What is the ratio of the number of public Gasoline/Petoil pumps to passenger cars?

Example:- 1 public gas pump for every 1 gas powered passenger car. 

The uptake of Electric cars in the US is being limited by the small number of public charging points.

It is effectively the same situation as during the introduction of gasoline powered cars in the early 20th century.

But at that time many drivers carried can(s) of  gasoline with them, when they traveled long distances.

Those of us who owned a VW car from the 1960's, (which did not have a gas gauge), will remember having to use the "built in" reserve gas system, operated by a manual foot switch, when running out. 

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  • Example:- 1 public gas pump for every 1 gas powered passenger car. 

    The uptake of Electric cars in the US is being limited by the small number of public charging points.

    This statistic alone can provide no direct correlation, because of the differences in time taken to charge vs refill with liquid hydrocarbon based fuels.

    What is needed, is a more in-depth analysis taking into account behavioural factors such as:

     - time(s) of day when refuelling is needed (there are surely 'pinch points', perhaps based on the 'daily commute' or 'daily school run' which can both be addressed by home/on-street and workplace/on-street charging);

     - approximate time taken to refuel vs time taken to recharge

     - the fact that some people (because of usage pattern) don't use full tanks of fuel to reduce fuel consumption ... comparatively, the weight difference between a charged vs uncharged battery is about 40 ng/kWh (using Einstein's equation) - which equates to about 4 micrograms weight difference for a large (100 kWh) EV battery. (This means that charge time is the factor that influences whether the EV is to be fully recharged, not the increase in weight of the vehicle making it less efficient)

    etc.

  • In the introduction of any new technology there are early adopters followed (maybe) by large sales to the general population.

    Here in the US we have apparently reached the saturation point for EV cars by the early adopters, but the general population is not buying because of lack of public charging stations.

    I recently received a flyer from our Electric Company stating that they would install an EV charging station at my home, for an addition monthly charge.

    If this becomes an additional (optional) feature for all new homes, this could open the market for wider acceptance of EV cars in the US.

     Peter Brooks

    Palm Bay  

  • If this becomes an additional (optional) feature for all new homes

    It's already a building regs requirement in the UK for new homes to have an EV charge point.(if it has a parking space) -e.g. for England https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infrastructure-for-charging-electric-vehicles-approved-document-s

       - Andy.

  • Andy:-

    That's a real positive step! 

    However if I was going to have an EV charging point added to my residence it would nave to placed outside. at a reasonable distance from the house, due to fire concerns.

    Peter Brooks

    Palm Bay 

  • However if I was going to have an EV charging point added to my residence it would nave to placed outside. at a reasonable distance from the house, due to fire concerns.

    Do you keep a petrol or diesel car near your home?  They are notorious for catching fire, and contain large quantities of highly flammable liquid.

  • However if I was going to have an EV charging point added to my residence it would nave to placed outside. at a reasonable distance from the house

    Shouldn't be an issue - even if there's no suitable wall to fix the charge point to, most domestic ones can be post mounted. An armoured cable can be run along a wall or buried. I guess you have the typical US 2ø 100A@120V supply - so comparable to a UK 230V single phase 100A supply - so unless you have a high existing demand there should be the capacity there.

      - Andy.

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  • However if I was going to have an EV charging point added to my residence it would nave to placed outside. at a reasonable distance from the house

    Shouldn't be an issue - even if there's no suitable wall to fix the charge point to, most domestic ones can be post mounted. An armoured cable can be run along a wall or buried. I guess you have the typical US 2ø 100A@120V supply - so comparable to a UK 230V single phase 100A supply - so unless you have a high existing demand there should be the capacity there.

      - Andy.

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