Installing electric vehicle chargers at GM dealerships as part of The General’s rapidly developing EV strategy seems to be causing the GM dealer network headaches, according to recent reporting.
Many dealers claim even the limited number of charger installations GM initially requires involve time-consuming, costly upgrades to dealership infrastructure, Automotive News says in its report. Larger dealerships will eventually need to install a greater number of chargers to meet GM’s expectations, further boosting upgrade complexity.
A principal difficulty, according to the report, is that a standardized approach to EV charger installation seems to be impossible. Every dealership has a unique set of circumstances, including the distance to a transformer with high enough capacity to supply correct charging, the age and layout of dealership buildings and the wildly different requirements of local ordinances.
These factors add up to every dealership charger installation being a customized process that must be developed from the ground up, meeting a very complex set of parameters and circumstances. Absent any possibility of a uniform, consistent solution, dealers must work out the details of an unfamiliar, complicated upgrade on their own.
“Putting a puzzle together blindfolded” is how the president of the Landers Auto Group, which owns eight dealerships in Tennessee, described the process to Reuters.
Nearby physical infrastructure such as parking lots and public streets may need major modification, alongside installation of panels, switchgears, and transformers to support the new charging load. Total expense for a GM dealer in laying the groundwork for Level 3 fast chargers can climb to $750,000.
GM’s current requirement is for one to three Level 2 chargers and one to two Level 3 fast chargers at a typical Chevy, GMC, or Cadillac dealership. January 2022 saw The General announce a partnership with Blink Charging to supply Level 2 alternating-current chargers to its dealers in the form of the 80-amp Blink IQ 200.
GM was already receiving GM dealer pushback against its dealership electrification plans as early as September 2020. Rural dealerships in particular noted lack of local interest in EVs. Nevertheless, GM moved ahead with its plans, beginning its charger upgrade requirements with Cadillac dealerships in early 2021.
Cadillac dealerships were given a choice between adding EV chargers, an upgrade estimated to cost each GM dealer approximately $200,000 at the time, or to be bought out for between $300,000 and $500,000. The number of active Cadillac dealerships fell from a high of 921 in 2018 to 564 in April 2022.
GM repeated the choice between EV charger installation or buyout for Buick dealers in September 2022. The company is clearly looking ahead, since 2024 is the earliest a Buick EV model is expected to debut. However, neither GMC nor Chevrolet dealers will receive a buyout offer,
GM has announced that it plans to release 30 new EVs over the next three years across all of its brands globally, and to support the production of one million EVs annually by 2025.
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Comments
Watch, the companies over pricing these charges will be out of business and wasted american tax dollars. There is no reason these things cost this much. However the government won’t go after these people who are truely price gouging these dealerships because of their brained washed green climate agenda which may truely hurt the United States. I don’t mind EV’s but pushing them on everyone is eventually go to cause a lot of problems.
Bummer, lol.
They just ask dealers to renovate so how did they not plan for chargers to be added to there property.
They didnt plan cause from my understanding some choose not work on evs due to the cost of working on them, tooling, lifts, chargers, power system upgrades a whole laundry list that gets into the millions. Also this is just the tip of the iceberg of things that people dont realize is coming due to the so to speak ev craze that will have consequences and adverse affects on everyone involved in dealing with these evs. Take for example say one gets in a wreck, ok well that ev will have to be treated in such a way that is very different than say an ice. Wrecker drivers will have to have specialized equipment just to deal with, cant use aluminum roll back due to spilled battery concerns, it will have to be in cased in something like a roll off container for protection something made of steel, and when it gets to a body shop for repairs even if it can be repaired are the body shops gonna have the room for roll off containers sitting around their business? There are explosion, fire, environmental concerns. The fire dept has to reevaluate how to handle these evs compared to ice vehicles. On a typical ev fire the fire dept are having to use vast amounts more of water to put these evs out, aren’t our lakes, n rivers going dry? Also what are you going to do with all that runoff with contaminated water? Also insurance is 40-50% higher on an ev. These are just some of the things ive been hearing about in my industry. I imagine there will be plenty more new problems and obstacles to overcome just so we can operate and maintain them.
