You Just Need an EV Charger in One of These 3 Places

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If you don’t have an electric car, there are two questions you are almost certain to have about an electric car — how long does it take to charge, and how far does the car take you on a full charge? In reality, those issues, especially the former, matter very little to many electric car owners (like myself). Yes, a decade ago, when an affordable electric car had just 80 miles of range, these were common concerns. Today, we are in a different era.

On a recent CleanTech Talk podcast, Milad Davoodi, COO of Xcelerate Auto, made some great points about charging. First of all, he noted something obvious that he sometimes brings up with people concerned about EV charging and range. He asks: does your car spend most of the day driving or parked? For an average person, it spends far more time parked. He said he then asks them where it is parked the longest. Many people skip over the matter of it being parked at home and say “at work.” If it’s spending several hours a day parked at your place of work, all you need is workplace charging and you’ve got the vast majority of your charging covered. In such a case, you probably don’t even need home charging.

Of course, if you have home charging, again, there’s no real need for anything else. Naturally, once in a blue moon you may take a long road trip in which you need to charge somewhere else, and in those cases, you’ll need to find public fast chargers on your route, but that’s a tiny portion of most people’s driving and charging needs. And it’s easier than most people realize.

Even if you don’t have home charging or workplace charging, Milad points out that with fast chargers along regular driving routes or at regular destinations (places you go once or twice a week), again, you might not need anything else. I’ve had a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus (SR+) for 4½ years. I think about 90% of my charging has been done at Tesla Superchargers, primarily Superchargers located behind a grocery store that I regularly go to. I can charge at home, but I seldom do so since it’s cheaper (free) for me to Supercharge. I make the trip there about twice a week, get fresh fruits & veggies and a few other things while Supercharging, and then get on my way.

You can hear more about these topics along with other EV buyer concerns, and answers & solutions to those, on this podcast discussion:

To wrap up on this topic, though, it should probably be shared a bit more: At the moment, if you have a place to charge at home, at work, or at a common destination you visit once or twice a week, that would probably cover almost all of your charging needs. If you have charging facilities at two or three of those places, your charging needs should be the last of your concerns when shopping for a car and considering electric options.