EU passes law to blanket highways with fast EV chargers by 2025::The chargers must be placed every 60km (37mi) and allow ad-hoc payment by card or contactless device without subscriptions.
EU passes law to blanket highways with fast EV chargers by 2025::The chargers must be placed every 60km (37mi) and allow ad-hoc payment by card or contactless device without subscriptions.
Regarding the range problem, that is my personal conspiracy theory. It makes a lot of sense but no way that I or anyone can ever prove it.
Theory: Range was never a real problem and car manufacturers seeded that topic to journalists/press, as the companies already had the solution available before communicating the problem.
More range is done with a larger batteries, usually higher quality cells/chemicals. So making the car bigger and more expensive. That’s what manufacturers desire to do and sell anyways.
It never was or is a real problem. They can just charge the customers more and it’s solved.
As I’ve already seen posted, the real problem that cannot be easily solved is the charging time. Right now I ‘charge’ 0% to 100% in 1-2 minutes. No preparation, no special fuel, no special fees or subscriptions, no fuel stations only for specific brands, no apps, summer or winter same 1-2 min, no strain on the fuel tank by filling fast, sometimes waiting lines at the stations but they move quickly with 1-2 min per vehicle.
I don’t see battery or charging tech anywhere close to that in the next 5, 10 or even 20 years.
That’s hard to advance, with decades of research behind us and decades ahead, so car manufacturers focus on their favorite topic: range, where they can just throw their customers money at to solve it immediately.
Range was definitely a major problem for early adopters - because at the time there weren’t many places you could charge the car.
And now that it’s set in everyone’s mind, it continues to be talked about.
I think the bigger societal problem is that people need to start thinking differently of how charging works. It won’t and doesn’t need to work like refueling.
What I mean is, nobody would refuel every day at the beginning of their 10km commute. What they’ll do is commute for 2 weeks, and when the car is empty they’ll refuel and then continue on their way.
With EVs, this can be different. Once chargers (and not even fast chargers) are placed on every major location, you don’t need to go 0-100% in 99% of the cases. Getting groceries? Charge at the store for 30mins Going to the gym? Charge there for an hour or two Going out for dinner? Charge for 3h
The car doesn’t need to go empty all the way. Obviously you can’t do that with the current infrastructure, but with enough effort, that’s easily achievable.
Those are various ideas regarding charging problematic.
I’m still on the range topic that people apparently see as the main problem with EVs but I don’t. I’d be even fine with less range than the current top models offer.
Adding an extra step for every time I stop at whatever location is a big ask. Personally, those little tasks wreck havoc with my executive disfunction disorder.
Truthfully, the range is only for long trips. Most commuting will be within normal operating ranges of EVs.
But it does need to be solved in some manner since it’s not uncommon for people to take road trips, even fairly short ones.
I know you mean state as in country, but my state (Ohio) is literally installing millions of dollars worth of charging stations all over.
Ohio is roughly the size of a small-ish EU country, with roughly the population of Belgium.
Not sure how viable they are, but what about swappable batteries? Leave your battery at the station, move on with a fresh one.
Not really viable - the battery is often heavier than the rest of the car, more expensive than the the rest of the car, and structurally integral to the rest of the car. It’s more like “swapping cars” than swapping batteries.
It might make sense for special niches like trucking… but in that case it’d really make more sense to just swap the trailer to a different truck. Or use a train with batteries on one or two of the carriages, or run a power line along the track to power the motors, or use hydrogen (which has a power to weight ration that makes diesel look terrible), or use a wind/solar (not everything needs to arrive quickly, and on the ocean you don’t need to worry about slow vehicles holding up traffic).
Technically, it can be done, but realistically swapping is only an option on motorcycles (those batteries are exponentially smaller and lighter and cheaper, because they get more range by not having to haul a massive battery ever time you leave a traffic light).