EV adoption faces a multitude of headwinds. Over time, the “too expensive” issue will be eliminated, battery technology should improve, and the charging network will eventually be adequate.
But there’s another challenge that may be more difficult to fully resolve - charging times.
I recently attended a webinar that presented survey results from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative. They asked over 1,500 respondents what their concerns were in purchasing an EV.
Among current non-owners of EVs the biggest concern (58%) was the cost of installing a home charger. Second (48%) was unexpected battery costs, and third (38%) were maintenance cost concerns.
Charging times didn’t show up. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the survey didn’t appear to do a particularly deep dive. Still, nowhere in the top six responses was charging times.
Last year, a more extensive S&P Mobility’s global survey polled almost 7,500 respondents. Too expensive was cited by 48% of respondents. Second on the list of concerns was charging. Specifically, 46% of respondents noted charging times. Surprisingly, that slightly exceeded the concern over charging availability (44%).
The silver lining: a plurality of respondents said they’d wait between 30 and 60 minutes to recharge. I’m somewhat suspicious of that response, but it does indicate flexibility.
The most interesting result of the S&P survey was how many EV owners have home chargers. The industry refrain is that most charging occurs at home, but only 51% of current and repeat EV owners said they have a home charger.
Look - charging will be an issue for quite some time. Even with Tesla opening a portion of its charging network, infrastructure buildouts don’t happen quickly.
There are those who point to level 3 chargers (fast DC chargers) as the solution to all EV charging concerns. A level 3 charger can provide a 400-mile charge in about 20 minutes. That means they are capable of getting people on their way in 5 – 10 minutes. That’s close enough to emulating filling up a gas tank to eliminate the issue.
Unfortunately, today, level 3 chargers are about 10 times more expensive than level 2 and cost more to install. That means the initial charger buildout will revolve around level 2 chargers. Thus, a widespread system upgrade will be needed to get to level 3. Even if you assume the issues of cost and the ability to monetize the charging network are solved, it will take multiple decades before level 3 chargers are ubiquitous.
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