# EV Infrastructure on Long Distance Roads



## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

We are faced with an enormous retrofit of our long distance roads to ensure that we put in place a suitable charging infrastructure for a fleet that will contain a substantial % of EVs by 2030, Buses Cars and HGVs.

On a heavily trafficked corridor in Europe this will involve delivering a 100-150kv line to each and every Motorway Service area and also the complex electrical substations to deliver fast charging to 100s of vehicles in that service station at a time. 

This thread is here to collect the various national plans to deliver this large amount of electricity to our long distance traffic. I'll leave a city EV thread to someone else.


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## threo2k (Jun 8, 2012)

I am writing my master thesis(will be finished this month) which is about planning new charging-points/stations for EVs in cities This is interesting!


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Current EV models with a range of 400 km don't require a whole lot of fast charging except for really long trips. 

Peak holiday traffic will definitely become an issue once EV adoption reaches a mass level. We aren't there yet, even in Norway the EV share is only 7% of all cars. 

It's clear that having 5 or 10 charging points on a rest area isn't going to cut it on busy travel days in the summer. Rest area capacity is already an issue over the summer, not to mention if all those cars are having to charge for 30 or 40 minutes. 

An automotive journalist in the Netherlands remarked that charging speed has developed much faster than anticipated, with 350 kW chargers now entering the market, where you can charge a large battery to 80% in just 10-15 minutes.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

threo2k said:


> I am writing my master thesis(will be finished this month) which is about planning new charging-points/stations for EVs in cities This is interesting!


The long distance and city infrastructures will be different. A motorway truck stop will have to fast charge using multiple megawatts in parallel running MV to the kerb. Big truck stops will need HV to fast charge. MV won't hack it.

Citities wont have truck chargers...except expensive 'penalty' charge stations to get them outta town.buses yes, truck no

You start the city thread if you want. A completely utterly different set of problems they are.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

EV Infrastructure OFF road is not proving easy either 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...europe-to-plug-in-electric-cars-idUSKCN1T80F6



> *The number of electric cars on German roads grew fivefold between 2015 and 2018, and have risen strongly across Europe. However the growth in electric cars is outpacing the charging infrastructure.*
> 
> The ratio of electric cars to each charging point in Europe deteriorated to 7.0 from 6.1 in the same period, consultants AlixPartners found, although Europe is still better equipped than the United States at 19.7 per car, and China’s 7.6.
> 
> ...


A typical euro green muppet show in other words, mandate electric cars for people who live in APARTMENTS and have nowhere to charge them.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

^^ Yup, I still don't understand why it's not mandatory for all parking spaces at new apartment buildings to have charging ports (maybe it is somewhere, let me know). Buildings last a really long time compared to most modern electronics and even cars. We need to think today about the type of charging infrastructure we will need in 5, 10, 20 years. For the majority of people that's overnight charging at home, not visiting public quick-chargers. It's a different paradigm from the combustion engine vehicles which always need to visit a specific place to get the energy they need. 

This video explains the misconception:


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

We will get to a stage, before 2030, when we have to ban fossil cars from all city locations where charging points are not available. Basically they will be allowed in 'legacy' car parks only, ones with no charge points available. 

I shudder to think of the mess of street furniture that will be required to charge these EVs along city streets I do. A lot of EV charging will be co located with tram lines and their overhead delivery systems for electricity, save that they will turn off when a tram enters the street they are parked on.


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## kreden (Dec 17, 2009)

Rebasepoiss said:


> ^^ Yup, I still don't understand why it's not mandatory for all parking spaces at new apartment buildings to have charging ports (maybe it is somewhere, let me know). Buildings last a really long time compared to most modern electronics and even cars. We need to think today about the type of charging infrastructure we will need in 5, 10, 20 years. For the majority of people that's overnight charging at home, not visiting public quick-chargers. It's a different paradigm from the combustion engine vehicles which always need to visit a specific place to get the energy they need.
> 
> This video explains the misconception:


At this point it's enough if each parking space has its own electricity supply connected to its respective apartment's electric meter. Mandating wallboxes at each parking space today would be throwing money away and driving up electricity and housing costs, to the benefit of charging station suppliers.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

Rebasepoiss said:


> ^^ Yup, I still don't understand why it's not mandatory for all parking spaces at new apartment buildings to have charging ports (maybe it is somewhere, let me know). Buildings last a really long time compared to most modern electronics and even cars.


