Electric vehicles have a charging access issue. These firms are striving to find a solution
The electric vehicle revolution is already started, with California prohibiting the sale of new gas vehicles by 2035 and automakers expanding their EV offers. While electric has many proponents in the automotive, electricity, and charging industries, the question of charging equity, or fair and equitable access to charging, looms large.
Currently, premium automobiles dominate the EV industry, with Tesla commanding three-fourths of the market in the United States. The price of these vehicles is still out of reach for many Americans. The United States In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, the median household income was $70,784. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average price for an electric vehicle in July 2022 will be more than $66,000. (KBB).
However, as the EV industry grows, equity will become a significant issue. Morning Consult discovered in a survey on the auto industry earlier this year that 83% of car owners earning less than $50,000 per year do not have dedicated access to EV charging at home. According to the same poll, 39% of respondents in that salary category are interested in purchasing an electric vehicle. Even now, EV owners who live in rentals must often go to considerable measures to charge their vehicles, including extending electric chord extensions out their apartment windows.
In the measure signed into law by President Joe Biden in February, the US government set aside more than $7.5 billion to invest in charging infrastructure. The majority of this expenditure will be used to install chargers along key highways, which will not address the equality issue.
As EV charging infrastructure is built out, some corporations prioritize equity. Dianne Martinez is the head of East Bay Community Energy, a Northern California public electricity organization. The EBCE leverages ratepayers' purchasing power to get renewable energy for clients, and it is embarking on a scheme to deploy fast charging in municipal lots rather than only along highway corridors.
"When you look at EV charging infrastructure given from an equity lens, you have to evaluate how the fossil fuel sector has negatively impacted a community," Martinez adds. "Large areas of metropolitan communities suffer from the negative health consequences of pollution from motorways, ports, and commodities transportation, as well as proximity to drilling and gas-powered plants." Instead of focusing just on providing the same charging options to those who already have more wealth, what if we discovered a measure that included and supported people who have historically been the last to be included in the green revolution? What if we ranked them first? ”
A problem for tenants
Jason Mott of Venice, Calif., and Natacha Favry of Boston have gone to tremendous lengths to charge their electric vehicles while living in apartments. Mott and Favry do not have charging access in their apartment or condo buildings, so they rely on public charging stations and, on occasion, power wires hanging out of their windows. Charging an EV completely with a regular power connection can take up to a week.
"There are a lot of people who don't have parking," Mott observes. "You'll see folks with extension wires [going] across the sidewalk to a tree, so that if they chance to get that spot in front of their apartment, they can plug in their car." As you pass down the pavement, you notice folks putting down those little rubber cable covers because their cord is flowing out to their car."
Mott, an EV owner and environmentalist, says he's learned to secure his extension connection to his current vehicle, a new Rivian R1T, when charging overnight since the heavy-duty extension cords he uses to charge are frequently stolen. Mott previously owned a Fiat 500e and a Chevrolet Bolt.
Favry has owned an EV and leased apartments both abroad and on the suburbs of Boston, where she and her family relocated for employment in January. She claims that her charging experience in France was significantly more nerve-racking than it is in the United States. She drives a Tesla Model 3 and recharges it at a nearby proprietary Tesla supercharger at a local mall. She claims she asked her building's landlord to install a charger, but her request was refused.
"There isn't a plug in the garage," explains Favry. Local and state incentives exist to assist landlords in installing chargers in multifamily buildings, but they do not cover the expenses of updating building power or wiring—and landlords do not have a business motive to make the investment profitable.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, rentals account for around one-third of all housing units in the United States. Census. According to a 2020 Metropolitan Institute analysis, they are primarily found in dense urban locations, and the bulk were erected in the 1970s and 1980s. It is an expensive undertaking to upgrade them to handle the charge necessary to power EVs.
"The fact is that 90% of our territory's multifamily housing is 50 years or older, and 47% of our community lives in that multifamily housing," says Martinez of EBCE. "It's quite difficult to encourage landlords to make the required changes to assist their tenants in purchasing EVs."
Businesses deal with charging equity
The good news for customers is that a number of companies, utilities, and automakers are collaborating to fix the charging equality issue.
ev.energy is a London-based certified B Corporation whose software platform connects utilities, automakers, EV chargers, and drivers to expedite charging and make it more economical and sustainable. Joseph Vellone is the head of North America operations. Approximately 80% of EV charging occurs at home, according to Vellone, which is why charging equity must begin with improving access at multifamily housing.
"Access to home charging is very much a matter of economic level, and it soon becomes a social equality problem," he argues.
To address this, ev.energy recently introduced a first-of-its-kind smart charging cable and software that enables multifamily unit occupants to control their own individual power use and receive credits or incentives for charging during off-peak hours. The Smartenit wire allows EV drivers who do not have dedicated home charging to optimize their usage and access while also saving money on home charging.
ChargePoint, a charging-station startup located in California, is also considering ways to convince landlords to embrace the EV revolution. The majority of the charging stations are located in businesses and workplaces, with a few in multifamily buildings. According to CEO Pasquale Romano, landlords should consider EV charging in the same way they do cable or internet—as a need for modern life.
"The landlord doesn't make much money from cable TV or internet," he claims. "EV charging will be like Wi-Fi. "Access will be required."
Even huge corporations, such as General Motors, which is already substantially involved in the EV and electrification market, are attempting to address the issue of charging equality. The firm recently unveiled GM Energy, a new business unit that would provide everything from commercial battery and energy management systems to individual house and multiunit solutions. Landlords can install EV chargers after installing battery storage in multifamily dwellings.
These solutions will be based on GM's Ultium battery technology and will comprise bidirectional charging, vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid solutions, as well as stationary storage, solar goods, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, hydrogen fuel cells, and more.
"The public charging infrastructure has to increase quickly, both on motorway infrastructure and in multiunit housing and high-density living," says Travis Hester, GM's vice president of EV growth operations. "We're approaching a region where EVs are going to take off. They're not there yet, but they're on their way, and we believe this is an important aspect of the electric car ecosystem, as well as a non-vehicle ecology."
On the utility and municipal fronts, the EBCE is concentrating on partnering with state and local governments to lease municipal parking spaces and put chargers where they are most needed, according to Martinez. "We found that sponsoring DC [direct current] fast chargers in places with a high concentration of multifamily housing gives us the best value for our dollars," Martinez explains. She thinks the EBCE's efforts will serve as a model for other communities.
"Low-income and disadvantaged populations are not among the first to adopt electric automobiles." "They're focused on keeping their families together and getting back to work," Martinez adds. "It's time to focus on the second wave of consumers who are considering buying a compact car."
#ElectriVehicle #ChargingArea #Tesla #California #ChargingStation
SOURCE: yahoo news
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