I don’t think the average Joe understands how much of an upgrade will be needed to any location needing those DC level 3 chargers. Most dealerships do not have that extra capacity available and will require an additional power panel added to supply the chargers. Not to mention most electric companies charge a higher per KWH rate when the power meter is spinning at a much rapid rate. The locations near my home that have chargers available to the public will not be adding more because they are losing money. They charge 70 cents per KWH to charge but the utility is north of a buck per KWH due to the massive surge in use when the charger is active. The solution is battery banks on site that can be charged at a slower rate but you are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it will not happen for the private mom and pop stores. Typical cart in front of the horse planning. Thats what you get when government sticks their nose where it does not belong.
I don’t think the average comment here nor GM Corporate understands how LITTLE is actually required….
If GM is requiring a Level 2 and a Level 3 Charger, the 12 year old 15 amp level 2 (3,000 watt) charging facility minimally meets the first requirement, that they installed for sale of the 2011 volt and every plug-in since..
The Level 3 requirement is satisfied by a 25 kw single-phase 200/230/277 volt unit. But not those Horrid Bosch things they installed in 2017… Get something that works…. The cost for installing these are minimal and will function on whatever existing electricals the dealership already has.
All that is NECESSARY for maintenance purposes is that the 110, 220 and LEVEL 3 (also called DCFC) is functioning properly.. The ‘110’ test can be performed with the charging cord supplied with every GM plug-in to date.
As far as mandating 16 kw level 2 chargers (200 volts @ 80 amperes), or 150 kw 480 volt input 3-phase chargers, such large things are not necessary to determine if the charging facilities for Levels 1,2, and 3 are functioning properly.
GM and FORD especially are putting ridiculous requirements on dealerships, yet GM cannot supply a timely vehicle. Just plenty of photoshopped crap.
The Bosch is the only one that has worked without needing to be serviced. We have one ABB 50kw charger and two Blink chargers, all have gone down within 6 months of being installed. I have been waiting over a month for them to be repaired by one of their technicians. They won’t allow us to work on them or our electrician to do anything beyond reading an owners manual.
Poor quality chargers;. Several Chevy dealers around here have them and none of them work and Robert Bosch has discontinued replacement rectifier/inverter packs for them..
If ABB is worse, then that is pretty bad. They just rewound all the 300,000 hp generators (13) of them on the US side of Niagara falls.
I suspect their Dumber engineers work on chargers.
Unlike the Level 2 stuff, the level 3 stuff is complicated and will need a 50 mhz oscilloscope to troubleshoot problems as well as special high voltage probes. I would get all the diagnostic help from ABB I could get, and make sure someone who is Truly Competent to work on it. You could get lucky and find an easy loose connection, but it’s like an old TV set. Sometimes changing all the tubes STILL does not fix it.
Mechanic bill : To put it politely, that sounds like ‘Evidence – Free Analysis’.
I agree its not that hard nor complex, but what your forgetting bill is everyone is gonna have to get their turn at that door knob, everyone who touches or inspects it or diagnoses anything with the installation of the evs chargers it is gonna get a big ole chunk.
Top brass at GM do not have a clue! I am glad I am not involved any more. GM seems to be getting worse instead of better
Another good reason to avoid an EV, plus, who wants to hang out at a dealership all afternoon while your car charges? This whole mess is a forced solution looking for a problem.
A hammer in search of a nail…
and look at the burden placed on rural dealerships where there is NO interest in EV’s at all… they’ll all go out of business.
Charlie – At the rate GM is turning out EVs, there will be a need for precious few EV qualified dealerships anyway….. I’ve been driving solely plug-in models (vast majority GM products) since 2011 and even I can see the wisdom of some of the smaller dealers wanting to avoid plug-ins… So be it.
