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[Richard230]

As you may have heard, a $1 trillion (+/-) infrastructure law was passed recently by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President. It provides billions of dollars for new L2 EV charging stations to be installed all around the U.S. to help owners of EVs find locations to recharge when away from home. What I had been wondering is how the Federal government was going to site, build, repair and manage those new facilities, in view of the fact that they really don't seem to have an agency that would be up to the task.

Perhaps I heard the answer this weekend on a radio news report regarding the Infrastructure law. What I heard was mention that the Federal government was going to toss money to the states and let them figure it out.  So now we will have 50 different plans and agencies building and managing charging stations, that will be mixed in among the existing private systems. This should be interesting. 

[NEW2elec]

Ah yes L2 stations.  The ones I pointed out years ago could never be a successful business model.
That sounds like something so stupid and corrupt it could only come from the government.

[princec]

The thing about L2 stations is ... they are cheap. Really cheap. Really simple.

Cas

[Richard230]

The thing about L2 stations is ... they are cheap. Really cheap. Really simple.

Cas

I don't think it is a matter of the government being corrupt, more like the government not understanding where the future of electric vehicle power needs are going. To me it seems more like a "feel good" EV infrastructure approach. Plus, let's face it, you can build a lot more L2 stations for the same amount of money than you can build L3 chargers and the government is all about numbers.

[shayan]

The thing about L2 stations is ... they are cheap. Really cheap. Really simple.

Cas

I don't think it is a matter of the government being corrupt, more like the government not understanding where the future of electric vehicle power needs are going. To me it seems more like a "feel good" EV infrastructure approach. Plus, let's face it, you can build a lot more L2 stations for the same amount of money than you can build L3 chargers and the government is all about numbers.

Well i hope it's atleast 12kW or more. Quite a few cars come with 12+kW onboard charging capability. But long run when batteries get bigger capacities this will still not be a good strategy. Or maybe batteries with same capacity will get lighter and thus offer more range? Who knows..

[princec]

With any sense they'll put L3 DC chargers on all interstate roads and L2 everywhere else.

Cas

[NEW2elec]

The thing about L2 stations is ... they are cheap. Really cheap. Really simple.

Cas

I don't think it is a matter of the government being corrupt, more like the government not understanding where the future of electric vehicle power needs are going. To me it seems more like a "feel good" EV infrastructure approach. Plus, let's face it, you can build a lot more L2 stations for the same amount of money than you can build L3 chargers and the government is all about numbers.

Sorry man, companies that make crappy L2 chargers that fail as money making ventures decide before they go under to pool their money and fill campaign chests to get these types of tax payer deals.  My friend does it for a living.  This has lobbyist written all over it.

[HoodRichOG]

Is the legislation really only about L2 stations? That seems pretty ignorant.

The "infrastructure" for L2 stations is already there so it would be insane to waste so much money on them. When it comes to home charging, both my Chevy and Tesla included the L2 charger as part of the price, to begin with. When it comes to office charging, the cost to add an L2 station is quite inexpensive already.

L3 is where the infrastructure and economics get tricky, and it's really what's needed to get people to buy EVs.

[Richard230]

Is the legislation really only about L2 stations? That seems pretty ignorant.

The "infrastructure" for L2 stations is already there so it would be insane to waste so much money on them. When it comes to home charging, both my Chevy and Tesla included the L2 charger as part of the price, to begin with. When it comes to office charging, the cost to add an L2 station is quite inexpensive already.

L3 is where the infrastructure and economics get tricky, and it's really what's needed to get people to buy EVs.

I don't believe that the law contains that much detail about what charging stations will be constructed and where they will be built. It appears to be just a budget amount of billions of dollars to fund new EV charging stations and expects the Federal government to figure out what to do with the money. The reporter speculated that the Feds would just divide the money up and provide grants paid for from the available money, toss that to the states that request the funds (possibly not every state) and let them figure out what to do with it.  L2 stations were mentioned, likely as that is what has the public's attention due to their current proliferation. You hardly ever hear about L3 stations in the general news reports and I doubt that anyone who does not own an EV even knows what they are.

Knowing how many state agencies work (California's DMV comes to mind  ) they will likely turn around and "partner" with a private "startup" company that talks a good game but has never built and maintained charging stations before, enter into a contract with them to site and build L2 stations, and then stand back and see what happens next, while everyone pats themselves on the back. 

[Richard230]

Here is a two-page article regarding the U.S. government's plan to build charging stations around the country. Here is page one.

[Richard230]

Here is page two of the article.

[Fran K]

I do not glean much information.  Minimum of 4 dc fast chargers per 50 miles of certain interstates. 

Kind of reads like block grants to the States but if they do it wrong nothing , decision up to whom?

How confident are you it will cost less like the article quotes?

[Richard230]

I do not glean much information.  Minimum of 4 dc fast chargers per 50 miles of certain interstates. 

Kind of reads like block grants to the States but if they do it wrong nothing , decision up to whom?

How confident are you it will cost less like the article quotes?

It sounds to me like the installation of new charging stations will be up to each U.S. state to install and manage using a grant provided by the U.S. government, with strings attached of course. DC fast chargers are mentioned, but building and servicing those stations will be left up to each individual state. Some may do it themselves (unlikely) but most will likely retain a private company to construct, maintain and operate them. There doesn't appear to be any requirement to limit the amount that the company will charge for connecting to the stations. But if you need to pay a yearly registration fee to use the charging stations and if the cost of charging appears too high to the users (and the media) there will be a lot of political blow-back.

And then there is my concern that if there is no uniform standard for the DC charging stations, each time you cross a state line you may have to have a new activation card to access that state's charging system. This plan, like a lot of big-money government infrastructure projects, has the potential of going off the rails and turning into a huge political boondoggle.