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.
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."
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.
oh battery commercial trucks are a terrible idea
and no they'd lobby for exemptions, they already do pretty hard. but because rail infra is so fucked and we've sprawled so hard there's no way to defeat "fine we just won't drive your deliveries"
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.
A heavily loaded electric cargo bike might be 600 pounds. A 6Klb EV does 10000 times the damage of that bike per mile. An average adult on a regular bicycle might weigh 240lbs. That same EV does 332000 times the damage. Or put another way, tax the ever-loving shit out of all vehicles with 4+ wheels.
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.
