this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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It matters to people who drive more during the day than their range allows. They don't want to wait 20 minutes for the car to charge every time they venture 300km out and back /s
Why /s? Road trips are a thing, and you'd be hard pressed to find a combo restaurant/charging station that's along your path.
The people providing the charging infrastructure here haven't figured out this important point yet. Gas stations are a terrible place to put chargers, no one wants to stop at a gas station for fifteen minutes to an hour at a time. Charging stations need to be in places people will be stopping anyway, or at the very least places that provide something to do while waiting. Restaurants, shopping centres, tourist traps, whatever.
Here it's exacerbated by the fact that the fastest chargers we have only deliver about 60kW. Not even close to the 200+ some EVs need to get the fast charging times they advertise. But that 60kW would be perfectly fine if I could spend the time in a restaurant instead of standing around at a gas bar in the middle of nowhere.
Hell, even cheap (or free) "level 2" chargers outside restaurants and shopping malls would be a huge help.
I live in Denmark, here the chargers are placed where people park anyway. Grocery stores, parking lots, rest stops...
It's getting so easy to find a fast charger/resto combo, that we don't even plan it from home.
I've seen few 200+ watts chargers without looking for them, but the car is ready faster than I am anyway.
As it should be, and I agree that those crazy fast 200+ kW chargers are rarely necessary.
It's kind of a weird reaction to consumer hesitation and people complaining that they don't want to wait for charge times as compared to the time it takes to fill a tank. Making charging as fast as possible to address the complaint (while still being one or two orders of magnitude slower at best), because that's easier than getting people to change their driving habits, or making them realise that they're always going to start the day with a full charge at home.
Even if all you have is relatively paltry north american 110V at home you need to drive way more than average per day for that not to keep up.