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I had the pleasure of attending an Electrify America outreach webinar where EA invited a number of people who submitted recommendations for their Cycle Three build out. I might follow up with a video discussing it, and I'm sure @Ste might also. We both had a good chuckle that the only one of my questions that they addressed was whether EA would add Tesla plugs at their sites. They said they were considering it, but ultimately, they pushed that responsibility back on Tesla to provide their owners with a cheaper, easier to manage, higher quality CCS adapter like they do in Europe (which I think is correct).

Suffice to say, at a high-level, EA is definitely listening to customer feedback. They are aware of some of the connecting routes that need coverage, including I-90 and I-94 and routes to state and national parks. They're doubling their network support team, and they've started a station upgrade campaign to fix/replace troublesome chargers and sites. They're doing thousands of hours of testing with OEMs to validate compatibility, and they're working on improvements to their app, including trip planners and a charger reservation system.

A couple of questions of mine that they didn't answer were whether/how a member could get membership pricing when using a credit card on site, and whether they would be providing an RFID card for members who charge in areas with poor cellphone coverage.

They also shared a key detail that explains a bit about how and why they've developed their network in the way they have. They are tasked EV infrastructure "investments" and with creating a self-sustaining network. Essentially, when their funding runs out, the network needs to be able operate profitably and sustainably. That explains why they've focused on higher traffic corridors with larger EV owning populations. One of the biggest threats to that long-term profitability and sustainability is demand fees. In one real-world example of a charging site in Utah, they are paying $8.55 per kWh dispensed after demand fees, and they are installing grid-tied batteries in order to offset those costs (they stated 80% or 90% of a charging station's costs are due to demand fees).

They also provided some insight into some troubling statistics both for EV adoption generally. Nearly 78% of people surveyed said that finding charging stations away from home was moderately to extremely difficult. Another 65% of respondents said that they had never ridden in an EV and did not think they personally knew anyone who owns and EV. Sadly, that number correlates closely to only 40% of prospective car buyers saying they would consider an EV for their next purchase.

They might or might not post a recording of the webinar. If they do, I recommend watching it.
 

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I had the pleasure of attending an Electrify America outreach webinar where EA invited a number of people who submitted recommendations for their Cycle Three build out. I might follow up with a video discussing it, and I'm sure @Ste might also. We both had a good chuckle that the only one of my questions that they addressed was whether EA would add Tesla plugs at their sites. They said they were considering it, but ultimately, they pushed that responsibility back on Tesla to provide their owners with a cheaper, easier to manage, higher quality CCS adapter like they do in Europe (which I think is correct).

Suffice to say, at a high-level, EA is definitely listening to customer feedback. They are aware of some of the connecting routes that need coverage, including I-90 and I-94 and routes to state and national parks. They're doubling their network support team, and they've started a station upgrade campaign to fix/replace troublesome chargers and sites. They're doing thousands of hours of testing with OEMs to validate compatibility, and they're working on improvements to their app, including trip planners and a charger reservation system.

A couple of questions of mine that they didn't answer were whether/how a member could get membership pricing when using a credit card on site, and whether they would be providing an RFID card for members who charge in areas with poor cellphone coverage.

They also shared a key detail that explains a bit about how and why they've developed their network in the way they have. They are tasked EV infrastructure "investments" and with creating a self-sustaining network. Essentially, when their funding runs out, the network needs to be able operate profitably and sustainably. That explains why they've focused on higher traffic corridors with larger EV owning populations. One of the biggest threats to that long-term profitability and sustainability is demand fees. In one real-world example of a charging site in Utah, they are paying $8.55 per kWh dispensed after demand fees, and they are installing grid-tied batteries in order to offset those costs (they stated 80% or 90% of a charging station's costs are due to demand fees).

They also provided some insight into some troubling statistics both for EV adoption generally. Nearly 78% of people surveyed said that finding charging stations away from home was moderately to extremely difficult. Another 65% of respondents said that they had never ridden in an EV and did not think they personally knew anyone who owns and EV. Sadly, that number correlates closely to only 40% of prospective car buyers saying they would consider an EV for their next purchase.

