On a recent trip to California, we went skiing in Mammoth Mountain. While we drove a plug-in hybrid, I found it odd that there were very few publicly accessible L2 charging stations. In fact Mammoth mountain only had one, which was broken. There are several hotels in the area which do offer L2 charging stations, but only to their guests. Contrast that to Collingwood, ON, where there are half a dozen or so chargers available. Indeed, L2 chargers can be a potent way to accelerate the EV transition.
Level 2 EV charging stations can charge your EV from 3-20 kW (often at about 6 kW), depending on what your car and station can handle. Usually they are much cheaper to install, even in a semi-commercial setting, few thousand dollars will get a you a pair of networked charging stations. Contrast that to a L3 charging station, with speeds north of 50 kW, which might cost a few hundred thousand dollars to install (source). All of this pales in comparison to the millions of dollars required to set up a gas station (source).
That cost advantage of L2 charging is significant. If we wanted to accelerate EV adoption, you could cover the country with L2 charging stations at a fraction of the cost of higher speed L3 charging stations. Another big plus is the availability of adapters. Unlike L3 fast charging stations, where the higher power levels make some network operators nervous of third party adapters. I have a Tesla-J1772 adapter I got of Amazon which works great. Similarly, Tesla EVs ship with a J1772-Tesla adapter, making it easy for drivers of all EVs to use your L2 charging station.
So, why are there so few public L2 chargers in the Mammoth lakes area as seen in the plugshare screenshot below:
Compare that to Collingwood Ontario, as seen below
Its not all doom and gloom, in fact several hotels in the Mammoth lakes area do offer L2 chargers for their guests (the red dots on the map). This might be related to economics, L2 chargers for example, rarely generate more than a few dollars per hour in usage fees. At that rate, it may not be worth it to bother charging for their use at all, after all, some confused guests will inevitably bug the front desk staff as dealing with the payment side of things is not trivial (see this post), plus if you do not want the charging network integration, costs for the charger are a lot less.
Further, the slower speed of L2 chargers, make them somewhat impractical for a highway road-stop, and its about 500km from the Los Angeles area to Mammoth Mountain, vs, 200 km from Toronto to Collingwood. Most EVs these days will thus be able to go Toronto to Collingwood without charging, but might struggle with LA to Mammoth. Still, L2 chargers can be a lifesaver when encountering issues with fast charging stations in rural areas. Further, its often enough to get you where you need to go, a two hour leisurely lunch, can add 100 km of driving range on a L2 charger.
Electric car adventures 