EV cars: US automakers forced to unite to create fast-charging network
A half-dozen major automakers are joining forces to develop a fast-charging network in the United States, spending $1 billion.
According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, the initiative aims to remove one of the obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles, namely the lack of enough chargers. The WSJ reports that the companies participating in the initiative have confirmed the plan, saying they intend to install 30,000 fast chargers for electric vehicles across the country in the coming years.
These companies include Honda, BWM, Kia, Hyundai, Stellantis, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz.
The companies said the first chargers of the new network should be installed and ready to go next year, in urban areas and on motorways. Installing the chargers along the motorways would be the most difficult part of the undertaking: there are not always convenient electrical power hookups for EV chargers along highways.
The lack of charging infrastructure has been recognized by the EV industry as a significant deterrent to buying more EVs, but tackling this deterrent has been difficult: companies installing chargers are not willing to risk their potential profits by building the chargers and then discovering that there aren't enough EVs to make them profitable.
Automakers seem to have found a way around this stalemate and secure their future profits by betting everything on electric vehicles. Building a charging network, expensive as it is, would likely motivate more people to buy electric vehicles, with help from the government, which is providing generous subsidies for such purchases.
Subsidies, however, will not always remain generous. In some states, funds have already started to run out and this has had an immediate and negative effect on EV purchases. These developments cast a shadow over the sector's long-term viability, despite strong government support.
The impression is that the abundant subsidies have prompted the car companies to anticipate investments in the electric mobility sector, only to then realize that consumers did not follow them . At that point they found themselves in the need to attract consumers to amortize these investments. Hence the need to guide investments in charging infrastructure, but also the support for very strong communication on the subject of climate change.
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The article Auto EV: US automakers forced to unite to create the fast charging network comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/auto-ev-le-case-automobilistiche-usa-obbligate-a-unirsi-per-creare-il-network-di-ricarica-rapida/ on Fri, 28 Jul 2023 08:00:49 +0000.