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Seven Major Automakers Plan 30,000 More High-Speed Chargers in North America by 2030 (theverge.com) 72

Posted by EditorDavid from the building-batteries dept.
"A new group of automotive super friends is banding together," reports the Verge, "promising to build the next big North American electric vehicle charging network." These worldwide automakers — BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis — announced a planned joint venture Wednesday to erect easy-to-activate DC fast chargers along US and Canadian highways and in urban environments.

The grand plan for the currently unnamed partnership is to install "at least" 30,000 high-speed EV chargers by 2030, with the first ones to open summer 2024 in the US. The collective plans to leverage National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding in the US and will also use other private and public funding from state and federal sources to build out the network... The new stations will connect and charge EV models made by the partnered automakers without having to fumble with another charging station app. The companies also plan to integrate the developing "Plug and Charge" standard that the Federal Highway Administration is attempting to standardize... All stations will include the standardized Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports and also the current widely used Combined Charging System (CCS) plugs.
"The new joint venture is also planned to be entirely powered by renewable energy," the article adds.

But "It's not known if renewable energy will directly power them or if the companies plan to buy credits like Rivian announced Tuesday."
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Seven Major Automakers Plan 30,000 More High-Speed Chargers in North America by 2030 More

Seven Major Automakers Plan 30,000 More High-Speed Chargers in North America by 2030

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  • 4 of which will go under until then.

  • Too bad they didn't plan this 5 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Guy Smiley ( 9219 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @05:03PM (#63724368)
    One of the main reasons that Tesla is dominating the EV market is that EVs are not an afterthought for them, like all of the big ICE manufacturers that were dragged kicking and screaming to the table.

    Tesla had 10 years to ramp up their EV/battery design and roll out the supercharging network, before the Big 3 even thought about it.

    Now that they are trying to ramp EV sales they realize they need chargers or customers won't buy. Tesla has chargers all over NA, and all the ICE latecomers have their balls in a vise because they cars need to use NACS (Tesla) chargers to be able to sell, but also know this will just entrench Tesla more and allow them to expand their charging lead even further.

    • You're right in general, but nothing prevents them from from changing the connectors and/or cables later on unless they botch the design somehow. The cables don't last forever anyway, and they are going to want to replace them.

    • Re:Too bad they didn't plan this 5 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @05:46PM (#63724420)

      just entrench Tesla more and allow them to expand their charging lead even further.

      Actually kinda the opposite. The US had come to a standard with CCS1 charging so it was on the horizon that Tesla would have to open up their charging connector (And it was not really opened up in 2014, not to any degree that anyone would take them up on it. Something of a legal minefield no company would touch. It was either a PR move or nobody knew what would actually be involved) or end up forced to switch to CCS like they were in the EU.

      So instead now we are going to have (by defacto now, officially probably very soon) a NA charging standard of NACS connector with CCS comminucation protocols and every vehichle will be able to charge at any charger which is the goal at the end of the day.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zobeid ( 314469 )

        I don't see any way that Tesla were ever going to switch to CCS Type 1. They had no incentive to do that, and the political environment that we have in the USA would never have forced them to do that. It would be like expecting Microsoft to dump Windows and replace it with a Linux distro.

        We've gone from a situation where it looked like CCS Type 1 and Tesla Supercharger were going to co-exist indefinitely into the future (while becoming more inter-operable) to a new situation where one of them (namely, CC

        • Political environments change. It's a lot easier to let Tesla do it's own thing when like not even 10% of new auto sales are EV's. When they are 20, 40, 50%? Makes a lot more sense, almost becomes an imperative to get every charger to work with every car. .

          Interoperability standards is one of the functions goverment is supposed to do. We have a standardized electrical outlet, standardized gas nozzles. Why would we let automobiles not use a common interface?

          Frankly just by observation it would seem Tesla

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Zobeid ( 314469 )

            The political environment in the USA doesn't change like that. We have our traditions and our way of doing things, and we've always left industry to sort out stuff like this, as it is now doing. In fact, the examples you gave support my view on this. "We have a standardized electrical outlet, standardized gas nozzles." Yeah, we do now. Those standards were rubber-stamped by government after industry had already fought over them and settled on them, and the alternatives had already bit the dust. That's

            • My dude, we've had the congress flip like every 4-8 years, 2 Senate supermajorities. It absolutely can and does change.

              Your premise also cuts across your own point though because in this case the entire industry in NA was moving to CCS as an industry because Tesla never gave them the option to use NACS before. With the writing on thew wall Tesla actually opened up their connector for anyone to use.

              They didn't do it out of the goodness of their souls, they did it because they were about to be left behind.

    • The legacy car makers were dragged by laws that forced their hand, not by the market. Same thing for car buyers, other than the small percentage who buy their cars based on moral principles. The legacy car makers have been screwed by legislators and outfits like CARB. But, no worries, they will be bailed out by their respective governments.

