AC vs DC for charging without private parking

Maybe it highlights the real cost of these networks.

There is a huge difference to have 50kW available and 350kW available. Its not just the price of the charger/cable or the kWh price of the electricity itself. Its also the price for having that grid connection "on tap" regardless of whether its used or not.

Comparing you home electricity rate against a 350kW rapid charger and saying its a ripoff is ignoring the real costs involved in having that level of power available.

EV drivers will need to get used to these prices and ensure they buy an EV with the appropriate battery size for them that limits their reliance on high powered rapids.

liamog wrote: »

Can you share a study showing that the model doesn't work? From the video's I've seen of Milton Keynes and Dundee, charging hubs appear to be a quite successful solution for those who don't have the ability to charge at home.

To tie this back to Ionity, it was only yesterday that I realised the electrical requirements for an Ionity site (6x350kW) is the equivalent of 42 50kW chargers, the extra cost is starting to make sense.

Well I can give you a model that does work:
https://www.emobilitysimplified.com/2019/12/netherlands-highest-density-ev-charging-infrastructure.html

Netherlands is currently the Mecca for EV Charging when you don't have your parking space, or even if you rent a space in a public garage.
There are over 49,000 regular public & semi-public AC charging points, more than 1100 fast chargers, almost 45:1 ratio.

You can drive in the Netherlands with the aim of arriving at your destination and then charge rather than having to charge before reaching your destination because you need extra charge to get back.

Their policy works, the proportion of BEV against PEV is way higher then any other EU Country:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/proportion-of-vehicle-fleet-meeting-4/assessment-4

They don't have any range anxiety because they can plug in almost anywhere and charge at 6-11kW, while they shop/eat/go to work/exercise/visit family etc.

The Cities that tried to adopt Rapid Charging stations, they i've personally experienced.

Budapest (molplugee) - 34 Rapid Charging stations around the City Center, always busy, nobody wants to sit in their car waiting to charge and then move again to find another parking space.

Paris Rapid Chargers (Belib) - Rapid Chargers all over the place, hardly anyone uses them as they opt for the AC (Type 3c) Chargers and just plug in whenever they stop somewhere, charging is opportunistic, there are so many on street chargers they never need to "fill"

Monaco - People using DC and AC have the same behavior, plug in and go, they don't really care which as they will leave the car there while they go about their business anyway, DC Chargers are wasted as people sit the same amount of time on AC as DC but get the same amount of kWhs.

^^ All of the above the maintenance costs are much higher for the DC Charging stations than AC, Tethered cables can get cracked/broken.

You can deploy around 10 Charging poles (20 points) for every 1 50 kW DC Rapid Charger, that means 20 cars can charge at the same time vs 20 cars having to share 1 charger.

DC Fast charging is Great for long trips, AC is perfect for your Destination (and long trips if you are doing a break in between in a city)

You'll never get high density with DC Charging and if charging your car required going to some sort of central hub where you have to stay with the car and then move it again, kind of defeats the whole purpose of having an EV.

I mean most of the time I never spend any time waiting to charge as it's done when I'm at work or at home or somewhere else parked.

liamog wrote: »

So it's not really a model that doesn't work, you've just presented lots of examples of an alternative model.

I don't see the future solution for people without private parking to be ubiquitous AC chargers. It only really works if every space is given an AC charger, Irish streetscapes are cramped enough without adding the further clutter of AC charging posts.
I wouldn't want to park 1km away from my home on a tuesday night because that's where the nearest available charger is, additionally the person who lives on that street probably wants the spot outside there house for themselves.

Charging hubs work when they are placed at the correct location, they need to be sited at places people are already used to spending between 30m and an hour. It's kind of the opposite of petrol station mentality, as it's placing the chargers where the person is anyway.

Well I have pointed out where DC Charging happens in Cities and it hasn't worked out.

In NL having a dedicated parking space for your property is very rare, even more so than Ireland.

Aim of that policy I linked to as an example is to have a charger no more than 300 meters from your home, if it's unavailable all the time they add another one.

For street parking, nobody is entitled to a space outside their house anyway, the exception being if they are disabled (here at least)

liamog wrote: »

What type of DC chargers were installed in those cities, was it the hub style like Dundee and Milton Keynes, Paris is the only one I'm familiar with, and they were relatively useless on street DC supplies.

As much as you don't get dedicated onstreet parking here either, what tends to happen is that you end up with reasonably the same space every day in your estate, it kind of works itself out. My wife get's annoyed if someone parks outside our house even though it's not dedicated parking. One charger within 300m of my house would cover at least 300 cars, so just isn't going to cut it as a solution.

efacec QC45 Quick Chargers in Budapest and Monaco
The Belib ones were some weird custom things I've never seen before.
There were some QC45 Rapids run by EDF as well in Paris but very rare.

Regarding this 1 Charger covering 300 cars ... the point is you keep installing them until demand is met in the area. You can deploy many chargers on street for a fraction of the cost of DC Chargers and people can charge their cars when their at home watching TV or sleeping rather than going to a hub and waiting around for their car to charge.

liamog wrote: »

It's not the particular model that I'm interested in, it's the format they are installed.
The belib's in Paris were leftover from a failed shared car system, so weren't designed to address neighbourhood charging requirements.

Mmmm .. no .. you're confusing Belib (charging network) with Autolib (Car sharing)

The leftover charging poles from Autolib are 3.7kW and are the most popular for charging.

Belib (owned by Izivia) run the entire Network, 3.7kW AC, 22 kW AC and the DC Fast chargers.

