Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.
Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.
The sluggish rollout could undermine President Joe Biden’s reelection messaging promoting electric vehicles.
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This is an incredibly lazy take from Politico. It's late so I'll just do a brain dump on things to consider. The last year has been very rocky for EV charging in the US.
- Tesla had, so far, outbuilt every other DCFC network combined and out-sold every other EV carmaker, combined. This put a lot of very weird tension on the process.
- Draft rulemaking from FWHA in 2022/early 2023 was only considering CCS as a funded connector.
- November 2022, Tesla threw a grenade, opened up their connector as NACS, and claimed it could support CCS signalling. Aptera joined as the second NACS adoptee so maybe NACS technically isn't proprietary since it's now on more than 1 brand? Realistically though, nobody cared.
- March 2023, FWHA's guidance drops. It standardizes CCS as the main connector to deploy, but optionally allows the deployment of "proprietary" connectors as long as the CCS requirement is met. By/around this point, some states like Texas and Washington decided they wanted to solicit bids for both CCS+NACS. Other states reasonably started this process only considering CCS.
- May 2023, Ford surprises everyone by being the first important not-Tesla carmaker to adopt NACS.
- In the background, several states were starting the process of planning locations and soliciting bids. CCS was pretty much still the primary consideration at this point when it came to figuring out equipment vendors.
- June, July, August rolls by. More carmakers switch to NACS.
- States are faced with having to figure out what to do with the bid process. Stick with the bid solicitation for CCS, or amend for CCS+NACS now that almost everyone's jumped over? Will the equipment vendors in some bids support NACS? Are they stuck on CCS? Is this even something some places are even aware is happening (lol)
- It's now Sept/Oct. The CCS rule is silly at this point because in 16 months, cars will start shipping with native NACS connectors, and this equipment is supposed to last 5+ years. Will all DCFC makers support a cable swap from CCS to NACS? Would a cable swap even be permitted with NEVI funds?
For much of this year we didn't have a solid answer about which connector was going to work, nor did we have much information about what the DCFC makers were going to do. We didn't really have a clear idea that cable swaps would be possible for a long while either.
For all the chaos above, the major slowness in this process is that some states are trying to plan for reasonably fair coverage in charger placement, and making sure they pick the correct places on travel corridors to invest NEVI funds in. A lot of work is needed to ensure that more than just the wealthy/populated areas would get chargers. For example, Virginia took several months just on this, and I appreciate it. I'd rather them take a few extra months to work out placement and consideration for supporting the general population than just the places with money.
I want to see this money create the best competitor against Tesla's Supercharger network, not rush to become the next Electrify America.
Excellent explanation, but the article title is also bullshit because both Penn and ohio have started building chargers already in the last month or so, they just aren't finished. These two are in the lead because they had largely done the ground work you describe for EV charger rollouts. The money is doing exactly what it needs to do: give states the capitol to start work immediately. Most states are still planning, but the moneys there to actually make the plans a reality.
Based on the white House statements, no one expected this to immediately happen. They all planned for it to take a while to sort, but once its sorted, to move quickly. Turns out infastructure is hard to do competently, but when you put smart people in charge of it and fund them, it actually gets done.
People can say what they want to about Biden, but the motherfucker had been hiring good people to do good things.
Fun fact: Ohio already has its first NEVI station up and running.
Were people actually expecting the construction to start immediately or something? There's absolutely wrenches being thrown at the process, and all of the planning and construction time on top of it all.
Were people actually expecting the construction to start immediately or something?
Especially right after COVID when equipment shortages were still a big issue! If these pundits wanted chargers available today, maybe they shouldn't have focused on churning out EV-skepticism for the better part of a decade.
Tesla's Supercharging network is practically the gold-standard of how fast deployments can be done, and even they need a couple months for each site. That timeframe is only possible after a decade of installations and spending hundreds of millions on process optimization. It's going to take some of these smaller firms some time to get the hang of it, and that's perfectly okay.
The plan all along was to complete everything by 2027, with construction starting in '24 and '25. Every state I've cared to look at has a published plan and timeline. 🤷♂️
It's going to be 90% planning and permitting. 10% construction. There's very little construction needed. (It may even be 99:1).
Crucially, the cable swap is a non-issue, because the chargers will all use the CCS communication protocol. NACS uses the J1772 pins for sensing and initiating charging, and CCS adds an extra communication layer which Tesla has built into their cars since mid-2019 or something when Europe switched to CCS Combo 2 as the EU standard.
