we need charging infrastructure vision

[GetOffYourGas]

Sorry, but I think that this is an unfortunate and common misconception.

I actually think the PHEV is a pretty good "urban car", a vehicle for one car-families or single people with short commutes that can be done on electricity with their small battery capacities.

In the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas, commutes and other daily driving requirements tend to be of longer distances, requiring dumping the PHEVs' ICEs to allow the greater battery capacity of BEVs. Second and third vehicles are the norm for most households, allowing the "back-up" ICEV to be used for those occasional longer trips, that exceeds the BEV range.

Of course, as the DC infrastructure grows, the need for the "back-up" ICEV will diminish.

You're splitting hairs here between an "urban car" and a "commuter car". Your description still fits that of a commuter car, but will never pass as a road-trip car....

No, I'm not "splitting hairs".

An ICEV or PHEV is a "road-trip" car, and a ~21 available kWh BEV with 50 kW charging rate, like my LEAF, will never be acceptable to most drivers for trips over 150 to 250 miles.

But an ~11 kWh (or less) available PHEV is a lousy "commuter car" for many suburban, exurban, and rural commuters whose regular drive distance far exceeds the PHEVs short EV range, and is better suited to drivers with only one vehicle, with short commutes.

And those drivers, IMO, would tend to be "urban".

I live in a rural area, but my own driving habits, ~90% of my miles in daily trips of 50 to 60 miles on mountainous roads, and ~99% in trips of under ~225 miles per day, make the 24 kWh BEV a much better fit than any PHEV, or even a much more expensive 60 to 85 kWh BEV, like the Tesla S with DC capability.

I do expect to eventually own a ~30-40 kWh fast(er?)-charge capable BEV, which will remove the need for my "back-up ICEV" and for most or all of my "road trip" car rentals.

It just doesn't make any sense for me or many other drivers today, given the current cost of batteries, and lack of DC infrastructure.

My point is you're getting hung up on his use of the word "urban", especially given his following comment about reasonable freeway range. The Leaf, today, does not have reasonable freeway range. Yet it is a great commuter car even from a rural area. If you take the word "urban" out of GRA's comment and replace it with "local" or "short-distance" or "commuter" it is perfectly valid.

I my mind, the distinction is not between "urban" and "rural" etc (i.e. the type of location) but rather "local" versus "road-trip" (i.e. the trip distance).

I live in the suburbs. My round trip commute is 4.5 miles. With all of my errands, I rarely break 30-40 miles/day even on weekends. But when I go out of town, it's a road trip. I will drive 250+ miles each way 2-3 times a month. Today's Leaf is a good fit for me (maybe even excessive), given I have a second car that gets me everywhere the current Leaf can't (even with QC). And that has to do with the Leaf's miserable freeway range.

 

[GRA]

My point is you're getting hung up on his use of the word "urban", especially given his following comment about reasonable freeway range. The Leaf, today, does not have reasonable freeway range. Yet it is a great commuter car even from a rural area. If you take the word "urban" out of GRA's comment and replace it with "local" or "short-distance" or "commuter" it is perfectly valid.

I my mind, the distinction is not between "urban" and "rural" etc (i.e. the type of location) but rather "local" versus "road-trip" (i.e. the trip distance).

I live in the suburbs. My round trip commute is 4.5 miles. With all of my errands, I rarely break 30-40 miles/day even on weekends. But when I go out of town, it's a road trip. I will drive 250+ miles each way 2-3 times a month. Today's Leaf is a good fit for me (maybe even excessive), given I have a second car that gets me everywhere the current Leaf can't (even with QC). And that has to do with the Leaf's miserable freeway range.

Ordinarily I refer to affordable BEVs as urban/commuter cars, but decided to save some verbiage this time. That'll teach me!

FWIW, in 3-5 years I expect a few things to change. First is that we should have much more accurate information on degradation rates in various climates, as well as battery replacement costs.

Second, for reasons that are hopefully obvious I believe that battery capacity warranties will be standard by then, as I think they are essential for BEVs to attract mainstream consumers.

And finally, I assume that political gridlock will continue, and the federal incentive won't be changed from a credit to a rebate. So, hopefully at least one of the Big Six companies will have exceeded their 200,000 car quota by then, allowing their federal tax credit to expire and making battery leasing an option, possibly although less likely in conjunction with battery swapping. We need to get MSRPs without any government incentives down to the $20-25k range for mass adoption (for all the people who don't have a large tax liability), and that's only going to be possible in the near-future with battery leasing (not counting city-cars like the Smart ED).

