I go by a Tesla charging station every day and see cars there for up to several hours. This seems like a waste of a huge chunk of your personal time so owning an electric vehicle sucks in that respect imo. What are people doing or can do that is productive during this wait time?
You’re completely wrong. A Tesla supercharger is a fast charger, so you usually don’t need to wait for more than half an hour to charge. And that’s something you’d only do when you go on a longer trip. If you charge at a level two charger, which does take a couple of hours, you don’t wait around. I usually change at work, i.e. I plug in when i get there in the morning, go to my office and get the car before going to lunch. Zero hassle.
Charging your car on public in no mans land is a weird american invention. In germany you can charge your car at home, at the grocery store and in the city. Its not perfect but its improving a lot imo. Obviously it depends on where you live too.
But the fact that people travel to their work place is another completely senseless idea. The absolute least I would want is sharing the load with the employer or work from home entirely.
The whole idea of traveling hours a day to go to work for a job literally 100 people closer to the employer could do is nuts, along with the idea that you need to work to eat.
OP never mentioned commuting to work you’re just on an unrelated tangent. And yes, believe it or not a lot of people have jobs that require making service calls or being on location.
I dont know why you need to be aggressive but I‘m not interested, thanks.
Driving to a job site for work that has to be done on site is obviously the exception but this exception is not reality for 99% of people who drive a tesla or an EV.
They charge to 80% quickly so I think anyone staying longer than about 25 minutes probably found something to do nearby such as eat at a restaurant or do some shopping. I think most people that own EVs do most of their charging at home so the only time they use chargers is on long trips and they plan their charging stop(s) to be when they’d already be needing to pee, stretch their legs, and maybe eat a quick meal.
I had the same thoughts as you before owning an EV. Now it’s just something I deal with. I rarely use fast charging, I mainly use destination charging (at home, at work, at the shopping center). When I do sit at a charging station, I just find myself doing all the stuff anyone does while waiting for something. I browse the internet, write a response on @[email protected], send some work emails. Mostly stuff I would do when I’m at home as well. I just enjoy the down time and time for myself.
I don’t see fast charging as a chore, it’s just something that you “undergo” just as you would while waiting at the doctor’s office. Is it enjoyable? Not always, but it’s never a pain either. Do I hate it? No.
Several hours? Those people are parked and charging their car while they are doing something else. It takes about 15 minutes to get 200 miles of range at a Tesla charging station. People sitting in their cars, waiting will be there for far shorter periods of time.
A vast majority of charging also takes place at the drivers destination (such as the drivers home), saving on the time it takes to go to a gas station to refuel (not to mention the time saved from not needing oil changes, smog checks, etc).
As for what to do while waiting, I’ll either use the time to grab snack, go to the bathroom, or watch something on on of the streaming services available from the console.
I have a theory that some people just buy Teslas and sit at these charging stations as a way of what they think is showing off.
My car gets about 250 miles on a charge, so I’m only ever at a public charger if I’m taking a trip longer than that. At that point my day is pretty much fucked by traveling, and it’s actually really nice get off the road for an hour. Usually I find a nearby coffee shop and work on the same stuff I would at home, and when I get back on the road I can feel that I’m alert and focused.
I feel like everyone’s missing the point. Even 20 minutes a week is almost a day a year of your life sitting at a charger. I fill up my gas tank once a week and it takes maybe 5 minutes which is 4 hours a year that I spend feeding my car, staring at the stupid advertisements for a bacon-egg-and-cheese cinnamon roll covered in maple syrup or whatever other impulse items lie within the gas station. 5 minutes isn’t enough to do anything whereas if I plan for 20 minutes, I’m going to go get a tea or something.
On the other hand, something we can all agree is a waste of time is, “how many hours of your life have been/will be spent sitting at a traffic light?”
I have a Nissan leaf and installed a level 2 outlet at my house to avoid this.
It charges overnight so I wake up and drive to work with a full battery.
Since I usually use it to commute it’s perfect. I have had to use chadmo stations (level 3 and slower than Tesla stations) when on longer trips. That takes about 45 minutes to fully charge? Usually I just top up so I can get home if my range is a bit short.
Some of the newer EVs can use super fast charging stations and fully charge in under 20 mins but those stations are rare. I think to get widespread adoption we would need cars that can hyper charge (or whatever it’s called) and those chargers to be all over.