You have a point but I don't think it is big deal. For the building, you can just drill some holes and lay some wires, it isn't major problem. It would be easier than the people with buildings from 1700s and 1800's putting in electricity for the first time for household use.

Maybe on the electrical-grid side locally (e.g. the distribution network on the whole city-block) it would be worse, but even then, probably not such big deal to change as the electrical demand increases.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Kanadzie said:


> Maybe on the electrical-grid side locally (e.g. the distribution network on the whole city-block) it would be worse, but even then, probably not such big deal to change as the electrical demand increases.


Residential low rise is not too bad, once people go to bed and do not cook and heat electrically at night you can then divert power to their cars at night.

Your problem will be city centres and high or medium rise areas where space is at a premium and charging stations must be shared. You will need more fast chargers there meaning thicker cables and higher amps per location. 

In some areas you might need mandatory car share systems and no private cars at all. This is because you need every meter of roadside to park and charge the shared vehicles.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

The city of Philadelphia has a program where a homeowner can request a reserved residential parking spot in front of their home, if they own an electric car and have a charging part they want to be able to connect to it.
There’s been some resentment from other residents, since it takes away parking spaces in neighborhoods where they’re scarce, so there’s now a limit to how many people can do this in a given block. Maybe two....


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## verreme (May 16, 2012)

sponge_bob said:


> EV Infrastructure OFF road is not proving easy either
> 
> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...europe-to-plug-in-electric-cars-idUSKCN1T80F6
> 
> ...


I'm a bit concerned with this. Electricity production in Germany comes mostly from fossil fuels (coal), so these electric cars are doing no good to the environment as energy is generated by coal instead of much more efficient gasoline. In other countries such as Spain or Norway, a much higher percentage of electricity comes from non-fossil fuels (nuclear) or renewable sources, so electric cars do actually reduce CO2 emissions.

This is something nobody points out, and instead everyone is selling the virtues of electric mobility. As I said before, replacing a fuel-powered car by an electric one in Spain or France does actual help to the environment, but in Germany or Poland it's the other way round. German buyers should be aware of this when purchasing a vehicle.

Not to mention the highly-polluting batteries, which are made of materials that are extracted in Chinese mines with zero concern for the environment. Driving 50.000 kilometers with 0 emissions on electricity generated by solar or wind power _instead of_ fuel might compensate that, but not in a country where electricity comes from burning coal.


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

verreme said:


> I'm a bit concerned with this. Electricity production in Germany comes mostly from fossil fuels (coal), so these electric cars are doing no good to the environment as energy is generated by coal instead of much more efficient gasoline. In other countries such as Spain or Norway, a much higher percentage of electricity comes from non-fossil fuels (nuclear) or renewable sources, so electric cars do actually reduce CO2 emissions.
> 
> This is something nobody points out, and instead everyone is selling the virtues of electric mobility.
> 
> ...


Let me re-post the chart I posted on the German thread a few weeks ago:










There are big differences across countries.

Norway is an interesting case here, while not listed because of not being a member to the EU. Their own electricity production is almost free of CO2 emissions. However, the country gets a big fraction of its income from oil, which is sent to other countries to be burned.


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

verreme said:


> This is something nobody points out, and instead everyone is selling the virtues of electric mobility. As I said before, replacing a fuel-powered car by an electric one in Spain or France does actual help to the environment, but in Germany or Poland it's the other way round. German buyers should be aware of this when purchasing a vehicle.


