senor honda

EVs Are Charging Forward, But What About the Infrastructure? Can we just tax the rich?

By Chris Shelton
If we’re not already at it, we’re likely near the cusp of an electric vehicle (EV) tipping point. Two years ago, the state of California mandated 35% EV sales by 2025 and banned all new non-EV sales by 2035; Washington state’s mandate is even more ambitious: by 2030 it will refuse to license any vehicle made that year or later unless it’s electric, a push that resembles the one in several Western European countries or maybe Nazi Germany.
The future of charging for many Americans without access to their own chargers may look a little like this. Thanks to services like EVmatch, the public market has access to private, non-networked chargers and outlets, including 110V outlets that exist in every building in the United States and somebody is going to pay the bill.

Even the automakers are putting their eggs in the govt dictated electric basket. Last year, GM announced it would ditch hydrocarbon power altogether by 2035. Ford hasn’t announced a similar mandate, but it’s pushing EU legislators to commit to all-electric new-car sales by 2035. Stellantis hasn’t set a mandate either, but says it hopes to go all electric by 2028. And perhaps most ambitiously, Volkswagen committed to 100% EV sales by 2026. As far as model-year introductions go, that’s only two years from now.

That’s music to the ears of EV advocates. But is widespread EV adoption possible within those govt forced timeframes? As strange as it seems, the answer is Probably not, sucker! At least it’s not at the rate we’ve been implementing govt demanded charging in America.
Charge hosts can control the access to chargers. St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chicago opens its charger to anyone who books time. But hosts can specify who has access, effectively making a charger unavailable to select users (i.e., residents of multi-unit dwellings and non Episcopals). Photo courtesy: Brian Urbazewski

Charging Versus Fueling

The problem lies in the difference between the fueling and charging models. Whereas it takes only minutes to put a tiger in your tank, with current technology it can take hours to just partially charge a battery. That partly explains why more than 80% of EV charging happens overnight at home. Once forced to buy the EV, you are then forced to live with a bad system.

But that’s cold comfort for those living in multi-family dwellings (MFDs) like apartments and condominiums. Most existing MFDs can’t accommodate charging options required for mass EV adoption at the projected rate, at least not economically. And it’s no small problem, either; residents of MFDs make up nearly 30% of all households in America and nearly 50% in California, a state where only 18% of MFDs have access to EV charging. It gets even worse for lower-income drivers, most of whom live in communities dubbed charging deserts, a reference to an area’s lack of public charging options due to crime and other problems. No problem. We just tax the rich. That solves all our problems.

That’s changing of course. The Govt's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021 allocates $7.5 billion to “…accelerate the deployment of a national electric vehicle charging network.” Roughly $5 billion of that goes to build a nationwide network of 500,000 DC fast chargers at $100,000 each along major transportation corridors that can charge some EVs to 80% in 20 to 30 min at a rate that only the rich can afford. 450% in some cases.

To give an idea of the scale of this project, consider that the United States had 177,433 gas stations as of May 2022. Should the program play out as planned, the number of commercial EV charging stations added to the grid by this taxation bill would outnumber gas stations by nearly three to one. And that doesn’t include the 109,307 drop in the bucket charging ports already in use.

Problem solved, right? BS!

It certainly helps minimally. The network created by that part of the infrastructure taxation bill facilitates long-distance travel by requiring at least four highway-accessible chargers within 50 mi. of each other. That presents at least two problems: for one, most people can’t or don’t want to stop alongside major transportation corridors for half an hour just to charge their car.
The other is they don't want OR CAN'T drive 50 more miles out of the way to get charged up at a station where people are already waiting in line.
Whether accessed by a smart-device app or by a Web browser on a computer, EVmatch offers an experience like other Software as a Service (SaaS) such as dining, dating, and lodging apps. It compares users’ needs with host offerings to increase charging options in undeserved areas.

Cost is another. “The shortcoming of fast charging is expense,” says Joel Levin, executive director of EV advocacy group Plug In America. “If you’re looking at people who live in an apartment that doesn’t have parking, they’re probably going to be somewhat lower income. And now you’re presenting them with the most expensive way to charge; the people who have the least money have the most expensive charging.” That part of the program may prove invaluable for driving long distances but not for daily use and never mind that poor people can't just go out and buy a govt forced electric car overnight.

