General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[SF22]

A destination charger might be only a level 2, whereas a gas/charging station might offer something like 500 kW rapid charging, so there is a case for that. And not everyone will have charging capability at home. Not all multi-residential buildings will have it, and even in single-residential, you may not have enough charging for all your vehicles.

Building a new station on Victoria St can still make sense because it'll take decades for ICE vehicles to disappear (EV market share is still less than 10% and cars last much longer than 10 years), especially if it's designed to be able to transition to fast charging in the future (maybe even with an option to do it now).

They last "a little" longer than 10 years...12 years is a common average livespan AFAIK.

For the economics of running a gas station, like I said, 15-20 years seems a reasonable time frame. I have no idea what the economic payback period of building a gas station is, but if it's any longer than 15-20 years it would seem to be a risky investment.

As for charging stations, I do know about DC fast charging, but I don't see the purpose of it within cities. Travel within cities is within the range of an EV, so you're going to charge at home or your destination. And you're at your destination for a longer time, so you don't need fast charging. Obviously as I mentioned charging stations on the highway absolutely make sense.

As for charging at home...I don't think anyone who cannot charge at home will be motivated to own an EV...it's quickly going to become a necessity and buildings are going to roll it out, DC fast charging will never be fast enough for bi-weekly charges. There are easy and proven solutions to destination charging. Where I live now, very few people have their own driveway, but there are municipal EV chargers all over and people just park their EVs at the municipal chargers in public spaces.

It'll take a long time for existing apartment and condo buildings to retrofit their facilities to support nearly everyone having an electric vehicle. Could be that charging rest stops within the city peak for 10-20 years while all those retrofits get done, and then fade away as the demand decreases.

In my work, we have technicians who drive fully-laden work trucks around the region for most of the day. Might be that a charging rest stop could be beneficial to someone like that, who is carrying a lot of weight around and may not be getting the full range out of their battery, and benefits from a little top-up during the day when they aren't at home or the office with a designated charging spot.