[Luckycharms]

The only thing I disagree with is continuing to call anything under 150kW "fast charging".

A 50kW DC "Fast Charger" will take over an hour to fill our XC40's from 10-80%. No one would define this as fast.

 

[Luckycharms]

We went to sooooo many Walmarts on our road trip …. And they always stick them in the corner of the parking lot like they embarrassed we are there.

This is most likely just a space issue. Chargers take a lot of power and equipment.

Power comes in off the pole at high voltage.
Then it goes through a stepdown transformer.
From the transformer it goes into a main switchboard.
This then feeds the converters for each charger. This converts the power from AC to DC.
Then it goes from the converter to the actual charger next to your car.

So for a typical 4 charger installation you have a transformer, a main switchgear, 4 converters, and then 4 chargers.

These are all big pieces of equipment and they all take up space. They aren't going to let them take up prime real estate.

And you can't put the chargers far away from the converters because these are HUGE wires. Each wire is dollars per foot, per wire.

 

[Luckycharms]

I see these have no canopies. Oh why not? I did a road trip from the Bay Area to Olympia and got caught standing in the rain for 15 minutes trying to get an EVgo station working with the guy on the phone. In another spot the only available slot faced the rising sun and the reflection made the screen unreadable. Gas stations have canopies; EV stations should too.

Just remember that the canopy is there to contain the fire suppression system, as required by law.
Gas stations aren't installing canopies for their customers convenience/comfort.

Canopies are a very big added expense to a business (DC fast charging) that already is struggling to make a profit due to low utilitzation rates.

If you just think about it from a business case, do you want them to install canopies on every charging hub, adding 20-30% cost to the site. Or do you want them to install more high powered charging stations?

I personally want the latter, at least until the adoption rate of EV's is much much higher.

 

[Luckycharms]

I am curious how much power could a 4 bay canopy of solar panels collect in ideal conditions?

Standard parking space is 9x20
Standard (residential, I don't know commercial) solar panel is 3.25x5.5.
Standard solar panel output per hour is 300-400 watts depending on the panel.

If you figure you could fit 12 panels per stall times 4 stalls you get 48 panels per site generating 14.4kW to 19.2kW per hour.
So a highly efficient solar panel setup on a really sunny day would only provide 115kW of energy in a really sunny location.
Approximately.
Or about one batteries worth.

And you're only generating that during peak sunlight conditions:

Sun Hours Map: How Many Sun Hours Do You Get?

Check out this sun hours map from Unbound Solar to see how many peak sun hours you get in your specific zip code. Learn how this affects solar panels.

unboundsolar.com

Solar panels
You need massive a massive area with a lot of panels to generate a usable amount of energy. At least for electric cars.