Watt’s the holdup? Inside America’s struggle to build an EV charging network

As the world shifts towards electric vehicles (EVs) in a bid to reduce carbon emissions, a new crisis is emerging on city streets. Long queues of EVs waiting for a charge have become a common sight in urban areas across the United States, particularly in California.

This scene, reminiscent of the 1970s gas crisis, highlights a growing concern: Is our charging infrastructure ready for the EV revolution?

California, along with 12 other states, has set an ambitious goal to phase out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035. However, this transition poses a significant challenge. The Golden State alone is estimated to need one million public chargers by 2030 – a tenfold increase from the current number.

Building an equitable charging network

To meet this target, California would need to install about 130,000 new chargers annually, seven times the current build rate. With fast chargers costing up to $200,000 each, the required investment approaches $35 billion per year.

Ted Lamm, associate director at the Center for Law, Energy and Environment at UC Berkeley, believes this goal is achievable. He points to two key factors: changing consumer behavior and the evolution of charging infrastructure. “The way people expect to charge their vehicles is going to continue to change over time, as more and more people adapt to what it means to have an electric vehicle and the notion that you don’t need to fill up every time you charge, that you don’t need to go off site to charge.” Lamm explains.

“Many people with driveways or private garages will be able to charge at home and will not have a tremendous need for publicly accessible charging.”

However, Lamm emphasizes the importance of equitable distribution of charging infrastructure. “How those chargers are distributed and how they are paid for has to be in a way that the people who need them most can access them,” he states. This concern is particularly relevant for apartment building residents and those who cannot afford to invest in private chargers.

The current charging infrastructure also faces technical challenges. Unlike traditional gas stations, where multiple pumps can operate simultaneously at full capacity, EV charging stations have a fixed maximum power supply.

This means that as more vehicles connect to a station, the available power is divided, increasing charging times and potentially causing queues.

Balancing speed, efficiency, and grid capacity

Phillip Schockenhoff, team lead at gridX, a company specializing in energy distribution systems, explains that the initial rush to install charging stations prioritized speed over efficiency.

“The historic process of installing charging stations in the past couple of years was all about speed,” he says. “We’ve now hit times where the grid is more and more occupied, where the grid across Europe is more and more congested.”

To address these challenges, the industry is moving towards “smart charging” solutions. These systems use software to optimize power distribution based on grid capacity, renewable energy availability, and user needs.

For home charging, this might mean scheduling charging times when electricity prices are lower due to abundant wind or solar power. In public charging stations, the solution may involve installing storage batteries to ensure fast charging even when grid capacity is constrained.

Schockenhoff highlights the importance of flexibility in these systems: “As an end customer, I don’t care if I charge my car at 2 a.m. or at 3:30 am. Just postpone during the charging process. So, as an end user, I can happily support all the different optimizations on price level and credit level without any negative impact or any impact at all on my end user convenience.”

From Model T to Tesla in record time

The transition to EVs is happening at an unprecedented pace. While the infrastructure for internal combustion engines took over a century to evolve, we’re attempting to build a comparable system for EVs in just a few decades. This rapid shift is driven by the urgent need to reduce global carbon emissions.

Despite the challenges, there’s optimism in the industry.

Lamm draws parallels to the early days of the automobile: “Once when the Model T was released, it took decades and decades for that technology to become popular. For all the support infrastructure, fueling stations, dealers, and all the different sorts of elements of that economy to grow up with it. That is exactly what we’re trying to replicate here with the state driving the technology transition.”

The success of companies like Tesla, which sold an estimated 700,000 Model Ys in 2023, underscores the growing demand for EVs.

However, this success also highlights the urgent need for improved charging infrastructure.

As we navigate this transition, it’s clear that some growing pains are inevitable. Lamm acknowledges that some charging stations may be installed in suboptimal locations, leading to inefficiencies.

“Sometimes a business doesn’t work out, and it closes, and people get their gas elsewhere. We will go through that same process with EVs and charging,” he explains.

Innovations paving the way for an electric future

The EV charging landscape is rapidly evolving, with new technologies and strategies emerging to meet the growing demand.

From smart charging systems to the integration of storage batteries at charging sites, the industry is working to ensure that the promise of electric vehicles can be fully realized.

As we stand at the cusp of this transportation revolution, the race is on to build an EV charging infrastructure that is not only widespread and efficient but also equitable and sustainable.