Some chargers use the Izivia branding as well.

Those Autolib cars are still driving around paris, they sold them off for peanuts years ago, no DC Charging on those though

Deleted User wrote: »

It's just not going to work unless we can pull into any garage and charge like ICEs can fill up with liquid fuels. Not having to think about it or plan it, the majority of People don't want to do this.

+ the risk of queuing and if chargers are down etc.

My last week,

Monday charged in work to 80%
Wednesday went to IKEA for 2 hours - Charged @ 11KW AC
Thursday went to Aldi - Charged 30 minutes
Saturday went for Breakfast - Charged 1 hr 45 minutes @ 11kW AC on Public AC Charger
Sunday went to the Swimming pool up in Oberhausen, charged for 1.5 hours on Tesla Destination charger in public garage.

Yesterday was back in IKEA again looking for some more bits and charged then as well, even went to a second IKEA close by to look for a certain set of window blinds plugged in for 10 minutes.

But basically whenever I park I try to charge, the battery hovers between 30% and 80%, I hardly ever use DC Fast Charging at all.

I can't imagine wasting my time having to go somewhere and wait for my car to charge, I've only had to do that in places where there is a lack of on street AC Charging

For longer distance trips I use DC Charging for sure, but i'll try and incorporate a longer AC Charging stop in a City to get some value out of it (and take advantage of free parking with a great location and some sight seeing)

Only time I'll use a Petrol Station is to go to the Toilet or buy something on a Sunday when the shops are closed

redcup342 wrote: »

My last week,

Monday charged in work to 80%
Wednesday went to IKEA for 2 hours - Charged @ 11KW AC
Thursday went to Aldi - Charged 30 minutes
Saturday went for Breakfast - Charged 1 hr 45 minutes @ 11kW AC on Public AC Charger
Sunday went to the Swimming pool up in Oberhausen, charged for 1.5 hours on Tesla Destination charger in public garage.

Yesterday was back in IKEA again looking for some more bits and charged then as well, even went to a second IKEA close by to look for a certain set of window blinds plugged in for 10 minutes.

But basically whenever I park I try to charge, the battery hovers between 30% and 80%, I hardly ever use DC Fast Charging at all.

I can't imagine wasting my time having to go somewhere and wait for my car to charge, I've only had to do that in places where there is a lack of on street AC Charging

For longer distance trips I use DC Charging for sure, but i'll try and incorporate a longer AC Charging stop in a City to get some value out of it (and take advantage of free parking with a great location and some sight seeing)

Only time I'll use a Petrol Station is to go to the Toilet or buy something on a Sunday when the shops are closed

That's very helpful for most folk who don't drive many miles.


In the pre covid times I needed to charge every day in my model S, so your model of random topups wouldnt work. But for most folk (including me at the moment!) it would

liamog wrote: »

That sounds like an absolutely terrible existence. Workplace charging is a reasonable alternative for those without home charging, but I don't think anyone will want to be constantly sucking electrons like that.



That's the bit you are missing, I said "Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ..."

The ideal circumstance is charging hubs co-located with weekly shopping locations. Your car get's a full charge whilst you do your weekly shop, much better than having to park your car 500m from home one night a week.

And hopefully they install banks of 50kW chargers, the new "mild fast" there. 1 hour shopping and you're back to 80-90% in most cars.

redcup342 wrote: »

I drove 750km in those days



Why ? I didn't have to search for any parking, I just drove to the AC Charging point near where I was going to.



My car is sitting parked with 158KM of range left, i didn't need to charge it when I got home as I had opportunistic charging during my normal daily routine, as I said the range will hover around 20-80%, I rarely do a full charge unless I know I'm going on trip.

I don't have to go anywhere to charge my car for my normal weekly stuff. I charge when I'm doing my normal stuff.

The only time I take is the time to plug in the cable and walk away from the car. I spent even more time at the pump waiting for fuel to go in and going into pay.

Worked for me over the past few years anyways.

750km would be 3-4 days driving for me (pre covid), I wouldnt get enough incidental charging.

redcup342 wrote: »

For me Pre Covid I wouldn't have any issues as we have 40x11kW split between two buildings with underground car parks.

I haven't been in the office since March though :rolleyes: strange times.

For me my weekday driving was covered by work charging too, so I guess that somewhat proves your point

liamog wrote:

We're not discussing DC chargers like the motorways, we're discussing 50kW DC hubs in the likes of supermarket car parks, places where someone without the ability to charge at home likely already spends an hour or so a week. As 50kWh to 75kWh cars become the norm, you are already looking at around an hour to charge at a 50kW charger.

I know and that's what I said - DC hubs belong to motorways and out of the cities as the evidence from Europe shows. AC hubs belong to the cities and car parks.

75 kWh cars don't and won't become the norm anytime soon. The market will stabilise at 50-55 kWh for vast majority of cars, above that is going to be high-end luxury segment.

liamog wrote:

AC hubs won't work though, where does someone that has a 55kWh car spend 5 hours a week parked, that isn't their near their home or workplace. That leaves us with either the choice of AC chargers on all the small streets where people don't have private parking, or hubs at supermarkets. There is also evidence that suburban DC hubs work, Dundee, and Milton Keynes are examples. I believe Fastned also have some in The Netherlands.

So there are 3 examples in whole Europe. Two of which are in the UK, so not even continental Europe. That's not many init

Whereas virtually all big cities on the continent don't have any DC hubs.

Suburban maybe. Urban likely not.