Troubled charging stations threatens goals
California policies offer no standards
Doug Mccune, of Oakland, California, was set to buy an electric car, a Mustang Mach-e. The paperwork was complete; he only needed to sign. Still, he had heard bad things about the EV public charging system and felt nervous.
He borrowed a Mach-e from Ford, tried a few charging stations, then changed his mind.
“I couldn’t count on finding a charger that’s functional or that doesn’t have a line of cars waiting because only one of four chargers is working,” Mccune said. “If I was comfortable with the charger situation, I would have bought the Mach-e.” He chose a Volvo plug-in hybrid instead.
He’s far from the only one worried about the dependability of the state’s charging system. Ask around and many EV owners will agree, public chargers have a bad reputation. Those operated by companies including Chargepoint, Electrify America, Blink and Evgo don’t work 20 to 30 percent of the time, according to studies from University of California-berkeley and data firm J.D. Power.
No performance standards
How did the state-subsidized public charger system end up so problematic? California’s policies are at least partly to blame. The state chose not to require that charger companies meet performance standards as it doled out $1 billion in subsidies, grants and other aid to charger companies, with billions more on the way.
“We were just trying to get chargers out there and learning,” said Patty Monahan, one of five commissioners on the California Energy Commission.
So no financial penalties for poor reliability were included in its subsidy and grant contracts, and no mechanisms for enforcement were set up.
In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered that new cars and light trucks sold in California must be greenhouse-gas-free in increasing numbers until 2028, when more than half must fit that category, and 2035, when 100 percent of new cars and light trucks sold must be “zero emission.” More than a million and a half EVS are on the road today in the state.
Politicians, EV drivers, automakers and California taxpayers wonder how California’s ambitious climate targets can be reached if public charging remains unpredictable.
“The lack of reliability of the EV infrastructure is going to affect the goals unless we get our act together,” said Democratic Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks.
‘If we don’t fix this …’
Strong advocates of electric vehicles, committed to greenhouse gas reduction, are furious at the lax oversight.
“If we don’t fix this, none of our plans, regardless of how good they are, will come to pass because consumers won’t accept EVS without a reliable EV infrastructure,” said Frank Menchaca, president of sustainable mobility solutions at the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Poor oversight stems in part from the state’s scattered approach to EV infrastructure management, critics say. No agency is fully in charge. The energy commission plays a big role; it has issued $448 million in grants and subsidies. The California Air Resources Board oversees an $800 million court settlement with Volkswagen after the emissions cheating scandal. The California Public Utilities Commission, the California Department of Transportation, and the California Division of Measurement Standards are responsible for pieces of EV infrastructure.
The absence of ultimate responsibility troubles automakers such as Kia. The Korean company has committed to EVS and basks in glowing reviews from the automotive media for its new EV6 and EV9 electric cars. But the company is afraid sales will be crimped because too many chargers don’t work.
“What we’ve learned is that the infrastructure is at the top of reasons for rejection of EVS,” said Steve Kosowski, manager of strategy at Kia America, which is based in Irvine. Leadership of California charger spending is too diffuse and should be held more accountable, he said. “There needs to be an individual who is going to be monitoring and assuring and making sure that the funds going into this” are spent effectively.
Another big problem: A lack of comprehensive data. The energy commission “lacks sufficient data on EV charging reliability to assess the reliability of the state’s charging network,” according to a September 2023 report that its staff wrote.
The government can’t even agree how many chargers there are in California.
The federal government counts 43,481 public chargers in the state, only about 50 percent of California’s own tally, according to the report, though the state’s estimate “lacks precision.”
California aims to have 250,000 chargers installed by the end of next year, and a lot more government money is on the way.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be spent over the next several years. The federal government will pump $384 million into California — to be managed by the same agencies handling the state-funded charger program.
Automakers have invested heavily to build EVS and meet the California mandate, which has been adopted by a dozen other states committed to greenhouse gas reduction. Consulting firm Alixpartners said EV investment is expected to reach $616 billion in the five-year period of 2023-27, double the five-year figure for 2021-25.
Meanwhile, with EV owners flustered as automakers fret, charger company top executives are making bank. Pasquale Romano left his job last fall as chief executive at Chargepoint, the nation’s largest charger company measured by total installations. Chargepoint’s board paid him more than $31 million over the past three years, plus stock options that vest this month valued at $44.8 million.
Romano splurged on an $8.2-million home in Los Gatos, California, in September 2022 ($1,051 per square foot), reportedly the year’s priciest single-family home sale in that posh Silicon Valley enclave.
Catherine Zoi quit her job as Evgo chief executive last fall too. Her compensation — more than $8 million — was less than Romano’s, but she’ll have more time to relax. “My husband and I have a ranch in Ojai, growing agave instead of citrus,” she said at a Q&A webinar in November.
Distressed by the state of the public charger system, automobile companies have struck agreements with Tesla to use its Superchargers. The details are yet to be announced.
No word on what percentage of Tesla chargers non-tesla cars will be able to use, how much it will cost, or how Tesla will handle an influx of non-tesla cars.