You really would be surprised at how quickly the attendants rush you out of your car and drive it away.
Besides, isn’t there any further detail to be discussed? Is it really as simple as you say? Different plugs, different charging needs, etc? I wouldn’t be surprised to find that, despite the dialogue you write above, you still don’t get a charged car on pickup.
Most cars for level 2 charging use a J1772 plug. Tesla is the only exception I’m aware of, and they come with a J1772 to Tesla adapter. If the garage does not have their own J1772 to Tesla adapters and does not have dedicated Tesla chargers, then there will be extra time spent telling the attendant “it’s in the console” or handing it to them.
I’m sure people will mess that up, annoying the attendant and people in line behind them. I’m sure today there are people who show up and fumble getting the car fob off their key chain, also eliciting some charming New York comments from the people in line behind them.
I’m doubtful the few extra seconds for some customers will matter, but the time spent shuffling cars certainly will matter. For that, the garage will need to figure out if the extra time, an extra attendant, etc. is worth whatever advantage or price increase they can get by providing the service.
DC fast charging is more complicated, with CCS and Tesla being the primary two standards. This is improving from both ends, with Tesla building cars that can speak CCS and starting to offer CCS adapters, and non-Tesla DC fast charging companies starting to have Tesla cords on their chargers.
It will also take planning on the part of the person parking. Will your car be in the garage for an 8 hour work day, and you can count on getting it charged? Are you just parked for two hours, and you need a garage with DC fast charging? Is it there long term, and you won’t need it again until next weekend when you leave the city?
Just like today people plan to get gas outside the city, or they’ll cut over a few blocks to hit a station, people will know which garages have what type of charging, and will plan accordingly.
Already long, but I think a few other things to consider. If people have long commutes from outside the city to in the city, then they can probably charge at home. If people use their cars to commute within the city, then they aren’t going to need to charge daily. EVs are very efficient when stuck in traffic, so the primary energy determination is commute distance, not time.
I understand you’re actually not supposed to charge EVs all the way unless you’re going to need all that charge imminently, say for a road trip. It’s supposedly better for the battery to keep it partly charged and just top it off about as much as you plan to use it. So little dribs and drabs from slow-charging temporary spots might be preferable.
Most of the old 7-11 parking lots in a dense urban area would run hundreds of thousands anyway; a few more for a transformer upgrade is a fraction of that. It could be paid for using the dodge banks used for ATMs: “once the tech is paid for, the charges will go down or they might even be free!”
Speaking of, chargers would probably spread the same way those did - it’d probably be done by some 3rd-party company that installs them in the lots of apartments or small businesses and gives the owner a cut, so they’d target areas with the existing infrastructure or simply offer slow charging where better options are scarce. Some high schooler with a 15-year old Leaf can’t be choosy.
This. If charging is available, it’s simple.
Fwiw, i used to live in NYC, and have several relatives there, and I’ve parked in the upper east side and the upper west side. And in both those places, garages tend to be self-park. I have seen attendant garages in NYC, too, but it’s not ubiquitous.
But either way, paying a little extra to get a charge should be as easy as picking that option.
Maybe we lived there at different times. I lived there in the 1970s, most of the 90s, and worked there (sometimes driving in to work) from 1990-2018. I can’t even visualize a self-parking (no attendant) lot. when I returned there last month with my car, every single time I parked in a lot, I had to wait until the attendant could move three or four cars to get to mine.
I go to the gas station, my car fills in about 5-10 minutes, and I drive off. I believe (and am willing to be corrected) that charging an electric car is a 2-4 hour stretch of time. So while potentially cheaper in terms of money, it is more expensive in terms of time. Also, the inconvenience of finding the charging station and then having to go back and move it X hours later (to find additional street parking).
At this point, the inconvenience of EVs are a significant problem for adoption for people who can’t charge them in their homes. Not impossible, but definitely a problem.
I lived there for most of the 90s, and visited both before and after. I suspect it varies by location. I never saw a parking LOT, only parking garages, fwiw. Tall, narrow parking garages.
Yes, but that’s somewhat offset by how much more convenient they are for people who can charge them at home. I used to have a plug in hybrid, and downgraded to an ICE when i replaced that car. And… needing to buy gas, needing to think about whether i need to buy gas, is much more of a pita than i remembered. It’s just this constant little annoyance. It was so nice to always know i had enough charge to run errands and stuff without needing to think about fuel.
It’s not just the middle of the country. There are only a little more than 2 dozen charging stations in New Hampshire.
