When Will Electric-Car Charging Stations Exceed Gas Stations?

October 23, 2012 10:39 AM " The topic of public charging stations for electric cars isn’t necessarily well understood.

The release of Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment, a report by Pike Research on deployment of charging infrastructure, led us to wonder: When will the number of public charging stations for electric cars in the U.S. exceed the number of gas stations?

Analyst Lisa Jerram replied to our questions on the report-whose four-figure cost prevents us from reading it-with the following estimate:

“For the U.S., I tend to see estimates of around 150,000 gas stations. It varies, but that seems in the ballpark.

“If you look just at [publicly accessible charging stations] (not home or workplace units, or private units), that seems about equivalent to a retail gas station.

“Our forecasts show that the cumulative number of public charging stations would surpass 150,000 in the latter part of this decade, around 2018.”

In this case, “units” means any one charging station, whether it has single or multiple charging outlets.

Since there could be multiple units at a single location, Jerram admits her estimate is “a bit vague” on when the actual number of charging outlets-or units, or sites-would exceed the number of gas stations "

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