tl;dr existing galvanic isolation in fast chargers is very costly (~60% of capital cost) and delaying deployment of unsubsidized EV charging infrastructure; the authors think it can be replaced safely and cost-effectively with a second ground wire and some logic to detect/verify grounding.
As far as I can tell there is no source provided for the number. Nor is there are source for the stall cost.
Tesla almost certainly has the lowest stall cost on the market, while consistently providing higher uptime and reliability. I want to see numbers based on them. It is no secret that the other charging stall manufacturers are incompetent (terribly reliability and uptime), so it wouldn't surprise me if their hardware was designed poorly AND terribly high in cost.
According to a bid in Texas, Tesla's cost per stall was about 20% of competing companies. So is the cost a problem when the charger is designed correctly, or only when not?
It also didn't compare the capital costs to the costs of building an ICE refuelling station.
What is the cost of the tanks, fuel pumps, calibration, etc? Including the costs of rehabilitation of the ground from fuel contamination over the lifetime of the infrastructure as well?
That's what needs to be compared, not the current capital costs of infrastructure that is only just been sufficiently standardized and regulated to be able to be rolled out for all EVs, not just one brand or another.
How is that useful for this analysis? I agree it might be interesting in the abstract, and probably interesting for an investor choosing how to deploy capital. But I don't think it has any impact on the argument. Clearly there is a high cost to deploying existing charging stalls. Lowering that cost would clearly increase infrastructure rollout.
Part of the article is claiming that the rollout of EV charging is slowed by the large capital cost, and about how to reduce that capital cost.
But without comparing to existing ICE refuelling, which is what EV charging replaces/stands alongside, there's no real identification as to whether the capital costs actually are slowing the rollout.
What is driving the rollout is demand not supply. Of course, they're related, but EV fast charging will tend to be for distance travel, not commuting.
Commuters will plug in at home (or at work) and standard L1 charging is going to be "enough".
So EV charging will be for distance, on major highways etc.
How much is a highway "services" installation, where refuelling/recharging is combined with food or other services, an actual limitation of capital cost of the recharging compared to other capital costs?
> But without comparing to existing ICE refuelling, which is what EV charging replaces/stands alongside, there's no real identification as to whether the capital costs actually are slowing the rollout.
I'm still not following here. Again, it just does not seem relevant.
> What is driving the rollout is demand not supply.
Uh, sure, but at lower capital cost there is some marginal demand worth pursuing. And lower prices to the consumer would stimulate higher demand.
