this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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This has been my experience, and really the right way. As an EV owner, I don't need to charge most of the time and I should be willing to walk further if I really want to charge away from home.
Of course, in general EV is great when you can charge at home. Not so great if you can't do that. Other than at a house, I only ever charge at work, and then only because work offers it for free.
That's it. I almost only charge at home. Never at work, never at the shops. I can imagine people who can't charge at home will want work carpark charging
On my Christmas/new year holiday I drove 1200km away, 600km a day two days there two back.
The charge stops were three a day, each 10 or 15 minutes, though we could generally have skipped the one after lunch since the time to order, get, and eat lunch meant getting a full charge, and the car has something like 400km range on the highway, though only 350 on the freeway/motorway.
One thing I found on that drive is that the charging network is mostly in the small towns (I guess that's because they can get competition between neighbouring towns to get the best deal on land leasing) and the chargers are always either near the town centre, or next to a park. One is behind the roadhouse restaurant near the motorway services - behind the staff parking, general parking is in front of the restaurant
On the night between the two halves of the trip each way we stayed in a motel, and they give EV drivers a parking spot with a power point 10A x 240V so I could get about 80% full over night, which is enough for the next day's first drive. Calling them out since they're good: Goldfields motor inn, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
DC charging is fine for the occasional road trip, but I would absolutely hate it if that were my everyday charging solution.
Home charging is fantastic, but without it, I'd find an EV impractical for day to day. With it, it's hands down better than dealing with a gas car.
Shopping centres and work parking charges tend to be slow chargers
Which at my work, is fine. 3 hours of work charging gets me about 60 miles of range replenished. I am at work that long so it's fine.
For 99.9% of my trips to a shopping center, it wouldn't be worth the trouble to plug in.