Richard Yarrow’s opinion for www.startrescue.co.uk, providing low cost Vehicle Recovery cover.
Much of the discussion around electric vehicles (EVs) has been pretty basic in nature. It’s been based around the questions potential owners might ask, such as… How and where do I plug it in to charge? What’s the car’s range? Will my car breakdown cover me if I run out of juice? That’s fine up to a point, but with EVs actually now in showrooms for people to buy, the next generation of questions is beginning to emerge.
Most revolve around the charging infrastructure, specifically how different behaviours and developments of the technology will influence the solutions being worked on. Here are some examples. Will owners top-up at every opportunity because they fear a flat battery? Or will they do what many petrol and diesel drivers currently do and wait until they are very low? At that point will they charge fully or just do the EV equivalent of ‘splash and dash’?
It’s likely such behaviour will be influenced by the vehicle’s range; current thinking is shaped by first-generation EVs with the ability to cover about 100 miles. Because of that people are expected to charge pretty regularly. Once batteries allow of 200+ miles it’s likely that weekly rather than nightly charging may become more common.
All this matters because the answers determine where charging points will be installed so they’re most useful and most used. City dwellers are likely to be the early adopters of this technology, but they’re also less likely to have the opportunity to plug in when parked. That’s particularly true at home; when I lived in London some years ago the chances of getting a parking space in my road were about 50:50, let alone actually near my flat.
The key point from all this is that we are really only at the beginning of the EV motoring revolution, and the answers to these and other questions will become clearer when more and better models from the mainstream manufacturers start to arrive.
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