The bloom is off the EV market for a variety of reasons. Unit growth is slowing dramatically. Now that early adopters have made their purchases, the mainstream buyers' reluctance to go all-electric is hitting home hard with car companies, parts suppliers, battery factories and infrastructure players. A number of EV start-ups will likely go bankrupt by summer according to the WSJ analysis and the big manufacturers are losing their rear bumpers on every sale. Some to the tune of more than a $100,000 loss per sale! Ironically, sales of high-end gas pickups and SUVs are propping up companies' EV divisions!
Range anxiety is one of the key causes of EV reluctance--and it is helping the hybrid market accordingly. My only experience with a Tesla rental drove that anxiety home as I got about half of what the range gauge estimated. Paying the supercharger rate wasn't dramatically cheaper than gas in the state I rented in. Heightening range anxiety is charger malfunctions and vandalism (stealing the copper filler wire for scrap value). Malfunctions are a national problem (estimated to be one in five) and very much a local issue as reported by the DJ this weekend:
In Burlingame’s Broadway District, continued issues with its electric vehicle charging stations are inconveniencing businesses and residents alike, Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District president John Kevranian said. A representative for EVgo, which owns and operates the six fast-charging electric vehicle stations located at 1133 Chula Vista Ave., confirmed that five of the six stations have likely been out of operation at times for a couple of months. One has been out of operation for weeks, she said.
Now, however, eight parking spots in the tightly packed Broadway District have become largely nonfunctional. “This is the holiday season, too. It’s crucial these work during the holiday season. If EVgo is not going to repair them, maybe they can cover the stations, and use them as public parking,” Kevranian said.
John is on-the-money with the idea of covering a charger if it is broken so everyone could see that they can use the space. Given they don't have meters, it would be a freebie, too. The sad part is that EVgo cannot keep chargers working that only went live in 2019, as we noted here. The DJ piece notes that EVgo may not be complying with the city contract. I'd say that is a safe bet, but did we negotiate any performance penalties? Usage in Lot Y ramped up pretty slowly as we noted here, but random outages are likely to stunt future usage. Anxiety is bad for business.
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