Japan Now Has More Electric Car Charging Spots Than Gas Stations

https://transportevolved.com/2015/02/17/official-japan-now-electric-car-charging-spots-gas-stations/

by prostoalex • 10 years ago

359 113 10 years ago

im3w1l• 10 years ago

More than one pump per gas station. Still very impressive!

biot2• 10 years ago

And, as the article hints at, refuelling with gas takes minutes vs. hours for electric. It'll probably take a couple orders of magnitude more electric chargers than gas stations to support the same number of each vehicle type.

arrrg2• 10 years ago

But on the other hand electric cars can be charged at home …

Depending on how many people have a place with a power outlet (ok, a garage) in close proximity to their car and depending on how many people frequently drive less than their range per day (and less than their maybe underpowered power outlet can charge in one night) that might save on quite some public outlets. But I don’t know the numbers.

I know many people where this would apply, though. And those outlets are included in this number, anyway. Which kinda supports my assumption: I think you might be able to get away with actually many fewer public power outlets than gas stations.

adventured• 10 years ago

This claim is only true because they included private garage based charging, such as in a home. A pretty big stretch in trying to generate a headline.

capote5• 10 years ago

I think it's reasonable to count those. People use them, maybe even more than public ones. They serve a huge purpose and are an important part of having electric cars in society. They're very much on-par with gas stations for this count, and for the viability of the electric car system, in my opinion. After all, Nissan (referenced in this article) is talking about the viability of the electric car system in society, not just numbers for fun or headlines.

If people had personal gas stations because it took a long time to fuel your car and you had to do it overnight, those should count too, because they'd argue for the viability of the combustion engine. But that's not the case.

kmonsen• 10 years ago

That makes some sense, but still 40,000 is not a lot if you count private homes with electric car. It almost has to mean that substantially less than 40k electric cars are sold since not many people are buying them without a charger at home?

sparky_z2• 10 years ago

I disagree completely. In your hypothetical world, what if they were all private gas stations? That would certainly affect the economics of owning a gasoline car for the worse, if you also had to build and maintain your own gas station to go along with it. But apparently we shouldn't take that into account?

Here's another hypothetical: What if every single private charging station in Japan was owned by the same individual, and he refused to let anybody else use them? Would that change your opinion? Because from the perspective of someone who's deciding which kind of car to buy, that scenario is functionally identical to the current reality.

The only infrastructure that affects "viability" of a new technology is infrastructure that's available to use. A bunch of roped-off private infrastructure doesn't change the equation for anybody whose not already a member of the club.

lotharbot3• 10 years ago

"People use them, maybe even more than public ones"

I drive a Chevy Volt, which spends about 23 hours per day plugged in to the charger in my driveway. That private spot gets used a lot, but it only services one vehicle. Even a public charging station generally only serves the needs of a couple dozen vehicles per day. Whereas a gas station generally services hundreds, or even thousands, of vehicles. So a spot-to-station comparison isn't really very useful. The more relevant question is "how many vehicles does this infrastructure support, in what usage patterns?"

The answer to that question is, still a lot fewer electric vehicles than gasoline vehicles are supported by the current infrastructure (even in Japan), and the usage patterns are more limited.

We're clearly in a transitional period where electric vehicles are becoming viable, but there are limitations. As I said in a recent thread, "If I purchase a vehicle, I'm likely to want it to work for every trip I want to take ... If a car sucks for even one of those trips [to distant states, the airport at ~45 miles round-trip, or a long day of errands], I'm going to be hesitant to buy it". As electric ranges get longer and public charging stations get faster and more dense, electric vehicles will become more viable for more people, but right now they're still not on par with gasoline vehicles for the population as a whole (not even in a smaller country like Japan.) The progress is exciting, but sometimes it's presented in misleading ways that make it sound a lot closer to "always viable" than it really is.

duaneb4• 10 years ago

If people had personal gas stations because it took a long time to fuel your car and you had to do it overnight, those should count too, because they'd argue for the viability of the combustion engine.