That’s still thinking about it like a gas car, though. The only time that charging speed matters is when you have single journey that exceeds the range of a full charge (or when only 110 volt charging (level 1) is available, but even that is adequate in many circumstances).
The idea with an EV is to charge when the car is sitting unused for hours at a time. As you say, very easy for people who can install a home charger. An infrastructure charging plan will have to provide chargers at other places people leave cars for hours at a time. That will be work, on-street, garages, apartment parking lots, etc.
I do think shopping center level 2 charging is mostly a gimmick. Level 2 is the 2-8 hour charging, and it might be meaningful if you’re going to a movie, or spending the afternoon at a mall (if you find yourself in 1987), but isn’t going to matter much for 30 minutes of grocery shopping.
The last thing you want to do with an EV is wait with it while it’s charging, like is necessary when fueling a gas car.
::chuckle:: There are issues with maintaining roads today; potholes & such. There’s no way something buried in the street would reliably work.
I’d agree with this; from midtown south the park yourself is a rare bird.
There’s already a line to get your car in/out. Making the attendant do more work would only increase that line. Given the majority of cars are not EVs today, that means either hiring an additional attendant or losing some of the majority of your business because people go elsewhere when your service is too slow
I know the vehicle knows when it’s full, but does the meter? Does the car stop drawing power or does the charger shut off when the car if full? If it’s from the car, how will it let some rando know, one time, to follow it? Does that exist in any app today?
EV101 - based on my Tesla Model 3:
110V North American charging - I have not even tried it. Allegedly it will add about 5km/hr to the charge. In cold weather, that is less, it may take forever for the battery to heat up enough to charge (Battery will not charge or regen below 0°C/32F).
240V - Level 2 - use the J1772 universal standard (with the J-to-Tesla adapter) ,or the Tesla plug. This will add 47km/hr (29mi/hr) at 32A (8kW), 57km at 40A. I only have 100A service, but put in a 40A then a 50A plug. Since a circuit should only use 80% of the rated power, 50A circuit pulls 40A continuous.
This is fine, I charge at 1AM when I’m not cooking or drying clothes… until it wasn’t. One night there was no power, the main breaker flipped. I assume the air conditioner, fridge, freezer and the hot water heater kicked in together. while I was charging on a hot night. I told the car to max at 26A and have not had a problem since. Note 40A/48A is a maximum anyway for 240V for Tesla model 3’s depending on type. My car charges overnight, I have a “full tank” every morning. Which is 80% of full charge. for best battery condition, only charge habitually to 80% unless you have a big road trip or something. Also note if you live in a place with rates that vary depending on network demand, overnight charging should be cheaper.
So no major investment or panel upgrade for me - but… if everyone on my block decides to invest in an electric car, will the local distribution network support it? Did the hydro company allow for everyone using close to have their rated panel capacity at the same time? Good thing I don’t (yet) have two electric vehicles.
Superchargers and CCS (Level 3) typically charge at much higher rates - new Tesla chargers at 350V,250kW, CCS theoretically higher. This requires some serious electrical supply, especially for a multi-stall charging location - but a car can be charged in 20 to 40 minutes.
What we are talking in this thread about varies. For urban dwellers, either your lampost/parking spot has a Level 2 charger or your workplace has a L2, or your 7-11 or local restaurant or urban parking garage. Either you are parking and charging for a few hours each day, i.e. while at work or overnight, or you are spot-charging while you can; that hour or two in the restaurant or at the mall.
This is where I think it is headed - typical parking spots - like restaurants, malls, movie theatres (remember them?) and urban parking garages may offer this as a premium parking option with L2 charge. The problem with an L3 charge is that it is too fast. When all stalls are full, Tesla for example charges you to be plugged in and not charging, blocking the charger once done; but 30 minutes may be too short for your visit to the nearby mall or restaurant.
But, the convenience of fast charge with Tesla is best. No worry which network the charge belongs to; or poorly defined standards so some chargers don’t work with some cars; they monitor their equipment (although complaints about charger outages are not unknown).
So the short answer to the OP, again, is - until the infrastructure catches up, home charging is the way to go, so those who can’t are SOL.
Need more chargers; need more chargers for people with limited parking. Need more casual, on-street or workplace chargers; and failing that, better transit options. Keep in mind that charging infrastructure needs to be paid for, so the cost to charge at a “metered” location is going to be more than at home; plus not charging at off-peak hours will cot more.
