This isn't about total time taken, but time parked. I'm thinking about contention.
Let's think positive and assume BEV will be succeessful. Everyone who wants a BEV will have home charging. That leaves charging on long trips. But let's also be a little conservative and that business leaves OTR charging to Superchargers.
Imagine a simplified general scenario for a future long-range BEV:
- Range is 200 in ideal conditions, 120 in bad conditions.
- Home charging is up to 1/6 of range per hour (including visits to relatives and friends with chargers, which will beomce more common; maybe there'll be guest chargers like people now have guest rooms).
- Supercharging is fairly ubiquitous, enough that I can charge along on my normal routes.
- Supercharging is 0% to 80% in 30 minutes, 80% to 100% in 30 minutes.
- No destination chargers at businesses.
How much time would you spend parked at Superchargers each year?
How does that compare to time parked at gas pumps in a conventional car that you'd drive?
How much on-the-road (OTR) charging would our car(s) need each year? Maybe 2 1/2 hours, unless the car makes us want to drive more.
- 10 to 20 minutes on 3 trips to the Bar Harbor area, depending on the location of Superchargers.
- Supercharging back up to 80% on 2 trips to NH.
- Maybe a 20 minute charge on a trip down to Portland.
Now I think about how long we'd spend occupying fuel pumps. I've never timed it, but If a 3 minute stop (including all additional time messing around with payment) at a gas pump got me 500 miles (in my Prius), then for 15,000 miles per year, I'd have 30 stops, parking for 1 1/2 hours per year in total. That's really not a huge difference.
So maybe BEV contention will turn out to be an issue of handling extreme peaks. Maybe that's where Superswappers will have their niche, and the installation of pop-up Superswappers will be a sign that Thanksgiving is coming.
In reality I think that high BEV ownership would lead to high amounts of chargers at hotels and special large-cachement destinations. I also think that luxury car drivers and people who do more long trips would opt for larger batteries. Both of those could reduce contention at OTR chargers.
Let's think positive and assume BEV will be succeessful. Everyone who wants a BEV will have home charging. That leaves charging on long trips. But let's also be a little conservative and that business leaves OTR charging to Superchargers.
Imagine a simplified general scenario for a future long-range BEV:
- Range is 200 in ideal conditions, 120 in bad conditions.
- Home charging is up to 1/6 of range per hour (including visits to relatives and friends with chargers, which will beomce more common; maybe there'll be guest chargers like people now have guest rooms).
- Supercharging is fairly ubiquitous, enough that I can charge along on my normal routes.
- Supercharging is 0% to 80% in 30 minutes, 80% to 100% in 30 minutes.
- No destination chargers at businesses.
How much time would you spend parked at Superchargers each year?
How does that compare to time parked at gas pumps in a conventional car that you'd drive?
How much on-the-road (OTR) charging would our car(s) need each year? Maybe 2 1/2 hours, unless the car makes us want to drive more.
- 10 to 20 minutes on 3 trips to the Bar Harbor area, depending on the location of Superchargers.
- Supercharging back up to 80% on 2 trips to NH.
- Maybe a 20 minute charge on a trip down to Portland.
Now I think about how long we'd spend occupying fuel pumps. I've never timed it, but If a 3 minute stop (including all additional time messing around with payment) at a gas pump got me 500 miles (in my Prius), then for 15,000 miles per year, I'd have 30 stops, parking for 1 1/2 hours per year in total. That's really not a huge difference.
So maybe BEV contention will turn out to be an issue of handling extreme peaks. Maybe that's where Superswappers will have their niche, and the installation of pop-up Superswappers will be a sign that Thanksgiving is coming.
In reality I think that high BEV ownership would lead to high amounts of chargers at hotels and special large-cachement destinations. I also think that luxury car drivers and people who do more long trips would opt for larger batteries. Both of those could reduce contention at OTR chargers.