Inception

The biggest hurdle for EV stations is 1 permitting, 2 existing infrastructure capacity.

Want to add a bunch of 110v for home charging in apartment complexes? not difficult. Bump that to lvl 2 (20-60A) well now the grid can’t handle it even if it’s up to code. So you’ll have to upgrade the infrastructure and if it’s outdated god help you.

Then there’s level 3s which need to be able to consistently give out 250-350kwh for most new gen EVs which one is already hard but 3 on top of each other is no easy task.

It’s not impossible just takes time. And once one is in the rest pop up quick. Took 3 months to get a level 2 up at my work and a quote and 4 new ones said a month now that the existing infrastructure is there.

Then there’s the added problem of anti ev people sabotaging stations and copper scalpers harvesting cables.

Wow - that’s a very insightful observation. But there’s a concept of “on average”. Check the news at 11 for that…

If you prefer, their goal works out to building an average of over 83,000 EV charging stations per year. Since 2 years have passed and they’ve built 7 so far, I think it’s fair to question whether they will meet the goal.

Now see that’s a fair critique. But as ctrlFreq says later that it’s still possible they are laying down the grown work necessary to get the stations online. Especially for the lvl 3s.

Personally I’d prefer putting outdoor covered outlets capable of granny charging or low level 2 over the fast charging but my understanding eco flow and ChargePoint are already looking into that.

Very reasonable. My understanding is that the federal government is largely looking to the states to build out the infrastructure for this goal, funded by Washington DC. Since states vary considerably in density & infrastructure capability (e.g. Wyoming versus New Jersey), expect to see uneven rollout of actual working charging stations.

The government is pushing hard for a nationwide EV solution, but it’s not clear that EV‘s are a realistic nationwide option. Even if they are able to roll out hundreds of thousands of charging stations in the coming very few years, a significant bottleneck also exists in procuring the minerals for modern EV batteries. Lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel are worldwide commodities that can’t simply be ramped up by orders of magnitude to produce millions of thousand-pound EV batteries.

Which is why the Ev industry has been making strides into research for solid state and iron phosphate batteries.

Uncommon knowledge of EVs is that the biggest weight issue for the batteries is the liquid inside to prevent the formation of Lithium ion crystals which is what causes cells in the battery to no longer carry charge.

It doesn’t help everyone has been copying teslas designs and marketing because they got an early start with their battery design but now it’s biting us all in the ass.

Ingenuity may yet win the day. However, I sense a certain faith and hope in good outcomes that may be wishful thinking. When the government has produced .001% of their stated EV charger goals in a quarter of the time allotted, *maybe* it’s because they’re focusing on infrastructure, so fret not. When the essential minerals for existing battery technology simply cannot be produced at such a massive scale as that required by government mandate, *maybe* new battery technology will be better.

I agree that R&D into new battery/energy/transportation technology is critical. But it is one thing to be optimistic about possibilities and another to spend billions to compel almost everyone to switch to technology that is not ready.

The r and d part is mostly solved it’s just applying it.

We’ll see on the charger thing but even I’m not on board with public stations like they are mass gas stations.

I’d also say we’ll see on the battery part. I’ll believe in any new EV technologies when I see them actually succeed in the market at scale.

Been good chatting with you. I appreciate civil debate.

Well it’s succeeded in non American markets…for a multitude of reasons but I can agree the current American idea of “market it as an exclusive luxury” is not working.

Agreed I appreciate it.

I wonder if the real reason is because someone even remotely competent informed them that theres no way the current power-grid and poster stations would be capable of sustaining 500,000 fast charges up to 30 times a day per station..

Or corruption, I'd probably go with that one ...

This is like criticizing a construction crew building a gas station for digging up the lot and burying tanks months before the pumps are installed - of course it's going to require infrastructure, and of course the actual charging stations will be the last things built and installed.

What's crazy is how you guys are completely missing the boat on what's going on though - this week saw the release of the BYD Seagull, an $11,500 EV that has a range of 250 miles. In another 5 years, that price will drop in half.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEY60BG2lFI

This is also assuming it’s all lvl 3 fast charging. Lvl 2 chargers can go up to 10-12kwh and they don’t need to be nearly as beefy as a lvl 3 350kwh station.

yup... follow the money