A Plug for Electric Vehicles

Introduction

While the Trump administration was fiddling with the auto fuel efficiency standards of the Obama administration, auto manufacturers in the US and around the world were designing, manufacturing, and selling 21st century electrified vehicles (EVs). A fact President Trump and his cabal were content to ignore.

Now that Trump has left the building, the federal government can be expected to work in consort — rather than at cross-purposes — with the US auto industry. There’s much to be done, including building out the infrastructure required for wide-spread deployment, training workers, and shaping markets. It will prove a heavy lift

How big a lift? A recent report by the California Energy Commission offers some insight into what it would take to meet Governor Newsom’s order banning the sale of internal combustion vehicles by 2035.

The Commission estimates the Golden State would need 1.5 million charging stations by 2030. The current count for California is around 70,000 stations. The total “plugs” in the nation is estimated at 84,000. It should be noted that twenty-five percent of the nation’s total is proprietary to Tesla and not available to other car brands.

President Biden has set a goal of adding 500,000 charging stations to the national inventory. Do the math. If all those new…