Last week’s announcement from Tesla to create the North American Charging Standard (NACS) from its proprietary charging plug has raised serious questions in some quarters. Tesla’s plan is a smack in the face of regular standardization efforts, and it seems aimed at satisfying the requirements of the National Electric Vehicle…
(November 11, 2022) Today, Tesla Motors made an announcement it seems is meant to solve the issue of electric vehicle charging standards in North America. Tesla’s solution is to unilaterally declare their proprietary charging port is now open for all to use, and that it is now to be called…
Nation-wide EV charging networks looking to close gaps in charging infrastructure coverage.
About 10 years ago the US Dept of Energy started a project to identify the cost for installing solar equipment, to drive down those costs, and therefore accelerate adoption of solar power. According to a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute a similar effort is needed for electric vehicle…
Some of us want to take road trips with electric cars. Thanks to ever-more-powerful fast charging systems and ever-larger battery packs electric car road trips are increasingly possible. A year ago a friend in Romania informed me he would not consider an electric car until it could go 1200 kilometers…
Electric vehicle owners in Iowa, and those wishing to drive across Iowa, might feel frustrated with relative scarcity of charging stations. Recently while scoping out the feasibility of driving an electric car from Kansas City to Minneapolis, I found very few charging stations in Iowa. It turns out that electric…
NY Times reporter Ivan Penn has Broder’d the whole concept of electric cars in an article describing his recent road trip between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Penn, whose beat for the NY Times focuses on alternative energy issues, had as a co-pilot an eVgo employee. You’d think that with…
Electrify America recently announced plans for upgrading the electric car charging user experience. In the immediate term the company will launch a mobile app to help customers find charging stations, reiterated its commitment to keep charging stations open to all through allowing payment using a credit card, while announcing membership…
Last week the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association of Romania monthly report of car sales showed a huge increase in sales of hybrid and all-electric cars in Romania. For the first 9 months of 2018 (Jan-Sep) such cars had a 2.6% market share versus a 1.9% market share in the…
If the standards-based charging networks, and the automakers other than Tesla Motors, are to have a chance, standards-based high-power charging stations like what ABB just unveiled must exist. The Tesla Supercharger network is ingenious only in the forethought exhibited by Tesla Motors to invest in a widespread high power DC…
We don’t think of the Midwest as a hotbed of electric vehicle activity, do we? In actuality, the Kansas City area has had electric vehicle owners for 20 years or more. Over the last couple years, the local electrical utility (Kansas City Power and Light) has built up an impressive…
Yesterday, a post by John Voelcker of Green Car Reports noted that General Motors has no intention to invest in building fast charging infrastructure. He had been able to attend a meeting between the press and GM at CES last week. Several GM executives agreed, no support by GM to…
Audi seems to have a clue — for long range electric cars to succeed, there must be a widespread fast charging network offering charging rates well above 100 kiloWatts. Tesla Motors has demonstrated with its Supercharger network that the combination of 70 kiloWatt-hours or more energy, and 120 kiloWatt charging,…
Tesla Motors electric cars use a proprietary charging plug. Adapters are available from Tesla Motors allowing owners of their cars to use public charging stations built with standard charging plugs (J1772, Mennekes, CHAdeMO). Tesla Motors is also deploying charging stations, both fast charging and destination charging, to locations around the…
Today two different car makers announced expansion of their electric vehicle charging station programs. We applaud any increase in charging station deployments, because there is a crying need to switch to electric drive, and more charging stations is an essential necessary step. However, the charging stations aren’t being deployed for public use, but for…
