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SeaGeo

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I still think it would be very wise for Rivian to strike a deal here. Work with EA to make sure the cars handshake and POS works flawlessly. It will be a nice alternative until the RAN is built out
there isn't a deal needed. If provided, EA will proactively test cars on their network, and the infrastructure is there in place to have plug-and-charge. The issues seem to arise when manufacturers don't do that ahead of launch. Given all the observed road testing we we with Rivian at EA chargers, it seems obvious to me that they're doing their due diligence.
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R1S Maineiac

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there isn't a deal needed. If provided, EA will proactively test cars on their network, and the infrastructure is there in place to have plug-and-charge. The issues seem to arise when manufacturers don't do that ahead of launch. Given all the observed road testing we we with Rivian at EA chargers, it seems obvious to me that they're doing their due diligence.

it would be nice to build in some pricing, until we have our own network up and running
 

Bumble1978

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I have been watching that as well.
You should go test it out with the ID4. ? I would take the Leaf up, but if ABRP is even close to accurate it would supposedly take me 5-6 hours to get from Everett to Leavenworth. Nope. ?
 

SeaGeo

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it would be nice to build in some pricing, until we have our own network up and running
Ah. Yeah. Agreed. That (shouldn't) impact funcationality, but would be nice! VW, Kia/Hyundai, and Ford all have had varying deals for included charging initially.

You should go test it out with the ID4. ? I would take the Leaf up, but if ABRP is even close to accurate it would supposedly take me 5-6 hours to get from Everett to Leavenworth. Nope. ?
Haha. I'm am thinking about doing that this weekend. I had actually set up a notification recently to see when it would come on. That was my test route I had been using for a local kind of... stress test of range from my place. Apparently both Rivian and the folks at EA had identified the same hole.
 

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I started digging around the EA website to see if they had released any more details about the expansion plans. I hadn't really spent much time on their site before, other than just looking at the map and a couple specific pages, so I had completely missed this page, which was very interesting to me:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/our-plan/

It describes 4 plan "Cycles", each with California and National components. They are currently in Cycle 2 (July 2019-December 2021), which has a goal of getting to 800 sites and 3,500 chargers. They currently have 635 sites online and their website map shows another 125 "Coming Soon". That doesn't have them getting quite to their 800 target, but there could be other sites that aren't listed yet but will be online within 5 1/2 months.

Cycle 3 (Jan '22 - July '24) currently just shows their California plan. They are still waiting for approval from the US EPA on their national plan. The California plan highlights are:

New metro charging investments in the communities of Bakersfield, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, Stockton, and Visalia

$6-10 million of investment in transit, medium- and heavy-duty fleet charging

$25 million investment in freight and transit vehicle charging infrastructure in the new “Green City” communities of Long Beach and Wilmington
The page also has links to the plans themselves plus a summary. The plans include a lot of analysis and data (high level, not the actual underlying hard data) that went into their plan. It's really interesting stuff, for a geek like me anyway. I'm sure it's a similar process for Rivian, Tesla, and all other networks when they decide where to put stations.

Cycle 4 ('24-'26) has no details at all, but it should be the cycle which gets them to the network that they announced this week: >1700 sites and >9500 chargers.
 

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R1S Maineiac

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I started digging around the EA website to see if they had released any more details about the expansion plans. I hadn't really spent much time on their site before, other than just looking at the map and a couple specific pages, so I had completely missed this page, which was very interesting to me:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/our-plan/

It describes 4 plan "Cycles", each with California and National components. They are currently in Cycle 2 (July 2019-December 2021), which has a goal of getting to 800 sites and 3,500 chargers. They currently have 635 sites online and their website map shows another 125 "Coming Soon". That doesn't have them getting quite to their 800 target, but there could be other sites that aren't listed yet but will be online within 5 1/2 months.

