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EU passes law to blanket highways with fast EV chargers by 2025
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Regarding the range problem, that is my personal conspiracy theory. It makes a lot of sense but no way that I or anyone can ever prove it.
Theory: Range was never a real problem and car manufacturers seeded that topic to journalists/press, as the companies already had the solution available before communicating the problem.
More range is done with a larger batteries, usually higher quality cells/chemicals. So making the car bigger and more expensive. That's what manufacturers desire to do and sell anyways.
It never was or is a real problem. They can just charge the customers more and it's solved.
As I've already seen posted, the real problem that cannot be easily solved is the charging time. Right now I 'charge' 0% to 100% in 1-2 minutes. No preparation, no special fuel, no special fees or subscriptions, no fuel stations only for specific brands, no apps, summer or winter same 1-2 min, no strain on the fuel tank by filling fast, sometimes waiting lines at the stations but they move quickly with 1-2 min per vehicle.
I don't see battery or charging tech anywhere close to that in the next 5, 10 or even 20 years.
That's hard to advance, with decades of research behind us and decades ahead, so car manufacturers focus on their favorite topic: range, where they can just throw their customers money at to solve it immediately.
I think the bigger societal problem is that people need to start thinking differently of how charging works. It won't and doesn't need to work like refueling.
What I mean is, nobody would refuel every day at the beginning of their 10km commute. What they'll do is commute for 2 weeks, and when the car is empty they'll refuel and then continue on their way.
With EVs, this can be different. Once chargers (and not even fast chargers) are placed on every major location, you don't need to go 0-100% in 99% of the cases. Getting groceries? Charge at the store for 30mins Going to the gym? Charge there for an hour or two Going out for dinner? Charge for 3h
The car doesn't need to go empty all the way. Obviously you can't do that with the current infrastructure, but with enough effort, that's easily achievable.
Those are various ideas regarding charging problematic.
I'm still on the range topic that people apparently see as the main problem with EVs but I don't. I'd be even fine with less range than the current top models offer.
For the US, I could see people having an EV with a smaller battery for commuting and one with a larger battery for longer family outings. But also maybe not. If solid state batteries can actually be commercially available, charge time and range will not be issues. If you can charge 500km in 5-10 minutes like Toyota is claiming with theirs, nobody is going to care too much about range of their car can be recharged in about the time it takes an ICE vehicle.
Adding an extra step for every time I stop at whatever location is a big ask. Personally, those little tasks wreck havoc with my executive disfunction disorder.
Truthfully, the range is only for long trips. Most commuting will be within normal operating ranges of EVs.
But it does need to be solved in some manner since it's not uncommon for people to take road trips, even fairly short ones.
Even that is wrong for the most part. People are at home for generally at least 10 hours. How many people would go anywhere to fuel up if they had a pump at their home? A standard type F outlet will get you about a 10km charge per hour. That is 80-100km per day which will fully recharge most people each day. If you go farther than that one of those days? Chances are you will be fully charged the following day.
That is all continent on those shower chargers being decently available for overnight parking though. That will be something that needs to be worked on.
The issue with fast chargers is that they are much more expensive (both to install and for the customer) and tougher on the grid due to their quick, large power draw. They are fine for the less than 1% of time you are going over 400km but ideally not needed much outside of that. But there will be a transitionary period where there is not that lower speed charging everywhere and people will get EVs while having to rely on those chargers. Hopefully governments can provide the right incentives and legislation that gets things to where they need to be.
Absolutely. But I specifically didn't mention that because it doesn't apply to everyone. Lots of people living in apartments don't have an outlet on their parking spot. But if you have, EVs are arguably more convenient than combustion cars already.
Range was definitely a major problem for early adopters - because at the time there weren't many places you could charge the car.
And now that it's set in everyone's mind, it continues to be talked about.
Not sure how viable they are, but what about swappable batteries? Leave your battery at the station, move on with a fresh one.
Not really viable - the battery is often heavier than the rest of the car, more expensive than the the rest of the car, and structurally integral to the rest of the car. It's more like "swapping cars" than swapping batteries.
It might make sense for special niches like trucking... but in that case it'd really make more sense to just swap the trailer to a different truck. Or use a train with batteries on one or two of the carriages, or run a power line along the track to power the motors, or use hydrogen (which has a power to weight ration that makes diesel look terrible), or use a wind/solar (not everything needs to arrive quickly, and on the ocean you don't need to worry about slow vehicles holding up traffic).
Technically, it can be done, but realistically swapping is only an option on motorcycles (those batteries are exponentially smaller and lighter and cheaper, because they get more range by not having to haul a massive battery ever time you leave a traffic light).
Tesla looked into that and did not really see it as viable for consumer vehicles.
If solid state batteries can get past their longevity issue, getting 500-600km range in 10 minutes will be possible. Toyota claims to be working on a battery that can charge twice that in 10 minutes that is supposed to be available by 2028. But they also claimed to be working on one that would have been commercially available in 2021. Clearly that did not happen.
If longevity is an issue that can't be bypassed, it might make sense to have a car that has a smaller standard lithium ion battery that can go 75 km and then a solid state that is able to go 300-400 km. The lithium ion battery would cover over 95% of trips but when longer range is needed along with faster charge time, the solid state could be used. That would allow for less wear on the solid state while also minimizing range anxiety and long range charge time