They might or might not post a recording of the webinar. If they do, I recommend watching it.
The charging industry as a whole, and particularly, smaller operators, need to come up with a solution for altering the demand fee structure.
 

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The charging industry as a whole, and particularly, smaller operators, need to come up with a solution for altering the demand fee structure.
The solutions are various. Onsite storage is a big help, but ultimately utility rate structures are an essential piece.


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I too was invited the webinar but it was too early in the morning for me, so I passed. I would've been too tired for either it or my actual day job (as a result) anyway. My day job is way more important. I hope they make a recording available, maybe if at least to those who registered.

I guess I'll listen to your videos if EA doesn't make a recording available.
 

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The charging industry as a whole, and particularly, smaller operators, need to come up with a solution for altering the demand fee structure.
Might be an uphill battle. I spoke to someone in the industry before he started his job at EVgo and he said that demand charges aren't that big a deal any longer, so longer as the stations are sufficiently utilized.

To him, he's fine w/demand charges as long as that allows for lower per kWh charges from the utility.

He's now been there for a few years and unfortunately, he's in So Cal (I'm in Nor Cal) so I don't exactly see him at all. I haven't discussed this with him since and not sure if he's going to be able to now...

I wouldn't be surprised if the over $8/kWh effective price for EA in UT due to demand charges is because of severe underutilization.

I wouldn't be surprised if EA is losing $ hand over fist in terms of their utility bills vs. incoming revenues, not including keeping up w/repairs and staffing their phone and email support. The EA stations I've visited have never had anyone else charging there, except once, because I was meeting a Taycan driver (who's had a Bolt for years) while he was getting his free EA juice. (Porsche gives Taycan drivers 3 years of free 30 minute DC FC sessions on EA w/1 hour timeout before he gets another 30 minute free session.)
 

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They also provided some insight into some troubling statistics both for EV adoption generally. Nearly 78% of people surveyed said that finding charging stations away from home was moderately to extremely difficult. Another 65% of respondents said that they had never ridden in an EV and did not think they personally knew anyone who owns and EV. Sadly, that number correlates closely to only 40% of prospective car buyers saying they would consider an EV for their next purchase.
Put me in the 78%, biased towards extremely difficult to non-existent. I consider a single choice along a route with no alternative "extremely difficult" since if that station is down you are f'd.
40%? I'm surprised it's that high. Push polling which leads respondents to a desired response?
 

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Might be an uphill battle. I spoke to someone in the industry before he started his job at EVgo and he said that demand charges aren't that big a deal any longer, so longer as the stations are sufficiently utilized.

To him, he's fine w/demand charges as long as that allows for lower per kWh charges from the utility.

He's now been there for a few years and unfortunately, he's in So Cal (I'm in Nor Cal) so I don't exactly see him at all. I haven't discussed this with him since and not sure if he's going to be able to now...

I wouldn't be surprised if the over $8/kWh effective price for EA in UT due to demand charges is because of severe underutilization.

I wouldn't be surprised if EA is losing $ hand over fist in terms of their utility bills vs. incoming revenues, not including keeping up w/repairs and staffing their phone and email support. The EA stations I've visited have never had anyone else charging there, except once, because I was meeting a Taycan driver (who's had a Bolt for years) while he was getting his free EA juice. (Porsche gives Taycan drivers 3 years of free 30 minute DC FC sessions on EA w/1 hour timeout before he gets another 30 minute free session.)
The truth is, I think demand fees are still valid (these sites are, after all, capable drawing that much power); however, I think the issue is with how those fees are assessed.

Your friend at EVgo is correct that demand fees are getting easier for EVgo, but that's due to a number of factors, including slower charger speeds and where they are installing their chargers. Electrify America was partially tasked with covering lower income areas and remote freeways, which are going to be used far less often than chargers that are primarily located in the Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas. Further, Electrify America's chargers are simply far faster than EVgo's on the whole. The EVgo Baker site includes both solar and a battery backup, so they are insulated from the demand fees their 350 kW charger would otherwise accrue.

