at least where i am, these either do not have their own parking lots, or have multistory lots where maybe 5 spaces out of dozens are equipped with chargers, and I have no idea how feasible a full retrofit would be.
in the pre-pandemic world they had to implement a queue system for the charging spots, so you couldn't just park your car the whole day in one and had to move it out to let someone else have a turn.
I'm also wondering how this works in areas where it snows. My dad's old apartment in Virginia would routinely get snow in the winter, and his apartment complex had no covered parking. One needed to park in the limited number of spaces in the parking lot or park on the street. Imagine trying to coordinate rotating EV charging while digging your car out of the snow. I'm sure someone will think of a solution, but it's not immediately obvious how one would handle that.
The solution there would be something like a 110V 15A outlet at a large portion of the parking spaces and some method for metering and accounting for the delivered power so it can be charged to the tenant. And if they charge a convenience fee like most apartments do for preferential parking then that financial outlay would become a profit center after it was paid off.
I'm sure it'd be more costly for commercial work but a simple home charger infrastructure installation runs around $1k, and that's for a Level 2 (240V) charger. Although that doesn't account for the supplemental meter equipment costs.
A Level 1 charger can recharge say a Nissan Leaf from empty overnight. A single day's drive is far more likely to be at or below 20% of the capacity which is closer to 2hrs. For the average user that would be just fine.
A small number of time-limited slots with Level 2 charger could be provided for convenience, but even just allowing individuals to charge at Level 1 rates while their cars are parked would likely suffice in at least half the cases.
There seems to be this misconception that every EV will eventually need a dedicated fast charger and needs to charge to full capacity in 5 mins. But the reality is that, for a large portion of the driving population, a car tends to sit in place for large amounts of time and a modern 150mi+ range EV rarely get depleted in a day. A Level 1 charger would be more than enough for those people. Especially with public fast chargers available for those unusual situations where you need more charge very quickly.
For those who need more than that, an EV is truly not an ideal vehicle for them.
I think in general a lot of people "sleep" on how much of a game changer just having Level 1 "chargers" aka "boring wall outlets" everywhere would be.
I also think that thinking of Level 1 as "chargers" and not "boring wall outlets" is a part of the remaining problem. You shouldn't need to bother with the costs for metering and accounting the delivered power at Level 1. Does Starbucks charge you a wall outlet fee to charge your cell phone or laptop? At Level 1 it can just be a "courtesy".
At Level 1 each car is basically the extra draw of one additional old school incandescent light bulb. Who seriously cares to measure that accurately?
You can do a rough math estimate at Level 1 and just add that overhead to your operating expenses per usual. Many places with existing parking fees the added overhead likely is a rounding error compared to the existing parking price. (Same versus apartment rentals or HOA/COA dues.)
Individual outlet metering is expensive and complicates everything, just install boring outlets like we've done for more than a century.
> I think in general a lot of people "sleep" on how much of a game changer just having Level 1 "chargers" aka "boring wall outlets" everywhere would be.
Exactly! So many people fixate on fast charging that they just don't register the magic inherent in your car and home running on the same "fuel".
And having heard from people that cold climates often have outlets like these in place for engine heaters to prevent engine freezes shows that infra for this can easily exist. Though it's probably more investment for 3-7kW capacity at each outlet compared to powering a block heater.
> Does Starbucks charge you a wall outlet fee to charge your cell phone or laptop? At Level 1 it can just be a "courtesy"
Oh I totally agree, but try getting an apartment complex to buy into thousands of dollars in electrical work only to shell out even more money buying "gas" for all their tenants.
My in-law has trouble getting his complex to fix sidewalks let alone do something like installing charging infra and providing electricity. If the $1k estimate was even close for commercial 120v charging infra, you'd still be talking between 10k and 100k in just electrical work.
But that sounds like something that could be easily turned into a market differentiator, so it's not to say it won't happen.
Perhaps tacking on a flat-rate fee to offset costs would be a strong middle ground as well. That concept is something apartments/HOAs are already quite familiar with, what with things like covered parking, garages, and even additional storage space already available as add-on charges in many places.
> Individual outlet metering is expensive and complicates everything, just install boring outlets like we've done for more than a century.
Somewhere in the eventual development of this tech could be something like a complex level charging system where an apartment could meter through the charger, since most modern IoT type chargers track this anyways. That way the infra is still just as simple as a dumb outlet.
> You can do a rough math estimate at Level 1 and just add that overhead to your operating expenses per usual
This pans out at small scale, though I wonder how that pans out in the real world. The sticker shock of running that calculation at "worst case scenario" seems like an issue. With even 100 EVs at worst case using todays numbers (~60kWh capacity per car, $0.15/kWh, full charge daily) that number is nearly $1k per day. Realistically it'll be much lower since that full charge nightly is highly unlikely, but sticker shock is real.
Other than the small range decrease because of the cold weather, how does that differ from an ICE car? His comment was about swapping cars at the charger with cars buried in snow, which isn't an issue when you no longer need to swap cars because they are charging at their own spot (per my comment about adding L1 charging to a large portion of the spots).
I guess if you're for some reason running your cabin heating the whole time then I suppose you're reducing your range, but that's solved by not doing that perhaps.
Finland here. Every single car parking spot has had a dedicated 230V 8-16A plug for over 30 years for ICE car block and cabin heaters.
The power grid hasn't melted even though the plugs at the parking spots are on a timer and usually run two hours from 0600 to 0800 so the car is nice and unfrozen when it's time for the daily commute.
Now when we are moving to PHEVs and EVs some people are _very_ worried that an EV using the exact same plug with the exact same load steadily from evening to morning will melt the entire power grid and the local wires and melt the plug. Dunno why.
Street parking is still an issue, but there are solutions for that too. The power could be pulled from street lamps for example.
Some parking spaces may be designed for bursting loads, and the wires actually do heat up if used continuously. They may still need upgrades for EVs, but overall should be only a modest cost.
When it's -25C outside the wires heating up isn't really an issue, it's more of a bonus feature :D
But yea, the cabling needs to be checked by an actual electrician and they'll determine how many cars can be charged in the ye olde block heater system without melting any wires or tripping fuses.
The 1980's stuff can usually handle 8A continuous loads. They changed the standard some time in the mid 90s, those can handle multiple cars at 10-16A continuous depending on the main fuse.
Anything above that and you'll need to overhaul the whole field and people usually go for Level 2 capable cabling if they need to break ground for cabling anyway.
I already faced this in 2016, living in Philadelphia, lucky to have parking at the apartment and two EV chargers. Back then there were no other EVs at the apartment complex to coordinate charging shifts with.
Methinks the number of stations will organically grow with the predicted amount of EVs an apartment will have parking on site. That’s how it started for me in 2015-2016!
in the pre-pandemic world they had to implement a queue system for the charging spots, so you couldn't just park your car the whole day in one and had to move it out to let someone else have a turn.