Charging stations for Electric Vehicles

1. Priority is charging near home

Obviously, no-one will buy an Electric Vehicle (EV) if he cannot charge it. And no-one will drive miles away to a remote charging station and wait for hours for his EV to charge.

Charging plugs at the workplace may be useful on weekdays, but they are useless during week-ends and for those who commute on public transport. While a minority of people have a garage or a charging plug available at their office, the majority will need to charge on public space next to their home.

Also, it is best that EVs charge at night (i.e. near home) in order to use off-peak electricity, which is often largely produced with CO2-free electricity (such as wind turbines and nuclear). This would allow slow-charging EVs without having to reinforce electricity networks, while optimizing EVs CO2 footprint. Slow-charging is more than sufficient for charging overnight.

Therefore, governments should first concentrate on making it possible for EV drivers to slow-charge at night close to where they live. Two options are possible:

• Either EV buyers are permitted to install a charging plug on the curbside next to their home and reserve the nearby parking space for their EVs,
   
• Or EV buyers are entitled to require the installation of a public slow-charging station close to their home. It could simply take the form of a charging pole on the curbside next to a parking space reserved for EVs.

We also suggest that in a first stage, the electricity is delivered free of charge and only available off electricity peak hours. This would be an additional incentive to EV buyers and would save the expense of installing expensive pay stations - while using cheap off-peak electricity. In a second stage, when EVs become more numerous and international standards are well defined for pay stations, it will be worth replacing free charging poles with pay stations.

2. Charging stations on open roads are for the future

With current battery technologies and cost, most BEVs have rather low driving range and slow charging speed. BEVs will not be used for making long trip because even if enough public charging stations are widely available, no-one will wait hours for his BEV to charge during long trips.

Therefore, the use of BEVs is currently limited to daily commuting and other short distances (80% of the mileage driven by cars), for which night-charging near home is sufficient: charging stations on open roads and freeways are not yet usefull. For longer distances, Extended-Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs) are still the most sustainable option.

However, when batteries will be capable of charging in less than 15 min, BEVs will be able to compete with EREVs and ICVs over long distances. Only then will it be worth installing fast charging stations on freeways and open roads, for instance in petrol stations. However, Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs) may then become a better option.

3. Plug standardization should be limited to fast charging plugs

BEV's low driving range is a drawback that is somewhat compensated by the fact that all current BEVs can be charged on any standard power plug. This advantage is significant considering there are about one million times more power plugs than petrol stations.

While standardizing fast charging plugs is a good idea, EV owners should keep this possibility of charging their car wherever they are on a local domestic power plug - whether in their garage, at friends place, in a restaurant parking...

Therefore, it is essential to limit standardization to fast charging plugs and keep using local domestic plugs for slow charging.

4. Charging cables should be coiled inside the vehicle

When charging an EV on public space, the charging cable may become a hazard for pedestrians if long cables hang on the pavement. Only the minimum length of cable required for connecting the vehicle to the plug should be pulled out of the vehicle.

It is therefore advisable that the car end of the charging cable should remained inside of the car, preferably coiled in a spring-loaded coiler, allowing to only remove the lenghth of cable needed out of the car.