It's a different meaning, though—even if you have access to 1 million gas stations, it doesn't help you if your tank doesn't hold enough gas to get to the next station on your route. The total number isn't meaningful in "road trip" problems.

dba7dba• 10 years ago

The big plus of EV is that you can 'gas' (or charge) up your vehicle at your home. So I think including charger in private garage is just fine.

duaneb4• 10 years ago

This implies an increased density of power availability, which doesn't follow given many charging stations are unavailable to the general public.

nihonde4• 10 years ago

Either way, they're pretty abundant here. I see charging stations all over my city. Almost every branded car dealership has one, and there are dealerships everywhere. Also, people in Japan tend to live in multifamily buildings, and private garages can be quite large and serve a lot of cars.

It's rare if a day goes by when I don't see a Nissan with a charger plugged into the front badge somewhere.

usrusr• 10 years ago

Also, people in Japan tend to live in multifamily buildings, and private garages can be quite large and serve a lot of cars.

How would you get the driver to reliably go back to the garage to move the car to a non-charging spot after completion? Sharing a parking charger between multiple users requires enormous coordination when usage patterns are not naturally collision free. Without autonomous parking and plugging, the whole concept of charging while parking is effectively creating a 1:1 relationship between chargers and cars

usaphp• 10 years ago

Why can't they be included?

ekianjo• 10 years ago

Because you can't use them freely if you drive around.

taneq2• 10 years ago

It'd be like including your microwave in a map of restaurants in your area. Technically yes, you can get food there, but it's not the same.

kubatyszko• 10 years ago

and Tesla has barely THREE charging stations in Tokyo... (2 are in "center" and one on the periphery).

Zarel• 10 years ago

The last time I went to a Tesla store, they told me Superchargers aren't supposed to be used in cities, they're supposed to be used mainly for road trips. Putting them between major cities allows them to be free to be used for road trips without making them convenient enough for most people to use them as their usual charging station.

akafred2• 10 years ago

Cool, lots of cars running on nuclear energy, then!

Complexicate• 10 years ago

Nope. There's barely any nuclear power here now. Most plants were turned off after Fukushima. In fact I believe only 1 is online at the moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

akafred2• 10 years ago

Ah, didn't know that. I guess they are mainly running on electricity from coal/oil/gas power plants, then.

_ph_• 10 years ago

All gasoline cars are running 100% on oil and that is never going to change. Electrical cars are using a mix of electricity sources, some not as good as others, but with each renewable energy source added to the grid, every electrical car, also the older ones, are getting a bit cleaner. Add to that the ability to steer the charging of the cars (at least partially) synced to grid load, they can help stabilizing the grid and make renewable sources easier to integrate.

jernfrost2• 10 years ago

Just like gasoline cars then. Gasoline cars use just as much electricity as EVs, as refining of oil to gasoline requires substantial amount of electricity.

With all the extra energy needs of gasoline cars for tankers, building and maintenance of gas stations, I think the world would need a lot less electricity production if everybody went electric rather than ICE.

Animats• 10 years ago

Here's the interactive map.[1] Most of those charging stations are not public. Hotels and auto dealerships have some of them. I've been looking for them in Google Maps. Here's one that's in a public parking lot and has signage.[2] You have to pay for parking to charge, but that's not unreasonable in Tokyo.

[1] http://www.chademo.com/wp/jpmap/ [2] https://goo.gl/maps/M5WYLuM4uEK2

ck2• 10 years ago

Sometimes revolutions happen quietly, very quietly.

(actually, that could be an electric car company slogan)

dbalan• 10 years ago

The actual data worth looking will the percentage of electric vehicles to ones that run on conventional fuel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_J... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country#Ja...

lotharbot3• 10 years ago

of note: Japan has about 80 million total vehicles (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle#Japan ) -- so while the number of pure electric vehicles is rising, it's still a small percentage overall.

duaneb4• 10 years ago

It is a strange experience to be jealous of countries with high population density. However, every time bicycles, electric vehicles, or renewable energy comes up, I feel profoundly embarrassed the US can't form a similar effort given our resources, even if I rationally understand it's probably not worth it to have a high speed train hit all the small towns in Montana, or how solar panels might not work as well in Forks, Washington as they do in California.

mjevans• 10 years ago

While I too agree that high speed rail (and even Internet) in absolutely rural areas doesn't really make sense...

The US still has areas of fairly to -really- high population density, and arguably, areas that should be far higher (city cores with skyscrapers, and city outskirts with 6-8 story high multi-use buildings), even the current suburban density is more than dense enough to support better transit experiences than we presently see.

