Unfortunately a lot of them are unusable. There are a lot of federal incentives to install them but none to keep them functional. I can find ev charging stations but they are almost always rusted connectors or simply broken.
Once you open something up to the general public, they are going to ruin it almost instantly. Source: have worked in customer facing positions in the past.
Yeah people can treat public stuff like crap. However most of what I'm seeing is stuff that was made as low cost as possible and just can last more than 6 months outside without rusting the charge connector.
I don't believe that for a minute. I can pretty much pull off of any highway in America and there's a good chance there will be 1-3 gas stations to pull into. Whereas I'm lucky to find an EV station every 100 miles. Much less one in working order...
But that ignores the significant number of people that live in apartments and have no convenient access to a charger like homeowners do. If EVs are to become dominant, that problem needs to be addressed with a huge increase in EV chargers compared to what is available now
We don't have standardized batteries for a lot of electronics, different types of lipo, lead acid but they are swappable(not interchangeable) you understand. Doesn't mean never. But we need to start, innovation should not stagnant because people think it's never gonna become one single standardized option. Also that sounds like a monopoly
IMO, battery swaps are the wrong priority. To get them reasonably working you need standardized batteries and a way to identify wear on the battery to figure out the discount or extra charge (wouldn't be fair if I could swap a battery with 30% degradation for one that's brand new).
What we really need is more L2 or L1 chargers. They are a lot cheaper to install and for 90% of drivers they can deliver enough juice to get people where they need to be.
Put them in every office parking lot and grocery store lot and suddenly EVs become a lot more feasible as daily commuter vehicles (particularly for apartment dwellers).
Fast charging is only needed for long distance traveling.
wouldn't be fair if I could swap a battery with 30% degradation for one that's brand new
Would this matter if you never owned a battery to begin with? I assume degradation would affect your range, but in terms of 'fairness' I don't think it matters too much.
That's a good point, though in that particular case it's a matter of bureaucracy. I faced higher vehicle registration fees starting about seven years back when I bought my plug-in hybrid, which left me scratching my head, since if they wanted to encourage adoption, they wouldn't institute higher fees so early on in the adoption curve. There is clear opposition by vested interests that have nothing to do with the practicality of the technology itself. Still, given the realities, both bureaucratic and practical, I feel like plug-in hybrids are the best solution for now in most cases.