I live in an apartment building that has no charging infrastructure.
Many people work from home.
If everyone charges at the same time, you still have issues with "where will all this power come from"?
I did the math for myself, and with how far and how often I go places, I would need to charge a 400 km range Hyundai Kona about once every two to three weeks.
I do have pretty favorable conditions, though (and mostly continue to use the bus).
But people who work in offices do?
> you probably don't drive hundred miles every day, and as such don't need to charge the car very often.
The question of "where to charge a car" remains.
> I would need to charge a 400 km range Hyundai Kona about once every two to three weeks.
Let's say I have the same math. Where would I charge the car?
For me, I have paid charging station right in front of my building, because the electric company recently added charging to all local substations. But for myself I would probably charge the car at free charging places in one of the nearby grocery stores, I usually stop there like once a week anyway. We're also trying to get our employer to enable charging in the office garage, but it's dragging a bit. The larger shopping mall I visit with friends for cinema also has free charging for customers.
It's not that many places, and people in countryside or suburbia who can charge EVs with free electricity from solar panels have it easier, but since people in who live apartments are probably covered by public transport or can bike or whatever, and as such don't really need to drive ever day, I'm not convinced charging EVs is not solved problem right now. We'll see how it scales up.
As far as EVs, if one is in an apartment with no charging infrastructure and have a relatively long daily commute, and poor charging access at the worksite, an EV is just a bad choice. If there is good charging at work, and the commute is short enough, then an apartment can work but it is still inconvenient to have an EV if you can't charge it while sleeping.
I think eventually more and more apartment owners are going to start using charging infrastructure as a marketing tool so perhaps it will get better over time.
Anyway my assumption was that someone would likely either have a driveway or a public transport. But I'm sure there are places that have neither - I'm just not sure how common that is.
Because most discussions about anything, really, are incredibly US-centric.
Most suburbia in Europe will have apartment buildings. Here's a typical suburb near Stockholm (I live in this one, close to the city): https://goo.gl/maps/rC65fRaPrv2PgjFp8 This one is 40 minutes away by commuter train: https://goo.gl/maps/pHvvwxtY88tfEGiv6 and https://goo.gl/maps/yQCkPtEGSSn8s2PJ8
Note: even though there are parking lots, no one is adding chargers to them because it's either too expensive or the existing infrastructure cannot support it.
The company that manages my building manages about 3000 apartment blocks around Stockholm. They recently sent a letter that they have found the possibility of equipping 200 (yup, two hundred) parking places with chargers.
In your case, we're not talking about some kind of physical or technological limitation but about politics - it would be very easy to add chargers to the parking lots, and it would be easy to have better public transport. It is not an EV problem, but municipal elections problem.
Because it is suburban. Are they not suburbs? Are they not apartment blocks?
> When I hear apartment, I imagine place like this: https://goo.gl/maps/hArPffCzEF8GZfHh6
Here's a different suburb: https://goo.gl/maps/1cNS3zAe76UgpDyb7 (Solna) and another https://goo.gl/maps/3CaqDMBrB9G1hhqu8 (Johanneshov).
Whatever to match your idea of an apartment blocks or suburbs or whatever other idea.
> we're not talking about some kind of physical or technological limitation but about politics - it would be very easy to add chargers to the parking lots
Literally in my text: "it's either too expensive or the existing infrastructure cannot support it."
But sure, it's easy.
> and it would be easy to have better public transport.
Stockholm has great public transport. You still need a car from time to time. And yet, all we hear is "it's trivial to charge, just"
It seems that if there aren't thousands of chargers in Stockholm as of today, then it is horribly terribly inconvenient to use EV. And since it will never get better, I guess we just have no choice than to keep burning oil and destroying the planet.
No, we're not. We're talking about electric cars. I mean, come on. It's not even ten replies above: "Who says you need to charge it in 10 minutes? Plug it in overnight or while you're in the office and suddenly this becomes a lot less of an issue."
> For me, I have paid charging station right in front of my building, because the electric company recently added charging to all local substations. But for myself I would probably charge the car at free charging places in one of the nearby grocery stores
I live in a suburb of 50 000 people, we have about twenty charging stations in total.
> but since people in who live apartments are probably covered by public transport or can bike or whatever, and as such don't really need to drive ever day, I'm not convinced charging EVs is not solved problem right now.
So, the question of how I would charge my EV still remains.
The infrastructure will get built in time as there is a greater need for it. Within my city of 40,00 there are probably over 100 charging stations. Though we are next to a larger metropolitan area. Most all have been added in last 4 years.
* Charge at work (1-3kW so not always enough to fill battery, and chargers need to be shared some days... But my commute isn't long enough that I'd need a full charge every day)
* While shopping at the grocery store (some by me have free charging, especially if you shop at non-peak times)
* There's a few chargers attached to lampposts on my street. $2/hr at 7kW, so cheaper for me than gas. Sometimes these are ICE'd out, but parking enforcement in my city recently got the ability to enforce EV-only parking spots
* Public library (free). There used to be some issues with vagrants but less so since the library got a security guard
* Movie theater
* Mall (the problem is that these are 350kW chargers, so the car is probably full too quickly to do any shopping)
* Most of my long drives are to visit family, so they usually have a 120v plug I can use. If you're in a place where the standard voltage is higher, this is even more viable. And there's plenty of 350kW chargers along the freeways.