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Powering an electric car or truck is designed for people with private garages or who live in a major city with lots of accessible charging stations. Rural and suburban apartment dwellers can’t just run cords out their three-story windows to juice up their rides through a 140-volt outlet. That would take days.
If we want any shot at transitioning to greener vehicles, how can we turbo-charge access to EVs for everyone?
Get all the answers in our second episode of season 8.
Featuring
Rocio Fabbro is a staff writer at Quartz and the host of Season 8 of the Quartz Obsession podcast. She’s obsessed with etymology, matcha, and late ’90s-early ’00s romcoms.
William Gavin is a staff writer at Quartz. He’s obsessed with Mass Effect, historical fiction, and mythologies.
Show notes
How Many EV Charging Stations Does the US Need to Totally Replace Gas Stations?
Everything you need to know about EV charging
How will the adoption of Tesla’s NACS port affect automakers’ EV charging businesses?
How Green Are Electric Vehicles?
Transcript
Rocio: While falling prices and government incentives are making EVs more accessible than ever, high costs and charging anxiety are still keeping many Americans stuck on gas. But automakers aren’t giving up without a fight. GM is betting big on an unlikely ally — Costco — to turbocharge its EV sales. Tesla is slashing prices to stay competitive in China. And Honda is rolling out the first made in America plug in hybrid hydrogen car, even if you probably can’t find a place to fuel it up.
As the industry charges forward, storm clouds are still gathering. Republican lawmakers are accusing Chinese battery giants of using forced labor. The Biden administration is hitting the brakes on its most ambitious EV targets.
And a new report says all those plug in hybrids could be a pollution nightmare in disguise. I’m Rocio Fabbro, and you’re listening to The Court’s Obsession. In this episode, we’re diving deep into the state of the EV chargers and unpacking what needs to happen to put electric cars in every driveway.
Joining me is Will Gavin, a staff reporter here at Quartz.
Many EV owners charge their vehicles overnight at home. But this can be challenging for people who live in apartments or condos without dedicated garages or parking spots.
Will: For the most part, it’s not that common of an issue. Most people, if they have an electric vehicle, they currently have one, they usually charge at home.
You see much more cases of people charging on the road, at gas stations, at Waffle Houses, etc., when they’re actually traveling on road trips, or they’re going to different cities and so on. Most people though, they charge at home. It can be more tricky if you live in an apartment building, or if you live in multi-family housing, but usually you can, in one way or another, get a charger installed somewhere.
A lot of companies do this, like at UBConnect. Where they will come in, they’ll meet with the apartment building, whoever owns it or the landlord, whichever, and they’ll usually be able to find some way to install charging stations at the location, either in a local parking spot or in a garage.
Rocio: One thing people do worry about is their electric vehicle running out of charge when they’re not near a charging station, when they’re on a long road trip or they’ve spent all day driving around town and they see that their battery is running low.
And so companies are working on things, like new charging technologies, including wireless charging, ultra-fast charging, and battery swapping, and that is a really innovative way that they are trying to remedy this issue that is top of mind for a lot of EV drivers.
Pivoting a little bit, the EV revolution is well underway, as we’ve said, but it risks leaving many Americans behind.
As more and more drivers want to go electric, what has the government actually done so far to expand charging access? And have any bold actions been taken at the federal, state, or local level to ensure everyone can plug in?
Will: Several states have put in their own legislation to advance electrical charging to fund it.
California, for example, probably the best well known, they now have one EV charging station for every five gas stations. I don’t know the exact number, but that’s a lot for California. They’ve allocated a couple billion dollars to that program to developing their own network and over the next few years, New York also has put a lot of cash in EV charging advancements.
They’ve made government funded garages required to have public chargers as well as other places as well. And then you have the Biden administration with the bipartisan infrastructure law, which put a lot of the heavy lifting towards this. They put away $75 billion, give or take, towards charging investments. Plus around $10 billion towards clean transportation initiatives.
Rocio: So the government is clearly charging full steam ahead with this, but of course it also needs a partner, namely the people who will be supplying these stations with electricity. Are power companies stepping up to help their consumers charge up, or are they leaving it to the private sector to solve? And who’s really leading this revolution to electrify transportation?
