Today BP (British Petroleum) announced a deal in which BP pulse, BP’s EV charging business, will acquire ultra-fast charging hardware units from Tesla for $100 million. The investment will facilitate the expansion of the bp pulse public network across the US, while also enabling support for EV fleet customers by deploying chargers at their private depots. The introduction of Tesla’s chargers to the bp pulse network is the first time the hardware will be purchased for an independent EV charging network.
The roll-out is planned to begin in 2024 and locations will include key sites across the bp family of brands, including TravelCenters of America, Thorntons, ampm; and Amoco, as well as at bp pulse’s large-scale Gigahub™ charging sites in major metropolitan areas and at third-party locations, such as Hertz locations, as part of previously announced collaborations. The first installation sites have been identified in Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago; and Washington D.C.
In February 2023, BP announced plans to invest $1 billion in America’s EV charging infrastructure by 2030 with an aim of investing $500 million in the next two to three years.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Me too. I used to hate filling up at the gas station, used to.
It is deeply ironic that BP are buying these with their hard earned FF money.
More progress I guess.
Nice. Smart move to have the EV king, build your chargers, very smart.
I look forward to a future will more chargers then gas stations.
“I look forward to a future will more chargers th[a]n gas stations.” … yah, BECAUSE we’ll need them, due to recharge-cycle times. It was, it is, an it will remain the GotCha of electric vehicle ownership. Time to recharge.
The amount of miles-per-hour-of-fill-up is striking between ICE vehicles and even the finest super-chargers. My local Stop-n-Go station delivers (6 GPM × 60 m/h × 25 mpg) = 9,000 road miles per hour. Nothing special. Everywhere in the nation, on the continent. Installed and working.
My RAV4-Prime, having only 42 miles of battery, on “the wall plug” (120 V, 12 A) is receiving miles at (120 V × 12 A ÷ 1000 kWh/Wh × 3.3 mi/kWh ) = 4.8 miles per hour. When I installed a 40 amp, 240 V charger for about $1,200 with pro-labor installation, my charge-rate miles per hour jumped a LOT! Now it is at 32 miles per hour! Whoopeeeee…
Contrarily, when my Telsa friends take their beautiful cars to the SuperChargers around town which work at 72 kW; some are newer at 100 kW, and even the newest at 150 kW. Respectively, these calculate in at 240, 330 and about 500 miles per hour! Woohoo2!
Doesn’t really matter how you ‘cut it’. By comparison to 6 gallon per minute gasoline pumping, electricity delivery is SLOW. This will become even more apparent when we start having 500 mile EV ranges (160 kWh batteries or larger, in SUV shaped vehicles).
So, my original quip: we’ll DEFINITELY need more public chargers than present day filling stations, as the proportion of EVs gains share of the whole market.
And apartment-and-condominium renters or owners will definitely need to pitch heavily for in-garage overnight charging capacity. And code-worthy upgrades to car-fire mitigation. And even heat-abatement, if the overnight charging aggregate is a large fraction of all downstairs vehicles. You simply cannot ‘pump’ megawatts into a parking garage without getting rid of all the extra heat. Especially in Summer.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
The tesla semi has a 500mile battery. When connected a mega charger it will get a 70% recharge in 30 minute (about 350 miles). If the driver plugs in during a mandatory break he has enough time to get a meal. And he may have enough of a charge to get him to the next mandatory break. Full charge takes about an hour.
And your point (quantitatively) is what?
Tesla Model X, Y, Z, S, 30, et.c, do not accept so-called Mega chargers. No small reason why not, right? 800 volts, 1,000 amps. (or swap those, I’m never sure, which article is more authoritative). 800 to 1,000 kW of thru-the-cable power. You’d not just set a Model X or Y on fire, you’d launch it into space. Rhetorically speaking.
Again, for every Tesla Semi, there’ll be hundreds of Tesla CARS. Assuming a good roll out of Semis. And inevitable roll-out of cars by the millions. And those MEGA chargers might be outfitted with itsy-bitsy car-compatible charging cables, let’s say. But to not fission the cars, they’ll have to cut back to 400 V charging and 100 to 250 amp service (depending on what the particular Tesla car tells the charger digitally, to keep things safe).
So, circling around back to my first sentence. What’s your point vis a viz the much increased need for electric ‘supercharger’ stations due in no small part to the decidedly limited charge rate?
OR … If you like another way to look at it: If the super-charger power flow rate is so darn right magnificent, then why aren’t laws being drafted, today, to limit the flow of petrol at petrol pumps to similar rates? I wouldn’t take much at all to limit them to say, 1 liter a minute. Which’d still be 75% higher than a 100 kW supercharger. ½ liter a minute (7½ minutes per gallon) would be more similar. That way, all these pesky Internal Combustion Engine people can take 30 to 45 minutes at their way-too-many-of-them stations to get ¾ of a fill-up. Or ⅔. Or less.
I predict there would be an outrage. Mobs in the streets.
Effigies hung from lamp-posts.
UN inquiries. All that.
Cruel and unusual collective punishment statutes.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