Maybe you plug in at 40% so that’s a 10 minute charge.
We’re also seeing more and more EV chargers in shopping centre car parks, so in a few places you can park, plug in, do your shopping, and come out to a car full of beans.
And the added competition for AI data centers on electrical grids are also going to decentivise people from buying electric cars and paying higher energy prices to charge their car.
Isn’t this a greater incentive for solar? Do you not get paid for exporting power to the grid?
As far as I know, there are no incentives for people to add solar to the grid. In fact, many power companies are making it more difficult for people to do exactly that.
And yes, I understand. My argument is very basic and outdated and I don’t own an EV. I have no idea what the actual charge are for modern cars.
I will tell you that even 20 minutes for an American is unacceptable. The availability of fast chargers in the US is also pretty bad. I understand it’s been getting better, but it really varies what states you live in and they build out their local infrastructure.
Here’s what it actually takes to charge car in the US and popular 2025 models noticed that none of them are 10 to 80% percent in 40 minutes. Considering the most charging infrastructure in the US is level one a.k.a. slow charge. There’s no way you’re getting a fast charge if it’s not available in your area or too expensive.
Level 2 charging operates at a higher rate than Level 1. In residential applications, this type of charging requires a 240-volt outlet
With this type of charging, you can charge an electric vehicle to 80% from empty in 4-10 hours. With a PHEV, Level 2 charging can take up to 2 hours.
Level 1 and 2 charging is for your home, there’s level 1 granny charger which is basically a regular power point into an adapter (like a laptop charger) which gets around 2.2kw, level 2 requires a level 2 charger to be installed in your house (usually in the garage or driveway) which takes the charging speed up to 7kW (single-phase) and 22kW (three-phase) but I believe most American homes are single phase.
Then you go into proper EV fast chargers (level 3) that are outside:
If you’re charging at home generally it’s overnight while you’re asleep or during the day from solar when you don’t need to drive (like on the weekend) or if you do need to drive you take it out and come back and plug it in so there’s no real issue there.
Here is a map of how many level three fast chargers are available in each US state.
Let’s use Texas as an example here. There are 243 fast chargers in an area of 695,662km2. That’s 1 charger for every 2862 km2. Not great coverage.
That’s not nearly so helpful so let’s take a look at the distribution with each state:
You can see that most of these EV stations are located around larger metropolitan areas. If you live outside of those areas, electric cars are not really, very useful. That graphic, even though this is from 2022 that the metric is there a three times more gas stations, per capita than there are chargers.
Here is just Teslas Supercharger network. Noticed that it’s much smaller and only really works for Teslas.
Here is the map showing which of these locations allow for non-Tesla partners electric vehicle charging. There are less sites that I allow you to charge a non-Tesla vehicle.
And here is the map for others that are not partners and not part of Tesla supercharger network. There are even fewer sites that allow other cars to use the supercharger network.
So all of this is great if you own a Tesla, but if you don’t, there’s competing standards and EV Charging stations may not be compatible with your car.
How I know you don’t have an EV :P
EV’s aren’t petrol cars so you don’t run them down to 1% battery life and then charge them up from 1% to 100%
Modern EV’s charge fairly quickly:
https://www.hyundai.com/au/en/cars/eco/ioniq5
Maybe you plug in at 40% so that’s a 10 minute charge.
We’re also seeing more and more EV chargers in shopping centre car parks, so in a few places you can park, plug in, do your shopping, and come out to a car full of beans.
Isn’t this a greater incentive for solar? Do you not get paid for exporting power to the grid?
As far as I know, there are no incentives for people to add solar to the grid. In fact, many power companies are making it more difficult for people to do exactly that.
And yes, I understand. My argument is very basic and outdated and I don’t own an EV. I have no idea what the actual charge are for modern cars.
I will tell you that even 20 minutes for an American is unacceptable. The availability of fast chargers in the US is also pretty bad. I understand it’s been getting better, but it really varies what states you live in and they build out their local infrastructure.
Here’s what it actually takes to charge car in the US and popular 2025 models noticed that none of them are 10 to 80% percent in 40 minutes. Considering the most charging infrastructure in the US is level one a.k.a. slow charge. There’s no way you’re getting a fast charge if it’s not available in your area or too expensive.
No where near 20- 40 minutes.
Avg Charge time in US: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/ev-charging-time
You’re close but slightly off
Level 1 and 2 charging is for your home, there’s level 1 granny charger which is basically a regular power point into an adapter (like a laptop charger) which gets around 2.2kw, level 2 requires a level 2 charger to be installed in your house (usually in the garage or driveway) which takes the charging speed up to 7kW (single-phase) and 22kW (three-phase) but I believe most American homes are single phase.
Then you go into proper EV fast chargers (level 3) that are outside:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger
This is where you get your <20 minute charges
If you’re charging at home generally it’s overnight while you’re asleep or during the day from solar when you don’t need to drive (like on the weekend) or if you do need to drive you take it out and come back and plug it in so there’s no real issue there.
Here is a map of how many level three fast chargers are available in each US state.
Let’s use Texas as an example here. There are 243 fast chargers in an area of 695,662km2. That’s 1 charger for every 2862 km2. Not great coverage.
That’s not nearly so helpful so let’s take a look at the distribution with each state:
You can see that most of these EV stations are located around larger metropolitan areas. If you live outside of those areas, electric cars are not really, very useful. That graphic, even though this is from 2022 that the metric is there a three times more gas stations, per capita than there are chargers.
Here is just Teslas Supercharger network. Noticed that it’s much smaller and only really works for Teslas.
Here is the map showing which of these locations allow for non-Tesla partners electric vehicle charging. There are less sites that I allow you to charge a non-Tesla vehicle.
And here is the map for others that are not partners and not part of Tesla supercharger network. There are even fewer sites that allow other cars to use the supercharger network.
So all of this is great if you own a Tesla, but if you don’t, there’s competing standards and EV Charging stations may not be compatible with your car.
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