A new report from The Detroit Free Press shines a light on a growing problem with regard to promoting EV adoption: EV charging locations that are in dimly lit and sometimes dangerous areas.
The newspaper spoke to several industry experts who agreed that the location of many EV chargers, which are often in deserted parking lots, behind businesses or tucked in a corner somewhere, could pose a danger to motorists who need to charge up late at night. Moreover, consumers may be put off by the prospect of ever owning an EV if they believe they could become stranded at one of these less-than-desirable charging locations.
Desmond Wheatley, CEO of Beam Global, a company that manufactures portable solar chargers, told The Detroit Free Press that many chargers are often tucked toward the back of parking lots as most companies want to place them as close as possible to the building’s power source to reduce installation costs. He says that while early adopters put up with this practice, “mass consumers will not.”
The article also references General Motors’ recent announcement to install 40,000 EV chargers in the United States and Canada, saying the automaker has an opportunity to make a “major impact,” with these chargers by bucking the trend and building them in well-lit, easy-to-access locations with nearby amenities like restaurants, coffee shops and bathrooms. The automaker said previously these chargers would be built in “key locations,” such as GM dealerships, as well as “workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, sports and entertainment venues and college and universities, among others.”
“These two initiatives are part of our plan to put everyone in an EV, making access to charging even more seamless than before,” GM President Mark Reuss said in October. “We want to give customers the right tools and access to charging where and when they need it, while working with our dealer network to accelerate the expansion of accessible charging throughout the U.S. and Canada, including in underserved, rural and urban areas.”
GM will begin installing its first chargers in the U.S. and Canada early next year.
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Comments
The ones in my city that are not Tesla stations are easy places to get robbed. A dude got held at gun point a week ago at a charging station in a Kroger parking lot. I guess it’s easy targets if you are looking at your phone not paying attention for 15min+
I’m not familiar with this garbage as they don’t dispense gasoline. Do you have to pay to use these things?
You can sometimes find a free Level 2 charger (5-12 hours to charge a vehicle). Level 3 you must pay (45 minutes-2 hours to charge).
The most common method is payment through an app from the company that owns the charging station. Other chargers let you pay at the machine like gas pumps. Fancy vehicles give you a card you can tap to facilitate payment. Tesla vehicles have the best charging experience. Just plug in the car and it recognizes your Tesla account and automatically charges the vehicle & account. The latter example is the best and that is where all companies are moving towards. It’s called Plug & Charge. The Mach-E has it, although I’ve heard mixed reports on its success.
With all the gas station shootings in Cleveland and Chicago it can’t be much worse.
I was thinking the same thing. The main difference is in a gas station you spend 5 minutes. Charging you spend at least 1/2hr for Level3 and hours for level2.
90% of people charging will be at home. Still less time than filling.
Get those CP if you can. Always protect yourself.
Putting the chargers toward the back of parking lots also ensures the spaces won’t be iced (internal combustion engine cars parking in EV spaces). Unfortunately, most of the fast chargers near me are at Walmarts, which gets very tiresome, even though you can get just about anything at a Walmart and the restrooms are clean.
I have a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. Just the perfect combination of gas and battery. Big V8 with a electric 2 speed transmission. Plus it can pull my trailer without even trying.
How big is the trailer and how much does it weigh.. Just wondering it’s towing capacity.
EV’s will need new batteries in 10 years (8 if you fast charge all the time). Be prepared to shell 3 to 4 times as much money for a new battery, compared to a new gas engine.
Yes and more garbage in the landfills. Gee where does the materials come from to make the batteries???
1. Redwood Materials
Nevada-based Redwood Materials aims to become the world’s top battery recycling company. It also hopes to create a circular or ‘closed loop’ supply chain by retrieving, recycling and recirculating raw materials such as cobalt, copper and nickel from end-of-life batteries.
Redwood uses a combination of pyrometallurgy – burning batteries to remove unwanted organic materials and plastics – and hydrometallurgy, which uses leaching to soak lithium-ion cells in acids to dissolve the metals into a solution.
