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Comment by omellet | Hacker News Reader

Now they'll just be held back by lack of a widespread charging infrastructure.

The next big problem is the lack of a unified charging infrastructure. Yes, you can buy a trunk full of adapters.[1] Teslas use their own plug, for which there are a CHAdeMO adapter, a J1772 adapter, and adapters for standard 120VAC and 240VAC outlets. A full set of adapters is about $700. [2]

The Chevy Bolt uses Combo Cord, which supports J1772 and CCS.

Looking around Silicon Valley, almost all charging points have J1772. Some are free, some require payment, and some require membership in a charging plan. Higher power stations are mostly CHAdeMO.

There's a big retail markup on electricity. $0.59/KWh at some stations. And there are payment "plans", which look like cellular phone plans. Tesla's "Supercharger" is supposedly unlimited once you've paid your $2500, but apparently if you use ones near your residence, they send you nag messages saying it's really for travelers.

[1] https://www.evseadapters.com/ [2] http://shop.teslamotors.com/collections/model-s-charging-ada...

> Tesla's "Supercharger" is supposedly unlimited once you've paid your $2500, but apparently if you use ones near your residence, they send you nag messages saying it's really for travelers.

Because its meant only for travelers. Its for unlimited cross country travel, not as your local free filling station.

Yes, but you don't need chademo. Your car comes with 120 and 220v, plus j1172, plus you don't need an adapter for superchargers. So $0 additional cost. Plus it comes with the wall charger. So you might live in a place with Chademo, but its only useful if it exists, and there is no high power charger. So the extra set would $450, but you actually need $0 extra - and it fits in the corner of the trunk. I've owned a tesla since 2012, and I don't have chademo. I've spent exactly $0 extra on the plugs you suggest. I have been from seattle to portland, eastern washington, Vancouver BC, Whistler, Banff. Just using regular j1772 and superchargers.

I live in an area with a lot of CHAdeMO chargers, and I've never been tempted to buy the adapter... near-home charging (I have an apartment) and superchargers have done the job, even for longer trips.

When the bosses wanted iPhones, the company got iPhones. When the bosses want to plug in their electric cars, the parking lots will get charging stations.

* The parking lots will get 2 or 3 charging stations per 1000 spaces, like many parking garages in SF currently.

Charging stations is the wrong word. The charging part is already embedded in the car. All you need is a 240 volt socket.

Nope. "Charging station" is widely accepted to mean the socket, its associated parking space, the control/payment electronics, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_station

If Norway is any indication, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Once the EV market share hits a certain threshold, build-out of charging infrastructure explodes, as it becomes a good investment.

Grocery stores are starting to have deals with charging station companies, because it gives them a competetive advantage to have a charging station at their store.

Some government incentives can be great to give the infrastructure that initial boost (to help boost initial EV sales) but it seems the market can handle it after that.

Two car households look like a large enough market to get past the chicken and egg problem. The vast majority of daily driving is within the range of a base model Tesla.

This is going to sound flippant, but I mean it seriously: The advantage to fungible electricity seems to me that we've already solved the hard parts of charging infrastructure. We have electric grids that reach just about every building, and with modern lighting standards most parking lots and parking facilities too.

Certainly there are "last mile questions" like number of charging devices and type of charging plug(s) and adding plugs to circuits/stringing new circuits near building exteriors and in parking lots and figuring out who to charge for that, but none of them have particularly "hard" problems left to solve at this point.

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