The Alliance for Automotive Innovation says there are approximately 100,000 public charging ports in the US. The Federal Government is attempting to provide more. The Fed’s target is 500,000 charging ports. If there were more charging stations, there would be less range anxiety.
The rough number of gasoline/diesel filling stations is 145,000. Well, if it feels like there is a filling station almost anywhere, why would there need to have 500,000 charging ports? The answer is because it takes so long to recharge the battery.
The Biden Administration’s plan to put up 500,000 charging ports will probably take a while to accomplish. Currently, the plan is for each State to install a charging station along their major highways, 50 miles apart. Further, a charging station must be within a mile of an on and off Interstate intersection.
A private party that wants to operate a charging station picks a site for the station. The site is approved. The Feds will pay up to 80% of the cost and the private party must pay 20% or more. These stations can cost up to $1million. Each station must have a minimum of 4 charging ports.
The API says that the average fill-uptakes 2 minutes for an ICE vehicle. Then that vehicle could go 300 to 400 miles of highway driving.
Examining the EV owner’s options for recharging the battery so as it has range of 350 miles. (Hour charge to miles range from US Department of Transportation-Charger types and speed.)
Level 1 Minimum cost using house AC outlet. One hour provides 2.5 miles of range. So about 6 days to get charged to 350 miles range.
Level 2 Purchasing a charger/installation required. 240-volt system, a home installation. One hour provides 10 to 20 miles of range. Using the 20 miles per hour charge would need 17 hours to get 350 miles range.
Level 3 Fast DC. The public stations are mostly at this level. One hour charge provides about 180-to-240-mile range. Using 240 mile per hour charge would take about an hour and a half to get 350 miles range.
Tesla Supercharger. Dedicated Tesla charging points. One hour would give 1000 miles range. The 350-mile range would be done in about 20 minutes.
Some thoughts:
- Anyone that buys an EV and uses a level1 must have more money than that sense. For certain, that person has an ICE car in the garage. The EV is for show.
- If you buy an EV and you live in an apartment, where you only have street parking, you would have to go to public charging stations.
- Level 2 requires a professional installation with costs that can be steep, often a thousand dollars or more. The charger itself isn’t free.
- Level 3. If you use FastDC you will spend more money for charges than if you use a level 2 installed system using your cheaper home electricity.
- Very important: routine charging with Superchargers and Fast DC degrades the batteries to the point they won’t be able to hold their charge as long. The fast chargers heat up the battery and that can cause loss of battery range. Tesla says that you should use these fast chargers sparingly.
- Every charge degrades the battery’s capacity a little. From Wikipedia:
Capacity loss or capacity fading is a phenomenon observed in rechargeable battery usage where the amount of charge a battery can deliver at the rated voltage decreases with use.[1][2]
In 2003 it was reported the typical range of capacity loss in lithium-ion batteries after 500 charging and discharging cycles varied from 12.4% to 24.1%, giving an average capacity loss per cycle range of 0.025–0.048% per cycle.[3]
- Public charging stations are often not close to an available place that you can retire to, while you wait for your battery to get charged. Think of sitting in your car in inclement weather, either hot or cold.
- Public charging stations are not always reliable. The following is from
. Findings from a 2022 University of California, Berkely study showed that one-quarter of public chargers in the San Francisco Bay Area didn’t work due to “unresponsive or unavailable screens, payment system failures, charge initiation failures, network failures, or broken connectors”.
The cause may be lack of income the company gets from charging EVs. The US numbers of EVs on the road are not as many as was predicted.
Charging time is very long. Charging stations are inadequate for even the small number of EVs on the road. The fast chargers are desirable, but their use shortens the life of the battery.
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 