The other comment I made here shows how simple it is to satisfy a reasonable maintenance charging requirement… In the past the ‘high speed’ 25 kw charger was throttled down to about 15 kw to minimize the dealership’s electric bill, which is also a justifiable practice. So even a minimalistic charger like this may be FURTHER downsized.
As regards those BLINK IQ200 – 80 ampere chargers, a Burger King Restaurant down the street installed TWO of them, but with limited facilities has them each throttled down to a much more reasonable 30 amperes (6 kw maximum)
so why are you here Carl ? just to stir up crap ? you must not have a life
Carl:
One local privately owned smallish dealership group here wanted to sell Chevy volts and later on, Cadillac ELRs.
GM’s requirement at the time was that each EV dealership had to have a ‘Level 2’, (220 volt) charger.
This dealer satisfied the requirement at their largest facility by installing ONE low cost wall mounted charger.
But, the smaller ‘Satellite’ facilities charged up vehicles for test drives using a Harbor ‘junk’ Tools 110 extension cord and the vehicle’s 110 charging cord!
I assume when GM did an Audit they just gave the number of the main facility’s charger.
So It will be interesting to see what cost-saving work around the smaller dealers come up with…
Bill, that will work until the corporate bean counters come onsite and do a physical audit, the the dealership is in deep poo
Charlie –
They are a smallish dealership group. Not tiny…. I would assume GM is not so ANAL that they can afford to arbitrarily get rid of a significant retail presence in a certain area..
An audit fail will simply cause the dealership to spend the funds required – GM’s requirements are less onerous than FORDs, as an example.
And I would further assume that GM Dealerships get vocal when mandated to do things that do not really mesh with their business plans….
After all, the Dealership Model is very beneficial to GM…. All the Physical Stock, and financing become the dealer’s problem – off loading it from GM Corporate.
The new green deal is just starting to show its green deal. There are going to be a lot of green dollars spent and a lot of headaches to make the green deal work. I think this is just the beginning so get ready. It’s going to be a roller coster ride.
Unreal, our dealer was forced to upgrade their complete building a few years ago to an exorbidant cost and now this? This was a small family business who had been in business since 1954 and was very well respected in the community. At that time it had been owned and operated by three generations. Due to what they had the foresight to see coming they sadly sold out to a larger out of the area dealership. So far the family is still involved running the dealership but since this is still a smaller dealership whose inventory in good times contained perhaps 100 cars and suv’s and 50 trucks I don’t believe even the new owners can ever justify this kind of investment. I give it two years and the place will be closed. Sad how the government thinks they know best when they never walked in the shoes they are forcing to do these things. Where we live perhaps 5% of the people are interested in EV’s. It just isn’t feasable.
The same thing happened to our local Chevy dealership, it’s now owned by a large dealership conglomerate. I now travel to another small dealership to do business.
The biggest problem with EV is they are being pushed onto the market before the market really wants them. There is a market but going 100% forward is not a very good business plan. When EV sales exceeded ICE vehicles, businesses and dealers will adjust. Right now no profit and no sales, long delivery time makes a hard case for dealers to adapt at their expense.
And not everyone wants battery cars mandated , and that is the main majority. Climate change is b.s. the world has been evolving for millions of years
Climate is and always will be cyclical but those in power refuse to see that. They insist on judging what is in the future by the last 85 years. You have to go back centuries. The brains told us back in the 60s and 70s that catalytic converters and unleaded gas was the answer to all pollution. BS that was too.
No one ever said that climate isn’t cyclical. The issue is how much it has changed and how fast it has happened. Over the last million years up until the industrial revolution the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere cycled between about 180 parts per million and 300 parts per million and going from 180ppm to 300ppm took thousands of years. Compare that to the last 200 years where the CO2 levels have literally DOUBLED in only 200 years. The level now is 420ppm. At the current rate of increase the CO2 concentration will be 550ppm by 2050. That’s just a little over 25 years.
Climate change is definitely NOT BS. You are clueless.
