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Electric vehicles pose a charging challenge for home renters : NPR


Rebecca DeWhitt charges her electric car in the driveway of the Portland, Ore., home she rented on September 30.

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Rebecca DeWhitt charges her electric car in the driveway of the Portland, Ore., home she rented on September 30.

Gillian Flaccus / AP

PORTLAND, Ore. – Stephanie Terrell is excited to join the wave of electric drivers when she buys a used Nissan Leaf this fall.

But Terrell hit a bump in her path during her clean drive: As a renter, she has no place to stay plugged in overnight, and public charging stations near her are frequently opened. use. The 23-year-old recently ran out of power on the freeway because of a toll station she was counting busy with.

“It was really scary and I was really worried that I wouldn’t make it through,” she said. “I feel better about that than buying gas, but there are issues that I don’t really anticipate.”

Cities are looking for toll solutions

The transition to electric vehicles is underway for homeowners who can use electricity in their own garages, but for millions of renters, access to charging remains a significant barrier. Now, cities across the US are trying to come up with innovative public charging solutions as motorists tie up power lines on sidewalks, set up private charging stations on city aisles and line up. in public facilities.

The Biden administration last month approved rollout plans from all 50 states network of high-speed chargers along the interstate highway using $5 billion in federal funding over the next 5 years. But states have to wait to apply for an additional $2.5 billion in local funding to fill the toll gap, including in dense urban areas.

“We have a really big challenge right now with helping people live,” said Jeff Allen, chief executive officer of Forth, a nonprofit that advocates for electric vehicle ownership and charging access. in the apartment easy to charge the battery.

Cities must understand that “promoting electric cars is also part of their sustainable transportation strategy. Once they make that mental shift, there’s a lot of tangible things they can – and should do”.

Fast chargers, also known as DC Fast, can fill up a car in 45 minutes or less. But Level 2 chargers are slower, taking a few hours, still more than DC fast chargers by almost 4-1. Charging on a standard residential outlet, or Level 1 charger, is impractical unless you drive little or can leave your car plugged in overnight.

Millions of charging stations are needed to meet electric vehicle demand

Nationwide, there are about 120,000 public charging ports with Level 2 charging or higher, and nearly 1.5 million electric vehicles are registered in the U.S. — a ratio of just over one charger per 12 cars nationwide, according to the report. Latest data from the US Department of Energy.

A press conference prepared by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy last year forecast a total of just under 19 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, with more expected to be needed. 9.6 million charging stations.

A charging cord for an electric vehicle is seen stuck on a public sidewalk in San Francisco on September 23.

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A charging cord for an electric vehicle is seen stuck on a public sidewalk in San Francisco on September 23.

Haven Daley / AP

In Los Angeles, for example, nearly a quarter of all new vehicles registered in July were plug-ins. Yamen Nanne, director of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and Electricity, estimates that over the next two decades, the city must expand its distribution capacity from 25% to 50%, with about two-thirds of the increase in demand being from electric cars. electrification program.

In the midst of the boom, dense city neighborhoods are fast becoming pressure points.

Some cities are installing pole mount EV chargers

In Los Angeles, the city has installed more than 500 pole-mounted EV chargers — 450 on streetlights and 50 on poles — and wants to add 200 more each year, Nanne said.

Similar initiatives to install pole-mounted chargers have been implemented or are being considered from New York City to Charlotte, NC to Kansas City, Missouri. The Seattle City Light utility is also in the early stages of a pilot project to install chargers in neighborhoods with limited private parking.

Other cities want to amend building codes for the electric transition. Portland is considering a proposal to require that 50% of parking spaces in most new apartment complexes be conduit; in complexes with six spaces or less, all of them will be EV-ready.

Ingrid Fish, Portland’s head of transportation decarbonisation, said such policies are critical to widespread EV adoption because of tax incentives and the emerging used EV market. , zero-emission cars are finally accessible to more Americans.

These initiatives mimic those already launched in other countries that are moving further in electric vehicle adoption.

For example, London has 4,000 public chargers on street lights. That’s much cheaper — a third of the cost of wiring a charging station to the sidewalk, says Vishant Kothari, manager of the electric mobility group at the World Resources Institute.

But London and Los Angeles have an advantage over many US cities: Their street lights operate on 240 volts, which is better for EV charging. Kothari, who co-authored a study on charging potential in US cities, said most street lights in US cities use 120 volts, which takes hours to charge a vehicle.

So cities have to resort to a variety of solutions, from zoning changes to policies that encourage fast charging in the workplace.

The changes can’t come fast enough for renters who already own electric vehicles.

Rebecca DeWhitt and her partner string an extension cord from an outlet near the front door of their rental home, down a street, and to their new Hyundai Kona in the driveway. In addition to the standard outlet, it takes up to two days and a lot of planning to fully charge their EV for a trip.

“It was inconvenient,” DeWhitt said. “And if we didn’t value having an electric car that much, we wouldn’t put up with the pain of it.”

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