Breaking: White House releases plan to build nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers

[Electric Rivilution]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...vehicle-charging-action-plan/?utm_source=link

"No later than February 11th, DOT will publish guidance for States and cities to strategically deploy EV charging stations to build out a national network along our nation’s highway system. This guidance will look at where we already have EV charging and where we need—or will need—more of it. It will focus on the needs of disadvantaged and rural communities, catalyze further private investment in EV charging, and ensure we’re smartly connecting to our electric grid. No later than May 13th, DOT will publish standards for EV chargers in the national network to ensure they work, they’re safe, and they’re accessible to everyone."
...
"The current network of over 100,000 public chargers operates with different plug types, payment options, data availability, and hardware hookups. Today’s actions will establish a more uniform approach, provide greater convenience for customers, and offer increased confidence for industry. These federal programs will spur additional private sector investments and drive the build-out of a user-friendly, cost-effective, and financially sustainable national network creating well-paying jobs across manufacturing, installation, and operation. A ubiquitous charging infrastructure targeted to meet different consumers’ needs will provide equitable benefits to all Americans and provide flexibility for future investments, effective integration with a clean power system, and support a growing and diversifying fleet of electrified vehicles."
...
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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes:

• $3 billion in competitive grants for battery minerals and refined materials aimed at accelerating the development of the North American battery supply chain.
• An additional $3 billion for competitive grants aimed at building, retooling, or expanding manufacturing of batteries and battery components (such as cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes), and to establish recycling facilities in the United States.
• Recognizing the need for innovative and practical approaches to battery and critical mineral recycling, the act includes research, development, and demonstration recycling projects ($60 million) and efforts in cooperation with retailers ($15 million) and state and local governments ($50 million) to increase the collection of spent batteries for reuse, recycling or proper disposal. The electric drive vehicle battery recycling and second-life applications program ($200 million) is focused on making electric vehicles batteries (e.g., optimized designs) easier to recycle and utilize in secondary applications before recycling.
• An additional $750 million “Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program” to re-equip, expand or establish an industrial or manufacturing facility to reduce GHG emissions of that facility substantially below current best practices."

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[Autolycus]

DOT will publish standards for EV chargers in the national network to ensure they work, they’re safe, and they’re accessible to everyone....
The current network of over 100,000 public chargers operates with different plug types, payment options, data availability, and hardware hookups. Today’s actions will establish a more uniform approach, provide greater convenience for customers, and offer increased confidence for industry.

I'll put good money on this meaning J1772 and CCS combo will be mandated for any of this pot of grants/subsidies. It will be really interesting to see how Tesla handles that. Obviously it won't matter for anybody else's plans. They'll just keep building what they were already building or maybe expand their plans, but no design or product changes needed on that front anyway.

 

[the long way downunder]

Building a network today, they should plan for 2030, not 2022.
The design should include gigawatt rates. Vehicle efficiency will improve only incrementally – so the improvement between 2022 and 2025/2030 will be rate of charge.

 

[Craigins]

The design should include gigawatt rates.

Lol what? Where do propose we would get gigawatts of energy in the middle of nowhere along the highways?

The biggest issue is the permit process. If the feds can enforce a federalized permitting process, then building charging sites would be much easier.

Sadly that's about as crazy as expecting gigawatts at an ev charging site.

 

[Autolycus]

Lol what? Where do propose we would get gigawatts of energy in the middle of nowhere along the highways?

The biggest issue is the permit process. If the feds can enforce a federalized permitting process, then building charging sites would be much easier.

Sadly that's about as crazy as expecting gigawatts at an ev charging site.

I don't know about "in the middle of nowhere along the highways", but I know where you can get that kind of power in Hill Valley...

 

[Craigins]

I don't know about "in the middle of nowhere along the highways", but I know where you can get that kind of power in Hill Valley...

Quick patent the lightning ev charger. Lightning rod suctioned on the roof of your car with a plug into the charge port.

Park out side in a storm and bam, full charge instantly.

 

[the long way downunder]

Lol what? Where do propose we would get gigawatts of energy in the middle of nowhere along the highways?

The biggest issue is the permit process. If the feds can enforce a federalized permitting process, then building charging sites would be much easier.

Sadly that's about as crazy as expecting gigawatts at an ev charging site.

lol? crazy?
You're not keeping up with the technology.
Tesla is at 250kW per pedestal, aiming for 350 and then megawatt. Porsche and others are aiming over 350kW today.
Charging sites along freeways will need locations with 10, 20 or 50 pedestals.
A gigawatt is a charging site with 40 250 kW pedestals or 20 500 kW pedestals.
Tesla has had a couple of large Supercharger sites for years. Some have 50+ pedestals on major freeways. Musk said 350kW is "a children's toy" … of course Musk is crazy, but gigawatt sites is not "lol" in 2021 and will be necessary before 2025.
As for the "how" just look at major freeways – they're flanked by the high voltage transmission lines that run between cities.
Looking at the existing Supercharger and Electrify America networks, they have small satellite locations along freeways (4 or 8 pedestals) and large sites (20-50+ pedestals) in and around major cities. Once Uber etc. are mostly electric (e.g. the Tesla-Hertz deal with Uber driver leases) the demand for "urban" charging will require large sites and gigawatts of power.

