Harvard study finds EV chargers face significant reliability and accessibility issues – Watts Up With That?
NICK PHUONG THANH
CONTRIBUTORS
Electric vehicle (EV) chargers have high failure rates while charging infrastructure remains inadequate in some areas, according to a new study from Harvard Business School (HBS).
HBS learn used artificial intelligence to examine more than a million customer reviews of charging stations from North America, Europe, and Asia over 10 years, Detect that EV drivers can expect non-residential charging systems to be unavailable about 20% of the time, and that some rural areas of the United States are effectively “charging deserts.” The study’s findings are the latest to show that the Biden administration’s long-term vision for an EV-dominated future is struggling to make initial progress.
“Among other things, a deep dive into the gas station network of the future estimates that drivers can only successfully recharge their vehicles with non-residential EV devices 78% of the time, highlighting significant reliability issues,” an article about the study posted on the HBS website said. “The study demonstrates that frustration extends beyond ‘range anxiety,’ the general fear that an EV battery will not hold enough charge to reach its destination.” (RELATED: Biden administration classifies Martha’s Vineyard, upscale locations as ‘low income’ to push for EV charger subsidies)
Charger reliabilityand consumer awareness of the issue has proven to be a difficult obstacle to overcome for electric vehicle adoption.
“Imagine if you went to a traditional gas station and two out of 10 times the pump was broken,” said Omar Asensio, a climate researcher at HBS’s Institute for Business in Global Society and lead author of the study, according to the paper. “Consumers would revolt.”
Additionally, the HBS study identified consumer concerns about inconsistent and non-transparent pricing when charging electric vehicles. HBS described the pricing environment it studied as a “Wild West,” with consumers often having to guess how much they will pay to recharge.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is moving forward with a major push for electric vehicles. Federal agencies have issued some strict regulations That will significantly increase the market share of electric vehicle manufacturers in the next decade and the government has also disbursed billions of dollars to facilitate electric vehicles. manufacture And adoption.
The White House has announced target of making electric vehicles account for 50 percent of all new car sales by 2030, a goal that requires the construction of a series of public electric vehicle charging stations. Congress has tasked the government $7.5 billion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 to build public EV chargers, but so far that program has only resulted in a handful of the stations about to be put into operation.
Administrative officials, including the Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieghas defended the program and its progress to date. Congressional Republican Party have expressed skepticism that the program will be implemented as planned.
One factor that has clearly slowed progress on the $7.5 billion program is the Biden administration. Insistence that potential grantees must ensure their work promotes diversity, equity and inclusion. (RELATED: Here’s another way the Biden administration is funneling EV charger subsidies into America’s wealthiest neighborhoods)
Currently, most of the country’s EV charging infrastructure is concentrated in the more populous, coastal regions of the United States, while rural areas in the heartland lag behind. according to for the Department of Energy (DOE).
“Public charging stations are not evenly distributed across the United States, with more concentrated in large population centers and affluent communities and fewer in rural areas and smaller cities,” the HBS article reads. “As a result, drivers have had mixed experiences, well served in some areas and starved in others. Some parts of the country have become ‘charging deserts,’ with no stations at all.”
Specifically, counties in Washington state and Virginia have no public chargers and have actually lost previously available chargers, according to the paper. The study also notes that some EV drivers have had issues with internal combustion engine drivers parking at EV chargers, thus Deny access to the charger.
The study is the latest in a series of recent papers and surveys that suggest the administration’s electric vehicle agenda is struggling to gain traction in its early stages, according to a new analysis by McKinsey and Company. establish that nearly half of electric vehicle owners in the U.S. would buy a vehicle with an internal combustion engine the next time they go car shopping, and nearly half of those asked in an Associated Press poll released in June shown that they are unlikely to consider buying an electric car for their next car purchase.
“It’s different than what any company or network would have you believe,” says Asensio, who is also affiliated with the Georgia Institute of Technology. “I couldn’t even convince my mom to buy an EV recently. Her decision wasn’t about price. She said charging wasn’t convenient enough to justify learning a whole new way of driving.”
Neither the Department of Transportation nor the DOE immediately responded to requests for comment.
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