Ye ghods…

Welp, this administration continues to PROVE they can spend money on… stuff…

  • The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law earmarked $7.5 billion for EV charging, with $5 billion allocated to states, but the slow rollout has resulted in just 7 charging stations.
  • Higher standards for new EV chargers, including 97% operational reliability, 150kW power, and proximity to highways, have contributed to the slow progress, along with permitting challenges and power demands.
  • Concerns have been raised by lawmakers and experts about mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and the lack of experience among state transportation agencies in deploying EV charging infrastructure.

Full article, HERE. From Oil Price monthly.

We used to have a saying in the R&D world about ‘vapor ware’…

It looked good on paper, and in all those powerpoint presentations, and ‘worked’ in a lab environment (maybe)…

But when it hit the real world…if it ever did, it usually failed spectacularly! Of course it was never the fault of the provider, but it was those stupid sailors that (insert excuse here).

As far as I know, ‘we’ never blew anywhere near that much money on even the worst failures we had!!!

The basic ‘problem’, IMHO, is that the rules keep changing faster than the states can adapt, nobody is looking at how long, how much it will cost, and who will provide the power required for these stations everywhere.

And the only ones that have successfully deployed ANY stations have all been private companies, with proprietary systems.

As far as I know, there is no ‘overarching plan, standardization, or a designated point of contact that actually knows what is going on. I just wonder how much the ‘cost overruns’ are going to be?

And manufacturers are pulling back on building EVs… This just gets better and better…

Comments

Ye ghods… — 9 Comments

  1. The EVs are not what the majority of the people want or need. These politicians and government agency appointees think they know what is best but all they really know is how much they enjoy spending other peoples money on stupid and wasteful projects that they have no idea of how or what it would take to implement their idiotic ideas.

  2. I bet there is copper in them things, get it while they are dishing it up.

  3. Hey Old NFO;

    Anything involving .gov incentives will have bureaucrats changing the rules because they want to change things to “feel like they have done something” but they will never take ownership because they will get the blame…and that is a big nono for them. EV’s are good for a small segment of the population, not the rest of us.

  4. I like EV as a intra-urban commuter for homeowners or people with access to private chargers.

    The Democrat’s Stalinesque top down command economy five year plan ruined what should have be slow, natural build-up of the infrastructure and market demand and has destroyed consumer acceptance and confidence while forcing the manufacturers to lose billions building cars in numbers no one wants right now.

  5. ‘sustainable’ is not sustainable.

    Lots of incentives implemented by short term political consensus, and little of it fundamentally sound enough to be chosen to preserve on its own merits, in absence of government policy.

    People will ignore a lot of minor problems, if that is made the price of being able to feed their family.

    It would seem like squashing dissent then is a good policy. People are no longer complaining as much about being forced!

    That becomes a problem as soon as one’s now less constrained screwing around convinces them that one means to prevent them from eating.

    The ability to use a US central federal government to coerce policy across the united states is a wee bit dependent on being able to move federal government employees around with relatively cheap transportation costs. Some of the transportation ‘improvements’ then are obviously self defeating.

    ‘Improving’ transport faster, and make people think that deliberate starvation is a possibility? An unwise choice by crazy people.

    Then the business with the universities who have been pissing away good will.

    I don’t think the ‘consensus’ will hold, and I think a lot of credibility has been lost.

  6. I read one place that most of the money is only available to eligible charging companies who in turn have to contract with property owners and the power company.
    Some chains such as Love’s are setting up their own charging companies to get some of the money.

  7. The meth heads have discovered all that easily obtained copper so good luck finding a station that works.

    Bonus. Easier than sawing off catalytic converters.