I asked exactly this an EV driver a few months ago. His answer was: My private electricity supplier contract is for "green" power. That means, my supplier was generate the amount I pay for "green" production.
Sure, it's all one power supply system but... he's right...


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

MichiH said:


> I asked exactly this an EV driver a few months ago. His answer was: My private electricity supplier contract is for "green" power. That means, my supplier was generate the amount I pay for "green" production.
> Sure, it's all one power supply system but... he's right...


No, he is not.

In most countries, the zero-emission electricity production is a zero-sum game. If someone buys emission-free electricity, that amount of energy is not reachable by the others. At the bottom line, Germany consumes all the available emission-free electricity, regardless on who consumes it. This is why the CO2 average for a country is quite a good indicator. 

Export and import makes the case somewhat more complex. Germany exports a lot of its dirty energy to Austria and Switzerland, 27 TWh in 2016. This adds about 15% on top of the domestic production in Austria and 25% in Switzerland. Therefore, the real power mix in those countries is not as clean as the domestic emission figures might look.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

^^ That's why a web page like this is really useful. It shows the CO2 per MWh of actual consumption in a given country not only production. 

In recent years the CO2 quota price has skyrocketed from roughly €5 per tonne to around €25 per tonne. This means that pretty much all the oil shale power plants in Estonia are offline at the moment because they produce a lot of CO2 per MWh and are therefore not competitive anymore on the electricity market.

If you compare the current consumed CO2 per MWh with the graph from 2016 that you showed before, there more than a two-fold decrease in the case of Estonia.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Buying 'green' energy is pure bollox. You buy whatever mix is on the grid as sold by your retail electricity operator. In Russelsheim in Germany that would be a mix of Lignite Coal and Nuclear given the generation in that part of Germany. 

I would be one of the few here who is mainly on renewables but that is because my end of the national grid has a lot of wind hooked in, but if the wind is not blowing I am on Gas/Coal instead. Green electricity my arse. I would end up with Nuclear on occasion if it was not all used up in Dublin before it got as far as me.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I do believe the future is home charging, which will be sufficient for most travel if the real life range is 350 or 400 km. However, how will we cater to massive holiday traffic exoduses, which requires an enormous amount of fast charging capacity along motorways? Rest areas are already overcrowded on such days, not to mention if everyone has to stop for 30-40 minutes every 2-3 hours.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

sponge_bob said:


> Buying 'green' energy is pure bollox. You buy whatever mix is on the grid as sold by your retail electricity operator. In Russelsheim in Germany that would be a mix of Lignite Coal and Nuclear given the generation in that part of Germany.


Of course the actual power might come from coal or nuclear or whatever but what you have to take into account is that a higher demand in green energy drives up the price which in turn fuels (pun intended) investments in green energy. Of course this also depends on the particular electricity market and the difference between green electricity and 'regular' electricity. If the difference is small or non-existent, it obviously doesn't make any difference whether you buy green electricity or the 'regular' kind.


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## verreme (May 16, 2012)

^^ Okay, so it's just about believing in capitalism or not .


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## Rob73 (Jun 18, 2014)

54°26′S 3°24′E said:


> ^^ I agree with most of what you are saying, but the costs of pollution and not least climate change are also very real, and hence it makes sense to tax EVs lower than fossil cars. That could be done in a provenue neutral way (i. e. taxing fossil cars harder) or balance the tax breaks by other means /in other parts of the economy. It ought to be remembered, though, that a significant share of the residential electricity price also is taxes in most European countries.
> 
> Numerous studies have been made on the climatic impact of EVs, and even in Poland EVs lead to a net reduction in CO2 emissions :
> 
> ...


In the UK 40% of vehicle owners don't have a dedicated parking spare for their vehicle, those people have to rely on public charging infrastructure. There will be a glass ceiling for EV's. 

Unlike Norway where land is cheap and the population sparse, building a detached house is common, although in all the new subdivisions in my part on Norway not all the land can be used for single detached houses, flats and semi detached units are mandatory. In the rest of Europe with denser populations and less available land the people are more likely to live in a flat, and that's increasing, if you pulled that same graph in 2030 the number of flats and semi detached housing will be significantly higher.