In 2020, the company was on target to recycle more than 1GWh-worth of battery scrap materials.
2. Li-Cycle
Li-Cycle describes itself as a closed-loop lithium-ion resource recovery company and, like Redwood Materials, wants to make EV batteries truly sustainable products.
The Canadian company claims that a cumulative worldwide total of 1.7 million tonnes of lithium-ion batteries were due to reach their end of life by 2020. It expects this figure to rise to about 15 million tons by 2030.
Li-Cycle bypasses the smelting process and uses only leaching to contribute to the circular economy by recovering more than 95% of all raw materials found in lithium-ion batteries.
There are other companies already recycling and more will appear. It will become a very lucrative business. You obviously have no idea what is going on in the car industry.
And how are the batteries produced. FYI, in coal fired plants in CHINA. Now that’s really good for your health because they don’t follow the rules.
No at a plant in Arizona by Panisonic and Tesla battery factory, Do you understand how many millions of gas cars. airplanes in the world are putting junk in the air. what coal does is nothing to what all the gas vehicles and airplanes are doing all over the world.
I think you drank the kool-aid
A guy in Finland decided against dropping 22 grand to replace his model S battery. He opted to blow it up with dynamite instead. He was a tad miffed about the replacement cost. Just google finland dynamite tesla if you don’t believe it…
So a person who is clueless, he could have put the battery in the Tesla model s and sold the car for $55.000-$60,000 So there are fools out there without common sense all over the world.
Yup I saw the video also – Great that someone decided to professionally do this and film it..
This is more an indictment of TESLA and their stingy policies than EVs in general…. GM’s FANTASTIC BOLT replacement policy is so generous it would NEVER be done by a company like TESLA.
Saw the video. He was one upset Tesla owner.
Not to mention getting hammered at trade in time for that very reason.
A 10 year old EV that needs a battery has no value. battery replacement cost would exceed the value of the repaired 10 yo car.
Evs have no character. Everyone of them look like an angry bug,unless you go to the 100k models which look a little nicer but not by much. This is a scam and nothing more. Eventually the ev lemmings will figure it out that they’ve been screwed but I doubt it. Last summer I drove to NC utilizing alternate no toll routes. Came home by driving up us13. Never even saw a charging station for an ev. Plenty of gas stations though.
Seriously though, I think we have the cart before the horse here. As EVs become more and more proliferated the number of charging station will fall far behind the number of vehicles needing to be charged, especially if there is some kind of emergency or evacuation that has everyone on the highway at the same time. Not sure what the answer will be, but EVs may not be the panacea that many hope for.
I think they will have to make more secure charging areas.
I don’t think the wire scrapers will be told NO not cut nice size wire and run.
What about AHoles who just want to unplug you for spite?
Price of Aluminum will go sky high with wire and aluminum engine blocks.
More FUD from the”leader” in EVs?
This is a really biased topic for many on both sides. It is time we do away with the biased and deal with the realities. Lying or being miss informed is not going to change a thing.
The story here is a hack job as gas stations are not all that safe either in many cities. In Detroit you pay through bullet proof bank windows.
As for charging 90% will be done at home. What little road charging will be on trips which means highways and hotels. Most of these are not in bad areas unless you really did some bad planning.
Like before going into a city I fuel up out of town before I go in. This means I don’t have to be a target in a bad neighborhood.
EV is coming like it or not. It is not going to be here over night and it will be a slow phase over. These vehicles will be cheaper with longer rangers as the time goes on. Yes there are some challenges but they are being dealt with.
We the enthusiast may not like EV but look at what the average buyer is driving so they are just worried about cost and getting there. The EV will easily do that.
But we need to stop with the fake issues like grid, cost, used batteries and range.
Things still to be worked out are things like resale value and will a out of date EV hold much value or be like an old out dated I phone. If you want to complain now that is a legitimate topic no one knows till it happens as the market will determine that.
