Missing from this is the percentage of people that can charge at home. Younger generations may never be able to afford a home. Even if apartment complexes start adding chargers the renters may have to eat that cost as part of their rent for some period of time.
In the US[1], about 70% of homes are detached or attached single-family homes[2]. The vast majority of those will be able to support charging one or two cars at home. How to address the remaining 30% is definitely an issue worth discussing, but it's not an issue for the majority of people who live in the US. If we could get to 70% of cars to being EVs, that would be a huge dent in our emissions, still worth celebrating even if it doesn't work for absolutely everyone.
> Even if apartment complexes start adding chargers the renters may have to eat that cost as part of their rent for some period of time.
What I've seen around here (Twin Cities, MN) is apartments just have some charging company put about 4~8 of their fast chargers in their parking lot. I would guess those companies pay the installation costs and charge the users directly, so the apartment owners don't have to deal with it at all.
[1] The article is about Europe, but I don't live there. Maybe someone else can find stats for Europe.
[2] Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1042111/single-family-vs...
That's not exactly a vast majority that could support charging at home.
Similar chargers would work for apartment complex parking lots. It would even be possible to put chargers on street parking.
BEVs used just for city driving need to be charged about once a week, so you just plug in when there's an opportunity. A basic 7kW charger is enough to charge full battery overnight.
Wrong statistic. You need the percentage of the population that lives in such a home vs. other arrangements.
Homeowners also have to eat the cost of installing a charger and paying for electricity.
I think you’re exaggerating the issue. Many people charge at apartments, rental houses, or work and it’s only becoming more common.
The claim that younger generations will never afford homes has also been extremely exaggerated. Millennial home ownership rates are actually quite high and growing, not far from previous generations. Houses are more expensive, but claiming entire generations won’t afford homes is just doomerism.
I met an uber driver who drove a Tesla Model 3 and they charged at an apartment tower garage.
The best part for them was the landlord offered it for free, no electricity charge.
I also know someone who just ran an extension cord out to their parking spot in their apartment.
It really isn’t that hard to imagine a situation where street parking has overnight charging infrastructure. Streets where people live already have electricity running to all of them.
I've read that while this is true, the power capacity of this existing infrastructure is far, far from what would be required. Even the cable sizes are frequently inappropriate.
The same argument about capacity could be made for other modern appliances like air conditioning and electric dryers.
Most EV buyers barely need level 2 charging for their daily average driving distance.
Of course if we are going to get deep in the weeds I’d say that most places where the majority of peope live including suburbs can be made far more conducive to cycling and transit without that much of an investment and more of a mindset change to how we approach city development.
Oh sure. My point wasn't that "it cannot be done" - it clearly can. My point was that this is not as "ready to go" as some people suggest sometimes.
Incorrect. Millennial home ownership rates are 10-15% lower than previous generations. They are growing in absolute terms simply because millennials are reaching middle age and getting more accumulated wealth - but there has been and remains a gap. The gap widens for Gen Z.
https://youngamericans.berkeley.edu/2024/01/breaking-down-th...
A single commercial three-phase EV charger in a multi-tenant building plus installation costs at least an order of magnitude more when you include the electrical switchgear, charger, larger wiring, permit, conduit, utility costs, et
Reasonably, I’d need a panel upgrade and an upgrade to the underground feed... for which, the lowest quotes I’ve received have been $10k+. (More than I paid for the entire car that I’ve been driving for the past 12 years.)
If your goal is to full-charge a multi-hundred-mile EV in 8 hours, then, yes, you're looking at a significant installation with a new circuit, maybe a new panel, and maybe a new main feed from your utility. This could cost as much as the car!
If your goal is to charge enough overnight to make up for 2x your average daily commute, then you're talking about a much smaller installation. It could potentially even be done with through an existing 120V, 12A wall outlet. Many plug-in hybrids and EVs come with a dinky wall charger like this, and they are enough 99% of the time. External DC fast charging can make up for the rest.
Everyone's needs are different, but I think too many people rush in and go too far with electrical upgrades.
A new service drop and panel shouldn’t be $10k, but lots of residential electricians are greedy. 4/0 4/0 2/0 aluminum triplex cable isn’t that expensive but if they included directional boring instead of trenching, $10k makes more sense. A fully loaded resi panel with the correct AFCI and GFCI breakers is around $2500 or so. If you happen to live in MN or WI, I can give you a better quote.
In my parents building the anti-EV expansion proposal was blocked in part by the people who already had chargers for themselves!
Employers need to step up their game and start offering charging if they want people in the office.
Very true. I've seen some tech companies doing this in conjunction with adding roof solar to get tax breaks. Are other industries stepping up as well?
Of course in hind-sight I recall we had about 16 chargers at the time we had over 20k employees. There were a lot of Tesla's in the parking lot but many of those people were older and had homes. Those chargers also caused a lot of drama. People would unplug other peoples cars, the other people would send videos from their Tesla to corporate security. I would just park my old ICE truck near the front door since I got to work early.
A lot of commercial office spaces around me (DFW) have charging stations in their parking garages as a building amenity.
Which means, the only initiative for climate change that ever needed to happen is a higher and higher taxes on fossil fuels, and everything would flow downhill from that.
But that was never on the table, so it was always all just lip service.
We effectively managed it in Canada, but it’s become political poison.
Why not charge EV owners directly?
Also I’m not sure if chargers are that expensive in the first place, especially considering you don’t necessarily need fast charging since you leave your car charging overnight anyways.
The overall population isn't necessarily growing very much. But populations of the different areas throughout the country are pretty different from even a few decades ago. Many old towns (and old homes) are just no longer economically viable after the industries that gave people jobs in those towns moved away.
Lots of extremely cheap houses in certain places. Good luck getting decent city services or a well-paying job anywhere nearby.
I mean, in Europe however socialist, no one is asking for affordable housing on Avenue Foch. Affordable housing must exist, but by definition it can only exist in places where only people who live there are those who "remained", i.e. left out when all active ones are excluded.
In the UK, electricity supplied to your home is charged at a 5% rate of VAT. You can also take advantage of cheaper overnight energy tariffs that keep the price per kWh down to £0.03-0.05. Public chargers will charge a minimum of £0.55 up to £1 per kWh which includes 20% VAT.
That'll need to change for mass adoption here.
Where are you getting this from? Just checked my nearest public charger and it’s £0.45
However you look at it, it's a heck of a lot more than charging at home. Intelligent Octopus Go is currently charging 7p per kWh overnight.
I was kind of expecting it to be more feasible, but after our experience, I think most people would be much happier with a L2 charger installed. We plan to have one installed once the weather warms up.
The charger that came with the car has a 120v 12A mode. That's ~1.4kW. Add some charging losses, at least 1.2kW probably makes it into the battery. 1.2 * 3.2 > 1.5.
Even a Lightning averages about 2mi/kWh.
The Mach E isn't even that impressive in efficiency.
We knew we were moving and I have a 240V EVSE at the current house. I found the 120V worked for me with very rare DC fast charging necessary, mostly when I visited a family member downstate. This, though, was a stage of my life where 2 kids were in college and the other had his own car. Much different than when they were on 3 different soccer teams, different schools, etc.