Take charging stations, for example: this is not going to work in Germany...

Anyone involved with e-cars will certainly be following the discussion about mandatory card readers at charging stations closely. In a nutshell: The government has decided that operators must equip new charging points with card readers. Meanwhile, the charging station ordinance is already late anyway.

This is a good example of a complex "system of systems" in which many stakeholders with sometimes very different interests are involved. Why such an egg dance? What's the harm? And most importantly, where are things going better?

A vehicle, electric or not, is a complex system. A charging station is also a system. All electric vehicles and charging stations together make up a huge "system of systems".

In addition, there are millions of stakeholders, although these fall into far fewer roles, e.g. drivers, vehicle owners, charging station operators, energy suppliers, legislators, etc.. Some of these have drastically different goals and requirements. While the charging station operator wants to maximize their profit, the car driver wants to fill up as cheaply as possible.

Dealing with such conflicts of interest and resolving them is the task of the system architect. I have compiled an overview of the stakeholder classes here: Give and take: The 9 stakeholders of the system architect.

Infrastructure as a sticking point

But when it comes to innovative, new infrastructures, the architect is missing. With existing infrastructures, the issue is less acute. Examples include the break-up of the railroads into DB Netz, DB Fernverkehr, DB Cargo, etc., or the split-up of the Bundespost. There was a single (state-owned) company that was able to take a holistic approach to building the system.

In Europe in particular, politicians have recognized the importance of infrastructure and are trying to remove it from monopolistic control. In practice, this works better than worse. Every now and then there are positive developments, especially for consumers, such as the Roaming in the EU. But to stay with this example, behind this convenience are dozens of exceptions and special regulations that still make life difficult for suppliers (and sometimes consumers).

The EU is completely out of its depth when it comes to some infrastructure issues, such as the (non-existent) Interoperability of messenger apps.

It's easy to complain about the status quo. But how do things work elsewhere?

Tesla is probably laughing its ass off

At the beginning of the 2010s, Tesla faced the problem that there was no charging infrastructure in the USA. This was not so bad with the first model (2008 Roadster), as it was a sports car aimed at an exclusive audience as a second car. But with the Model S (2012) at the latest, customers expected to be able to refuel on the go.

Tesla's answer was to set up its own charging infrastructure. In a short space of time, enough charging stations were installed to enable people to drive a Tesla anywhere in the country. What is particularly remarkable is that Tesla released many important patents in 2014 - not entirely altruistic, of course.

Tesla has thus created facts, but at the same time defused the danger of isolated solutions.

China has too many car manufacturers

A totalitarian state like China, on the other hand, has other options. It often intervenes in the market, sometimes on a massive scale. Recently, the Chinese government announced that companies are to be encouraged to mergeto bring more efficiency to the market for electric vehicles. She has left open how this is to be achieved. However, I have no doubt that it will succeed.

Not necessarily the approach we would like to see in Germany.

And Germany?

Most Germans want neither American nor Chinese conditions. However, the example of charging stations shows that we need to do better when it comes to new infrastructures.

Germany is considering making charging as impractical, complicated, inconvenient and expensive as possible.

Unfortunately, as system architects, we can only solve this problem indirectly. What I am pleased about are the many colleagues who are involved in working groups and standardization committees to contribute their expertise to the many infrastructure challenges. Chapeau!

Nevertheless, I see the challenges growing in the face of increasing complexity. I invite all readers to leave suggestions in the comments section on how we can improve in the long term.

Photo by Michael Fousert on Unsplash