Electric vehicles are widely viewed as the future of the automobile industry, but there is a battle going on in states across the US over who should control charging stations that can gradually replace fuel pumps.
From axon Corp.
For Southern California Edison, utilities have sought regulatory approval to invest millions of dollars in upgrading their infrastructure to prepare for charging and in some cases to own and operate the Chargers.</p><div> <p>The proposals have been raising concern with consumer advocates about high electricity tariffs and rivalries for subsidies to oil companies. They are also attracting opposition from startups, who say that the successors of gas stations should be open to private sector competition, not controlled by monopoly utilities.
This debate has been going on in regulatory commissions throughout the US as states and utilities have adopted electric vehicles widely. According to energy consulting firm Wood McKenzie, a total of more than $ 13 billion is expected to be charged on infrastructure investment over the next five years. It will cover around 3.2 million charging outlets.
Calvin Butler Jr., who heads Exxon's utilities business, said many states are more open to the idea of utilities that have become big players in charging as electric vehicles struggle to land in the US, Where they make only about 1% new. Car sales
"When utilities are engaged, there is early adoption because the infrastructure is there," he said.
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Electric vehicles are accelerating production, and many states have set ambitious EV targets - most recently California, which aims to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. But a charging-station network remains a massive handicap for EV adoption.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has called for the creation of more than 500,000 new public charging outlets over a decade as part of his plan to tackle the change. But exactly how this will happen is unclear. According to the Department of Energy, there are currently fewer than 100,000 public outlets in the US. President Trump, who has undermined federal telepipe emission targets, has not pushed forward the electric-vehicle charging scheme, although he has supported the 2019 transportation bill that included a grant for building alternative fuel infrastructure, including electric vehicles Would have provided $ 1 billion.
Charging access currently varies widely by state, as do utility partnerships, which can range from providing rebates on domestic chargers to preparing sites for public charging - and even electric vehicles. Also owning and operating the equipment required to deliver juice.
As of September, regulators in 24 states had signed a utility investment of approximately $ 2.6 billion in transportation electrification, according to Atlas Public Policy, a Washington, D.C., policy firm. More than half of that spending was authorized in California, where electric vehicle adoption is the highest.
About a decade ago, California blocked ownership of most charging devices, citing concerns about potential charging competition. But the country's most populous state overturned in 2014, leading to electrification.
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Number of electric vehicle registrations per public charging outlet *
