Charging often takes longer than that. It all depends on the car, the battery, and the charger though.https://monta.com/uk/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-an-electric-car/ has more info.The lamp post chargers are generally only 5kW. If you have a car with a 45kW capacity battery it would take at least 8 hours to charge from near empty (although you never want it to get really close to empty for the sake of battery health). However, that 45kW or charge should be good for ~140 miles so it's not something people should need to do every day.Much easier (but not very popular) would be for the charging stations to charge a much higher rate for "wasted" time plugged in beyond the efficient charging time.For those that don't know, you don't just plug your EV into a charger and get free electricity. The chargers (even the ones in lamp posts) don't provide any power until you've plugged in the car and used the relevant App to tell the provider to start providing you power - and they have your billing data. They can tell when the car is full, as the charger stops sending power, so they could continue to bill you at a higher rate.I can see some future along the lines of the following (for the faster chargers):a) whilst your battery is below 80% and the charger can shovel electrons in at maximum efficiency you just pay for the electricityb) when your battery hits ~80% and the charging rate slows down (because a nearly full battery must be charged at a slower rate) the cost per hour should go up. (This is when it would be time to move to a low power lamp-post style charger).c) when the battery is full enough it does not need charging the rate should go up considerably to dissuade people from leaving their car plugged in taking up a charging spot unnecessarilyd) if a car is in a charging spot and not plugged in (either being charged or being charged excessively for charging complete) then give it a parking ticketIt should encourage people to only use the fast chargers for as short as necessary. Park it up, charge it for an hour or so, then nip out and move it to a normal parking spot and let someone else charge their car.For the lower rate chargers (such as the 5kW lamp post style chargers) you effectively sit in (a) above until the battery is full, skipping (b) completely.People who are lucky enough to have their own off-street parking can benefit from a 5kW charger from their home electricity supply and keep the car topped up charging overnight (which is also better for the electricity grid to use power at non-peak times).The really high power chargers (such as the 120kW ones at the back of the petrol station on West Hill) will charge the majority of cars to 80% in under an hour. The expectation there is that people use these like motorway services and have an hour long break getting a coffee or some food (or even doing a bit of work) whilst the car charges.What's needed though is encouragement for this to happen. Infrastructure takes time to put in (so start now!) and people take time to come to decisions about their new cars. I fear that bumping the ban on new petrol car sales to 2035 will be used as an excuse to delay the infrastructure investment, which will then mean a "lack of charging infrastructure" will be used as an excuse for why the decision was "the right thing to do at the time". It's likely to be an entirely self-fulfilling prophecy.The rug may be pulled out from under the Government (either by a change of Government) or, as seen recently with Nissan, by the manufacturers deciding themselves to stop selling petrol vehicles after 2030. Many would have already been planning to phase out their ICE production lines for the 2030 deadline and it may be too expensive to reverse those plans to accommodate a new 2035 deadline if there's a reasonable chance that it may flip-flop again back to 2030.Most people of limited means tend not to buy brand new cars, and there will be a reasonable supply of second hand petrol vehicles for many years to come. Although the depth of this market is dependent on those who are looking to buy an EV not being put off by the delay and deciding to hold on to their existing petrol car (which would go the second hand market) for a few more years.-jk
John Kettlekey ● 590d