I'm not personally a promoter of the NACS connector for lots of reasons nobody cares about, but I'm glad we've at least landed on the common communication protocol. If all these chargers started popping up in 2024 with CCS Combo 1 connectors, I wonder how many of these other brands would actually migrate to the NACS wand versus just continuing on with Combo 1 forever. I'm not convinced any of them really care either, and it's just a matter of convenience for customers. Without the necessity to rely on Tesla's charging network, that convenience sort of evaporates. Add in an adapter for NACS to CCS, and I think the whole issue goes away.
Yup, as the year progressed with further press releases it became a non-issue. However, for several months it was a question mark if most DCFC vendors would support this.
As far as NACS, effectively every carmaker has switched from CCS and the major DCFC vendors announced support for it (two major ones being ABB and Signet).
I guess if a bespoke dcfc manufacturer/operator kept going with CCS, they can, but it’d be a waste of money as we go from ~65% of EVs sold today use NACS to ~98% sold in 2025 (making the silly stretch assumption that sales ratio between carmakers remains relatively the same)
They haven't switched yet, though. And that's one of the points I'm making. They have said they're switching in 2025. To me, that sounded a lot like they were waiting to see what happened with chargers in US and Canada. Announcing charger support for it is also not a meaningful announcement since you really only need to change the cable end. It's like saying I now support winter boots. I didn't change my feet, so it's not a meaningful statement.
The number of EVs sold isn't an argument that's going to sway me. As I've said, I have technical reasons I don't like the NACS connector. If everyone sticks to the current announced plan, then we get DCFC with both connectors and nobody really cares. But if the charger manufacturers and EV manufacturers decide to drop NACS as a whole, I don't think anybody will know or care in 3-4 years time outside of Tesla owners that need an adapter to access other brands chargers.
I think that viewpoint is naively optimistic for CCS-1. Nearly everyone's media announcement explicitly states that they are definitively adopting NACS as their charging connector for their fleet starting in 2025. If CCS-1 connector isn't dead, it's shaping up to be like CHAdeMO.
If you don't believe me: Ford, GM, Hyundai, Kia, Polestar, Volvo, Rivian, Mercedes, BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce, Honda, and Fisker
The only announcements that weren't fully definitive in bringing this to every vehicle are from Toyota, Subaru, and Nissan. Toyota's announcement (and is comparable to Subaru) is left at:
Toyota will incorporate the NACS ports into certain Toyota and Lexus BEVs starting in 2025
And Nissan is for sure doing it on their Ariya but left the rest ambiguous.
I clearly said they all announced it was happening in 2025, so obviously linking to their announcements isn't really going to change anything.
The thing they are doing is trying to equip their cars with the port for the chargers that their customer will use. What I'm saying is if the NACS adoption doesn't take off my charger manufacturers, then auto manufacturers have no incentive to adopt it either. That's the remaining question mark. Regardless, Combo 1 connectors are going to be on those chargers because that's what every other brand has on their cars.
I'm wanting to understand what you're trying to say but I'm... confused.
I clearly said they all announced it was happening in 2025, so obviously linking to their announcements isn’t really going to change anything.
My understanding of your statement (specifically the bolded section) sounded like you were skeptical that carmakers will commit to their NACS plans.
They haven’t switched yet, though. And that’s one of the points I’m making. They have said they’re switching in 2025. To me, that sounded a lot like they were waiting to see what happened with chargers in US and Canada.
I guess if it was just Ford and Ford alone, I could see one company backing out, but not several entities.
Secondly,
What I’m saying is if the NACS adoption doesn’t take off my charger manufacturers, then auto manufacturers have no incentive to adopt it either. That’s the remaining question mark.
Each announcement has explicitly said they're doing this to gain access to the Supercharger network.
In less than a year we're going to see NACS connectors on 2025 models. The ink has dried on contracts. Engineers are likely nearly finished with changes needed to integrate and are testing if not already.
Going back to CCS would be incredibly unlikely. There is no question about it anymore unless they want to figure out a way to justify to car buyers and investors about their decision to switch connectors then un-switch.
I guess if it was just Ford and Ford alone, I could see one company backing out, but not several entities.
