If TX deployment is your proxy, they've seen it as a "good investment" to install 12 stations there. So it's fair to suggest that they wouldn't build 200 DC + 10k make-readies in the next four years (assuming they do that here).
I don't think we can draw this conclusion from the small numbers in Texas, since they said they were delayed by UL approvals and other issues. Also, they may have found that the EV market in Texas develops too slowly compared to California. I'd rather assume it is true because 200 is an unusually large initial number to start with as a commitment. (Unless that gives them a larger-volume price reduction for the fast-chargers.)
However, a subscription business plan is very different than POS, and is not necessarily in overall interests of EV drivers. A publicly funded or State-endorsed deal should be. NRG has no incentive to make sure that infrastructure is sited and uses a cost model that fosters usage- they told me that they prefer the fast chargers stay open. This makes sense when they're trying to attract subscribers who want to see uncrowded infrastructure. Yes, they have to offer temporary POS accessibility to the fast chargers (not the Level 2), but they are also allowed to sell subscription plans at the same time.
Which do you think they'd prefer?
I think they currently prefer subscriptions, that's what I said, and why I was talking about Texas.
I agree with you that a subscription model is not necessarily what most EV drivers want, however the financial equation also has to make profit for the charging providers (at least in the future), and a complete business model would be difficult for the government to work out and/or be selective about. With this being a settlement, it doesn't appear that the government is making a choice about which company or business model to support, on the contrary it seems that they are actively mandating POS (drive-up non-subscription charging) as an additional service, and require a price bracket to make sure it stays within a reasonable range (for both customers and for any future competing networks).
NRG obviously has an interest to make these chargers useful at least to potential subscribers, as well as to actual subscribers, as otherwise these would soon start to look for other solutions. NRG will not be able to make a near-term profit from these investments, so it will have to make sense long-term (as in 10 years), which it does only if subscribers are willing to continue paying the fees. Which of course they will only if they get something good in return, and if they don't get something better elsewhere. And that requires fast-chargers to be in useful locations.
The fact that they want fast chargers to be available for subscribers, is a result of them thinking of using fast-chargers as a help to sell subscriptions, with subscriptions probably considered to be the only effective or reliable way to make future profit, after covering demand charges etc. Apparently covering costs from individual charges at drive-up would be much more difficult with any near-future number of EVs on the street. But they might be interested to have it as an additional income. I expect the challenge will be to convince these companies to better meet EV driver needs, rather than to convince the government.
I wouldn't know any alternative to letting these companies decide on their own business model, other than the government itself running a non-profit network, or car companies (Tesla for example) themselves being interested in building networks which are more satisfying for their customers (and thereby helping them to sell more electric cars).
I'm not saying a little of it might not end up being useful, but the State has ceded control of deployment effectiveness to a company whose shareholder interests don't necessarily align with the State's relevant constituents (a problem that led to needing this deal in the first place), and I'm not willing to offer the same blind faith. But it is the State I fault for allowing the settlement without hearing from those w experience but no vested interest in the deal, not NRG; they only accepted the gift handed to them.
With this settlement, the state hasn't ceded control it would have had without the settlement, on the contrary. And, I don't have any "blind faith" that the subscription model will work well. As a customer, I'm not a big fan of it at all. However I see that as NRG's choice, when making this commitment, to make it work for them. Individual customer's will have the choice to buy their services, or not. The locations NRG will put wiring in, are multi-family homes, large work sites and hospitals, I think. Surely they will not be defenseless if they don't want NRG to have a 18 month privilege on their grounds. If it doesn't work out for NRG, and the risk is there, you can see it as a "punishment" (which you apparently think they deserve). They will have to convince customers that their services are worth the money.
I've not seen anything suggesting that this will realistically accelerate infrastructure deployment, much less any guarantee of it. And I'd be much more willing to allow for learning from new errors if there'd been any consideration so far in any of these public deals in learning from the old errors. I want infrastructure to happen as quickly and effectively as possible- which is why I have little tolerance for the "let's just toss some stuff out there and see what happens" model, when we know better.
Not sure what exactly you would propose such that it will also work for the seller of these services (at least in the future). So far you seemed to have doubts about any business model involving fast-chargers at the current time. It is NRG's responsibility to carefully choose their plans. However it sounds like you already tried to talk to them.
NRG can charge whatever they want to subscribers on the Level 2 infrastructure, and on subscriptions for fast charging. They temporarily have to offer POS access at $7-15 on DC fast charging. So yes, there is a temporary restriction on 200 of 10,400 charging spots.
The other EVSPs don't agree that this deal leaves a competitive market for them, and do believe this agreement amounts to an ad hoc monopoly.
The required 1000 Level 2 wirings with each 10 outlets/EVSE, or so, appear to be for customers which don't seem to be the primary target group for any EVSP so far.
The settlement, in so far as I know, does not require fast-charger subscriptions, and the intent of the settlement does not seem to restrict NRG from offering any other service they might want to offer, except that for each obligation there seems to be concern that fulfilling it will not have anti-competitive effects. I don't know if they could offer, for example, $5 fast-charger subscriptions to use that as a loophole around the $7 POS minimum, that's a question regarding the small print of the deal, for the lawyers. Perhaps offering a fast-charger subscription is otherwise considered a valid business, in itself, whereas a cheap POS price could be anti-competitive without being balanced by a valid business?
Of course Leaf and i drivers want a CHAdeMO network. And I've repeatedly said that I don't agree with the SAE standard, and certainly not holding up infrastructure and vehicle deployment over it. How that makes me biased for GM, I'm not sure...
I wasn't aware that you don't agree with the SAE standard. I think you mentioned SAE in one of the Leaf-forum threads about this settlement. The SAE question is probably something which causes a lot of wait-and-see about fast-charging...
Other fast charging deployments have been unacceptably slow. But the fact that the others haven't met their obligations doesn't make this plan automatically better. It might get few chargers in the next year or two. That
TX still only has a dozen doesn't bode well, and there has been an eVgo member over on the Leaf forum warning them not to get their hopes up. Per the actual deal requirements, we're not going to see very much until at least a year after FERC approves the deal, with most coming later than that. If in a couple years we're still fighting with Ecotality and others to get the CHAdeMO drivers the charging we've all publicly funded in the first place, then we as an industry have much bigger problems. There's also no consideration for the fact that this agreement adds planned infrastructure to places that already have been allocated more than makes sense. I understand why, given the geography of the IOUs, but the State is still obligated to consider these big picture elements.
I see this more as a starting point, than as a water-proof fulfillment of all possible expectations, reasonable or not, and I don't see the state as having the role of picking every charger location, or forcing a detailed business model on NRG. Has such a thing ever happened? I guess I very well might not know, but it seems unlikely. It seems it must be left to NRG's business sense to do something that is sensible in the end. Maybe they should hire someone like you. But too many demands can easily lead to inaction, in this case to NRG not accepting the settlement. Whether something better could have been negotiated, as apparently no wrong-doing has been legally proven, who can tell?
I understand- others have reached the same conclusion. At this point, I happen to disagree. That's all. If NRG alone had announced intention to build this privatized network, fine; whatever I think of how they do it, they answer to their shareholders. It's the settlement framing, blessing by the State of NRG's business plan, and assertion that this is the best way to serve all EV drivers (let alone ratepayers) that continues to fail my sniff test.
But I continue to welcome any information that makes this deal smell better.
I don't see a problem with framing this as a settlement, since it would not happen as a some other kind of deal. I more than welcome a guarantee of 200 fast-chargers within 4 years, given how things progress until today. The state needs to be able to make such deals without any constraints of this being misinterpreted as a blessing or assertion of perfection.
