Winnebago Electric Motorhome on a F-53 chassis

wildmanbaker wrote:
I wonder what is up with my double post 1 reply apart? You are probably right about the mind set for charging stations. Kind of like MHs fueling at service stations you haven't used before. Funny you should mention the Model S, as we went to Wally world yesterday evening and parked across from a Tesla. As we pulled in, I though, wow, that seems to be a BIG car, as we were in the Lincoln.
It had an S on it, and man, that seemed like the seventies America big cars of the past.

Yah they are big cars. They have their market. Most people who buy them are former Mercedes or big BMW’s.owners. Very smooth, quiet, crazy fast and handle like race car with all the weight under the floor. Way too big for us though as we are usually two and sometimes four in the car. We also tend not to look at cars over sixty grand. We have neighbours who have one with the 7 seat configuration (two in the back pointing backwards). Works good for their family. But his garage is three times as big as ours. :). A model 3 would fit nice though. :). Or maybe the Jaguar ipace. Nah. Too pricey. :)

I wonder what is up with my double post 1 reply apart? You are probably right about the mind set for charging stations. Kind of like MHs fueling at service stations you haven't used before. Funny you should mention the Model S, as we went to Wally world yesterday evening and parked across from a Tesla. As we pulled in, I though, wow, that seems to be a BIG car, as we were in the Lincoln.
It had an S on it, and man, that seemed like the seventies America big cars of the past.

Chainwright wrote:

wildmanbaker wrote:
Max, not doubting your info, just if it is slanted one way or the other. Of course, this never happens....Reisender, yea, like you said, you must know where they are at. Our son said the a couple of friends have Tesla's and they are pretty big cars, especially for most German, general use roads.

I'm really not trying to "slant" anything. That's why I pretty much gave you almost 10 different web sites. But there are more. Naturally you are welcome to do your own research. And Reisender has Physical Testimony of what is going on over there. Is there any reason anyone should doubt him?
And just like we have Apps for just about everything here, I'm quite sure Europeans have Apps that show them where most if not all the charging stations are.

I had some great pictures of charge locations in France and Holland as well but never uploaded them and they seem to be gone forever. (The picture I put up of the German site wasn’t mine). Oh well.

Re Apps. Yah. Each company has their own so chargepoint has their own, EVGO, Flo etc. When you charge at one of their stations you use their app to pay or you can use a swipe card. I have like four in my wallet. Tesla is easiest as you just plug into a Supercharger and your car transmits the serial number to the mothership and bills your account.

But there is one App that everyone uses. Plugshare. It is crowd sourced so not as accurate and no real time data like how many chargers are in use etc. But great for finding either commercial charging points or private home based chargers. Many of us with home stations put them on plugshare. If someone is in a pinch and they need to charge they are welcome to charge at our house albeit at max 40 amps though as houses don’t have DC fast chargers.

One other thing. Non EV drivers sometimes get it in their head that there will have to be as many commercial chargers as there is gas stations now. Not so. Not even close. The vast majority of all charging is done st home at night while you sleep. If you have a fast charger in your town you will probably never use it. Many who own EV’s have never charged anywhere but home. Others like myself may use a fast charger half a dozen times per year...maybe. If you do Lots of road trips then you’ll use them and then your best to buy a Tesla as they are king when it comes to fast charging networks.

Workplace daytime charging is getting more popular especially in sunny locations as it is quite often solar powered. Charge rates are slower at these setups as charge sharing is usually allocated at half a day per vehicle. 3.3 kw rates or less. Good enough for a days milesge. Most commuters use less than 8 Kw in a day.

All this will evolve over time. It will take a couple decades.

On edit.