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## Mr_Dru (Dec 15, 2008)

It is becoming a big problem. EV vehicles that run out of power. Initially, the ANWB (Dutch roadside assistance) towed the empty EV vehicles to the nearest power station.

The ANWB can now bring an external electric power, the so-called battery booster.


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## 54°26′S 3°24′E (Oct 26, 2007)

^^ I am surprised you can drive far enough to run out of power in Netherlands ;-)



Rob73 said:


> In the UK 40% of vehicle owners don't have a dedicated parking spare for their vehicle, those people have to rely on public charging infrastructure. There will be a glass ceiling for EV's.


Again, charging will have to be part of also the public parking infrastructure ahead. It should not be very difficult in urban areas. (Sorry for the late reply reply, I missed your post)


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## Blackraven (Jan 19, 2006)

In the Philippines,
This is going to take a few more decades to create a decent network (e.g. 10 percent coverage and above).

Locally:
-Audi Philippines will begin accepting pre-orders for the E-tron GT
-Porsche Philippines is evaluating the Taycan (they currently have two units for testing.......but I'm not sure if they are selling).
-Nissan Philippines will launch the Leaf next week.

And then for plug-in hybrids:
-Mitsubishi PH launched the Outlander Hybrid last month............but the plug is not compatible with Philippine electrical outlets (so at the moment, you can only charge it at the Mitsubishi showroom / dealership)
-Volvo Philippines has some T8 PHEV variants (e.g. XC90, XC60, V60, etc.)...........but only for Excellence trims (no R-Design variant unfortunately ; might change later on)

It will take a while locally..............but I guess you gotta start from somewhere.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

I am delighted to note that the battery swap station idea is already being used, in Africa.









 Rwanda goes electric with locally made motorbikes


Rwanda's Ampersand wants motorbike taxi drivers to switch from petrol to electric.



www.bbc.com


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

In Texas, driverless trucks are set to take over roads


A giant 18-wheel transport truck is barreling down a multi-lane Texas highway, and there is no one behind the wheel.




techxplore.com





I don't see these in wet murky northern Europe in a hurry but they may start off in Iberia in the not too distant future before a real driver takes over somewhere around the Loire valley in France.



> Waymo is building a logistics center in Dallas that will accommodate hundreds of autonomous semi-trailers. And it is by far not alone. Embark, a self-driving technology startup, operates an autonomous trucking lane between Houston and San Antonio, while Aurora, co-founded by a former Waymo employee, will open three terminals and a new 635-mile route (1,000 kilometers) in Texas this year.
> 
> In a sign of how competitive the autonomous trucking industry is, none of the three companies agreed to show AFP one of its vehicles.


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## Rob73 (Jun 18, 2014)

sponge_bob said:


> In Texas, driverless trucks are set to take over roads
> 
> 
> A giant 18-wheel transport truck is barreling down a multi-lane Texas highway, and there is no one behind the wheel.
> ...


I agree places with long straight roads like Australia, South Africa,North Africa and parts of the US, but as soon as hills and nasty weather come into play these won’t work at all. I live in coastal Norway I couldn’t see these working well here in the near future.


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## 54°26′S 3°24′E (Oct 26, 2007)

sponge_bob said:


> I am delighted to note that the battery swap station idea is already being used, in Africa.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The EV maker Nio opened its first battery swap station outside China today in Lier, outside Oslo. 19 more stations will follow in Norway in 2022, but only from Trondheim and southwards.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Nio opens 700th battery swap station in China


Milestone station opened ahead of schedule.




www.just-auto.com







> By the end of 2025, the automaker Nio will have *4,000 active battery swap stations worldwide with around 1,000 outside China.*


Bur we really need a eurobattery which will work in any EV. CATL the manufacturer is itself entering the SWAP busines but a eurostandard is required here or even better an International Electrical standard if these are DC units, like an IEC standard. 