 

[edatoakrun]

My point is you're getting hung up on his use of the word "urban", especially given his following comment about reasonable freeway range. The Leaf, today, does not have reasonable freeway range. Yet it is a great commuter car even from a rural area. If you take the word "urban" out of GRA's comment and replace it with "local" or "short-distance" or "commuter" it is perfectly valid.

I my mind, the distinction is not between "urban" and "rural" etc (i.e. the type of location) but rather "local" versus "road-trip" (i.e. the trip distance).

I live in the suburbs. My round trip commute is 4.5 miles. With all of my errands, I rarely break 30-40 miles/day even on weekends. But when I go out of town, it's a road trip. I will drive 250+ miles each way 2-3 times a month. Today's Leaf is a good fit for me (maybe even excessive), given I have a second car that gets me everywhere the current Leaf can't (even with QC). And that has to do with the Leaf's miserable freeway range.

Ordinarily I refer to affordable BEVs as urban/commuter cars, but decided to save some verbiage this time. That'll teach me!...

In point of fact, I live in a rural area and no not commute.

But a ~20 available kWh BEV like the LEAF is an excellent vehicle choice, based on my driving needs.

It seems to be a poor choice for either of you, based on your descriptions of your driving needs, whatever your consider your urban/commuter status to be.

GRA, by his/her description, wouldn't seem to need to own or lease a car at all, but could just rent/car share the ideal vehicle for occasional driving needs.

GetOffYourGas says he/she rarely needs half of the LEAF's battery capacity. It seems wasteful, IMO, to have paid for and drag around this excess capacity, that will only deteriorate over time.

Given his/her frequent longer trips, A PHEV with the appropriate kWh capacity would appear to be a better choice than a BEV.

A LEAF is not the right choice for every driver, and will still not be, once the fast charging infrastructure greatly increases the group of drivers for which it is the right choice.

 

[GRA]

My point is you're getting hung up on his use of the word "urban", especially given his following comment about reasonable freeway range. The Leaf, today, does not have reasonable freeway range. Yet it is a great commuter car even from a rural area. If you take the word "urban" out of GRA's comment and replace it with "local" or "short-distance" or "commuter" it is perfectly valid.

I my mind, the distinction is not between "urban" and "rural" etc (i.e. the type of location) but rather "local" versus "road-trip" (i.e. the trip distance).

I live in the suburbs. My round trip commute is 4.5 miles. With all of my errands, I rarely break 30-40 miles/day even on weekends. But when I go out of town, it's a road trip. I will drive 250+ miles each way 2-3 times a month. Today's Leaf is a good fit for me (maybe even excessive), given I have a second car that gets me everywhere the current Leaf can't (even with QC). And that has to do with the Leaf's miserable freeway range.

Ordinarily I refer to affordable BEVs as urban/commuter cars, but decided to save some verbiage this time. That'll teach me!...

In point of fact, I live in a rural area and no not commute.

But a ~20 available kWh BEV like the LEAF is an excellent vehicle choice, based on my driving needs.

It seems to be a poor choice for either of you, based on your descriptions of your driving needs, whatever your consider your urban/commuter status to be.

GRA, by his/her description, wouldn't seem to need to own or lease a car at all, but could just rent/car share the ideal vehicle for occasional driving needs.
GetOffYourGas says he/she rarely needs half of the LEAF's battery capacity. It seems wasteful, IMO, to have paid for and drag around this excess capacity, that will only deteriorate over time.

Given his/her frequent longer trips, A PHEV with the appropriate kWh capacity would appear to be a better choice than a BEV.

A LEAF is not the right choice for every driver, and will still not be, once the fast charging infrastructure greatly increases the group of drivers for which it is the right choice.

I have considered the rent/car share idea when my current car dies, and hopefully by then the EVSE infrastructure will be in place to make renting a BEV for longer trips viable. If I didn't own my car outright (paid cash new) with depreciation considerations not a factor, I might well consider it now, but I like driving a stick and that's not an option while renting, plus I don't have to re-figure where to put everything in each different vehicle. Once BEVs become viable for me driving a stick won't be an option in any case, and if I can guarantee getting a particular vehicle (instead of a vehicle 'class') that eliminates a lot of the hassle with renting.

