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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

theglobeandmail.com

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Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#31
post #13

Where will garage orphans add gasoline to their cars if they must park on the street? If only there was a way to add energy to a vehicle outside of the home. Cars park all over the place. Distributed charging infrastructure doesn't sound too impossible -- parking meters probably already need electricity. Park and rides or business parking lots incentivize people to shop or commute in certain ways for a relatively mod…

It's not really comparable. Garage charging makes EVs more convenient than ICE cars, but they're much less convenient if you can't charge at home. ICE cars can stop at a gas station on empty and be back on the road completely full in two minutes. Even with a fast charger, it takes upwards of half an hour to charge an EV. Level 2 charging takes hours.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several states have laws that require apartment building and condo managers to allow tenants/owners to install EV chargers (at their own cost). Which states?

California for Condo/Townhome owners. However, in my experience, it didn't help. I had a condo with a shared garage, and the HOA said I had to pay for not just a line from the electrical room to my parking spot, but also the equipment/piping to scale it to any of the other parking spots. What would have been a $2000 installation turned into much more. My point being, even though there are laws that allow you to do th…

Sounds like your HOA needs a visit from your lawyer. Making pay for all costs for your needs is one thing, demanding you pay for costs for everyone else is another.

Bet if you did pay for it all, the HOA would not credit you for any other BEV owner you attracted and tapped into the power lines.

Sounds like they want the benefits but none of the costs.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#34
post #13

Where will garage orphans add gasoline to their cars if they must park on the street? If only there was a way to add energy to a vehicle outside of the home. Cars park all over the place. Distributed charging infrastructure doesn't sound too impossible -- parking meters probably already need electricity. Park and rides or business parking lots incentivize people to shop or commute in certain ways for a relatively mod…

In (large?) parts of Europe, parking meters at each spot were replaced with central parking pay-machines. But even if there are powered meters at each spot, I doubt that the power lines can deliver semi-fast charging currents (say 5 kW so that you get 40kWh in an 8 h time window) for so many spots. While not impossible, this would mean substantial construction. Whoever pays for that, they probably want to recoup that by inflated power prices.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#35

This is why we need standard, swappable battery packs. You pull into a "filling station" and a robot pulls your used pack and pops in a new one. 5 minutes, in and out. Sad thing is, this isn't a new idea. People just don't seem to want it.

People just don't seem to want it.

People right now feel that the advantages of batteries integrated throughout the chassis are greater.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the same people who are garage orphans are probably also those who haven't got time to charge their machines for an hour or two. That's already a concern for road trips, but day to day that'll be a nightmare. Just hang around the charging station for an hour while your car recharges.

Since it does not take an hour to charge for a normal drive, maybe you are the one with bad timing. If a person is driving 30 miles or less a day they only need less than 10 minutes charging to get by.

Taking your car to the fuel station every day is a nuisance. ICE cars only need to go about once a week.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#38

This is why we need standard, swappable battery packs. You pull into a "filling station" and a robot pulls your used pack and pops in a new one. 5 minutes, in and out. Sad thing is, this isn't a new idea. People just don't seem to want it.

That type of solution likely will start with company owned fleet vehicles until a critical mass of electric vehicles in the general public is reached at which point there will be enough demand for electric vehicles to make the cost of infrastructure for battery swapping viable.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a few single family homes that just have on-street parking with no dedicated parking spots (myself included). EV isn't an option for my unless my workplace had charging for nearly every vehicle. The current 2 charging stations are already taken most days.

Have you spoken to your local city about getting charging pedestals installed? Or having chargers added to street lights? Have you spoken to your workplace about having any amount of chargers installed? Progress is not a function of time. The transition to electric mobility will require effort, but is not impossible. I am happy to speak to whomever is required to work towards having chargers installed near your home…

"Progress is not a function of time", this is a really deep quote.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#40
post #13

Where will garage orphans add gasoline to their cars if they must park on the street? If only there was a way to add energy to a vehicle outside of the home. Cars park all over the place. Distributed charging infrastructure doesn't sound too impossible -- parking meters probably already need electricity. Park and rides or business parking lots incentivize people to shop or commute in certain ways for a relatively mod…

parking meters probably already need electricity Not 50A they don’t. Retrofitting it would be a substantial engineering effort.

You don't necessarily need 50A everywhere. Level 1 charging only needs about 12A. It's slow, but if you can be plugged in most of the time, it doesn't particularly matter that it's slow. That's probably enough to keep you topped off when you're just doing light commuting. A lot of level 1, a healthy amount of of level 2 and a smattering of level 3 would probably cover people's charging needs.
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