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When it’s time for Ambre Ying’s family to replace their car, the Huntington Beach resident is interested in switching to an electric vehicle. But she said one main factor is holding her family back.
“Range is our biggest concern,” said Ying, 55, who loves to take road trips and worries about finding — and then waiting — at charging stations along the way.
A new pot of federal money is aimed at addressing that “range anxiety,” which is keeping families like Ying’s from pivoting to electric vehicles. And California is finalizing a request this week to get $384 million from that sum to subsidize the installation of thousands of fast EV charging stations on its roadways over the next eight years, including along stretches of key Southern California corridors such as the 15, 91 and 210 freeways.
More people are eyeing electric vehicles than ever before, as global gas prices have reached record highs and climate change concerns mount. Nearly half of Californians in a survey released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California said they’re seriously considering an EV next time they buy or lease a car, while another 6% said they already have one.
Those who aren’t considering going electric anytime soon cite rising costs and wait times, as demand soars while supply chain issues persist. But nearly two-thirds of Americans in a recent Consumer Report poll said charging logistics was the top reason they weren’t ready to buy an electric vehicle.
“I don’t want an electric car, especially in a state whose utility grid is terrible, and utility prices are ridiculous,” said Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, who lives in central Orange County. “Besides, if I travel the (continental) 48 United States, I can get gas anywhere. Charging stations? Not so much.”
Most people who have gone electric are able to charge their cars at home overnight, often with relatively simple upgrades and little concern about outages — even during hot summer months since they’re charging during off-peak hours.
Mark Warschauer of Irvine said his family paid for solar panels and had an electrician convert an unused electric dryer hookup into a level two, or 240 volt, charging station when they bought a Tesla four years ago. His family of five now has two fully electric vehicles and a hybrid, and he said they’re easily able to keep all three vehicles charged at home by rotating them as needed.
California has more public charging stations than any other state, with new projects and apps to find those stations regularly popping up. A Culver City-based company called The StackCharge, for example, is developing 40 solar-powered, quick-charge EV stations in a hub around shops and restaurants in Baker. Most Southern Californians pass through the city if they drive to Las Vegas and might not be able to make the drive on one charge.
And companies such as Electrify America and Volta have some options for free charging at their stations scattered throughout the state, either on certain days or if customers are willing to watch ads while they wait.
But while there are an estimated 110,000 gas stations nationwide, each with multiple pumps for customers to use, there are only an estimated 20,000 fast EV (also known as level three) charging stations across the country. And sometimes there are hundreds of miles between them while newer electric vehicles average about 250 miles per charge.
That number is going up quickly. But road trips aside, gaps in quick public charging stations are particularly problematic for the nearly half of Californians who are renters, unwilling or unable to invest in needed accommodations, and for everyone who lives in apartments, townhouses, or homes without space for chargers.
“I live in downtown Riverside and many houses here don’t have driveways or garages,” Daniel Jester said. “We have to park on the street, so charging at home seems impossible without running cables across the yard and sidewalk.”
To address that problem, the federal government in September will start awarding states a share of $5 billion set aside in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act approved last year to help install more public fast charging stations (which can fully charge a vehicle in about 30 minutes) along key transportation corridors. By 2030, the goal is to have 500,000 fast chargers spread no more than 50 miles apart near exits for major highways and interstates all across the country, much like gas stations are today.
The deadline for states to apply for their share of those funds is Monday, Aug. 1.
Caltrans spokesman Will Arnold said Wednesday his department is finalizing a request to use its $384 million share on grants to cover up to 80% of costs for anyone interested in creating or upgrading EV chargers along designated roadways where they’re now more than 50 miles apart.
California’s goal is to have 250,000 shared EV chargers in place by 2025, including at least 10,000 fast charging stations. By 2030, it’s estimated California will need 1.2 million such charging stations.
To help the state get there, all cities and counties in California are required to streamline permitting processes for EV charging stations. But so far, California only has close to 80,000 chargers open to the public or for shared use, such as at apartment or office buildings. And just over 7,000 are fast chargers.
Clearly, $5 billion in federal funds is a drop in the bucket to help states meet ambitious goals for EV charging, noted Jay Smith, executive director of Charge Ahead Partnership, a coalition of businesses and groups advocating for an effective EV charging network. But Smith said the idea is for this public funding to kickstart private investment in the space.
So why aren’t companies already jumping at the chance to install EV chargers at every gas station, hotel, and restaurant along busy roads? For now, Smith said, many are hamstrung by issues such as limited customer demand and unfair competition from electric companies.
For four generations, Raina Shoemaker’s family has owned a travel center in Lincoln, Nebraska, she said during a virtual media briefing Charge Ahead Partnership held Tuesday. Shoemaker said she’d love to start offering EV charging alongside gas pumps and doesn’t see it as optional going forward due to where the industry is heading.
But even with a grant to cover 80% of initial costs, she’d be looking at spending $100,000 to install the system, she said. And she’s worried about how she’d ever make a profit considering the demand charges most electric companies tack on.
A demand charge is a hefty fee utilities nationwide levy whenever there’s a sudden, big spike in energy use. If one customer uses a gas station’s quick-charge station, it will likely trigger those fees. And if there aren’t many more customers waiting behind that person, retailers like Shoemaker won’t make enough money to cover the demand charge — let alone make any profit.
Utility companies that operate EV charging stations don’t charge themselves those demand charges, Smith noted. They also typically don’t even charge customers to use the stations, instead spreading those costs among all ratepayers. That doesn’t create a level playing field for private retailers to compete, she said.
Shoemaker has looked into buying a massive battery that could trickle charge from the utility company, then quickly offload that energy to customers, helping her avoid the demand charge. But she said those cost another $100,000 and would take up two parking spaces, which are like gold for travel centers like hers.
To help smooth the move to electric vehicles, Southern California Edison has waived demand charges for EV customers through 2024, said Carter Prescott, the company’s director of electrification. And he said they have a request in now with the California Public Utility Commission to extend that demand charge holiday for EV customers for another two years.
If more states and power companies across the country follow suit, and as grant money helps retailers like Shoemaker cover costs until there’s enough customer demand to make EV charging profitable, drivers could start to see a rapid jump in the number of quick-charge stations along roadways as projects are built out over the next few years.
That triggers another concern for many Californians: Can the grid handle this coming spike in demand?
Both Prescott and Clifford Rechtschaffen, a commissioner with the CPUC, said yes — albeit, with some caveats.
Power companies have been making plans for upgrades to accommodate more electric vehicles being phased in for years, Rechtschaffen said. And Prescott said people charging vehicles with level one or level two chargers at home overnight hasn’t posed any problems for his company.
New fast EV chargers are a much bigger power draw. But they won’t be approved unless the power company can verify it can handle the capacity, which Rechtschaffen said shouldn’t be a problem along most major thoroughfares — though it could mean some delays for projects if upgrades are needed.
Strategies such as price tiers, to encourage EV customers to charge during non-peak hours, and software that can control charging times will also help. There’s even potential for innovative solutions such as bidirectional or vehicle-to-grid charging, where EV batteries can actually send power back to the grid — and potentially earn some money for their owners in the process.
While such ideas are promising, regulators and advocates clearly still have a lot of work to do to prove even to many environmentally conscious Californians that it’s time to go fully electric.
“I’d rather buy a hybrid at this point,” Rick Johnson of Los Angeles said. “I don’t trust the infrastructure or batteries enough yet for long road trips.”
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