- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- usa@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- usa@lemmy.ml
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deleted by creator
Excellent explanation, but the article title is also bullshit because both Penn and ohio have started building chargers already in the last month or so, they just aren’t finished. These two are in the lead because they had largely done the ground work you describe for EV charger rollouts. The money is doing exactly what it needs to do: give states the capitol to start work immediately. Most states are still planning, but the moneys there to actually make the plans a reality.
Based on the white House statements, no one expected this to immediately happen. They all planned for it to take a while to sort, but once its sorted, to move quickly. Turns out infastructure is hard to do competently, but when you put smart people in charge of it and fund them, it actually gets done.
People can say what they want to about Biden, but the motherfucker had been hiring good people to do good things.
Fun fact: Ohio already has its first NEVI station up and running.
Were people actually expecting the construction to start immediately or something? There’s absolutely wrenches being thrown at the process, and all of the planning and construction time on top of it all.
deleted by creator
The plan all along was to complete everything by 2027, with construction starting in '24 and '25. Every state I’ve cared to look at has a published plan and timeline. 🤷♂️
It’s going to be 90% planning and permitting. 10% construction. There’s very little construction needed. (It may even be 99:1).
Crucially, the cable swap is a non-issue, because the chargers will all use the CCS communication protocol. NACS uses the J1772 pins for sensing and initiating charging, and CCS adds an extra communication layer which Tesla has built into their cars since mid-2019 or something when Europe switched to CCS Combo 2 as the EU standard.
I’m not personally a promoter of the NACS connector for lots of reasons nobody cares about, but I’m glad we’ve at least landed on the common communication protocol. If all these chargers started popping up in 2024 with CCS Combo 1 connectors, I wonder how many of these other brands would actually migrate to the NACS wand versus just continuing on with Combo 1 forever. I’m not convinced any of them really care either, and it’s just a matter of convenience for customers. Without the necessity to rely on Tesla’s charging network, that convenience sort of evaporates. Add in an adapter for NACS to CCS, and I think the whole issue goes away.
deleted by creator
They haven’t switched yet, though. And that’s one of the points I’m making. They have said they’re switching in 2025. To me, that sounded a lot like they were waiting to see what happened with chargers in US and Canada. Announcing charger support for it is also not a meaningful announcement since you really only need to change the cable end. It’s like saying I now support winter boots. I didn’t change my feet, so it’s not a meaningful statement.
The number of EVs sold isn’t an argument that’s going to sway me. As I’ve said, I have technical reasons I don’t like the NACS connector. If everyone sticks to the current announced plan, then we get DCFC with both connectors and nobody really cares. But if the charger manufacturers and EV manufacturers decide to drop NACS as a whole, I don’t think anybody will know or care in 3-4 years time outside of Tesla owners that need an adapter to access other brands chargers.
deleted by creator
This is why I come to the comments. Thanks for this explainer!
They should definitely rush to spend 7bn so that the job is done poorly and everybody complains more about the ineffectiveness of our government. Especially with the changes in charging connection standards in the US.
Hasn’t it been over two years?
Not to mention it’s not like EV chargers were just invented 2 years ago. States should have already been exploring options. My state has already come up with numerous ways to charge EV drivers more for driving on the roads, all the while paying lip service by making pledges to reduce climate change, but now that there’s funding for a legitimate initiative, we get zero action.
I’m not clear how the money was allocated. Is it for local governments or federal agencies to build them? It says along highways, and so I suppose it’s for agencies, but I just wonder if the funds aren’t going to end up as part of some bigger projects. And I also wonder if they’re not using it as grants to developers. I dunno. But these things take time.
That all being said, it’s definitely easy to see how certain interested parties might try to stifle this development.
deleted by creator
This is correct. The approach some states took (like Ohio) was getting stations placed on pre-existing AFCs (alternative fuel corridors) in order to accelerate the NEVI approval process since placing chargers on a highway not already designated as an AFC would require that road to be recognized as an AFC before any funds would be approved for that particular round of funding. This allowed states like Ohio to side-step some delays and red tape in the beginning so they could get to building stations more quickly and focus on filling out the gaps later.
Source: Participated in some of the NEVI meetings for my state.