And we know this because we had the same quality of systems capable of taking such accurate baseline measurements 200 years ago, let alone thousands of years ago…
Maybe we should all wear masks to reduce the spread of CO2…
Go back to school get some education
Thanks, that added real value to the conversation. But until someone convinces China, which currently emits 2.5 times more CO2 than the US annually and has NO plans to slow down (they are building more coal-fired electricity generating stations every year), I’ll take my ICE-powered vehicle and a more common sense approach of transitioning to EV instead of bankrupting the US economy with scare tactics and bullsh!t.
amen!
I would prefer synthetic fuel and hydrogen cars ,battery cars and lithium lakes and cobalt mines no thank you. Peace on Bro
Are the chargers at the dealerships intended for use by the dealership only for their EV inventory?
Or, are the dealership chargers available for the GM EV owner to stop in and get charged up?
When I go by a dealer that has EV’s in inventory, there are always one or two EV’s plugged in. As EV inventory increases, I’m sure dealers will offer free limited charging, just like free oil changes.
I have been commenting for the last year that this administration did zero strategic due diligence, no strategic roadmap or planning for this country to eliminate fossil fuels and go all green. The US infrastructure grid cannot handle the load and is estimated to take 25 to 50 years to upgrade. On top of it, they will still need fossil fuels to run the grid. This country cannot run or survive on solar, wind turbines, and batteries. Period. In addition, no charging station planning was done for cities, apartment complexes, or rural areas and dealerships as noted in this article, yet this administration mandates the auto industry to go all EVs by 2030-2035. Mandates to go all-green are going to further destroy our economy and the environment before climate change does. While this woke DIverse, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) administration is destroying the country’s energy sector by eliminating fossil fuels, China is building two new coal plants a week to boost and support their energy consumption and infrastructure. I am not against EVs or being more energy efficient but we need leaders with common business sense running this country not mandates for financial gain and power.
Not enough power plants currently to fulfill the total EV vision. We need a reasonable transition time. GM will be in trouble
going 100 % EV. Toyota is going with a mix of EV’s, Hybrid’s, and ICE. Then adjust volumes as infrastructure transitions.
Toyota is in serious trouble as are all legacy companies, they all laughed at Tesla and said electric cars will never work, well they were wrong and now they are 5 years behind Tesla and wont catch up, I know Mary Barra said GM will over take Tesla, but thats a lie ,even the head of VW , who is the biggest car maker on the planet , came out and said we cant compete with Tesla, takes us 30 hours to produce a car and Tesla can do it in 10 hours , gas cars will be fewer and fewer over time, battery tech is changing fast , Gm is still using lithium batteries, which are very expensive, their ultium battery isnt in any cars yet and its already a obsolete tech, they should be into LFP batteries. they are in trouble and they know it
You are correct. As I mentioned above, this green EV mandate without transitional strategic planning is going to have a serious financial impact to the auto industry, economy, and the consumer. “Ford just announced it reported a loss of $3 billion for its EV unit, earned adjusted earnings of about $7 billion for its internal combustion unit, and earned adjusted earnings of roughly $6 billion for its fleet business.” They are talking to Wall Street and restating their earning to give them a better understanding of how its EV business is evolving and how profits from its ICE business is funding its EV business. To me as a former owner of 7 businesses and a technologist that’s a warning signal to Wall Street. You have a very profitable ICE business which is using its profits to fund and a newly government mandated EV business that won’t have a national US electrical grid infrastructure to support the charging for these EV for a least 25-50 years (City vs Rural). In addition, given the state of our economy, inflation, interest rates, cost of food etc. consumers cannot afford to purchase these expensive EVs. Multiple studies have been conducted that show EVs are going to be more expensive to run and maintain than ICE vehicles. As I stated above, I am not against EVs or new technology. I think mandating this green new initiative is going to a severe impact on the auto industry and the global economy. I am anticipating bailouts are on the horizon.
yep all the car companies were already in serious debt , and they are sinking more everyday, they will all be asking for government help and it really their own fault
evs will be like computers and phones, by the time you buy it its obsolete, cant imagine that would be a problem with repairs:) they have put the cart way before the horse in this ev craze. Teslas are ahead of others but what happened the other day, ole elon musk cut the price of those ahead of the times teslas by like 20-40 percent, cant imagine what that will do to the price of used ones:) Disposable razors at a premium price
And Tesla is building a 25 thousand dollar car soon, that will kill the competition, things don’t look good for legacy car makers
Musk has been building a 25k car for about 5 years. That has to be one hell of a long assembly line because none have rolled out the door yet. Who knows, maybe it crashed into the cybertruck shutting down both lines. lol!
