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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:51PM
Remember that US domestic wiring is almost all 120V, so we're accustomed to higher currents and bigger wires. A circuit of general-purpose outlets typically has a 20A breaker (though each outlet is 15A max) -- 30A doesn't seem like that much to us, even though this is one application where it really is 240V and we could definitely get by with 15A or 20A.
Besides, increasing the power should use pretty near the same total energy (more power, less time), so it's hard to see a downside.