As for car share, there isn't any here yet (different story if I was a few miles away in Oakland or S.F.), and in any case as long as I'm able to get around under my own power for errands I see no reason to use it.

To get back on topic, we all agree that EVSE infrastructure needs to be done more intelligently, we just disagree on what 'intelligently' means: do we emphasize public DC, a roughly even split, or AC L2? Ed votes for DC above all, I believe a more even split is valuable, and there are some who vote for AC with very limited DC, usually based on our individual needs. That's clear as mud

 

[GetOffYourGas]

GetOffYourGas says he/she rarely needs half of the LEAF's battery capacity. It seems wasteful, IMO, to have paid for and drag around this excess capacity, that will only deteriorate over time.

Given his/her frequent longer trips, A PHEV with the appropriate kWh capacity would appear to be a better choice than a BEV.

I will give you that most of my driving in a Leaf can be done in, say a Volt, without using gas. However, I live in a two-car family. My wife needs her own car because we are frequently going in opposite directions. However, we never leave town with two cars at the same time - so one of those cars never needs to go more than 30-40 miles. Given that fact, I would argue that carrying around a gas tank and a gas motor that I will never need, but will require regular maintenance is wasteful. The Leaf is a perfect fit because even as the battery deteriorates, the car will serve my needs, likely for 10-15 years with ease.

To get back on topic, we all agree that EVSE infrastructure needs to be done more intelligently, we just disagree on what 'intelligently' means: do we emphasize public DC, a roughly even split, or AC L2? Ed votes for DC above all, I believe a more even split is valuable, and there are some who vote for AC with very limited DC, usually based on our individual needs. That's clear as mud

You make a good point, we're all definitely focusing on our own individual needs. Of course, we each know our own better than others'. That said, hopefully as time goes on, the market will shake these needs out. In the meantime, there will be failures and bankruptcies. This is normal and to be expected, but will no doubt provide ammo for the uninformed or those with an anti-EV agenda to declare EVs a failure. I've already started to see that.

I my mind, the single largest source of infrastructure will be at home. The next largest will be at the workplace/commuter lots. The third will be at apartment/condo complexes for those without garages or carports. The fourth largest will then have to be L3 charging along major travel routes. I think of the NYS thruway, I-95, I-5 in the west. There are obviously others, but it's probably mostly along the major interstates. With this, the vast majority of travel in the country can get off of imported gas (which is getting dirtier every year) and onto domestic electricity (which gets cleaner every year).

The other question is who will pay for them and whether EVSE itself can be a profitable business. There is a company here in Syracuse which is rolling out L2 infrastructure. They have the stated goals of 1) encouraging EV adoption and 2) having the chargers be cost-neutral (i.e. neither profit nor loss). They're in a catch-22 now because there aren't many plug-ins in Syracuse. So to be cost-neutral, they set very high prices ($2.40/hour). This DISCOURAGES use since for a Volt driver, that's like paying almost $10/gallon of gas and a Leaf driver can typically make it home anyway (it's a small city). I suspect they will not be cost neutral at these prices. I just hope the company doesn't bail completely on EVSEs.

 

[edatoakrun]

="GetOffYourGas"
...I my mind, the single largest source of infrastructure will be at home. The next largest will be at the workplace/commuter lots. The third will be at apartment/condo complexes for those without garages or carports. The fourth largest will then have to be L3 charging along major travel routes...

The three applications you list (presumably all L2) are not public infrastructure, but dedicated sites where drivers can be assured a charger. These are all appropriate uses for L2, while scatter-shot installations for "opportunity charging", IMO, are not. This is because, as your comment below implies, public L2 infrastructure linked to public parking spaces at specific destinations, as are most L2s that have been installed so far, will never be able to compete with public fast-charge installations, due to the unreliability of access as well as high costs of "opportunity" public L2 sites.

="GetOffYourGas"...The other question is who will pay for them and whether EVSE itself can be a profitable business. There is a company here in Syracuse which is rolling out L2 infrastructure. They have the stated goals of 1) encouraging EV adoption and 2) having the chargers be cost-neutral (i.e. neither profit nor loss). They're in a catch-22 now because there aren't many plug-ins in Syracuse. So to be cost-neutral, they set very high prices ($2.40/hour). This DISCOURAGES use since for a Volt driver, that's like paying almost $10/gallon of gas and a Leaf driver can typically make it home anyway (it's a small city). I suspect they will not be cost neutral at these prices. I just hope the company doesn't bail completely on EVSEs.

