electric vehicle charging

Iceland is perfect for massive adoption of electric vehicles. The island’s electricity generation is already almost 100% renewable, which makes EVs super clean, and being a remote island, petrol is expensive.

With a strong EV charging infrastructure and a few more options for electric car models, Iceland could significantly accelerate EV deployment.

Now they are adding a new network of fast-charging stations. 
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The electric car revolution always had a perceived chicken and egg problem with charging infrastructure. This perception is starting to dissipate as both industries are growing rapidly side by side.

A new report on the status of the U.S. EV charging industry is giving us a new look at the market and confirms that over 50,000 charge points (public and private) are now in operation in the country.
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Shell has been making a push to expand its services to electric vehicles over the last year. They announced that they would start deploying electric car charging stations in Britain and the Netherlands and we even saw their first Shell-branded charging station last month.

But the oil giant is really accelerating its electric vehicle effort this week with the acquisition of a major charging network.
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Industry analysts have tried to compare the petrol and diesel infrastructure with electric car charging infrastructure in the past, but it’s a hard comparison to make due to the important part that home charging plays in EV ownership.

Now the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released a new study to try to better understand the needed charging infrastructure to support a larger fleet of electric cars.
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While electric vehicles that can take over 50 kW of charging power are currently rare, aside from Teslas and electric buses, the charging infrastructure to prepare for them is already starting to be deployed.

Now ABB is unveiling its own entry in the sector by launching its high power 150-350 kW electric car chargers.
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As we recently reported in our article titled ‘German automakers don’t have Tesla’s Supercharger network, but other companies are stepping up‘, the electric car charging landscape is quite complicated.

But there are signs of standardization within the market that are very encouraging.

Another announced today adds to those signs. Two major electric car charging networks in Europe confirmed that they signed an agreement to join forces and create ‘pan-European open’ network.
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New York City announced a significant new electric car charging program today that will bring 50 fast-charging stations across all 5 boroughs.

The deployment of new stations will start next year and extend through 2020.
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The UK government recently introduced in the Queen’s Speech a series of new measures to encourage electric car adoption, including mandatory installations of electric car chargers at motorway services and gas stations.

It seems to already had an impact as a large network of 413 gas stations announced today that it is deploying electric car fast-charging stations at all locations.
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A report from Nissan suggests public electric vehicles charging stations could outnumber the number of gas station in the UK as soon as 2020.

While that might be true, there are some nuances to take into account.
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After Shell partnered with an electric car charging station manufacturer to deploy charging infrastructure at its gas station last month, BP is now in talks with automakers to do the same.
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The electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US still has a long way to go, but the progress over the past few years is promising.

A new report from University of Michigan researchers using data from the Department of Energy suggest that there are now ~16,000 public electric vehicle charging stations with ~43,000 connectors in the US.
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Volkswagen recently submitted both its plans to invest $2 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure in the US as part of its court settlements with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the DieselGate scandal.

We reported on the main details of the plan for California, which includes installing ultra-fast 320 kW chargers, and the plan for the whole country, which includes a ‘nationwide 150 kW+ fast charging network’.

Now other automakers are contesting the plans and want to have a say in how VW should spend that money. Some ideas are OK, though the contestation could result in slowing the rollout of the EV infrastructure, while other demands are plain ridiculous.
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We previously reported on several reward programs for electric vehicles owners charging during off-peak hours, like BMW’s program in California and the Netherlands is trying to make it a nationwide standard for EVs, but now we learn of a new program that appears to be significantly more generous than those two.

Con Edison, an electric utility operating in New York City and Westchester County, will pay “5 cents in rewards for each kilowatt-hour of charging during off-peak hours.”
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The batteries in EV’s are heavy, expensive and in many cases slow to charge, this results in many affordable EV’s having a limited range. Obviously, this reduces the usefulness of EV’s for many potential buyers. For EV’s to really take off, we need an extensive network of public fast charging stations (DCFC’s). However, the current fee structure of utility companies, especially the additional peak demand charges during hot summer months, can make up a substantial part of the electricity costs of a charging location, forming a significant roadblock for the future of EV’s.

In a recent study for EVgo, analyzing data from every charging session in 2016 from all 230 of EVgo’s DC fast charging stations in the state of California where half of all the nation’s EV’s are being used, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) found that with today’s EV market penetration and current public DCFC utilization rates, demand charges can be responsible for over 90% of electricity costs, which are as high as $1.96/kWh at some locations during summer months.

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Electric vehicle enthusiasts and some automakers have been calling for more homogeneity in charging standards. Some progress has been made, but ultimately, it looks like we will have to wait to see which standards will prevail and which will become obsolete.

In the meantime, we are starting to see some interesting charging stations using several different standards at the same location. Tesla has even been participating in a few of these stations around the world, but its latest, which happens to be its first Supercharger in the Czech Republic, is particularly impressive.
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EV charging station maker and network operator, ChargePoint, announced that it closed a significant funding round with $50 million to expand infrastructure to new countries and ramp up its residential business. A couple of venture capitalist firms and electricity company Constellation Energy participated in the round of funding.

Since its inception in 2007, ChargePoint has raised $164 million.
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China has developed a new charging standard in order to more efficiently deploy a charging infrastructure capable of supporting the up to 5 million electric vehicles it hopes to get on the roads by 2020. Tesla is now fully on board and announced today the launch of the ‘Tesla Charging Partner Program’ in China to promote the national EV charging standard.
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In an effort to stimulate the electric vehicle market in Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree requiring the owners of gas stations to install charging equipment for electric cars at their gas stations by Nov. 1, 2016 according to the Moscow Times. The requirement could very well be the most drastic government action to encourage electric vehicle infrastructure in any country.
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