Climate change is definitely NOT BS. You are clueless.
Battery technology isn’t really changing that fast. Energy density isn’t really any better than it was like 10 years ago. Some new breakthrough in battery technology that actually makes a significant improvement on energy density and charge cycles is always “just a few years from commercial availability” but it never actually happens. I have no doubt it will happen eventually but I’m done believing any timelines. I’ll believe it when it happens.
Amen!!!!!
“Cluster😣😣😣” .
Mary says too bad for you dealers. If you small dealerships get smashed, you can eat cake. Just dumb, but typical Mary quite contrary.
Run more dealer points out of business. No worry about all those competitors ready to pounce on all the business lost by GM.
Wait for the toadies to defend this.
The 4 dealerships I went to see here in Montreal about the Bolt had chargers already installed in 2019. They all said it was an easy install. You guys in US seem to be getting screwed all the time. My 2023 Bolt is coming soon.
Every time a dealer marks up a car beyond MSRP, they should have to install 5 additional chargers. That would be some righteous karma…
When you pull into a dealer that has 20 chargers, you’d know right away what kind of dealership you’re dealing with…
Here in Massachusetts we have no nuke power. Natural gas pipelines are proposed and always rejected. Hydro power from Canada has been stopped by the voters in Maine. We now have one of the highest KWH rates in the U.S. I’m having a hard time seeing a future without some form of fossil fuels for our transportation and energy needs.
what is your rate ?
jimm:
I think it varies from 23 to 25 cents/ kwh….. Still cheap compared to places like NYC and Hawaii.
But point taken that in more and more places, cheap gasoline will take the refueling cost advantage away from evs. Of course, it is somewhat difficult to predict the cost of gas in the states.
wow that is super charger rates,, I pay 13 cents no matter what time of day I charge
Right Jim:
And we should fully trust the US EPA who recently said the water in the OHIO river is safe to drink after 45,000 fish died, and that the air is safe to breathe , both in East Palestine, Ohio, where the intentional burning of derivatives of vinyl chloride and other great things such as phosgene created mustard gas, dioxins, and other horrid things with a nuclear bomb sized Black mushroom cloud over the whole town 3 days after the train derailment, where ALL outside animals died, and now pets are dying.
Perfectly Safe.. Uh Huh..
Meanwhile, Plant Food. (CO2) is , per this August Agency is, a “Dangerous Pollutant !”
Unbelievable the unrest regarding this subject.
All governments at all levels are promoting EV’s because of climate change. It’s man’s first attempt to eliminate fossil fuels as a main source of pollution and politicians are getting on the bandwagon to be green. EV’s will be the future but not as fast as businesses want it to get the money back on the investments. World wide not many countries or none at all can supply power to charge millions of EV’s. With climate warming, more power is needed and that in itself takes increased power production.
Yeah government is promoting because of what they now call climate change but going to evs is like saying, that fire is getting hotter i think we should try and putit out with some gasoline. Utter insanity.
Its 13 cents here
That is nothing compared to the headaches associated with GM wanting each dealership to find local business to install level 2 stations. Sure they pay for the stations at around 5k per pedestal. However the average cost to the local host site is 100k, for a charger only guarantee for 5 years, 10 max life. I love the idea, but local infrastructure, incentives, and legislation is just not catching up fast enough.
Jimm: I checked the latest bill and my rate is 25 cents / KWH. Starting next month my Supplier Charge is going to be increased by 50%, which is the lowest rate I can get as negotiated by my town. Welcome to Massachusetts!
