Harry Veeder wrote:
I mean quick charging stations.
The other day, NHK reported that several Japanese auto manufacturers have recently agreed on a standard charging station plug for the electric cars now going on sale in Japan.
All of these cars can be recharged at home, with an ordinary plug, or faster, with a heavy duty plug and specially made interface. Plus they can be charged must faster at a high-amperage specially made charging station. I do not think there are any charging stations yet, except for experimental ones, but they did not look very complicated or expensive so they may soon be installed in gas stations along major highways and in places like that.
That's fine, but it seems to me, there is an inherent economic problem that will prevent the widespread use of charging stations. The problem is, you don't need them, much. You can recharge at home, and if electric cars become popular I expect many office parks will offer them as an amenity to tenants. So they will never be required in as many places and numbers as gasoline stations. They will be more like kerosene stations -- kerosene pumps in gas stations, that is -- which you can find here and there in Atlanta. The problem is that if there is no concentrated demand for recharging stations, with a constant flow of customers, it will not be economical to construct many of them. Certainly it will not pay to make hundreds of them close together. And if they are not close together, they will be of little use because first generation electric cars have limited range.
I suppose that pay-for-charge charging stations in shopping malls and places like MacDonald's may be more practical, because these places will not depend on revenue from the charging outlet. It would be offered as an extra-cost amenity, somewhat like valet parking.
- Jed
