Featured Renters with EVs face charging dilemma in cities

That doesn't follow. The number of cars at chargers at any given time should be a function of how often they need to charge, not their raw proportion. To illustrate, imagine an electric car that had infinite range. You would never see one at a charger.

 

I meant charging when not needed just because it's there and free. If you're routinely occupying space at public chargers when you don't need to charge to get where you're going before you have the opportunity to charge at home, you're the a**hole.

 

Then shouldn't there be more i-MiEVs and smart EDs at public chargers? Their ranges are around 60 miles. How many do you see in a day? Applying this logic to gas stations, I should be seeing far more motorcycles and Miatas there.

With free chargers, I think the odds of someone taking advantage of them is the same regardless of what type of car they have. Some could even be using them for the parking spot. It comes down to who gets there first, and that favors numbers.

I agree, and would put such PHEV drivers in the same group. This behavior will cease as the chargers phase to some type of fee structure, whether for the electricity itself or parking.

 

Actually it would be there for an infinite length of time. <grins>

In actual practice, we charge just enough to reach the next charger.

Bob Wilson

 

If they were driven for the same number of miles on average and had the same MPG figures as other vehicles they would be there more often than their proportion would suggest alone.

Only if the fee is more expensive than home charging.

I can't wait for the parking lot conflicts that will inevitably take place as more and more jurisdictions mandate electric cars when the infrastructure isn't ready, and I say that as someone who drives PHEVs and EVs and my professional job involves installing EV charging stations (which is how I know we're not ready). There's a part of me that that thinks it might be part of a more sinister attempt to knee-cap EVs in the long run.

 

IMO, we should stop talking about "being ready" with EV chargers.
We are NEVER going to be ready. Charger installs (except for a few minor cases) are always going to lag the EVs able to use them because why would anyone go around installing a bunch of unused chargers?

I'm guessing, but I don't think the US had gas stations on every corner before Henry Ford opened his factory.
More EVs will lead to more chargers because it shows that there are customers for the chargers (if you put them where the demand is)
Thinking that if you just install a bunch of chargers everyone will see them and go buy an EV isn't going to work. Most people don't even see the ones that are installed -- because the optimum/cheap locations are not on street corners like gas stations.

Mike

 

1 : 1 ??
because 100% of renters have plugin cars? Last I checked there's roughly 10% plug-in cars or LESS (& growing) .
The apartment complex I sometimes stopped at had 50 units. SO maybe 80 cars? They installed 2 pedestals, each with 2 nozzles. so - 4 stalls for plug-in charging.
Even if only 25% of occupant's cars were swing shift or graveyard - that'd leave the majority of renters' cars (~60 cars or so) at home during regular working hours. If 30% of those 60 cars can charge at work/school, that still leaves 42 apartment cars - of which only 10% of those apartment cars are actually/statistically plugins .... or 4.2 plug-in cars. Never mind that there are other hours of that same work cycle that people can charge during.
Based on how uncrowded those stalls always were whenever I would stop, around 2:00 p.m., & based on percentage of plug-in cars, seems like chargepoint came up with a relatively decent amount of charge nozzles when fitting an appropriate amount of stalls, with today's amount of plug-in cars.
Ergo ....... FUD

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More EVs are NOT leading to more chargers. If I couldn't charge at home it would be almost impossible for me to ever use electricity, and I mean EVER. There are no public chargers within a mile of my office even though our parking garage alone has over 2,100 parking spaces - not one charger or even wall outlet. There's no public chargers within 5 miles of my home. Not a single grocery store, hardware store, or restaurant parking lot I visit on a regular or even semi-regular basis has a charger. Many of the CITIES - not blocks, freakin' CITIES - in the Los Angeles metro area don't have a single public EV charger. And this is California where we're supposed to be "leading the charge."

The only way I could charge is to find some parking garage that charges $15 an hour to park and pay that on top of the charging costs just to sit there for 2.5 hours while the Prius charges and then repeat that again halfway to my home or office, which is 40-some miles away.

A lot of the problem is infrastructure. I'm in the business of installing EV chargers on an industrial scale and the biggest problem we have is the utilities simply don't have the power so we can't get permits to install. They report that they need 2 - 5 years after we submit a request to them before they can supply the needed power.

 

that's odd - checking plugshare app with map of LA, I can't see the words "Los Angeles" for all of the Chargers available.

The L. A. exception seems to be around watts - and there - your car wouldn't be safe - as would any EVSE's not be safe, either. Perhaps your issue is that your ride charges relatively slow .... 3kW's?
Our 2 plugins for example charge at 6 & 7kW respectively. Maybe try out the RAV4 Prime next time - as they charge much faster than Prius.
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Apartment complexes, residents with on street parking, and other situations where at home charging isn't available don't need fast DC charging. Level 2 is plenty fast for that. If the grid is so marginal as to not support that, then there is going to be issues in time even without plug ins.

 

It's not a matter of marginal, it's a matter of scale. Just to accommodate the number of EVs existing TODAY in our parking garage alone and not accounting for future EV adoption we would need about 150 Level 2 chargers. That requires 1.8kVA, or 3,000A at our 480V service level. That requires not only for the utility to install a new transformer at the site, but to beef up the distribution lines to our facility. That's just our garage. There are at least two dozen similar or larger garages nearby.

When it comes to installing chargers to electrify the buses and trucks our company uses, don't even get me started. We just put in a request for 3,000kVA of additional power at one lot, and that's just for the existing electric vehicles (about 5% of the fleet). The utility tells us that request is about 3 years out, and that's to charge the vehicles that are sitting there today. Our board is freaking out because there are more vehicles on the way and no way to charge them.

 

If you check those chargers they are almost all in private garages, pay garages, or otherwise not accessible to the public. There are some accessible to the public, but not within a mile of my work.

A very limited number of the RAV4 Primes come with 6kW charging, and you can't buy a RAV4 Prime for the past two years. Not around here anyway. I've been on a list since before last summer.

 

I suspect you meant “VA” and not “kVA”. The 3,000A would seem excessive.

Bob Wilson

 

I mean 3 million watts.

 

How do the numbers work out if using 16A Level 2 instead of 32A? Would take twice as long to charge, but half the number of amps at 480V when all 150 vehicles are plugged in.

It was an episode of This Old House that brought up the issue for homeowners that what to install multiple EV chargers. It's not enough to simply up the home electrical service to a higher amp circuit breaker panel. The power company has to sign off on it, since the power lines going to the house might need to be upgraded. Same must be true for apartment buildings.

 

We'd need more chargers. The 150 figure is accounting for people only charging for a couple of hours, which would be enforced by pretty stiff parking charges that go into effect after 3 or 4 hours (depending on management's decision).

 

In the USA, the home (single dwelling) rental market is huge. Who's going to pay for installations when many agreements won't even let a tenant put nail holes in the walls? BTDT

Mainstream rental apps like Zillow don't even have a filter for chargers yet. Lots of progress needs to happen. Basically there needs to be a HUGE financial reason to make this happen fast. Hoping for "It's the right thing to do." is not a plan.

 

$615 million was distributed to the states from the feds this year for EV infrastructure. It was part of the recent infrastructure law, and provides funds of $5 billion over 5 years. President Biden, USDOT and USDOE Announce $5 Billion over Five Years for National EV Charging Network, Made Possible by Bipartisan Infrastructure Law | FHWA
There is also the business tax credit for EV chargers in low income areas; 30% of the install price.

 

If our company received all $615 million it would be enough to install chargers for our fleet and have about $50 million left. One company.

There is so much cost involved that people just don't understand, and 99% of it isn't the chargers.