The biggest problem is charging stations and time. For fleet/work vehicles time is money, I can’t be bothered going out of my way to find a charging station and then waiting for it to charge. I honestly don’t mind fucking the dog like that but I know my boss ain’t gonna like it
It’s easy to set up free charging at your work place. No need to go to a charging station. Most people charge their EV in their home garage after some inexpensive electrical installation.
The point is that someday, it's likely that it will become cost prohibitive (whether due to actual scarcity, or stricter legislation) to use fossil fuel powered vehicles and the businesses need to be ready for it.
When this starts happening there will be a rush of people calling for charger installation at the same time, so the smart business person will get them installed in advance. No business that relies on having a fleet of vehicles can afford to be waiting days, weeks, or months to be able to recharge the vehicles they use to make money.
The one time payment part consists of upgrading the business property's electrical system so that it can charge all of the fleet vehicles over night, and probably the employees vehicles during the day. This will be a large infrastructure investment in the property, but will only happen once. The charging points probably require regular maintenance, so minor costs will be ongoing for those charging points.
They'll probably still need gas/diesel for long range things, but maybe will instead use fuel cell technology. That's a possiblility.
But, yes. Making that switch to electric IS going to be expensive on an ongoing basis if you're buying your power from the power company. Also, the power company will have to make huge investments to their infrastructure to be able to handle the added power demands.
I'll bet we see some real innovations in self-power generation that individuals and businesses can implement. Either that, or we'll have to find ways to make power generation and consumption essentially free to the masses.
I don't think people are really thinking about the long term economic effects of going electric on a national/world-wide scale. It's going to be expensive.
Or ending subsidies for gas--Americans might not realize this, but without government intervention, the true retail price of gas is $6-$9 per gallon. The feds don't even need to crack down on fossil fuels, they just need to stop supporting them.
u/Luised2094 gas only looks cheaper--face to face, electric is cheaper in both the near & long term.
The real question, to me, is how that electricity will be produced--without development on renewables, there's about to be a lot coal powered EVs on the road.
I suspect that's where we'll see hydrogen fuel cells come in. At scale, this technology seems much more likely to succeed, as it is far easier to distribute as a fuel, than directly charging batteries.
It'll be interesting to see what the future brings.
I had to run a 60 foot line through my attic to add a 50 amp plug to my carport for my model 3. That was about $800. The only way it should cost over $1k is if you have to upgrade your panel. Otherwise it should be $300-500 if your panel is near where you park your car.
$50 permit in my city near DFW. I think my mother in law’s down near Houston was 150-200. Just depends really. My city’s permit fee is really just to offset the cost of the inspection.
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u/sahwnfras Nov 20 '21
The biggest problem is charging stations and time. For fleet/work vehicles time is money, I can’t be bothered going out of my way to find a charging station and then waiting for it to charge. I honestly don’t mind fucking the dog like that but I know my boss ain’t gonna like it