Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul M
How are charging points at motorway service stations (and garages) going to help.
Filling up with petrol takes a few minutes, recharging a car takes hours.
At busy times you can barely find anywhere to park in a service station, how will they cope with 1000's per day.
How will local garages work, a few early starters and thats it for the day ?
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Well electric cars would work differently. It's important with new technology not to apply existing patterns to them, at least not always.
At the moment people generally only fill up their car at petrol stations. You fill up, then go away keeping the occasional eye on the tank until you need to fill up again. But electric cars can be charged at home and also could be charged at car parks, work places, shopping centres etc. I have seen far more car chargers in car parks than dedicated stations. People will find themselves charging at home, at a hotel, or in car parks whilst shopping or working. Stations would be for quick top-ups or people taking long journeys.
But battery technology will get better and so will charing times. Again, look at the progress Tesla have made. It's not perfect now but do we need to wait until it is before we make plans 20 years ahead? The wheels are already turning here, more and more cars are coming out with electric engines, the investment is in electric and self-driving cars and that's where governments are looking too.
To be honest I think 2040 is conservative. I think we'll be seeing electric, self-driving, cars in common use around urban areas by then. 23 years is a long time in technology. Imagine in 1994 telling someone that people could stream TV content made exclusively for an Internet company to a phone they had in their hands. Think of all the logistical and technological, not to mention commercial, barriers that would have been foreseen. The advances is mobile technology, battery technology, networks and so on for that and all the infrastructure to go with it.