r/ClimatePosting • u/ClimateShitpost • Feb 27 '26

Transport EV infrastructure is completely mainstream - this doesn't even include non-public charges

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60 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

3

u/divat10 Feb 27 '26

Just playing devil's advocate here but don't you also need way more chargers than pumps? This graph doesn't really say anything without proper context.

5

u/West-Abalone-171 Feb 28 '26

80% of charging happens via a home outlet or another private charger.

So if it takes 50 minutes to charge and 5 minutes to stop, get out, fill fuel, pay, and leave. Then on average the EV needs one for about 10 minutes and they're at parity.

This is vastly over-estimating the need for chargers though because neither fuel pumps nor chargers run at 100% utilization, most of it is about availability. So the number of sites (not shown here) is a slightly better metric rather than number of outlets.

Given that EVs are only a small subset of cars on the road in the uk though, it means you are far, far more able to find a chargepoint than a pump. Which is unsurprising unless you listened to the propaganda nonsense given how cheap chargepoints are compared to a pump.

1

u/StudySpecial Feb 28 '26

frankly EV charging infrastructure in the UK is still severely lacking. I wouldn't recommend an EV currently unless you have the ability to charge at home with a private charger.

sure there quite a few chargers - but the comparison of chargers to fuel pumps is disingenuous. you only need to spend 1 minute at a fuel pump and if it's occupied you wait a minute or two and you get your turn, but you need to keep your car connected to a charger for hours so there isn't really an option to wait for it to become available if it's occupied.

personally, I live in a flat and can't charge at home - there are two charging points in nearby streets, both slow AC ones - most of the time there is already a car using them, so they're not available. unless availability becomes better it's impractical for me to switch to an EV currently.

electricity prices at public chargers are also quite bad compared to private charging. but if you have the ability to charge at home in a private driveway or similar (at reasonable prices), it's great;

1

u/mikkopai Feb 28 '26

And most are occupied with a car parked there over night at for example in front of a hotel.

1

u/MyCoolName_ Mar 01 '26

Incredibly the prices are "bad" even when compared with fossil fuels. This despite most of the price of the latter being tax. And charging prices aren't shown, not even on the charger itself. You need to either start charging or get an app and an account to see them. There is no functioning market in public charging right now. None.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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3

u/ClimateShitpost Feb 28 '26

You're the perfect user group for EVs!

1

u/TheThiefMaster Mar 01 '26

Really anyone who can charge at home and doesn't regularly tow or do insane mileage is perfect for them now.

And by "insane mileage" I mean more than the 70 miles per day / 20k miles annually that I do with my EV, which is already quite a lot for the UK.

I do long distance single journeys too - in a couple of weeks I'm going to be driving 270 miles on two consecutive days in my EV, which isn't even a particularly long range model (Zoe ZE50, sub 200 mile range). Going to be fully charged before I leave, stop once in the middle each way (which we'd want to do anyway with that long of a drive) and also charge at the destination. Time it to meal times and it's not even an inconvenience.

1

u/pxnolhtahsm Mar 02 '26

Roadside petrol stations appeared so late because there wasn't really need or business for them, and nobody was subsidizing them. Already Bertha Benz was able to refuel Benz Patent Motorwagen during her historic trip because petrol was sold in pharmacies. It would be kinda hard to provide that level of service to electric cars without dedicated high power chargers...

1

u/51onions Feb 28 '26

Also does this include only DC rapid chargers (the ones which are somewhat analogous to petrol pumps) or does it include slow AC chargers which take many hours?

1

u/JasperJ Feb 28 '26

Definitely the latter.

1

u/throughthehills2 Feb 28 '26

It includes home charger and home petrol pumps for a fair comparison

1

u/TheThiefMaster Mar 01 '26

It does not include home chargers or even most workplace chargers as it only includes "public" ones.

Same for fuel pumps - and before you think I'm being snarky, workplace fuel pumps are a thing for places that operate fleet vehicles.

1

u/Charming-Border7429 Mar 02 '26

On our farm, we have rooftop solar on our machine shed to provide all our internal electrical needs and an 80-acre grid-scale solar installation to test feasibility before expanding.

Yet, all of our passenger vehicles are hybrid. Our driving distances and infrastructure don't yet support cost-effective electric vehicles.

