A recent article from the New York Times made some interesting points about electric vehicle charging station availability, or the lack therefore of, that probably bears discussing here.
I’m inclined to think that the points raised likely have some truth to them (though how much “some” is I don’t know), but given the general slant of the paper when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs) I don’t think that I’m too willing to take everything at face value. So how exactly to determine the degree of truth to the article? Perhaps by soliciting the opinions of our readers?
Here are some of the “highlights” from the article that I’m looking to have clarified:
But the push to make the state greener is creating an unintended side effect: It is making some people meaner. The bad moods stem from the challenges drivers face finding recharging spots for their battery-powered cars. Unlike gas stations, charging stations are not yet in great supply, and that has led to sharp-elbowed competition. Electric vehicle owners are unplugging one another’s cars, trading insults, and creating black markets and side deals to trade spots in corporate parking lots. The too-few-outlets problem is a familiar one in crowded cafes and airports, where people want to charge their phones or laptops. But the need can be more acute with cars — will their owners have enough juice to make it home? — and manners often go out the window.
That sounds like quite an exaggeration to me. Is it? Or is my limited, and regionally specific, experience on this count simply not the general experience?
This part rings rather true to my ears though (unsurprisingly):
The rudeness is not just among drivers of electric cars. By many accounts, owners of gas-powered cars often take up desirable parking and charging spots that companies and cities reserve for electric cars. This habit has inspired the spread of a nickname: ICE Holes. (ICE stands for internal combustion engine.)
I’ve heard a great many complaints about this, so I’ll acknowledge it as a definite problem.
I’ve not had any experience with the issue below though, so don’t know what to make of them:
The competition has led people to judge one another’s cars and which ones deserve charging priority. Owners of all-electric cars see themselves as most entitled to the chargers, since they have no Plan B. One rung down are “plug-in hybrids,” which use electricity but also can use gas, followed by hybrids, and then two groups for which the owners of pure electric cars reserve particular disdain: gas cars and, perhaps surprisingly, Teslas. (The $100,000 Teslas, as much as three times the cost of other plug-ins, have a range of several hundred miles and so, theoretically, do not need the charge spots.)
Hmm. Do any of our readers have any comments on this?
If Leaf driver just plugging into a dual head CCS-Chademo fast charger while perfectly good Chademo only charger is next to it, and unwilling to move the car to allow CCS car to charge, I think there’s lots of validity to NYT article about EV jerks.
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/10/free-charging-sucks.html
NYT does not distinguish between L1/L2/DCFC, but it sounds like it’s about L2 and FREE charging. Free and slow are two worst combinations to bring out the worst in people. I’m surprised there haven’t been fist fights breaking out all over the place. That just goes to show that EV drivers so far are more civilized than the rest of the populace, but it will get worse as more people adopt EV. Answer? Paid DCFC!
I have a feeling this is a real problem in any location with a higher percentage of EVs. I just finished driving my new (used) Tesla from Fresno to Santa Monica and then San Bernardino and found the following:
Only 1 of 6 Supercharger spots were vacant in Seaside around 4pm. One Tesla left and another arrived as we charged for ~25 mins.
My dad waited for us in Atascadero for around an hour (before giving up because we’d taken a slow scenic route on highway 1) and said there were up to 3 or 4 Supercharger spots in use and the one L2 charger spot was often in use around 7pm. When we arrived around 9:30 there was nobody else there.
Supercharger in Buellton had ICE cars in 4 of the 8 supercharger spots around 10:30. They’re located in a Marriot parking lot which looked very full.
Next day, around 3pm in Rancho Cucamonga, 3 of 12 Supercharger spots in use (Plugshare comments mention there are often 9 or more in use at the huge mall complex) and both L2 chargers were in use (Volt and Leaf). The Volt drove off during the 15 minutes we were there and nobody seemed to be waiting for the L2s.
SparkEV has pointed out in his blog that the companies offering free charging may be part of the problem when it comes to waiting lines for chargers. In popular locations like the mall, it’s a big temptation to plug in and head to the mall for hours no matter how full you already are when it costs nothing to top up your charge. Companies need to address this by installing more chargers, limiting customers to one free 30 min charge per day, patrolling and towing abusers (ICE or EVs that stay over 30 mins in spots clearly marked 30 min parking limit), charging money to charge at popular locations, and/or putting free chargers only in locations with nothing interesting in walking distance.
