Spotlight on electric vehicle charging stations and topics affecting EV drivers.
A new Tesla Supercharger and an Electrify America site both opened in Maryland around the same time 10 months ago. This presents an interesting opportunity to compare the energy used at the two sites.
The Hanover Supercharger opened around November 11, 2019. It consists of eight stalls on the third level of the parking garage at the Hotel at Arundel Preserve. The maximum power to each stall is 72 kW. As of September 9, 2020, the meter is at 387.4 MWh.
DriveOhio, a part of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), released an 85 page Electric Vehicle Charging Study to assess and coordinate a state-wide approach to developing EV charging infrastructure.
A key recommendation is to place EV charging stations at least every 50 miles along highway corridors throughout Ohio. Highway corridor charging would be high-powered DC Fast Chargers located within a mile of a highway.
The study identifies Fast Charging gaps along highway corridors and suggests options to fill them. Most of the charging stations are suggested to be installed at private site hosts such as larger gas stations and convenience stores. Some charging gaps could be filled by placing DC Fast Chargers at Ohio Turnpike Service Plazas or ODOT rest stops.
Level 2 charging needs that can support Ohio tourism are also identified. Destination charging stations are suggested at popular Ohio attrations such as the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Cedar Point Amusement Park. EV drivers can then recharge their vehicles using Level 2 stations while they are visiting these destinations.
According to data in the report, about 75% of the all-electric vehicles registered in Ohio are Teslas. The Model 3 accounts for 27% of all plug-in vehicles (including plug-in hybrids) registered in the state.
The report calls for collaboration among the following state agencies to implement the proposed strategy: ODOT, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the Department of Administrative Services, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Development Services Agency, and the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Ohio has reason to support the expansion of EV charging infrastructure with Lordstown Motors taking over the former GM manufacturing facility to build electric pickup-trucks in the state.
The Electric Vehicle Charging Study is available on the drive.ohio.gov website.
See also: Maryland Zero Emission Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Council Releases 2019 Annual Report.
Last year the Maryland Public Service Commission approved the implementation of a five-year pilot program for utility-owned and operated public EV charging stations. Since the program began on July 1, 2019, BGE, Pepco and Potomac Edison have installed approximately 118 charging ports at 24 sites. One of the first BGE sites was installed in Westminster last December.
We are documenting the progress at this point in time with the unofficial map above. The orange pins designate the sites we know are open that have at least one fast charger. The green pins are the sites with only Level 2 connectors. Click the pins to reveal more detail.
The utilities are required to submit semi-annual progress reports to the PSC. The report that covers the first half of 2020 is due in August.
Below are photos of many of the completed utility-owned sites we’ve visited in Maryland. More charging stations are currently under construction or being planned. Stay tuned for updates.
Maryland now has over 25,000 plug-in electric vehicles registered in the state according to the latest data from the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.
About 9,000 of those EVs are registered in Montgomery County alone. With a population of over one million residents, it makes sense that Montgomery has the greatest number of plug-in vehicles of all Maryland counties.
But how do Maryland counties stack up based on the number of electric vehicles registered in proportion to their population?
Howard County has the greatest number of plug-in vehicles per 100,000 residents at 925. Montgomery is a close second with 874.
Frederick and Anne Arundel counties are third and fourth with 521 and 454 EVs per 100,000 people respectively.
Talbot County, home of Easton and St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore, has the fifth highest per capita with 150 plug-ins registered with an estimated population of 37,181.
Read More …
The Maryland Energy Administration has announced on their website that as of December 31, 2019 funding for the Fiscal Year 2020 EVSE Rebate Program is depleted.
Read More …
How much has the number of electric vehicle charging stations in the Washington, DC area grown in the last five years? PlugInSites published a count on December 31, 2014. Today, exactly five years later, we take another snapshot and compare the data.
The following EV charging station count is from the U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center which keeps track of the number of EV charging stations from data provided by the major charging networks as well as other sources. The figures include public and private stations, DC Fast Chargers as well as Level 2 and Level 1 outlets. The counts below were captured on December 31, 2019. The percentages are the amount of growth of the public charging infrastructure in the five years since 2014.
Read More …SAE Combo, CHAdeMO & Tesla Supercharger network comparison. Sept. 12, 2017
Last December when the first Chevy Bolts were being delivered in California, I wondered if it was possible to drive a Bolt EV from coast to coast using SAE Combined Charging Standard (CCS) fast charging stations. I went to the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center (AFDC) website to see the locations of CCS chargers in the US.
I reported that, as of December 15, 2016, there were 884 CCS charging locations listed but they were mostly concentrated on the east and west coasts with some concentrated islands sprinkled around the middle of the country.
While the number of CCS charger sites has grown about 32% in the past nine months, there hasn’t been much progress in distributing the CCS or CHAdeMO fast chargers along the main travel routes to enable long distance travel through the middle of the country.
As of September 12, 2017 there are 357 Tesla Supercharger locations (2,492 outlets) in the US according to the AFDC Station Locator. There are 1,677 CHAdeMO locations (2,045 outlets) and 1,166 SAE Combo locations (1,413 outlets) in the Station Locator. These numbers include both public and private stations. Read More …
SAE Combo, CHAdeMO & Tesla Supercharger network comparison. Maps: US Dept. of Energy, Alternative Fuel Data Center. Dec 15, 2016
With the recent news that the first Chevy Bolts have been delivered to some customers in California, I wondered if it was possible yet to drive coast to coast with a Bolt using a series of SAE Combined Charging Standard (CCS) fast charging stations. To find out the current state of the distribution of CCS chargers in the US, I visited the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center (AFDC) website and this is what I found as of December 15, 2016.
Tesla Superchargers: 327 stations
SAE Combo: 884 stations
CHAdeMO: 1,464 stations (1,956 according to CHAdeMO.com)
Even though there are many more locations for CHAdeMO and SAE Combo stations, the Tesla Supercharger stations are more evenly dispersed, strategically spaced along major Interstate Highways.
The lessons that I learned from attending the recent White House Electric Vehicle Datathon helped me gain insights by looking at the data from both a numerical and geospacial perspective. The Datathon brought stakeholders together to develop best practices for using data to help grow EV adoption and inform the deployment of charging stations.
Looking at the maps, we can only conclude that there needs to be more effort applied to installing SAE Combo and CHAdeMO stations along the Interstates in the middle of the US. The Chevy Bolt and other long-range electric cars cannot fully take advantage of the benefit of 200+ miles of charge until there is a reliable, smartly spaced network of high-speed charging stations. Perhaps the Federal EV Charging Corridors initiative will help bring attention to the needed distribution of DC fast charging infrastructure.
The last time we gathered statistics on the number of plug-in electric vehicles in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC was back in September, 2014 published here. The numbers available at the time were somewhat incomplete and an approximation in some cases.
Now, we have some current figures from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to share. These numbers should be much more accurate and show all-electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) electric vehicles sold since 2011 including those in government and commercial fleets.
We’ve also included statistics for the number of EVs registered in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia.
Workplace charging has a long way to go. This slide from yesterday’s California Air Resources Board (CARB) meeting shows 1,775 Workplace Level 2 charging stations currently installed in California. (as of September, 2015)
In order to meet the state’s goal of having infrastructure to support 1 million Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) by 2020, there needs to be between 82,000 and 144,000 L2 charging stations according to a report* by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory prepared for the California Energy Commission. *CEC-600-2014-003