Electrify America 2023 Annual report to EPA

[Tooney]

https://media.electrifyamerica.com/.../1157-2023EPAAnnualReportFinal43024Public.pdf

 

[thecoloradokid]

hmmmmmm. I think we all see where this thread is headed

 

[Jonathan S.]

This figure is definitely subject to interpretation:

"Over the past two years, service dispatches have decreased over 70% as customer utilization grew by over 700%."​

Copied below is the progress so far toward meeting the minimum in officially termed Creditable Costs, i.e., $800m for California and $1.2b for the other 49 states.
(Note that the spending on Green City, Education, and Marketing, is required by the consent decree.)

 

[daveo4EV]

This figure is definitely subject to interpretation:

"Over the past two years, service dispatches have decreased over 70% as customer utilization grew by over 700%."​

Copied below is the progress so far toward meeting the minimum in officially termed Creditable Costs, i.e., $800m for California and $1.2b for the other 49 states.
(Note that the spending on Green City, Education, and Marketing, is required by the consent decree.)

it’s easy to decrease service dispatches if you don’t care if the network is actually operational

 

[Tooney]

This figure is definitely subject to interpretation:

"Over the past two years, service dispatches have decreased over 70% as customer utilization grew by over 700%."​

Copied below is the progress so far toward meeting the minimum in officially termed Creditable Costs, i.e., $800m for California and $1.2b for the other 49 states.
(Note that the spending on Green City, Education, and Marketing, is required by the consent decree.)

What conclusions do you draw from the financial information in the report?

 

[thecoloradokid]

This figure is definitely subject to interpretation:

"Over the past two years, service dispatches have decreased over 70% as customer utilization grew by over 700%."​

Copied below is the progress so far toward meeting the minimum in officially termed Creditable Costs, i.e., $800m for California and $1.2b for the other 49 states.
(Note that the spending on Green City, Education, and Marketing, is required by the consent decree.)

I am curious, but can you elaborate your beef with Electrify America? It seems that the majority of your posts on this forum are about Electrify America and complaining about charging. Is it because they only operate one charging location between your home and some hills in Vermont and that one location has had some reliability issues in the past?

You don't have to get granular about it, but I am just curious because you seem have a deep seated hatred for only Electrify America. I never see Chargepoint or EvGo mentioned, so I was wondering if it all stems from your lack of charging options to get the hills in Vermont? Does it exacerbate your EA hatred when your Taycan cannot leverage the more reliable Tesla or Rivian chargers that are also on your way to Vermont?

Just curious.

 

[Jonathan S.]

What conclusions do you draw from the financial information in the report?

^ Executive summary = Unfortunately, pretty much none.

Disappointing details:

• Until this most recent report, EA had not provided a running tally, or at least I could not find it published anyway.
• When I asked EA where I could find such a tally, the emailed response was that I could look in the phone app for my charging history. (Really!)
• When I followed up with EA that such an answer didn't even come close to my question, I was provided the link to all EA reports, which of course I had already found.
• When I dug into the reports and created by own year-by-year tally in a Google Sheet with cumulative totals, alas I was disappointed that the categories are far too broad to provide any insights.
• What I had been hoping to find was more detail on infrastructure investment vs maintenance. Any financial statement would have that level of detail. But instead we get only five categories for a publicly account spending that will eventually amount to $1b.

 

[Jonathan S.]

I am curious, but can you elaborate your beef with Electrify America? It seems that the majority of your posts on this forum are about Electrify America and complaining about charging. Is it because they only operate one charging location between your home and some hills in Vermont and that one location has had some reliability issues in the past?

You don't have to get granular about it, but I am just curious because you seem have a deep seated hatred for only Electrify America. I never see Chargepoint or EvGo mentioned, so I was wondering if it all stems from your lack of charging options to get the hills in Vermont? Does it exacerbate your EA hatred when your Taycan cannot leverage the more reliable Tesla or Rivian chargers that are also on your way to Vermont?

Just curious.

Before our household EV fleet, I found gas price differentials among competing stations to be endlessly fascinating, so this is nothing new to me!

Plus how often can I post about how much I love my CT? (Or my newly installed Tesla Universal Wall Charger – whose purchase price was almost entirely subsidized by Porsche for max irony.) By contrast, always something new to complain about re CCS1!

But you want details:

• As I often post similar material here and at the equivalent i4 forum as well as the EA FB group, I am pretty sure that I have referenced “EA and its equally miserable CCS1 competition” at this forum. Since you mention ChargePoint in particular, their L2 chargers are usually only ~7kw, and divide by two if shared, with many broken. Their DCFC chargers have been reliable for me, but the claimed 125kW if solo has never gotten above the 80s for me. Plus with only two at most at the ChargePoint locations I’ve visited, merely two drivers already there means the wait can be hopelessly long. Since you mention EVgo, my only experience has been with their ancient 50kW chargers, which have been either reliable (lucking out big time with nobody already there, whew!) or broken for months (yet still not removed, but at least PlugShare reviews have alerted me in advance to that).
• As a professional economist who has worked in the regulatory and public policy context since 1992, and having studied that field for seven years prior, I find the entire history of EA to be utterly fascinating. (Were I back in undergrad or grad school now, I would definitely write a thesis on EA!)
• Bonus points on the above for how I have worked for both CA AG and U.S. DOJ on Clean Air Act cases, including diesel cheating (but not VAG). I also developed the model that U.S. EPA uses (although more like “used” by this point, since I think the focus has moved away from that paradigm) to assess the net present value of supplemental environmental projects in mitigation of cash penalties, so I’m even more intrigued by the requirement to spend $2b on a potentially profitable business venture that also creates valuable assets retained by the Defendant at the conclusion of the consent decree.
• Add in the creation of the IONNA and then the EV manufacturer deals signed with Tesla for even more bonus points. (Elon’s pull-back of TSCN expansion then breaks the BonusPointMeter!)
• With the exception of one 150kW session that maxed out around 160kW, our EA sessions have been so consistently disappointing (from NH down to DE), and our Magic Docks session have been so consistently excellent (NY, CT, and NJ, with MA coming up next month). And how my wife immediately hit the charging curve on her i4 at an off-limits ABB R&D facility (even more immediately than the arrival of a security guard!), and clearly CCS1 charging is capable of meeting its promises, but EA sure doesn’t keep those promises in the Northeast.
• The lack of CCS1 station expansion in northern New England is puzzling. TSCN had all the major routes covered a long time ago. Upstate NY also now has excellent CCS1 coverage thanks to a state program (with some of the stations built by EA, though service seems to be provided separately to some extent). Having chaired our town’s planning board (in a rather difficult town for building anything), I understand that this isn’t so easy, but still, the meager progress is baffling.

