Is This a Good Idea? A nationwide government-supported electric car-charging network?

November 18, 2009

What's not to like about electric cars? They can perform on the road as well as the gasoline-powered variety, and they would help us to decrease our dependence upon imported oil and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from traffic that are a significant contributor to climate change. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average U.S. car that is driven 12,000 miles a year puts 1.3 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Here is what's not to like about electric cars: Their range limitations.  A gasoline powered car typically can go 300 or more miles between refuelings, but most electric cars can't get anywhere close to that on battery power alone. The old 1990s-vintage lead-acid battery EV-1s of "Who Killed the Electric Car"  fame could get between 55 and 75 miles on a single charge, and even the advanced lithium-ion batteries in the new all-electric Nissan Leaf needs a recharge after 100 miles. At the high end, the Tesla Roadster sports car claims a range of 244 miles without recharging under normal conditions—but that’s presuming that you want to drive a two-seater and can afford to pay $101,000 for one.

As a result, EV owners tend to develop a peculiar psychological malady known as Range Anxiety.  A study of EV drivers’ behavior in Japan a few years ago found that they tended to be so wary of running out of juice that they only ultilized half of their batteries’ 93-mile driving range, and that some seldom strayed beyond 10 miles of their charging station.

But a newly-formed alliance of electric utilities, EV makers and corporate EV supporters called the Electrification Coalition has a solution for the problem. Earlier this week, they issued a report which, among other things, called for building of a nationwide network of charging stations that would make it as easy to recharge your EV as it is to buy a tank of regular. But relying upon private companies to underwrite the development of a national EV charging infrastructure, they say, is a non-starter. Even though the necessary equipment only costs $2,000 to $3,000 per station plus installation, the low prices they would have to charge and the initially small number of customers would make a station owner wait for 10 years to earn back the initial investment. To make it worth their while, the coalition is calling for the federal government to give $124 billion in incentives, including $13.5 billion in tax credits for building charging stations, over the next decade. But Sam Ari, one of the report’s authors, told the Washington Post that that the amount "pales in comparison to the cost of U.S. oil dependence, which has huge environmental, economic and national-security costs."

Assuming that you're not already gagging on the $124 billion number, however, another question arises: Do we really need a federal crash program to create an EV charging infrastructure? And are charging stations the best method? There is already an EV network startup, Palo Alto-based Better Place, which is building robotic battery-swapping stations in six countries. Last year, the company struck a $1 billion deal with several northern California cities to build an EV infrastructure there.

So let me know what you think of the proposal for a publicly-backed network of EV charging stations. Don't be bashful.