Transit of both the mass people and the mass-data kind.

amazon_not3• 10 years ago

While I too agree that high speed rail (and even Internet) in absolutely rural areas doesn't really make sense...

Yeah, it's not like rural areas have power or phone service. /s

Seriously, what makes high speed internet so special that rural areas should not have it?

It's not like we don't know how to build networks and we've already built the power and telephone networks. Internet access is getting to be as important as phone service and power and it's undeniable that from a societal perspective everyone would benefit from having equal access to internet services.

rayiner2• 10 years ago

I'm not sure suburban density is enough. I live in Fairfax County, VA, which has a population density of 3,000 per square mile (about the same as Seattle). They recently extended the Metro out here. Getting to any of the stations, however, is impossible. There are more new Silver Line stations than apartment buildings within a safe and comfortable walk of them (they're surrounded by a scary wide major thoroughfare). I think you'd have to double or triple the surrounding density for them to be worthwhile. I think 8-10k per square mile is the magic number, and there aren't a lot of places in the U.S. that hit that.

nihonde4• 10 years ago

As a point of comparison, I live in a city in Japan (Nagoya) that's about the size (roughly) of Chicago. Bikes are very common here. Many street lamps have solar and wind generators. Fuel efficient 'kei' cars are everywhere. (Mine gets 35km/l.) The regional trains and local subways are always on time, never very crowded, and cover a huge area. The bullet train to Kyoto/Osaka is 1.5 hours, and 2 hours 45 mins to Tokyo.

WorldMaker3• 10 years ago

I've long considered how weird it is that I'm jealous of the American past at times. We collectively have forgotten how deeply connected our rail system originally was and how fast it was when it originally was built. Even what small fraction of those rail lines that still exist, if America managed to wrestle them from the cargo companies running them near bankruptcy for a bandwidth of just cargo tons, found a way to pay for updates and upgrades (the most unlikely part of this scenario sadly) and got the lines back up to the original speeds, not even doing an upgrade to modern high speeds, people would be amazed at where you can travel and how fast you can get there...

ghaff2• 10 years ago

By and large rail freight in the US is a rather profitable business and significantly more efficient than trucks for the routes and cargo where it makes sense. [1]

As for getting passenger rail back up to its original speed, I'd have to be convinced that (modulo the delays that can occur due to sharing rails with freight) that it's a lot slower than it once was. For example, the Twentieth Century from NY to Chicago took about 16 hours (per the song) and takes about the same length of time today.

How many people are going to take a 16 hour train from NY to Chicago when they can fly in a few hours? Maybe you and/or a few others who will do it now and then for the experience, but pretty much none of the business travelers who are the bread and butter of most routes would. Heck, cut it to 8 hours and, still, very few would take it.

The rail service was never all that fast over long distances. There just weren't any reasonable alternatives.

ADD: This isn't unique to the US BTW. I've looked at European routes like Dusseldorf to Paris and it turned out it made far more sense to fly.

[1] http://fortune.com/2015/06/04/union-pacific-railroad/

kamran20• 10 years ago

Unlike the majority of gas stations in Japan however, the 40,000 electric car charging points quoted by Nissan includes ones in private homes, causing some critics to cry foul. After all, if a charging station is hidden in a privately-owned garage, it isn’t easily accessible to the public. Yet while we understand that criticism — and it’s why we used an asterisk in our headline — the rise of charger-sharing sites like PlugShare.com means that more people than ever before are offering their private charging station for others to use, either as an altruistic gesture or for cold, hard cash. Moreover, it’s possible to argue that because privately-owned charging stations are enabling owners to drive their cars without visiting public charging stations, they’re providing just as valid a service to everyday drivers as publicly-assessable, higher-powered ones. But while electric car charging stations may now be far more common in Japan than a gas station, the numbers of electric cars on the roads of Japan still represent a tiny proportion of the total cars registered. It includes public and private charging spots but the article does raise some good points about 'charge spot pooling' and reducing the dependency on petrol stations. Interesting times ahead!

personjerry3• 10 years ago

I think I agree with you. The key thing to note is the speed at which new technologies are adopted, rather than the question of adopting as private vs public. I suspect someone with the right connections and resources could invest in the Yen, then strategize to put Japan as a frontrunner for electric car technologies (thus revitalizing its economy) and make a lot of money.

tamana4• 10 years ago

That sounds like a multi billion dollar investment, and Japanese companies do a great job of building electric cars for the export market already.

cstross• 10 years ago

In general, most gas stations have more than one petrol or diesel pumping point!

