SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany said it will oblige all petrol stations to offer electric car charging to help remove refuelling concerns and boost consumer demand for the vehicles as part of its 130 billion euro ($146 billion) economic recovery plan.
The move could provide a significant boost to electric vehicle demand along with the broader stimulus plan which included taxes to penalise ownership of large polluting combustion-engined sports utility vehicles and a 6,000 euro subsidy towards the cost of an electric vehicle.
Germany's announcement follows a French plan to boost electric car sales announced last week by President Macron.
"It's a very clear commitment to battery-powered vehicles and establishes electric mobility as a technology of the future," energy storage specialist The Mobility House, whose investors include Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, said.
"Internationally this puts Germany in the leading group of battery electric vehicle support."
As part of the government stimulus, 2.5 billion euros will be spent on battery cell production and charging infrastructure, a field where oil majors, utilities and carmakers, including Shell (RDSa.L), Engie (ENGIE.PA) and Tesla (TSLA.O), are vying for dominance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday June 07 2020, @10:30AM (7 children)
It takes me about 2 minutes to fill with petrol. It takes - what? - 30-60 minutes to charge an EV, especially the 60 minutes if the driver takes the chance to eat a meal or go off shopping, the opportunity for which we are told is an advantage of EVs.
So as a rough guide, in the EV Utopia to come, there will need to be 20 times as many EV charging points as there are presently petrol pumps. My local petrol station has six pumps, and they are normally all in use with a comfortable flow rate; so they would need 120 charging points to be equivalent. They will need to demolish a lot of surrounding property to make room for that. And that is assuming the owners remove their cars as soon as they are fully charged.
That won't happen of course. What will happen is that there could be room for about 4 charging points (if you replace a row of pumps, 8 if you replace them all) which will be occupied by clowns who simply leave their cars there for hours, or all day, or all night, while they go off doing other things.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Sunday June 07 2020, @10:40AM
add the chargers in houses, shops, car parks, office car parks... most people charge at home, at work, or while shopping. These are just bonus sites, that stop the value of petrol station real estate dropping as quickly.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday June 07 2020, @11:26AM
Many forecourts already have ANPR systems that record number plates to deter people from filling up and driving off without paying. Similarly, many free car parks have ANPR systems that are used to enforce their max-stay times (e.g. at supermarkets and motorway service stations) and will issue a penalty notice if you exceed the allocated time - typically two hours. It shouldn't be that hard to combine the two and either bill based on the time that you spend at the charge point, which could make the cost per Wh rather expensive, or to issue a fine if you exceed what is determined to a be a reasonable limit on occupying a charge point, optionally with reduced time slots for periods of peak demand.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday June 07 2020, @11:28AM (3 children)
> It takes me about 2 minutes to fill with petrol. It takes - what? - 30-60 minutes to charge an EV, especially the 60 minutes if the driver takes the chance to eat a meal or go off shopping, the opportunity for which we are told is an advantage of EVs.
Its worse than that, the faster you charge, the more you wear out the battery.
Fuel tanks do not shrink with use, they are not a consumable item like batteries are. I have a 40 year old car with the same fuel tank and engine, which still gets the same range as new (in fact I think it does a bit better now, due to improvements in fuel quality).
No BEV will be able to do that. The original Hybrid cars are around 20 years old now, and most have batteries that barely hold a charge. Second hand ones I looked at (approx 10 years old) have at most 5 miles of battery power on a full charge, and that will probably drop to 0 in the next couple of years of use. The only reason second hand prices for them have not dropped to "scrap metal value", is because they have an engine and can still run on fuels, making them have some utility value as a vehicle.
How you treat the electric cars battery affects how well it lasts. and that includes how you charge it. The "fast/super" charging offered by some models come at the expense of battery life (and consequently, range). So the BEV owner has a choice, either do a normal charge (approx 8-12hours). and preserve their battery life and subsequent range for as long as they can, or (b) have the convenience of "fast" charging in around 60 mins, but have their battery life and range go down much faster, which will also affect their resale value on the second hand market.
Battery electric vehicle are inferior to ICE with liquid fuels, which is why governments have to bribe and coerce people into using them (unlike when the ICE first came to be, people readily switched away from electric cars and horses to them, as the tech was better). Electric vehicles need something better than batteries, all the improvements in battery tech so far is incremental, and still nowhere near the energy density of liquid fuel.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2020, @01:06PM (1 child)
OK then smart ass, what if we make the batteries out of gasoline and burn it to provide the thrust. Solves your little strawman argument.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday June 07 2020, @04:44PM
Sorry you got modded troll. I hate the mod system more and more each day. It ruins a perfectly stimulating discussion. Yes, AC's comment is a bit trollish, but so what? It made me think of a counter-argument:
Use petrol to run fuel cell in a hybrid system with enough batteries to provide higher amps for acceleration, hill climbs, etc., and a reasonable range on their own.
1.5 years ago a good friend bought a Chrysler Pacifica "plugin hybrid" for his wife. Plugin-in hybrid means it has batteries to run 60-80 miles, and a small but adequate gasoline engine if the batteries run down / long trips. They love the thing. Didn't need to put gasoline in it until about 6 months after buying it. Also, his main car is his now 2.4 year old Chevy Bolt, which had > 260 mile range. He loves it. It comes with a 'level 1' 120V 12 A charger, and he installed a 240 V 30 A 'level 2' charger they both use. He says the batteries still have 90% life in them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2020, @10:45PM
> Battery electric vehicle are inferior to ICE with liquid fuels
wut
> governments have to bribe and coerce people into using them
wut??
In the urban centres near me, consumers are demanding more EV than ICE vehicles, and we stopped having any EV subsidies in 2018. The only reason there aren't a few thousand more Teslas (specifically) on the road here, this year and last, is that Tesla literally couldn't produce and deliver them as fast as people wanted to buy them.
Is it because of fuel costs? Usage patterns? Environmental aspects? Social standing (Tesla's cheaper than Lexus and more prestige, here - there's no big Chevy Volt shortage)? I don't know.
> Electric vehicles need something better
See above.
I can only conclude you are so hyperfocused on energy density that you overlooked the many, many other factors impacting rapidly growing EV popularity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2020, @02:10PM
Came here to say the same thing. Suburban/rural gas stations have plenty of room for a car to sit while charging, but not so much for some city gas stations I've seen which barely have room for a couple of cars at the pumps, total. One car parked/charging would drop their gasoline sales in ~half during peak periods.
I suspect this law will soon have some exceptions. Alternatively the city gas stations will put up a sign in a disused lavatory, next to an ordinary electric socket which says, "Electric Car Charge Point".
Oh, you didn't bring a long enough extension cord? Sorry.