A $5 per kW demand fee for a 100 A charger site (even with two chargers) is going to be far less than a $5 per kW demand fee for a site with two 350 kW and two 150 kW chargers. Even with EVgo's 20% to 30% utilization, the latter, faster site would result in higher demand fees.
 

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Put me in the 78%, biased towards extremely difficult to non-existent. I consider a single choice along a route with no alternative "extremely difficult" since if that station is down you are f'd.
That wasn't the question, but sure. It was a Likert scale with the question of, "How difficult is it to locate a charger?" not "Are there sufficient chargers along the route of your choice?" So the question was really more about how difficult it is to find chargers, not whether enough are actually in place. Basically, a majority of people lack the knowledge, tools, or understanding to find chargers easily.

40%? I'm surprised it's that high. Push polling which leads respondents to a desired response?
That survey has been quoted elsewhere. It's very non-committal to ask someone whether they would consider buying an EV. Frankly, the fact that it's not a majority is a disturbing sign. I imagine most respondents would say, "Sure, I'd consider buying an EV. Here are my budget and needs. Show me what's available. Oh, nothing that meets that criteria? Well, I considered an EV anyway."
 

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That wasn't the question, but sure. It was a Likert scale with the question of, "How difficult is it to locate a charger?" not "Are there sufficient chargers along the route of your choice?" So the question was really more about how difficult it is to find chargers, not whether enough are actually in place.
Even asking the question in a negative will alter some responses. "How difficult" is telling the survey respondent that charging is difficult. The same problem would exist asking the same question in the positive "how easy". It might actually be best to deliver half of the surveys with the negative, and half with the positive phrasing. The difference in responses would indicate how powerful the phrasing influenced the answers.
 

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Even asking the question in a negative will alter some responses. "How difficult" is telling the survey respondent that charging is difficult. The same problem would exist asking the same question in the positive "how easy". It might actually be best to deliver half of the surveys with the negative, and half with the positive phrasing. The difference in responses would indicate how powerful the phrasing influenced the answers.
That's very true. Ideally, a survey like that would be longer, and you'd ask the question multiple times, slightly altering the wording and between "easy" and "difficult."

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@NewsCoulomb , great summary, thanks for taking notes! EV Trivia QOD, how close were you paying attention? Whose Bolt EV was pictured in the EA slide deck, image credit PlugShare, at the first EA charger station opened in Chicopee MA? :geek:

One topic I didn't catch mentioned by EA, but I could have missed it, was interoperability. EVolve NY held the fourth quarter advocates call yesterday as well, and they specifically showed a slide with EA, EV Connect, and Greenlots all very soon having interoperability to start charging at any of the three networked stations with another of the three providers. Our FPT, NY DCFC station on Greenlots already allows you to start a charge using EV Connect, but not yet visa versa.

The EA slide I found most interesting was the vehicle year introduction range VS charging speed, playing to EA's hand with the 350kW stations

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@NewsCoulomb , great summary, thanks for taking notes! EV Trivia QOD, how close were you paying attention? Whose Bolt EV was pictured in the EA slide deck, image credit PlugShare, at the first EA charger station opened in Chicopee MA? :geek:

One topic I didn't catch mentioned by EA, but I could have missed it, was interoperability. EVolve NY held the fourth quarter advocates call yesterday as well, and they specifically showed a slide with EA, EV Connect, and Greenlots all very soon having interoperability to start charging at any of the three networked stations with another of the three providers. Our FPT, NY DCFC station on Greenlots already allows you to start a charge using EV Connect, but not yet visa versa.

The EA slide I found most interesting was the vehicle year introduction range VS charging speed, playing to EA's hand with the 350kW stations

View attachment 32132
Yes, they didn't really bring up the interoperability, did they? They skipped several of my questions about their own payment systems as well, including whether they would be issuing RFID cards as an option for people who charge in areas with poor cell phone coverage as well as how one might access membership pricing while paying by credit card.

