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> If electric really displaces gasoline/petrol, we are going to need a lot more charging stations.

This is true but not to the degree you might assume. I've had a LEAF for almost 3 years now and it has been charged outside of my garage maybe a dozen times. My wife drives it to work every day.

It really depends on people's habits vs. the range of the cars they buy. We are seeing 200+ mile range on affordable cars (Model 3, Chevy Bolt.) If the standard range is that or higher then most people will not need a charging station outside of their garage.

The charging stations will still be convenient and people will ask for them for that reason, but they won't be necessary like they would be if we saw widespread adoption of the first generation LEAF with a realistic 60-80 mile range. Then more people would need a charging station at work to be able to commute. But that's not what's happening, so I think charging stations outside the home won't be necessary so much as desirable.

What will be needed for wider adoption is charging stations at apartment complexes and condos. That's one thing that is really holding EVs back and may hold non-homeowners back from being able to get them.

I have coworkers that drive the Leaf first and later gen. What they report to me is it works great until those times it doesn't work and you get stuck somewhere waiting hours to charge. Also, the cost of electricity is surprising to them as it is not as cheap (still cheaper usually than gas) as they expected.

Don't get me wrong, we are closer all the time to resolving all the concerns. I think we just rounding the bend. Hopefully Tesla and co will keep up the pressure for better alternatives.

Let's hope that the current government trends don't set us back years in the progress we are making.

I am optimistic that the electric trend has enough momentum that it will continue, but we have seen huge shifts in automotive tech happen before (for example, rubber tire conglomerates and freedom of cars shifted us away from mass transit in the past).

> it works great until those times it doesn't work and you get stuck somewhere waiting hours to charge

If you run out of charge and get stuck somewhere that's no more the Leaf's fault than it is a gasoline car's fault when you run out of gas.

In ~3 years that has happened exactly zero times to me or my wife.

> Also, the cost of electricity is surprising to them as it is not as cheap (still cheaper usually than gas) as they expected.

That varies based on where you live but for us it costs about $0.02/mile to drive the Leaf. Whereas our Honda CR-V which gets ~30 mpg costs about $0.08/mile right now. Gas prices are artificially low in the US right now, when they go back up it will be even more drastic (and of course if your car gets worse than 30mpg then it will be worse, or better if you get better mileage.) In order to reach $0.02/mile with a gas car I'd have to get 115mpg, though. (Gas is ~$2.30/gal in my town currently.)

> Let's hope that the current government trends don't set us back years in the progress we are making.

This is my main concern as well. Where I live the state government just passed a really regressive fee for EV registrations.

Unless you're driving more than 200mi you should be charging at home. Both for off-peak rates and because at < 10kW it does take a long time to charge.

If you live in suburb. If you live in an apartment and park on the street, no charging for you.

Many apartments are installing chargers in their parking areas now. The numbers are small, but it's just getting started.

There's no reason you can't have chargers available for street parking too. It's not common yet, but it's just a matter of demand.

Palo Alto has more than the average number of EVs, and has chargers at offices, public parking garages, some apartment building parking garages, and even a couple of street chargers. New construction is required to install a few chargers and a lot of conduit for future chargers.

Good to hear! If anyone is curious what the situation looks like, PlugShare is a fun web site to play around with:

https://www.plugshare.com

It shows just about every publicly available charger, and many private ones as well. Each one has notes on what kind of charger it is, availability, cost, and user-submitted comments. It's really useful for EV owners, and interesting to poke around on even if you can't currently make use of them.

> It shows just about every publicly available charger

It doesn't show any of the publicly available chargers in the state of Ohio. I don't know how many there are - I've never needed to care - but I'm pretty sure that if the local Wal-Mart has a few (and the UU church!), there are others.

Do you mean it doesn't show anything anywhere in Ohio? Something must be broken for you, then, because it shows me plenty.

Are you just looking at it zoomed out really far? It only shows a selection of chargers until you zoom in, otherwise the whole thing would just be a sea of icons.

Yeah, it was the default level of zoom. Thanks.

I can see how that would be confusing. They should probably show things a little more densely when zoomed out.

Yep. As an example, you can see that there are 137 chargers at the Facebook campus.

Impressive! I've never seen anything like that, alas. Good to know it exists.

It might also be worth noting (to others reading the conversation, if there are any) that charging stations, while not cheap enough to just ignore, are pretty inexpensive to install. The main thing is getting power to the site. If power is already available, then it can be under $1,000 to put in a station (including buying the equipment), although of course there are many more expensive options if one wants.

