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White House, 35 States To Boost Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The White House said on Thursday it will establish 48 national electric-vehicle (EV) charging networks on nearly 25,000 miles of highways in 35 U.S. states. The Obama administration said 28 states, utilities and vehicle manufactures, including General Motors, BMW and Nissan Motor, and EV charging firms have agreed to work together to jump-start the additional charging stations. The corridors were required to be established by December under a 2015 highway law. The White House said 24 state and local governments have agreed to buy hundreds of additional electric vehicles for government fleets and add new EV charging stations. California will buy at least 150 zero-emission vehicles and provide EV charging at a minimum of 5 percent of state-owned parking spaces by 2020. The city of Atlanta will add 300 charging stations at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport by the end of 2017. Los Angeles agreed to nearly triple the city's current plug-in electric fleet to 555 vehicles from about 200 by the end of 2017. Of those, 200 will be for the police department. The city is also adding another 500 stations by 2017. One hurdle to the mass adoption of EVs has been the difficulty in finding places to recharge vehicles. In July, the White House said it was expanding a federal loan guarantee program to include companies building EV charging stations. The U.S. Energy Department said in July that charging facilities are now an eligible technology for the program that can provide up to $4.5 billion in loan guarantees.

12 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cart before the electric horse? by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about putting more of that money into those 'shovel-ready' infrastructure projects you were talking about all those years ago.

    For those of you stuck on this worn Fox-News-meme, here's the fuller story:

    Soon after O began his job in the White-house, he consulted top economists for solutions to the then quickly tumbling economy.

    Looking at past stimulus plans and results from multiple countries, the economists suggested a stimulus had to be quick to be effective. "Big" infrastructure projects often take too long to ramp up. Surveys, plan review & approval, environmental studies, zoning studies, etc. have to be done first. These can take more than a year.

    Therefore, the concept of "shovel ready" was created to only fund public works projects that could be ramped up quickly.

    It turned out those are hard to come by. Some went to fixing potholes and the like, which I witnessed happening in my area, but otherwise they had difficulty finding quick-turnaround public works projects.

    Instead, much of the stimulus was used to fund State budgets so that teachers, cops, fire-fighters, etc. would be less likely to be let go. This kept money flowing in the economy. Some also went to investments in green energy companies, such as solar. Sure, some went under, but investing is like that: win some loose some. To focus only on those that went under, like Solyndra, is cherry-picking evidence. (I will agree the investment selection process was poorly managed, though.)

    It turned out the Great Recession went on longer than expected such that big public works projects would have been useful. But nobody has a crystal ball. The federal estimates of recession duration and depth were consistent with those made by private company estimates, I would note.

    They were reasonable actions based on what was known at the time.

    Some pro-austerity people claim that deep recessions fix themselves such that stimuluses are not necessary, but I've seen no evidence of this, other than making life so dreadful that people riot and war, which certainly stimulates economies, but kills.

  2. Re:Where are these charging stations made? by Trogre · · Score: 2

    I don't know, but you can be sure the energy dispensed through them will not come from the Middle East.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  3. Re:Bad time for the Environment by Trogre · · Score: 2

    Your homework:

    Google internal combustion engine efficiency.
    Google electricity generation efficiency.
    Google world power transmission loss.

    Come back here with your answers, along with a conclusion, when you're done.

    If you want to bias your results to soften your defeat, be sure to only consider coal generation.

    For extra credit, research the following:
    Vehicle emissions per kWh
    Coal power plant emissions per kWh

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  4. Re:Bad time for the Environment by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recently did this calculation.

    The amount of CO2 emitted per mile driving an EV assuming electricity is generated from coal is about the same as that from a gasoline car that does 40 mpg. How many cars do 40mpg in a real life mix of driving?

    Yes, I ignored transmission losses, but perhaps that isn't fair because obviously gasoline gets from the refinery to your tank via zero energy teleport.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  5. Airport charging by crow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why add lots of charging stations at airports? When people are leaving their cars for multiple days, they don't need a 240v charger or anything fancy. All that's needed is a simple electrical outlet. Even a Tesla could recharge fully in four days from a standard wall outlet. Put your level-2 charging stations in places where people shop or work and will only be parked for a few hours. Put the level-3 charging stations along highways where people need to charge quickly.

    Of course, the need for public charging stations decreases as the range of the cars increases. When the standard range is over 200 miles, most people can do all their non-travel charging at home. You don't need chargers at shopping centers and offices (though I still hear about people with crazy 100+ mile commutes). The real challenge is charging for people who don't have a garage. Focus on putting chargers at apartment complexes and on city streets where residents without garages park. Require charging as part of the permitting process for new apartments (we just did that in my town).

    1. Re:Airport charging by eepok · · Score: 3, Informative

      Plain ol' sockets won't do the job because it doesn't provide the data necessary to bill the driver to electricity used, manage the hundreds of plugs, etc.

      Also, while it seems like common sense to place charging stations at workplaces and shopping areas, it doesn't make sense form an administrative or engineering standpoint. When stations go in at your job site, your job site becomes the administrator of those stations. They effectively become refueling stations and they become responsible for the smooth running of their workers refueling. This is much more complex than most people realize. Additionally, when you place massive amounts of chargers (level 2 chargers for that matter) in areas where people are likely to park during the day, you're encouraging additional peak-time load which usually means more pollution per kWh. It's also more expensive to INSTALL the EVSEs because you have to trench and run electrical cables into open lots, install new transformers, etc.

