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Around the world, support is growing for electric cars. Automakers are delivering more electric models with longer range and lower prices, such as the Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3. China has set aggressive targets for electric vehicle sales to curb pollution; some European countries aim to be all-electric by 2040 or sooner.
Those lofty ambitions face numerous challenges, including one practical consideration for consumers: If they buy electric cars, where will they charge them?
[...] Mr. Romano says there's no exact ratio of the number of chargers needed per car. But he says workplaces should have around 2.5 chargers for every employee and retail stores need one for every 20 electric cars. Highways need one every 50 to 75 miles, he says. That suggests a lot of gaps still need to be filled.
Automakers and governments are pushing to fill them. The number of publicly available, global charging spots grew 72 percent to more than 322,000 last year, the International Energy Agency said. Navigant Research expects that to grow to more than 2.2 million by 2026; more than one-third of those will be in China.
Tesla Inc. – which figured out years ago that people wouldn't buy its cars without roadside charging – is doubling its global network of Supercharger stations to 10,000 this year. BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, and Ford are building 400 fast-charging stations in Europe. Volkswagen is building hundreds of stations across the United States as part of its settlement for selling polluting diesel engines. Even oil-rich Dubai, which just got its first Tesla showroom, has more than 50 locations to charge electric cars.
If range anxiety and the availability of charging stations remain a barrier to EV adoption, then for Tesla it seems like it's nearly a solved problem. Will a reliable supply of batteries or the self-driving features piggy-backing on EV platforms like the Teslas or the Nissan Leaf prove the real differentiators in the market?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 07 2017, @06:01PM
I agree--everyone will naturally end up using whatever best suits their needs and their budget, whatever approach it takes and whatever power source it might use.
But I do also believe that just as in many countries, gasoline-powered cars are the overwhelmingly most common personal conveyance, so in the future there will probably also be a runaway favorite, albeit one not powered by gasoline.
I also believe that at some point that runaway favorite will be of the clean energy variety. Things like Waste Vegetable Oil, Biodiesel, Methanol, and Ethanol are alternatives to petroleum, to be sure, but you still set them on fire and burn their hydrocarbons, so their cleanliness is debatable.
"Clean energy" candidates have included things like Hydrogen/Fuel Cell [thinkprogress.org], Electricity [bcsea.org], even Compressed Air [zeropollutionmotors.us].
Of these, compressed air is potentially cleaner* than hydrogen, which is potentially cleaner than electricity--but Electricity is the worldwide leader in clean-alternative and it has the momentum.
Do you think that there will be a clear leader, or that it will be a mix of technologies as it suits drivers' needs?
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* With a compressed air system, it would be possible to have a wind-compressor filling a pressure tank that in turn fills vehicles' air tanks--a completely mechanical, zero-chemical-zero-emission-ever system... Chemical and electrochemical systems can't compete with that.