Over on Salon.com Jonathan Coopersmith offers a fascinating -and dead on, IMHO- article regarding one of the bigger issues which may be holding back the success of electric cars: the variety of different charging stations. He notes this issue is not unlike the slow/stagnant growth of fax machines in the 1960’s and 70’s and how, after a single fax “standard” for operation was adopted the fax machine became huge.
Read the article for yourself:
What fax machines can teach us about electric cars
Without stepping too much on the article, Mr. Coopersmith notes that in the early days of the fax machine each machine had its own sending/receiving “language” and therefore you could only send a fax to a person who had the same type of machine as you did. If you worked for Industry “A” and needed to send a form to Industry “B” but your fax machine was created by the XYZ company and the people you were trying to send your form to had a fax machine created by MNO, chances are you were out of luck.
That changed when the Japanese adopted a single fax “standard” operating system and, suddenly, that fax created by the XYZ company could send faxes to a MNO fax machine and vice versa. Soon, all fax machines worked together and, as obvious as this may seem in retrospect, it really pays to be able to send a fax to any machine, regardless of who made it.
The problem Mr. Coopersmith points out with electric cars is similar. When driving your gas powered car, you can drive up to any gas station and fill ‘er up.
That’s not yet the case with electric cars and their charging stations.
Granted there are other issues with electric cars (such as the distance they can travel on a charge, how long a charge takes, etc), but I believe Mr. Coopersmith is right in saying the charging stations/charging of electric cars should be standardized.
If you have a Tesla car (I envy you), you shouldn’t have to be on the lookout for only Tesla charging stations. Similarly, if you have a Chevrolet Volt or Bolt, you shouldn’t be looking for only Chevrolet charging stations.
Like gas stations, there should be universal charging stations, places where you can take your electric vehicle and charge it up regardless of what brand it is and, as Mr. Coopersmith notes toward the end of his article, Tesla appears to be moving toward this goal:
In the last few years, Tesla has veered from its initial exclusivity to cooperation. In 2014, Tesla announced it would share its patents royalty-free – including its charger and plug designs – to encourage the spread of electric vehicle technology. In 2015, the company agreed to make its cars and charging stations compatible with China’s new standard, possibly by using adapters at charging stations.
I long for the day we finally rid ourselves of the outdated, noisy, and polluting gas engines. They’re a technology that is over a hundred years old now and, given all the advances in battery technology, should be on its way out.
Perhaps with the standardization of electric charging stations, the end of the gas powered vehicle might be closer to reality.
Though one wonders how long before the self-driving vehicles gobble up the driving market anyway!