It’s Time To Demystify EV Charging – EQ Mag Pro
What can be done to help people relinquish their love of the gas nozzle and embrace the EV charging cable?
Why are so many people hesitant to switch to all-electric transportation? Many pundits insist it is because of range anxiety. However, another argument can be made that, rather than concern over the distance an EV can travel, it is the unfamiliarity of charging that is a barrier to greater EV adoption. Isn’t it time to demystify EV charging?
EVs have evolved from the emerging technologies “Innovators” phase to the “Early Adopters” phase and are now entering the “Beginning Mass Market” phase. Current EV drivers embrace lifetime cost savings, superior performance, and a smaller carbon footprint of their all-electric transportation.
Where did these EV owners start, though? For those of us who now drive an EV, what gave us the comfort to leave behind the internal combustion engines of our youth?
Like much technology, EVs require modeling — one person demonstrating to another person how the vehicle works. Many of us who are today’s EV drivers probably had the opportunity to get up-front-and-personal with an EV through being whisked along in a buddy’s all-electric sports car or at a community EV show-and-drive day.
Then our plunge into owning our first EV occurred. We started with a used second car that offered low range and which balanced the newness of electric transportation with less financial investment. A limited risk ownership helped us to gauge any adjustments we’d need to make to our daily lifestyles by driving an EV, like switching from filling up at a gas station to charging. We came to realize, as Statista confirms, that the average US driver travels about 26 miles a day — and that’s round trip. Somehow, people are under the impression that it’s much more.
So now we charge as needed as part of our daily routines.
We who drive an EV know that charging is easy, low cost, and convenient. Most of our EVs are plugged in at home — we recharge our cars for a couple hours after work or while we sleep. How long it takes us to charge depends on the charging equipment we’re using and the size of the car’s battery and its available charging capacity. Most of us like the clean convenience of a quick charge and have a 240-volt, Level 2 charger at our home.
Even for those of us who don’t have home charging capacity because we live in an apartment or condo, workplace and public chargers are now available to us in communities nationwide.
If EV charging is so simple, why is there such resistance to it? What can we do to demystify EV charging?
Forget Fueling — Charging is So Better in So Many Ways
Last century drivers have a mental map where fueling is preferred because it is familiar. It’s time to deconstruct that cultural norm and help the next generation of EV drivers to learn how much easier, safer, cleaner, and cheaper it is to re-energize with electricity.
Source: cleantechnica
