Free Republic

Two years ago, the Biden administration rammed through Congress a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that contained, among other boondoggles, $7.5 billion for building EV charging stations across the country. The administration says it's going to need 500,000 charging stations in place by 2030 to achieve Biden's climate goals on emissions. So far, a grand total of seven charging stations are operational. “I think a lot of people who are watching this are getting concerned about the timeline,” said Alexander Laska, a deputy director at the Third Way think tank. Gee! Ya think? How many charging stations will $7.5 billion buy? The...

Electric vehicle owners in the Chicago area have not been able to charge their overpriced method of transportation in the bitter cold this week, leaving scenes of dead electric cars littered across public charging stations. It turns out buying a worthless car to virtue-signal for the environment has unintended consequences. Fox Chicago reported Monday the charging stations have turned into electric car graveyards over the past two days as temperatures in the Windy City and its suburbs have dipped to the negative double digits. One man, Tyler Beard, to the outlet he had been trying to recharge his Tesla at...

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm gave Americans an unintended glimpse of the future during her road trip this summer touting the wonders of electric vehicles. Far from spotlighting the promise of EVs, her public relations misadventure in Georgia involved one of her staff in a gasoline-powered vehicle blocking off a coveted charger in advance of her arrival, leading to frayed tempers and a local EV owner calling the cops. It was an illustration of the challenges drivers could face as governments push the public to embrace plug-in vehicles. Hyped as technological marvels, EVs are boobytrapped with a host of inconveniences...

The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. But to provide that kind of power takes something solar can’t provide — diesel generators.The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. In 2017, Tesla CEO said that all Superchargers in the automaker’s network were being converted to solar. “Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid,” Musk posted on X, formally...

Energy providers could have the option to switch off home EV charging stations remotely to reduce pressure on Queensland’s electricity grid.The proposal is part of the Australian state’s Queensland Electricity Connection Manual (QECM), which provides a framework for the grid’s operation.Section 8 of the QECM proposes that EV charging equipment may be limited or switched off by operators Ergon Energy and Energex (distributed network service providers or DNSPs) if it has an output of more than 20 amps—a standard domestic single-phase EV charger uses 32 amps.The use of such “demand management” schemes is largely unique to Queensland and is also...

* The growth in EV demand is outpacing the infrastructure needed to charge them, with experts predicting the need for more than a million new public EV charging stations in the U.S. by 2030 to accommodate the demand. * Both cobalt and silicon, which are crucial for renewable energy sources like EV batteries, are in oversupply, causing bearish pressure on their prices; increased output from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and China is a key reason behind this. * The production of grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), necessary for the power sector and increasingly hard to source, is facing difficulties...

OAKLAND, Calif. - Vandals sliced through thick cables at an Oakland electric vehicle charging station, leaving drivers powerless. Nearly a dozen charging cables are missing from the EVgo charging station at 409 Washington Street near Jack London Square. The chargers have been out of commission for at least a week.

A new law in Illinois soon requires electric vehicle charging stations in the garage of new or renovated homes. Critics say this will increase costs.State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, filed Senate Bill 40 to keep Illinois on its path to having one million EVs on the roads by 2030. The bill was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker Friday with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2024.In 2021, Pritzker signed the Reimagining Electric Vehicles in Illinois Act into law, which incentivizes EV production across the state. There are also state tax incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.State Rep....

The FBI is warning consumers about “juice jacking,” where bad actors use public chargers to infect phones and devices with malware. The law enforcement agency says consumers should avoid using public chargers at malls and airports, and stick to their own USB cables and charging plugs.

On August 2, 2022, Xcel Energy submitted its plan to spend more than $300 million on building 730 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and increasing the use of electric school buses to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The proposal would force Minnesota families and businesses to pay higher electricity prices to finance the construction and operation of the EV chargers, plus a 10 percent government-approved profit for Xcel Energy if the PUC gives Xcel its blessing. Goals are not mandates.. The point of a monopoly electric utility is to provide reliable, affordable electricity to the customers who are forced to...