Consider why these companies have decided to transition to an NACS port. Because they want their customers to gain access to chargers that exist, and those chargers are operated by Tesla. Now, imagine that in 2024 we start seeing NEVI funded chargers installed around the country, and those chargers have fewer NACS connectors than CCS Combo, or they have no NACS connectors. What do you think the auto manufacturers would do? They haven't signed any kind of contract requiring they use NACS, they've simply announced that they plan to in 2025.
In other words, if there's no convenience improvement to deploying NACS ports because new charger sites don't have a majority of NACS connectors, then they wouldn't do it. They'd simply keep equipping vehicles with Combo 1 ports.
Each announcement has explicitly said they’re doing this to gain access to the Supercharger network.
Yes. Because today that network is by far the largest in the US, and almost certainly in Canada. But the US is funding deployment of new chargers every 50 miles, so you can see where brands other than Tesla might outnumber Tesla over the next few years.
The ink has dried on contracts.
Buying new plastic bits from an injection molding company doesn't require an insane lead time, and the existence of contracts really isn't meaningful in any way. There is almost guaranteed to be language in supplier contracts that allows both parties to back out as long as they keep a dollar spend level or pay a small penalty. This kind of thing happens all the time during qualification and testing.
Going back to CCS would be incredibly unlikely.
Why? If there was a compelling reason to not use NACS, why would anybody continue charging ahead?
Consider why these companies have decided to transition to an NACS port. Because they want their customers to gain access to chargers that exist, and those chargers are operated by Tesla.
Agreed. I don't think this was a technical decision at all, it was strictly to get access to the Supercharger network.
Now, imagine that in 2024 we start seeing NEVI funded chargers installed around the country, and those chargers have fewer NACS connectors than CCS Combo, or they have no NACS connectors. What do you think the auto manufacturers would do? They haven’t signed any kind of contract requiring they use NACS, they’ve simply announced that they plan to in 2025.
Tesla is basically dropping 1.5 sites a day at their current pace, and it's been gradually increasing over time. They'll be out-pacing the collective NEVI deployment for a while. Plus, each Supercharger site has 8+ (and now, more commonly, 12/16+, with a few 20-30+) stalls. Tesla's Supercharger network is so far ahead, nobody else has to matter. NEVI only requires 4-stall sites, I'd bet almost anything that's what we're going to see for a while.
Yeah, there's probably no contract but why wait for others to catch up when they can get immediate results by swapping a plug and reworking a bit of the electrical system?
Yes. Because today that network is by far the largest in the US, and almost certainly in Canada. But the US is funding deployment of new chargers every 50 miles, so you can see where brands other than Tesla might outnumber Tesla over the next few years.
I seriously doubt this will happen in the next 2-4 years at the clip Tesla has been dropping chargers. Go look at the Under Construction list of Tesla chargers: https://supercharge.info/map. There's practically a full-multiple-states-worth of NEVI deployments coming online from Tesla just in the next few months alone.
Buying new plastic bits from an injection molding company doesn’t require an insane lead time, and the existence of contracts really isn’t meaningful in any way. There is almost guaranteed to be language in supplier contracts that allows both parties to back out as long as they keep a dollar spend level or pay a small penalty. This kind of thing happens all the time during qualification and testing.
Sure but we're 8-9 months from cars rolling off the assembly line, and Farley and Barra have been very vocal about their move to NACS, including relying on it in investor calls w/r/t charging.
Why? If there was a compelling reason to not use NACS, why would anybody continue charging ahead?
There is no compelling reason. Car makers gain access to a network that's at least as large as everyone else combined, with much higher stall-count per site, at a much greater reliability, and greater number of higher power charging stalls. Tesla's Supercharger network isn't a hypothetical "this could get better", they've been in the "they are better" camp. NACS+Supercharger is a guaranteed "win" and CCS is, at best, a story of optimism.
Realistically, most people just don't care about the CCS/NACS debate. Ford/GM/etc. get the PR hall-pass to claim CCS was the reason everything was bad, people then see Superchargers "just work", take that statement at face value, and move on.
I'm with you on that it really sucks a single company can steamroll the industry like this. It sets a scary precedent and puts charging in a very vulnerable spot for a while. IMO anyone who doesn't see that there's a pretty substantial risk to this isn't thinking critically.
Though, if Tesla tried to pull any funny business I'd bet they wouldn't get very far considering they've explicitly granted anyone using the SAE standard a royalty-free license to the patent.
They’ll be out-pacing the collective NEVI deployment for a while.