Cycle 3 (Jan '22 - July '24) currently just shows their California plan. They are still waiting for approval from the US EPA on their national plan. The California plan highlights are:



The page also has links to the plans themselves plus a summary. The plans include a lot of analysis and data (high level, not the actual underlying hard data) that went into their plan. It's really interesting stuff, for a geek like me anyway. I'm sure it's a similar process for Rivian, Tesla, and all other networks when they decide where to put stations.

Cycle 4 ('24-'26) has no details at all, but it should be the cycle which gets them to the network that they announced this week: >1700 sites and >9500 chargers.

Honestly, yesterday's announcement sounds like they've accelerated cycle 4, as they appear to be pushing to have this capacity in place by 2025
 

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Yeah, it's really hard to tell from the map they released today exactly how many of the new stations are going to be off of major interstates, but the 125 stations they show as Coming Soon on their "Locate a charger" map are nearly all in largish metro areas. There are some outside of metro areas, but not a ton. The longer-range map has a lot more outside those areas, but it's really tough to get a good read on rural coverage even in the Eastern and Pacific states. The vast plains still look pretty barren other than the big interstates.

It makes sense in a lot of way, just like with broadband. Building the infrastructure is really expensive, so the focus will always be on the areas that are going to get the most use and have the best return on investment. But it still has to be addressed somehow.
Unfortunately I think the broadband comparison will prove quite correct and there will be some persistent 'charging deserts' on the map for some time to come. Yesterday, I watched a Wendover video on the 'EV Charging Problem' that pointed out for example, the Dallas to Denver route has a 226 mile gap between fast chargers, making it impossible for a base Model 3 to make the trip...

...the important question is if this problem, combined with the urban charging problem and the range anxiety problem are enough to prevent the 'tipping point' broad adoption of EVs that breaks this chicken/egg issue.
 

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Unfortunately I think the broadband comparison will prove quite correct and there will be some persistent 'charging deserts' on the map for some time to come. Yesterday, I watched a Wendover video on the 'EV Charging Problem' that pointed out for example, the Dallas to Denver route has a 226 mile gap between fast chargers, making it impossible for a base Model 3 to make the trip...

...the important question is if this problem, combined with the urban charging problem and the range anxiety problem are enough to prevent the 'tipping point' broad adoption of EVs that breaks this chicken/egg issue.
It's a completely valid question.

There is 1 important difference with broadband though, and I hope it renders the important question less impactful: With broadband you have to get fiber or high-quality copper to every single house and commercial building. With DCFC networks and access, you just have to get it one (or a few) spot in a general area, and most rural areas have at least some facilities that already require quality power utilities.
 

Gator42

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It's a completely valid question.

There is 1 important difference with broadband though, and I hope it renders the important question less impactful: With broadband you have to get fiber or high-quality copper to every single house and commercial building. With DCFC networks and access, you just have to get it one (or a few) spot in a general area, and most rural areas have at least some facilities that already require quality power utilities.
There's the added positive of not having a monopoly/oligopoly controlling the area. All it takes is one ideally located enterprise to step in and solve the problem...
 

azbill

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I started digging around the EA website to see if they had released any more details about the expansion plans. I hadn't really spent much time on their site before, other than just looking at the map and a couple specific pages, so I had completely missed this page, which was very interesting to me:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/our-plan/

It describes 4 plan "Cycles", each with California and National components. They are currently in Cycle 2 (July 2019-December 2021), which has a goal of getting to 800 sites and 3,500 chargers. They currently have 635 sites online and their website map shows another 125 "Coming Soon". That doesn't have them getting quite to their 800 target, but there could be other sites that aren't listed yet but will be online within 5 1/2 months.

Cycle 3 (Jan '22 - July '24) currently just shows their California plan. They are still waiting for approval from the US EPA on their national plan. The California plan highlights are:



The page also has links to the plans themselves plus a summary. The plans include a lot of analysis and data (high level, not the actual underlying hard data) that went into their plan. It's really interesting stuff, for a geek like me anyway. I'm sure it's a similar process for Rivian, Tesla, and all other networks when they decide where to put stations.

