You bring up another good point: How mature is the technology?
I recently decided not to replace my 10 year old car because, while electric does seem to be the future, I want to wait to see what the next generation will bring - both in terms of cost and technology. So I'll drive my old car around until it dies and then I'll switch.
Do any of you techy people think that there will be significant change to charging technology in the short to medium term? As in, I'd hate to spend all this money only to have to do it all over again if the system becomes obsolete soon-ish.
Crystal ball gazing: expect some leaps battery technology within 5 to 10 years. However, you can't get out more than you put in. But you can put it in faster.
Battery charging times and battery costs are sure to reduce. Weight to performance will increase. But batteries will still need charging and there is no more convenient way than to do this at home - where off-peak and solar roofs can keep costs low.
So, to answer your question, I don't see any major changes in charging in the next 10 years. (Wireless is a vague possibility, but vehicles will need to accept this and it is less efficient than wired charging.)
Maybe this is the time to propose allowing solar panels on the roofs as well. Currently we can't, due to the Gestaltungsplan. But if everyone starts thinking about future electric capacity...
Of note is the fact that there are losses happening in Tesla's on-board AC/DC converter. These losses become larger (proportionally) the lower your charging-power is. So while it's possible to have all 50 cars charge at the same time with very low power, it would also be very, very inefficient and you'd literally throw away money (you have to pay what you pull from the grid, not what you put into your battery after all)...
If you can run your car for another year or two, there will be a huge selection of electric cars to choose from. But I suspect Tesla will again leapfrog others in battery technology next year.
"Stand alone", meloncollie. I think that not many existing communal garages would already have a 3-phase supply at each bay, and installing this could add appreciably to the cost.
My 2 cents is that we are going to see evolution in battery technology over the next 5-10 years.
The charging technology is probably not going to change significantly. Installing charging points with more than 30 kW at domestic installations is largely impossible because of the infrastructure supplying electricity to the home. At large scale charging points I doubt a huge amount is going to change either, also because of the infrastructure limitations. We'll probably see more high power DC installations, but we're probably still looking at 15-30 minutes for a substantial/full charge in most cases.
Hey have you seen this offer from the Touring Club Suisse? Charging stations starting at 900 CHF. They say you can ask for a quote without any contractual obligations.
My neighborhood went through a similar process recently. We have a grand total of 4 electric cars in a garage of 42 cars. The first electric charging station was installed in 2018 with no discussion at the home owner meeting but when me and another owner wanted to install a charging station, we ended up having a huge debate around a "garage wide" solution. Ultimately, we were allowed to install simple Tesla charging stations that were connected directly to our flat electricity. When the 4th person wanted to install a charging station, the electric company mandated we install a garage wide load management system. Owners approved, costing approx CHF 33k for the wiring...then another 3k per charging station. The system uses an RFID to track which station is using electricity. The agreement for the first 3 electricity owners is that we can keep our stations so long as there is sufficient power coming into the building. This should be enough for c. 10-15 cars to charge at the same time without reducing power due to load management issues. Super complicated situation but at least I don't have to spend another CHF 3k on the charging station since I can keep my existing one for now.
It's the building's garage. I rent one place where the charging point was now installed. Earlier this year they prepared the entire garage for the installation of charging points (at no cost to the renters)
My plan too as of the end of this summer - we are about to start re-doing the roof and are installing a good number of PV panels. Are you installing a Power Wall?
No. At present Power Wall and other battery solutions are too expensive to be economical - about CHF9,000 minimum last time I looked. Also the Power Wall, made for the USA, is single phase only...