Electric vehicles (EV) now account for approximately 10% of new cars sold in the US, with some analysts estimating that this percentage may expand to a full third by 2027.
As more Americans drive EVs, and ride share companies increase the size of their EV fleets, access to charging stations has become a politically charged topic.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly bashed EV, and identifies charging time as a key problem for the vehicles.
“Who wants to drive an electric car for the rest of your life? Does anybody? You don’t want to drive for 45 minutes and then stop for three hours, is that what you want?” Trump said at a speech in Florida in July.
As the presidential race heated up, Trump’s campaign began to attack federal funding for charging stations.
Access to charging remains an Achilles heel for EVs. University of California, Davis researcher Alan Jenn published a new study in October on infrastructure for ridesharing companies Uber UBER and Lyft LYFT . One key finding was that: “The necessary ratio of chargers is approximately 10 times higher for EVs in Uber and Lyft compared to chargers for the general EV owning public” in California.
Jenn argues in a recent article that successful charging, rather than driving range, has become the largest issue facing EV drivers in the U.S. According to his analysis, a significant percentage of charging units in California are non-working at any given point. Perhapsmore significantly, those that do work often do not provide complete charges.
In total, Jenn estimates that a full 30% of EV charges attempted in California fail.
While Jenn sees the decision by Tesla TSLA to open its supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles as a positive development as it expands access to fast chargers, he notes that this shift is proceeding slowly.
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