Also, electric cars mostly have a much shorter range than gas/diesel vehicles, so need to charge more frequently.

And electric cars take much longer to charge than internal combustion engines (double-digit minutes to multiple hours, vs. single-digit minutes).

So, really, even if all of these charge points were publicly accessible, there are about two orders of magnitude too few of them to service an electric vehicle fleet of the same size as the IC vehicle fleet.

(It is, however, a very promising early sign.)

jeroen• 10 years ago

Yes, it would be more useful to compare capacity in range delivered. Filling up at a gas station takes ~ 5 minutes and adds 400 miles /640 kilometres of range. Filling up at a charging point takes x hours and delivers y range.

Stick in some real world average numbers, count pumping points (not gas stations) and charging points, and then adjust for peak demand (gas by day, electricity by night) and you have comparable numbers.

hysan4• 10 years ago

I'd like to read exactly what those critics say because I'm curious to see if they are accounting for the difference in driving culture between the US and Japan. Specifically, in Japan:

1. Owning a car in Japan is no where near as simple as in the US. One of the requirements that makes the private charging stations criticism sound ignorant is that you must have a legal verified parking spot to own a car. So the majority of people who own electric cars will only need to use a charging station when they are away from home for longer than a single charge. This is probably not applicable in most daily use.

2. Charging stations can be left unattended for 24 hour use. That's a huge plus as electric cars start spreading. Why? Because in Japan, many gas stations close and are unavailable during most night hours. Finding 24 hour stations (usually self pump ones) after 7-8pm can be difficult in some areas. So the gap between accessible fill-up/charge-up spots isn't as big as most Americans are imagining. Of course a gap exists, but that will only close over time. (edit: people also are much more conscious about having a full tank before departing on long trips. It's just one of those things you have to think about when driving in Japan.)

3. Last is the daiko/taxi system in Japan. Read about the 0% alcohol tolerance system and how this car service system works to make people's lives easier here. Heck, you can't even ride your bike while drunk in Japan. The way people approach transportation here is just different.

The driving culture in Japan is very different and it's hard to take that criticism seriously unless some hard numbers and studies are done to take into account the massive difference in driving culture.

TorKlingberg• 10 years ago

It's true that you must have a parking spot to own a car, but not necessarily at your residence. People with unused parking often rent it out, through an intermediary company or directly to a neighbor. Empty lots awaiting construction are also often rented out as parking spaces.

dspillett• 10 years ago

Heck, you can't even ride your bike while drunk in Japan.

That is true in many places officially, though a blind eye is often turned.

In the UK (my location) this is covered by section 30 or the Road Traffic Act (1988): "It is an offence for a person to ride a cycle on a road or other public place when unfit to ride through drink or drugs".

You can't be breathalysed (well, you can but you can't be forced to, if they ask you can decline unlike when in a car or other such vehicle) or be made to give other samples (though as with breath, if they ask and you volunteer the sample can be used as evidence), but other tests can be demanded (i.e. the standard finger-to-nose, straight-line, and alphabet physical & mental coordination tests). It'll not affect your driving license if you have one but there are potentially significant fines.

aninhumer• 10 years ago

Another important point is that people in Japan are much more able (and likely) to travel by train for the kind of long journeys where refuelling/recharging would be important. So comprehensive charging station infrastructure is less of a prerequisite for most people to consider an electric vehicle.

wiz21• 10 years ago

Interestingly, Japan oil consumption felt by +/- 18% since 2000 while population remained stable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Japan

http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=jp&product=oil...

IkmoIkmo• 10 years ago

This is mostly true for many developed countries.

For example, in the nr 1 economy in Europe, Germany, the figure dropped since the 80s, and all of this is well before renewables ramped up (which are still tiny). Same with the nr 2, the UK, also dropped, and the nr 3, France. I haven't bothered looking further. All these countries grew in size somewhat btw.

In part it's because of new efficiencies, in part because of shifting industries away from industrial towards services.

frgewut2• 10 years ago

I would be more interested in statistics about Norway as 30% of new cars are electric there.

jernfrost2• 10 years ago

I believe there are around 50 - 60 000 EVs in Norway and 6000 public charging stations. The EU is mandating that Norway needs to build 25 000 charging stations by 2020.

