Also importantly, the more complex the cable is, the more expensive it will be to replace if someone comes along with some bolt sheers and clips the cable.
Our "current" (pun intended) cables can deliver 350kW of juice. That's already more than most car battery chemistries can accept for more than a few minutes before doing harm to the battery.
Not to mention the fact that even if you could deliver such high amounts of power, that'd translate into insane requirements on the grid, likely necessitating onsite storage to act as a buffer.
All in all, the recharge time problem is overblown. There isn't as much need for high speed charge infrastructure as you'd imagine. That's because most charging is happening at home at lower speeds. Your car almost certainly sits idle for more than 8 hours every day which is plenty of time to refill. Fast charging really only matters for long range excursions, which aren't terribly common.
And, of course, adding more level 2 charging at the curb.
You have to take human nature into account.
"I'll just get gas in the morning"
Requiring careful planning and dedicated charging at home isn't going to lead to an electric car revolution.
Do that, and you'll end up with more than enough charge for daily tasks.
I drive an EV and the only time I worry about fast charging is on road trips. Which, for me that happens once every and a half hours while driving (approximately) and gives me a 30 minute break to wash the windshield, grab a snack, use a restroom.
All in all, not really a big deal.
That, to me, is why it's overblown. With cars getting even longer ranges, it becomes even less of an issue. The first EV with 500 miles of range will be a game changer.
So I'm gonna pay tons of more money for an EV yet not being offered the same level convenience. Thus eagerly awaiting the day where the same UX is offered.
On the other hand fast charging still has issues with capacity. If several cars want to fast-charge at the same time, there either aren't enough spots or when there are the charging rate is decreased because there isn't enough power available to fast-charge many cars. And this is with a minority of cars being electric, if everyone switches to EVs this problem becomes much bigger.
There is a lot of work to do on the grid and maybe some form of local storage of energy at larger highway charging stops.
The other problem is that range estimates do not take into account cold weather and no garage. I bought a hybrid and I probably should have bought an ICE that got in the 40mpg instead of the 55mpg hybrid since winter is very bad on batteries.
But what you would do for long road trips is fill up enough to complete the next leg of your trip. EVs charge faster the lower the battery charge is. There’s no reason why you should need to charge for 60 minutes during a road trip, unless you’re in an area where the charging network is still very underdeveloped (which is still too many places obviously).
For example, I make several trips each year to visit family out of state. This is in the Midwest US, where winters are no fun, and dramatically affect range for an EV. The route is roughly 400 miles, and takes about 5/12 hours. According to the route planner in my friends Model Y, I would need to make 3 stops and I'd arrive at the inlaws house with 25% charge. I'd have to charge overnight there (they won't ever have a fast charger), and that might get me to 35%, depending on the temperature. On the way home, since I'm not starting at 100% capacity, I would have to make 4 stops. This makes the trip outbound roughly 7 hours, and the trip home almost 8.
Now compare this to an ICE. We make one stop, for roughly 5 minutes to refill gas and use the bathroom. Both legs of the trip are about 6 hours tops.
Unless we get to a point where charging is faster by using a linear charge rate, what I said is always going to be true.
As per what your friends Tesla says, it’s obviously optimizing for the wrong thing, but that’s because it doesn’t have the correct information. It’s still going to be based on the owner’s judgement to actually make sure to operate their vehicle correctly.
Imagine a world where everyone drove EVs and we were suddenly switching to gas cars with manual transmissions (because automatics aren’t invented yet) learning to drive stick is not going to be a pleasant experience for more people. The fact of the matter is that there are going to be things to learn when adopting a new technology.
(Plenty of people are and were completely baffled by how to use a smartphone at first too)
You weren’t complaining about how it gets you there, you were complaining that it wouldn’t have enough charge to get you back. If it knew you needed to go back the next day after slow charging overnight, it would be able to optimize for that, but clearly it doesn’t.
I understand that isn’t the case for everyone though.
Understanding that EVs charge faster with lower state of charge isn’t that complicated and is something people can easily understand and adapt their behavior to.
Overall EVs are not prime time ready for non city folk who want to just get in there car and go without thought vs. map out a route for charging stations and wait 15 to 60 minutes to fill based on how far the next one is and other logistics. GOing to take awhile for the infrastructure to match gas cars/stations, as well as the technology (fast charging).
I’m also not a Tesla stock holder, nor am I a Tesla owner, nor do I have any interest in owning a Tesla. I’m just someone who owns an EV and is quite happy with it, and feel like it’s world explaining what it’s like from first hand experience myself.
Obviously gas cars are better for road tripping, I never said otherwise. If you road trip every weekend then you’re going to be frustrated with an EV.
But I’ll reiterate that it is absolutely possible to road trip in an EV if you want or need to, and there is almost no reason why you should be sitting there charging it for 60 minutes assuming you are within range of other fast chargers further in your route.
If you spend most of your time driving around town and only road trip once every few months, the extra time you spend charging in the occasional road trip is generally not as big of a deal as people assume. Is it something that I personally like? Obviously it would be great if it were as fast as a gas car. But class cars have trade offs too. I haven’t had to make a separate trip to fuel my car since the last time I went on a road trip!