evVG Building Out the EV Charging Network

“ In the context of EV charging, you can think about if one of you is building a new store or a new DC fast charging hub that requires a feeder upgrade, a transformer, or maybe a substation, who pays for that? Is that going to be the company that covers that cost? Is that going to be the utility? Or is that going to be all rate payers or a subset? And those are the decisions that the regulators are tasked with overseeing, and how it works is a utility will propose a program or a process and the regulators will assess it and see if it is just and reasonable. Garrett Fitzgerald , Senior Director of Transportation Electrification, SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance)

NOTABLE AND QUOTABLE “ So at the end of the day, I do think that as momentum grows, people start to understand more from your point, Gabe, yes, an education piece. But more so when something is less scary or less unknown, they’re going to be more likely to feel more receptive to change. And when you see stories in the news about EV growth slowing, it’s still a drastically growing industry regardless of what’s going on anywhere in any sector of the U.S. economy. Chris Normandeau , Director, FirstService Energy

“ Up until now, we have seen increases continuously. It’s just a matter of how fast and some of the earlier projections had extremely steep ramp…We’re seeing projections updating that are showing less growth, but it’s still growth. We are still seeing that quarter over quarter, a month- over-month growth over the past year. That’s still continuing. Darren Palmer , Global VP Electric Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor Company

“ I can imagine that if it were any other customer who doesn’t know, who is afraid, who is nervous about this transition, that it could have absolutely led to them returning that car. So I guess I just wanted to kind of plus up the whole education component because the dealers, a lot of Americans still really depend on the dealers to provide accurate information, and if the salespeople can’t do that, we have a huge problem. Sophia Schuster , Policy Principal, Michigan EIBC

“ What we have to understand is that we’re in the very, very early days in terms of penetration and adoption. And so it’s chicken and the egg. If you see these up and down your block, you’re like, “Oh, there is charging everywhere.” And that’s what people want to know. Then you get the massive adoption you see in Norway or you see in China and the gas station’s also going to be busy. Our problem is we’re not getting to that tipping point and a lot of people aren’t buying because they don’t see charging. Gabe Klein , Former Executive Director, U.S. Joint Office of Energy & Transportation

“ I just want to pick up on two things because I’m pretty passionate about them as well. One, you talked about folks thinking they need the gas station experience for all charging . But if you pivoted it and said, if you had a gas dispense r at home, would you ever go to a gas station and by the way it was a dollar a gallon? They’d probably say, of course not. Why would I do that? So some very slight pivots and sort of how you think about things can be helpful. Garrett Fitzgerald , Senior Director of Transportation Electrification, SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance)