Charging your EVs in Britain

It sounds like a Catch-22, but it is inherent to the growth of many industries that are split into infrastructural and superstructural components.

Which comes first? There is no financial incentive to build charging stations unless there are a lot of electric vehicles on the road. There is no sense buying an electric vehicle unless one knows one will be able to find a charging station at need.

Thios is the sort of thing that sometimes inspires arguments (I consider them overly facile arguments) for central economic planning.

That is, as it happens, a lousy argument. A government that plans the infrastructure is locking in a path for its economy over the years or even the decades to come (cough! Eisenhower highways cough!). In terms of market forces, infra and super structure can very well develop in smallish form and then scale up together.

But hey, I used to make arguments like that back when I called myself an anarcho-cap. Now I'm just using the subject as a bit of prosaic window dressing to deliver one bit of real news.

In Britain, Sainsbury's is getting into the electric vehicle charging business. This could be big. That will be all.

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