If there is one consistent fact about electric vehicles, it’s that they are unreliable. Now their charging stations have come into question as well. In Aspen and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, many companies have implemented charging stations in their parking lots. All of them are not fully functional, however. Chris Lane, a Basalt resident who owns two electric cars, highlighted a couple of issues with the local charging stations: Cables are ripped out, attachments are damaged and screens are cracked. If there is a mechanical problem with any one of these stations, it automatically shuts down, Aspen Daily News reported. “I...

According to a study released earlier this week, over 27% of all electric vehicle charging stations in the San Francisco Bar area are non-functioning, bringing forward a major issue that may push back further public adaptation of electric cars in California in the coming years.

The Biden administration wants 50% of all new cars sold by 2030 to be electric or plug-in hybrids. But the average range of today’s electric cars is only about 180 miles. That means for any trip on an interstate, there have to be charging stations every few miles to ensure that people are stuck in the middle of nowhere high and dry. Recognizing the problem, a big chunk of funding in the infrastructure bill was for building a network of power stations from Texas to Canada and from sea to shining sea. That’s all well and good, but as the...

Ford CEO Jim Farley explained to Automotive News that not all of its customers are ready to make the transition, due to their specific needs. "We have a lot of rural customers at Ford that a lot of other brands don't have. We have Super Duty customers who do heavy-duty towing: horse trailers, people in the energy business who are towing big-time loads over very long distances. It's hard for me to imagine that all those customers will go electric in the next 10 years," Farley said. "They're actually as interested in the technology as anyone, it's just their use...

On May 7, 2019, Lisa Lemble and Robert Gordon cut the ribbon on Ann Arbor, Michigan’s first curbside electric vehicle charger. It was an ordeal that required nearly a year of negotiation and permitting, and cost the couple about $15,000. “Mainly we want people to know that if they live in the city of Ann Arbor and don’t have a driveway and don’t have access to a garage, that it’s possible to put in a charging station curbside,” Lemble said at the time. Possible, yes. Easy, no. More than two years after the Tesla-owning couple installed their dual-nozzle Level 2...

Picture Pittsburgh 50 years from now with these transportation changes: a terminal in a central location to handle a hyperloop system, vehicles for vertical takeoffs and landings, and high-speed trains; aerial trams linking neighborhoods; and new bridges crossing the Monongahela River at Hazelwood for motorized vehicles and at the former Wabash rail bridge piers for bikes and pedestrians. Those might sound like something from a science fiction novel, but they are among the ideas the city says it must consider in a 50-year Mobility Vision Plan released Thursday by Mayor Bill Peduto and Karina Ricks, director of the city’s Department...

Pennsylvania may have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make significant progress on a long list of needed infrastructure projects if the House passes the $1 trillion plan approved by the Senate and makes billions in federal dollars available to the state. Officials can’t squander this chance to upgrade roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructure areas statewide. In state-by-state estimates released by the White House, Pennsylvania stands to gain — over a five-year period — $11.3 billion in federal highway funding, $2.8 billion for public transit and $1.6 billion for bridge replacement. There’s also $171 million to add charging stations for electric...

MADISON, CT - So-called "Supercharging" Tesla stations will soon be open on both sides of Interstate 95 in Madison. Superchargers are under construction at the 95 Madison rest areas, both northbound and southbound, between exits 61 and 62. Both are 10 stalls. Currently the nearest Superchargers are located in Milford. Tesla supercharging stations charge support peak rates of up to 250kW per car. AModel 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour. V3 Supercharging will ultimately cut the amount...

Former Vice Preisdent Joe Biden made clear at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate that he’d sacrifice economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production and potentially risk displacing hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in order to combat climate change. Moderator Tim Alberta asked: “Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production. As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in the interest...

CHICAGO — The Illinois Tollway is examining the possibility of embedding equipment into I-294 that would charge electric vehicles as they drive along the road. The agency is at the start of a $4 billion project to rebuild and widen a 22-mile stretch of I-294, also known as the Tri-State. As part of the project, the Tollway wants to add infrastructure to charge electric vehicles. Off the highway, that could include both conventional charging stations and "super-charger" stations that power up electric cars and trucks more quickly. The agency also is studying "smart-powered lanes," a type of technology being tried...