Already a solved problem: anyone remember the video of the battery-changing station? Imagine racks of batteries charging via solar during the day time, and using off-peak electric grid power at night. Then it's just an abritraged amount based on the age/fitness of your current battery versus the 'new' battery.

In and out in a couple of minutes.

>And there aren't enough supercharging/fast charging stations.

For sure.

I live in a place where there are line ups at GAS stations during the busy season. Imagine everyone trying to charge while on a trip? That "half an hour to stretch my legs and eat" becomes a queue of everyone doing the same.

> Not to mention the fact that electricity gets surprisingly expensive at peak rates.

Extremely relevant point. EV penetration will cause huge surges in demand; a 100 KwH Tesla is ~10 days of household electricity usage here in the Netherlands. That's why demand response and load shifting will be critical.

> no energy source is really ever "free".

The sun is pretty close to free on the scale we use energy at. :)

> The sun is pretty close to free

nope. building solar panels pollute. disposing them more so. the setup with mirror and a standard turbine has less costs tied to manufacturing, but creates a huge no fly zone for birds.. and everything else really, so you can't plop a thousand of them all over the place. having them in deserts works, but you still need to transport the energy, which has a cost and again an environmental impact.

now, all in all the impact from solar is quite less than burning coal or oil, but there are other solution that are at least competitive (methane, nuclear) - but there are very few studies compare the total cost and pollution including externalities, because everyone likes to profit on the state incentives

We need more charging stations

That is a solved problem

  Electricity is expensive

If you had a 100km*100km grid of easily maintained solar panels already manufactured and in operation, electricity is generated _without expense or by-products_

  Batteries and electric power have bad by products:

  1. heat generation

  2. by-products of manufacturing

  3. electricity generation by-products

Complete nonsense. We have 8 billion people driving cars that are decimating our air quality and have already drove the carbon cycle so many standard deviations from the mean levels in pre-industrial society that I am doomed to live on a scorched, dead earth. The negative effects of battery creation and usage are infinitesimal in comparison.

I am 22 years old. Because of society's slow uptake of carbon-neutral power generation and consumption, I will live through every consequence of past generation's short-sighted power decisions. The clathrate gun will happen before I am middle-aged. Your comment, complaining about things that are solved problems, is quite detached from the reality of Earth.

It's sad that you feel my comment was detached from your concerns. I sense you are upset about the world being left to you, and I can relate, I am not that much older than you are (35). I have all the same concerns.

I think you missed the point of my complaints, they aren't justifications for going against green tech, if anything, it's more like a list of obstacles to be solved. In your opinion, already done, so then we should be positive since you feel that way. Woohoo! No issue.

For the record, you should know that I have always been an ardent supporter of alternative/greener transportation, in fact, I put my money where my mouth is as much as humanely possible, which is why I drive a plug-in hybrid (I can't afford a full electric like a Tesla).

If my job wasn't 20 miles away, I would ride a bicycle or take public transit and forgo a car completely. Just not possible where I live.

Again, sorry you feel the way you do. I'm on your side.

I'm curious if the Tesla supercharging has the same problems that rapid charging a hobby lipo battery does - it only charges around 80% of the battery, and reduces the lifespan of the battery overall.

No, and no. It's true that the charging rate of a supercharger gets pretty slow once you pass 90%, but it doesn't stop. And Tesla says that repeated supercharging does not reduce battery life, apparently thanks to the active cooling system in the battery pack.

> It's true that the charging rate of a supercharger gets pretty slow once you pass 90%, but it doesn't stop.

That's what I meant: the supercharging stops at some less-than-advertised capacity, and becomes normal charging (and normal charging rates also slow down above the 80% mark).

> thanks to the active cooling system in the battery pack.

That makes some sense, as the damage does come from heat buildup in the cells. However, since battery packs are typically remarkably dense to achieve a good W/h : size ratio, that would have to be quite the cooling mechanism; I don't believe that simply cooling the air around the battery cells (such as with a peltier and a fan) would suffice.

I base this supposition on the completely unscientific method of recharging batteries in my garage in the winter; they still get remarkably warm with an ambient air temperature of around 40°F and normal charging (around 1c - their mAH rating). Perhaps they simply set artificially lower capacities per cell than the battery pack's real capacity in order to prolong their advertised lifespan.

Tesla's battery packs have liquid in them, not air.