U.S. EV infrastructure challenges: Update the grid, improve access to chargers

Battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles account for only about 3 percent of U.S. light-vehicle sales. But that figure could surge to 15 to 35 percent by 2030, consultancy McKinsey & Co. estimates. Soaring EV sales would require a greater build-out of charging infrastructure. Is the nation up to the task? We asked industry experts whether U.S. infrastructure is ready for a rise in EV sales.

Here's what they had to say.

"The U.S. has trailed Europe historically in deploying EV infrastructure at pace or in advance of vehicles. But during the past few years, they've made great strides in really understanding what the need is and coordinating those efforts between trying to anticipate vehicle sales and the necessary infrastructure to support it. The current bills being proposed are looking at having the state departments of transportation coordinate the infrastructure investment. There will be a lot more activity at the state level in coordinating activities amongst agencies between the Department of Transportation and these other stakeholders to understand where chargers should be located and what volumes and what type." -- John Gartner, director of EV Program Research at the Center for Sustainable Energy

"We're evolving from noise to real action. Looking at the administration and their call for investment in EV charging infrastructure — that's the first time we've had a national call of that nature. A focus then is, how do we make sure, if we're going to install all of this charging infrastructure, that we have the supply capacity to support it? This really comes down to we both need to install the infrastructure [and] we need to update the grid. We need to make sure it's secure and reliable, so we've got the capacity for that added demand. Furthermore, we are globally encouraging the transition to electric vehicles to help diminish the impact of transportation emissions on climate change. To be holistic in that, we need to make sure that the electric energy that is supplying these vehicles is clean." -- Alisyn Malek, executive director of the Commission on the Future of Mobility

“We’re ready today for what’s ahead of us right now, but 10 years from now, we have some work to do. The challenge that we have is, to be ready for that future, we actually have to start working on it today. The grid was built a certain way to deal with a certain scenario, and that was centralized generation that was dispatchable, controllable, and a lot of that was done 20, 30, 40 years ago. From a transmission perspective, we’re fine in the near term, but I think what we’re going to see is a significant amount of load growth, or demand for electricity, increase because of electrification. ... We’ve got to do a lot of planning on our system to make sure that the system is updated. It’s not so much a question of if that change is going to happen. It’s more of a question of when.” -- Simon Whitelocke, president of utility company ITC Michigan

"We launched the Volt over 10 years ago. Even 10 years past, I would argue we're still a long way away from getting a level of comfort that exists for mainstream customers to say that they can do those 1-in-20 trips that are longer beyond their range or that are overnight, on vacation, visiting a relative or seeing their kids off to college. It really is a multifaceted problem in the U.S. Most of the charging is still done at home. But the home is different for different people. In a multifamily dwelling, we don't have the right solutions in place to make it easy for whoever owns that dwelling to accommodate the handful of EV drivers that they have. That's one piece of it. Then, how do you appropriately get everyone upgraded at the home when they do enter into the world of EVs? I'm a little bit concerned that some people are not solving all of these acute problems that have to be solved." -- Tony Posawatz, former CEO of Fisker Automotive and ex-vehicle line director of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid at General Motors