Featured Where are EVs taking off?

US, EU, China seem to be the biggest - and some other pockets around the world.

67% of the developing world still goes without household electricity. An EV would be a dream (or nightmare).

 

Ironically Japan is way-low on that list, because of their insistence upon developing FCEVs over BEVs.

 

That would be an anecdotal observation leading you to decision based upon incomplete information.

Most households in Japan only have 100-volt lines available. Imagine how inconvenient it would be to have that as your only means of recharging an EV. It would take forever.

That shortcoming is why Prime over there has CHAdeMO as an option.

 

and yet sells poorly

 

georgia, who would have thunk. massachusetts is an embarrassment.

 

Your habit of not quoting posts makes it very difficult to have constructive discussion.

I assume you're referring to sales in Japan, but have no clue how you could possibly draw that conclusion without model or supply data.

 

Interesting that Virginia is fast-growing, as there are zero state tax incentives and no HOV incentives for anyone who hasn't hung on to a grandfathered 2000s-era "Clean Special Fuel" license plate.

 

Yes I would say Virginia growth is suspect. Wishful thinking but we are going blue maybe the Dems will add incentives.

But it shows the impact of incentives. When it was hybrid sales in 2006, and Virginia was the first to invent free HOV for hybrids, we were immediately in the top 5 states of hybrid sales. Now look where we are. And some smaller portion of the plug-in growth in Va. are the grandfathered folks that still get the free HOV.

 

There was skewed demand in the past for California & Colorado due to state incentives too.

 

That is only half the story. And the 100 volt standard in Japan is only 10-20% lower than the 110-120v in the US, so it isn't really that bad. The other half of the story is how many amps the typical household service has. This is because watts is what matters (watts = volts * amps). Older homes in the US typically have only 100 amps, but newer ones typically have 200 amps.

Japan has plenty of industrial equipment that requires heavy electrical usage so they could install plenty of higher voltage public chargers if they so desired in commercial locations.

If the common household voltage were the limiting factor then the UK, Europe and all those countries would be far ahead of the lowly US in EV sales since they have double our voltage.

Mike

 

Those homes are low amperage in Japan. A Prime takes twice as long to charge at such residents as it does in the US, and Level 2 isn't an option at them.
But Japan does have a large public charger network, and the Prime has CHAdeMO standard, with a PV roof option there.

 

It's 100 volts verses 240 volts, big difference. You are right about the amps, but those values are all over the place. Old homes here have 75-amp capacity. New ones here vary between 150 and 200.

Even bigger of a problem is simply how to get the electricity from the service-panel to the car. Even new builds still favor the short path to the house. That means some new houses need a major effort to cross the house to get the needed new line to the garage. There's also the problem of property regulations. A local provider here requires the line to come from the house, so the line crosses the yard twice for those with a garage in the ally.

 

Or people can simply plug into a 110V outlet.
The only funny/odd requirements I am aware of is for special EV electric rates.

In the USA, basic charging is not that high of a hurdle. Japan is a much more difficult situation.

 

So, yes, that’s an interesting point about only having 100V outlets. The unrealism of home BEV charging might further explain why they’re going for FCEVs over BEVs, but either way, it’s clear that Japan is concentrating upon FCEVs over BEVs.

 

i wonder how many bevs and how many fcevs are on the road in japan

 

I disagree completely on L1 vs L2 for a BEV. Most people don't drive far. And in Japan, that's even more true. Even a Leaf with it's limited range is not a bother for most people.

I charge my Leaf on L1 exclusively when I am in town. I just plug it in outside to the side of the house. No it doesn't charge to 100% all the time, but it still has no problem going further than the average American daily driving with a limited charge and definitely for Japan. In Japan 29% of the population drives less than 3000 miles a YEAR (8 miles a day). 27% do between 3000mi-5000mi a year (14mi/day). 18% between 5000mi-7000mi (19mi/day). 9% between 7000mi-9000mi (24mi/day).

Less than 8% of the population drive what the average American drives. A 40mi range Leaf works for 92%+ of the population of Japan. Charging at 3mi/hr overnight isn't a problem when you only need 4 hours of charging to fully recharge your BEV.

The real reason BEVs haven't taken off in Japan is because public transport works very well unlike in the US. When in Japan you can get pretty much anywhere you want in the cities all the way out to the boonies by bus or train and that's what most people do.

You know what the job is of this dude standing here?



Safety attendant sure. But really, he's a Oshiya. Literally a "Pusher".

His job is to get these people:



onto the train. If you aren't being compressed in all directions, you aren't on a Japanese train.



Americans would never tolerate this, let alone be able to achieve the same human/sqft density that Japan can. BEV adoption along with all vehicles is pretty low.

 

^^^funny

 

Europe Overtakes Japan In Number Of CHAdeMO Chargers
7400 chademo chargers in japan about a year ago. That seems like good infrastructure as long as you don't need to charge faster than 50 KW (standard now includes much faster, but almost all chargers are slower).

By The Numbers | California Fuel Cell Partnership
Now 100 hydrogen stations but only 3044 fcv (mainly mirai and clarity but includes busses too) as of march.

Its not infrastructure for charging. Its the incentives and car choices.

I have a friend in tokyo, and the reason he doesn't have a ev is he can't buy a tesla model 3 yet. ;-)

 

Try that on a NY subway.