Category Archives: Automobile

Automobile, Energy, Travel

Accelerating Availability of EV Charging Stations through Legislation

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Are you planning on traveling this week for your vacation?  Bought a gas guzzler instead of an EV because of the time it takes to charge, and chargers were not readily available on your commute or a road trip?  Don’t want to get stuck without a charge, or kill a half day recharging your wheels?  It looks like with the release of the Tesla Model 3 it will address most of these items such as:

  • Range Per Charge – 215 miles
  • Supercharging
    • Tesla Supercharger provides up to 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes.
  • Relatively Affordable – 35k

But how wide spread are the charging stations, and what could be done as a catalyst to rapidly improve EV charging coverage?   We can look at EV charging coverage, US map like we do for cellular coverage (and range).  One possibility is to tack on a rider to federal funding requiring states that use federal funding for their highways implement EV Charging Stations at EVERY rest stop along the road.  

However, there are a vast array of EV Charging Stations on the market.   Although adoption across the US is currently sporadic, there are several brands/standards of EV Charging Mechanisms

  • A heterogenous mix of N EV chargers per rest stop / station, may allow for a diverse set of solutions.
  • Each state may declare N companies to install, maintain, and periodic upgrades for each EV Charging Station.  Each rest stop / station can be awarded to separate contractors, or clustered
  • The ‘bid winning’ companies per state responsible for the rest station EV chargers must perform ongoing evaluations of EV charging station adoption, and use quantifiable data for upgrading solutions, after N period of time.
Stakeholders to Gain from Expansion of EV Charging Stations across the United States of America.
  • The Consumer
  • EV Manufacturing Car Companies (Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Toyota, etc.) Click here for the complete list.
  • Car Rental Firms
    • Is the cost of maintaining an EV vehicle (e.g. batteries) more expensive than the combustible engine?
  • Retail / shops across the US; i.e. at least 1/2 hour to charge
Who is in a position to accelerate / fast track this program?

Finally, is there really a “lack” of EV Charging Stations across the United States?   Here is a map from the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) list of charging stations.

I found several EV Charging Stations in my area such as  the Molly Pitcher Service Area, Mile Marker 71.7 New Jersey Turnpike, Cranbury, NJ 08512