Will: So power companies are definitely doing some work on this, but a lot of the legwork is being done by these private companies. Tesla, for example, has their Supercharger network. Which despite some recent issues with that, they put a lot towards advancing their network. And with their own plug, they’ve got a bunch of other automakers signed onto them, which really is going to expand charging access for a lot of people, once those deals come to fruition.
You also have a lot of other companies, like EV Connect, EV Pass, EV Go, Electrify America, ChargePoint. They’re doing a lot of the work towards advancing these charging networks and installing stations.
Rocio: One thing that is interesting and noteworthy is that there are about 1.6 million EV sales as of last year, and only about 192,000 charging ports in the country.
And so you’ve highlighted some of the promising developments that are suggesting that the tide could be turning on charging accessibility, but clearly we’re not there yet. What is this secret sauce that’s going to take us from zero to a hundred? What kind of game changing moves need to happen to really put EVs within the reach of every driver, regardless of where they park?
Will: So the main issues that people are finding before they want to buy an EV, or even before considering one, is that they’re afraid they won’t have enough range, meaning how far they can go on one battery. And the price. The price is a very difficult issue that automakers have done a lot to achieve through incentives, through tax credits, etc.
But the bigger issue, in my opinion, would be the charging issue. By 2030, assuming we want to get 33 million EVs on the road, to keep in mind the climate goals of the United States currently, we would need 28 million charging ports. That includes 26 million level 1 and level 2 charging ports at private locations.
Meaning like multi-family housing, single family homes, maybe an office building, plus another one million level two at public locations. We’re talking like neighborhoods, retail outlets, etc. We’re nowhere near that now, and to get there it would take a lot of investment that frankly we’re not anywhere close to getting yet.
Rocio: Yeah, those are some lofty ambitions. Do you think the government is on the right track? Do you think companies are on the right track or are we at risk of really falling behind on this?
Will: They’re on the right track in the sense that they were working towards it, but on the other hand, they’re not doing enough. Part of that is due to funding, part of that is due to politics, as with anything in the United States, but they need to do more.
Rocio: Why is it important that everyone has the ability to switch to an electric car today?
Will: So the number one reason is going to be of course climate change. Every gasoline powered car that’s currently on the road produces a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. and carbon dioxide, namely, which is going to continue to devastate the ozone layer.
The more that we switch away from that, the more that we don’t hurt the environment. It’s as simple as that. And the more EVs that we have on the road, the more people are going to see, Oh, look, they’re cool. I like that. I’m helping the environment. And that will continue to spur more adoption. And over time, that will add up to a lot.
Rocio: Following from that, how critical is universal access to charging to accelerate this transition towards cleaner vehicles?
Will: Yeah, so charging access is the number one issue blocking people from getting into EVs. Every poll, pretty much, has found that if you don’t think you can find somewhere by you within 50 miles maybe, to give a wide range, you’re not going to buy an EV.
You just won’t do it. Because why would you when you go to a gas station down the road? It might be less environmentally friendly, but it’s easier for you. And a lot of people will weigh that and say, I need that. I need that reliability. So the more charging we can get done, the more charging access we can make.
The more people actually adopt that. People also are worried about driving distances, and don’t always know exactly how much charge they can get on one full battery. By getting more charging in municipal areas, at parks [00:09:00] for example, you can get a lot of people to make the switch, because they now have a reliable place they can go to.
It’s public, it’s safe, and it’s not that far out of the way.
Rocio: Right. To get people to move away from something that they know so well, that has always been reliable to them, towards something that is new and a little bit scary sometimes, there has to be a bit of a convenience factor to draw them in, and things that could entice them away from things that they know and supposedly love.
In the U. S. Companies are now shifting towards adopting the North American charging standard for their ports, which is Tesla’s charging port system and away from the existing combined charging system. How is this transition playing out when it comes to the ports that are already out there and that will be put up as part of the federal government’s push to get more ports out on the roads?
Will: To his credit, Elon Musk has been for a long time now willing to work with other companies and part of that has been with the NACS. Ford Motor was the first company to agree to adopt his plug back in June 2023, maybe in May 2023, and followed by GM and then followed by pretty much every major automaker in the United States.