I like this picture. An installation like this on a sunny day can provide all the daily mileage for every commuter parked under it...and your car is in the shade. :) This is not a charging facility and there are no EV plugs but it gives you an idea of the potential of EV's. Obviously this is a solution for sunny areas but still. Kinda cool. An idea doesn't have to work everywhere for it to be a good idea.

wildmanbaker wrote:
Max, not doubting your info, just if it is slanted one way or the other. Of course, this never happens....Reisender, yea, like you said, you must know where they are at. Our son said the a couple of friends have Tesla's and they are pretty big cars, especially for most German, general use roads.

I'm really not trying to "slant" anything. That's why I pretty much gave you almost 10 different web sites. But there are more. Naturally you are welcome to do your own research. And Reisender has Physical Testimony of what is going on over there. Is there any reason anyone should doubt him?
And just like we have Apps for just about everything here, I'm quite sure Europeans have Apps that show them where most if not all the charging stations are.

Max, not doubting your info, just if it is slanted one way or the other. Of course, this never happens....Reisender, yea, like you said, you must know where they are at. Our son said the a couple of friends have Tesla's and they are pretty big cars, especially for most German, general use roads.

wildmanbaker wrote:
Max, not doubting your info, just if it is slanted one way or the other. Of course, this never happens....Reisender, yea, like you said, you must know where they are at. Our son said the a couple of friends have Tesla's and they are pretty big cars, especially for most German, general use roads.

Yep. Model S's are BIG CARS. I measured up our garage once. Too tight. The model 3 will fit....maybe someday. I prefer the drive of the S but just too big.

Max, not doubting your info, just if it is slanted one way or the other. Of course, this never happens....Reisender, yea, like you said, you must know where they are at. Our son said the a couple of friends have Tesla's and they are pretty big cars, especially for most German, general use roads.

We are frequent travelers of Europe and have driven a lot of it. European countries generally have better public infrastructure than anything on this side of the pond and EV charging facilities are no exception. But you have to know where to look and if you are not an EVer you might not even notice it. And remember. just like here, the vast majority of charging is done at home while you sleep although sponsored workplace charging is definitely getting more common everywhere.

Different countries seem to have different approaches to it. Portugal is putting DC fast charging at all their rest stops. Generally speaking their rest stops are way ahead of ours and all have a commercial component to them. Great facilities. Here is a pic or two we took last year.



Air and water stations.



Plug share is handy everywhere in the world. Here are a couple of snaps of just the DC fast charge stations of central europe. Still lots of gaps to fill in. Little by little. i'll be happy when the trans Canada is covered. My guess is at least a couple years yet. BC, Ontario and Quebec are filling in nicely but the prairies...not so much. At some point it will start to affect tourism and then it will fill in quicker. That is a few years away. IMHO




Tesla is still one of the better networks in europe. This is a German travel centre.

insideevs.com says france now has 23K recharging stations. According to the National Energy Administration (in china), there are over 141,000 EV charging stations in public areas in China as of December, 2016.
I'm not making this stuff up. The Technology is already out there and being used. Lesser countries then ours (matter of opinion) are already developing the infrastructure and some are enhancing it.
Sometimes I feel like the American people are being shielded from certain info or being kept in the dark. It's up to us to go digging because for some reason the mainstream media doesn't "want" to volunteer the info. JMHO

wildmanbaker wrote:
Reisender, nice German.... and you got away with it. Any idea what the contribution is?
Max, where are you getting your numbers for charging stations in Europe. We have a son in Germany and he said their very few EVs in Germany, as they are expensive, and charging stations are very few and far between, and when they are used, they get a bill for more than a tank of gasoline, and they don't get anywhere the mileage the ICE do. He said it appears that the charging stations are going to be operated (controlled) much like the private solar power generation is. Now, hybrids are a different story, very sough after, for obvious reasons, range and lights at night. Europe may not be any better than the US Politically, but hey it is what it is.

Here are just a few that I looked at. But there are many more.
www.fleeteurope.com, then there's a german website: www.gtai.de, www.reuters.com (said at the end of 2017 germany had around 13500 recharging stations), insideevs.com, www.statista.com, autovistagroup.com.