Take the wheel of an electric vehicle and prepare to be amazed. The latest technology is there, with tablet-like screens instead of old-fashioned switches. Add falling price which makes owning and running many electric vehicles (short for EV)as cheap as fossil-fuel alternatives, and the open road signals. Above all, the instant acceleration of battery power makes driving easy and exciting.
EV should be recharged roughly every 250 miles. When you do find a public charging point, it is sometimes inaccessible, which causes "range anxiety". It is one of the main reasons drivers give for not buying an EV. Who might install them? Drivers will need a mix of fast "long distance" chargers installed near motorways and slower" top-up" chargers available in the car parks of shopping centers, restaurants and so on. Dedicated charging firms and carmakers are investing in infrastructure（基础设施）. Oil companies are putting chargers in petrol stations and buying charging companies.
Yet the charging business suffers from big problems. One is how to adjust between the planning authorities and grid（电网）firms. Another is the cost. To start with, profits may be difficult to attain because the networks will not at first be heavily used. A related risk is that the coverage will have gaps. And then there is the question of competing networks. Drivers should be able to switch from one to the other without having to sign up to them all.
What to do? Government is experimenting. As well as funding EV sales, many are throwing cash at public chargers. America's law sets aside $7. 5 billion to create 500, 000 public stations by 2030. Britain plans to require new building to install chargers. Yet the problem of coverage and convenience will remain.