The way that this will play out is that if you’re a Ford customer, so you have an F-150 Lightning, you will get in the mail and adapting port that will let you go to a Tesla supercharger. And you can plug into there as opposed to a regular CCS port. That will, for a lot of people, expand access to about 18,000 stations across North America, both in the US and Canada, to be more specific.
And that can do a lot. That opens up a lot more stations for people, especially if they live in an area where there’s not many ports that aren’t being made by Tesla. And some automakers have already gotten those plugs out, Ford has, so has Rivian. Most, though, will get those plugs later in the summer, going into the fall.
Rocio: So we’re mainly going to see the Tesla superchargers kind of be the standard port for electric vehicles across the board in North America?
Will: So most companies will have access to both ports because that is the best way for their company and for their customers to expand charging access. But in the future, I believe these companies will then have a port installed in the vehicle.
And I’ll have to sell it a separate adapter, as you would do now if you own a 2022 electric Mustang, for example.
Rocio: It’s promising to see companies working together instead of working against each other to try to make this a standardized process for their customers.
Will: Sure, collaboration’s always good, especially when they have a common goal, to make the environment better.
Rocio: For anyone listening who wants to purchase an EV but is worried about where they’ll plug in, what advice would you give them? What should apartment dwellers or condo owners who might not have that easy access to a port keep in mind?
Will: The number one thing you can do is to find out if there’s one near you, whether that means looking it up at a gas station, looking for a store near you that might have a few charging ports. Or, it can mean meeting with your office manager if you live in a multifamily housing unit, and talking about how you can get them to push forward to working with the company to get a port installed near you.
Rocio: I haven’t driven in years. I don’t have a car. I take the subway every day. But Will, I know you drive. Do you have an electric vehicle?
Will: So I do not drive an electric vehicle. I have a 2024 Hyundai Kona, which I got from my local dealership. Shout out to them.
Rocio: Would you ever switch to electric? Is that something that you would ever consider?
Will: I would definitely switch to an electric. Unfortunately, with my situation as it is now, I do not have any EV charging ports near me. And the price of the electric Kona was a little out of my range. But in the future, especially as we see price parity come into play, and EVs and gas powered cars become much more aligned together in price, I will definitely make the switch.
Rocio: Let’s look ahead. Paint us a picture of an ideal future where charging is just as convenient as filling up at the pump, no matter where someone lives. What needs to happen to turn that vision into reality?
Will: The number one thing you have to think of with that is that you need more investment, mainly by governments.
Companies are doing a lot right now to advance that, but they need funding, as everyone does, and the government is the main supplier of that funding. Whether it’s municipal, whether it’s state, whether it’s federal. They need to have a big role in that, and, to their credit, they do. But they need to do more and they need to be better at selecting locations and putting out realistic plans for how to put these in.
Because as we see in some cases, as Automotive News reported a few weeks ago, you can make an agreement with a company, but then you won’t have results for years on from that point. And then you still won’t have charging, you’ll just have more issues and you won’t have any results.
Rocio: It’s all about action.
And speaking of that, do you see a world where we go full electric, no more gas stations, just charging ports, or does the world look a little bit more hybrid?
Will: In the short term, definitely hybrid. You’re seeing a lot of popularity from companies like GM, from Toyota especially, that are maintaining that hybrid dominance.
Especially in recent months, but in the longer term, say 2035 maybe, you’ll definitely see a lot more EVs on the road. As for one, companies are ditching gasoline powered cars, not entirely, but they’re lowering their investments. Some have even said they won’t invest anything more in gasoline combustion engine technology past 2030.
As they focus on electrifying their fleet and the customer base is going to turn more towards EVs, especially as we see climate change continue to affect the world.
Rocio: Thanks, Will, for all of that electrifying insight.
Will Gavin is a staff writer at Quartz.
This episode was produced by podcast fast track with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro.
Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira.
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I’m Rocio Fabbro. Thanks for listening.
Credits
The Quartz Obsession is produced by Podcast Fast Track, with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York.