Feds award $521 million in EV charger funds, but rollout remains slow

The awards are part of a $7.5 billion program for EV charger infrastructure.

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[android_alpaca]

Great public investment. Just get it done.

Of course when China does something like this it counts as an illegal subsidy.

If you're stupid enough to equate the two, I won't waste my time educating you about the differences.

You call him stupid? He's exactly right, genius.

No it's not the same.

No one is saying China funding/investment of its domestic EV charging infrastructure (i.e. installed in China) is an illegal subsidy - that's a strawman argument. They are complaining about China funding of it's domestic (Chinese owner) EV makers for making EV to be sold internationally (outside of China) that compete with other EV makers. China is free to go Oprah it is wants to subsidies EV sales within it's own borders and AFAICT no one is complaining about that specific.

The US for it's basically subsidizing any company, domestic or foreign, that builds EV or chargers on US soil. Electrify America is ultimately owned by Volkswagon Group, a Germany company, through it's wholly own subsidiary VW America, and Siemens, another Germany company.

While China does offer per-vehicle subsidies and tax breaks to foreign companies making EV in the US. It also gives no string attached cash infusions to several EV makers (and only Chinese owned ones).

That's the difference. I think Chinese's investment in EV infrastructure and R&D very laudable and at the same time, it's subsidizing of EVs sold outside of the China to be problematic. It isn't an all or nothing thing as real life has nuance and complexity.

 

[android_alpaca]

Builders will already have their money and can declare bankruptcy to get out of that requirement. Or they just use a different legal entity for construction that they promptly close upon completion.

The NEVI grants aren't paid in advance, the builder has to actually build the chargers with their own money first and then file for reimbursement after the completing certain milestones. Price of the installation is a large factor in picking NEVI grantees. Also the maintenance portion of the bid require a 5-year maintenance plan and that portion of the NEVI grant is spread out across the 5-years

That doesn't mean fraud can't happened, just that it is as simple as you suggest.

It isn't like the US gov't has a great track record of going after wasteful spending.

That's generally for cost-plus type contract (e.g. SLS) this is effectively a fixed price contract (which Boeing completely failed at with the Starliner).

 

[android_alpaca]

I've seen more chargers out of service in my 1.5 years of EV ownership and 30k miles on it than the number of gas pumps I've seen out of service in 20 years of driving cars over hundreds of thousands of miles.

I take it you don't own a Tesla? That's not to say Tesla superchargers are anywhere near perfect, but their uptime is much better than non-Tesla DC chargers. I've a dozen out-of-service stalls in 7.5 years) as listed in the app's real-time operational status and with my eyes. And I'm pretty sure I've seen more than that at a gas station over 20+ years (I've seen entire rows closed down).

It's just generally such a non-issue for gas pump that most people don't even notice it (which actually supports the point that EV charging uptime matters more than gas pump uptime).

Hopefully, NEVI uptime requirement lead to more reliable chargers that combined with the realtime availability requirement (which is true for Superchargers, but not all other charging networks) should mitigate these types of problems.

 

[android_alpaca]

I don't own a Tesla, but I see enough superchargers out around the greater seattle area when I pass by them

So you are looking at the Supercharger stations as you pass and seeing out of order stalls?

It's not just superchargers, everything from level 2 posts (Tesla destination charging included) to DCFC all seem like they got terrible uptime...

I agree that non-Tesla DC charger and most L2 chargers tend to have worse uptime. Tesla destination chargers don't report real-time availability data and more importantly not are maintained by Tesla, but rather the "destination" (e.g. the hotel) that they are located at. I've personally never had an issue with Tesla destination chargers, but I've only use about a dozen of them over the past 7.5 years.

As I mentioned above, it was unclear to me if you are claiming Tesla superchargers in your area also have poor uptime that is worse than the overall 99.97% uptime for the whole Supercharger network.

 

[android_alpaca]

Yeah.... that's literal bullshit from Tesla.

Just ignore our broken chargers and judge the location as a whole.

It's nowhere near 99.97% in reality.

I see. Separately, how are you judging Tesla Supercharger uptime if you are just driving by then?

 

[android_alpaca]

There’s no reason to install Level 2 or an EVSE - it is a luxury someone with a low income fortunately doesn’t need. You can charge most people’s daily driving with a regular outdoor outlet.

I think there is still technically an EVSE when plugging into a 120V outlet, it's just a very simple one - in the same way that an EV still technically has a transmission, even though it is a single speed with a fixed gearbox.

I've read that the labor of pulling the wire and setting up the metering and stuff is the major cost... so you might as well put in even a low power 240V (e.g. 3kW) as the material costs are only incrementally more. Also I think 240V is like 5-10% more efficient, so installing 120V might save you initially, but it would cost more in the low run (over years/decades) - especially with L1 potentially not being to replenish a daily commuter + errands.

 

[android_alpaca]

China, approximately the same geographical area as the USA, has more than 2million chargers (most Level 2 but DC fast chargers gaining momentum). Consequently, EV sales passed 30% last year and closing in on 50% now, while EV sales in USA & most of EU are tanking.

To be sure, China's one party government and party-state capitalism allows it to be much more decisive and ambitious it it's national plans - for better (China's HSR rail system has done a great job are replacing regional air travel) or for worse (China's "encouragement" of real estate development lead to lots of corruptions/embezzlement with "tofu concrete" buildings and as well as ghost cities). Still personally, I think investing in infrastructure almost never a bad idea ("the bridge to nowhere" is the exception to the rule)... even with the missteps and false starts, I think China has done a superior job compared to the US (with the two-party system in the US and more state independence, it takes us time to move, especially if there is "disagreement" among people at the lower levels of government, which is basically not allowed in China for better or worse.

A plan to have 500,000 by 2030 is not going to start the revolution needed to meet US electrification and clean energy goals. Get with the program.

It's hard to say what the needed number of L2 chargers is.. one big difference between the US and China is that 65% of households in the US live in single family homes, a majority of them (like 80%) are owned and a majority of those (over 90%) have a garage/carport. On the flipside only 9% of US households that drive to work live in apartment buildings of over 9 units. That's compared to the 25% of single family homes in China. I couldn't find a stat on the percentage of apartment dwellers in China (particular ones that owned and drove cars) do you have a link? The number of DC chargers that China has is impressive though and I hope US will catch up (as seen by this article, we are trying to).