You may have heard of range anxiety from Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S and other electric car owners, but now what about charging anxiety?
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Few days ago I started a discussion in Electric Cars public group on Facebook discussing few ideas on how to improve EV charging for electric car drivers. Today a user named stanislav Jaracs shared his idea on the subject which I quote below.
This is a never ending discussion and once in a while someone comes with an idea and claims that their found the ultimate solution for public EV charging. In my experience, there are two charging concepts:
1) park&charge
2) wait to charge
The second one means L3, so that there is no problem of occupying the charging unit outside of charging regime.
The first one is where all the ambiguity happens. If you tell people that they have to re-park their car when it is charged or that they have to figure how/where to park & plug to make sure it will have sufficient SOC when they need it without offending someone else, they will figure it is better NOT to get electric car. So, who is killing the EV this time?
It is L2 charging that gives you full charge either way before you are ready to vacate the spot or not enough charge for the time you are willing to park. Then, we get various people coming at different times to the charging facility, these people have different charging and parking needs and this creates complex matrix that cannot be solved easily. This produces all the confusion and sense of unfairness.
Only if we cover every parking spot in the world with charging hardware, this anxiety will vanish. That would be a huge cost, though. Remember that your own garage is your most secure charging location - park&charge - and in many cases L1 charging suffices.
Editor's Noate: I wonder if wireless charging in public and private parking lots is the key to improvement? They are also known as plug-less charging.
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The way I see it, EVs have 3
The way I see it, EVs have 3 main issues related to charging away from home. First, finding a charger that is online and working. My wife and I were Christmas shopping at a local mall last weekend. they have done a great job and placed a line of 6 L2 chargers on each end of the mall and scattered another handful around the property. Fortunately, we didn't need to charge. On the North end of the mall 2 chargers had been vandalized, 1 was chirping with an error screen, 2 were DOA and 1 looked like it MIGHT be working. This is unacceptable. Second, finding a working charger that hasn't been ICEd. Finally, the payment system is just stupid. I can go to any gas station anywhere and swipe my generic credit card and buy gasoline. I don't have to join, be a member, give up my personal information, etc. I should be able to do the same at any charging station.
Many places are now limiting the amount of time or percent battery charge available to EVs at individual stations. I know at least one charging network that continues to apply a fee for every minute the EV is sitting at the charger after the charge is complete. Needing to charge to full at a public charger is almost never necessary. Generally, experienced EV drivers get what we need to get home or to the next charger and move on. I don't know about other EVs, but my Leaf will tell me when a charge is complete. Can people just not be lazy and inconsiderate of others and go move their car?
Trouble I have found is the
Trouble I have found is the way the chargepoint spaces mean free parking for the EV car, instead of paying like in an IC car, so they plug in and go to work or shopping for the day, even at a train station a leaf plugged in at 6.30 am was there at 7pm when the owners train got in
I don't understand. Everybody
I don't understand. Everybody doesn't have to take a ticket to enter the parking area where the charging stations are located? Are the charging stations providing the charging for free? Free charging these days is very rare and often limited to an hour or two. Most companies like Chargepoint, Blink, etc. continue to charge an additional fee even after the car is charged for the time the vehicle is occupying the parking spot. Some places in our area let you park for free while you charge, but then they take a percentage of what is paid by you to the charging station provider/network for your charge. I get the feeling you're not seeing the whole picture of what's going on where you see cars charging.
IF, however, the cars are allowed to park for free while charging for free that's an even better reason to drive an EV! All joking aside, free parking and charging is an issue to take up with your city council about whether or not they want to continue to encourage that. Some do. Some don't and some don't realize they are doing that. Stuff falls through the governmental cracks sometimes. Everybody should always pay their fair share though.