Education, Energy and the Environment Committee – February 18, 2025
The following is a transcript of my testimony to the Maryland Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee on SB 913, “Department of Agriculture – Public Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment – Registration, Regulation, and Oversight.”
This legislation would require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a program to test the accuracy of public electric vehicle supply equipment, ensure the equipment conforms to certain standards, and to adopt regulations that include requiring an uptime of 97% and establishing civil penalties for non-compliance.
It sounds like a reasonable idea at first. After all, we all want better charger reliability and effective use of public funds. But consider that Maryland already passed a 97% uptime law in 2023 with HB 834, yet it’s been sitting there, largely unenforced by the Public Service Commission while reliability has continued to get worse.
Instead of fixing things, it’s prompted the utilities that own the charging stations to ask for millions more in ratepayer money to replace chargers that aren’t even that old. Now, with SB 913 proposing to add more regulations, there’s a good chance it will raise public EV charging costs without offering much benefit in return. That’s why I’m not convinced that doubling down with the same “uptime” requirements is the right approach at this time.
Maryland already mandates 97% uptime for utility-owned chargers. However, when they fail to meet the standard, the Public Service Commission does not penalize them.
Instead, utilities seek approval to spend millions more to replace equipment that is sometimes less than two years old.
My name is Lanny Hartmann.
I was part of a group of 13 EV drivers that visited nearly every fast charger in the state of Maryland to see how they were working. We went to 304 sites and assessed over 1,000 charging ports. Here’s what we found. Tesla and Rivian, who operate just over half of the ports, were nearly flawless—only two were down. Among the rest of the chargers, 31% were dead, offline, or wouldn’t activate.
Why the discrepancy?
Tesla understands that a positive charging experience is crucial for car sales, so they developed their own Supercharger network, prioritizing reliability.
Now, consider the other half of the chargers we evaluated. Those are operated by various owners and networking providers, many funded through state grants or funded by ratepayers.
The various ownership models, differing business priorities combined with the challenge of maintaining and repairing equipment from third-party vendors all contribute to the performance disparity that we observed.
Maryland already mandates 97% uptime for utility-owned chargers. However, when they fail to meet the standard, the Public Service Commission does not penalize them. Instead, utilities seek approval to spend millions more to replace equipment that is sometimes less than two years old.
Despite the existing mandate and additional spending, the uptime has not significantly improved.
I suggest an amendment to remove the uptime regulations. The many exceptions make them difficult to enforce effectively.
Instead, this bill should focus on providing the Weights and Measures Department with the resources they need.
Thank you.
