By: Adrian Russell-Falla

Adrian Russell-Falla
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:08:19 +0000

“A basic problem facing electric car buyers is that traditional gas stations outnumber charging stations.”

nonsense!

nobody cares that there are simply *more* fossil-fuel dispensing locations than EV charging stations.

there are 3 reasons pertaining to the current charging station population (in combination with the limited range typical of specific current EV models under consideration) which most commonly deter potential buyers of EVs:

1. their numbers (by type; i.e. elapsed time needed to recharge)—which shapes the perceived risk of not *reliably* finding an available, working charging-point at an ad-hoc moment in time.

indeed, today there is objectively insufficient charging-point redundancy, especially given continuing EV fleet growth—many QC “stations” comprise only 1 DCQC unit, making it risky to count on the location to enable a desired journey profile, either at all [due to possibility of a single unit being either *completely unavailable,* pending repair]; or within a desired timeframe [due to possibility that access to a single unit may already be blocked by other users];

2. their limited *visibility*, particularly in locations most relevant to would-be EV drivers

3. the perceived fitness of charging speeds to the EV driver’s particular journey profiles

few potential EV drivers at first grasp the enormous benefit of being able to*home*-charge their electric vehicle(s), especially if one also has a grid-tied solar PV system. this capability immediately breaks most EV drivers away from the fossil-fuels driving model they’re highly familiar with.

as common EV ranges move towards 230+mi, these concerns will diminish, but they’re unlikely to do so rapidly—leaving the charging station network’s growth-rate squarely in the critical-path of EV adoption