Charging an electric vehicle in the future increasingly looks like an experience somewhere between a truck stop and an airport lounge.
Most public chargers sit in parking lots, often three or four machines along the side of a hotel or grocery store. Drivers are exposed to the elements and, unless they need to go shopping, are basically stuck hanging out in their cars while filling their batteries.
But charging companies and automakers increasingly see a need for stations with amenities: restaurants, good bathrooms, comfortable furniture, and canopies that shield from the rain, snow and sun. After all, even the fastest chargers need a half-hour to top off your car so you’d better enjoy the stay. The additional convenience could entice would-be EV drivers to take the plunge, adding fuel to the electric transition.
It takes you 3 minutes to fill up, grab a snack and use the bathroom?
Either if that is somehow true, and when you road trip you sprint around the gas station like a madman, that’s still adding around 15 minutes for every 4 hours of driving.
99% of the time, filling up a car with gas does not involve going to the bathroom or getting a snack.
The only time I do that is occasionally on road trips, and still, usually it’s just running in to use the bathroom, nowhere near 20 minutes.
OK well in this mode you’d spend 17 more minutes and save thousands of dollars in fuel costs?
I guess I missed the part where the discussion was on fuel costs.
The discussion is about the ownership experience. You clearly don’t own an ev but have lots of thoughts about how inconvenient it would be to stop an extra 15 minutes a few times a year. You’ve gotta balance that against the massive benefits an ev provides, one of which is a massively lower cost of ownership vs the n times a year you find yourself road tripping, which for most people isn’t really that often
I actually spent a lot of time weighing the benefits of buying an EV, as I used to have a 50 mile one way commute.
I opted to get a different job instead.
Again, the discussion is not about the ownership experience, it’s specifically about charging the cars. Also, my point is that you don’t road trip often and so, you aren’t typically spending 20 minutes at a gas station. I think you are just projecting an anti-EV stance onto me for some reason.
So am I allowed to say how the consideration of how an EV would have fit in with your 50 mile commute is irrelevant to the discussion since we are apparently only focused on the 3 minute gas break you currently enjoy?
I’m specifically talking about filling on road trips, because otherwise you charge at home.
If you have the space and charging equipment.
The charging equipment I use is a normal wall outlet. I have a pretty small commute (maybe 30 miles) and I don’t need any special charging equipment to charge that much overnight.
The only time I use a public ev charger is on road trips. I never think about charging unless I’m driving more than 250 miles in a day. The only time I’m spending a full 20 minutes at a charger is if I’m driving closer to 450 miles.
It isn’t safe, but I know many people who do road trips that way. I’m pumping gas, make sure you are back in your seat when the pump turns off because I’ll leave without you. (I don’t think they ever left without someone, but if you were late they did find ways to punish you for it)