US President-elect Joe Biden's charging plan could sell 25 million EVs
In a bid to fight climate change and build a stronger, greener economy, Joe Biden is starting with plugs.
Specifically, the president-elect has a plan to install500,000 electric vehicle charging cords by 2030, roughly a five-fold increase in the nation’s EV infrastructure that could cost more than $5 billion.
Also check these Vehicles
64kWh
350 km
The 500,000-unit pledgewas part of Biden’s platform when he was running for the job but largely overlooked in a grinding campaign dominated by the pandemic. Now, the industry hopes he’ll stick with it. But it is a wildly ambitious strategy to overcome one of the biggest hurdles facing EVs: Would-be drivers fear they won’t have enough places to charge up. The infrastructure milestone would cover 57% of the charging that U.S. vehicleswill need by 2030 and could spark the sale of some 25 million electric cars and trucks, according to forecasts by BloombergNEF.
Also Read : Joe Biden's win is pressuring carmakers to unite on tailpipe rules
“It’s spot-on with what the market needs," said Cathy Zoi, chief executive officer of EVgo, one of the country’s largest charging networks. “The sweet spot is to actually accelerate the electrification of our transportation, and this can bring that forward by three to five years."(Biden’s transition team declined to comment on the president-elect’s stated plans.)
Right now, there are about 90,000 public charging plugs at 28,000 U.S. stations, according to the latest Energy Department tally. However, one in five of those isexclusive to Tesla; of the remainder, only one in 10 tops a car up quickly enough to be useful on a road trip. Most public charging options are still relatively slow—useful for drivers idling at work, for example, or grinding through a long grocery hunt.
Nevertheless, U.S. charging infrastructure is arguablya little ahead of the EV market. At the moment, there are about 20 U.S. electric vehicles for every public plug—the ideal ratio, according to research from BloombergNEF, is about 40 to 50. At that rate, Biden’s charging push would cover 25 million electric vehicles, roughly 9% of the current U.S. vehicle fleet.
For automakers, the policy push provides confidence to maintain or accelerate electric vehiclerollouts, even as adoption has been relatively tepid. Car companies plan to offer at least 121 battery-powered machines to U.S. consumers by 2025 and will be able to crank out 1 million of them a year by the end of Biden’s first term.
Also Read : Joe Biden's victory helps US electric vehicle startup stocks surge by 85%
Two big questions remain, however: How will the policy be structured, and will Biden’s administrationbe able to persuadeCongress to pay forthe plan?
Biden’s policy teamwill first have to decide who its charging constituents are. Private networks already have covered much of the country, thoughit’s still tough for them to turn a profit in two places: dense, urban areas whose low-income apartment dwellers largely park on the street, or in a common lot, and rural interstate corridors where electric vehicles tricklepast. If you live in a Queens, N.Y., co-op orwork the oil fields of North Dakota,an electric vehicle is probably a logistical bridge too far at the moment.The former is best served by lots of cheap, slow charging units, while the latter demands a fewultra-fast cords, says Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, a Washington consultancy focused on transportation.
“In principle, the (500K) goal is easy to explain—it fits on a postcard—but it’s as complicated as any major construction program in the U.S. at the moment," Nigro said. “It’s not just ‘Let’s build the electric vehicle charging site of the future and then copycat it all over the country.’"
Biden’s team has yet to detail what form of chargers it hopes for and where they might pop up.Still, private charging networks are cheered by the policy push and hope to help the administration craft its plan—and possiblybid on the business.
Pasquale Romano, the CEO of ChargePoint, the biggest operator of electric vehicle chargers globally, called the Biden proposal a huge positivebut hopes to caution the administration to avoid a gas-station model and focus on placing chargers where businesses will have incentives to maintain them in the future. “We don’t want to see something that’s spent willy-nilly, even if it’s spent with us," Romano said.
Installing 500,000 public chargers at the national level is “feasible", said Edison International Chief Executive Officer Pedro Pizarro. “It will require a lot of collaboration across utilities, charging companies, charger manufacturers and automakers,"said Pizarro, whose company owns the largest electric utility in Southern California. In addition, there will need to be collaboration with local municipalities to address potential roadblocks with the permitting and citing of the chargers, he said.
Also Read : 'Time to heal' the auto industry? Joe Biden gets backing from carmakers in US
Congress, however, could be the trickiest part. Biden faces either a split legislature, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could stymie Biden’s most ambitious climate plans if Republicans retain their majority, or narrow Democratic control of both chambers if the party picks up both Senate seats that are up for grabs inGeorgia’s runoff election, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote.
On the spectrum of political scrums, infrastructure is less polarized than most issues. Zoiis optimistic that the administration can muster some money for charging, in part because she worked closely with Bidenin deploying the 2009Recovery Act.“We had a weekly dashboard that I would show him," Zoi recalls. “He’d say: ‘Come on over, we’re going to make calls to governors and make sure this all gets done.’ That’s absolutely who he is."
EVgo’s internal estimates show that a job is created for every fast-charging station that is installed. With 500,000 new public chargers, that could be 500,000 addedjobs.
“Regardless whether you are a Republican or Democrat, you support the job," she said. “You support clean air. You support economic growth. You support healthy infrastructure in America."