      If you want to promote EV use, the solution is NOT more chargers in public spaces, but more battery capacity at an affordable price (like the Chevy Bolt) and more charging at home. And this is the truest obstacle of the push for EVs.

      The cheapest energy is off-peak energy. If you charge at home between 9pm and 6am, you're paying a couple dollars at most to fill up your car's battery pack. This is what everyone wants. But not everyone has a garage. Not everyone owns a home so that they can install an EVSE with which to charge an EV.

      If EVs are to succeed:
      1. EVERYONE has to be able to charge at home.
      2. The cars can't cost more than a Prius. (The federal rebate needs to be reworked to be useful to those of moderate/low income.)
      3. The cars must have at least a 200 mile range. (All of us working in sustainability are looking forward to the Chevy Bolt.)
      4. We have to find a way to make battery manufacturing, recycling, and disposal environmentally safe.

      That's a lot to ask for. Which is why I genuinely think that we're over-investing in battery EVs when we should be building more solar/wind powered hydrolyzers and focusing on hydrogen fuel cell vehicle adoption (Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Tuscon, etc.).

  6. Re:Bad time for the Environment by Dare+nMc · · Score: 2

    Your leaving out the 2 biggest costs for electric cars.

    1) Battery
    2) Distribution and transmission.

    Also tire/road wear, from cars that are 2* as heavy due to batteries.

    These are not energy or carbon footprint neutral.
    It is also a big drain on the environment building and maintaining the electric grid. Fixing all the lines that fail, and doubling the capacity to handle transportation will not be cheap, and costs more energy than what is lost in transmission.

    Not to mention line workers is one of the 10 deadliest professions in the US. That is not counting all the people who die from accidents involving power lines.

    Gasoline is not free to transport, but pipelines are generally safer and carry a much much higher density of power than power-lines. And costs about 1/5 that of power to transport per BTU.

  7. Re: Exciting times for EVs by macmurph · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you did the math, original poster said they want a car that can go about 50 miles in under a ten minute charge. That is 25% more range than the average American drives in a day. That is approximately the same time you would spend in a gas station for an ICE car. Given you can charge at home, this would put the value proposition in favor of the electric car. So therefore every intelligent consumer would opt for an EV.

    Now consider that we ALREADY have a car and charger that are better than these requirements. The Tesla Model S can charge 170 miles in 30 minutes on a SuperCharger. That's more than the original poster's request of 80% of 200 miles. (The overall range of the Model S is 315 miles. The range will go up at about 8% per year compounding --for at least a few years- as battery technology, etc. advances.)

  8. Typical government boondoggle by FrankSchwab · · Score: 2

    So the only company with a charger with a high enough charge rate that its actually usable for highway travel, the only company with an existing charger infrastructure covering almost all highway routes across the nation, the only company that offers to license all of its patents on this technology to any and all manufacturers who would wish to use it as long as they share in the costs and the ethos of open access, isn't involved in this project?

    sigh.

    --
    And the worms ate into his brain.
  9. Start forcing a single standard adapter by DrXym · · Score: 2
    Car manufacturers are engaged in a stupid pissing match over charging formats and related matters. It ends up with duplication of effort and vertical platforms where one car can't charge from another port, and where consumers become pawns in some stupid format war.

    Federal and state support should be SAE J1772 with DC fast charge and force car makers into line. No CHAdeMO, no Tesla proprietary charge, no Mennekes. A single standard. It would also help if all charge points were required by law to accept common forms of payment and not be exclusive to one make or model of vehicle. i.e. charging should be like filling up a gasoline vehicle, not some vertical thing where charge stations only support certain brands of vehicles or discriminate against competitors.

    That might inconvenience people with existing vehicles (they'll have to use cables) but the long term benefit is obvious. It removes a format war, risk of verticality / monopolies and increases consumer confidence in electric vehicles.

    Other regions in the world like Europe might choose Mennekes with DC fast charge as their single format but the same point applies.

    1. Re:Start forcing a single standard adapter by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Voltage and phasing in Europe is different from the US as is the influence of different car manufacturers & lobbies. Probably explains the difference although the US and Europe systems have kind of converged into similar forms. Ultimately though the important thing is Europe also recognized the need for a single standard and has already issued a directive for countries to follow.

      The directive mandates Mennekes Type 2 with or without AC/DC combined charger and also says users should be able to charge on an ad hoc basis. More or less what I was saying about about non discretionary points that accept common forms of payment. That means in a few years that every charge point should be compatible with every electric vehicle in Europe. It should also mean the end of CHAdeMO and other charge types.

      Even Tesla chose a type 2 charger (albeit one with additional DC charging capabilities) in Europe because the directive was coming. So even they saw the way the wind was blowing. Although they really should be using the combined charger or offering to incorporate their super-charging-DC-in-the-absence-of-a-DC-combined-charger capability into the standard.

  10. Re:Cart before the electric horse? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Please clarify.