Why America Doesn’t Have Enough EV Charging Stations | Hacker News Reader

Why America Doesn’t Have Enough EV Charging Stations

wsj.com

Can't read WSJ, but I suspect "who will pay for them?" and "where will the power come from and how will it get there?" are key questions that remain unanswered. There's a lot of cars in the States, and I'm not sure they have the MW needed to handle replacing them with EV as well as keeping cool/warm.

Personally, I'm not thrilled by having to change "gas-and-go" with "wait-to-charge". I worry there will be quite the wait time on the major freeways due to load and the limited access.

I don’t think it will be a huge problem. Most drivers would rarely need to visit a charging station because they can charge their car overnight or at work as the car sits parked and unused. It’s only when you are driving more than ~100 miles per day that you start needing to use a faster charging system, so most people would only need to visit a charging station when they go on a road trip. Since commuters aren’t visiting charging stations regularly, I think that if we really go 100% electric then most gas stations will simply vanish rather than be replaced with charging stations.

> because they can charge their car overnight or at work as the car sits parked and unused.

I wonder how universally true this is. My guess is that the rich will have no problems, the poor will struggle, and all points between.

The standard 110V 15A power available in every home and apartment in America can supply 1.5kW of power. If you leave your car plugged in for 10 hours, that’s 15kWh. A Tesla Model 3 gets about 4 miles per kWh, so that’s almost 60 miles of range. If your commute is less than 30 miles there and 30 miles back, then you never need to visit a charging station, and you probably don’t have to call an electrician to install anything either.

There is a problem with many older apartment buildings which don’t have a power outlet near every single parking space, but that is a relatively simple problem to solve; electricians add and move power outlets every day of the year.

If your commute is longer than that, then maybe you should talk your boss into installing power outlets for the parking spaces at your work, or you can use the 220V 30A outlets that your washing machine and dryer are plugged in to. Those can give you double the range in the same amount of time. Of course, not all apartments have 220V outlets; many apartment buildings get 3–phase power from the power company and then give each apartment just a single phase. That’s annoying, but not insurmountable.

I would wager that the number of people that need more than 120 miles per day is very small. Not zero, of course. I know a guy who drives 200+ miles per day as a selling imported Italian foodstuffs to restaurants, for example.

Edit: oops, 220V 30A circuits can give you quadruple the range, not double. I forgot to multiply. Even my friend the Italian food salesman can make his daily rounds on an overnight charge from that.

I wonder how these folks will charge their Tesla?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy...

By running a power cord out to their car.

But if we really do end up going 100% electric, I can see cities setting up on–street charging as a service to their residents. We’ll start seeing parking meters that have EV–charging cables for plugging in your car.

Hope you’re right, as I can see cities making sole-source contracts with companies to providing charging stations where residents can pay for charging their vehicles. Then, the fight will be this vs in home service (think cable vs over the air).

I'd be more interested in how they managed to afford their Tesla.

I sure wouldn't mind a Tesla but I can't get a working used one for $1,200 like I did with an ICE car.

FWIW, I only used Tesla as an example because I happened to remember their approximate efficiency in miles/kWh. There are less expensive options, and over time the used prices should fall as well so hopefully that is only a short–term problem.

Some people have to streetpark their cars sometimes not close to their place, and others might park in an apartment garage where the landlord is not interested in investing into their property any more than the letter of the law demands. That being said, I've seen cars parked in driveways with a huge extension cord running into a partially closed window in their house. These rickety setups make me imagine it won't be long before some idiot teenager runs up the block at night unplugging every ev they see as a prank, screwing everyone for work the next day.

Anywhere outside of safe suburbia the copper thieves will make off with them in short order.

All EVs can lock the charging cable so that it cannot be unplugged without unlocking the car. This type of prank is just not a problem.

Extension cords defeat that protection. Just unplug the car’s adapter cable from said extension cord.

No one is forced to use an extension cord; long charging cables exist. In fact, you should avoid using an extension cord here because a lot of cheap ones cannot actually carry the full 1.5kW without melting because the manufacturer wanted to hit a lower price point. See also the price of copper.

Already, at my work, even under work-from-home, all the EV charging stations are filled if you get in after 8 am.

Plus if you get someone with a gas car parking in there, its probably going to take a minute for a tow truck to come out and haul them away (if the garage even has such an arrangement). I know in California those "compact" car spaces are routinely ignored by everyone with a huge hulking SUV, even if it means they seemingly had to crawl out of the sunroof to get out of their tank of a vehicle.

I find that in general, the phenomenon of people parking non-EV cars in EV charging spots has gotten a lot better. I think this probably has a lot to do with the massive increase in tow-away signs I see at these spots. To me, and probably most others, a tow-away is massively worse than almost any fine you are likely to see.

Current EV owner demographics overlap a lot with those who own a house with plenty of space, but if EVs ever become the standard this problem will get much worse.

A large percent of car owners don't garage park and won't have easy access to charging at night. I couldn't find a precise stat for this, but it's likely a majority of car owners fall in this group. Half of drivers needing to spend 30+ minutes at a charging station each week is a huge ownership burden and will strain even a large charging network.

