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They gave us "choice of provider" here in PA a number of years ago. You could choose which power company you wanted to buy your electricity from. I don't know what they expected from this. You'd have to be dumb to not pick the lowest priced power, right? Well, if everyone picks that provider, and they don't have the capacity to generate all that power, they buy it from other providers.They have to. Those companies haven't gone away.
There is no free lunch, and the demand of charging EV's that are not "on the grid" right now will be new demand/strain on the grid that's not there right now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/science/in-california-electric-cars-outpace-plugs-and-sparks-fly.html?hpw&rref=automobiles&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
http://www.autonews.com/article/20151101/OEM06/311039999/u-k-scientists-create-battery-that-may-dramatically-boost-range-of
I like my mobility man
It if takes 3 hours of charging to get 500 miles of range then we might be cooking with Crisco, carnuts. The closer ta $25,000 the price the better, too. This might take another 15 years to achieve, I think.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Hop on an Interstate and go 8 hours at 75mph and there's 600 miles. Toss in three hours for your fuel and the car's fuel and a couple of driver swaps, and you've just done a full day of driving in just 11 hours. Long days but people do 'em, and often do 'em solo.
Besides these are "normal" people we're talking about, driving normal EVs in a normal routine. Forget cross country marathons, towing boats, etc. Not going to happen with an EV anytime soon.
The EV range really needs to get over 300, or the recharge/swap needs to be as fast as pumping gas. Maybe 400 miles is the happy medium, but I think 500 really would be the magic number.
Right now EVs might recharge at a rate of 6 hours for 250 miles of range or 21,600 seconds/250 miles or 86.4 seconds per range-mile. Fine for daily driving but inadequate for cross-country.
I don't see an issue with people doing home-charging for daily use and then utilizing a battery-swap service for cross-country driving. The first gives convenience and the second allows for unlimited range. To achieve a battery swap infrastructure, though, the batteries will have to be standardized and warranted.
Alternatively or in conjunction with the swap, manufacturers should work on ways to get the 86.4 seconds / range-mile down. I'd think that 5 seconds per would be a good target for mass acceptance.