US Plans Push To Upgrade Fast Chargers

[kltye]

My hypothesis is that "older" chargers (those installed pre-2020 or so) didn't have their capabilities taxed very much, since they were mostly charging Bolts and Leafs. When high-powered cars came along, I think the power electronics, which were probably underspecced to begin with, started degrading quickly.

Now I don't know why the new BTCPower chargers installed by EA or the Delta chargers installed by EVgo are failing so quickly. I've tried to ask numerous people in the chain about reliability issues, but everyone seems to be very vague about the root cause of the issues. I'm pretty sure Delta chargers are used in Europe, and the newer Tritium ones are as well (the older 50kW units seem universally crappy) - so why does North America seem to have so many issues?

So my issue is this: Yes, EA sucks at fixing chargers, but why do they need constant fixing? I don't doubt the conditions the chargers are exposed to are pretty rough, but it seems that they keep failing at any weather - cold, hot, dry, wet. I also understand interoperability problems with CCS cars (and a lot should be caught in testing), but this isn't that. Chargers are constantly derating or completely dead.

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[AKgrampy]

Plenty of stuff my taxpayer dollars pay for that I don't personally use. Also don't you get money from oil companies in Alaska, maybe the EV charging companies can do the same thing lol.

We have an oil and mining based economy sure but they do not just give the state money. If it were that way maybe our gas would not cost as much as it does nor our heating fuel (no natural gas.) I am OK with some government incentives and also there are many government programs I support that I will fortunately never need but I have always disliked government waste and mismanagement. Most important though this is only my opinion and I also respect your opinion. My thought was just that the installation of more than 24 chargers along a 350 mile road when my guess is less than 10 EV’S drive the highway daily is poor planning and there should have been deviations allowed to the NEVI plan for rural areas but there were not.

 

[Logal727]

We have an oil and mining based economy sure but they do not just give the state money. If it were that way maybe our gas would not cost as much as it does nor our heating fuel (no natural gas.) I am OK with some government incentives and also there are many government programs I support that I will fortunately never need but I have always disliked government waste and mismanagement. Most important though this is only my opinion and I also respect your opinion. My thought was just that the installation of more than 24 chargers along a 350 mile road when my guess is less than 10 EV’S drive the highway daily is poor planning and there should have been deviations allowed to the NEVI plan for rural areas but there were not.

Did not mean to come across disrespectful, my snarky or non-snarky tone is hard to decipher over text. My thinking is its better to be prepared for the future than underprepared, but I also agree I do not like government waste and we can disagree on what we consider that to be as well.

 

[Blue highway]

I have to look into it more when I have time, but I believe NEVI funding did have benchmarks and accountability built into it?

yes, but it is yet to be seen. The NEVI funds were established in 2021... in Oregon at least (a fairly EV friendly state) Zero NEVI funds have been spent yet. I think most states sorta get going on NEVI cash in 2024.

DCFC will have to cost a lot more than it does now for it to be a viable business anywhere there is low density (interstate highways outside a few big coastal cities)

 

[Blue highway]

Plenty of stuff my taxpayer dollars pay for that I don't personally use. Also don't you get money from oil companies in Alaska, maybe the EV charging companies can do the same thing lol.

https://www.newsweek.com/direct-pay...ka will,from Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend.

yeah oil companies pay some Alaskans money...

 

[DevSecOps]

DCFC will have to cost a lot more than it does now for it to be a viable business anywhere there is low density (interstate highways outside a few big coastal cities)

100% think the same. Within 15 miles of me I have 4 new gas stations being built, in California no less. I have 0 EV charge stations being built in the same 15 miles. The reason is because people are in business to make money. Gas makes money. Last year EA made an estimated 14M in revenue. That's chump change and explains why their infrastructure is crap. They just can't afford to maintain it. If EV charging was lucrative it would be franchised and popping up all over the place.

In California, you can charge your EV, in most of the state, for cheaper than the power costs. I understand that these stations have batteries to offset prime power rates, but batteries aren't free. I'm sure they also get bulk power discounts, but the profit margins can't be great and at times non-existent.

My guess is that in time it will, hands down, cost more to charge an EV than drive an ICE vehicle when using DCFC. I also think that one day we will incur a tax, like gas is taxed for using DCFC as well. It's not a good look for sure, but if we want reliable infrastructure it will come at a cost.

 

[SWO]

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I’m here to help."

 

[SWO]

Never seen such an incompetent company as EA. Can’t wait for them to (hopefully) drastically improve with the rollout of unlimited access supercharging, or die. We can’t keep throwing billions at them with zero or negative results as EA claims the only charger for hundreds of miles while they know it’s down, leaving owners stranded and with a justifiably terrible taste for EVs. What a disgrace.

It was never destined to do anything but fail IMO. It was a punishment on VW from the beginning and they tried just hard enough to not get the hammer again.

If I was slightly more cynical, I would say that EA loves broken chargers and ID4s chugging away at 92%/30kW blocking the rest. It limits how much money they're losing.

 

[ADDZ71]

so many questions...

• What is this "Widely used government database"? I can think of private ones (plugshare, ABRP etc.) but no government ones.
• How exactly do they intend to hand out cash to private businesses to fix the chargers? usually these things have lots of hoops that take literally years to get through.
• 20% of chargers are pre 2019... deemed old. ok, so 4 years is their lifespan? WTF.