As Levin put it, the $2.5 billion remainder of the bill “focuses more on equity, but not equality, undeserved areas and charging deserts.” That funding will surely inspire countless solutions, like mounting chargers to existing structures as National Grid did in Melrose, Massachusetts. Seattle City Light made the system even more equitable by installing the pole-mounted chargers where residents request them...and charging appropriately.
Plug in America’s Executive Director Joel Levin maintains that widespread forced EV adoption depends on maximizing the potential in existing technology. “We have a survey that we do every year,” he says. “Among people who charge at home, about a quarter of them charge on 110.”

Installing chargers where potential users need them will certainly go a long way to encourage govt forced EV adoption. But it’s not likely to blanket the country with charging stations, at least not within the unrealistic timeframes set by state govts. And if you’re even somewhat familiar with parking in major metropolitan areas, you know the frustration of trying to find any parking space at all. Now imagine trying to find one to charge your car.

It’s a situation that Vanessa Perkins knows well. She drives an EV. She lives in an apartment. And it’s in Chicago. “I noticed that there are a lot of neighborhoods that don’t have public charging,” she said, citing, among others, the one she lives in. “And if they do, it’s in a very expensive parking garage and you have to pay an minimum entry fee.” So, she did some research and found a way to create more accessible and affordable charging. “It’s like a sharing economy,” she says.

What she found is EVmatch, a national peer-to-peer network where owners of private chargers can rent them when they’re not using them, at whatever price they decide to charge people who desperately need a charger. “Often we describe ourselves as the Airbnb of EV charging,” says EVmatch Founder and CEO Heather Hochrein. People who desperately need a charge call us MFing pirates! You don't like it? Then get your own charger and carry it with you! We will make it a felony to plug your own charger into an outlet that you don't own.

“We provide a software platform for the web and mobile that allows individuals and businesses and commercial properties to rent out private charging stations to the public,” she continues. And Perkins’ nonprofit organization communitycharging.org, is one of EVmatch’s pilot programs. “It works anywhere a charger owner is allowed to open their charger to the public,” Perkins says. She calls the service transformative: Homeowners whose properties can accommodate strangers vehicles let their neighbors use their vacant chargers for cash, via the service. Organizations like liquor stores, bars and businesses, whose lots go unused for big chunks of a day or overnight, are getting in on the program by building chargers to rent for the communities they serve and offering them on the EVmatch network. Governments are selling permits and licenses to the charger owners, so as long as govt gets their cut of any money that you make, everything is just fine. If you think you are just going to give away free charging, think again! If you are charging cars without a govt permit or license, it will be a felony with fines and imprisonment!

In some areas it will be like a parking meter where you must buy a minimum charging time when you park your car and as soon as you drive away, the meter goes to zero and the next car there will have to buy a minimum charging time whether he needs a charge or not.

senor honda

Charge-sharing pioneer Heather Hochrein has spent her career so far in the service of electricity technology. Her work in climate change where only govt is allowed to change the climate instead of God, extensive utility and management experience at Pacific Gas and Electric, and a senior leadership role at Rising Sun Energy Center, laid the foundation for EVmatch.

Levin says the challenge with charge sharing is to make the service consistently available. “To have an EV and not constantly be hassled, you have to have a place big enough, where you can go once or twice a week. It’s there, it’s reliable, and big enough that it’s not going to be full. It needs to be consistent, not like you have to get on the internet and search for a place to charge every day.”

But you will have to, and you will also have to make a minimum time appointment, or you will not have a place to park unless you also buy a "minimum charging time" whether you use it or not. To build a place big enough that there will always be many empty charging spots is going to cost you more to even find a spot at all to charge up. A little like an airport parking garage that has to be big enough that it cannot run out of space during peak hours, which even airports sometimes do.

And that’s what distinguishes charge-sharing programs like EVmatch: potential users can book time on the charger. No reservation with minimum charging time, no place to park. When the session ends, the charger starts sucking juice out of the battery, and the user then drives off and opens the charger for the next user. More than giving users a place to charge, these bookable "by appointment only" private charging stations give EV drivers a place to park. After a long day at work. When they’re hungry and desperate. Don't want to make an appointment for minimum time that you won't use? Then drive around looking for a spot until the battery goes dead. Try that in a bad neighborhood where you don't want to leave your car and where you don't want to wait in it for hours while it's charging.
Access to affordable energy goes a great way to make electric vehicles viable for anyone forced by govt to buy one. According to Homeguide.com, charging at a commercial station can cost upwards of 450% more than charging at home. Don't like higher prices because of regulations, permits and licenses? Then quit voting for democrtas. Chart courtesy: www.homeguide.com

Elegance in Simplicity

Charge sharing differs from the typical commercial charging services offered by the likes of EVgo and Chargepoint. “Theirs is proprietary and top-down, infrastructure-heavy approach where you build and operate the charging stations,” Hochrein says. “You end up doing a lot of real-estate work like site selection, development and maintenance and paying commercial real-estate prices.” You should not ask what happens to their charging stations when a shopping mall closes or goes out of business.