I think GRA unintentionally posted an excellent example of the inherent inferiority of L2 for public charging on another thread:

GRA
...Just as an example, I like to go out to Point Reyes to hike and bike; typically I spend most of the day there, often at a single site. There is now a QC being installed en route in Fairfax (Marin county), approximately 40 miles from me. So far, so good. But it's another 20-40 miles to destinations in Pt. Reyes, most of which get far too little traffic to justify QC, and those at the outer end of the range are pushing it to get back to Fairfax with only an 80% charge. However, two hours of L2 (@ 6.6kW or higher) is enough to get me back to Fairfax from those spots; for that matter, 4 or more hours of L2 to 100% would get me home from many locations there, so I wouldn't even need to stop for QCs enroute...

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9111&start=240" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I would have liked to go to Pt Reyes the last two Summers I was driving through Marin County in my LEAF. But installing L2 at every one of the widely dispersed trail-head and shore locations I'd like to visit, is obviously impractical.

An economically viable DC charge site (or more than one competing sites) could be located near Reyes Station, with whatever number of chargers required, to service both Highway one north/south traffic east/west traffic on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard linking EV travelers to the 101 corridor.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=pt+reyes+station&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7ADFA_enUS456&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=dGKFUJDMKuaWjALKyIGADw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We do not buy gasoline at specified spaces in parking lots at the slow rate of a fraction of a gallon per hour because it is a manifestly absurd way to fuel a vehicle on the road. We do have gas stations at strategic points where vehicles must pass to reach their destinations, and couple them with the other services, such as rest rooms, food and beverage sales, etc, that drivers require, when they pull off the road.

The fact that slow charging on L2 is a superior alternative to DC for overnight charging, does not obviate the need for DC fast charging on the road, for BEVs to ever be adopted by those drivers requiring range beyond their "home charge".

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I would have liked to go to Pt Reyes the last two Summers I was driving through Marin County in my LEAF. But installing L2 at every one of the widely dispersed trail-head and shore locations I'd like to visit, is obviously impractical.

An economically viable DC charge site (or more than one competing sites) could be located near Reyes Station, with whatever number of chargers required, to service both Highway one north/south traffic east/west traffic on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard linking EV travelers to the 101 corridor.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=pt+reyes+station&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7ADFA_enUS456&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=dGKFUJDMKuaWjALKyIGADw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We do not buy gasoline at specified spaces in parking lots at the slow rate of a fraction of a gallon per hour because it is a manifestly absurd way to fuel a vehicle on the road. We do have gas stations at strategic points where vehicles must pass to reach their destinations, and couple them with the other services, such as rest rooms, food and beverage sales, etc, that drivers require, when they pull off the road.

The fact that slow charging on L2 is a superior alternative to DC for overnight charging, does not obviate the need for DC fast charging on the road, for BEVs to ever be adopted by those drivers requiring range beyond their "home charge".

is this an oxymoron? you say "need" and "impractical" in the same breath.

if there is a need (like the one you stated) that means the only obstacle left is public perception of the need, access rights, and money.

Most of us are so used to our surroundings that we have long since accepted it as "the way it always was" One could easily make the same argument for gas stations, grocery stores and just about everything else in our lives that seem to multiply on every busy street corner of urban America.

Sure, its a bad idea sometimes but does that stop anyone? because it all boils down to access rights and/or money because "need" is usually self defined and VERY personal even in a business sense.

 

[edatoakrun]

Robert Llewellyn:

Over the last week I have noticed a marked and almost unconscious shift in my car journeys. Up to about 3 weeks ago, a journey I did last week-230 miles in one afternoon- I would not have considered attempting in the Nissan LEAF. I would just have gone in the Prius and not given it another thought.

However, after attending the opening of the first of many rapid chargers being installed at motorway services, I see the whole picture is quickly changing...

http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2012/10/24/robert-llewellyn-the-numpty-factor/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Each of us without access to DC chargers presently will experience the same "revelation" when they become available.

Soon, I hope...