the pump price of petrol now places the running costs [of a petrol Corsa] at around 14.45 pence per mile, meaning that a petrol combustion engine vehicle is cheaper to run per mile than an EV.”"
"The RAC said its research showed the cost to charge an electric car on a pay-as-you-go basis at a publicly accessible rapid charger had increased by 42% since May to an average of 63.29p per kWh.
"The hike in price means drivers who only use the public network to charge vehicles pay around 18p per mile for electricity.
"That is just 1p less per mile for a petrol car, based on someone driving at an average of 40 miles to the gallon, the motoring group said.
"The cost per mile for charging electric vehicles at home is around 9p per mile for the average-sized car. The BBC has been told most EV drivers charge at home overnight."
I think this was always bound to happen, rent seeking behaviour you know.
customers used to pay $3k on petrol
let's say customers do 80% of charging at home, and as result say they "save" 2.7k per annum.
fast chargers knows they have this pie and they want it.
so they'd rack up prices potentially beyond petrol costs, since they know customers are paying way less 80% of the time, and they want to eat that pie.
competition can drive it down, but only if competition are introduced.
local gov or any private bodies able to identify positive externalities will need to introduce a 3rd party to keep fast charger prices slightly closer to cost. otherwise I'd be seeing two fast chargers at all choke points, profit sharing; duopoly charges monopoly prices, and every choke points are monopolistic.
Considering how much revenue gas taxes currently generate, I am not sure why you would expect the government to mandate price controls or competition for charging.
Interesting, I honestly had expected that was already the case over there, with how expensive rapid charging is compared to residential rates on this side of the pond.
I guess our cheap prices for both oil and energy (in the us) might make us an anomaly.
Ionity in France, same thing. Taking charge is more expensive than taking gas into ICE. And as an insult to injury, it takes much longer to charge a car.
I just don't see those rosy predictions about BEVs filled future to ever become a reality. And I own Skoda Enyaq, if somebody would like to slam me for being anti-BEV.
UK energy prices must be insane. I am from Denmark where energy is pretty expensive and even if I did all my charging on superchargers it would still be cheaper than gas (and waayyyy cheaper with home charging).
It cost at the most expensive 40% to charge my model y on superchargers (approx 500 km range in real terms) compared to my 2018 gas car (citroen c4 space tourer) that drove approx 600 km on a full tank
If you charge at a Gridserve fast charger, as you might find at a motorway service station, you can look forward to paying 66p/kWh [1] for electricity.
On the other hand, an industrial user of electricity might pay 22p/kWh [2] so these fast chargers have a big profit margin.
Britain's prices shot up with everyone else in Europe's when Putin reduced the gas supply, but Britain is more reliant on gas than many other countries so the price hasn't come back down.
Sjælland's overnight price last night dropped to about 0.75kr, but in Britain it was 2.10kr! The peak prices today were similar, 2.70kr and 2.80kr, but Britain had that for most of the day, and Sjælland just 4 hours.
Britain also has buildings with worse insulation, fewer people living in apartments, and much less use of district heating.
tesla superchargers are generally cheaper than standalone charging network providers, UK energy prices are indeed insane, UK consumer rights are abhorrent now that they've left the EU, and teslas are more efficient than most other EVs