Tesla and Nio supplier CATL confirms battery swap rumours


Chinese battery giant CATL confirms rumours and announces that it will be entering the battery swap market.




thedriven.io







> Chinese battery giant and supplier of batteries for EV giant Tesla and China EV maker Nio, CATL, has confirmed rumours and announced that it will be entering the battery swap market.
> 
> According to several local sources quoting the company’s official WeChat account, CATL is set to hold *a launch event on Tuesday* unveiling its battery swap brand, to be called EVOGO


CATL says Evogo battery swap will work with 80% of all pure EVs


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## Rob73 (Jun 18, 2014)

sponge_bob said:


> Nio opens 700th battery swap station in China
> 
> 
> Milestone station opened ahead of schedule.
> ...


A euro standard battery will never happen, the technology in the battery is what gives the manufacturer its USP. Battery tech is rapidly changing, standardising is would hold back battery development.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Rob73 said:


> A euro standard battery will never happen, the technology in the battery is what gives the manufacturer its USP. Battery tech is rapidly changing, standardising is would hold back battery development.


I disagree, the innards can be differentiated if the pack is a standard size and connector. I only want a standard form like a long life vs a 'cheap' AA battery.

As well as that you will have EG 30kw built in plus 30kw in a pack for long trips. The built in portion will be different.


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## Rob73 (Jun 18, 2014)

sponge_bob said:


> I disagree, the innards can be differentiated if the pack is a standard size and connector. I only want a standard form like a long life vs a 'cheap' AA battery.
> 
> As well as that you will have EG 30kw built in plus 30kw in a pack for long trips. The built in portion will be different.


If the innards are differentiated for each manufacturer then what is the point in a standardised battery?


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

An AA battery is standard in form...shape. it outputs 1.5v. It is not standard _inside_ with a number of chemistries that cost more than each other.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Actually there is user who knows a lot of this stuff, @Mikiboz who has perhaps not seen this thread and who might have done real work on the subject since it started off 

Miki. Can you give us an idea of how power can be delivered to the main transit motorways in Germany if 25% of cars and 25% of HGVs were converted to electric at some future date. The main changes to the existing HV grid only and the number of MW you need for a busy truck stop in the middle of Europe.


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## Mikiboz (Jul 9, 2021)

sponge_bob said:


> Actually there is user who knows a lot of this stuff, @Mikiboz who has perhaps not seen this thread and who might have done real work on the subject since it started off
> 
> Miki. Can you give us an idea of how power can be delivered to the main transit motorways in Germany if 25% of cars and 25% of HGVs were converted to electric at some future date. The main changes to the existing HV grid only and the number of MW you need for a busy truck stop in the middle of Europe.


Thanks for quoting me. And you basically dropped to curtain on the wizard of Oz . There are no feasible (meaning: executable) plans for plug-in HGV mass-recharging along motorways, at all (and barely for passenger cars).

This is the big electric Elephant in the room, and please no examples of how it is done in Scandinavia because that’s totally irrelevant. The scale differences are just too large.

To give you an impression: every day, the German network of Autobahn/Bundestrasse (motorway and federal streets, both having truck toll duty) is used by 1.3 million trucks (of which 400,000 are non-German registered), moving roughly 500 billion tonkilometers per year (for comparison: UK roughly 180 billion tonkilometers). There exist roughly 400 Fuel and Resting Stations along the motorway and 100 Major truck stops (Autohof) off the motorway (but very close by). Autohöfe are additional parking capacity for trucks and have the advantage to be reachable from both directions of the motorway. Otherwise they have the same functionality as the fuel stations along the motorway. 