So far, it looks like Tesla is monitoring their locations and installing more chargers when all of them become in use too often (the Rancho Cucamonga location started with 10 chargers and was upgraded to 12 around the time Plugshare.com showed people complaining of all chargers in use). If anyone wants to research just how contentious various locations are, the comments in Plugshare.com are a good source of info.
I look around to see who charges at DCFC, and it’s almost always Leaf with free charging. They plug in whether they have 10% or 90% and take full 30 minutes; there’s no reason for them to charge at home or anywhere else when DCFC is free. If it’s not for free charging, I suspect 75% to 90% of chargers would be freed up. This will pretty much eliminate lines at popular charging locations, and probably accommodate many times more EV than what’s out there.
The problem is, Leaf get free charging for 2 years, so even if Nissan stop the practice today, we still have crowding for 2 more years. Ughhh!!!
Meanwhile, non-EV people will see many EV waiting to use the charger, especially at key intercity locations, and think “EV will never work. They are a tiny fraction of cars, yet they have long lines to charge. I’m never getting an EV.” They only remember the lines at popular places, and never the empty chargers in their neighborhoods.
No charge to charge was never promised to cover all charger locations, so we can hope that if Nissan notices it’s causing overcrowding and abuse at popular locations that they will remove those locations from the available list and/or install more chargers there (maybe some that support free and others that don’t).
Nissan, are you reading this?
I saw no one making any noise over this. They were all standing around waiting while Leaf was charging at 2kW or plugging in for 30 min with 85% already in battery. I’m hoping what little noise I make will tap someone to wake up. Even if it’s too late for where I live, at least they can fix the problem going forward, and hopefully others to think carefully before giving charging plans (Chevy, do not give free charging with Bolt!)
Anyway, new terms: getting Leafed = waiting for DCFC when plugged in car could be saving money by using L2. Others in my new blog post; maybe shaming them with new terminology might sting more for them to wake up.
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/10/jerks-all-around-us-iced-leafed.html
Hi, As an ex utility engineer I see shocking issues coming with the growing numbers of EV’s. My Mitsubishi PHEV requires 15 amps for a very slow charge and up to 40 amps for a fast charge. If all my neighbours start doing the same thing as me, the cabling in the road will be glowing red hot very quickly. The current power distribution network cannot handle the sorts of instantaneous and continuous loads that the charging of electric vehicles will require when they grow in numbers. The utilities will not upgrade distribution assets to cope with this if and when it occurs. The only solution I can see is the use of pre-charged battery packs that are common to all vehicles that you just swap at charging stations. They would have appropriate power supply infrastructure for fast charging. You just drive in and swap battery packs. Can I see all the EV manufacturers standardising their battery packs…..unlikely. What is the solution?
There is a really good talk by JB Straubel from last year that discusses using batteries at the supercharger locations (about 24min in).
https://youtu.be/zWSox7mLbyE?t=24m
For home users I see the utilities stepping in and adjusting charging schedules to spread out the load. This is similar to how utilities are using smart thermostats to turn off air conditioners during peak times. In the really long term I see utilities locating small battery farms scattered around the grid and in homes for storage and buffering.
One positive is that EV enthusiasts are often solar enthusiasts who will charge as much as possible using their own solar panels. Even apartment complexes will continue to add solar to support EV-owning tenants.
For areas where solar doesn’t work (ie lots of people needing to charge at night) I think the utility needs to limit charging rates. I assume they already have safety mechanisms that prevent pulling too many amps through the main lines, so a set of cars will simply charge more slowly. Will that cause problems with other appliances? I would guess so. In that case, they do need to directly control a set of cars or a set of chargers to limit their use remotely.
I agree that EV enthusiasts are also solar enthusiasts but this discussion is considering what is likely to happen when this technology gets taken up by the masses. Fast charging is only possible when you have access to big power supplies and solar panels aren’t that. I charge my PHEV from my 5kW panels and it takes 5 hrs at 15 amps on a 240 Volt supply. If a person wants their Tesla to be recharged in 10 minutes, the power supply required would be huge…I calculate about 4500 amps at 240 Volts. That’s 1080kW or 4320, 250 Watt solar panels. It’s not possible…it’s silly. Swapping pre-charged batteries seems the most sensible option.