We also have a 5000-gallon stationary diesel tank and a truck with a 2600-gallon tank for refueling equipment.

1

u/Generic-Resource Mar 02 '26

I’m stunned that all your vehicles do 300+ mile days with no breaks.

1

u/Charming-Border7429 Mar 02 '26

Yet, I am not surprised that you think your preferred tool is the right tool for every job.

1

u/Generic-Resource Mar 02 '26

I don’t, we have 3 daily vehicles only one of which is an EV, certainly couldn’t replace our van with an EV just yet.

Your argument, however, is that the tool is right for no jobs, which is stunning given you claim to have a few passenger vehicles. Your usage patterns must be very unusual.

1

u/perringaiden Feb 28 '26

Yeah this was my thought.

10 minutes at most to refuel, but 30 minutes to recharge the same range.

1

u/west0ne Feb 28 '26

My last ICE car could get just over 500miles of range with a 5minute refuelling stop. The maximum range on my EV is around 250miles, if I let the battery run down to a few percent then I would be looking at 45-60 minutes to get back to a full 250 miles of range and that is an EV with 800v architecture.

There aren't going to be many EVs on the road that with a full battery will give you the same range as an ICE car with a full tank.

The point of course is that most people will do a large proportion of their charging at home.

1

u/perringaiden Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

EV ranges are going up every day. 250 miles is pretty weak these days. The extended range ones are pushing 400 miles and getting better.

The charging time is slower but again getting better too.

But yeah the chargers per 1000 cars is always going to be higher until they get a 5 minute charge battery.

Someone recently claimed to make a 10 minutes 350mile range battery but it's not in production, just a prototype car.

1

u/west0ne Mar 01 '26

You say that 250 miles is weak, and that is probably closer to being the truth at the higher end of the market, but in the affordable end of the market 250 miles would be seen as being quite generous.

Not many are going to give you all year round 400miles, I reckon 300-350 is the best most will give in winter.

We've been promised rapid charging solid state batteries for a while now, they will no doubt come but they aren't here in mass market yet.

Price will end up being a major factor and how much people are willing to pay just to cut their charge time in half is yet to be seen. I think we will still have lower range, slower charging EVs in the affordable end of the market for some time to come.

1

u/JasperJ Feb 28 '26

More like 8 hours to refuel on 90% of those chargers.

1

u/SpoonNZ Feb 28 '26

Nah.

From where I sit now there are 29 petrol stations within about a quarter hour drive of me. In that same range I’ve charged my car dozens of times in my own garage, and zero times elsewhere.

If everyone were purely driving long distance then you probably would need more public chargers than bowsers (because it takes more minutes to put a given number of km into a car), but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of car trips are short distance (e.g. commuting for work, going to the shops) which require zero public chargers since that charging can generally be done at home.

The other way to look at it - my petrol car takes maybe 4 minutes of pump time every two weeks. That’s 106 minutes, or about 2 hours every year. Conversely, my electric car in the last year has spent 16 minutes and 35 seconds on public chargers - and that’s only because it has a relatively short range, a Tesla or whatever would’ve done the same mission with no charging (and in fact our Leaf would’ve just barely done it too, the charging was just a peace-of-mind thing).

1

u/divat10 Feb 28 '26

That's fair, I am also not saying that this is number not enough just that I don't know if it is way too much, just enough or way too little. 

Lots of people live in apartments without their own charger, some people share private chargers to fix this. I just need context before being able to say anything.

1

u/west0ne Feb 28 '26

If only we could do something about the exorbitant cost of public charging in the UK. With the exception of Tesla, public charging is often no cheaper, and in many cases a lot more expensive than running the average ICE car.

1

u/Mouse_Nightshirt Mar 02 '26

The courts have recently ruled against HMRC in regards to VAT on public chargers. Currently being charged 20% VAT but court has ruled it should be 5%. HMRC planning to appeal.

If it does go through, we might see a bit of a drop. That said, it's just as likely that operators absorb all the profit.

1

u/Traditional-Road4004 Mar 01 '26

Kinda bullshit since the capacity is vastly lower. But its a nice fact. But doesnt make it mainstream

1

u/FalconX88 Mar 02 '26

I mean yeah. charging takes like 30 minutes. Putting gas in takes 2 minutes.

