EV Charging vs. Refueling: Fair Comparison or False Equivalency?
[Jan. 14, 2020]
One of the most persistent criticisms of battery electric vehicles is charging time. If refueling time is your only measure of equivalency, there’s no question that BEVs fall short of their internal-combustion peers – but is this truly a fair comparison?
The answer is, “it depends,” although this seemingly slippery answer is probably going to upset both the BEV true believers and ICE supporters. But truly, it is dependent on the situation and use case. Hear me out...
If you’re a homeowner with either the preexisting wiring or means to install a conveniently located 240V outlet, refueling is simply a matter of plugging in overnight and waking up to a full charge. For those without such a luxury, charging can be a frantic scavenger hunt for public charging stations.
For those who drive a conventional internal-combustion vehicle, refueling is a matter of finding one of the more than 160,000 retail gas stations across the country, and in less than 10 minutes, vehicles go from empty to full. With current publicly available technology, the fastest EV “fast chargers” take about 30 minutes. Swiss industrial giant ABB introduced its Terra HP high-power charger in 2018, with a claimed charging rate of 120 miles in as little as eight minutes. The latest V3 Tesla Superchargers are capable of adding as much as 75 miles in five minutes.
ABB’s Terra HP high-power chargers boast a claimed charging rate of 120 miles in as little as eight minutes. (Image courtesy ABB.)
As impressive as these statistics are, they’re still significantly slower than filling the tank with unleaded or diesel fuel, which could give you as many as 500+ miles of range in the process.
Although I have used superchargers several times on road trips, that’s generally the only time I use the Tesla-specific DC chargers. I am fortunate enough to own a single-family dwelling, and I paid approximately $300 for an electrician to install a 240V/30A plug in my garage for home Level 2 charging. The week and a half that I owned my Model 3 without L2 charging at home, I gained a newfound sympathy for those limited to standard household outlets – not to mention those lacking any home charging availability.
The U.S. has had more than a century to build out its fueling infrastructure for traditional internal-combustion vehicles. In a comparatively short period of time, the EV charging infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada has built out to an estimated 28,000+ charging locations and nearly 86,000 outlets. That total includes both AC Level 2 charging and DC Level 3 charging. If you filter out DC charging stations individually, which from a time equivalency perspective are the closest to traditional gas stations, the ratio is far less favorable, with 4,100 stations and 14,260 outlets, according to the U.S. Alternative Fuels Data Center.
However, EVs have an edge over traditional combustion-powered vehicles in that they can be refueled at home. Unless you work or live at an industrial fleet yard or farm where you have controlled access to refueling, this is not an option for the vast majority of the population with ICE vehicles.
Charging stations are currently relatively sparse in comparison to gas stations. But that is changing every day. (Image courtesy BMW.)
And ironically, thanks to Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” scandal that began in 2015 and the resulting government settlements, Electrify America is quickly building out the EV charging infrastructure across the U.S. and Canada.
This column ends much like it began, with a non-committal “it depends” on whether ICE and BEV refueling times are a fair standard of comparison. Ten years from now, the situation may be far different, and such a debate could seem like a quaint and anachronistic throwback to a pivotal transitional period from internal combustion to electrification. Or not. But what I do know is that for the time being, a consumer’s decision to go “all-in” on BEVs should be a measured and thoroughly researched one.
(Lead images courtesy BMW and Andreas160578.)
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