Nothing. Taycans get unlimited 30 mins charging sessions on EA for three years.
It is doubtful that demand will decrease: Sure EV ranges are increasing but EV Sales (hopefully) will increase faster. Thus more EVs on the road the greater demand for charging (even if only a small % of them take road trips long enough to require fast charging there still will be more of them).
I'm thinking about cars with ranges over 400. Even at 70 mph with no stops that's nearly 6 hours of drive time. If this becomes the standard in the future I can see the "need" for extremely fast charging going away. Even a trip of 400 miles now should only require 1 stop to recharge on most current BEV and most people are going to want to stop for other reasons on a trip that long.
It's not just range. While I have access to home charging, as BEV acceptance expands to people who don't have home / work charging ability, Fast charging will be needed even more.
With a range of 400 miles or more now you have other issues: Level-2 charging isn't fast enough to fully charge that much battery overnight (cars aren't getting more efficient, batteries are getting bigger). Thus you can't just stay the night at a hotel and wake up to another 400 miles--you'll still need fast charging (although a 50kW DCFC would work for overnight in this instance). Even the Mach-E's LR battery is big enough that you may not get a full charge if you arrive late at a hotel and attempt to leave early charging via Level-2.
Somewhat, but that relies on "babysit" charging rather than "park it and forget it" charging. If people have to rely on the former rather than the latter for nearly all their charging, and it's still painfully slow (15-45 minutes), that's gonna keep most people away from choosing a BEV.
Remember, the EV charging infrastructure today is the worst you'll ever know. Tomorrow additional DCFC stations will come online. There will be more stations next week, next month, next year, and so on.
Right not though, I think people in those situations either will maintain a gasoline vehicle or many already use public transportation.
I agree there will always be some need, but I think much of the delay in infrastructure is due to concerns about the payback for investing in fast charging. Just looking at the general trend and the 90% of use cases, I think it is a difficult business to be in. Investing in charging needs to be well thought out and should consider the trends.With a range of 400 miles or more now you have other issues: Level-2 charging isn't fast enough to fully charge that much battery overnight (cars aren't getting more efficient, batteries are getting bigger). Thus you can't just stay the night at a hotel and wake up to another 400 miles--you'll still need fast charging (although a 50kW DCFC would work for overnight in this instance). Even the Mach-E's LR battery is big enough that you may not get a full charge if you arrive late at a hotel and attempt to leave early charging via Level-2.
Our RV gets 400 miles a tank; we still need to fill up on our one or two week long trips somewhere (typically those trips are 800+ miles away). Filling up a 55 gallon tank does take longer than your quickie stop filling 12 gallons in an Escape...
In addtion: Not all EVs will get 400 miles a charge--you'll still have lower cost ones with shorter range that a few brave souls will attempt long road trips with.
I agree with most of that, although on the L2 point at hotels, I'm not sure it's that big of a deal that it may not do a full charge on large batteries. A typical 32A (7.6 kW) L2 charger can add 91 kWh in 12 hours (say, 7pm-7am). Even arriving at 10% SOC, that's gonna fill most BEVs of today, and probably get most of the way on BEVs of 2025. And for those driving vehicles with super large batteries, it just means they leave the hotel at 75% or something, just like they would at an EA station anyway.With a range of 400 miles or more now you have other issues: Level-2 charging isn't fast enough to fully charge that much battery overnight (cars aren't getting more efficient, batteries are getting bigger). Thus you can't just stay the night at a hotel and wake up to another 400 miles--you'll still need fast charging (although a 50kW DCFC would work for overnight in this instance). Even the Mach-E's LR battery is big enough that you may not get a full charge if you arrive late at a hotel and attempt to leave early charging via Level-2.
Our RV gets 400 miles a tank; we still need to fill up on our one or two week long trips somewhere (typically those trips are 800+ miles away). Filling up a 55 gallon tank does take longer than your quickie stop filling 12 gallons in an Escape...
In addtion: Not all EVs will get 400 miles a charge--you'll still have lower cost ones with shorter range that a few brave souls will attempt long road trips with.
Yep. Frankly, looking around now at how empty 95% of the chargers appear to be, it's gotta be an ugly revenue situation. But we know it's early in the curve. There's still very few non-Tesla BEVs driving around on US streets (in 49 states anyway). Be curious to see what it's like in, say, 2023, after vehicles like the Mach-e and others that consumers have real interest in are more commonplace on the roads.
Yeah, while it was smart for EA to partner with Walmart for their city chargers, it's not really the best place for highway chargers. Partnering with McDonalds or Arby's or Taco Bell, etc would be better for those, as one 45 minute food stop is ideal right off the highway on long road trips. (Doesn't address what to do on the other 3-4 stops, but it's a start).