As of now, most of the motorway fuel stations and truck stops are getting upgraded with „fast chargers“ (20-30 min charging time, realistically 30+), with „minor“ infrastructure upgrades (basically connecting the station via 1000V HV cables to the transmission network). That’s enough to establish 5-10 fast charging stations. For passenger cars.
Currently there are roughly 500,000 BEV and 500,000 PHEV registered in the German passenger car fleet. And if the fleet stayed that way, the upgrades done since 2015 might be enough (outside of holiday seasons and weekends). But the German passenger car fleet accounts for 48.2 million vehicles, plus 11 million vehicles >3.5t.
That means that as of 2022 1% of the passenger car fleet is truly electrified (BEV).

I continue soon in part 2 about the two major options/ways to tackle that challenge.


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## 54°26′S 3°24′E (Oct 26, 2007)

Mikiboz said:


> This is the big electric Elephant in the room, and please no examples of how it is done in Scandinavia because that’s totally irrelevant. The scale differences are just too large


I do not see why scale in itself makes Scandinavian examples irrelevant. Sure, there are differences in scale, but a similar scale applies to the size of the economies, i.e. the ability to invest. If anything, building a charging infrastructure should be cheaper per car in more densely populated areas as the grid distances are shorter and utilization of charging stations higher.


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## Mikiboz (Jul 9, 2021)

54°26′S 3°24′E said:


> I do not see why scale in itself makes Scandinavian examples irrelevant. Sure, there are differences in scale, but a similar scale applies to the size of the economies, i.e. the ability to invest. If anything, building a charging infrastructure should be cheaper per car in more densely populated areas as the grid distances are shorter and utilization of charging stations higher.


It has nothing to do with more densely populated areas. We are speaking of the whole motorway system across all of Germany. And the reason why from a technical POV Scandinavia is not an example Germany can follow is because simply upscaling is not enough. You need different solutions, across all the country.

Master thesis

Here you can find a relatively recent master thesis study for a concrete fuel station at A96, a low frequency motorway (20,000-30,000 cars/day). This fuel station in average services 40-50 passenger cars per hour, standard work day, non holiday time. For that fuel station alone you would need roughly 30 fast chargers at full conversion (50kw), resulting in an annual electricity demand of 4,500-5,000 MWh, the equivalent of a small town of 5,000. That is without trucks…for that kind of electricity demand it’s simply not enough to install a few HV cables.

And please keep in mind: the German main motorways (A3, A5, A9 etc)are frequented by 100,000 to 300,000 cars per day…on normal workdays.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Norway is unique and is also very rich. What Norway can do to move to EVs is completely different to EVERY other country in Europe as it ALREADY has a surplus of green electricity where other countries still have to convert their fossil generation plant at great expense. 

Norway is both a great example and a really really bad example of everything.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Elsewhere in Europe it is already_ possible at a moment in time f_or Ireland to get all its electricity just from Wind and the possibility continues to increase. And yet it _is also impossible_. Unless large scale storage is invented, that is. 



















Source > Explore the Smart Grid Dashboard


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## Mikiboz (Jul 9, 2021)

sponge_bob said:


> Norway is unique and is also very rich. What Norway can do to move to EVs is completely different to EVERY other country in Europe as it ALREADY has a surplus of green electricity where other countries still have to convert their fossil generation plant at great expense.
> 
> Norway is both a great example and a really really bad example of everything.


Part 2
Scandinavia is a really bad example especially due to low density, low frequency and in general very small numbers. It really has nothing primarily to do with available money (I mean, yes it has for many countries but at least not for Germany) but you need completely different technical solutions due to completely different capacity requirements.

Let’s go 25% electric: that translates to roughly 16 million passenger cars. To keep the average staying time at a fuel station moderate (let’s say <45 min incl waiting time, keep in mind: for Gasoline/Diesel the mean staying time is between 6-8 min without coffee Break) you need at all major fuel stations along the motorway ca. 80-120 fast chargers. At this stage the fuel stations already become middle sized towns of 15.000-20.000 people in terms of electricity consumption, meaning already at this stage you need to build a new German-wide distribution network including primary and secondary electric substations plus of course the equivalent of 4 nuclear plants for increased electricity generation.

And that’s still only passenger cars speaking.


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