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Where Can You Find an Electric Vehicle Charging Network? Estonia
MatthewVD writes "How hard can it be to find an electric car charger? So hard that New York Times reporter David Broder had to drive in circles and drain his Tesla's battery. Charging infrastructure has been ultimate chicken or egg problem for electric cars adoption but finally, there's a good test case. In Estonia, drivers need to travel only 37 miles to reach a CHAdeMO quick charger. There are 165 of the direct current plug-in chargers, that can charge a car's lithium battery in 30 minutes for an average cost of $3.25. The question now is, will the electric vehicles follow?"
I just recently got back from the Netherlands and it amazed me how seriously they take charging points, they were everywhere. Along with high rise bicycle parks. I suppose when your country is mostly below sea level you take global warming and conservation as a proven fact. Simple countrywide risk management I suppose.
Sounds great on paper! Not so great when you consider that our electricity here in Estonia comes mostly from oil shale which means there is no environmental advantage to electric vehicles. So all of this in the end comes down to fuel cost - getting an electric vehicle only makes sense if you are rich enough to be buying a new car (most normal people over here buy 5-10 year old used one), but if you are rich you don't care how much fuel costs.
Honestly Estonia is one of the worst countries for this recharging network...
On the other hand all of this came from CO2 emission license thingy sales so it was almost free and we did not have an alternative anyway...
That's almost as big as West Virginia!
But 14 times the size of Rhode Island! More to the point, Estonia is many times bigger than many of our major metropolitan areas (including the surrounding suburbs), and with a population of 1.3M it has fewer people than many of them too. In the US electric car infrastructure should be concentrated in metropolitan areas.
Despite Tesla's desire to show their cars and the current infrastructure are suitable for interstate travel, most people are going to be interested in them for commuting and travel within their area. Even the quick charge stations are a lot slower than filling your car with gas. The "perfect time for a meal break" won't cut it if you're trying to make serious time. Most electric cars will probably be bought by people who can afford more than one car, or by somebody who's spouse/partner/[future-politically-correct-reference] has a conventional car (I'm seriously considering doing that when my car dies, which will be before my wife's). Ergo a charging infrastructure within a metropolitan area should be fine.I you're on I-80 in the middle of Wyoming, use petroleum distillates.
Rental cars might be a good market too. When I fly somewhere on business and rent a car, I rarely take it that far. Most few day business trips could easily be handled by a single charge. Maybe companies could call themselves green because they require their employees to rent electric cars.
Lastly government could play a role here (yes, I'm an evil statist). All those white strippo cars with "official government use only" signs could probably be electric, since they rarely make long trips. Best of all: those little local postal delivery trucks with the right-hand drive are a perfect candidate. They typically drive three doors down, stop the engine, deliver mail to a few houses, and start up again. I'd be surprised if the starters last more than six months. They also travel a short and well defined route every day.
As a Latvian, I have to say I respect what Estonians have done. They've managed to be the leaders or pioneers in certain things like electric vehicles or electronic voting. Nice social stability there and Estonians are generally doing well. Yes, the average income of ~800 EUR doesn't look too good by most Western country standards, but they're doing the best out of all ex-Soviet countries. Already in Eurozone, and fastest growing EU economy. With their small population and little in terms of natural resources, that is impressive.
It's a lot tougher to justify getting a lot of that stuff if the stuff you have is working fine.
Efficiency. The US don't care.
As for electronic everything, is that really desirable?
Fewer bureauc-rats.
We have most of that stuff available over the internet here as well, it's just not all that it's cracked up to be.
You're holding it wrong.
What's more, you're ignoring the fact that things like this don't scale very well
Yes, they do.
Look at China, as an example, the government is
corrupt and bureaucraticised, so
reforming their educational system, is probably going to take upwards from 40 years or more for it to really take effect as they have about 1/3 of the teachers and schools necessary to get the job done.
That's the point - to make them useful, but unnecessary.
What's more, you're talking about a country which has about half as many students as the US has total people.
So what? They have more students even relatively. Better ones too.
I know it's really popular to bad mouth the US, but try and exercise at least some common sense, will you.
It's not that it's popular. It's reasonable, justified and constructive.
Managing a tiny country like Estonia is several orders of magnitude easier than managing one the size of the US.
Especially when attempts are actually made. And it's easier when it's augmented by electronics. That's my point, dimwit. Do you know what the US have made all-electronic? Remote war crime.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.