    • Here's a big issue: Tesla didn't "open source" their own charging connector until November 2022. Now that Tesla has allowed the SAE to standardize the connector under the J3400 standard, we'll see a lot more charging stations using this connector besides Tesla's own Supercharger stations over the next several years in North America, and most EV's sold in North America may end up using a J3400 connector with an included adapter to charging up to 50 ampere 240 volt levels with J1772 AC charging plugs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I think the US government was slow to set a cut-off date for the sale of fossil fuel vehicles, and some automakers seemed to be waiting to see if the Republicans would be able to block or repeal all the rules.

      Because Europe set the rules early and manufacturers knew they would very likely have to stick to them, they moved more quickly than US ones and already have quite decent charging networks. The EU also regulated chargers much earlier, so CCS2 was the standard and even Tesla had to adopt it.

  • Time to throw in the towel for hydrogen, guys.

    • Toyota is an insane laggard in the industry. Their electric portfolio includes exclusively hybrids. I actually wonder if it's too late for them to become relevant in the future.

      There's a change coming. That change will require technological R&D and capabilities. There's a very good chance that companies which aren't already building EV production facilities will properly miss the boat ceding market share to newcomers who are. I'm seeing more and more weird cars on the road we've never heard from before:

      • Hybrids might a good fit for some like me who simply can't afford to spend much time charging per mile. Not all the environmental benefits of a full BEV of course, but some of them for sure, and unlike a full BEV, if I could afford to, I could drive one now.

  • Cool! (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @06:31PM (#63724474)

    Sign me up for one of those high speed chargers [caranddriver.com].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bgarcia ( 33222 )

      Sign me up for one of those high speed chargers [caranddriver.com].

      0-60 in 3.5 seconds? That's cute [tesla.com].

    • Re:Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:34AM (#63725344)

      I like Dodge. They show very clearly how ICE won't be around for much longer. They used to advertise the Hellcat as the fastest mass produced street legal car ... with a gasoline engine. Yeah that last part is an important detail excluding Teslas. Now they've even given up on that marketing and are exclusively talking about being the most powerful muscle car compared to other mass produced standard muscle cars. That last part is an important detail excluding Teslas.

      When you need to replace your marketing department with a legal team to tell people you're the best, your time is up.

  • 30,000 chargers / 50 states = 600 charger each

    And if you put just a cluster of 3 in each location, that means only 200 clusters in each state. Over 7 years (84 months), averaging just 2-3 locations per state per month.

    That took the combined herculean effort of *7* major automakers. Wow, that is just... so... underwhelming.

    How many parking lots are there in your state? Imagine clusters of 3 high-speed chargers appearing in these parking lots, one new cluster at at time every 10 days. What's the chance o

    • Re:So just about 600 charger per state per year (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:17PM (#63724674) Homepage Journal

      What's the chance of you ever seeing one where you would normally visit?

      I don't care whether I see a charger where I normally visit which is within a 20 mile radius of my house (but it could be up to 150 miles, half my EV range). I have my own charger at home. I really only care along the interstate for a downstate trip that I do rarely. Those chargers already exist, but more can't hurt.

      • And someone 150 miles away from you and comes the other way is saying the same thing. Maybe you need it rarely, but it's going to really destroy plans if it's not available when you need it.
        • Like I already said, public chargers already exist. Currently, there are apps that tell you exactly where they are and in many cases tell you how many there are and how many are currently not already being used. So, yes, you have to do a tiny amount of planning (basically, looking at the app and tweaking your driving route slightly), but, seriously, it's already not a big deal.

          Adding yet more chargers will only make what's already fairly easy even easier, ideally to where you don't even have to bother to

          • I don't see how unexpectedly having to charge your car for 30 minutes isn't a big deal.

            • I don't see how unexpectedly having to charge your car for 30 minutes isn't a big deal.

              If you're driving an EV and you need to charge it unexpectedly, you're doing it wrong. EVs have battery gauges just like GVs have gas gauges.

              • But you lose up to 40% range in the cold. So what happens if you set out for the first time in the winter and then realize you can't make it to the same place you did before? What if there is no internet connection?
                • This may come as a surprise to you, but EVs also have a range gauge. If you get in your EV, turn it on, and the range gauge is 40% less than normal, then you plan accordingly.

                  What if you get to the gas station and the power is out so the pumps don't work? Or the gas delivery truck couldn't make their delivery due to bad road conditions?

                  The point is there will always be edge cases, but for the vast majority of cases, everything will be fine.

                  Although this video [youtube.com] is about LED traffic lights, the guy's p

                  • But I'm guessing it won't know what your range will be until you are already on the road. All the edge cases are covered with ICEs, so I'll just wait until the edge cases are solved with EVs. Yes in the vast majority of cases you will be fine, but with my luck the time I won't be fine is when I'm driving to an airport to catch a flight in another city and I don't need that stress.

                    • But I'm guessing it won't know what your range will be until you are already on the road.

                      Uhm, no. It's as soon as you start your car.

                      All the edge cases are covered with ICEs.

                      As I already pointed out, no, they're not. Again, no power at the pumps; no gas delivery due to inability of truck to get there; employees unable to get to station to turn everything on due to bad weather; and I'm sure there are others.