Not sure that it is widely used. I submitted a number of stations to an DOE database going back a decade or more. I presume that database is accessible on the DOE / EIA website but I have never looked. These were chargers we installed at my office for employee use.

 

[hartmms]

I keep thinking about how electricity was first rolled out. It often made no business sense to spend so much money to build power poles and lines out to rural locations. It would take decades to recover the costs. It took significant government effort (CCC anyone?), regulation and money to get rural folks on the grid. I'm sure those folks appreciated getting hooked up and it not costing them an arm and a leg.

Look at broadband today. I read countless stories of companies refusing to run lines out to rural folks for the very same reasons. The government has declared that lack of access to broadband has negative impacts to the effected (jobs, education, etc), so there is some money given to said companies to get more rural customers connected.

Getting robust EV charging infrastructure in place is a similar topic. The market will probably quickly provide good service to those of us in urban areas, or along corridors of frequent travel. I say might because rural customers can satisfy 90% of their charging needs at home (assuming your residence has a charger). Rural customers are gonna be left out again. They will just stick with the existing solution: ICE vehicles. It's probably best to focus on improving charge infrastructure in urban and travel corridors right now.

What I find interesting is that I don't think gas stations make a lot of profit on gas dispensing. They make a majority of profit from the marked up items in their store ($4 red bull, anyone). Nearly no one is going to get into charging for the profits of electricity sales alone. I'm not sure how viable it is to be building chargers out in the middle of empty parking lots. I miss being able to pick up a drink while filling up my car on a road trip. Case in point: last weekend I stopped at the only non tesla DCFS in Tucson at the outlet mall. I only needed 20 minutes of charge, but that was not enough time to go shopping without the car "hogging" a very limited, working charger site. So we just wathced YouTube videos without spending any extra money anywhere.

 

[Garbone]

I don't know what the deal is with charging. I think those looking for Governmental assistance are going to be disappointed.

Here is a view of the charging deset of Georgia and SC. 75KW CCS or better.

And here is Florida at the same scale.

I don't see that much difference in policy between both Areas. Anyone have insight?

 

[jeffvick2005]

100% think the same. Within 15 miles of me I have 4 new gas stations being built, in California no less. I have 0 EV charge stations being built in the same 15 miles. The reason is because people are in business to make money. Gas makes money. Last year EA made an estimated 14M in revenue. That's chump change and explains why their infrastructure is crap. They just can't afford to maintain it. If EV charging was lucrative it would be franchised and popping up all over the place.

In California, you can charge your EV, in most of the state, for cheaper than the power costs. I understand that these stations have batteries to offset prime power rates, but batteries aren't free. I'm sure they also get bulk power discounts, but the profit margins can't be great and at times non-existent.

My guess is that in time it will, hands down, cost more to charge an EV than drive an ICE vehicle when using DCFC. I also think that one day we will incur a tax, like gas is taxed for using DCFC as well. It's not a good look for sure, but if we want reliable infrastructure it will come at a cost.

I'm surprised states haven't subsidized the power for EV charging through customer rates - like what was done for solar initially in many states. As an EV owner, I'm not advocating this. In reality the fast-charging rates should be much higher. I'm not a big fan of the gov't throwing billions at this problem while Tesla charges seem to work just fine. You don't see them complaining (as much).

 

[DevSecOps]

I'm surprised states haven't subsidized the power for EV charging through customer rates - like what was done for solar initially in many states.

And I'm glad they haven't!!! Let's also get rid of gas subsidies (which will make everything we buy go up in price) but I'm all for it!

In reality the fast-charging rates should be much higher.

I've been saying this myself! Look at Placerville, CA. There's a Tesla supercharger which has a magic dock and there's an EA station there. Tesla charges $0.57 kW and EA charges $0.48 kW. Tesla made a little over 4B in revenue from charging last year. Why is it that Tesla owners would prefer to pay more to use a Tesla Supercharger over the EA station which is right next to it and $0.09 less? Once we have NACS adapters I'm going to probably use nothing but superchargers. EA needs to raise their prices and start putting money into fixing their crap.

 

[jeffvick2005]

And I'm glad they haven't!!! Let's also get rid of gas subsidies (which will make everything we buy go up in price) but I'm all for it!



I've been saying this myself! Look at Placerville, CA. There's a Tesla supercharger which has a magic dock and there's an EA station there. Tesla charges $0.57 kW and EA charges $0.48 kW. Tesla made a little over 4B in revenue from charging last year. Why is it that Tesla owners would prefer to pay more to use a Tesla Supercharger over the EA station which is right next to it and $0.09 less? Once we have NACS adapters I'm going to probably use nothing but superchargers. EA needs to raise their prices and start putting money into fixing their crap.

Yes, I would happily pay 20% more if I knew it would be available and reliable. Most of us don't use superchargers that frequently (I've only done it 4 times in almost a year), so I'm happy to pay more for those few times I need it. Otherwise, I'll drive my ICE because I can't rely on the crappy network.

 

[BigMach-E]

You know, I am not for or against the government putting money into EV infrastructure, but you do know that the government and your tax dollars have been subsidizing the oil and gas industry for generations, right?

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