 

[Craigins]

The largest nuclear power plant in the US is Palo Verde Generating Station at 3.93GW.

So each of your charging sites would require a giant nuclear poweplant on site to charge 4 cars at gigawatt rate.

Has nothing to do with the vehicle technology.

It has to do with the grid capacity and how the grid functions. The system is not designed to randomly have large demands added/removed to the grid. Not to mention the excess line and substation capacity doesn't exist to support it either.

 

[Autolycus]

I do think y'all are talking past each other here. One of you is talking about total capacity for a charging site, while the other is talking about the charging rate per pedestal.

In any event, Craigins is right that we're not going to see mega-charging sites like that ever. They're simply not realistic from a power generation perspective.

We will have to start implementing some smoothing of demand via battery buffers and maybe other tricks, but we're still a LONG way from needing gigawatts of power at a charging site.

 

[the long way downunder]

I do think y'all are talking past each other here. One of you is talking about total capacity for a charging site, while the other is talking about the charging rate per pedestal.

In any event, Craigins is right that we're not going to see mega-charging sites like that ever. They're simply not realistic from a power generation perspective.

We will have to start implementing some smoothing of demand via battery buffers and maybe other tricks, but we're still a LONG way from needing gigawatts of power at a charging site.

The announcement is 500,000 pedestals … a gigawatt is a billion watts.
1,000,000,000 / 500,000 = 10,000
Concurrent demand from the planned expansion is 10kW per pedestal at 1 gigawatt.
EVs today charge at 150 to 250kW.
The planned network better not be sized for less than 10% concurrent users.

The problem with the Tesla Supercharger network is low charge rates (due to battery limitations) and low power per concurrent pedestal – the peak might be 250kW from a V3 Supercharger, but the network and the car cannot sustain that limit for more than a few minutes and only under ideal conditions.
Users already expect 5 or 10 minute sessions but typical sessions today are 30+ minutes. The average vehicle needs to absorb 50kWh to 100kWh for urban driving, 100kWh+ for distance driving, towing, and off-road.
Planning for less than gigawatt networks would be to fail to see the load and demand on the system in a 2025-2030 time frame – this kind of brainless, short-sighted behavior is typical of governments, but shouldn't be tolerated.
I guess you could draw an analogy with Internet speeds which have lagged behind in the US as governments variously grossly underestimated and misunderstood the user demand for gigabit applications.

 

[Dbeglor]

Lol what? Where do propose we would get gigawatts of energy in the middle of nowhere along the highways?

 

[sub]

I think the thing would have the biggest impact on the road trip experience would be more conveniently located fast charge locations. Most locations today are at least 5-10 minutes off the freeway. That does not sound terrible, but it means 15 minutes of charging actually actually takes 25-35 minutes. Cutting out the 10-20 minutes of detour time by placing the chargers on the side of the highway would have a much bigger impact than faster chargers, more chargers, or even more range.

What we need are fast chargers at every highway rest area. Future proving would be planning to have every parking space at every rest area be a fast charger.

Personally I think that today's 200kW-300kW peak is plenty fast even long term. While I wish the current crop of EV's charged faster, it isn't the peak that is the problem. Where improvement is needed is sustaining that high rate for more than 10 seconds. If 200kW could be sustained, that would give you 50kWh in 15 minutes which is a few hours of driving. By the time you visit the restroom and eat a granola bar, you would have enough charge to get going again.

200kW with 0 minutes of detour is better than 1000kW at a location 10 minutes out of the way.

 

[Autolycus]

a

The announcement is 500,000 pedestals … a gigawatt is a billion watts.
1,000,000,000 / 500,000 = 10,000
Concurrent demand from the planned expansion is 10kW per pedestal at 1 gigawatt.
EVs today charge at 150 to 250kW.
The planned network better not be sized for less than 10% concurrent users.

Now I'm just confused. Are you worried about total energy production across the US (which is about 4 trillion kWh)? Or the power capacity at a single charging location? 500,000 pedestals won't be at a single site. They'll be spread all over the US. Nor will there only be a combined total of 1 gW across all new charges installed in the US this decade. Your division of 500,000 into 1 billion is a useless calculation. Oh, and most of those charges installed today are sitting idle with nobody using them a majority of the time. The same will be true when we're at 500,000 chargers.

 

[nukem384]

Any idea how many of those will be DC fast chargers? Hoping all of them? That would really help in the future as we have so many level 2 chargers already, that building more is kinda whatever at this point.

 

[Max]

Lightning rod suctioned on the roof of your car with a plug into the charge port.

We don’t need a network of lightening rods. We just need it to work once and then we bring the tech back from the future and after that, it is just banana peels and beer cans. No J1772 needed.

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