There is an emerging business model for large charging hubs on major roads. The issue of a big power supply from the grid can be moderated by an on-site battery capacity and some local generation using solar or wind if that is possible. Could this be downsized, I wonder?
There is a lot of investment going into this area. I am sure all the operators that run filling stations have read the writing on the wall.
Yes, the charger knows. When i had a plug-in hybrid, I’d often charge it at a public station, and i knew when it was done charging because i got an email from the charging system telling me.
Change is difficult for a lot of people. To get the masses to more easily adopt EV, they are going to have to make the “fueling” part look and feel like it has for generations of ICE owners. Telling people they’re going to need to go out of their way to recharge and then have to wait a while is a barrier, suburban and urban. As mentioned upthread, until battery swapping is the standard, making sense of all the charging jargon will be left only for the early-adopters. And all the public charging potentials being discussed here - who pays for all the voltage? Do chargers pay for that or is it free?
For the people who have the ability to charge at home, and who don’t regularly exceed charge capacity in a single day, the change is mostly positives once you’ve got your home setup to charge–you essentially never have to think about “fueling up” again.
People like OP frankly falls into an outlier status that there simply is not an amazingly good answer for right now. If you live in some of the few hyperdense, low car ownership areas in the U.S. (and I think there’s probably less than 10 such places or thereabouts) if you aren’t one of the people who has access to a privately owned parking space that can be fitted with a charge (i.e. you rely on public street parking, or parking in lots that do not offer charges or the ability to install chargers) then all of the current options are going to be much less convenient than filling up gas in a regular ICE car.
I’m assuming garages would buy some sort of service that would have all of that. If their just connecting old 110V to J1772 charging boxes they found on Facebook Marketplace, then no guarantees.
I don’t know what the provider end of the ChargePoint control panel looks like, but from the user end, I can see my car charging on their website and in their app, and it tells me how much power it is using. It’s not a far step from that to a notification that “car at charger 3 has stopped charging” notifications on the attendant’s phone app or central display.
Yes, this is a new duty for garages and attendants, but only if they decide they’ll swap cars. No need to do that. Start with a few charging stations. If they’re full, and there’s demand for more, then add more. People can check their charging or parking app to see which garage has chargers available right now. Don’t have enough chargers? Then maybe you lose some business.
No need for charging to look and feel like getting gas. People are very used to finding the right cable and plugging things in to charge. Most people have such a device in their pocket now.
What needs to be done is to make it so people do not need to go out of their way to charge. They have to park their car someplace. Their cars spend much more time parked than being driving. Put the chargers in those places. Easier said than done, but this is a problem that can be solved with time and money.
It doesn’t have to be solved all at once, either. EV purchases are increasing, but in the US it is still only 3% of cars or something.
That ship sailed as soon as everyone got smart phones. People are more adaptable than you give them credit for.
I believeTesla had a free charging for a year for the early adopters in the early days. The cost of charging varies a lot. Cheapest is from your home charger, especially if your electricity supplier has a special cheap overnight tariff, when there is low demand. Where there is a lot of renewable power from wind turbines, on a windy night there is an oversupply sometimes the rates fall to very cheap rates indeed. With a smartmeter, an app and one if these variable tariffs, it is possible to keep the cost of charging quite low. Even better if you have some solar and a domestic battery. These systems are expensive to install, but I guess it works out cheaper when you do the total cost of ownership maths.
Public charging is much more expensive. But just as regular drivers with ICE vehicles tend to know where to get the best deal. For EV drivers, there is an app for that. The payment card systems are all over the place at the moment and the reliability of public chargers is frustrating.
The charging situation will be smoothed out when you can use contactless payment systems and the apps and the chargers work in an integrated manner. Tesla and it’s private network leads the way at the moment.
I can envision driving up to charging station, getting out and putting the car in valet/charging mode and it will drive itself to a charging station, with some sort of mechanical robot arm to plug into your EV, it charges for a period you specify, unplugs and then drivers around to meet you outside the comfortable reception area/restaurant/shop/work space.
While this may sound fanciful from an individual car owner, for commercially fleet vehicles operating out of a depot with charging, the savings could be very significant indeed. No pesky drivers damaging vehicles while parking in the depot, cheap off peak charging deals and maybe ‘vehicle to grid’ deals to be done with the power supplier. It would be a shame to let depot full of vehicles with big batteries just sit there, when they could be earning money.
If it makes sense to company accountants, it will surely happen.