There was a lot of talk today about President Joe Biden’s executive orders on the first day. One EO that has long been promised paves the way forward for the adoption of electric vehicles. Joe is pushing for a $ 5 billion plan to install half a million new EV charging stations by 2030. If this does happen, it will definitely help alleviate the anxiety and provide the network that consumers as well as car manufacturers need to be able to trust. free management.
Of course, an executive order has no teeth without a budget to fund it, so he will need the support of Congress to make it happen. As one of the tent poles of the government’s plan for the future, electric vehicles and clean energy are likely to receive serious support from Congress Dems, and it could prove two-fold favor with the promise of new jobs in it. Biden’s plan calls for about 1 million new jobs to be created for clean energy.
An estimated 111,000 gas stations are currently in the United States. The number is lower than I thought it would be, as gas stations are basically scratching around everywhere. Most gas stations have between 4 and 16 pumps, right? Our current EV charging infrastructure contains 28,726 individual stations, although only 4,336 of the stations include DC charging, which is required for long distance travel. Of the DC-fast stations, Tesla is only 1/4 of them shy and can not be used to charge non-Tesla.
The electric charging infrastructure is pretty solid these days, as you can easily take an EV across the country or commute in virtually every major city. I live in Nevada, and there are large parts of the state that are inaccessible with an electric vehicle. And for people who can not pay overnight, for example, someone who lives in an apartment building, or someone who has to park their car, it is not entirely viable technology for the daily ride.
The biggest advantage to this is that petrol now has the ability to point your vehicle in any direction and now you will get wherever you go, because there are basically fuel stations. Even in the most remote parts of the country, you can count on there being a gas station that is close enough so you can burn to the next fuel lamp.
G / O Media can get a commission
As many in the comments section of decades of blogs I have written have said, the lack of charging infrastructure is the only way to buy and reverse electricity. Well, 46 calls you to stop or be silent.
Because Biden’s plan does not specify, I’m going to guess that the 550,000 number means individual chargers rather than places to charge, because I’m not sure it makes sense to put five times as many places as fuel on. We would therefore assume that Biden wants to adapt our petrol infrastructure by installing something like 5 individual chargers at 110,000 different locations.
Current charging infrastructure is largely based on parking lots of shops and restaurants, which is good enough. If we do not replace all our filling stations with charging stations, it will probably be fine. To really make a lasting difference, however, Biden’s policies need to focus on low-income neighborhoods, multi-family facilities, and business and industrial parking lots. Wherever a car has to sit for hours on end anyway, it’s a great place to recharge. Turn on streetlights with EV chargers. Equip parking meters with EV chargers.
One of the things I really love about driving an electric vehicle is that I rarely need to charge because I can ‘perfect’ overnight while I sleep. The only time I needed to charge fast was during long trips. In which case, our interstate infrastructure is already fairly well filled by private enterprises. If I get the chance, I would like to see Biden’s plan continue to expand the charging infrastructure in rural communities and smaller state roads.
As it stands now, you can get most places with the existing EV infrastructure we have, but if you want to go to your cousin’s place in Idaho or North Dakota, it’s going to be difficult. Hopefully by making electric car chargers as ubiquitous as gas stations, the problem of anxiety and usability will disappear completely. With more charging stations, we can shrinks the so-called electron deserts.
As every carmaker leans heavily towards an electric future over the next decade, this expansion of infrastructure will bring the demand needed to not only maintain the incoming electric models, but grow further. Biden has expressed a desire that the US should be competitive with China in adopting electric vehicles, mainly out of support for the numerous automakers that have manufacturing facilities here. China already has half a million public EV plugs in place, so this 2030 expansion plan will only catch us up to 2021 levels in China.
It is clear that the best the plan is to force all Americans to live in megacities and invest in bullet train technology and moving sidewalks. But this is not a utopia, and people are not willing to give up their personal mobility, or the opportunity to exacerbate climate issues by living in the desert-urban interface (this is the WUI, look it up) , so we have to play by the rules of the existing system. If you absolutely must keep your cars and your ridiculously long traffic commuting, and your desire to travel by car through the wild empty lands of this country, let us make it happen in a clean way. And why not create a whole mess of work along the way?
As for the promise to expand our charging infrastructure over the course of a decade, there is no kind of murder like an excessive death. Is 550,000 new chargers excessive and impossible? No. Is it ambitious? Just the right amount.