EV Road Trip Blues: Why Charging Station Buildout Lags Behind Electric Car Adoption

Intrepid owners of gas-powered automobiles at the turn of the 20th century had to overcome numerous obstacles to enjoy their new-found passion: Arcane safety laws made with horses in mind, barely-there roads, and no reliable fueling infrastructure. But the horseless carriage caught on anyway, and eventually, the legal world and the tech of the time caught up, with filling stations proliferating after the first one opened in Pennsylvania in December of 1913.

Prior to that bold stroke of convenience, drivers had to source cans of the precious juice from places like pharmacies and any other small business that had decided to go into the nascent gasoline trade. There wasn’t a Texaco on every corner, although that paradigm wasn’t far off, thanks to Henry Ford, other automakers and fast-growing oil companies. Soon enough, gas stations dotted the nations of the world.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that with over a hundred years of gas stations in hindsight and a robust electrical infrastructure already in place, there must be a sprawling network of charging stations for the new intrepid owners of electric cars that are quickly selling in the U.S. and elsewhere. There should be, but there isn’t.

There are many reasons for this but it’s also important to understand how different an electrical fueling system is from a liquid-fuel-based mobility infrastructure.

The first major differentiator is where you can refuel an electric car versus a gas-powered vehicle. Because there isn’t a significant EV charging infrastructure at this time, most electric cars are either sold with or can be optioned with a home charger. These can range from high-speed, high-voltage systems that require professional installation (similar to installing a high-voltage appliance, like an electric oven or water heater) and can recharge the battery quickly, to a simple charger that plugs into a regular wall outlet. Slower, but ultimately convenient.

But when it’s time to drive beyond the ever-expanding range of an electric car, juicing back up quickly and easily is essential, and it’s here where, so far, the EV recharging system still falls short, at least in the United States and many other developed countries. What needs to happen to close the charging gap?

Source: forbes