Cycle 4 ('24-'26) has no details at all, but it should be the cycle which gets them to the network that they announced this week: >1700 sites and >9500 chargers.
People should go on their web site and start making suggestions for Cycle 4. They have a form where you can do this. During Cycle 1, I made suggestions for two sites in Arizona, and those got installed during Cycle 2 (Quartzsite and Kingman). It also turns out that since I made several suggestions, they called me for a one on one survey and also invited me to a webinar.

I also tend to report any charging issues I have, and have found they will call me back and report on the steps they are taking to correct it.
 

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ajdelange

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With broadband you have to get fiber or high-quality copper to every single house and commercial building.
Actually you don't. All you need is to be able to see the sky or be within range of a cell phone tower. Now if only J.P. Morgan hadn't shut down Wardenclyffe!

With DCFC networks and access, you just have to get it one (or a few) spot in a general area, and most rural areas have at least some facilities that already require quality power utilities.
Just as there is little incentive for the phone company to run fiber to areas where there aren't enough customers to cover its cost there is little incentive for the power companies to run feeds to areas where there aren't enough customers to warrant it. What might work are the systems (you can buy them today) that draw from the utility at a slow rate but charge at the kW rate that is, they have a battery.

Rural areas do have electric service and they do, therefore, have substations. Clearly locating near a substation would be feasible.

Now if you go to the utility and say I want half an MVA out at the end of Black Stump road and I'll pay for it, you'll probably get it.

I will point out that I have seen some 50kW CCS/CHAdeMO stations in the middle of nowhwere in Canada. But they are usually near a village (and thus, presumably, a substation) and they are owned by the power company (Hydro Quebec).
 
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P.S.Mangelsdorf

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Everybody still needs to do a little better job addressing functionality including more consistent interoperability by eliminating the quirks with some car model-station manufacturer pairs and reducing downtime as much as possible. But the more stations that are out there, the less this is a major problem.
As the open source/EV conversion community has been finding out, (openinverter.org), this is an absolute pain. My hat's off to Damien who is doing the work, because it seems each brand of CCS station has the communication timed slightly differently and that causes issues. Not to mention that the communication protocol is already a bear to begin with.
 

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As the open source/EV conversion community has been finding out, (openinverter.org), this is an absolute pain. My hat's off to Damien who is doing the work, because it seems each brand of CCS station has the communication timed slightly differently and that causes issues. Not to mention that the communication protocol is already a bear to begin with.
Interesting, no CCS equivalent to TCP?
 

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People should go on their web site and start making suggestions for Cycle 4. They have a form where you can do this. During Cycle 1, I made suggestions for two sites in Arizona, and those got installed during Cycle 2 (Quartzsite and Kingman). It also turns out that since I made several suggestions, they called me for a one on one survey and also invited me to a webinar.

I also tend to report any charging issues I have, and have found they will call me back and report on the steps they are taking to correct it.
For the lazy people in the crowd, here's the comment/recommendation submission form:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/submissions/

Here are the categories of feedback they would like:
1. Education & Access Suggestions — Suggestions concerning Electrify America’s approach to education and access or specific events we should consider for participation.

2. Specific site locations: Specific site locations you would like to nominate for consideration for future investments.

3. Vendor interest: Electrify America is not soliciting specific proposals through this webpage. However, if you are a vendor seeking to work with Electrify America, you may register your interest through the submission box below.

4. Event invitations: Suggestions for specific events we should consider for participation.

5. Other: All other comments or submissions.
 

flabyboy

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Unfortunately I think the broadband comparison will prove quite correct and there will be some persistent 'charging deserts' on the map for some time to come. Yesterday, I watched a Wendover video on the 'EV Charging Problem' that pointed out for example, the Dallas to Denver route has a 226 mile gap between fast chargers, making it impossible for a base Model 3 to make the trip...

...the important question is if this problem, combined with the urban charging problem and the range anxiety problem are enough to prevent the 'tipping point' broad adoption of EVs that breaks this chicken/egg issue.
it will all depend on the demand. If there is money to be made they will build the chargers. It will hit the tipping point in 3-4 years IMHO
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