Wow!! So many angry comments coming From ICE owners, clearly they have never driven an EV before. It’s sad to hear this negative comments coming from people that have never experienced an EV before… I have driven my EV all over the US and for free with the electrify America chargers since I’m an ID 4 owner… there are many benefits to driving an EV and honestly for all you ICE owners at least test Drive an EV before posting something negative on here! Just cuz you can’t prolly afford one or don’t know much about em doesn’t mean you need to be negative towards it… all automakers are now electrifying all there new models and GUESS WHAT!! your gonna have to buy one cuz you will have no choice!
For all you EV owners, enjoy em and keep cruising… because at least we are doing our part on keeping our planet clean.
You know its great that everyone else is paying for your energy and of course the roads you are driving on. Do tell, when we have reached nirvana and everyone is driving an EV, who will pay all those costs? And FYI, in the US at the moment, 60% of all electricity is generated by you guessed it, fossil fuels.
The truth is this is an emotional issue for many on both sides, Peop,e do not like and at times fear change.
Some times the fear is irrational but with some change the government has force has been dishonest or down right wrong too.
Each and everyone of us should address this change with honesty and education. There is good about it but also some negatives that still need addressed.
We have for years had cheap and easy transportation. But now the regulations have driven cost up and products to things that are just appliances.
Many judge EV in what it is today not 15 or 20 years from now. I expect since it is close it will be a non invasive transition. In a few years to own a EV will not change your life style in a negative way with high cost and long charge times or range.
Years ago people were identified by the car and the cylinder count. Today it has just become an appliance accept for a few models.
Right now we as enthusiast should fight to protect classic and collector car that impact the environment little. We need to focus to make sure they do no let the progressive appointed officials at the EPA from regulating our cars and fuel to prevent us from weekend enjoyment.
I just want to make sure that I do not have to build a room to park my classic in to just enjoy it as it will not be permitted on the roads.
Based on how the EPA tried to regulate modifying race cars emissions it is the next step for them. Just read up on the RPM act to see what the EPA tried to sneak through.
What’s sad is you care about what a bunch of random strangers you don’t know and will never meet think. It’s 2022 big man step out of your safe space and stop worrying. And as far as people can’t afford it? That’s laughable considering automakers are still making $80k suv and trucks that are selling the second they hit the dealer lots. It’s ok we get it you have some cheap $30k ev and want to seem important like you got money. Automakers are not going to stop making gas powered vehicles for a long time you must be high if you think they are. If you were doing your part to keep the planet clean you wouldn’t support anything that is destroying mountains to make the rare earth materials.
In-home charger ran $750. Installation of 50 amp breaker for 240 volt connection was $850 for hardwire or outlet option. At least we can charge our 2022 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid Phev at home…about 35 miles on electric and a combined gas/electric of 78 mpg
Even though I didn’t want it, GM is offering free professional installation of ‘220’ outlets combined with a beefy charging cord free-of-charge with the most basic BOLT EUV. That would have saved you $1700.
Price for a new mustang ev, 50,000, cost of replacement battery, 54,000…enjoy
The only Tesla charging station in my City, is in the low part of a shopping center near Five Guys. Whenever we get heavy rain, the parking lot floods under several inches of water. Is it safe to use a high voltage charger while standing in ankle deep water? Asking for a friend!
Some of the first cars built in America were electric. I believe the EV cultist name is going a bit too far. It seems to me that many of those who dispise EV’s are politically motivated to think they are some sort of leftist plot to undo American values. Technology is evolving all around us and change will happen whether one agrees or disagrees about EV’s being good or bad.
January 9, 2017 AUTOMOBILES, THE 1910S
Get A Horse! America’s Skepticism Toward the First Automobiles
The inventor who claimed the first U.S. car ever sold recalls the birth of the industry and the general public skepticism about automobiles.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us. I am sure that in few months to comes when EV Battery companies starts to implement more charging stations, we should be getting better services.
People that live in apartment bldgs will be out of luck when it comes to charging at home.