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Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

reuters.com

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Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#111

Post by deelowe »

Barrin92 wrote: post #98
deelowe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said home, not house. This would include apartments.

This is how a typical German residential street looks ( https://reidiculoustravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/dsc_0... ) It's not really trivial to pack that full of chargers if you don't want to interfer with pedestrians or cyclists.

I get it, but do you think queuing up at a petrol station is a viable solution to this or is it more likely to be political maneuvering to appease the station owners who are worried their business models will be obsolete soon?

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#112

Post by maxerickson »

jussij wrote: post #85
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned, already petrol stations in many countries do not actually profit from the sale of petrol since margins are so low. Rather, their profits stem largely from the attached convenience store.

The majority of petrol station traffic would be from the 'every day commuter', travelling to and from work. And the majority of these 'every day commuters' would currently own conventional cars. Those who drive electric cars would be charging their cars at home and as such hardly every need to stop in these stores. By replacing conventional cars with EVs will only see that tight profit margin getting tighter.

I wouldn't be surprised if I have made about as many convenience stops as I have made fuel stops (with fuel+convenience counting only as fuel).

And that's with me making few convenience stops. There's lots of people that get a coffee every day, they aren't buying gas each time.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#113

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

exabrial wrote: post #87

Why would you charge an electric car at a gas station? I thought the whole point was charging at home

Most decent range electric cars (Teslas, Chevrolet Bolt, the new Leaf) have around 60kWh batteries.

Residential "level 2" chargers can push around 6kW, and often requires professional installation, and if you have an older home, requires the upgrading the service wiring to to the house. That would take roughly 10 hours to charge, giving around 25 miles of range per hour of charge. Great if you can recharge when you get home from work.

Gas stations could have higher-grade power connections- "level 3" chargers typically pump out 50kW, and can charge a 60kW battery from flat to full in a little over hour. Typically you're not charging from flat, so you can "top off" in less time, getting something like 3-4 miles of range per minute of charging.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#114

Post by ivan_gammel »

ceejayoz wrote: post #100
elihu wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact of the matter is, that half of German households cannot charge their vehicles at home, because they live in a rented apartment. Do apartments in Germany not have charging stations? And if not, is there a fundamental reason why they can't be remedied somehow in the near-ish future?

> Do apartments in Germany not have charging stations? The US is fairly unusual in its "for every apartment building there must be a giant parking lot" zoning.

New buildings usually have underground parking, but I don’t think this policy has anything to do with the residents of the big cities. Car-sharing is more viable option there and it’s easy to provide chargers for car-sharing services on the streets.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#115

Post by zamfi »

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #106
Zanni wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery swapping was an idea that made sense when battery tech wasn't as good and ranges weren't as great, but its window has passed. You might be thinking of Better Place, which actually launched a battery-swap station. It made sense (some) sense at the time to spend 5 minutes on a battery swap that would otherwise take 6 hours to charge for 111 miles of range. But today, right now, you can spend 20 minutes to get 1…

...which is also why it's a bit frustrating to see people saying "Oh, this is from the perspective of gas guzzlers!"...no it isn't. this is a huge win, we're not trying to replace all infrastructure overnight, but it lowers the inconvenience of a marginal EV greatly...174mi in 20 min is damn good, that's 4 of my loooong commutes

Only if they put in fast chargers, though. If they put in L2 (i.e., 8 hours for a full charge) chargers, it’s worse than useless.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#116

Post by ivan_gammel »

qayxc wrote: post #64
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #52

Seems like policy written by petrol car drivers and not well thought out. In the future electric vehicle world 95% of charging will be done at home, or in some facility near your rental building. Most EV drivers have no need to visit charging stations unless they're going on an extended road trip, and then we need a particular _kind_ of DC fast charging station. I mean... I have an EV and I could count on two hands t…

Most EV drivers have no need to visit charging stations [...] You do realise that we're talking about Germany here, don't you? You cannot apply US standards to a foreign country with 7x the population density and only a ~50% home ownership rate... The fact of the matter is, that half of German households cannot charge their vehicles at home, because they live in a rented apartment. In cities in particular (you know,…

Half of German households does not need to own a car because of excellent public transportation systems, car-sharing and policies oriented to remove personal cars from the streets.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#117

Post by pkaye »

qayxc wrote: post #64
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #52

Seems like policy written by petrol car drivers and not well thought out. In the future electric vehicle world 95% of charging will be done at home, or in some facility near your rental building. Most EV drivers have no need to visit charging stations unless they're going on an extended road trip, and then we need a particular _kind_ of DC fast charging station. I mean... I have an EV and I could count on two hands t…

Most EV drivers have no need to visit charging stations [...] You do realise that we're talking about Germany here, don't you? You cannot apply US standards to a foreign country with 7x the population density and only a ~50% home ownership rate... The fact of the matter is, that half of German households cannot charge their vehicles at home, because they live in a rented apartment. In cities in particular (you know,…

I think another option is charging stations at major stores and office spaces that have parking lots. That way you can charge while shopping or working. I see this become more common in the US.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#118

Post by caf »

Barrin92 wrote: post #98
deelowe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said home, not house. This would include apartments.

This is how a typical German residential street looks ( https://reidiculoustravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/dsc_0... ) It's not really trivial to pack that full of chargers if you don't want to interfer with pedestrians or cyclists.

Probably need to develop some kind of under-street mounted charging, like the way conference room tables hide their port clusters.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#119

Post by Barrin92 »

deelowe wrote: post #111
Barrin92 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how a typical German residential street looks ( https://reidiculoustravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/dsc_0... ) It's not really trivial to pack that full of chargers if you don't want to interfer with pedestrians or cyclists.

I get it, but do you think queuing up at a petrol station is a viable solution to this or is it more likely to be political maneuvering to appease the station owners who are worried their business models will be obsolete soon?

I haven't looked much into it and I don't know that many people who own an electric car, to be honest.

What I could think of is that gas stations themselves might become somewhat more multi-use, that's already the case in some places in Germany. So people might to grab something to eat while charging up or do some shopping and so on. Scale them up a bit so that people have something useful to do while their car charges. People in Germany still like traditional stores and physical shopping a lot, I don't think it's just pandering to the owners.

Re: Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging

#120

Post by HaloZero »

askvictor wrote: post #78
qayxc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most EV drivers have no need to visit charging stations [...] You do realise that we're talking about Germany here, don't you? You cannot apply US standards to a foreign country with 7x the population density and only a ~50% home ownership rate... The fact of the matter is, that half of German households cannot charge their vehicles at home, because they live in a rented apartment. In cities in particular (you know,…

You are totally correct, yet OP's point is still reasonable - this was written from the perspective of a petrol-car driver; moreover, it's a missed opportunity to think differently. Petrol stations require big tanks underground to store the petrol; we don't have pipelines through the city carrying petrol. On the other hand, we do have a massive network of wires carrying electricity. EV charging can so easily be distr…

That would require significant more infrastructure in public spaces. Requiring petrol stations is a good first step to break the barrier that combines private/public work.

(I'm assuming petrol stations are private enterprises in Germany on this point)

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