Utilities Forcing Ratepayers to Pay For EV Charging Stations

[ebwb]

Came across this ad on Facebook. Such garbage:

The costs of EVSE are minuscule relative to the bigger picture, and besides, rates are regulated by the public.

 

[kort677]

are you trying to say that you should NOT pay for the costs associated with providing YOU with places to charge?

 

[brkaus]

Could reduce cost for users long term. More electricity sold, more ability to spread out fixed cost (of which ev charging is tiny).

 

[Saghost]

Came across this ad on Facebook. Such garbage:

The costs of EVSE are minuscule relative to the bigger picture, and besides, rates are regulated by the public.

Seems kinda propaganda ish to me - lots of riling people up, a distinct shortage of details.

What are the facts here? Are utilities charging people more money to fund EV chargers?

If so, which utilities and how much money?

Without the details, I have a hard time forming an opinion. In general, the proposition they put forward doesn't seem fair to me - but the way they approached it causes me to suspect they are using an unusual perspective to form their basis...

 

[SpiceWare]

For states with regulated electrical markets, I could see this as being on par with Rural Electrification.

 

[HookBill]

WOW! Talk about slanted reporting. When you go to their website you see articles that say that the money spent on these stations only goes to support the rich (Tesla owners). I would venture to say that Tesla owners probably use these types of charging stations the least considering they more than likely charge at home or at a Tesla owned supercharger. And did you notice the only people interviewed were people who do NOT own electric vehicles? This is the type of misinformation that unfortunately gets out there and sucks in the misinformed part of the population that does not take the time to do their research.

 

[Electric700]

Came across this ad on Facebook. Such garbage:

...

It appears you are right. Here's more on the group behind the ad:

Who's behind the secretive group bashing Elizabeth Warren's favorite agency?

 

[gregincal]

Yes, the ad is extremely misleading. Are they suggesting that the utilities are providing EV charging out the goodness of their hearts, or this is some evil government plot? In fact, the utilities have been pressuring the government to allow it, because they are doing it to make money.

Since this ad is set in southern California, I assume it is mostly talking about the California Public Utility Commissions decisions to relax the ban on utilities entering the EV charging market. They have approved two pilot programs. Here is an article about them:

Southern California Utilities to Deploy 5,000 EV Chargers in First-of-Their-Kind Pilots

I suppose the point of contention is this (although really, who knows what the agenda of the ad maker is):

As part of its pilot project, SDG&E plans to introduce a dynamic pricing rate, which will charge less for power during times of low demand, and charge more during peak demand hours. <snip> these EV-charging rates will be only indirectly passed through to individual drivers, however. It’s the commercial and multi-family housing owners who are paying the electricity bills, plus the EV-charging infrastructure providers like ChargePoint and its competitors, that will manage how changing prices interface with driver preferences.

 

[bhzmark]

It's a good sign that the lobby against EV has hired an ad producer that produced a laughably ineffective and obviously stupid clip. Their initiative will go nowhere. The only effect is to move money from the organization to the producer who I hope is laughing as they cash the check for their silly ad.

 

[CSFTN]

Not to take a contrarian position, as I am a Tesla fan ..but ... Anyone look at Plusher in Alabama? Even in the backwards parts of the state (and you could argue thats the entire state outside B'ham), there's a lot of publicly available charging stations deployed and paid for by the electric utility. The are all singles-doubles and are very low power, but they are out there. I'd bet its correct to say the Alabama utility customers footed the bill for all these almost useless stations, so that the utility could get some green cred.