EV Infrastructure Going Forward...

Personal Finances Buying and Maintaining a Car
1

First off, this is not meant to be political in any way shape or form. This is meant to better understand the development of the current/future EV infrastructure in the United States as it relates to this board, Buying and Maintaining a Car. If you really need to go political, ignore this thread and take it to the PA board, thank you very much.

First a few “facts” I pulled off the internet that I believe are accurate…
Clean Energy Economy Through Federal Sustainability Fact Sheet
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases…

Snippet:
• 100% zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) acquisitions by 2035.
• 100% zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027.

Google Searches:

How many multifamily homes in the USA?
• According to a survey conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, approximately 32.6 million residences, or 24.6% of housing in the U.S. today, are multifamily. These spaces include apartment buildings, condominiums, townhouses and mixed-use developments.
https://www.nahb.org/other/consumer-resources/types-of-home-…

How many single family homes in the USA are rentals?
• Number of single family homes in the USA that are rentals is approximately 44 million residents

So with that, how do we build a reliable EV charging infrastructure that is capable of charging any type of EV car/truck at all the millions of existing multifamily residences and at single family rental homes throughout the United States?

  1. How many qualified contractors throughout the country are capable of such an undertaking?
  2. Is/will there be a sufficient and affordable supply of materials at all times to work with?
  3. Who is going to pay for it all, and how?
  4. How are electric utility companies across the country going to up grade their circuits coming out of substations to meet all the supply needs and maintain their current infrastructure at the same time?

Personally, I don’t believe 1, 2 and 4 are anywhere near up to par. And I suspect most qualified contractors might only direct their resources towards new development and not so much at existing (way too dynamic to make any money and or move on to the next job).

As to number 3, I suspect the government would have to step in and loan money to property owners/utility companies and or offer substantial tax credits, but without 1, 2 and 4. I don’t see that happening anytime soon either.

Folks, we are only talking about multifamily homes (Apt, Condo’s, town-homes etc) and single family home rentals. We haven’t even begun to talk about single family homeowners that will need to upgrade as well.

I realize this conversation is a bit OT for this board, but I think it’s a conversation worth having for educational purposes.

Happy New Year everyone,
Troy

4 Likes
2

3. Who is going to pay for it all, and how?


**You and I** WILL be paying for ALL of this, **you and I** will have no choice in the matter... whether you support/believe in it or not! What, you think "they" (the powers that are) will be happy if you're miserable? They'll be estatic...

[ww.EOC.pl/whateverhappenedto.IFITISNOTBROKEN.DONOTFIXIT/](http://ww.EOC.pl/whateverhappenedto.IFITISNOTBROKEN.DONOTFIXIT/)
1 Like
3

1. How many qualified contractors throughout the country are capable of such an undertaking?

Do you mean installing the necessary items to charge an EV? If so, pretty much any electrician is capable of that job.

For a rental house, you install ordinary household high voltage high amp wiring as might be used for an electric stove, electric water heater, or electric dryer, then install the interface for the EV. That’s as simple as mounting it to the wall (or other appropriate fixture) and connecting up the wires. Older houses may need to upgrade their circuit breaker box for the additional load - another job well within capabilities of any journeyman electrician.

Multi-family housing gets a little trickier, but it’s still a fairly ordinary job. It can get a bit more complex in the planning stages. But the whole job is one that is being done routinely today.

The real issue is most likely in the volume of work to do. There are lots of contractors capable of this work. But are there enough of them to build out millions of installations in 5 years? Probably not. Then again, becoming an electrician is likely to be a good career choice for the foreseeable future.

2. Is/will there be a sufficient and affordable supply of materials at all times to work with?

Again, that’s a bottleneck. We have building material supply shortages today. That’s likely a shorter term problem relating to the pandemic, but it will take another year or two to work through the supply issues. This could be another lucrative business to get into today.

3. Who is going to pay for it all, and how?

All of us, of course. At least for a part of the cost. For this specific issue, it’s likely to be driven by a combination of financial incentives from various governments and a consumer demand issue. There’s already a bit of demand for apartments that can accommodate EV charging. And there will be people willing to pay extra for that amenity. In a larger complex, it could easily be an add-on to basic rent. Outside of big city settings (I’m looking at you, NYC) an apartment may include a parking space. But landlords could easily charge extra for a space with charging capabilities. Combine that with some government incentives to install the charging capabilities, and it will get done.

4. How are electric utility companies across the country going to up grade their circuits coming out of substations to meet all the supply needs and maintain their current infrastructure at the same time?

What makes you think they’re maintaining their current infrastructure now? :wink: The two big utilities in CA are already in hot water for that failure. Then there’s TX. But that’s diverting into the political, so I’ll stop there.

The good news here is that the ideal usage of EV charging may not put a huge added demand on existing facilities. More would be needed in the longer term, but a non-insignificant amount can be handled simply by charging at night, when overall demand is low.

Our overall electric usage has been steadily growing for years, decades even. In 1950, the US used less than 0.5 trillion KWh of electricity. That grew in a pretty straight line to 2000, when we used around 3.8 trillion KWh. Usage has been pretty flat since then, varying a bit in the range between 3.5 and 4.0 trillion KWh. ( https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect… chart about 1/3 of the way down the page)

I’m sure we’d need to add capacity to handle more EV usage. That would likely be paid for in the traditional way. Utility companies will ask regulators to increase their rates to pay for additional infrastructure, and the regulators will eventually allow it. Probably too little and too late, but that’s again getting toward the political.

