Posted on 11/27/2023 9:31:07 AM PST by Red Badger
This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm gave Americans an unintended glimpse of the future during her road trip this summer touting the wonders of electric vehicles. Her public relations misadventure in Georgia involved one of her staff in a gasoline-powered vehicle blocking off a coveted charger in advance of her arrival, leading to frayed tempers and a local EV owner calling the cops. It was an illustration of the challenges drivers could face as governments push the public to embrace plug-in vehicles.
Hyped as technological marvels, EVs are boobytrapped with a host of inconveniences and tradeoffs. By now many people have heard about range anxiety, exploding lithium-ion batteries, and the environmental destruction caused by global mining for battery minerals.
But more challenges are in the offing as the federal government and the states pump in billions of dollars to build a massive national infrastructure of charging stations to power the EVs.
EV sales are creeping up, but nowhere near the ambitious targets set by the policy experts, accounting for under 8% of new car sales in the third quarter, and rising to nearly 10% in September. California stands at the vanguard of the nation’s EV transition, with more than 1 million electric vehicles among the state’s 31-million-plus registered vehicles, and EVs accounting for about 25% of new car sales in the second quarter.
At some point, EV experts promise, the kinks will get worked out, and EVs will become as convenient as smartphones. But at present, the EV industry has a classic chicken-and-egg problem on its hands. The current demand for EV charging does not economically justify rapidly expanding the nation’s charging infrastructure, but without an expanded charging infrastructure in place, most people won’t buy EVs for fear of being stranded.
Despite California’s massive infrastructure investment, now totaling nearly 94,000 public chargers, the state has fallen behind its goal of 250,000 public chargers by 2025 – and potentially 10 times that number by 2035, when the ban on new gasoline-powered cars takes effect.
There’s no consensus on the amount of public chargers that will be needed. According to a California Energy Commission assessment, California will need more than 2.4 million public chargers to accommodate about 15.5 million electric cars, trucks, and buses by 2035. That breaks down to 2.11 million chargers (including 83,000 fast chargers) to support 15.2 million electric cars, as well as 256,000 depot chargers and 8,500 public chargers for 377,000 trucks and buses.
The 2.4 million chargers would serve only half the registered vehicles in the state. Many more will be necessary to complete the second half of the transition, from 15.5 million EVs to more than 31 million EVs by mid-century. Those chargers will have to be installed at curbsides, parking lots, parking decks, grocery stores, restaurants, convenience stores, big box stores, office buildings, strip malls, shopping centers, movie theaters, and other locations so that drivers always have ready access to plug-in.
By comparison, California now has about 11,000 gas stations, convenience stores, and other businesses that sell gasoline, which translates to about 110,000 individual gas nozzles, according to an estimate by Jeff Lenard, vice president of Strategic Industry Initiatives at the National Association of Convenience Stores. That means the transition from fossil fuels to electrons will require California to install at least 20 EV charging ports for every gas nozzle by 2035.
Not all chargers are equal, so the new EV infrastructure will require significant changes in driving habits. While so-called fast chargers can bring a battery to 80% of capacity in under an hour, most of the new public chargers will be cheaper, Level 2 technology, which provides between 5 miles and 60 miles of range for each hour of charging and isn’t practical for charging up quickly on a road trip.
Chargers are expected to lose money until there are enough EVs on the road to justify the investment. The cost of building a fast-charging station with four or more charging ports can range from several hundred thousand dollars to more than $1 million. Reliability remains a persistent problem, one that will shadow the industry as chargers are built out in remote areas, low-income areas, and other out-of-the-way places.
In the meantime, Analytics firm J.D. Power says that 20% of all EV drivers reported visiting a charger that did not or could not charge because it wasn’t working or there were long lines. The dissatisfaction rates ranged from 12% in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton area to 35% in South Florida. The firm said the trend is moving in the wrong direction: as more people buy EVs, “overall satisfaction continues to decline.”
This year, a Los Angeles Times columnist declared she’s ready to trade in her EV because charging is such a hassle. She wrote that chargers are sometimes blocked by cars that aren’t charging, exposed to blistering sunlight, charging at lower levels than advertised, or “it may shut off mid-charge with no warning or reason.”
The frustration seems to have no expiration date. And it includes a problem not caused to technology or economics but by human nature: vandalism. As Jonathan Levy, EVgo chief commercial officer, told the New York Times last year: “Where there’s a screen, there’s a baseball bat.”
This article was adapted from a RealClearInvestigations article published October 24.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.
“EVs will become as convenient as smartphones.”
GREENIES ARE DAMNED IDIOTS!!!
