How Many Charging Points Will Be Required for EVs?5 Feb 2023 19:58
I have just had a thought. (Yes, dangerous, I know!) If, as some believe, most of the cars on the road in the next 1—20 years are to be EVs, has anyone worked out how many charging points will be required throughout the country at service stations, supermarkets etc., compared to the number of petrol/diesel pumps that we have at present? I thought I would have a go at estimating this!
Google tells me that on average a car occupies a pump for about 5-7 minutes, from time of arrival until the driver pays and drives off. I assume that on average this will be to fill about 80% - 85% of the tank as most drivers will not wait until the tank is empty. Of course this doesn’t cover time waiting to get to the pump.
Now the time that it takes to fully charge an EV will vary enormously depending on the make and model of the car etc. but to use an example Google tells me a Tesla with a range of 238 miles will charge empty to full in 2 hours using a 43-50kw rapid charger. So in order to compare with filling a petrol/diesel tank 80%, to charge from 20% to 100% will take 96 minutes. And that’s how long the car would be occupying the charging point if it was being charged 80% all at one go. That is about 13-19 times as long as the petrol/diesel comparison. (Let’s call it 15 times as long, for simplicity!)
Admittedly it is unlikely that the car would be standing at a single charging point for that length of time, it would probably do it at several locations along the way in bursts of say 20-30 minutes each. But it doesn’t matter, that is the total amount of time that it would be occupying a charging point in order to charge 80% of its battery. That is a direct comparison to the petrol/diesel car above.
That would suggest that if the service stations and supermarkets etc. are to provide the same service to the EV drivers that is currently enjoyed by the petrol/diesel drivers, they would need to provide about 15 times as many EV charging points as there are petrol/diesel pumps at present. And that would require an enormous increase in the amount of space!
However, it may not be as bad as that. First, many of the EV’s will be charged at home, probably overnight, but we have to bear in mind that there will be many drivers who will not have access to a charging point at home, or near home. So it’s a pure guess, but let’s say that one third of drivers will have access to this facility. So we can reduce the 15x multiple by a third, to 10x.
Then many, or perhaps most, of the commercial vehicles that currently use the same petrol/diesel pumps that are used by cars will be powered by hydrogen-FC. Let’s call that a quarter, just to throw in a number. So now we can bring our multiple down from 10x to 7.5x. It’s getting better!
(Continued ...)
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