As for the Bolt EV at the Chicopee charger, that certainly wasn't mine! I think it was another 6 months after that before EA even had a functioning charging site in California.
 

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Yes, they didn't really bring up the interoperability, did they? They skipped several of my questions about their own payment systems as well, including whether they would be issuing RFID cards as an option for people who charge in areas with poor cell phone coverage as well as how one might access membership pricing while paying by credit card.

As for the Bolt EV at the Chicopee charger, that certainly wasn't mine! I think it was another 6 months after that before EA even had a functioning charging site in California.
Yeah, the Bolt EV at the Chicopee charger belonged to @Ste 😁
 

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Thanks for the info. I do hope they make a recording available.

Did they actually take questions during the webinar like by voice, typing or via a form (where people could up/down vote) or were they pre-selected from somewhere?
That survey has been quoted elsewhere. It's very non-committal to ask someone whether they would consider buying an EV. Frankly, the fact that it's not a majority is a disturbing sign. I imagine most respondents would say, "Sure, I'd consider buying an EV. Here are my budget and needs. Show me what's available. Oh, nothing that meets that criteria? Well, I considered an EV anyway."
Exactly! The "consider" survey results are often quite comical. On Priuschat, we used to post survey results like that all the time. Consumer Reports Poll: Americans want higher fuel standards, hybrid cars from 2011:
  • Eighty-three percent of survey respondents say they’d be willing to pay more for a fuel-efficient car.
  • A majority (56 percent) say they will consider an electric or hybrid for their next car, but only 16 percent are thinking about a diesel.
  • Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) would consider buying some type of hybrid or electric car if they become more widely available over the next 15 years.
But IIRC, (non-plugin) hybrids never got beyond ~10% marketshare in the US. BEVs are at what, maybe 3% w/PHEVs a bit less? FAR more people "considered" but few actually bought or leased.
 

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That explains why they've focused on higher traffic corridors with larger EV owning populations.
Well, that, and because Cali's AG negotiated that into the settlement.
Of the $2 billion, $1.2 billion shall be directed toward national ZEV investments and $800 million shall be used for ZEV investments in California.
12% of the US population (14% of economy) gets 40% of the chargers. Yay.

they stated 80% or 90% of a charging station's costs are due to demand fees).
By "costs" they mean "monthly utility bill costs". The hardware installation and demand charge should each be about 1/3 of total costs. If EA says demand is 90% of cost, they are conveniently forgetting amortization on the $200,000 they spent installing the station. I posted some numbers to illustrate the relationship at

They are paying $8.55 per kWh dispensed after demand fees
That would be true if they have only a handful of customers per month at that DCFC. PG&E Medium Business power tariff A-10 costs $17.17 per KW demand charge. If one customer charges @50kw for 30 minutes, the demand fee would be $858! If the same car charges every Tuesday, and nobody else ever charges there, then at the end of four weeks, the demand is indeed $8.58 per kwh, as EA described. But if EA had 6 customers charge per day instead of 1 per week, demand charge is 19¢ per kwh sold. I agree that 19 cents is still too much, but $8 is a misleading claim. If EA made the utility install a 500kva transformer, but now EA has one customer per week, then of course it's crazy expensive.

I won't argue that demand charges are the perfect way to bill. The utility passes-on their cost of construction in the form of demand charge. Some customers cost a lot to hook-up, and others cost almost nothing, but everybody pays the same rates per kwh. The utility could instead choose to bill each customer for the true costs: my previous employer paid the utility $1m to run a redundant 8mW 13kv distribution feeder 1.2 miles from the next suburb over, just so we could power our building from either substation. That's a bit more like how solar farms negotiate interconnection costs with the utility, and pay up-front. That kind of approach would encourage EA to put its chargers where the cost to the utility is least... like maybe find an abandoned mall off the freeway with a vault of unused transformers.
 

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12% of the US population (14% of economy) gets 40% of the chargers. Yay.
...
That kind of approach would encourage EA to put its chargers where the cost to the utility is least... like maybe find an abandoned mall off the freeway with a vault of unused transformers.
Percent Share of US EV Sales By State – EVAdoption claims California for the two years in question had 50.5% and 46.8% of EV sales.

