https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41560-021-00814-9<\/a> (this will take you to the summary \u2013 to read the full thing, you have to pay).<\/p>\nThe big question is, of course, why they\u2019re doing this. The answer seems to be the issue of charging speed. The study seemed to find that Tesla owners didn\u2019t seem to want to switch back, given that Tesla provides superfast charging for life for their vehicles \u2013 although I dare say that the cost of a Tesla has something to do with the fact that their owners aren\u2019t switching back. However, those with other types of EV are more likely to switch back (compared with Tesla owners).<\/p>\n
The people who were most likely to switch back were women, those living in rental homes, those living in high-rise apartments and those who didn\u2019t have access to a Level 2 charger or higher at home or at work.<\/p>\n
Some of these factors are easy to understand. \u00a0If you live in a rental home, you probably don\u2019t want to pay to have a Level 2 EV charger installed in something that you don\u2019t own \u2013 if your landlord would let you do this in the first place. \u00a0Landlords probably don\u2019t want to pay to put in Level 2 EV chargers in rentals \u2013 although this might change in future; in the past, they didn\u2019t always put in dishwashers but it\u2019s common enough now.\u00a0 In the case of an apartment, when you think that the garage or other parking space is all the way down there while you live right up there, or if you have to park your vehicle in a shared space and someone else has bagged the charger\u2026 well, you can see just how inconvenient it is.<\/p>\n
The length of time it takes an EV to charge also probably has something to do with why women were more likely to ditch their EVs. If your EV is parked up and charging in a shared garage in an apartment building, you\u2019ll have to nip down now and again to check how it\u2019s going. In the case of a public charger, you may complete your errands before the car has finished charging and have to wait around. This means that you\u2019ll be hanging around for a while. Unfortunately, it can be a nasty world out there for a woman. Even though 99% of guys are decent blokes, there\u2019s always that 1%.\u00a0 And you never know if that guy on the other garage or looking in your direction or walking towards you is Mr 1% or not.\u00a0 This means that no woman really wants to spend longer than she has to in a public space that may not be all that well lit at night, with her only safe space being a car that isn\u2019t quite charged up.\u00a0 I\u2019m speculating here, but speaking as a woman, that would be a concern I\u2019d have \u2013 to say nothing of the hassles of trying to keep kids entertained while the car charges and being held up waiting for the car to charge when there\u2019s a ton of things to do.<\/p>\n
The issue seems to be charging time and access to Level 2 chargers. Let\u2019s take a bit of a look at different charger types and you\u2019ll get an idea of what\u2019s involved:<\/p>\n
Level 1 chargers: Slow as a wet week \u2013 it takes up to 25 hours to charge a typical EV with enough to get 100 km of range. However, it\u2019s good for topping up plug-in hybrids. The advantage of these is that they can plug into the standard Australian power outlet without any need for the services of an electrician.<\/p>\n
Level 2 chargers: These are faster than Level 1 chargers, taking up to 5 hours to give a typical EV 100 km of range. However, because of the charge they carry, they need special installation and older homes may need the wiring upgraded to carry the load, and it needs a special plug, which means you\u2019ll need an electrician to come in and do the job of installing them.<\/p>\n
Level 3 chargers: These use DC rather than AC power, and they are very expensive to install \u2013 putting one of these chargers could cost nearly as much as a brand new car. Your house doesn\u2019t have this type of power supply, so they\u2019re only available commercially. However, they\u2019re faster, giving 70 km of range in 10 mins of charging.<\/p>\n
Of course, these times are approximate and will vary from vehicle to vehicle \u2013 like charging times for other electrical things vary.\u00a0 However, full charge times are usually measured in hours rather than minutes. If you\u2019ve got grumpy kids in the car, even 10 minutes for a top-up charge at a fast charge station can seem like eternity\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You\u2019d think that in a US state like California, which always seems to be so progressive, liberal and with-it \u2013 and which has a governor who has decreed that by 2035, all new cars sold will be EVs or at least \u201czero-emissions\u201d cars \u2013 you\u2019d see people flocking to taking up EVs left right and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,4923,4471,59,5958,4014,3071,5121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-electric-vehicles-evs","category-environment","category-fuel-2","category-humour","category-sustainabilitygreen","category-technical","category-women-and-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13564,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562\/revisions\/13564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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