I really don’t know why people are so charge-anxious that so much would even be necessary… if you’ve driven long enough that you need to charge, you should be taking a 15-minute leg stretch regardless. Like, 500 kW is more than enough for normal cars. Maybe most beneficial for large trucks?
But good news nonetheless.
High power chargers have specific uses cases, such as public charging stations in high traffic areas. They are useful for quick charge when it’s the only option. They cost more to purchase, install, and it’s going to cost more for people charging at those stations.
Drivers who can wait a few more minutes would be better off using cheaper lower-power charging stations, or ideally charging overnight at home.
Faster charging means you don’t need as many stations for the same demand, so that’s great from an infrastructure standpoint.
maybe but 80% of my charging is at home, 19% is destination charging; like plug in charger, go grocery shopping, come out, unplug and go and that’s on a 75kW charger. Maybe 1% or even less is used on road trip type charging.
if i was doing long ass’ d road trips regularly i:d just get get a LR EV eg a used Polestar 2 LR or more likely query my life choices because i loathe driving.
The bottleneck is usually the cars themselves, especially at higher power ratings… but yep, that’s also a good point.
Then why are there so many gas stations
Because you can’t fill your gas vehicle at home.
But these chargers are not for at home
Yes. That’s why you don’t need as many chargers as you need gas stations.
I did 4 charges on my 480 mile journey to Scotland which took 30-45 mins each. I didn’t mind too much because it’s a long drive and I had to eat but a bit snapier would have been nice for two of the stops.
IDK about you, but when I’m on a road trip I just want to get from point A to B as quick as possible. And if I stop I want it to be somewhere nice. Not a gas station/charge station. A 5 minute leg stretch is plenty.
The thing with charge stations is they need way less hardware so you can build them in more places. For level 1 or 2 you only need normal power lines don’t even need those big boxes, so more places with level 2 would allow you to charge in destinations where you’d want to stop for hours. While fast charging takes way less space than a gas station would need too so it can be built closer to where people actually want to stop too (instead of had to stop)
i remember thinking that ev drivers were lucky because the range didn’t enable them to drive 20 hours non-stop averaging around 75 miles per hour like i had to to do at the time. lol
2.25 MEGAWATTS! GREAT SCOTT.