Shortage of charging points is becoming a problem as the number of electric cars is growing much faster than the building of charging stations. So while there is good geographic coverage the problem is that so many need to charge at the same time.

Whenever I pass charging stations down town they always seem to be occupied by somebody.

Tobias42• 10 years ago

How can the EU tell Norway to build charging stations if Norway is not even a member of the EU? Do you have any sources for that?

frgewut2• 10 years ago

What happens with regular gasoline pumps there? 30% is a big number so I would expect some impact (closures, limiting working hours etc).

piyushpr134• 10 years ago

Japan has quietly done it and forgot to tell the world!

datsun• 10 years ago

Why don't gas stations offer quick charging spots by now I wonder? Why are they not interested in attracting EV owners?

mikeash• 10 years ago

As I write this comment, this story is on the front page just above the story titled "Misperceiving Bullshit as Profound." I find the juxtaposition amusing. I'm a huge proponent of EVs, but this comparison is meaningless and silly.

anexprogrammer• 10 years ago

This is hardly surprising. Or terribly newsworthy. Just reinforces how early we still are in the adoption of electric vehicles.

The amount of gas stations available has plummeted in most places over the last 20 years. I presume Japan is similar. It's been equally down to supermarkets getting into petrol supply and the oil companies introducing large weekly mininimums. UK probably has 1/2 or 1/3 the number of petrol stations compared to y2k. It's ruined the convenience of filling up and tiny 1 and 2 pump stations are consigned to history. Live somewhere rural? Now you can drive 20 miles just to fill up.

Meanwhile charging points are being put in everywhere - towns are making charging bays in car parks, or on street. Much like happened with petrol in the 1920s.

Oh, and let's not forget a charging point caters for a lot fewer vehicles than a petrol station.

toomuchtodo5• 10 years ago

Everyone can charge at home. You'll only need to charge out and about if you exceed ~200 miles in a trip.

n0computer• 10 years ago

Not entirely true if you live in one of many apartment complexes or multi-family residences. Additionally some single family homes might not have outlet access near vehicles. Which is likely more common in Japan too than here I assume.

rayiner2• 10 years ago

Gas stations are incredibly damaging to the environment, and the land is very expensive to remediate if ever used for something else. That's why they have been disappearing.

toomuchtodo5• 10 years ago

As soon as EVs take off and gas stations start closing up shop, I'm going into petrol station remediation. There's gold in them there hills!

tamana4• 10 years ago

What something else? Is a retail space a worse fit on gas station land than the gas+retail spacd it replaced?

pnewman32• 10 years ago

I just came back from Japan, and saw very few EVs on the road, just one or two Nissan Leafs. By a wide margin the cars you mostly see on the road there are kei-cars, which are small cars with 660cc engines. They are cheap, tax-advantaged, offer good fuel economy, and are surprisingly roomy. Until there is a good EV kei alternative I don't think EVs will really take off in Japan. Hybrids are pretty common though.

I also saw several mobile charging spots at convenience stores though, which is brilliant, and some larger car parks covered with solar panels. Being able to get charging points at convenient locations using the existing grid, and thus doing away with specific trips to the gas station and fuel distribution logistics will be a huge advantage eventually.

pjlegato• 10 years ago

The statistical evidence backs this up: pure electric vehicle sales in Japan are a tiny fraction of total vehicle sales -- less than 1% -- and sales are not growing significantly.

The headline is linkbaity and meant to play on people's unfounded stereotypes of Japan as some sort of environmentally superior Utopian Tomorrowland.

Only about 30,000 plug-in vehicles are sold per year in Japan[1], out of 4.2 million total passenger vehicles sold.[2]

Growth forecasts for plugins are anemic, with even the most optimistic estimates predicting only 50,000 units sold annually by 2023.[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_J...

[2] http://www.statista.com/statistics/269889/passenger-car-sale...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_J...

pnewman32• 10 years ago

I think Japan is at least better than the US environmentally in a number of ways, but a lot of the benefit is squandered away by things like overuse of air conditioning, packaging waste, and industry.

Japan Now Has More Electric Car Charging Spots Than Gas Stations

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