Twice As Many Charging Stations in U.S. as Flex Fuel Stations, Study Finds

December 26th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

I see news of new charging stations going up in the U.S. every week. They, clearly, aren’t everywhere yet, but they’re getting installed pretty quickly. And, according to a new study by Bloomberg, they now outnumber flex fuel stations in the U.S. Here’s more, plus commentary, from sister site Gas2:

Study: Twice As Many Charging Stations As Flex Fuel Stations (via Gas 2.0)

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Tags: flex fuel, flex fuel stations, quickies

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Euclid47

As much as I like charging stations, swap outs will make the difference I think. People lack patience, so telling them 30 mins for an 80% charge is unacceptable, 3/4 hours for a full charge and their turning on their heels.

Tell ‘em 3/5 mins to pull and swap a battery at their local BATTS-R-US, and you’ll see the “O RLY?” face.

It also creates a whole new industry for companies to service the swap, and charge the units, as well as opportunities for the auto manufacturers to cash in on prior sales by selling additional battery units. Think of when cell phone batteries were so poor people would keep a spare, and you realise people are less cost averse, than they are just impatient..

I seriously think someone is missing a trick here for a business model, they’d just need enough clout to influence the auto makers.
- Anonymous
  
  Toshiba’s SCiB lithium-ion batteries will take a 95% charge in 18 minutes.
  Honda will be using them in their Fit EV being released in 2012.
  
  I suspect we’ll go to swapping batteries only if range doesn’t rise to about 175 miles. 175 miles and 95%, <20 minute charging gets you a 500 mile driving day with only two short stops.
  
  The swapping business model is well underway. Google Better Place. They've got swapping stations and Renault is building EVs for them.
  
  That said, I don't see swapping as the future….
http://twitter.com/RexScientiarum Eccentric scientist

Dude there are A TON here and I have yet to see even one used ONCE. I just hope they don’t pull them before plugins hit mainstream because they jumped the gun on infrastructure and then got to impatient. That would totally suck. As soon as I can afford one I am buying an electric.