When talking about electric vehicles, most people are likely to say that they represent the future of mobility. Just naming them sounds futuristic, doesn’t it? But the reality is that the origin of electric cars dates back to 1827 when the first electric motor was invented. Although its origin was many years ago, the EV boom is only a few years old, and with that also came the need for EV fast-charging stations.
Lead batteries had a problem: the limited autonomy they offered. That limitation was the main problem encountered by the leaders of the automotive industry. Get to know the importance of EV fast-charging stations.
Henry Ford desired that most of the cars manufactured and sold were electric. He had to abandon that dream when he realized that forcing drivers to recharge their vehicles so often was inconvenient and impractical.
Many years have passed since then, but the electric vehicle industry suffers today from something similar: the need to implement as many EV fast-charging stations as possible so that drivers feel confident and opt for this greener alternative.
Why are fast-charging stations for electric cars so important?
Although many years have passed since the last time an attempt was made to impose electric vehicles as the leaders in the automotive industry, the need today is different from that time.
Today we know that cars, trucks, buses, and so on, are one of the main causes of climate change and, therefore, for natural disasters that are becoming more and more frequent.
As there is a great need to reduce the number of toxic gases emitted into the environment, the transition from traditional vehicles to electric ones is imminent. But for this to take place, it is necessary to give drivers the security and confidence that recharging them will be as easy as refueling a regular car. That’s the reason why implementing as many EV fast-charging stations as possible is insisted upon.
Just as cars with combustion engines are charged with different grades of gasoline, electric vehicle chargers are measured in “levels.” These levels describe how fast a charger can recharge an electric vehicle battery.
Chargers are usually defined by kilowatts per hour (kWh). There are three types of chargers on the market: Level 1, Level 2, and Direct Current Fast Chargers (DCFC).
The fact that drivers know they can plug in their electric car anywhere close to them and recharge it in an hour or less, is essential to make more people decide to choose an electric car.
People need to feel certain that if they need to drive a lot every day, they won’t encounter any problems when trying to find where to plug in their vehicles or to get it recharged as quickly as possible.
Differences between Level 1, Level 2 and EV fast-charging stations
If you want to change your regular car for an electric vehicle, it’s important to understand the differences between the types of EV charging levels available since the one you’ll use will be directly related to the car you choose.
- Level 1. It uses a standard 120V household outlet, which provides up to 5 miles of EV range per hour. An overnight recharge will provide 0-50 miles of range. It’s commonly found in residential settings. L1s are useful if you don’t drive your car for many hours every day.
- Level 2. These are the most commonly found chargers and operate at 208-240V. It will recharge an EV at 12 to 60 miles of range per hour. L2 can be found both in residential areas and public spaces. An average EV can be fully charged in 8 hours or less.
- DCFC or Level 3. These fast-charging stations use direct current (DC) in comparison to L1 and L2 which use alternating current (AC). They can recharge an EV to its 80% in just 30 minutes. DCFC chargers are found in public spaces, such as malls and parking lots.