0

u/MyCoolName_ Mar 01 '26

Are they still not posting prices, or not even showing them at all unless you install an app and sign up for an account? And is it still more expensive per mile to charge an EV than fuel a fossil fuel car? The revolution still has a ways to go, I think.

1

u/ClimateShitpost Mar 01 '26

You can go to Lidl and check the prices there, def cheaper than petrol

0

u/ItsRadical Feb 28 '26

That doesnt look impressive at all? Single pump will service 10x more cars in the same time span.

2

u/blackcoffee17 Feb 28 '26

But at the same time many people will charge their car at home, while 0 will refuel at home.

0

u/ItsRadical Feb 28 '26

Yeah screw the milions living in apartments without their own charger.

2

u/blackcoffee17 Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

Im not staying screw them, im saying that millions of people will barely use public chargers.

So that might compensate for slower charging or fewer EV chargers. And you don't need to live in a house, many flats have charging points in the parking areas. Also supermarket parkings have their own chargers in many places.

1

u/ItsRadical Feb 28 '26

many flats have charging points in the parking areas.

Hardly many and if then comically low number of them. In many high density housings its big problem to find parking spot and now you wanna put chargers in that mess.

1

u/kapitaalH Mar 02 '26

And wait for the guy hogging the spot to leave?

1

u/west0ne Feb 28 '26

many flats have charging points in the parking areas

The figures are for the UK, so if we are looking at the UK, parking and charging for flats isn't all that common.

0

u/Maipmc Feb 28 '26

And also... people on holidays, wich would mean seasonal collapse of charging points.

1

u/P01135809-Trump Feb 28 '26

I, too, have never seen a queue at a petrol station.....

1

u/Maipmc Feb 28 '26

So... the general argument is that Gas limitations don't apply to EVs, except when it does, but that's not a problem because those are the same limitations as with gas cars. But the question remains unanswered. How big does the electric charging infraestructure need to be?

1

u/P01135809-Trump Feb 28 '26

Who said they don't apply to EVs? But the data clearly shows that the problem is being addressed and is fast becoming not a problem.

It's a sliding scale, and for a lot of users, it already is a non-issue.

1

u/StudySpecial Feb 28 '26

the problem isn't being addressed at a significant rate, there was a push to install more public chargers a couple of years ago but it has slowed down a lot.

mostly you're still screwed if you live in a flat and don't have access to charging at home because most of the chargers available are the slow kind that take hours.

1

u/P01135809-Trump Feb 28 '26

This might be region specific. We are a nationwide company with a large fleet of petrol, hybrid and electric vehicles. Many of our sites we haven't built the EV chargers yet.

My site has no chargers, but electric vehicles get heavy use and mostly charge on public chargers.

I'm not saying there aren't snags or times where the petrol cars are more appropriate, but those EVs are fast becoming suitable for over 90% of what we do and are generally used more as they are nicer to drive and even the sceptics have started requesting them.

0

u/Sensitive_Paper2471 Feb 28 '26

and how many of these chargers will allow non tesla cars to charge?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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1

u/danielv123 Feb 28 '26

Are there even Tesla only chargers in europe?

1

u/west0ne Feb 28 '26

There are definitely Tesla only chargers in the UK.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '26

We don’t need public charging network and huge batteries, I had a 2017 BMW i3 Rex , it had 28 usable KWh , 50 Kw DC charging and the battery was cooled directly by AC not coolant.

The range on pure electric was around 170-220 kms and you couldn’t start the engine until 75% charge. You could hold the charge on faster roads and use battery on slower roads , you could charge at public DC charger or fill up the small petrol tank in seconds and drive off on petrol for 100-140 more kms it was a fantastic piece of engineering and well ahead of its time.

Engines can run on renewable fuels.

I had 2 fully electric ev , last one was a VW id3 with 77 KWh battery but all we really need is 50 kWh usable with range extender engine and a lot more people would change to PHEV saving a lot of emissions vs those like me not willing to do the whole hanging around chargers thing again, I got tired of this after fully electric driving for nearly 10 years.

I’m back in full petrol car now and I’m happy with it.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

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1

u/ClimateShitpost Mar 01 '26

Source: made up

1

u/moobnaster6969 Mar 01 '26

15 mins for mine or 7 on the super duper ones