Just yesterday I recorded an incredible conversation with the archivist from Ford, formerly of Coca-Cola, about the history of fueling infrastructure in this country and let me just say... when you listen to that conversation, you'll understand why we haven't cracked the code on EV charging yet.
There are two camps here:
One understands what basic-ass AC charging can do and that overnight charging takes care of all local needs full stop. That's me, wishing we focused on this.
The other imagines EVs getting used like ICE vehicles, and pulls the trigger assuming this makes sense.
I would wager every report you see from someone being dissatisfied with an EV is someone who could not charge at home and got one anyway.
And every report you see where EV owners question what on Earth people are thinking comes from people who can charge at home.
And by focusing so much on DC fast charging built up and effectively not at all on getting slow charging at apartment buildings and workplaces, we are setting up a whole class of folks to not understand the best ways to use their EVs.
This includes policy makers who could help renters.
Workplace charging is really underrated and totally key in inner and older cities where home charging are hard. It's got the potential to solve a lot of the West's duck curve problem, too, by providing a useful sink instead of a coming overnight problem.
100%, and much of the infrastructure is already in place.
Missing from the discussion here is that a huge bottleneck for DC installs is the transformers. AC charging can tap into the overhead capacity that's already there in the vast majority of buildings
That's true to a point. Yes, there's a certain amount of capacity present in existing transformers that could totally be utilized. But in an all-EV future, we're still going to need more than the latent capacity in industrial and commercial settings where people work.
One interesting possibility is in parking lot lighting- it's often 277V, which is awesome for L2 charging, and it was originally sized for sodium or other high-power lighting. Now with LED replacements, there's actually a bunch of spare capacity already in the lot.
Now, I'm not *certain* that every EV on the market can take 277V, some may be limited to 240V. But center-tapping that single 277V phase would yield two 138V circuits, which is sufficient for workplace charging where you're normally there 7-10 hours.
It's also setting up a class division of, "people who can use EVs reliably" and "people who won't get an EV because it's difficult to charge it regularly."
yup yup
And as someone who has installed several EVSEs at this point for family and friends, the biggest, most irritating and infuriating thing in my brain is how few people seem to know that about $150 in materials (breaker, cable, junction box, staples) is what's needed to hook up a charger.
There's that, but there's also a lot of people who rent and would be unable to install those things, either because their landlord doesn't allow it, or because they have to park in a big parking lot or on the street.
Oh no, I'm not dismissing that, I'm just saying there's not a lot to do!
For some reason people seem to imagine electric car charging infrastructure as something much more complicated than it is.
I mean, we have to get electricity to everywhere we want to charge, an entirely new form of infrastructure that we don't have over 100 years of experience with.
We kinda do though? Not necessarily in America, but cold weather nations have designed rental units and workplace parking around easily available power points for decades.
In your state :)
Lots of others (like CA) require pulling a permit and getting an inspection, even for homeowner work. While that's mostly paperwork it's still a lot more added to the task. Throw in older houses with small panels like my aunt has and it's a challenge.
Better guides can help here.
I wasn't speaking to any of those requirements, just the materials cost.
But for what it's worth, technically needing a permit and actually getting a permit are not the same thing - and it's not just DIYers who might skip it. Ask that electrician I hired.
On a side note, my retired mom still regularly uses my spare Leaf for her errands around town and has only ever used 120V charging in her garage to refill it, and it's worked fine for her for a couple of years now.
Plus the EV registration tax is setting up another divide too, since unlike a fuel tax it means residents only are paying for roads.
If I had a suggestion it would be that they leave the registration tax (which against fuel $.38/gal is cheaper for EVs) and add a Fast Charger tax for travelers.
My experience regarding the fees for EV registration is that they can seem ridiculous but as soon as you explain to someone that since BEVs don't visit gas stations they don't pay fuel taxes, they realize why it's needed pretty quickly.
How best to do it is debatable but its need really isn't.
Probably the best intersection between fair and politically acceptable is to do a weight-based registration fee based on some average distance traveled.
That would also incentivize smaller vehicles so to me it would be a win-win
too bad it would inevitably have exemptions for the vehicles that are doing the most damage
commercial trucks, semis, dump trucks, etc should be paying their fair share harder...
They would be though since again bigger batteries.
In the mean time they're also diesel only which means you can bump the fuel tax for diesel specifically and not affect gas or EVs.
That's why I think "both" is fine. If you do it on fast charge time (either by minute or kW) and your resident flat fee, it keeps it cheaper for locals (making them want to switch) and since bigger EVs have bigger batteries it appropriately sizes the tax.
No one seems to get that when you have a quartic the damage from actual heavy trucks is so much greater that it's pointless to talk about cars. A 26K pound Class 6 does 350 times the damage per mile that a 6Klb pound EV does. An 80K Class 8 does 2000 times the damage of that EV per mile.
Road User Charges (fee per 1000km) has just been expanded to EVs in New Zealand. Petrol cars pay a levy per liter of fuel.
This has the perverse effect where a fuel efficient petrol car pays HALF the contribution to road maintenance than an EV.
It will be fair once they migrate petrol to RUCs.
In Ohio the EV registration fee is $200. By my calculations if you commute or drive enough to fill up once a week, you'd be spending $300 a year just in state gas taxes ($0.385 per gallon).
Sounds reasonable to me.
Interesting. Probably different assumptions (or I’m bad at math), but my math in Wisconsin ($175 EV registration surcharge) said I’d need to drive over 15k miles a year to pay that in state gas taxes today
That’s a lot of driving, and way more than we actually do
Wyoming it's $200 for EV charge and as of June 30 it's $0.38/gal
That fuel tax is mostly coming from people traveling down I-80 or going to Yellowstone/Teton which is why this is a major concern for WY I think.
I don't think it's too complicated at all. Calculate the average miles driven per car, calculate average amount of MPG in ICE cars, extrapolate for EVs that don't fill up.
Also in Ohio we pay $100 for Hybrid registration. Again makes sense since we're going to the gas station half as often.
Fuel taxes actually pay very little of the budget for road maintenance. It's actually property taxes that pay for most of it. If you want fuel taxes to pay for roads, then fuel should be taxed at a much higher rate, and by the dollar rather than the gallon.
I’ve been saying this for a decade, and am so dismayed that such a simple problem that is already 90% solved (electricity is everywhere!) has seen so little headway. Not that I would expect landlords to spontaneously do anything without a money reason, but that’s what govt incentives are for!
I’m sad that local governments in progressive/urban areas haven’t been more aggressive about subsidizing charging options at apartment complexes (Or maybe they are and I’m unaware?). A Federal program could benefit SO MANY, but that’d require an administration with both vision and good intent.
And also, if landlords were actually smart, they'd realized that they would attract more tenants. Potentially wealthier tenants. They could rationally raise rent by $100 a month, pay for the installation over a year or two, and renters with EVs would gladly pay that premium.
When I was apartment hunting four years ago, I was dismayed to see zero charging spots at any of the places I checked out. I wasn't an EV owner at the time (only EV curious), but it was still disappointing. Granted, the market has shifted a lot since then.
I've got a friend in Denver who is definitely in the "I'd have an EV but I rent" camp and my (eventual EV ownership) is one of the reasons I bought my first house too.