However, the situation is improving here … slowly … somewhat:

1. Despite the lack of attention from EV social media influencers, Magic Docks have expanded significantly in the Northeast this year, changing the ICE<>EV calculus on several road trips recently for both my wife and myself.
2. After having only a single EA station along the Mass Pike between the Worcester region and the NY border ever since the OG EA opened six years ago there, EA added a 6x350kW station near the NY border this year, which so far works (even if most drivers report coming nowhere near their charging curves, but good enough).
3. The NEVI-funded 4x180kW chargers in Bradford VT, the sixth such NEVI-funded station in the nation when it opened a couple weeks, although the tally is now apparently up to eight (over the span of 2.5 yrs since Congressional passage), combined with the 2x50kW pair at the same site from last year (funded via a VT state program that was authorized in 2019, making the NEVI process look speedy in comparison) is oddly sited on what might be the most quiet stretch of interstate in VT, but it randomly works in my personal favor, since much further north and it would be of use to driving to Mt Washington, whereas any further south and it would be of use to too many other drivers!
4. If/Should/Once the RAN 6x200kW chargers open to the public in West Lebanon NY, that will be a blessing to my fellow Southern New England residents travelling to VT (even though I don’t need it thanks to the puzzling NEVI siting).

 

[thecoloradokid]

• As a professional economist who has worked in the regulatory and public policy context since 1992, and having studied that field for seven years prior, I find the entire history of EA to be utterly fascinating. (Were I back in undergrad or grad school now, I would definitely write a thesis on EA!)

I appreciate the well thought out comments.

Like you, I enjoy the public policy part of the EV expansion endeavor and have been lucky enough to work with the Colorado Energy Office on a couple of topics.

Seems like you should be out in Colorado if you enjoy skiing and a well thought out EV charging plan/network! Colorado is a model for well spent VW settlement funds to place strategically needed EV charging infrastructure throughout the state. NEVI funds just further fill in the map, although who knows what will happen to the 20 or so recently awarded Tesla locations. Hopefully the sites awarded to Tesla get revoked and then get awarded to EA or Chargepoint, if they have the financial resources and appetite to move forward.


Cheers

 

[Jonathan S.]

My wife went to CU Boulder, and I've been out there several times, both as a family, and to participate ("compete" would be too strong a word given the altitude problems!) in skimo races.
But New England does have its advantages, especially now that I have a second house 14 min from the best trailhead in Eastern North American for backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering.
Plus I'd be too confused if I didn't have to schedule skiing, hiking, biking, etc. around our frequent rain!

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

My wife went to CU Boulder, and I've been out there several times, both as a family, and to participate ("compete" would be too strong a word given the altitude problems!) in skimo races.
But New England does have its advantages, especially now that I have a second house 14 min from the best trailhead in Eastern North American for backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering.
Plus I'd be too confused if I didn't have to schedule skiing, hiking, biking, etc. around our frequent rain!

Sounds like WA would check most of your boxes - good snow, some steeps but not enough altitude to induce sickness, plenty of rain.. the only problem is that we have decent EA coverage, and most of it works well.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Sounds like WA would check most of your boxes - good snow, some steeps but not enough altitude to induce sickness, plenty of rain.. the only problem is that we have decent EA coverage, and most of it works well.

I'm not moving until the Mt Adams Cold Springs trailhead gets a bank of L2 chargers!
Okay, so that is rather unlikely given that it lacks even just any electricity or running water.

How about ... an EA in nearby Hood River?
That actually works?

I checked it out (seriously, I did!) in June of last year on our way from Mt Hood to Trout Lake just out of curiosity -- all four chargers seemed to be working (although hard to confirm with my friend's ICE) and only one was in use (for real, in addition to my ridiculous photo op):

s

 

[Jonathan S.]

I noticed just now that RAN already has the I-91 corridor adequately covered for skiers and other visitors coming up to VT from Western Mass, CT, and NYC:

• in addition to the 6x200kW in West Lebanon NH (a short walk from the usual 4-charger EA, which is in the same parking lot at 16 Superchargers) ...
• identical configuration in Brattleboro VT (same parking lot as 16 Superchargers, plus a single Flo CCS1 that often doesn’t connect, and when it does, never gets out of the low to mid double-digits despite its ostensible 100kW rating), and ...
• ditto for Holyoke MA (at a nice B&N, also within walking distance of the massive Holyoke Mall, at the other end of which is a 50kW EVgo that has been broken since December … of 2022).

But alas, all three of these RAN stations are still open only to Rivian, so looks like I’ll be taking the ICE for a VT daytrip later this week.
(Especially interesting that Rivian has moved ahead so aggressively with coming close to matching the TSCN cover of I-91 given that the first RAN anywhere did not open until July 2022.)

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