[snip]
It all sounds complex - and perhaps it is, unnecessarily so. But such is the way of an open free market economy. It is fair to say that since I started paying attention in 2017, the number of charging stations has grown hugely;
Wife took delivery of her first Leaf today (well, I did, as she was at work). I highlighted your comment above, because I do agree, it does all seem a little bit complicated, but then again, you
might have had a similar discussion about ICE cars at the start of the last century couldn't you?..
Okay, we have 3 main fuel types; Petrol, Diesel, and LPG. Most petrol and diesel is available in the following places;
Esso, Texaco, BP, Shell, many smaller local petrol stations and also supermarket petrol stations in Asda, Morrison's, Sainsbury's and Tesco. But not in M&S or Waitrose.
Fuel is in a liquid form, dispensed into your car by either self-service pumps (very popular towards the end of the 20th century and into current times) or historically by filling station staff that filled your car for you (not seen in the U.K. very often nowadays, although other countries such as the U.S. still employ people to do this for motorists).
Payment for your fuel is normally taken in the form of cash, card, contactless methods including mobile phones and also until around 5 years ago, cheques. Modern petrol pumps sometimes allow you to pay at the pump itself. You can, at most pumps opt to select a pre-limit, either in GBP or in litres of fuel, although this facility, whilst
extremely common, is used very little in the U.K. as most motorists share the same irrational behaviour of filling their vehicle to the nearest £5, feeling ashamed if they put in £20.01 for example.
Now, that's the infrastructure discussed in detail. Here's a little bit about fuel itself. Most cars in the U.K run on either petrol or diesel, both refined from crude oil and shipped across the planet from the Middle East, although the U.K. also has it's own refineries. Traditionally, petrol has been the preserve of the performance car driver over the frugal, yet more limited performance of the diesel engine. More modern technology (especially Hybrid tech) has seen petrol engines shrink in size, more than matching the MPG figures of diesel machines, whilst keeping or increasing performance output.
Diesel cars have also over the years gone from being seen as having tank or tractor-like engine properties due to noise levels and lack of smoothness, to being very quiet and having good performance, with better torque than the equivalent sized petrol counterpart being a big pull (excuse the pun) for diesel drivers.
LPG is another less popular choice of fuel used in the U.K. Much like the 3D television, it did have it's place and still does for many, however a limited infrastructure and poor take-up by motorists has seen LPG largely ignored by the mainstream. LPG provides huge MPG figures at a much lower cost than petrol or diesel. Performance is more limited.
Petrol and Diesel fuels are also very commonly available in normally 2 standards at most fuel outlets, with the more expensive fuels claiming better performance (normally only noticed in already high performing engines) and a cleaner burn, resulting in less emissions.
With all of the above in mind, do we think that electric cars are really that complicated? Find a charge point that's compatible, plug a cable in, pay for it. Drive away when done. There are different phone apps, KWh measurements etc...but I don't think electric cars are in any way more complicated than what's gone before it - it's just new, that's all.
Humans don't like change, we're programmed not to.
I hope my lighthearted and in many ways incorrect (I'm sure) post serves to illustrate my point about things being not so difficult to grasp. In 10 years, it'll all be completely normal to lots of us