I fill up at my house overnight (In the United States, the majority of housing units are single-family houses – about 82 million out of the total 129 million occupied units in 2021 [1]), or at my grocery store in 20 min while shopping (250kw Supercharger). This is very convenient! I have a CCS adapter if I need to use an Electrify America station but have yet to use it.
In ~100k miles of US cross country traveling over the last five years, the only place I could not charge fast was middle of nowhere southeast Missouri, and there is a Supercharger there now [2] [3]. The city did let me plug into a dryer outlet to charge for free at the time, thank you Cape Girardeau! My gym has a free destination charger, as does my local brewery and airport parking. I no longer carry a 100ft 120V extension cord in my frunk, which I had to do in 2018.
Yes, we still have much to do to expand EV charging infra, but it’s not an unknown, it’s just more work. Street parking? Street charging [4]. Renters? Mandated EV charging spot quotas with funding for the infra. Workplace charging is important as well. You can even install EV chargers directly on electric poles and tap into the above power lines [5]. Where there is power, there is EV fuel, and what chargers you install where will be the intersection of dwell time and current needed.
If it’s about convenience, EVs win. It’s always at a full charge in your drive way in the morning. In the event of an emergency you can get 50 miles in the “tank” in 5 minutes at a supercharger, which are almost everywhere now.
For example, the management company that manages the apartment building where I rent my apartment has sent out a newsletter that they will convert 2000 parking places in their properties by 2025 with the following caveats:
- except where infrastructure doesn't support it
- except where there's not enough power to draw from the building
- except where it's prohibitively expensive to build the infrastructure
They manage 395 buildings with a total of 20 000 apartments.
Funny how "it's easy and convenient" is actually never easy or convenient.
You can fill up on gas at any street corner in minutes