Would you wait 15 minutes to get a fast-food hamburger?
Electric cars will make you wait longer. This includes even those which are touted as being capable of receiving a “fast” charge in 15 minutes or so. Because you’ll have to wait for the car plugged-in ahead of you to “fast” charge.
This assumes you’re second in line. If you’re third . . .
Well, they’ll just install more places to plug in. It is not as easy as it sounds because of the problem in physics of two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time. To achieve the same capacity to charge as many electric cars as a gas station is capable of refueling in an hour, it would be necessary to at least quintuple the physical size of the charging station, to compensate for the quintupling of the time it takes to recharge each EV vs. the time it takes to refuel a non-electric car.
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At a gas station, a car occupies its spot at the pump for about five minutes; thus, in 15 minutes it is possible for a single pump to refuel five cars. But if it takes 15 minutes to recharge a single EV, it would take four more places to plug in – and the space for those additional four cars – to equal the throughput capability of the gas station’s single pump.
Well, they’ll figure out a way to reduce recharging time such that it’s about the same as the time it takes to gas up a non-electric car. The problem there is that the faster you recharge a battery, the more you reduce its life – and increase the odds of a fire.
There is a reason why you trickle charge batteries – if possible.
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It is usually not a problem – with lawn mower batteries and such – because you have the time to wait. But it’s a problem with electric car batteries, if you don’t like to wait. Unless you don’t mind risking a fire. Or reducing the useful life of the battery – which costs a great deal more to replace than a lawn mower battery.
These batteries – EV batteries – are also enormous, mainly because people expect an EV to duplicate (at least) the performance capabilities of a non-electric car. To do that requires about 1,000 pounds of batteries on average, which orders-of-magnitude increases the raw materials demand that goes into batteries, as well as the energy required to make the batteries, which are among the least renewable (in terms of what goes into making them) things on the market.
