I don't know if this is true or not, but my understanding is that of their revenue, they make a disproportionate amount of the their profits from convenience stores. Keeping vehicles plugged in for extended periods of time would also make EV owners more likely to venture into the store to buy a drink or snack.
Second, even with a fast DC charger it still takes 20-60 minutes to get a useful amount of charge. That's a lot longer than you need to run into a convenient store to buy a coffee or whatever. It makes more sense to put these chargers where people will naturally be parked longer: office buildings, restaurants, highway service plazas, etc.
In most of the world city people live in flats/apartments, where you can't really do that.
So i don't see how you can avoid "gas station on every corner" model.
In apartments/flats you are usually parking in a dedicated parking lot, that can be easily renovated to have spots with a plug. Street parking in front of small houses will likely gain parking meter like devices with extension cords.
More like all over the nearby streets, but i get the idea.
We do have some multifamily from the postwar era, but it tends to be either very luxe (contemporary gentrification) or very crappy (from when cities were for poor people). The stately, comfortable, once-grand-but-now-middle-class stock is all pre-automobile.
With a modern long-range EV, nightly L1 charging plus occasional DCFC or L2 charging would meet the driving needs of almost everyone.
So the solution is very simple: Just install L1 EVSEs everwhere. Streetlights have extra capacity now that LED bulbs are in vogue, so putting L1 charging next to every on-street parking space isn't even a technical challenge.
But:
1. Most gas stations break even on the gas an make money on the attached convenience store. That's a different business model than "charge at home" or "charge at streetlight" while you're sleeping.
2. A gas station is a place you "go" to. You're normally taking a detour or at least making an extra stop. Most day-to-day EV charging is done at your normal destination while you're doing things you'd otherwise be doing.
Those are fairly fundamental differences to the gas station model, as far as I'm concerned.
It can start small as well, maybe converting 10% of spaces and then expanding as adoption ramps up. You run into the grocery store for an hour, and you get a couple of miles. Park at work and get some more, then plug it in when you get home. I'm envisioning something like a retractable cable that you can pull out to your car, but maybe I'm overthinking the desire for theft of these cables.
Where I live, you see these all over the place:
https://chargingforward.chargepoint.com/story/charging-forwa...
They also usually place them close to the building to reduce the distance they have to wire, so that's a nice side benefit.
One nice thing about charging at your workplace though is typical 9-5 jobs are quire compatible with solar charging. So you put up an array of solar with electrical outlets in the lot. Excess power feeds back into the business.
In the long run, having a higher percentage of EV owners should increase ability to reliably find a charger because there will be less variability in demand.
I've never tried the charging point at Circle K though, they might be usable or they might not, at least they look like they are looked after and not physical broken.
But after trying some of the other brand of chargers, I've largely given up on using any non Tesla fast charger. I will use non Tesla ones in a pinch. But if I do, my expectation is worse user experience, slower charging and more expensive, which does seem like somewhat of a bad deal.
Battery charging times are getting faster, but if you're stopping to charge an EV, I think you're there for at least 20 minutes, bare minimum. Plenty of time to have someone make you a latte, or a burrito, heck maybe get a quick massage. It's probably too soon to know which sorts of services will best complement electric charging stations, but I think there's a good chance it'll end up looking somewhat different from the typical current gas station convenience store, even once EVs are more mainstream.
Located near major highways, 350kW HVDC charger and fast-food. It's a perfect match. Go through the drive-through lane, order your food, park at the charger and they bring you the food in the car.
They are. For example:
- Petro-Canada has a trans-Canada CCS charging network: https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/fuel/canadas-electri...
- BP is investing in CCS charging: https://network.bppulse.co.uk/
- Shell is investing in CCS charging: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/how-shell-reinve...
- A an example of a small operator (don't know if he's been successful): https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773446805/gas-station-convert...
- Circle K: https://new.abb.com/news/detail/17193/circle-k-strengthens-e...
https://csnews.com/sheetz-powers-its-electric-vehicle-chargi...
The cool thing about charging stations is that you can put them almost anywhere there's already some parking. They don't need huge underground tanks, or space for tanker trunks to make deliveries, or even really a lot of space for cars to maneuver around. On the other hand, for road trips they do need to be a place you'd want to spend 30 minutes or so, which means you want better shopping and entertainment than the average gas station store can offer. So some place like a mall or big box store is going to be a better place than a gas station.
Aside from the overall grossness of gas stations, they are generally poorly laid out for long term parking. Gas stations need lots of room for cars to get in and out of stalls quickly and usually only have a few spaces for short term parking in front of the convenience store portion of the station.
Adding charging centers to roadside restaurants and shopping centers makes a ton more sense because the longer charging time is highly compatible with having a place where there are interesting things to do or rest and eat.
Gas stations are typically not located within walking distance of any kind of retail. They are set off a ways because they are nasty, smelly business. No one hangs out at a gas station, you run into the convenience store for maybe 60 seconds, and hate it every second you're there.
I would assume gas stations also have a fairly low electrical draw, so not likely to be located near transmission lines. Versus a mall or major retail outlet probably already has decent transmission capacity to make adding an additional few MWs for charging a lot easier.