EV Infrastructure Challenge

By Greg Brenner

OVERCOMING THE SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE

The Superbowl – and the three advertisements specific to Electric Vehicles (EV) – confirmed that the future is electric. Car manufacturers, like GM, Ford, and Nissan are churning out attractive solutions that will continue to move the needle from combustion engines to EVs. The challenge remains as to how, where, and when the infrastructure will be reliable and convenient enough for consumers to make the switch to electric.

In 2017, our team helped fuel the transformation of transportation by supporting the R&D, prototyping, and construction of the largest test facility in North America for electric vehicle charging. Since then, our team has completed over 3,500 Public DC Fast Charging stalls across North America. While our efforts equal less than 1% of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) goal of 500,000 chargers, we believe that because of the momentum pushing our industry, combined with American ingenuity and various funding streams, the US will meet the challenge.

Our clients and partners in EV are leading the charge with DC fast charging. In January 2023, according to a US News & World Report, the following companies had the highest number of DC fast charging ports:

Tesla: 17,000
Electrify America: 3,600
EVgo: 2,200
ChargePoint: 1,800
Shell Recharge: 550

WILL WE DEVELOP ENOUGH INFRASTRUCTURE?

Will the US develop enough infrastructure to support the goal of 50% of new car sales being EV models by 2030? For some context:

Today, approximately 145,000 gas stations are spread across the United States, serving around 287 million vehicles.
Today, there are around 56,000 EV charging stalls, of which 28,000 are DC Fast Charging, serving close to 2 million electric vehicles.
In 2021, there were around 340,000 electric vehicles sold in the US.
In 2022, there were 576,000 electric vehicles sold in the US through Q3 alone.

It is expected that we will need to triple the installation rates of EV charging stalls over the next seven years to meet the 2030 goals.

Last year, our team nearly tripled our output alone by designing over 900 DC Fast Charging stalls around the US. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (NEVI) funding ($1.5B in Federal Funding) will help fuel the pipeline of target sites planned for 2023 and beyond.

To learn more about how we did this and what can be learned from our experience in driving Integrated Project Delivery solutions, managing programs, and coordinating utility efforts, meet us at this year’s EV Charging Summit & Expo and stay tuned to the next post in our blog series, EV Infrastructure – Overcoming the Seemingly Impossible.