On 11/06/2020 1:20 pm, David Lochrin wrote: > > The other thing which would be useful is an index of charging points. One > doesn't want to run out of charge while driving around looking for one.
ALmost every car GPS sat-nav system - and portable third-party (Navman/Garmin/phone with Google Maps) already has 'fuel stations' and 'car parks' as points-of-interest categories, and you can press a few buttons to be directed to the nearest one already. Adding a flag for 'PEV charger' is trivial. Teslas have the index of charging stations already built into the nav system I believe, and its updated over-the-air in much the same way the car software is, so is continually up-to-date much like Google maps is. So this is a non-issue. But the real value in 'charging points' is to charge at home. or at work. or at the shops - or anywhere you are stopped for many hours at a time. Seriously, installing charger points at current petrol stations is stupid. We only have so many petrol stations on every corner because its dangerous and infeasible for everyone to have a fuel store at home and fill the tank overnight or in the morning before leaving. If you could guarantee that every time you reversed down your driveway your fuel tank was full to the top, you would pretty much never ever pull into a petrol station in a suburban area - at worst you might need a topup on a long highway drive to another city/town, when you stop for a meal, a coffee and a driver-change, or you charge up at your overnight accomodation. Most EVs have a range of several hundred kilometres in a charge - the ones I've looked at, I can drive from Sydney to Newcastle and back again without charging in the middle. For many cars, several hundred kilometres means charging overnight no more than once a week. You leave your driveway in the morning with the charge full, you return home, plug in, after driving right by all those lonely fuel stations losing patronage and selling more pies and softdrink than fuel. If you do need to charge, they are the last place you would want to go to, because you need 15 mins to a couple of hours to push in a decent charge to make stopping worthwhile, and theres nothing else to do at those places. To me, suburban fuel stations are dodos, and we will quickly find alternative uses for all those corner real-estate blocks when they go broke from disuse. Putting charger-points at those locations is nuts. Paul > > David Lochrin > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
