Living Like Ed - (Page 74) Infrastructure Issues So, given their many advantages, why doesn’t everyone own an electric vehicle? Well, for one thing, municipalities are making it harder, not easier, to operate one. In the mid-’90s, California instituted special parking spots where EV owners could recharge their cars midtrip. Today, these have almost vanished. Why? To understand this, you need to know a bit about battery technology. Until recently, when you bought an electric car, you also got a charging station, which most people mounted in their garage. I had the charging station for my Toyota RAV4 EV mounted in my garage, and I charged it at home almost exclusively. It was rare that I could do my charging elsewhere—very rare. That was partly because my life had become very busy, but it also was because L.A. had become less friendly for electric vehicles. Precious few of those electric vehicle charging stations were still in existence by 2007. That’s because the major car companies—GM, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler—that were making electric cars during the ’90s and right up until recently didn’t come to a consensus in terms of what type of charging system to use. Instead, they came up with two—well, really three—different charging disciplines. Think of it as VHS vs. BetaMax vs. DVDs. Some of their electric cars used large-paddle chargers—these big flat plastic pieces that had to be plugged into the right-size hole in the right type of charging station. Other companies used small-paddle chargers. Both of these setups used what’s called an inductive charging system. The third type of charging system was a conductive style. None of these formats were interchangeable at all, so you could only use a charging station designed specifically for your vehicle’s system. This made it really hard for people to charge their electric cars anywhere but at home, and it upset people who didn’t own electric cars. They’d see a parking space reserved for electric vehicles—with a charging station—and they’d wonder, “Why don’t I see any electric vehicles charging there?” The good news is most new electric cars—including my new Phoenix Motorcars SUT—have the charger built right in. You no longer need a separate charging station at home or anywhere else. You plug your car into a standard 220-volt electrical outlet, just like the one for your clothes dryer at home. Because these cars are designed to charge on 220 current, they living like Ed 74 driving, but some hybrid cars get better mileage in the city than they do on the highway. If you
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