And this is the kind of free charging that I expect will be going away as the number of electric cars increases.
The chargers are generally not free, the major exception being chargers provided by employers. Chargepoint (among other companies) has built out extensive infrastructure, deploying chargers that take contactless credit cards as well as the companies own smart cards. You get an account, you pull up, wave your card, plug in, and charge. Costs vary by installation (the property owner sets rates) but it's usually based on kW/h, sometimes with a flat parking charge. It's still quite reasonable, and works well.
Or, more to the point: the infrastructure already exists, and it is being extensively used.
And charging your car at home depends on having a garage, or at least a special carport. But I believe that more than half of the cars are parked on the street. (For that matter, in San Francisco there are already more cars than places to park them most of the time. So it only works at all because there's always some cars prowling for a parking place.)
When I was growing up in Sunnyvale most of the cars were parked beside the houses. When I went back recently, in the same neighborhood with minimal new construction more than half of the cars appeared to be parked on the streed. And Sunnyvale counts as a suburb. (Well, I *think* it still counts as a suburb.)
So you're saying that until everyone on the planet has a garage, electric cars will not catch on? Because I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Nobody is saying electric cars will work for everyone. But they will work for a *lot* of people, and a statistically significant number of people have already reached that conclusion and are now happily driving electric cars.
