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Power Democrats Government Transportation

Publicly Available EV Charger Network Doubles Under Biden-Harris Administration (electrek.co) 247

Posted by BeauHD from the more-the-merrier dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Over 192,000 publicly available charging ports are now online, and approximately 1,000 new chargers are being added each week. To build on this momentum, the federal government has awarded $521 million in grants to further expand the national network, with new chargers being deployed across 29 states, two Federally Recognized Tribes, and the District of Columbia.

The $521 million investment is divided into two key areas: 41 community projects ($321 million) and 10 corridor fast-charging projects ($200 million). The grant awards also support President Biden's Justice40 Initiative, which aims for 40% of the overall benefits of federal investments to flow to disadvantaged communities, with over half of the funding going to sites in disadvantaged communities. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg emphasized the importance of this initiative, stating, "The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear about America leading the EV revolution, and thanks to the historic [Bipartisan Infrastructure Law] package, we're building a nationwide EV charger network to make sure all drivers have an accessible, reliable, and convenient way to charge their vehicles."
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Publicly Available EV Charger Network Doubles Under Biden-Harris Administration More

Publicly Available EV Charger Network Doubles Under Biden-Harris Administration

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  • EV chargers outside of the Tesla network are a complete nightmare right now. Entirely unreliable, usually never achieve their rated charge speed.

    There seems to be very lax standards and regulations being put in place for EV chargers compared to fuel stations. Fuel stations are monitored regularly to ensure they are dispensing the correct volume of gasoline and that the gasoline meets minimum standards.

    No one seems to be giving a flying F if EV chargers are functional and charge at their advertised rate - it seems like what happens is the network does the install, collects the cash money incentive, then hits the highway.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      No one seems to be giving a flying F if EV chargers are functional and charge at their advertised rate

      That depends on your vehicle and SOC. It's not all the charger.

      Nobody has to verify that the electrons pushed (or is it pulled this week?) by a charger have the correct octane level.

    • Gas stations used to be a service provided by independent mechanics now they are a loss leader for convenience stores. It looks like most of these chargers have no way of making a profit and consequently no one has an incentive to keep them running. Even if the chargers are combined with a store, the limited number of vehicles they can service per hour limits how many visitors they can have and how much they can make. It is a no profit situation.

      • They are charging about 5x the market rate for electricity. They have ample opportunity to make a profit if they were managed by competent businesspeople. If a given charge network was known to always be reliable and deliver their advertised rates, it could make a killing. However, Tesla is the only one who seems to be delivering on that... as a result they are going to make all the money.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "It is a no profit situation."
        Currently. It is a "no profit situation" currently. And yes, that is an inherent problem in the startup phase of any new technology. That's why there are subsidies.

        The problem is not the lack of customers, the lack of visitors per hour or the startup costs, the problem is that installation has been treated as a transaction with no ongoing business plan. EV adoption is progressing, though, so the process may be good enough (considering that the industry is transitioning to J

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          Once upon a time, nearly every, if not every gas station was actually a service station with service bays. Auto mechanics put a couple gas pumps in front of their auto repair shop to satisfy customer need in under-served areas.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )
        Last Sunday I drove my Ariya from Denmark to The Netherlands and although power is expensive in Germany the price of the food was more than double the charge for electricity.
        That'll be a possible/likely reason all fast chargers are in the lot of a food joint.
      • That's like saying TV sales can never be profitable because they can't upcharge for popcorn you make at home, like movie theaters can and do. It's a non-sequitur.

        Is it possible the market will set the markup for electricity higher than it does for gas because there is less potential for selling concessions? Perhaps, all else being equal. Does that matter, no, since the production and distribution price of electricity is already much different than for gas anyways, and the usage patterns are already di

    • EV chargers outside of the Tesla network are a complete nightmare right now. Entirely unreliable, usually never achieve their rated charge speed.

      The worst offenders of never reaching the stated speeds near me always seem to be the units that charge by the minute and not kwh. It’s taking twice as long to fill up, don’t they know I’ll have to pay double?!?

    • Only issue I've run into so far is that the chargers in downtown Orlando have an abysmally bad app and operate under a prepaid scheme where you're required to deposit money into your account before they even allow you to charge. That shouldn't even be legal.

      I've not run into any serious issues with EA chargers, other than the usual situation that sometimes they're all in use. As I charge at home, I've only had to hit fast charging when making longer trips, which for me is an infrequent thing.

      Although, adm

    • I doubt very seriously, however, that EV owners are the ones vandalizing other people's expensive property, and I'll bet they all worked perfectly up until they were vandalized.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      EV chargers outside of the Tesla network are a complete nightmare right now. Entirely unreliable, usually never achieve their rated charge speed.

