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Sometimes, progress comes in baby steps, tiny improvements that move a whole series of events forward. The European Union has just approved regulations requiring that an electric car charger be included in every new and renovated home and all apartment buildings starting in 2019. Why is that important? Because charging infrastructure is vital to convincing mainstream buyers to switch to an electric car.
The regulations don't specify what type of charger has to be installed. Presumably, it won't be just a Level 1 piece of equipment, which is little more than an extension cord plugged into the nearest wall socket. On the other hand, it won't be a 150 kW charger like the one Porsche says its upcoming Mission E can use.
There are all kinds of stipulations in building codes like setbacks. Should a mandatory electric car charger be among them?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:28AM
Should a mandatory electric car charger be among them?
No. That was easy.
If you attempt to force a mandate before we even know what sort of charging system will actually end up being best it is a veritable certainty that you will only have mandated billions of dollars in useless gear be found rusting away in a few decades. And the odds any sort of government agency will actually pick the winning system is essentially zero... unless they double down and simply outlaw any others and force a substandard system on everyone for decades to come. Any way you look at it, no good can come from the idea.
And we haven't even examined the follow on stupid implied here. Typical wiring panels can't handle the needs of the larger chargers so if you mandate a useful charger you mandate a larger breaker box for no good goddamned reason... unless you are a vendor looking to buy a law to juice your revenues. And of course the elephant in the room when discussing electric vehicles is that most electric grids are maxed out already and with the green mandates and difficulties licensing new fossil fuel powered generation that ain't likely to get better in the near term. So other than a few rich elites using them to virtue signal, we ain't likely to see widespread deployment of pure electric vehicles in our lifetime. Barring a breakthrough on fusion of course.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:38AM
Who has garages in Europe?
Open google maps and zoom into the residential areas of any random EU city. Garages are a rarity. You are lucky if there is any nearby parking.
Are they going to mandate these in all parking lots?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday October 20 2016, @07:31AM
Many cities in the EU require that new homes also have parking spaces, either in a car parking area or on the adjacent street. They can install charging posts there, perhaps with a simple key/RFID system so that only the home owner can use it.
As for standards, Europe is standardized on 230V AC. The charger can be 16A or 32A, but the connector is also standardized.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday October 20 2016, @09:50AM
Open google maps and zoom into the residential areas of any random EU city. Garages are a rarity.
Not only that, but the people who have garages rarely use them. They are used as store-rooms - here in the UK anyway.
New homes (even in the outer suburbs) rarely have adequate parking space. Planners and builders still assume that each house will have only one car, and there is no allowance for visitors cars or delivery vehicles. It has become a real trial visiting some of my relations because it has become impossible to park anywhere near them (whether new houses or old). Car parking has become the biggest cause of arguments between neighbours in the UK. The fact is that the UK is over-crowded with people and cars.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:24PM
Welcome to the problem of any dense city. Driveways are too small, or nonexistant leaving garages inaccessible. And may people choose to use the garage as storage as its easier to park in the driveway as you just hop in and go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:33PM
Most in-town Garages here in Germany are underground. I doubt you'll see them them in Google Maps.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:24AM
Depends on the requirement. If it is just another 30A circuit; then what is the issue. I live in NZ the typical house has a 230V supply with a 60A main breaker and usually an 80A pole fuse (80A breaker / 100A fuse on some new houses). Adding an extra circuit is not much of an issue; it is just a plug on the wall. In NZ a regular 15A socket can supply 3.6kW (older houses only have 10A sockets); which is going to take a long time to charge your 100kWh battery pack; so having a home circuit that can supply double that would be nice.
However if it is also a charger / electronics box that is pretty dumb. As there is no defined standard yet.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Thursday October 20 2016, @03:32AM
There isn't a single standard for DC (level 3) charging, but you don't need a DC charger at home.
There is a single standard for level 2 charging: J1772. Level 2 is all you need at home. Teslas require an adapter, but these are cheap. The electronics for a J1772 charger are fairly simple. More complexity comes from adding in functions are are not mandatory: Internet-based reporting and control of the charging.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Whoever on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:36AM
I don't think that you understand the state of EV charging today. Just about all modern EVs can use a J1772 plugs (perhaps with an adapter). At 30A/220V, a J1772 charger is as fast as you will ever need for a car. There is no reason that such a charger should not work for many years.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:58AM
I suspect that if they meant to say outlet instead of charger that somebody along the way from the dweeb who thought up the idea for a new mandate, the lawyers and the industry lobbyists and the NGOs, somebody would have fixed the copy along the way. So it is more reasonable to assume charger means something a hell of a lot more expensive and likely to be useless than merely mandating a hefty power outlet near the parking spot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WalksOnDirt on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:40AM
The big news here is the mandate covers apartments. Even if it is just a random plug, and with EU voltage that's sufficient, getting parking spots with plugs for all new apartments is huge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @08:12AM
I don't see anything about requiring parking spots. In some cities, that would take a lot of demolishing.
Plus, requiring parking spots (that people are going to end up having to pay for, of course) is a pretty big statement of "fuck you and your bicycles, we need to catch up with the US on number of cars".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:41PM
When you build new houses inside a city, demolishing the old building that was there before is usually the first step. There are not that many places where you can build something new without first removing something old, and if you've got such a space, then you'll have no problem building a garage.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Thursday October 20 2016, @03:30PM
>>>There is no reason that such a charger should not work for many years.
Just like headphone jacks? ;-) Seriously, the simpler the better, just make sure there's a heavy-duty standard outlet (30A or 40A, like an air conditioner).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:12PM
I don't think that's going to be an issue with people who are recharging at home overnight. Overnight is when the electricity demand curve has always bottomed out and the spot prices are lowest. Early EV adopters will enjoy recharging at that lower rate. Eventually as the number of people charging their cars overnight increases, that advantage will disappear.
I do think the utilities in Europe would welcome an increase in overnight usage, though. I saw (and posted on SN) a chart a couple years ago that showed how renewables have already chopped off the profitable part of the 24-hr demand curve for the utilities, because peak rates are also during the period of the day when solar panels are performing best. Filling in the trough in the overnight curve when they run at a loss would be good for their bottom line.
It's not worth worrying about whether our electricity grids can keep up with new EVs once that electricity demand curve smooths out. Governments and big companies generally are able to cope with incremental change. Only if we all woke up tomorrow and our cars had turned into EVs would there be a problem.
Washington DC delenda est.