Isn’t swapping pre-charged batteries pretty equivalent to constantly charging batteries at a supercharger at a slower rate and then dumping their charge at 1080kW into the next vehicle to pull up? I’m sure the conversion losses are greater than swapping batteries, but swapping a battery that takes up the entire bottom of the car as on Tesla doesn’t strike me as feasible in any automated or quick way.
Plus, at least for now, batteries are the most expensive part of the EV. The cost of the battery helps disuade people from abusing their batteries by constantly charging to 100% or driving like crazy, but if you can swap whenever you want then there’s no reason to be nice to the battery. Of course it might balance out since there would be less reason to ever charge to 100% if you could swap quickly.
At any rate, Tesla has claimed that 10 minute charging will be available someday so they must have some plans for how to do it.
You are spot on with your first point but when stations are busy all the time …just like gas stations are, that can’t occur. Charging 3X slower, for example, would need 3X as many batteries already charged and who will own those? In regard to swapping batteries, this is part of my point. They will become smaller and the range wouldn’t have to be so high if they could be swapped. Half range would mean half the size. We are now down to quarter size perhaps? Swapping a quarter sized pack is not undoable with proper design and robots at the stations. in regard to battery ownership, the best model would be rental or leasing same as with gas bottles. The cost of damage etc is reflected in your personal rental cost. The Tesla 10 minute charging propoganda is just that I’d suspect. Basic physics dictates that if you ram 3000 amp hours into a battery it has to come from somewhere pretty big and expensive…thick cabling, even bigger batteries or distribution assets. Lots of thinking needed yet methinks!
Another option is something in between. Current superchargers are 120kw which puts in 80 miles over 24 minutes (actually I think it’s a little faster, but let’s be conservative). If you quadruple that to 480kw, you get 80 miles in 6 mins. If you put chargers every 40 miles, that’s not an unreasonable way to travel and uses less than half of your 1080kw proposition.
You’re certainly right that swapping of smaller batteries seems like an easier/more feasible solution but it’s very hard to know how quickly we’re going to get to batteries of 1/4 the current size. I doubt it will be quickly enough.
We’ll also be getting more efficient solar panels that could supplement high-power chargers that can’t draw enough from land lines, though of course that means people have to charge slower at night or in bad weather. Luckily number of people wanting to charge in those conditions will be fewer.
I also suspect technology for making gas from renewables will play an increasing role, which means we don’t have to convert the whole fleet to EVs and we can use the existing gas fueling infrastructure without going overboard on the EV infrastructure.
Or we can just keep going with 120-150kw chargers which seems to be good enough for a lot of drivers (myself included). Less patient people might not be satisfied with them, but they can drive the renewable gasoline vehicles.
If EV auto sales grow substantially with affordable 200 mile plus range EV’s by 2017, the problem will be lack of fast charging for those who don’t have their own garage, or for those who have to charge for road trips and vacations. Level 2 charging times are inadequate. People want to “fill-up” as quickly as a gas powered car. They don’t want to wait for hours to “fill-up”. DC fast chargers are what is needed. There are a lot of Level-2 chargers out there. Perhaps they can all be upgraded to DC fast chargers. That is one possible solution. Another possible solution is gas stations. Existing gas stations can remove gas pumps and install DC fast chargers in their place, as electric car demand increases. A third option is aluminum air batteries. Phinergy and Alcoa plan to be production ready by 2020. You can simply go to the local gas station, and have your aluminum air battery physically replaced every 1000 miles or so, more or less. No need to charge with a plug. The aluminum air battery will keep your lithium-ion battery charged.
All good ideas. However, any fast charging system requires large power supply. In order to run “petrol station” style filling stations they would require huge cabling to each site costing, usually, many millions of dollars. For example, if the peak number of EV’s in the charging station is, say, 10, which is not a lot, then the site would need a 4000 Amp supply at 110 Volts (equivalent to 140 houses at average draw). Including a safety margin this would equate to .5MW or 600hp or 2000 solar panels (approx). Multiply this by the number of existing petrol stations in the US (125,000) and you’ll see the scale of the potential problem. 500 million amps at 110 Volts (62,000MW or 30 times the amount of energy Perth consumes). All distribution cabling in suburban areas would most likely have to be upgraded to distribute this energy.
A friend of mine works at a company that has a lot of chargers and is installing more, but there are still not enough for the many Leafs, i3s and Volts. He says there is a lot of bitterness about who is charging what, and people get disconnected because someone else wants the charger. it brings out the worst in people. The NYT article is dead on.