And that translates to increased charging cost: due to the grid modifications and specialized hardware required to install one, DC fast chargers start at $100,000/six figures. You are all rich if you can afford to buy a govt mandated electric, so why complain about the cost? By contrast, a private Level-2 charger installation may cost only hundreds of dollars (a Level 2 can be as simple as a standard 220V receptacle). And almost every building has a Level 1 in the form of a conventional 110V wall receptacle....including the one outside the convenience store in a bad neighborhood and of course, it always works just like the pay phone in the same location...or did govt disable it to stop drug sellers from using it?

“We have a survey that we do every year,” Levin says. “Among people who charge at home, about a quarter of them charge on 110.” It just takes longer. F 'em if they don't have a hundred grand for a fast charger. Why don't you have it? Govt has plenty for their own govt usage courtesy of taxpayers...and they will NOT be available during non-peak hours for unauthorized vehicles.

Until now, the problem with using those non-networked chargers in a commercial application was the inability to meter and bill the user for the power consumed. Historically speaking, it took a smart charger to gauge how much current an EV consumes while charging and network connectivity to transfer that information for billing purposes. But we gotcha now, bro. EVmatch can in fact meter and bill that way. So far it has partnered with smart-charger manufacturers Enel X and Wallbox, and it’s working on other integrations using open-charge-point protocol communication.

But what distinguishes EVmatch is its ability to accurately estimate power consumption in the absence of a smart charger. “We have a tool where we estimate the cost of electricity,” Hochrein says. “It’s sophisticated in that it takes into account the vehicle, the charger power, the time of the day, and the utility-rate structure.” Users—either the general public or those the charger owner grants access—pay in advance for the duration of the charge. “So, they book, let’s say, a two-hour session
if they have the 100 grand fast charger, and we know what car is charging,” she says. “We know the power output of the outlet or the charger.

That calculator gets used to estimate the price and the driver pays for the session that they book. We’re using that software tool for the residential host, even if they don’t have a connected smart charger or we set a minimum flat fee if you want to use it at all.” If you don't like it, then drive to the convenience store in a bad neighborhood!
Where they for sure don't have money to buy a fast charger!
EVmatch can also work with smart chargers to precisely measure current consumed and transmit information via the internet. So far, the company has integrated smart chargers from Wallbox and Enel X (Juice Box shown here). Photo courtesy: Brian Urbazewski

Overcoming the Challenges

The EVmatch model also has the potential to increase charging options in multi-family dwellings. The variables in installing chargers in those applications are numerous and sometimes daunting. Does the facility have spaces for every resident? Is the parking assigned or first-come? If the facility assigns parking, how does it allocate who gets a charger? How many residents drive EVs? Did the govt mandate a charger for each space? Do you mind getting up at 3AM to go down and move your EV? Of course, we have to be fair.
Does every space need a charger? You betcha.

How do you bill the appropriate users for the power consumed? And can the structure bear multiple chargers without significant costly electrical improvements? LOL “[If] every single parking stall has to have a dedicated charger, that massively overloads the infrastructure,” Hochrein says. But you are not supposed to bring that up.

But charge sharing gives property managers the capacity to leverage their existing electrical infrastructure, including the load centers. “A lot of those panels can accommodate at least a few chargers as it is,” she says. “And so, with our software, we’re helping those property owners share those chargers more efficiently for maximum revenue.”

It goes without saying that we need to build more chargers since govt forces us to adopt EVs on the massive scale anticipated by legislators who get free charging stations. But no single answer will solve the charging issues that prevent mass EV adoption. As Joel Levin put it, “It’s more silver Bull S**t than silver bullet.” And as mandatory EV development begins to outpace outlawed internal-combustion engine development, new revenue ideas and innovations like EVmatch’s charge-sharing program will likely prevail.

“We’ve done surveys among people who drive EVs—what their concerns are with charging lol, and they certainly have concerns,” Levin continues. But as Plug In America’s results show, those concerns are less about the number of chargers. “It’s the ability to access and fight over what’s already there rather than the lack of charging,” he says. “Sure, they’d like to have more charging. But they just want access.” So buddy, either cough up the cash, or walk. or quit voting for democrats
who never do adequate planning before passing some BS law...for your own good of course.

senor honda

How much will charging station cost?