I guess I am the only electrical contractor here. Total BS on the cost for charger installation. The cost of a 80 to 100 amp circuit to power a charger would be like wiring up a paint booth or new air compressor. This article is dealers crying for handouts or them getting what they gave out the last two years by the local electrical contractor….. JMHO
FYI been a electrical contractor for 34 years
Yes Joey, the number in the article is probably the extreme end but a big part is how many charging stations GM will require. It’s not just the electric part, the location on the facility, other than added cost to increase the amperage to the building if it is max out, breaking concrete and asphalt, burying conduit, landscape replacement, maybe even lighting the area. If the power is at the other end of the building that would be a lot of conduit work. Just so many variables that there cannot be a simple cost factor. Thanks for your comment.
The 19.2kW (80amp) level 2 chargers are easy and inexpensive compared to installing 50kW level 3 chargers which require 3-phase electricity, that’s where all the huge expense comes in.
Most dealerships if not all have 3 phase power.
Very very common. Most I would bet would not need the service upgraded. Think of buying 6 new truck lifts and the cost of wiring em up . I think the name EV is what triggers the madness.
Joey
Joey Rosario:
Here is the issue.. A small Rural Dealership may have a 120Y/208 volt 300 ampere electric service….So that can handle around a 80 kw continuous loading..
Larger dealerships in my area are either 800 amps @ 120Y/208 or 400 amperes @ 277Y/480.
At any of these facilities, adding just a single 150 kw DC FAST Charger (Level 3) with 480 volt ac input, will require more than 200 amperes budgeted for it and will require a new service and switchgear. Plus, in the case of a dealership with only a 120Y/208 or 120/240 4-wire delta service, additional 480 to 120y/208 volt transformers inside the dealership for the smaller incidental loads – such as showrooms and maintenance garages.
It would therefore not surprise me at all to have a dealership desirous of selling the entire Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac Lines to want to basically meet such requirements – yet do so in a minimalistic way to fully satisfy diagnostic requirements, but has no real need to quickly recharge anything, and thereby get by with whatever existing facilities they have from the Last Mandated Remodel.
I would agree if that load was exceeding the rating of the main service it would cost to upgrade or just (what I would do!) build a separate service for just the charging station .
Still not near the money suggested . Also battery storage would be viable answer as they continue to come down in price. Wait did I say Tesla ? Lol
I agree the dealer shouldn’t foot the whole bill and Gm and ford should step up. However Gm and ford have bigger issues than charging !
Battery tech and building to scale will be the test of survival……
Joey
Joey Rosario :
The problem with a separate 200 amp 277Y/480 service dedicated to the fast charger, (and a 300 amp 277Y/480 service will be required by the inspector if a non-throttled back 150 kw continuous load), still doesn’t take care of the problem of an 80 amp level 2 charger (I suppose if in the case of the small Rural dealership example I gave before – perhaps GM would allow throttling down to 30 amperes (doubt the auditor would check for this), and place it on the existing service, or they could run up to 2 of these 80 amp things off of a cheap 200 amp 120/240 single-phase service….
In that case the Dealership has a lowered first cost, but has demand charges for the peak monthly demands that with a Single service are much less than the total billed demands from 3 separate services where the loading peaks are non-coincident…
I suspect that the De Facto solution will be what dealerships have ALWAYS done in the past 10 years – after the initial installation – throttle back the charging rate MASSIVELY to save on electricity billing.
If it works for Burger King, with 2 – Blink IQ200 ’80 ampere’ chargers running on 200 volts @ 30 amperes per port, it will work at the dealerships.
Also let us not forget that Chinese investment groups are buying up American car dealerships like its a fire sale. My local gm, Toyota, Dodge, Kia, Hyundai were all bought and are now run by the same Chinese investment group. When that happened techs were reduced, on hand parts stock went to the very minimum, parts salesmen were reduced, top techs pay was cut so most moved on to other jobs, but hey they got a fancy new sign out front:)