There were no government mandates for smartphones. There were no subsidies for smartphones. People WANTED smartphones. They weren’t forced to buy them by some idiot like AOC. Private companies built the infrastructure for smart phones to support the consumer demand. In other words. Smartphones are a master class of capitalism at work.
“Bigger than a Bucee’s?”
I was thinking the same. So take that Buckeye’s with 80 pumps and imagine it being for EVs only. Then take a tiny gas station with 5 pumps. Guess who can service more cars per hour (hint, not the Buckeye’s).
“When the wind stops and the sky clouds over or it’s too cold or too hot then lots of people get stranded and can’t get home.”
What happens at that point is that EV Charging Stations will have to THROTTLE DOWN their charge rates, greatly, in order to prevent residential blackouts.
So don’t plan on driving too far for Thanksgiving!
“If you’re virtue signaling to the other ignorant leftists and only need a grocery getter, its a fine idea....”
Until there are too many even just for that minimal use.
I take it these level 2 chargers would be to accommodate apartment dwellers, etc. Who in their right mind would put up with constantly pluging in the car?
“EV’s can be easily charged at home and will be”
Have a look below at California electricity rates. And the state assy have removed incentives to install Solar unless you shell out another 13k or more for battery storage and that is just for one wall of batteries. Most homes from my research will have the recommendation of two walls of battery packs.
The real savings for solar is buying the equipment not leasing. So a typical 2000 sq. ft home installation in my neck of the woods with two walls of batteries will be nearing 45 - 50k. No thanks. A non plug in hybrid is in my future.
As of August 2023, Southern California Edison (SCE) has three residential TOU rate plans in which electricity rates range from 23 cents per kWh during super off-peak windows in the winter to 74 cents per kWh during on-peak windows in the summer.Aug 24, 2023
A car that makes sense mostly during off peak winter days makes no sense. And Edison rates are only going up.
“How many EVs would be in the Hood in the first place?....................”
The hood goes wherever they want in the Hyundai / Kia they just hotwired. And as hard as it is to believe there are affluent areas in mostly $hit holes like Oakland, Chicago....
Who in their right mind would put up with constantly plugging in their telephone???......................
Amortize the cost of the solar into the electricity used, subtracting the subsidies?
Solar costs rise to the consumer because of subsidies, like everything else the government "helps" with (like tuition costs rising to take in all the government money for college). So if you ask me to run my numbers without the solar tax credit, do I get to adjust the costs I paid up front accordingly to what they would have been without the tax credit?
If you want real world numbers broken down by costs, here's https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4127577/posts?page=51#51. It's half a year old. To date, my cash flow is in the positive about $2,600 (I would have paid $2,600 more in energy costs without solar and an EV than I've paid out of pocket to set up solar and EV, etc.).
This is not for everybody. One should do his homework to make sure it works well in his area (and do his homework before dissing the idea). But if you take ownership of your energy costs it's quit liberating to have one less thing the Dims control over your finances.
I charge mine about once a week and I don’t have to go to the mall to do it 😀
I see ‘homeless guys’ (read BUMS) sitting in front of convenience stores that have an outside AC receptacle, with their smartphones (Obama phones) plugged in charging them...............
OK, so to sum up your link, you spent 30K + 50k + 60k = 140K for solar plus EV to save $2600 in the last 2.5 years?
“OK, so to sum up your link, you spent 30K + 50k + 60k = 140K for solar plus EV to save $2600 in the last 2.5 years?”
Hopefully that is not the case, otherwise that is some major virtue signaling worthy of a DU member or a math retard.
That means the $150K I won’t spend on the Dims’ stupid energy costs will stay in my Roth IRA and keep growing tax free. It also removes from my future financial planning most of the uncertainty of future energy costs. What if the Dims make energy costs double over the next few years? Bummer, but it would impact our finances only one fifth as much (the 20% of power I buy from the grid because the other 80% of our energy comes from solar with a fixed cost of the HELOC payment). Bonus points by the fact that as my HELOC balance is paid down, the minimum payment goes down. In other words in future years it costs me less money(lower HELOC payments) to save more money (avoiding energy costs that keep going up). Then the next year it costs even less to save even more, etc. (Although I work it in my budget as though I’m still paying year 2019 energy prices, so I’ll pay extra principal on the HELOC to pay it off early).
In other words, as I plan to fully retire in a few years in my late 50’s, when I think about inflation messing up my retirement, energy costs are something I don’t lose sleep over. This is the main reason for the energy project. I’ve removed most of the Dims’ ability to use their stupid warmageddon cult to mess up my retirement.
What if the Dims require a mark of the beast style social credit score for energy? Bummer again because it would force me to upgrade my solar and backup power even more to go off grid — but at least from this point I wouldn’t be starting from scratch.
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