Back to topic, this again sounds like an argument to get into the electric construction business, either as a business owner or as an electrician. Both are likely to be good businesses for many years to come.

Snippet:
• 100% zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) acquisitions by 2035.
• 100% zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027.

Keep in mind that is for federal acquisitions, not for the US as a whole. So when the federal government needs to buy a car or light truck, it’s going to be electric. That usage is just a blip in the big picture. The Federal government owns about 600,000 cars. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/biden-vows-to-el… There are well over 200 million cars in use in the US. So that’s about 0.3% of the total US auto fleet. Even if we could snap our fingers and instantly convert the entire government fleet to electric overnight, I don’t think that would stress the electric system in the least.

–Peter

4 Likes
4

Another point worth noting… the average age of a vehicle on US roads today is a little over 12 years. 25% are more than 16 years old. Even if (and this is not going to happen) nobody sells ICE vehicles in 2035, you will still be seeing them frequently through the 2050s. It will still be decades before gas pumps become rare, even with the rosiest estimates of EV adoption.

And they’ll never go away completely. It’ll be just like people that own horses today - not exactly commonplace for transportation, more of something people keep around as a hobby / lifestyle.

4 Likes
5

As I mentioned in another thread, I work for an oil and gas company. I did a trip to the Holy Land (Midland) earlier this year and did the round trip (1200 miles) with 5 gas stops, with a total of 25 minutes of fueling time. Speed and convenience of gasoline/diesel is just hard to beat.

That said, 90% of my driving, on a mileage basis, is less than 100 miles per day, round trip. That is solidly in the range of many EVs. Certainly doable with a home charger.

Chargers for single family residence and large fleet sites are going to be the easiest to get sufficient power/control on. Multifamily, particularly apartments or condos where a person may not park in the same space daily are going to be really hard because you have to have some system of allocating who pays, and at least right now, there are a variety of charging standards.

Displacement of traditional gas stations is going to be really difficult. The gas station closest to me has a total of 8 pumps (6 gasoline and 2 gasoline + diesel). Each pump can fully fuel most vehicles in 10 minutes or less (6 vehicles per hour, per pump), there are 8 similar locations within 2 traffic lights of me. So net, the available fueling infrastructure in the very easy distance of my house can refuel something on the order of 688*24 = 9200 vehicles/day, assuming the gas stations are operating 24 hours per day. If I assume 30 minutes per charge (not fully equivalent to filling up from empty), 24 hours per day, it would take 192 chargers to cover the same number of vehicles. Right now, most new gas stations built in my area do not include chargers for electric cars, nor do they appear to be provisioned with sufficient power or space for retrofits.

For me, displacement of traditional gas stations with electrical chargers is going to take a few things -

  1. Sufficient fleet and charged at home vehicles to make a market for convenience store chargers
  2. A sufficiently standardized charging standard
  3. Profit

Right now, there are roughly 2 million electric cars out of a fleet of about 280 million in the US. That probably doubles in the next 18 months, and doubles again in 18 months after that. So January of 2025, we might be looking at 8 million electric cars in the US, but that will only be 2.9% of the fleet. We can argue about years, but I think EVs will need to make up 20%+ of the new vehicle market (roughly 2025-2027) before critical mass will warrant building out new gas stations with electric chargers, and something more than 40% new vehicle sales before retrofitting existing stations becomes common (2035 or later).

Given all of the above, If I were building a new gas station today, particularly near an interstate or major highway, I would include electrical infrastructure to facilitate future chargers, and space to accommodate them.

If I were building a home, I would include 2 dedicated 50 amp circuits to the garage area

5 Likes
6

3. Who is going to pay for it all, and how?

All of us, of course.

Just to put this into context a big. We all discovered in the last 2 years that when we stop paying for one thing (such as hotels, travel, movie theaters) there tends to be lots of cash available to buy other things (streaming, laptops, home improvements).

In the case of EVs. The average car is driven 12-15K miles per year and gets around 25-30 mpg at a price of about $3/gal (depending on where you live). On average that is $1200 - $1800 per car per year for gas. When you stop spending that on gas and instead on electricity (which is generally cheaper per mile) you can move those funds to install home chargers.

Charging at home is going to be cheaper than charging at a commercial fast charger, so people will tend to do this if they can.

Mike

2 Likes
7
  1. How are electric utility companies across the country going to up grade their circuits coming out of substations to meet all the supply needs and maintain their current infrastructure at the same time?

What makes you think they’re maintaining their current infrastructure now? :wink: The two big utilities in CA are already in hot water for that failure. Then there’s TX.

====================================================================

There is nothing wrong with the substations and power generation facilities for the 4 major utilities in CA. There are issues with transmission and distribution lines because of fire safety/danger which has become an issue in because of climate change. PG&E will be undergrounding 10,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.

TX is a basket case, and I will not defend their lousy grid, lousy generation and lousy regulations.

Jaak

8

Interesting read about someone who drove an electric van cross-country for a month. It was cheaper than a normal car, but the challenges showed how far EV travel has to go.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/drove-electric-van-cross-country-…

Troy

1 Like