While EVs can be powered up at home, a fast-charging infrastructure is essential to getting beyond their current limited adoption, writes The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 27-28, 2021). But there are problems: too few charging stations, too much demand at the stations that are available, broken chargers, confusing payment systems, exorbitant electricity rates, and uncertainty over how long cars need to charge.
So far, only Tesla has offered a reassuring pitch about conveniently and reliably recharging on the go. Tesla built a nationwide fast-charging infrastructure for its vehicles even before its cars were widely adopted. But this technology doesn’t work on non-Tesla cars. While Tesla offered “open source” charging technology, using it meant signing off on terms the world’s biggest automakers were unwilling to accept. They instead collectively adopted a competing standard in the U.S., making their vehicles incompatible with Tesla’s.
Building the requisite charging infrastructure for the rest of the EV universe will be expensive. The U.S. government has proposed building a network of 500,000 chargers in 5 years, which would cost billions–and probably won’t be profitable. There are currently about 128,000 gas stations in the U.S., but only about 5,000 fast-charging stations. The result is a patchwork of stations is improving but still needs work.
Many stakeholders—from automakers and charging companies to utilities and government agencies—have an interest in a reliable national network of fast chargers. But if the sole source of income for these charging stations is from dispensing electricity, it doesn’t appear they’re a viable business. The average fast-charging station, charging market price for electricity, would take 20-25 years to pay off. Part of the problem is that when in use, a single fast-charging stall can draw the equivalent of a whole neighborhood’s electricity needs. So it can be very expensive to connect a station with up to a dozen individual chargers to the local electrical grid, and secure enough energy supply.
Classroom discussion questions:
- How does this problem relate to the Triple Bottom Line discussed in Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text? (see p. 195)
- What do you see as the future for EVs in the U.S.? Will it be different in Europe? Why?