I disagree. They've added 21 in the past year in the US, so let's call it 2 per month on average for 2023. The plan for several states I'm interested in will outpace that immediately. I don't know where you got 1.5 sites per day, but that's absolutely not the case in any way. It's not even 1.5 stalls per day, instead it's 0.624 stalls per day. Can you tell me where you got that number from, because 1.5 sites per day would be 548 sites per year and with an average of 10 stalls per site they've installed this past year that's 5479 stalls. Back of the envelope math should have sounded wrong to you.
I seriously doubt this will happen in the next 2-4 years at the clip Tesla has been dropping chargers.
Again, your Tesla number is extremely wrong. You should go back to the supercharge.info site, go to the changes list, and switch to "add". Lots of Tesla sites have been in planning and permitting for years, and to be frank until something Tesla says actually exists in the world it's not worth much.
Sure but we’re 8-9 months from cars rolling off the assembly line
Maybe.
There is no compelling reason.
There's a couple I can think of off the top of my head. Can you not?
greater reliability
You're comparing to existing EA chargers, which we know isn't the real comparison at hand here.
Realistically, most people just don’t care about the CCS/NACS debate.
Right, which is why I specifically didn't have it. So let's not start it, because there's no debate to be had. One is superior to the other, and it isn't NACS. That's entirely separate from the conversation being had right now.
claim CCS was the reason everything was bad
Nope. Charger reliability has nothing to do with the connector, stop here. Do not pass go. It was the chargers, not the connectors. The connector decision was one of convenience because Tesla has a reliable network when used with a Tesla.
What I'm suggesting here is that companies are prepared to use the NACS connector, as published by SAE. They announced this because Tesla's network exists now and we didn't know what was going to happen with NEVI funds. Now most of those funds have been allocated (if not all?), and since all of those sites are going to get Combo 1 connectors as well as NACS, it's conceivable to me that they announced NACS to hype things up for a while, and the option to pull out is always there. They have zero requirement to use NACS on either chargers or vehicles, they simply may choose to. There's been quite a swing in perception of supporting a certain CEO in the past 6 months that might not be as appealing to a lot of people, so it may not be the selling point it would have.
Your stance just isn’t grounded in data or evidence, and is at best an emotional appeal for CCS instead of coming to terms that the data simply doesn’t give CCS any true advantage.
Where do you see they only added 21 in the past year? This number aligns closely to magic dock conversions not the total NACS compatible deployments.
Supercharger V3/V4 supports the CCS protocol. This is the number each car maker is citing when they say 12000 (earlier this year). V3 has been deployed for a couple years now.
Anyways, here’s my sources:
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Slide 6 of the Q3 investor talk: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2023-Update-3.pdf (so it’s 1.4/day)
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supercharger.info: go to the graphs tab and start around Q3 2022 and compare to around Q3 2023. they very closely align to the above document suggesting this third party site can’t be too far off.
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TMC forums where people post photos of charging sites: (here’s one sorta close to me as an example) https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/supercharger-stafford-va-eustace-rd.305924/
There are literally at least a couple hundred threads of people posting construction updates started this year (and a sanity spot check suggests at least several of these are completed)
And to be very clear, this is 250kW DCFC stations.
And I have my personal experience that suggests a fast deployment: I live outside of DC and have regularly driven from around from Richmond to Baltimore this year. I have seen 7-8 come up alone:
- Tysons Corner, VA - I go to the mall this is at from time to time
- the one south of Fredericksburg on Jefferson Davis Highway - friend lives nearby and we’re both electrical nerds so we went to check it out
- District Heights, MD - noticed as it popped up as a charging stop
- Cumberland, MD - pretty drive
- Another Leesburg, VA charger - I’m in this area a couple times a year
- Another Reston, VA charger - I’m in this area a couple times a year
- Another Stafford, VA charger - Visiting a friend who’s just off this road a few times a year
- Another Gaithersburg, MD charger - Another person I see about once a year
When my car shows a new red blip for a charger, I get curious if I’m in the area.
I am seeing more than 5 other threads with new chargers started and finished this year on TMC.
To clear something up, I never said the connector itself was more reliable. I’m saying the car makers are probably going to claim that for sales to people who probably heard charging is hard or something.
You’re welcome to tag me in 2-3 years if CCS ends up being chosen over NACS again and I’ll happily concede, but I just don’t see it happening.
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This is why I come to the comments. Thanks for this explainer!