      There seems to be very lax standards and regulations being put in place for EV chargers compared to fuel stations. Fuel stations are monitored regularly to ensure they are dispensing the correct volume of gasoline and that the gasoline meets minimum standards.

      No one seems to be giving a flying F if EV chargers are functional and charge at their advertised rate - it seems like what happens is the network does the install, collects the cash money incentive, then hits the highway.

      The government regulates gas stations to ensure when the pump says it dispensed 5 gallons of gas, that 5 gallons were dispensed - it does not regulate toe "speed" of the delivery of the 5 gallons of gasoline.

      EVs are still in the early-adopter phase, you can't expect a seamless experience like ICE vehicle owners enjoy. I can't imagine buying an EV if you can't charge it at home, the public EV charger ecosystem is still trying to sort itself out...

  • Really? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @09:27AM (#64742936) Homepage
    When the US funded rural internet, they handed out billions, but no one was actually connected. Will this be different? Will these charging stations actually be built? Color me skeptical...
    • Based on my internet speeds I'd have to say 'no' but maybe a miracle will happen. I'm not betting on it. StarLink is looking better and better.

      • Based on my internet speeds I'd have to say 'no' but maybe a miracle will happen. I'm not betting on it. StarLink is looking better and better.

        Starlink is great. I'm typing this on a Starlink connection, sitting in my camp trailer at the edge of a high mountain lake, watching a flock of Canadian geese and a pair of snowy egrets at the water's edge while waiting for my compile (which is actually running in the cloud, on a system I access via Chrome remote desktop). Starlink is nice for rural connectivity (I use it at home, too), but it's well worth the extra $30 per month for roaming service; works anywhere you can get a clear view of the sky.

    • Rural internet may have been overcome by cellular internet at this point.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The summary says that 1000 chargers are being "added" each week, which presumably means installed and commissioned. So the answer seems to be yes.

      • The problem is different. There are laws which can eventually (and occasionally) punish Telcos if they do not keep your phone line up. But there's nothing like that for EV chargers... They get the money to install them, and then there's no penalty if they don't keep them running except not getting the recurring fees. But there's probably the most money in just getting them installed and then walking away, as long as we're subsidizing installs.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          But once it's installed, why wouldn't it make sense to maintain it? Are the public charging prices so low that they can't make any money?

          And what about the manufacturers? In Europe we had Nissan and Renault build the first network, then Tesla came along, and then a couple of more manufacturer backed groups emerged. And that's in addition to the other charging networks that aren't backed by a manufacturer.

          The manufacturer backed ones in particular tend to be pretty reliable and have very fast chargers.

          Don't

    • When the US funded rural telephone and electricity, they handed out hundred of millions (things were cheaper then). No one got electricity or telephones. They still had to call the power company and the phone company to get those. Will this be any different? Yes. Color me enthusiastic, our society will make progress despite you.

  • I wnder if it keeps up with the outages.

    The public stations never fail to amaze me with their poor quality, glad it's a once every few months situation for me.

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  • right place (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @10:31AM (#64743198)

    It strikes me that the charger infrastructure is a good way to rethink reliance on cars overall. IMO, The goal should be to make cities more walkable, maybe link a charging lot with neighborhoods using public transport options. Maybe bake something into the charging infrastructure that makes it easier to share vehicles

    While it's nice to be able to replace gas cars with electric cars the goal shoudl be to reduce reliance on cars overall

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      The goal should be to make cities more walkable, maybe link a charging lot with neighborhoods using public transport options.

      Are you serious? First we invest in public transportation in a community, then, as a reward, we invest MORE money into the same community to encourage/support private EV ownership? So we'll deploy EV charging stations in inner-city neighborhoods where we have buses and subway lines, and stiff the high tax-paying suburbs? Have you really thought this through?

  • They make up any excuse to hate EVs (I suspect they own stock in the petroleum industry) - their claim that there aren't public high-capacity charging stations wherever they go is rapidly being made not true, like much of the rest of what they rely on to attempt to prevent the adoption of a new and superior technology.

  • I'm reminded of this story from a bit over a year ago [politico.com]:

    Congress at the urging of the Biden administration agreed in 2021 to spend $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country, aiming to appease anxious drivers while tackling climate change.

    Two years later, the program has yet to install a single charger.

    So is this money coming from that same program? Were they just slow getting money out the door?

  • Having a place the charge would help a lot of people on lower incomes--as well as many people such as those in Silicon Valley who use ebike--and leave their car at home.

  • Data Point (Score:3)

    by ElizabethGreene ( 1185405 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @12:26PM (#64743700)

    Using the data at https://afdc.energy.gov/statio... [energy.gov]

    The number of publicly available ports on some interesting dates are:
    Today: 183,072 Ports
    1/6/2021 96,271 Ports
    1/6/2017 38,526 Ports
    1/31/2014* 17,953 Ports

    * (Earliest data available in this source)

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