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Maps and Data - Electric Vehicle Registrations by State says "California has the greatest population of EVs and accounts for approximately 47% of the overall population. Washington state has the second highest population, followed by Florida." In the graph, CA had 256.8K registrations while WA had 28.4K.

As for the abandoned mall off the freeway, from Interview: Electrify America expects you to raise **** if chargers don’t work - Electrek, I don't think they'd want to do that.
Palazzo and Jones outlined Electrify America’s methodology for choosing a charging location, which includes a gap analysis to discover where distances between chargers are still too long.

The organization’s efforts recently shifted from highway infrastructure to cities. The team looks at zip codes based on projected EV sales. Then they analyze how “friendly” the local utility is regarding fees for high demand and the local authorities are for permitting. “There’s a lot of complexity,” said Palazzo. Specific sites need to have amenities, such as good lighting, a bathroom, and 24/7 services.

“Sometimes, they want to put you in the back by the dumpster,” Jones said. “We prohibit that. It has to be on front sightlines.” If the conditions aren’t met, Electrify America walks away.
Would you want to go charge at an abandoned mall? What might happen to the abandoned mall? Would it remain a blight or might it be demolished?

Vallco Mall in Cupertino, CA is near a freeway and was a dying mall for maybe 20+ years and was eventually left w/almost no merchants. Finally it got demolished:
. There's a whole other backstory and political battle about that and what was to replace it which I've not had the time nor interest to follow.

If curious to see more drone videos from that guy of the demolition at different phases, see playlist below.
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbNXGiR8awk&list=PLEpLzY5yZuSwaL4h0DGO4wBDrpTs9LTy0
 

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That survey has been quoted elsewhere. It's very non-committal to ask someone whether they would consider buying an EV. Frankly, the fact that it's not a majority is a disturbing sign. I imagine most respondents would say, "Sure, I'd consider buying an EV. Here are my budget and needs. Show me what's available. Oh, nothing that meets that criteria? Well, I considered an EV anyway."
The rate is only 40% because the average person hears that a leaf battery lasts 3 years before you have to spend $10,000 on a replacement battery, and the old one goes into a landfill so you are not saving the planet anyway, and the only other option is a Tesla that costs $100,000+, so they answer "nope, no EV for me". Ignorance can be cured, but it takes time and effort.

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Exactly! The "consider" survey results are often quite comical. On Priuschat, we used to post survey results like that all the time. Consumer Reports Poll: Americans want higher fuel standards, hybrid cars from 2011:

But IIRC, (non-plugin) hybrids never got beyond ~10% marketshare in the US. BEVs are at what, maybe 3% w/PHEVs a bit less? FAR more people "considered" but few actually bought or leased.
Part of that is due to the drop in fuel cost. In 2011, $3.50 a gallon was common outside of California ($4.00+ in California) with projections going to $5.00+ in the next few years... that makes people respond differently to a survey than their actual purchase choices when fuel prices drop to $2.60 (average price in 2020) instead of going up to $5.00 Also, that 3.50 back in 2011 is in 2011 dollars, adjusted for inflation that fuel cost in 2011 would be $4.05 per gallon in 2020 dollars.

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The rate is only 40% because the average person hears that a leaf battery lasts 3 years before you have to spend $10,000 on a replacement battery, and the old one goes into a landfill so you are not saving the planet anyway, and the only other option is a Tesla that costs $100,000+, so they answer "nope, no EV for me".
Add to that EVs only have about 100 mile ranges, can't charge non-Teslas on the road, and only makes sense in warm climates like SoCal and you've just about got my understanding of the EV market a year ago. It was only at the start of this year when I began looking at replacing my vehicle in earnest and decided to glance over at Tesla, not even seriously considering an EV. Long story short I kept looking and here we are.

And even after I educated myself I still got two responses from everyone when I mentioned I was looking at going electric: "Oh, a Tesla?" and "You know the batteries only last a few years".
 
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