GroundLoop said:
My concern with opportunistic charging is that it simply won't scale.
If 10% of Costco's shoppers come in expecting to plug in, that is a whole lot of L2 chargers needed. If there is contention (more cars than chargers), I don't have a lot of faith in my fellow Costco chargers to default to a cooperative system for fair use. I've seen how parking works, shopping carts, and any of the other abused "commons".
It seems your concern is rooted in a deeper, more generic misanthropy... but for optimism's sake let's say 10% of Costco members want EV charging. In an ideal situation, 10% of Costco's parking lot would eventually be EV charger accessible.
GroundLoop said:
It works fine when there are two chargers at a store, and EVs are a novelty. I just don't see this persisting if you predict a future swap of all the Prius cars to EVs. The local mall has "Hybrid Parking Only" spaces (as if more Smug was needed). They're always taken. If this was the ONLY place Hybrids could park, it would fail.
Please don't confuse opportunistic charging with
mandatory charging. That is, even if a charger is not available at my destination, I may not actually
need it depending on how local the destination is. If the "Hybrid only" spots are taken, then petition the property owner to assign more spaces.
GroundLoop said:
My prediction: Charging is done at your two "home base" locations, maybe work and home.
I have no intention at all of ever taking an "extra-range" trip, with a mandatory charge break. Two reasons:
1) I have no control or priority for the expected charger mid-way
2) I don't want to wait for a charge. If I'm driving 100+ miles to begin with, that's a long time in the car. Adding 30 minutes for a quick charge is just not something I'm going to embrace.
Here is my personal opinion on a near-optimal infrastructure would look like:
Primary: Just about everyone would have a L2 charger available at their place of residence (house, apartment, condo etc). This would be the primary charging location and handle the bulk of the work.
Secondary: Most (perhaps fewer than above) would also have L2 charging available where they work.
Major destinations: Places that people typically visit for more than one hour at a time would have some number of L2 and L1 charging available. Such places might include large shopping malls, movie theaters, airport and train station parking lots, hotels/motels, amusement parks and some larger restaurants. L1 is more viable given the lengths of time under some situations (eg long-term airport parking).
Minor destinations: Places where people visit typically between 20 minutes to an hour and provide mostly L2 charging. Such places might include smaller shopping centers or large, single stores (eg Costco), most restaurants, salons and boutiques, bus terminals, airport parking lots (short-term/visitor parking), hospitals and other medical centers.
Stopover locations: Places where people are expected to visit only infrequently and for less than 20-30 minutes. These locations would have L2 and L3 charging and include rest stops, roadside diners/fast food/coffee shops and small shopping centers.
And for the really impatient, there is a niche ideally filled by the coveted and nearly mythical
battery swap station. Likely to be found only on the outskirts of cities and along intercity highway routes. Lots of little legal/practical issues to hammer out with this plan before widespread adoption but there's at least
one company rolling out the technology for it.
=Smidge=