How Joe Biden can build 500,000 electric vehicle charging plugs by 2030

• President Joe Biden wants the United States to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the next decade.
• The United States may have 35 million EVs by 2030, requiring millions of plugs where the country has only 100,000.
• More plugs would do wonders for an industry transition to EVs, but attracting companies to build them isn’t always easy.
• Visit the Business section of the Insider for more stories.

With plans to eliminate the country’s carbon footprint by 2050, Joe Biden could easily be the greenest president in American history. But achieving that striking goal will involve a lot of work in much more mundane areas, such as having enough vacancies to charge a rapidly growing fleet of electric vehicles.

Even with 1.8 million battery-powered cars already on US roads, there are only about 100,000 charging plugs for them at about 41,000 public stations. This disparity makes it easy to see how range anxiety – or the fear of running out of energy without a recharging point nearby – is one of the biggest obstacles for consumers to consider a clean car.

President Biden has pledged to build 500,000 new plugs in the next decade, in an effort to reduce emissions from the highways that are currently the largest source of carbon emissions. To get there – and achieve a fully electric future – five experts and industry leaders say the country will need an aggressive infrastructure plan and a series of green policies to accompany it.

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The number of EVs in the U.S. could rise to 35 million by 2030, requiring more than 2 million public chargers, projects The Brattle Group, an economic consulting firm. With this boom on the horizon, charging operators are excited about the prospect of a multi-billion dollar federal investment in charging infrastructure that could jump into the EV transition that is already underway.

“This industry is happening. The question is how quickly it can happen,” said Jonathan Levy, commercial director for EVgo, a fast-charging company, in an interview. “We are really excited that the Biden government recognizes that this is going to happen worldwide, and if the United States wants to lead, more federal political support will be needed to help make that happen.”

But Biden’s plan – and, ultimately, any Congressional action – can take many forms. Industry leaders and policy experts are divided on how best to make this happen.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the government’s plans.

How to make the ball roll

Making things happen quickly, which is not the strength of the federal government, is one of the top priorities of Drew Lipsher, head of strategy for the collection firm Volta. After all, EVs accounted for less than 3% of all car sales in 2020.

“I think the most important thing that the government can focus on to meet projected demand – speed,” he said in an interview. “The more difficult it is, and the more this process slows things down, it will only hamper the transition to electric mobility.”

Convincing millions of consumers to use electricity will require a large initial investment to drastically scale access to charging, Nick Nigro, founder of transportation-oriented consultancy Atlas Public Policy, told Insider. He wants Congress and the Biden administration to approach charging infrastructure in the same way that Tesla did about building its Supercharger network.

“[Tesla] made considerable investments in the beginning to establish that, no matter where you were in the United States, you would be able to travel with your Tesla vehicle without worrying about range or access to charge, “he said.” Now the federal government is in a position to look at all electric transport with the same lens. “

ChargePoint

Nigro recommends that the Departments of Transport and Energy work together to distribute donations to suppliers, potentially through existing channels, such as the State Energy Program.

Discounts that encourage companies to build chargers, or for customers to buy them, are another option to quickly stimulate activity.

Anne Smart, vice president of public policy for ChargePoint, a collection company that sells plugs to businesses, fleets and households, is particularly excited about the expansion of consumer discounts. This can be implemented more quickly than concessions, has proven to be effective at the state level and allows the market to operate normally, she said. Customers can choose the charger supplier they want and get a few thousand dollars off the price of the label.

According to Lipsher de Volta, however, a rebate program to charge companies could actually hinder progress if it encourages companies to wait months and years for approval of a discount before starting construction.

Not so fast

Levy of EVgo, who held positions in the Department of Energy and the Obama White House, says there are risks in building too many charging stations too quickly. The charging infrastructure needs to stay a little ahead of the property and the demand for EV, not drastically exceed it, he says.

To prove his point, Levy quotes the famous saying of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky about skating where the puck will be, not where he has been. For billing companies, “you want to skate a little bit ahead of the puck. If we’re skating far beyond the puck that we’re out of the arena, that’s a problem for the industry,” he said.

That’s because over-construction can hurt the economy of the billing business, he said, leading to a large number of underutilized, unprofitable stations to operate.

EVgo

It is a mistake made in the past – with significant consequences. As part of the 2009 Recovery Act, the Department of Energy has allocated $ 100 million in grants to a company called Ecotality to build more than 10,000 charging stations. Four years later, Ecotality filed for bankruptcy. An audit that year found that the demand for EVs had not grown as quickly as anticipated, and that most of the commercial charging stations that Ecotality had built suffered from low usage.

To avoid similar pitfalls, government clean energy programs may allow funds to be used not only for capital investment, but also operating expenses, to fill the gap for profitability, said Levy.

Location is the key

Whichever funding model is chosen, experts say the government must be deliberate about where the shippers go and what type of technology is used. Fast chargers, for example, are not needed on urban and suburban streets, where people tend to park for hours at a time. In contrast, the slower Level 2 plugs are not suitable for rural areas or rest stops on highways where people plan to spend just 45 minutes.

Then there is the issue of equity.

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Targeting major improvements in transportation for minority communities is especially important, as they support the impact of the country’s carbon emissions, said Anne Shikany, an infrastructure policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. But the investment should not come at the expense of community involvement.

“One thing we would like to see is a lot of consultation with communities before the infrastructure comes in,” said Shikany. “Talking to communities and making sure the things you want to provide meet their needs are extremely important.”

Carrying is just one piece of the puzzle

Charging is just one piece of the puzzle of the country’s transition away from gas-powered cars. And the collection companies expect the new administration to follow a series of other measures to increase demand for EVs.

Biden has also pledged to convert the entire federal government fleet – about 650,000 vehicles – into electric, and has promised that all buses made in the United States will run on battery power by 2030. Charging companies expect an expansion of the current vehicle with zero emission tax credit is also on the horizon.

Excitement aside, the collection companies that Insider spoke with said they are also prepared to act alone if the White House does not speak out. The train left the station, they said, and the VE explosion is happening with or without support from the federal government.

“Politics is also mainly a breeze in favor of the way we see it,” said Levy. “The future EV is now, and it is here, and it is happening regardless of anything else.”