Yeah, 15 minutes (never mind 30) for a refuel. Can’t wait. (Duh - you’ll really have to plan your day around that too!)
Cheaper gas stations already attract so many patrons that the line to the pumps spills into the road. That's when an average fill-up takes 3-4 minutes. If the charging now takes 30-40 minutes then the line will be so large that you need a special parking lot built for those cars. How many cities have the free land for that, and now many corner station owners have the dough to pay for that?
The EV will work only when the technology delivers us a battery that carries enough joules for a 200-300 mile trip, charges from 0% to 100% under 5 minutes, and can take tens of thousands of recharges without losing capacity. That's what the gas tank does in a regular car. Oh, it also should cost about the same as an empty gas tank :-)
I'm interested in technology and I'm working with technology; I have an EE education. However I just don't see how modern batteries can make any practical sense in a car. They can't even power our laptops for more than a couple of hours!
zapping the battery with a level 3 (440500V), direct current (DC)
Those guys need to learn the meaning of the word "bomb" because that's what they are building. Can you imagine the energy flow per second that is required? What will happen if there is a little more resistance? Will the fire engulf only that one car, or it will consume hundreds more? Those are important questions, and we answered them when gasoline was adopted.
JoJo’s charges a flat rate of $5 for EV quick-charges per 30 minutes.
Wishful thinking. JoJo will charge as much as the market will bear. In the end the cost of charging will be the same, if not more, than the cost of gasoline. As matter of fact, chargers will be also more expensive (a captive audience) and if installed outdoors they will need service. On top of that, who said that the power company will not want a piece of the action? Energy is currently a very limited resource due to NIMBY and other issues that peopel are well aware of. The power company would rather ration the energy, that's what they did in CA in Enron times.
I can’t wait for lines around the block again.
At least this won’t put any more stress on the power grid system.
The ‘big picture guys’ may not have thought this through all the way.