                      ... with my luck the time I won't be fine is when I'm driving to an airport to catch a flight in a

                    • I'm in Canada. Where i live the airport is tiny and there are far better deals from an airport 4 hours away. Enough to make up for gas and long term parking. The range is going to change depending on how much heat you use. How does the car know how much heat you are going to use on the trip?
                    • It doesn't. But you're an outlier who chose to live where you live and presumably knew about the implications in advance.
                    • No one could have predicted that they would try to replace ICE vehicles with something that had had such shortcomings.

                    • It was entirely predictable that the replacement for ICE vehicles would have a different range depending on how much you use the heating.

                      If you couldn't predict that, that's on you.

                    • So your actually suggesting no one should live in Canada any more? What happens when it is to hit to live in most of the US? if capitalism was half as good as people say it is at meeting the needs of the consumer there problems would be fixed.

                    • I'm not suggesting that. You're free to continue living in Canada, at least as far as I'm concerned.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Anyone wondering if there are enough chargers, try A Better Route Planner: https://abetterrouteplanner.co... [abetterrouteplanner.com]

            Select the vehicle you are interested in buying and plan a few trips.

            Keep in mind that you save a lot of time charging at home instead of visiting petrol stations, so an hour or two a year charging on long trips is still a net benefit. Plus, you can usually find somewhere to eat or shop while waiting. If anything, the issue with really fast charging cars is that you don't stop long enough to do more t

      • What's the chance of you ever seeing one where you would normally visit?

        I don't care whether I see a charger where I normally visit which is within a 20 mile radius of my house (but it could be up to 150 miles, half my EV range). I have my own charger at home. I really only care along the interstate for a downstate trip that I do rarely. Those chargers already exist, but more can't hurt.

        This may suit your situation, (and many in America), but even in the USA not everyone lives in the burbs with a nice garage and charger available. It is worth many larger cities following the policies of some European cities in targetting a per capita / per distance from home availability of charging infrastructure. My own city has a goal to have every house and apartment have charging infrastructure less than 100m away by 2025, ... and it's almost there already. Next step is to build out charging infrastru

        • There are always things called "public chargers". People can figure that out, or they can take another mode of transportation to work if the concept of plugging in a vehicle eludes them.

  • This could be a nice for long distance charging. (Score:3)

    by shreak ( 248275 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:36AM (#63725262)

    I own a Tesla and for "around town" driving all I need is my home charger. For longer distances the charging infrastructure could use some improvements.

    Availability isn't too bad but...

    Currently it's a hodge-podge of random locations.
    - Grocery store parking lots.
    - Restaurant lots
    - Hotel lots
    - Back lot of existing gas-stations (best case honestly...)

    During non-congested dates it's not a big deal. We just went on a trip to the next state over this last weekend and charging was easy.

    During holidays or other congested times it can be a disaster.

    None of the places are setup for "throughput". A pain to get in and out of at the best of times (all of them require you to back into the spot). A complete cluster-* when there's a backup.
    Looks like these will be actual 'stations' like gas stations. Presumably they'll have charging bays setup in a similar fashion. Pull up, charge, drive away. All while being covered (never seen one) and with trash cans (very rare)

  • On the one hand, we are told that everyone should be driving electric cars and that here automakers will be building what, another 30,000 chargers?

    On the other hand, the temperature gets *slightly* warmer, and the media are full of histrionic warnings about power failures and a national inability to provide enough power for the crushing burden of air conditioners running that little bit harder.

    Oh, and you aren't allowed to build more power plants, either.

    Something doesn't jibe here.

    • People are not building any more gasoline refineries, but things still keep going. It isn't the responsibility of the government to ensure you can drive to the coffee shop when you want either.

    • The push for mandatory EVs, coupled with the complete unwillingness to expand the generation or affordability of energy production, can only have one result. Poor and middle-class people will be pushed out of cars, making driving exclusively a privilege of the very rich.

      If I were in charge, I'd let the market work, which would have exactly the opposite effects. New power plants would be built, although they would have to avoid causing unnecessary pollution (meaning a lot of them would be nuclear or renewa

  • Here in the Valley, people actually use ebikes and scooters. It would be nice if people could charge up.

  • I wonder what are all these charging infrastructure providers doing to protect all this wonderful in frastructure against a solar storm? Sometime it makes me wonder, are we all working towards building a civilization that is very fragile?

  • More good news for China! US and EU need to buy more Chinese products, while hobbling their own economies tilting at windmills and spreading fairy dust.

  • Googled 115K+ gas stations in USA, prolly 6 pumps on average per gas station. Do we need as many chargers as we have gas pumps?

    DC fast chargers will likely only be used on long trips, since we can handle the short ones with overnight charging at home which will be much cheaper. Toyota is telling us 2028 for their solid state battery that is 1/2 the size, 1/2 the weight, 1/2 the cost and charges in 5 minutes. I timed my stop on my long-distance drive back from Las Vegas last November at 20 minutes. Th

  • What does "high-speed" mean in this context?

    The ability to charge fairly quickly (as in comparable to the time to fill an ICE) would remove a huge impediment to me being able to transition to a BEV, since like a lot of Americans I have to spend a lot more time on the road than I do in any single location that is likely to have a charger.

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