People love electric cars! Now the hardest part

In fact, the federal government has required states applying for public charger money to submit plans detailing how they will support a new workforce to serve them. “One of the biggest things that really excites us is the constant focus on reliability,” says Walter Thorne, product manager at ChargerHelp, which provides O&M services to charging companies and governments. The company is working with the Society of Automotive Engineers, an international standards body, to determine what skills are required to service chargers and create certifications for them. This is the first step in training electric vehicle charger repair technicians.

Construction Crisis

In the meantime, you need to bury a lot of chargers in the ground. EVGo, one of the nation’s largest charger companies, says it currently has more than 4,500 chargers in the design and construction process, the most in its more than a decade history. And right now, the process of installing a new charger can take years.

Some delay comes down to a vital but troubling issue: resolution. Fast chargers that can charge a car battery in less than an hour require significant building work. The process of burying them in the ground does not differ much from place to place – it requires coordination with utilities, digging trenches, and then installing equipment.

But the process for obtaining permission to do so can be very different in each jurisdiction or city, experts say. Charging companies called for a streamlined process applicable to many different locations that could, for example, conduct automated checks for compliance with local safety and code requirements, similar to what was created by the Department of Energy when it funded similar program for solar panels.

Meanwhile, the shortage of electrical equipment in the era of the pandemic, and especially transformers, dragged on. “There’s a reason you need to start early,” Matt Horton, CEO of charger company Voltera, said in an interview last year. Getting even the most carefully planned charger up and running can take longer than many governments or EV owners realize.

Sustained efforts

If America’s great charging project succeeds, companies should know that electric vehicle charging money will be available as soon as this federal money holiday ends. While it may seem obvious that at some point electric vehicles will become common enough that charging them could be a profitable business, it’s not clear exactly when or how.

Companies that build or operate charging networks worry about competition from monopoly utilities that can build their own chargers, and in some states, charging station operators use significantly more electricity during periods of peak demand. There are also fears that, despite the large spending by the US government, public funds may not be enough.

Chargers come with high fixed upfront costs, including real estate acquisition and construction. In places with relatively few electric vehicles, the payback on this investment can take a long time. Under the climate bill, states are required to build chargers along every 50 miles of highway, regardless of local EV traffic. “Help needed,” Jamie Hall, senior electric vehicle policy strategist at General Motors, said at the conference. industry event December. “Today, the business case for fast charging in a highway corridor can be challenging.”

Some more optimistic industry observers see this as a short-term problem that could be resolved in the next half century or so—and before government funding runs out. Mullaney, an analyst at the Rocky Mountain Institute, says there is a lot of investment capital flowing into charging companies. The idea is that companies that can build charging infrastructure now and train drivers to use it can profit from their loyalty for decades to come. “We are approaching a tipping point where public charging will really be needed and will also start making money,” he says. In other words, hard work can pay off.