Sure a few progressive urban areas will add charging to work and apartment spaces, but I can't imagine that being the norm and it still won't help areas with street parking. It would require huge spending from most landlords; a group that's not exactly known for happily taking on large discretionary expenses.

A single 110V outlet per parking space is not a “huge” cost, no matter who pays for it. It’s not nothing, but it's cheap enough that I suspect that it will happen everywhere eventually. Most apartment owners are not actually averse to such improvements, as long as they can ensure the work is done correctly. I was able to get the electrical wiring in my apartment improved. All I had to do was ask nicely and let them hire their own contractor on their own schedule. It would have been nice to have the work done sooner, but I can definitely understand their point of view.

An outlet isn't terribly hard to add in a house, but I'm thinking about large open parking lots and garages where there is no wiring to hook into. Adding any kind of plug to spaces like this is going to require things like digging up asphalt and installing new structures.

Is it doable? Yeah, sure, in affluent areas with sufficient demand. I think EV adoption will continue to grow at a decent rate in these sorts of areas. Beyond those spots though, charging issues will be a significant barrier.

Yes, some places will be easier to retrofit than others. Big parking garages are surprisingly easy, because you can run armored conduit along the walls. Most apartment complexes won’t be that bad, because the parking and the buildings tend to be near each other and the outlets can be placed along the walls of the buildings (but more care does need to be taken when there are sidewalks between the cars and the buildings, which is not uncommon). Giant parking lots at malls and stadiums are the worst, as you point out. Nobody lives at a mall or a stadium though, so it’ll be fine if they don’t have EV charging at every spot.

This, along with however road taxes are to be paid for without gasoline taxes will be the ugly truth about EVs that few want to answer. Right now they are severely undertaxed, to the point where if they were taxed at the full rate they should be for both road wear and for local government to roll out and maintain EV charging infrastructure, registration fees might end up being enormous. Imagine if you are broke and it cost $2000 a year to register an EV versus $100 to register your $2000 ancient honda civic, that's an easy choice to make for a lot of people.

> This, along with however road taxes are to be paid for without gasoline taxes will be the ugly truth about EVs that few want to answer.

Few politicians want to touch the topic, but really what makes sense is a VMT and GVWR tax. If you use a vehicle to travel more, you get taxed more. If that vehicle weighs more, you get taxed more. Odometers at registration/inspection time and vehicle make/model can provide this information.

However this is politically unpopular, because it punishes behavior that has become widely accepted (traveling exclusively by car, owning larger cars/trucks) in the US and distributes the cost of infrastructure maintenance to those that use it more.

> However this is politically unpopular, because it punishes behavior that has become widely accepted (traveling exclusively by car, owning larger cars/trucks) in the US and distributes the cost of infrastructure maintenance to those that use it more.

It is also a regressive tax. Living close to work in a modern city is a luxury, and housing close to mass transit is much more expensive than housing far away from any such amenities.

It is, yes. But by accurately associating the costs of such infrastructure maintenance closely to those that cause it, people might actually realize that we're building our urban environments terribly inefficiently.

People can carpool, older cars are lighter (less tax because lighter weight), and look for alternatives and demand them. We should be encouraging that behavior instead of incentivizing financially, environmentally, socially, and health destructive ways of transporting ourselves.

Here in Georgia there’s a flat $200/year “road use” fee for EV registration. For most EV drivers that is probably more than the equivalent gas tax paid on an ICE car.

One additional factor is that EVs weigh quite a bit more than comparable ICE cars, which increases road wear.

If EVs ever become widespread the tax situation will have to change and they will probably end up paying higher taxes for this reason.

I'm not sure if major accidents happen frequently enought to move the needle, but EV wrecks can be much more difficult to respond to due to electrical fires.

That'd be fine if it applies to every vehicle; some incentives NOT to drive a massive SUV would be nice. They kill pedestrians at a much higher rate than smaller cars.

I'm absolutely in favor of charging SUVs heavier fees.

It's almost like building our entire country around the idea of everyone needing to own a motor vehicle was not a good long term plan or something.

It never was, but now we have to figure out how to unwind that

Most states are now levying usage fees on EVs that meet or exceed the revenue that would come from gasoline sales. In most cases it is in the $100-200 range but a few states are using punitive rates. Your $2000 rate is in the lacking justification range.

This would cover the state portion of gas tax, but is anything being done to compensate for the federal portion? The federal gas tax is 18.4¢/gal and the average state tax is 31.67¢/gal, according to https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=10&t=5.

Why would it cost $2000 to register an EV? 12,000 miles/year at ~30 MPG is 400 gallons of gas. At $.50/gal tax that’s $200/yr in tax revenue the state would need to make up in additional EV registration fees.

Many people overestimate how much power EVs draw from the electrical grid. Yes, we will need to increase power production to the grid as EV use grows over the next couple of decades but EVs are not pushing grids over now and will be the huge problem you are suggesting.

