Ben Goren via EV wrote:
Most EV charging can and should reasonably be expected to be done
while the vehicle is parked, especially overnight at home. L1
chargers are today and always will be good enough for that for nearly
everybody... L2 is pretty much guaranteed overkill
This describes my real-world situation. We live in a small town, so the
Leaf's 100-mile range, and even my LeCar's 50-mile range is perfectly
fine for daily driving. And, we have an ICE car for long trips or
emergencies. In fact, our ICE (a 2001 Prius) was down for repairs, so we
went all winter with *no* ICE car -- just the EVs.
Thus, 99% of our charging is 120vac L1 charging, done at home,
overnight. We've had our Leaf for a year, and *never* run out of range,
or needed L2 charging.
The other 1%? I actually have a 240vac L2 charging cord; but have only
used it a few times as a test to make sure it works. I got it as a
placebo for my wife's "range anxiety". :-)
but... there will be situations where people will want to charge,
wherever they happen to be, and they're not going to be happy if
it takes more than ten or fifteen minutes.
Right. People who are used to ICEs want their EV to be exactly like
their ICE car. They want a range of several hundred miles per charge,
and "fast" refueling at public fuel stations, just like a gas station.
That's fine -- a certain percentage of the market will never be happy
with EVs until they are "just like ICEs".
The *real* problem is that I don't think that there's an overlap
between what rapid charging is likely to cost and what people are
likely to be willing to pay, especially when they're used to paying
on the order of $0.10 / kWh at home.
Companies that are promoting fast-charging and high fees for electricity
see them as an opportunity to make Big Profits. ("They're used to paying
$50 for a tank of gas, so they'll happily pay $10 for a charge that only
cost us $1 for the electricity.")
But it will be interesting to see how many of these people discover that
they prefer cheap charging at home overnight, instead of having to drive
to some public charging station, and risk waiting for hours or paying
high fees for electricity.
Perhaps our best real-world hope is for Tesla to offer universal
adapters to their superchargers for about the same price as they
charge to upgrade their vehicles to supercharger capability. (Same
price because Tesla's price includes their capital and operating
expenses for the network, not just whatever is done to the car
itself.) Done right, that would allow the minority who need to make
road trips in non-Tesla vehicles to do so...and it even opens up the
possibility for renting the adapters for rare road trips.
It's hard to imagine the auto companies agreeing on any kind of standard
for fast-charging. They all see it as an opportunity to establish a new
monopoly. The LAST thing they want is for competitors to be able to use
"their" chargers (without paying big royalties for the privilege).
--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com
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