Why parking operators will play a major role in public EV charging

In the future, we’ll rarely go to filling stations to charge-up, because electricity is all around us. We will simply top-up where we normally park. Car parks will be central to mainstream EV adoption and the elimination of availability anxiety.  

EV early adopters have driveways or are business users driving on major routes. But for EV to become truly mainstream, we have to provide affordable and available charging for everyone. That includes the nearly 40% of people without driveways and the 80% of traffic that doesn’t run on motorways. So the public charging network needs to catch up. Last year, according to SMMT figures, for every 52 EVs registered only one new public charge point was installed.  

Car parks are the obvious places to accelerate the number of public charge points. They include destinations like town and city centres. Shopping centres, leisure facilities, hotels and hospitality venues. Public sector car parks in hospitals and educational establishments. Private and public sector workplace car parks. These are all examples of high utilisation car parks where people stay on average for at least a couple of hours. The opportunity for car park operators to take EV into the mainstream has arrived.  

What’s more important – abundance or speed?

A 7kW AC home charger could take all night to charge your car. A public 22kW 3-phase AC fast charger might take a couple of hours. A 100kW rapid DC charger might do the same job in just half an hour. As a car park operator, which option would you choose?  

First you have to consider that rapid chargers cost many times more than fast chargers, and that the cost and access to an electricity connection suitable for rapid charging can be prohibitive. Then you have to think about the typical dwell time in each car park. In a hotel it would be overnight, in a workplace it might be most of the day, and in a retail park it could be just an hour or two.  

In almost every case, it would make more sense to deploy a large number of fast chargers rather than a couple of rapid ones. With fast charging, the average dwell time and top-up time are well matched, so there is no advantage in the extra speed of rapid chargers - just the disadvantages of fewer charge points and higher prices.

Abundance matters. The battery capacity of today’s EVs has reached a point where range anxiety is a receding issue, and it will continue to recede as people acclimatise to driving electric. But availability anxiety, where people worry about getting to an available charger, will continue until the ratio and distribution of public chargers to EVs reaches the right level.  

Car parks will be central to mainstream EV adoption and the elimination of availability anxiety. The time to act is now.