4/12/2017
The balance between the supply of, and the demand for, publicly available EV charging stations is out of whack in California. This means that over 200,000 electric vehicles currently roaming the state are trying to charge at only 12,557 charging connectors at 3,474 publicly available charging stations (Alternative Fuels Data Center, April 2017). Queue the competition — cars unplugged before they are done charging, aggression over parking spots and the demotion of plug-in hybrids to second class citizens since they have a gas “back-up”.
This is a familiar chicken-and-egg problem — more stations encourage more EV drivers, and more drivers drives the demand for more stations and so on. Under this rationale, the steep growth curve many industry experts expect to see in the next 10 years starts to be less of an estimate and more of a reality.
The stations to support these future electric cars aren’t cheap and they won’t appear overnight. Although we have several companies, utilities, and organizations on the case*, they aren’t moving quickly enough to satisfy the demand that is already there.
So, either we wait as stations are slowly installed, OR we get access to stations that already exist but we don’t have access to yet…
(And no, we aren’t just talking about Tesla’s Supercharger Network)
Enter sharing.
You’ve heard about it before — cars, spare bedrooms, extra storage space — all are being shared these days, helping someone make an extra buck and helping someone else save money on a usually pricey alternative. So why not apply the same framework to charging stations?
Let me explain… 81% of electric vehicle drivers in California charge at home with access to either an outlet or a full Level 2 charging station and they typically only use it between 33% and 50% of the time (8–12 hours a day). With 200,000 plus EV drivers on the road in California today, we can estimate at least 162,000 of them have charging infrastructure at home and only use it half the time. In a day and age that is all about optimizing efficiency — this is almost embarrassing.
But, imagine if all of those home charging stations were brought out of hiding and opened up to the public? What would 162,000 more charging points would mean?
That is 13 times more public charging stations for current drivers to use and future drivers to be aware of when they end up at the dealer and find themselves deciding between an EV and a gasoline vehicle. That number would really get California somewhere in terms of meeting Governor Brown’s goal to have 1.5 million zero emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
Now sharing has its challenges. If you have participated in the sharing economy over the past few years, whether through Airbnb, Zipcar or another company, you know there are few things you need to do to get it right. There needs to be transparency, accountability and security between all parties. You also either need to be making or saving money. So although there are challenges, the potential of what it would mean for the EV industry and our environment to to tap into this hidden world of charging and increase the amount of charging infrastructure so drastically would have enormous positive impact.
If you are interested in being a part of this solution in your own community, check out more here.
*All three investor owned utilities in California have received approval from the state to launch pilot projects to install public charging stations in their jurisdictions, from 3,500 stations in SDG&E’s case to 7,500 stations in PG&E’s case. In addition, the West Coast Electric Highway will be expanded in California, largely through a $8 million grant from the California Energy Commission. This will result in hundreds more DC fast chargers installed along along the I-5, State Route 99 and U.S. Highway 101. Plus there will be $1.2 billion in funding for EV charging infrastructure that will be coming California’s way from the VW settlement. These programs are designed to stimulate the EV market, further increasing demand of EV charging.
Written by: Kelsey Johnson
