More people are buying electric cars than ever before. There are about 2 million EVs on the road in the US, a six-fold increase since 2016, but electric vehicles are still a tiny fraction of the more than 280 million vehicles in service. Several factors, such as upfront costs and battery range, are largely manufacturing and innovation challenges that are being handled within companies. But another source of consumer resistance opens up a host of complex questions that need to be addressed at a macro level – the availability of charging stations and the grid that can handle them.
Currently, cars and trucks combined produce about a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve net zero emissions in the coming decades, consumers will have to buy a lot of electric vehicles, and they will need multiple places to charge them. Energy set actively follow total number of public toll stations (total charging ports are higher) across the country, the number is now 55,000. If that sounds like a lot, consider that there are almost three times as many gas stations. Also, remember that although EV charging times vary widelythey are significantly slower than gas rise, so congestion is a significant problem at toll stations.
According to a recent McKinsey & Company Reportwill require about 20 more charging stations than currently, up to 1.2 million public chargers.
Where competition is a key part of EV innovation, public-private partnerships will help accelerate the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The Biden administration recently announced New standard for charging EV in line with the goal of installing 500,000 more charging stations by 2030 and $7.5 billion for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law represents the government’s first investment in an EV charger. Minimum standards will help establish the foundation for states to build charging station projects that are accessible to all drivers regardless of location, electric vehicle brand or toll company.
“Public funding is particularly important for highway corridor toll collection amid challenging business climates as the electric vehicle market continues to evolve,” said a GM spokesperson.
Infrastructure has no appeal from rampant new-vehicle rollouts like Chevy Silverado EV or Ford electric F-150 Lightning picks upand as a GM spokesperson explained, cross-sectoral collaboration and policy support is needed to streamline licensing, proactively engage electric utilities, and accelerate positioning and grid connectivity. electricity, while removing other outstanding infrastructure deployment barriers.
“This really requires an ‘all-in-one’ approach,” he said.
So far, part of the cause of the shortfall in charging infrastructure has to do with the nature of electric vehicle purchases. Tesla represents 80% of the electric vehicle market in the US With a new entry Tesla priced around $50,000 and 80% of Tesla owners charging at home, the growth of public charging stations has not kept pace with demand in future.
But there are signs that this is changing.
Tesla, used its own proprietary technology for its Supercharger network, moved away from that model. Last July, Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted in a tweet that Tesla created its own network because none existed. “We made our own connector, because back then there was no standard and Tesla was just a manufacturer of long-range electric cars. That said, we are making our Supercharger network open to all. other trams.”
As GM sees it, the sheer number of chargers, while important, is only part of the story.
“We believe the focus should be on building an overall charging ecosystem that enables convenient, reliable, affordable charged access for all, and this is what we are trying to do with Ultium Charge 360This includes expanding access at home (including multi-family housing), at work and in strategic public locations, as well as to additional use cases like fleets.” That also means buying the right charger in he says: “
At the Future of Car conference in May, Musk says Tesla will add CCS . connector to its Supercharger network: “It’s a bit more complicated in the US because we have a different connector than the rest of the industry, but we’ll be adding the rest of the industry connector as an option for Superchargers in the US Ky”. Musk said. The Combined Charging System (CCS) is standard across Europe, and the addition of a Tesla adapter gives Tesla owners access to more charging options, combined with allowing non-Tesla owners to access access the Supercharger network.
In April, Musk – who relationship with the Biden administrationand Democratic Partywas tense – sat down with Biden officials and GM CEO Mary Barra to discuss EV charging infrastructure. Transportation facilities A DoT statement said: “The broad consensus is that charging stations and vehicles need to be interoperable and provide a seamless user experience, no matter what you drive or charge an electric vehicle. where”.
In the next ten years, Ford plans to increase spending on electric vehicles as much as 20 billion dollars. Its BlueOval charging network is the largest public charging network in North America, with nearly 20,000 charging stations with more than 60,000 plugs. Talking about the rapid acceleration of its EV plans, Ford CEO Jim Farley said at a recent EV launch event, “It’s something that nobody would have believed just two years ago from us.”
According to the newspaper Institute for Environmental and Energy Research. There are several key parts of rural America where one can drive for a while without seeing an EV charging station, while gas stations interrupt the landscape at regular intervals. GM and Ford will have to play a large part in this essential effort to combat the “charging desert”.
GM, through it Dealer Community Charge Program, will distribute up to 10 charging stations to its electric vehicle dealers. This would add about 40,000 more stations, evenly distributed across the country, especially in underserved areas. This will help put more consumers in charge: nearly 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a GM dealership. Is a part of $750 million initiativeThese stations may be distributed at the discretion of GM dealers throughout their communities.
“We want to give customers the right tools and access to charge where and when they need it,” GM President Mark Reuss said in a statement last October about the company’s goal. itself, “also working with our dealer network to accelerate the expansion of accessible charging in underserved urban and rural areas.”
GM expects most toll collection to take place at home, which is convenient for most customers. McKinsey estimates that the U.S. will need 28 million private chargers by 2030. GM’s Ultium smart charger, due later this year, will give customers and businesses the opportunity to shift costs into other locations. car rental and loan payments.
It is also placing charging in public locations where customers have spent between 30 minutes and a few hours – such as grocery stores and gyms – to allow for more convenient public charging. An example of this is GM’s partnership with EVgo install 3,250 DC fast chargers in major urban areas by the end of 2025.
Equally challenging as the charging desert problem is the question of urban infrastructure, where even willing buyers – many of whom are apartment dwellers – can face significant challenges. in finding convenient and reliable charging stations. In the urban context or in the case of urban fleets, a major problem is the lack of garages or other facilities where individual toll booths can be deployed. According to Yury Dvorkin, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the C2SMART Level 1 Transportation Center at NYU Tandon, the key solution is public charging infrastructure, which requires high capacity. (to ensure high charging power and thus charging speed) and multiple compartments (to ensure that multiple electric vehicles can charge at the same time).
“If you can buy an electric car relatively cheaply (if you collect all the incentives and tax benefits), the purchase price is affordable for a large number of people living in urban areas. market, and the real limit to practical adoption is accessibility to public charging infrastructure,” said Dvorkin.
The major automakers are call for an extension government incentives for electric vehicle purchases. Meanwhile, the recent infrastructure funding is a “major step forward” for electric vehicle infrastructure, Dvorkin said, but it’s more of an opportunity for further research and development than a lifesaver.
There are many “economic-technical challenges” that need to be addressed that are beyond the direct control of the auto companies, says Dvorkin. The main ones are allowing for restrictions and more fundamentally, grid restrictions. “Licensing remains a challenge and it could take months until an EV toll station is approved,” he said. “And there is a need to ensure that the grid is capable of supplying electrical energy to EV charging stations; this requires the development of tools to decide where EV charging infrastructure should be deployed to meet meet consumer demand and limit the grid.”
Actions from legacy automakers like GM and Ford underscore the cultural shift built into the move toward electric vehicles and could spur a shift in the nation’s auto culture. Though later than Tesla, the major automakers represent core automotive concepts that have long been woven into the American imagination: freedom, possibility, escape – none of which That number comes into play if you can’t charge the battery. As GM and Ford begin to ramp up production of electric vehicles and Tesla expands access to its electric vehicle charging infrastructure, bigger imaginations can move with them, with charging at the ready. than.
“It’s the Ford Motor Company… Model-T. This is what we do. We’re not a new startup,” Farley recently told CNBC.
–By Trevor Laurence Jockims, special on CNBC.com