“Though California has more electric cars than any other state, they make up just .4% of all energy consumption during peak hours. Even at 2030 estimates, some 5.6 million electric cars, trucks, and vans would only comprise 4% of peak loads.” https://www.autoblog.com/2022/10/16/electric-cars-power-grid...

Charging infra is a common objection to electric cars…

But what about gas cars? It would have be ridiculous and absurd to argue that the correct response back in 1900 should have been “No one should buy a Car prior to a nationwide network of gas stations and interstate highways being built! Dirt, gravel and cobble roads are in acceptable. How will cars work without 8 lane paved freeways!!”

"The grid can't handle it!" would be a good argument against refrigeration and air conditioning too. Sure, it can't handle it if we had 100% adoption TODAY, but that's not real concern.

Gas infrastructure evolved over 100 years as cars gradually shifted from a novelty to near-necessity in the US. The goal with electric vehicle adoption is generally to switch over in less than a century. If we do take that much time to switch over though, it will probably happen fine organically.

Charging infrastructure is a valid concern and handwaving it away doesn't help.

Massive government incentives won’t be able to speed it up?

We NEED the electric transition, but because it might be bumpy we should just forget about it?

Charging infrastructure is not currently a valid concern for slowing any transition timeline.

> The U.S. EV charging network is a mess.

For all the reasons listed in the article and because North America has two different EV charging plugs and protocols in CCS Type 1 Combo and the Tesla plug (three if you count CHAdeMO).

And also because there exist closed charging networks which only charge one brand of EV (Rivian's network, Tesla's network).

It's a profoundly stupid situation. It's holding back charger build-out and stunting EV adoption. Just as ICE vehicles can fuel at any fuel station, EVs should be able to charge at any charging station. Anything less just makes EVs worse.

Europe is doing it much better. By standardizing on CCS Type 2 combo all brands of EV can charge on all brands of charging network in Europe, as nature intended.

It's one of the reasons why the European EV market is bigger than the North American EV market.

The US has a standard charge plug, CCS type 1. Other than Tesla, all other manufacturers are using CCS. Chademo is an old, dead charging system that will rapidly disappear now that Nissan is no longer using it on their new cars.

The CCS charging providers are coalescing around a plug-and-pay system that lets anyone plug in and pay without needing separate accounts on each system. That standard is being incorporated into newer chargers and vehicles are being upgraded to support it.

the EV charging market is larger because fuel is more expensive, people drive shorter distances, and governments have more consistently promoted the switch.

> Other than Tesla, all other manufacturers are using CCS.

Aptera is going Tesla plug apparently:

https://electrek.co/2022/11/23/aptera-use-tesla-charge-conne...

It's stupid. It would be better if Tesla switched to CCS in North America, just as they did in Europe. But it seems like they're going to persist with the Tesla plug.

> It's holding back charger build-out and stunting EV adoption.

Are any of the EV manufacturers selling in the United States not suffering from a major delivery backlog? Maybe they'd get more orders if the charger situation was settled, but would they really be delivering more cars?

Investment goes to where the situation is certain. The EV requirement has been clear and the infrastructure question has been unambiguous in Europe. More EV investment has gone to Europe as a consequence.

North America will catch up eventually.

One problem with EV charging is behavior.

People want to top up their batteries, just like they top up their gas tanks.

That means taking up infrastructure space. If 5 minutes gets you 50 miles, get the 5 minutes and go. It's like putting $4 in your tank vs filling up.

With gas, the expectation for most people at the EV income level is that you go and get a full tank every time. But you only need that for long hauls, or if you don't charge at home.

Fast charge then go should be the standard, not the exception.

> People want to top up their batteries, just like they top up their gas tanks.

Good emergency preparedness practice.

I’m not sure I follow. If someone only “tops off”, that means they need more charging visits. Given a constant amount of driving, the total time spent occupying a charging space is constant whether you do it in biweekly one-hour bulk charges or spread it out to daily five-minute charges.

Is the idea that people would charge at home more?

If possible you 100% should charge at home over a fast charge station. Fast charging wears the battery down quite a bit faster than a level 2 or level 1 charger.

For me >90% of the time just a level 1 charger would be more than enough, just plug it in when I get home and it's charged by the time I wanna leave. I have a level 2 charger and the only time I have to use a fast charger is when I travel long distances and I usually plug it in and walk around/grab some food which is a good idea after a few hours of driving anyways.

You can't make people pay too much to charge their car or they'll just charge it at home. So, your profit margin is capped.

Charging stations are high CapEx outlay with low OpEx return. They're going to be very slow to roll out without government incentives.

The proper thing to do in the US is to make installing them in the humungous shopping center parking lots a thing.

https://archive.ph/FWHZo

1. the USA is huge

2. in most of the USA, there is no demand

solving the Charger Problem for Menlo Park is easy - money + demand is there

solving the Charger Problem for rural Alabama isn't easy - money + demand is not there and may not be there for a long time

its not just Alabama either - go buy a Rivian and then look at a map of where high-capacity chargers available...hope you don't plan on leaving the Big City...

another issue is the rate of change in the EV market...its a big risk to deploy a network of charging stations that may not be compatible with EVs in five years

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